1635 The Cannon Law: Chapter Thirty Eight

The countryside, near Rome

    Barberini was sipping his wine and wondering how much longer he could keep his eyes open when one of the Americans' servants invited him to join Ambassadora Stone as soon as was convenient. He looked over the remains of the dinner he and Mazarini had shared and decided that if he did not go now, he would be unable to before morning. "Please ask the Ambassadora if now would be convenient," he said.

    While he waited for the fellow to return, he stood and walked to the window, throwing the shutters wide to try to allow the cool evening air to refresh him. He might, perhaps, have wished for a room that did not have so commanding a view of the western skyline, for in the distance, some few miles away, he could see the smoke rising from the city and hear the thunder and crash of cannon. He could only hope that meant the Castel Sant’Angelo still held. There were still some hours of daylight left, and the fighting continued. Would the soldiers continue into the night, he wondered? He knew too little of military matters to guess. As far as he could recall, Mazarini had not been a soldier either, so he would not know. Barberini, not for the first time today, missed the younger Mazarini, who as well as having the supple mind and smooth tongue he would likely need for the meeting he was about to have, had had some few years of experience as a soldier and would know the answer to questions such as that.

    Enough of wishing. Hopes were enough to torment him now. Another roaring crash of artillery. How much had the Spanish brought? The defensive works that Bernini was supervising were only partially complete. Doubtless the Spaniards would have found some way to get past those, leaving only the older fortifications. Bernini had waxed eloquent on how poor those would be at resisting modern cannon. Some of what he had had to say would surely have been the architect seeking to pad his commission. Fortunately, the additional cannon Bernini had recommended had been cast and installed, for the most part, and for the sake of the additional bombards to protect his uncle, Barberini no longer cared what had been written on Rome's talking statues.

    "Your Eminence?" The servant had returned and informed Mazarini, who was now setting himself to pull Barberini out of his funk.

    "Coming, Mazarini," Barberini said. Fortunately, moving was considerably easier after a few glasses of wine to numb the pain, or he would have been unable to make his way down the steep wooden stairs.

    Ambassadora Stone was in the taverna's main room with all of her party. Barberini's first impression was that this was likely to be an easy negotiation, at least as to the most vital items. While the Ambassadora was most commendably impassive in the course of such discussions, as much so as she was animated and charming when Barberini had had chance to observe her in discussion with the few natural philosophers he had had at his salons,  it was those around her who gave the game away.  They seemed friendly, welcoming even.  Whatever discussion these people had had while Barberini had been eating, the conclusion had been that they would at least be friendly, and might even extend some further boon to him.

    "Your Excellency, Ambassadora," he said, "permit me once again to express my gratitude for the assistance you have given me. I am personally most humbly in your debt, not least for my life." The personal debt, at least, he could acknowledge. And, assuming that the day finished with him anything but a pauper, one he would do all he could to repay. Would Borja even permit him to remain a cardinal? There was precedent for the summary dismissal of cardinals by a reigning pope—but the Ambassadora was replying.

    "Your Eminence is welcome," she said, "and I would like to know what else the United States of Europe can do for casa Barberini."

    Barberini nearly fainted. That was as good as a blank promissory note; there would be practical limits, but those would be the only ones. "I—I know not, Your Excellency," he managed to stammer out. “I have little information on the situation in Rome. My people escaped the city early this morning for Castel Gandolfo and perhaps there is somewhat—"

    He realized he was babbling and shut his mouth. Then, after a deep breath to calm himself: "Forgive my surprise, Your Excellency. I have had a day of hardship and am much tempted to the sin of despair."

    Is God truly with our party? he wondered. "For the moment, I can advance no practical proposition in which your most gracious offer of assistance might be reckoned of account. Perhaps I might inquire, in my turn, what casa Barberini might do for the USE? I would not have my house thought ungrateful in such a matter."

    Better, Barberini decided, to get the price settled quickly. By all accounts, Dottoressa Stone was something of a merchant princess in her own right and as such would not be embarrassed by what might be construed as haggling.

    "For now, Your Eminence," she said, "the status of your house as our only friends within Rome commands whatever service we might render."

    Barberini nodded. That made sense. If Borja did contrive control of whoever became Pope—and he was, he realized, abandoning all hope of his uncle's survival—then it was for certain that there would be no love lost between the USE and the See of Rome. "I shall, Dottoressa, think most deeply about what we each may do for the other. I shall speak for my house in this matter; we are glad to find friends among your embassy, and, we hope, your government. For the moment, Dottoressa, I am tired and hurt and in need of rest. I hope that with the morning my poor wits will be of better service?" There was no shame, he realized, in asking permission to be excused from this company, however obliquely. He was very much the supplicant and, he discovered, a grateful one.

    The Ambassadora was about to speak when a servant scurried over to where she sat and whispered in her ear. "See him in," she said. "Your Eminence, I think you should remain for this."

    The servant went out again, and moments later ushered in a small group of men in priestly soutanes. Leading them was Father-General Mutio Vitelleschi.

    "Father-General," Ambassadora Sanchez y Nichols said, apparently unfazed by the man's appearance. "I was just inquiring of His Eminence what the USE might do for casa Barberini. Including, naturally, his uncle. Is His Holiness Urban still pope?"

    Very well briefed, Barberini realized through the shock. The Society of Jesus would be loyal to the pope, not one particular man. A change would require Vitelleschi and his brothers to shift their loyalties to follow.

    "Your Excellency," Vitelleschi said, "to the best of my personal knowledge he is. If the Ambassadora would care for the most recent information in the Society's possession?"

    Dottoressa Nichols nodded her assent. Barberini listened carefully as Vitelleschi reported the news he had from Rome, which seemed to be from some hours after Barberini himself had left. The Castel Sant’Angelo was likely to fall in the morning, defended as it was only by the Swiss Guard and the few members of the Palatine Guard—part-time soldiers who seldom drilled—who had gotten to their posts in time. The Spanish had a sufficiency of cannon to force the gates and more than enough soldiers for an escalade. As soon as dawn was close enough for the men with ladders to see what they were doing, the ancient fortress would be overrun. Although, to hear Vitelleschi tell it, most of the cannonade was from inside the fort; the damage they were doing to their attackers would be scant consolation come morning.

    Elsewhere in Rome, fully half of the cardinals whom the Barberini might have counted on for support in the consistory were confirmed dead. Of those who remained, exactly two were accounted for as being alive and escaped from the city. For the rest, there was no news and less hope.

    "And so, Your Excellency," Vitelleschi concluded, "We of the Society of Jesus anticipate suppression of our order in the event of the fall of Castel Sant’Angelo. Our archives have been moved to places of safety, our brethren are evacuated. Our concern is that there may be persons who will require asylum. We are confident of sanctuary from His Eminence Cardinal Mazzare during such time as he remains a cardinal. We fear that should he be dismissed that office, secular asylum will be required. The present state of the Church makes Catholic nations unsafe, and Protestant ones are unlikely to become safer. A right to remain for certain persons is, therefore, the matter in which I am most humbly come to petition your Excellency."

    Barberini tried not to giggle. Many though Vitelleschi's excellent qualities were, horse-trading was not a talent he possessed. Listening to the man try was almost embarrassing. Fortunately, Barberini realized, this particular horse had already been bought and paid for.

    "Your Excellency," he interrupted, "if it lies within your power, securing the person of my uncle from that siege would be the greatest service your nation might do for me, my house, and the Most Holy Roman Catholic Church. His Holiness will not leave of his own accord, I must add. Any rescue must be prepared to drag him out by main force."

    "How?" the man who spoke was, if Barberini remembered correctly, the son of the USE's Admiral Simpson. Certainly there could not be two men answering such a description—that of a giant from out of legend.

    "I know not," Barberini said, shrugging with the one shoulder that was not immobilized in bandages. He still winced; the ribs might be bound tightly to help them heal but any more than the slightest movement was agonizing. "If no means can be found in time, so be it. But if His Holiness yet lives and can be brought out from that place, there remains hope for the Church."

    "His Eminence speaks truly," Vitelleschi said. "If this thing can be done…" He left the question hanging.

    "Surely," Simpson said, "the worst that happens is that you get a new Pope?"

    "Perhaps the Church will survive this, as it once did," Vitelleschi said, "but she will not be the stronger for it. An antipope is no longer a thing unremarkable."

    And, his own interests apart, Barberini realized that there was something true in that. The last effort to use military pressure on the pope had been a century ago. The future histories showed that it would happen only once again, and then expressly only in his capacity as temporal ruler of the papal states. Would the church, as an institution of men, survive once more having its spiritual leader in the thrall of a temporal king? Would His Most Catholic Majesty, who had surely not ordered this, whatever the tendency of his actual orders and the folly of the choice of agent to carry them out, take full advantage of the control he thus acquired over the church?

    Certainly, there had long been Catholics who regarded their consciences as less than fully bound as a result of the See of Rome's partiality in this and other wars. The Church in France took pains, every few decades, to ensure that its willingness, under sufficient pressure, to go the way of the Church in England was sufficiently pointed out to Rome.

    Other schisms would happen, once France was lost. The Church would shatter, and the legacy entrusted to Peter would be lost. Did Borja realize this? Probably not. The man was, at bottom, an ass.

    "Forgive me, Father-General," Sanchez was saying, after a whispered conference with Simpson, "but how recent is your information regarding the state of the siege at Castel Sant’Angelo?"

    "One hour. No more."

    "And the Swiss Guard still holds the inner ward?" Sanchez' questioning was intent, the earnest concentration of a man seeking information pertinent to his profession. Vitelleschi had mentioned something about the various military technicalities of the siege, but Barberini had not been able to follow them.

    "They do. The outer ward fell shortly after noon. It is the belief of those informing me that only a token resistance was made, in order to buy time for the inner ward to be secured."

    Sanchez nodded. "And all of the artillery in use at the siege is field pieces?"

    "So I understand. The Spanish could bring only light field pieces on the fast march they made. A siege train may be en route, but I have no information as to that."

    "How long can they hold?" Simpson asked.

    The Captain of the horse who guarded the USE embassy spoke up. "I've seen yon fortress. Two hundred men could hold it for days, wi' no siege artillery tae fret on, unless there's an escalade."

    "Escalade?" asked Simpson's wife. She, like the Ambassadora, was a doctor, and doubtless even more ignorant of matters military than Barberini. At least he could say he knew what an escalade was.

    "An assault on the walls by men wi' ladders, Mistress," the Captain said. "I dinnae ken how long it'll take 'em tae get ladders enough to carry the walls, but it's the quickest way. The Spanish general will have to be ready to spend men like water, mind ye."

    "True," Sanchez said. "We may count on a certain delay while ladders are found or made. The besiegers have men enough to assault the whole wall of the inner ward at once, and that will ensure success."

    "The butcher's bill's going to be… bad," Simpson said. "Even with only two hundred men that wall's a tough one to get over."

    "True," Sanchez said. "The assault will likely be at dawn tomorrow."

    "So soon?" Barberini asked. Hearing about the need for enough ladders to go all the way around the walls of Castel Sant’Angelo had given him hope that the fort might hold a while yet.

    "So soon," Sanchez said. "Were I commanding that siege, I would have the docks raided for every timber in the boatyards and press every carpenter I could find. The ladders need not be perfect, just good enough. A mast with planks nailed to it is all that is needed, with some ropes to steady it. One ladder at every five to ten paces, and the besiegers have men enough to man them. The first few hundred men over will be a forlorn hope, but eventually grenadiers will reach high enough, an establishment will be made, and then the defense will collapse quickly. They will lose perhaps a thousand men, but they have ten thousand and no fear of counter-attack."

    "I thought sieges took longer," the Ambassadora remarked.

    "Ordinarily, yes," Simpson said. "Sounds like these guys have a massive advantage of numbers and nearly all the resources they could want. And they're already inside the outer defenses, trying to take the citadel."

    "Oh," the Ambassadora said. "Can we get the pope out of there?" She addressed the question to Sanchez. Knowing what he knew of the man, Barberini would have done the same.

    Sanchez shrugged. "Maybe. I would perhaps be able to bring a small party within the inner ward and attempt something. This is not to say that the same idea will not occur to Quevedo, of course."

    "He'd assassinate the pope?" Simpson's expression was one of honest curiosity. For all their cheerfulness and generosity, these Americans could take a bloodthirsty turn at times, Barberini reflected. The first thing he had thought of when Sanchez mentioned an infiltrator into the fortress was a gate being surreptitiously opened to let the besiegers in.

    "Likely enough," Sanchez said, shrugging. "My heart," he went on, addressing the Ambassadora, "this may be something we can do, or it may not. I will need to take a party of men back to Rome tonight and look more closely. With your permission?"

    The Ambassadora frowned a moment, then looked around the room at the other members of her party. "Comments?" she asked.

    "Do it," Dottoressa Simpson said.

    "Only if you can manage it without getting yourselves killed," Dottore Nichols added. "Forlorn hopes do no-one any good. And I'll come along. Not in the raid itself, but you'll need someone holding horses outside, and a trained medic."

    "You sure, dad?" the Ambassadora asked.

    "I'm a shoo-in for this one," he said, leaving Barberini slightly confused. The sense of it was clear enough, though. "I've been a marine, and I know my trauma medicine well enough to play corpsman. Although I could wish we had Harry along here."

    "He's got a good resumé for it," Signora Mailey added, smiling at some private joke, doubtless connected with the fact that she had escaped a similar fortress only the year before. Perhaps the infamous Harry Lefferts had been involved in that? "But like James said, don't do it if it looks too risky."

    There were no further objections. "Do it, then," the Ambassadora said. "I'll go and compose a dispatch for Magdeburg. They won't be able to tell us not to, fortunately."

    Naturally not, Barberini thought. He wondered what diplomacy would be like when the day came that the great radio towers were built all across the world, and princes could speak to each other directly. Would peace result, once everything could be discussed at length, directly between rulers? More likely, Barberini thought, that such ease of communication would make it more likely that they would take offence more easily. A plenipotentiary could be disowned, deratified, apologized for. Insults direct from the prince's mouth were less easily remedied. The radio diplomacy his uncle had engaged in the year before had certainly caused plenty of trouble.