1635 The Papal Stakes: Chapter Twenty

    Father Luke Wadding entered the rectory in a rush. Spare, soft-eyed, and already white-haired, his face seemed to radiate equal measures of surprise and delight. “My dear Tyrone, how good to see you! Had I known –”

    John waved aside the pleasantries. “Father Luke, we’re not going to have to go through another long period before you start calling me ‘John’ again, are we?”

    Father Wadding — counselor to popes, rector of the Irish College at St. Isidore’s, famous theologian, and lightning rod for Church matters touching upon Ireland’s exiles — blushed. John smiled. Padre Luca was indeed unchanged: just as humble and accessible and plain in his manners as he’d ever been. “Very well — John. And Father Hickey is going to be delighted to see you, I know.”

    John felt a sudden pull in his chest, fought down a lump in his throat. “He’s still here? I was worried that maybe –”

    “Still here; couldn’t get rid of him if I tried. Not that I ever would. Now, John, do have a seat. Tell me how things are in the Low Countries, and how –”

    John stared at the waiting chairs, then at the two Spanish guards. “Er, Father…” He shifted languages. “I will speak in Spanish so your protectors understand this clearly. I am here on Fernando’s business, concerning sensitive interests of Spain. But I am unable to speak of these matters except in private. So I would be grateful if your men would be willing to wait here while you and I retire to a more private venue.”

    “Alas, unless we were to sit on the edge of my own bed, this is as private a place as I can offer. But here now,” — Wadding looked at his guards — “surely you know of the earl of Tyrone, of the Irish Wild Geese? With him here, I have nothing to fear. In his presence, I am guarded as though by my own nephew. So kindly wait in the church; I shall be quite safe.”

    These two Spanish guards also exchanged long looks. John almost rolled his eyes. Oh, please, please, sweet Jayzus; not another pair who specialize in eyeball dancing…

    The older of the two guards began to stammer out, “P-Padre Luca, we d-d-do not wish to d-displease you, but –”

    “Your orders are to ensure that I am guarded by the might of Spain at all times, yes?”

    The stammerer nodded.

    Wadding gestured toward John and then Synnot and McEgan. “Well, here I am: protected by the might of Spain. Indeed, by one of its most famous warriors and two of his best soldiers. So, your orders are fulfilled. If you wish, bring your lieutenant and I will explain the matter yet again.”

    The two guards looked at each other, traded shrugs, and filed out.

    John smiled after them. The moment they were beyond earshot, he gestured quickly at Synnot. “Watch the door. Tell me if someone’s coming. If they are, stall them. We’re not to be disturbed. McEgan, down to the kitchen with you. Tell them there’s word that the cistern behind the apse has been defiled, maybe poisoned.”

    “Why the kitchen?”

    “Because they cook with that water, and because the cook sends meals to guards at their posts. So he’ll know where they are, and when he sends word of the cistern, that will pull many, maybe most, of the guards off their rotations. Which is just what we want: no unnecessary obstructions on our way out.”

    Wadding was openmouthed when John turned back to him. Then the priest’s mouth shut and brows lowered. “John O’Neill, what errant nonsense are you up to now?”

    “Not nonsense at all, Father. You need to come with me. Now.”

    “I do not, and I will not.”

    “Father, tell me something: why are you up to your neck in Spanish soldiers?”

    For the first time in John’s knowledge of him, Wadding looked away from an incipient staring match. “Cardinal Borja expressed apprehension about my safety.”

    “More likely he’s worried about how you jeopardize his.”

    “John, perhaps you are succumbing to the Roman fever. Or maybe standing close to cannons for fifteen years has damaged more than just your hearing. Because a bit of clearheaded logic will tell you that there’s no way on earth that I could jeopardize Cardinal Borja.”

    “Oh, you can, Father; you can jeopardize him on Earth, and in Heaven too, unless we’re wrong in our guess.”

    “Who’s ‘we’? And what guess?”

    “Jesus on the Cross, but you always were a great one for turning ev’ryting into words and more words, Father.”

    “And you were ever a blasphemer. A bad habit you’ve not managed to break, I see. And I’ll hear your confession for it. But first I’ll hear answers to my questions. Who is making these absurd claims about the threat I pose to Cardinal Borja?”

    John settled his temper. Father Luke was as mild as a kitten — until you raised his ire. And if you did raise it? Well, John had repulsed siege assaults that hadn’t been quite that fierce. “Father Luke, you have many friends who are cardinals, am I right?”

    “Well…yes.”

    “And how many of them have you seen since Philip’s troops arrived in Rome?”

    Wadding darkened. But then he smiled.

    “Have I said something funny, Father?”

    “No. But ten years ago, you hadn’t the patience for irony. Or indirect argument. Very well, John. You make a point. As a rule, I’d not judge the actions of a cardinal, particularly when there’s so much wild rumor abroad. But it’s plain there’s been abuse of power, here.”

    “Plain? Plain? Yes, Father: plain to a blind man at the bottom of an oubliette, even.”

    Wadding closed his eyes. “John, these are evil times, no question. But what would you have me do?”

    “What I asked you to do at the first: come with us. Now. It’s the right thing. And it’s the safe thing, before Borja realizes he can’t trust you either.”

    “Can’t trust me? Even if he couldn’t, why should he care? Why would –?”

    “Because if the pope made you a cardinal in pectore, and Urban is, then you’ll have a vote on the Consistory. And Isabella knows you well enough to know you’ll vote your conscience if it comes down to having to choose between Urban and Borja.”

    John had never witnessed Luke Wadding speechless. Somehow, it was even more unnerving than being the object of his wrath — an experience with which John had a reasonable familiarity. When Wadding spoke, it was as though he were in a daze. “So, that’s the ‘they’ to whom you’ve been referring: the infanta and her nephew, the king in the Low Countries.”

    “Yes. And they’re not alone in their opinion regarding Borja’s intentions.”

    Wadding closed his eyes. “So they must suspect that Borja is guilty of much of what he’s been accused of, here.”

    “Much. Perhaps all.”

    Wadding opened his eyes. “For Borja to have done what you accuse him of would mean he is insane. I know the man; he is not insane.”

    “Father, I’m not here to argue his sanity, or anything else, for that matter: I am charged to bring you out of Rome.”

    Wadding stood. “And I may not leave. There are issues that have not been considered: students and clergy who are in my care, and scholarly matters, as well. There are also archives here, crucial to the history of Mother Church, which could be lost if –”

    “Damn it, Father Wadding, you are coming with me, if I have to take you out of here at gunpoint –”

    “Well now,” drawled a new voice, also in English, “you might not want to make threats when you’re at gunpoint yourself.”

    John started, jumped up, hand halfway to his sword when he saw a wide, but unusually thin-walled, black muzzle aimed straight at his eyes. And the face behind it seemed to match descriptions he’d heard of the much-storied and infamous –

    “Harry Lefferts, or I’m a caffler!”

    Harry stared at the unfamiliar term, couldn’t suppress the slight pulse of gratification that went through him at being recognized, and raised his gun meaningfully. “Well, I’m not saying yes or no, but who the hell are you, and why are you threatening this priest?”

    The fellow Harry was questioning — the foreign Boss-man who had breezed past the guards at the gate — did not seem particularly daunted by the barrel that tracked with him. “Where are my men? If you’ve done them ill, I swear by Christ Almighty, I’ll –”

    The priest was on his feet. “Enough blasphemy, John O’Neill, or I’ll strike you here and now.”

    Harry and Donald exchanged glances, eyebrows climbing high, before the priest turned on them. “And I do not recall inviting you gentlemen into the rectory. And I’m thinking that you did not simply walk past my guards, or the earl’s.”

    Boss-man was an earl? Named O’Neill? The earl of Tyrone? But what the hell was he doing in Rome? Wasn’t he supposed to be commanding a tercio for– ?

    “My men: where are they?” said O’Neill. It wasn’t a request. Even though the earl of Tyrone was looking down the barrel of a twelve-gauge shotgun, it was still a demand.

    Harry waggled the gun a bit. “Do you know what this is?”

    “Aye. And do you know how much shite you’re standing in this very moment?”

    Lefferts smiled. “You have a point there. We hadn’t planned on stopping in, certainly not for this long. But when all the good father’s guards went rushing outside to the cistern, it was easy enough to slip in, sneak through the pantry, and find our way here.”

    “Where you hoped to discover what?”

    “Our friends. Or someone who might know something about them. Like you, maybe, Earl of Tyrone. So tell me, are you the mastermind in charge of intelligence operations for Borja, by any chance?”

    That query produced the most unusual — and uncomfortable — reactions yet. Wadding tried, unsuccessfully, to conceal his surprised smile; John O’Neill, seeing it, flushed hot red. For a moment, the tense, armed stand-off in the room became secondary to what felt to Harry like an up-time reality TV moment, where one family member revealed the other’s faults in front of total strangers. So John O’Neill isn’t a mental giant or a spymaster. Brave, though: damned brave. Well, no reason to leave him embarrassed, Harry –

    “Okay, I get the picture: you’re not the guy we’re looking for. Which is more than fine by me. Hell, too much thinking spoils a man of action, eh, Your Earlship?”

    The change this brought over O’Neill was nothing short of miraculous. The pugilistic stance and pugnacious expression evaporated. “Right enough. Now look, I’ve got little time as it is, and Father Wadding here needs to come with me for his own good, so I’d best –”

    “Whoa, whoa. Slow down there. Last I heard, the good Father doesn’t want to go with you.”

    “Perhaps,” said another voice, accented similarly to John O’Neill’s “but you’ll not be involved in the decision one way or the other. And be very careful as you turn — you and all your men.”

    Harry obeyed, turning carefully. He discovered that no less than six soldiers, in buff coats and capelline helmets similar to the earl’s, had eased silently into the rectory’s antechamber. They had evidently entered through the doorway leading out into the small arboretum that was tucked against the building’s north side. They were all carrying what looked like primitive, oversized pepperbox revolvers; about half of them were aimed at him. And Harry thought:

    Well, this sucks.

    Owen Rowe O’Neill tried to make sense of what he was seeing: one of John’s escorts — big Synnot, no less — had been disarmed by the newcomers, hastily bound, and left behind like a sack of potatoes in the antechamber. These newcomers were obviously not Spanish, but then again, they were not obviously anything. They were deployed like soldiers, or raiders, but they evinced no uniformity of equipage whatsoever. Except, that is, the up-time weapons they were all holding. And these firearms were not the exorbitantly priced and notoriously unreliable copies that were as obvious as they were rare. These up-time guns were the real business, from the look of them. But that implied — no, no time for hypothesizing.

    “You.” Owen jabbed the muzzle of his pepperbox at the youngish fellow who seemed to be the leader of the newcomers. “Why are you here? Be quick in answering; the guards will be back soon enough.”

    “They are here already, Señor,” amended a new voice, in English, but with a heavy Spanish accent. “Drop your weapons. All of you.”

    Owen and his Wild Geese turned. Standing wide-legged and with a clear field of fire upon both groups of intruders, was a young Spanish officer flanked by two guards, all with guns out and ready. They had evidently followed along right behind Owen and his men over the front grounds and through the small arboretum.

    Owen calculated. If he rushed the Spanish, his own men would certainly have time to take cover and then their pepperboxes would carry the day, at this range. If he was less suicidally minded, Owen might live by dropping flat, but then some of his own men would surely get cut down, possibly leaving the newcomers in charge of the situation. And if he waited –

    Spaniard lifted his snaplock pistol impatiently: “Señores, I will have either your weapons, or you, on the ground — now. Juan, inform Sergeant Juarez that we have discovered a plot to –”

    A hint of movement — a tall, stealthy figure — flitted up to the rear of the young Spanish officer, who must have seen the quick shift of focus in Owen’s eyes; he spun.

    Or tried to. Behind the triad of Spaniards, the wraithlike form resolved into a man, up-time pistol already hovering at the rear of one guard’s head. There was sharp report, then, as the gun re-angled slightly, another report. The first man had barely started falling as the second bullet exited the young officer’s skull just above his ear, a jet of blood tracing the projectile’s trajectory.

    The second guard, his rifle turning through a longer arc, had almost completed spinning about when another weapon spoke twice from farther down the arboretum’s path. The last of the three Spaniards doubled up around the first slug, and slumped over limply when hit by the second.

    The unseen gunman emerged from the concealment of the arboretum’s vines. But no, Owen realized: it wasn’t a gun man.

    It was a gun woman. The realization of which made Owen’s jaw sag.

    Sherrilyn almost grinned when she saw the look on the faces of the pepperbox-armed gang that had sneaked in just ahead of them. “Keep those hands up, mister,” she said to the one who had been talking. “Same goes for your pals.”

    “Eh?” he answered.

    Thomas North pushed past the still-stunned down-time leader, nine-millimeter pistol secured in both hands as he moved quickly to link up with the rest of the Crew and Harry –

    – Who sounded genuinely grateful. “Well, Thomas, you sure are a sight for sore –”

    “Make your apologies, later, Harry. Right now, we –”

    “Hey, I wasn’t apologiz –!”

    “Well, you should be. First things first: what the bloody hell is going on here?”

    Sherrilyn waved Felix and Gerd — whom they’d met just south of the rendezvous site — toward the guns of the nine buff-coated intruders: Irishmen, from the sound of them. As the two of them collected the weapons and held the Irish at gunpoint, Sherrilyn joined the group clustered around the door into the rectory.

    Things had gone deadly quiet as soon as Thomas had opened his mouth. The other Irish fellow in the rectory — medium-sized, built square and deep in the chest, but light in the hips and legs — was looking at Thomas as if he had just devoured a newborn infant. “Feckin’ sassenach. Of course. Here with some up-time mercenaries to assassinate Father Luke, using the chaos of the moment to sneak in and kill ‘im.”

    For a moment, the whole Wrecking Crew was speechless. “What?” Sherrilyn finally squawked, “What the hell is he talking about?”

    But the Irishman wasn’t finished. “Well, yeh bastards, you’ve put your foot in it now. Drop your weapons or I’ll call the rest of the Spanish on you so fast that –”

    Harry didn’t shout often, but when he did, it was a sharp, cutting baritone: “Shut up! Those gunshots have called the Spanish better than you could have. Now, the way I figure it, we’ve got maybe ten seconds. So hear this: I don’t know what the hell a sassenach is, but I’m here on orders from the USE. And I’m not here to kill the priest. Hell, I don’t even know who he is. But you want him out? Fine by me. Because right now, if we don’t work together, we’re all going to die together.”

    The irate Irish earl frowned more deeply but looked less homicidal. On the other hand, at the arctic rate his mood was changing –

    “Agreed!” barked the other Irish leader, the taller one who had been in Sherrilyn’s sights. “We work together, leave together, sort it out afterwards.”

    “Done,” said Harry –

    – Just as the first of the Spanish came charging in through the same doorway that Harry had used, the one that led back to the staff quarters and the kitchen in St. Isidore’s annex.