"Not right now, Melissa," she admitted. "I think maybe we should get something to eat. I'll take suggestions over dinner, have a talk with Cardinal Antonio, hear Ruy's report and then see how it looks." Ruy had come in from the stable yard while she was speaking, still looking travel-stained and a little weary around the edges. "Hi, Ruy. Is the horse okay?"
Ruy rocked a hand in a gesture he'd picked up from the up-timers. "Two or three days of rest, I think. A noble beast, to be sure, to bear the strain I asked of him without complaint. The Marines are coddling him yet, assuring him all will be well. I fear I may have gone down in their estimation for straining the poor animal so." His mouth quirked a little in a tired smile. Sharon found Ruy looking tired and vulnerable rather appealing and realized that they hadn't had a proper wedding night quite yet.
Down, girl.
"I think you need a little coddling yourself, Ruy," she said. "Get yourself cleaned up and I'll order dinner. You can tell me what's going on in Rome while we eat."
Dinner was, as with all rural Italian food, what a good Italian restaurant was a pale imitation of. What was more, it was fresh and there was plenty of it. Ruy, who plainly hadn't troubled to stop and eat while riding around Rome, got through enough for about four and washed it down with plenty of wine. He still managed to keep up a constant stream of narrative. The news from the Committee saddened Sharon, although if Ruy was right and Frank followed the advice he'd been given there was a good chance he'd come out of it alive. Adolf, for whom Sharon made a mental note to see that there was something left for him to eat, managed to get all of it down on paper.
The news wasn't good. Barberini, who was taking his meal in the room they'd found for him, had seen one other cardinal summarily executed. Ruy had chatted with several soldiers and learned that they had been force-marching all through the night across country and, after a short rest to give the main body time to catch up, had gone into the city with a whole list of targets, chief among which had been the homes or lodgings of several dozen senior churchmen. Quevedo had been busy throughout the time he had vanished from home, as well. The fortifications at Ostia had more or less been sold to the incoming fleet at Naples, and the lighter pieces of artillery kept there would likely have arrived in Rome by now.
There was heavy fighting around the Vatican and Castel Sant'Angelo, but Ruy had not gone close. If there was anyone who might recognize him among the invading army, that was where they would be, and pretty much all the information he needed had been in the sounds of gunfire and the screams of the wounded from that quarter.
What it added up to was another question. The obvious answer was that there would shortly be a new pope, one who was probably sympathetic to Spain and certainly hostile to the USE. The official papal neutrality on the current wars would come to an end. For the USE, a nation with a significant Catholic presence, that was likely going to be a problem. Not all, or even many, of the Catholic clergy in the USE would be beating Spain's drum as a result. Spain having invaded Rome in order to install a new pope would result in a lot of consciences feeling a lot freer than they might otherwise.
But some would. And that would be a problem, in a nation with freedom of religion. A big problem. Not least because there was a sizeable chunk of the Protestant confession that already regarded the Catholic population as a fifth column. Of course, the fact that the USE's cardinal, thankfully not in Rome right now, was Larry Mazzare, would mitigate that to some extent. Only the loopier pamphleteers claimed that an up-timer from Chicago was a Habsburg agent. But putting Larry, one of Sharon's closer friends after all they'd been through in Venice, in that position by not acting right now was definitely not something Sharon was prepared to do.
When Ruy finished, and people were sitting back and looking contented with a good meal, Sharon opened the floor for debate. "Suggestions?" she said.
Melissa was first. "We're already committed," she said. "We've helped one of the Barberini."
"Not much, though," Tom said, "Just some medical treatment and a bed for the night. Devil's advocate says we can send him on his way in the morning, keep all our options open. Can't say I like the idea myself, but it's an option."
"Right," Melissa said. "I have to say I can't see what that would gain us, even if it wasn't flat wrong. There's no point doing favors for someone who's going to hate us come what may."
"Is it your belief, Dona Melissa, that Borja intends to make himself pope?" Ruy sat up straighter. "I find myself wondering whether even Madrid is capable of so foolish an order."
"Perhaps," Melissa said. "I think from what you've seen that it's certain that he intends to control the papacy. Another Captivity, a puppet pope-you saw yourself that the Borghese weren't being touched, and they hold the balance right now, if I understand the factions correctly. Making himself the next pope is just one of the options."
"Can we stop him?" Tom asked. "There're three tercios in Rome right now, give or take. We've got maybe twenty effectives."
"Senor Simpson has the right of it," Ruy said, "there is no practical military solution. If there is some other action we might take, we lack the intelligence to determine what it is. I confess that I am bereft of inspiration in this business."
"Have we asked Cardinal Barberini whether he wants help?"
"Not as such, no," Doctor Nichols said. "He was pretty grateful for the help we've given him, and gracious about it. He didn't ask for more than he was getting, either."
Ruy tapped a finger on the table once, twice. "Now that I think on the matter, I recall that his Eminence did not specifically request my aid either. He greeted me, told me what his aims were, and made some small talk. He requested advice on how to escape, but did so obliquely, as I recall."
Sharon thought back to lessons in formal diplomacy she'd had from Don Francisco. "Ceding us the advantage," she said.
"Right," Melissa said. "If he comes right out and asks, he makes himself our client. Until he figures the angles, he's not going to do that. Remember, he's pretty junior inside Casa Barberini; he's not even the senior cardinal. So while he'll accept what we offer and be grateful for it, he's not going to come right out and ask. Not for a moment."
"Rita?" Sharon asked, seeing that her friend had a brow furrowed in careful concentration.
"I think," Rita said slowly, "we should just stick to doing the right thing. I'm not sure of all the angles yet, I got a lot of sympathy for the little cardinal that way, but if we go wrong by doing good, at least we'll do it with a clear conscience. And like Melissa says, we're going to get nowhere by helping folks who're definitely against us."
"Can we do that, Rita?" Tom asked.
"I reckon we have to," Rita said. "The Barberini are pretty much finished in the Vatican, unless there's something we missed, but they're the only faction in Rome who might be friendly and right thing or not we should grab what we can while we can."
Melissa was frowning too. "It might be that the Barberini go the same way now that they did in the other history. They ended up seeking sanctuary in France after Urban died."
"We'd still lose nothing," Rita said. "If we want friends in Rome, they're pretty much all we can get in the big leagues. I say we take the chance we've got."
"Plus," Doctor Nichols added, "if we help the Barberini, any survivors of their faction are going to be friendly as well."
Ruy harrumphed. "How many of them will still be friends of the Barberini by next week remains to be seen. A wind from Spain will cause many of them to trim their sails accordingly. The loyalties of churchmen and Italians are notoriously fickle. Italian churchmen may well prove to be poor things in which to repose a confidence."