Dolor shrugged. “Borja’s cautious but tractable. His unwillingness to get his hands dirty by giving orders that directly violate his vows and Christian piety will make him easy enough to manipulate. That, and his numerous insecurities.”

  “Another fool in a red robe and hat?”

  “No, he’s no fool. But he’s out of his depth and unwilling to admit he’s a murderer. Like most noblemen, he’s accustomed to having other people not only do his dirty work, but take the guilt-legal and religious-upon their own backs. He wants to reap the benefits of actions in which he refuses to take a part or take responsibility.”

  “The way you say that-”

  “Yes?”

  “It sounds like you know the type well. From personal experience, perhaps.”

  “It doesn’t matter how I know the type. But I know this, too: Borja’s dangerous. He’ll be careful not to compromise himself by bringing me into his complete confidence, and he’ll throw us to the wolves if there’s any blame to be taken. So we’ll be careful. And I don’t need to enter into his confidences to do my job.”

  And thereby, thought Dolor, to get what I really want.

  CHAPTER TEN

  “So, you’d send us traipsing off to Rome, then?”

  “Those are your orders.”

  “It’s a fool’s errand-and I’m no fool.”

  Owen Roe O’Neill suppressed a gasp at John O’Neill’s truculent retort to the infanta Isabella Clara Eugenia, Archduchess of the Spanish Low Countries. Owen had known Isabella-his nominal employer and the aunt of King Philip IV of Spain-for thirty years, so he was fairly sure that he knew what was coming. The infanta would tell John O’Neill that if a journey to Rome was indeed a fool’s errand, then she had found the perfect man for the job. She would then probably unleash a stream of even less oblique, yet still elegantly vitriolic, barbs at John, third earl of Tyrone. Who would probably understand about one half of them, but would certainly tweak to the fact that he was being insulted. Again.

  Owen was wondering if the time had come to risk John’s resentment and intercede, but Pieter Rubens did it for him. “Come now, I know what you fear, Conde O’Neill. You fear that with you and Owen gone from your camps, and the earl of Tyrconnell unavailable-”

  “-more like deserted-”

  “-that Thomas Preston will be the sole acting colonel for the archduchess’s four Irish tercios.”

  “Aye, that’s the heart of it, Pieter.”

  Isabella, still flushed by walking from her nearby chambers to the wood-paneled library in which they were meeting, threw her cherished up-time fountain pen down in impatience. “Oh, not this again. When will you Wild Geese stop your sectarian honkings?”

  Irishmen who fled English oppression to serve on the continent as mercenary soldiers were often dubbed “Wild Geese.” From most mouths, and at most times, the term enjoyed a cachet of grudging admiration. At other times and from English mouths, not so much.

  “We’ll keep making noise as long as that sassenach Thomas Preston is in regular correspondence with his masters in London, Your Grace.” John O’Neill’s response was a mutter.

  The room’s tall double doors opened. King Fernando entered with a dense retinue of guards, his increasingly lovely and curvaceous wife (or so it seemed to Owen) on his arm. All but Isabella rose; being Fernando’s aunt, and infirm besides, relieved her of that obligation. Fernando motioned them back into their chairs and seated his wife, but remained standing next to his aunt. “The doors are not as thick as you might believe,” he said to no one in particular. “So let me assure you, Conde O’Neill, that Colonel Preston is not an enemy agent. And his cross-Channel contacts do serve a useful purpose.”

  “Which is?”

  Rubens took up the thread smoothly. “There is the minor matter of his being a known correspondent with various moderate parties in London. As a result, he is often tentatively approached by the less-schooled Anglo-Irish spies working for King Charles. This allows us to keep tabs on this lower tier of confidential agents. But more importantly, Colonel Preston is an emergency communications conduit.”

  “A what?”

  John O’Neill did not have his late father’s keen mind and rapid wit. Bold, brave, competent, John was a steady enough colonel for his own tercio-but that was, Owen had to admit, the ceiling of the third earl of Tyrone’s abilities. Which he made painfully obvious when he repeated, “What do you mean, an emergency communications conduit?”

  Rubens’ tone was patient, and Owen thought he heard a measure of pity behind it, as well. “Given his part-English heritage, Colonel Preston serves as an unofficial back-channel through which we maintain contact with various persons in London, including high-placed members of the court.”

  “Which persons?” John asked.

  “That varies with the political climate across the Channel,” Fernando said calmly, “and is not a suitable topic of conversation in this chamber, at this time.”

  Even John O’Neill seemed to get that hint.

  “At any rate,” finished Fernando, “Colonel Preston is to remain here in overall command of the tercios while you travel to Rome.”

  Owen cleared his throat; the king looked at him. “Please, continue your discussion as before. I am not here to hold court.”

  Owen nodded and turned his eyes back toward Isabella. “Your Grace, it seems that our party to Rome is rather, well, top-heavy in senior officers-including one of the last two estranged heirs to the royal titles of Ireland. This struck us as…well, strange.”

  Isabella sent a small, encouraging smile down at Owen; he felt as though he’d been patted on the head. “Of late, I have had much complaint from the senior officers of my Irish tercios that they are in want of vigorous action. Being an old woman who hopes to die peacefully in her bed-and until two years ago, thought that end imminent-I profess no understanding of this ardor for war. It seems a blight upon the males of our species and particularly strong in those who come from the island of your birth, Colonel. So, since you and your young cousin the conde O’Neill have chafed at the bit of the peace that now reigns in the Low Countries, this was the first assignment which promised to sate your appetite for risk and adventure. I except you from these characterizations, of course, Doctor,” she concluded, sending a broader, warmer smile farther down the table.

  Sean Connal, surgeon in the Tyrconnell tercio and the third representative of the Wild Geese, nodded in gratitude and smiled back. “Thank you, Your Grace. However, I too must ask-Rome? Now? When it is in chaos?”

  “My dear Dr. Connal, that chaos is precisely why you must go to Rome, and go now. We cannot send a large mission without drawing undue attention, even if, as Spain’s nominal vassal, our personnel would arouse no suspicion. And since you may have need of giving orders when there-of commanding Spanish troops to let you pass, to stand aside, or even to release possible prisoners to you-we cannot send men of lesser rank. And the conde-the earl, in your styling-holds the title of a lineage well-regarded in all Hapsburg territories. That high authority may be much needed where you travel.”

  Owen wondered if that summary wasn’t a bit optimistic. The Spanish respected the Irish of equal rank in most professional regards, but not in social or bureaucratic matters. Equals on a battlefield or in a tavern, perhaps, but not in a ballroom or an audience chamber. But on the other hand, the fame of John’s late father, Hugh O’Neill, was particularly conspicuous in Rome, where he was buried along with various family and followers. He, his kinsman Rory O’Donnell, the prior earl of Tyrconnell, and their lieutenants, had journeyed as political supplicants to the Eternal City after fleeing Ireland in 1607. Most never found the means to leave again. Instead, they found the miasmic fevers of Rome and died, almost to a man. Hugh O’Neill outlived them all-but even his facile, ever-plotting mind had ultimately been thwarted by age, infirmity, and exclusion from the chambers of the powerful. He died all but forgotten, living on the charity of his patrons in Rome.

  Owen looked over at Johnnie O’Neill: he’d been forgotten, too, most notoriously by his father. That lack of attention had not merely been a sign of his sire’s disinterest, but the man’s legendarily cold shrewdness: even in childhood, it was obvious that John had not inherited the most illustrious O’Neill’s intellect. Just as clearly, however, Johnnie had received a full measure of the man’s restlessness and spleen, so as both a youngster and a young man he had wanted action and little else. Now, it was pretty much the only thing at which John excelled; he had not been a patient child and had become a decidedly impatient man.

  “There is, of course, another reason we are sending the two of you,” continued Isabella.

  “Yes, Your Grace?”

  “Do not be coy, Owen Roe. Your and the conde’s skill with weapons is peerless, and that could become an important factor in the success of your mission.”

  “I thought Rome was in the hands of our Spanish comrades.” This time John’s tone was slow and assessing.

  “It is.”

  John thought that over. “I see.”

  And Owen was glad he said no more; anything else would have been akin to poking a stick into a beehive. Technically, brothers Philip IV of Spain, and Fernando, the former cardinal-infante of the Low Countries, were indissolubly linked as part of the greater Hapsburg hegemony that straddled Europe like a colossus.

  Or had. It seemed the colossus had become decrepit in some places and fragmented in others. Ferdinand III of Austria had not taken the steps necessary to become the next emperor of the Holy Roman Empire; that meant he had all but ceded the lands he had lost to the armies of Gustav Adolf. Ferdinand had also stood aside when the same Reformist forces battered down Maximilian of Bavaria, formerly a close ally and an ardent fellow Catholic. Then Philip IV’s own brother-Fernando, the cardinal-infante-had received title to the Spanish Low Countries from Isabella, and in short order, had proclaimed himself “King in the Netherlands”-a dubious title, since he was ostensibly subject to another king. Specifically, his brother in Madrid.

  The consequences of all this internecine strife had been slow but certain in coming. Spanish reales had now ceased to flow into Fernando’s coffers. The new king in the Low Countries was thus hard pressed to maintain any tercios-such as the Irish-that were not paid directly by Philip. Madrid’s mood was not improved when Maria Anna, sister of Ferdinand III of Austria, eloped with Fernando when he borrowed one of the Swede’s up-time airplanes to spirit her back to the Low Countries. The once unified monolith that was Hapsburg power in Europe was undergoing troubling reconfigurations. Consequently, even a person as politically disinterested as Johnnie O’Neill understood that yesterday’s friends might easily transmogrify into tomorrow’s enemies.

  Sean Connal’s youthful baritone rolled the length of the table. “So, Your Graces, I take it that the exact nature of our actions in Rome will be determined by the conditions we find there.”

  Fernando exchanged an approving look with his wife, who inclined her head to indicate their collective royal pleasure with the young surgeon. “This is nicely put, Doctor; I was not informed you were as deft with words as you are with a scalpel.”

  “My lady the Queen is as kind as she is eloquent. And generous. I have not yet had the honor of expressing my personal thanks to her for arranging my attendance at several of the medical practica offered by Lady Anne Jefferson. I wish I had a year to study under her tutelage.”

  “How charming; she used exactly the same turn of phrase when remarking how much she would have liked to keep you on as a student. But it seems other duties must take precedence, now.”

  “Yes, so it seems. But we have yet to learn what those duties are, other than to journey to Rome. And once there-?”

  For a reason Owen could not quite ascertain, the royalty in the room became faintly uncomfortable. Rubens, after waiting a long moment, evidently concluded that this bit of business had been left for him to handle. “We are concerned for the safety of one of your countrymen, Father Luke Wadding. We feel that if all of you were to exhort him to do so, he would agree to depart from the Irish College in Rome.”

  John’s head came up; one of Connal’s eyebrows did the same. Owen Roe leaned forward. “Father Wadding is in danger? From whom?”

  Rubens looked for help from the Hapsburg end of the table but found none. “Consider the angry crowds in Rome, the violence of the occupation, the disorder. Amidst all that chaos, hunger, and desperation, almost anything could-”

  “No.” The voice was John’s: firm, assured, decisive, like when he was on a battlefield. “Rome would never harm Luke Wadding. I’ve been there, and have studied”-he stumbled past that dubious claim-“with some of the fathers who are now teaching at the college at St. Isidore’s. So let me tell you how the Romans feel toward Father Luke Wadding. When they see him, they don’t hail him by any of his titles; to them, he’s not ‘Guardian of the College,’ or ‘Procurator,’ or ‘Reverend Father.’ He’s just Padre Luca. They say it without bowing, but with smiles as big and bright as rainbows. Which is just how he greets them. There’s simply no reason to be worried about his safety in Rome.”

  “Yet, we are worried,” announced Fernando, his face suddenly longer than usual.

  “But from whom does he need protection?”

  “From my brother’s servants.”

  Now it was Owen’s turn to goggle. “What? The Spanish would harm Wadding? Your Highness, he studied in Salamanca! He was well-known in Philip’s court-”

  Isabella leaned forward, her face pained-rather the way it is when a parent must admit they have a destructive or truant child. “My nephew Philip was-unwise-in electing to give Cardinal Borja such wide discretionary powers. In fact, there is rumor that the many of the cardinals who were killed ‘resisting lawful arrest’ during the attack upon Rome were slain by Borja’s agents.”

  “What were the crimes of these cardinals?”

  “What indeed?” answered Isabella, who looked at Owen directly, her face as hard and lined as slate.

  Owen gaped for a moment before easing his jaw shut. So they had all been assassinated? Upwards of a dozen cardinals? Was Borja mad? And if he was, that could even mean-“What about the pope? Is there word whether he still lives?”

  “That is not known. And is yet another topic for us to discuss. However, insofar as Father Wadding’s safety is concerned, part of our worry arises from the fact that the Franciscan College at St. Isidore’s was built and endowed by Ludovisi money.”

  Owen shook his head; the family politics of Rome were well beyond the scope of his knowledge.

  Queen Maria Anna provided the rest. “The Ludovisi family and its cardinal have a long, friendly affiliation with the Barberinis. And particularly with Maffeo Barberini-Pope Urban VIII.”

  “Oh,” said Owen. “I see.”

  “Yes,” nodded Isabella, confirming the magnitude of both Borja’s monstrousness and pettiness. “Now, if it was my nephew the king who was overseeing the situation in Rome, there would be a comparatively even hand guiding the actions of the tercios, inquisitors, and confidential agents. But with Borja in command-”

  The whole room had become glum. In the up-timer history books, the name Borja was remembered-in its Italianate form “Borgia”-for treachery and murder, particularly poisoning. That, at least, had been the height of the family’s infamy in that world, but here “Still,” Owen protested, “Wadding is primarily a scholar. And he’s a staunch Counter-Reformationalist, besides. Surely Borja wouldn’t arrest him simply because his college was built with money that came from a friend of the pope.”

  Isabella inclined her head in agreement. “No, probably not. But there is an added complication.”

  “There always is,” observed Sean Connal with a faint smile.

  Isabella darted a glance at him; Owen couldn’t tell if she was annoyed or delighted. Probably both, knowing her. “We have it on relatively good authority that in the past year, Pope Urban created a number-an unprecedented number-of cardinals in pectore.”

  John O’Neill fumbled after the Latin. “ In pec — what?”

  Oh, Johnnie, Johnnie, you have to do better than that. Owen furnished the translation. “It’s what we call ‘close to the chest,’ Lord O’Neill. Popes can create cardinals without consulting the Consistory. Because these cardinals are not revealed to anyone else, they are considered hidden, or held ‘close to the chest.’” He turned toward Isabella. “So why was Urban creating cardinals in pectore? Do you suspect he was preparing for this kind of attack?”

  Another smile from the archduchess that might have been a pat on the head. “We do not know, but it seems logical, in retrospect. After all, word has it that he consulted the up-time histories on the future of his papal tenure, and just beyond, very closely.”

  “And how does all this concern Father Wadding?”

  “It turns out that Father Wadding was the first Irish cleric ever to receive votes to be made a cardinal. It did not go through for political reasons. I suspect those same political reasons could make Borja fear Wadding now.”

  Sean Connal nodded. “That makes sense.”

  “Not to me it doesn’t,” John snapped across the table. “I know Wadding, and so must Borja. Father Luke will not lick the boots of heretics, and that’s well known by his friends in Madrid-”

  “-who are not in Rome to help him,” soothed Rubens. “I have had occasion to scan the relevant histories. Wadding did indeed have many admirers among the Spanish Party in the Consistory, who appreciated his eloquent Counter-Reformation writings. But Wadding was also liked by Urban, who supported the expansion of his church, St. Isidore’s, and the Irish cause. As you all know. Yet, despite having friends in both circles, he never attracted the support necessary to become a cardinal.”

  “Bigotry,” declared John O’Neill. “The same bigotry that kept the Curia from taking my father seriously when he begged them-”

  “No,” interrupted Isabella. “The danger to Wadding does not stem from bigotry; it stems from fear.”