Table Of ContentChapter 1
The palace was overheated, Mazarini thought. That came of Cardinal
Richelieu being a man who had more than his share of ailments, despite being
only in middle age. Richelieu felt the cold as an old man did. He had his servants
build fires if there was even the slightest chill in the air—and early spring in
Paris was considerably more than slightly chilly. Fortunately, the cardinal was a
polite man. The wait in the anteroom was brief enough that Mazarini was able to
fight off drowsiness.
Now Mazarini was in the presence of Richelieu himself, trying to achieve—in
spite of the heat—that chilly sharpness a diplomat needed. The cardinal’s hard
face, now that the pleasantries had been dealt with, indicated that the real
negotiation was about to begin.
After only four weeks in Paris, at that; Richelieu must, Mazarini thought, have
something in mind. The protocol of his nunciature had been brief. Mazarini had
arrived from Rome with a retinue provided by Cardinal Barberini and
augmented it from the permanent nunciature in Paris. His American companion
Harry Lefferts had tried to pretend that he saw the likes of the procession
through Paris every day back in Grantville, but Mazarini could see him frankly
staring at everything. Pressed afterward, Harry had admitted that the twentieth
century had not wanted for spectacle, but that it never came to country towns
like Grantville. As it was, Harry had gotten only these few short weeks of
mayhem, debauchery and drunkenness in Paris before a message that had missed
him narrowly in Rome had called him home to Grantville; he was due to leave in
the morning.
As much as he would miss Harry, Mazarini would be relieved to see him go.
The flamboyant young American made friends everywhere he went.
Unfortunately, the friends were concentrated in two classes of people:
Flamboyant Italian and French young men, who found the exciting and exotic
American something of a role model—to the perhaps everlasting ruin of proper
attire for proper young men. (Their habits had already included brawling and
drunkenness, so those sins could hardly be laid at Harry’s feet.)
Shortly after they’d arrived in Rome a few months earlier, Harry had gotten a
formal suit done to his own specifications by a tailor who’d done it purely for
the chance to take Harry’s old rented tux apart to see how to make the style of
trousers his customers were demanding. This time around, Harry had reasoned,
men’s formal wear would be done right. Pockets ranked high in Harry’s scheme
to anticipate the mistakes of fashion. The gentlemen of this future would not be
stuck for somewhere to put a wallet, cigarettes, a few items for personal defense
and his companion’s spare lipstick. Jackets were replaced with tailcoats, as
Harry had seen enough performances by someone called Lee Van Cleef to
appreciate the practicality of the style for a man who wanted to wear a gun-belt.
The swordsmen about town in Rome were glad of it, too.
The city’s authorities were not.
The second category of people who made friends with Harry almost
instantaneously were Italian and French young women. Alas. That characteristic
had produced even more in the way of excitement than the first.
Mazarini was still a bit astonished that only two duels had resulted. That was
probably because the outcome of the duels themselves. As the challenged party,
Harry had been able to choose the weapons. The first duel had been a very
informal affair—a tavern brawl which escalated rapidly—he’d naturally chosen
pistols, that being the nature of the weapon carried under his coat. Harry had had
the mercy and the good sense not to actually kill his opponents—but it had been
blindingly obvious to all who witnessed the affair that he could have easily done
so instead of inflicting minor flesh wounds.
The second duel, a more formal affair, was worse. Having been accused of
cowardice by relying on unfairly superior American firearms, Harry had chosen
a different weapon. Another American one, true, but hardly something that could
be labeled unfair—a very large knife which he called a “Bowie knife.” He had
even grandly allowed his opponent to retain his rapier.
The choice had obviated his opponent’s greater skill with swordsmanship.
Harry had had no intention of trying to match him. He’d simply managed to
avoid the first lunge and grappled with his opponent, Bowie knife against main
gauche. Thereafter, fighting with knives at close quarters, those qualities which
Harry possessed in abundance—great athletic ability and an outlook sanguine
enough to be the envy of any Mongol khan—had come to the fore. The end
result had been thoroughly fatal and incredibly messy.
Now that he was in the presence of the cardinal, Mazarini suppressed his sigh.
Hopefully, Harry Lefferts would be gone from Paris and on his way back to
Grantville before the very wealthy and very belligerent Fasciotti brothers—all
five of them—discovered that their sister had been dishonored and came to Paris
from Rome to seek satisfaction. There would be no duels, dealing with the
Fasciotti. Hiring assassins came as naturally to them as hiring servants. All the
more so since the sister in question was not complaining about the episode
herself. Awkward, that.
But Richelieu was finally speaking. Mazarini pushed aside thoughts of his
rambunctious American companion. There were many dangers in the world,
after all. Compared to Richelieu, Harry Lefferts was a minor problem.
“Monsignor,” said Richelieu, “You have visited Grantville, perhaps?”
“I have, Your Eminence.”
Mazarini responded politely, despite the fact that the question was moot. It did
not do for one gentiluomo to admit to another that he had had him spied on—or,
in his response, for the one spied upon to draw attention to the fact. Mazarini’s
trip to Grantville had neither gone unnoticed nor unremarked. The resulting icy
blast of Cardinal Richelieu’s displeasure had been directed straight at Cardinal
Barberini, who had in his turn deposited the whole lot on Mazarini once he’d
arrived in Rome. Richelieu had a long reach; his eyes were everywhere and there
were few within Europe who could not at least be apprised of his opinions if not
made to suffer for his displeasure. He had latterly come to have most of the
resources of France at his disposal; in a sense, he was France.
“Perhaps,” Richelieu went on, “some things passed between the monsignor
and—”
Mazarini interrupted him silently, staring with a carefully blank expression
and placing his hand on his heart, before casting his eyes down. The gesture of
one who, for ritual reasons, could not speak. If ritual had an advantage, it was
the language of subtlety it allowed the cognoscenti to converse in.
Richelieu sighed. Ritual could also be a shield for those who chose to
dissemble. He chose not to look upon the dissimulation. “Monsignor,” he said
after a little time, “you are aware, perhaps, of the news of the future brought by
the Americans?” Richelieu rose and took the two steps that carried him to the
window. “I ask in a spirit of genuine enquiry; you need not vouchsafe how much
you know or where you have it from.”
And such a freight of meaning in that! Mazarini found himself cold despite
the heat, his palms sweating. He had never underestimated an opponent in his
career to date, but he wondered whether it was possible to do anything else with
the cardinal who ruled France.
For a wonder, his voice remained under control. “I am aware, yes.” He
thanked God silently for the calm; it was his best weapon at the card table and in
negotiations.
He had already heard enough to deduce what was coming next. More than a
few men had emerged, shocked and grinning, from the Palais in the last few
weeks. The cardinal was promoting men, young and unknown men, and it was—
well, not the talk of all Paris, but certainly noticed.
Richelieu remained at the window, looking out over the garden he had torn
down the adjoining buildings to create. He could surely see little, Mazarini
reflected. Paris in the spring meant mist and soft, clinging rain as much as fresh
air and balmy breezes. The sky was the gray of over-washed linen and the streets
a mire, clinging and glutinous. Everywhere was the stink of wet wool.
Richelieu let out a long breath. Not quite—but almost—another sigh. He half-
turned, and addressed Mazarini over his shoulder. “It is more difficult, if you
will say nothing?”
Mazarini frowned.
Richelieu clasped his hands behind his back and turned further. A long blink,
then, both eyes closed for a whole breath before they opened, and he leaned
forward a little. Earnestly: “I beg of you, Monsignor, not to take what I said as a
suggestion that you might betray a confidence. I fancy we are both”—a little
quirk of a smile to underline it—“professionals. Not so?”
Mazarini nodded. Richelieu had used the English word—a word that the
seventeenth-century English almost certainly did not have and certainly would
not understand the way that up-time Americans did. Mazarini felt his very frame
lighten in his chair with the speed of his thoughts. The sheer celerity that came
when one matched wits with a master—there was no thrill like it. To gamble all-
or-nothing on one’s own genius—and with a man who might say so much with
the mere choice of a synonym! The mere turn of a clever phrase, a well-parsed
statement, these were the common coin of diplomacy. Richelieu was one of a
select few in another league altogether.
Richelieu closed his eyes again for another breath. “But I must broach a
sensitive subject,” he said, and turned back to look out at the dishwater sky.
Richelieu said nothing for some time, and it was Mazarini who broke the
silence. He knew it was a trap, a trick he used himself. To break a silence
without disadvantage was a delicate business.
“Sensitive?” he asked.
Richelieu, turning, saw Mazarini’s raised eyebrow and smiled. “Monsignor,
you are the man I crossed wits with at Lyons three years ago, not so? Perhaps I
might be candid. Sub rosa, and the understanding between us that neither shall
bear rancor for what passes here today?”
“Oh, surely.” Mazarini permitted himself a broad smile. “Do any of those who
were present at Lyon bear rancor?”
Richelieu’s face missed not a beat, segueing into a worldly, knowing chuckle.
“Ah, yes. Two of my dupes. I am sure that neither bear any rancor, where they
are now. I feel sure they have more burning concerns.”
Mazarini was impressed by that. Discussing the execution of two men who
had been to all appearances his faithful allies, Richelieu actually twinkled.
“Perhaps, Cardinal. But you were mentioning candor?”
Rubbing it in to begin with would not hurt. After all, the cardinal had asked
specifically that neither party take offense. Mazarini harked back to what
Cardinal Maurice of Savoy had told him about Richelieu: he must be made to
feel that the decision depends on him alone. And there was little to achieve that
better than an initial resistance.
“Candor, yes.” Richelieu’s eyes grew hooded. “I have something quite
outlandish to suggest.”
“I am sure, Your Eminence, that this room—” Mazarini waved at a wall at
random “—and Servien back there has heard more outlandish propositions these
last few weeks. And will again. Does not the delegation from Grantville arrive
here in a few weeks?”
Richelieu smiled thinly. “Etienne is behind there,” he said, pointing at the wall
opposite that at which Mazarini had waved. “He and his clerk take notes. So
much more discreet a man than his cousin at the Ministry of War.”
Mazarini noted that Richelieu had neither confirmed nor denied what the Holy
See’s spies claimed to have discovered. “And Your Eminence’s proposition?”
“Do you read English?”
“Very well, of late.”
“Perhaps I might trouble you—” Richelieu opened a cabinet and took out a
thick volume fringed with ribbon bookmarks, “—to read the passage I have
marked.”
Mazarini frowned at the volume as he took it. It was new, and well-made,
apparently the work of a Parisian bookbinder. He riffled the pages; they were
printed on the smooth and slightly marbled Turk’s-paper that French bibliophiles
loved so well. He looked inside the front cover to see that the frontispiece was—
his eyebrows shot up. “From 1991?” he asked, looking up at the cardinal.
“Just so. I have had printed copies made and more securely bound.” A slight
sneer. “Whatever else the next three hundred years may bring, improvements in
bookbinding were not among them. The books we have from Grantville began to
fall apart quite quickly. I needed copies to refer to, and to distribute to … various
persons. Hand-copying would have engaged every stationer and monk in Paris
for weeks and the originals were too fragile to pass around. So I ordered them
typeset and the illustrations carefully cut by the best engravers I could find.”
“Just so,” Mazarini echoed. “And the passage to which Your Eminence wishes
to direct my attention?”
“Ah, I do apologize. I began to muse on other matters. Permit me—”
Richelieu leaned over to flip a page open by a bookmark. “Here,” he said,
tapping a bold-face heading.
Mazarini looked. It read: Mazarin, Cardinal Jules.
Mazarini focused his eyes on it, confirming that—as with other versions he
had seen—they had gotten his birth-date wrong. Two days, but still—
He looked up at Richelieu. “I have read this. Or one much like it.”
“They are all much alike, that I have seen.”
To keep silence now, that was painful. Mazarini could not. “I have spoken
with—I have spoken with a number of people—”
And the words dried up. He felt his palms start again with sweat, his pulse
hammer in his ears. The abstract—the dry statement of a textbook that spoke of
a future world, that spoke of events that would not happen for years to come—
was as nothing next to a living, breathing prince of the church directing that he
read the future course of his life.
Richelieu took pity on him. “You will have heard, perhaps, that I made a
number of promotions rather earlier than”—he took in the cabinet with a languid
wave—“these texts say that I would have done?”
“And when last we met you offered then that I might come into—” Again, the
sudden drying of the mouth. This time, the words came after only a slight fumble
“—your confidence?”
Mazarini wondered that the cardinal did not hear the thunder of his heart. It
was like holding the perfect hand at cards, hoping against hope that the betting
could be run up to higher and higher levels without—but Richelieu was nodding,
slow and liquid, dreamlike, as if under water.
“Confidence,” mused the cardinal. “As good a word as any. Knowing what
you would do, what you are capable of. I saw some of it at Lyon—I greeted you
thinking you came to spy, not to treat, convinced you adhered wholly to my
king’s enemies. Two hours and you had convinced me of much that turned out to
be for the good of everyone involved. And then your theatrical coup at Casale—
magnificent!”
“Your Eminence is too kind.”
“Ah, Monsignor, but what you will do—it justifies your promise now, if my
humble opinion counts for anything. Yes, justifies it amply. Revolution, war,
heresy—through all of these to make France the great power of Europe for a
hundred years.” A sigh, and a deep one. “And for nothing.”
“Your Eminence?”
Richelieu smiled in response, small and sad, suddenly wearing every one of
his years. “Neither of our other selves was to know. Not Cardinal Richelieu, nor
the Cardinal Mazarin who succeeded him so capably. While we made France
anew in the image of a beautiful, strong, holy nation, the English simply spread
out over the world and … stole it.”
Mazarini nodded. The governance of the English might be in the hands of
fools and outright villains more often than not, but there was no denying the
inventive, indefatigable wanderlust they seemed to imbibe with their mothers’
milk. Or the roving commission of violent larceny each Englishman seemed to
grant himself as soon as he could walk. Other nations fought the Algerine or the
Dunkerker to suppress piracy. For the English, it was to serve the competition a
bad turn.
How typical of such, thought Mazarini, to steal the whole of a future, for there
was much in what Richelieu had said that he had seen in the little of the future’s
history that Harry Lefferts had known. Harry had cheerfully admitted having
paid precious little attention to his studies, but his every act and thought spoke of
the domination of the Anglophone peoples of the world he had come from.
On the other hand, that hegemony had also created Grantville. On which,
Mazarini reminded himself, he had felt called to wager so much.
“I see,” was all he said.
Richelieu nodded. “I will not find extravagance of use, here and now, will I? I
should keep my hat on, not so?”
Mazarini smiled. He remembered the theatrics Richelieu had displayed
himself at Lyon, tearing off his hat and stamping on it. The cardinal as well as
the monsignor could take pleasure in executing a coup de theatre.
“You wish time to think about this?”
And there it was, finally, laid out as clearly as possible. In another world,
another future, another universe, Richelieu had groomed Mazarini—by then
known as Jules Mazarin—to be his successor. And such a glorious career he had
had, under that Francofied name! Reckoned, in the annals of France, to have
been the equal of Richelieu himself.
There were precious few ministers of state in the history of the world whose
names would be remembered by any but antiquarians centuries later. Richelieu
was one of them. Mazarin, another.
“If you please, yes.” With those words, Mazarini felt himself grow cool, more
ordered.
“There is no urgency,” said the cardinal. “For the time being you have
obligations as nuncio extraordinary, and doubtless there are many with calls
upon your time.”
Mazarini nodded. “Monsignor Bischi’s office has much work for me,
augmenting the regular offices of the nunciature here. And I find my lodgings
with le comte de Chavigny most congenial.”
“Ah, yes. Young Leon is very much the coming man among my creatures, you
know. A promising young fellow, very much in the image of his father. I
understand he and young Monsieur Lefferts found much in common?”
Mazarini grinned. “I fear I may not mention much of what they found in the
presence of a churchman of Your Eminence’s famed piety.”
Richelieu chuckled. “There are times when I do feel my age, all—what—
forty-eight years of it? I remember when it was thought that I would follow His
Majesty’s colors rather than take the cloth—oh, the stories I would hear of
military debauchery.”
“I could tell you more than one such of Harry Lefferts. A man to watch, that.”
Mazarini smiled at the memories. Now that Harry was leaving, he could afford
to do so. Granted, the disemboweling of Agnelli had been perhaps excessive.
Then again, Agnelli had been a notorious bully and there had been few, even in
Rome, who had mourned his passing. Had he been an outraged husband or
father, sentiment would have been different. But Agnelli had simply been a rival
for a lady’s affections—and one whose own past conduct did not bear close
examination.
“As are all the Americans.” There was a trace of acerbity in the cardinal’s
voice. “I shall be meeting some of them in a few weeks, sent by way of an
embassy, if my intendants report aright. Apparently they propose to send the
wife of their president, Monsignor Stearns. I do look forward to—” Richelieu
shook his head. “But you have met the young lady.”
“She is charming, of that there is no doubt. Very intelligent and well read,
also.” Mazarini shrugged. “As a diplomat? Hard to say. She is certainly pleasant
to talk with, as well as look upon.”
He choked the rest off. Richelieu had almost, he realized, drawn him out into
the betrayal of confidence—even by what might be inferred from what he said.
None other of the notables he dealt with would cause him to speak so. It was, he
felt, unfair to require a diplomat of his comparative youth to deal with beautiful
women in the course of his work. What could he say, after, that could not be
misconstrued?
Richelieu interrupted his indignant reverie. “While we are on the subject of
diplomats, has Sable spoken with you? He has a few things he wishes to discuss
about our deployments in northern Italy.”
“Sable? Oh, you mean the cousin of—” Mazarin waved at the wall behind
which Richelieu’s dark-lanternist lurked. It made sense to refer to the senior
Servien by his marquisate de Sable when there was room for confusion.
Although the near-invisible man in the next room could hardly be confused with
the elder Servien in the flesh. The instantly forgettable factotum was one
creature. The caustic, bombastic military intendant Mazarini had met at Casale
could scarcely be credited to have come from the same family. “Yes, he has sent
me a note on the subject. There are doubtless some small issues along the
Pinerolo border that we must discuss. Tiresome, but necessary.”
“Now, to change the subject. Have you been presented to Her Majesty?”
Richelieu returned from the window and perched on the edge of his desk.
“Formally? Naturally, when I arrived. I have not had the pleasure of closer
acquaintance, as yet.”
“If you will forgive an old prelate’s idle curiosity,” said Richelieu, stroking a
