Mazzare grinned. "Ah, now I first got a notion something was up when I turned up at the church and heard the shrieking."
"Oh, my." Jones was on the verge of cracking up. "I can imagine. You know, Irene Flannery has scared me all my life? I had her as a teacher. And I imagine Hanni didn't hold anything back—"
"No, not a bit. I do declare I learned more 'colorful idiom' in two different languages than I had ever hoped to in a lifetime." Mazzare shook his head and chuckled gently.
"Let me guess—once you intervened, they turned on you?"
Mazzare sighed. "That was the worst of it. That might have given them a point of agreement. Of course, they stopped the minute they saw I was there."
"A Father Ted moment?" Jones had bought videos of the Irish comedy as a present for Mazzare a few years before.
"Pretty much. Suddenly all sweet and meek for the priest. And now Irene says she's too old to keep the church any more, and we don't see her but for mass, and her neighbors say she's getting worse. It used to be just kids and footballs, but—" Mazzare bit his lip.
"She got worse?" Jones frowned.
"No joking matter, Simon. No, I think she'll get over it in time. She's about the only one who hasn't, anyway." Mazzare sighed and shook his head.
"Bit of a shock, suddenly having a married priest."
Mazzare grinned. "Not for most of my parishioners. Perfectly normal, at least to the older folks. The counter-reformation took a while to get out to here, and most of the older Germans can remember having married priests about the place."
"Well, Larry, I can find you—"
Mazzare laughed aloud. "Get thee behind me, Jones. I have seen enough of clerical matrimony to know better than to inflict it on myself at my age."
"What, four years younger than me?"
"Shut up, Simon."
6
It was months before Mazarini could get away from Cardinal Barberini's court to make the long ride to Grantville.
His first sight of the town, spread out in the evening sunshine before him, confirmed its alien origin as no amount of reports could have done. The geometry of the place had nothing to do with defense. No wall to huddle in, no easily defended spot. Just a place where roads met. He stopped to look over the town, comparing the place to the map he had had. He identified the carillon tower of St. Mary's, and smiled a moment at the memory of its former name. Then, his lathered horse glad of the slower pace, he dismounted and walked in.
The town was quiet, almost deserted, but that was to be expected if the American forces were away dealing with the Spanish threat that had been the main news at Paris when he had passed through. When he reached St. Mary's, he found Heinzerling saying an evening benediction.
"How are you keeping?" he asked, when Heinzerling had finished and the gratifyingly large congregation had gone.
"They have a phrase here: 'going native.' I think it fits me."
"About the only thing that still does, by the look of you." Mazarini appraised his former aide. He wore the weight like a prize boar. Called on to wrestle with Satan, Heinzerling could make Satan regret it.
"The living is good here." Heinzerling grinned, and shrugged. "Even a curate does well."
"How does the Society take your new status?"
"Well as can be expected. The Provincial asks I report regularly and fit in. They ask after converts, and I tell them of the increase in numbers here, which satisfies them well enough."
Mazarini raised an eyebrow.
Heinzerling shrugged. "Things are different here. The place is governed in the strangest way. There is more regulation of how one shits than of how one prays. When you get used to it, though—" He shrugged again.
"And so your converts?"
Heinzerling laughed. "This is a good place to live. People come here. Some of them are Catholic. So we have more each day at mass. Converts!" He waved a hand, "Oh, we have a few, sicher. We have a fine social center. Some come for that. The rigor of our doctrine and the holiness of our sacraments? No. The other churches do just as well, and to each his own."
Mazarini had known the genial German was capable of fitting in anywhere—sent among the Turk he would have made friends and found something kind to say of Mahomet—but had not quite expected this. Indeed, had not suspected it from the reports. He changed the subject. "Father Mazzare? He has not written since that first invitation to visit."