"Stop it, you!" he shouted. "They are down! Stop it!"
He began to pull the cathedral guards off the small group of intruders, and managed to get the beatings to stop.
"Who are you?" he asked the quondam shooter.
"You are a witch! And a helper of witches!" the man shouted, and was whacked by the end of one of the guards' staves for his pains. "Father del Rio says you are no true Jesuit! He says you are demon-inspired. He says you and your demon friends from the future will deliver us all to the Devil!"
One of the others pulled a knife from his doublet but a guard was faster, and knocked it out of his hand before he could throw.
"Father Friedrich," the chief of the guard detachment began, "I think it would be better—"
"If I were not so close to them until you see who else has weapons?" Friedrich finished for him.
"Yes, Father."
"Fine, take them to the prison, but no more beatings!"
"Yes, Father."
Friedrich turned, and slowly walked back to the altar. He was not surprised to find himself shaking. "I think we've practiced enough for one day," he said. "Let us get back together in the morning after Mass."
Friedrich was just coming down the steps of the cathedral, his unbuttoned cassock skirts flapping behind him when his secretary, Pieter van Donck, rushed up to him. Van Donck was a Flemish seminarian from the Jesuit college and seminary at Douai. He was short and stout where Spee was tall and slender. "Mutt und Jeff," Cardinal Mazzare had called them when he first met van Donck in Spee's company. Of course he had had to explain the up-timer reference, Spee thought wryly.
"Father Friedrich," the young Jesuit scholastic began, panting.
"Slowly, friend Pieter," Spee said, as the young man hyperventilated. "Take a moment, and then tell me what has you all out of breath." Spee ran his fingers through his unruly mop of hair, then put his hand down. A nervous tic, he thought. Mustn't do that. He stroked his short, curly black beard instead, then put his hands down at his sides.
The seminarian gathered himself together. "The provincial, Father. The provincial is in your rooms, waiting for you! He sent me to find you right away!"
Friedrich was still, thinking of all the things that the provincial's unannounced arrival could mean, most of them bad.
"Well, Pieter," Friedrich said, smiling, and holding in all his fears, "we must go to him then, and see what has brought him all this way in such a hurry. Did he bring an entourage?"
"No, Father, he came himself alone."
Friedrich stopped in mid step. "He what?"
"He is by himself, so Brother Josef said, and he arrived on horseback."
Friedrich turned and began to quickly stride up the street to his lodgings. As van Donck tried to keep up with him, Spee broke into a jog. The little fat youth tried valiantly to keep step, but fell steadily behind. Friedrich didn't seem to notice and quickly outdistanced his secretary.
When he reached his door, Spee pushed it open.
"Brother Josef," he said to the doorman, "please tell me where Father Provincial is."
"He is in your sitting room, Father," the Jesuit brother replied, "I provided him with bread and some beer."
"Fine," Spee said. "Now when Pieter comes, please send him along to us there."
"Yes, Father." The brother said it to Spee's back, as the Jesuit swept quickly along the hallway to the sitting room, opened the door and passed inside.
"Father Provincial," he began, going to one knee.
"No need, Friedrich," Nickel said, rising to greet him. "Please, sit down. We have to talk, and there may not be much time."
"Does this have to do with the people who just tried to kill me in the cathedral?"
"Thank God! I was not in time to warn you, but it seems you were able to foil their aim anyway," the provincial said, sinking back into his chair.
"I think that it was not I but the Lord who foiled their aim, or at least made their pistoleer a bad shot," Spee said, smiling and taking a chair. "This has happened before, as you know, and I was spared then as well."
"For this we can thank God, then," Nickel said.
"I came straightaway, Father," Spee said, "so I have no idea who they were. They are under guard at the cathedral prison now."
"I know who they are. Or at least who sent them," Nickel said.
"They shouted the name of del Rio," Spee said quietly, hands in his lap.
"I rather thought they might," the Provincial said. "For three years now, you have been very publicly identified as the author of the Cautio Criminalis. Not only do you not deny it, most have seen the up-timer history books that say it as well."