"Your Eminence?" Sinceri raised an eyebrow.
Borja permitted himself a small smile. "You will recall that nearly every single appointment His Holiness has made since assuming the mantle of Saint Peter has been of one of his placemen, and more often than not a member of his family?"
It was Sinceri's turn to smile. "Ah. Your Eminence reminds me of the vulgar jest about the bees on the Barberini arms? That they were once horseflies? It is true that His Holiness has carried nepotism to unusual lengths, but it is not without precedent, and indeed—"
Borja cut him off again. "The man's concern for his family is, in truth, not without precedent. What I say to you, Father Sinceri, is that it is entirely revealing as evidence of the man's character. Entirely revealing." Borja snarled those last two words. He could feel the anger boiling up within him as he contemplated the man whose every action of the last few years had been to set the authority of the Church against the power of Spain, a course of action as personally frustrating to Borja as it was wholly unnatural and obviously contrary to God's scheme for the secular world.
Borja took a calming breath and carried on before Sinceri could interrupt. "It is becoming clear to all who have eyes to see, Sinceri. The man's selfish interests are guiding his actions, now, and quite likely always have been. I truly fear to think what his motives might be for impeding the progress of Catholic arms in the Germanies—for permitting the outrage in the Low Countries—but no matter. The question which brought you to mind in relation to the matter I have in prospect was the Galileo affair, as I have said. I think we are agreed that there was much in His Holiness's disposition of that case which gives cause for concern, no?"
Borja watched Sinceri's face. There were other lawyers who might be of service in what Borja had in mind. There were certainly plenty of inquisitors who were at the very least slighted by the pope's treatment of the Holy Office the year before. Of the men who were in both groups, Sinceri was the one best known personally to Borja; they had worked together before on Inquisition business. And, when all was said and done, Sinceri was one of the most senior and respected lawyers in the Inquisition's prosecuting arm. His opinion, publicly expressed, would carry a lot of weight.
Certainly, Borja could manage without Sinceri in the scheme he was now firmly settled on. But there were definite advantages to having his support.
Sinceri's nod of agreement was almost instant, and Borja felt the first moment of genuine pleasure he had felt all day. "Indeed, Your Eminence," he said. "His Holiness' actions were quite—unprecedented."
A characterization, Borja reflected, that was quite spectacularly damning coming from a lawyer. He schooled his face to solemnity. From here, there was only the direct route to the destination. "The matter I have in mind," he said, "is nothing less than the impeachment of His Holiness."
Sinceri's response was immediate. "Impossible."
"Unprecedented, certainly," Borja replied.
"Not entirely," Sinceri said. "The antipopes, in particular, are the precedent to which I refer Your Eminence—"
Borja let the details wash over him without much attention. He had, of course, studied canon law himself and was familiar with the whole business. There had, more than once, been two claimants to the mantle of Saint Peter. Dozens of times, in fact. The polite fiction was that one was the true pope and the other an impostor, determined by which one had been legally elected. But the Church's firm statement on the subject was not necessarily the whole truth. Many of the thirty or so antipopes recorded in history had contrived to discharge real functions of the office and had only become antipopes after the event, so to speak.
In practice, the record was frequently patchy even as to some of the clearer-cut cases. It was sound theology that the Holy Spirit worked in the world through the wager of battle, and by extension through the outcome of political maneuvering, after all. Borja privately speculated that the record had almost certainly been altered or effaced after the event to insure that the eventual loser appeared as the antipope to the eyes of history.
Borja could see the way clear at every step. It was simple. The sheer celerity with which the plan had come to him was an indicator of its true source.
"—and so, your eminence," Sinceri was saying, as Borja returned from his private reverie, "while there has been at least one abdication of a pope from his office, not one has been dismissed whether by the college of cardinals or otherwise without his successor coming down to us in the historical record as an antipope. The precedent is clear: the pope cannot be impeached."