"I thought sieges took longer," the Ambassadora remarked.
"Ordinarily, yes," Simpson said. "Sounds like these guys have a massive advantage of numbers and nearly all the resources they could want. And they're already inside the outer defenses, trying to take the citadel."
"Oh," the ambassadora said. "Can we get the pope out of there?" She addressed the question to Sanchez. Knowing what he knew of the man, Barberini would have done the same.
Sanchez shrugged. "Maybe. I would perhaps be able to bring a small party within the inner ward and attempt something. This is not to say that the same idea will not occur to Quevedo, of course."
"He'd assassinate the pope?" Simpson's expression was one of honest curiosity. For all their cheerfulness and generosity, these Americans could take a bloodthirsty turn at times, Barberini reflected. The first thing he had thought of when Sanchez mentioned an infiltrator into the fortress was a gate being surreptitiously opened to let the besiegers in.
"Likely enough," Sanchez said, shrugging. "My heart," he went on, addressing the ambassadora, "this may be something we can do, or it may not. I will need to take a party of men back to Rome tonight and look more closely. With your permission?"
The ambassadora frowned a moment, then looked around the room at the other members of her party. "Comments?" she asked.
"Do it," Dottoressa Simpson said.
"Only if you can manage it without getting yourselves killed," Dottore Nichols added. "Forlorn hopes do no one any good. And I'll come along. Not in the raid itself, but you'll need someone holding horses outside, and a trained medic."
"You sure, Dad?" the ambassadora asked.
"I'm a shoo-in for this one," he said, leaving Barberini slightly confused. The sense of it was clear enough, though. "I've been a Marine, and I know my trauma medicine well enough to play corpsman. Although I could wish we had Harry along here."
"He's got a good resumé for it," Signora Mailey added, smiling at some private joke, doubtless connected with the fact that she had escaped a similar fortress only the year before. Perhaps the infamous Harry Lefferts had been involved in that? "But like James said, don't do it if it looks too risky."
There were no further objections. "Do it, then," the ambassadora said. "I'll go and compose a dispatch for Magdeburg. They won't be able to tell us not to, fortunately."
Naturally not, Barberini thought. He wondered what diplomacy would be like when the day came that the great radio towers were built all across the world, and princes could speak to each other directly. Would peace result, once everything could be discussed at length, directly between rulers? More likely, Barberini thought, that such ease of communication would make it more likely that they would take offense more easily. A plenipotentiary could be disowned, deratified, apologized for. Insults direct from the prince's mouth were less easily remedied. The radio diplomacy his uncle had engaged in the year before had certainly caused plenty of trouble.
Magdeburg
"I thought you should see that before anyone else," Francisco Nasi said.
Mike was rereading the lengthy dispatch. "You weren't wrong. Did we have any warning of this?"
"None at all. Shortly after we last spoke on this subject, I received intelligence that confirmed our initial assessment. Borja's orders were to create political confusion in Rome, to prevent Urban from taking any further effective action. To create, as you remarked, a lame-duck pope. The troops came from Naples, but our news from there has been concentrating on the domestic turmoil. The troops were there to suppress trouble in that part of Spain's possessions, and moving them is a strategic error unless they can be returned swiftly enough that the rebellion is not encouraged by their absence. And plans to move them were closely held enough that we got no wind. I will admit that our assets in that part of the world are not as comprehensive as I would like. We are still not sure what Osuna is up to; he has become remarkably quiet these few months past."
"So basically the situation is that Borja got a wild hair up his ass and Olivares is going to be as surprised as we are?"
Nasi chuckled. Some rulers would not have been so understanding. A failure on this scale—and Nasi planned to light a few metaphorical fires under several figurative backsides come the morning, on general principles—would have seen him personally lucky to be allowed to resign alive. "Most succinctly put. More surprising still is the response of our embassy in Rome. Without for one moment wishing to ensure the embarrassment is spread as widely as possible, I think State will be responsible for the brick that will be found, come the morning, in the royal privy of Gustavus Adolphus. But we do have some radio time left. Do you wish me to instruct Sharon to call it off?"