"I had not," Ruy said, "but this is indeed why we are here."
"I do not see that this is a good idea," Weisser said. "This man is a Spaniard, and while you claim to be one of the Americans, I have no way of knowing if what you say is true. An assassin, at this time, would spare those outside our walls a great deal of trouble."
"I understand your problem," Tom said. "Have you heard about the technical marvels we Americans are capable of?"
"I have," one of the priests said, not bothering to introduce himself.
Tom decided the man was probably an inquisitor, or whatever branch of the church it was that did the pope's spying for him. He'd boned up a little on the distinctive dress of the various religious orders within the Catholic Church and from the looks, this guy was a Jesuit. "If I could just show you one or two things, I think I can prove I'm not with the Spanish army. For what it's worth, Señor Sanchez here is married to Dottoressa Nichols, our ambassadora to the Holy See, and the prime minister of the United States, Michael Stearns, is my brother-in-law. Now," he dug in his pocket, "see here—"
They'd anticipated this problem during the brief—very brief—planning session they'd had before riding back to Rome. As well as getting a short message from Cardinal Barberini that would identify them to the pope—committed to memory, as it would work pretty well for anyone who captured the message—Tom had picked up a few items that they had had among the embassy party that were unquestionably up-time in origin. A solar-powered four-function calculator, a little flashlight whose batteries were currently charged courtesy of a great deal of sweat from one of the radio guys and the pedal generator that usually went to working the radio, and his own personal shotgun. Originally belonging to Dan Frost, it was a real hit with the Swiss Guards, who politely asked to see it fire. Tom had brought a whole satchelful of rounds for it, some of the first coming out of the new munitions works at Suhl producing percussion-cap rounds for the private market, and let off three cartridges of buckshot in the general direction of the Spanish army by way of demonstration.
Naturally, they wanted to know how it worked, and they took turns away from trying to see what the Spaniards were doing past the ring of bonfires to listen attentively while he explained the cartridges and the pump-action mechanism. The questions were intelligent, and they were all professionally impressed with such a convenient and useful weapon.
Tom decided he could get to like the Swiss Guards. He still kept in touch with the German ex-mercenaries in the regiment he'd helped organize just after the Ring of Fire, and the Swiss Guards were from a similar mold. A little less rough-and-ready, what with having to be on their best behavior at various church functions all the time, but basically the same. And after having dealt with a dozen different dialects of German, Tom found the Swiss dialect pretty easy to understand within a few minutes. While he was chatting with the Guards, Ruy had been convincing the Jesuit who had spoken that they were safe to be allowed into the papal presence, even agreeing that they would check their weapons at the door of the audience chamber. The Guards seemed fairly sorry to see the shotgun go, if nothing else.
Getting to see the pope turned out to be something of a trek. Once out of the bastion, the interior of the Castel Sant'Angelo's citadel was a lot more convoluted than it had been when Tom had played tourist there as a teenager, when it had been a museum. The building had had a nearly two thousand year history by then and Tom had found it confusing. Now, at sixteen hundred years and a working fortress and prison rather than a museum, it was even worse. There was the detritus of extensive renovation and building works shoved aside everywhere, and the place was full of scurrying priests, nuns, and assorted guys with guns and other weapons who were being soldiers for the day.
The route up through the central keep of the Castel Sant'Angelo, which had begun life as the Mausoleum of the Emperor Hadrian, was like traveling through a layered history of Roman architecture, starting with the remains of the original tomb at the bottom, a spiral corridor up through the monument, proceeding to the medieval prison level and thence up to the renaissance apartments built on the top of the fortress, an oblong block of papal luxury standing across the drum of classical fortification.
His Holiness was, of all places, on the roof. He was dressed in what Tom had to suppose had to be called "civilian" clothes, although they were a couple of decades out of fashion and rather expensive-looking. There was a small breastplate in evidence and a helmet on the table next to him. Clearly what the well-dressed pope wore to a battle. In fact, there seemed to be no cardinals nor bishops nor any other senior clergy in evidence. The only priests Tom could see were in the regular dress of ordinary priests or Jesuits and one or two other orders of priests that Tom didn't know well enough to tell apart.