Sharon didn't know what to say to that. And so the uncomfortable pause stretched even longer than the one before it. She said nothing, and just waited. What was up with the man? Either he thought she was going to be offended or he wasn't happy with what he'd been ordered to say to her.
She hoped—no, she wasn't sure what she hoped. She could take offense in stride, she figured. It wasn't like most of what she saw around here wasn't offensive in some way or other, and after a while she'd stopped noticing, most of the time. If he was unhappy about what he had to say, what was the worst of it? Business as usual, the pope carefully pretending he didn't have one more ambassador in his city, one who wasn't getting invited to his court. Something that, between any other nations not actually at war, would be an insult but which the USE was being very forbearing about since they'd had the bare minimum recognition that protocol required. So either way there was no need to worry.
Barberini was making it look like there was, though. After a moment or too more, he turned back to her. "I must apologize, Dottoressa. I am being most unmannerly with you. I am uncharacteristically unsure of how to phrase what I would ask of you."
Well, that was easy enough to deal with. It wasn't like a bashful patient wasn't something she had the training and experience to handle. She shrugged, and summoned up her best bedside manner. "So begin at the beginning. I promise I won't hit you."
He smiled a small, sad, smile. "For all that I would extend you every courtesy, Dottoressa, it is not for your sake that I hesitate. I am unconvinced of the wisdom of what must follow as it affects the interests of the Church, nor as it affects the interests of the Papal States. I am, I confess, no diplomat, nor yet much of a politician, measured against those who instruct me. So perhaps I am naive."
Sharon decided to try firmness. "Please, Your Eminence, stop beating about the bush. I'm a doctor, for goodness' sake. You can bet I've heard much weirder things than you have in store. And it might be that I'll have to say no, and you can heave a sigh of relief."
"I must apologize once again. So, I screw up my meager courage. Dottora Ambassadora," he said, and she caught that he had suddenly started using her other title, which couldn't have been idly done since he'd completely left it out so far, "I must ask what contact you have with the Committee of Correspondence in Rome? And whether they would follow directions if you were to communicate them?"
Well, that was unexpected. "Officially," she said, "I don't have any contact with the Committee of Correspondence anywhere. Unofficially, Frank Stone is a friend of mine. His stepmother is a very close friend and business partner. His wife is one of my patients. So if you want a message passed, I have plenty of opportunity, although I can't promise anything. I suppose that ethically I have to pass on any message you want me to pass. Although Frank's his own man these days, not just a kid, and it's him in charge of the Committee, not me. And if you want to hold a discussion, I'd rather not act as your messenger-girl. I can ask Frank to come talk to you. I'm guessing you can't go haunting low tavernas like the one he runs, right?"
"Not that my reputation could get any lower, if the handbills are to be believed," he said. "But the Ambassadora is most generous and gracious. A message is, indeed, what I would have passed. What, rather, those instructing me would have passed."
"I guess I ought to mention that even though you married Frank and Giovanna, neither of them is really likely to take any message from any part of the Church on trust. Not after their last experience of you included a spell in one of your jails."
Barberini laughed aloud. "And ours of them included them shooting up one of our churches in the middle of a most solemn occasion! Monsignor Mazarini might have bent his considerable talents to making that particular outrage disappear, but I need hardly say that such things are not readily forgotten, whatever the public appearance."
Sharon shrugged. "Well, with bad blood on both sides I guess asking a diplomat to act as go-between makes sense, then. What's the message, Your Eminence?" Truth be told, she was getting a little impatient with Barberini's constant dodging around the point.
"We would prefer they were less solicitous of official concerns," he said, flatly and without intonation.
"You want them to start being more—" she groped for the right word "—Revolutionary?"
"Just so, Ambassadora."
"Forgive me for saying it, Your Eminence, but that sounds like a trap. What's to say that they won't find the Inquisition landing on them and getting a little payback for, as you say, shooting up one of your churches?" She figured a little annoyance was safe to show. There had to be more to this, since surely an institution as long-lived and subtle as the Catholic church wouldn't be that simple-minded?