"A promise, which His Holiness instructed me to make on his behalf." He winced, and Sharon got a feeling that the meeting at which Barberini had been told what to say by his uncle had not been an easy one for him. "The Inquisition will be restrained. We make no promises in respect of other methods of opposition. Counterpropaganda, other methods. But the persons of the Committee themselves will not be molested."
"I have to ask why," she said flatly.
"Because my masters would rather the Committee fought back openly than let themselves be used as a tool against us. If people were not being duped about the Committee, it is felt that they might not be so ready to create disorder in the streets." He sighed deeply. "The disorder they would create if some of their firebrands from the Germanies come here is quite overlooked. But I am a man under authority."
Sharon felt quite sorry for the little cardinal, then. Well, almost sorry. He might be wearing a priest's robes, but he was really every inch the consummate nobleman. A plot by other nobles, he was comfortable with, and if he lost, well, there was no great shaking of the world order as a result. If Sharon had to guess, this particular idea came straight from the Jesuits, who were making great strides back in the USE. Their reasoning was that freedom of religion was freedom to convert the Protestants, one at a time if they had to. They were doing a lot of good educational work, and leave it to the Committees of Correspondence to be brutally pragmatic about working with them on things like setting up schools. Or, at least, to leave them alone. An organization mentally supple enough to make as many converts as they had in Japan, of all places, would regard the USE as easy pickings. And the Committees of Correspondence as no particular obstacle. Allies, even, in some matters.
Barberini, on the other hand, saw the social and economic consequences for his own class first and foremost. And if there was one thing Sharon had no sympathy for, it was the nobility clinging to their power and wealth, no matter the consequences.
But she was enough of an ambassador to realize that rubbing it in wouldn't be a good thing to do, just now. "You can pass the message back that I'll speak to Frank. I can't speak for his response, and I've no idea what good it'll do you if he starts doing what you want, but I will tell him."
"I thank you, Ambassadora."
"If there's anything further the USE can do to help, again, I can't guarantee what my instructions from Magdeburg will be, but feel free to ask. And I'm always happy to come to your salon, Your Eminence. The company is excellent, and your home is a pleasure to visit."
"And for my part, Ambassadora, if there is any service I can perform in a purely personal capacity, you have only to ask. Your presence in my home is a pleasure and a privilege, and"—the impish grin came back in full force—"too much of a social coup for me to resist, when so graciously offered."
"Well," she said, "we should be getting back, or people will talk." She realized it was a feeble joke, but she felt she had to lighten the young cardinal's mood.
It seemed to work. "They already do, Dottoressa," he said, giggling a little. "Mostly they say that your honor is quite safe from the likes of me, I am afraid, except when they denounce me as a fornicator."
Sharon couldn't help chuckling. "I could help with that first one," she said, "I could claim you tried to press your attentions, and I had to fight you off . . ."
He wagged a finger. "Not even in jest," he said, mock-serious. "I have heard stories of your intended, Señor Sanchez. A most bloodthirsty devil, it is said, who has left corpses on dueling fields from here to America. Deadly with any weapon and completely without compunction in killing on the slightest provocation."
"Oh, true," Sharon said, "but how well squashed those rumors will be! Who could think a man slain by a jealous fiancé was anything other than red-blooded?"
"Enough! Before you tempt me, woman. Sanchez de Casador y Ortiz is a lucky man, and I would not deprive anyone of such happiness."
Chapter 21
Rome
"Well, that could've gone better," Sharon said to Ruy after seeing Frank and Giovanna out.
"Frank is not so young a man as he once was, Sharon," Ruy said, in that rumbling he-man voice he put on when he thought she wasn't being too smart.
"I know, I know." She sighed. "And if I was to be honest I'd say I pretty much expected him not to buy it. He was pretty okay about it otherwise, though." Actually, Frank had doubled up laughing when Sharon had told him what Barberini had said. At first, anyway. And then he'd pointed out that even if Barberini was serious, he knew from his own sources that the Inquisition was a power in its own right and while the pope could restrain them for a time, they were waiting for an opportunity. And since he'd already made himself a pain in the ass by regularly denouncing the fake propaganda—Sharon had chuckled herself when Frank described the reaction of the junior priests there whenever he walked through the door—he wasn't going to put himself where the pope couldn't save him, not for anybody. And if these people really were plotting against the pope, where was the pope's guarantee if he lost?