What the hell. He turned around and hugged her too. "Sorry," he said, "it's just all that crap about the Inquisition. And maybe it's going to come to us having to bug out. I mean leave, that is. Because it might come to the Inquisition having a free hand to act against us because Borja's taken him out."
"Borja's trying to assassinate the pope?" Giovanna said, her eyes going big and round. "The dottoressa didn't say that!"
"Not assassinate, maybe," Frank said, "but make him unable to act to protect us. Do something political, maybe, make him a lame duck or something."
"You said the pope is going to be assassinated?" The voice came from behind him. One of the regular barflies, a guy name of Giacometti, and Frank found it kind of surprising that he'd heard over the hubbub of a pretty raucous night in the club, or was sober enough to follow the conversation. Still less that he'd been able to say something relevant.
"No, Giacometti, I didn't say that. But all the crap you've been hearing about the Committee is part of a plot to make the pope look bad. It's Cardinal Borja, he's pissed at the pope."
"Not going to assassinate him?"
"No, Giacometti. Nobody thinks he'll do that. Well, he probably won't. He might, I guess." Frank realized that he probably ought to start a rumor that the fake Committee was part of a plot to assassinate the pope. That would piss people off with the rent-a-mob organizers, maybe make things more difficult for them. It was just that Frank was, deep down, too frigging honest. He heaved a deep sigh. "Mostly folks think he hasn't got the balls, you see."
"Cardinal Borja's got no balls?" Clearly that was getting through, although Frank wasn't sure what starting a rumor about Cardinal Borja's testicles was going to do to help.
"That's right, Giacometti," Giovanna added. "No balls at all. It's why he's got guys pretending to be Committee when they're not."
"So you don't really think the pope must die, then?" Giacometti frowned. "Everyone said that didn't sound like you."
Frank frowned back. "What didn't sound like me?"
"Was in a paper, going around. Heard it today while I was toting some stuff over by Sant'Angelo. Committee paper, they said, but it sounded like it was a phony one. Everyone knows you folks got married in the Sistine chapel, like not even nobles get to do. You wouldn't want to kill the pope, not when he's your buddy."
"Not buddy, exactly," Frank said, "But we've met. And no, I don't want the pope dead. Freedom of religion and all that, y'know?"
"Right, let everyone be Catholic how they really want to be, not like these princes in Germany and England who make people be Protestant and spit on the body of Christ at mass."
"I don't think they do that, Giacometti," Frank said, not sure how to follow this turn in the conversation. For all he knew, spitting was part of it. He'd been raised—technically—in a religion that had smoking as a sacrament, so who knew? It still sounded unlikely.
"No, it's true." Giacometti leaned over the bar, swaying slightly, and attempted to bellow over the noise and music in a confidential manner. "They say they're Christians, but it's all devil-worship in disguise." Giacometti seemed pretty sure of his facts on this point, although Frank wasn't sure what he'd do if he was ever confronted with an actual Protestant. Stay out of spitting range, that seemed certain.
"I wouldn't know," Frank shrugged. "I've never been in a Protestant church." He tactfully omitted the information that his youngest brother had taken a notion to become a Protestant minister of the Lutheran variety. What Giacometti didn't know wasn't likely to hurt him. "But, you know, pass the word. It's not us saying the pope should be killed, it's these other guys. The Spanish."
"Eh? I thought you said they didn't want to kill the pope."
"No," Frank said, as Giovanna went off to serve another customer. "They're just saying that. I don't think they mean it."
Giacometti sneered. "Frank, you're too good a guy to see it. Not everyone's a nice fellow like you. Spaniards, hah! You watch, they wouldn't say a thing like that unless they meant it. No balls, Frank. They got no balls." He made a gesture of grabbing and squeezing a pair. "They ain't gonna just mess around when they can stab the Holy Father in the back, now." Giacometti sat back on his barstool with the air of a man who'd completed a logical proof.
"I, uh, guess that stands to reason," Frank said, although he wasn't sure exactly what Giacometti was saying. He'd only had one drink himself tonight, so he wasn't able to follow the beer logic.