A blade that no one in his right mind could believe had been wielded by anyone but the Almighty.
So, no American would be burned at the stake. Not even in Spain. As harsh as they might be, not even the inquisitors of the Spanish crown would be willing to take such a risk. Whatever His purpose might have been, God had brought these people here. Executing them for heresy seemed rather perilous.
Theologians all over Europe—as well as political leaders, of course—were still arguing over the meaning of the Ring of Fire. A few even held to the belief that Satan had caused the Ring of Fire. Not in Rome, though, and certainly not in Spain. The Manichean heresy involved was obvious and both the Holy and the Spanish Inquisition were quite willing to subject such persons to auto-da-fé.
Most opponents of the up-timers had settled on some version of Cardinal Richelieu's thesis: that God had certainly created the Ring of Fire, but had done so as a subtle caution to princes and peoples. By showing them a world of the future which had clearly not been created by demons, he was warning mankind of the folly of subverting the natural political order.
Janos' own emperor, Ferdinand III, inclined to that belief. Janos himself had done so, once. Now . . . He was no longer sure.
And that, he thought, was the reason Noelle had sent him the Twain book. Not because she agreed with Twain, but as a gentle reminder to Drugeth that God's ways were subtle and mysterious. So how likely was it that an inquisitor—much less a political leader with obvious vested interests and biases—could determine the truth?
Not very, he'd come to conclude.
His musings were interrupted by the sound of boots clattering up the stone stairs behind him. From the pattern of the sound, he knew who was coming. Ágoston Mészáros, one of the four junior officers who had accompanied him on this expedition. Mészáros was the most junior of the group, which meant that he invariably got the assignment of carrying messages.
Just as well. Ágoston was a stout fellow, but not someone you wanted to assign tasks which required much in the way of thinking.
As soon as the young officer came onto the bastion, he extended a slender dispatch. "Just arrived, sir."
Janos broke the seal. The contents of the dispatch were brief. He read it through, and then read it through again.
So. Johann Schmid could not come himself. Janos was not surprised. Schmid served most of the Catholic countries as their informal ambassador to the Turks. He was believed to have the best intelligence network of any European in the Ottoman Empire. Schmid had been a slave of the Turks for twenty years, eventually serving them in the position of dragoman. He had contacts inside and outside of the Ottoman government, and at multiple levels of Turkish society.
Drugeth had met him twice, and wasn't sorry he wouldn't be meeting him again. Schmid was a thoroughly unpleasant man. Potentially dangerous, too. It was believed that he'd tried to poison the diplomat Bratutti, probably in collusion with the Venetians, for no more sublime reason than professional rivalry.
Instead, according to the dispatch, Janos would be meeting with one of Schmid's agents. The name was not given, of course, any more than Schmid had put his own name on the missive. No one spied on the Turks casually, unless he wanted to find a strangler's cord around his neck.
If Janos was lucky, the agent would be the Ragusan physician, Doctor Grassi. The man had probably as extensive a knowledge of Ottoman affairs as Schmid himself and was far more pleasant to deal with.
Janos read through the dispatch a third time. No names were specified when it came to location, either. But from subtle hints, he was quite sure that Osijek was the place the agent would meet him.
That was within Ottoman territory, but Janos had expected as much. In some ways, he would have preferred to meet in Belgrade. There'd be many more Ottoman soldiers there, but the city was also huge—with one hundred thousand inhabitants, it was the largest city in the Turkish empire except Istanbul itself—and had a polyglot population. Serbs, Turks, Armenians, Greeks, Ragusans from Dubrovnik, traders from everywhere. Drugeth would be able to blend in easily. He could probably even do so as a Hungarian merchant.
Still, Osijek would do well enough. It was much smaller than Belgrade, but it was a trade center in its own right. Six roads led into the town. And it was close enough to Hungary that Hungarians were probably more common there than in Belgrade.
"Should we prepare to leave, sir?" asked Ágoston.
Janos shook his head. "No, you'll all be staying here. I'll be leaving tomorrow morning. I should be back within a week or two."
He'd have to go alone. A party of several Hungarians would stand out in Osijek. Besides, none of his subordinates had much experience as anything other than cavalry officers. He doubted any of them could pass themselves off as humble merchants. Mészáros would be hopeless.