1636~The Vatican Sanction by Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon

Author:Eric Flint & Charles E. Gannon [Flint, Eric & Gannon, Charles E.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Fiction, Action & Adventure, Science Fiction, Alternative History, time travel
ISBN: 9781625796196
Publisher: Baen Books
Published: 2017-12-05T01:47:19+00:00

Part Four

Thursday

May 8, 1636

Downward to darkness, on extended wings

Chapter 24

The sun glinting off his helmet, Achille d’Estampes de Valençay’s armor creaked as he approached and muttered: “I hope this day finds you well, Colonels.”

Ruy did his best to affect complete composure, despite having run all the way from the waterfront just minutes before. “I am quite well, Lord de—er, Your Eminence.”

Owen Roe O’Neill smiled. “Indeed, we’re doing better’n your good self, from the sound of your voice, Cardinal de Valençay.”

“I suspect you are correct, Colonel O’Neill.” Achille turned to glance toward the approaching procession of covered sedan chairs.

“A taxing march from the cloister?” Ruy inquired.

Achille shook his heavy head. “The march, as you call it, is my one respite. His Holiness, though, feared insulting me by requesting that I don my armor this day. ‘Will you forbear this conceit?’ he asked me. Forbear! Is this what I am come to, now that am a cardinal before I am a soldier? This ‘conceit’ is what I truly am, and this is where I belong: in the air, wearing a cuirass, in the vanguard, and ready to defend my pope. But after the ‘conceit’ of today’s process is concluded”—he stared down the street toward the Palais Granvelle—“then I must put all that aside and sit in a stuffy room, high-ceilinged to facilitate a greater collection of dust. And I will sit there closeted all day, and tomorrow as well, with the stink of old and infirm men rising up about me, while they do the only thing that they still may: talk.” He stared balefully at Ruy and O’Neill. “Have you ever listened to churchmen, no matter the faith, talk for nine hours?”

“Can’t say I have,” Owen murmured, with a poorly hidden grin and a scratch at his ear.

“I have not had that singular privilege,” Ruy said, with an attempt at gravity.

“Then you have not had a foretaste of hell.” Achille looked over his shoulder. The reshuffled papal procession was drawing closer. “I have fought Turks and Algerines, Englishmen and Huguenots, and I will tell you this: war is but a human hell, a condition of mundane suffering and terror. But the actual Hell, being the creation and domain of beings beyond our ken, must likewise contain horrors and tortures more profound, more exquisite, than any human may divine—except, perhaps those who devote their lives to the contemplation of what lies beyond.” He set his helmet’s visor back in place; his voice was as muffled as if he had fallen into the Pit which he was describing. “And so, the clerics of this colloquium have managed to import some of that infernal agony into our material world—by talking. Endlessly, pointlessly talking.”

O’Neill’s eyes may have twinkled. “God knows, you’re a stronger man than I am, Achille.”

Somber gray eyes looked out the narrow vision slit of the helmet. “I am not given to boasting, but, yes, I may be. Wish me well.”

“Bon chance!” Ruy called after his broad, receding back, and not without some genuine sympathy.

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