"It was Don Fernando who got him out of the clutches of the Inquisition and brought him to the Low Countries," Rubens elaborated.
"The point to all this," Scaglia continued, "being that if there is any captain of Spain least likely to underestimate the enemy, it is Manrique-and from what Pieter tells us, he is closer to the cardinal-infante's ear than any other of his officers."
"I see. And the others?"
Rubens went back to his finger-counting. "Not one is a Spaniard, to begin with. Two Italian officers-in the Spinola mold, if you understand what I mean-and the Irishman, Owen Roe O'Neill."
Isabella frowned. "I know the two Italian officers you're referring to-and, yes, I agree. They think of themselves more as professional soldiers of a Netherlands army than agents of the king of Spain. But while I've met O'Neill-twice, briefly-I don't understand why you think he's important."
Rubens lowered his hands and smiled. "I think in some ways he may be the most important of all, at least in the long run. Whatever else, he'll not want to see Don Fernando embroiled in wars on the continent. O'Neill has a cause of his own, you see. He's what you'd find called an 'Irish nationalist' in the up-time books."
The priest frowned. "Since when is Ireland a 'nation'? It's just an island, full of half-savages who quarrel even worse than Italians. Even worse than Catalans, if that's possible."
That brought another little round of laughter.
"True, true-today. But O'Neill already detested England-and any English ally-even before he got his hands on copies of Grantville's books."
Isabella gave the arms of her chair an exasperated little slap. "Does anyone in the world not wind up reading those things? It's absurd!"
Rubens tilted his head and gave her a sly smile. "Well, you did, after all."
She half-scowled at him. "I'm rich. Those books-copies, not even the originals-emptied half my treasury. Well. A tenth, at least."
Scaglia chuckled. "Your Grace, you either got cheated or you insisted on very fine copies." He, also, tilted his head. "Or perhaps it was simply that you got the very first editions."
She sniffed. "Well, of course I got the very first copies. The ink was barely dry on them. I'm the daughter of Philip II of the Spanish empire, an Austrian archduchess, and the sovereign of the Netherlands in my own right. I should wait?"
Now, both Rubens and Scaglia chuckled. "Your Grace, I hate to tell you this," Pieter said, "but the production of replicas of up-time books has become a staple of the printers' trade everywhere in Europe. They're not quite out-selling the Bible yet, in most places, but I was told-just last month-by the biggest printer in Brussels, that he expects they will within a year. And I know from speaking to printers in Amsterdam that they did so there within a month after the siege began. Even in Counter-Remonstrant households, it seems."
Isabella rolled her eyes. "Marvelous. Pedro the shepherd and Hans the sausage-maker will be trying to direct their little farms and shops based on their attempts to read their fortunes. I predict disaster."
"You don't have to predict it," Rubens said solemnly. "It's already happened, right in front of our eyes-and on the scale of kings and princes, not shepherds and sausage-makers. What else was Richelieu's Ostend scheme but an attempt to read the future and force a different outcome? And"-he held up his hand, forestalling a comment from de los Rios-"let us not wax too indignant on the subject. For we, too, are attempting the same, are we not?"
He rose out of his chair, leaned over, and planted his forefinger on the papers in the middle of the table. "What else is all this, after all? But an attempt on our part to circumvent-'short-circuit,' the Americans would call it, and don't ask me to explain the precise details of what that means because I asked Anne Jefferson and she couldn't tell me-three and half centuries of bloodletting and misery, most of which served no purpose whatsoever. Not even, in the end, the purposes of the bloodletters."
There was no trace, any longer, of the genial humor which usually tinged Rubens' voice when he spoke. For once, the artist and diplomat was speaking in dead earnest.
"Richelieu is a madman if he thinks he can circumvent the single most obvious and overriding reality of that future world. And that is this." He half-turned and half-bowed to Isabella. "Meaning no personal offense, Your Grace, for you are indeed-I make no jest here-beloved by most of your people. Today, all nations are ruled by kings and princes. Beginning less than two centuries from now, all that will be swept aside and the common folk will come into their own. For good or ill, they will. You-we-anyone-has as much chance of preventing that as the legendary King Canute had of ordering back the tides. Be sure of it."
He sat down heavily. "The difference between us and Richelieu-us and the king of Spain-is that we are not looking to block the outcome. Simply to…" He smiled. "The Americans have another term for it. I swear, they produce the things with even greater profligacy than they produce gadgetry."
"If anyone at this table uses the word 'okay' I shall have them executed," Isabella stated firmly. She waggled her finger. "I'm serious!"
There was a burst of laughter, in which the archduchess did not participate, although she seemed to be struggling against a smile.
"I'm serious," she repeated, still wagging the finger. "The gloves will come off!"
"Ah!" Rubens exclaimed. "That's one of my favorite American expressions."
That brought uproarious laughter; from Isabella, also. When the humor faded, Scaglia asked: "And what is the term, Pieter?"
"Well… it would mean a great deal more to you if you had seen one of their airplanes come down from the sky onto the ground. I watched myself, when Stearns came to Amsterdam. For the entire last part, I was holding my breath. The term is 'soft landing.' I think it's a very good description of what we are attempting here. A soft landing for the future. Foolish to stand against that future, yes. But I see no reason we need to submissively accept every particular in it. No reason, to name just one matter, that we need French and German troops-English, too-marching back and forth across our Low Countries once every generation, it seems."
He smiled again. "We are not, after all, Calvinists with idiotic and heretical notions concerning predestination."
That brought a round of chuckles. Rubens continued. "Neither, by the way-he sees the matter from a very different viewpoint, of course-does Michael Stearns himself. From a political standpoint, I think that was the single most important thing I learned about the man from his visit. If we are willing to compromise, he will at least begin with that stance also. There will of course be many disputes."
De los Rios looked skeptical. "Him, maybe. But what about that Richter creature of his?"
Rubens stifled some irritation. For all the priest's undoubted kindliness, he still had much in him of Spanish insularity if not Castilian arrogance. "She is not a 'creature' to begin with, Bartolome-and she's certainly no creature of his."
"She carries a pistol at all times, they say! What sort of woman-"
"A woman who was gang-raped at the age of sixteen by mercenaries, saw her mother abducted, her father murdered before her eyes, and spent two years as the concubine of one of her rapists in order to keep what remained of her family alive," Scaglia said bluntly; indeed, almost coldly. "I've learned her history, Father de los Rios, which I suspect you haven't."
"Oh, how ghastly." Isabella had her hand pressed to her throat. "I had no idea."
Rubens was too astonished by Scaglia's statement to speak, for a moment. He'd known Richter's history himself, but had had no idea Scaglia did. That was…
Very telling, he thought. He could sense a transformation-sea-change, an American term which ironically came from an Englishman already dead-happening in his attitude toward the Savoyard.
But, for the moment, he simply cleared his throat and added: "Yes, what Alessandro says is quite true. I learned of it from her husband, as it happens. Quite a nice young fellow, by the way, in my estimate. But what's perhaps more to the point is that he also told me she's never used the pistol except on a practice range since she participated in fending off the Croat raid on Grantville that Wallenstein launched. That was well over a year ago."