"Really?" he asked.
Villanueva gave the king a nod of such assured confidence that Olivares forgave him his recent sins. For all the world, you'd think Don Jeronimo actually knew what he was talking about.
Which, he didn't. Villanueva knew just as well as Olivares did that there was no way, this early, to be sure what amounts of bullion would be coming over from the New World. Even leaving aside the ever-present danger of piracy, which was especially acute now with the remnants of the Dutch fleet still at large in the Caribbean.
But the count-duke was not a man to sneer at blessings, wherever they were found and however gilded they might be.
"Indeed, Your Majesty," he said, lying just as smoothly as Villanueva had. "Furthermore-"
In the end, it worked out as well as Olivares could have hoped for. The king was still furious, but had bowed to necessity.
"We simply have no choice, Your Majesty. Yes, Borja's actions were completely unsanctioned and went far beyond any instructions we gave him. But the fact remains that to disavow him now would simply produce a still worse situation. Your brother's disaffection in the Low Countries"-he was tempted to call it treason, but refrained-"is sure to deepen. I fear also that our Austrian cousins will do the same, now that Ferdinand II has been succeeded by his son."
And there was another casualty of Borja's insane ambition. In truth, Olivares had looked forward to dealing with Ferdinand III instead of his predecessor. The son was three times as smart and not given to his father's pigheadedness. Unfortunately, that same intelligence would now lead him away from Spain, not toward it. Olivares was just as glumly certain of that as he was that he would soon face rebellions and uprisings all through the Italian peninsula.
"But for all those reasons," he continued, "we have no choice but to hail the restoration of the true faith to the See of Rome. The coming storm is of Borja's making, not ours-but a storm it will surely be. To throw over Borja would be to throw over our oars as well as the mast that Borja himself demolished."
That evening, Olivares had two other meetings. No broad councils, these, but secretive affairs.
The first was with the envoy from Monsieur Gaston. Whom Olivares had carefully ignored in the past, but could do so no longer. With Spain now divided still further from both other branches of the Habsburgs-he cursed Borja yet again-the empire could no longer afford the luxury of a careful policy with regard to France.
"Yes," he told him. "We will supply you with money. Troops also, if need be. But!"
He wagged an admonishing finger under the miserable Capucin's nose. "Only if you can demonstrate some results."
The second meeting was more secretive still. Olivares even went to the extreme of leaving his palace in disguise to make the encounter in a taverna.
"You can reach someone in Borja's forces?" he asked. "It will need to be an officer."
The man he sometimes used as an informal agent gave him a nod. "I can reach several. More than you might think. I can assure you, Count-Duke, that you are not the only one who thinks our beloved former cardinal is a rogue."
He cocked his head, slightly. "You wish…"
Olivares shook his head. "No assassination. The king was most explicit on the matter."
He hadn't been at all, actually. But there was no reason to bring that up.
"My concern is not with Borja, at the moment. My concern is with the American prisoner. And his Venetian wife."
The agent nodded. "So I've heard. You want them…"
Olivares scowled. "Is it the wine, Pedro?"
He lifted his own glass, which was still mostly full. In truth, the wine was wretched. This taverna was not one that Olivares would have ever frequented on his own behalf.
"That keeps your mind fixed to murder, like a mouse to bait?"
The agent chuckled. "I point out to you-"
"Yes, yes," Olivares said impatiently, "I know what I normally ask of you. But this situation is quite different. We will most likely be at war again with the USE, and much sooner than I had either planned or anticipated. I should think the rest follows."
The agent studied him, for a moment, slowly twirling his glass around. He'd drunk very little of the wine himself.
Then, he smiled, more thinly still. "Yes, I understand. The prisoner is simply a boy. His wife, younger still-and now pregnant, by the accounts. Emotions would run high if they were to meet a sordid end in Borja's dungeon."
"High, indeed."
The agent was almost grinning, now. The expression was quite insufferable, in a way. But Olivares made no reproof. He didn't like the man, not in the least. But he had all the skills of the cursed Quevedo, with none of Quevedo's flamboyance and carelessness.
For this subject, that was all that mattered. The next few years were going to be stressful enough, for the count-duke of Olivares. He didn't need to add to that burden the constant memory of Wallenstein being struck down at a distance of half a mile-because Borja couldn't resist further exercises in madness.
"Yes, exactly. He's just a boy; and she, just a pregnant girl of a wife. Let's make sure they keep that modest status, shall we? The world has martyrs enough."
Magdeburg
Mike Stearns gave the man slouched in a chair in his office the Official Stern Look. "You understand-given the circumstances-that this is entirely unofficial?"
"Goes without saying," came the reply. Mike hadn't expect the Look to do much good.
"Fine. I hate to do this, but…" He shrugged. "I figure you're the best one for the job we've got. Going by the record."
"Hey, Mike, it's no sweat. Really."
Harry Lefferts rose from the chair and donned his wrap-around sunglasses. The ones he loved, that made him look like an extra from a bad thriller. Especially combined with the boots and the Lee Van Cleef cutaway jacket. The less said about the hat the better.
In a chair over in the corner, Francisco Nasi looked to be choking on something.
"One jailbreak, coming up," said Harry. "My specialty."
As he headed for the door, he said: "It'll be the talk of Europe."
On his way out, he added: "Again."