Urban considered Wadding’s eager face. “My dear brother in Christ,” the pope said with a small smile, “how can I know the answer to your question before we hear and compare the wisdom you and Cardinal Mazzare may bring us? Only then can I responsibly decide how, and when, and with what finality, I shall speak upon the matters we will discuss here. And so I may not answer your question as you wish, Cardinal Wadding-at least, not yet. And now,” he said turning to face Ruy and Sharon, “what questions do you two have?”
“Us?” Sharon hated it when her voice came out like a squeak.
“Of course. This is your parlor we are commandeering, after all.”
“Holy Father,” said Ruy, who somehow rose into a bow, “ mi casa, su casa, so you are not commandeering this room: it is already yours. I am quite sure I speak for Ambassadora Nichols as well, in this regard.”
Urban laughed. “Noble Ruy, I see why you would have had no success in Madrid; you are far too earnest and gracious to be a true courtier. But allow me to speak with greater specificity: do you and the ambassadora have any questions regarding your role in our deliberations?”
Ruy was speechless. Sharon mastered her voice into a husky alto before she asked, “We have a role?”
Urban nodded. “Most assuredly.”
“This is-most irregular,” Ruy murmured.
Wadding made a sound of gruff affirmation.
Urban elected not to notice it. “Yes, it is irregular. As is this entire messy process. So who will notice a little more mud mixed into the mud, eh? But in all seriousness, my children, I wish you to be present, to hear what transpires in this room as we decide the course of Mother Church. And, at the end of each discourse, I encourage you to ask questions.”
Sharon could hardly believe her ears, but managed to maintain a curious caution. “Why? Why would you want us to ask questions, Your Holiness?”
He smiled. “For the reason you just did, my dear: you up-timers hold very little sacred, I’ve noted. Many say this marks you as heretics and demons. But I believe it is the inevitable cost of holding truth sacred above all other things-in which your values recall those in Paul’s first letter to the Corinthians.”
“You Holiness,” objected Wadding, “while the up-timers might revere ‘truth,’ that is not quite synonymous with Paul’s injunction to embrace ‘faith, hope and love.’ None of those are ‘truth.’”
“No, but truth is often the wellspring of each of those graces, even of faith,” replied Urban. “Consider: faith is not the fundamental human virtue whereby unbelievers may come to salvation, Cardinal Wadding, for if it was, the kingdom of God would have no way to grow, to admit new converts. A man or a woman born outside of faith cannot conjure it from a void: for faith to take root and grow in them, it must fall upon a mind fertile with a love of truth, of hungering after the answers of the universe, and hope for a better world. Which, those same minds will later come to realize, are all manifest in His Word.”
Urban had never taken his eyes from Sharon and Ruy. “In you,” he resumed, “I see many symbols of this. I see in you symbols of our two worlds. Of an aging man whose origins are associated with the slaveholders’ whip. Of a young woman associated with slavery’s shackles. Of different times and cultures and continents. But all, somehow, joined together in bliss and balance.” Urban leaned back and folded his hands. “I came to manhood hearing many men whisper-even in the hallways of the Curia-that the age of miracles was at least fifteen centuries past. But now, toward the close of my life, a town has arrived from what it claims to be the future, challenging everything we know and believe about our world. So I must ask myself: what of the two of you? You might just be a pair of unusual newlyweds, chance-met on a shared road of desperation. But I cannot in good conscience discount the possibility that He has set you here as a symbol of how peoples in contention may ultimately become partners in contentment-despite their apparent differences. You give me much to think about. And I would be a fool to forbid you to ask questions. Who knows?” He smiled mischievously. “You may be the Savior’s own mouthpieces.”
Sharon thought about her capacity for colorful profanity and felt an invisible blush rise up through her cheeks.
Urban patted her on the knee, rose and turned to his informal canon court. “In the meantime, Cardinals Wadding and Mazzare will prepare to address us on the probability that Grantville was sent here by Satan-a most stimulating conjecture!”
Motioning for the others to follow, he strode from the room. Larry Mazzare was the last to leave; he turned and smiled faintly. “I’ll try to fend off the exorcists, Sharon,” he said.
“You do that,” she breathed fervently.
He waved and left. Sharon and Ruy sat. They did not speak for almost a full minute. It was Ruy who broke the silence with a hushed observation. “Sharon, my love, I believe we have just witnessed the beginning of a new era.”
“What do you mean?”
“I mean that the head of the Roman Church is, at this most dark and crucial moment, not only allowing but soliciting the input of laypersons. In your books, I have encountered a word-transparency. Originally it was strictly a physical noun, meaning a clear plate or sheet. But in the last documents of your era, it also emerged as a concept, was even used as an adjective. Indeed, among some of your governments and corporations, it became a, a-how do you say it? A ‘boss-word?’”
“A buzz word.”
“Yes. A buzz word. And that word-transparency-does, I believe, describe how Urban means to change the Church’s culture: he is trying to make its processes more open. Oh, of course he has other, pragmatic reasons for having us at these discussions: we can verify, for posterity, the things they will say and decide, here. But if that was his only motivation, he could find other alternatives-or simply do what most popes have done: ignored the opinions and questions of the laity. But not this time, apparently.”
Sharon stared into the hearth. “So maybe something good will come out of this papal mess: a more honest, open Church.”
Ruy shrugged. “It is rightly said that every disaster that lays a temple low is also an opportunity to build a better, sturdier, loftier one. It may be such here. And Urban-unless I very much misread my popes-is just the pontiff to lay those new cornerstones.”
Sherrilyn stepped out from the small upland copse when the dirigible came into view, flying only one hundred feet over the slopes that sheltered the hamlet of Campofontana, just four miles to the south. She waved slowly, holding a bright white bandana in one hand, a bright red one in the other.
Even at this distance, she heard the dull buzz of the motors modulate into a lower pitch, and watched as the dirigible came around, nosing down in her direction. Sherrilyn heard her escorts back in the wood, two of Tom Stone’s embassy Marines, exchange mutters in Amideutsch. She motioned for them to stay back; it was unlikely that anyone else was nearby, but just in case one of Borja’s operatives had trailed them up here-well, wasn’t it Napoleon who had said that Providence was always on the side of the last reserve?
The dirigible was nearly at ground level now, and she could see that it was almost filled with crates, a few more Hibernians, and duffles full of what was probably their gear and spare ammo.
At the front of the blimp, next to the pilot, a very tall, broad-shouldered man with sandy blond hair and gray eyes was looking down at her calmly. “Ms. Maddox?”
“Yes; is that you, Hastings?”
“Yes, ma’am. We’re secure here?”
“Best I can tell. I got here two days early, then set some hidden observation posts to watch for anyone who might have been tailing us. Nada. ”
“Very well, I’ll have my men and gear unloaded in a trice.”
Sherrilyn nodded her approval. “Good. And did you bring your most comfortable boots?”
“Er…yes. Why?”
“Because, Lieutenant Hastings, we’ve got some heavy hiking ahead of us.”