Relieved that he would not have to send Hamish to Rome, Toby wrote asking for a meeting at His Eminence's convenience. He took the precaution of routing the request through the Magnificent. He waited, with growing concern. He asked again. He took the matter to Benozzo's successor, Cecco de' Carisendi, but the old man seemed unable to comprehend the seriousness of the problem — there was very little he did comprehend. It was on the tenth and final day of the cardinal's visitation that the captain-general and his deputy were summoned to the Marradi Palace to meet him. Toby took Hamish along.
He had been hoping and expecting that the meeting would be private, but they were shown into a busy antechamber, teeming with the usual crowd of sycophants and supplicants, and there they were left a long time. The snub itself was disturbing, both because it would soon become common knowledge in Florence and because anyone could guess why the captain-general needed to call upon the cardinal. Even when they were led through into the next high-ceilinged, overdecorated hall, they had not done with waiting. In the center the great man was holding court within about a score of people — mostly acolytes, male and female, but also four or five members of his family, including his brother and sister — and they were all just standing there having a loudly jolly chat, punctuated by much laughter. Clerks and stewards wandered around to no clear purpose.
The don was not noted for his patience. Cooling his heels always made his head hotter, and already he was muttering Castilian things under his breath. Eventually a chancellor arrived to confirm the visitors' identities, as if silver helmets were two-a-penny in Florence. Another wait. Then three of the courtiers kissed the cardinal's ring and departed. Everyone else remained, but now it seemed that the visitors were to have their audience.
Not so. The chancellor led forward a couple of very elderly female acolytes, tottering on canes.
"I see," the don announced loudly, "that I am too young to be trusted with important concerns. I prefer to do my aging elsewhere." He spun on his heel and strode out.
Hamish and Toby exchanged glances that included equal parts of relief and despair. No one else was reacting at all, but that did not mean that the insult had not been noted. It probably cost them another twenty minutes, but eventually they were judged to have suffered enough. Then they were led forward and graciously permitted to kiss the ring. Among the spectators, Lucrezia and the Magnificent watched in silence. Lucrezia was smiling.
Ricciardo Marradi was a plump, satisfied, and yet enigmatic man in his mid-thirties, five years younger than his brother. The Lombardy redness of his hair clashed horribly with his scarlet robes and biretta. His features were paradoxical — a sharp nose and small mouth flanked by brown eyes wide with babyish innocence, set in a soft pink complexion. He wore his power like steel armor, yet his voice was high-pitched and petulant.
"How may we aid your cause, Tobias? You understand that we are about to take our leave and cannot spare you long."
"The matter concerns the safety of the city, Your Eminence, indeed its very survival."
"Surely, then, it should be brought to us by Captain-General Signor Ramon de Nuñez?"
Years of practice let Toby restrain his temper. "Yes, it should, Your Eminence. I hoped it would be. But it seems that I shall have to suffice." For a moment he thought he was going to be dismissed unheard, but then the arch-acolyte gestured with a pudgy hand.
"Be brief." Accepting a sheaf of papers from a secretary beside him, His Eminence began to flip through them.
"Reports from the north tell of the Fiend preparing to bring his hordes across the Alps, Your Eminence. We expect him within a month or two at most. The brave men of Italy will resist his evil, but flesh and blood and courage are no match for gramarye. Nevil is a demon incarnate and fights with demons. It has long been suspected that he has refrained from trying to add Italy to his dominions only because he fears the righteous powers of the Cardinal College. I come to ask for the spiritual aid that the defenders—"
"Rest assured, my son," the cardinal twittered, barely glancing up from the documents, "that the Holy Father and members of the College will continue to pray without surcease for the defeat of the Fiend whether or not he invades Italy. We regularly remind all acolytes of the Galilean Order in all shrines and sanctuaries everywhere to petition the spirits they serve for assistance against the evil. Our esteemed Captain-General Villari has been told to save no expense to defend the holy city itself."
"Are not these the same precautions you took before France was conquered, when Austria was overrun, while the rest of Europe was ravaged by the monster? I am sure I speak not only for the armies of Florence but for all—"
"You may be sure of that." Marradi thrust the documents back at the secretary, approving them with a nod. "But we are not. If, as I fear, Tobias, you are about to ask the College itself to engage in gramarye, you should remember that the Holy Father and his predecessors for more than a thousand years have refused to countenance the use of demons under any circumstances whatsoever. The Galilean enjoined us to serve, worship, and educate the holy spirits within their natural domains. To abduct and torture them into demons is contrary to all that is virtuous. Fighting evil with more evil must always be self-defeating. Our shield must be love and goodness our sword."
Were this meeting the confidential and intimate parley Toby had requested, he would now agree wholeheartedly and mention that the Don Ramon Company was in dire need of a good healer, as battles were not necessarily fought within easy reach of a sanctuary. In other words, he would ask for a hexer. The cardinal, if he were reasonable, would refuse sadly and later arrange for one to appear. But this cardinal was not being reasonable and did not deserve to be treated reasonably.
"That was not how Rome escaped conquest by the Tartars in 1248, Your Eminence."
The onlookers flinched. No one contradicted an arch-acolyte in public, let alone a cardinal. Marradi's smooth pinkness turned a fraction pinker. He pursed his little mouth:
"You were there, I suppose?" he squeaked.
Toby could boom. "No, but I am here, in Florence, in your city, which I have sworn to defend with my life. Why are you not willing to assist its people in their hour of need? For all of that thousand years you mentioned, the College has waged war on hexers, and rightly so. It has invariably confiscated any immured demon it could lay its hands on, and it is public knowledge that all of those hundreds, nay thousands, of—"
"Public knowledge is worthless knowledge, my son. Those jewels and the demons they contain are taken to Rome to be destroyed, not hoarded in some secret cellar as you imply." His Eminence gibbered the words, sprayed them. "Even if we did control a legion of demons, to use it for the furtherance of evil would—"
"Is self-defense evil? If we use them only for that?"
"I have told you. Those demons do not exist."
"Then if you will not take pity on the men who will die because of your stubbornness, will you not save the tutelaries and spirits? Do you deny that whenever Nevil takes a city he turns its spirits into demons to serve his cause and thus continues to increase his power while you and others like you close your eyes to the suffering and—"
"Insolence! Blasphemy! Chancellor, remove this man and his companion from our presence!"
Toby turned on his heel and walked out.