“So far, yes,” Matt agreed. “But if we can interest him in some sort of moral principles, maybe we can balance that downward trend and pull it up to a level.”
“And how shall you manage that? He will have nothing to do with religion!”
“No,” Matt said, “but he is interested in the old learning, in the writings of the Greeks and Remans.”
“Is he truly?” Brother Thomas said slowly, turning to look at Arouetto. The scholar held up both palms to fend him off. “Do not seek to saddle me with him, I pray! My faith is in God first, yes, but in humankind second! Would you have this secular king become a humanist?”
“Yes,” Brother Thomas said, the fire of zeal lighting his eye. “It will bring him morality of a sort; it will bring him ethical principles!”
“But I am not a teacher!”
“Only because you haven’t been asked,” Matt pointed out. “King Boncorro will not ask me to teach him!”
“Want to bet?”
“I’ll bet,” Saul said. “I’ll bet that this Chancellor Rebozo won’t let Arouetto within a mile of the king!”
“He must indeed have some protection.” Brother Thomas’ keen gaze seemed to sink right into Matt’s brain. “Saul and I might be enough protection, between us,” Matt admitted, “but Saul’s a secular humanist himself, and I have more than my share of spiritual weaknesses. Wouldn’t we need some kind of shielding?”
Brother Thomas sighed. “All we can offer is prayer, but I speak ahead of myself. I cannot decide on so weighty a matter. You must speak to the Holy Father and let him judge your wisdom or folly.”
“The pope?” Matt stared.
“Even so. I shall arrange an audience.”
“Well, there’s only the three of us,” Matt said, “and that’s not much of a house-but if you can give us a chance, maybe we can persuade him.”
The only problem was, he wasn’t sure what he was going to be trying to persuade the pope to do. “Let you leave the Vatican?” The pope smiled. ‘To be sure! You may leave whenever you wish! But how shall you pass through the lines of the condottieri who surround us?“
“Condottieri?” Matt turned to Brother Thomas. “You didn’t tell us about this.”
The monk waved the objection away. “Surely a minor detail, for a wizard of your prowess.”
“Maybe not,” Saul said, glowering. “Who are these bandits, and how many of them are there?”
“Several thousand,” the pope sighed, “and they have celebrated the third anniversary of their surrounding of our hill.”
“Three years in place?” Saul looked up, almost indignantly. “How come they haven’t all died of dysentery and cholera?”
“Oh, they live well,” Brother Thomas told him. “Their days may be filled with drill and other military exercises, but their nights are wild with revelry. The king keeps them well-supplied with wine and women and money for gambling. They have settled down to stay, Lord Wizard. We speak not of a city of tents, mind you-they have built themselves wooden barracks, even houses for the officers. Their captains have captured the palaces of noblemen!”
“Captains, plural?” Saul demanded. “This isn’t just one band, then?”
“Nay,” said Brother Thomas. “It is eight bands, allied and agreed as to who has jurisdiction over which sector. In truth, they have taken the city of Reme and become its virtual government.”
“So it’s not just a campaign against you? You’re simply the only hill that’s been able to hold out?”
“Yes,” said the pope, “though our endurance is certainly not due to our handful of valiant Swiss guardsmen. I think the mercenary captains are in awe of us-either that, or our prayers are answered more strongly than even I would expect.”
“Or,” Saul said slowly, “they have more to gain by leaving you be than by capturing you.”
The pope turned to him, frowning. “How could that be?”
“Let’s just say, purely hypothetically, you understand, that the bandits did take the Vatican,” Saul said. “What would King Boncorro do then?”
The pope stood immobile as the consequences added up in his brain-but it was Brother Thomas who spoke. “He could not allow them to keep the ancient capital of the empire, could he?”
“Definitely not,” Saul said. ‘Too much prestige in it-not to mention a central location, the Tiber for a supply line, and all the surrounding farmland to feed them. They would start raiding the other cities-and there’s every chance they’d manage to take Latruria away from King Boncorro. After all, these guys aren’t simple forest bandits, are they?“
“Not at all,” Brother Thomas said, thin-lipped. “They are mercenary armies, seeking a living while they are unemployed.”
“What makes you so sure they’re unemployed?”
The other four men stared at Saul, astounded. “Yes, of course,” Matt said slowly. “King Boncorro couldn’t just leave them at loose ends, could he? He’d have them raiding all over the peninsula, wreaking chaos-and undermining the prosperity he’s trying to build. Better to pay them to stay out of the way.”
“Wouldn’t work,” Saul said firmly. “ ‘Once you have paid the Danegeld, you never get rid of the Dane.’ ”
“Dane?” The pope looked from one to the other, puzzled. “The Vikings who raided England,” Matt explained. “One of the kings tried to pay them off-and it worked for a few months, sometimes a year. But sooner or later they came back to demand more.”
“However,” Saul said, “if you didn’t just pay them to stay away, but hired them to do a definite job, they might stay occupied and permanently out of the way.”
“You are saying that the king hired them to lock us in, but never to take us?”
“No, I’m saying he told them to conquer you, but the captains figured out fast that once they took the Vatican, the paychecks would stop-so they came up with a plausible story about not being able to march past the foot of your slope, and settled down to starve you out.”
“But we have wells and water, and they have not attempted to keep the barges from selling us food!”
“Well, can they help it if they don’t have a navy?” Saul asked. “Meantime, the king pays them well to live in luxury. They’re happy, he’s happy-and you’re penned up where you can’t interfere with his plans.”
“It is possible, it is very possible,” the pope muttered, shaking his head. “I would not have thought him to be so devious.”
Saul shrugged. “Okay, so maybe he just told his chancellor to find a way to keep the mercenaries out of the way and peaceful, and Rebozo decided it was worth sacrificing Reme, to make sure you guys couldn’t bust up his plans. Would the king really worry about it?”
“Nay.” The pope’s lips thinned. “In fact, I can see that he might applaud the notion. But how are we to be rid of them?”
“Do you want to be?” Saul challenged. “Of course!” the pope snapped. “There is no chance of doing God’s work, of preaching the Gospel and administering the sacraments, if we are kept as virtual prisoners here!”
“But you have priests out in the countryside to do that work,” Saul objected, “priests in secret, priests in hiding, but no less effective for all that. I’ve even run into one man who claims that nothing spreads a religion so much as persecution.”
“I will allow that it tempers us and makes those of us who cling to the Faith crystalline in our belief,” the pope said, “but ‘spread’?”