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was preparing to seek advantage from your presence. I had thought that he would seek a more general war with Spain."
"He's not?"
"No. It seems that between Grantville and its Jews, His Eminence feels Sweden is strong enough that France is better served by alignment with Spain. Which puts me in a hard place."
"Oh?" Mazzare's face was suddenly still. Unlike Jones, he had been known to play the occasional hand of cards, and was good at it.
"Yes. I am now in poor odor in Rome. With France and Spain now aligning, my efforts to hold a balance between them are no longer so highly thought of. I have been these past few months trying to keep on my political feet."
Mazzare let out the breath he had been holding in a sigh. "That's nothing we hadn't heard, of course. We have a force out to—we have forces out. We suspected something of this kind must have happened. And His Holiness?"
Mazarini nodded. "Can do nothing for fear of the Spaniards. So long as we were providing a, a—"
"Level killing field?" Mazzare's tone was savage.
Mazarini, in return, was gloomy. "Yes, yes, rem acu tetigisti. A phrase of the twentieth century?" He thought for a moment of what Mantua had looked like after three years of bloody stalemate.
"Yes. An English diplomat," Mazzare spat the word, "sent to try and settle fighting in the Balkans."
Mazzare barked a short laugh. "I can excuse him a harsh word or two, if he was sent s