"Eric Flint - 1634 - The Galileo Affair" - читать интересную книгу автора (Flint Eric)

Mazarini frowned at the volume as he took it. It was new, and well made, apparently the work of a
Parisian bookbinder. He riffled the pages; they were printed on the smooth and slightly marbled
Turk's-paper that French bibliophiles loved so well. He looked inside the front cover to see that the
frontispiece wasтАФhis eyebrows shot up. "From 1991?" he asked, looking up at the cardinal.

"Just so. I have had printed copies made and more securely bound." A slight sneer. "Whatever else the
next three hundred years may bring, improvements in bookbinding were not among them. The books we
have from Grantville began to fall apart quite quickly. I needed copies to refer to, and to distribute
to . . . various persons. Hand-copying would have engaged every stationer and monk in Paris for weeks
and the originals were too fragile to pass around. So I ordered them typeset and the illustrations carefully
cut by the best engravers I could find."

"Just so," Mazarini echoed. "And the passage to which Your Eminence wishes to direct my attention?"

"Ah, I do apologize. I began to muse on other matters. Permit meтАФ" Richelieu leaned over to flip a page
open by a bookmark. "Here," he said, tapping a bold-face heading.

Mazarini looked. It read:Mazarin, Cardinal Jules .

Mazarini focused his eyes on it, confirming thatтАФas with other versions he had seenтАФthey had gotten
his birth date wrong. Two days, but stillтАФ

He looked up at Richelieu. "I have read this. Or one much like it."

"They are all much alike, that I have seen."

To keep silence now, that was painful. Mazarini could not. "I have spoken withтАФI have spoken with a
number of peopleтАФ"

And the words dried up. He felt his palms start again with sweat, his pulse hammer in his ears. The
abstractтАФthe dry statement of a textbook that spoke of a future world, that spoke of events that would
not happen for years to comeтАФwas as nothing next to a living, breathing prince of the church directing
that he read the future course of his life.

Richelieu took pity on him. "You will have heard, perhaps, that I made a number of promotions rather
earlier than"тАФhe took in the cabinet with a languid waveтАФ"these texts say that I would have done?"

"And when last we met you offered then that I might come intoтАФ" Again, the sudden drying of the
mouth. This time, the words came after only a slight fumble "тАФyour confidence?"

Mazarini wondered that the cardinal did not hear the thunder of his heart. It was like holding the perfect
hand at cards, hoping against hope that the betting could be run up to higher and higher levels
withoutтАФbut Richelieu was nodding, slow and liquid, dreamlike, as if under water.

"Confidence," mused the cardinal. "As good a word as any. Knowing what you would do, what you are
capable of. I saw some of it at LyonтАФI greeted you thinking you came to spy, not to treat, convinced
you adhered wholly to my king's enemies. Two hours and you had convinced me of much that turned out
to be for the good of everyone involved. And then your theatrical coup at CasaleтАФmagnificent!"