Dave Duncan - When the Saints

“Vlad,” Wulf said. “Otto won’t want it, and no one can do a better job of modernizing Gallant’s defenses than Vlad.”

“Can you really arrange things like that?”

He closed the door and turned to face her. For a moment the shifting lamplight seemed to shine through a crack in his facade of wedding-night joy and excitement to illuminate the dread inside. “ I must!” he said. “It is my duty, plain and simple. For three hundred years the Magnuses of Dobkov have served the House of Jorgar without cavil or stint, and more than half its sons have died in that cause. My service will be different, but to be true to my ancestors, I must do my utmost to keep King Krystof on his throne as long as I have breath in my body. You won’t,” he added with sudden alarm, “forbid me this, will you, my darling cadger?”

“Of course not,” she said. “My family has held the northern gate of the kingdom for even longer, and many a Bukovany has fallen defending it. We’ll serve together.” Then she couldn’t resist adding, “And God save the king!”

Wulf exploded in laughter and pulled her into an embrace.

The corruption in the Church in the Early Renaissance is well documented and was no secret at the time. As an example, Pope Sixtus IV was deeply involved in the “Pazzi Conspiracy,” a plot to murder two leading Florentines, Lorenzo (“the Magnificent”) de’ Medici and his brother Giuliano, planning to replace them with Girolamo Riario, one of his own nephews. The two de’ Medici were assaulted in front of the altar of the cathedral during Mass. Lorenzo was wounded, but escaped; his brother died. Sixtus also established the Spanish Inquisition and confirmed the notorious Tomas de Torquemada as its grand inquisitor. He was one of the bad popes. Some of his successors were even worse, and yet it was almost fifty years before Martin Luther launched the Reformation.