Rome, 1635, and Grantville’s diplomatic group, headed by Sharon Nichols, are making scant headway now it is becoming politically inexpedient for Pope Urban VIII to talk to them any longer. Sharon doesn’t brain, she has a marriage to program. Frank Stone offers moved to Rome and is attempting to cause the revolution one pizza at the same time. Cardinal Borja is gathering votes to bring the Church’s reformers to a halt in their tracks, on the orders of the Ruler of Spain. In the mean time, trouble is brewing in the roads, shadowy agitators are stirring up problems and Spain’s armies are massed over the border in the Kingdom of Naples, Cardinal Barberini wants the pamphleteers to stop slandering him and it looks like it will likely be a long, sizzling summer. Except that Cardinal Borja provides more ambitions than his masters in Madrid find out about, and has the assistance of Spain’s most notorious magic formula agent to bring about his sinister designs.