Popes and Phantoms

by John Whitbourn

  ‘Oh,’ said Admiral Slovo, ‘you mean when I had my swimming lessons …’

  The Year 1486

  ‘SWIMMING LESSONS: After a sad and lonely childhood, cast as an orphan into the wicked world, I discover my vocation and philosophy of life. Piracy suits me very well.’

  ‘No, I’m sorry. I’m afraid you’ll have to walk home.’

  The Venetian nobleman looked down at Admiral Slovo and raised an enquiring eyebrow.

  ‘Well, yes, I know,’ explained Slovo to the man poised on the deck rail. ‘Call me faithless if you like …’

  ‘You are faithless,’ obliged the Venetian. ‘You promised me my life.’

  ‘Agreed,’ conceded the Admiral, folding his arms and leaning convivially against the rail, beside the Venetian’s feet. ‘But that was then and this is …’

  ‘Now. Yes, I quite see,’ interrupted the nobleman. ‘And I must say I take your decision personally, you know.’

  ‘Oh dear, I do wish you wouldn’t,’ replied Slovo, reasonably. ‘Put yourself in my shoes …’

  Some of the crew, who had nothing better to do than watch the show, found grounds for bestial amusement at this aside but the Admiral silenced them with a glance.

  ‘What I mean,’ he continued, ‘is that despite doubtless genuine grounds for grievance, you are refusing to see the problem in the round. His Holiness and your Serene Republic are nominally at peace at this juncture. It would not do, therefore, for me to return to Ostia bearing the sole survivor of a forbidden piratical venture, would it now?’

  They both turned to look at the nearby once-grand galley, now afire and sinking; its crew (bar one) dead in battle or by subsequent murder, still aboard.

  ‘Come to think of it,’ the Admiral mused, ‘my commission from His Holiness even precludes attacks on fellow Christians. Venetian though you may be, I assume that you come within that category …?’ And when the nobleman shrugged, Slovo added, ‘Well, there you are then, you see the quandary my greed-inspired oath puts me in.’

  The Venetian looked underwhelmed by the Admiral’s dilemma. ‘You just want my library, that’s what it is,’ he stated calmly. ‘I saw you leafing through it with lust in your eyes. You wish for undisputed title.’

  Admiral Slovo admitted the possibility with a shift of the shoulders. ‘Well, that may have something to do with it, but I’d thank you to keep your voice down. Bibliomania does not accord with my professional image. The crew might nurture false notions, requiring bloody suppression.’

  ‘That library has been generations in the acquiring,’ said the Venetian firmly. ‘I’m not giving it up.’

  Admiral Slovo stood up and stretched. ‘I’m rather afraid you are,’ he said. ‘To prepare yourself for Paradise, your books and heart must surely part. Now off you go, there’s a good chap.’

  The Venetian glowered at the half circle of buccaneers below him but realized that his position was futile. ‘I do not consider this conversation to be at an end,’ he said equably. The pirates smiled. Then, with as much dignity as could be mustered, he turned and walked off the plank into the Mediterranean sea.

  ‘Stop oars!’

  The strokemaster’s roar echoed off into silence. All the crew were shifting in their appointed stations and straining to see.

  ‘Keep to your places, if you please,’ said Admiral Slovo to his Bosun. As intended, he relayed the command to the crew in louder and coarser terms. There was a just acceptable lowering of the level of frenzy.

  ‘Look, there he is!’ shouted the look-out in the stern. ‘Out there!’

  Slovo strode to join him and peered into the distant blue. ‘It’s possible,’ he conceded eventually. ‘How interesting.’

  The Bosun, who had no other name known to man, had for career’s sake emphasized the animal within but in fact he retained a worthwhile intellect and was invited to join them.

  ‘Can’t be sure at that distance,’ he barked. ‘It’s blurred – might be jetsam.’

  ‘I think not,’ said the Admiral authoritatively. ‘I have never heard of swimming jetsam. Look, one can see the rise of an arm.’

  ‘There’s any number of overboards in the sea,’ replied Bosun indefatigably. ‘It don’t mean it’s our man.’

  Slovo nodded his tentative agreement. ‘I don’t see how it can be the Venetian either. He could hardly have lasted two days in the water. On the other hand, it does look awfully like him. If only he’d come a little closer so that his face was less … indistinct.’

  Bosun looked shocked at the expression of such a wish. ‘Let me go and get my crossbow, Admiral,’ he asked. ‘That’ll sort him!’

  ‘I think not,’ answered Slovo slowly. ‘If it’s a mere lost sailor, the sea will soon deal with the matter. Should, however, it be the Venetian, I cannot but feel that our weaponry will be of little avail. If we must be pursued by a revenant, I’d prefer it not to have a crossbow bolt in its brow.’

  Bosun was thinking this one through when, with a voice of joy, he noted that the figure had gone. In an explosion of relief, the crew threw discipline to the winds and scrambled to line the sides. No one had the heart to reprimand them. In a silence broken only by the call of gulls, everyone searched the waves for their obscure and elusive companion of the last day and night.

  ‘Down to Hell and fare ye well,’ said Bosun at last, when all agreed that sea and sky were all there was to see.

  The celebration was spoilt by the sound, starting low but rising to a thunderous roar, distorted by its passage through water and hull, of knocking from beneath the ship.

  After a further day of being shadowed at the very edge of sight, quite regardless of whatever turn of speed that wind and oar could produce, Admiral Slovo decided to head for land. For all he cared, the dead Venetian could follow him and hammer on his ship for eternity. Alas, however, the crew were not so philosophical. Even Bosun, who feared neither God nor State (not fully understanding the power of either) was getting edgy. Slovo, who maintained control by a record of success and the occasional exemplary death, knew when not to push his luck too far.

  As they rowed home with unusual will, Slovo dallied at the stern and considered what problems this change of heart would bring. His words to the Venetian about inter-Christian piracy had not been idle ones and should their companion remain, a leech-like embarrassment, when they came to dock, then … difficult questions would be asked.

  Still, never mind, thought the Admiral at length, never one to worry long. Better the chance of a Papal scaffold than the certainty of mutiny. He even waved to the Venetian with his newly acquired reading book, The Meditations of Marcus Aurelius.

  ‘This is good stuff,’ he shouted. ‘I’m much obliged to you.’

  Slovo was awoken by the sound of a ragged rattle of oars and a lack of progress. He had only to raise himself up from the deck to discover the reason for both.

  Half a league off and silhouetted against the dawn was the Venetian, standing on the water and blocking their path.

  Order took a bit of time to restore, even with the flat of a sword, and in the end it was easiest just to tell them to put about. That at least, the crew were glad to do.

  One bank of oarsmen fidgeted on their benches whilst the other furiously tore at the sea and, bit by bit, gradually turned the galley’s back on the sodden, silent, watcher. Then, using their joint efforts, they sped away from home into deep water, for once not needing the strokemaster’s hypnotic call.

  Admiral Slovo, seated at the stern, studied the swiftly receding Venetian and the compliment was returned in kind. Then, mission apparently fulfilled, the corpse slowly slipped back, inch by inch, beneath the waves, its guessed-at gaze never deviating until the water closed over its green, floating locks.

  Bosun shuddered, not caring who saw him do so.

  ‘I’ve not seen the ship move so fast since that encounter with the Ottoman harem-ship,’ said the Admiral, jocularly. Bosun appeared not to hear him and Slovo felt entitled to allow his disgr
untlement a further outing. ‘I spent what was it?’ he mused, ‘on the Satan’s-head ram which adorns the prow of this ship. Why then, Master Bosun, did we not employ it to sunder apart this persistent little man who dogs our steps?’

  Before Bosun could reply, the look-out called out. ‘Ahoy! He’s back!’

  They saw that this was so. The swimmer had returned.

  ‘Might is right – but not always applicable,’ said Bosun in reply to Slovo – inadvertently revealing, in his agitation, hidden depths and a secret taste for metaphysics.

  ‘You could just be right, you know,’ said the Admiral, making a note to keep an even closer eye on this dark horse. ‘Perhaps philosophy is the answer. Tell them to up oars.’

  Very reluctantly, the rowers were persuaded to desist whilst their Captain came to stand before them. He delayed a moment to achieve the required mental downgrading to permit communication.

  ‘It’s like this,’ he said when finally prepared for the contamination. ‘We’re being chased – us, chased! Us wot as faced the ships of Sultan Bayezid and put holes in the galleons of the Mamelukes! Now, tell me, is this right? Is it proper?’

  He paused for dramatic effect. No one answered. Only from beneath the ship came the sound of urgent knocking.

  The following day, Admiral Slovo woke to the more than usually sullen stares of the crew and knew straightaway that something had happened. He enquired as to the state of play from Bosun.

  ‘As soon as we get too far for his fancy, he blocks our way and the crew put about, orders or no. We’re going nowhere fast.’

  ‘Ultimately, life is like that,’ said Slovo sharply. ‘As a philosopher, you should appreciate that.’

  ‘And the look-out is gone.’

  ‘Gone?’

  ‘Sometime during the night and silent as you like. Only I should say, he’s not entirely gone.’

  ‘How so?’

  ‘The Venetian left half the rib-cage behind.’

  Slovo refused to be out-cooled. ‘That was considerate of him,’ he said. ‘At least we’re left in no doubt.’ Then, quoting from The Meditations, he said, ‘It is not the thing that disturbs thee, but thine own judgement about it?’

  Bosun looked ruefully towards the rising sun. ‘This is quite some “thing” we’re facing here, Admiral,’ he said. ‘Do you reckon Look-out made his judgement of it before it got him?’

  Eventually Slovo was called on by name and he was glad of it. It was undignified being harried back and forth, subject to the impertinences of a restive crew, and far better matters should end this way rather than in death by thirst or mutiny.

  The Venetian, afar off and a mere matchstick figure, clung to an ancient buoy and added his voice to its doleful bell.

  ‘SLO-VO! he called, over and over, in time with the bell-note. ‘SLO-VO! Despite the distance his voice was loud and clear.

  Without being bidden the crew had upped oars and thus declared themselves spectators while the galley drifted, becalmed.

  The prisoner of his professional image, Admiral Slovo remained impassive. Lolling in his Captain’s chair, he called across to the Venetian, confident that in nature’s present suspension his unraised voice would carry. ‘Well then, hello again,’ he said. ‘And what can I do for you?’

  There was a long pause before the Venetian replied. ‘MY BOOOOOOOOKS!’ he howled at last.

  Slovo had anticipated this. He signalled to Bosun that the prepared cask of book-booty be cast overboard like its former owner.

  Before the noise of the splash had died away the Venetian called again, ‘AND THE MEDITATIONS OF AURELIUS …’

  The Admiral grimaced. That particular book had spoken to him on levels he did not know he owned. He’d very much wished to keep and finish it.

  ‘So be it,’ he answered eventually and, fetching the text from its hiding place, flung it over the rail.

  The quiet returned. Slovo fancied the Venetian was savouring his post-mortem triumph. In order to spoil this gloat, he resumed the conversation. ‘And what now?’ he asked.

  Another long pause and then: ‘NOW I’D LIKE YOU TO SWIM WITH ME.’

  Most of the crew turned their attention to the Admiral. How he dealt with this would determine his position in the Mediterranean pirates’ hall of fame.

  ‘I can’t swim,’ he answered simply.

  There was no shame in this. Most mariners of the time preferred not to learn how to prolong the agony should Mother Sea claim them. Not a bad point, judged the crew and looked back at the Venetian.

  ‘YOU’LL MANAGE,’ he shot straight back. ‘YOU’LL FIND, AS A CORPSE, YOU HAVE A CERTAIN FACILITY IN THE WATER.’

  His shipmates were still reeling this one in as Slovo countered, ‘You are not being a reasonable man.’

  ‘THANKS TO YOU,’ came the reply, ‘I AM NO LONGER A MAN AT ALL.’

  There was no real answer to this and Slovo subsided into his seat.

  From below the galley there erupted the hammering of many hands. Unlike hitherto, the Venetian remained visible. It seemed he could now call on helpers.

  ‘IT IS TIME,’ came the call. ‘COME TO ME.’

  The pounding on the hull rose and threatened to turn it into matchwood. Slovo realized that between the vengeful ghost and the fearful crew there was little to choose: his life was over and all that remained was to leave it with style. When he rose and snapped his finger at the Venetian, by nods and mumbles the crew signalled their approval of this defiance in the face of despair.

  The sea erupted and bubbled. All around the galley and for some distance outwards, the water was alive – no other word for it – with floating corpses.

  ‘THEY WILL BEAR YOUR WEIGHT, ADMIRAL,’ wailed the Venetian. ‘COME TO ME.’

  Slovo ignored a final spasm of weakness which made him wish he could turn and look to his crew for support. He knew that he had lost them; their reservoirs of primal dread outweighing any such latecomer concepts as loyalty or courage. Nothing else for it: Admiral Slovo was alone again. He vaulted over the ship’s rail.

  The dead men dipped and rocked but, as promised, they formed a path of sorts. Ignoring their undead stares – eyeless or otherwise – Slovo made his way to the Venetian. Close up, he saw that three days in the company of King Neptune and his little fishes had not been kind to the body.

  ‘Hello, Slovo.’ The greeting was uttered through nibbled lips.

  ‘We meet once more, Master Venetian.’ So saying, Slovo raised his lace kerchief to his nose. The once exquisite nobleman was now less than social in company.

  ‘You wouldn’t believe the number of us down here,’ said the Venetian by way of small talk and indicating his carpet of comrades. ‘Many of them put there by the likes of you. That fact may account for the assistance vouchsafed me in my quest. Even the sea has moral standards, it transpires.’

  ‘Who’d have thought it?’ quipped the Admiral.

  The man and the revenant regarded each other with mutual distaste. Then the Venetian left the rusted buoy, causing its bell to toll, and reached out to grasp Slovo’s throat. He did not meet any resistance and the saturated flesh of his plump and swollen fingers easily covered the Admiral’s neck from ruff to chin.

  Eye to eye with his nemesis (save that its eyes were in some fish somewhere), Slovo patiently awaited the application of pressure – and whatever lay beyond. After a while he realized that pain and death were a long time coming. The Venetian, poised upon fulfilment of his last wish, appeared undecided.

  At last, the green mouth opened and, on a gale of salt-breath, it spoke into Slovo’s face. ‘Never allow yourself to be swept off your feet,’ he quoted. ‘When an impulse stirs, see first that it will meet the claims of justice … to refrain from imitation is the best revenge.’

  ‘Meditations?’ croaked Slovo.

  The Venetian rocked his wobbly head. ‘Of the divine Marcus Aurelius,’ he confirmed. ‘The guiding light of my life – both of which you took. One has been returned but the other …
’

  Admiral Slovo said nothing – mainly because it would have hurt too much.

  ‘His Stoic principles attended my every thought and action: to the very point where I quietly trod a plank at your request.’

  It seemed to Slovo that the vice-grip on his windpipe had eased somewhat, although he did not yet dare to hope.

  ‘You did not deprive me of my faith during life,’ mused the Venetian, ‘why should you have that victory in death?’

  ‘Why indeed?’ Slovo hissed.

  The Venetian nodded again. ‘I will not kill you,’ he said.

  Less happy than he should be, the Admiral waited in vain for the hand to release him.

  ‘I will take from you less than what is owed me,’ the Venetian went on. ‘I will have from you the energy to sustain my half-life – and thus condemn you to the same fate. There is justice in that, a moderation of vengeance. Such restraint is truly Stoical.’

  With this, he applied his lips to Slovo’s and they grappled in an obscene French kiss. Nauseated beyond endurance, Slovo felt himself losing … something, and then was calm.

  The Venetian dropped him and stood back. He seemed reinvigorated and exultant. ‘Your life-force is good,’ he said. ‘It will last me till my flesh and sinews at length decay. I shall have time to read my books!’

  Admiral Slovo regained his footing and wondered why he felt so uninvolved.

  ‘And you,’ the dead man said, answering the unspoken question, ‘I have left you with enough to live out your life. Life, of a sort, at least. I have been merciful.’

  ‘Then thank you,’ said Slovo politely.

  The Venetian smiled – which was the worst sight of all. ‘You are changed already,’ he said. ‘Such aridity! I afflict you with a curse and you thank me!’ So saying, he sank beneath the waves.

  Admiral Slovo turned rapidly back for his ship, not knowing how long the ex-human footway would last. In a gentle kind of way he was looking forward to the reunion with his crew and, still a way off, favoured them with a tigerish smile. Their disloyalty no longer worried him. He felt happy about the changes that would be made – by knife and rope and shot. And he was less troubled, less disturbed by flibbertigibbet thoughts and his own emotions than before. It might well be the peace of the desert, but at least he had found peace of mind.