Popes and Phantoms

by John Whitbourn

  The process brought a little more reasonableness to the man Slovo had selected. Wide-eyed, he rushed away from his companions as Droz and the Scots moved in.

  ‘I’m very sorry,’ explained the Admiral to him, ‘but my instructions were very clear: “root and branch” were the words – and so it must be.’

  ‘You do not understand what you are destroying!’ said the survivor, half angry, half placatory.

  ‘On the contrary, Master Pacioli, I am only too well aware,’ replied Slovo. ‘But if it is any comfort I suspect that I have destroyed nothing, merely postponed something. By the way, whilst unable to actually admire your great book, I appreciate the power and thought within and, of course, the illustrations by Da Vinci.’

  Despite the circumstances and the bodies piling up, Luca Pacioli, author of Summa de Arithmetica (Venice 1494), the world’s very first accountancy and double-entry book-keeping primer, was fanatic enough to enjoy the pseudo-compliment.

  ‘It is the start of great things!’ he said excitedly. ‘It was the reason I was chosen. And it can still go on, it is not too late! Despite what you’ve done, we can still cut you in.’

  Admiral Slovo smiled his thanks for the offer but declined. ‘Not my cup of sherbet, I’m afraid,’ he explained politely. ‘I’m rather partial to being on the winning side, you see, and your … persuasion’s time is not yet come. It will soon, doubtless, but today’s work will set you back until well after I am safely dust.’

  ‘That cannot be!’ answered Pacioli, calmer and more rational now that the screaming round about him was over. ‘We have logic on our side.’

  ‘A commendably austere ally,’ agreed Slovo, ‘and thus not in keeping with the spirit of the age. Incidentally, who chose you? What did it call itself?’

  ‘Just such a spirit as you speak of,’ said Pacioli, with all the fervour of a true believer, ‘but not that of this untidy, ungoverned era. The spirit that called to me was of a glorious time to come! There will be an ending of history when man will speak, rationally, to man – but only as much as is necessary and only of solid, tangible subjects. Life will be sensible and capable of prediction and …’

  ‘Yes, yes, yes, spare me,’ interrupted Slovo. ‘The name if you please, sirrah.’

  ‘It called itself the Te Deum,’ replied Pacioli, winding down again. ‘I do not pretend to understand that – perhaps some play on the Latin or the Church service of that title. Still, with all it promised for mankind, I felt that this initial irrationalism could be overlooked.’

  ‘Indeed,’ said Slovo charitably.

  ‘I was its chosen prophet and it called me Gateway. My humble book was its prompting, the invitation and portal into our world, I was told, and I would be accordingly blessed. I was honoured to receive its precise instructions for the building of its dwelling place, its tabernacle – just like Moses the Hebrew and the old, now superseded, spirit of Jehovah.’

  Numa Droz and his company, all devout Christians in so far as their career would permit it, made menacing signs of disapproval at this blasphemy. Admiral Slovo silenced their growls with a gesture.

  ‘Which was the grey obelisk with drawers, I take it,’ said the Admiral.

  ‘“The Filing Cabinet” as we were told to name it,’ confirmed Pacioli. ‘Therein its spirit would dwell. The Doge, inspired by the vision vouchsafed me, spared no effort in its construction, but the Te Deum was unassuming and its requirements modest; mere sheet metal of grey with trays of lighter fawn – a humble house for so universal a benison.’

  ‘But sadly vulnerable to the brute force of cannon balls,’ commented Slovo.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Pacioli bitterly. ‘You have sundered the House of the New god and killed his priests. It and I and history will never forgive you.’

  ‘Fortunately, I care nothing for the judgement of all three,’ said Slovo.

  ‘Yet you have nothing of the emotional about you,’ said Pacioli, making a last valiant effort. ‘You could easily be one of us. When we opened the drawer of the Filing Cabinet to allow the spirit of the Te Deum to go forth and disconcert its enemies, its calming breath must have touched and inspired you.’

  Admiral Slovo smiled as if gently declining an invitation to a party.

  ‘But you refused the call of the New Way and broke its tabernacle,’ said Pacioli in a crushed voice. ‘And now its spirit wanders I know not where.’

  ‘I AM HERE,’ said another voice, crashing into Pacioli’s mouth like a guillotine. It sounded deceptively mild, the voice of a man outlining something dull but inevitable. ‘And though now homeless, I will never again go away.’

  The soldiers all about crossed themselves. Pacioli seemed fully aware of his occupation by extraneous forces and tears of joy began to roll down his annexed face.

  ‘I could have given you so much,’ continued the voice. ‘First, the Venice-of-the-million-Office-workers, and then on and out to the greater world. Think, Admiral, you might have had fast-food by 1650; Kalashnikovs and motorways by 1750!’

  ‘Sorry,’ said Admiral Slovo. ‘My bosses didn’t go for it – whatever it is you’re talking about.’

  ‘Well yes, you should always do as your superiors direct,’ conceded the voice. ‘I just wish they’d been a little less short-sighted.’

  ‘Thank you for being so understanding,’ said Slovo and then stabbed Pacioli in the eye with a stiletto.

  The proto-accountant died instantly but the Te Deum’s animating force lingered on, causing the body to remain limply upright. It seemed an appropriate stance, all things considered.

  ‘You’re not rid of me,’ the voice went on from Pacioli’s gaping mouth as though nothing had happened. ‘This carcass was my gateway and such I named him. He may be gone but I’m through the gate and here to stay. He and I have planted a seed. It will assuredly flower in some other time and place.’

  ‘A grey bloom will surely hold little appeal,’ said Slovo.

  ‘Oh, you’d be surprised!’ snapped back the voice. ‘My disciples pay a high personal price, it’s true, but what I teach holds the key to power. There will always be consumers for my product.’

  ‘Balls!’ said Numa Droz, obscurely offended by this talk and holding aloft his sword. ‘This is power!’

  Pacioli’s dead eyes beheld the blade and his slack mouth was twisted into an ironic smile.

  ‘For a little while longer,’ the Voice agreed. ‘But one day, and it will not be long delayed, my disciples in grey with their calculators and briefcases will each command the power of ten thousand such … swords.’

  ‘Sounds good,’ said Numa Droz eagerly. ‘How do you make these kal-cool-ators and bre-cases? Are they single or double-edged?’

  ‘You couldn’t handle them,’ replied the Voice, dismissing him. ‘You are the past. So is Venice, so is Italy. They have failed or rejected me and will thus decline. Romance and interest they may well retain, but power will migrate and then return to conquer them. I shall fuel, inspire and then accompany that power when the day comes, and imagination will have to bow its knee. Meanwhile, I must bide my time and await the inevitable call from elsewhere – perhaps from the lands of the North. We shall see, shall we not. I’ll be back.’

  To Slovo, these threats were like growls from sheep – insulting rather than fearful. With a nod of the head, he indicated the troops should move in.

  They hacked with their swords, bringing the ex-Pacioli down, but their grievous blows, a leg off here, a cloven head there, did not deprive the Te Deum of speech.

  ‘There will be accountancy,’ it bubbled and spluttered. ‘And insurance and statistics, audit and risk-analysis. I will bind the world and make it safe. Tomorrow belongs to me!’

  At that point Pacioli’s interconnected body parts gave way and the spirit fled. Slovo and the soldiers saw a smoky shape skim over them and away. As it passed, it turned a Scot’s prized red locks grey. A final message perhaps.

  And that was the last Admiral Slovo knew of the matter.

>   A century or so later, an Antwerp cloth merchant woke up one morning and found that, out of nowhere, his head was full of startling new business ideas (a bit grinding maybe but very sound even so). By then, of course, Admiral Slovo was dead and gone.

  The Year 1509

  ‘In bed with the Borgias. Cannons and cuckoldry in Northern Italy. An ordeal not entirely in accord with my tastes.’

  ‘So, how was it for you?’

  Admiral Slovo propped himself up in bed and considered the question. ‘Very interesting,’ he said at length.

  ‘But nothing like the real thing, I suppose.’

  ‘Merely different,’ the Admiral corrected. ‘A little … crowded perhaps – especially so, now that passion is spent.’

  Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, was loath to dismiss the bevy of handmaidens, especially since the one trained in Sapphic verse was sleepily lisping her favourite lines:

  Some say a cavalry corps,

  some infantry, some again

  will maintain that the swift oars

  of our fleet are the finest

  sight on dark earth, but I say

  that whatever one loves, is.

  She waited until the last moving words were said and then shooed all the painted hussies from the giant bed. Admiral Slovo stoically endured being clambered over by young female flesh and was polite enough to utter his thanks as each body passed. They moved as swiftly as they could, for fear of Lucrezia’s whip – there’d been enough of that in the night.

  In private at last, the Duchess offered the Admiral a compliant smile. ‘There,’ she said, ‘I don’t suppose you always get such a warm welcome from the Vehme.’

  Admiral was leaning over the side of the bed, ensuring that his boots (and thus the concealed stiletto) were still in easy reach. Only then could he relax sufficiently to frame a reply. ‘No indeed,’ he said. ‘Imposition on my own hospitality and bulk consumption of my wine is more the norm. Therefore I thank you for a night of quite exquisite diversion, not to mention surprises.’

  ‘How so?’ asked Lucrezia, intrigued. She had seen the Admiral as a challenge, a grand test of her bedroom skills, little expecting such a return in physical and mental stimulation.

  ‘I don’t refer to the extension of my erotic range, as you might think,’ he mused – and Lucrezia looked disappointed, ‘but to the revelations about your status. I must confess that I never suspected you of leadership of the Borgia clan, let alone membership of the Vehme. I am getting old and unobservant.’

  Lucrezia was thinking her own thoughts about the passing of years and, at the advanced age of thirty, had been hopeful of a compliment on her continuing loveliness and her mettlesome performance in bed. However, she kindly overlooked the Admiral’s incivility. Those same years had provided ample opportunity to become hardened to the selfishness of men.

  ‘The deception was fully intentional,’ she said. ‘I am only too gratified to hear of its success. In each Borgia generation one member is pre-eminent by virtue of their ambition or drive. Daddy, I grant you, was a good Pope – religious considerations aside – and poor dead Cesare was excellent at frightening people. Juan and Joffre, whilst not much use for anything else, could at least breed and restock the line. I was the one chosen to lead, although forced to dissimulate and adopt a secret guiding role by my sex and the prejudice of the age. We haven’t done so badly out of it, all things considered, and the Vehme seemed to concur with the family’s appointment.’

  ‘Is that general Borgia knowledge?’ asked Slovo, rearranging their scarlet sheets to protect his modesty.

  ‘Oh no!’ said the Duchess, uncovering herself again. ‘That’s my own little secret. Besides, I’m not a full initiate, admitted into the perfection of their embrace. My Christian beliefs, increasingly persuasive as I … age, preclude me from that.’

  ‘Most commendable,’ said Admiral Slovo, and rested his head back on the opulent pillows. Through the window he could see across the City Square to where the Cathedral of St George faced the d’Este family ‘Tower of the Lions’ in which he now lay. Morning was already well advanced and the distant noise of commerce wafted up to disturb the idyll. ‘I hesitate to foreclose this interlude of delight,’ he said, ‘but shouldn’t we consider the return of Duke Alfonso?’

  Lucrezia snorted her contempt.

  ‘If he visited my boudoir, I’d die of surprise rather than a cuckold’s revenge,’ she said. ‘True, early in our marriage, he built a “secret” passage between my rooms and his, hoping to take me unawares in illicit passion, but it remains unused. Perhaps that’s just as well since I’ve had it booby-trapped. But no, Admiral, I’d need to dress up as a cannon before he’d show any such interest as you fear!’

  ‘Yes,’ said Slovo, ‘when I met the Duke he did in fact speak to me of his great love for artillery – at some length.’

  ‘He spends his days at the cannon foundry he’s created – in search of the perfect piece of ordnance. Still, it does at least further the cause of the Ferraran State which he inherited and I run. Our army is well served, even if I am not.’

  ‘Many ladies of quality would envy your marital arrangements,’ said the Admiral, ‘wishing their husbands would attend more to Mars than Venus. Certainly, Duke Alfonso fought creditably when we were together last year at Ghiaradadda.’

  ‘Yes,’ said Lucrezia archly, ‘he saves his performances for the battlefield.’ Seeing the Admiral’s attention was distracted, she added, ‘Oh, I do apologize for the noise incidentally …’

  Admiral Slovo was well aware of the cause of the sound of padding feet and the occasional sob coming from above. Duke Alfonso’s two half-brothers, Giulio and Ferrante, had been imprisoned there, one above the other in windowless cells, since a bungled coup attempt five years ago. What the Admiral could not know was that they were to remain there, fed by manna descending through a hole in the ceiling, unmentioned and unlamented by their family, for fifty-three and forty-three years respectively. It had amused Duke Alfonso to house them within audible range of his intimidating wife.

  A Gascon priest, similarly involved, had been less favourably treated. Since no secular prince could lawfully execute a priest, Alfonso had housed him in an external hanging cage and was content to let winter or hunger do the deed. In the event, there had proven to be one kind person in the Castle and he or she had dropped the priest a cloth with which to hang himself. His body still resided in the cage, a gruesome sight for the Admiral to feast his eyes upon when he’d arrived.

  Aware therefore of such tokens of Ducal displeasure, Admiral Slovo still felt he had good cause to fear Alfonso’s revenge. However, he was too courteous to return to the topic. Brushing her questing hand away from his privates, he said, ‘Rest at ease, Duchess,’ and levered himself out of bed, gathering his clothes for fear of further intimacy developing. ‘At least your husband made himself most useful to us. Among other things, the Ferraran artillery proved decisive in confounding the Venetians.’

  ‘And not just the Venetians,’ said Lucrezia with a sly smile.

  ‘Ah,’ said the Admiral, climbing into his tights. ‘So you’ve received a briefing about that then?’

  ‘About the Te Deum and the Filing Cabinet? Of course! I insisted on full disclosure from the Vehme as a pre-condition to declaring war on so powerful a neighbour as Venice. By the by, they positively sang your praises afterwards – and rightly so. It’s not everyone who gets to snuff out a religion.’

  Slovo was brushing his straight, silver hair and turned to face the recumbent Duchess. ‘As I constantly state,’ he said, ‘I fear the “snuffed” candle will one day re-light. We have retained simplicity and man-scaled civilization for a few generations more, that is all.’

  ‘Well, as for the future,’ said Lucrezia, ‘the Vehme have other wonders for you to perform nearer to home.’

  ‘Surely not Capri?’

  ‘The Church.’

  ‘I wondered when they’d dare to tackle it!’ said Slovo. �
��They are aware, I hope, that they cannot count on my total engagement in this project?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ Lucrezia hurried to say. ‘You and I are in a similar case with our affection for Mother Church. Still, there is no harm in letting the Vehme chance their arm – and lose it.’

  ‘You make a good case, Madame,’ said the Admiral, in full agreement. ‘It is written that one must not put God to the test, but I recall nothing to that effect in scripture relating to his earthly representatives. It will be an interesting experiment. What do they want of me?’

  ‘Against so formidable an opponent, the Vehme first propose to divide before they conquer. Their aim is to split the Church.’

  Slovo was helping himself to a reviving glass of wine. ‘Between saints and sinners?’ he asked as he poured. ‘Believers and the ambitious?’

  ‘The exact details were not vouchsafed me,’ the Duchess replied. ‘I am only informed that there are two separate people whom they wish you to meet. Presumably The Book says that your presence is required. Neither are initiates or even sympathizers, but merely those in whom the Vehme have invested hopes. The first they say you need not unduly concern yourself with. Apparently it is thought mere proximity to your company will have the desired effect. The second they wish you to “entertain”, “Broaden his horizons” were their exact words.’

  ‘And what were their names, Madame?’ asked Slovo, preparing to go.

  ‘For that information,’ came the answer in a coquettish voice, ‘there is a price. I first require you to “entertain” me. Come back to bed and “broaden my horizons”. And other places …’

  Admiral Slovo considered the prospect and reluctantly resigned himself to compliance. There was, he comforted himself, at least a certain aptness in doing to a Borgia what the Borgias had long done to the wider world.

  The Year 1510

  ‘THE FLOWERING OF THE REFORMATION & FATHER DROZ’S LITTLE OUTING: A symposium on faith, carnal lust and sausage. I guiltily sow weeds in the fields of Mother Church.’