Popes and Phantoms

by John Whitbourn

  ‘All this in the month since we last met?’ Slovo asked, unable to accept the change in the once robust Pope.

  ‘I’ve kept things from you,’ answered Leo weakly. ‘But I can’t hide or ignore the matter any more: I want you to stop these Menorah dreams.’

  ‘And the thrust of these nocturnal visitations is that you should replace the said Menorah, I assume,’ Slovo said coolly.

  ‘Yes …’

  ‘And you wish me to do so on your behalf,’ Slovo went on, enjoying the stance of omnipotence.

  ‘Yes,’ answered Leo coldly. ‘And if you persevere in such prophecy, I may conceive that you are, in fact, there in my dreams and possibly even conducting them. If I were to come to such a conclusion, Admiral, it would not be a happy day for you.’

  Slovo gave way with a good-natured bow, and Leo pressed on.

  ‘I do indeed wish you to locate and replace this relic. For better or for worse, I have no one else to whom I can entrust such madness. Pirate you may be—’

  ‘Ex-pirate,’ protested Slovo mildly, ‘and mostly under Papal licence.’

  ‘A Stoic …’

  The Admiral stoically accepted the charge.

  ‘And a sodomite, so one hears.’

  Once again, Slovo thought it perhaps best to say nothing.

  ‘But useful,’ Leo concluded. ‘Besides,’ he went on, mustering a hollow laugh at some unshared knowledge, ‘you come highly recommended from a source you’d doubtless admire.’

  ‘A reference to the Pagan Emperors appearing in your dreams, I take it?’ ventured the Admiral.

  Leo X, vague amusement instantly forgotten, gripped the arms of his throne and tried to catch Slovo’s eye, looking for he knew not what.

  ‘A lucky guess,’ said the Admiral innocently. ‘And yes, I will do this thing, Your Holiness. By all appearances, it would seem I have been chosen.’

  At this Leo waved on a loitering attendant and Admiral Slovo discovered that he knew him well.

  ‘Hello, Leto,’ he said brightly. ‘So you haven’t been burnt yet, you old bugger!’

  Giulio Pomponio Leto, foremost classical scholar in Italy, frowned at the Admiral from under his sword-straight Roman fringe. As so often with kindred spirits, he and the Admiral cordially hated each other.

  ‘Hello, Admiral,’ replied Leto, his face forcing a smile but his voice full of stiletto-messages. ‘How gratifying to see you once more.’

  ‘The Menorah! The Menorah!’ roared Leo impatiently, catching Leto on the back of the head with a well-aimed fig. ‘Less of this chit-chat! Tell him about the Menorah and let me get back to normal. Don’t you know there are forests full of deer and boar out there waiting for me? My cellarman is dying of boredom and my mistresses are getting out of practice (or so they tell me).’

  Thus prodded, Leto began. ‘The Menorah,’ he recited, looking through and beyond Admiral Slovo, ‘the sacred candelabrum of the Hebrew people, removed from the Temple in Jerusalem by the Emperor Titus after the fall of that City in the seventieth year of our era. Subsequently stored in the Temple of Jupiter on the Palatine Hill and in all probability sacrilegiously looted from there during the sack of Rome by Alaric the Goth. Thus departing from the clear light of history, it enters into legend and subsequent reports of its fate are various. These are—’ and Leto fastidiously began to count off the options in what he thought to be suitably gruff Roman terms. ‘One: loss in North Africa during …’

  But by then, Admiral Slovo had tuned out all except the salient points (distinguished by the speaker’s sudden loss of interest).

  Leo X, to whom history was merely tragedy best decently forgotten, listened in wonder, amazed that Leto’s students could bring themselves to attend to him, let alone (allegedly) sleep with him. He picked up another fig, intending to spur matters on again, but then charitably thought better of it. He might not be able to repeat his last direct hit.

  ‘So there you are, Admiral,’ Leo interrupted a supposedly elegant anecdote about Visigothic government, ‘an impossible task to be accomplished without delay. My advisors tell me it’s one of the great mysteries of the age – though people seem to have been happy enough to leave it unsolved up to now. Hard master that I am, I give you one year, calculating that I’ll last just about that long. If you’ve not resolved things by then, don’t bother coming back. Dead or alive, I will have arranged a welcome you’d not enjoy. So stay in Mauritania or Syria or wherever you end up. My shade will come there to torment you and tell you what a bad servant you are and then, in due course, you’ll die and go to Hell.’

  ‘That all seems fair enough,’ said Admiral Slovo concisely.

  ‘You think so?’ replied Leo, raising one eyebrow. ‘What an easy-going man you are! There is, of course, a plus side to all this for you. I will provide every form and type of document, making all Christendom your playground. You are not to want for any material assistance, I assure you. And if things do get sorted out through your good offices, then …’ The Pope reflected deeply but soon lost patience. ‘… Oh, anything you like: money, pardons – whatever,’ he said irritably. ‘So long as it doesn’t outrage posterity or let in the Turks.’

  ‘Done!’ said Admiral Slovo and turned smartly on his heels so that Leo might not see the wide smile on his face. Within seconds, he had taken a score of long-legged strides to the great double door and put his hand upon its latch. ‘This commission will see me out!’ he exulted. ‘With all the books – and all the sex – and all the opportunities for selfless good’ (Stoicism finally making its stern voice heard) ‘that I have ever wanted! I can tell the Vehme to go and—’

  And then, quite inexplicably, in leaving the Papal throne room, Admiral Slovo re-entered it.

  He never knew if it actually was the room he had just left or a perfect copy. He felt inexplicably old and tired as he tried to work it all out and took a few steps forward.

  ‘Hello, Slovo,’ said the vast demon-creature squatting on and all over the throne, its voice like a juicy chime. ‘I don’t suppose you planned on meeting me so soon!’

  Far away, an inner version of Admiral Slovo was petrified and screaming, but it was ignored in favour of the victorious Stoic whole. ‘That depends,’ he managed coolly. ‘Who are you?’

  The demonic servitors, swarming about their master, howled and crashed their wings. The sense of outrage at Slovo’s non-recognition was palpable, but overshadowed by the dripping steam and sulphur. Already the priceless wall murals were beginning to peel.

  ‘My name,’ screamed the demon, ‘is … changing!’ Giant tears of bronze seeped from its hooded eyes and fell to the floor, crushing those beneath. ‘Your friend, the Rabbi, would call me … The Dybbuk, and that will suffice. As to whom I am: look about!’

  Admiral Slovo accepted the invitation. For the first time he noticed that there was more of death than life – however loosely defined – in the room. Vast tumuli of ill-treated bodies, some of them almost human, lined the walls in undignified fashion. A few component parts of them still moved feebly, thus catching the attention of the roving demonic soldiery who then rushed in to finish the job.

  The Admiral had seen battlefields before and was quite comfortable with them. In this case however, he would have been a lot happier had the blood pools been a nice, normal red.

  ‘There is war in Hell,’ smiled the Dybbuk. ‘And now a New Order prevails!’

  A flying thing flew down close to Slovo’s face and lisped, ‘New Order! New Order!’ to make the point. It had the head of a beautiful girl on a body of indescribable leathery horror.

  The Dybbuk daintily adjusted the Papal Tiara hat adorning its warty head and fixed most of its eyes on the Admiral as though awaiting some response.

  ‘Congratulations,’ said Slovo eventually.

  ‘Thank you, Admiral,’ the Dybbuk replied. ‘You’ll soon notice the difference, I’m sure.’

  Slovo languidly waved his arm to indicate the throne room in general. ‘Have I not already done so?
’ he queried, swiftly withdrawing his hand from the rapt attentions of a multi-jawed orange nightmare.

  ‘Exactly,’ agreed the Dybbuk. ‘Your puny presence here confirms it. We are not the lazy old-guard, waiting for the Book of Revelation to get rolling in its own sweet time. No, we are the Young Turks!’

  ‘Turks?’ said Slovo, somewhat puzzled. True, the Dybbuk looked as unsympathetic as some of the Ottomans he’d met and/or killed, but he couldn’t quite see the connection.

  ‘The phrase comes from after your time, man-creature,’ explained the Dybbuk loftily, ‘but you get the general drift. We are the ones who get things moving!’ The Dybbuk gestured with his titanic head, causing the mock Papal Crown to fall. Another instantly appeared in its place.

  ‘And is there anything I can do for you?’ replied Slovo politely.

  Just for sport, the Dybbuk yawned monstrously and turned its head inside out. The Admiral couldn’t help but gag.

  ‘Yes, there is,’ it said when normality was resumed and its mouth pointed outward again. ‘I want you to visit old friends, that’s all.’

  ‘Given my history and temperament, my friends are few in number,’ countered Slovo. ‘There’s Rabbi Megillah, I suppose.’

  ‘No,’ said the Dybbuk, briskly, ‘not the foreskin-less one: not him.’

  ‘Well, there isn’t anyone else really,’ protested Admiral Slovo.

  ‘Think on, Admiral,’ grinned the Dybbuk. ‘I know the hearts of men better than anyone and there are still a few who think warmly of you.’

  ‘This is all to do with the Menorah business, isn’t it?’ said Slovo, resignedly. ‘Not only have I got to find it but you want me to exhume my best-forgotten past, searching amongst the debris for … friends.’

  ‘That’s about the shape of it, old boy,’ laughed the Dybbuk. ‘You don’t think I’d be wasting time talking to such a limited life-form as you if there wasn’t some bigger issue at stake? I can’t explain too much, of course; one has to stick to the script and human free-will is required – you being the selected representative. All I can do is direct you on your way and speed things up. Visit your old friends, Slovo!’

  ‘Script?’ asked the Admiral, slapping off the attentions of a hermaphrodite incubus (or succubus?). ‘What script?’

  ‘Oh, you know all the old Doomsday stories, Slovo,’ said the Dybbuk. ‘Don’t you ever read your Bible?’

  ‘Frequently,’ said Slovo truthfully.

  ‘Well then, you should be intimately familiar with all the end-of-Time scenarios. Most of them involve the rebuilding of the Jerusalem Temple, and for that you require the Menorah.’

  ‘Hence Pope Leo’s torments and the pleas of the Emperors …’

  ‘… and your presence here, yes, yes,’ interrupted the Dybbuk impatiently. ‘All my own work. As I’ve said, I want to get the ball rolling early and catch the enemy unawares. The old boss wouldn’t have that so he had to go. Now I’m in charge and I’m going to help you to help things along. Go and see your old friends, Slovo!’

  ‘So you keep saying,’ pointed out the Admiral reasonably, ‘but if you are the new Prince of Darkness, why all this worry about scripts and rules? Surely it would be more in keeping for you to play the game entirely as you wish, regardless of any regulations.’

  ‘I don’t know why I’m bothering to bandy words with you,’ said the Dybbuk slowly, opening and closing all his eyes in a formation dance. ‘The rules just are; they predate the whole struggle and can’t be overturned. I mean, just look what merely trying to subvert them does to me!’

  Admiral Slovo looked carefully as he had been bidden, and had he not been born too early to know of the phenomenon, he would have recognized the play of enormous G-force on the Dybbuk’s pulpy skin.

  ‘That is the price of resisting the regulations in the slightest respect,’ it said. ‘My flesh ripples and my eyes strain as though in the path of a monstrous wind. I suffer every bit as much as your precious Pope and Emperors, I’ll have you know. Why, even ageing you three years was a major drain on my energies.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ enquired Slovo evenly.

  ‘I told you before,’ said the Dybbuk in terse tones, ‘I can’t direct your feet, only speed them along. We can’t be bothered to wait three whole years whilst you gallivant round the Orient, fruitlessly questioning the natives and digging holes. No, I’ve fast-forwarded those years so as to cut out your useless search and get you to go and see your friends!’

  Slovo now recalled the added burden of age he had felt on first entering the room. Three years nearer the cold and peace of the grave, but not a memory to show for it. He didn’t know whether to feel pleased or outraged. Either way, there was no point protesting; what was gone was gone. But he did ask to be updated.

  ‘Pope Leo only gave me a year, and promised dire consequences should I fail. Since you appear to be the sole source for this section of my biography, perhaps you’d be good enough to explain what happened?’

  ‘He died,’ replied the Dybbuk bluntly. ‘In hideous agony, poor chap. The surgeons found that his brain was all dried up like an old prune. It was likewise with his successor, Adrian VI; he only lasted two years under my relentless pressure. Right now I’m giving … what’s his name?’

  An ethereal, translucent creature, half dragonfly, half fair maiden, flew up to the Dybbuk’s ear. ‘Clement VII!’ it sang sweetly. ‘Clement VII!’

  ‘That’s right, thank you,’ agreed the Dybbuk, reaching out and juicily crunching the creature in one huge hand. Red-green blood and ichor spilled over his fingers. ‘Clement VII, that’s the one I’m giving a torrid time of it right now. So I tell you, you needn’t worry about your welcome back in Rome; you’re needed as much as ever!’

  ‘Well, thank you for that at least,’ said Slovo dryly.

  ‘Don’t mention it,’ replied the Dybbuk affably. ‘You’ve provided me with a degree of amusement these last few years and of course, I have high hopes for you in the future. You really are a nasty piece of work on the quiet, aren’t you?’

  Admiral Slovo answered with one of his ‘I do what I have to’ gestures. ‘I am a victim of my times,’ he said in his own defence.

  ‘Hmmm,’ said the Dybbuk dubiously. Well, you’re wasting your time with all this “natural virtue” business, you know, all you Stoic chaps end up down here with me in the end.’

  Slovo smiled. ‘But there again,’ he said, ‘you are the Prince of Lies, are you not?’

  The Dybbuk decently conceded the point with a shrug. ‘There’s no pleasing you, is there!’ He huffily flicked one enormous finger at Slovo, causing the throne room to spit him out.

  As he was ejected, Slovo caught the Dybbuk’s final words, ‘GO AND SEE YOUR FRIENDS!’

  There were some advantages to a proxy tour of the dangerous sixteenth-century world: awaking in his lodgings, Admiral Slovo found himself lighter, healthily tanned and adorned with several new scars he was glad not to recall receiving.

  In his sea-chest there was a framed pair of golden, winged socks, labelled as the former possession of the last Roman Emperor, Constantine XI Pakiologos;19 an indecent statuette of a pathic from Baalbek; gold coin in plenty (Slovo’s piratic impulses had never really been purged); and a stone from the Wailing Wall for Megillah. It looked in fact as if it had been a fun trip – aside from the glaring lack of menorahs.

  Like the good and frightened Caprisi woman she was, the Admiral’s housekeeper had kept the place well stocked in his absence, anticipating a sudden return as per the wise bridesmaids of Christ’s parable. To be flung home by the gesture of a demon was about as sudden a return as could be imagined, but Slovo still found the makings of a passable pre-dawn breakfast awaiting him.

  Seated with a flask of sack, some bread and onions, he watched the faithful sun rise over the dome of Santa Croce and thought about times past. Later, in his library, he browsed through the great bound volume of Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations upon its brass eagle lectern, until he could
postpone decision no more.

  There was nothing else that could be done, he concluded. Since the Menorah continued to be lost he would have to visit his friends. Fetching his favourite whetstone, he began to ply his best stiletto upon it.

  ‘I’m very sorry to intrude, Harold,’ said Admiral Slovo, ‘but tell me, would you consider me a friend?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ replied the stocky, red-faced man sitting opposite, ‘I should think so.’

  Slovo heaved a silent sigh of relief. In his brief trudge around Rome he’d feared that the short list of those who’d make such a confession was already exhausted.

  ‘After all,’ the man continued, ‘it was you that secured me permission to reside in Rome. You’ve been to good old England; we’ve shared a few flasks together and outfaced that … unnecessary duelling charge. If that’s not friendship, what is?’

  ‘What indeed?’ smiled the Admiral in return, thankful for the simpler standards of the Northern races. ‘You know, you’re an interesting case, Harold Godwine: your Italian grows less barbarous each time we meet. Not many English could have settled in so fully.

  ‘Ah well,’ said Godwine, acknowledging what he took to be a compliment, ‘I have a pressing reason for doing so. As you well know, I did not come to Rome to enjoy myself but to save my soul!’

  Admiral Slovo was mildly troubled. ‘Whilst not a priest or theologian,’ he said gently, ‘I would still advise caution on your proximate sanctity theory, Harold.’

  ‘It makes sense to me, Admiral. Being so close to so many people striving for holiness, bang next door to God’s chosen representative, some benefit’s bound to rub off. Besides, it’s got to be easier for me here – no Scots or Welsh!’