Popes and Phantoms

by John Whitbourn

  ‘Ah, yes …’ said Slovo, fearful that he’d unwittingly lit a fuse. It turned out he had.

  ‘I’ve had a good life,’ said Godwine, rehearsed-reflectively. ‘I make no apologies for it (except when I’m in church). I’ve killed lots of Scots and Welsh: almost as many as one could wish for.’

  Slovo tried half-heartedly to stem the tide.

  ‘I have encountered these remnant Celtic peoples …’

  ‘The Scots are not Celts, Admiral,’ interrupted Godwine, on, over and through Slovo’s comment. ‘They’re blood of my blood, which just makes it all the more interesting. I mean to say, I’ve nothing against them personally (well, maybe the Welsh …). Individually, I rather like them. It’s just that when they’re gathered in convenient clumps I can’t resist the desire to chuck the whole quiver amongst them. That’s just the way it is, I’m afraid. Scotsmen are what the longbow was invented for, that’s what I say.’

  ‘Absolutely, Harold …’ said the Admiral, swept along.

  ‘I mean, I’d rather kill Welshies instead. But they mostly threw the towel in long before my time so there’s not much chance of a decent ruck there. See what I mean? If the Scots weren’t neighbouring my country, I could probably leave them alone – but they do – so I can’t …’

  ‘Indeed,’ agreed the Admiral politely, wondering what was for dinner.

  ‘Mind you, it was Flodden Field20 that finished me. I overindulged myself so much there, there was no place left for me to go, no professional mountain left to scale. Might as well spend the rest of my life in the Borgo21, praying for forgiveness I said – so here I am. Borr! Flodden! Now, there was a battle, never mind a flukish Bannockburn … Did I ever tell you about Flodden, Admiral?’

  ‘I believe you may have, Harold; perhaps once …’

  ‘Save us! What a sight that was. They lost – now listen to this – their King, James IV: twelve Earls; nineteen Barons; three hundred-odd Knights and lairds; the Archbishop of St Andrews; two assorted bishops; two abbots and the Provost of Edinburgh. Oh – and most the army as well. We just stood off their schiltrons22 and poured in the old clothyard till they were collapsing in waves and there weren’t no room for the dead to fall. Talk about “Flowers of the Forest”, ho ho! What do you think about bagpipes, Admiral?’

  ‘Well, I try not to let the subject rule my life but …’

  ‘I hate them. The Scots play them constantly, you know – and some North English too – which makes ’em honorary Scots in my book. Anyway, when we eventually got stuck in – at Flodden, this is – I made a point of seeking out the pipers – just to let them know what I thought of the noise they make. And I got me two clan chiefs as well; their claymores are up in my trophy room along with all the other family treasures. I took their ears as well but they went all nasty and I couldn’t keep ’em.’

  Admiral Slovo thought he had spotted the glint of a possible escape from the present carnival of carnage.

  ‘You mentioned your family, Harold; were they also soldiers and travellers such as yourself?’

  ‘Oh yes,’ said Godwine, ‘wanderers, soldiers and crusaders all – very sound on the Scots, too. There was Tostig Godwine, for instance. Now, he was a Varangian23 and only got out of Constantinople by the skin of his axe when the 1204 Crusaders came rampaging in. Then there was Gash “Death from Wessex” Godwine who … But look, why just talk, when I’ve got this huge family tree I can show you in the trophy room. Come upstairs and see it; the light’s better up there anyway.’

  ‘Billed and bowed’ into submission, Slovo mechanically followed Godwine up the cramped stairway. Despite all the inducements to doze, he could not be at peace: something was troubling his mind, something preventing a merciful switching-off.

  Then, as he trod on the top step it occurred to him. ‘Why,’ he asked, ‘is the light better in the trophy room?’

  ‘Because,’ answered Godwine brightly, ‘of what Tostig the Varangian got out of Constantinople with. The Family’s held on to it ever since and I’m quite attached to the thing. I mean, it’s not only valuable but practical too. Look, it holds seven bloody great big candles …’

  ‘I am sorry to hear of your friend Godwine,’ said Pope Clement VII. ‘A tragic accident.’

  ‘Thank you, Your Holiness,’ said Admiral Slovo. ‘Stilettos are dangerous things to set about cleaning by mere candle-light; people are always accidentally falling on them.’

  ‘Perhaps he didn’t know it was loaded,’ tittered a Cardinal whom relative career failure had made bold. The Pope silenced him with a glance.

  ‘And you have the Menorah secure, Admiral?’

  ‘It was, of course, Godwine’s dying wish that I take custody of the object. It is now with my savings, Your Holiness – and there are few places more secret and secure than that. All that remains is to restore it to its proper siting.’

  ‘Which is where?’ asked Clement with genuine curiosity.

  ‘I’m seeking advice on that, Your Holiness,’ said Slovo.

  ‘Give it to ussssss …’ lisped an oily black Eel/Man crossover, leaning casually on the back of the Papal throne. ‘Give it to ussssss!’

  With difficulty, Admiral Slovo averted his gaze from the Dybbuk’s emissary who was, it became obvious, invisible and inaudible to all bar him.

  ‘I beg your pardon, Holiness?’

  ‘I said, Admiral, that my nocturnal sufferings are much abated now that the Menorah is at least in our custody. All that remains is to make them cease altogether.’

  ‘I shall not rest until that is so,’ said Slovo, affecting just the right amount of weariness-acquired-in-the-course-of-service.

  ‘No!’ said the Eel-thing, advancing menacingly down the Hall. ‘You will give it to ussssss.’ Slovo noticed that its mouth was improbably packed with teeth.

  ‘Then go about your business, faithful servant,’ said Clement. ‘Relieve me of my dreams and you shall have all that was promised you.’

  Admiral Slovo sprang the trap. ‘The Lordship of Capri?’ he asked. ‘Public absolution for all my sins?’ The latter raised a gasp from the assembled clergy and advisors. It was a lot to ask for.

  ‘Capri certainly’, replied the Pope hesitantly. ‘I shall have to see about the other thing – there may be scandal.’

  Slovo was content. Possession of the sybaritic island was in any case merely an open invitation to a fresh universe of sin.

  The Eel creature, now perilously close, leaned forward to whisper noisomely in the Admiral’s ear. ‘Give it, through free-will, to us,’ it said, ‘and you shall have every book and bottom you have ever desired.’

  Admiral Slovo was thus given cause to think anew all the way to the door – which once again opened on the unexpected: this time there was a walled expanse of lawn, decorated in the fashionable precision of the age with generous quantities of flowers and fruit trees, and presided over by none other than Rabbi Megillah.

  ‘Hello Rabbi,’ said Slovo, like the veteran he was, ‘what is beyond these high walls I wonder?’

  ‘Nothing,’ said a wizened old man, emerging from his place of concealment in a bush. ‘I have looked, and a blue void extends infinitely in all directions. We are quite adrift.’

  ‘I know you,’ said Slovo, gesturing dismissively with the stiletto he had instantly drawn. ‘I heard that you were dying.’

  The old man smiled thinly. ‘So I am,’ he said. ‘In fact I am presently on my death-bed – but also granted one last great chance to be here.’

  ‘That’s nice,’ said Slovo, ‘for your life was not attended by any real success. I am, you see, quite familiar with your career, Master Machiavelli. We even met on one occasion; whilst jointly making diplomatic supplications to the King of France.’

  ‘I do not recall you,’ said Niccolo Machiavelli, his smile the merest bit thinner than before.

  ‘That’s unsurprising, sir, given the ignominious end to your mission and my part in securing same. Now; what was it the Florentine Seigniory’s enqui
ry said of you? He has advanced the frontiers of blithering ineptitude to hitherto inconceivable limits. Or something like that.’

  ‘I have been constantly attended by ill-fortune,’ snapped Machiavelli. ‘But I am a man of affairs and action. I have been called here today for that very reason.’

  ‘To do what?’ enquired Rabbi Megillah.

  ‘I’ve no idea,’ admitted Machiavelli.

  ‘Nor me,’ echoed Megillah.

  ‘And I am too indifferent to explain,’ said Admiral Slovo. ‘So shall we merely stroll and admire the flowers?’

  A noise like a demon’s sigh filled whatever universe or thought-construct they were within and sudden illumination fell upon Slovo’s companions.

  ‘I will take the Menorah,’ offered Megillah quietly, ‘and arrange safe custody. It will be held ready until called for in the proper course of things. I now know why I am here, the very reason for my creation, and I offer my fate and the lives of my descendants to this noble end. Give it to me, Admiral, and to him whom I represent.’

  ‘Whereas I,’ said Machiavelli, looking on Megillah with disdain, ‘am deputed to argue the contrary. I have been granted wisdom about you, Admiral Slovo, and what I am told points implacably to you making a different and bolder decision. Seeing what you have seen, Admiral, are you really willing to have events played out in God’s good time? Are you really going to act to preserve the status quo? I think not.’

  Megillah and Machiavelli’s eyes were fixed upon Slovo’s impassive face. He was looking out into the blue yonder, considering his alternatives.

  ‘I have reviewed your lifetime, Admiral,’ continued Machiavelli, plainly enthused by his task, ‘your battles and sacked cities, your murders and acts of betrayal. I sense a certain … ambivalence in you concerning them. There is disgust, yes – but at what? You have acted in the World that the enemy has made. He now calls on you to extend it for ever – the gall of the creature! However, dull reason has not totally subdued you, has it? There is a certain beauty to a burning town that you have noted – is that not so? You have appreciated the uncomplicated pleasure of placing someone in the Tiber on a permanent basis. In short, Admiral, you have heard my Master’s call in the groans of the World, and you long to respond.’

  ‘The Admiral is a Stoic,’ interrupted Rabbi Megillah, ‘and therefore immune to—’

  ‘Men justify surrender to failure and call it philosophy,’ laughed Machiavelli. ‘I am talking of a wilder, older way here, Hebrew; something that satisfies all that goes to make a man, not merely the skin called civilization. Give the Menorah to us, Admiral Slovo; give it of your own free-will and we will have such times, such clarity.’

  Slovo was seen to lick his lips.

  ‘On the one hand,’ Machiavelli sped on, scenting victory, ‘is offered more of the same tedious mess that passes for normality. But where is the passion? Where is the drama that quickens the pulse on waking? On the other hand, however—’

  Machiavelli stopped speaking because Rabbi Megillah had felled him with a kick and a vicious chop to the throat. Incongruous as a whale with a musket, the Rabbi produced a blade and watered the Dybbuk’s lawn with Machiavelli’s life-blood.

  ‘The Lord strengthens my arm,’ Megillah said by way of explanation, straightening up most unlike a Renaissance man in his seventies, and levelling the knife at Admiral Slovo’s Adam’s apple. His cold eyes were a summation of all the Admiral’s worst enemies combined. It was very impressive. ‘Give me the damn thing,’ he said, ‘and now!’

  Admiral Slovo smiled. ‘The one great fault I’ve perceived in life,’ he said, ‘is that, up to now, the good have always lacked conviction. It’s yours.’

  ‘We shan’t meet again,’ said Megillah. ‘Not in this World.’

  ‘No,’ agreed Admiral Slovo in a neutral tone, looking around him at the bustle of Ostia Port.

  ‘I am sorry about the knife business,’ continued the Rabbi. ‘It must have seemed very unpleasant.’

  ‘But necessary,’ replied Slovo easily. ‘Think no more about it, Rabbi: all my friendships seem to end in knife-play sooner or later. But turning aside to more practical considerations, are you sure you don’t require an escort? I can arrange a galley within hours.’

  ‘Thank you, but no, Admiral. We are well fortified already – and it is best you do not know where we sail.’

  Slovo saw the truth in this and suppressed his curiosity. In the week since their sudden return from the Dybbuk’s garden, matters had been more than fully discussed, and now there was little left to say. The Papal afflictions had ceased, and it was therefore assumed that the arrangements made were approved of. The burden of the Apocalypse had passed from the Admiral’s hands and all that remained was to forget and to work hard upon his temporary weakness as revealed by Machiavelli’s blandishments. He thought there would just be time for that before he, in turn, was called from life. As Lord of Capri, meanwhile, there would be consoling sights and sensations enough.

  ‘There are sanctuaries available to us,’ continued Rabbi Megillah, seeking to apologize for his need for secrecy, ‘citadels of holiness and powerhouses of prayer, against which the Evil One (save in the final days) strives in vain. The Menorah has only to reach such – be it in Zion or Muscovy or Ukrainia – to be safe until called upon.’

  ‘But getting there?’ countered Slovo, who, more than most men, knew the Sea as the mother of Chaos and confounder of all plans.

  ‘We have Yehuda,’ said Megillah, stretching to tap the shoulder of the smiling gentle-giant of a simpleton beside him. ‘The Evil One (may his name be blotted out) has no power against the innocent. Thus, till we reach our destination, the Menorah will not leave the pack secured to Yehuda’s back. And, I have the guns Pope Clement provided, so, we have done what we can and all else is left to God.’

  Admiral Slovo conceded that there might, after all, be grounds for mild confidence. The score of dark-eyed ghetto-youths selected as crew had been ill-treated enough by life to be a match for any passing pirates. A few of the toughest might once even have found a place on his own ships.

  ‘I’ll tell you one thing for certain,’ Megillah suddenly blurted out, ‘I shall have to answer for the death of Machiavelli.’

  ‘I will stand in the queue before you,’ said Slovo, ‘and beside the recounting of my misdeeds, yours shall appear as nothing.’

  ‘We will stand together.’

  Admiral Slovo felt an unwelcome corpse-twitch of emotion.

  ‘And that day,’ the Rabbi went on, ‘there will be no more differences between us, nor ever again. We shall meet once more, this time never to part.’

  Megillah and the Admiral embraced briefly by way of Earthly farewell. There were tears in the Rabbi’s eyes and, if Admiral Slovo had not had all feeling excised in youth, his own eyes would have watered.

  The Hebrew party set off for their sailing within the hour and Slovo wandered away to cast a professional glance over a visiting Venetian Galeass and its revolutionary firepower. As he walked along, he was accosted by a flower girl.

  ‘No, thank you,’ he said. ‘I have unhappy memories of flowers and gardens.’

  The little girl nodded, looking wiser than her years and wickeder than her occupation. ‘You shall not meet again,’ she said slyly. ‘Your destinations are not the same.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’ said Slovo, covertly retrieving his stiletto.

  ‘The one and only sin,’ she went on, ‘that is never forgiven, that is a certain passport to Hell, is that called anomie or despair.’

  Slovo swiftly backed away. Three paces behind however, his retreat was blocked by the harbour wall. Like most of the sailors of the age, he had chosen not to learn to swim.

  From her basket of blooms the girl drew out a translucent parchment package. Within it some dark powder shifted and swirled.

  ‘This is all the Dybbuk could brew at such notice,’ she gloated, ‘but it is the finest, blackest despair, and more than enough for an old-man’
s lifetime. Here, he presents it to you with his compliments!’

  The flower girl had vanished into nothing before the missile burst in his face, coating him with its dusty contents.

  When he had cleared his eyes, the Admiral looked out on a world freshly drained of all colour and meaning, realizing that justice was just a word and that some farewells really are for ever.

  The Year?

  ‘ENVOI: The Devil’s gift-box contains only unsweet sorrow. A comfortable life, another wife and additions to the tribe of Slovo. A bath seems increasingly attractive however.’

  In 1525, King Francis I of France was still weeping bitter tears about losing his freedom and a good section of his army at the battle of Pavia. On Capri, Admiral Slovo and the Vehmist were still arguing the toss.

  ‘The Dybbuk didn’t last long after what you did to him,’ the Vehmist was saying. ‘He fell to someone marginally more ruthless than he, and since then there’s been coup and counter-coup. First the “Gradualists” and then the “Impatients” and so on. What else can you expect from conviction-individualists? I’m told that at one point there was even a “Peace” faction!’

  Admiral Slovo appeared uninterested by the news of his cosmic handiwork and a change of tack seemed called for to hold his attention.

  ‘So, Admiral,’ said the visitor, maintaining the conversational flow admirably on his own, ‘what’s it like living in despair?’

  ‘A daily Stoic exercise,’ replied Slovo crisply. ‘And also something of an ordeal – hence my decision to have a bath. I find myself unable to continue.’

  ‘So remarriage, breeding, the adoption of waifs, none of them could distract you?’ the Vehmist enquired, though plainly not out of any great concern.

  ‘For the briefest of moments only – sexual congress early on in the union, before novelty faded – and at the birth of children; only then. But my curse overpowers their charm.’ Slovo hesitated and added, ‘I do trust my family, blood and otherwise, will be left in peace?’