Popes and Phantoms

The Year 1500 ‘In which some stony-hearts confide that I am important.’

‘In the absence of guidance, I did what I was asked. His Holiness does, after all, pay my wages and provide a roof over my head. That’s more than the Vehme have ever done.’ The Admiral’s voice was transformed into a sinister whisper by the subterranean chamber’s acoustics. It was considerably less crowded and well lit than on his last visit during his initiation.

The Tribunal looked suitably shocked at such an explosion of ingratitude.

‘Brother Slovo,’ said the presiding judge in her gravest tones, ‘the Holy Vehme has given you a life!’

‘I had one of those already,’ answered Slovo. ‘I thought your powers were restricted to taking life away.’

He was not minded to be deferential. He did not take kindly to being summoned, under threat of death, into the wilderness of the Germanic fringe so soon after his arduous return from England and a frosty farewell from its King. He had been looking forward to a period of spiritual recuperation with his book and the stiletto collections in his Roman or Caprisi villas. Moreover, a Genoese woman had moved in adjacent to the former and gave every indication of being able to accommodate his particular fancies in the manner for which ladies of her City were infamous. Now, instead of being amidst such rich stimulations, he was once again in a part of the world that thought civilization an optional extra. It really wasn’t good enough.

What, after all, was the worst thing the Vehme could do to him, he reasoned? Hang him from a tree at some lonely crossroads? Stick a sword in his heart? Well then, if such was their wish, let them get the hell on with it. He couldn’t stop them.

The panel of three spent a moment in whispered conference. ‘We find that there may be some justification in your lack of charm,’ said the female judge at last. ‘It is regrettable that some of our messengers have but one manner of summoning in their repertoire.’

‘The scroll was affixed to my pillow with a dagger,’ agreed Slovo. ‘Like a spider on one’s face, it’s a disagreeable sight to wake up to.’

‘You should lose such developed sensitivities, Admiral,’ said another judge, a pale-fleshed northerner, as far as his black cowl and the inadequate light revealed. ‘Life would be easier for you.’

‘Starting from scratch,’ countered Admiral Slovo, ‘with all the disadvantages of being employed as a pirate, I have on the contrary sought to cultivate such sensibilities.’

‘As you wish,’ came the riposte. ‘It’s your choice. I merely sought to advise.’

‘Which happily touches on your real purpose here, Admiral,’ added the third judge, a cold-eyed condottiere if ever Slovo saw one. ‘We wish to give you our thoughts.’

Slovo was going to say that they could just as well have written, but felt that he’d already over-expressed his outrage. ‘Then I am at your disposal,’ he said, turning to look purposefully at the great chamber’s shuttered doors and guardian statuary behind. ‘Aren’t I?’

‘Yes, you are,’ admitted the Tribunal leader, showing that they too were not afraid to state brutal truths. ‘A closed session this may be, with no other brothers or sisters present, but you may rest assured that we are not without resource. No meeting of the Vehme is ever held unless its precincts and the surrounding country are first fully secured. But why this sour spirit of rebellion? When will you make your full submission to our great undertaking?’

‘When you confide what it is, perhaps?’

The three judges simultaneously voiced brief sounds of exasperation.

‘We tell you what is fit for you to know,’ said the condottiere. ‘Where is your faith?’

Admiral Slovo had no wise or safe answer to that and so remained silent.

‘We hear,’ said the female Tribunalist, ‘that you are “convinced” by the Laws of the Blessed Gemistus: does that not presently suffice?’

‘Frankly no,’ said Slovo. ‘It is a thin thing on which to found a life of altruistic action. Why should I go among the English barbarians or risk the company of the Borgias for a book with which I may intellectually agree? There are any number of such writers in my library.’

‘Name them,’ commanded the northerner. ‘Aside from the Meditations, of course.’

‘I don’t doubt your spy or spies have already itemized my possessions,’ said Slovo, ‘but if you insist—’

‘We do,’ said the condottiere.

‘Well, I would name the Greek Heraclitus, who holds that fire is the basic stuff of the universe and that all things are in eternal flux between light and dark, hunger and satiation, war and peace. Truth is the harmony of these opposites. Then there is Socrates who teaches that life must be experienced direct and not be filtered second-hand through reason or learning. Plato proposes the rule of philosophers, and Philaenis the Leucadian’s Tribadic manual serves to excite my carnal lusts in an imaginative manner. Is that enough?’

The Tribunal indicated it was.

‘That’s sufficient,’ said the lady in judgement, ‘to confirm that our first thoughts were correct and that your journey here was not wasted. Once again we have neglected you, Admiral; we confess the fault. In the absence of the expression of our favour and confidence in you, your enthusiasms – should a Stoic have such – have drifted where they will. Where we would now wish you to be a single shot, you’ve become a wild volley. We would not have you so diffuse, Admiral, so unfocused. You will not find us negligent or careless again. We want to take you into our counsel.’

Having made himself master of his will to live, Slovo was both willing and able to stake all on a supposition. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What are you afraid of?’

Instantly he knew he had struck home. For the merest second the faces of the three Vehmists were not their absolute slaves to command – as should be the case in all who attempt great things. The momentary display of fallibility told Slovo more than anything else he’d heard that night. The Tribunal’s craven failure to address his question, even after yet further whispered consultation, also spoke volumes.

The lady Vehmist ‘answered’, her sophisticated Roman voice now well under control, ‘For instance, should you wish to speak of your recent service to us, we will speak freely to you. It is our intention that henceforth, you be a sentient tool in our employ.’

Slovo looked within and acknowledged that there were a few matters that trailed free and unresolved from his recollection of the English adventure. ‘Very well,’ he said. ‘Let me put our new relationship to the test. Am I to presume from your lack of alternative guidance that you shared Pope Alexander’s concern to preserve the English Tudor monarchy?’

‘You may,’ replied the condottiere. ‘Although we think the Papacy may one day repent of that policy. It was our wish that the Britannic Isles be subject to the firmest and most centralizing of regimes. We have plans for that particular race and our requirement is that they be welded into a modern nation state.’

Slovo’s neck was beginning to ache with craning up at the Tribunal on their raised dais, but he bid his protesting body be silent. ‘Then that is strange,’ he said. ‘At initiation I was told that you stood for the restoration of older and better ways. The resurgent Celts indisputably represented a revival of the antique.’

‘You should not always look for consistency in us,’ said the lady Vehmist, smiling falsely. ‘Consistency is the handmaiden of rationalism and leads to predictability. Not all that is older is better, not everything better is yet born. We pick and choose. Sometimes it is necessary to go forward in order to come back.’

‘But what are your plans for me?’ asked the Admiral.

‘They are … fluid, Brother Slovo,’ replied the condottiere. ‘Merely continue as you are for the moment.’

Slovo looked at the Vehmists and they looked at him. It should have been an unequal contest, three against one, a conspiracy of unknown size and mighty ambitions versus one short-lived man – but somehow it was not. Slovo sensed that the Tribunal were deprived of some ultimate sanction against him; that in a curious way he was their master, sitting in judgement on them.

Pondering on this paradox, he let the silence stretch uncomfortably until he made another intuitive leap and landed in a very interesting landscape.

‘I’m in your Book, aren’t I?’ he said, first ensuring there was no trace of triumph in his voice. ‘The Book.’

The Tribunal looked saddened.

‘We suspect so,’ their leader confirmed after a brief pause. ‘There are allusions that could refer to you.’

‘May I see them?’

‘No, that might pervert the prophecies they detail.’

‘Did you always think thus? Is that why I was recruited?’

‘No again. It is only lately that our analytic scholars, our hidden universities, have seen the concordances between your career and what is written. At your initiation here, the stone gods into which we have drawn down some of the essence of the divine, recognized you. We always watch for it but such a thing occurs at intervals of centuries. That was when we were first alerted.’

‘I recall the antique colossi,’ said Slovo, looking back at them, ‘but …’

‘Mostly they are silent, Admiral,’ said the northerner. ‘Using the magic bequeathed us, we can preserve some fraction of those gods who linger on and we store their godhead in stone to wait out the Christian-Islamic monotheist era. They are duly grateful and assist us as best as they can.’

‘Gods with no worshippers,’ commented Slovo. ‘How terribly sad.’

‘We aim to change all that, Admiral,’ said the condottiere with quiet confidence. ‘We may ally ourselves with atheists and Elves, radical humanists and Roman-Empire nostalgists – in fact anyone who rests uneasy under the present dispensation. However, we never for one moment lose sight of our ancient objective. So there you are, Admiral. Now you know our “great secret”! We wish the old gods to burst their bounds of stone, empowered by the prayers of millions!’

Slovo contrived to look appropriately impressed and honoured, but did not believe a word of it. ‘And I have a role in achieving this – according to your predictive Book?’ he asked.

‘It seems so,’ agreed the lady Vehmist. ‘Possibly a crucial one. However, to be more specific might subvert the lines of fate traced by the Blessed Gemistus. Rest content in the knowledge that mighty events, things even we cannot yet clearly discern, seem to hinge upon you.’

‘So you’ll take good care of me?’ he said, unable to resist the temptation to tease.

‘For the moment, yes,’ agreed the Vehmist with commendable honesty. ‘At least, we’ll ensure that destiny is able to have its way with you. If, as our Holy Book suggests, you are going to be the world’s salvation, we can hardly do otherwise.’

There was a violent noise from behind the Admiral. He looked round just in time to see the two great effigies they had spoken of slowly topple forward and crash – miraculously intact, he noted – to the ground. When the dust had abated, he saw that their heads and upraised arms pointed directly towards him, as though in homage.

‘And so,’ said the condottiere, remaining in his seat with admirable cool, as the thunderous noise echoed round the chamber, ‘it seems, say all of us.’