Popes and Phantoms

The Year 1520 ‘A LIGHT TO (AND FROM) THE GENTILES: In which I decide the fate of the Universe and become Lord of the Isle of Capri.’

‘The clockwork is being wound,’ said the flamboyant young dandy, smiling as he spoke. ‘Your presence is required.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ replied Admiral Slovo, shocked, even here in this wayside wineshop, at the invasion of his privacy. But the dandy had already gone – vanished most unnaturally into nothing.

‘Fires are being stoked high,’ added a dark, lascivious merchant from another nearby table. ‘Matters are near to the boil. Your presence is required.’

‘If you do not desist, I will stab you,’ answered the Admiral gently but firmly. After all, what point was there in his present vertiginous position if he could not socialize unaccosted? Slovo, sad to say, no longer had any leeway of patience for humans. In this case, none was needed, however, for the merchant was also … gone.

‘Desist from what?’ queried the Admiral’s companion, the Rabbi Megillah. He was unsettled by the intrusion of knife-talk – Rome’s ubiquitous, third-favourite topic. ‘To whom are you speaking?’

The Admiral turned back to his flask and goblet, the merest ripple on his ocean of composure now smoothed. ‘To no one, I suspect,’ he replied. ‘Kindly overlook the matter.’

His long years as ghetto-leader had trained Megillah not to distinguish between gentile request and gentile command.

‘… though, of course, we aspire to reunion with the Land in Messianic times,’ he continued, faultlessly from the break in the conversation, ‘where an even greater number of mitzvah – relating to the Temple and farming and so on – will be available for performance. This will further enhance the degree of sanctification and holiness amongst the children of Israel, which is the pre-requirement for the Messianic presence.’

Admiral Slovo nodded his understanding. ‘Whereupon,’ he prompted, ‘you will presumably be the foretold “light to the gentile nations” and history (being merely the record of the deeds of the wicked) will equally presumably cease …’

‘Er … perhaps,’ answered Megillah, a trifle nervously and brisker than his normal style. ‘The issue impinges upon the eschatological beliefs of your own faith and could be construed as, er … contradictory at certain points. One likes to leave the subject unexpounded and rely on divinely ordained goodwill to permit co-existence in God’s good time.’

Admiral Slovo was born half a millennium before such declarations could be taken at their face value and so construed it (only partly correctly, as it happened) to be a reference to the Inquisition.

‘Just so,’ he said, waving a calming, gauntleted hand over the theological difficulties of his friend. ‘Time will tell, I always say. Our dust will answer to one call or another, I’m sure.’

‘Indeed,’ agreed Megillah diffidently, obliged by the age to fear traps even from the friends of his comparative youth.

‘I do so … enjoy our talks,’ said the Admiral slowly, surprised at his own use of such an emotional term. ‘They quite counter an equal number of hours spent attending to His Holiness’s Babylonian travails. One naturally suspects the survival of pockets of good faith and idealism, but it is refreshing nevertheless to actually encounter them. I recall that …’

‘Your presence is required.’

‘Can you see him? Is he real?’ Slovo asked Megillah calmly.

When the Rabbi cautiously nodded his white-topped head, the Admiral turned to face the voice. ‘Yes, you’re real, enough,’ he said, prodding a Swiss guardsman in the chest. ‘So I will listen – but no more than that.’

The guard had seen a great deal in a short life and certainly too much to worry about honour or insults. On duty, he could not be offended. ‘Your presence is required,’ he repeated evenly.

‘By His Holiness and now?’ Slovo helpfully expanded.

The guardsman’s eyes glittered slightly in assent. ‘My message is delivered,’ he said. ‘Make or mar as you will.’ Three steps backward and he was gone as suddenly as he’d arrived.

‘You should go,’ advised Rabbi Megillah, as gently as he could. ‘We are doing nothing here—’

‘Precisely!’ said the Admiral, smiling tightly. ‘I am increasingly attached to nothing, whilst the calls to something grow dimmer by the day. And when that something is the murky labyrinth of His Apostolic Holiness’s world, the sentiment is infinitely multiplied.’

Megillah recognized the mental state all too well, but naive friendship still caused him to shake his head and tut-tut.

‘I know, I know,’ said Admiral Slovo, levering himself up and dropping some coins on their table, ‘but what can he do to me? What can he take that I value? My disposition makes me a free man in a world of slaves. Disappearing messengers and Swiss escorts, both be damned; come and walk with me awhile. Tell me some more about your end of the Universe.’

The two old men pottered off.

At the end of the Via Sacra, on the point of leaving the old Roman Forum, they paused before the ancient Arch of Titus.

‘Everything is there,’ observed the Rabbi, ‘recorded in stone by Emperor Titus’s craftsmen. The spirit of rebellion, human strife, the loss of all that we held dear manifested in the structure of our Temple.’

‘But the triumph shown,’ interjected the Admiral, ‘is that of a dead Emperor of a dead Empire. Whereas you, the vanquished tribe, are still extant. Who then is the actual victor? There is that comfort to be drawn here.’

Rabbit Megillah nodded. ‘I concede,’ he smiled, ‘there might, on reflection, be a multiplicity of lessons contained within this monument.’

‘They may have your Menorah,’ said Slovo, pointing to the scene of the sacred Temple candelabrum being borne aloft by exulting Romans, ‘but what good did it do them, eh?’

The Rabbi was never given the opportunity to answer.

The carved images and decorations of the Arch began to boil and writhe, rising in and out of the depth of the stone like tiny figures in a snake-pit.

Slovo heard Rabbi Megillah gasp and thus knew that he was not alone in this between-world. However, since his companion was by profession and birth a natural victim, there was precious little comfort in that.

Suddenly, from deep inside the Arch’s interior, a life-size head and torso burst forwards with enormous force. As the stone strained and bulged, a man’s face broke through into the open. He screamed and his eyes were full of horror.

A second and third figure joined the first in similar manner, as if they’d been hurled against a permeable membrane. They struggled fiercely, striving to be fully free, howling horribly all the while, but could get no further.

Then, in answer to a higher, inaudible command, the trio fell instantly silent and fixed their gaze upon Slovo and Megillah. A great quiet prevailed until even Admiral Slovo felt it oppressive. Eventually the first figure spoke.

‘I, Titus,’ it said, and then drew slightly back into the Arch.

‘I, Vespasian,’ said the second and likewise retreated.

‘I, Josephus,’ said the third; and the other two returned.

‘We burn!’ they shouted in unison. ‘We suffer! We suffer in Hell!’

‘For what I did!’ soloed the Emperor Titus.

‘For what I took!’ added his predecessor, Vespasian.

‘For what I wrote!’ said Josephus, the renegade and historian.

‘Help us! Save us! We burn!’ the chorus was renewed and with desperate gestures they indicated one particular part of the now mobile frieze surrounding them.

Admiral Slovo tracked along the line of sight.

‘They are stretching for the Menorah,’ he observed to the awe-struck Megillah.

‘It is time!’ howled Titus, clearly in great pain.

‘Put it back!’ gasped Vespasian.

‘It is tiiiiiiiiiime!’ agreed Josephus and the others joined in his screech.

The three, suddenly seized with renewed panic, struggled all the more vigorously but to no avail. Try as they might, they could not free more than head or hands, nor reach a finger’s width nearer the tiny engraved symbol of their desires. As before, they seemed to have heard some secret signal and it was not long in being enforced.

From the Arch’s unguessable depths came claws and grapples which fastened on to the unfortunate three, tearing their flesh and drawing blood. Slowly but inexorably, though fighting with the strength of fear, they were drawn back until lost from sight. A final pitiful sob issued from one as the stone surface closed over his mouth and then all was quiet once more. The Arch was no longer alive.

‘Blah blah blah, blah-blah,’ said a nearby voice in due course, allowing Slovo to revive from his reverie and thus notice that he had returned to the world he knew.

‘Your presence is required,’ repeated the voice. ‘I’ll say that just once more and then: violence.’

The Admiral recognized the tone, and the tracing of its owner gradually grew as a priority in his mind, thus compelling him to re-set his thoughts.

‘Master Droz?’ he said, turning to face the giant Swiss Captain. ‘How are you?’

‘Exasperated,’ replied the Swiss, ‘but implacable. Why will you not listen to me, honoured Admiral?’

‘I was deep in thought, Droz; pondering the course of the wise man in response to curious messages.’

‘Ah, well, I can settle that for you, Admiral. He responds to them promptly; particularly when I am the bearer. What’s up with that Jew?’

‘He is pondering likewise, I suspect.’

‘He could at least say hello. No good comes of all this thinking, you see. That is why God granted us instincts: to save us from slavery to fallible reason.’

Admiral Slovo, who, if he cared for anything, cared for his Stoic beliefs, suppressed a shudder. ‘I propose a deal, Master Swiss,’ he said swiftly. ‘I will comply with your wishes in every single particular and, in return, you spare me your natural philosophy. How’s that?’

‘Done, Admiral – though you deprive me of my rebuke regarding your treatment of my sergeant-at-arms in the wineshop. This from you, Admiral – a man I call my friend!’

They both laughed, the Swiss with a bellow, the Admiral with a dried-up bark of amusement, at the absurdity of the notion of friendship between such as they. Then Slovo allowed Numa Droz to lead the way, leaving Rabbi Megillah still rapt with shock before the silent Arch.

‘Don’t fret, Master Droz,’ said the Admiral, consolingly, ‘life is full of disappointments. However, on this day of portents, you may escort me to yet another.’

‘Admiral,’ said Leo X, Christ’s senior (recognized) representative on Earth, ‘you have kept us waiting!’

Admiral Slovo parried this demand for an explanation by treating it as a statement of fact – thereby letting down the massed courtiers, priests and guards, who had been anticipating his discomfiture. They should have known of old that the Papal Investigator was poor sport in the tormenting stakes.

‘Everything comes to him who waits,’ said the Admiral politely, lazily selecting one of the more shop-worn phrases out of his vast collection of clichés.

‘Not poxing well fast enough, it doesn’t!’ roared the Pope. ‘Ach! Sit on this, you Caprisi … Admiral!’

Slovo affected not to notice the Pope’s insulting thumb gesture, whilst registering that there was sadly little left of Giovanni Medici, ‘the Golden Florentine’, son of Lorenzo the Magnificent and youthful companion of Michelangelo. Life had turned him into Leo X, in whom appetite had prevailed over reason in Admiral Slovo’s stern judgement, and there was now a permanent sheen of grease on his chin to prove it.

Leo looked ill and his short temper bubbled forth from deeper springs than the revenge of over-indulgence. The effect was so profound that the Admiral drew modestly from his drying well of human sympathy and actually felt sorry for his master.

‘If I had someone else with a brain whom I could call on,’ said the Pope, petulantly flinging a fig at his advisors, who shied from it as they would a cannonball, ‘someone with better hearing and more obedient legs, then rest assured I’d do so. However, I’m stuck with you, aren’t I, Ad-mir-al?’

Slovo sensed that, even for him, this might not be the best time for a witty remark. There was more ill will than sunshine in the room as far as he was concerned. Any one of the career or just plain personal enemies gathered there would have been both swift and happy to implement any Papal decision to deal with him. Moreover, something so novel as to be interesting was afoot and he preferred not to miss it. So Admiral Slovo smiled and said nothing, and the Pope’s acid twinge passed like a cloud.

Leo was uncharacteristically deep in thought and was obviously troubled. ‘I have a dream …’ he started – it was a standard opening recommended by the rhetorical schools of the day, a perennial favourite. ‘In fact, I get it all the time now,’ he continued in a less elevated rush. ‘At first I put it down to the cucumber brandy, but the same thing kept coming back, again and again. It’s burning me up, Slovo. I tell you, somehow, I don’t know how, but it’s been revealed to me I’m going to die, that I’m hellbound, if this thing isn’t solved!’

‘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!’

‘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 Field[20] 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 Borgo[21], 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 schiltrons[22] 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 Varangian[23] 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 enquiry 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.