Popes and Phantoms

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?’

‘No,’ said the Welshman. ‘We won’t recruit your offspring or adoptees. There’s no hint of them in The Book and times are changing. We’re looking for different types nowadays.’

‘I’m reassured. They have had little enough from me without inheriting your attentions.’

The Vehmist looked reproachfully at the Admiral. ‘But they’ll live in our world,’ he said. ‘And now can’t you find it in your heart to forgive us for your parents?’

‘And entire family,’ added Slovo.

‘… and entire family,’ the Vehmist conceded.

‘No,’ said Admiral Slovo.

The Welshman shrugged and looked away.

‘Cold, cold heart,’ he said, but left it at that. In producing a piece of theatre it was not essential for the actors to love the management. It was only an exhausted husk the Vehme were losing anyway. He helped himself to another glass of wine, before unwisely voicing some additional thoughts.

‘We gave you a more interesting life than they would have done,’ he said. ‘But for us, you and your Stoicism would have been a mere shaking of a tiny fist against the greater dark. Like it or not, we gifted you with something to believe in. Your family offered only the half-hearted hand-me-downs of tradition.’

Admiral Slovo regarded him for a short while. ‘And what,’ he finally snapped, ‘gives you the wild confidence to think you ever knew what I believed?’

‘I must confess,’ said the Vehmist, in jocular tone, ‘that was the subject of some speculation. We didn’t think it really mattered but—’

‘I was never a theologian,’ interrupted Slovo, shocked at his desire to make secret things clear, ‘I have no patience with demands to float clear of the material world. These are not reasonable requests to make in a harsh universe. Men do what they must and then, and only then, what they can. I claim no difference from that.’

‘But, on occasion,’ said the Welshman, expanding the theme in mockery, ‘when circumstances permitted and the coast was clear, you raised your eyes to the stars.’ He waved dramatically towards the cloudless sky.

Admiral Slovo nodded.

‘I had my own faith, my own ideas before ever you explained your system to me, or Michelangelo listed the captive gods.’

‘I still think our ignorance is excusable,’ said the Vehmist. ‘There was precious little evidence to go on. Whatever you may or may not have believed does not seem to have informed your actions.’

The Admiral permitted himself the indulgence of explanation. ‘It’s simply put,’ he began. ‘I believed life was a vale of tears and hard on failure – you saw to that. I hoped that what the Church taught was true, but I feared that nothing was true and everything was permissible.’

‘Nothing of what you say detracts from the achievement of your years on earth.’

‘From where I sit,’ said Admiral Slovo, ‘I see only a lifetime of petty concessions and compromises.’

The Vehmist laughed with a peculiarly liquid chuckle. ‘Nonsense, Admiral. That’s just the Dybbuk speaking. None of your sins or virtues were little ones. At certain times, and in your own quiet way, you bestrode the globe like a titan.’

‘If you say so.’

‘We do. You swayed the course of history a degree or two. Who else set a Reformation in motion, commissioned the Sistine Chapel ceiling and defeated two gods – Dybbuk and Te Deum – and glued the Tudors to a shaky throne? But for you the World would be a very different place and much less to our liking.’

‘It somehow fails to comfort,’ said Slovo.

‘Do not shrink away from your creations; they are your children, Admiral,’ said the Vehmist. ‘Admit paternity with pride! Would you perhaps be convinced of your value by the knowledge that a statue of you is commissioned for the Hall of the Vehmic Citadel where you experienced your initiation all those long years ago? There you will stand, in marble depiction of classical dress, beside Mars and Horus-Hadrian and oversee the new generations of our people. We will tell them of you and you will see the light of admiration in their eyes.’

‘Just as long,’ replied Slovo, not so impressed or grateful as he ought to be, ‘as they do not detect any similar light of life in mine.’

‘Well, it is possible,’ admitted the Vehmist. ‘After your demise it’s our intention to draw down your ka, your residual essence, to inhabit the image of stone. The book of Hermes Trismegistus has provided us with the means and it has worked before. We do not like to lose our most illustrious servants. Your imprisoned semi-divinity will be able to discern potential greatness in those who pass before it – as occurred with yourself. Better that than the Hades or oblivion awaiting the rest of your soul, surely?’

‘Not at all,’ said Admiral Slovo. ‘I absolutely forbid it!’

‘Sorry. It’s non-negotiable. Do you want to see The Book now, before you go?’

Slovo saw no point in further protest, but found that curiosity lingered on even in a mind that hadn’t long to live. ‘Since you’ve brought it,’ he said.

The Vehmist made a conjuration with his hands and from nowhere a vast tome appeared, resting firmly upon nothing. Around and about, the air was agitated with half-glanced swirls of red and purple: signs of The Book’s demonic-guardians.

‘Read and learn,’ Slovo was told. ‘You’ve deserved it.’

After token hesitation, Admiral Slovo arose and walked to where this great honour was waiting. The filaments of colour, sensing permission, made grudging way for him, leaving an odour of carrion.

To touch, it was like any other book in Slovo’s library, though bound so as to last for whole civilizations of use. He lifted the heavy front board and, caring all too little for the past, made straightaway for the volume’s hinder parts.

The Vehmist came round to join him. ‘Ah – now this,’ he said, pointing to a particular verse, ‘concerns what is yet to come.’

‘St Peter,’ read Slovo, albeit with difficulty, for he had neglected his study of the earlier forms of Greek, ‘shall be … shown the Sun, Sol Invictus, and taken on a … tour of Rome. The churches?’

‘Places of worship,’ nodded the Vehmist, like a tutor pleased with his pupil. ‘But yes, essentially churches.’

‘The churches shall be filled with light and then be silent.’

‘Very good,’ said the Vehmist, betraying some surprise at the lack of assistance required. ‘The Great Analytic Council of the Vehme interpret it all thus: that the body of St Peter will be discovered beneath the great construct bearing his name, and it will be exhumed in disgrace and dragged through the streets of Rome by the mob. All the churches, chapels and cathedrals will be set ablaze and then left, burntout and abandoned. We will find other, less defiled, sites for our neo-temples.’

‘I see …’ said Slovo.

‘Before this you will find predicted three great universal conflicts, each more savage than the last, bringing half the world to ruin. None appear to be of our making but all serve our ultimate advantage.’

‘But of course,’ replied Admiral Slovo.

The Vehmist seemed a little disappointed by Slovo’s reaction and was anxious that he be properly impressed.

‘The concluding pages are sealed even to me,’ he confessed, ‘but looking ahead as far as permitted, we find reference to a time when man lives elsewhere than Mother Earth, though where or how that can be we cannot presently conceive.’

Slovo prevented the Vehmist’s hand from speeding forward through the pages. ‘Just at the moment,’ he said, politely apologetic, ‘I am more intrigued to see those pages which refer to me.’

‘Oh?’ said the Vehmist, surprised and discountenanced by such unexpected, self-regarding myopia. ‘Very well then.’

He turned back in The Book to a section with which he was plainly familiar, and left Slovo to peruse as he wished, whilst he reinvestigated the pleasures of the view over the Gulf. After all, the Admiral had a tongue in his head should he encounter difficulties in translation.

Admiral Slovo read for a long time and saw, in neat array, his entire life foretold. Long before he was even born, the writer had travelled in Slovo’s most private thoughts and foreseen all his days from birth to death, today. Slovo couldn’t help feeling that he needn’t have bothered to have actually lived his life.

He wished with all his ice-coated heart that he could find some fault, some fall from perfection, in the Vehme’s consummate cycle of prediction and fulfilment – and for the first and last time his prayers were promptly and properly answered.

‘This line here,’ he asked, succeeding in concealing the rising excitement from his voice, ‘what does it mean?’

The Vehmist leant over to read. ‘And he will hold the key,’ he pronounced, with ease born of prior acquaintance, ‘and the usurper will thus not prevail. That’s a reference to your crucial role in the matter of the Dybbuk and its attempt to bring on the end of everything. The key, that’s you; the usurper, that’s the Dybbuk – and due to you, it didn’t prevail, did it?’

‘I see,’ said Slovo and savoured a moment of quiet triumph. ‘However,’ he then went on, as though musing aloud, ‘might there not be an alternative reading of the text?’

‘No,’ said the Vehmist, returning to his vigil over the water to Naples.

‘Oh, I don’t know,’ Slovo persevered. ‘Might not “the usurper” be the Vehme – you do seek to usurp, don’t you? Might not “the key” be this?’

The Vehmist whirled about to see Admiral Slovo holding up an elaborate key, secured on a stout chain about his neck. The Welshman made to speak … thought on, and then sought to speak again – but could not, as his universe crashed in ruins about him.

‘To the prison of the gods?’ he quavered, when he could at last muster sufficient voice to talk. His wide eyes never left the elevated key. ‘To the chamber below Rome?’

Admiral Slovo nodded but was kind enough not to smile.

‘But … but you said the door was sealed – secured with a seal.’

‘I did and it is,’ agreed Slovo. ‘But that’s just wax – a ruse. Didn’t you ever wonder about the Cross-Keys symbol of the Papal emblem? One key to the Gates of Heaven for sure, but the second to some other place. What an unobservant lot you turned out to be! Yes, sirrah, the objects of your ambition and worship are held by lock and key, hapless captives of a Church that’s wiser than it looks. What a shame I never paid it the attention it deserves! Still, that’s life. No, you’ll never liberate your masters without permission – or without this key.’

‘So …’ said the Vehmist, advancing a step.

The Admiral held the key higher. ‘A dying Pope told me,’ he said. ‘Poor old Julius, he never had much luck. It was I who found him expiring alone in some dive, and he was worried that the key each Pope inherits might fall into improper hands. And so it did, of course: that is to say, mine. Being me, I bagged the thing before handing the dead Julius on – just a reflex action really, and a quite shameful betrayal of trust. Right at the end, you see, Julius had my word – I promised to act in good faith. But now I’m glad I lied; it turns out to have been worth all the interrogations and falsehoods. At the time I didn’t even know what I proposed to do with the thing – sell or bequeath it to the Vehme, one presumes …’

‘Just so, Admiral, just so,’ said the Welshman, hungrily extending his cupped hands.

‘But now I realize that can’t be. The Book must be fulfilled, mustn’t it? After all, everything else it said of me came true.’

‘NO,’ said the Vehmist, taking another step. ‘We—’

‘Sorry, no, you must not prevail,’ Slovo corrected, swiftly impaling the Vehmist with a lightning stiletto-thrust to the eye.

Lax in passing on the message of death, the Vehmist’s brain caused his body to stagger two paces on, the blade still protruding from his face, before he fell like a supplicant at Slovo’s feet.

Meanwhile, The Book roared into flame, scorching the Admiral’s back and arm as it did so. Within seconds it was consumed into nothing. The red and purple demon-trails plummeted to join the conflagration and then were gone.

Slovo toed the dead Vehmist off to roll away down towards Naples, boorishly scattering a host of feeding birds as he went. Unexpectedly, the Admiral found it within himself to construct a laugh and his distant house-servants turned to stare at the unprecedented sound. As far as the Dybbuk’s parting gift allowed, Admiral Slovo’s final moments on earth were happy ones.

He took the key from its chain and pushed it, end on, deep into the soft lawn. Centuries later, the Archaeologist would find it and, in due course and for want of any better use, present it to the Victoria and Albert Museum.

His life’s work thus complete, Slovo was free to stroll home through the beautiful garden and back to the chore the Vehmist had interrupted.

‘Oh man,’ he recited as he went, more than ever glad of the Meditations now he was on his final journey, ‘citizenship of this great World-City has been yours. Whether for five or five-score years, what is that to you? You are not ejected from the City by any unjust judge or tyrant, but by the self-same Nature which brought you into it. Pass on your way then with a smiling face, under the smile of him who bids you go.’

Admiral Slovo duly looked to the sky and smiled. There was the hope of peace, of escape from being Admiral Slovo – and paradise in knowing nothing. The bath would be cold by now, but that needn’t deter him. If his worst fears were confirmed, it would be plenty hot enough where he was going.