Popes and Phantoms

The Year 1492 ‘INSTALMENTS: In which I become impatient and incite some nostalgics to ambitions of destroying the human race. Little by little, I learn something.’

‘Almighty Lord, on the reasonable assumption that you exist and that your wishes for Mankind are actually as related by the various revelations honoured by my time and culture, please forgive me for the things I have done, do, and will do. Generally speaking I mean well – except when I mean ill; which is probably too often (although my employers are usually responsible for that). Please keep my melancholia within acceptable bounds. Overlook my ambivalent attitude to Judaism: conversion is not, you’ll surely agree, a practical course of action at present. Look kindly on my adherence to Pagan Stoicism: I mean no disrespect. Bless my wife, I suppose, wherever she is. I’m mostly sorry about the people I’ve killed this year …’

A confident tap on his shoulder interrupted Admiral Slovo’s prayers. He turned swiftly, his thumb poised over the spring release on his blade-loaded opal signet ring, to see that a long-haired young man was standing behind him.

‘No thank you,’ whispered the Admiral, remaining on his knees.

‘To what?’ replied the elegant youth, puzzled.

‘To whatever you are selling: yourself (currently fashionable in Rome so I’m told), your sister, choice sweetmeats or indulgences. Whatsoever it may be, I’m not interested.’

‘You are being offensive,’ said the youth; more hazarding a guess than making an accusation.

‘And you are interrupting my prayers,’ said Slovo. ‘I will have to go back to the beginning now.’

‘So?’ the young man replied. ‘Each moment spent in proximity to a Christian place of worship costs me dear. Even this brief conversation will have shortened my lifespan by perhaps one hundred of your years. Another five minutes so close to consecrated ground and I will die.’

‘And?’ asked Slovo, unconcerned.

‘My message will require more than that time to relate. I am not asking for sentiment, Admiral, it is merely a matter of practicalities.’

‘I am a reasonable man,’ said Admiral Slovo, slowly rising to his feet. ‘We will adjourn elsewhere.’ Speaking to God he said, ‘Please overlook the interrupted prayers, but this Elf wants to talk business.’

The young man did not actually mean to swagger, but his natural grace, compared to the other citizens of Rome, made it appear so. Once out of the Church of San Tommaso degli Inglesi, he replaced his broad-brimmed hat, arranged his red locks upon his shoulders and then set off briskly down the Via di Monserrato. Admiral Slovo kept pace, well aware that despite his childhood deportment training he appeared like a shambling ape beside his companion.

It was early evening, the between-time before commerce ceased and revelry began. The crowds were thin and incurious, the humanity-generated humidity bearable.

‘Issues have developed,’ said the youth, not deigning to turn his head. ‘Elements mature beyond expectation. Your commission is accelerated by one of your months; extra funding will be provided. At your lodgings,’ he continued, maintaining the same seamless conversation, ‘you will find delivered an oaken cask. Within is a jewelled tiara, formerly the possession of Queen Zenobia of Palmyra; together with a solid gold sword used by the Roman Emperor Caligula for purposes that you would doubtless consider disgraceful. We are not expert at determining human pecuniary values but it is judged that these items, once realized into currency, will be more than adequate for your purposes.’

Admiral Slovo could hardly contradict that assertion but remained less than content. ‘Always these curios,’ he said. ‘Solomon’s breastplate, Attila’s gold spittoon, Cleopatra’s intimate utensils: do you realize how famous I am becoming for selling such things? Questions are being asked by antiquarian professionals. And my wife, who is Genoese and highly acquisitive, shrieks to retain such valuables. Why can’t you fund me with gems? Those I could hide from her.’

‘They have no value to us, Admiral,’ said the youth in all innocence. ‘We give them to our offspring to play with, if we pick them up at all. Be satisfied with what you have – oh, I beg your pardon, that is another thing that humans are unable to do, is it not?’

‘Most of us,’ Slovo politely agreed. ‘If you don’t mind me saying so, you seem a trifle inadequately briefed.’

The youth nodded casually. ‘Possibly so. The tuition I received was sufficient but my attention to it less so. By and large, we find discussion of your kind rather disgusting.’

‘I see,’ said the Admiral.

‘For instance, I think I must now turn the conversation to your personal reward for these endeavours; failing which you will become disaffected.’

‘Yes; what’s in it for me?’ said Slovo, going along with the racial stereotyping for weariness’s sake.

The beautiful youth appeared pleased to find his prejudices confirmed. ‘The King sent you this,’ he said, drawing from his purse a tiny cylinder of green-discoloured bronze. ‘One month advanced, remember. Do not fail us or there will be no more.’ So saying, he handed the cylinder to Slovo and was off.

He need not have hurried for the Admiral’s mind was now elsewhere. Most rare of events, Slovo was obliged to struggle to control his actions. With nigh-on trembling fingers and an expression threatening to break on his face, he unscrewed the cylinder into its component parts. He didn’t pay attention to the masterly craftsmanship or the intricate scenes carved on its side. All of the Admiral’s thoughts were concentrated on the scrap of vellum within. It was the merest corner of a most ancient page, roughly torn across.

Admiral Slovo stood oblivious in the middle of the street and studied the Classical-Latin text: … like the castle of a Parthian … do not accumulate distress but instead, contemplate the meaning of man’s existence which is that …

Slovo fought and won a titanic inner battle and, in victory, was accordingly proud of his adherence to Stoic principles. ‘How frustrating,’ he said calmly.

‘One month from now,’ said Admiral Slovo.

‘Difficult, perhaps …’

‘Quite recently,’ said Slovo matter of factly, ‘I had the good fortune to find the Emperor Caligula’s golden sword, and sold same to Cardinal Grimani for an indecent sum. Accordingly, I have here a bearer-payable draft of deposit upon the Megillah Goldsmith’s house in Rome which should put any such difficulties in proper perspective.’

After the armourer had fetched his wife to read the bond, he wholeheartedly agreed that all difficulties had evaporated like Florentine Citizen militia before Swiss pikemen.

‘I will employ every skilled worker in Capri,’ he said with a proud flourish. ‘If need be, I will subcontract across to Naples. Your arquebuses will be ready in time, honoured Admiral: trust me.’ With this, the armourer, doubtless envisaging villas, farms and a secure old age, grew expansive; almost familiar. ‘Capri has never known an order like it,’ he rejoiced, breaking out a wickered jug of (it transpired) quite impermissible wine. ‘So many hundreds of guns! Before this, I made one or two a year but now, with your patronage, with the apprentices I’ve indentured, the blue sky itself cannot contain me or my good fortune!’

Oh, yes it will, thought Slovo, frowning at his wine, and, sadly, sooner than you think. He looked at the happy armourer and if he had not trained himself otherwise he would have been filled with compassion. Naturally, the fellow could not survive the contract’s completion: that was yet another thing that would have to be arranged. He could not, alas, offer any reprieve or sympathy, so instead he praised the wine.

‘We grow or diminish,’ said the King, ‘in direct proportion to our power – in the tales of humankind, that is. Once we were giants and titans, now we are merely tall. I do not doubt that before long people will disbelieve in us altogether. Your literature will have us as mere pixy figures suitable for the ends of your gardens.’

Admiral Slovo smiled pleasantly and thought to himself that the King was considerably behind the times. As the serried ranks of Elf soldiery in the valley below fired off another practice volley, it occurred to him that a lot of people were in for a shock.

‘And that’s another thing,’ continued the King angrily, ‘this garden business! Everywhere your species goes: gardens. Why must you try and improve on what Nature has provided?’

Nature made it our nature, thought Slovo but said: ‘It is not my place or inclination to defend mankind, Your Majesty. I am merely your gun-runner.’

The King turned to look at him, his yellow cat-eyes burning out from within his bronze helm. ‘And quite a good one – for a renegade; I think we might run to a full page for you this time.’

Admiral Slovo controlled his excitement and looked impassively around the training site. From their high vantage point he could see the tops of the forest trees running on to what seemed like infinity. Rome was a long way away. Slovo had never been so far from sympathetic civilization before. He was therefore comforted to find he did not particularly mind the lack.

Down in the clearing, the Elf warriors fired again, tearing into the facing fringe of trees. Slovo had seen better displays of marksmanship, but recognized that it was early days yet. Noting the clumsiness as they proceeded to reload, he hastened to forestall the King’s next demand.

‘The iron content is at absolute minimum,’ he said. ‘A greater proportion of bronze would have caused performance problems too tedious to elaborate. Your people’s aversion to iron is known to me but in this respect, if no other, you must defer. It was for my weaponry skills that I was hired.’

‘That and your humanity,’ agreed the King. ‘Man’s knowledge of us is not so faded that I could send my own golden-eyed folk to commission myriad guns of bronze for long-limbed sinistrists. Besides, you understand the money thing and the ways of tradesmen. Your high Vatican position is excellent cover and your lack of racial loyalty so … stimulating. You were the obvious choice.’

‘Your Majesty is too kind,’ said Slovo, bowing slightly.

The King gazed away into the middle distance. ‘We will learn to tolerate the burning touch of iron,’ he mused. ‘We were dispossessed by iron and with iron (well, a proportion of it) we will regain the land. No more flint and copper against blades of steel: this time we will be as deadly as you …’

Having lately been in charge of the Roman state-armoury inventories, Admiral Slovo took leave to doubt this – but said nothing. He was toying with the alarming discovery that he found some of the lithe Elf youths sexually attractive.

‘I know what you are thinking,’ said the King.

I hope you don’t, thought the Admiral.

‘You are thinking that we are few for such an enterprise; that our martial skills and arquebuses notwithstanding, your Swiss, French, English and German soldiers …’

‘Italians also fight on occasion,’ protested Slovo.

‘… will overrun us by the weight of numbers. You are thinking that your kind swarm and breed quickly whereas we reproduce only with effort and good fortune: is that not so?’

‘No,’ replied the Admiral truthfully, ‘my mind was not resting on that.’

‘Well, even so,’ said the King, refusing to be deprived of his speech, ‘should you be planning to think of it, you would be wrong.’

‘Doubtless,’ said Slovo obligingly.

‘We are a vanguard, Admiral. This is an unprecedented array. Here I have the very best of all the scattered feuding tribes. All those who dare clutch the iron and dream of restitution are coming to me; the old chieftains are powerless to stop them. No more skulking in the wild places and fleeing your expansion. We are learning from you. Unheard of amongst the Old Races, an Over-King has been crowned and I am he. Our old ways and institutions are being remoulded by my dream. We will arm and learn to use your guns. Our day is returning and when we are ready we will take a human town and kill all within it so that not one usurper is left. And when that is heard abroad, all the hidden Elf Nations will unite and rise!’

‘Very commendable,’ said Admiral Slovo, the soul of gentlemanly toleration towards the pet projects of others. ‘I suggest Pisa. Its walls are in a lamentable state and I once spent a most unhappy season there.’

The King, like any common Elf or person, resentful of being humoured, lowered his voice an octave or two. ‘And then it will be your turn to eke out life in the forests and foothills,’ he concluded grimly. ‘Meanwhile,’ the King continued, recalling the present necessity, ‘commission another thousand handguns, and twelve demi-cannon. I presume the previous gunsmith is now dead?’

‘Regrettably so,’ confirmed the Admiral.

‘Then have them made elsewhere; somewhere far away.’

‘Venice?’ suggested Slovo.

‘An excellent choice; we have that place well infiltrated. My emissary will contact you there.’

‘The same youth as before, Your Majesty?’

‘No: his visit to your … church, impaired his health; therefore he was killed.’

‘I see.’

‘He fully agreed with my judgement, Admiral. There are no bystanders here; merely martyrs and would-be martyrs. Come and see.’ The King rose from the fallen tree on which they had rested and gestured that Slovo should accompany him into the valley clearing. ‘Do not fear,’ he said, ‘you will be safe – the only human of whom that can be said.’

Even so, a low but musical growl of disapproval greeted Admiral Slovo as he approached the Elfish army. Powerless to alter matters, he found it easy to ignore and soon was in the midst of the be-plumed and feathered soldiery.

According to their tribe or inclination, some were in plain black, or green, or gold. Others were as gaudy as a Cardinal in all his glory. Over long evolution, far longer than humans had had to develop, their swords and halberds of bronze had mutated into wild and complex multi-edged forms, contrasting with the earnest practicality of the man-made guns.

Who knows? thought Slovo, Perhaps I am wrong, maybe they do stand a chance. The smallest, most ill-favoured Elf towered six inches over his own head, he noted.

‘You are impressed,’ said the King, ‘and rightly so. The old chieftains counselled patience – arm if you must, they said, but do not gather; lie low. Wait for the usurpers to slip; for a plague, a famine, world-wide war, for anything to shorten impossible odds. But we have waited too long; like rats, your kind survives every misfortune and grows even stronger. The younger and better of us grow impatient and slip away from their people. They join and merge with the human victors and become great artists, soldiers and suchlike – not for their own people, no – but for you!’ The King shook his helmeted head. ‘That must all end,’ he said. Suddenly he drew out his two-handed sword and hacked down a nearby warrior. ‘Which it will not do,’ he continued, wiping his blade on the Elf’s sundered body, ‘whilst Elf-kind display such personal laxity as that individual. His hair was deplorably ill-dressed. I cannot abide that, can you, Admiral?’

‘No indeed, Your Majesty,’ replied Slovo, favourably impressed by the lack of reaction shown by the Elfish troops. Drilling continued unabated around and over the deceased.

‘Well,’ said the King, as they passed through the soldiers and into the camp on the valley’s opposite side, ‘I suppose you must receive your reward.’

‘If it’s quite convenient,’ said the Admiral, masking anticipation from his voice.

The King shrugged his mail-clad shoulders. ‘It is all the same to me,’ he said. ‘But who is this Marcus Aurelius you revere so much as to betray your race for him?’

Admiral Slovo borrowed heavily from his ample reserves of patience. ‘Was, Your Majesty, was. He was a Roman Emperor of the second Christian century and a primary exponent of the Stoic philosophy to which, in all humility, I adhere. It was always thought that his writings survived in one volume only, the incomparable Meditations. However, it transpires you have in your possession a second book of equal merit …’

‘Just so,’ smiled the Elf-King mercilessly.

‘… an eighth or ninth-century monkish copy of a hitherto unknown original whose title I do not know.’

‘Because I will not show it to you,’ said the King cheerfully.

‘Indeed,’ replied Slovo, knowing now how Tantalus suffered in Hades.

The King crooked his finger and from the chaos of cook-fires and horse compounds trotted an Elf-boy carrying a bundle wrapped in fine, scarlet Elf-silk.

‘A page, I believe, was my promise,’ said the King, withdrawing a wood-bound volume from the proffered bundle. With one long finger he flicked randomly through its crumbling contents, never shifting his gaze from Slovo. ‘Of course, you could end up with a mere chapter heading or a blank,’ he said, full of mock sorrow.

‘There is that possibility,’ agreed Slovo.

‘But fate decrees you shall have … this!’ The King’s left hand halted its headlong progress and with thumb and forefinger seized a page by its top corner. ‘A full page of writing – and a complete discussion at that: On the cultivation of a bounteous harvest of Indifference. Mother Fortune has smiled on you, Admiral: may this bring you much happiness – or indifference to happiness.’

The page was carelessly torn from the book and handed over.

Admiral Slovo scan-read it then and there lest, in a refinement of cruelty, the Elves straightaway snatched it from him. He had the substance of the matter committed to memory before he looked up again.

Like the children that they in some ways are, the Elves had suddenly lost all interest in him and abruptly wandered off. The book, the King, the Elf-boy were gone and Admiral Slovo was left alone and unregarded in the midst of their camp whilst the bustle continued all around him. It was his dismissal.

He re-read the page for safety’s sake and then pocketed it lovingly. His horse was not far off, sheltering amidst the Arab stallions of the Elves, and, with luck and disregard for comfort, he could be back in Rome in five days. There was time to attend to his Vatican duties before he need worry about arranging death in Venice.

Everything was going supremely well – although he was careful not to permit himself more than moderate enjoyment of the fact. Admiral Slovo turned and smiled on the Elves training in the evening sunlight.

Acquisition of the whole book was an unrealistic aspiration. However, there was, he considered, every reasonable chance of digesting its substance, a page here, a paragraph there, before events resolved themselves. Perhaps the attack on Pisa would succeed and the Old Ways would rise as the King predicted. Then they would need fresh arms if mankind was to be finally swept from the scene. Alternatively, Pisa (judiciously forewarned by … someone) might repulse the rising and force Elf-kind’s first Over-King to fresh considerations. Time alone delayed the revelation that the guns Slovo had supplied could not survive (and were specifically designed not to survive) more than a few score firings. One way or another, the trickle of inducements to himself would continue.

Come what may, across the chasm of the centuries, Admiral Slovo would hear what the Stoic Emperor Marcus had to say; and in reading the book and taking its message to heart, he would be content with whatsoever transpired.

‘Didn’t quite work out that way, did it, Admiral?’

Back at the end of his life, Slovo was still talking to the Welsh Vehmist.

‘Sadly no. When I next returned to the Over-King’s camp, everything was gone as if it had never been. Oh – apart from one thing – one of my arquebuses was lying in the middle of the clearing, neatly snapped in half. I assumed that was for my benefit.’

‘Correct,’ confirmed the Vehmist.

‘Well, I got the message,’ Slovo continued, ‘and never went back. In fact, that was the last I heard of the matter. I didn’t get my book.’

‘No,’ said the Vehmist, trying to sound decently regretful. ‘We didn’t feel that you’d deserved it.’

Slovo toyed with a green fig, powerfully indenting it with his fingers. ‘So it was another of your schemes, then?’ he said, regarding the wounded fruit.

The Vehmist answered, ‘We curtailed your little bit of private enterprise as a favour to ourselves and our allies. Mind you, your deviousness up to that point quite delighted us. The first we got to learn of anything was the attack on Pisa.’

‘Oh,’ smiled Slovo, ‘so they got around to that, did they? How come I didn’t hear of it?’

‘Because,’ the Vehmist replied simply, ‘by then we were on the case. It was in the interest of all concerned parties – declared or not – to draw a veil over things. And the Pisans are an incurious lot, not given to history or recording. If they can’t eat it or fuck it …’

‘Yes, quite,’ interrupted the Admiral fastidiously. ‘So what happened?’

‘I said you’d ask,’ laughed the Vehmist, ‘but my Master wouldn’t have it – not a man in his position, he said. Good job I read the file right through for all the details …’

‘I’m a military man,’ said Slovo. ‘I like neat endings.’

‘Just so, Admiral, and I’m here to humour you in every respect. Well, it’s easily told. They didn’t do too bad, all things considered. Bear in mind, for instance, they were all separate peoples and tribes. Also, their last real experience of full scale infantry action was, what—?’

‘A thousand?’ suggested Slovo.

‘Yeah, maybe a thousand years beforehand. Not only that, but they weren’t using their preferred weapons, like the repeating crossbow and assassin’s blades, but those guns you’d so kindly got them. Like I said, it was quite a creditable effort, really.’

‘But to no avail, I take it?’

‘No. They came on in pike columns, heading for the Town-Gate, covered by a skirmish line of your arquebus fellows. It was all rather neat apparently – given their undisciplined propensities. The Elvish cannons even scored a few decent hits, though how you’d miss a town wall I’m not quite sure.’

‘You’ve clearly never fired a gun in the midst of battle,’ observed the Admiral acidly.

‘No, thank gods,’ said the Vehmist, the gibe bouncing harmlessly off him. ‘Well, the Pisans were surprised, of course. But they got some shots off, taking a few Elves out and – blammo – all order flees. Among the Elves it just turned into a mad scramble for the Gate and racial enemy, knives drawn.’

Admiral Slovo shook his head sadly. It didn’t matter any more, but even at the remove of decades, displays of uncorseted emotion had the power to upset him.

‘So they were all packed together like a mad mob by the time they neared the Town,’ the Vehmist continued, trying manfully to conceal a modicum of amusement. ‘Meanwhile, the Pisan militia had woken up, so to speak, and trundled a cannon or two to the spot and, after that, the Elf horde couldn’t do a thing right …’

‘After that,’ interjected the Admiral, concluding on the Vehmist’s behalf, ‘they were torn asunder with grapeshot and fled, bewildered, each a victim of their own solipsistic individualism.’

‘Neglecting to carry their wounded with them, I might add,’ said the Vehmist reprovingly.

‘Naturally,’ said Slovo. ‘They’re Elves.’

‘It doesn’t excuse them,’ the Vehmist persevered. ‘We were quite inconvenienced by their left-behinds – living and otherwise. Still, it all got sorted out in the end: “bandits”, was the official explanation, unusually ambitious ones. It suited all parties to swallow it.’

‘And the left-behinds?’ queried Slovo.

‘A rather odd burial mound beside the City walls – a puzzle for antiquaries and grave-robbers to come: such long limbs … such elegant skulls. At their request, we left it to the other petty Elf-Lords to deal with their High-King. It was all done with consummate treachery.’

‘I thought they might act sooner or later,’ agreed the Admiral. ‘He was premature – and bad publicity. His race do not care for undue attention.’

‘Quite so,’ said the Vehmist. ‘Fen and fell and Downs folk they must remain for a good while yet; till either their ambitions are modified or man’s intolerance is moderated. Unless, that is, some reckless individual such as you, acts to fan their ancient grievance and deludes them once again into ruin.’

‘I got impatient,’ said Admiral Slovo, wondering why on earth he felt the need to explain any more. ‘Quite aside from the delectable bait the High-King was holding out, you lot seemed to have abandoned me in the dusty labyrinth of the Vatican bureaucracy.’

‘Sin, most grievous sin,’ confessed the Vehmist. ‘Apparently our attentions were particularly focused elsewhere during those years – although that hardly excuses our neglect. Your little project perforce drew our eyes back to Italy and made us realize there were blades we’d failed to sharpen back there. It was decided to tell you more.’

‘Ah yes,’ recalled Slovo, ‘the international conspiracy annual dinner-dance …’

The Vehmist both smiled and winced.