Popes and Phantoms

The Year 1497 ‘A STAB IN THE DARK: I apply liberality to the dispensing of Justice and assist a soul in torment.’

‘To my mind,’ said Juan Borgia, Second Duke of Gandia, Prince of Teano and Tricarico, Duke of Benevento and Terracina, freshly appointed Gonfaloniere of the Holy Church, ‘the realm of Venus is, more than any other, ripe for … conquest.’

‘For taking – and despoilment!’ agreed his sycophantic, masked friend.

‘Just so,’ said the Duke, licking his lips. ‘Its frontiers are invitingly open, its forces so weak as to invite violation. As a youth I probed its outer provinces; now, as a Prince, I am invading in force!’

‘I bear witness to this,’ said the masked man. ‘Duke Juan’s three-pronged thrusts against the orifices of womankind advance on and in every day!’

They both laughed heartily and then Juan snuffed out his amusement as if it were a candle, resuming his normal vicious disgruntlement. ‘And what think you, Admiral?’ he said sharply. ‘What is your opinion of my military metaphor?’

The small group in the vineyard set aside their drinks and delicacies and turned to regard Admiral Slovo.

‘I have been a most infrequent visitor to the land of which you speak,’ he said equably, unconcerned by the general scrutiny. ‘Its scenery can be beguiling, I grant you, but extended stays are, I feel, a greatly overrated pastime.’

‘The Admiral feels,’ said Cesare Borgia, hitherto silently vigilant, ‘—and I tend to concur with him, that Queen Venus does not merit the diversion of a whole campaign. She does us no harm, poses no threat and pays tribute and lip service to our efforts. I cannot understand the spirit of aggression towards her.’

Duke Juan, ever on the precipice of malevolence, sulkily adjusted his gaze from Slovo to his own younger brother. ‘Is that so …’ he said icily.

Cesare considered the question with exaggerated care. ‘Yes,’ he said at last, ‘that is my opinion and also, I suspect, that of our Father. It strikes me that he would prefer his Gonfaloniere to concentrate his energies elsewhere: for example, on the campaign which is the pretext for this party.’

‘I am ever indebted for your advice, little brother,’ said Juan, wearing a smile that was worse than any sneer. ‘You know how I hunger and thirst to live up to your expectations. Ah, here is Mother come to quiet us.’

The conversational rack suddenly relaxed two or three notches as Vanozza Dei Cataneis approached them.

Cataneis had never been accounted beautiful or witty. However, she bore sons and, rarest of all qualities in her time and place, was loyal and discreet. For nearly thirty years these virtues had endeared her to Rodrigo Borgia (latterly Pope Alexander VI) although his more urgent affections now wandered elsewhere (and everywhere). The lady also possessed the preserving sense, innate to noble Roman Houses, of knowing, before even the participants did, when talk was turning deadly.

‘Sons, gentlemen,’ she said softly, ‘I have detected a certain tension in the air, dispelling the evening calm and the scent of the vines. Surely that cannot emanate from this vicinity?’

‘Absolutely not, Mother,’ said Duke Juan, so profoundly dissembling as to shock Cesare and Slovo, inspiring new respect in them. ‘We were discussing martial stratagems; a matter most relevant in the context of my imminent departure to war.’

Even the most skilful deceit is wasted on a man’s mother. Madame Dei Cataneis was unconvinced. ‘Then how fortuitous, Juan, that a military man is present to make informed comment on your opinions: Admiral Slovo, how are you?’

Slovo bowed graciously. ‘Well, my Lady. And my eyes remove the necessity of enquiring after your own health.’

Cataneis favoured him with a frugal smile. ‘And do you still kill Turks on the seaways, Admiral?’ she said.

‘But rarely, Madame – the occasional foray from my native Capri …’

‘I thought you were a Florentine,’ said Duke Juan, interrupting instantly as the information mismatch registered. ‘Or was it Milan?’

Admiral Slovo’s expression did not change. ‘On one side,’ he said, ‘yes, possibly – however, to answer my Lady’s question, nowadays I sail less predictable waters.’

‘So one hears,’ said Cataneis. ‘You have been a most useful right hand, I gather, first to one Pope, then another …’

‘They come and they go, Popes do,’ said Joffre Borgia, the youngest present – and then coloured up, realizing what a stupid, perhaps even dangerous comment that was.

However defective their morality, the manners of those present were exquisite and they passed over the teenager’s gaffe in decent silence.

‘One endeavours to be useful,’ said Slovo, ‘and adaptable.’

It was a complete explanation for everything. Nobody of the company’s time and class would have dreamt of disputing such a statement.

‘A universal maxim!’ agreed Cesare, draining any feeling from his voice. ‘We all aspire to its demands, do we not? Take my brother, Juan, for instance; one day, Duke of … some place or other in Spain; the next, Gonfaloniere sent to re-educate the Orsini and Umbrian kinglings for past misjudgements.[3] It is but the merest wheel of fortune and we must bow to its turns.’

‘Whilst wishing Duke Juan every good fortune as you do so,’ said the Lady Cataneis firmly, staring blankly into the middle distance.

‘Just so,’ agreed Cesare smoothly, thereby returning his mother’s powers of focus.

Admiral Slovo was impressed. The venerated Lady had quietly established mastery in this potentially disruptive corner of her vineyard – or almost so.

‘And your companion, Juan,’ she said, ‘his festive mask is most amusing, but seems a little too permanent. Tonight we celebrate with family and friends – and those that they can vouch for. There is no need for concealment.’

‘Alas not so, in his case,’ replied Juan airily. ‘My Spaniard acquired a blade’s kiss in my service and he now fears to distress gentle ladies and children of the quality with its aftermath. I retain him for his loyalty – and besides, he amuses me.’

This last, the Duke added hastily as he detected a slight communal shiver of disapproval at his display of sentiment.

There the stream of conversation ran underground and could not be found again. Cataneis was content in her victory, just as Duke Juan was discontented by his feeling of defeat. Admiral Slovo had long ago trained himself to relish silence, and anyway no reading of Cesare Borgia’s chilly nerve circuits was humanly possible. Joffre, being inadequate, and the masked man, being a servant, were not entitled to contribute to the progress of intercourse – or lack of it.

Duke Juan’s nerve broke first. ‘Mother’s mention of amusement prompts my memory,’ he said, with all due show of confidence. ‘I recall a provisional appointment. Would you therefore excuse me?’

‘If the sap is rising, you rascal,’ said Cataneis, ‘I can do no else. This is a party given in your honour and there is therefore no reason for it to outlive your leaving or change of humour.’

‘I am obliged,’ said Juan, bobbing his ringleted head to show the required respect. ‘Come, gipsy – life awaits us!’

The masked man bowed to all present and followed his master out.

‘Who is he?’ asked Cataneis, sharply.

‘A Spaniard,’ replied Cesare, ‘called Sebastiano.’

‘You have checked this? He can be vouched for?’

‘Yes to both, Mother.’

‘Then I am at peace on the subject.’ The Lady Cataneis nodded to Admiral Slovo and swept away.

Evening was well advanced and in Rome, particularly in a Roman vineyard, such an hour is unusually charming. The fading light and the heat of the day were diffused by the vine-stacks, and the politically correct statuary caught and trapped the roving eye. It had been a most discreet party, designed, like the mild refreshments, as a respite from the social hurricane beyond the walls. Admiral Slovo detected something of the Stoic spirit in the whole concept and was pleased.

‘Brother Joffre,’ said Cesare quietly, ‘I espy that Lord Bondaniella of the Palatine is slobbering down your wife’s cleavage once again. This is a slight on our family and our Mother’s hospitality. As is her acquiescence, might I add. Go and deal with the matter.’

With an oath, Joffre rushed away as he was bidden.

Alone together, Admiral Slovo and Cesare Borgia studied just about everything but each other. The Admiral nevertheless saw the flash in the Borgian eye when his companion eventually spoke.

‘A man should honour his Father and Mother, Admiral.’

‘That you may live long and prosper in the land,’ agreed Slovo cautiously. ‘Yes, it is divinely ordained as a binding mechanism for human society.’

Cesare nodded. ‘And yet how much easier it is to obey that noble call, Admiral, when one finds oneself in total agreement with parental views.’

‘Indeed,’ said Slovo.

Cesare stretched forth his hand and plucked one grape from a bunch overhead, rolling it between his gloved fingers. ‘So I find myself in pleasing accord with Mother,’ he went on, ‘when she says Juan’s departure will be excused.’

For the first time – and for a second only – their eyes were permitted to meet and in the ensuing data exchange they both found the information they sought.

‘I believe,’ said Admiral Slovo, slowly, ‘that I may be in your debt.’

‘If that is so,’ replied Cesare, ‘then you will find me an easier usurer than those Jews you fraternize with.’

‘I say thus,’ continued Slovo, hurrying on, alarmed by Cesare’s knowledge of his affairs, ‘suspecting that, prior to your intervention, Duke Juan was minded to … dispense with me: that is to say, with my services.’

‘Such notions,’ said Cesare, with as much casual significance as he ever permitted his voice to bear, ‘ever fly about, Admiral.’

Indeed they do, thought Slovo, more than normally careful not to let his thoughts inform his face.

He had good reasons for so thinking. When he had watched Duke Juan ride forth that night, with his groom and the masked man, there had been a certain fuzziness to his image; a doubleness in the vision. It was as though his soul were preparing to leave him.

‘So you found Duke Juan’s body then?’ said Rabbi Megillah. ‘Well, there is merit in that, surely?’

‘To a degree,’ affirmed Admiral Slovo. ‘But with His Holiness urging me on an hourly basis, I could do no other. For all my belief that some mysteries are best left unsolved, I had no choice in the matter.’

The Rabbi looked up from his goblet of water but swiftly controlled his eyes, purging them of the embryo of suspicion. ‘Ecclesiastes 9, 5,’ he said to cover any misunderstanding. ‘“The dead know nothing.” Therefore, what do they care?’ He need not have worried for Slovo seemed not to have noticed the slip.

‘That was only half of my commission,’ the Admiral continued resignedly. ‘The balance is more problematic.’

‘Alexander insists on a culprit?’ hazarded Rabbi Megillah.

‘Precisely: justice even!’ Slovo confirmed.

‘He is of a class that can demand such exotica, Admiral. If it were you or I—’

‘Or any of the dozen other ex-people today resting in the Tiber,’ said Slovo.

‘Just so. Few would enquire, fewer still would care and none would demand explanation from a world that is answer enough for any enormity. Some might question the Almighty (blessed be His name) but with little hope of satisfaction. In these times, such lightning strikes are all too common.’

‘Though one can avoid travelling in storms,’ said Admiral Slovo. ‘Taanith 25: Rabbi Eliezer said: “Some dig their own graves.”’

‘But a bolt can seek you out, whilst safe at home, should it so wish.’

‘Should it be so ordained,’ Slovo corrected, realigning the conversational metaphor on to strictly natural phenomena.

Rabbi Megillah accepted the well-intentioned rebuke and pointedly steered his talk on to a new course. ‘I’m told the wounds were savage,’ he said, with decently feigned sympathy.

‘As these things go, yes,’ said Admiral Slovo. ‘Certainly they were delivered with passion and commitment. There were nine entries in all; one in the neck, the others on his head. Any could have been the killing blow.’

‘A shame,’ said the Rabbi. ‘He was a handsome man – for a Spaniard.’

‘But no longer. When we dredged him from the sewer outfall area, little of the charm you mention was left.’

‘We are but bags of blood, belted in and animated by the word of the Almighty (blessed be His name),’ intoned Rabbi Megillah, as though Slovo would not know this simple truth.

Slovo left off his study of the table top and stared at the Rabbi. ‘I do not recognize the quotation,’ he said with interest.

‘It is my own, Admiral.’

‘Pity: composed by a Christian it might have found publication.’

Megillah shrugged, enviably untroubled by such considerations. ‘Duke Juan’s groom can tell you nothing?’ he asked.

‘He is dying,’ said Slovo, smiling gently, ‘but will not accept the fact. Thinking to collect his earthly reward, he says nothing, remembers nothing. Even His Holiness’s rages have not shaken his memory.’

‘Torture?’ suggested the Rabbi.

‘It would kill him within minutes. His Holiness’s operatives in that field are so unimaginative, and I am too fastidious to offer the suggestions that might do the trick.’

‘What of the masked man, Admiral; has he been located?’

‘Gone, Rabbi: never existed, not known in the world of men.’

‘Then there is your culprit!’ smiled Rabbi Megillah, glad to be helpful.

‘As well present the smith who made the dagger,’ said Slovo, shaking his grey head. ‘The Pope does not want the killing tool, but he who wielded it; not the assassin, but his patron.’

‘He expects a great deal of this life,’ said Rabbi Megillah in surprise. ‘But what a Pope wants, he must have.’ The Rabbi had ample, sad evidence of that law in his own short experience as ghetto leader.

‘That or an acceptable substitute, Rabbi. Regrettably, what I presently have for His Holiness is very far from acceptable – to him or me.’

‘You have a perpetrator!’ exclaimed Megillah.

‘Oh, yes.’ Admiral Slovo smiled for the third or fourth time that evening (possibly a record). ‘Let us just say,’ he mused, ‘that I had a word in someone’s ear.’

‘Thank you for agreeing to this interview,’ said Cesare Borgia, ‘and for maintaining a suitable reticence regarding same.’

Admiral Slovo bowed and graciously accepted the thanks.

‘Would you care for refreshment, Admiral?’

‘I think not, my Lord.’

‘You need not fear poisoning, Admiral; my reputation is exaggerated.’

‘As is my thirst for intoxicating drink, my Lord. Besides: I recognize that there is currently no advantage to be accrued in my removal.’

Cesare, Protonotary of the Church, Treasurer of Cartagena Cathedral, Bishop of Pampeluna, Archbishop of Valenzia and Cardinal-Deacon of Santa Maria Nuova, sat stock still, quietly reviewing something in the ultra low-temperature conducting machine he had made of his mind. ‘Ah yes,’ he said in due course, ‘I recall now; you’re the Stoic, are you not?’

Admiral Slovo signalled his indifference to that or any description.

‘If such serves to distinguish me from His Holiness’s other investigators, I am happy with the tag,’ he said. ‘You might be judged likewise – if you will forgive me – by anyone noting your sombre black garb.’

Cesare smiled. ‘Yes, I will forgive you. I acknowledge the connection. There are advantages in the self-control appertaining to your philosophy but the reasons for my habitual choice of dress run deeper.’

‘As does my philosophy,’ riposted Slovo.

Cesare abruptly shifted his direction of advance in the manner that, militarily, was later to make him famous. ‘And how deep do your present investigations run, Admiral?’ he said.

‘River deep, mountain high, my Lord,’ replied Slovo. ‘But that is not something I should discuss before any other than His Holiness – or possibly close family.’

‘Ignore Michelotto,’ said Cesare, indicating the swarthy and similarly black-clad man sitting at his side. ‘He is mine; I trust him with life and death.’

Admiral Slovo looked at Michelotto and the long-haired, bulky retainer politely inclined his head. His wide and innocent eyes deprived him of the look of an assassin – which must have been of some advantage in that trade.

‘Very well,’ said Slovo. ‘I can inform you that my investigations are complete, that my presentation is prepared and my provisional conclusions drawn.’

‘And would it be a culpable betrayal,’ said Cesare, weighing each word, ‘to prematurely reveal those conclusions to any other than His Holiness, the Pope?’

‘Most certainly it would.’

‘But nevertheless?’ prompted Cesare, the very rarest sliver of doubt embedded in his voice.

‘Nevertheless,’ confirmed Slovo, ‘all things being considered …’

‘I will not insult you with offers of gold and patronage,’ said Cesare swiftly, not wishing to snatch defeat from the jaws of unexpected victory.

‘No, do not,’ said the Admiral. ‘There are motives for betrayal other than the mundane – but you, of course, know that.’

Cesare Borgia modestly waved the compliment away and economically used the same gesture to urge events on.

‘Your brother,’ said Admiral Slovo, leaning back in his chair, ‘I need hardly remind you, left your Mother’s party saying, in effect, that the night was yet young and other pleasures awaited him.’

‘In effect,’ agreed Cesare, allowing a modicum of contempt to surface. ‘The regions below the belt-line controlled Juan’s life; that was well known.’

‘So the most cursory enquiries revealed,’ said Slovo, equally dismissive of such weakness. ‘Now; he was accompanied on the occasion in question by a groom and the masked Spaniard who had been his constant companion and buffoon for the month previous. He left us; a night passed and then the Duke’s household reported his absence from home. His Holiness did not take alarm, reasonably assuming that he was holed up with some other man’s wife and reluctant to be seen leaving her abode by daylight.

‘After the succeeding day and another night passed, His Holiness appointed me master of all things relating to the issue and by late afternoon of that very next day, I had located Duke Juan’s body.’

‘You are a most perspicacious man,’ said Cesare in an absolutely neutral tone. ‘Any Pope – or Prince – able to retain your services would be fortunate indeed.’

‘I could not term the task pleasurable,’ Slovo continued, ‘but it was most certainly educational. To illustrate this, permit me to recount one anecdote from my investigation.’

Cesare warily waved him on.

‘In the continued absence of Duke Juan, I turned naturally to the Tiber – it being the conduit for every kind of unwanted thing. I interviewed a timber merchant who, on the night in question, had kept watch on his water-side yard from a boat on the river. In response to a certain memory-jogging, he remembered, in increasing detail as my patience wore thin, how a group of men had brought a body to the river bank and disposed of it near the sewage outfall. I asked him why he had not reported the occurrence and he told me that in the course of his brief tenancy he had seen upward of one hundred such short-shriftings. No one had troubled him concerning those, he said, therefore why should he think this one any different? Such is the world we live in, my Lord. I thought the man’s point a reasonable one and so let him keep his left ear.’

Cesare indicated his approval of the Admiral’s liberality.

‘We dredged the area,’ Slovo continued, ‘and Duke Juan was revealed, all cut about and gory, as the street balladeers already say. Thus rewarded, I turned to the matter of responsibility and was spoilt for choice for candidates with personal or political motives. The body had thirty ducats on it, and therefore I knew Juan was not the victim of some thief. Actually,’ said Admiral Slovo, in unchanged voice, ‘to my surprise, your own name was mentioned. For example; as a rival with Duke Juan for the favours of your younger brother’s wife, Donna Sancia.’

Cesare laughed. It sounded like distant cannon shot.

‘Precisely,’ said Slovo. ‘I knew that the lady’s favours are too widely and generously given for anyone to fight over them. However, another whisper portrayed Juan and you, together with His Holiness, your Father, as incestuous competitors for the hand – and other parts – of your sister, Lucrezia. That rumour I will pass over in silence other than to say I traced its origin to one Giovanni Sforza, formerly married to your sister but divorced on the humiliating grounds of impotence.’

‘I will note that,’ said Cesare, smiling again.

‘And assuming you have at least the barest familiarity with inheritance laws, I discounted the notion that you sought to acquire your brother’s Dukedom,’ granted Slovo.

‘Which passes to his eldest son,’ agreed Cesare.

‘Just so, my Lord. But to sum up, none of these proposals satisfied. So I was accordingly driven back to my own resources and deductions.’

‘Which were?’ said Cesare, as if he set little store by any expected answer.

‘Which arose,’ persisted Slovo, ‘from forcibly preventing the immediate washing and laying out of your brother’s corpse – as strongly insisted upon by certain Borgia servants. I was therefore able to detect the tiny token of blood present in Duke Juan’s right aural cavity and postulate from that the entry point of the professional assassin’s needle-stiletto. Such a blow putting the matter beyond issue, it became clear that the other visitations of the blade were post-mortem, designed to mislead.’

Cesare nodded appreciatively whilst making private calculations.

‘And my deductions were confirmed,’ Slovo went on, ‘by today re-meeting Michelotto – or Sebastiano, as was – in your employ. He has altered appearance, posture and manner most convincingly; but a mask worn for one month in the fierce Roman sun leaves indications not easily erased. I also note, in passing, it transpires he has no scar.’

‘No,’ said Cesare. ‘My brother thought there might be advantage in the employ of a masked servitor and so concocted a pretence.’

‘But he is a businessman,’ said Slovo.

‘… and therefore open to alternative offers, yes,’ confirmed Cesare. ‘Yet he remains a person of sensitivity and has been much troubled by his previous meeting with you. I believe he wishes to apologize.’

By way of rare indulgence, he indicated that his servant might enter the conversation.

‘My Lord Admiral,’ said Michelotto in a dead, dull voice. ‘I want to broaden your understanding of our encounter in the vineyard. I desire to convince you that I am not always thus. May I say that my sordid speech was dictated by Duke Juan’s company. In matters of the flesh he was a very degraded man and in certain roles, one has to make … accommodations that can be distasteful.’

‘I quite understand,’ replied Admiral Slovo. ‘Men are driven by the storms of circumstances and, unable to stand alone against them, are hardly accountable for the course of their little ship.’

Michelotto stood and bowed in apparently genuine appreciation of the Admiral’s generous spirit.

‘If I take your meaning,’ said Cesare, ‘it prompts me to suggest a possible explanation of Juan’s death.’

‘Really?’ said Slovo, counterfeiting surprise.

‘Could it not be, Admiral, that he was removed by an ambitious member of his family, say a younger brother, anxious to secure the secular honours that would otherwise ever be showered on Juan? Might not such a ruthless and resourceful man infiltrate the Duke’s household with a killer and then disguise the murder as an all too plausible crime of passion?’

‘It is entirely possible, my Lord,’ agreed Slovo. ‘In fact, such is the favoured solution detailed in a number of letters written by myself to His Holiness; presently secured in places various and intended for delivery only in the event of my unexpected demise.’

‘Then may that day be long delayed,’ said Cesare solicitously.

‘But that eventuality aside,’ Slovo continued determinedly, ‘I detect the very brightest future for you now that you are the senior of your clan. And since that is so, I would welcome your guidance on my report to His Holiness. In short, my Lord, and to be plain, the bill of fare being before you, would you care to make a selection? I’ll call it suicide if you wish …’

Cesare sighed with pleasure and sank back into his chair. ‘What all too rare a joy it is,’ he said, smiling and savouring the moment, ‘to meet with such clarity of vision.’

Admiral Slovo woke from sleep – and then wondered whether in fact he had. Instead of being bedded and in his night attire, he was fully dressed and out and about. Quite where he was about he couldn’t say, but from literature and elsewhere he recognized a labyrinthine cave system when he saw one.

The tunnel walls were high and irregular, disappearing up out of sight, beyond the reach of the diffuse and flickering yellowy-red light whose point of origin he could not detect. Looking round for same, he found he was not alone.

‘I want a word with you!’ said a rather cruel voice, whereupon a tall, dark and sodden figure stepped out of the shadows to the Admiral’s side.

‘Good evening, Duke Juan,’ said Admiral Slovo politely. ‘How are you?’

‘Dead – and covered in indescribable things,’ replied Duke Juan, gesturing angrily at his gaping wounds, ‘as you can well see! Otherwise I’m fine. Start walking.’

He pushed at Slovo’s shoulder and they set off together down the gently sloping tunnel.

‘How do I come to be here, may I ask?’ said the Admiral. ‘Am I dead too?’

‘Sadly no,’ said Duke Juan. ‘The explanation is that my anger, being so great, is able to fetch you hence in the hours of the night, when the tide of man’s spirit is at low ebb.’

‘I see,’ said Slovo, clearly fascinated. ‘And this word you wanted with me?’

‘Humanity’s ingenuity has not yet constructed a word of the required ferocity. Therefore I am obliged to resort to whole sentences.’

‘Oh dear,’ said Admiral Slovo, sounding remarkably unperturbed all the same. ‘That sounds rather unpleasant.’

‘It does and it will be,’ said Juan, showing his fine white teeth through the muck of the Tiber. ‘I would prefer to kill you but, that not being permitted, will settle for driving you mad.’

‘How so?’ asked Slovo. ‘Your company is not appreciably more repugnant than in life and this place is marginally tolerable. Purgatory, by definition, has to be so. Incidentally, which route do we take at this junction?’

‘It makes no damn difference which path you take,’ growled Duke Juan. ‘The tunnels are all the same and go on for ever. You never meet anyone, you never see anything different or interesting. That’s Purgatory for you!’

‘I’m prompted to mend my ways so as to avoid it,’ said Admiral Slovo.

‘Oh, but avoid it you will not!’ crowed Duke Juan. ‘I shall keep my fury at boiling point and fetch you here every night to walk with me. Each morning you will wake tormented and drained, and eventually your sanity will depart. Then you may linger on awhile, deprived of all dignity in some inferno of an asylum and breath your last done up in chains with fine ladies laughing at you. Or perhaps you will throw yourself from your villa roof, driven beyond endurance or, fondly imagining you can fly, smash into fragments on the hard pavement below. Either way, I’ll have you treading these tunnels in your own right before long.’

Admiral Slovo obligingly looked suitably impressed. ‘I tremble at the prospect,’ he said and Duke Juan smiled like an evil child. ‘However, as a matter of curiosity, might I enquire why your resentment is focused on me? It was not me that caused the needle to be inserted in your ear; not me currently usurping all the honours bestowed on you by a proud father. It is your brother, Cesare, who is now Gonfaloniere, out doing the subduing and conquering that you might have done. Isn’t picking on me a trifle unjust?’

Duke Juan spat at the tunnel wall. ‘Of Cesare I expect nothing! What he did was predictable and in accordance with his character – I just didn’t anticipate him moving so soon. But you, Admiral, I’m shocked! Entrusted by St Peter’s heir to seek out the killer of his eldest son, and what do you do? Don’t think that I haven’t been watching. I’ll call it suicide if you wish – disgraceful! You let Cesare get away with it!’

Slovo having no reply, they trudged on in silence for a while, choosing paths at random. Even in the pre-industrial fifteenth century, Admiral Slovo had never encountered such profound quiet and he was beginning to enjoy it. Until he recalled that he had an early appointment with the Pope that morning and he needed his rest.

‘Duke Juan,’ he said apologetically, ‘I hesitate to mention it but there may be something you’ve overlooked …’

‘So the rest of the night you slept well?’ asked Rabbi Megillah.

‘And every night since,’ confirmed Admiral Slovo. ‘Though my conscience has scant right to it, I continue to sleep the sleep of the just.’

‘From what you say,’ mused the Rabbi, ‘it would appear that His Holiness, did he but know it, has grounds for thanking Cesare. The Borgias need someone to purge their line of stupidity.’

Admiral Slovo agreed. ‘I’m almost tempted to feel that Cesare sees it that way,’ he said. ‘If Duke Juan had been the better man, by Borgian standards, I honestly believe that Cesare would have stood aside.’

‘Duke Juan was a most unreasonable young man, wasn’t he?’ said Rabbi Megillah.

‘Indeed,’ replied Slovo, ‘and a good thing too. His unreasonableness was my salvation, if you’ll excuse the term. As I pointed out to him, making demands on those of us still in the wicked world; requiring justice in a society he well knew to be far from just; expecting higher standards of behaviour than those he practised whilst alive: it was certainly unreasonable. Worst still, it was sinful – and that could only prolong his Purgatorial perambulations. Ditto the anger required to drag me to him – and his desire for revenge from beyond the grave. He was in a self-perpetuating dilemma. Either he could renounce his quest for what he called “fair play” or face an eternity of wandering, never fully purging himself of sin and thus gaining release.’

‘And from your continued nocturnal bliss,’ said Rabbi Megillah, ‘one must assume that he has taken the path of wisdom.’

‘So it seems,’ nodded Admiral Slovo. ‘And speaking of paths, I also kindly pointed out that he should be following the pathways sloping upwards rather than the contrary. “It might well be easier to go down all the time,” I said, “but what’s the merit in reaching the wrong destination by however an easy route?” He whined a great deal about that and bewailed the ground he would have to retrace.’

Rabbi Megillah tut-tutted. ‘Young people these days,’ he said. ‘You do everything for them and they’re not the least bit grateful.’

‘You’re right,’ said Admiral Slovo unselfconsciously. ‘There’s no justice, is there?’