Popes and Phantoms

by John Whitbourn

Genres: Religious & Inspirational; Science Fiction; Sci-fi Action & Adventure; Alternative History sci-fi

Synopsis

Admiral Slovo was a man of his time, but of more than one dimension..In his sixteenth century, a pirate might be followed by the corpse of his victim, walking across the ocean, until putrescence claimed it. Or an interview with the Pope might be mirrored, exactly, by one with the Devil. Reality shifts could cause a King to see his capital city shimmer into another Realm entirely. Through such scenes of macabre hallucination, mayhem and murder, Slovo is a man alone, set apart by his stoic beliefs from the rigours of human fears and passions. As such, he was a valuable find for the Vehme, a clandestine, subversive society that ensnared its members from an early age, securing loyalties by the expedient methods of blackmail, bribery and barbarism. But Slovo is more than a Vehmist puppet, and whether as a brigand on the high seas, or emissary to the Borgias, or as the Pope's Machiavellian Mr Fix-it, he plots a course that suits his own ends as much as those of his paymasters. He knows that, in the words of his mentor Marcus Aurelius, "in a brief while you will be ashes of bare bones; a name, or perhaps not even a name". And there are few things that cannot be solved by a stiletto in the eye.

Release date: August 29, 2013

Publisher: Gateway

Print pages: 287

Sample

‘How did I get to here from there and was it really worth all the trouble? The consolations of flesh and philosophy.’

In the year 1525 yet another European nation – Denmark – discovered the joys of Lutheranism and the ex-friar Luther discovered the joys of matrimony (with a former nun). At the same time, Admiral Slovo, Lord of Capri, Papal Knight, sometime Gonfaloniere (banner-bearer) of His Holiness’s armed forces and subject of ‘death-on-sight’ notices in Venice, Geneva and sundry other places, decided it was time for his bath.

True, the sunrise was beautiful, the sound of his little children playing most diverting, but they were no longer sufficient to delay him. That bath, so long put off, now seemed overwhelmingly attractive. Gathering his heavy black gown about him he hobbled down from his seat on the hill and into the grounds of his villa. The gardens were quite superlative, not a bloom or blade of grass out of place. It was, in fact, that one day of the year that comes to all well-kept gardens when there is not a thing left to be done and perfection hangs in precarious balance. An auspicious time for my ablutions, the Admiral thought.

Inside, he smiled at the antique statue of the Roman Emperor, he smiled at the handsome grooms and pretty maids who comprised his household staff. Had she chosen to show herself, Admiral Slovo would even have smiled at his young wife but, as ever, she was keeping out of his way.

The bath was sunken and made of the whitest marble. His love of antiquity had made him lavish vast sums on it to recreate the old Roman bath-house style, but even all that gold had captured only the shape, not the spirit, of the thing. The whole concept had turned out to be a disappointment, like so much else.

Whilst painted lads and lasses hurried with steaming water at his command, Admiral Slovo limped about to check that he had all that he would need. There within easy reach was the sponge, the strigil, the tub of cleansing grease, a towel. Beside these was his writing tray with vellum, quill and inkpot (in case inspiration should strike) and the special wax-treated, steam-and-water proofed, bath-time copy of the immortal Meditations that he’d had made.

‘No, not today, thank you all the same,’ said the Admiral to the implicit query of the Tuscan brother and sister who’d poured the last great terra-cotta amphora of water into the brimming pool. This was one occasion when company, for whatever purpose, would be inappropriate.

When these two had left the chamber, Slovo stooped down and placed the one remaining necessary item beside all the others. It was vital that there be a razor to open his wrists.

Before immersing himself, Admiral Slovo recalled the bottle of Falernian he had spent a prince’s ransom on some years before and which had been recovered from a shipwreck of the Imperial Age by sponge divers off Carthage. A Castilian middleman had known enough of the Admiral’s tastes to seek him out and earn the means to retire. The seal was good, the contents unblemished (so far as could be told) and Slovo was unable to resist the temptation to partake of a vintage such as Horace or even the divine Marcus might have known. To enjoy it now seemed happily in accord with the moment.

In the event it was disgusting. The bouquet that escaped the bottle’s fifteen hundred years of meditation could have stripped the villa’s walls of their painted murals; the contents seemed capable of dissolving the bricks behind them. The appropriate response to the Judas concoction would have been to dash it to the floor but, now more than ever proof against the storms of emotion, Admiral Slovo merely placed it down and wandered off, naked, to fetch a flagon of rough Capri red.

At the bathroom door he came face to face with a stranger and knew straightaway that all his plans, his bath, his dignified exit from the world, were now postponed.

Because of all he had done and the causes he had served, Admiral Slovo’s home was surrounded and penetrated by subtle security. Cold-eyed soldiery supervised every movement in and out of Villa di Slovo. There was even an outer band of vigilance based in Naples Harbour, monitoring access to Capri itself. However, this man in black had walked through them all and thus whatever he might have to say demanded respectful attention.

Admiral Slovo did not fear for his life since he had been about to take that himself. Anyway, the visitor did not appear in the least malign but merely curious. Peering past Slovo’s head at the scene behind, his gaze was caught by the utensils laid out by the bathside.

‘It seems I’ve arrived just in time,’ he said, his voice betraying only indifference at this turn of fate. ‘Our calculations suggested events would not be so far advanced …’

Admiral Slovo, knowing full well who this man was although they had never met before, felt relieved that here at the close of play, one short step from boarding Charon’s ferry, he was not so much a puppet as to be entirely predictable. ‘As you can see,’ he said politely, ‘I am about to embark on a journey. If you have further work for me you’ve left it too late.’

The man held up his hands to express exaggerated horror at such a misunderstanding. The sleeves of his cowl fell back to display, to the Admiral’s surprise, the cold pale flesh of the northern barbarians. ‘Goodness no!’ The man spoke as before in impeccable Italian. ‘I should not wish to disturb you by suggesting that you can be of any further use to us.’

‘Just as well,’ said Slovo, turning back to the bath. ‘My days of doing are done.’

‘And so they should be. You have achieved so much for us, our Masters could hardly ask for more.’

‘Your Masters,’ corrected the Admiral. ‘I was never more than a jobbing-contractor, a mercenary in their service – nor wished to be.’

The visitor plainly disagreed, but hid the spirit of discord from his unkind blue eyes. ‘Let us not quarrel today of all days,’ he said. ‘It would not be seemly to part on bad terms. My superiors would not lightly forgive me for that.’

‘Forgiveness hardly being one of their principal traits,’ said Slovo, matter of factly.

‘No,’ the man concurred. ‘Or yours, come to that – from what I’ve read.’

Slovo shrugged, accepting the charge lightly.

‘Your present nakedness doesn’t inhibit you, I note. Does that also stem from your admiration for Romano-Hellenic culture – along with the Stoicism1 and all that?’

‘Yes,’ answered the Admiral, with the mildest of grimaces. ‘Along with the Stoicism “and all that”. Besides,’ he added in acid tones, ‘in all the cultures I’ve ever encountered, it is customary to disrobe before bathing. Is that not the case in your … England?’

‘Wales, actually.’

‘Same thing.’

‘I beg to differ. Look, Admiral, I appreciate that I have interrupted a matter of surpassing importance to you but my purpose is not an idle one. Realizing that you were likely to soon depart, our Masters sent me to convey the gratitude that I have hinted at. I am entrusted with a final message as to the warmth of their sentiments for you.’

‘I dislike sentiment,’ said Admiral Slovo. ‘I despise it with a passion in paradoxical opposition to my Stoical beliefs. Your journey from your land of rain and emotional dysentery has been wasted, I fear. I could happily have had my bath not knowing this burning news you’ve brought me.’

‘It was suspected as much,’ the man said, ‘and so mere farewells are not all I have brought. I have The Book with me – or at least a copy of it.’

‘Ah …’ said the Admiral rapidly re-evaluating, ‘that may be different. The complete work?’

‘Alpha to Omega, first to last page, unsullied by excision.’

‘I see …’ mused Slovo. ‘That alters things.’

‘I hoped it might.’

‘You are more senior than you seem – to be so entrusted.’ The Admiral eyed the stocky young Welshman with more respect.

‘One sees more of true human nature as someone of no apparent import.’ The man shrugged, ‘And no, your unpredictability is well known of old; you couldn’t ply that famous stiletto blade of yours and just take The Book. In such an event it would simply self-combust. If preparation is of any value at all then I am proof against anything you can muster.’

‘Fine,’ said Slovo, still engaged with the output pouring from the computer-forerunner that he had made of his mind. ‘Very well. I will talk with you. I won’t fill the bath with my blood just yet.’

The Welshman nodded agreement. ‘Excellent. I think we will both learn thereby.’

The Admiral smiled sadly. ‘I fear the only things I could tell you would shrivel up your soul and make you a thing of stone,’ he said.

‘Like you? Well, yes, I have hopes of that.’

‘Whereas I,’ said Slovo, ‘am curious merely to hold The Book, to learn from it to what precise end I have devoted my life.’

‘Then the bargain is struck,’ grinned the Welshman.

‘It was struck long ago,’ disagreed the Admiral, ‘and I suspect it was not fair-dealing. One side or the other was rooked.’

‘There’s commerce for you,’ came the answering quip. ‘Now, shall I call some of your ganymedes to help you robe or is there anything I can do for you?’

‘They are more used to assisting with the opposite process,’ responded Slovo magisterially. ‘As to yourself – yes, go and fetch a bottle of good wine. We’ll sit in the garden and drink it while we discuss the end of things.’

They issued out into the sunlight arm in arm. In passing, Slovo ordered a servant girl, who was almost dressed in a white silk chiton, to usher his children indoors. His distant affection for them dictated that there were some things they should not see or hear.

Both men were conditioned to admire the excessively formal gardens of Italian Renaissance high culture. In other circumstances they might have wandered Villa di Slovo’s symmetrical paths with relish. Indeed, the entire estate was designed for the promotion of calm and stately thoughts in both beholder and those who dwelt within. The close proximity of the ruins of the Villa Jovis, Emperor Tiberius’s notorious pleasure-palace, merely emphasized the point; their sad state evidencing the reassurance that all things will pass and the folly of unrestrained passion.

The sun was climbing fast in the cloudless blue sky and there was every indication that the day would become sultry. The Welshman, left to himself, would have hurried to the hill-top summerhouse. The Admiral, however, was more used to the direct and relentless kiss of Sol. It had baked the galley decks he had trod long ago and now it was a friend that warmed the aging limbs which his sluggish Slovo blood betrayed. Therefore he took his time and made inventory as he went, admiring his gardener’s savage corseting of nature. Everything he wanted to see was present and correct: the box-hedges and laurels, the potted palms, the orange and lemon trees. Indeed the deliberate gaiety of it all might have seduced him into delusions of normality, as if today was just another day and tomorrow would be likewise. He tried hard to recall that this was not the case and quickened his pace accordingly. There was just a last item of business to be dealt with, best seen to speedily, and then he could be off.

With his companion, he headed for the replica of a classical temple that had slender fluted columns and gleaming cupola, all made of marble. At the centre, round the pedestalled bust of Jupiter the Unconquered Sun, the interior was marvellously cool and airy. Admiral Slovo fetched another chair so that they could sit either side of a tiny table bearing dishes of drying fruit. The Welshman opened the flask of wine he had procured and filled them each a glass.

‘It’s good!’ he said eventually, licking his thin, pale lips.

‘What is?’ asked the Admiral. ‘The wine? The view? Your mission?’

‘Them all,’ came the answer. ‘Your wine is robust and spicy. The view over the gulf to Naples is all one could wish. And I enjoy my work.’

The perspective over the Villa di Slovo, taking in the Palace of Tiberius, the blue of the sea and a distance-blessed image of the seething hell of Naples, was exquisite. Admiral Slovo had always intended that he would finally take stock of the world from such a place. Whole summer days had passed, remote from family and ordinary things, without him leaving its precincts. Now he sipped his wine expecting consolation but, like rebelling outposts of a failing empire, his taste buds were joining in the swift erosion of his faculties. Everything tasted sour nowadays – even this specially sweetened vintage. Still, to be positive right to the end, it was better than the Falernian.

‘I’m glad you are made happy by my hospitality. Is there anything else I can get you?’

The visitor leaned back in the wicker seat and downed another cup. ‘I am content,’ he said briskly. ‘Are you?’

Admiral Slovo had had ample years in which to tire of the verbal games of young men. Only his philosophical beliefs kept a note of tetchiness from entering his reply. ‘Of course not,’ he said. ‘You must know my history and why that should be so.’

‘Intimately,’ came the agreement. ‘I have read both your case-file and your memoirs.’

‘How so?’ Slovo interrupted, referring to the latter. ‘I possess the only copy.’

The man turned to look at the Admiral with a pitying smile. ‘Come, come, Admiral,’ he said gently, ‘you, more than anyone, know our ways.’

Slovo nodded. ‘You are everywhere you want to be,’ he said heavily.

‘And see everything we want to see,’ the visitor added. ‘Don’t be bashful, Admiral, these memoirs of yours are excellent stuff. They deserve to be printed for a wider public.’

‘Although they never will be,’ Slovo said before the Welshman could.

‘No,’ the man agreed. ‘We can’t permit that.’

‘So may I see this “case-file” – since you have read my version of the same events?’

‘Sorry, no, Admiral. I have come to give you a fuller story, admittedly – but not the full story. I’m sure you’ll understand.’

‘But you do have The Book.’

‘Yes indeed.’

‘I’m honoured.’

‘I should say so!’ The answer was an exclamation. ‘There’s been a mere handful similarly favoured the last few centuries.’

‘May I see it then?’

The man considered. ‘It is your first sight, is that not so?’ he asked.

‘That’s correct,’ replied the Admiral, looking away. ‘It was discussed on the occasion of my initiation, but otherwise …’

‘So you are, in fact, a virgin in such matters and I would accordingly counsel patience. You may have The Book in all good time but you doubtless appreciate the associated perils …’

‘Of course,’ said Slovo. ‘Knowing the guards, magical and otherwise, that surround The Book, I’m surprised that you can even carry it and live.’

‘Likewise. I have been provided with powerful wards but, even so, the stewardship is a trifle unnerving. If it’s all the same to you, Admiral, I’d be happier if we minimized its exposure to the world, for that’s when its guardians are most vigilant.’

‘And hungry,’ said Slovo helpfully.

‘Just so.’

‘I’m happy to wait then,’ confirmed Admiral Slovo, to the Welshman’s evident relief.

‘Thank you,’ he said, clearly desirous of a conversational diversion. ‘Incidentally, is that the height from which Tiberius’s victims were thrown?’

Slovo knew the general direction of the gesture was correct but, with a stubborn residual concern for truth, he turned to make sure.

‘Yes – or so it’s said. “Tiberius’s Drop”, the local peasants call it. He’s a legendary monster hereabouts.’

‘But you disagree?’

Admiral Slovo shrugged. ‘I have no strong opinions one way or the other. Perhaps he did have his partners, willing or otherwise, of the previous night flung to their death from a cliff, that is his business. We have all felt that way at one time or another.’

The visitor seemed slightly shocked, but said nothing. Instead, he looked out over the Gulf of Naples and considered how to regain his lost advantage. ‘It has been a long and weary old road for you, Admiral, has it not?’

‘I can hardly deny that,’ answered Admiral Slovo equably.

‘And do you blame us?’

Slovo’s smile was like a shine on a razor. ‘That would hardly be fair. My particular die was cast long before my recruitment to your “Ancient and Holy Vehme”.’

‘That’s very reasonable of you. However, would you maintain that famous Stoic poise were I to tell you that we enlisted you even before that? What if I were to say that your service to the Vehme was of far longer duration?’

The Admiral considered, ‘I’m not sure,’ he said in due course. ‘Is it the sort of thing you’re likely to say, Master Vehmist?’

‘I’m afraid so.’

‘Well,’ said Slovo, in thoughtful tone, ‘I should hope that I would not so abandon my Stoicism as to be unduly perturbed. It rather depends on the precise nature of the revelation.’

The black-gowned man poured himself another, quite generous, glass of wine. ‘And there you have hit the nail squarely on the head, Admiral! My business here is revelation. I have come, with the blessing of the Vehme, to shed light on the dark places of your history. It is our earnest wish that you should understand all – or nearly all. Whether you will like all that I shed light on is another matter.’

‘Valuing my life as lightly as I do,’ said Admiral Slovo, ‘I have successfully banished fear and recrimination from it. You term yourselves Illuminati, do you not?’

‘That is another name for the Vehmgericht,’ agreed the Welshman cautiously, his middle-German as faultless as his Court Italian.

‘Then pray illumine,’ said Slovo. ‘You cannot hurt me now.’

The Welshman raised his eyebrows at such presumption. ‘Well,’ he said, ‘let us start at your beginning …’



About the time that Turkish Imperialism seized another bit of Europe and rolled into Herzegovina, in the year that Charles the Bold became Duke of Burgundy, a small child, the blank slate that was to be Admiral Slovo, thought of something disastrously clever.

It started when another youth in the classroom that fateful day gave voice to the question that would give Slovo away.

‘Honoured sir,’ piped the stocky ten-year-old, bursting with the desire to display new found knowledge. ‘May I ask something?’

The schoolmaster looked up from the Latin text in which he was following the class’s painful recitation. An astoundingly liberal pedagogue for his time – indeed notoriously so – he was known to welcome signs of intellectual curiosity among the sons of the upper mercantile classes. Sensible queries were never deterred and could, on happy occasion, postpone the tedious work in hand. He lifted his pointer from the book and signalled for the conjugating chant to cease.

‘I’ve been thinking about Aristotle and Plato, sir.’

‘I am so relieved to hear that, Constantius,’ came the unpromising reply. ‘Why, to think I was under the impression that you laboured unwillingly in the vineyard of their works!’

It was a cheap bit of schoolmaster sarcasm and he instantly regretted it as the class dutifully laughed at the boy’s expense.

‘I am sorry, Constantius,’ he said loudly, bringing the merriment to an instant end. ‘I did not mean to crush the tender shoot of budding enquiry.’

Rehabilitated, Constantius looked warningly around at his classmates. ‘Well, honoured sir, I just wondered … where did they go?’

‘Why, to the grave of course, like we all do.’

‘No, I mean after that, sir. Where then?’

The schoolmaster stroked his beard and gave the boy a very cool look.

‘I now see the direction of your question, child,’ he said. ‘It is an interesting one.’

The boy swelled with pleasure at the unaccustomed approval.

‘Is anyone else similarly intrigued?’ asked the master.

Until the lie of the land was absolutely clear, no one ventured to risk such a confession and, noting this, the proto-Slovo was reluctantly obliged to raise his own hand.

‘Slovo …’ said the schoolmaster, feigning surprise. ‘Another dark horse of classical curiosity rears up in our very midst. Let’s see if you can develop the question. Proceed!’

Under the conducting baton of the master’s pointer, the seven-year-old was left with little option but to reveal more of his thoughts than was natural to him. ‘The paradox that struck me, honoured sir,’ he said slowly and gauging the reaction, ‘is whether ancient men of virtue such as Aristotle could enter Paradise when they did not – and could not – possess the true faith. But, if they are damned, for all their goodness, for not professing what they could not have known, then is that just? And if it is not just, then how can that be, since God is, by definition, just?’

‘What he means, honoured sir,’ said Constantius, butting in, ‘is that Plato and his fellows couldn’t have been Christians, could they? They died before Christ was born …’

‘I understood what Slovo meant well enough,’ said the schoolmaster with awesome finality. ‘And I can settle the debate quite simply by stating something you all should already know: Extra Ecclesia nulla salus: There is no salvation outside the Church. Your question, Constantius, is impious and inappropriate for an immature mind. However, since it was also a good question, I shall take the matter no further. Now return, if you please, to the verb habere, to have, and,’ he waved the pointer like a wizard’s wand, ‘con-ju-gate …’

‘The point is,’ said the schoolmaster, now very differently attired and accorded even greater respect than before, ‘that the question was Slovo’s. Every schoolroom has its spies and I knew it was he who’d primed the purely average Constantius, who longs to shine, with the query hatched in his own mind.’

‘So,’ said the black-cowled leader of the Tribunal facing the schoolmaster, ‘he makes arrows for others to fire.’

‘Precisely,’ agreed the schoolmaster. ‘For all his fortunate birth, he is the most distrusting boy I’ve yet to meet. He operates behind screens of deception and reticence, never saying all of what he means, even when it is of no import. Everything is buried beneath layers of artifice.’

‘That might just be cowardice,’ suggested another of his interrogators.

‘I, too, thought so,’ said the schoolmaster eagerly, ‘and so observed and tested him. He stands his ground in all the tiny wars of the play-yard. He is no coward, merely preternaturally controlled and nerveless.’

‘Do the other infants abhor him then?’ The question came from within the dark-clad ranks of those standing round the walls of the cavern.

The schoolmaster politely sought to reply to the correct face but it was lost in the shadows between the torch embrasures. ‘No,’ he said. ‘That is the confirming point – his detachment is a seamless garment. To the other children he pretends to be a light-hearted and natural boy and they are deceived.’

He turned his head slowly to take in the assembly and lifted his hand to solicit support from the hundreds gathered there. ‘I ask you to trust me,’ he said, addressing the whole gathering. ‘. . .