‘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, Admiraclass="underline" 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.