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.’