‘Like a fish!’ said the scholar from the Morean Platonic Institute. ‘His father Sultan Bayezid appointed him governor of Manisa, which as you doubtless know is a very important slice of western Turkey, but the responsibility didn’t reform him. His mother, who is worse than a she-bear with ten headaches, attends him constantly and is executing people all over the place – but he still manages to find drink. He’ll be dead within two years.[5]
‘Which is presumably why the Vehme arrange his smuggled supplies of wine,’ commented Slovo.
‘Exactly,’ agreed the spindly Greek. ‘He had to go, preferably by his own shaking hand, if the verses were to be thwarted.’
The Admiral accepted the scroll handed him.
‘Oh, indeed yes,’ said the scholar, confirming Slovo’s enquiring glance. ‘They’re from The Book – transcribed, of course. Your star rides high, you’re very honoured.’
Curiously unmoved, Slovo studied the two scrawled and crabbed quatrains.
‘And this was going to be him?’ asked Slovo, handing back the verses.
‘It was thought so. With his energy and burning belief he would have brought the world under one faith.’
‘Which didn’t suit?’
‘It wasn’t our faith, Admiral. We had you find his Achilles’ heel and then prise him open. The Arch-Sultan Alamshah will never be now: you’ve done well again. In fact, we reckon that you are ready for bigger things. Accordingly, the Pope thinks likewise.
‘Childhood’s end,’ said the Welsh Vehmist. He stood at the edge of the summerhouse, his attention caught, his comment prompted by the noisy games of the Slovo infants down in the villa below. ‘Once shown a portion of The Book, there is no way back. It marked a new stage in your career. You were ours in a new and deeper way.’
‘To where could I have retraced my steps?’ asked the Admiral. ‘The only way seemed onwards.’
The Vehmist nodded at such sagacity. ‘It was as well the two judgements concurred,’ he said, his back to Slovo. ‘When our faith in one of the illuminati dies, it all becomes very messy.’
‘I can imagine,’ answered Admiral Slovo. ‘Not only he or she, but everyone they might have confided in – and everyone that they might have confided in …’
‘… has to go,’ completed the Vehmist, ‘yes. We hate such large-scale and noticeable necessities. Fortunately, it’s rare indeed. The last I know of nigh wiped out a town. We had to blame the plague.’
‘And doubtless the Jews or lepers who “caused” it.’
The Welshman chuckled. ‘Yes,’ he said, ‘that one always finds a ready audience, especially in Germania. Make up some nonsense about compounds of pus and spider-juice, stuck to church pews with baby-fat, and it goes down a storm. Credulity’s a great ally.’
The Admiral could hardly disagree, but neither could he be expected to approve. ‘It is a brave or foolhardy man,’ he said, with an edge to his voice, ‘that meddles with popular belief.’
The Vehmist swivelled on his heels to address Slovo, a smirk adorning his pale face. ‘Precisely!’ he said. ‘That’s why we chose you to work our will on a myth.’
The Year 1499
GREAT EXPECTATIONS: I save a dynasty, dabble in racial politics and have my portrait painted.’
‘… the king hath aged so much during the past two weeks that he seems to be twenty years older.’
‘Wotcha, stony-face! What’s the problem?’
Admiral Slovo turned his chilly gaze to see a crop-headed docker.
‘Cheer up mate, it might never ’appen,’ said another.
For Slovo ‘it’ had already happened. He had been ordered forth from his sunshine, books and comforts, out into the wild North and the company of barbarians with bad teeth and manners. ‘It’ was personified by the human slab who had mocked him, a person now the merest impulse away from stiletto-time.
‘Slovo, ho!’ shouted a mildly more cultivated voice, breaking the spell.
The Admiral swivelled round to find himself hailed from the far end of the quay by a small group of horsemen. The one thing he really hated was having his name bellowed out in public – a deplorable breach of security, enough to set nerve endings ablaze. It was a bad end to a bad trip.
Their obvious leader, a red-faced military type, trotted up to within polite talking distance, only now taking the trouble to wipe some odd white-ish foam from his spade-beard.
‘Slovo?’ he barked again. ‘The Roman? Is that you?’ His Latin was as bad as his manners.
‘I am he,’ said the Admiral quietly.
‘Sorry we’re late: been waiting long?’
‘A matter of a few hours, three or four at the most. There has been opportunity to study Pevensey’s Roman Castilia and its surrounding hovels. The rain was almost refreshing.’
The military man nodded absently. ‘Still, you had your baggage to sit on, eh?’ He pointed to Slovo’s sea-chest. ‘And good old England to look at. Only we got delayed on the road, see.’
‘The English beer, it is so good and irresistible,’ offered the second prominent horseman – as clearly an alien as the others were obviously English. ‘We had to stop and indulge.’
The old soldier gave his plump companion a blackish look. ‘Yes, well … anyway,’ he said, ‘this is de Peubla, Spanish Ambassador sort of chap; as to me, I’m Daubeny – Giles – Baron. The rest are your escort. Are you fit?’
‘Reasonably so,’ answered Slovo. ‘Why do you ask?’
‘I mean are you ready to go? We’re paying you by the hour I understand.’
‘Few things would give me greater pleasure than departure from here, my Lord.’
‘Well, you’re easily pleased then,’ said Daubeny. ‘We’ve brought a horse, so jump up and say farewell to Pevensey Port.’
Admiral Slovo mounted up, earning his first plus points in the Englishmen’s eyes by his ease of doing so. He looked round at the rain-damp little houses, the ruinous castle, and dull, copper sea, suppressing a shudder as he did so. ‘Farewell, this side of the grave, please God,’ he muttered.
But from his new prominence on the war-horse, Slovo caught sight of the surrounding and sombre marshy levels, and suddenly English domestic architecture possessed newfound attractions.
‘What of my sea-chest?’ he asked briskly for fear his opinion of the view be sought.
‘Oh, it’ll be sent on I expect,’ said Daubeny airily. ‘The dock artificers will deal with the matter.’
Slovo looked dubiously at the swarming dock workers and in a valuable Stoic spiritual exercise forced himself to bid farewell to his possessions.
‘Best hoof forward then, Roman,’ said Daubeny, leaning close. ‘There’s no time to lose.’
5
Actually, a tribute to the preservative qualities of alcohol and the resilience of the human frame, Prince Alamshah lasted out until 1503, the despair of his doting family.