‘I shall be in my tomb, yes,’ said Henry at last, in a voice of pure lead, ‘but not, I fear, at peace. Do you do tombs, Master Sculptor?’ he asked a dozing and bemused Torrigiano.
‘I can turn my chisel to anything, Sire,’ came the blurted reply in richly mutilated English. ‘I was trained at the—’
‘You’ll do,’ interrupted the King, boring into the foreigner with his eyes. ‘I’ll make you rich and famous, which is the entirety of what men want from life. May the two bring you more happiness than they did me.’
Enraptured and blissfully ignorant, Torrigiano bowed deeply.
Henry almost broke down but recovered and ploughed on. ‘I want it to be in the Westminster Abbey that cruel fate wanted to take away from me,’ he said. ‘Money – ha! Well, that’s no object. Let us see vast amounts of good black marble and granite, anything nice and soundproof.’
‘Why so?’ asked Admiral Slovo, his professional curiosity titillated beyond prudence.
‘Because,’ answered Henry, ‘I suspect I may be screaming through eternity.’
The Princes vanished.[8]
The Year 1500
‘In which some stony-hearts confide that I am important.’
‘In the absence of guidance, I did what I was asked. His Holiness does, after all, pay my wages and provide a roof over my head. That’s more than the Vehme have ever done.’ The Admiral’s voice was transformed into a sinister whisper by the subterranean chamber’s acoustics. It was considerably less crowded and well lit than on his last visit during his initiation.
The Tribunal looked suitably shocked at such an explosion of ingratitude.
‘Brother Slovo,’ said the presiding judge in her gravest tones, ‘the Holy Vehme has given you a life!’
‘I had one of those already,’ answered Slovo. ‘I thought your powers were restricted to taking life away.’
He was not minded to be deferential. He did not take kindly to being summoned, under threat of death, into the wilderness of the Germanic fringe so soon after his arduous return from England and a frosty farewell from its King. He had been looking forward to a period of spiritual recuperation with his book and the stiletto collections in his Roman or Caprisi villas. Moreover, a Genoese woman had moved in adjacent to the former and gave every indication of being able to accommodate his particular fancies in the manner for which ladies of her City were infamous. Now, instead of being amidst such rich stimulations, he was once again in a part of the world that thought civilization an optional extra. It really wasn’t good enough.
What, after all, was the worst thing the Vehme could do to him, he reasoned? Hang him from a tree at some lonely crossroads? Stick a sword in his heart? Well then, if such was their wish, let them get the hell on with it. He couldn’t stop them.
The panel of three spent a moment in whispered conference. ‘We find that there may be some justification in your lack of charm,’ said the female judge at last. ‘It is regrettable that some of our messengers have but one manner of summoning in their repertoire.’
‘The scroll was affixed to my pillow with a dagger,’ agreed Slovo. ‘Like a spider on one’s face, it’s a disagreeable sight to wake up to.’
‘You should lose such developed sensitivities, Admiral,’ said another judge, a pale-fleshed northerner, as far as his black cowl and the inadequate light revealed. ‘Life would be easier for you.’
‘Starting from scratch,’ countered Admiral Slovo, ‘with all the disadvantages of being employed as a pirate, I have on the contrary sought to cultivate such sensibilities.’
‘As you wish,’ came the riposte. ‘It’s your choice. I merely sought to advise.’
‘Which happily touches on your real purpose here, Admiral,’ added the third judge, a cold-eyed condottiere if ever Slovo saw one. ‘We wish to give you our thoughts.’
Slovo was going to say that they could just as well have written, but felt that he’d already over-expressed his outrage. ‘Then I am at your disposal,’ he said, turning to look purposefully at the great chamber’s shuttered doors and guardian statuary behind. ‘Aren’t I?’
‘Yes, you are,’ admitted the Tribunal leader, showing that they too were not afraid to state brutal truths. ‘A closed session this may be, with no other brothers or sisters present, but you may rest assured that we are not without resource. No meeting of the Vehme is ever held unless its precincts and the surrounding country are first fully secured. But why this sour spirit of rebellion? When will you make your full submission to our great undertaking?’
‘When you confide what it is, perhaps?’
The three judges simultaneously voiced brief sounds of exasperation.
‘We tell you what is fit for you to know,’ said the condottiere. ‘Where is your faith?’
Admiral Slovo had no wise or safe answer to that and so remained silent.
‘We hear,’ said the female Tribunalist, ‘that you are “convinced” by the Laws of the Blessed Gemistus: does that not presently suffice?’
‘Frankly no,’ said Slovo. ‘It is a thin thing on which to found a life of altruistic action. Why should I go among the English barbarians or risk the company of the Borgias for a book with which I may intellectually agree? There are any number of such writers in my library.’
‘Name them,’ commanded the northerner. ‘Aside from the Meditations, of course.’
‘I don’t doubt your spy or spies have already itemized my possessions,’ said Slovo, ‘but if you insist—’
‘We do,’ said the condottiere.
‘Well, I would name the Greek Heraclitus, who holds that fire is the basic stuff of the universe and that all things are in eternal flux between light and dark, hunger and satiation, war and peace. Truth is the harmony of these opposites. Then there is Socrates who teaches that life must be experienced direct and not be filtered second-hand through reason or learning. Plato proposes the rule of philosophers, and Philaenis the Leucadian’s Tribadic manual serves to excite my carnal lusts in an imaginative manner. Is that enough?’
The Tribunal indicated it was.
‘That’s sufficient,’ said the lady in judgement, ‘to confirm that our first thoughts were correct and that your journey here was not wasted. Once again we have neglected you, Admiral; we confess the fault. In the absence of the expression of our favour and confidence in you, your enthusiasms – should a Stoic have such – have drifted where they will. Where we would now wish you to be a single shot, you’ve become a wild volley. We would not have you so diffuse, Admiral, so unfocused. You will not find us negligent or careless again. We want to take you into our counsel.’
Having made himself master of his will to live, Slovo was both willing and able to stake all on a supposition. ‘Why?’ he asked. ‘What are you afraid of?’
Instantly he knew he had struck home. For the merest second the faces of the three Vehmists were not their absolute slaves to command – as should be the case in all who attempt great things. The momentary display of fallibility told Slovo more than anything else he’d heard that night. The Tribunal’s craven failure to address his question, even after yet further whispered consultation, also spoke volumes.
The lady Vehmist ‘answered’, her sophisticated Roman voice now well under control, ‘For instance, should you wish to speak of your recent service to us, we will speak freely to you. It is our intention that henceforth, you be a sentient tool in our employ.’
8
Prince Arthur died three years later, 2/4/1502, aged 16, of something called ‘the sweating sickness’. Henry survived a further seven years before he was laid to rest in the glorious and imposing memorial constructed under his painstaking specifications by Pietro Torrigiani in Westminster Abbey.