‘And yet St Peter’s power holds them all fast,’ countered Slovo. ‘Curious, is it not?’
‘It is,’ Michelangelo granted. ‘They jumped and flew at me but some force held them back. Likewise, their constant assaults on their prison’s single door failed before its flimsy lock and Papal seal. Tell me, Admiral, who conveys the captive gods there and who sets that door fast?’
‘Special troops?’ offered Slovo.
‘Remarkable,’ said Michelangelo, shaking his head. ‘I shall never forget it.’
‘Oh, you shall,’ said Slovo quietly, no longer hiding the naturally icy and uncharitable note of his voice. ‘That is part of the deal. The Church brooks no competitors, not even talk of them.’
‘I have forgotten,’ said Michelangelo earnestly, ‘completely. Forgotten what?’
‘Not so fast,’ said Slovo swiftly. ‘Hold on to your recollection just a little longer. I have a question for you: there is one detail I require from your hours of observation – that is also part of the deal.’
‘The Pope was still unwilling that I should complete the tomb and ordered me to paint the vault of the Sistine. We agreed for 3000 ducats. I am still in great distress of mind … God help me.’
‘So, as I suggested,’ said Admiral Slovo, ‘Michelangelo made his return, discreetly, reverently and with the appearance of due reflection. Julius received him at Bologna – or rather he was apprehended sidling into Mass at the Church of San Petronio.’
‘Offering prayers for his deliverance, one presumes,’ hazarded Rabbi Megillah, combing his patriarchal white beard with his fingers.
‘If so, they were efficacious. Some of Julius’s grooms who were present recognized the Sculptor and dragged him to His Holiness – who happened to be at dinner. Fortunately it was a dry repast and the Holy Father’s temper was coiled and at rest. Of course, there was thunder and lightning but Michelangelo recalled my strictures and curbed his own mercurial propensities, merely bending the knee and praying for pardon.’
‘As well ask for mercy from a rabid lion, Admiral.’
‘Normally so, but two factors intervened in the Sculptor’s favour: one, the Cardinal Francesco Soderini spoke on his behalf …’
‘And how is the Cardinal’s health?’ enquired the Rabbi politely.
‘He survives, albeit with person and dignity bruised. “Your Holiness might overlook his fault,” was what he said. “He did wrong through ignorance. These artists, outside their art, are all like this.” At which Julius exploded and had his servants kick the Cardinal from the Palace. It was a useful diversion, breaking the brunt of the charge. Secondly, and more importantly, in a world where mercy must justify its existence, the Sculptor was able to offer something in return for his pardon.’
The Rabbi nodded, looking at and through Slovo into some future, kinder age.
‘We discussed the matter with infinite care,’ explained Slovo, ‘and decided the most tempting offer was something that catered for Julius’s aggrandizement, and then something for posterity. To be specific, Michelangelo offered a bronze colossus of His Holiness and then the Sistine Chapel ceiling.’
‘That work which he has recently commenced?’ asked Megillah.
‘The same – supposedly the single effusion of his talent, all for Julius, all for the preservation of his name. The Pontiff forgets, of course, that it is the perpetrator, not the patron, that is honoured and remembered – but that is of no account to us.’
‘We shall be safely dust,’ agreed the Rabbi, picking at the dish of Venetian rice before him. ‘But meanwhile, your forethought seems to have borne dividends, Admiral – the Sculptor still lives.’
‘And looks fit to remain so until called home in the natural order of things. Michelangelo is putting heart and soul into his work and when the Sistine ceiling is complete, Julius will not wish to be remembered for killing its sublime creator. That is his long-term security. And with luck and ingenuity, I think he will see it through.’[11]
‘And speaking of seeing …’ asked Rabbi Megillah, giving up the struggle to restrain his curiosity.
‘Ah yes,’ said Slovo, idly playing with the sunbeams reflected on his silver goblet, ‘my commission. I questioned the Sculptor closely; even to the point of writing an inventory. I can confirm Zeus and Apollo and Woden and Augustus and Lao-Tse—’
The Rabbi interrupted, his unfairly wizened face reflecting quiet confidence, modified only by understandable, forgivable, human doubt. ‘But what about …?’ he whispered.
‘I am more and more persuaded that you may be right,’ said Admiral Slovo. ‘I pressed the Sculptor most assiduously on the question of JEHOVAH’s presence. Be assured, Rabbi. He is not there.’
In Rome, Pope Clement VII was reading a letter from Henry VIII, King of England, demanding, no less, a divorce from his Spanish wife. The good and amiable Pontiff had thought that he’d got troubles enough already, what with the Luther business and all. He little dreamed that in less than two years, Rome itself would be sacked with a ferocity to make Alaric the Goth’s visit eleven hundred years before seem half-hearted. Twenty-two thousand Spaniards, Italians and Lutheran German Landsknechts would occupy the ‘Eternal City’ for ten months and leave it gutted. From that day’s perspective, Pope Clement would look back on 1525 as a golden age.
Meanwhile, Slovo, on the verge of suicide, was still wrangling with the Welsh Vehmist in his Caprisi garden.
‘You might have told us about the prison of the gods,’ said the Vehmist.
‘It transpires you already knew, so no harm was done.’
‘That’s not the point, Admiral. Your feet should have run swift to inform us out of the love you bore us. But yes, as it happens, we knew long ago.’ The Vehmist allowed his voice to mount with anger. ‘We knew when your remotest recorded ancestor was not even a blob of semen. We have numbered Roman Emperors in our ranks, how could we not know?’
‘How indeed?’ replied Slovo, humouring him but concluding that their knowledge and infiltrations were not as extensive as they would wish.
‘And because we knew,’ the Welshman rushed on, ‘the fire in our hearts became fiercer still. The long incarceration of our gods would merely make their day of liberation more sweet!’
‘You merely had to work out how?’ said Slovo in facetious support.
‘Yes, it is a puzzle we are still engaged in,’ answered the Vehmist, seeking vainly to conceal his deflation. ‘It may be that we have a religion to dispose of before we can reestablish our own. If it does come to that and a thousand-year war, so be it.’
‘So that’s why …’ prompted Slovo.
‘Quite right,’ agreed the Vehmist. That sort of challenge is complexity enough for a score of generations; so you found no dispute between Pope and Vehme when a new and deadly creed arose that was anathema to us both. We were content that he chose to set you on it.’
11
Michelangelo’s great work in the Sistine, completed in October 1512, after 4½ years of super-human toil and savage arguments with Pope Julius, survives – and according to Admiral Slovo permitted its creator to do the same. The Colossus, a three times life-size bronze, was less fortunate, being torn down by an unappreciative Bolognan mob after a mere four years. It passed into the possession of Alfonso d’Este, Duke of Ferrara, who reforged its bronze into a giant cannon, ironically dubbed ‘La Julia’. Alfonso did however retain intact the 600-pound head – for unknown purposes.