‘Yes, yes, yes, spare me,’ interrupted Slovo. ‘The name if you please, sirrah.’
‘It called itself the Te Deum,’ replied Pacioli, winding down again. ‘I do not pretend to understand that – perhaps some play on the Latin or the Church service of that title. Still, with all it promised for mankind, I felt that this initial irrationalism could be overlooked.’
‘Indeed,’ said Slovo charitably.
‘I was its chosen prophet and it called me Gateway. My humble book was its prompting, the invitation and portal into our world, I was told, and I would be accordingly blessed. I was honoured to receive its precise instructions for the building of its dwelling place, its tabernacle – just like Moses the Hebrew and the old, now superseded, spirit of Jehovah.’
Numa Droz and his company, all devout Christians in so far as their career would permit it, made menacing signs of disapproval at this blasphemy. Admiral Slovo silenced their growls with a gesture.
‘Which was the grey obelisk with drawers, I take it,’ said the Admiral.
‘“The Filing Cabinet” as we were told to name it,’ confirmed Pacioli. ‘Therein its spirit would dwell. The Doge, inspired by the vision vouchsafed me, spared no effort in its construction, but the Te Deum was unassuming and its requirements modest; mere sheet metal of grey with trays of lighter fawn – a humble house for so universal a benison.’
‘But sadly vulnerable to the brute force of cannon balls,’ commented Slovo.
‘Yes,’ answered Pacioli bitterly. ‘You have sundered the House of the New god and killed his priests. It and I and history will never forgive you.’
‘Fortunately, I care nothing for the judgement of all three,’ said Slovo.
‘Yet you have nothing of the emotional about you,’ said Pacioli, making a last valiant effort. ‘You could easily be one of us. When we opened the drawer of the Filing Cabinet to allow the spirit of the Te Deum to go forth and disconcert its enemies, its calming breath must have touched and inspired you.’
Admiral Slovo smiled as if gently declining an invitation to a party.
‘But you refused the call of the New Way and broke its tabernacle,’ said Pacioli in a crushed voice. ‘And now its spirit wanders I know not where.’
‘I AM HERE,’ said another voice, crashing into Pacioli’s mouth like a guillotine. It sounded deceptively mild, the voice of a man outlining something dull but inevitable. ‘And though now homeless, I will never again go away.’
The soldiers all about crossed themselves. Pacioli seemed fully aware of his occupation by extraneous forces and tears of joy began to roll down his annexed face.
‘I could have given you so much,’ continued the voice. ‘First, the Venice-of-the-million-Office-workers, and then on and out to the greater world. Think, Admiral, you might have had fast-food by 1650; Kalashnikovs and motorways by 1750!’
‘Sorry,’ said Admiral Slovo. ‘My bosses didn’t go for it – whatever it is you’re talking about.’
‘Well yes, you should always do as your superiors direct,’ conceded the voice. ‘I just wish they’d been a little less short-sighted.’
‘Thank you for being so understanding,’ said Slovo and then stabbed Pacioli in the eye with a stiletto.
The proto-accountant died instantly but the Te Deum’s animating force lingered on, causing the body to remain limply upright. It seemed an appropriate stance, all things considered.
‘You’re not rid of me,’ the voice went on from Pacioli’s gaping mouth as though nothing had happened. ‘This carcass was my gateway and such I named him. He may be gone but I’m through the gate and here to stay. He and I have planted a seed. It will assuredly flower in some other time and place.’
‘A grey bloom will surely hold little appeal,’ said Slovo.
‘Oh, you’d be surprised!’ snapped back the voice. ‘My disciples pay a high personal price, it’s true, but what I teach holds the key to power. There will always be consumers for my product.’
‘Balls!’ said Numa Droz, obscurely offended by this talk and holding aloft his sword. ‘This is power!’
Pacioli’s dead eyes beheld the blade and his slack mouth was twisted into an ironic smile.
‘For a little while longer,’ the Voice agreed. ‘But one day, and it will not be long delayed, my disciples in grey with their calculators and briefcases will each command the power of ten thousand such … swords.’
‘Sounds good,’ said Numa Droz eagerly. ‘How do you make these kal-cool-ators and bre-cases? Are they single or double-edged?’
‘You couldn’t handle them,’ replied the Voice, dismissing him. ‘You are the past. So is Venice, so is Italy. They have failed or rejected me and will thus decline. Romance and interest they may well retain, but power will migrate and then return to conquer them. I shall fuel, inspire and then accompany that power when the day comes, and imagination will have to bow its knee. Meanwhile, I must bide my time and await the inevitable call from elsewhere – perhaps from the lands of the North. We shall see, shall we not. I’ll be back.’
To Slovo, these threats were like growls from sheep – insulting rather than fearful. With a nod of the head, he indicated the troops should move in.
They hacked with their swords, bringing the ex-Pacioli down, but their grievous blows, a leg off here, a cloven head there, did not deprive the Te Deum of speech.
‘There will be accountancy,’ it bubbled and spluttered. ‘And insurance and statistics, audit and risk-analysis. I will bind the world and make it safe. Tomorrow belongs to me!’
At that point Pacioli’s interconnected body parts gave way and the spirit fled. Slovo and the soldiers saw a smoky shape skim over them and away. As it passed, it turned a Scot’s prized red locks grey. A final message perhaps.
And that was the last Admiral Slovo knew of the matter.
A century or so later, an Antwerp cloth merchant woke up one morning and found that, out of nowhere, his head was full of startling new business ideas (a bit grinding maybe but very sound even so). By then, of course, Admiral Slovo was dead and gone.
The Year 1509
‘In bed with the Borgias. Cannons and cuckoldry in Northern Italy. An ordeal not entirely in accord with my tastes.’
‘So, how was it for you?’
Admiral Slovo propped himself up in bed and considered the question. ‘Very interesting,’ he said at length.
‘But nothing like the real thing, I suppose.’
‘Merely different,’ the Admiral corrected. ‘A little … crowded perhaps – especially so, now that passion is spent.’
Lucrezia Borgia, Duchess of Ferrara, was loath to dismiss the bevy of handmaidens, especially since the one trained in Sapphic verse was sleepily lisping her favourite lines: