September Castle

by Simon Raven

  ‘He can’t have thought you were lords. Anyhow, the French hate them.’

  ‘He loved us well enough after the second bottle. And after the fourth, which was ordered up out of sheer self-indulgence and with no intent to uncover a secret which neither Ivan nor I knew was there to be uncovered – after the fourth bottle, I say, this Curator opened his mouth, dribbled a little, and said: “Come with me now, and I will show you something which only I can show yet have shown to nobody during the thirty years of my Curatorship, nor any of my predecessors since 1817, when the Maison was founded, nor any of the monks before the Revolution, being held to secrecy by Love of God and Fear of the Devil. Come,” said he – and we went.’

  The man in the sea captain’s rig walked jauntily down the steps and on to the moon-lit quayside. Ivan cringed into the shadows.

  ‘“A long time ago the world began,”’ said the man, in a light voice and with creditable accent.

  ‘“The rain it raineth every day,”’ said Ivan, responding to the Yugoslavian code. He came out of the shadows and shook hands. The sea captain’s hand was moist and very soft.

  ‘Why did you run away?’

  ‘I’ve had a nasty shock,’ Ivan said.

  ‘Oh?’

  ‘I’ve been given reason to suppose that some of the Pharaoh’s men in Greece have turned against him…and may have followed me here. Unlikely, high unlikely, but I suppose just possible. So when I spotted you shadowing me, I at once assumed that you were one of them.’

  ‘And what now makes you think that I am not?’

  ‘You have given the Yugoslavian code. You are clearly one of the Pharaoh’s Yugoslav agents, having nothing to do with the Greeks.’

  ‘And why should not the Greeks have been in touch with us long since? Why should they not have persuaded us to be their allies against the Fat Pharaoh? Why should we not have exchanged knowledge of each other’s code words? And why, come to that, should I not be a Greek masquerading as a Yugoslav?’

  ‘Why not indeed? After all, you should not have been looking for me. According to my schedule, as laid down by the Pharaoh and made known to all his agents, I am not due here in Dubrovnik for two days yet.’

  ‘I know. I was not looking for you. But I recognized you from the photograph which I was given, and I said to myself, “He should not be here yet, something has gone wrong, I must find out if he needs help.”’

  ‘Perhaps I do. But you have just given me a number of reasons why I should not trust you.’

  ‘Then let me now give you some,’ lilted the sea captain, ‘why you should.’ He brought his fresh but rather jowly face closer to Ivan’s. His breath smelt agreeably citrous. ‘We in Yugoslavia,’ he pursued, ‘have been told by the Fat Pharaoh about the dissidence in Greece. We have also been told of the Pharaoh’s plan to kill the Greek leader – by instructing you to do so through that leader’s own mouth. We have been warned that you might be compelled to break your schedule in consequence, and we have been instructed to keep an eye open for you before – and after – your proper time. So although, as I said just now, I was not looking for you in the sense of deliberately seeking for you, I was looking out for you just in case. Does all this make sense?’

  ‘Admirable sense. What more can you tell me of the Greek dissidence?’

  ‘It is dead with its leader. He alone has the necessary knowledge to compete with the Pharaoh in the search. As you may know, he has a large staff of assistants quite apart from his forces in the field (for the Pharaoh has been generous with funds), and many are expert in the history and lore which are required to further this enterprise. But he, the dead leader, was the only one who knew enough about the enterprise to set himself up in opposition to the Pharaoh, for he had once visited the Pharaoh in England and by luck or by treachery had acquired special knowledge there. This knowledge he refused to pass on even to the closest of his colleagues (in case anyone should be tempted to dispose of him and take his place) and now the Greeks are powerless through sheer ignorance.’

  ‘Might they not still pursue me, if they could? For revenge… or in the hope that they might extract their dead leader’s secrets from me?’

  ‘Yes. They might try to follow you. But you have a good start and you have friends in Yugoslavia to assist you. I do not think that you can be in much danger now.’

  And yet, thought Ivan, there is something wrong with all this. This man is not my friend. Why do I know this? Instinct? Vibrations in the ether? That soft, moist handshake? The skipper’s outfit, worn to win the confidence of the gullible? No. None of these things, Ivan thought: something he has said and which I hardly noticed at the time has set off a belated alarum bell in my brain. What was it…? YES. ‘We have been told of his plan to kill the leader – by instructing you to do so through that leader’s own mouth.’ Now, thought Ivan, Ptolemaeos might well inform loyal Yugoslav agents that the Greeks had turned treacherous and that he had decided to eliminate their leader: but he would never take them into his confidence to the extent of explaining, even in part, the methods he proposed to use. Ptolemaeos was very close, he was as tight as a cockle, when it came to what he called ‘Trade Secrets.’ ‘Tell them what, where, why and when if you absolutely must,’ Ptolemaeos used to say, ‘but never how.’ Never how. This sea captain claimed that he and his friends had been told how. By Ptolemaeos, by the Pharaoh. This could not be. Yet the man knew how. Apart from Ptolemaeos, only the Greeks could know more or less how the thing had happened; ergo this Yugoslav must have been told by the Greeks, with whom he was in complicity, by whom he had clearly been entrusted with the task of pumping Ivan for the information that was lost with their leader, a task for which he was now carefully making the initial preparations, by soothing and finessing his victim. Later, when he had Ivan well and truly under his control, would come the time (if all else failed) for threat and torture; then, when Ivan, induced by whatever means, had told all he could, the time for Ivan’s swift disposal, probably in a weighted sack some miles out to sea from this beguiling maritime city. ‘This is Illyria, Lady.’ ‘And what shall I do in Illyria?’

  ‘Hands off,’ said Ptolemaeos Tunne, taking Jo-Jo’s into his own, ‘or there might be a nasty accident.’

  ‘Sometimes I wish there would be. With me too.’

  ‘No. We agreed. Neither of us would come with the other. The orgasm is the enemy of happy cohabitation. The orgasm, even when closely disciplined and severely rationed, leads to weariness, waste of spirit and loss of love.’

  ‘All right. But you needn’t stop playing with me. I’m a long way off… Yes; like that. Oh Ptoly, you are clever. What fun it is, being with you. Now go on about this Curator. You got him pissed and he offered to show you something which no one had ever been shown before. Oh Ptoly, I think you’d better stop after all. I’m beginning to drip.’

  ‘Right you be, let’s give it a rest, girlie. Now, this Curator. He took us up the hill past the Basilica, and on to his museum, and down into a vault. And there, on a shelf, locked into an airtight metal box, was the Appendix to the Chronicle of Avallon. As soon as Ivan and I had taken a peep we knew it was dynamite, but already the Curator was regretting what he had done and was trying to get us out. What to do? It wasn’t the kind of stuff you get the measure of in five minutes flat: it needed close study, days and weeks of concentration. Clearly we couldn’t steal it, or the Frog police would be on to us the next day, as soon as the Curator was strong enough to dial their number. We couldn’t photograph it – no equipment. We couldn’t copy it – no time. Could we borrow it? Not on your nelly, the Curator said. So then I got firm. I needed a transcript, I told him, for bona fide research. Did such a thing exist? No. Then he must allow me to make one during the next few days. Jamais; it would be violation of his most sacred trust, etc., etc., and anyway he was forbidden to admit anyone into the vault or take the Appendix out of it.

  ‘So firmness having failed, I became brutal. I began to bash him about –’

  ‘Oh P
toly –’

  ‘– Whereupon little softikins, he threw off his trousers and begged me for more and more of it – which I then promptly refused except on the strict understanding that he would admit us to the vault secretly every night until we had had time to take a competent copy of the Appendix. Yes, yes, milor, if only I would continue doing that thing to him, that wonderful, wonderful thing…’

  ‘What wonderful thing? Punching him on the jaw?’

  ‘I’m sorry to say it had all become more…sophisticated than that. It turned out that our Curator was a pioneer of a beastly and scarcely credible American practice of which you may or may not have heard rumours.’

  ‘Oh no,’ cried Jo-Jo, ‘not that fist business?’

  ‘The very same. So every night we went to the vault, and while Ivan copied out the Appendix the Curator and I…busied ourselves with the fist business, my fist and his fundament. Do you know, little soppy, it gets quite fascinating. The fact that it should even be possible… After a time I became quite fond of the little man, and really very anxious that he should have the most marvellous time I could give him, if that was the way he wanted it: so that when Ivan had finished copying and we had no more need of the Curator’s services, I nevertheless went down there with him for one final work-out – a huge success, I’m happy to report. The next morning, when we all said goodbye, he was absolutely streaming with tears. And do you know, little sweetheart, I shed a few myself.’

  ‘God be praised,’ said Jo-Jo, ‘for giving such diversity of love. Now then, Ptoly-Woly. Tell your little niece exactly what was in that Appendix…’

  ‘The best thing,’ said the man in the skipper’s outfit to Ivan, ‘will be that you should put yourself in our hands just in case the Greeks should pick up your trail.’ The young face was unctuous and earnest under the moon, like that of a priest who woos a possible convert. ‘We can conceal you for as long as is necessary to make the arrangements. We can take you off by sea –’

  I bet you can, thought Ivan.

  ‘– And put you down on the Italian coast, anywhere between Bari and Venice, beyond the reach of any possible pursuit.’

  Yes indeed: dead. Ivan looked up at the moon.

  ‘Thou that makest day of night,’ he thought: ‘Goddess, excellently bright.’

  But not what he wanted at the moment. He looked into the corners of the little court. He looked at the quayside against which the little waves washed and lapped. No way out: except by the steps down which he had come.

  ‘You could leave your hotel,’ the sea captain was saying, ‘and come to my home for the night. I shall invite some of our friends there who would like to meet you. And then, in the morning, we can begin to arrange for your discreet departure.’

  In a sack.

  ‘You are very kind,’ said Ivan, ‘and very prudent. But before I come with you to your home, I have one duty to discharge. I must visit a shrine which is some miles up the coast.’

  ‘You wish to pray?’ said the Captain, puzzled.

  ‘Perhaps to pray. In any case at all to confirm my previous impression of the place.’

  ‘Why should this be necessary?’

  ‘In the shrine is a tomb and on the tomb is an effigy. The Lady Xanthippe visited shrine, tomb and effigy when she passed this way in 1255. Her behaviour there is relevant to our quest. The effigy is indicative of her behaviour.’

  ‘What is this shrine? It will be closed at this hour.’

  ‘No. It is a ruin. A ruined chapel of Our Lady of the Sea Marsh, formerly a pagan temple dedicated to Diana in her role of Hecate.’

  ‘I do not know this place.’

  ‘Very few people do. I will take you there with me, if you wish.’

  The man hesitated. He shook his head in perplexity and annoyance.

  ‘It is better you should come straight to my home,’ he said.

  ‘On the contrary,’ answered Ivan, affably but ungainsayably, ‘it is essential that I should visit the chapel.’

  ‘At night?’

  ‘That is when it is seen to its best advantage. Besides, I do not wish to be observed approaching it. There could be interference…by the idle or the inquisitive.’

  ‘It is getting late. Your hotel will be closed when we return from this shrine. It is important that you should get your luggage tonight, to be in readiness to leave at any time.’

  ‘A very sound point. We shall go now to my hotel,’ said Ivan, ‘where I shall collect my luggage and pay my bill. Then we shall pay our respects to Our Lady of the Sea Marsh, before we seek your home and your amiable acquaintance.’

  ‘If you are to gather the full meaning of the Appendix,’ said Ptolemaeos, quietly goosing Jo-Jo on the nape of her neck, ‘you will first have to be introduced to one or two rather difficult conceptions.’

  ‘Try me.’

  ‘Well now: Socrates used to say that we all have our personal daemons – spirits which guide our thoughts and influence, even dictate, our actions.’

  ‘No difficulty there. Daemon equals moral character.’

  ‘But what happens when you postulate a daemon that is totally exterior and independent, one that is indeed allotted to an individual man or woman but, instead of abiding permanently with him or with her, comes and goes on the orders of its master…who may be a god or a devil.’

  ‘Like the dreams which the gods send in Homer?’

  ‘Very like. Or like certain recurrent illnesses – epilepsy, for example. One could easily conceive of epilepsy as a daemon or spirit allotted to a certain person and under orders to visit him at certain intervals.’

  ‘One could. Where is all this getting us?’

  ‘The Lady Xanthippe was intermittently attended by a daemon – or so that Appendix insists – of a distinctly unusual kind.’

  ‘What kind?’

  ‘Before I answer that, I have another conception to bring to your notice. Have you ever dreamed that you had had some piece of good or ill fortune, and dreamed it so convincingly that you actually believed it, for a few seconds only but nevertheless believed it, after you awoke?’

  ‘Yes. I once dreamt I’d married Prince Charles. For a split second, until I was properly awake, I really believed I was holding his –’

  ‘– The point is well taken. Now, it is normally held for granted these days that our dreams emanate from ourselves in some way; leave aside the details and the perversities of the mechanism, we assume that our dreams are set off by our own fears or problems, our own deprivations or desires. So when I dream that I have been created a peer of the realm, the peerage starts in my own vainglorious soul and ends with the dream – except for a few seconds before I am truly awake, during which time I can still, as it were, clasp my coronet.’

  ‘Scratch my scalp.’

  ‘Tickle my buttocks…with the points of your fingernails. Have you understood so far?’

  ‘Yes, lovely Ptoly.’

  ‘But more ancient theories of dreams held that some at least were sent by the gods – as indeed you mentioned just now, with reference to dreams in Homer. Their purpose was for the most part mantic – to promise, to apprise or to warn – though sometimes, as with the dream sent to Nausicaa, the purpose was disciplinary, to forbid or to command. In either case – and here we come to the nub of the thing – the dream sometimes left behind some concrete proof of its divine source and its good faith. Thus, if Apollo wanted to direct my attention to a horde of gold coins, he would send a dream to show me where they were and the dream would leave behind it a few actual coins in my hand or my bed, as a sign that it wasn’t generated by my own cupidity or wishful thinking but was an accurate piece of information sent by a truthful and beneficent deity.’

  ‘What has all this to do with Écrevisses?’

  ‘Écrevisses?’

  ‘You did say we’d be getting on to them sooner or later.’

  ‘Very much later, my mouseykin. Now then. Suppose one had a daemon that visited one at irregular intervals, the god – or the
devil – who controlled it might well decide to send a dream along with it, as well as whatever concrete proof of its truth was thought appropriate. Suppose it was a bad dream and presented one with some token or talisman of evil. When one awoke, one might, for a few moments, actually believe in the dream and the evil talisman which was its gift; but very soon one would say: “But it was only a dream, thank God, and dreams, good or bad, leave nothing behind them in the real world.” Something like that one might say…and one would therefore be very disagreeably surprised when one found that the evil talisman thrust upon one in the dream was in very truth still there in one’s sweaty hand. One would, you will allow, have to think twice about a dream which left a visiting card of that nature.’

  ‘Is this what happened to Xanthippe?’

  ‘Something of the kind. Apparently, she was visited by a daemon who acted, quite indifferently, as a messenger both from God and from Satan, and both God and Satan sent her dreams, along with concrete proofs of the dreams’ veracity, in their competition for her soul.’

  ‘She was simply imagining it. Or making it all up.’

  ‘But was she? According to Hubert of Avallon’s Appendix the objects which came with her dreams were very solid.’

  ‘I’m too hungry to listen to any more until I’ve had a snack. There’s some caviar in the fridge. Okay?’