Purchas

purchas @ 2006-10-08T10:24:00

2006-10-08T09:24:42Z

Emilia hadn’t moved since we left her. "Well," she asked imperiously. "Are you satisfied with the condition of the prisoners, Purchas? You accept that we haven’t done anything horrible to them- yet."

"I’m satisfied. And now I want you to release them."

"Whooah, too fast. Let’s talk about what I want first."

"Which is?"

"Commodore, you may withdraw."

"I don’t think that’s fair." I spoke very quietly. "The Commodore is a party to this negotiation. His safety and that of his men is at issue here."

"Oh hello. Have we been making friendy-wendys? You know, Commodore," she spoke above my head. "What confidence tricksters these two are? M. Purchas used to earn his living as a conjurer and housebreaker; I rescued him myself from the slums of York- a quite revoltingly cold and rainy northern city. As for Doctor Klipper, he’s nothing but a quack fortune teller. Do I lie?"

"We are all thieves, here," I said. "There’s no point in any of us pretending."

"Me a thief?" she gave one of her delightful trilling laughs.

"And the Antidote was obtained honestly, was it? Come on Em, don’t give yourself airs. We’re all of us thieves and murderers. Let’s not play games. Let’s deal honestly. We’re all of us savvy enough to spot when an opponent’s playing with marked cards."

The Commodore had been standing by the door. Now he pulled up a chair and sat down on the other side of Louis. "No offence," he said. "But I’d like you all to remember that I’m the one with the guns."

Emilia shifted uneasily on her throne. "Very well," she said. "What I’m asking- what I’m demanding- is safe passage off this estate for myself – and of course for the Commodore and his men."

"The Commodore gets safe passage," I said. "But you are required to surrender yourself to us. Bors is our commander. You know how merciful he is. He offers you the life of a princess: your own castle and estate in any part of Europe you choose, but with staff and servants chosen by us."

"House arrest, you mean."

"Also, I think it goes without saying, you must give up to us all stocks of the Antidote and allow us access to the laboratories where you have it made."

She laughed. "I don’t think so. I hold the best cards, I think. I have the prisoners. I have the antidote. What do you have?"

"We have you surrounded. You’re trapped on this island. We also have time. Your men will very quickly run out of food and drink."

"You know I could detain you. Suppose I were to parade you on the beach with a rope round your neck and a gun at your head. Bors would cave in at once."

"But afterwards he’d hunt you down without mercy."

The Commodore coughed politely. "That plan would require my consent and co-operation . I assume your General would hunt me down too?"

"Of course. You wouldn’t make it even as far as Toulon."

"Luckily for me I have some vestigial notions of honour left."

Emilia made an angry gesture.

"I suppose I should remind you," I said smoothly. "That we have the Antidote too." You men left a lot of muskets and ammunition pouches on the battlefield."

There was a long silence. "What I want to know," said the Commodore, fondling his stubbly chin. "Is whether there’s money to be made out of this Antidote thing of yours?"

"No!" Emilia and I said it simultaneously. She giggled and stood up. If you wanted to bring about one of her remarkable changes of mood all you had to do was make her laugh. Instantly she was a girl again and this was just a game we were playing. Did it really matter who won? Not really; there would be other rounds. "Very well," she said, cheerily. "I accept your terms. A princess, you say and a castle?"

"That’s what Bors said. You know he’s a man of his word."

"I fancy somewhere on the Rhine, I think. You’d have to come and stay- and bring Margery too. It would be just like old times. Let’s drink to it."

Her chair was placed so that all she had to do was reach up and hold her glass under the fountain’s spurting nipple. "You won’t join me?" she asked "Ah well, it’s your funeral.."

I was aware of another presence in the room. Arty, like a grey ghost, had stepped out from behind the velvet curtain that hid the fountain’s works. Emilia had drained the glass in one. The change began even as she turned to see what it was that had drawn our attention.

Arty plucked the glass from her mother’s trembling fingers, refilled it and drank. "I couldn’t go on after this," she said. "Now could I?"

Emilia was already dead in her chair. Arty went down on her knees and fell forward across the dais at her mother’s feet.

"Fuckin' death of fuckin' Cleopatra," said Louis. He and I were Shakespearians. I burst out laughing. We were both of us in shock.

The Commodore leaped up and knelt beside the corpses. He looked at us with a look of blank bewilderment on his face. "They’re dead," he said.

"That’s the Antidote," I said. "Be careful what you touch. That stuff’ll kill anything."

He stepped back hastily.

I felt nothing. The Emilia I had known and loved had left us many years before. I didn’t look too closely at her body. I knew she wouldn’t be beautiful any more.

But I noticed that Arty’s hair and clothes were wet.

I sat down on the dais, not too close to the corpses and dangled my hands between my raised knees. "You all right, Perky?" asked Louis.

"Fine." I said. "Fine. Fuckin death of fuckin Cleopatra." I broke into helpless peals of laughter.

The Commodore got us off the island. All of us- pirates, hostages, ambassadors- in a little fleet of make-believe gondolas flying under the white flag. I was present through the whole operation and- I’m told by reliable observers- apparently capable of opening my mouth and saying things that made perfect sense and of walking around on my own two feet without support. I believe them. But the part of me that was conscious was suspended in the air about fifty feet above the action, observing it with bland and amused detachment.

Gabriele came strolling up. "You dead too, Purchas? Welcome home."

"Actually, I don’t think I am. Look, isn’t that me walking about down there?"

"So it is. Well I never."

"Aren’t I tiny?".

"But strutting about like a little game cock. How you manage to pass yourself off as a grown-up is beyond me."

"I used to think the same about you."

"I’m taller than you. Or, at least, I was. Now I can be any height I want. Look"

"Very clever. So why aren’t you in hell?"

"I beg your pardon ."

"Sorry, that came out all wrong. It’s just that last time we met you were raving about rocks and fires and the earth splitting open. I was worried about you."

"Oh that? That was just a phase I was going through.

"I’m glad."

"Not half as glad as I was to get out of it"

"So where are you now."

"What a silly question."

"You know what I mean, when you’re not here with me."

"Actually, I’m not sure. There are people there and we sit around and talk. About ethics and stuff. I sneak off whenever I can. I know it’s not heaven because some of them there aren’t even Catholics."

"You don’t say."

"Strange but true."

"So you saw what just happened?"

"Sure, Clever Arty. She was hiding just outside the door when Margery buried the Antidote under the fireplace. Then she stole it, made her way over onto the island and slipped it into the fountain. I was sent to collect her. And then I spotted you and thought I’d sidle over and have a chat. But really I should be going now. Arty’s waiting up ahead."

"I can’t see her."

"No?"

"In fact I can’t see you any more. And your voice is fading."

"Ah yes, it will be. Give Margery my love."

"And mine to Arty. Love you."

"Love …."

EPILOGUE

And that’s the last thing I remember. Then comes a gap of about three weeks. Brain fever, they said. Only Immortals aren’t supposed to get brain fever. I think what happened is I just shut down and gave myself a little break from the horror of living and all that.

Margery sat by my side and read me Don Quixote. We were three quarters of the way through Book II before I woke up. I hadn’t heard a word of it. I won’t say, what a waste of time, because I don’t suppose it was.

Bors and Herne were long gone. Before they left they called on Louis and, with his reluctant consent, poured his attempt at replicating the Antidote down the sink and burned all his notes.

Bors had gone to Regensburg. A month after I came out of my swoon Margery and I went and visited him there. He was hard at work remaking the Order. A permanent bonfire was burning in the castle’s forecourt, as the records Melchisidech had used to blackmail and bully the rulers of the world went up in smoke. A number of people I knew were busy working through the archives; among them the Count and Louis Klipper

Bors and I look a walk beside the river. It was month before Christmas, the last few red and yellow leaves shivered on their twigs. The sky was grey. Some kind of big bird- an eagle or a vulture- it was too far off to distinguish which- circled above the smoke, drawn, I suppose, by the smell of roasting leather.

"You can have a seat on the Council if you like," he said.

"But I’m a woman," I said.

"Not a real woman, though." He smiled ruefully.

"Not a real man, either. No; I can’t see myself sitting among the greybeards. If you want someone with real common-sense, you should ask Margery."

"I don’t think the Brothers are ready for that. For someone actually wearing skirts …"

He was struggling so I cut in. "You do realise how hypocritical that sounds?"

"Alas, yes." He stared up at the empty sky. "I dodged responsibility all those years because I knew how much I would have to compromise."

"And now you’re enjoying yourself no end."

He laughed. "You could always see right through me, Purchas."

I touched his arm. "I don’t mean to mock. You’re doing a really good job."

"I hope so. I feel as though I’ve been presented with a big, old set of bedroom furniture and told I have to turn it into a table and chairs. I can’t choose my materials and I have to make do with someone else’s tools. It’ll be a botched job I’m afraid."

"Of course. These things always are. But you’re perhaps the only man in the world who could be trusted to attempt it."

Bors went on to renovate the Order. He turned its upper echelons into a cross between the Round Table and the Franciscan order. It never again enjoyed its old influence in world affairs, but dwindled into something like the self-help organisation we always used to think it was. This was entirely deliberate.

You want to know where people are and what they’re doing now?

Bors is still head of the Order. He lives in Switzerland. The neighbours think he’s a retired professor of theology.

Herne heads the English chapter. He has a public reputation as a conservationist and radical eco-warrior.

The Bishop surfaced briefly during the occult revival of the 1880s and 90s. He's still out there somewhere, skulking.

Huon is CEO of an international corporation based in New York. He appears sometimes, under his current alias, in those funny magazines they sell at supermarket checkout counters. He’s the guy in the shadows with his arm across his face in all those pictures of coked-up supermodels emerging from night clubs.

Louis Klipper writes horoscopes for a tabloid newspaper. He’s back in Avignon right now. He slipped his housekeeper the elixir- soft-hearted old brute- and has been saddled with her now for over three hundred years. They’re a leathery, eternally battling couple, but basically fond of one another- or so I think.

The Marquise has houses in Paris, Barcelona, New York. She befriends each successive wave of the avant garde. There are portraits of her- in her successive guises- in all the major art collections in Europe and America.

Esclairmonde and Pertinax are in Australia.

Colonel Farquahar had his farm in Zimbabwe repossessed by the Mugabe government. He now lives outside Tunbridge Wells and breeds race horses.

The Commodore wheedled the elixir off Louis and retired to the Caribbean. When I last met him he told me a whole host of funny stories about Noel Coward, Ian Fleming and Princess Margaret.

The Count is a very famous man. It really wouldn’t be fair to even hint at his current identity.

Margery and I divide our time between London and Orvieto. Margery works part-time as a supply teacher. I write- well- you know what I write. In my last handful of incarnations I've dressed as a girl.

She comes in with a cup of coffee for us both. "You’re stopping in 1670?" she says. "You’re not going to tell them about Casanova or Robespierre or T.E. Lawrence?" And I say. "Not now. Maybe some other time. Right now I’m going for a swim."

Emilia was buried on the island, more or less where she fell. I’ve never visited the grave. I don’t feel strong enough. It’s an impressive grave, I’m told, with a big stone chest on top like the one in Poussin’s Shepherds of Arcady. I hear there are websites out there that try to link it in with the so-called mystery of Rennes le Chateau. The inscription has long since faded, so who’s to say it isn’t the final resting place of Mary Magdalen? Well, there’s me, for one. Besides, last thing I heard, Mary Magdalen- I’ve only met her in passing- was running a small woollen goods business near Srinigar.

The dead pirates got loaded onto carts and taken off the estate and tumbled into a mass grave. Why they deserved less than Emilia I really don’t know.

Arty was buried on the summit of Mt. Ventoux, side by side with Gabriele. That’s a grave I visit frequently. I climb up past the monument to the British cyclist Tommy Simpson- I always I leave him a few of the flowers I carry with me- and seek out the place where the cairns used to be. Margery and I are the only people who know the exact location. Then I sit down on the scree and look out at the view Petrarch extolled and have three way conversations with Arty and Gabriele and imagine I can hear them talking back.

Silly old fool.

purchas @ 2006-10-07T08:27:00

2006-10-07T07:54:33Z

I pulled the boat in alongside the jetty. I always like that last bit where you ship oars and the water drips off the blades and you glide smoothly into your berth. I think I do it really well.

The two pirates stepped forward. One was a tiny, wizened, old man. He wore a large cocked hat and a huge coat- brocaded all over in tarnished silver- which must have weighed at least as much as he did. The other was a giant, approaching seven feet tall, naked from the waist up, with a vacant, sleepwalking air. The big man extended a hand to help me ashore. I waved him off. Louis was glad of the assistance.

"Welcome aboard, gentlemen," said the little man, doffing his hat and giving us an ironic bow. He wore a full, shoulder length, glossy, black wig that seemed to have been made for a much larger man. "Let me introduce myself. I’m Commodore Jean-Marie Ferdinand Ponce de Lagilliere, privateer, of the good ship L’Aiglon de Mer, and this is my colleague Brute- who doesn’t really matter."

The big man grunted.

I returned the bow. "I am M. Purchas, titular owner of this estate and this is my friend Dr. Louis Klipper, the savant. We are both of us well-known to Madame Grimaldi."

The Commodore smirked in acknowledgement, produced a silver snuff box and offered us a pinch. We both politely refused. He took one himself then blew his nose into a dirty lace handerchief with such force that I half expected him to fall apart.

He tucked the handkerchief back up his sleeve. "I have to ask you, on your word as gentlemen, to assure me that neither of you is carrying any weapon- concealed or otherwise.

I threw my coat open. "You have my word, Monsieur."

"Then if you’ll please to follow us. Her ladyship will receive you in her residence."

They conducted us through the Count’s maze. It wasn’t a complicated maze and the rose bushes only came up to our waists, but we managed to take a wrong turning none the less and had to retrace our steps right the way back to the beginning and start again.

The temple was a masterpiece of trompe l’oeuil. You had to be really close to discover that the carved and inlaid marble was nothing but painted board. There were two men with muskets guarding the door. They saluted the Commodore, who acknowledged them with a gracious wave, and parted to let us through.

The lantern in the dome was cunningly engineered so that the statue of Venus stood at the centre of a vertical column of dusty, yellow light. Emilia had had a chair set up on the dais in front of it and was reclining there langourously, in a long black dress, with the red cloak spread out around her like a skin she’d just sloughed, one foot extended, one arm bent above her head, looking not at all like a person who had just lost a battle. The fountain had been set going and the space was full of the sound of it and the acrid scent of wine.

"Ah, Purchas, M. Klipper," she said, and yawned. "What an exquisite pleasure. Commodore, if you’d be so good as to fetch chairs for our guests."

We sat. I realised a little too late that this gave her the advantage of height. "Well," she drawled. "What can I offer you gentlemen- a little wine, perhaps? "

"I’d rather get straight to business, if you don’t mind," I said.

"Ah but I do. This is a fete, ne’st pas?"

She waved her hand and a man appeared from the wings with three glasses on a silver tray. He was one of the staff we'd hired- a professional. He put the tray on a side table, lifted each glass to the light to make sure it was flawlessly clean, flicked it with a cloth to be doubly sure, held it under the right breast of the statue then returned it to the tray. Then he carried the tray round. I took a glass and placed it, untasted, on the floor beside me. Louis, watching my actions closely, did the same.

"Ha," she said, laughing sweetly. "You don’t trust me, do you, little Purchas. I can’t think why. I’ve never harmed you, have I?" She raised her glass and said, "To sisterhood," and emptied it. "You see, I’m not swelling up, my eyes remain steady." She wagged her index finger at me. "Oh ye of little faith."

"How many prisoners do you have?" I asked.

"Oh I don’t know," she flounced. "You don’t expect me to have counted them, do you?" She narrowed her eyes. "I have enough."

"I want to see them."

She sighed deeply. "Such a doubting Thomas! They’re out the back somewhere. Commodore, would you like to escort M. Purchas to the holding pen?"

"Yes, ma’am."

She blew me a fingertip kiss. "Don’t be long, sweetie."

Louis and I followed the little man out of the building.

"Such a fine lady," he enthused. "Such a pleasure to work for."

"She led you into defeat," I said.

"Oh, I wouldn’t be so sure of that," He took out the silver box. "Snuff?"

This time I took a pinch.

"This is your estate, then ?" he said.

I nodded.

"Very nice. I grew up on an estate like this. Further north, in the Beaujolais." He winked. "Black sheep of the family, that’s me."

The area round the back of the temple was unmanaged woodland- a lot of spindly little trees growing close together and competing for light. A narrow track ran through it and led into a scrappy clearing, with the felled trees lying to one side in a heap with fungus growing on them.

The hostages were sitting in the centre of the glade in a circle, back to back, with their hands and feet tied. There were about thirty of them- Immortals, musicians, catering staff. A pirate, who had been reclining, half asleep, on the woodpile, swung his legs round and stood to something like attention.

"No touching," said the Commodore. "But you can speak to them if you like."

It’s hard not to be lame under circumstances like these. "Erm, how are you all?" I asked.

"Fine," said The Count, through gritted teeth. "Just wonderful."

"Purchas," said the Marquise. "Have you come to free us?"

"That’s the idea.," I said. "I’m in negotiations with Madame Grimaldi."

"Who won?" asked the Count.

"We did," said the Commodore. I’d have thought that was obvious."

"Actually," I said. "That’s open to debate. We successfully defended the house and most of the enemy ran away."

"Effected a tactical withdrawal," said the Commodore. "They’ll be back."

"I doubt it."

"Which only goes to show how little you know about the art of war." He took my arm. "And now you’ve seen the prisoners we’ll go back to her ladyship. Mustn’t keep her waiting."

I shook him off. "Listen, people. We’re going to sort this out. Hold tight and we’ll get you out of here."

"But don’t count on it," said the Commodore.

The Count beckoned me closer with a jerk of his head. "I want to see these villains hung," he said. "All on one gallows. In a line. I want to see the bastards dance!"

"Hey, no whispering there!" said the Commodore.

I straightened up. "We’ll see what can be done," I said, vaguely.

This time it was I who took the Commodore’s arm. "You were defeated," I said, matter-of-factly, as we walked back down the path. "I don’t know how much of the battle you saw, but it was a rout."

"And who’s the one begging for terms?"

"Dictating terms."

He laughed. "You train as a lawyer, or what?"

"No, but I’ve knocked around with some."

"I did a couple of terms at the Sorbonne. I should have stuck to the course. It’s a much safer way of robbing people…"

"But less exciting."

"Exactly. I got bored. A mate and I started rolling drunks for fun. After a day spent wearing your eyes out over dusty old books you can’t imagine the pleasure of feeling a knife in your hand. Then we took things a little too far. Someone died. And so I ran away to sea." He sighed.." The black flag’s been good to me."

"So I see." I glanced at his coat. "Brocade like that doesn’t come cheap."

"Just a little thing I picked it up in Porto Bello. I was with Captain Morgan. You’ll have heard of him." He put a hand on my arm and brought us to a halt. "You’re not a country boy, are you?"

"Is it so obvious?"

"You’ve got an air about you. You’re not one of these Southern squires with their heads full of hunting and- well- that’s about it. You know about things."

"I was born in the north of England, but I tend to think of myself as a Londoner."

"Heh heh heh." The rusty laugh ended in a spluttering cough. "Know it well. A lot of good friends of mine wound up hung in chains at Wapping." he looked round to make sure no-one was listening. "So can I speak to you man to man. None of your lawyerly evasions?"

I assumed a serious demeanour and inclined my head.

"You know her ladyship well. Am I right?"

"Yes, we go back a long, long way."

"So, do you think me and the lads are likely to get paid for this day’s work?"

"I think it highly unlikely. The last gang she had working for her wound up dead. She felt they’d let her down." I paused to let the information sink in, then added- "Poison."

"You’re having me on?"

"I saw the evidence myself. She’s ruthless. Utterly ruthless. Louis, show the gentleman your scar."

Louis look off his cravat and raised his chin. The thin white line went from ear to ear. "That was her work," I said. "She cut his throat. He was tied to a chair at the time."

The Commodore whistled through his teeth. He had a fine set of them despite his age. "I’ve known many men who’d be game for that, but never a woman."

"Well that’s who you’re dealing with. Your Captain Morgan was a kitten compared to Madame Grimaldi."

"Of course you would say that," He tilted his head to one side and gave me a look of deep cunning.

"Yes of course I would. But it still happens to be true. Madame Grimaldi is a poisoner on an epic scale. She’s involved you and your boys in a war between great powers in which you’re of no more account…" I searched my extensive vocabulary for a suitable simile.

"…Than the man you killed to get that fancy coat," suggested Louis.

The Commodore ignored him. "So this potion, this antidote I keep hearing about, the stuff our bullets are dipped in…"

I tapped my nose with my finger. "Dangerous knowledge," I said. "Don’t even ask. If the Lady senses you’re getting inquisitive…"

"She’s just a woman."

"That’s what I mean. You boys are out of your depth. The lady is like nobody you’ve ever dealt with before."

He withdrew his hand and we started walking again. "If things go your way in this," he murmured. "I’m only saying if…"

"I can’t make any promises," I said. "All I can say is we’re not the sort of people who would tie a man to a chair and cut his throat. It’s not our style."

"We treated the prisoners pretty well. They’ll vouch for that."

"Yes. Duly noted.

"We haven’t had this conversation, of course."

"No, of course not."

purchas @ 2006-10-06T08:43:00

2006-10-06T09:01:53Z

Margery found a dust-sheet the painters had left behind, scissored off a square piece and tied it to a stick.

“Sorry about the frayed edges,” she said, handing it over to Bors. “Really it needs hemming.”

“It’s fine,” said Bors. “Just so long as it doesn’t come untied.” He wagged it vigorously to and fro. “Now I’m going to row out midway and wave this at them and hope we can get negotiations going. Someone volunteer to take the oars.”

“Me,” said Margery, “I’m the water rat.”

Bors gave me a questioning look.

“It could be dangerous,” I mumbled.

“Oh Purchas, don’t be such an idiot”

She marched down to the jetty, got in the boat and raised the sculls.

Bors followed her, carrying the flag. She let him settle in the stern, then pushed off.

Herne trotted up, grinning hugely, with his broadsword over his shoulder, dismounted and came and stood with the rest of us. "What's up?" he asked.

I explained.

"And he expects pirates to respect a flag of truce?" he snorted.

Margery rowed to within hailing distance, then turned the boat broadside to the island. Bors got to his feet, flag in hand, teetered and fell over backwards into the water.

“They’ve shot him,” said Herne. “That’s it. Now we do it my way. Swim across and give ‘em no quarter.”

“Hold it!” said Pertinax. “Look. He’s swimming. He’s all right.”

It was true. He’d simply overbalanced. Margery was leaning over the gunwhale holding out her hand. He grabbed hold and heaved himself back on board.

“That’ll put the fear of God in ‘em,” muttered Herne.

Bors sat for a while in the bottom of the boat- getting his breath back- then heaved himself back onto his feet. “Ahoy,” he called. “Ahoy!”

A man appeared on the shore of the island. He and Bors had a conversation of which we caught only scraps. Then Bors sat down again and Margery rowed him back.

"Damn," said Bors as he squelched up the bank, "Damn, damn, damn!"
He sat down on an empty cask and began tugging at his right boot.

“Is Emilia there?” I asked.

“She is. She’s holding our people as hostages. She'll only talk to Purchas.”

“Who’s she to dictate terms?” asked Herne.

“We do as she says or she starts shooting hostages at five minute intervals."

“I’d have told her; ‘kill a hostage and we come in shooting'.”

“I suggested something of the sort. Unfortunately she has ten musketeers on the island and this time they’ll be using poisoned bullets.”

“Bluff,” said Herne. “Did you see her musketeers?”

“I saw a couple of them.”

"Did you see the bullets?"

"We know she has them."

Bors gave a final tug and the boot came off. He upended it and a thin stream of dirty water ran out.

"I don't see a problem," I said. "I'm happy to talk to her."

“Does she promise safe passage?” asked Pertinax.

“She does.”

“For what it’s worth,” said Herne.

“What can I offer her?” I asked

“You can offer her her life,” said Bors, slowly, thinking it out as he spoke. “And the lives of her men- though I don't suppose she's bothered about that. In return you demand she surrenders all stocks of the Antidote and gives us the keys to her laboratories.”

“And we let her go free?” asked Herne.

“Yes and no,” said Bors. “She can have a house- a castle even- God knows the Order has enough of them- with the proviso that her household servants are chosen and employed by us and her movements are monitored. She’ll be treated as a great lady, a princess even. Emphasise that- a princess.”

“I still think my plan is better,” said Herne. "A night attack Wipe’em all out.”

“Possibly,” said Bors, coldly. “But I think you'll find the decision's mine.” He held out his left hand and we saw he was wearing Melchisidech’s ring on his wedding finger.

Herne shrugged angrily, turned and strode away. Louis Klipper stepped out from behind a tent at just the wrong moment and Herne almost bumped into him. "Can't you look where you're going!" he roared.

"What's troubling the hero of the hour?" asked Louis.

"Issues with authority," I said.

Bors, threw the empty boot aside and began pulling at the other. “Hello, Klipper." he said. "I thought you were up at the house. Everything all right?”

“Not really,” said Louis. “Thought I ought to tell you; Mlle Despiner or Polkinghorne or whatever she’s called has gone missing.”

"Missing?"

"Turned my back and there she wasn't."

“You searched?”

“Course I searched. Me and the lads went right through the house. Top to bottom. Not a sign of her. Found some really interesting books under your bed though, Perky.” He gave me a hideous wink. “Illustrated books…”

“Could she be one of the hostages?” asked Pertinax.

“There was a lot of confusion," said Louis. "I suppose someone could have grabbed her."

“We'll find her,” said Bors."

"So let me go over to the island and look," I said.

“You can take a companion,” said Bors. “Not me, not Pertinax, not Herne, not Farquahar. Not anyone military. A civilian. I’d like to think there was someone with you to watch your back.”

“I’ll go,” said Margery.

“Actually, you are on the list of prohibited persons too. The phrase that was used of you was- ahem- ‘that sneaky bitch’. I was thinking, since he’s here, you might take Klipper.”

“What am I being volunteered for?” asked Louis, anxiously.

I explained.

Louis wasn’t a coward. You could say a lot of derogatory things about him and I would only mildly protest, but call him a coward and I’d put my foot down. When I first knew him he was, among other things, a spy for the English government. You don’t engage in that sort of work in a society as violent as Jacobean England was if you hold your life too dear. “Humph,” he said, once he understood what we were about to do. “Another fine mess you got me into.”

We climbed down into the boat. I’m not as handy with boats as Margery is, but I’d taken my turn with the oars when we were messing about on the Thames. Bors handed Louis the white flag.

“Di vos incolumes custodiant,” said Pertinax.

“Hmm,” said Louis, as we glided out onto the water. “About those books of yours: I wouldn’t mind borrowing them some day.”

“Those are expensive first editions, Louis. I know what you’re like: you’d spill candle wax all over them. Or soup. Or God knows what.”

“Me? I’m a bibliophile.”

“Sure. I’ve seen your library. You’ve got some nice books there, but you’ve trashed them all.”

“Books are for reading, Perky. Not just for displaying on shelves to impress the neighbours.”

“I’ll have you know there’s not a book in my library I haven’t read at least once. I’m just careful with them, that’s all. I don’t dog-ear the pages, I don’t break their spines. I don’t eat my dinner off them.”

I was facing backwards of course. I could see my friends lined up along the bank, anxiously watching our progress. Margery blew me a kiss.

“You’re a dilettante,” said Louis. “My library is a working library. Those books of mine are tools. So of course I’m reading ‘em under all conditions and making notes in the margins and underlining things and- whoops- two pirates just stepped out onto the bank.”

“Are they armed?”

“They got muskets, but they’re not pointing ‘em at us. It’s a reception committee.” He agitated the white flag.

purchas @ 2006-10-05T09:31:00

2006-10-05T08:54:58Z

I jumped up and put my shoulder to the dresser and, with Louis and Margery lending a hand, pushed it away from the door. Then we all ran out into the garden.

I have rarely seen anything quite so magnificent. Herne, Farquhar and their cavalry had ridden straight into the enemy's flank, causing panic and flight. Herne had his horns on and was laying about him with a broadsword. Behind came Bors, Pertinax and the infantry, using their muskets as clubs.

I leaped over the parapet, sword in hand and found myself next to Bors. He tipped his hat to me. What we were being called to do wasn't much like fighting, more like herding sheep or driving geese- and I found I was wielding my rapier, not as the delicate piercing instrument it was designed to be, but as a switch, slashing at whatever was in front of me.

The enemy had been caught unprepared. They lacked leadership- and after the success of their charge had been uncertain what to do next. They hadn't reckoned on a counter attack, and weren't being paid enough to put up resistance. We chased them round the house- sweeping up more and more of them as we went- and drove them down the hill. When we reached the gates Bors called his musketeers to order, formed them into a ragged line and sent a final volley after the fugitives. Herne rode on regardless, royally berserk, swinging the broadsword like a cheerleaders baton, swatting them man by man as they scattered into the surrounding countryside

"One small point," said Margery, grounding her smoking musket. "But where’s madam. Has anyone see her ?"

No-one had.

"We’re assuming she was part of the attack." said Pertinax. "She may not even have entered the battlefield."

"But she did," said Bors. "There was a coach came through the gates in the first rush. I saw a woman’s hand at the window as it went rattling past."

"She’ll be down at the lake," I said. "That’s where she’ll have been expecting to find us all."

"Musketeers," said Bors. "Shoulder arms! About turn! Forward march!"

I fell into step beside him. "What happened at your end?" I asked.

"They overwhelmed us. Nothing we could do but stand aside and let them through. I didn’t want my men killed. Afterwards we marched round the long way to link up with Pertinax. O Jesu!"

We had just come in sight of the Carthaginian seaport. It was a shambles. Bodies lay in heaps. Blood was splattered over the stretched canvas facades of its palaces and temples.

A number of stray pirates were wandering about among the dead, rifling through pockets and pulling off rings and necklaces. They scattered at our approach. One of them ran into the lake and started swimming towards the island. Piers planted his musket and took aim, but Bors put a hand on the barrel and gently pushed it down. "That’s enough," he said. "No more killing unless we can’t help it."

The man reached dry land and was helped ashore by a comrade, while a third stepped from the bushes and, rather pointlessly, fired a musket in our direction.

"We can’t leave them over there," said Pertinax. "Purchas isn’t going to want a gang of pirates camping out on his land."

"What if she’s over there with them?" asked Margery.

"There are some of our friends missing too," I said. "What about the Marquise and the Count?"

"Are we sure they’re not among that lot?" asked Pertinax, indicating the piles of bodies.

We searched. The dead were musicians and catering staff. This bothered us less than it should have done.

"So where are the Immortals?" asked Margery.

"Three possibilities," said Pertinax, counting them off on his fingers. "One: they ran and hid. Two: she’s kidnapped them and carried them off. Three: she’s kidnapped them and they’re on the island."

"The boats are gone." I said. "There were ten gondolas tied up at the jetty this morning. Now there’s only one. The rest must be over there."

"We’re not going to mount a water-borne invasion with a single boat," said Pertinax.

"So it looks as though we’ll have to besiege them," said Bors. "Is there food and water over there?"

"Only whatever they may have managed to carry across."

"Farquahar," said Bors. "Take the men and position them at intervals round the lake. Each man within hailing distance of the next. First thing is to make sure the enemy don’t escape."

Farquahar saluted, gave orders and set off at a trot with the men behind him.

"And the next thing is to try and set up a parlay. Rig us up a white flag, someone."

purchas @ 2006-10-04T09:24:00

2006-10-04T09:20:32Z

I picked Piers and one other of Farquahar’s men and led them past the house and up through the vines. When we reached the top we could see puffs of smoke coming and going on the opposite hillside. "Get down," I ordered. And I and my men scrambled and slid the rest of the way with heads down and bodies bent double .

Pertinax and his crew were sheltering behind the drystone wall at the bottom of the vineyard. They had already been reinforced by Herne and Farquhar’s patrols. Our side had lost one man killed and a couple wounded. "But we downed four or five of them," said Pertinax. "It was a frontal attack. Straight down the hillside. Mad!"

"How many?"

"About thirty. The way they’re dressed I’d say they were seamen."

I stood up to take a look. The enemy were scattered over the hillside, firing from the cover of rocks and bushes. The range was so great that none of them ran much risk of hitting or being hit. I fired one of my pistols to show willing, then dropped back down. "Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?" I said.

"Unless it’s a diversionary tactic."

"That’s what I was thinking. Listen. I’ll leave my men here, but I’m going back to the gate. Bors needs to know what’s happening."

I laboured back up the slope. From the brow of the hill I could see the house and the lake. I couldn’t see the gate, but I hardly needed to because Emilia's cavalry had already cleared it. There were about fifty of them and they had divided into two groups- one ploughing through the meadows to attack the Count’s Carthaginian seaport and the second encircling the house and gardens. I turned and shouted to the men behind me. "Pull back, Pull back. We’re under attack from the front!" Then I ran down towards the house, loading my pistol as I went.

The horsemen passed in front of me like riders on a carousel, heading for the bouhaha at the lake. One of them peeled away from the charge and came trotting in my direction. He wore a red bandana and had very white teeth. He raised his cutlass to hew me down and I shot him through the chest.

He didn’t die at once but trotted past me, still upright, clinging to his pommel, then fell off sideways. As I leaped into the saddle, I saw Pertinax’s group come charging over the hill.

The back of the house could only be reached by scaling one of the two stone staircases that led to the parterre. The besiegers, not knowing what they might meet at the top, were milling about, their horses side stepping or padding round in circles. I rode for the steps at a canter and my enemies, thinking I was one of them, let me through. My horse hated the stairs. She flollopped up a couple of them, then refused to mount higher. I saw I’d get nowhere trying to force her and slid to the ground. Someone shouted after me- and a bullet flew past my skull and smacked into the stonework . A couple of the enemy, on horses braver than mine, gave chase.

The garden, with its pattern of neat little hedges and alternation of soft footing with hard footing was an obstacle course for a rider. One of my pursuers was thrown. The second kept on my tail. I fired at him and missed. He was a flower-bed’s length away- and preparing his horse for a leap that would have landed him on top off me- when a blast of musketry from the upper windows swept him from the saddle. I sprinted the few remaining yards, the door flew open and Margery pulled me inside.

"Just in time," she said. "You can give me a hand with this." And hardly knowing what I was doing, I helped her drag a big oak dresser across the door I’d just come through.

Arty was sitting in the alcove by the fireplace loading muskets. She had three lined up beside her. "Hi Arty," I said. I grabbed a musket and went to the window. Arty gave me a wan smile.

Iwas a lovely outlook. In the foreground lay the garden with its blazing flowerbeds; in the background were the hills- powder-blue- with Mont Ventoux to the far right. Everything in the middle distance- the entire battlefield in fact- was hidden from view by the parterre.

A man appeared at the head of the steps I’d just climbed. He was on foot and carrying a cutlass. He shaded his eyes with his hand and surveyed the house. I aimed and fired and knocked him backwards.

I passed my empty musket to Arty. She handed me a loaded one. "They’re coming," I said.

Only they weren’t. The riderless horse moved slowly from left to right, browsing on the floral displays. She stood still. Defecated. Moved on.

"So what happened?" asked Margery. She was standing beside me, head almost touching mine as we squinted out into the garden.

"There was a diversionary attack on the vineyard. Then the cavalry came in through the gate. There's a battle going on by the lake."

"What's happening at the front?"

"I've no idea. I'll go see."

I handed Margery my musket and jogged through the house, across the central courtyard and into the entrance hall. There was broken glass all over the floor. Two narrow windows flanked the door. A footman stood at one of them and a cook at the other, each man holding a musket. A couple of the kitchen maids were loading for them.

"We gave ‘em what for," said the footman. "Now they’ve pulled back and they’re licking their wounds." I peered over his shoulder and saw three men and a horse lying out on the gravel. The horse was trying to get up but couldn't. The enemy forces were drawn up at a distance, out of the range of our guns, apparently uncertain how to proceed. Several had dismounted.

"Sorry looking bunch, ain’t they?" said the cook.

I scanned them through the telescope. They looked like sailors- the kind of crew you’d assemble if you went through the dockside taverns in Marseilles and accepted any and every man who was willing to work for pay. They wore baggy canvas trousers and bandanas and woollen hats. They were armed with marlin spikes and belaying pins and cutlasses. The one or two firearms were antiques; as were many of the men themselves. Others were mere boys. I felt an unhelpful surge of pity. The horses were a mixture of ponies and drudges and plough-horses.

I jogged back to Margery. "I don’t know who these people are, but they’re a rabble. We’ve either killed their leaders or they didn’t have them in the first place."

"Those I’ve seen look like pirates."

"They all look like pirates. Emilia must have gone down to Marseilles or Toulon and taken anything she could find. She’s going to have problems controlling them."

"They won’t like being killed, will they?"

"No, they won’t. And we’ve killed quite a few. I don’t think they expected to meet this kind of resistance."

"Emilia didn’t know Bors would be turning up."

"I wish I knew how Bors was. He was on the gate when the attack came. That should have been my post but he’d sent me to reinforce the vineyard."

"They’re not using poisoned bullets, are they?"

"Not so far as I know. If I were Emilia I wouldn't entrust them with anything so dangerous. Besides, they don’t have many guns."

"Margery put her finger to her lips. "Ssh…" .

"What?"

"Listen."

"All I can hear is the horses. Same as before."

"That’s it. They’re on the move."

"So they are."

A ragged piece of cloth went fluttering along the top of the parapet at the end of the garden, moving left to right. The telescope showed it to be a flag. A crowned skeleton holding a dart and hourglass, in white against a black background.

Louis burst into the room. He'd been watching events from an upstairs window. "It's Herne," he said. "Herne is leading a charge."

purchas @ 2006-10-03T08:23:00

2006-10-03T07:28:42Z

The day of the fete dawned bright and cloudless. Another perfect summer’s day- blue from zenith to hill top.

Margery was still asleep. I kissed her lightly, rolled out of bed, pulled on my boots and went downstairs. Herne and Farquhar and Pertinax were having breakfast. Bors, they said, was out inspecting the defences. A maid came in and curtsied and told me that a gentleman had just arrived and was waiting for me in the hall. I grabbed up a chicken leg and a glass of small beer and followed her out.

It was the Count of course. He rose from his high-backed chair and, before the folds of his coat fell back into place, I saw he had a brace of pistols stuck in his belt. "I understand," he said. "That we are expecting some uninvited guests."

"That’s right."

"I thought it might encourage you to know that when we were first planning this fete I took the precaution of consulting the stars and they were highly propitious. Today, I believe, will be a day of triumph, of victory even."

I smiled politely.

"But what I’m mainly here to do," he continued. "Is to offer you my services as a fighting man. I was never a soldier, I’m afraid, but I’ve fought several duels and never lost one yet."

"Thank you," I said. "It makes me happy to know you may be counted on. Come on in and meet the commanders."

He exchanged routine greetings with Pertinax and Farquahar and I was in the process of introducing him to Herne when Bors came stumping in. "Still all quiet, " he said.

"I believe it’s my watch next," I said. I rose to leave.

He stopped me. "Now that it’s daylight we can drop that business. From this point on everyone’s continuously on duty." He cleared a space among the breakfast things and spread out a roughly drawn map. "Each man will have charge of a particular area. Purchas: the main gate." He stabbed his forefinger at the map. " Pertinax: the vineyard. Herne and Farquhar patrolling the grounds in opposite directions with their cavalry." The forefinger described two half circles. "Margery- wherever she is- the house. My headquarters will be down in the Carthaginian seaport." He turned towards the Count, as if noticing him for the first time. "And you, my dear, old friend- how good to have you with us!"

"It’s been a few years," said the Count."

"It certainly has," said Bors. "We’ve got some catching up to do. Where was it we last met- Paris?"

"Amboise: I was doing a little work for Francois I."

"Of course, of course. How did that turn out? I want all the details."

The Count shrugged.

"That’s right. Not now. You must tell me later. I’ll buy you dinner. You’re master of ceremonies here, I believe?"

"I’m directing the entertainments."

"So you’ll be down at the lake all day?"

The Count nodded.

"Then let me tell you what I’ve been thinking. If an invading force manages to get into the grounds, our best hope, I believe, will be to evacuate people to the island. Can I put you in charge of that?"

Margery entered the room. She was carrying a musket in the crook of her arm, cradling it like a baby.

"Ah, Madame, la Chatelaine," said Bors, with a stiff, little bow. "Your plan of action, please?"

"The domestic servants have been issued with fire-arms. There is a man with a musket standing at every other window. The female servants will load."

"Good. And now, mesdames et messieurs, to your posts! With luck and God willing, all these precautions will prove needless and we’ll have a good laugh about them at the day's end."

We filed out of the room. I fell into step beside Bors. "So you know the Count?" I asked.

"We’re very old friends."

"I can’t make him out."

"And why would you want to? He is what he is."

"To begin with I thought he was a complete fraud."

"And now?"

"He keeps surprising me."

"That’s the essence of the man. Surprise. He has set himself the task of astonishing us all. You’ve heard of Daedalus? of Merlin?"

"You’re not saying…"

"I’m not saying anything. Daedalus is dead. Merlin disappeared off the face of the earth; that’s common knowledge."

"And the Count…"

"The Count is one of the living men I most respect. Like me he has always preferred to keep on the outside of things. A solitary. Don’t even hint to him that I mentioned those names." He smiled. We had reached the corner of the building. "Now you go that way and I go this."

I walked down to the gate. I had two gun emplacements under my command, one to either side of the drive, with two men in each; three of them were Farquahar’s people, and the fourth was Roger, the game keeper.

Roger went with the house. We’d inherited him when we moved in. His people had lived in this landscape for as far back as records and folk-memory stretched. He was a tall, sinewy man in his mid forties, dark as an Arab, with fierce, black eyes.

"What exactly are we looking for?" he asked, leaning on his fowling piece and gazing out at the plain.

"Any unusual movement," I said.

"Does that count?"

I couldn’t see it at first. His eyes were trained to the work. Mine weren’t.

"That dust cloud," he said.

I took Gabriele’s telescope from my pocket and turned it in the direction he was pointing. I saw a long, low, even trail of dust, such as might be raised by a company of fifty men or more, marching along the road in tight formation.

"I don’t know what that is but we can’t ignore it." I tapped one of Farquhar’s men on the shoulder. "Run down to the lake, Piers, and tell the General there's something afoot."

Bors was with us in minutes. I handed him the telescope. "No use," he said. "My eyes aren’t keen enough. Anything that far off is just a blur. Tell me what you see."

"They’re turning the bend now," I said. "There’s a man on horseback . And then- ah- it’s a wagon." Pause. "And then a second wagon and a third."

"Not an army then?" he asked.

"No," I replied, not sure whether I was relieved or disappointed, "It’s probably the Count’s kitchen staff."

And so it turned out to be. We halted the convoy a little short of the gates, got all the people to step out into the road, then searched the wagons for weapons.

"Listen," said Bors. "I know it’s tiresome, but we can’t be too careful. Same procedure for everyone coming onto the premises. Better safe than sorry."

Next to turn up were the musicians. They were in a caravan of five coaches. I sent Piers to tell the Count to come and fetch them. He arrived, vouched for them all, then led them off in single file across the meadow, each man carrying his instrument.

A smell of roasting meat began to waft past on the fitful breeze. "Is it lunchtime yet?" asked Piers.

"Scarcely mid-morning," said Roger. "You should have had more breakfast, lad."

"When are the guests arriving, sir?" asked one of the other two men.

"Any time, now"

We heard the orchestra tuning up. They launched into a jolly little concerto. They had a repertoire that lasted about half an hour. Once they’d run through it, they paused for a short breather then started back at the beginning. They were halfway through their third play-through before anyone else arrived at our gate.

This time it was the Marquise. I stepped out of cover and went and handed her down from her carriage. There was a look of utter misery in her innocent, china blue eyes.

"What’s the matter," I asked.

"I’m afraid no-one’s coming."

"Oh dear."

"I thought our people were made of sterner stuff, really I did, but ever since news started to circulate about Madame Grimaldi, I’ve been getting lots of polite little notes saying sorry, but something unavoidable has just come up. Cowards. And some of them are even leaving town. The Montgomerys, for instance. I know because I called round to plead with them and their housekeeper told me they’d shut the house up and left for Marseilles. She says they’re talking of going to America."

I sighed. "It’s understandable, I suppose..."

"Understandable, yes. But you’d think they’d be ashamed. And the Montgomerys of all people- with their proud military tradition! I expected better of them."

"Pertinax and the Colonel are here."

"Well that’s something. But it doesn’t look as if we’re going to have much fun, does it?"

"We’ll see. It’s still early."

"Oh and the Duchess isn’t only not coming, she’s refusing to stump up any more money. Cancel it, she said. And I said We can’t do that. The Count is already here and his fee is enormous and the orchestra and the caterers are booked. And she said I’ve wasted good money converting Monsieur Purchas’ garden into an open air bordello and I’m not wasting any more on a party that isn’t going to happen." She sighed. " I don’t know what we’re going to do."

"People will come. The out of towners will come. And they’re all fabulously wealthy. We’ll pass the hat round at the end of the evening and that’ll more than cover the outstanding costs. Don’t worry. Everything will be fine."

By twelve o’clock two more partygoers had arrived. One was Louis Klipper. The other was a lady from Lyons who had her coachmen turn round and drive her home again as soon as we explained to her about Emilia .

"It’s gonna be a wash-out, Perky," said Louis.

"You don’t have to sound so cheerful about it."

"Where’s your good lady?"

"Up at the house with a musket in her lap."

"And what’s the point of that?"

"She’s guarding Artemesia. I mean Suzanne Despiner. It’s Suzanne that Emilia is mainly after."

Louis shrugged. "That’s sad. You throw a party and you don’t get to attend it yourself. Maybe I’ll go cheer her up. Take her some roast ox or something."

"That would be a very kind of you."

Two more carriages pulled up. More out-of-towners. From Montelimar. This lot decided to stay.

Herne and his patrol came by. "We’re on our second lot of horses," he said. "Frankly, I’m sick of riding round and round in circles."

"How’s the party?"

"Like Sunday afternoon at the almshouses. There’s Bors and that Marquise of yours and the Count and a couple more ancients sitting around talking about the good old days. The orchestra were stood down half an hour ago. Most of them are in the refreshment tent- getting drunk."

"So I’m not missing anything?"

He laughed. "Put it this way. It’s a party to remember. Anything happening out here?"

"See for yourself." I handed him the telescope.

"Hey; clever toy. I want one of these!" He handed it back. "Ah well, best be going. You guys eaten anything yet?"

No,"

"I’ll stop by the refreshment tent and get them to bring you something up."

A quarter of an hour later Bors appeared, accompanied by a couple of servants with baskets.

"Thought I’d stretch my legs a bit," he said. "Herne said you hadn’t eaten."

The servants unpacked the baskets. There was beef, pork, chicken, fresh bread, fruit, bottles of wine. My men got stuck into their pic-nic.

"Some party!" I said.

"Look at this way," said Bors. "If there is an attack- and it’s getting to seem less and less likely- we’re better off with just a handful of people on site. I was talking to the Count. We’ve agreed we’ll bring the curtain down mid-afternoon. Get everyone off the premises before it gets dark…"

There was a single, distant gun shot. Followed, after a pause, by a regular fusillade. "That’s coming from across the lake," I said.

The shooting continued.

One of Farquahar’s men rode up. "They’re attacking the vineyard, sir. General Pertinax is calling for reinforcements."

"Listen," said Bors. "You’re a whole lot faster on your legs than me. Take a couple of the men and run over and see what’s happening. I’ll take charge here."

purchas @ 2006-10-02T09:18:00

2006-10-02T08:47:54Z

I assembled the estate workers. I sent a man into Carpentras to fetch Herne, then led the rest of them out into the field, where we assembled hides- a bit like those a wild fowler might build- overlooking the main drive and the little path that came twisting down from the mountains at the rear of the property. Roger, my game-keeper, was chief architect and managed things wonderfully. I went and stood on the drive between the gateposts and if I hadn’t known that the clumps of bushes halfway up the slope had been specially built to conceal a couple of musketeers apiece, I would never have guessed.

We worked long into the evening. We were down among the vines, on the far side of the long low hill that curved round the lake to the north and west, repairing the drystone wall, when I saw a torch coming down the slope from the direction of the house. I called out and got an English hunting cry in return.

"Margery said I’d find you here," said Herne, after we’d hugged and exchanged greetings. "What’s going on exactly."

"You can’t see it in this light, but there’s a sunken track just over there," I said. "If we put musketeers behind this wall they’ll be able to fire right down into it."

"Have you thought about using cavalry?" he asked.

"I can’t say I have."

"Mobility. That’s the thing. You want a group of men you can move quickly about the battlefield. You’ve got horses haven’t you?"

"A stable full."

"And men who can ride?"

"Certainly."

"Then let me at ‘em. I’ll knock together a squad. Perhaps you’ll translate for me? All I’ve got is a little left-over Norman French. I’ve had the devil of a job trying to get them to understand me at the inn. All those ick, ack, ock sounds they make. Worse than the bloody Scots."

It was after midnight by the time Bors returned. He had Pertinax and Farquahar with him and a small troop of serving men, variously armed. We went up to the house and held a brief council of war.

No-one questioned that Bors should be our General. He appointed me his second-in-command, and no-one questioned that either because I had, after all, been a staff officer under Fairfax. Herne and Farquahar divided up the cavalry between them- which meant meant they had four horsemen apiece, with a roving commission to patrol the grounds. Pertinax, who as a Roman was happier fighting on foot, took command of the musketeers. Margery, our chatelaine, was put in charge of the house.

"Is there a title that goes with that?" she asked.

"Garrison commander," Bors shot back.

The men were waiting for us in the stable we had settled on as a temporary barracks. There were twenty five of them- comprising my male servants aged between fifteen and seventy and the men Pertinax and Farquahar had brought with them, many of whom were old soldiers. Bors climbed up onto an upturned manger and addressed them.

"Strictly speaking," he said. "This is not your fight. You’re facing an enemy you won’t have heard of, who has no quarrel with you or your country or your faith or any other thing you may hold dear. The only thing you may object to in her is that she wants your masters and mistresses dead. There is a great deal I am not at liberty to explain, but I can say this; that it is something rather more than a personal vendetta that is being worked out here. Our enemy wants power. If she gets it, she will, eventually, and in ways you may not ever be aware of, wield it over you and your children. This is a secret war, but no less significant in its issue than any in which some of you may have fought. If any man wishes to be excused duty, he is free to withdraw -and no-one here will think the worse of him.

He stepped down. The men were whispering among themselves. "How do you think that went?" he murmured.

"Mind if I say a few words?" asked Herne.

"Go ahead, " said Bors.

"Translate for me please, Purchas." He stepped up onto the manger. "Listen men," he said. "You don’t know me and I don’t know you. So let me introduce myself. My name’s Herne; I’ve been a huntsman and a blacksmith and a soldier and I’ve come all the way from England to fight this bitch. Why? Simple. Because she’s bad. And because I love a good fight. You see the General here." He pointed to Bors. "You don’t know him either, but he’s the best there is. Honour to serve under you, sir! He ducked his head in Bors’ direction. "And now all this speechifying has made me thirsty. Those of you who don’t want to join in can fuck off back home and the rest of us are going to have a drink before we go on duty." He held his hand out towards me. "Key to the cellar please, Purchas."

I threw it over to him. He caught it and marched out the stable with our army at his heels, all of them cheering and whooping and jostling forward to slap him on the back.

"It seems," said Bors. "That all those years in the presbytery study have left me a little rusty."

"Once Herne has finished getting our army drunk, " I suggested. "We should probably set a watch."

"She won’t attack tonight will she?" asked Farquahar. "Surely she’ll wait for the guests to arrive."

"She may not attack tomorrow either," said Bors. "I hope she doesn’t. But the sooner we get into military habits the better. If she doesn’t attack us, we’ll need to take the battle to her."

"She could be anywhere," I said.

"Then we search until we find her. We’re none of us exactly pressed for time, now are we?"

We gave Herne and his army fifteen minutes in the cellar, then winkled them out and sent some to their posts and some to bed.

I took the first watch. A dead-of-the-night slow ride round the perimeter of the estate. It was very dark, but my horse knew the path from memory. I was expecting ghosts. I didn’t get them. I got far worse. I got memories.

Emilia and I sitting side by side in Esclairmonde’s coach as it slowly, wonderfully bumped its way across Europe- two teenage children reading the romance of Lancelot of the Lake. She was in love with Lancelot and I was in love with her.

"Imagine," she said. "A man who would cross a sword bridge to get to his lady love."

"Wasn’t Lancelot an Immortal?" I asked.

"Certainly not. He hurt his hands and feet most dreadfully."

"I’d cross a sword bridge to rescue you if you were shut away in a castle."

"But you’re an Immortal, so it wouldn’t be at all the same." That lovely trilling laugh

The two of us in the fields below the great rock of Orvieto, with Lucius, Pertinax’s older brother, trying to teach us to fly a kite. "One of these days," he said. "They’ll build one of these big enough to carry a man." Down the field we ran, holding the string, the kite bumping along the ground behind us, and she tripped and fell and I tripped out of sympathy and we rolled over and over in one another’s arms to the very brink of the river.

I knew nothing of her history back then. I couldn’t know she was simply playing with me.

The first betrayal. The man she ran away with was a falconer. Pietro or Paulo. (Paulo, I think There was a Pietro later on. And two Peters and a Pierre.) We had chased her up into the mountains to her sweetheart’s village, only to find her already married.

A light appeared in the dark. I had reached the edge of the vineyard. A man rose out of cover, his face brightly illumined. "How’s things?" I asked.

"All’s well,"

I rode back into the night. The house in Bread Street was my first true home. Emilia and I had shared it. We were sisters again . She seemed to enjoy being a Tudor housewife. She did it very prettily. Here she was tripping back from market with a half cheese balanced on her head.

"Hey Purchas, you’ll never believe it, but the Dairyman just gave me this."

"For free?."

"For a kiss. Just one, well, maybe two- but very chaste kisses they were. One on the left cheek, one on the right. He’s a very handsome man!"

After a couple of years she ran off with an Italian. And I had had what we’d now call a breakdown. An attack of melancholy humours. I didn’t really come back to life again until I met Margery- thirty years later.

The house in Bread Street again. but not the same house. A larger, finer house on the same site. Emilia and I were standing at on the doorstep arguing. She wanted me to leave and I wanted to stay and then Gabriele came climbing over the garden wall…

I completed my ride.

Bors are gone to bed, but the other three were sat by the fire with a bowl of nuts and a flagon of spiced wine. Farquahar got up as I entered. "Nothing to report," I said. "All quiet on every front."

"My watch," said Farquahar. "See you gentleman later." He left the room.

"You joining us, Purchas?" asked Herne. "I was just telling the Colonel about the time you and me bearded Henry VIII."

I laughed. "I don’t seem to have had much sleep lately and I want to be fresh for tomorrow. If you’ll excuse me I’m going to bed."

Margery was waiting for me. She was lying on her side with a big fat book laid out on the sheets. "Don Quixote," she said. "I’ve never read it and I figured I might never get another chance." She glanced up at me. "Oh Purchas, you look almost as grey as poor Arty."

"It’s going to happen tomorrow. I know it is. I can feel it in my bones." I spread my palm and held it close to Margery’s candle. "I wish I knew what all these scribbles meant."

"I don’t. If what's coming is bad I’d rather not know, and if it’s good I’d prefer it be a lovely surprise."

"Whatever it is, it won’t be good. People are going to be killed."

She stretched and yawned. "I’ve had a lovely life. If it ends tomorrow I’ll have had over a hundred years more than I was entitled to. Come to bed."

I kicked off my boots and climbed in beside her. "Just hold me," I said.

"Shall I sing you something?"

"Robin Hood’s wedding," I said.

"Oh Purchas, your tastes in music are so last century"

"And rustic. Humour me."

"I’m not questioning it. It’s just so- you!"

I was asleep before she reached the second verse.

purchas @ 2006-10-01T09:13:00

2006-10-01T08:43:30Z

I dismounted by the front door and handed the horse over to a groom. Margery helped me off with my boots and we tip-toed through the house, me in my stockinged feet, she leading me by the hand.

Our guest was asleep in a chair. At first I didn’t recognise him. He’d shaved the beard and was wearing a full bottomed, auburn-tinted wig. His big round spectacles had slipped halfway down his nose.

It was the hands that gave him away. They were spread in repose across the folio that rested on his knees, but they still looked soldierly. I recognised the pattern of scarring.

"Bors!" I exclaimed. "What’s he doing here?"

The old man stirred and came to. "I wasn’t sleeping," he said. "Just resting my eyes. Your southern daylight is quite unnecessarily bright. How do you do, Purchas?"

"Better for seeing you." I knelt on the floor beside him and took his hands in mine and kissed them both.

He disengaged the right hand and rested it for a moment on my head, as if in blessing. "Nice place you have here," he said. "And it seems I’ve arrived just in time for some sort of a party. Margery said we’d do a little tour of the estate once you returned. Are you up for it?"

"I’ll put my boots back on."

We strolled out onto the parterre. "You can see most of our land from here," said Margery. "Vines over there. Dairy cattle in the valley."

"And some sort of Carthaginian sea port in the middle distance."

"That’s the setting for the fete," I explained. "Inspired by Claude Lorrain. The theme of it is the Embarkation for Cythera."

"Charming," he said. "I’m glad I arrived in time."

"You’ll be guest of honour," I said.

We strolled out into the formal garden. He paused to take a rose between his fingers, held it close to his eyes and turned it this way and that. "Greenfly," he murmured. "You need to take precautions. I’ll write you out a recipe afterwards."

"What brings you here?" I asked.

"I’m between lives." he said. "I thought I’d take a little tour before I settle into my next one. Use the opportunity to visit friends. You know I haven't been out of England in over sixty years."

"That’s not like you." I corrected myself. "Not like the old you, anyway."

"No, I was a restless soul, wasn’t I?"

"Are you getting back your taste for travel?"

"Europe’s changed." He sniffed the air. "More borders, bigger armies, nastier wars. In the old days you could cross from one end of Christendom to the other and nobody tried to stop you moving around. No one stepped out in front of your horse and said, ‘Hey this is my kingdom you can’t come in here!’ Borders were porous and always changing. You rarely knew where one man’s country ended and the next began. You’d ride up to a castle and ask where you were and they’d say Styria or Bohemia or the Comtat and they’d give you a nice meal and send you on your way rejoicing. These days you have to carry papers. And what’s worse, you’re obliged to show them every few miles to some cheapjack with a gun. I can’t say I like it."

"You know there’s more than a party in the offing here?" said Margery.

He raised his eyebrows.

I looked at Margery. She looked at me. Neither of us wanted to give him the news.

"Emilia was here," she said at last. "Camped out on the far side of Mont Ventoux." She pointed. "That great white mountain, over there. She had a little army of Switzers with her. We found her out before she could find us. There was a confrontation. Which I think we won. But our friend Gabriele was killed. Shot in the back. Purchas could easily have been killed as well."

Bors leaned against the stone balustrade that separated the garden on its raised platform from the meadows below. "I’m sorry about Gabriele. I didn’t like him much, but I respected him. What was he doing down here?"

"He was tracking Emilia."

"Ah yes. Typically brave and typically rash." He rubbed his nose. "I was afraid of something like this. I knew Emilia would eventually come looking for you. Is she still in the area?"

"We don’t know," I said. "She disappeared after the battle."

"Her daughter is here," said Margery. "The Polkinghorne girl. Artemesia. She ran away from her mother."

"Here in the house?"

"You’ll meet her at dinner."

"Then I suppose we must consider ourselves under siege. You should cancel the Fete."

"Too late," I said. "Invitations were sent out long ago. Some of the guests will already be on the road. They’re coming, not only from the Comtat, but from all over the South of France."

"I’ve had this feeling before," he said. "You ride up to a castle. All the flags are flying. The drawbridge is down, the portcullis is up. You ride on in, full of confidence, thinking about your lunch, then the portcullis falls behind you with a mighty clang and you notice that the gate ahead of you is shut as well."

"What happens next?" asked Margery.

"There is a pause- just so you can fully acquaint yourself with the beauty of the situation- and then the air is filled with crossbow bolts and boiling oil. It’s called a murder hole."

"But you escaped."

"I was an Immortal. I’m not any more. None of us are. I don’t suppose you possess the Antidote?"

"A single dose." I reached into my jacket, removed the shagreen box and placed it on the table.

"Well I never," he said. "I’ve never seen the stuff before. May I?"

"Of course. It won’t hurt you." I undid the clasp and carefully raised the lid.

He lifted the dagger out. "You know, it amuses me that we choose to call it by such an inoffensive name; The Antidote- as if it were a medicine."

"Perhaps it is," I ventured.

He smiled. "I’ve thought that too. But, no, we mustn’t take refuge in cheap philosophy. This thing is an evil. You know what my instinct is? My instinct is to take it outside into the yard and drop a heavy paving stone on top of it."

I put out my hand. "You mustn’t…"

"Don’t worry. I know."

"There is in fact a little more where that came from. I gave a dose to Louis Klipper. He’s working on the formula."

Bors replaced the dagger in its box. "Where do you keep this?"

"I’ve been carrying it about with me."

"Best keep it somewhere safe. It could mean the difference between victory and defeat."

"How about here ?" asked Margery. She took the box from the table and carried it over to the fireplace, then, having brushed the ash from the flagstones in front of the hearth, inserted the blade of her scissors under one of the stones and lifted it, disclosing a hole about a foot deep.

"I didn’t know that was there," I said.

"Of course not. One has to have a few secrets. It’s where I keep the housekeeping money. What do you think?"

"Very nice," said Bors. He rose stiffly from his chair and walked across to see exactly what she was doing.

She put the box in the hole, replaced the stone, then took a handful of ash from the grate and scattered it all over.

"So that’s where all the money goes," I said, reproachfully.

"And now I’m going to have to find another hiding place," said Margery.

Bors sat down again, stretched out his legs and straightened his shoulders. "You’ve probably worked it out by now. I’m not simply here on holiday."

"Sort of," I said.

"Two months ago a couple of emissaries from the Brotherhood came knocking at my presbytery door. I pretended, as I always did, to be completely senile. But then I saw they were desperate."

"This was after Melchisidech was murdered?" I asked.

"They’d come from the Rhineland, yes. And it wasn’t just Melchisidech who was killed. Have you heard the story?"

We shook our heads.

"There was a peace conference. Supposedly. Most of the Brotherhood were there. Emilia was invited. They were going to offer her generous terms. I don’t know quite how she pulled it off, but she managed to kill them all. The result is I’m the most senior member of our order left standing. I didn’t want to get involved, but I didn’t see how I could avoid it." He spread his arms in a gesture of helplessness. "So here I am."

"Alone," I asked. "To face Emilia?"

"Not entirely. I have Herne with me."

I kooked foolishly round the room, as if expecting him to bounce from hiding.

"No, he's not here. Of course he wanted to come and visit, but I persuaded him to stay in Carpentras. I didn’t want you thinking this was anything more than a social call and I couldn’t trust him to keep him to keep his mouth shut. Yes, I know, I know." He shook his head. "And now I’ve blabbed it all myself."

"You knew Emilia was in the Comtat?"

"I knew she would be coming here. I hoped she might still be on her way. If that had been the case I would have spent a single night here, not saying anything, then I’d have moved East to meet her. White Knight to Red Queen. Check."

"You have the Antidote?"

He smiled. "Apparently I do now. One dose you say? But that’s all it takes."

"You’d kill her?"

He took off his spectacles and began to polish them vigorously on his shirt cuff. "I think someone has to. I don’t know what St Francis would have done in similar circumstances, but he was a soldier once and I think he would have accepted that we lack alternatives. " He put the spectacles away in a pocket. "Who else do you have living in this enclave."

"Immortals, you mean?"

"Yes, Immortals, of course."

Margery and I went through the list.

"I recognise two soldiers in that lot. Pertinax and Farquahar. I need to speak to them."

"They live in Avignon."

"Then that’s where I must go."

"Should I come with you?" I asked.

"No, I need you to stay here and make the property secure. Identify every point of entry and fortify it."

"You’re expecting an attack?"

"I’m trying to think as Emilia would think. This fete of yours must be almost irresistible to her. All the Immortals in Southern France gathered together in one place: how could she possibly keep away? . The only reason she wouldn’t attack is because she hasn’t had time to gather an army. What I’m hoping is she’ll risk it anyway, either alone or with a seriously under-powered force. She won’t be expecting me to be here. With luck she’ll be the one who ends up in the murder hole."

We walked back to the house. Bors was introduced to Arty. She made him a very low curtsey.

"No need for that," he said, helping her up. The daughter of Francis polkinghorne has no reason to bow to me.

"I know your reputation, sir."

"Me? I’m just an old country clergyman."

"My mother doesn’t think so. She calls you ‘the Great Enemy’. She was afraid of Purchas and Gabriele, but she was even more afraid of you, sir."

"And with good reason," I said. "Having Bors here makes all the difference."

"Don’t overpraise me. The fact is," He turned to Arty. "I do have a bit of military experience, going back a few years."

"Going back a thousand years," I corrected him. "The truth is Bors was one of King Arthur’s knights. He was a crusader, he fought at Tewkesbury..."

"Water under the bridge," he said, waving his hand dismissively.

"But aren’t you, in fact, the head of our order?" she asked shyly.

"Oh dear. Well, I suppose I may be." He scratched under his wig. "But it hasn’t been ratified yet. Acting head would be more like it."

"You mean," I said. "When you say that you’re the most senior member left alive…"

"That makes me the new chief. Yes, it does. In an executive capacity. And only for the time being. There will have to be an election once things return to normal." He reached for his neck and produced a ring on a stout golden chain . "I don’t wear it on my finger. I don’t feel entitled. Besides, it’s an ugly thing."

The ring was massive and set with a seal-stone of purple amethyst. He displayed it on his open palm for an instant then, as we bent for a closer look, closed his fist round it and tucked it back behind his cravat. "Anyway," he concluded. "We have a challenger out there, don’t we? Until her claims are dealt with, everything else is a formality." He glanced at the wall clock. "And now I really need to go rally my troops."

His horse was brought round to the front of the house. He mounted and set off for Avignon.

purchas @ 2006-09-30T09:03:00

2006-09-30T08:22:19Z

I went to the river of course. And sat on the bank and gazed at the lights of the King’s fort across the black, all but invisible bulk of the moving flood. I felt as if Gabriele had been given back to me, then killed again and this second bereavement was worse than the first.

I waited until it seemed likely that the guests had dispersed, then trudged back to the house. The lights were still burning but I could see through the open door that the hallway was empty. With luck I would be able to get all the way up to my garret without having to stop and exchange words with anyone.

I had reached the top of the main staircase when a woman called my name. It was Esclairmonde. She was sitting in the hall on a hard-backed chair with her hands folded in her lap. I got the impression that she’d been waiting for me.

This was what I had been hoping to avoid, but as soon as it happened I knew it was what I wanted. I fell to my knees in front of her and buried my face in stretched silk of her dress.

She stroked my hair. "Poor little Purchas," she said. "I’m so, so sorry."

After a while she lifted me up and we went and sat in a nearby room. A servant poked his head round the door and Esclairmonde asked him to fetch us a pot of hot chocolate.

"Athenais told me," she said. "I couldn’t believe it at first. Our Emilia doing such dreadful things. Oh, I’d heard the rumours, of course, but I’d always thought they must be exaggerated."

"When did you last see her?"

"It must be several hundred years ago. I did my best for her- at least I thought I did- but she wanted her freedom, so I let go. I feared for her in the big, bad world. She was always so impressionable."

"Not any longer. She’s fixed in her ways now"

"I wonder what happened. Do you know?"

"I can only guess. I think it was when she was living with Sforza and she was around politicians all the time. I met her at the beginning of this century and she’d already turned hard. She and Gabriele were in the plot to assassinate the English king. She was still talking about love, but it was more out of habit than anything else."

"I still think of her as she was. My beautiful, wilful girl. And she killed your friend? How horrible!"

"She would happily kill all of us, I’m afraid."

"Even me? Her godmother?"

I gave her a rueful smile.

She sighed deeply. "If I only knew where I’d gone wrong."

"It wasn’t your fault. The damage will have been done before ever you met her."

"She was a dancing girl, you know. In northern India. Huon and I rescued her. She was always so sweet, so affectionate."

She began telling me stories, illustrative of Emilia’s happy, untroubled nature. Small acts of kindness she’d done. Posies she’d picked and presented to Esclairmonde. I was glad when the servant arrived with the chocolate and broke the thread.

"Do you hear from Huon at all?" she asked.

"He sends messages. The last I heard he was a city Councillor in New York"

"What? Did the old one burn down?"

"No." I laughed. "New York’s a city in America. A trading port. Huon’s quite the merchant prince these days. He has a wife and sixteen adopted children."

"Sixteen?" she gasped . "Oh my. How does he manage?"

"I haven’t a clue."

"These are wormy children, I assume?"

"Oh, definitely. Though some of them may have come over by now."

"What? Does he present them with the elixir on their twenty-first birthdays and give them the choice?"

"Something like that, I believe."

She laughed. "That’s far too complicated for me. Oh the problems it must cause! Emilia was always enough for me and she was an Immortal from the very beginning."

"Have some more chocolate," I said.

"Yes, you’re quite right. Let’s not talk about her any more." She dabbed her eyes with her handkerchief. "Tell me about Bors…"

It was three o’clock in the morning before I finally got to bed.

I woke around mid-day. I had been dreaming that Gabriele was sailing a raft across a great black ocean with storm clouds racing overhead and a line of white light along the horizon. I plunged my head in cold water to try and wash the image away, then went down to breakfast.

Athenais placed a letter beside my plate. "It’s from the Count," she said. "He’s calling round this afternoon and says he particularly wants to speak to you."

"But do I particularly want to speak to him?"

"Yes you do," she scolded. "I believe he wants to apologise. Imagine how awkward it will be at the fete if you and he aren’t speaking."

"You know what he said to me?"

"I was there, remember? I have very good hearing."

I tapped the letter. "Is this something you’ve engineered?"

"All that matters is that you and he should be friends again."

She picked up the letter, folded it neatly and tucked it inside the neckline of her dress.

The Count arrived at two- even as the chiming clocks- Athenais liked clocks and had them all over the house- were striking the hour. He was shown up to the withdrawing room, where she and I were sitting. I rose and bowed stiffly.

"And how is the dear child?" asked Athenais.

"The child will recover," said the Count. "He received a severe shock to the system, but he is young and healthy. The mental scars may take longer to heal."

Athenais gave me a bright glance. This was my cue. I had been schooled in what to say. "I wish to apologise, Monsieur le Comte. I said some things last night that were inexcusable."

"You were upset," said Athenais, smoothly. "We all were." She glanced at the Count.

"I too, monsieur, said things I should not have said. Please accept my apologies."

"Entirely understandable," said Athenais. "And now if you’ll excuse me, I’ll leave you two gentlemen alone while I see if the servants- where are they when you need them?- can rustle us up some refreshments."

She left the room, closing the door behind her. The Count shifted uneasily . "The child is dear to me," he said. "I thought your friend had killed him."

"I understand. We were both of us in an excited state."

Silence ensued.

"I owe you a further apology." I said at length . "After last night I have no more doubts about your…" I couldn’t think what to call it. "About what you do."

He inclined his head in gracious acknowledgement. "Sometimes I overestimate my powers. Your friend took me entirely by surprise last night. I thought I had taken all the necessary precautions. I hadn’t. The debacle was nobody’s fault but my own. "

"My friend was a very remarkable person."

"Is a very remarkable person. The use of the present tense is indicated, I think."

"Is she in hell?" It was a great part of what had been troubling me.

"I don’t believe in hell, monsieur. Heaven, hell, purgatory- these are concepts dreamed up by the priests to keep the rest of us in order."

"She believed in hell."

"Then perhaps she thinks that’s where she is."

"She spoke of a rocky landscape. Of fires…"

"Exactly. I believe- I have no proof, of course- that the other world is a mental state. The spirit finds what it expects to find. Your friend had led the kind of life that she believed would cause her to be consigned to hell. Therefore, when she died, she furnished the void with the objects she expected to see."

"Can she not be contacted again and reasoned with?"

"Reason, I find, is not something the dead respond to. They exist in a state of roiling emotion. Logic passes them by." He sighed. "I conclude that the reasoning faculty is mortal. I did what I always do in such cases. I suggested she call on the holy angels. Whether she does or not is entirely up to her. You will forgive me if I decline your invitation to seek her out again. I put up very strong protections against her last night. The spiritual equivalent of a modern fortification with guns in every coign. I am not inclined to dismantle it."

"I understand, Monsieur. I cannot blame you."

"It is open to you to seek her out yourself. She is very close to you. I sense her energy about you even as I speak. If you sit alone in a room and talk to her, she will probably hear."

"I shall try it, Monsieur."

"Don’t try to argue with her. It would be like arguing with a child or a mad person. Tell her to call on the angels. That’s the one thing that may have some effect."

"Angels?" I said. "You spoke of them last night. But I thought you had no religion."

"I don’t. I believe in what works. And for a good Catholic, as your friend is, angels will work. Trust me."

"You’re a strange man, Monsieur le Comte."

He rose. "I shall take that as a compliment. And now, monsieur, if you will excuse me, I have some final things to arrange for tomorrow. The orchestra must be rehearsed for one thing."

"The fete is tomorrow?"

He laughed. "You didn’t know?"

"I had lost track of time."

Athenais came back in. I very much suspect she had been listening at the door. She feigned surprise that the Count was leaving so soon.

"Well," she said, after we had seen him off the premises with all due ceremony. "That wasn’t so bad, was it? Shall I send for some tea?"

I left shortly afterwards. It was a very still summer’s afternoon. The fiercest time of the day at the fiercest time of year and there was nobody in the fields. No clouds in the sky either. The heat was oppressive. A fat little dog lay dead in the road with its four legs pointing skywards.

My horse’s footfalls came echoing back from the surrounding crags- as if I were surrounded by invisible walls- or as if I had company- as if there were others on the road beside me whom I couldn’t see.

A sound like cartwheels rose from silence into a sustained mutter and passed away- thunder from an empty sky.

Margery was waiting for me at the gate and started running towards me as I came in view. "I thought it was going to rain," she said. "And you’d be caught out in it , I looked out the window and saw the sun was shining, then I was afraid it might be gunfire."

"A storm out to sea," I said. "That’s what it must have been."

She smiled up at me. "Whatever it was, you’re safe. That’s the main thing and, guess what? We have a visitor. He arrived around lunchtime. I fed him and now he’s asleep in a wing-chair by the fire."

"Huon?" I asked.

"Not going to say. It’s a surprise."

purchas @ 2006-09-29T09:04:00

2006-09-29T09:05:23Z

Beyond the salon, the house was in darkness. Armand waited in the hall until all the guests were gathered round him, then led the way upstairs. "Isn’t this thrilling?" whispered Esclairmonde in my ear.

"Me, I’m scared stupid," said Louis, drily.

I dug him in the ribs. "Behave," I hissed.

"Just warning you in advance," he whispered back. "This is all theatrics, you know. He’s getting us in the mood. No other reason to put all the lights out. Next thing there’ll be ghostly music. You mark my words."

He was right. As we filed into the room that had been set aside for the séance we became aware of a chiming music, faint and stately, being played on a clavichord. I looked round for the musician, but couldn’t see him. "That’ll be the Count playing," said Louis. "Hidden behind that curtain. The music’ll stop just before he appears. Unless, of course, he’s got his crew with him, in which case it’ll carry on."

Two thirds of the room had been given over to the audience. The last third contained a raised stage, hung all round with black velvet curtains, embroidered with silver moons and stars. The windows were covered with heavy drapes. The back rows filled up first, but Louis and I pressed fearlessly down to the front. There was just enough light to stop us bumping into one another and tripping over the chairs. The perfume that had pervaded the salon downstairs was much stronger here, almost over-powering.

"Wonder what the Count puts in those pastilles of his," murmured Louis. "Could be funny stuff. Poppy for instance."

Once we were all seated the servants went round extinguishing the candles, leaving us in almost total darkness. The music stopped suddenly in mid-phrase and a rustle of unease passed through the audience. Then two glowing points of light appeared on stage- at first almost imperceptible, then slowly growing in strength until we could make out the tall tripods in which they burned and the human figure who was standing motionless between them.

"Phew," murmured Louis. "This boy is good."

The braziers were placed so as to throw light upwards onto the Count’s face and so reverse the normal pattern of shadows and highlights.

He was wearing a large turban in the Turkish style, fastened in place by a huge red jewel. Otherwise his robes appeared ecclesiastical. He had on a floor-length alb, fastened round the waist with a golden cord , and over it a richly embroidered cope with a clasp across the chest. He was gazing out over our heads, as if in silent contemplation of things invisible to us that were hovering at the level of the dado.

He held the pose for about half a minute, then lowered his eyes and seemed as if he were noticing us for the first time. He took a half step forward, taking care not to move in front of the braziers, bowed his head slightly and spread his hands in welcome.

"My friends," he said. "As a great poet of my race, none other than the divine Dante Alighieri, has remarked, there are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in our earthly philosophy. Who knows this better then we- brothers and sisters in the sublime mystery of immortality- we whose very existence is an offence to the earth-bound science of our fellow humans? . But there is one veil, is there not, which we have failed to lift- a veil which we are not even permitted to take between thumb and fingertip? Is that not so, dear friends? You nod your heads. But what if there were a way to lift a corner of that veil? What if we could indeed hold converse with those who have passed beyond it? What if I were able to demonstrate, to your entire satisfaction, that such intercourse were not only permitted but possible?

He paused and slowly lifted one hand as though summoning something from the depths of the earth. The clavichord music began again and a dark, rounded shape came mushrooming out of the floor at his feet. A woman squealed.

"Stab me vitals!" said Colonel Farquahar.

The thing continued to rise. It was a human head. Unnaturally large. Here was the neck and here were the shoulders. Grotesque.

Then we saw the face. It was the face of a child. And his head appeared swollen because he was wearing a turban like his master's, fixed in place with a matching jewel. He was dark-skinned and about nine or ten years old. He wore an embroidered waistcoat and baggy Turkish trousers. His naked arms were folded across his chest. His eyes were closed.

"Even better than I thought," said Louis. "Stage machinery."

"Ssssh," I said. "I don’t need a running commentary."

Assistants appeared from the wings, removed the braziers and placed a three-legged stool downstage. One of them moved swiftly along the front of the platform, lighting the foot lamps- a row of candles in smoked glass shades. The Count stepped forward with one hand on the boy’s shoulder and had him sit on the stool.

The light from the foot lamps was dim and eerie. It washed out detail and made the forms it fell on glow reddish-gold in the dark. The Count held up his hand in a gesture of command. The music stopped.

"I crave your indulgence, dear friends. The dwellers in the dark are shy and hard of hearing. They must cross league upon league of dubious, unfriendly space to be with us here tonight. Please maintain absolute silence and speak only if directly addressed by the spirits."

He stood behind the boy and made some elegant passes with his hand in front of the boy’s face . The boy closed his eyes. His chin fell forward on his chest.

The Count stood still, his eyes closed, his arms outstretched, performing what I can only describe as a sort of humming noise in his chest. It rose in volume until it seemed to shake the room. And then, at the same level and pitch, it took the shape of words. "Before me Raphael. Behind me Gabriel. At my right hand Michael. At my left hand Auriel. At each quarter the sword turns. Above and around me the light of Jehovah."

His hands dropped to his side. His voice had returned to normal, though it retained something of the sing song of the conjuration. "Do not be afraid, my dear brothers and sisters. I have drawn a circle of power that will keep at bay all spirits that might wish to do us harm. Only those whose intention is pure and holy will dare approach us now."

Sweat was running down the palms of my hand. I was having difficulty breathing, Nothing in my life had ever scared me as much as this did.

He began to call out into the void above our heads "Is there anyone there? Does anyone in the world of spirit wish to speak to us?"

The boys head lifted off his chest. His eyes opened. A voice, surprising deep and gruff, came roaring out of his throat. "England!" it said. "Who here still cares for England?"

"Greetings," said the Count. "Can you tell us your name?"

"Don’t be impertinent," roared the voice. "Who are you anyway? I was told Farquahar would be here."

"Oh my," said the Colonel. "It’s the Lord Protector."

"Farquahar," said the voice. "I can’t see too good, confound it; is that you?"

"Yes, my Lord," said the Colonel. He was on his feet and- quite extraordinary- bowing to the entranced boy. "Have you orders for me, my Lord."

"Get back to England, Farquahar. What possible good can come of you skulking in France? They’ve brought the king back, dammit. They have to be opposed. They let those butter-eating, Dutch whoresons sail up the Medway. S’death; we need every good and able man there is back in England to shore her up against catastrophe. You hear me, Farquahar?"

"Yes, my Lord."

"Well do it. Damme, I’ve rung the bell an hundred times if I’ve rung it once. What does a man have to do to get some service round here?"

The voice petered out in muttering and grumbling. The Colonel sat down again. His eyes were starting out of his head.

"Is there any other spirit who wishes to address us?" asked the Count.

The next voice was thin and fluting. It seemed to belong to Athenais’ mother. It had something to say about some china tea cups.

Out of the corner of my eye I saw Athenais shaking her head. And then she smiled. "Oh those tea cups," she said.

It was beginning to look as if I would be let off the hook. I began to breath more easily. Fear was giving way to disappointment and grief.

Other spirits followed. Sometimes they trod so swiftly on one another’s heels that their identities got mixed up. They had messages for various members of the audience, relating to things like bunions and wills and lost signet rings. I began to fidget.

"I see one spirit more," said the Count. It is holding back. It is shy. Come forward my pretty and tell us your mind."

And then the moment I had been hoping for and dreading.

"Purchas," she said.

"It wasn’t her voice, and yet it was. The timbre wasn’t quite right, but the inflection was exactly so.

"Gabriele, is that you. Where are you?"

"I don’t know exactly. A moment I ago I was in a rocky valley. Endless. There were caves with fire in them. I went through an archway and now I’m here." The boy lifted an arm and stared at it. "This isn’t my body." He let it drop again and stared directly at me. "I can see you, Purchas."

The boy tried to rise from his chair . the Count, putting firm hands on his shoulders, held him in place."

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I suppose so. How did I get to be like this? I remember I was riding a horse. Then I fell off a wall…"

"You died," I said. "Oh Gabriele, you died."

"Ah, that would explain it ." A long pause. "So what do I do now?"

"Call on the angels," said the Count. "Call on the angels and they will carry you off to paradise."

"But I don’t want to go to paradise." The voice was querulous. "I want to stay here with my friend."

The boy rose and this time the Count had to struggle to hold him down. The Count began chanting in Hebrew. The boy wriggled as if in pain and fear.

"Let him be," I cried. There were tears in my eyes.

"He’s sending me back," wailed the voice. "Don’t send me back. I don’t want to go"

The Count chanted louder.

I got up from my seat and approached the stage. I wanted to free Gabriele from this man who was torturing her. "Stop it," I said.

"No good" keened the voice. "I’m blinded. Rocks. Fires. The ground’s splitting. She’s coming, Purchas, she’s coming. I loved you. Always loved you. Remember that"

The boy convulsed and lay still. The Count gestured towards the wings. His assistants hurried on stage, carrying candles. The spell was broken. They picked up the boy and carried him off. His head lolled as if the neck were broken.

The Count advanced to the front of the stage. He seemed genuinely shaken. "Sometimes," he said, dabbing his forehead with a handkerchief, "Things don’t go entirely to plan. I apologise for the disturbance. Marquise, will you ask your servants to light the candles. He bowed peremptorily. Mesdames, Messieurs; the show is over."

There was some scattered clapping behind me.

"What did you do that for?" I snarled up at him.

He went down on one knee and brought his face close to mine. "She was going to kill the boy,".

"You were hurting her."

"She was hurting me," he hissed back. "I’ve never dealt with a spirit quite that strong. If I’d have known…"

"Bring her back," I demanded.

"You don’t understand, do you? I’ve been fighting for the child’s life. He was very nearly killed for Christ’s sake. It is a wicked, deceitful spirit. It fooled me. It fooled the Guardians. We didn’t realise she was a murderer."

"No!"

He got back on his feet. "I don’t have the energy for this." He spoke with weary disdain. "Go outside, Purchas. Go get a breath of fresh air. Cool down."

"If we weren’t Immortal I’d call you out, sir!" I shouted.

"And I would gladly accept. But we are, so there’s no point. Imagine the duel already fought and honour satisfied." He lowered his voice again. "Now fuck off!"

I turned and walked through the dispersing crowd, looking neither to right nor left. Emerging on the landing and looking about for the stairway, I found Louis had followed me out . "Found him out, did you Perky. Gave him what for?"

"Not now, Louis."

"Did you like the bit about the bunions?"

"Leave me alone, Louis. I’m mortally angry. I’m in the mood for killing people. Just stay out of my way."

I tore down the staircase, nearly knocking over the servant who was walking up it with a taper, lighting the lamps, and out through the hallway into the street.

purchas @ 2006-09-28T09:10:00

2006-09-28T08:43:33Z

The Rhone at Avignon is a broad, brown river. It looks slow and sluggish, but heavy rain turns it into a fury. All though the 17^th century it had worked at smashing the famous St Benezet bridge, finally finishing the job in 1668. The structure I strolled out on in 1670 was very much as it is now- a jetty of four arches, with a tower on the landward side and a chapel in the middle.

The shattered end was closed off with rope. I stopped just short of it and leaned over the parapet. Soldiers in the King of France’s colours were strolling along the far bank, where the Fort St-Andre, with its high walls and towers stood as an continuing threat to the integrity of the Comtat.

There was music in the air. Fiddle and hurdy-gurdy and Jew’s harp. It came and went as the breeze blew strong or faint across the pleasure gardens on the Ile de Barthelasse, out there in the middle of the stream.

I felt a presence and, raising my eyes, saw a plump white hand lying on the parapet a yard away. The wrist was enveloped in clouds of the finest white lace. I didn’t need to glance any higher to know who it was. I hoped that he might not recognise me or, if he did, that he would choose to ignore me as I was ignoring him.

I hoped in vain. "Good evening, M. Purchas. A very fine evening it is too."

"Good evening, M. Le Comte."

"I do so enjoy the tranquillity of this place. The solitude. I look on the ruins of this structure- so noble, so ambitious- and think, how vain the works of man! I am a person of some accomplishment, of some moment in the world- as you know- but in the presence of this sober scene I feel myself truly humbled."

I grunted acknowledgement.

"I have come here, as you may guess, to refresh my spirit before the exertions that will be demanded of it this evening. Madame la Marquise tells me that you will be attending our little séance. I am truly honoured."

"Will Julius Caesar be putting in an appearance," I asked, sourly.

He sighed. "Ah, you have heard that story too. It follows me round like a tin kettle tied to the tail of an unfortunate puppy-dog. I assure you it is only partly true."

"Indeed?"

"You know my many talents. I did indeed dress a man up as Julius Caesar, but it was for the purposes of a masque, not a séance. The story is a conflation. A malicious conflation. I am not a mountebank."

"My apologies, monsieur."

He spread his hands in a gesture of stoic acceptance. "It is a burden any artist must carry. One meets with success; one inevitably stirs the jealousy of less talented rivals."

I didn’t know if I believed him, but it was an age that valued good manners above almost everything else, so I commiserated.

"In fact," he said, after the waters had been smoothed to mirror-like placidity, "It is not wholly fortuitous that I find myself here. Mme la Marquise suggested that this was a favourite walk of yours."

"So you sought me out."

"I did, Monsieur. I understand you have recently undergone a grave loss."

I felt the tears well up. I turned my head away. The big flag with the lilies of France was hanging idle from the main tower of the fort. The breeze caught it and unfurled it part way before letting it flop back into its former state of listlessness.

"I know, Monsieur, that it is a painful subject. And I apologise for having taken up your time yesterday with my enthusiasm for my trifling inventions. If I had known…" His voice trailed off.

"I am to blame- if any blame attaches. I should have told you."

"You carry your feelings very close to your chest."

"I am English, monsieur."

He laughed politely. There was a pause.

"I intrude again," he said. "I am aware of that. But I am here with good reason. I have, I think, news that may hearten you."

"I doubt it, Monsieur. My friend is dead. There is nothing that can change that fact."

"What if I were to say I have spoken to her?"

"Did you say ‘her’?" I turned to face him.

"I never knew your friend in life, but I understand that she used to pass herself off as a man. She told me as much."

"How could you possibly know?"

"I woke last night to a restlessness in the room. It was as if a bird had flown in and were flapping round the walls trying to find a window. I recognised this disturbance as the manifestation of a perturbed but very powerful spirit."

"She was powerful in life."

"And is powerful in the land of the dead. I get the letter ‘G’ and a sense that this soul has connections with my native land- with Italy- though she isn’t an Italian."

I clutched the stone of the parapet hard to stop my hand from trembling. "You mustn’t play with me, Monsieur. That would be too cruel."

"On my mother’s grave. I wouldn’t do that. She desires to speak to you."

"I’m listening," I addressed myself to the sky. "Gabriele, I’m listening."

"Not here, Monsieur. Out here in the sun and the wind she has too little strength. She will come through tonight. At the séance."

"And that is why you came to find me?"

"To try to make sure you joined us tonight. She sent me."

"Where is she now?"

"I don’t know Monsieur. The world of the dead is a place a various as our own world, I think."

"Have you not asked?"

"Oh yes, of course. I ask one spirit and he says it’s like a meadow full of flowers. I ask another and he says, oh no it’s like a prison; can’t you hear the groans? I ask a third and he says I am here in a great town. Everyone is happy. I have a house and all my family and friends are living on the same street. I wind up very confused. It seems as though the world of the dead is a different world for each soul. Your friend will tell you tonight how it is for her."

"I believe I could do with a drink, monsieur. Would you let me buy you one?"

"I should be enchanted."

We left the bridge and found ourselves a table at a waterside tavern.

It amazes me now how much alcohol we used to put away in the old days. I suppose the whole population must have been walking around half-cut. Only it didn’t seem like that at the time. What you have to remember is that up until the mid 20^th century you really couldn’t trust the water.

I wanted to talk about Gabriele, but I knew that if I did I’d be giving him clues for his evening performance, so I wrenched the talk away from her and onto him. I got him to confess he was a Neapolitan. "People think, you see, that all Neapolitans are thieves and liars. I don’t want that black mark against me before I’ve even opened my mouth."

"When did you first discover you had the gift…"

"Of talking to the dead? Ever since I can remember. When I was a baby- and that was a very long time ago- there was a woman who used to come and sit by my bed when I was restless and couldn’t sleep. I assumed she was a nursemaid. Later when I described her to my mother she went pale. No, she’d never hired a maid who looked like that. And the person I’d described was uncannily like her own mother who’d died ten years before I was born."

"I have never seen a ghost."

"Perhaps you will tonight." He laughed quietly to himself. "Actually, I congratulate you, Monsieur. It is no fun being pestered at all hours by the dead. They are very ignorant people, some of them. They have no idea that their contact in the world of the living has a life of his own, that he needs to sleep and eat and think. I have had to devise strong protections for myself to keep them at bay. Otherwise I should have gone mad a long, long time ago. There are many like me, I think, in the madhouses of the world. The dead still knock continuously, but now I keep business hours; I will not see them except at a time convenient to myself."

"My friend got through,"

"Your friend is exceptionally strong. She broke my defences. She tells me she used gunpowder- I think that is a little joke you will understand. That is one reason why she interests me so much."

He left to prepare himself for the séance and I wandered back to the Marquise’s house. "You look dreadful," she said. "Why don’t you go and lie down for a couple of hours? I’ll make sure my people wake you in time to dress."

I lay on my bed and looked at the plasterwork of the ceiling. It was as if I were hovering above a vast, unpopulated landscape. The crack that stretched from somewhere near the centre to the edge of the window was a river running through low, undulating hills.

The river was the Styx and the hills it ran through were- well- what exactly?

Immortals had always been fascinated by death. Before the Antidote it was something that intrigued them because they would never experience it. After the Antidote is was the thing they feared most of all. The more you have of anything the greedier you are to hang onto it.; But if death is not an ending but a transition one rather wonders what all the fuss is about.

Prove it to me, Gabriele. Prove it to me that you’re still alive.

The maid woke me with a gentle knock at the door and carried in a bowl of water. I washed my face and hands, adjusted my hair, tidied my clothes and went downstairs.

There was a murmur from the salon. It seemed to be agreed among the guests that this was an occasion of quasi-religious significance and voices should be lowered as in church. The Marquise had reinforced the atmosphere by suffering only a bare minimum of candles to be lit. There was a bitter, enticing perfume in the air, not unlike the smell of church incense, which I traced to pastilles burning in the dishes of the brass tripods that had been dotted about the room.

"The Count’s idea," said the Marquise, catching me gazing at a smoking pastille. "It’s his own recipe and he makes them in his laboratory. Really there’s nothing he can’t turn his hand to. Now say something derogatory."

"I’m going to surprise you. I passed a very interesting afternoon with the Count. I think you may have to enroll me among his admirers after all."

She clapped her fingertips together. "I’m so pleased. I knew you two would hit it off if you only spent time together."

"You sent him to me, didn’t you?"

"Is that such a sin?"

"No, not at all. In fact I’m grateful." I raised her fingers to my lips.

There was a buffet laid out in the adjoining room. That’s where I found Louis. He was tucking into a large platter of smoked fish. "Glad you came?" I asked.

"The Marquise always lays on a good spread." He spoke with his mouth full. "You and me; we’re gonna have some fun with the Count, right?"

"Ah." I was struggling for words. "Change of plan there. I got talking to the Count this afternoon." And I told him roughly what had happened, leaving out the bits that hurt too much.

He looked at me pityingly. "That was a lousy trick. He kerfuffled you. I’m surprised at you being taken in. But I guess you’re kinda vulnerable right now."

"I am. There’s part of me that wants to believe in this so much. And really, Louis, he was very sincere and convincing. I guess I need you all the more. Keep me honest, will you?"

"I’ll watch him like a hawk. If he pulls any tricks I’ll stand up and expose him."

"Well, maybe not that. Don’t embarrass Athenais. Just tell me afterwards if he does anything dodgy. I don’t want to be fooled. It’s too important for that."

The guest list was select. Anyone suspected of being sceptical- which apparently didn’t include Louis- had been left off it. So Pertinax wasn’t there but Esclairmonde was. She spotted me from across the room and came sailing towards me, with Colonel Farquhar at her heels."

"Ah, Purchas. I’m surprised to find you here. I had you down as the most frightful unbeliever."

"Not unbeliever exactly…"

"More of a seeker after truth, eh?" said the Colonel. "Just like me."

"Open minded."

"You’ve got to be, haven’t you?" said the Colonel. "When you’ve served at the Tower, as I have you, you get to see some queer things. Like that fellow Milton says, ‘More things in Heaven and earth,’ eh?"

"Tell Purchas about Anne Boleyn," said Esclairmonde.

"Rum do," said the Colonel. "We were changing the guard, round about the witching hour if you take my meaning, when this woman, all in white, comes sailing across the green and disappears into the chapel wall. Rummest thing of all, though." He lowered his voice. "Is she didn’t have a head."

"How did you know it was Ann Boleyn if you couldn’t see her face?" asked Louis.

"Stands to reason, doesn’t it? No head: got to be some poor girl who went to the block." He pausd and scratched his chin. "Could have been lady Jane Grey, I suppose, but no! Everyone knows it’s Ann Boleyn that haunts the Tower."

"Can you be sure it wasn’t mist?" asked Louis. "The Tower is right by the river, you know."

"Funnily enough the fellow I was with suggested that. Just mist coming in from the river, he said. But I know what I saw. She was wearing one of those funny old fashioned dresses with a high collar."

"I saw Herne the Hunter once," I said.

The Colonel leaned forward eyes wide open.

"Me too," said Louis. "But it was just autumn leaves blowing in the wind…"

We were interrupted by a single, clear, musical chime. We all turned to see Athenais standing in the middle of the room with a glass bell in one hand and a little silver hammer in the other. "Your attention please, mesdames and messieurs. The hour has arrived. If you would care to follow Armand upstairs." She nodded at a tall footman with a candelabra in his hand. "The dear Count is ready to receive us."

purchas @ 2006-09-27T09:05:00

2006-09-27T09:21:37Z

After the debacle with the Bishop there seemed little point in carrying on the search. There was no trail to follow. Emilia had got a three day start on us and could be anywhere within a radius of sixty or seventy miles. She might be down on the coast or holed up in the mountains or even on board a ship heading for North Africa . There was really nothing for it, but to go home and await developments.

We arrived to find preparations for the fete almost complete. The Count was supervising the removal of tent city. He greeted us eagerly and took us on a tour of the site. The lower meadow had taken on the appearance of a Greek or Roman harbour as imagined by Nicholas Poussin or Claude Lorrain, all cunningly designed in trompe l’oeil perspective that, from certain angles, made the distances look twice what they really were and from others looked frankly silly. The boats that had been collected to ply across the lake had been transformed into vessels out of fairyland with false superstructures and velvet cushions and loads of gold leaf. The count handed us aboard one of them and Margery took the oars, which had been wreathed with garlands of silk roses.

"These flowers make things more than a little awkward," she complained.

"Ah, but on the day we’ll be employing professional boatmen," said the Count.

She glowered at him.

A lot of care had gone into the construction of the island temple The pasteboard walls were faked up to look like veined marble and the domed roof, which was covered in gold leaf- no expense had been spared- shone so brightly in the afternoon sun that it hurt your eyes to look

But the piece de resistance was the statue of Venus. She was cast in bronze and twice life size. Her hair was covered in gold leaf and her eyes were inlaid with semi-precious stones. The wine was pumped into her through concealed pipes that entered through the feet . "Hydraulics," said the Count, triumphantly- and proceeded to give us a highly detailed explanation which none of us understood. I thought the conception vulgar but didn’t say so.

"Would you care for a demonstration?" he asked.

"Yes please," said Margery. Margery loves toys of any kind.

"We won’t be using wine, of course. Just coloured water."

He disappeared round the back behind a velvet curtain. We could hear the greasy squeak of valves being opened. There was an ominous chugging noise, a booming shriek of trapped air, then liquid came squirting out of the nipples with enough force to cause bruising.

The twin jets entirely missed the cornucopiae that were raised to receive them, hit the temple wall and showered us on the rebound. Artemesia squealed.

The Count reappeared from behind the curtain smiling nervously. "A little too much pressure, he said. "All I have to do is adjust the stopcocks." He disappeared again.

The statue was rocking on its base and howling like a lost soul . Something broke inside. The jets of water stopped abruptly. There was a pause, then water came seeping out the corner of the eyes and ran down the cheeks in vermilion streams.

There was a sudden loud bang , the count yelped, and a little wall of water, a couple of inches high, came racing out from behind the curtain and flooded the temple floor.

"Sorry about that" said the Count as he re-emerged with his clothes soaked and his bedraggled white plume plastered to the side of his face. "Teething troubles." He gave us an ingratiating smile. "I think, if you don’t mind, we’ll go back to the mainland now. I need to speak to the engineer."

We invited him to take dinner with us, but he had business back in town. We all of us retired to bed early.

The following morning I rode into Avignon. I felt it was my duty to tell the community what had happened. The first person I called on was the Marquise. She received me in her withdrawing room and served me chocolate.

"I had no idea there was anyone chasing Suzanne. She never even hinted at it."

"She didn’t want to alarm you."

"And you’ve sent the Grimaldi woman packing?"

"That’s it. I don’t know. I really don’t know. She’ll want to hit back at me- I’ve little doubt of that- but it could take her years to get her act together."

"So you don’t want me to cancel the fete or anything drastic like that?"

"I don’t see what good it would do. I just think people ought to be informed that there’s an outside chance of trouble."

"We’ll do that. I’ll tell my intimates and they’ll tell theirs and it’ll be all round the community by this evening."

"Thank you. "

She put her chin in her hand and gazed out the window "I wonder if I’ve met this Grimaldi person?"

"She’s spent most of this century in Germany, Muscovy, Poland. Before that she mostly hung out in Rome."

"Cardinal Sforza’s mistress!" she exclaimed. "A tall, dark woman. Very impressive until she opened her mouth?"

"That sounds like her."

"But she was negligible- a piece of expensive, Vatican fluff. No conversation. No talents except- I suppose- the ones she needed to maintain her position. Imagine her turning into this!"

"She has a very strong will. She always got what she wanted. It used to be men, now it seems to be revenge."

"You think she’s mad?"

"I don’t think she can be reasoned with. Once she gets an idea into her head it can’t be driven out. Artemesia thinks she’s possessed."

"Oh dear," The Marquise fanned herself violently. "Like those poor nuns at Loudon. Shocking. Shocking. Perhaps we should get the dear Count to confront her."

I smiled and said nothing.

"You don’t believe in the Count, do you dear?" It was said in a commiserating tone, as if she were enquiring after my health.

I shrugged. "He’s a very remarkable man. Very witty. Very cynical. But I was apprenticed to a conjuror once. A long, long time ago. I know a few tricks of the trade.."

"But he gave you a reading, didn’t he? Weren’t you impressed?"

"He knew things about me. Yes."

"But you don’t believe he got them from the spirits?"

"He might have done. But there are other ways of finding things out."

"Unbeliever! Remember what M. Corneille said. "‘There are more things in heaven and earth than are dreamed of in your philosophy.’"

"I don’t have problems with M. Corneille . It’s just the Count I have doubts about."

She tapped me lightly on the arm with the furled fan. "Then you must come to the séance he is holding for us tonight and let him convince you. I have been working on him ever so hard to give us a demonstration of his powers and now that the preparations for the fete are nearly complete he has finally relented and said, ‘yes’"

"Ah," I was stalling for time, trying to think of an excuse.

"Oh come on," she chivied. "I know you’ve had a hard time. Treat yourself to a little entertainment. It’ll cheer you up."

In the end she got me to promise to attend. Athenais in full cry was as inescapable as the Eumenides.

My next call was on Louis. I needed to tell him about Gabriele. It wasn’t that they’d been friends- rather the opposite- but there’s been a connection there and I wanted him to hear it from me and not from some gossip."

"Can’t say I ever liked him," he said. "He tried to kill me too many times for that. But I know he was your friend, Perky, and I’m sorry."

"Thanks, Louis."

He leaned back in his chair, allowed a decent time to elapse in silence, then came back at me with, "You say you got a sample of the Antidote?"

I took out the shagreen case, placed it on the table and flipped back the lid.

"Can I touch?" he asked.

I nodded.

He lifted the dagger from its bed and gazed at it longingly. "Remember when you brought me a sample of this, back in the old days?"

"You ran some tests and told me it was a poison."

"I’d like to have another crack at it, if I may."

"You think you could work it out?"

"Science has moved on, innit? We got chemicals and equipment and techniques we didn’t have then. I think I got a chance."

"And then you could make your own?"

"Like I said last time, give me the recipe and I’ll make it."

"I can’t let you have it all."

"Don’t need it all. Just a sample. Maybe half."

"All right."

We went upstairs. Louis had a laboratory in the top floor. "You letting me into the Holy of Holies?" I asked.

"Pah, got no secrets from you, Perky."

There was a woman sat at the big oak table, polishing the glassware. She got up and dropped us a curtsey. She was a middle-aged peasant woman, with a kind, homely, simple face. Louis patted her rump affectionately as she hustled out the door.

"Heh, heh, heh. Another of my secrets you just discovered."

"Louis, I’m amazed. You never let Gwynneth into your laboratory to clean"

"Maybe I’m softening in my old age. But Gwynneth was a crabby old sort, as I remember. Always asking a man difficult questions he didn’t want to answer. Hortense is different. Knows her place."

"True love, is it?"

He smiled an evil smile. "I wouldn’t go that far. Lets just say we got an understanding."

"Well, this is certainly an improvement on the old place. I don’t feel I need to spread out a handkerchief before I sit down".

He tapped the side of his nose. "These days we scientists know the importance of cleanliness. Don’t want foreign bodies getting into our brew-ups, now do we?"

He unhooked an apron from behind the door, slipped it over his head and drew on a pair of gauntlets. He picked a vial from a wall rack and carried it to the table, where he very carefully unscrewed the pommel of the dagger and poured our a measure of the Antidote He resealed pommel and vial and put the dagger back in its box. The vial he wrapped in a cloth and slipped into a drawer. "All finished ," he said,. and removed his protective clothing. "Leave that with me. I don’t promise early results, but we’ll see what can be done."

We went back downstairs and he brought out the bottle of plum brandy. "You doing anything tonight?" I asked.

"Staying in as usual," he said. "Why?"

"It’s just that Athenais is hosting a séance tonight. She bullied me into going."

"I got an invitation. The dear Count will be showing off his skills again.."

"Excellent. I thought you and I could sit on the front row and work out how he does it. What do you say?"

"Do I have to? I don’t like the bloody Count. I wasn’t planning on going."

"Oh come on, it’ll be fun."

"I got a good book I want to finish."

"I’d like the company. To tell the truth I’m not sure I trust myself to go into society alone right now. If any one asks me what I’ve been doing these past few days- and they will because I’ve asked Athenais to spread the word about Emilia- I’m liable to burst into tears. I need you as my bodyguard. Pretty please."

I got him to agree in the end. We drank a couple of bottles of brandy between us, then, with two or three hours left to kill before the start of the soiree, I took my leave of him and went down to the river. Whenever I need to be alone, whenever I need my nerves soothing, I seek out water.

purchas @ 2006-09-26T09:11:00

2006-09-26T08:22:02Z

I had difficulty on the lower slopes, choosing what looked like easy paths that took me out of my way, then having to retrace my steps. Margery had been keeping close watch with Gabriele’s telescope and came running down the slope, slipping on the scree and leaving a trail of billowing dust in her wake. When she saw the burden I was carrying she fell upon my shoulder and wept. And I wept too. And finally remembered that there were things in this world worth living and fighting for.

We took Gabriele to the crest of the mountain and dug her a shallow grave and raised a great limestone cairn above her. I found a missal in one of her pockets and read aloud the service of the dead. It seemed somehow fitting to leave her there, far above the hazy insubstantial world, with sun and moon and stars for company and the fiery southern wind to cry her name.

Afterwards the three of us walked along the ridge of the mountain to its summit. It was early afternoon on a fiercely hot midsummer day.

"I want to go straight back down again and finish it," I said.

"Me too said ," said Margery. "But she’ll have her men posted all round the perimeter. You wouldn’t stand a chance."

I did some calculations. "She had an entourage of twenty when she arrived. Does that sound right, Artemesia?"

"Yes," said Artemesia. "All from a single village in the Alps. I was there when she hired them. " She lowered her eyes. "And please call me Arty. Now that Gabriele’s gone there’s no-one left that calls me that. And I like it."

"Just so long as you don’t feel you have to call me Perky in return, Because I hate it."

"And Margery already ends in a ‘Y’," said Margery. "Lets leave it as it is, shall we?"

"So, Arty," I put emphasis on the name. She smiled shyly in return. "You say she has twenty men."

"That’s right.

"Gabriele and I killed three for certain. And may have killed or disabled another two. We haven’t been thinking in these terms because of our loss, but actually we hit her quite hard."

"And the Bishop," said Margery, "Don’t forget the Bishop. From what you said, it sounds like he freaked out at seeing you. So that’s her right hand man gone too."

"And there’s something else," I said. "I’ve only just remembered. "She thinks I’ve got the antidote."

"Hey," said Margery, "It’s beginning to sound like we’re evenly matched ."

I turned to Artemesia. "You’re the one who knows her best, what do you think she’ll do?"

"I think she’ll disappear. It’s how she reacts to a set-back. She retreats, goes into hiding, then jumps back out again when her enemy least expects."

"She can’t hide with an gang of seventeen men."

"She’ll leave them behind. She’ll feel they’ve let her down and can’t be trusted any more."

I looked at Margery. "Let me go back and have a look. I won’t take any risks, promise."

"No way," she said. "I’m not letting you swan off on your own again. Do you think it was fun for me stuck up here on this hillside, with my heart in my mouth, listening to the guns going pop, pop, pop in the distance? This time we’ll all go."

"I don’t plan to attack them or anything like that. I just want to find out what they’re doing."

"Give me a pistol."

"Me too," said Arty.

We followed much the same route as Gabriele and I had taken the night before, moving through the scrub at the edge of the tree-line, then dropping down the slope when we guessed we were more or less above the house. But we must have diverged from my previous course because we quickly came to a place I hadn’t visited the time before, where a landslip had cleared a stretch of forest, leaving a two hundred yard cicatrice down the face of the mountain and an unobstructed view of the castle.

"Stop." said Margery. "We can spy on them from here."

She climbed on a protruding rock, lay down on her stomach and took out the telescope.

"Well," I asked.

"Very quiet down there. Nothing moving but birds."

"Can I see?"

I took her place on the spyglass rock. There were certainly lots of birds down there- flying in lazy circles, perched on ridge tiles, taking short, flappy flights from roof to roof. "Looks like someone’s thrown out a whole load of bread," I said.

"That’s it!" cried Margery. "She’s fed the birds. And what’ do you think she fed ‘em with?

"Jesus," I said

"Remember London? How she wiped out the whole household when she fled with Arty here?"

"Let’s go down and see."

We scrabbled down the hill. There was no-one guarding the perimeter. Perched on the cliff edge at the end of the wood we threw stones down into the garden. Nothing stirred.

Except, of course, the birds. What a racket they were making!

The dead men were in the kitchen and the kitchen was like an aviary. "She did this in Kiev too," said Arty. "First she established herself in the Immortal community, then she invited them all to dinner. At the dinner she proposed a special toast. The wine was poisoned. They all drank together, they all dropped dead together. Easy-peasy."

We searched the castle. Emilia and the Bishop had been living in a couple of rooms in the tower and her men had been quartered above the stables. The rest of the house was still under wraps. The only footprints on the dusty floors were our own.

"One other thing," I said. "I dropped the Antidote when I was escaping. No-one knew I’d dropped it. Maybe it’s still where it fell."

We conducted a close search of my escape route. Nothing had been touched from the night before. The gravel was un-raked, the imprint of our horses’ hooves still plain to see. I found myself thinking, these marks were made when she was still alive. Nothing has changed and yet everything has. If only it were possible to wind back time.

Arty found the dagger. It had fallen from my sash into a flowerbed and was still resting there, unbroken.

I recovered the shagreen case from the chapel and placed the dagger in it.

"Now we’re equally matched," said Margery.

We set off to look for her. We took rooms in an inn in Sault and spent the daylight hours searching for any witness who might have seen a beautiful young woman and a puddled old man travelling together. On the second day out we found we’d been asking the wrong question. The puddled old man had been found in the foothills, wandering alone, muttering in a foreign language. He had been removed to a local hospice.

The monks allowed us access. He was lying in the general ward with a lot of similarly puddled old men, gazing at the ceiling. When he saw it was me there was a brief, frenzied moment of recognition and then he started repeating, "I invoke Beelzebub, I invoke Ashtaroth," very fast and very loud. The nice young monk who was conducting us, suggested, gently but firmly, that we should withdraw and stop disturbing his patient.

As we were leaving I took him aside and gave him money to say masses for the repose of Gabriele’s soul. I have done the same since in many different places. I don’t believe in Purgatory, but Gabriele did. Somehow it helps make me feel a little better.

I don’t know why I loved her so much. Looked at in the way of the world she was a terrorist and a killer; but the link between us was there from the very beginning. It's like that thing in Plato where every soul is created with four arms and four legs and then they split in two- and she was my other half. Am I making any sense? Probably not.

Just let it go.

purchas @ 2006-09-25T09:17:00

2006-09-25T08:31:06Z

The musketeers hadn’t been expecting this. Neither had we, but we had the advantage of quicker wits. I looked at Gabriele and she looked at me, then I sprinted for the horse on the left and she sprinted for the one on the right. We were in our saddles before the musketeers could bring their weapons to bear.

I dug in my heels. My horse took off. I drew a pistol and turned and fired. By that instant brimstone light I saw a mass of faces with open mouths- cringing, terrified, furious, befuddled- screeching and roaring at me like a vision of the gates of hell.

My horse knew where it was going, which was good because I didn’t have a clue. As it veered sharp left round the east end of the chapel the muskets started popping behind me in an ragged sequence and I heard the clatter of breaking glass.

Gabriele had made it too. She was at my elbow, just a couple of feet behind. We raced round the far side of the chapel and arrived at the front of the house, paused there a moment to get our bearings, then galloped off downhill.

We rode in a straight line, cutting at intervals across the serpentining castle drive, through bushes and under hanging boughs, until we were stopped by a wall too high for our horses to jump. We dismounted and sent them packing .

There was a confused noise of pursuit above and behind us.

"I can’t climb that," said Gabriele.

"I can climb anything," I said. "Give me your sash."

"What about my weapons?"

"Throw them over. Like this." I hoiked out my pistols and tossed them over the wall.

"Where’s the dagger?"

I patted my sides. Nothing. "I thought I stuck it in my sash."

"It’s not there?"

"No. But you’ve still got yours- right?"

"’Fraid not.. I must have left it in the chapel."

"Well, we’re not going back for it."

She handed me her sash. I tied it to mine, end to end. Our pursuers were getting closer. They had dogs with them.

The wall was about eight feet tall. I took off my shoes and threw them after the pistols. With naked feet I could feel for every least ridge or crevice. The wall had been badly maintained and much of the pointing was missing. I pushed my fingers into a crack and pushed off with my toes. Is was up it in seconds. Then I straddled the coping, wrapped one end of the improvised rope twice round my wrist and threw the other end down to Gabriele.

"I’m too heavy," she said.

"No you’re not. I’m stronger than I look." I glanced up and saw a cloud of lights floating down the hill towards us. "Besides, it’s not about strength; it’s about balance. Trust me."

"I do."

She grabbed the rope and started to climb. She was nearly close enough for me to reach out and grab her hand when a great wolfhound came loping out of the darkness and leaped at her leg.

She kicked out at it. For a moment I was supporting her full weight .Twenty muskets loosed off together. I heard balls strike the stone and one go singing past my head.

Gabriele, called out "Remember". Then something horrid happened behind her eyes. She let go the rope and dropped .

I expected her to bounce back up and grab again at the rope. This was Gabriele, after all- the irrepressible, the unstoppable, the greatest of Immortal warriors. Instead she lay there on her back, her right leg slightly crooked, her right arm thrown up above her head.

Emilia came trotting up on her white horse. Torches all round her. She waved a glass dagger at me. "You forgot this," she said, sweetly.

I patted my chest. "But I have the other," my voice sounded ragged and hoarse.

The twinkle went out of Emilia’s eyes. She pulled on the reins and her horse took a couple of nervy steps backwards.

The musketeers were reloading. I had a few seconds. "Let me have her body?"

"I don’t do favours."

"Emilia, for pity’s sake. This is me talking. Purchas. Your sister."

I must have touched something in her. "I’ll have my men throw it out the main gate. You can pick it up in the morning."

"Thank you," I swung my leg over the coping and dropped into the maquis on the far side.

I didn’t weep. Tears are for others to see and I was all alone. Nothing like this had ever happened to me before

I had seen death often enough, but I had never lost anyone I loved. I felt like my heart had been scooped out like an avocado stone.

I picked up my pistols- and Gabriele’s too, crept back from the wall and hid in a nearby copse, waiting for the sunrise. I wondered where Gabriele was now. Does the soul fly free, swimming off through the ether or does it just cease to be.

The flame disappears when the wick is snuffed. A little faint smoke, then nothing. But fire, surely, is eternal.

The stars faded. I left my hiding place and followed the course of the wall. I had two loaded pistols in my fists, the other two in readiness. I had flung my own sash away and was wearing Gabriele’s.

It was more than likely I was walking into an ambush. If so, I would put up a good fight and be remembered for it. And if they brought me down it would be my turn to confront the great mystery Gabriele had already solved.

A bird followed me for a while, or so it seemed, flitting from bush to bush and singing its silly little heart out. I told myself it was Gabriele, come to give me courage. But I guess it was just seeing me off its territory.

The gateposts were topped by heraldic beasts holding shields, a lion on the one, a gryphon on the other. A tall woman was standing between them, holding a horse by its reins.

The horse carried a burden. Gabriele was so small it seemed, at a casual glance, that a bedroll had been draped across its back.

"Emilia?" I said.

"I just wanted you to know I’m still capable of a noble gesture. This is the sort of thing they make songs and poems about, isn’t it, Purchas?"

I saw a chink of opportunity. "Why don’t we stop all this? You and I will bury Gabriele together. Then the war will be over."

She shook her head. "This is just a truce. I’m being generous." A note of snippiness entered her voice. "But don’t push it."

"Why are you doing this?"

She held out the reins. "Do you want this offal, or don’t you?"

I took the reins off her. Our fingers touched- ever so briefly. "Remember Gabriele’s promise?"

She looked at me blankly.

"She said she’d kill you. I mean to honour the pledge."

"Just go. Truce is over."

"Adieu, Emilia."

"Au revoir, Purchas. I’ll be coming for you and your friends."

"Why?" I gave it one last try.

"Because I’m sick of you all." That petulant note again. "What have you ever done to make the world a better place? Now it’s my turn."

"You think…?"

She turned her back and walked back into her castle grounds. "Interview over. I’m so not listening." The musketeers emerged from the bushes behind her. I expected a fusillade, but they just stood there in a line. Their mistress walked through them and the line reformed behind her.

I was allowed to leave unmolested. Emilia knew where to find me and would come looking for me in due course. Perhaps this letting me go in order to hunt me down later made it a better game. It’s the way cats work, isn’t it?

I found my way back onto the slopes of Mt. Ventoux. The sun rose. It was going to be another fair day.

purchas @ 2006-09-24T10:54:00

2006-09-24T09:56:24Z

The chapel was full of candles. There was no furniture and the altar had been moved to the centre of the nave, where it stood at the hub of an elaborately painted magic circle. Gabriele was lying on the altar with chains securing her wrists and ankles and Emilia and the Bishop were standing beside it. All three were naked. The Bishop had a glass dagger in his fist.

They were in rosy-red light and I was in gloom. This gave me a momentary advantage. They knew I was there but they couldn’t see who I was or quite what I was doing. I slammed the bolts on the door and, dropping down on one knee, fumbled the glass dagger from its case.

"Who dares profane our rites," roared the Bishop. I could see he was screwing up his little red eyes to make me out. I would barely have recognised him. Immortals don't change, but he had. His madness had stipped him of everything but hate. He looked like a gnome with his tiny, pink body and huge thistledown head of sticky-up, white hair.

"Me," I said. I stood up again.

"You cannot cross the circle. The circle is charged with the power of the Tetragrammaton."

"Oh no, it isn’t." I stepped lightly over the painted lines. His face registered shock and disbelief as the candlight touched my face. We were back together on the bridge in Windsor. I knocked the glass dagger- the twin of the one I was carrying, out of his fist and up it went in a glittering arc, As it came down again I reached out and caught it.

He howled as if I’d mortally hurt him.

Emilia tried to grab me from behind, but she had always been clumsy and useless in a fight. I swung round and the tip of the glass blade slashed her across the hand and upper arm. It didn’t hurt her or mark her but she knew what it was and stepped back.

"Hello Purchas," she said. Her voice betrayed no emotion.. "You wouldn’t use that thing on me, would you?"

I said nothing, but dug the tip of the dagger in under her left breast . "Eugh," she squealed.

"Bishop," I said. "Release my friend."

"Better do it," said Emilia, in a high pitched squeak.

There was a powerful thud at the door I’d barred. Then another. The men outside were deploying some sort of battering ram.

The Bishop was on his knees fiddling with the lock that held Gabriele’s chains. I pushed the dagger harder in. It broke the skin and entered that indeterminate space that wraps itself round any weapon that assaults an Immortal. It was if it had pierced the fabric of the universe. The thrill of the impossible tingled through my arm from grasping fingers to flexed shoulder. If I thrust home and broke off the blade the Antidote would flood into the nowhere space and annihilate it, the Immortal flesh would become common flesh and then the antidote would set about killing it.

"Quickly, please," said Emilia in a little girl voice.

The chains clattered to the stone floor. Gabriele sat up, rubbing her wrists. "You can do it now," she said.

"No," I said, "Not now."

"Or hand me a dagger and I’ll do it," she suggested.

"And how do we escape afterwards? There are twenty men out there. In fact the way they’re hammering at that door they’ll be through it soon. And all of them, I suspect., are armed with the antidote."

"Certainly are," said Emilia, gasping for breath. "Every bullet dipped in it."

"Ah," said Gabriele, "I see what you mean." She slid off the altar. "Do you know what these two were planning to do?"

"Drink your blood?" I suggested

"Certainly not," squeaked Emilia. "That’s so gross. We were going to anoint ourselves with it."

"The great ones of the pit," intoned the Bishop. "Love nothing better than the blood of an Immortal." He was sitting on the floor, with his knees drawn up, rocking backwards and forwards on his bony buttocks. "And if the Immortal also happens to be a virgin…" he grinned a great, face-splitting grin.

"I’m disappointed in you, Emilia, really I am," said Gabriele, glancing at the crazy little gnome. "You used to have much better taste."

"He’s a very clever man," said Emilia, haughtily.

The Bishop looked up and spat in our direction. "I invoke, Beelzebub," he intoned. "I invoke Ashteroth, I invoke…"

At which point the door burst open and several musketeers came stumbling through it.

Gabriele moved behind Emilia and twisted her arm up her back. I held the dagger at her throat. "Get rid of them," growled Gabrielle.

"Don’t shoot," squeaked Emilia.

Her musketeers continued to crowd into the chapel. Their guns wobbled about in our direction like the feelers of a band of exploring earwigs. "Go away," said Emilia, gathering confidence with every sentence "Did I summon you? Can’t you see this is all part of the ritual."

"Outside all of you," barked Gabrielle.

Do as I say," said Emilia." She spoke with queenly authority. "Do I have to give the order twice?"

The levelled guns were raised or lowered. The men in front turned back and found themselves having to push against the men still pressing through the door. The thing became a scrimmage. Weapons were dropped. A man somewhere in the middle had the breath crushed out of him, fell and was trampled. His comrades dragged him out by the heels.

"And shut the door behind you," shouted Gabriele.

The men obliged. We could hear them muttering gruffly outside.

"I invoke Asmodeus, I invoke Belphegor……" continued the Bishop, still rocking.

Emilia sat herself down on the altar. I sat beside her. "Now what?" I asked Gabriele.

"First of all I’m going to get dressed. Emilia, what did you do with my clothes?"

"They’re over there in the corner. Very neatly folded." She crossed her arms across her chest. "So what are you planning to do with me?"

"God knows. I’ll tell you in a minute. I can’t think without my clothes on."

"You might bring me my red cloak while you’re about it."

"Is this it?" She held it up."

"No, that’s purple. Can’t you tell the difference?"

"Not in this light, no."

"Anyway, that’s the Bishop's. You can bring it over too and cover him up.

He was still intoning. "I invoke Caacrinolas, I invoke Abaddon."

Oh shut up," she yelled at him.

He fell silent.

I took advantage of the lull in the action to reload my pistols.

Gabrielle returned and threw the purple cloak over his head. He made no attempt to remove it but continued to squat there, like a prized possession under its dust sheet.

Gabriele handed Emilia her cloak, then sat down on the far side of her.

The three of us, sitting in a line like bored schoolgirls, kicking our heels.

"Well, this is cosy," said Emilia. "Let’s play a guessing game. I spy with my little eye…"

"You know I’m going to kill you?" said Gabriele.

Emilia shuddered theatrically. "You two take things entirely too seriously."

Gabriele rolled her eyes to the ceiling.

"No, really," said Emilia. "If there’s one thing I’ve learned in the last two thousand years or whatever, it’s that life is all about having fun."

"How many people have you killed in the past few years?"

"Think of it as a round of blind man’s buff. I tig you- and you’re out of the game."

"And all this Satanic carry-on?" I asked.

"His idea," She nodded towards the muffled Bishop. "So amusing!"

"You were going to bathe in my blood," said Gabriele.

"Not bathe. Just a dab here and there. A little vulgar, perhaps, but sometimes vulgarity can be so thrilling."

"I’m still going to kill you."

Emilia shrugged. "Have it your own way."

"And then what?" I asked. "You’re going to kill Emilia and then what?"

"Yes indeed," said Emilia. "Answer her that, little Miss Bloodthirsty."

"We bluff our way out. Or we fight." Gabriele shrugged.

"Better to hold her as our hostage," I urged.

Emilia nodded vigorously.

"We ask the men for three horses and then we ride out of here," I continued. "You’d go along with that, wouldn’t you Em?"

"A midnight ride, what fun!" Emilia clapped her hands together. "Yes, I’m game. My cloak billowing in the air, my hair blowing in the wind."

"Whose side are you on, anyway?" asked Gabriele.

"Does it matter? You’ve suggested an adventure. I accept." It was as though she were doing us a huge favour.

Gabriele gave me a long quizzical look. "Actually," I said, humbly. "I’d quite like to get out of this alive."

"I love them both." said Emilia, addressing the ceiling. "Gabriele so fierce and brave and Purchas so wise and witty. Roll them into a ball and you’d have the perfect cavalier. Except, of course, that neither of them has a prick."

Gabriele sighed, took Emilia’s arm and marched her to the door, opened it and bowed her through. I followed behind. The musketeers were standing about in the garden, directionless, waiting for orders.

"Three horses for my friends and me," said Emilia in a commanding tone. "I’ll have the grey."

She turned on her heel and marched back inside. "Simple as that?" I asked.

"Simple as that," she smiled. "My men are hand-picked. All of them brave and strong. All of them personally devoted to me. But I don’t pay them to think."

"No tricks," said Gabriele, severely.

"Listen. I’m just a simple girl. I leave the tricky stuff to you clever people. Entirely straightforward, me. I like your idea of a midnight ride. I’m going along with it. So, really, Purchas, you can put that dagger away."

"I don’t think so," I said.

She shrugged.

There was a timid knock on the door. A musketeer was standing there with his cap in his hand. "Horses are ready, my lady."

"Very good. the Bishop will be in charge of things while I’m gone."

The man peered into the chapel. "I don’t see him, ma’am."

"That’s him," she pointed. "He allowed himself to get a little bit over excited, so we covered him up. Like a parrot. Perhaps someone would put him to bed."

Three horses, fully caparisoned, were waiting in front of the chapel door. The musketeers had withdrawn to a respectful distance, The excitable grey shook its ears and shifted its weight from side to side. Emilia sailed out ahead of us.

We had let her get away from us. "Hang on a minute," said Gabrielle.

Emilia grinned at us over her shoulder then vaulted into the saddle. Her horse reared up and pawed the air. "These men are the enemy," she said, pointing. "Shoot em down."

purchas @ 2006-09-23T09:28:00

2006-09-23T08:57:57Z

Gabriele had caught a couple of rabbits earlier in the day and we had brought bread and a bag of apples from home. By pooling resources, we made a tolerable meal. The last streaks of daylight faded out of the western sky and the stars emerged. I have travelled all over the world but I don’t believe any sky contains as many stars as the sky of Provence.

"Strange how things turn out, isn’t it?" said Gabriele. "I hardly thought when I saw her first that it’d end up like this."

"How did you meet her?" I asked. "You’ve never said."

"She was Cardinal Sforza’s mistress. We met at a reception in the Vatican. She was in a black dress, patterned all over with seed pearl. So beautiful. I’d never seen a woman so fine. Anyway, she noticed me."

I nodded in sympathy. I knew what it was like to be noticed by Emilia.

"So we went out onto a balcony and by the time we returned to the party we were engaged.

"Love at first sight," said Margery matter-of-factly. "I was like that with Purchas."

"Really?" I asked.

"Didn’t you know? First time you came into The Garter. You were just so different from our usual customers. Witty, respectful, intelligent- and way, way above me."

"Well I never."

Artemesia giggled.

Gabriele smiled indulgently. "Afterwards," she said. "When it came to drawing up the marriage documents, I learned that the Cardinal had been wanting to pension her off for ages and was delighted to have me take her off his hands. He even settled a dowry on her." She gave a brittle laugh. "I’ve never really known how much Emilia wanted me for myself and how much I was merely convenient."

"She could have had any man she wanted," I said. "You know that. You were the best man in the room that night. One thing she never was, was cynical. When she fell in love, however briefly, she was always utterly sincere about it. Each new lover obliterated the memory of the last."

"I like to think so. You know what? It sounds silly, but one of her secrets is that she’s so intensely virginal. You kiss her and her eyes sparkle as if she’d never been kissed before. And it’s not an act. Or not just an act." She sighed. "Even now, when I thoroughly hate her, it comforts me to think she may have loved me once."

"I met Helen of Troy once. Tanit, that is. Have you met her?"

"I never had that pleasure."

"I always thought Emilia was her equal. In beauty and charm, I mean; not in anything else."

"I loved her too," said Artemesia. "Back in the very beginning."

"Puts me in a minority of one, then," said Margery, tartly.

We finished the meal. Gabriele and I blacked our faces and hands with charcoal from the fire, wrapped ourselves in our cloaks and set off across the face of the mountain.

"Do you really believe what Artemesia was saying- about the washing away of sins?" I asked.

"Why, are you thinking of converting? I'd stand as your sponsor, you know. Nothing would give me greater pleasure."

"That's kind of you, but no, That sort of thing's not for me. But I suppose it must be comforting."

"Comforting? I suppose so. I've never thought of it that way."

"But you do believe?"

"I believe as my church instructs me to believe."

"That's evasive."

"No, not at all. I put my trust in those I know to be wiser than I. I'm a good soldier."

Emilia's chateau was a lot like ours, more country house than castle. It was approached by a road from below, but at the back there was nothing but forest and above that, the naked mountain side. By dropping down from above, we stood a good chance of getting to within pistol shot of the house without being observed.

We kept in the open to take advantage of the moonlight until we were directly above the house, then moved into the wood. "She’ll have guards posted, won’t she?" I asked.

"I would if I were her. I’d have dug earthworks through these woods or even put up some sort of palisade with watchtowers. The question is, has she had enough time?

"Probably not."

"No, she’s been here a day. That’s all."

"Does she know you’ve been following her."

"I don’t think so. Leastways, I don’t think I’ve been spotted. But again, if I were her, I’d assume it. She knows what I’m like once I get on the case."

"She’s not as smart as you are."

"No, but crafty as all hell."

It was very dark in the wood. We trod carefully, feeling our way. At last we spotted a light through the trees, low down, rather faint and flickering . "That’ll be the top of the tower," said Gabriele. "If there are guards, they’ll be somewhere close. Look, this is my line of business not yours: you stay here and I’ll scout ahead, explore the defences and neutralise them if need be. I’ll just be a few minutes. If I’m not back in half an hour you can assume I’m dead or being held prisoner."

"And then?"

"You’ve got a family to protect. Go back home and prepare for battle. And here, you’d better have this." She pressed something into my hands. I knew from the feel of it that it was the shagreen case.

"Wouldn’t it be better if I came with you?"

"No, I’m better off on my own. I’m practised at this sort of thing and I don’t have a problem cutting throats. See you shortly, God willing." She crossed herself and then she was off, scuttling forward on hands and knees.

I sat down with my back against a tree and waited.

The sound of the breeze in the tree-tops was like the sound of the sea, a continuous, rustling sigh, rising and falling. It drowned out any other noise. At one point I thought I heard a cry, but it could have been an owl or the shriek of the animal it was hunting. Time passed.

Too much time. I watched the moon’s progress through the tree-tops. I knew roughly how long it should take it to travel from point A to point B. Half an hour went by. Three quarters of an hour. A full hour.

I’d waited long enough. But I wasn’t going to retreat. Gabriele was my dear friend; I needed to know what had happened to her. I inched forward on hands and knees, the way I’d seen her do.

And then I put my hand on something soft. And wet.

I recoiled, sat up on my haunches and sniffed my hand. The unmistakeable smell of blood. I edged forward again and- very carefully- felt around the thing in front of me. It was a man’s body. He was lying on his back. And from the way the blood was distributed it seemed that his throat had been cut.

One up to us. And one less soldier in Emilia’s army.

So Gabriele had pierced the defences. Had she always intended to carry on without me?

I got to my feet, stepped round the body and pressed forward on foot. I could see more lights now and the bulk of a building against the sky. And then I parted the final branches of the wood and found myself stepping out onto the very edge of a cliff.

Fifteen feet below me, clearly visible in sharp-edged monochrome, lay a formal garden- a grid-work of gravel paths with flowerbeds between them and marble statues at the more significant intersections. The combination of moonlight and geometry was creepy.

I jumped down.

I landed on gravel and sprinted for the house. But the noise I’d made had been heard. Torches entered the garden. Lying full length behind a foot-high box hedge, I heard two sets of boots come crunching towards me, then stop.

"No-one here." said a voice. It spoke German with what I recognised- from time spent hanging out with Bors- as a Swiss accent.

"Must have been that damn cat again," said a second.

"If I catch it I’ll wring it’s fucking neck."

"Should we tell the boss?"

"She’s in the chapel. With the intruder. Strictly do not disturb. So, no- you just stay out here a while and keep an eye on things."

"Right you are, sarge."

One pair of feet clumped away.

The other pair stayed put. I heard them crunching in the gravel as the owner shifted his weight from one to the other.

The chapel? That would be the building with gothick windows projecting at right angles from the main body of the house. If I lifted my head I could see its east wall ahead of me, with a faint multicoloured glow at the window. But with a man posted in the middle of the garden there was no way I could get to it without betraying myself.

I lay there furiously thinking of a way out. And then the man started walking. He seemed to be moving away from me. I bobbed my head above the hedge and saw that he was going towards the bottom of the garden, his figure clearly outlined against the sheen of the limestone cliff.

I was on my feet in an instant, hopped into a flower bed- and from there to the next. Whatever noise I made- and it wasn’t much- was drowned out for the guard by the roaring of the forest above his head.

There was a roofed portico in the middle of the chapel block- a modern addition in the classical taste, with Doric arches to either side of a shallow flight of steps. The last few yards were across gravel, but the guard was too far away to stop me now . I heard him shout as I plunged beneath the portico.

Only to find to that there were two six foot men with halberds standing guard at the chapel door. Acting by reflex, I drew my pistols and shot them both.

The two large bodies fell inwards, bumped together and wrestled one another to the floor, I clambered over the huge quivering heap. The clinking of the latch was as loud as the pistol shots.

It flashed through my head how the Count had said I would live for ever and ever. Right now it didn’t seem the least bit likely.

purchas @ 2006-09-22T09:16:00

2006-09-22T08:25:11Z

There were many green-leafed trees on our estate. We had a special machine on wheels- a bit like a fire-pump- that the gardeners trundled around to keep them watered. Visitors from England said our shady driveway and flowery meadows reminded them of home. And that was very largely our intention. But once beyond the gateposts we were out in the Mediterranean sun. The landscape was yellow and brown, the trees either blue-black or grey and sere and the rocks so hot they were almost untouchable. Cicadas frizzled in every field- the essential sound of a southern summer- as if the grasses and bushes and twisted olive trees were giving vocal expression to their dryness.

Artemesia had come down through the mountains, by way of Grenoble and Aix les Bains, crossing into the Comtat over Mt Ventoux. We took the same road in reverse and, as we approached it, the great limestone jag of the mountain- so stony-white at the summit it looked as if it was covered in snow- rose to fill the sky. Our horses went at a slow walk, chewing stoically on their bits, shaking their ears and whisking their tails to unsettle the flies.

"Petrarch wrote a little book about climbing this mountain," I said to Artemesia. "He was the first man in history to think it worth doing."

"And Purchas has read it," said Margery. "I shouldn’t be at all surprised if he had a copy in his pocket."

"As it so happens…" I began.

"And he’s going to read it to us. What a treat!"

"Actually, it’s very interesting…" But it was no good, they were already, both of them, in a helpless fit of the giggles.

"That’s right," I said, "Gang up on me, why don’t you?"

"Oh Purchas," said Artemesia, "You’re just so funny."

We reached the summit that evening and paused to take in the view. The higher, genuinely snowy alps, of which Mt Ventoux is a solitary out-rider, stretched away into the violet distance and somewhere over there to the south-east, beyond the curve of the coastline and a silvery pink expanse of sea, lay the Italian peninsular. "Are you going to tell us what Petrarch, said?" asked Artemesia, sweetly.

More uncontrollable laughter.

Looked at one way I was a good deal older than either of them, looked at the other I was their geeky kid sister. Ah well…

We struck camp on the far side of the mountain, about half way down, in a sheltered nook among scrubby little pine trees. Margery took charge. She gave Artemesia a couple of canteens and sent her off to draw water from a stream we’d spotted higher up and told me to go gather fire wood.

I hadn’t gone far when I heard a horse whinny. It wasn’t one of ours because it came from in front of me, not behind. Horses are hard to hide. I crept forward and- at the foot of a huge protruding crag like a cathedral buttress- stumbled onto a camp not unlike our own. The horse was tied to the stump of a pine tree, a camp-fire had burned down to ashes within a ring of fitfully glowing charcoal and a single bedroll lay extended beside it. I put my hand to the butt of one of my pistols, stepped over the fire and peered cautiously round the edge of the buttress.

A light, musical voice, floated down from the sky. "Up here, Purchas." I looked and saw a face framed in long, loose hair peering down at me from the top of the crag.

"Gabriele," I said. "I won’t ask you what you’re doing here."

"Same as you, I imagine. Hunting big game. There’s a little path a few feet further on. Come on up."

I found her lying on her stomach looking out over the landscape with a leather tube in her hand. She turned on her side to greet me. "Take a look at this," she said.

I lay down beside her. She passed me the tube. "Is this one of those telescope thingies?" I asked.

"Invaluable piece of military equipment."

"What do I do exactly?"

"Shut one eye and put the end of the tube to the other."

I did as she said. The distant hills came leaping towards me. "Oh my," I said, hastily lowering the tube. "I thought I was flying."

She laughed. "A bit like smoking Kif, eh? You over the shock yet?"

"I think so."

"Then point the tube over there." She pointed. "Can you see that tall pine at the edge of the cliff?"

"I can,"

"Move slowly down in a straight line."

"I’m doing it. Ah yes. I see a turret poking out above the trees, about half way down the hill."

"That’s where she’s staying."

"Since when?"

"A couple of days. She has about twenty men with her. And that little, mad magician of hers. The house belonged to a man she killed in Austria. What with all her murders she’s now one of the biggest landowners in Europe. Want to go over and take a closer look?"

"What, now?"

"Shortly. Once it’s dark."

"It’s what I’m here for, I suppose."

"Good girl."

"I’ve got Margery and Artemesia with me. We’re camped just over the ridge."

Gabriele scrambled to her feet. "Then I must come across and say ‘hello’".

Margery had got a twig fire going in my absence. "Where have you been, Purchas? I got so tired of waiting I started without you." She glanced up. "Oh, hello Gabriele. I wondered if we’d run into you out here."

"Me too." Gabriele squatted down beside the fire. She was dressed very simply in black breeches and waistcoat with a plain white shirt. She had a black sash knotted round the waist to hold her knife and pistols. She looked like a very young and very handsome muleteer. "Hi Arty, I told you I’d see you soon."

"You killed her yet ?" asked Artemesia with a visible shudder.

"Sorry, no. But I’ve been tracking her . She’s just over there on the next hillside. Me and Purchas are going to sneak over after sundown and pay her a visit."

"Killed her?" I asked. "Did I hear you right?"

"That’s the general idea," Gabriele turned to face me. "It’s gone beyond a slap on the legs and off to bed with no supper, don’t you think?"

I glanced at Margery. She had the face of a hanging judge.

"Don’t forget," said Gabriele. "I loved her too. Know what they call her these days out East? The Red Death."

"That’s because she wears a red cloak," said Artemesia, helpfully.

"I’m with you, really," I said. It’s just such a big step. But I guess the Emilia I used to know is long dead."

"How exactly do you propose to kill her?" asked Margery.

Gabriele reached into her shirt and withdrew a long, flat box bound in dark green shagreen. She placed it carefully on the ground and opened the clasp. Inside, bedded in green velvet, lay a glass dagger . She lifted it up and held it against the sky and I could see there was a small quantity of a clear, opalescent liquid in the tip of it.

"One dose," said Gabrielle. "That’s all we have. And that’s why she’s still alive. I can’t risk using this unless I’m completely sure of getting to her."

Margery drew her breath noisily through her teeth. "We’ve been wondering how we could find the Antidote."

"Almost impossible. This is left over from the early days. I held onto it just in case. A certain person has the monopoly. She’s got all the existing stock, she’s got the recipe, she’s got the laboratories, she's got the tame alchemists."

"What about Melchisidech?" I asked.

"There is no Melchisidech. Not anymore."

"He’s dead?"

Gabriele nodded. "Emilia always controlled access to the Antidote. She was his supplier. And she also supplied the leaders of the Resistance. Both sides were in her pocket. She used Melchisidech, mastered the power structures he had perfected, then killed him."

"We hadn’t heard."

"You won’t have done. I only found out recently. Melchisidech was a very secretive man. Few people knew him by sight. That made it easy to keep his death a secret."

"You knew him, didn’t you?"

"I was his ally for a while. Or he was mine. We had a shared hatred of the Lutherans- as you know. He financed my operations. But I can’t say I ever really knew him. Not personally. Actually there wasn’t much there to know. He was a dried up husk. A little, old, grey-haired hidalgo. To see him, you’d think he was some minor court official- a librarian perhaps. He had no conversation. No interests. No vices- though he liked to sprinkle his conversation with obscenities to get a rise out of people. In the end he cared for nothing except maintaining his own position. I’m not sure Emilia didn’t do him a favour."

"And the war?"

"She is the war. The leaders of the resistance are as dead as Melchisidech.. She was playing one side off against the other. She killed him, then she killed them. The whole thing was so deeply secret that no-one realised what was happening until it was too late. And now there’s only her. She goes backwards and forwards across Europe killing Immortals. At first there may have been some sort of purpose to it. Now it’s just a habit or a madness. If we don’t stop her, she’ll carry on until there’s no-one left alive.."

"Well," said Margery, breaking the long silence. "We have been leading a sheltered life in the Comtat."

"So has everyone in Western Europe. Our communities in the East have been almost completely wiped out. Isn’t that right, Arty?"

"I don’t know for sure," said Artemesia. "But we did kill an awful lot of people in the last couple of years."

"Did you know about Melchisidech?" I asked her.

"I remember we killed a funny little old man in a castle on the Rhine. I think that name was mentioned. He knelt on the floor and begged for his life. I didn’t realise he was anyone important."

I gave Gabriele a worried glance. I hadn’t quite realised how deeply implicated Artemesia was in her mother’s murders.

"Don’t worry about Arty," said Gabriele reassuringly. "Arty has renounced the devil and all his works. Haven’t you, Arty?"

"When Gabby and I were in Prague I confessed to a Bishop," said the girl, smiling. "Then he baptised me into the true faith. It was lovely. So many candles. He said all my sins were washed away- even my suicide. That's right, isn't it Gabby."

Gabriele smiled indulgently.

purchas @ 2006-09-21T09:00:00

2006-09-21T08:01:18Z

She was sitting in the salon with her embroidery ring in her lap. When I told her what we were planning she clutched the ring to her bosom as if it were something of great value I was threatening to snatch from her. "Do we have to?" she asked.

"Yes"

"We’re not running away, are we? I’m sick of running away."

"No, quite the opposite. We’re going to look for her. That way we win back the initiative."

"You mean we get to do the ambushing?"

"Yes."

She put down the embroidery. "I’ll go and change."

I left the house and went down to the lake. It was strange to have our quiet meadow so full of people. Women were roasting a whole ox over a fire pit and their children were running and jumping about among the guy ropes of tent city and getting in everyone’s way- including mine; carpenters were knocking stage scenery together; painters were painting it; gardeners in Indian file were carrying potted rose bushes down to the lake and loading them onto a large raft to ferry them over to the island where men with scythes were mowing the meadow, a couple of surveyors were laying down the outline of the maze with pegs and string, and a team of builders were beginning to lay the foundations for the temple. In the middle of all this the Count had had a tower of scaffolding erected with a chair placed on top, and was sitting there with a loud-hailer, directing activities like Jove from Olympus.

"Magnificent, don’t you think," he boomed, addressing me through the loud hailer.

"Splendid." I shouted back. "Listen. We’re going away for a few days."

"Sorry," he boomed back. "I can’t hear you. I’ve deafened myself with my speaking trumpet."

There was a ladder fastened to the back of his tower. I climbed up to him and standing on the top rung, bent down to his ear and repeated what I’d just said. "If there’s anything you need, just have a word with my steward."

"I Don’t blame you leaving," he said. "It’s all a little noisy, isn’t it? Going to stay with friends?"

"Yes," I said and- suddenly thinking how if Emilia got to him before we returned it would be best if he misdirected her- added, "We’ll be in Aix."

"Aix les Bains or Aix en Provence?"

"Aix en Provence."

"Very pleasant too; I have friends in Aix. But you’ll be returning in time for the fete?"

"Of course; we wouldn’t miss it for worlds."

It was an odd conversation. I was standing directly behind him looking over his head. It was a clear day and I could see lots of sky and about thirty miles of rocky landscape. At no time did we actually look at one another.

"I’ve had another great idea," he said. "That raft." He pointed it out. "Once we’ve done with it we’ll anchor it out in the middle of the water, build an ornamental superstructure and put the musicians on it. What do you think?"

"Inspired."

"And later it can serve as platform for the firework display. Set off fireworks over water and you double the spectacle." A shudder ran through his entire body. "I’m on fire today. Consumed by visions of beauty. This fete will be as fine as anything I’ve ever done. Would you believe it, I’m composing a concerto for the floating orchestra even as I speak? No. I don’t need pen and paper. It’s all up here." He tapped the side of his head. "All the parts for all the different instruments. I’ll write it down tonight." He raised his forefinger as if conducting an invisible band and hummed a couple of bars.

"Charming."

"That’s a theme from the final movement. Sweet, but a little sad. The movements are- one: ‘the embarkation for Cythera’- two: ‘the pleasures of the Temple of Love’, three- ‘the return from Cythera.’

"The Concerto has a story then?"

"The universal story." He sighed. "The rising arc of a love affair, its happy fruition, its inevitable end."

"You’re a fatalist then, Monsieur?"

"A realist, I think. I know what men and women are capable of. I know my own heart."

I didn’t reply at once. I believed I knew mine as well.

"You disagree," he asked.

"Respectfully, yes."

"You have a youthful nature, monsieur. I envy you that. But working here in your beautiful grounds, I have been thinking a great deal of that austere painting of M. Poussin’s: The Shepherds of Arcady. You know it?"

"I do. I have a print of it in the house."

"Then all I need say is, ‘Et in Arcadia Ego.’

I answered without thinking- tag for tag. "Amor Vincit omnia."

"Love conquers everything?" He sounded surprised. "Even Time itself? I don’t think so."

"Even Time. Even marriage…"

He laughed. "I might have been willing to concede the first, but not the second. How long have you been married, monsieur?"

"I’m not married. But I’ve lived with the same woman for a century and a half."

"And you still love her with all the ardour of youth?"

"There are many kinds of love. There is the love between a man and a woman, there is the love between friends…"

"And the love between a man and a boy- which is the most fleeting of all. No, Monsieur, I hold to my philosophy. The rose withers and falls, the torch is extinguished in the dust." He hummed his little tune again. "Anything else would be inartistic." He hummed some more. "There is nothing so inartistic as a happy marriage. Endlessness is inartistic."

"Then we Immortals are the most inartistic things in God’s creation."

"We are, we are. Have you not noticed how we dwindle with the centuries? The only thing that stops us dwindling is if we ruthlessly let go of our past selves, our past lifestyles, our past loves."

"I am willing to let go of anything else, but not my loves."

"But Love ends," he spoke testily. "It’s in its nature to end. Nothing that is ardent can last. If an emotion endures it was never love in the first place. Affection may be prolonged into a habit. Love? No."

"Love is my religion . I have nothing else."

"And I am a man without religion. So I suppose I have nothing at all. But I find one can live that way."

"You have your art."

"My little tune may prove deathless, you think?"

"And why not?"

"Unlikely. But I salute your kindness. And your spirit. May you never be disillusioned."

"I don’t intend to be."

"And that’s in your power?"

"Certainly. The way I see it, love is a thing I do. Something I choose to do. I, me, myself."

"An act of the will?"

"Look at it this way: love is a verb before it’s a noun. I love, therefore my love exists. If I stop loving, love dies; if I keep on loving, it carries on."

"Forever?"

"In principle? Yes, why not?"

"But why? Why would one want to love the same person for ever? What about the pleasures of variety?"

"You mean, blonde, brunette, redhead- superficial differences like that?"

He nodded.

"And how about the pleasure of knowing a person so well that you and she are always finishing one another’s sentences off?"

"How incredibly boring."

"But it isn’t, I assure you."

He shook his head. "I don’t understand you at all. You speak like a woman. You seem to want to turn love into this painful duty."

"Not at all. I wake up every morning and think, ‘How nice; Margery is here'. This makes me very happy. And my love renews itself."

"Now you’re being fanciful; No man ever behaved like that. My first thought when I wake in the morning is, ‘I want my coffee."

I laughed. "You have a point. Coffee first, then love."

"Coffee first, then breakfast, then a promenade, then work, then dinner, then more work and only then perhaps- as the evening candles are being lit- will I permit love to tiptoe through the door."

"But that’s not love. Love isn’t a polite diversion. We aren’t talking about the same thing at all."

"No. Love is a mighty force. It treats us as its playthings. I have had that experience a few times. I no longer admit it."

"That’s a shame."

"Love is the wind. We are scattered before it."

"Or, like birds, we ride its currents."

"And what if the person you love turns against you- or betrays you- or dies?" There was anger in his voice.

I shrugged. "I have had that happen. So what? Why should it change how I feel? As a friend of mine once said, Love is not love that alters when it alteration finds."

"Pretty words, monsieur. But a love like that would be a terrible burden. Persisted in, it would destroy a man."

"Perhaps."

"So love destroys the lover. And, surely, that’s a kind of suicide. I return to my first position. Love dies.

"We seem to have come full circle."

"But you have given me food for thought. I may incorporate our argument into my final movement. In musical terms of course. Strings will speak to woodwind and woodwind to strings."

"And which am I ?"

"You are woodwind of course. Your arguments, though plaintive and beguiling, are nothing but air."

I laughed. "I’ll look forward to hearing it."

I let go of the chair back and dropped to the ground- a fall of about fifteen feet- picked myself up, then swept him ever so slightly too fulsome a bow. "But if you choose to give yourself all the best tunes, I shall fully understand."

"Have a good journey, Monsieur," he replied good-humouredly. "Give my regards to Aix."

I returned to the house, stuck my pistols in my sash, slung my cartridge belt over my shoulder and put on a cloak and hat. Margery and Artemesia were waiting by the front door, with the horses. They were wearing hooded riding cloaks; Margery’s was russet, Artemesia’s blue-grey. They looked very pretty, almost like sisters- and I said so.

"Thank you, kind sir," said Margery. "And you look just like one of the King’s musketeers- only shorter."

purchas @ 2006-09-20T09:20:00

2006-09-20T08:48:26Z

When I was about a mile from home I started hearing gunshots; They brought my heart into my mouth; I dug in my spurs and cantered the rest of the way. The Count’s carriage was drawn up by the front door.

I ran through the house, calling Margery’s name. No response. The building seemed deserted. I raced across the parterre and, leaning over the balustrade, saw how the meadow below was full of people. Straw targets had been set up and our servants, under the direction of the steward and head gamekeeper, were practising their musketry.

Margery and the Count were strolling amicably by the lake. He was wearing a very large hat with a very large, white plume and making theatrical gestures with his cane in one hand and a handkerchief in the other. The sound of their laughter came and went on the breeze as I jogged towards them.

"Why, Purchas, you’re out of breath," said Margery.

"I heard shooting," I said.

"You knew we’d scheduled target practice."

"I forgot." I bowed stiffly to the Count. "I apologise for not being here to greet you, monsieur. I was suddenly called away."

"No need to apologise, monsieur; your dear lady has been hospitality itself. You do society a great wrong to keep such a treasure hidden away at home."

Margery simpered. I smiled politely.

"The Count has been telling me his plans for the fete," said Margery. "The theme he’s decided on is the embarkation for Cythera. Isn’t that charming! Imagine our silly little lake as the Aegean and its island as the island of Venus!"

"I thought we might row over and take a look," said the Count. "I do like the little jetties you’ve built."

"We thought we might put the buffet on the island," I said. "You could hide the kitchen in the woods."

"No, no, no." said the Count," waving his hand impatiently. "The buffet must be on this side of the water. We’ll erect a marquee for it. The island is to be holy ground, sacred to the rites of Venus."

"That sounds a little risque," said Margery.

"Ah, dear lady," said the Count. "To the pure all things are pure. We will build a little temple I think. With a statue in it. And the breasts of the statue will gush with wine. The left breast white, the right breast red. Now what do you think of that?"

"It sounds expensive," I said. "Will the Duchess fork out for it?"

"She loves the idea. She believes in it."

"But all that wine…" I protested.

"There will be two putti, holding horns of plenty under each gushing breast. The wine will be endlessly recycled, so nothing need go to waste. It’s a very ingenious design. Pretty too. I left my sketchbook at the Duchess’s palazzo or I’d show it you."

We strolled out onto the jetty and climbed into one of the two row boats that were tied up there. "We’ll need more boats," said the Count. "A skiff or two would be nice. Know where we can get some?"

"There must be boat yards all up and down the Rhone," I said.

"I’ll get the Duchess’s people onto it. We’ll need cushions too. Big, red, plump cushions for reclining on. And the skiffs will need purple sails."

Margery took the oars. You don’t grow up as a tavern wench in a Thameside town without knowing how to row. The Count was enchanted. "A girl gondolier," he enthused. "What an inspiration! I shall hire a team of them to ferry lovers across the lake. Clad in diaphanous veils or - wait a minute- naked to the waist. What do you think?"

"The Comtat is a very conservative place," I said. "Remember, we’re a papal enclave."

He pulled a face. "I suppose you’re right. So we’ll dress them in the ancient Roman style. I see all this as one of M. Poussin’s landscapes brought to life." He leaned over the side. "Do you have any fish is this lake?"

"Carp, eels. Muddy-tasting things," said Margery. The boat slid in alongside the island jetty.

"They have the most wonderful gold and silver fish in China. I wonder if I can get hold of any…"

The island was roughly the shape of a diamond drop. The broader end, facing towards the house, had been cleared of scrub and was maintained as a flowery meadow; Margery and I used to have picnics there. The back end was wooded, with a path winding through it to the tip.

We paced the island lengthways, then from side to side, with the Count stopping every so often to make notes in a pocket book. He then selected a plot at the top end of the meadow as the site for his temple, measured it out with a foot rule and stuck hazel twigs into the ground to mark the corners of what was going to be an octagonal building. "And all this area here," he said, indicating the forepart of the island. "Will be a maze of box and juniper, with rose beds and benches and statues and fountains. The lovers will have to tread the maze to reach the temple. A pretty conceit, don’t you think?"

"Who are these lovers you keep talking about?" asked Margery.

"Oh the guests, I mean the guests." He fluttered his hand in the air.

Margery and I exchanged glances. The average age of the Comtat Immortals- I mean, of course, their apparent age- was around sixty. The image of all those be-wigged and corseted old people billing and cooing in the Count’s pleasure garden was irresistible.

We rowed back to shore. The Count took elaborate leave of us and returned to Avignon in his carriage. "Well," asked Margery.

"No go," I said. "Louis wouldn’t know where to start."

She looked up at our pretty little chateau. "A city set on a hill cannot be hid," she murmured. "We’re a sitting duck, aren’t we, Purchas?"

"We’ll think of something,"

Artemesia was sitting in the salon with an embroidery frame on her knee. She hadn’t bothered with the make-up. She looked really ill.

"That fat Italian chap," I said. " He wouldn’t be a friend of your mother’s would he?"

She shook her head. "I never met him before I came here."

"Oh Purchas," said Margery, "You don’t suspect the Count, do you?"

"Why not? He’s a stranger. He’s an adventurer."

"But he isn’t dangerous. Surely you can sense that?"

"But he might be her spy. He could be here scouting out the lie of the land. Did you let him in the house?"

"Of course. I couldn’t leave a gentleman like that standing around by the front door. He admired the salon, but said he thought it a trifle old-fashioned and would we like him to redesign it. He says he could get his friend, M. Le Brun, to paint the ceiling."

I sighed. "Perhaps I’m being over-cautious."

"No," said Margery. "You’re right in principle. We have to be on our guard- constantly. I was too trusting."

Artemesia made a little noise, and lifted her needle in the air as if asking permission to speak

"Yes," I said.

"My mother might send a spy. But she wouldn’t send an assassin."

"Are you sure," asked Margery.

"Oh yes. She always likes to be in at the kill. It wouldn’t be any fun for her otherwise."

"So we can expect her to turn up at the door, herself?"

"Possibly with her army. But that’s not really her style. She’s more likely to set an ambush. A death in the open air is easier to explain away. It could be a snake that did it. Or maybe bandits. It draws less attention to itself. That’s how she thinks."

"That’s helpful." I said, "Really helpful."

"Just don’t set foot outdoors," said Margery, cheerily.

The Count returned mid afternoon with a troop of tradesman- carpenters, upholsterers, gardeners, painters, cooks. The wagons rolled up the drive in a seemingly endless train, pulled round the house and parked in the meadow below the gardens. A city of tents took shape around them and smoke began to rise from four or five separate camp fires. We stood on the parterre and watched . It looked as if we were literally under siege.

"Wonderful!" said Margery. "Now the estate is simply crawling with strangers. And they’ll be in and out the kitchen and Lord knows what. Emilia could creep in with a gang of killers and nobody would notice."

"On the other hand," I suggested. "All this activity might put her off. Too many witnesses."

"Truth is, we don’t know anything about her plans. All we can do is sit here helplessly and wait for her to make her move. Like rabbits with a snake. I hate that." She wrung her hands. "I want to go on the offensive."

"Then that’s what we’ll do. We’ll go out and look for her."

A slow smile spread across her face. "You know, that sounds good."

"She shouldn’t be hard to find. A woman like her, travelling with twenty Switzers; she’ll stand out in this landscape like-

"Like a royal procession?"

"Yes. "We’ll retrace Artemesia’s journey and sooner or later we’ll either bump into Emilia or cross her trail."

"The servants can manage all this." She waved at the camp.

"Of course they can. We’ll take the girl with us. As long as we’re back in time for the fete everything will be fine."

"And if we do find Emilia?"

"We improvise."

She turned on her heel. "I’ll go pack."

"Only saddlebags. Keep it simple. Three horses, three riders. We’ll stay in the kind of cheap tavern Emilia would sniff at. Or camp out in the open. Why not, in this weather?"

"And you can go tell Artemesia."

purchas @ 2006-09-19T09:27:00

2006-09-19T08:45:14Z

There was a long silence. Artemesia looked at me, then at Margery, then at me again. "It’s true you’re the one who sent him to hell, isn’t it?" she asked anxiously.

"I don't remember sending anyone to hell"

"What's his name?" asked Margery

"He doesn't really have one. We just called him The Bishop, though he isn't one."

"Ah."

"Then it was you."

"I think it may have been. A small man, rather fat, looks about sixty, not much hair?"

She nodded.

"He was a Bishop once. Two hundred years ago. An English Bishop. But I didn’t exactly send him to hell; I threw him in the Thames."

She looked blank.

"That’s a river that flows through London. He was missing for months. Finally he got washed up on a beach in Flanders. We heard he'd gone mad."

"He is mad. He mutters all the time- mostly the names of demons and things. And he has these terrible rages where he tears things apart. In Salzburg, after we'd killed the owner, he went through a whole library, ripping every book in two. He said they were thinking bad thoughts about him. And he never brushes his hair." She brightened. "But he's afraid of you. Whenever your name comes up he starts spitting and swearing."

I had a conscience about the Bishop. I'd often wondered what had happened to him- and whether I ought to go looking for him and try to make things better.

Margery sensed my unease- and changed the subject. "Where's your mother now?" she asked.

"About a week behind me."

Margery kept her voice steady. "How can you know?"

"She nearly caught up with me in Vienna. I was packing to leave and her carriage passed right beneath my window. I escaped by a hair’s breadth. She followed me out the gates. I could see her dust coming up the road behind. I’ve gained on her since. I travel faster, you see, because she has so many people with her."

"So many people?" said Margery. "Lets be precise."

"She trusts nobody- so the bodyguards get changed regularly. When I left her she was travelling with a company of Switzers; twenty of them."

"Built like bulls, huge beards, receding foreheads, goitres?".

Artemesia laughed. "That’s them."

"And what do you think your mother wants with you." I asked. "Does she want to take you back?"

"Oh no. I’ve let her down. I’m less than nothing to her now. She’s planning to kill me." She smiled bravely. "But you’ll stop her, won’t you."

"Of course we will," I said.

Margery nodded vigorously.

Artemesia went to bed shortly after that. We gave her the room in the tower.

"So Emilia’s coming," said Margery. "And she’s got our friend the Bishop with her."

"I always knew we were on the hit list. I guess we’re at the top of it now."

"We need to prepare our defence. I suggest we march the staff down to the meadow tomorrow morning and give them some target practice."

"We can stop Emilia’s Switzers with muskets. But we can’t stop her."

"Any ideas?"

"There’s only one thing that will stop an Immortal."

"The Antidote."

"And that’s out of our reach. Melchisidech has a supply. The leaders of the resistance have a supply."

"And where do they get it from?"

"Who knows. From what I hear the alchemists who make it for them are kept under guard in secret locations. There’s no market in the stuff; not even the blackest of black markets."

"Then we have to make our own."

"How?"

"I’ve always wondered what the point of Louis Klipper was. Now I know."

I rode into Avignon early next morning. Louis had a druggist’s shop in the Jewish quarter. There was an outsize model of a pestle and mortar hanging over the door and the hundreds of green and brown glass vials stacked on shelves across the window made the interior as gloomy as the bottom of a fishpond. A stuffed cayman hung on chains from the ceiling.

Louis left his assistant behind the counter and ushered me into a back room. It was brighter in there. The sun threw a grid of sharp-edged diamonds across a whitewashed wall hung with charts and maps. "How about some plum brandy," he asked. "To make it seem even more like the old times?"

"Fine," I said.

He filled a couple of glasses. "To the old times!"

"To the old times." I reiterated. "Not that they were ever all that wonderful."

"No," He grinned. "I agree; These times are a whole lot better."

"But they’re not going to be better for much longer. Emilia is coming."

His fingered the old scar that reached round his neck from ear to ear. "That’s a pity. I was liking it here. But then again, I’ve always wanted to visit Madrid."

"She’d follow you," I said. "She’d keep on coming until you ran out of road."

"What’s she want, then?"

I told him all about Artemesia.

"You think Emilia will try and take her back."

"I’m sure of it. Or maybe she’ll try and kill her."

"So can’t we send her away- out of the Comtat?"

"We could, but we’re not going to."

"You were always too moral for your own good, Perky."

"Maybe. But sending her away would solve nothing. Just postpone the crisis. Emilia is on a mission to kill Immortals. She might give us a miss for the time being, but she’d come here in the end.."

"It would buy us time."

"We’ve offered Artemesia our protection. That’s non-negotiable."

He scratched his stubbly chin. "You’re making things very difficult for yourself, Perky. What you gonna do when Emilia shows up. She’s got the Antidote. Ain’t no defence against that."

"The only defence is the Antidote itself."

"And where are you going to get hold of it?"

"I thought you might be able to make it for me."

He held up his hands. "Hang about a bit, Perky. Not so fast."

"You made the Elixir."

"I had a recipe. I can follow a recipe. Though even that took me years. Working out what all that alchemistic gobbledy-gook really meant. But the Antidote…"

"Can’t you just sort of reverse the recipe."

"Ain’t as simple as that."

"No?"

"If it were don’t you think Europe would be flooded with the stuff?"

"Could you try?"

He rose and reached down a book from the shelf behind him. I recognised it as Andrew Sartorius’s manuscript. He turned to the back and riffled through the stubs of the pages I’d torn out sixty years before "And where do you suggest I start?"

"That was foolish of me," I said humbly. "I thought if I destroyed the recipe…"

"Nice try. But the horse had already bolted, innit? Now Melchisidech has the Antidote. Emilia has the Antidote. All the bad guys have the Antidote and- thanks to you- us good guys don’t."

I hung my head. "I was naïve…"

"Sure and now, since you ain’t gonna tell that girl to get lost, I suggest you and she and Margery pack your bags and we all head for the Pyrenees."

"I’ve told you; I’m not running,"

"Alternatively, get that chateau of yours ready for a siege."

"I’ll do what I can. But we can’t entirely pull up the drawbridge; there’s the fete coming up. I’ve got to see that through. Which reminds me, the Count is supposed to be looking over the property this morning and I’d forgotten. Rats!"

"That’s a dodgy character, Perky"

A sudden fearful doubt crossed my mind. "You don’t think…?"

"That he’s working for Madonna Grimaldi? Why not?"

"And I’ve left Margery unprotected." I grabbed up my hat. I suddenly remembered what the Count had said about summer storms . What if it had been a threat? What if he were Melchisidech’s assassin. What if he were carrying the Antidote?

"Sorry, Perky." said Louis, following me through the shop and out into the street. "It’s not that I don’t want to, but I can’t. I’m not up to it. Your friend Sartorius was an original. I’m not. Get me the recipe and it’d be a different matter."

purchas @ 2006-09-18T08:33:00

2006-09-18T07:41:31Z

We took Artemesia to the salon and left her there while we went down to the kitchen to order up a meal from the cook.

Once we were out of earshot Margery laid into me. "Who the hell is that?" she asked fiercely.

"Who she says she is, I think." And I told Margery all that Artemesia had told me.

"She could easily be lying. And even if she’s telling the truth, who’s to say that she doesn’t have a glass dagger up her sleeve."

"I’m still alive, aren’t I? Besides, she has honest eyes."

She tutted at me. "Really Purchas, you know ‘there’s no art to find the mind’s construction in the face.’"

"I know, I know. Just trust me…"

"I do up to a point, but when our safety is at stake we play by my rules. Once we get back to the salon, I’m going to grill her."

"I think she’s fragile."

"Poppycock. You’re just too soft-hearted. She got herself here, didn’t she? Halfway across Europe all on her ownsome? Besides nothing I say is going to kill her."

We asked the cook to prepare a light meal for three and returned to the salon. Margery moved a chair so she was facing Artemesia and sat down, legs apart- a most unladylike position- with her hands on her knees. "Right," she said, "You’re a smart young lady. You know there’s a war on. You know we can’t just take you on trust. So you’ll forgive me if I now start asking the tough questions. You’ve had inquisition by feather duster- that’s Purchas- now the brass knuckles are coming out- that’s me. If you don’t want to face it, you can leave. I’m going to start counting . If you’re still here when I get to ten I’ll assume you accept my conditions."

Artemesia shuffled in her chair. "I’ve got nothing to hide," she said sniffily.

"One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten. Right. Off we go. You wear too much make-up and you hold your head funny- what’s all that about?"

Artemesia burst into tears.

I moved towards her, but Margery made a fierce gesture to hold me back. "I told you it was going to be tough. Answer the question or you’re out the door."

The tears became a flood. Artemesia leapt from her chair, threw herself at Margery and began batting at her with her fists. I stepped in, hauled Artemesia off- which wasn’t easy because she was so big and uncordinated- and threw her back into her chair. I looked at Margery. Margery looked at me. "Kid’s all right," she said.

Artemesia glanced up, with great glistening eyes- like a virgin martyr by Guido Reni. The tears had left bluey-grey furrows down her cheeks.

"Yes," said Margery. "You heard me right. I said, you’re all right. No professional assassin ever fought in such a girly fashion. But you’re not off the hook yet. I want an answer. Take your time, but if you want us to take you in you’ve got to tell us what you are." She smiled encouragingly. "Fair’s fair."

Artemesia sobbed, swallowed and spat it out. "I’m a monster," she said.

"So are we all, my dear. So are we all."

"You said your mother did you a great wrong," I hinted.

"She destroyed me."

"What happened exactly."

"You’ll hate me."

"Possibly," said Margery. "Possibly not. We’re taking a great risk with you. You can reciprocate by taking a risk with us."

"I was nineteen. Nineteen in real years. I wasn’t an immortal. We were staying in Berne. My mother had a Burgermeister to kill. She used to use me as bait if she was killing a man. I was very pretty then."

"You still are," I said gently.

"No I’m not," she snapped back.

"Carry on with the story." said Margery.

"We had arranged a tryst. The burgermeister and I. By the river. I didn’t entirely hate him. He was a much older man, but not ugly. He had a fatherly way about him. He told funny stories. Anyway, my mother had her men lying in wait. Crossbows with poisoned quarrels. We were strolling together; he was telling me about his wife and how horrid she was to him and he got a quarrel right through the neck. Fired at close range so it flew out the other side. Have you seen what the Antidote does to people? How it messes up their faces? Afterwards, when we got back to the schloss, I knotted my bedclothes into a rope and hung myself."

I let out an involuntary gasp of horror.

"I broke my neck. I think I was dead. Properly dead. Though I suppose I can’t have been- quite. Anyway my mother broke down the door and forced the Elixir between my lips. I was dead and she brought me back. Ever since then I’ve been this monster. Not properly alive. Not properly dead."

"I didn’t know the Elixir could do that," I said.

"Well it can. Because I’m the proof. I’m Nosferatu."

"You have been in Bucharest then."

"That’s what the wormies there used to mutter behind my back."

I put my arm round her shoulders. "Enough," I said.

"Quite enough," said Margery. There was a knock on the door, "O look, supper has arrived."

We walked to the door together.

"You know what this means," she whispered.

"We have a house guest," I suggested.

"Well yes, but more than that. It means that the war has come to the Comtat."

The cook had sent up a game pie and a couple of bottles of wine. We coaxed Artremesia into taking her share. She didn’t actually need much persuading. I don’t know what it is, but I’ve never known an Immortal who didn’t enjoy their food. Maybe it’s because eating is pure pleasure for us, without any unpleasant side effects. We don’t put on weight. We don’t suffer indigestion. We don’t get nauseous.

While we were eating I despatched a messenger to Avignon to tell Athenais that her guest was staying with us.

"What was my mother like when you first knew her?" asked Artemesia, her mouth full of pie crust.

"Very sweet and charming," I said. "She was the one who taught me how to read. She introduced me to the Arthurian romances. And Boccaccio. She was like an older sister to me. A very glamorous older sister."

"She was always chasing men," said Margery drily.

"Well, yes, that as well."

"She was married to Gabriele, wasn’t she?" asked Artemsia.

"I believe so."

"Would you say she was mad?"

"Yes," said Margery.

"Yes and no," I said. "There always seemed to be something feverish about the way she fell in and out of love. I couldn’t keep up with all her boyfriends."

"It’s odd," said Artemesia. "In all the time I’ve known her, she’s never taken a lover."

"Perhaps she concealed them from you," I suggested.

"No, I’d have known. She kept me by her all the time. I was like her lap dog; there to be given sweetmeats when she was in a good mood and beaten when she wasn’t. Her only interest in men was how to get at them to kill them."

"That’s so strange," I said.

"She finally flipped," said Margery.

"What do you think?" I asked Artemesia.

"I think she’s possessed."

"By demons?" asked Margery.

"Yes," said Artemesia.

"Then we need the services of an exorcist," said Margery.

"Do you know one?" asked Artemesia., eyes blazing.

"You’re serious, aren’t you?" said Margery, a little taken aback.

"Aren’t you?" said Artemesia.

"Margery used to be a demon," I explained. "Back in England. She rode with a outfit called the Wild Hunt. It was all about dressing up in animal masks and scaring the peasantry . So no, she doesn’t believe in demons. I don’t suppose I do, either."

"I’ve seen things," said Artemesia, solemnly.

"Seeing is one thing .." I ventured.

"No," she insisted. "I’ve really seen things. I don’t mean spooks. I mean things my mother and her friends have done."

"Such as?"

"Terrible things…"

Margery filled our glasses. "You’re among friends," she purred.

"There’s a little old man my mother knows."

"Yes," said Margery soothingly.

"He’s a devil. Literally a devil."

"Surely not," said Margery.

"They say he spent a hundred years in hell. And came out again, alive."

"That doesn’t sound terribly likely."

"I’ve seen him perform the black mass over my mother’s naked body. They killed a baby together."

"A charlatan," I said. "Like Count Castelgandolfo. All magicians are charlatans, more or less. Ask my friend Louis."

"You’re not listening to me," said Artemesia. "This man is different. He’s the wickedest man alive."

"Have we heard of him?" asked Margery.

"I think you have," said Artemesia. "He says it was Purchas who sent him to hell."

purchas @ 2006-09-17T09:13:00

2006-09-17T08:53:00Z

I pulled on the reins and my horse stepped back. The girl’s hands hung loose at her sides; neither seemed to conceal a weapon. "Mlle Despiner," I said. "An unlooked for pleasure."

I know this is irregular," she said.

"Not at all."

I dismounted and bent to retrieve Pascal, showing her my back. It was a test- a provocation- but perhaps she was aware of that. I straightened up and found she hadn’t moved. I walked towards her. I wanted to see her eyes.

"Thank you, Monsieur," she mumbled. The eyes dropped as I approached. Either she was a very clever actor or she really was the shy, gauche girl she appeared to be.

"Shall we walk?" I suggested.

"That would be pleasant. The Marquise knows nothing of my being here, by the way." She had a plucked a handkerchief from her bosom and was twisting it like a wet rag.

"So what can I do for you?" I asked.

"I have questions I should like you to answer for me"

"Yes."

"But first, perhaps, I should tell you who I am."

"If I pretended not to be curious I would be lying."

"My mother has told me so much about you. I don’t know, but I somehow expected you to be bigger ." She was a tall girl, approaching six foot; my head reached barely her shoulder.

"And your mother is?"

"Promise you won’t be angry."

"Why should I be?"

"My mother is Emilia Grimaldi."

"Ah." For a moment I expected the flash of the glass dagger and the onrush of darkness.

"Do you hate me now?"

"Of course not." I was getting over my surprise. "So you’re Emilia’s daughter. How strange. I wouldn’t have recognised you.…"

"She’s not my real mother." There was contempt in her voice.

"Of course not."

"So I don’t look a thing like her."

"I know. But I saw you once before…"

"I didn’t think we’d ever met."

"You were asleep- in your father’s house. I looked in at the nursery door. You must have been seven or eight at the time." This was the elusive memory that had been triggered by my sight of her the night before. I was glad to have identified it. " How is your mother?"

"In good health- as far as I’m aware. I haven’t seen her in months."

I wasn’t sure if I was disappointed or relieved.

"My mother hates you, you know."

It was over sixty years since our estrangement, but it still hurt. "We were friends once." I murmured, "Very good friends."

"I know that too. She says you betrayed her."

I laughed drily. "I betrayed her? I don’t think so."

"Neither do I. My mother is an evil woman. I came to Avignon to escape her. And to find a champion." She fixed me with a long fierce look, as if probing for weakness.

"A champion- me?"

She nodded. "Other Immortals fear you. My mother fears you. I was bold enough to hope that my mother’s enemy might prove to be my friend."

"I am not really your mother’s enemy," I began, then remembered how the long friendship had ended. "Not of my own choosing, anyway."

"She says you led the army of Immortals that attacked the house where she and my father were sheltering."

I laughed; the misrepresentation was just too grotesque. "That was an attempted rescue, believe it or not. We thought your mother was being held prisoner."

"By my father?"

"Your mother was married to a member of the Catholic underground. Your father was one of King James’s secret policemen. They were enemies. Or so we thought. You father arrested your mother and carried her off to his castle in Kent. I and my friends infiltrated the castle with the intention of setting her free. As it turned out, she had seen her advantage and, at some point in the proceedings- I don’t to this day know quite when- had gone over to the other side."

"She was a traitor, then?"

"I never thought of it in quite those terms. Your mother was always volatile- always subject to sudden changes of affection. Your father was very handsome, very dashing. I like to think that- for a few days, anyway- she was honestly in love with him. Her loves were always intense. They blotted out everything else. She’s a person who lives entirely in the present moment."

"That sounds very like her".

"It’s not a bad way of coping with Immortality."

"But my parents fell out, didn’t they? Do you know what happened?"

"I don’t. I never actually saw them together. We went to their house in London and..." I halted, not sure how much she knew or how delicate her feelings were.

I know," she said, calmly. "You discovered that my mother had killed my father. Gabriele told me."

"You know Gabriele?"

"It’s a long story. My mother was hunting Gabriele. But Gabriele found her first. He broke into our house- it was on the Grand Canal in Venice- and came to my room. He told me the whole, true story. He’s very fond of you, you know. It’s almost as if you were his hero."

"Really?" I felt tears come to my eyes. I blinked them away. " I admire him too. Very much."

"Anyway. I ran off with him in a gondola."

"Good grief! You believed Gabriele over your own mother? Just like that?"

"But she isn’t my mother, is she? That’s the whole point! I only call her that out of habit. She stole me from my murdered father. My real name," She squared her shoulders and spoke it with pride. "Is Artemesia Polkinghorne."

"That’s true."

"And my mother has always been my enemy. In the early days she treated me like her doll. Then, when I grew less biddable, she started to be cruel." She paused and then spoke in a murmur. "She did me a great wrong."

I raised my eyebrows.

"I prefer not to speak of it."

"And now?"

"And now I’m here. Gabriele left me with Madame Popescu and Madame Popescu sent me to the Marquise and the Marquise turns out to be your friend. I see a pattern in it."

"Yes?"

"You’re not afraid of my mother, are you?"

"No. Not in the least. If anything I pity her."

"Then I have come to the right place." She permitted herself a brief, girlish smile. "Everyone else I’ve met is mortally afraid of her. Mme Popescu couldn’t get me off her hands fast enough. She was terrified my mother would find me at her house and kill us all."

"Was Mme Popescu right to be afraid?"

"Oh yes." She gave me a look of huge-eyed solemnity. "My mother is a killer of Immortals. That’s what she does. Whenever she arrives in a town, people die."

I asked the question I’d been longing to ask for decades. "Why?"

She looked perplexed. "There’s a war on, isn’t there? That’s how my mother explains it. She just says, ‘these are bad people’ or ‘these are our enemies’. When I was younger I believed her. Not any more."

"You don’t know why- or for whom- she does her killing."

The girl shook her head. "Do you?"

I thought about it. "No, I don’t. This seems to be the way with wars. After a while people forget what they’re fighting for. All notions of right and wrong go out the window. They just hate the enemy and that’s the only thing that counts."

"I believed you were evil. Simply because my mother said you were. She didn’t have to explain why."

"This war has been a disaster for our kind. It’s divided friend from friend. I’ve always tried not to take sides."

"Me too. I mean I’ve been in it. I’ve been a soldier, as it were. But now I want to get out." She looked me full in the face. "Can I come and stay with you? I wouldn’t be any trouble?"

"I thought you were staying with the Marquise."

"You don’t want me then?"

"No, that’s not it at all. It’s just a question of- erm- good manners. You can’t just walk out on your hostess."

"I’d ask her of course."

"Good. But there’s my friend- Margery. She has a say in it too."

"Can I meet her?"

"I don’t see why not."

"Now?"

I looked her up and down. "Can you ride?"

"Of course I can. And shoot and fence. I’ve been well trained."

I climbed into the saddle and held out my hand to her. "Then jump up behind me."

There was a mile of sun-blistered Provencal countryside between us and my home. It was an uneasy ride. All the time I was half expecting to feel the glass dagger in my ribs.

But the thrust didn’t come. We arrived at the foot of the gentle hill that rose towards the house and there was Margery in an earth-coloured dress walking among the vines. I reined in the horse, Artemesia jumped down and I followed. Then I took her by the hand and introduced her.

"Artemesia Polkinghorne," I said.

The girl laughed awkwardly. "No-one has called me that for sixty years. It feels odd but nice."

"She has run away from her…" I halted and corrected myself. "From Emilia. Whom she hates as much as you do."

Artemesia curtsied. Margery held out her hand. "Anyone who hates Emilia is a friend of mine," she said blandly. "Nice to meet you."

"She thinks we can protect her from her… From you know who."

"I’d like to stay with you if I may," said Artemesia.

Margery gave me a searching look.

Artemesia was standing in front of me so I was able to shrug and pull a face expressive of helplessness without her seeing.

"Well," said Margery, "Let’s go up to the house to discuss it."

purchas @ 2006-09-16T09:01:00

2006-09-16T08:48:52Z

I listened as her cork heeled shoes tip-tapped down the corridor, then got out of bed and locked the door behind her. I walked to the window. The angular bulk of the Palace of the Popes had bitten a large chunk out of the starry sky. The city was very still. A slight, fluttering breeze, cooled on the mountain tops, patted the sweat from my face.

Over the past sixty years I had learned to be afraid of death. Like every other Immortal I took precautions; I lived in a sort of a castle, I filled my sort of a castle with fighting men, I carried weapons everywhere. But I knew these precautions were largely futile, more about raising my own morale than deterring an enemy. Ours was a war without battles and largely without skirmishes- fought not by armies but in secret by secret assassins.

I was no-one very important, but I knew I was unloved by the rulers of our Order. If Melchisidech was making a clean sweep of his enemies, my name had to be somewhere on his list. Probably quite low down. But as the list got shorter through a process of attrition so my name would be creeping higher.

Would he send an assassin especially for me? Yes, he might.

The antidote to Immortality could be administered in two ways. Either orally or intravenously. Though poisoned bullets and poisoned arrows had been occasionally used, the preferred agents were the poisoned dagger and the poisoned cup. Most of our dead had probably known and even trusted their killers.

Could Mlle Despiner be Melchisidech’s assassin? Not impossible.

There was no defence against the antidote. If the assassin was a fellow Immortal the only way to deal with him was to turn his own weapon against him- or run away.

Only once you start running when and where do you stop? A deathless assassin has time on his side. And where do you hide? An Immortal can change her identity but she can never cloak her aura. A trained eye will pick her out unerringly in a crowd of thousands.

How much simpler if I’d possessed the antidote myself. But I didn’t. No-one in the Comtat did.

I had made my decision. I left the window, unlocked the door and went downstairs. This was my house and I knew my way about it, even in the dark. The door of the guest chamber which had been given to Mlle Despiner was ajar. I pushed it open and stepped inside.

The curtains were drawn round the bed. I stood and listened until I sure she was asleep, then swiftly and systematically went through all her things. A few dresses were hanging in the wardrobe and a big travelling case, still unpacked, lay underneath the window. I was trained as a burglar; I knew what I was doing. Finally I parted the bed curtains and looked in at the sleeping girl.

She lay on her side with her hair spread out on the pillow like a fiery halo. Her skin was colourless in the moonlight- flawless too- so it wasn’t the pox she was hiding. She looked very frail and very young. Something about her attitude, about the shape she made in the bed, about the scent in the air, stirred a long-dormant memory.

Something I’d seen, something I’d heard about, something I’d read in a book? No I couldn’t place it.

I knelt and felt under the mattress, moved round the bed and did the same on the far side, then, swiftly and smoothly, ran my hand beneath her pillow.

She stirred. By the time she woke I was outside in the corridor. "Who’s there?" she asked in a faltering, little-girl voice.

I rapped lightly on the door and went back in. "Only me," I said. "I was just passing by."

She had pulled back the curtain and was sitting up in bed, her eyes wide and glassy. "Oh, M. Purchas." she said. "So that’s all right then. I thought there was someone in the room."

"If there were I’d have seen them leave. You must have been dreaming. Go back to sleep."

"Yes, yes, I will." She was only half awake. She drew the curtain and I heard her head nestle back on the pillow.

"Goodnight," I whispered.

"Goodnight, M. Purchas."

I returned to my room. I hadn’t found what I was looking for. And if I, with my expertise in such things, hadn’t found it, it wasn’t there to be found. I didn’t bother to lock the door.

After breakfast next morning Athenais and I drove out into the country to see about the lease on a watermill we jointly owned. Ever since I found a Roman treasure outside Orvieto in the 1480s I have been independently wealthy. In the early years I allowed my friends Huon and Lucius (Pertinax’s older brother) to handle my money and make investments on my behalf, but over time I had developed a taste for business. I particularly liked managing property. At this stage of my career, in the year 1670, I owned quite a large portfolio- in Orvieto, Rome, Venice, York, Windsor, London and in and around Avignon.

After speaking to the miller we repaired to a hillock on the property, where, within sight and sound of the stream that turned the mill and shaded by an umbrella pine, we ate chicken in aspic with fine crusty white bread and consumed a couple of bottles of white wine from one of my estates. The sunlight danced through the canopy, the happy little stream ran sparkling at our feet, the wine fizzed in our noses. We flirted harmlessly and as the world expected us to and with a bittersweet sense of what might have been if things had been arranged a little differently. Then, feeling at peace with the world, I took leave of Athenais, waved her off down the Avignon road and turned my horse’s head towards Carpentras.

I took Les Pensees out of my coat pocket and opened at the place I’d marked with a straw.

"Few friendships would survive if each one knew what his friend says of him behind his back."

I read the sentence three or four times before its meaning fixed itself in my mind. Ah Pascal, you old cynic- you old realist- this isn’t the tune I want to hear. Tell me your dreams instead. I flipped forward and started reading at random.

"I find this succession, this religion, wholly divine in its authority, in its duration, in its perpetuity, in its morality, in its conduct, in its doctrine, in its effects. The frightful darkness of the Jews was foretold. Eris palpans in meridie."

Now that’s better. The stern music of Jerome’s Latin

Eris palpans in meridie
Eris palpans in meridie
Eris palpans in meridie

I was all but asleep in the saddle, nodding over the horse’s mane and half-thinking, half-dreaming of one of my favourite walks along the Thames- past Datchett, past the funny little pepper pot spires of Eton chapel- when a figure stepped out from under a tree and blocked my path.

The horse shied. I nearly fell off. Pascal dropped into the road. "M. Purchas," said Mlle Despiner. "I need to speak to you."

purchas @ 2006-09-15T09:16:00

2006-09-15T08:18:24Z

We made our way to an adjoining room where high backed chairs had been set out in a semicircle round a harpsichord. A couple of seven-branched candlesticks had been placed so as to cast light on the keyboard and the performer’s face.

When his audience was seated, the Count entered, smiled amiably, flexed his sausagey little fingers and took his seat. He had persuaded the Duchess to turn the pages of his music for him. From the look in her eyes you could tell she was already in love.

He gave us a mixed programme, beginning with a couple of pieces by Lully- in deference, I suppose, to local taste- then launched into a succession of bravura pieces by Frescobaldi and Trabaci, ending up, with "a little thing Signor Pasquini was good enough to write for me." He played fluently and flashily, with the sort of improvised ornament designed to flatter the musician rather than the music. I was impressed- as I was meant to be.

"Not bad," said Pertinax. "He also talks to the dead, I understand."

"Really,"

"A friend of mine attended one of his seances. In Weimar I think it was. He wore a thing on his head like a bishop’s mitre, only twice the size, filled the room with incense smoke and then had Julius Caesar walk among the crowd in a bloody robe with a whole bunch of daggers in his breast. It caused a proper scandal, I can tell you."

"How so?"

"My friend is the same age as me, so he knew it wasn’t Caesar. After all he’d known the chap personally. So he got hold of the hem of the toga and pulled and- guess what- the ghost was wearing shirt and pantaloons underneath. Turned out it was the Count’s manservant. Frightful fuss. The Count packed his bags immediately and was gone in the morning."

"I’ve never seen a ghost," I said wistfully.

"I’ve seen too many. Believe me, they’re over-rated.

"So you believe in life after death?"

"Of course I do. Luckily, you and I don’t have to worry about things like that."

"Don’t we?"

"Not if we keep our heads down and our noses clean. From what I hear, the war’s as good as over. When was the last time there was a killing in Western Europe?"

"Cologne, May '68."

"Well there you go. Over two years now. No, take it from me, they’ll be signing the peace treaty any time now. The thing’s been fought to a standstill."

The soiree followed the usual course of such things. Refreshments were served- and very good they were too. Then the card tables were set up. The Count requisitioned one and put it in the corner behind a folding screen and had the Marquise announce that he was available to "plumb the secrets of the Fates" or- in other words- tell fortunes. A little queue of ladies formed outside the screen. I watched the last of them in and out, then gave my excuses to whoever it was I was talking to and dived in.

"M. Purchas," said the Count. "How good to see you. May I confess that I set this little stall up in the hope that I’d lure you in."

"I’m honoured. But why me in particular? Or is that what you say to all your clients?"

"I’d heard you were sharp. You don’t disappoint." He swept his hand in a half circle. "No, believe me; you interest me mightily. Most of these people here tonight purchased their immortality. They hired some poor artist like myself to make the elixir for them. They’ re common or garden rich folk- dull, dull, dull!. But you and I are different. Your story- what I know of it- fascinates me. You’re something of a legend."

"So you know Tanit."

"I was her pupil." The little yellow eyes twinkled.

"I didn’t think she accepted them."

"She doesn’t. But she takes lovers. Or did. This was rather a long time ago. While I was with her I managed to wheedle out a secret or two. Would you care to show me your palm?"

I presented it to him. "This is the third time I’ve done this."

"Tanit, me and who else?"

"My friend Louis Klipper. You may have met him earlier this evening."

"The little Jew? Is he any good?"

"Fabulous."

"Then we must strive diligently to excel." He raised my hand to within three inches of his eyes. His tight, little, snorting breaths tickled the inside of my wrist.

"Ah," he said. " I see what Tanit meant about the kings." He laughed pleasantly. "One about two hundred years ago, another about twenty years ago. And, oh dear me, there seem to be more of them to come. Of course it’s bad for business, but I’ll admit to a sneaking feeling of pleasure when a great man comes to a nasty end."

"No-one loves a patron."

"Too true. Oh the wearisome labour of having to write odes and dedications for them! All that unwholesome flattery! I can feel the poison working its way up from the tip of my pen, through the lymphatic system and into the brain itself."

"Doesn’t the flattery come from the brain?"

"Oh no, the pen plucks it from the air." He chuckled. "The atmosphere of courts is thick with it." He chuckled again. "How good to see that you’re a true Immortal."

"How do you mean?"

"In recent years I’ve grown used to seeing Immortal lifelines that break off short. Ever since the Antidote came into the world there’s been a dearth of true Immortals. That thing’s a plague very few of us will survive."

"But I will?"

"Oh, yes." He peered closer. "Your life just goes on and on and on. But here’s something else: you have a secret. A very big secret. One that goes to the very centre of your being. Only those who love you know it. It means that the whole of your life is- how shall we put it- a masquerade." He raised his eyes to mine and they were shrewd and piercing.

"Tanit told you," I said.

"No," he replied, quite soberly, still holding eye contact. "On my honour, Mademoiselle."

I snatched my hand away.

He shook his head sadly. "Tut, tut, tut. I won’t tell anyone, you know. Your secret is as safe with me as it would be with your priest." He flicked his eyes from panel to panel of the screen that enclosed us . "The seal of the confessional applies."

I continued to glare at him.

He held out his own pudgy, white palm. "Please," he said. "I didn’t mean to startle you. I shan’t do it again. Mea culpa. But you’d hardly have respected my powers if I’d have missed such an immediately apparent thing."

"Is it really so obvious?"

"Only to someone in the habit of seeing. Most people walk through life with their minds and senses closed. They question nothing. You and I are not of their kind. Let us continue."

I gave him back my hand and he lowered his head over it. "Ha, You have travelled widely and will travel more. You are resourceful, brave, a good friend. There have been three great loves in your life- thus far. You have blood on your hands." He pressed his lips together as if to stop himself from saying something. It was a momentary thing, but I guessed what it meant.

"You see something bad, don’t you?"

"I see a sunlit landscape with the odd passing cloud. A little summer lightning." He smiled serenely.

"And there’s some of that coming soon?"

"I didn’t say that." He curled my hand up like a leaf and passed it back to me. "You are going to have a very happy life".

I didn’t press him, but I knew he was lying. That he’d seen something big and black and ominous in the immediate future.

The little chiming clock on the mantle-piece struck midnight. I heard the first of the coaches come rolling up to the front door.

I stood up and pushed back the screen. "Thank you, M. le Comte. That was very interesting."

"My pleasure."

As soon as I stepped out of his orbit, my suspended disbelief evaporated and with it the shadow he’d cast. This was a man who had dressed his manservant up as the ghost of Julius Caesar; nothing he said or did could be taken on trust. Had he really studied his art with Tanit? Knowing what a recluse she was, I considered it most unlikely.

I was staying the night with the Marquise. As her supposed lover, I stood beside her in the hallway to help her bow the guests off the premises. When the last of them was gone, she and I and Mlle Despiner went back upstairs and took a night-cup of chocolate in the withdrawing room before retiring to bed.

The Marquise kept a room always ready for me. It was up under the roof- a servant’s room, really- but I liked the view of the old Palace from its little window. The only things it contained were a bed, a washstand, a rag rug, a shelf for books and an unframed print of Moliere.

I was reading a couple of pages before snuffing out the candle I’d carried upstairs with me when there was a gentle knock on the door. I slipped my feet under the covers, adjusted my nightcap, and smoothed down the folds in my nightshirt. "Athenais- is that you?"

She slipped in and placed her candle on the window sill, where it promtly blew out. "Sorry," she said, "But I wanted to talk to you alone."

"No problem," I said. "Come and sit down."

She perched on the end of the bed. She was still wearing her pale blue satin party dress. It gave out a faint odour of attar of roses.

"What do you think of my mystery guest?" she asked earnestly.

"Very entertaining. Pertinax says he’s a Neapolitan and probably not half as old as he pretends to be and Louis, who I trust in these matters, says he’s a complete fraud. He read my palm, you know, but didn’t tell me anything he couldn’t have gleaned from a five minute conversation with one of my friends."

Even as I spoke I saw that momentary pressing together of his lips and felt the passing shadow.

She forced a laugh. "Oh dear, is that what they’re saying about him?" She frowned slightly. "Remember he’s my friend. And wait until you see him perform as a medium before you finally judge him?" She smiled coquettishly. Her life was devoted to enabling social intercourse and she hated to be at odds with anyone- even for an instant. "And the musicianship is perfectly real, don’t you think? But no, I wasn’t meaning him. I meant Mlle Despiner- Suzanne."

"An unusual girl", I murmured, diplomatically. "I don’t think I caught her history."

"That’s just it. Neither did I."

"But you must know something."

"Not really. She arrived with a letter from a dear friend of mine in Bucharest- Mme Popescu. You may know her. Mme Popescu recommends her warmly, praises her accomplishments, but says nothing about who she really is. Besides, the letter could be forged."

"And what does Mlle Despiner say about herself?"

"You know how it is. I’ve hinted an interest in her background but she tells me almost nothing and I don’t press because it would be rude. I gather she’s spent most of her time out East. She knows Venice. And…and that’s about it. She turned up in a hired coach with hired servants whom she promptly dismissed." She paused, then rushed at it as if it were a hurdle that had to be jumped. "And don’t you think she looks strange?"

"Too much make-up."

"But she wears it all over. Not just the face, but the arms, every part of the body that shows."

"She has scarring. Chicken pox or something."

"Perhaps, but there’s something else."

"Tell me."

"Underneath the make-up she’s grey."

"Oh dear! Literally?"

"An unhealthy colour. Bloodless. Like one of those things they have in Transylvannia."

"Not them again."

"I beg your pardon."

"Louis Klipper used to think I was one of those. Back in the days when he was still a wormy. Do you think those things really exist?"

"One hears stories."

"One certainly does. Mostly they’re not true. I’ve been in Transylvannia; I saw wolves and pine forests and castles on crags, but I never met a vampire. They had a king who had a taste for impaling people en masse, but that’s as near as it got."

She sighed. "There’s more."

"Yes?"

"She seems inordinately interested in you."

"I’m an inordinately interesting person."

"It’s as if she came here specially in order to meet you. She kept asking questions like where did you live? What were you like? Would you be coming to the soiree?" She tried to make it seem casual, but I felt as if there were something behind it."

"She didn’t spend much time with me this evening. I tried to talk to her. She wouldn’t even look me in the eyes."

"No, but she was watching you all the time."

"I didn’t realise."

"So- I don’t know- I just wanted you to be aware of it. I expect she’s entirely harmless, but what with the war and everything…"

"Thank you Athenais. I’ll watch my back."

She rose from the bed. "Maybe while you’re under the same roof as her you ought to keep the door locked."

"Thank you, I will."

She leaned over and brushed my lips with hers. "Sometimes, Purchas, I wish you really were a man."

I reached out to detain her, but she managed, without any awkwardness, to twitch her sleeve out of reach of my fingers before they closed upon its satin and lace. Such a perfect lady! She slipped off the bed, gave me that coquettish smile again, only this time tinged with sadness, and flirted out the room with a dancer’s grace and a final beguiling flick of her skirt.

purchas @ 2006-09-14T08:48:00

2006-09-14T09:00:20Z

The ride into Avignon took me a couple of hours. The horse knew her way so I let her amble at her own pace. I rested a quarto edition of Les Pensee’s against the arch of her neck and spent the journey reading.

Pascal was my latest discovery. It amazed me that a mere mortal should have so thoroughly understood the Immortal condition- how we chase after amusement- any amusement- to stop us thinking about the endlessness and emptiness of time.

The Marquise, very pretty in blue satin with a bunch of pink silk roses at her breast, met me in the foyer. She had a tall, droopy young woman hovering at her elbow. "Mlle Suzanne Despiner," she said. "A protegee of my dear old friend Mme Popescu, here on a visit." The girl gave me her limp hand, but pulled it away before I had had the chance to touch it with my lips. Typical, bloody teenager, I thought.

It was a lovely evening. The tall windows were unshuttered, their sashes raised. The salon was filled with a soft, orange light that reduced the many candle flames to pale, shivering ghosts.

The Marquise was a very light-skinned, white haired woman- a natural blonde who had grown up in northern Germany, married a French nobleman and was now- several centuries down the road- thoroughly Frenchified. She enjoyed the company of artists, had known Albrecht Durer and owned a remarkable- more of less complete- collection of his engravings and woodcuts. Castelgandolfo was her latest find, "Such a clever man," she said, as she walked me across the room to meet him. "There’s nothing he can’t do. He was a monk, you know, and worked out the recipe for the elixir all by himself- and how many of us can say that? And now he paints, he writes, he plays the harpsichord and the violin- (he’s going to give us a recital later)- he designs buildings and scenery for the theatre, he’s a skilled physician and…" She lowered her voice. "They do say he dabbles in necromancy. Ah, M. le Comte." She raised her voice again. "This is M. Purchas, the gentleman who has so kindly lent us his land for the fete."

He was a man of medium height in his mid thirties, plump and swarthy with a pock-marked face and jaundiced eyes. He was dressed in a fashion that made the rest of us look dowdy, with miles of gold thread woven into his coat and billows of fine white lace at throat and wrist. He was so tightly corseted that he kept having to pause mid sentence to draw short, little gasping breaths.

"Ha," he said. "The famous English regicide. Ha. My friend Tanit- ha- says she prophesied- ha- your glorious career. So how many kings-ha- have you killed thus far?"

"None," I said, "But they do seem to keep dropping dead around me."

"The Comte de la Fere. Ha. Reports seeing you at the execution- ha- of Charles I"

"That’s true," I said, "but I was only a spectator. I didn’t sign the warrant. Ask Colonel Farquahar"

The Colonel leaned across from the group conversation that was going on alongside us. "Entirely true. Purchas is one of those writer chappies. Did some secretarial work for the Lord Protector."

"And before that- ha- the gunpowder plot?" said Castelgandolfo with a cherubic smile."

"A near miss. I had a friend who was involved in the planning."

"I know." He narrowed his eyes and smiled. It was the next best thing to a wink.

"You’re very well informed, monsieur."

He laughed pleasantly. (and from now on you can supply the "ha’s for yourself) "Common knowledge, monsieur. You underestimate the extent of your fame. Perhaps while you’re over here you may choose to add a French monarch to your bag."

"Now that would be a fine thing," said Farquahar. "I reckon King Lewis has it coming to him Have you seen the size of the garrison he maintains on the far side of the Rhone? Rank intimidation, I call it."

"And where do you stand on the politics of the day?" I asked, suavely.

"Kings and Dukes and Tsars are my living," replied the Count. "If they all had their heads chopped off there’d be no-one to commission my musical entertainments, my triumphal arches, my little toys and knick-knacks, so- no- I cannot afford the luxury of revolutionary ideas, much as I might enjoy them."

"We revolutionaries," I said. "Also support the arts. Our late lord Protector," I turned to the Colonel for support. "Was a great lover of music. And he employed the poet John Milton as his personal secretary."

"But wasn’t he king in all but name?"

"Indeed not," said the Colonel, stoutly. "He was offered the crown, like Caesar, and like Caesar, steadfastly refused it."

The Marquise intervened. "Tsk, tsk, tsk" she went, tapping the Colonel on the forearm with her furled fan, "That’s enough about politics. They always lead to unpleasantness." She turned to me. "M. Purchas, the Count would like to come out and visit your property tomorrow morning. Will that be convenient? "

"Of course," I said, "I’d be honoured."

The Count was beginning to outline his plans for the fete- "You have, sir, I understand, an island…"- but hadn’t got very far before the footman on the door announced the Duchess of Alba. The Marquise immediately whisked him off to meet her- as well she might, because it was the Duchesss who was putting up most of the money for the venture. She left me in charge of Mlle Despiner.

The girl was wearing a great thickness of white lead and rouge and looked like a china doll. I assumed she was hiding damage- perhaps the marks of plague or pox. She was round-shouldered and had an odd way of holding her head to one side. At first I thought it a mannerism, but then, since she never altered the angle, decided it had to be some sort of physical abnormality or injury.

I felt sorry for her. The elixir cures nothing. It simply freezes a person’s physical condition at the moment they come over. If there’s something wrong with them they’re stuck with it forever. I know one immortal who is permanently afflicted with a head cold. And I’ve heard of the case of a man who left things to the very last moment and, taking the elixir on his deathbed- he was dying of cancer- found himself tied forever to a body that was not only cadaverous, but utterly incapacitated. There is, according to persistent rumour, a ward in a hospice in Rome where he and other ghastly mistakes are kept securely locked away.

I came over as a starved street urchin. That’s why I’m so thin. And I know that no matter how much I eat I’ll never put on another ounce of bodyweight.

I’m a judicious listener but no great conversationalist- and Mlle Despiner tested me to the limit. She refused to make eye contact, had no small talk and answered questions guardedly. I asked her about her friends and she said, "I have the Marquise." I asked about her travels and she gave me a list of towns- Geneva, Salzburg, Vienna, Bucharest. "I travel for amusement," she said, looking sulky and bored..

Then the Marquise bore down again and took her off to meet someone else. I breathed a sigh of relief and sidled over to talk to Esclairmonde and Pertinax

"Dear little Purchas," said Esclairmonde. "And how are you this evening?"

"Intrigued," I said. "That’s a very peculiar person."

"So grown up," said Esclairmonde admiringly. "And uses such long words."

"Purchas is two hundred years old," said Pertinax quietly.

"Yes," said Esclairmonde, reaching out and pinching my cheek, "But you’ll always be my little girl- I mean boy- won’t you, dear?"

I smiled. Esclairmonde could be very fatiguing.

"Where did the Count tell you he was from?" asked Pertinax.

"He didn’t. The Marquise said he was from Turin."

"Well he isn’t. He’s trying to disguise it, but those vowel sounds are Neapolitan."

"Why should he tell a lie?"

"Because he’s the sort of man who lies habitually," said Pertinax. "It’s done to put people off the scent. He’d rather lie than tell the truth. He probably reinvents himself every time he shows up in a new town."

"How oddly thrilling," said Esclairmonde.

"If I were the Marquise," said Pertinax, "I’d be counting my spoons."

I circulated. The manners of the age were respected at the Marquise’s soirees, but there wasn’t a person there who wasn’t masquerading. We had been born, all of us, into very different times. Esclairmonde was Norman French, Pertinax Roman, the Duchess of Alba, the Marquise and myself late medieval. For the benefit of the servants- for who else was watching?- we made pretend that the heavy wigs, the silly pantaloons and swooping necklines of the reign of Le Roi Soleil were natural to us and not a preposterous and slightly annoying fancy dress. Every so often, though, someone would lapse into a more natural mode- as Louis Klipper and I did as soon as we got off into a corner by ourselves.

"Phew," he said, pulling off his wig and fanning himself with it. "Too much of this high life would kill me I think." He had dropped out of French into the old-fashioned, Jacobean English we had used at the time of our first friendship.

"It ‘s complicated," I said. "A complicated age."

"That King Louis," he said. "Turns his courtiers into monkeys and we provincials get to ape the apes."

"Scratchy things, those wigs."

"All right for you. You got enough hair not to bother with one."

"Seems like this Italian chap is muscling in on your territory."

"A necromancer and fortune teller? Pah! Seen it all before. Complete charlatan."

"And you’re not?"

"Fair’s fair, Perky. I got my dirty magics and I got my conjuring tricks and I got a lot of stuff in the middle that’s a bit one thing and a bit the other. But there’s nothing to that chap but hocus pocus and watch the lady."

"I understand he’s going to entertain us later- on the harpsichord. Can you do that?"

"You know I can’t. Wouldn’t want to. I do one thing well. Ever hear the old English proverb- cobbler, stick to your last?"

"What’s this about cobblers," asked the Marquise, bustling up. "Have you found a good one, either of you? These provincial trademen just can’t keep up with the latest modes." Then, without waiting for an answer- because she could hardly expect one from us two old bachelors- she invited us to go into the next room where the dear Count was getting ready to perform. "Such an amazing man. He gave us a foretaste this afternoon. Such exquisite touch. Perfectly ravissante!"