Purchas

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 an 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 experienced 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 in charge. 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 it is produced."

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, we have the Antidote." I said, smoothly. "In some quantity too, I suspect. There were a lot of muskets and ammunition pouches left 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 you had only to make her laugh. 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, 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.

Melchisidech had moved the headquarters of the Order from Rome to a castle on the Rhine. He must have felt it was safer. A month after I came out of my swoon Margery and I went and visited Bors 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 my old adversary, the Bishop.

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- yes that Bishop- runs an accountancy business in Pinner.

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.

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.

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 a tray with three glasses on it. He held them one by one under the right breast of the statue then carried the tray round. I put the glass, 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 them."

"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 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."

Farquahar led his troops off round the perimeter of the lake and the rest of us went scavenging. 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 said.

She marched down to the jetty, got in the boat and raised the sculls “”You coming then?”

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

“You’re right,” said Pertinax, murmuring in my ear. “It is dangerous. Those are pirates over there. They’re hardly going to respect a flag of truce.”

“But it’s in their interests to do so,” I said. “We have them surrounded.”

“They’re not necessarily thinking straight,” he replied.

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.

“No,” I screamed..

“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” murmured Herne.

Bors sat for a while in the bottom of the boat- getting his breath back, I suppose- 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.

“Sorry about that,” he said. “An ambassador should display a little more dignity. But we’ve made some progress, I think.”

“Is Emilia there?” I asked.

“She is. And she’s holding our people as hostages. She says she’ll negotiate their release.”

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

“I’m afraid the hostages give her an advantage. She’s said we’ve got an hour to respond- and then she’ll start killing them at five minute intervals.”

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

“I suggested something of the sort. Again she has the upper hand. 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.”

“So what do we do next?” I asked.

“This is the tricky part. She says negotiations have to take place on the island and the only person she’ll talk to is Purchas.”

“Does she promise him safe passage?” asked Pertinax.

“She does.”

“For what it’s worth,” snorted Herne.

“I’ll do it,” I said. “Those are my friends over there. I want them off the island in one piece. What can I offer her?”

“Her life,” said Bors. “And the lives of her men- though I suppose the last bit doesn’t weigh too heavy. In return I demand that 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. And all she has to do is acknowledge that the war is over.”

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

“It may be,” said, Bors, “And if my plan goes wrong I’ll apologize profusely. But someone has to make the final decision and this.” He held out his left hand and we saw that he was wearing Melchisidech’s ring on his wedding finger. “Says it falls to me.”

Herne shrugged angrily, turned his back and walked away.

“He always has had issues with authority,” said Bors sadly. “Good for him.” He gazed at the gaudy, over-decorated bulk of the signet ring. “I feel exactly the same way.”

He looked round the circle of faces and saw Louis among them. Louis was looking worried. “Hello, Klipper,” said Bors. “I thought you were up at the house.”

“I was,” said Louis. “Thought I ought to tell you; Mlle Despiner or Polkinghorne or whatever she’s called has gone missing.”

“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 Bors.

“I don’t see how.” I said. “She was at my elbow, loading muskets, up until the point where the rest of us all charged after the pirates. As far as I’m aware she stayed behind in the house.”

“Damn,” said Bors, “But we can’t worry about that now.” He addressed Louis again. “Everything else all right?”

“Couple of the lads found a pirate hiding out in the stables. He turned nasty so they shot him. Otherwise, fine.”

“Well, “ I said. “If she’s over there on the island, we’ll soon find out. “Any one think of a good reason why I shouldn’t go across now.”

“Strike while the iron’s hot,” said Pertinax.

“You can take a companion,” said Bors. “Not me, not Pertinax, not Herne, not Farquahar. Not anyone with military skills. 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 that of Elizabethan and Jacobean England 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 a boatman as Margery is, but I’d taken my turn with the oars when we were messing about on the Thames and knew what I was doing. Bors handed Louis the white flag. “God go with you,” he said.

“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…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.

A ragged piece of cloth went fluttering along the top of the parapet at the end of the garden, moving left to right. I trained the telescope on it. A crowned skeleton holding a dart and hourglass against a black background.

Margery must have met Louis on the stairs, because they both clattered into the room together. "Herne," she said. "Herne is leading a charge."

"Them pirates are in retreat," said Louis.

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 had grabbed himself a horse and had ridden straight into the mass of the pirates- who clearly hadn’t been paying attention- laying about him with his broadsword. A long way behind, on foot, obviously huffing an puffing, came Pertinax and Farquahar and- yes- Bors, with their crew. They lent moral weight to his attack, but it was Herne, single-handed, fearless and utterly berserk, who was pushing the enemy back.

I found I had a musket in my hands. I raised it to my shoulder, fired it into the tumbling, panicky mass of the enemy, then leaped over the parapet, sword in hand. I arrived in the melee at the same time as the rest of Herne’s back-up. It wasn’t so much like fighting, more like herding sheep and I found I was wielding my rapier, not as the delicate piercing instrument it was designed to be, but as a whip, slashing at whatever was in front of me- horses’ rumps and legs and whatever parts of their human anatomy my panicking enemy presented me with.

It was over in less than a minute. The pirates hadn’t been in any sort of order when Herne hit them, just standing around talking among themselves and wondering what to do next.. They had signed on for easy conquest and rich pickings and little of what had actually happened had run to plan. Also, few of them were easy on horseback. Suddenly subjected to a furious attack from a foe they couldn’t kill but who was killing them at will, they cut their losses and ran.

There must have been about thirty of them still on their feet. They went in all directions. The main group of about fifteen disappeared round the side of the house with Herne giving chase. The rest of us stood among the corpses, leaned upon our weapons with heaving chests and waited for him to come trotting back.

"Well," he said. "I’d always heard the Froggies were an easy touch, but I never believed it till now."

"That was magnificent," I said.

"I’ve seen some fighting in my time," said Bors. "I’ve seen Arthur and Lancelot and Du Guescelin and Wallace and Coeur de Lion, but that was in a class of its own."

"Nothing but bluff," said Herne, smiling smugly. "Make ‘em think you’re invincible and you will be."

"One question," said Margery, sidling up with a smoking musket in her hands. "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. 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."

"En avant," said Herne and, wheeling his horse round, he led us off down the slope.

I handed Louis a bunch of keys. "Go back to the house," I said. "Artemesia’s still in there. We can’t entirely let down our guard. Open up the cellar and let the men have a drink. They’ve earned it. Only don’t let them get completely drunk."

"Any Rhenish?" he asked.

"You know there is. I bought it through your supplier, on your recommendation."

He smacked his lips and hurried back towards the house and I fell into step beside Bors. "I was worried about you," I said.

"They overwhelmed us. Nothing we could do but stand aside and let them through. I didn’t want my men killed. Afterwards I took them round the long way to link up with Pertinax. I was worried when I saw you weren’t with him."

"I was coming back to report to you when the attack happened. I fought my way through to the house."

"I promised myself I’d never do this again." He lifted his sword and swished it through the air.

"How’s it feel."

"Right now it feels good, but I know I’m going to feel very sick about it later. I’ve broken a vow."

"It was the right thing to do."

"Expedient?"

I nodded.

"I don’t think God reasons that way. A vow is a vow."

"You’ll make it up to Him." I was conscious of striking a false note even as I spoke.

"There’s no returning to the presbytery after this. I can’t just slope off and hide. There’s too much work to be done. Rebuilding."

"Putting the Great White Brotherhood together again?"

"Like Humpty Dumpty? I doubt if that’s possible- or desirable. But the Order has interests stretching right round the globe. It owns thousands of properties and businesses. They have to be managed somehow. I’m thinking of putting a new hierarchy in place. Only have it run along monastic lines. Not the great White Brotherhood anymore, just the Brotherhood. I always thought the old title was hubristic."

"So what about the sisters? "

He looked at me in bafflement. "What about them?"

"Don’t you think the word ‘Brotherhood’ is just a little exclusive?"

"But women can’t run things. There’s a natural hierarchy. And it’s reinforced in Scripture. As Paul teaches in I Timothy…"

I sighed heavily.

"Oh yes, I forget." He seemed flustered. "But you’re not a real woman, are you Purchas? Oh Jesus!"

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 the 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. Herne raised a pistol to shoot him but Bors put a hand on the barrel of the gun and gently pushed it down. "That’s enough," he said. "No more killing unless we can’t help it."

"That wouldn’t have been a killing," growsed Herne. "That would have been an execution."

"Not our job," said Bors.

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 therewith 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 Herne, indicating the piles of bodies.

We searched. We didn’t find the Marquise or the Count, but there was evidence that the Antidote had been used. Among the dead were two of the Immortals from Lyons, their faces horribly distorted.

"Only two of our lot," said Herne. "I was afraid there’d be more."

The rest of the dead were musicians and catering staff. This bothered us less than it should have done. Immortals are careless of human life. If you’re doomed to watch generation after generation age and die it’s a simple matter of emotional self-preservation to harden yourself against it . These were wormies; they were going to die anyway. What’s all the fuss about?

But if the Marquise and the Count and the other missing Immortals weren’t dead where were they?

"Three possibilities," said Pertinax, counting them on his fingers. "One: they ran off 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 your 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. " He turned to me. "What’s on the far side of the water?"

"Wilderness," I said. "Maquis."

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

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

I ran 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 the horsemen 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.

When you’re in a battle you exist in a kind of bubble, extending about twenty yards in any direction; You can have little idea of what’s happening in the zone beyond. I was vaguely aware of a lot of noise to my left, down by the lake- a lot of shouting and shooting and splashing – and I could see the horsemen cantering past in front of me in a seemingly endless line, like riders on a carousel. And that was about it.

I just kept running forward.

One of the horsemen peeled away from the stream and trotted towards me. He wore a red bandana, had very white teeth and the blade of his cutlass had a nick in it. He raised it to strike 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. Glancing behind me, as I leaped into the saddle, I saw Pertinax’s group come charging over the hill .

Access to the house at the back was through the gardens, which meant first riding up one of two broad stone staircases. The besiegers, not knowing what they might meet at the top, were milling about at the bottom of the stairs, 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 then refused to mount higher and started backing down. I saw I’d get nowhere trying to force her and half slid, half fell to the ground and started running. The besiegers, realising now I wasn’t one of them, yelled out to me to stop. And a couple of them on horses braver than mine, gave chase.

The garden, with its pattern of neat little hedges and alternation of soft footing and hard footing was an obstacle course for a rider. One of my pursuers was thrown. The second kept on my tail. I turned and fired 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 of the house 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 up a musket and went to the window. Arty gave me a wan smile.

Our house wasn’t exactly a castle, but it had been built in a time of wars and all the outer windows on the ground floor were high and narrow. A defender could poke a musket out of them but an attacker couldn’t climb in. I levelled my musket and waited.

It was a lovely view . In the foreground lay our gardens, with my late pursuer’s horse wandering through them, browsing on the floral displays; in the background were the powder-blue alpine foothills with white-capped Mont Ventoux on the far right. Everything in the middle, the entire battlefield- comprising the meadows where the horseman were congregated, the lake in its valley and the low, vine-clad hill where I’d left Pertinax and the others- was entirely 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. Stood still. Defecated. Moved on.

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

"There was a diversionary attack on the vineyard. Then the cavalry came in through the gate. Who’ve we got in the house? "

"Me, Arty, Louis, the servants, a musician or two. There’s a musket at nearly every window."

"What’s it like at the front?"

"I don’t know."

"Mind if I go see?" I handed Margery my musket.

I ran 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 dead men and a wounded horse lying on the gravel. The enemy were drawn up at a distance, out of the range of the muskets, 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 on display were antiques; so were many of the men themselves. Others were mere boys. I felt an unhelpful surge of pity. The horses were an 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. They don’t seem to have many guns.

. My main fear is they’ll have taken prisoners."

"And want to make some sort of a trade?"

"She wants me," wailed Arty. "She’s come for me."

"She’s not having you," said Margery firmly. "That’s for certain." She looked to me for back-up.

"No," I said. "Non-negotiable."

"Do we have anything to bargain with?" asked Margery.

"What do pirates want?" I asked.

"Doubloons, gold moidores, rum…"

"There’s the wine cellar."

"What’s left of it, after Herne had a go at it."

"Talking about the wine cellar, I’m dying of thirst. .

Margery turned round. "Ssh…" she hissed.

"What?"

"Listen."

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

"That’s it. They’re on the move."

"So they are."

She passed me the musket. "I’m going upstairs to have a look."

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 ladies and gentlemen, 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 end of the day."

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. Piers," I called in English to one of Farquhar’s men. "Run down to the lake and fetch the general."

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," I said.

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 of other old people sitting in chairs 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."

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 or that I should be his adjudant. . Herne and Farquahar, who had both served as cavalry officers on the Parliamentary side in the English civil war, were given command of four horsemen each, with a roving commission to patrol the grounds. Pertinax who, as a Roman, was happier fighting on foot, was given command of the troops by the main gate. 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 weren’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 of you wish to be excused duty, you are free to withdraw in the assurance that it will not in any way be held against you."

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, once the rest of us were left alone. "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. That was when they appointed Cecily as my nursemaid. 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 stood on the doorstep arguing. She wanted me to leave and I was wanting 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. I’d much rather not know. If it’s bad I’d don’t want to anticipate it and if it’s good I’d rather it be a lovely surprise."

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

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.

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.

"Well, yes, there’s a war on. There always was a war on, but it’s reached what one might call a critical point. Since Melchisidech died there’s been a vacuum at the top. Or is there? Some say it’s already been filled."

"By Emilia?" said Margery

"Her name has been mentioned. To tell the truth the news coming out of Europe has been a little sparse of late. No-one seems to know what’s happening east of the Elbe.

There have been rumours of mass killings. I thought I might come and see for myself."

"We’re a long way from the Elbe," said Margery gently.

"My first object was to make sure that those I love were safe."

I looked at Margery. She looked at me. I suppose 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 it out. "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 my friend 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, she inserted a 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 for it," 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 this 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 that 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." He held up his hand to counter our protests. "Yes, he wanted to come out here too, 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 quiet about our true purpose. 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. "We’re social equals."

"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.."

"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.

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."

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."

When 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 in the ensuing silence 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 about 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 was going to 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 as 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.

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 in fact 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 lowered voices were the order of the day. 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."

After the debacle with Docre 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 two 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 as 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 extracted a 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.

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 o 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.

"Gabrielle 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 Docre," said Margery, "Don’t forget Docre. 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. It was a repeat of the tactic she’d used in London. "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 Docre 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 mass murderer; but the link between us was there from the very beginning. I have always felt that, given different influences in our early years, I could have been her and she could have been me.

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 Gabrielle 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.

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 Docre were standing beside it. All three were naked. Docre 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 Docre. I could see he was screwing up his little red eyes to make me out. 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. 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. I saw in his eyes that he was afraid of me

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.

"Docre," 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.

Docre 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 Docre. "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.

Docre 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 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 ended up dragging him out by the heels.

"And shut the door behind you," shouted Gabriele after them.

The men obliged. We could hear them muttering gruffly outside.

I invoke Asmodeus, I invoke Belphegor……continued Docre, 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 Docre’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 schoolkids, 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 is, 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 Docre. "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 types. 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. Canon Docre 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."

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.

Emilia was staying in a chateau not unlike 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 close to the house, then moved down 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. I 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.

To find to my horror 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.

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. "You going to tell us what Petrarch, said?" asked Artemesia.

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 the magician Docre. 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 and 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 else 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 my sins to a Bishop," said the girl, smiling. "Then he baptised me into the true faith."

"An old adversary of yours I think," said Gabriele .

"Not the Bishop. A tubby little chap? Last time I saw him he was working for the Duke of Suffolk."

"That’s him. He’s a secretary at the Castle now . So deeply embedded in the wormy world he escaped Emilia’s knife. She simply overlooked him. He hasn’t functioned as a priest for two hundred years- not openly anyway- but holy orders are indelible. It was a lovely ceremony."

"In a side chapel of the cathedral," said Artemesia dreamily. "So many candles you wouldn’t believe."

"I’m glad he’s still alive." I said.

"If he hadn’t warned you that time in Windsor," said Margery. "We’d have both been arrested for treason. Heaven only knows what would have happened to you, but I’d have been dead."

"He’s a good man," said Gabriele. "I know he used to throw his weight around a bit; Immortality tends to go to people’s heads at first. But after a hundred years or so he realised he wasn’t going to cut it at the top and settled for middle management. He’s been my confessor for a while now."

"Small world," I breathed.

"And getting smaller," said Margery, tilting her head in the direction of Emilia’s bolt hole. "Thanks to her."

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, ‘I love Margery’. 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." I was triumphant. "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. You see, I can be a casuist too."

"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 both wearing hooded riding cloaks; Margery’s was russet, Artemesia’s blue-grey. They looked very pretty, almost like sisters- and I said so. What I didn’t mention was that Margery seemed the younger of the two. I congratulated myself on choosing well.

"Thank you, kind sir," said Margery. "And you look just like one of the King’s musketeers- only shorter."

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 our 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 lay out the buffet over there," I said.

"No, no, no." said the Count," waving his handimpatiently. "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. 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. Margery turned aside with a handkerchief pressed to her mouth.

We rowed back to shore and the Count 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 at the front door. He admired the salon, but said he thought it a little old-fashioned and offered to redecorate it for us. 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. Why not, in this weather?"

"And you can go tell Artemesia."

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.

"Is that why you came looking for me?"

She nodded.

"It’s true in a way. 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 the Low Countries. Last thing I heard he was being cared for in a hospice in Rome."

"But you defeated him."

"Yes I did."

"So where’s your mother now?" asked Margery.

"About a week behind me."

I looked at Margery. Margery had gone pale. I knew we would have to face Emilia eventually. I hadn’t reckoned on it happening quite so soon.

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 and at that stage she was about ten minutes behind. I could see her dust coming up the road. I’ve gained on her since. I travel faster, you see, because she has so many people with her." She looked fleetingly pleased with herself- a clever school girl wanting a pat on the head from her teacher. "I’ve done the sums."

"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 old friend Docre 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."

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