The Burning Altar Read online

  ‘Nothing more?’

  ‘I don’t think so.’

  ‘And – will you take the task on?’

  Raffael made a quick gesture. His hands were thin but they were clean, and he had the long sensitive fingers of an artist. Painter? Musician? There was an unmistakable foreign air about him. He did not quite speak with an accent, but there was a certain formality about the way he put sentences together. ‘You could command whoever and whatever you wanted, Sir Lewis,’ he said. ‘You seem to be trusting me very fully very early on. Why?’

  ‘Because,’ said Lewis, unable to help himself, ‘you have the face of someone of extreme integrity, but also of a rebel.’

  The man smiled fleetingly. ‘It has been of great use to me, that,’ he said. ‘You think I would go to the stake for my beliefs, perhaps? Yes, it is what others have thought.’

  He paused, and Lewis felt a twinge of disquiet at having his thoughts read so easily.

  ‘I might risk the stake for my beliefs,’ said Raffael thoughtfully. ‘But you do not ask what my beliefs are, Sir Lewis, and you should remember that a man can as courageously face death for the wrong beliefs as for the right ones.’ He sat back, his eyes in shadow, but the light from the desk lamp falling across the lower part of his face. Lewis realised for the first time that Raffael was considerably younger than himself. Forty? Even thirty-five?

  Raffael said, ‘I will take your proposition, Sir Lewis. I understand the dangers and I will do it.’

  ‘I’m sometimes away for a night or two. It’s unavoidable—’

  ‘Because since you received a title you are so much in demand,’ said Raffael. ‘Yes, I understand. You are something of a public figure, after all.’ His tone was perfectly courteous, but Lewis caught an edge of faint irony. But then Raffael said, ‘And are you prepared to trust me, even though you don’t know who I am?’

  ‘Who are you?’

  The unreadable eyes met Lewis’s. ‘Someone at odds with the world,’ said Raffael. ‘As you have sometimes been at odds with the world.’

  We’re two of a kind, thought Lewis, staring. That’s why I’m trusting him. But he only said, ‘Shall we have a month’s trial – for both of us, to see if it works? I can give you no clear idea of how to go about the task, or what hours you should work. You would have to find your own way.’

  ‘A very good idea,’ said Raffael gravely. ‘I shall come and go between Chance House and my rooms, and I think I shall continue to form part of your derelicts’ queue at noon. You have a rather unusual set of people there, did you know that?’

  ‘In what way?’

  Lewis felt a prickle of apprehension, but Raffael only said, ‘There are a few people I should not have expected to find here. But it is more likely that the world has changed, and I have not kept up with the changes,’ and he smiled. ‘Ostensibly I think I should perhaps be known as a security watchman. That will give me a reason for being about the premises at odd times without making anyone curious, and also—’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The beef stew you serve here is very good.’

  Chapter Three

  Extract from Patrick Chance’s Diary

  Cheyne Walk, December 1887

  St Stephen’s Road Music Hall with Alicia, who introduced me to L. Langtry, as promised. HRH present, along with Prince Eddy, so introductions necessarily formal and decorous. HRH stouter at close quarters than I had realised; Prince Eddy a bit vacant. Alicia says he’s called Dawdly Eddy within the Royal family. I don’t wonder.

  Left Alicia in dutiful attendance and went on to supper at Kettners – scandalous prices but excellent food – with two of the female performers, who turned out to have appetites like wolves. Persuaded them both into private room with me for an hour (one carries her wolfish appetites into the bedroom: have never felt teeth in such extraordinary – and vulnerable – place before!), and finally got home at 5 a.m.

  Father choleric over breakfast; demanded to know what I meant by staying out until such hours and keeping such low company – assume he means music-hall performers, and not the Prince of Wales and Duke of Clarence. Says he has had bad reports of East India Company and thinks country going to the dogs.

  Later. Have gone more thoroughly into matter of anti-conception, since coitus interruptus always inconvenient from several points of view, and turns out to be embarrassing when two ladies involved at the same time. Not something I experienced at Oxford, since cannot really count that time in Hilary Term which was three men and one girl, and Flowerdew and Pontefract turned out to be more interested in each other anyway.

  Scoured shops around St Stephen’s Road (since area boasts large population of merchant seamen), finally discovering boxes of rubber items, labelling discreet but purpose unmistakable. Shop owned by greasy Whitechapel Jewess, who does side trade in secondhand clothes (v. smelly) and leered at me.

  Amused to find that manufacturers trying to give air of solid respectability by decorating boxes with illustrations of Queen Victoria and Mr Gladstone.

  St Stephen’s Road was seedier than I remembered, and the stage door in the side alley was filled with creeping shadows. In late afternoon, whole place has vaguely sinister appearance, but probably this is only due to presence of river fog and sparse street lighting.

  Raffael smiled quietly as he walked away from Chance House. It was all being so very easy. So easy to attract the attention of Lewis Chance, and from there to make diffident enquiries about work within the centre.

  The nature of the job offered had been unexpected, but it might have been made for his purpose. And the circumstances under which Lewis Chance was employing him meant that there were going to be no awkward questions about previous employment, or references, or even National Insurance cards.

  ‘A cash payment once a week,’ Sir Lewis had said. ‘You will not, of course, appear on any salary records, in fact officially you won’t exist as a member of staff. Income tax and so on is your own affair. It’s the only way it can be done, and if it doesn’t suit you, say so now.’

  ‘It suits me very well indeed, Sir Lewis.’

  ‘Good.’ He had reached into a desk drawer for a small leather address book. ‘But I think I had better know where you live.’

  ‘I have two rooms described as a studio flat in a converted house nearby,’ said Raffael, and gave the street number. ‘My immediate neighbours are two young men who ply their trade by night and sleep or play regrettable music by day. They are either rent boys or small-time burglars, or possibly both. In the basement is a gentleman of dubious nationality who almost certainly peddles drugs. Yes, it is a little difficult to imagine me in such a setting.’

  But when he left Chance House it was not to the split-up house in Canning Town he went. He made his way across the river, and from there by Tube and bus in the direction of Bloomsbury. It was tedious to take such a circuitous route, and it was probably not necessary. But several times lately he had been aware of soft footsteps following him out of the centre, and although he had turned sharply to see who was behind him, each time there had been only a glimpse of an anonymous figure whisking out of sight. Someone tailing him? Or only his imagination playing tricks?

  Chance House was the kind of place that did play tricks with you, of course; Raffael had been aware of this from the outset. There were pockets of darkness: sudden deep wells of desolation into which you stepped without realising. Like passing out of sunlight into deep shadow. Like falling neck-deep into black freezing water. Was it the shade of the unknown recluse who cast his shadow and left these imprints? He remembered the dank dripping tunnel that wound beneath the old house. Shadows did not need to come from the past; they could come from the present and the future.

  Halfway along the narrow side street, he paused and looked about him. The hum of traffic from the main thoroughfares was muted here and the street was deserted. If he had been followed he had shaken off whoever it was. Good. He went quickly up the steps of the anonymous white-fronted buildi
ng and rang the bell.

  He was shown immediately into a second-floor room, with books in several different languages lining two walls, and a large inlaid desk between two of the long flat sash windows. There was a glimpse of the British Museum through one of these and Raffael felt an inner twinge of amusement that even in these circumstances the people employing him should surround themselves with so much scholarship.

  The two men behind the desk welcomed him with wary courtesy and indicated to him to be seated.

  ‘And we have to ask how you prefer to be addressed?’

  ‘I am known as Raffael now.’

  The younger of the two men smiled rather disparagingly. ‘Something of a misnomer, surely,’ he said drily.

  ‘I considered changing it to Lucifer but I thought it might attract too much attention,’ rejoined Raffael, meeting the man’s regard unblinkingly. ‘And if we have disposed of the polite formalities, I will now tell you that I have done what you asked.’

  ‘You have got into Chance House? Already?’ This was the older man, leaning forward, his eyes alight.

  ‘I have. As a kind of night watchman, and . . .’

  ‘Yes? And?’

  Raffael appeared to hesitate and then said, ‘Nothing.’

  The older man’s eyes flickered but he only said, ‘How did you manage it?’

  ‘Lewis Chance thought he sought me out. In fact I sought him out. As you asked.’

  ‘And offered you the watchman job?’

  ‘Yes.’

  ‘Does he trust you?’

  ‘Not completely. Not yet. But he has an assistant, Elinor Craven, who might be brought to trust me,’ said Raffael. A sudden smile curved his lips. ‘With a little judicious persuasion,’ he added, and the two men exchanged glances.

  The elder one said sardonically, ‘There would, of course, be a lady involved.’

  ‘We expected that of you, Father,’ put in the other one.

  ‘I’m sure you did. By the way, I should prefer not to be addressed as Father. You will recall that I am no longer entitled to it.’

  ‘I do recall.’ The thin-faced man picked up a pen from the desk and turned it over between his hands. The square ring on his left hand caught the light. ‘Do you never regret, Raffael?’ he said.

  ‘Never, Eminence.’

  The man wearing the cardinal’s ring smiled unexpectedly. ‘So you are aware of my recent elevation.’

  ‘Of course. Are you going to tell me what I’m supposed to be doing in Chance House, or are de Migli and I to exchange a few more veiled insults?’ Raffael glanced at the younger man. ‘Because if so I may as well leave now.’

  ‘Always the defiance just under the surface, Raffael,’ said de Migli. ‘You do not change.’

  ‘I do not. Nor,’ said Raffael politely, ‘do you.’ He looked back at the older man. ‘Well, Eminence?’

  There was a pause, as if Cardinal Fleury was assembling his thoughts. Then he said, ‘Something extremely disturbing has happened, Raffael, and we believe that it is linked to Lewis Chance. That is why we wanted you – or someone like you – in his house.’

  ‘Yes?’ Raffael waited, and after a moment Fleury leaned forward, his old eyes shrewd.

  ‘Have you ever heard of the League of Tamerlane?’ he said.

  ‘No. What is it?’

  ‘Very broadly, it’s a group of dissidents belonging to a primitive tribe in a remote part of Tibet,’ said Fleury, ‘a splinter group who have become discontented – or perhaps impatient – with their people’s archaic way of life. Parts of Tibet, you know, are still almost biblical – worse than Third World countries in some ways. No electricity, scarcely any sanitation—’ He broke off and spread his hands. ‘They plough the fields by walking oxen and the good seed is scattered on the land by the hands of women and children following the furrow wheels. But they have the Buddhist contentment and that lack of materialism that is so enviable—’

  He frowned, and Raffael said gently, ‘But the League of Tamerlane has rebelled against that vaunted contentment? How do you know all this? Or don’t I ask?’

  ‘We have our spies,’ said Fleury shortly.

  ‘Ah. A stupid question.’

  ‘And,’ said the cardinal, ‘our spies tell us that the League is about to draw attention to its people and their primitive ways in a manner that would be very damaging to Rome.’ He leaned forward, the hard light showing in his eyes again. ‘We have every sympathy with backward peoples, Raffael,’ he said. ‘We would gladly send what aid we could – missionary parties, medical parties, the creation of centres for educating the people, and preliminary surveys to see if better roads could be provided, or even electricity taken in.’

  ‘You’ve offered that?’

  ‘Well, we’ve let it be known that it might be available under certain circumstances,’ said the cardinal cagily.

  ‘Yes, I understand.’ The Vatican was a political creature in its own understated way, and its offer of help would have been filtered across discreetly. If a quid pro quo had been involved, it would have been a very subtle one. ‘Was the response favourable?’

  ‘No,’ said Fleury. ‘This League of Tamerlane is headed by some very power-hungry people and it begins to look as if they intend to take their place on the stage of world events and in world politics. Greed, Raffael, is a wicked thing, and power-greed is a great evil.’

  Raffael said absently, ‘It always was. But, Eminence, to make these threats – is threats too strong a word?’

  ‘I’m afraid not.’

  ‘To make threats with any kind of confidence this League must be very sure of itself. What possible hold has a small primitive tribe got over the Catholic Church?’

  There was an abrupt silence. Then Fleury said, ‘We believe that the League of Tamerlane is about to make public something the existence of which the Vatican has kept secret for almost two thousand years. Something that would certainly deal a hugely damaging blow to us – perhaps destroy us altogether.’ He lowered his voice. ‘Something which you – and a small handful of others – know about.’

  The silence came down again. Raffael stared at the cardinal, his thoughts in tumult. At last he said. ‘The Tashkara Decalogue. The Ten Satanic Commandments. That’s what you mean, isn’t it? This League of Tamerlane is about to blow the whistle on it after—’ He stopped, appalled.

  ‘After nearly two thousand years of secrecy,’ said Fleury softly. ‘Yes. We dare not let it happen, Raffael.’

  ‘And that,’ said de Migli, ‘is where you come in. It’s why you’re inside Chance House.’ Raffael waited, and de Migli said impatiently, ‘Lewis Chance’s ancestor, Patrick, travelled to Tibet in the late 1880s.’

  ‘So?’

  ‘We think Patrick found the Decalogue.’ said Fleury. ‘The infamous journal published after his death refers to it.’

  ‘Only very briefly, however,’ put in de Migli.

  ‘We believe that although on the surface Patrick was very frank about his travels—’

  ‘Extremely frank,’ said de Migli sourly.

  ‘– he withheld something,’ finished Fleury smoothly. ‘We don’t know what it was, but something happened to him in Tashkara, something that changed him in a very fundamental way. It was almost as if the real Patrick had been vanquished by a demon, or as if he had made a journey into hell and had only been allowed to return to the world on some kind of devil’s pledge. I’m quoting, you understand, from the notes made by my predecessor.’

  ‘It had not occurred to me that the words were your own,’ said Raffael politely. ‘Patrick Chance talked to your predecessor?’

  ‘He requested an audience,’ said Fleury, looking up. ‘Why?’

  ‘I’ve never read A Lecher Abroad,’ said Raffael. ‘I was a dutiful young ordinand in Milan when it was published in the sixties, but I remember the outcry. And if he was even half as promiscuous as he was made out to be, the thought of him hobnobbing with His Holiness – even one of the lesser minions – is pretty
staggering.’

  ‘There’s a brief case history on him, and a hand-written memorandum dated November 1890 that says he was courteous and sensitive and receptive and surprisingly widely read,’ said Fleury repressively. ‘Also that he had a strongly developed sense of duty. What today would be termed a social conscience.’

  ‘I’m sorry, Eminence. Please go on.’

  Fleury said, ‘Patrick made his journey to Tashkara at the end of the 1880s. About eighty years later, Lewis Chance made the same journey.’

  ‘He was after the Decalogue,’ said Raffael thoughtfully. ‘Yes, that’s possible.’

  ‘Is it? You’ve met him, Raffael; how acquisitive is he under the urbane philanthropic exterior?’

  ‘As much as most men, I should think. He’s quite difficult to read – I’d guess the publicity surrounding his father’s scandal caused him to grow armour. I wouldn’t put it past him to have gone hellbent after the Decalogue when he was a young man – there’d have been the double reason of escaping the media limelight as well as the lure of the thing itself.’

  ‘It’s also possible that he knew something that wasn’t in the journals,’ said Fleury. ‘He might have had access to other papers – letters, private diaries.’

  ‘And that’s why I’m in Chance House? To find out how much Lewis Chance knows about the Decalogue? Or even if he’s involved in the League of Tamerlane?’

  Fleury said carefully, ‘When Lewis came back from Tashkara he brought a child with him – a boy. We don’t know who the boy’s mother was, but we think Lewis himself was the father. He placed the boy in an institution – a very private, very discreet house near Highgate, and – yes? You were about to speak?’

  ‘Only to ask how you know that.’

  ‘Anything relating to the Decalogue has always been very carefully watched,’ said Fleury. ‘The publication of Patrick Chance’s journal in the sixties might have stirred up curiosity in dangerous quarters, and so when Lewis Chance left England it was thought prudent to keep a discreet tail on him.’