Kingsley Amis - Dear Illusion - Selected Stories

Yours,

Stephen

PS: I wonder if I could ask you to keep this and my last under lock and key. Matt’s is a jolly decent place, I know, but one can’t be too careful.

IX — Stephen Hillier to Constance Hillier

Hotel Astoria,

Budapest,

Hungary

7 September 1925

Dearest Connie,

It must be a week since I wrote. As you can see, I’ve been on the move. I didn’t stay long at that Castle Valvazor place, which I soon found was a thorough wash-out. In my last letter I wasted your time (and a lot more of mine) with all those stories about Tristan the Wolf and Red Mathias and eye-witness accounts. Then when I went through the archives the next morning there was nothing there at all, just the dullest and most conventional family documents you can imagine. I complained about it at luncheon, or rather said I thought I must have been looking in the wrong place, and the countess said no, I’d seen all there was, and more or less admitted she’d spun me a yarn to induce me to stay on for a bit and cheer up the company. Well, I saw her point about the company, but I ask you! I hung on another night out of politeness and invented an engagement in Budapest. I want you to promise never to mention Countess Valvazor. Seriously. If you do I won’t reply. I mean it was such a sell and such a bore.

In a way, though, my visit wasn’t wasted. It set me thinking about this whole vampire business, made me take a second look at it, if you know what I mean. And, well, I’ve come to the very reluctant conclusion that you were right about it and I was wrong. It’s nothing but a string of peasant superstitions that don’t hang together and haven’t even got the merit of being charming. What on earth possessed me to imagine there was a book, a serious book, to be written on the subject? I’m afraid it’ll annoy old Charles Winterbourne, but I’m going to wind up my research. Something on, say, early Hungarian literature would be far more the sort of thing. I’ve been looking round the museums here and already have something to go on.

This is a fascinating city. I expect you knew it was originally two cities, Buda and Pest. The royal palace at Buda is very fine, with over eight hundred rooms (not that I’ve been in them all!). Near by stands the church of

I’m sorry, dear, I’ll have to break this off if I want to catch the post. I’ll be off again in a day or two. Will drop you a line as soon as I can.

In haste, with love,

Stephen

Leo IX, a native of Alsace, succeeded to the Papacy in AD 1049. Four years later he gathered an army of Italians and German volunteers and led it in person against the Norman invaders who had occupied Sicily and southern Italy. The papal forces were defeated and the Pope captured and imprisoned for some months.

My gaolers released me without notice on the morning of 26th October. They acted without explanation also, merely indicating in their vile French that I was free to go. Their continued and studied lack of respect for my person, however, suggested unwilling compliance with outside pressure, which could have been nothing but the intervention of the Emperor. The prospect of this had been all that sustained me through the tedium and discomfort of my captivity. Henry had held his hand on purpose, of course, partly to emphasize his disapproval of my recent actions, partly without doubt as a reminder that in some sense I owed my enthronement to his good Offices.

My delight at returning to Rome was tempered by apprehension about what might have been in store for me there. But I found the City perfectly quiet and Hildebrand the Benedictine had kept everything safe. I had sent ahead and he was waiting up for me in the yellow saloon, where a cold supper had been laid. He greeted me with a precise blend of reverence and warmth. He was a little thinner since June, I thought, perhaps a little harder too. He had seen much of the world for one who was still barely thirty years old, enough at least to understand Germany, and that was much.

I had not asked for a doctor, but he had caused one to be present, a Greek by the look of him, with a white beard to signify great knowledge. He prodded me, took my pulse, looked at my tongue. When he made to bleed me I threw him out.

‘Let me bring him back tomorrow, Lord,’ said Hildebrand. ‘You are not well. Those Norman pigs have starved you. Was your highness at least dry?’

‘Most of the time. I need rest and good food, fresh food.’

‘Assuredly. Eat now, Lord. You enjoy these little birds.’

‘No, I am too tired. Pour me wine.’

As he handed me the cup, he said quietly, ‘I thought to have no ceremony. It seemed not to be called for.’

‘No indeed. Even these few are too many. Have the goodness to remove them.’

One inclination of his head and it was done.

‘Hildebrand, who would have thought that an uncouth rabble like that could put those brave fellows of mine to rout? The Supreme Pontiff a common prisoner. Arrest them all, my boy, all who are in Rome; hunt down the others and fetch them here. All — Gerard, Frederic, Valerian, Florentinus, Otho, the Spaniard and the one with the stutter. All my captains, all those who robbed me of victory. Confine them here. All of them.’

‘There, be calm, Lord. They shall be fetched, all of them.’

‘See they are.’ I coughed a trifle and took some water, then more wine, with a sparrow’s wing to nibble at. ‘Well, what waits tomorrow?’

‘Many things, great and small. None pressing. Few pleasing. Some plaguing, as Peter Damian rebuking you for usurping the Emperor’s function by your activities as a soldier.’

‘Never mind him.’

‘Perhaps we need not, but your highness had better mind an accusation of heresy from Michael Cerularius.’

‘There must be something in the air of Constantinople that rots the brain. Does Michael, a mere bishop, really know no better than to offer a direct challenge to my authority? I shall have to cut him off altogether.’

‘He will have earned it, Lord. Now one pleasant matter. There is a king in Rome, most eager for an audience with your highness. I think I never saw one more truly eager, high or low.’

‘What king?’

‘Of Scots or Scotland, Macbeth by name. Having quite given you up, as regrettably some few had, he had petitioned the Cardinal Vicar-General for an audience and professed himself overwhelmed to learn he might after all be privileged to be received by your highness. He was most particular that you must consult your own health and comfort in the matter. A touching rogue. It might amuse you, Lord.’

‘Amusing or not, I will see him. Of course I will. I must make any friends I can. If he cares to call on me I will receive the king of Vinland. How is he attended, this Macbeth?’

‘Most suitably, by someone I took for a kind of freebooter. He was here, King Macbeth was in Rome, three years ago on purpose to see your highness, but you were abroad then, peregrinating beyond the Alps.’

‘Yes, yes. Such persistence merits reward. Arrange it.’

‘It is done, Lord. Provisionally. Noon, not tomorrow but the day following. Now your highness must retire,’ said Hildebrand, calling servants. ‘And sleep late.’

When, not much refreshed even by twelve hours in a good bed, I rose the next afternoon, Hildebrand was soon in attendance again with, among much else, information about Scotland. The country, or the territory inhabited by Scots, was confined to that part of the mainland of Britain which lies north of the Firth of Forth. Here and over neighbouring regions from the furthest shores of the Irish Sea to those of the North Sea, there ranged at different times bands of Irish, Picts, Scots, Britons, Angles, Cumbrians, English, Danes, Norwegians contending in prolonged and obscure struggles. That part of northern Europe had been a turbulent place for centuries and seemingly still was.