Mendoza in Hollywood (39 page)

No, this man wasn’t one to die for his God, and I’d have to remember to thank God for it, next time I believed in Him. I wasn’t sure I didn’t believe in Him right now. Could my lover have been reconstituted
without
the faith that had killed him?

In my relief I stammered, “Not to me, señor, but I feared it might matter to you.” I drew breath and temporized. “My mother owned an English book about Protestant martyrs,
Foxe’s Acts and Monuments
. You understand, she became a Catholic when she married my father, but since this book had been given to her as a girl, she kept it for sentiment’s sake. Well, I read it when I was learning to read English, and
what a terrible business. Such hatred the Catholics and Protestants felt for each other! So I drew the conclusion that Englishmen might feel strongly on the matter even now.”

“And many do,” he admitted. “But that was three centuries ago. If all nations brooded interminably on old scores, there’d never be an end to the vengeance. Most of the Catholics I’ve known have been reasonably decent chaps. A certain amount of tolerance is essential to civilized behavior. Barbarity is the force to be fought, not differences of dogma. Wouldn’t you agree?”

“Yes!” How direct, how enlightened. Nicholas’s intellect and humanity, everything I’d adored in him, without his late medieval prejudices.

Possibly encouraged by my enthralled look, Edward continued: “Religion has its place, certainly, in reinforcing ethical behavior amongst the masses, but any sufficiently enlightened secular laws will have the same effect. After all, most of the creeds of the world have essentially the same purpose, have they not? To enjoin men to be what we call moral, which is to say
civilized
. A civilized man obeys the rule of law, he acknowledges that he must not injure his neighbors, and if injured by them, he must appeal to law for satisfaction rather than indulge in burning their houses over their heads as they sleep. Civilization is the ideal for which we strive, with so little perceptible success; yet we do succeed, in inches and over years.

“Consider.” He sat forward, resting his elbows on his knees, and the intensity of his eyes made my heart flame. “What was Britain when the Romans found her? A wilderness of howling savages. And Rome, a thousand times more civilized, yet was so barbaric, she held spectacles of slaughter for her citizens, and her rulers were guilty of the most hideous crimes.

“Still, the Pax Romana tamed the wilderness, taught the savages, and, as imperfect as she was, Rome sent the idea of civilization working throughout the world. Even her fall into decadence could not stay the forces she had set in motion.”

“Other people were what we’d call civilized, before Rome,” I said with effort. His voice was so magnificent, I hated to interrupt him.

“Certainly. The Greeks, in fact, were more so. They lacked, however, Rome’s peculiar genius at organization and her insistence that civilization be spread. That, in my opinion, was Rome’s great contribution to the world, and that is the inheritance she passed on to Britain: the moral imperative to bring the rule of law to barbarians, through the operative mechanisms of empire.” He moved closer to me. There was a purpose to all this, of course: he wanted to win me to his government’s side. But look how his eyes glowed. All the easy, deceitful charm had fallen away, and passionate conviction was shining out of them like light.

“That is the cause in which I labor. What force can bring the greatest good to the greatest number of men? Only the modern empire, with its constitution to guarantee their individual rights, and its power to bring them prosperity. A missionary may persuade a painted savage to worship a cross rather than an idol; but he will not make laws that send that savage’s children to school, where they might learn to make the desert they inhabit another Eden by means of the advanced sciences. He may persuade his flock to love one another for his God’s sake, but he’ll invariably urge them to slaughter any neighboring tribe that still worships stone idols. This is the failure of religion as a force for the common welfare,” he said.

“Señor, you have the truth of it,” I said from my heart. How had Victorian England brought forth a man like this? “And surely this is the way to a better world, is it not, this secular enlightenment? Even the Americans have deduced this, with their separation of church and state.”

“Ah, the Yankees.” He sneered elegantly. “What have they achieved but violent chaos? And I’ll tell you why, my dear. Liberty (as they conceive of it) and loyalty are opposing concepts. Having rebelled against the hereditary ruler who was the embodiment of their nation, to what will they be loyal? Their flag? But see what has happened now: half the
nation, asserting its liberty to keep slaves, has rebelled and taken up arms to defend that liberty. It won’t end there, either, you know. Any brute will demand his right to be a law unto himself, beating his wife and his children as he pleases, and defend that right with his father’s rifle and think himself a patriot.” He used his big hands so well when he spoke, with graceful economical gestures to make his point.

“The difficulty, I think, is that liberty is too abstract an idea for human nature to grasp. It is too easily twisted into lawlessness, as has happened in America. Most men are incapable of reverencing a mere principle; that principle must be embodied in a living person to effectively hold their allegiance. This is where empire inspires, and democracy fails in inspiration: love of one’s monarch.”

What a spell he was weaving, jarred only by my mental image of dumpy little Victoria and her priggish prince. No, I certainly couldn’t agree with him on that one. But he swept on and took my breath away by saying:

“Mind you, royals and their attendant baggage of toadies, cretins, and thieves are seldom an inspiring lot in and of themselves, but in a constitutional commonwealth they need not be. I believe that my sovereign has deplorable taste in art, is devoid of much talent to rule, and certainly couldn’t compete with Venus for beauty. But she in her person is the empire personified, the driving force of civilization, and as such I serve her, reverence her, and will, when necessity commands, die for her.”

The wickedly confidential way in which he said this was so delightful that it took a moment for the last part to sink in on me.

“I trust, señor, you’ve no intention of dying soon,” I said.

His eyes narrowed, and he shrugged. “No intention at all. But my occupation carries that risk, always. I imagine I came rather close to the awful specter this evening. Certainly I’d hate to lose my life as the result of some fool’s incompetence. Should there come a time, however, when my death would serve the purpose of empire, then I hope I will die without hesitation. As the bard of Avon says, ‘Live we how we
can, yet die we must.’ And that being the inevitable case, one can at least have the satisfaction of accomplishing something with one’s death.”

It has probably already occurred to you, señors, but it was only at that moment that I realized that this
was
the same man I had loved. He had exactly the same inner drive that had got him burned at the stake; only the focus of his devotion had shifted. As I stared at him in horror, he leaned back and went on:

“I don’t imagine I’d much care to live to decrepit old age, to tell you the truth. End one’s days being pushed about in a bath chair? Not for me. Better a brief life lived intensely, with a keen appreciation of its pleasures.” He gave me a meaningful smile. “It’s no more than the bargain soldiers make, after all, self-sacrifice for the greater good.”

He was the perfect operative. Brilliant intellect, no life of his own, utterly focused on his duty to make the world a better place, thoroughly convinced that his masters were wise and good. He was just what I was supposed to be.

“But—isn’t human sacrifice one of the barbarisms you’re working to put an end to?” I protested, rising up on my knees. “Whether willing or unwilling? And how can you
know
, señor, that your death will really have accomplished anything? Secrets of espionage are the most transitory. And who can ever say how history will play out? Consider, consider those same English martyrs!”

I felt my voice shaking and tried desperately to control it, but everything I’d wanted to say to him for three hundred years came howling up from my heart. “They let themselves be burned in droves, señor, and for what? They died for
nothing
. If they’d only kept their mouths shut and lain low, they’d have lived to see a better day, because in short order Bloody Mary died and Elizabeth succeeded her, and restored their stupid Protestant faith to power. So how can you know, señor, that you wouldn’t be throwing your life away, that you wouldn’t serve your cause better as a living man?”

Was I convincing him, señors? No, I was only arousing him. He found the throb of my voice, the firelight on my hair, and the angry
blood in my cheeks exciting. But he did make an effort to reply seriously rather than simply grab me and pull me down.

“I am astonished at how well you know English history, my dear,” he said. “Granting your point—without foreknowledge of history, what else could those Protestant heroes have done? Nor can you say with real certainty that their deaths accomplished nothing. If they hadn’t died as bravely as they did, if they had not so publicly denounced Mary’s tyranny, might not her husband Philip of Spain have been emboldened to seize the crown after her death? Setting aside the immediate salvation that martyrdom is reputed to confer on the martyr.” His eyes glinted, reflecting fire.

How could I tell him that
I
had known how history was going to play out, and I’d failed to save him, even so? He continued:

“The instinct to preserve life is natural for your sex, my dear; it’s a fine and appropriate womanly inclination. And when the ideal is reached at last and the world is civilized, I trust there shall be no more need of martyrs to die in any cause. At present, however, we live in a world that requires certain regrettable actions in order to bring about the better world we desire. I myself have been required to commit crimes, to do things I would certainly rather have avoided. And when my blood must be shed to atone for those acts, then at least I’ll face oblivion with a clean score. It works out, you see.”

“In the minds of wicked old men who make governments, it works out,” I said in despair. “They know they can always count on a ready supply of brave men who’ll die for a cause, like you, and so they continue to wage wars and spend lives to keep themselves in power. But if all the heroes refused to play that great game, what then, señor? If the nations had no means of waging war on one another, wouldn’t they be obliged to find some more civilized means of settling their differences?”

I thought he wasn’t listening to me, so hungry were his eyes. Even now he was moving forward with one hand out to wind it in my hair and pull my face close to his. He kissed greedily, but when we came up for air he growled:

“No, my dear, they wouldn’t. Come, come, do you suppose the politicians are the only ones responsible for wars? When one shepherd will steal his neighbor’s flock, when one child will pick up a stone to fling at a child from the next village over? Things are by no means so simply drawn as you imagine, and the causes of war are far too complicated to gloss over with a pacifist cliché.”

He bore me backward, and we wrestled as he very adroitly unbuttoned and unhooked. “If all the statesmen in the world signed a universal peace tomorrow, some spiteful fool would find a way to bare his bum at his former enemies, and the whole misery would begin all over again. It will take a great deal more subtle work, over a much longer period of time, to bring peace to the world.”

And of course he was right about that, and I
had
used a pacifist cliché. Really, what other man could argue like that while in the throes of carnal passion? Only one I’d ever known, a long time ago in a land far away.

Edward put his face close to mine and looked into my eyes, and I was so spellbound by his gaze and the music of his voice, I very nearly missed the meaning of his words, which would have been a pity, because it was extraordinary.

“And
when
there is peace at last, and
when
men are no longer distracted by the ravages of war and crime, then the real work begins. Mankind has grasped at science and invention to improve his lot; when he truly understands that he can wield those tools to improve
himself
, he will lay the cornerstone of the earthly paradise,” Edward said. “What might not science achieve, in a world where a nation’s resources weren’t continually drained by strife? What if that nation made a remarkable discovery, one that gave new meaning to old legends of a golden age? What if it were possible to utterly change the human condition? What if it were possible to put an end forever to disease? To age? To death itself? And where will men ever make those discoveries but in a stable and peaceful empire?”

How did he know
? Was the man a bloody prophet? How could he foresee so clearly what the future would hold once the Company
was founded? And how the hell could he prophesy so, with our hearts thundering against each other and our bodies locked in the most intimate embrace? I didn’t know, I had never known, but just so had my lover spoken three centuries before. And now as then, I fled from the meaning of his words and lost myself in the worship of his magnificent mortal flesh.

So we burned together beside that little fire, in the leaning ruin of Fremont’s outpost, and the shades of Manifest Destiny and Imperialism looked on with sardonic smiles. If the flames had risen and consumed us in each other’s arms, señors, we’d have felt no pain. If only we were lying there now, our quiet ashes mingled together!

I opened my eyes and saw him, in the chilly morning light. For a moment I thought I was lying in a garret room in England, awake at last after a nightmare of terrible sorrow and interminable length. But no, this was my new lover, who by an amazing coincidence was identical in every respect to Nicholas. Limited gene pool indeed! I had never once in all the intervening centuries met another mortal with his face. He wasn’t conventionally handsome, with that broken nose and that wide mouth; but the combination of features that would have made another man a leering gargoyle were elegant in Edward-who-had-been-Nicholas. Part of the trick was the way he used his face, the responsive liveliness of expression, the movement of his eyes. He fascinated, he charmed, he
moved
well, and one never realized that the big man didn’t quite look human—something odd in the angle of the cheekbones, in the way the head sat on the powerful neck. But he hid his strangeness far better than I, who looked human.