The Vengeance of Rome by Michael Moorcock Read Free Book Online

perfect location for their luxury hideaways. The little town built up above the quay was dominated by an eighteenth-century church of local stone, topped by a clock and a conventional angel, doubtless their domestic saint. The perfect whiteness of the houses was broken by oddly fashioned chimney pots and slates, their soft curving lines in gentle contrast to the ultra-modern vivid yellow and blue Egyptianate Hotel Bristol which was patronised chiefly by the yachting crowd. They had colonised the fishing port in recent years, bringing with them a glamorous lifestyle and easy habits of spending and were revered by all but the most committed socialist. On warm nights the Bristol’s were usually the only lights still burning at dawn.
    Andratx was the haunt of Continental film stars like Rose Blanche and Corinne Sweet, Pola Negri and Elfrieda Juergen, of politicians like Primo de Rivera and magnates like Vickers and Zaharoff, of international writers such as Felix Faust, E. Phillips Oppenheim, Lester Dent, G.H. Teed, W. Somerset Maugham, Dornford Yates, Romain Rolland, Anatole France, Erich Maria Remarque, Howard Marion Crawford and Charles Hamilton, most of whom had their own yachts. In those days the world valued its tale-spinners and rewarded them accordingly. Now, by virtue of a beneficent state rather than any honest work or public acclaim, only fawning lapdogs of the establishment can afford such pleasures. The predictable result of the so-called National Health Service.
    We dined every evening in the harbour restaurant next to the Bristol. Shura, the debonair man of affairs, always knew at least half the people at the other tables. He was forever up and shaking hands with some fantastic
prima donna
, some painfully shy
écrivain
or distinguished member of the Fascist Legion who bore Mussolini’s greatest honour on a discreet lapel.Spanish officers, mostly of the aristocratic class, were as happy as anyone else to pass the time of day with Shura, introducing him as a close confidant of Stavisky, that ‘master rogue’ as the papers would call him as soon as he was safely assassinated. They would enquire after Stavisky’s business exploits and adventures as if they were following a popular serial.
    Clearly Stavisky’s power extended further than I had ever guessed. Shura’s claims of watertight political connections (which he guaranteed he would employ to correct my record in France as soon as possible) were entirely authenticated. Through Shura I was privileged to join the inner entourage of a post-war prince, who comprised all the traditional virtues of a great Russian
seigneur
, an outlaw lord, a man of substance and influence. Stavisky’s empire stretched from the Black Sea to the English Channel and beyond. His decisions determined the fate of small nations and large governments.
    Shura was genuinely popular in the port. He never discussed his boss’s affairs in front of me. He always took his colleagues aside for any business exchanges. I think he still felt protective and affectionately sheltered me from the sordid world of politics and commerce. For the moment I was content to rest under his brotherly concern and to indulge myself in his circle’s singularly fine cocaine. As the Bedouin tribesmen had done in the desert, Shura treated me as a kind of mascot. He admired me as a dreamer and an artist. I am not even sure he really believed my stories of my life since I had last seen him, yet he was surprisingly familiar with my screen work and boasted to acquaintances how I had been a Hollywood star. He was, however, amiably reluctant to watch the films that were proof of this. He said he had enjoyed them when they first came out. In the end I would talk to him as one would talk to a cat, for relief and comfort and to sound out ideas, while he listened to me with abstracted good humour much as if a favourite pet made comforting, uninterpretable noises. Occasionally he grew