Fallen Angels. Bernard Cornwell

answer came from a man who stood alone in the centre of a sunken, marble floor. The man was naked.

      The room was brilliantly lit by a ring of candles, hundreds of flames reflected from polished marble, silver, and mirrors that threw the man’s shadow in a complex coronet radiating from his bare feet. The room was circular and, high above the naked man’s head, there was the gleam of gold mosaics that decorated the domed ceilings. It was a lavish room, fit for an Emperor or a great whore.

      The questioner spoke again. He could not be seen and his voice came as a hoarse whisper that seemed to fill the room, coming from no direction and every direction. ‘What is your desire?’

      ‘To join you.’

      ‘What gives light?’

      ‘Reason.’

      ‘What gives darkness?’

      ‘God.’

      ‘How do you apprehend this?’

      ‘With reason.’

      ‘What is your name?’

      The naked man answered again. His voice was strong in the room, echoing from the marble and from the magnificent gold mosaics of the dome.

      Another voice, also a whisper, echoed mysteriously about the great chamber. ‘What protects the weak?’

      ‘The law.’

      ‘What is above the law?’

      ‘Reason.’

      ‘What is your name?’

      The man answered. He stood quite still. He was a tall man and well muscled. He did not seem uncomfortable with his nakedness.

      A third voice whispered. ‘What is death?’

      ‘Nothing.’

      Silence.

      Real silence. No windows opened to the outside world in this extraordinary place. The doors by which the naked man had entered were of bronze, doors so heavy that it had taken all his strength to close them on the night.

      It was October outside. In this room it could be any season, any hour, any year.

      One of the whispers sounded. ‘Kill him.’

      Silence again.

      The man expected this, yet he felt a crawling fear within him. He kept his face rigid. He was being judged.

      ‘Why did you come here?’

      ‘To serve you.’

      ‘Whom do we serve?’

      ‘Reason.’

      ‘What bounds does reason have?’

      ‘None.’

      ‘Kill him.’

      ‘Kill him.’

      The third voice did not sound.

      Europe was rife with secret societies, most imitating the Masons, all offering a man the secret pride of belonging to a privileged group. Some, like the Rosati, were harmless, devoted to poetry and wine. Others, like the Illuminati, had more sinister purposes. Yet this gathering, in this strange marble hall that was like a mausoleum awaiting its dead, was a secret society within a secret society. These were the Fallen Angels of the Illuminati.

      The Illuminati had come from Germany where the princes and dukes had persecuted the movement and driven it south to France where, in the ferment of revolution, the ‘Illuminated Ones’ had found a home. It was said that more than half the leaders of the revolution belonged to the Illuminati, that the achievements of the revolution had been planned, not in political meetings, but in the secret halls of the society. It was rumoured that the Illuminati were spreading like an unseen stain throughout the civilized world.

      They had been given the light of reason. They were above the law. They were the future. They would take the world from the dark splendours of superstition into the brilliance of a planet governed by the intellect. The society of the Illuminated Ones existed to establish a new religion that worshipped reason, and to forge a universal republic. France had lit the way; France had proved that the old monarchies and the old gods could be destroyed.

      The naked man had been Illuminati for five years. Now he had been offered a greater honour. He could join the Fallen Angels.

      The Fallen Angels were not the only secret group within the Illuminati. Each group, like this one, had a task to fulfil. Just as cavalry rode ahead of an army to spy out the land and confuse the enemy with short, sharp raids, so did the secret groups of the Illuminati prepare the way for the coming age of reason. The Fallen Angels planned one such raid now and the naked man, standing on the echoing marble, was needed for a specific task. First, though, he must pass this trial.

      The naked man, if he failed this test, would die. Simply by coming to this place he had learned too much about the Fallen Angels. If he passed the test then he would be given a new name, the name of a fallen angel; one of those bright creatures who had rebelled against God, who had fought the war in heaven, and who had fallen with Satan into the bottomless pit of defeat. The Fallen Angels took the names of those who had dared to fight God as symbols of their own rebellion against religion, superstition, and government.

      A whisper sounded again. ‘What is your name?’

      He told them.

      ‘What do the Fallen have?’

      ‘Reason.’

      ‘Do they obey the law?’

      ‘They make the law.’

      ‘Do they obey the law?’ The whisper had a suggestion of irritation.

      ‘No.’

      Silence. The candle flames were still and bright. A few, their wicks untrimmed, shivered and raised thin streaks of smoke that darkened the ceiling of the circular alcove within which all the candles burned. The alcove, its rear wall mirrored, ran like a recessed shelf clear round the base of the dome.

      The whispers seemed to sigh about the circular room. Then one voice rose above the others. ‘What is evil?’

      ‘Weakness.’ The naked man had not been rehearsed in his answers, but his sponsor, one of the three men who questioned him, had talked of what he might expect. He might expect death.

      ‘What is the punishment for weakness?’

      ‘Death.’

      ‘What is your name?’

      He told them. There was silence.

      He felt the shiver of fear again, but he kept his head high and he stared at the veined sheen of the curved marble walls and tried to see from where the voices came.

      The sigh came again, like a wind half heard far away. It died into silence.

      The floor on which he stood was of green and blue marble. It was some forty feet in diameter and surrounded by white marble steps, four in all, that climbed to a mosaic pavement. The walls were decorated with columns, sculpted wreaths, and intricate bas-reliefs, any of which could hide the openings from which the voices must come. The chamber, though lavish and bright, seemed to be missing something, as though a throne or a great catafalque should stand within its barren splendour.

      ‘What is your name?’

      He told them.

      ‘Kill him.’

      ‘Kill him.’

      The third voice, instead of confirming his doom, whispered that he should close his eyes.

      The naked man obeyed. He could hear nothing, but there was a sudden shivering of colder air on his body as though a tomb had been opened.

      Then he heard footsteps.

      He heard naked feet on the marble floor. The