Frankenstein in London

by Brian Stableford

  Although Lord Liverpool was the Prime Minister, everyone knew that George Canning was the man in charge of the Tory party and the government. Sam merely smiled at the mention of the name, though. “I’ve played the bigot myself, on stage,” he said, “and the opposite too. Mr. Canning’s a fine actor, but I know the art too well to trust anything he says. If you think that his Commission of Inquiry intends to make a fair report of the affair at Fyne Court, you’re a greater optimist than I took you for.”

  Temple scowled, although he knew that if Tom Brown were now in London—as he surely must be, if Sam Hopkey had come here on his behalf—then he had ample means of finding out what was going on, even in the wilds of the Quantocks. He would know, just as Balsamo had, that Victor Frankenstein, whom Lord Byron had hoped to escort to the Americas, had instead accepted an invitation from Andrew Crosse and Michael Faraday, the most prominent English pioneers of electric research now that Humphry Davy was dead, to stage a demonstration at Crosse’s home in Somerset—and that Canning had set up a commission to investigate the claims that Frankenstein had made regarding the resurrection of the dead, in which selected parliamentarians would associate themselves with members of the Royal Society. Temple was due to take charge of the escort that would accompany the commission’s members to Fyne Court in less than 36 hours time.

  “That’s none of your business, Mr. Hopkey,” Temple growled, “nor of John Devil’s.”

  “It’s everyone’s business, Mr. Temple,” Hopkey replied, flatly. “If the world is to be turned upside-down, there’s not a man, woman or child within it who doesn’t have an interest at stake. This is the 19th century, Mr. Temple—what you call common people are no longer prepared to let their fate be decided by aristocrats and mill-owners, especially in matters of life and death. I didn’t come to quarrel with you, though, or to issue challenges. I came to give you information that you direly need to know. For one thing, Szandor and Addhema are in England, probably in London.”

  Temple knew that Addhema was another name by which Countess Marcian Gregoryi was known in what was assumed to be her native land—or the native land of the person she had once been. He had not known, however, that the vampire and his minion were in England, and Sam was right to judge that it was information of which he and his superiors were in need.

  “It was only to be expected,” he said, ungraciously. “They’re as eager to take possession of Frankenstein and his secrets as Byron and Civitas Solis are.”

  “Not to mention half the governments in Europe, now that credulity is beginning to dawn,” Sam said. “It’s not just Limehouse that’s swarming with sailors returned from the Caribbean. Patou may still be in trouble, but Marie Laveau’s publicity has spread. If Canning were to prove willing, in spite of pressure from the Church, England might steal a useful march on her rivals. It’s not just Frankenstein that Szandor might be after, though, according to Tom. He sent me to warn you that you may well be in danger yourself.”

  “I doubt that,” Temple said. “The vampire had the opportunity to kill me in Miremont, and refrained.”

  “It’s not the vulgar peril of assassination that threatens you,” Sam Hopkey told him. “The vampire might have intended to capture you as well as the Colonel at the Grafina von Boehm’s château—and Szandor’s probably not the only new enemy whose attention you’ve attracted.”

  “It was Byron that Szandor intended to capture,” Temple corrected him. “The rest of us were merely bystanders.”

  “That’s possible,” Sam insisted. “Tom believes, however, that it was Byron he intended to seduce, along with the Grafina. The man he probably intended to capture was Colonel Bozzo-Corona—he presumably believed that he already had you, having hobbled you and set you aside for later collection.”

  “Why would the vampire want to capture the Colonel?” Temple could not help asking, genuinely curious. “Surely not because of his wealth, if he had Sarah von Boehm in his sights.”

  “According to Tom,” Sam said, “the Colonel is considerably richer than the Grafina, although his fortune is much better defended. It wasn’t the Colonel’s money that interested Szandor, but his antiquity—and Tom believes that Szandor’s interest might well have aroused the Colonel’s in its turn. It’s not your influence as a secret policeman, which seems to be almost annihilated, that interests other parties now, in Tom’s opinion—merely your stubbornness in having lived so long, while giving no sign of any conspicuous loss of your mental and physical prowess.”

  Temple was genuinely puzzled. He had had cause to wonder himself at the remarkable fashion in which the aged Jean-Pierre Sévérin had conserved his skill and acumen, but he had not thought to include himself in the same category. It was Sévérin that he had come to meet from the Dover coach, although he did not know yet why the Frenchman had asked him to be there. “I thought that Szandor was interested in means to secure and prolong life-after-death, and regarded the living as mere prey,” he said.

  “That was not what he told you when you met him,” Sam said, so confidently that Temple knew that he or his master must have had an eye-witness report of the encounter. That could only have come from one person.

  “Is Lazarus in England too, then?” Temple asked. He had lost track of Frankenstein’s first Grey Man after the affair at Miremont, and had had no news of him since. “Is he the one you’re warning me against?”

  “No—he still seems intent on forging a reconciliation with his maker. The people of whom Tom commissioned me to warn you to beware are Balsamo and Sarah von Boehm.”

  “In other words, Civitas Solis and the remnant of the vehm that took up arms against them when they kidnapped Jeanne and Sarah’s children. I can understand why it might be in John Devil’s interest to make me wary of both, if he’s engaged in some sort of power-struggle with Balsamo—but I’ve had no indication of hostility from either party.” He did not think it politic to add that he had received overtures of friendship from one—and he knew, in any case, that overtures of friendship from a man like Balsamo might easily conceal intentions of a very different sort.

  “The proposed demonstration at Fyne Court has become a significant focus of interest, Mr. Temple,” the actor told him, with an expansive flourish of his right arm. “The attention of all those working in the cause of Enlightenment, as well as all those working against it, is focused upon it for the moment. If Faraday returns to the Royal Institution suitably enthused and duly licensed to begin his own experiments, London will become the Necromantic capital of the world, with material and intellectual resources that far outstrip anything that Germain Patou and Marie Laveau might contrive in Haiti, let alone those that Civitas Solis can presently call upon, given its current state of disarray. Frankenstein’s technique is not, however, the only topic of interest whose urgency has been revived by recent events, especially in the ranks of the older Secret Orders. There is more than one kind of potential immortality, Mr. Temple, and more than one way to approach their investigation. You already know that the Commission you will be escorting will include several individuals with secret agendas. Tom advises you to be wary, and to be exceedingly careful in deciding who your friends are.”

  “I always am,” Temple said. “As I’ve already told you, I certainly don’t count John Devil among them. Lazarus, on the other hand…”

  “…Has his own ambitions, and makes his alliances in accordance with his own ends.”

  Temple recalled that the Grey Men’s New Adam had admitted something of the sort, but it was hardly necessary. As with Szandor, Lazarus’ first priority had to be the interests of the dead-alive, not the living. To the extent that the two sets of interests coincided, he seemed as reliable an ally as any, but if ever there was a conflict, he might be as redoubtable an adversary as any…except, perhaps, Szandor, who was certainly gifted with uncanny powers of delusion and apparently possessed what Temple had decided to call “dividuality:” the ability to divide his person into two. Balsamo, Sarah von Boehm and Colonel Bo
zzo-Corona, on the other hand, were bound to be interested, first and foremost, in means of prolonging life rather than surviving death; if the methods of modern science were to replace those of the ancient alchemists in that search, that would be the principal focus of their attention—but modern science required empirical observation and experimentation, which would require subjects: living ones, in this instance, rather than dead ones.

  Temple still could not believe that he might be as interesting, in that context, as Sévérin, or the Colonel—or Balsamo himself, if he were more than a mere impostor—but what Sam was saying was certainly worthy of some thought…unless, of course, John Devil were extending this lure to him precisely in order to deflect him from other concerns and paths of Inquiry. That, he knew, was perfectly possible.

  “We all make alliances according to our own ends,” Temple told his unwelcome companion, brusquely. “Which is why I will make none with you or your master. Since you’ve brought me a message from him, I’ll give you one to take back: while I still have duties to perform, I shall carry them out to the best of my ability, but if and when I am free once again of immediate obligations to crown and country—which might be very soon, if my superiors’ patience runs out—then I shall resume the hunt for John Devil, and pursue it doggedly.”

  “Alone?” Sam queried.

  “If necessary,” Temple stated—but he knew that he was being disingenuous. He would not be alone; he had been promised all possible support by the Comtesse de Belcamp, with the sole provision that he did not pursue his chase to the death. Jeanne was interested in capture, not annihilation.

  “Tom asked whether you would consent to meet with him,” Sam Hopkey continued, after a slight pause. He was obviously not hopeful that his offer would be accepted.

  Temple was, in fact, hesitating over the wisdom of uttering the refusal that leapt to his lips, and wondering whether it might be more profitable to accept, when there was a rumble of wheels outside, and the night-coach from Dover was heard racing into the Post Office forecourt.

  The waiting crowd rose as one man, and not merely because they had been waiting for so long. The postillion was sounding his horn, and the blast was an alarm signal, intended to summon help. Something was amiss.

  Having longer legs than Sam Hopkey, Gregory Temple reached the door first, three or four strides ahead of any of the people who had been huddling closer to the stoves. He bounded out into the street and set off across the courtyard as the coach pulled up, the four hoses steaming and the wheels squealing like souls in torment as the brakes were applied.

  Uniformed employees were already emerging from the Post Office itself, and one of them shouted: “What’s wrong?”

  “Wounded man inside!” cried the coachman. “We were attacked!”

  “Highwaymen?” queried a second official. “In 1823! On the Dover Road! Impossible!”

  Temple’s heat was already sinking, however. He knew that the word “impossible” had virtually lost all meaning, precisely because it was 1823. For the moment, he was far less concerned with the plausibility of highwaymen attacking a mail coach on the Dover road than with the identity of the wounded man. Jean-Pierre Sévérin, he knew, was not a man to submit meekly to any kind of attack—but even a man reputed to have been the best swordsman in pre-Revolutionary France could not be expected to be able to defend a mail coach against bandits armed with pistols. It was easy enough to image the ex-morgue-keeper responding chivalrously to a challenge and being shot down in consequence.

  The first official reached the flank of the coach ahead of Temple, and pulled open the door. There were only three passengers inside, one of whom was sprawled on the floor between the benches while the other two pored over him with evident concern. There was blood on the floor and on the stricken man’s clothing.

  None of the three, however, was Jean-Pierre Sévérin. The man lying on the floor, having been bloodily slashed on his upper right arm, not far from the shoulder, was Malo de Treguern, Knight of the Order of St. John Hospitaller—another ancient who would inevitably have responded with violent chivalry to any demand to “stand and deliver!”

  Temple shoved the Post Office official out of the way, and forced the two concerned passengers to sit down. “Monsieur de Treguern!” he said, urgently. “What happened? Was Sévérin with you? What has become of him?”

  Malo de Treguern opened his eyes, as if slightly surprised to discover that the coach had reached its destination. “Mr. Temple!” he said. “Thank God you’re here! You must summon reinforcements immediately. We were stopped on the road. Sévérin and I tried to fight. We expected to take them by surprise, but they were ready for us. They took him, Mr. Temple—the cowards led him on, then dropped a net on him. They dared not face him, even though he only had a stick, and not a blade. I too had a staff, but…”

  Temple had been examining the wound. “You’ve lost a lot of blood, Monsieur de Treguern,” he said, “but you’ll live, with luck and God’s favor. We’ll have you in St. Thomas’s in no time.” As he spoke, he looked at the official, who nodded. A stretcher was already being brought out, and its bearers were well used to sprinting to the hospital. Highwaymen were exceedingly rare nowadays, but traffic accidents were becoming increasing common, as if by way of compensation. The number of people run down by coaches and carriages in the London streets was dizzying to contemplate.

  “Why are you here, Monsieur?” Temple asked, as practiced hands transferred the injured man from the floor of the church to the stretcher.

  “Sévérin is not to blame,” Treguern stated, in a hushed but determined voice. “I insisted on accompanying him. We have not become firm friends since our adventure at Miremont, I admit—but once two men have fought as comrades against monsters, there is a bond between them. He was coming to warn you that Comtesse Marcian Gregoryi has crossed the channel, doubtless to pursue her evil schemes in London. He has information about her master, gleaned in Paris...as have I. He saw the virtue of our traveling together—not virtue enough, alas!”

  By the time this speech was finished, Temple was trotting alongside the stretcher as it was being carried through the bitterly cold streets in the direction of St. Thomas’s Hospital. He could see Tower Bridge in the distance, its candle-lit towers looming out of the mist as if suspended in mid-air.

  “I will come to see you tomorrow,” Temple promised, relenting in his pace, and then turning back. The coachman, he knew, would be able to tell him exactly where the attack had taken place, and the Post Office would be glad to lend him a horse once he made his identity known. The Postmaster would summon constables and guardsmen to take up the chase I his wake, but he wanted to make a start as soon as humanly possible, before any tracks that the coach’s attackers had left behind could be obscured.

  Sam Hopkey was waiting by the carriage.

  “Don’t go, Mr. Temple,” said the actor, obviously having guessed his intention. “It might be a trap—they may want you too, remember, whoever they are.”

  “Sévérin is my friend,” said Temple. “He’s also a foreign national on English soil; I’m honor bound to protect him from harm, and to pursue anyone who seeks to injure him.” To the Postmaster he said: “I’m Gregory Temple, late of Scotland Yard. I need your best horse.”

  “He’s being saddled as we speak, Mr. Temple,” the official said, along with half a dozen others. “Should my men go with you, or should I save the horses for yours?” Temple’s name was obviously not unfamiliar to him, although it might have been if he had been a younger man, and he was obviously not to be deterred from offering full assistance by rumors of madness.

  “Save the horses for the constables,” Temple said. “The guardsmen will bring their own, when they come.” He turned to the coachman, who was still catching his breath. “Where?” he growled, tersely.

  “Between Blackfen and Crayford,” the driver replied, “not far from Hall Place. There were at least six, perhaps ten—not common blackguards, but skilled swordsmen. They mig
ht have killed the warrior monk, if they’d wanted to, but were content to put him out of the fight. He said as much himself.”

  “They’ll be differently inclined toward you, Mr. Temple,” Sam Hopkey said. “If you go charging in without a dozen men at your back, you’ll likely meet the same fate as the Frenchman.”

  “Only if they’re expecting me,” Temple said, as the saddled horse was brought forward. “I’ll travel faster alone, and might have to wait ten minutes and more for any reinforcements at all, let alone a dozen men. If your master turns out to be behind this caper…”

  “He’s not, sir,” the actor protested, vehemently. “This is far more likely to be Balsamo’s doing.”

  So there’s definitely a rift in the Civitas Solis lute, Temple thought, as he climbed on to the horse’s back. Henri has not mastered that organization as easily as he mastered the Deliverance—which is doubtless why he has taken on the mantle of Tom Brown again, to muster the raggle-taggle army of the London Underworld.

  He urged the horse forward. He was not wearing spurs, but the animal was a veteran post horse, loyal and willing. It set off at a fast trot, and accelerated to a gallop within a dozen strides. Temple headed for Bermondsey at top speed. The coach had covered nine-tenths of its journey before being attacked, practically on the outskirts of the capital. That meant that its assailants had had time already to have fled into one or other of the city’s rookeries—but would they have done that? Would they have dared, if they were indeed adversaries, rather than hirelings, of John Devil? More likely they had gone to Dartford, in order to make use of the river to reach a more distant destination.

  Temple knew that he was being something of a fool in leading the pursuit on is own, but he had been inactive for some time, and had not forgotten that Jean-Pierre Sévérin had saved his bacon in Miremont, when he had done more harm than good himself by unwittingly taking the vampire into the new château. He had a debt to repay, to himself as well as to the Frenchman.