Tales of the Shadowmen 3: Danse Macabre

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  “You’re in no position to make terms, Monsieur,” the voice told him.

  “Am I not? Damn me, I’ll make them anyway. Let Gregory Temple mount up and take the child safely back to his mother, and I’ll not only drop my sword but swear to tell you everything I know about the means to reverse death. You’ll get no more ransom money–but my friend was telling me just a moment ago that the ransom wasn’t such a vast fortune anyway, so I deduce that you’re at least as interested in me as you are in the gold. If I fight, you know, I’ll be a very difficult opponent to put down, given that there are far less than a hundred of you. Which of you will take the lead, by the way?”

  Temple knew that the other was playing a game, and putting on a show–but the men in masks did not seem so sure.

  “Temple can go,” the voice of the death’s-head conceded, as if it were a matter of no importance whatsoever. “He may take the child. Now, please drop your sword.”

  “Wake the boy and mount up, Mr. Temple,” John Devil said. “If you travel a few points north of east, orientating yourself by the dawn, you’ll come to the Pontoise road eventually. Turn left. From Pontoise, the way to Miremont is signposted, if you don’t know it. Go now, before I’m tempted to fight them anyway.”

  Temple knew that for an empty boast, but he thought that he understood why John Devil was putting on his show of reluctance and recklessness. Meekly, he did as he was told. “This does not make us better friends, Monsieur de Belcamp,” he said, as he set the dazed child carefully in position before climbing into the saddle, bidding him to be silent with a warning hiss.

  “Of course not,” John Devil replied. “But you won’t find it nearly so easy to hunt me down once I’m wearing a death’s-head mask and have a thousand convents scattered half across the world in which to hide. Don’t worry about who is trapping whom, Mr. Temple–just get Sarah’s boy safely home to her, and tell her to be careful of the vehmgerichte, which is yet another company of fools uneasily ignorant of the redundancy of their cause.”

  Temple did not reply to that, but he moved his horse towards the gap between two thorn bushes that marked the exit from the clearing. The two masked men blocking the path moved aside to let him through, and no one else tried to stop him once he was on the open heath again.

  He found the Pontoise Road easily enough, and had no difficulty then finding the route back to Miremont. No one came after him, and he soon allowed the horse to relax into a safe and steady pace.

  “Nearly home,” he said to his tiny companion, in English.

  “Danke,” the boy replied, as if to chide him for his lapse.

  The mist lingered long into the morning, but the cloak in which Friedrich was swaddled kept the cold at bay. The boy seemed uncommonly patient and quiet; whether that was because he had been brought up in a disciplined fashion, or because he was in shock after all that had happened to him, or whether he simply had no confidence in his protector’s German, Temple could not tell.

  By the time they reached the gate of the château, Temple knew that the effects of the drug that had been used to render him unconscious had completely worn off. His limbs and face were numb with cold, and his aggravating exhaustion had returned in full force. He rang the bell, and waited for help to come.

  At least a dozen people came rushing out. As soon as Pierre Louchet had opened the gate, Sarah Boehm rushed forward to collect her son. She showered Temple with effusive thanks as he got down from the horse, but he shrugged them off, telling her that the friends she had summoned from Germany had actually contrived the rescue, and advising her to take the boy home and get him warm without delay. Her carriage was reharnessed in a matter of minutes, and she set off in company with Robert Surrisy and her servants before Temple had had time to go inside the château, flanked by Suzanne and Richard Thompson.

  “I’m all right,” he assured them, “and I don’t deserve any congratulations. I didn’t free the boy; I merely brought him home.”

  He was ushered into one of the smaller reception-rooms, where a fire was blazing and an assortment of chairs had been arranged about the hearth. This must have been the room in which they had all been waiting, for there were more seats than people now. Ned Knob–who seemed to be avoiding Temple’s eye–took it upon himself to effect the necessary rearrangement.

  “Thank you, Mr. Temple,” said Jeanne de Belcamp, when he had slumped into an armchair as close to the burning logs as he could, “for whatever part you played. My son was returned at midnight last night, exactly as specified in your letter.”

  “I doubt that you will see your money again, milady,” he replied. “I don’t know what happened when Sarah’s pocket army of obsolete knights went in search of the first consignment of gold, but the kidnappers were well-prepared. Reinforcements must have arrived in force as soon as they discovered what had happened at the second convent–the one where Master Knob was being held, after walking into their trap. Either the knights were trapped and disarmed, or they made a bargain to sell us out. Fortunately, the kidnappers were more interested in securing Henri de Belcamp’s peaceful co-operation than holding on to Friedrich–when he threatened them, they let us go.”

  “I was a fool to be taken so easily,” Ned Knob put in. “But you must admit, Mr. Temple, that neither of us suspected the sheer numbers we were up against. I was thinking in terms of eight or ten adversaries skulking in a cottage or a barn, not a hundred false monks with more than one priory at their disposal.” He was still not meeting Temple’s eye, doubtless expecting a stinging rebuke for having passed Suzanne’s letter to John Devil rather than delivering it himself.

  All Temple said was: “They weren’t false monks–not, at least, in the sense that they were merely pretending to be monks. If they and Monsieur de Belcamp are to be believed, their organization might date back further than the days of St Benedict and the cenobites of the Thebaid. There might well be documents stored in Whitehall that refer to them, but they’re probably rotting in a vault with other produce of Tudor and Jacobean spies. They obviously don’t consider themselves a spent force, though, in spite of their intense interest in resurrection.”

  “You have seen Monsieur de Belcamp?” Jeanne de Belcamp asked, keeping her voice quite level. It was a simple prompt; she knew that he had

  “I parted from him a little while ago, milady,” Temple told her. “He traded his freedom for Friedrich Boehm’s–or, at least, made a great pantomime of doing so. My guess is that he was delighted to discover who the convent’s proprietors were, and was very enthusiastic to join them. I dare say that he will do his utmost to use his supposed captors for his own ends, just as he tried to use the Brotherhood of the Deliverance. At this very moment, if I read him right, he thinks himself their potential master, and is planning how to deploy their resources in his own cause. He does not change.

  “In all fairness, though, it might well have been your husband’s ability to manage the vehmgerichte that got Friedrich safely out. I don’t believe that the kidnappers ever intended to harm the boy, and they will presumably be well satisfied with the trade they made, but things could have gone badly awry had the agents of the vehm taken matters into their own reckless hands. If word of this gets around, milady–as it surely will, thanks to the involvement of the vehm’s self-styled knights–you will have to pay more attention to your son’s protection. You need better fences and a larger staff. Pierre Louchet is a good and loyal man, but he cannot defend a château.”

  “Did Henri see his son?” was all the Comtesse said by way of reply. “Armand has no memory of seeing him, but...”

  “No, milady,” Temple said. “He could not get close to him. I do not think he will try again, at least for a while. I do not pretend to understand why he has not contacted you during these last three years, when there were abundant opportunities, but now that the boy is safe, I suspect that he will continue to consider you a widow–and himself, I suppose, a ghost.”

  There were no tears in Jeanne de Belcamp’s ey
es, although Suzanne’s were moist.

  “I know that you hate him, sir,” Richard Thompson said, “but he is not entirely a bad man.”

  “He put the noose around your neck from which he eventually condescended to save you,” Temple said, harshly. “With more than a little help from Ned Knob. You owe him nothing, Richard.”

  “But I owe him everything,” the Comtesse de Belcamp said. “He really did save my life, and he really did love me, with all his heart. He still does–and that, however perverse it may seem, is why he believes that he must remain dead.”

  Suzanne got up from the settee where she was sitting with Richard. “I must go to my son,” she said. “I’m sorry–I know that it’s absurd, but I am too anxious when he is out of my sight even for a few minutes. Will you come and see us, father, before you go?”

  “Go?” Richard echoed. “You’re surely not intending to go, sir? Not today.”

  “You are very welcome to stay for as long as you want, Mr. Temple,” the Comtesse said–although Temple could see that she understood well enough why he would not linger long.

  Temple did not answer Richard, who only hesitated momentarily before following his wife.

  “Will you leave us alone for a few moments, Ned?” Jeanne de Belcamp asked. Ned hopped down from his chair, bowed and left the room.

  “Is he well?” the Comtesse asked, when the door had closed.

  “Yes, milady,” Temple said. “I never saw a dead man looking so well, and there was a real fire in his eye at the end. He’s still very young, and his dreams have not abated in the least. If he no longer plans to conquer India, it’s because he cannot think of anything less, now, than the conquest of death itself. He pretended to be somewhat dismissive of the society into whose custody he has delivered himself, but he is highly delighted with the notion of resuming his work with their collaboration. They will be a hundred times more useful to him than Germain Patou–and I suspect that he is more than capable of taking control of the organization that considers him its prisoner and its instrument.”

  “He will not be coming home for quite some time, then.”

  “He has no home, milady. He came here once because he wanted to make use of his father. He was astonished to find you here–and was thrown completely off balance by the discovery, as headstrong and purposive men often are by the unexpected. He might as easily have killed you as fall in love with you, but he’s a man of very powerful passions, however perverse they may be.”

  “And now that your alliance is over, you’ll resume the business of hunting him down.”

  “Until five days ago,” Temple said, grimly, “I had had no business with him for three long years. I have a job to do, and a duty to perform, which have nothing to do with him–or had not. It will be very difficult indeed to persuade my blinkered superiors that the grey men are the seed of a revolution in human affairs far more powerful than the one envisaged by the poor fellows in St. Peter’s Fields, who are merely asking for the right to vote for the government that rules their lives–but I shall have to try. What they will command me to do about it, I have no idea. I am not even certain in my own mind what I ought to suggest. They may well be interested in the society that he has joined, though, if not in him. Secret police are jealous folk by nature, intolerant of any rivalry.”

  “Who are they?” the comtesse asked, at last.

  “Like the vehmgerichte, they appear to be the residue of a reality that ought to have dwindled away to mere legend–but there are a great many men in today’s world who are trying to live out the legends of the past. The account their representative gave me and the one that your husband subsequently supplied are doubtless shot through with illusions and impostures, but they are men of flesh and blood, who do more than hold meetings in fancy dress. They have a mission now, and will pursue it with all the gladness of men who have been without a clear and achievable purpose for far too long. When I explain that in London... yes, milady, I dare say that I shall be set to hunt your husband again, if only as a first step in a much broader campaign.”

  “I’m glad of that,” the Comtesse de Belcamp said. “I cannot expect you to violate the trust of your profession, of course–but I hope that I might learn something of your progress, and hence of his. You will maintain contact with your daughter now, I presume–unlike my husband, you will not continue, perversely, to play dead?”

  “I have been a unforgiving fool,” Temple admitted. “My own cardinal fault is stubbornness–but you’re right. I shall maintain contact with my daughter, if only by letter, and it’s not impossible that you might learn something of my progress, insofar as my duty will permit me to let it be known.”

  “Would you like to see my son?” she asked, out of the blue.

  He only had to meet her eyes to understand. She did not expect to see her husband in the foreseeable future, but she hoped that Gregory Temple might–and she wanted Temple to be able to tell the late Comte de Belcamp that he had seen his son, the rightful Marquis de Belcamp.

  “Yes, milady,” Temple said. “But I should like to see my grandson first, and my daughter. There is an order of priority that ought to be observed–and enough warmth has now returned to my ancient bones to permit me to follow it.”

  He stood up, and she stood too. He bowed, but she was not content wth that and offered him her hand.

  “I would like to be your friend, Mr. Temple,” she said. “I hope that will be possible, given that my husband, your former enemy, is dead. I would like to think that you and I could start afresh, with nothing between us but the gratitude I owe you for coming so promptly to our assistance when you were called. Can we do that?”

  Temple took the proffered hand, and kissed it. “Yes, milady,” he said. “I will be your friend, and a friend to young Armand, if I can.”

  “And Sarah?” the Comtesse de Belcamp ventured to ask.

  “That might be more difficult,” Temple admitted, “especially now that she is inextricably tangled with the vehm. But I will certainly go to see her and Surrisy before I leave, and build what bridges I can.”

  “Good,” the Comtesse said. “Now, I must follow your daughter’s good example. I shall expect to see you in Armand’s room when you are able to come.”

  On the way to Suzanne’s apartment, Temple met Ned Knob, who was loitering in a corridor in the obvious expectation of such a meeting. The little man still seemed anxious.

  “I did what seemed best, Mr. Temple,” the little man said, defiantly.

  “You did right,” Temple conceded, grudgingly. “Just as you did at Greenhithe. I know better than to ask a loyal radical like yourself whether he would be interested in a position with Lord Liverpool’s secret police, but will you at least condescend to travel back to England in my company?”

  Ned seemed startled by that, and then suspicious–perhaps fearful that Temple only wanted to pump him for information about his radical acquaintances–but in the end he nodded. It was Temple who offered to shake hands.

  Then he went in to meet his grandson, and to make amends for his desertion of his daughter. The fault was not mended in a minute, or even an hour, but he found the time eventually to meet Armand de Belcamp too, and memorize as many details of his existence as a paternal ghost might justly find interesting. By the time he went to the new château, night was falling again, so he had no alternative to postpone his journey plans until the next day.

  Sarah O’Brien, as he had expected, was not much interested in counting him a friend, but she was still grateful for what he had done for her son. She had received a letter from the men she had begged for help, which assured her that Temple had, in fact, done nothing, and that it was they who had saved her the necessity of paying any ransom, but Friedrich had apparently told her a different story.

  Surrisy was suspicious of Temple too, simply because the former lieutenant had spent so much of his precious youth in fighting the English, but Surrisy had always respected him, and was perfectly ready to renew that respect. I
t was, in fact, Surrisy who eventually took him aside and said: “What is your opinion of this magical means of restoring life to the dead, Mr. Temple? What kind of upheaval is it likely to cause in the affairs of men?”

  “In my affairs, very little,” Temple told him. “In yours, perhaps, a good deal more. In the lives of Friedrich, Armand and little Richard... no one can tell, as yet. Everything depends on matters not yet ascertained by trial and error. If a reliable means can be found to make all the grey men as mindful and competent as General Mortdieu, then the world will be changed out of all recognition within a generation. If, as John Devil supposes, the brains of dead men can be relocated in new and sturdier bodies, the change will be even greater. If, as Ned Knob once proposed, the grey people will eventually be able to produce children of their own who were never alive in the usual sense... but all of that remains to be discovered.

  “When the contest to discover such things was a hole-in-the-corner affair involving lone men of dubious soundness of mind, it was bound to progress slowly–but that is no longer the case. Now there is a considerable organization involved, which is already party to uncommon knowledge, and has first-rate scientific minds among its ranks. It is not so very improbable that Michael Faraday, and every other student of electricity in England, will be working on the question within a year, and that the British Empire–like every other in Europe and the world–will be a Empire of Necromancers within a decade.”

  Surrisy had gone quite white. “I had not realized...” he stammered.

  “Given the innate conservatism of the European aristocracies,” Temple added, “and the authority of the Church, diehard opposition might slow that timetable by a factor of ten–but it can only be slowed, not stopped. We passed the point of no return some time ago. The world as you and I knew it is already ended. Even if the existing grey men were to be exterminated, and the means of reanimating more were prohibited by law, that would only drive the necromancers underground–where many of them have been well used to living for centuries. If the world is not to become a Gothic nightmare, it will have to discipline its dreams.”