Julius sat up. He set down his glass.
So, that’s how it was!
The stairs went up, that much he recalled before, but the extra detail of the worn stair carpet was revealing. The place was much frequented. And the movement he’d semi-seen, that resolved itself into people—of a sort. The Guardsman remained the only living thing behind the door but he had company in the form of Lazarans. A host of them in gaudy imperial uniform, corralled behind the bars of a treadmill working the cage of a lift mechanism. So, heavy burdens went up and down to wherever the stairs led. Or else the route was taken by VIPs too VI to ascend like mere mortals.
There was more. There was also something wrong with the kidnapped image. It wasn’t in the viewing of it but some other aspect: a dog that didn’t bark...
Frankenstein shut his outer eyes and in his mind’s equivalent reached for the wrongness. That mind was sullen and uncooperative now, but as a bare minimum stayed still for its owner to frisk it.
Soon he understood. The picture was almost a silent one! Aside from the Guardsman’s gasp and his own ‘sorry’ there was no other soundtrack. But there should have been...
Lazarans lamented constantly; perhaps without knowing they did it. It was a feature of all but the best of the breed. Early on in people’s acquaintance with the Revived it could drive warm-bloods mad, until they managed to tune it out. Some folk never could manage that trick and vainly tried to whip the habit out of their Lazaran property, or else gave up ownership in despair. A common comparison was to the noise of a barking dog: one that never tired and could mimic mankind. It wore you down...
This lot didn’t do it. They were mute. Their mouths lolled open, as per standard, but nothing emerged save their tongues. Or not even that...
Frankenstein still had the picture vivid before him. He zoomed in and found explanation.
Those tongues were clipped—savagely so. And the throats he saw bore the marks of rough surgery. Someone had felt the need to silence these living lift-mechanisms; had gone to the great trouble of extracting tongues and voice-boxes. Frankenstein even spotted signs of total trachea-blocks: which meant they wouldn’t be able to ‘eat’ and wouldn’t last long.
Which meant... which meant their owners were not only cruel but desired utmost discretion in the duties they assigned to them.
Which in turn meant Frankenstein had stumbled onto something important—no, extra important—in an already supremely important place. What went on in Versailles was always secret to the world outside. Embarrassed by what he was and their need for him, the Convention kept Napoleon’s role as understated as they could. But this, this was a secret within a secret: Versailles’ own private secret that maybe even the Convention didn’t know about. Goodness knows where it might lead!
Inspired partly by the letter he had received—but mostly by his strong streak of madness—Frankenstein resolved to find out where.
Chapter 11: WHAT THE BUTLER SAW
‘I see him! I see him! I think...’
Foxglove went through the motions of believing her. So far during their surveillance of Versailles Lady Lovelace averaged a dozen sightings of Dr Frankenstein per day—and every one a false alarm. It was instructive that her confidence in each announcement never diminished. That in-bred belief that the world would do what she wanted it to explained why Ada was ruling class and Foxglove served her.
But such subversive thoughts were far from the loyal retainer, probably no more than one percent of his conscious faculties. The balance obliged him to oblige her.
‘Really, milady?’
‘Really! I think it is him! He’s in the low adjunct wing with few windows—just where you’d expect a covert laboratory…’
‘May I, milady?’
Though reluctant to lose sight of her quarry lest he vanish like some will o’ the wisp, Ada indicated Foxglove ‘may.’ He gently disengaged the telescope from her eye.
‘Hurry, don’t miss him!’ she said. ‘The third slit window along. He is side on to it, discoursing to some unseen party…’
Foxglove focused and then sighed.
‘Well, up to a point, milady. Although I recall Herr Frankenstein as a younger man, and taller, and slimmer. And if it is him then the sparse white hair is a fresh development. Perhaps some terrible experience at Versailles has transformed the man. And aged him. And shrunk him...’
Used to only hearing ‘yes’ or even ‘yes, three bags full,’ Lady Lovelace knew when she was being humoured to the point of insolence.
‘Give me that!’
She seized back the scope and looked again. The extra information provided by Foxglove enabled her brain to make better sense of the fuzzy shape at the window. It was as he’d said. Unless Frankenstein had been cut off at the ankles, force-fed like a foi-gras goose and then traumatised, she’d mistaken some fat little gnome of a man for him.
‘Well, perhaps not then…,’ Ada conceded. She’d admit that single mistake but not the greater fact that her eyesight had been impaired through excessive reading by candlelight.
‘Just so, madam.’ Foxglove resumed his repose beneath the tree. ‘But I don’t doubt your persistence will triumph in due course. Eventually…’
Suddenly, Ada couldn’t share that optimism or blind faith in her indomitable will. She raised the telescope again but neither heart or eye was in it.
‘He’s in there somewhere…,’ she said, mostly to herself, but Foxglove accepted delivery too.
‘Presumably, milady. So our best enquiries would suggest. If still alive...’
Ada flashed him one of her looks. He’d touched upon a possibility not to be countenanced. Frankenstein must be alive because she wanted it so, and she wanted it so because only he could lead to real serum: royal serum. And only that enhanced stuff, fit for Emperors, could give her back the sentience she desired above everything.
Longing for her old level of living burned like lust inside her. It stirred her up, it fired her dead veins till she felt like her heart pumped at pre-mortem rates again. But that was only a temporary fix: she had to have this all the time, always…
Frankenstein was the key—but a rusty key that refused to turn smoothly for her, even when she’d not mislaid it like now.
A fleeting extra surge of fire within, part fear, part frustration, inspired Ada to action. What profit had there been from all this subtlety; all this lurking in the undergrowth of Palace grounds, all the bribing of low grade Palace flunkies for snippets? False leads, dashed hopes, sore eyes, soiled clothes and empty purses, that’s what. She should never has listened to Foxglove who’d proposed such a policy. Or leastways, he’d not argued strongly enough against it…
Now that she reflected, Lady Lovelace saw clearer than she ever would down a telescope. That ‘key’ must be found, even if it meant turning the world upside down. Then it must be made to turn in the lock, even if it meant applying force. The way must be cleared!
Must: a good and vigorous word. What was she doing? Must had no place hiding in the hedgerows!
Ada snapped the telescope shut. Foxglove, who had the gift of prophecy as far as she was concerned, started to scramble to his feet and prepare a protest.
‘He’s in there somewhere,’ Ada repeated. ‘And therefore so must we be.…’
‘Therefore,’ said a fresh voice, who’d used the telescope’s closing click to mask the cocking of his pistol, ‘perhaps you’ll permit me to escort you in, madame…’
His English was good for a Frenchman, his position of advantage even better. Lady Lovelace found a gun lightly resting against her brow before she could move a muscle. Foxglove ditto, courtesy of the new arrival’s friends who now emerged from the greenery.
It was a tribute to their collective skills that so many could surround so few without the few knowing. How long, Ada wondered, had they been there, listening and watching them watch? Not that it mattered much now…
When all else is lost, poise can still remain: a fig-leaf of self-respect. C
areful to move slowly and without the slightest threat, Ada curtsied her thanks for the offer.
‘I should be delighted, monsieur.’
The levity ended there. That one exchange had probably spent the soldier’s annual supply. His moustache bristled.
‘That mood will soon pass, spy bitch,’ he said.
* * *
‘You disappoint me,’ said Fouché. ‘Please don’t disappoint me.’
He hadn’t the stomach for the interrogation room and had swiftly withdrawn, handkerchief clapped to his nose against its accumulated perfume of sweat and fear. Yet, out of sight of the gory details, he nevertheless was ravenous for its end-products, like a devotee of sausage suppressing abattoir thoughts.
However, it wasn’t meat Fouché hungered for, but information—a substance he was addicted to. Mentally, he was salivating freely.
‘It is a simple question, Herr Frankenstein,’ said Fouché. ‘Are they the former travelling companions you previously referred to? Yes or no?’
‘Yes,’ said Julius, distracted. Over time, the superficially cultured life of Versailles had lulled him into forgetfulness: forgetfulness of the Egyptian’s fate and the shocking telescopes incident. Now the sudden stripping off of the silk glove to reveal the fist beneath disarmed him.
‘Pardon, monsieur?’ said Fouché. ‘You speak too softly.’
True enough. Julius’s voice was a whisper and easily drowned out by the screams from behind the door.
‘I said yes. It’s them.’
Fouché noted that in his golden book. Frankenstein wanted to ram it so far down the man’s throat that it erupted out the other end.
‘How relieved I am to hear you say that. A Lazaran lady and her thug? One such menagerie in the vicinity was remarkable enough. If you had proposed that there were two it would quite stretch my faith in you...’
In his present vulnerable state innocent words could explode in Julius’ face with extra meaning. Just a door’s breadth away, Foxglove was presently ‘stretched’ out for real, and being worked upon by experts. Their tools and ingenuity had stripped away all English reserve and speech was flowing free as his blood.
In Ada’s unfeeling flesh the torturers could get no purchase, nor transmit any messages along her dead nerves; but their imagination knew of other ways. Instead they made her watch, eyelids clamped open, in order to torment that most sensitive of human organs: the brain. It proved just as effective. She pretended to be hard but soon enough her testimony was matching Foxglove’s in eloquence.
Ada had noticed Julius come in and they exchanged glances. She might well have drawn the wrong conclusions, for whereas she was strapped to a board, skirts raised and hair deliberately messed to strip her of all dignity, he was merely under escort. To the uninstructed eye, Minister Fouché’s company did not look much like compulsion. Frankenstein started to explain but she spat at him like a cat. Which said it all. Fouché made his hasty departure and drew Julius with him.
Now, second by second, the Minister was recovering what little colour he ever had and all his oyster-style self-sufficiency. Soon he was his polished-marble self again.
‘So,’ he said, ‘may I take it that you were unaware of their intrusion?’
‘You may,’ answered Julius.
‘And that you have not solicited and encouraged it.’
‘They had no word from me.’
Fouché shook his head in distaste.
‘That is not the question I asked.’
Frankenstein considered his words. At the same time he seized the opportunity to gather his frayed edges, to be as seamless as the Bureaucrat pretended to be.
‘Very well then. I hereby affirm that I’ve had no part whatsoever in their being here...’
‘Then what do they want?’
Frankenstein wanted to shout back ‘can’t you hear the poor devils telling you?’ but did not. It wasn’t that kind of honesty that might keep him still breathing by day’s end. It was this variety:
‘Me,’ he said.
‘Why?’
‘The woman thinks I can work miracles. Or that I know a man who can.’
‘So,’ Fouché mused, ‘she is here under false pretences...’
‘No, she is here for the reason she states. However, she labours under an illusion.’
‘Which is what precisely?’
It hadn’t worked. The mix needed even more honesty: a proportion that could take it to toxic levels.
‘That I can give her life back,’ said Julius. ‘Real, full, life; as it was before. Specifically, her genius...’
The tiny golden pencil hesitated an instant before continuing to move over the notepad—but something was amiss. A second’s focus revealed it. The scratching that signalled marks being made on paper was absent. Frankenstein pondered that lack and then, without moving his face a fraction, exulted.
No matter how shrewd they thought they were, no matter how careful, excitement betrayed all. Excitement, whether it be sexual or status-based or sordid, knew ways round the mental barricades; it bypassed the personas people constructed over long years. Statesmen blew decades of painstaking advancement for five minutes madness with a floozy. Princes of the Church blasted their professed beliefs to bits to get wealth that their faith warned against. Yet in this case there was nothing of flesh or coin about it: ‘the Bureaucrat’ had scented advancement and was instantly intoxicated.
Fouché was pretending to write, for form’s sake, but his mind was off the leash and running.
‘‘Genius’ you say?’ he said, slightly breathless. ‘And was she one?’
‘Some thought so,’ answered Julius. ‘She certainly does. Her faith has led her all this way. To this fate.’
‘And in vain? said Fouché, his voice level after the initial lapse. ‘I mean regarding this ‘miracle’ you mention...’
It was faint but unmistakable, the hint of a ghost of an embryo of almost erotic abandonment; the incautious question blurted out despite a life-time of caution. What a powerful weapon this thing ‘honesty’ was for ripping through the toughest of shields! Especially when now coated with the poison of falsehood...
‘Not necessarily...,’ replied Julius.
‘No?’
‘No. Merely premature...’
The notepad was snapped shut.
‘I see,’ said Fouché—but he didn’t. Then he departed, trying and failing to conceal urgency.
In that short and bloodless battle Frankenstein had won a great victory. He now knew what to do and that he would have revenge for what was going on behind the door even as they spoke. Most importantly, he realised he would after all survive until dawn—which was all the time he needed.
His hand had been forced, as it always needed doing, but now he was steely and implacable. He had his plan and a third party had just set it in motion. Any ‘if’ had been resolved; now it was merely a question of ‘when.’
Julius considered the question. Lunch would be on the table soon and he was rather peckish. So, after lunch?
No. The continuing screams reminded him that now was probably best.
Chapter 12: EAT! AND BE MERRY
‘Eat,’ Julius ordered, and the Lazaran obeyed.
It was a fairly fresh specimen, still bemused by basic training. That and fuzzy memories of being a soldier before (right up to encountering an Austrian bayonet) pre-disposed it to obedience. Even before crossing the Great Divide it had been conditioned into accepting officer-class instructions. Now, after being dragged back, further tuition had broadened that to any ‘warm-blood’ in authority. They were in charge it had been told repeatedly. Lazarans who couldn’t grasp this blissfully simple message were recycled—in public, on the parade-ground, to hammer home the point.
Thus, although the former-and-once-again Frenchman’s days of appreciating food, or indeed feeling hunger at all, were gone never to return, when now told to ‘eat’ he ate. What warm-bloods told you to do could only be for your own good. And to be fair,
that was sometimes true.
So, down the package went in one go, minus chewing, to be absorbed just as thoroughly as all the training had been.
Troubled by residual conscience, Frankenstein looked at the creature and muttered ‘sorry.’
But that signified nothing really, to either party. Julius didn’t mean it and was just scratching an itch. The Lazaran didn’t understand and stayed slumped in position, awaiting instructions.
Now the deed was done, Julius knew he must step lively, before the Lazaran started to receive orders from his own body that would overrule Frankenstein’s authority. He’d calculated the digestive trajectory as best a doctor may, but that same medical and Revivalist expertise also told him it was not exact science. If proceedings got underway before all was ready everything would crash in spectacular fashion.
And so:
‘Stand!’
The rest of the squad shambled up from the floor, moaning their continual dirge.
They were a fine batch from Frankenstein’s own factory. Taller, sturdier and more intact than the general run of battlefield-fruit, Julius had revived them to lusty afterlife with the strongest serum to hand.
He inspected his troops—and shook his head.
Even their mothers would be hard put to love them, just as smart uniforms couldn’t gild this particular stinking-Lilly. Their mouths hung open and their eyes showed no animating light. When one moved the rest tended to imitate, even down to the direction of gaze. It gave their movements a disturbing collectivity.
And that perpetual groaning...
Frankenstein took it as personal reproach aimed at him, the man and lineage responsible for all their woes. That it was fair comment only made things worse.
But it also impelled him to act: further on and along his personal road to damnation.
‘Join them,’ he told the recently fed one, and the Lazaran jostled into the middle of the rest. They didn’t even bother to glance at him.
‘Now follow me.’
Time for one last look around his rooms, accompanied by zero regrets. Just another temporary encampment from which he wished to retrieve or remember nothing. Likewise his collecting project (of which more shortly). Before leaving that he made one last addition. Then off Julius set at the head of his circus troupe.
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