The be-ringed finger pointed out the book lying on Julius’ dresser. The book. Its plain cover little hinted at the sulphurous contents.
‘But we need that!’ protested Ada.
‘And you shall have it,’ the Pope reassured her. ‘But tonight our clerks shall labour to produce copies: many copies. For our own purposes...’
That seemed about all, but the secretary pointedly coughed to indicate otherwise. The Holy Father did not thank him for it. For an instant he looked pained.
‘There is one other thing you brought here,’ he said to them all. ‘We must deprive you of that too.’
He turned to the child in the cot. It was standing up holding onto the rails, naked save for serum flasks, calmly taking everything in.
The Pope took it in his arms, with compassion but firmness. The child lay still, staring straight into his face.
Simon-Dismas accepted that gaze. An old world and a potential new one regarded each other without expression.
‘Will that be returned too, like the book?’ asked Ada. She seemed a lot less committed to this bit of her belongings.
The Pope shook his head.
‘No. He is now our charge—and burden.’
Lady Lovelace smiled brightly.
‘As you wish.’
And out she flounced, without a backward glance, into tomorrow—which was where she lived and belonged.
Chapter 9: HELLO SAILOR!
The Swiss Guard had not left Rome since the days of ‘the fighting Pope,’ Julius II, three centuries before. However, you would never have guessed from the impressive show put on.
Out the Papal army issued from the gates in good order and glorious array, bright blue cross-key banners to the fore. The Swiss formed the core of the formation, in hollow square—with one particular Swiss, plus Ada and Foxglove, as their cosseted charges in its very centre.
Papal dragoons formed the flying buttresses of that mobile fortress, trotting along and reflecting sunlight off their cuirasses and Corinthian helmets. Light infantry, volunteers from every nation, surrounded all in skirmish formation, checking out the world they travelled through. Indeed, so vital was this mission considered that the garrison of Rome was left seriously depleted. If the French task force apparently on its way towards them, punching ruthlessly through friend, foe and neutral state alike, should care to turn aside it might well take the Eternal City at a bargain price.
Should they care to—which was unlikely. Every last scrap of intelligence pointed to unprecedented ‘mission focus.’ The French had taken mad risks and casualties, had adopted the quickest but costliest routes and sucked up crucial garrisons as replacement cannon-fodder en route. Likewise, the Compeigne Mausoleum and probably Versailles too had been co-opted. An unparalleled corps of scientists accompanied the force and fanned out from the army. They ransacked historic cemeteries and holy places hitherto considered sacrosanct as they went, regardless of international outrage, conscripting ‘New citizens’ on the move.
However, such concentration meant attention was diverted from other places. Its master designer distracted, the hitherto faultless tapestry of French success suddenly looked patchy in places. Its many enemies, old and new, such as the punch-drunk Austrian Empire, could hardly believe their luck. They and other lesser players plucked the tempting fruit such recklessness dangled before them. Cities were recaptured, whole provinces were regained and frontiers shifted to their pre-Promethean War patterns.
Similarly, their yoke being lightened, occupied places rose against French rule and drove out their mostly Lazaran garrisons. The Tyrol declared itself free once more and harried its tormentors up into the alpine zones where the air was thin and snow permanent. Few ever came down again; only the Revived living on to haunt the living as black dots against the mountains, half glimpsed through blizzards.
And all because of certain configurations of electrical energy in the minds of three particular people which constituted memories they should not have or spread!
Energy cannot be destroyed, or so scientists were beginning to suspect, but other minds—and one in particular—were powerfully determined to do the next best thing. Those transient patterns of energy in those three heads needed to be transformed, changed in radical ways, and preferably liberated from smashed skulls into the ether before they could replicate themselves in the brains of others.
To that end, every string in the European puppet theatre was pulled, every stop on the Convention’s pipe-organ played. All manner of hitherto unsuspected sleeper agents were mobilised to emerge blinking into the light of open action. Even one or two Princes of the Church; a cardinal here, an archbishop there, saddened His Holiness with counsel about ‘caution’ and ‘periods for reflection...’
And in case treacherous timidity didn’t do the trick, money recruited mercenaries and agents were armed in order to turn a straightforward traverse of the Italian peninsula into a meat-grinding, snarling dog-fight of a journey. Pre-existing banditti were reinforced by ideological supports of ‘Modernity’ and ‘Progress.’ Even the spirit of the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ and ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity’ was exhumed from their graves to roust out a few professors and literati to the cause. Between them they were motivated to either carp at the Papal forces in the press or snipe at them with rifles as they pressed south.
A breadcrumb trail of corpses was left to mark that progress—but not those of the key trio for whom all this effort was expended. Swiss Guardsmen bearing up thick lead shields boxed them in night and day, minimising the danger of death or a suntan. Those shields were dented once or twice but not the bodies behind them.
Yet, Lord knows, it was difficult enough. Like wading through treacle, as Frankenstein put it, with diving boots on. Vital bridges were breached and roads blocked with barricades that had to be expensively stormed. Delaying landslides were provoked and nasty ambushes arranged. Even mundane matters were made difficult and suborned villages sullenly refused supplies even when threatened with excommunication.
So, despite such promptings to speed and the urgency of their aims, progress was desperately slow. No matter how far ahead the Papal scouts pressed, just beyond their vigilance the way was always impeded.
All in all, the French effort was highly impressive. The same single-mindedness brought to bear on the war in general would have ended it years before. Europe might have been Gallic from the Atlantic to the Urals by now.
Yet sheer bloody-minded stubbornness can also get results in the end, though eyes must be averted from the bill. Finally, the square of soldiery came to the southern edge of the Papal States. There awaiting them was Britain’s Royal Navy.
Napoleon said of his first, living, career, that he was thwarted by sea power. ‘Everywhere I went,’ he testified before dying on St Helena, ‘on every puddle they could float a boat on, there I found the British Navy.’
Of course, they had to clean the quote up for publication. The original was replete with ‘merde’s and even less decorous words.
Not that he was bitter. When everything was falling about his ears, post-Waterloo, the Emperor had such a high opinion of his nautical foe that he flung himself on their mercy for fear of his former subjects. A British ship had borne Bonaparte away from all the unpleasantness without the slightest thought of hanging him from their yardarm. Unlike him, they believed in fair play.
Nevertheless, the issue still rankled and the point remained that they’d perpetually been the fly—no, the wasp—in his ointment, the disruptive former lover at his wedding feast. One of the few things that could stir anxiety in Napoleon’s otherwise invincible self-confidence were thoughts of British masts looming on the horizon.
Had the Emperor been with Frankenstein and friends in person rather than just in spirit, he would have seen no cause for alarm. Even the ingenuity of the English didn’t extend to moving their squadrons across dry land. There were no men o’ war visible to give a tyrant collywobbles.
Yet he would have fea
red, indeed might have spewed his serum-dinner, had he known the awful truth. Frankenstein and co. were honoured indeed. Better than mere men o’ war and worth the weight of myriad hundred-gun first-raters, the spirit of the British Navy rather than its ships was there. Neo-Nelson had come to meet them.
Chapter 10: GETTING AHEAD
‘A-hem. Terrible tale,’ said the Admiral periodically as Frankenstein updated him. ‘Terrible!’
What with the close questioning Julius’ tale provoked, the telling took up most of their march to Naples. British seadogs had replaced the travelling Papal square and Frankenstein and Lady Lovelace rode in Nelson’s carriage at its centre, whilst Foxglove enjoyed the open air atop.
He had the best of it. ‘Terrible’ was both Nelson’s reaction to the recounting of their odyssey and also theirs to him. All that time buried in dank St Paul’s meant he reeked of the grave. Not only that but the Admiral was grumpy to the point of sourness. News of other people’s troubles only stirred him to fresh recollection of his own.
‘Talleyrand, eh? Terrible man. A sodomite, so they say. And a Frenchman. The two often go together. Mind you, can’t trust politicians of any breed. Take my case: you’re familiar with my final letter to the British people, the morning of Trafalgar?’
Frankenstein knew Ada was going to say ‘no,’ just for devilment. He covertly scraped her ankle with his heel to prevent it. Neo-Nelson required attentive hero-worship even more than the original.
‘Most certainly, sir,’ he replied for them both. ‘A famous document. You made but one modest request in return for all your services, namely that Lady Hamilton be considered your bequest to the nation and that they should see to her well-being.’
‘Precisely. And did they? I tell you most solemnly sir and madam, they did not! Instead, my dried up harpy of a wife led the mourning at m’funeral and poor Emma was left to starve. They wouldn’t even do that one little thing for me after I gave an eye and an arm and great victories to their cause...’
‘Disgraceful,’ commented Frankenstein—and not just to appease Nelson but because it was.
‘Terrible!’ the Admiral agreed. ‘Terrible. And then in seeking to live in the manner she merited my beloved was exposed to the insolence of creditors. She had to flee to Calais to escape them. There her end was one of grinding penury and neglect. Terrible! And yet they have the brass nerve to then go and resurrect me and expect one to fight on as if nothing had happened! They have no shame!’
‘Well, they don’t, do they?’ said Ada impatiently, as though an adult had come out with a childish statement. She fanned furiously away at the serum fumes wafting towards her till Nelson could hardly have mistook it. Frankenstein marvelled at her lack of empathy for someone in her own state who’d merely chanced to lie in the grave longer than she.
Still, Julius let it go. He been fearing she’d make reference to Lady Hamilton’s later addiction to the bottle and conversion to Catholicism.
Nelson leant forward. Lady Lovelace recoiled.
‘Let me tell you,’ he said, ‘in all confidence, they calculated wrong. Innocent Nelson gave all and asked for little but he got nothing—not even a new arm—said it’d ‘spoil recognition’! Well, no more! Now Nelson fights for himself! He sees the world differently!’
Frankenstein had heard stories to that effect. A new Nelson had returned to Britain’s service sure enough, but one less inspired by patriotism and with a pressing personal agenda. Rumour said his price for another Trafalgar was recovery of Emma’s body from the French and then her revival. In vain the British Government protested the Convention had exhumed her corpse from Calais and had it under close custody. Nelson’s unsympathetic response was ‘well, sort it!.’ Word was he’d give them a little while and then initiate negotiations with the French himself. And not only that, if they wanted the next battle to be another of his ‘annihilation victories,’ he was demanding a state wedding to Lady Hamilton, in Westminster Abbey, with all the Royal family there down to the last lapdog, and to hell with the Church of England’s objections!
You could hardly blame him, but there were also other rumours. Grimmer stories. Even during life he’d gone strange under the influence of Naples when lingering there with Emma. The influence of its corrupt court seeped in and bad things happened: massacres, summary hangings. Now here he was back in that City and nominally soulless! The papers spoke of a ‘dark Nelson’ and darker-still deeds.
Maybe he could benefit from a spot of staring at the Sistine’s roof or calculation of exactly whose plan he conformed to. Meanwhile, Frankenstein was careful. He smiled and looked Nelson straight in the eye. There was no light there, and less kindness. For relief and comparison Julius turned to Ada.
Then he looked again.
She was different! A gleam enlivened her vision. Frankenstein’s stomach leapt. It had not been there before, he could have sworn it. Her eyes had always been beautiful but bore the standard Lazaran fish-gaze.
So did that mean... Was her returned ‘spark’ not only real but visible?
Gunfire, fortunately distant gunfire, disrupted conversation. Their coach jerked to a halt.
It was nothing unusual, for the sniping and hit and run raids on them had continued in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies exactly as they had in Papal realms; possibly more so. The difference was that the British forces were prouder—or more vindictive. They often went after the snipers, heading into the foothills to supply instruction and exact revenge. It made overall progress that much slower.
Nelson peered out of the window like a hound-dog scenting prey.
‘Aha!’ he said, not to them but purely to himself. ‘Aha!’
The Admiral already had a sword about his waist but came back into the carriage to collect a brace of pistols (no mean feat for a one-armed man). Gripped in his lady-like hand they appeared monstrous.
In the vacated space Frankenstein took the opportunity to window gaze himself. Some distance off muzzle flashes sparkled from a farmhouse and surrounding undergrowth. A veteran of such events, Frankenstein knew better, but the faintness of the associated ‘pop!’ ‘pop!’ did make the unfolding incident seem remote, almost irrelevant to people on the road. Unless they chose to make it so.
Nelson so chose. In fact, so eager was he that Julius was almost shouldered out of the way. Though resurrected as an emaciated frame, Nelson now possessed Lazaran strength.
Ada sighed theatrically.
‘Do you have to?’ she asked the Admiral, wearily.
He was still a gentleman, whatever else he might have become. Nelson reversed back through the carriage door and perched on the seat opposite.
‘No,’ he snapped, after cursory consideration. ‘I don’t have to. In fact, I shouldn’t. But I shall! Damn duty! I want to!’
Then irresistible urges carried him out of the carriage and he was gone, haring away weapons in hand and joy written all over his face.
‘Come on lads! Last one to the enemy’s a nancy!’
Ages passed. The convoy had to halt while the skirmish lasted and any non-combatants must amuse themselves meanwhile.
Ada got her notebook out almost immediately and was soon lost in the re-found ecstasy of computation.
It was not a country Julius had a visa for and so was left to his own devices. Those quickly palled.
‘Can you see what’s going on?’ he called up to Foxglove.
‘Distant strife,’ came the reply from above and outside. ‘Puffs of smoke. Dead on the ground. Nothing special.’
There was little in that to occupy Julius’ thoughts—and nothing at all to merit bringing Ada to a dead stop.
Her pen suddenly stilled.
‘Oh!’
Lady Lovelace shut her book. She set it aside, forgotten. Then she looked up at Frankenstein, almost reluctantly, through the medium of those newly enlivened eyes.
‘I...’
‘What?’ said Julius, alarmed.
‘I...’ she tried again but faltered.
Frankenstein did not associate her with hesitation. It must be bad.
‘Are you well, madam?’
The gaze was maintained—but not as her usual tussle of wills.
‘I am not... unwell.’
‘I’m delighted to hear it, but you seem—’
She interrupted him.
‘Sorry.’
‘I said I’m delighted to hear it but—’
‘I heard you the first time,’ snapped Ada. ‘I said I’m sorry.’
Yes, that was it! The inexplicable look! She seemed sorry—which was why Julius had struggled to identify her predicament. In the context of Lady Lovelace, regret was so far down the list of possibles as to be invisible.
‘I beg your pardon?’
‘No, Julius, it is I who must beg your pardon. I’m sorry.’
It was his turn to have nothing to utter but ‘oh.’
‘I’m sorry,’ she pressed on. ‘It suddenly struck me. I have not been good to you. Or not as good as... I should. Or to Foxglove. Especially to Foxglove.’
Ada looked up to the presumed area where her servant’s posterior might rest.
‘I’ve been... I have been selfish. I’ve used you both. And that baby.’
Frankenstein gaped. Again words would not come. And Ada likewise—almost.
‘Awakening conscience!’ she said, equally to herself and him, utterly amazed. ‘Do you think... Do you think that this means...’
But now they were well beyond even Frankenstein’s range of experience and into terra incognito; vistas new.
‘I couldn’t say,’ said Frankenstein at last. ‘Maybe. But from what I hear tender conscience was not exactly your forte during life. In fact, the word is that it was a very small still voice indeed...’
Lady Lovelace freely admitted it with a nod.
‘I could always ignore it. But now...’
She didn’t dare say so but as a doctor Frankenstein was hardened to delivering stark judgements.
‘Full humanity...?’ he ventured.
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