Shadow Conspiracy

by Phyllis Irene

  What came next unfolded in the same slow expanse of time as her assault upon him. Her shoe had flown wide, ricocheted from the wall, and come to rest on the landing. As he started backwards, his heel caught it. Leather slid on stone; and he slid with it.

  He completed three full revolutions on his tumble down the stair, in a most dramatic flailing of limbs. When at last he struck bottom, he lay terribly still.

  Emma stood, incongruously and unexpectedly, with his greatcoat in her hand. He had slipped out of it when he fell.

  Her first emotion was wild and utterly mad: it was glee. Her second was more becoming to a civilized person: horror, superseded by the white emptiness of shock.

  George Fraser was dead. She should, in the spirit of strictest scientific proof, descend the stair and confirm that fact. But she could not master her body to do so. Her intelligence remained clinically detached. Her lower faculties trembled so hard that she could scarcely keep her feet.

  The coat fell from her palsied fingers. She turned, spurning it, then paused. She needed several attempts, so unsteady were her hands, but she reached into the pocket and extricated the packet of papers in their leather case.

  Clutching the case to her breast with the rags of her nightdress, she stumbled away from the scene of her unwitting but by no means unwished for crime.

  The inner chapel was the most ancient of the buildings in the abbey. It had seen close upon a thousand years of holiness, first of scholar monks, then of the brides of God. Its low arches and heavy pillars seemed well suited to the ranks of black-clad figures that filed into the choir.

  Not all of those figures walked with a human stride. Some glided with the gait of automata. These sang as they moved, perpetually, for that was their sole and most sacred function.

  Sister Annunciata lay on her bier before the altar. She still lived through the offices of Sister Theodosia’s mechanical lung, but the end was palpably near.

  The altar before which she lay was bare save for a chalice of remarkable workmanship, the base wrought of gold. The smoke-coloured glass nestled within a webwork of gold and copper wire. It was larger by far than a priest’s chalice, as wide and deep as the span of Mother Agatha’s two hands.

  A luminous substance filled the cup to the brim. The shimmering not-quite-liquid seemed intent on climbing out of its vessel into the air. It was, Mother Agatha had been informed when it was first developed, a compound of phlogiston, spirits of mercury, and a distillation of the most exquisite cognac.

  As she meditated upon the apotheosis of wine, two nuns in the same variation on the habit as Sister Theodosia entered from the sacristy, guiding between them a shrouded figure. It stood to the height of a woman; its face within the hood was the perfect likeness of Sister Annunciata’s own as she had been in her youth: a life mask, delicately moulded, serene and still.

  The figure’s guides positioned it beside the bier, on the side opposite the lung-beast. Reverently, with murmured prayers, they relieved it of its shroud. It stood before them in the habit of a Sister of Perpetual Adoration, waxen hands folded, waxen face expressionless.

  Mother Agatha drew a breath. It always shook her to see the glory of the Lord’s creation as expressed through His servants. This was a triumph of the mechanical arts, a form more refined, more sophisticated, more nearly human than any that had yet stood in this place for this purpose. It would, the dear Lord willing, endure for generations.

  First however it must be made complete. Sister Infirmarer took her place beside the bier, escorted by the automaton that had, through Sister Theodosia’s whimsy, been wrought in the shape of a monkey. It bore a tray of gleaming instruments.

  Mother Agatha raised her voice in the first of the Psalms of this most holy rite.

  “Sing to the Lord a new song,

  For He has done wondrous deeds....”

  Emma had passed through shock into a kind of frozen serenity. Pain was her constant companion, but she managed to keep it at bay. She had a plan, which she had some hope of implementing: her extreme disarray would offer proof enough, surely, of the violence done her. She had looked for the abbess in her office but found the chamber deserted; likewise the infirmary, the dormitory nearby, and every other portion of the abbey. Even the chapel was silent, which surprised and disconcerted her.

  She could still hear the heavenly sounds of singing. They had moved deeper into the abbey. For lack of greater inspiration, she followed them to their source.

  She found the inner chapel where it stood, up against the spur of a peak. Its doors were open, for what had the sisters to fear? Any guest who came so far would surely be welcome, or else would have no hope of escape.

  She entered cautiously because that was her nature, and stood rooted.

  At first glance it seemed to be a sacred service in the rite of Rome, the funeral of a departed sister. Then she saw the flash of the knife and the glistening scarlet of blood.

  It was a profoundly shocking, pagan vision, like a ritual of the ancient Aztecs, but set to the stately plainsong of the Roman Mass. They removed the sister’s heart and laid it in a chalice of glass and gold, which seemed filled with liquid light. The light perfused through the organ, which was, Emma realised, still beating.

  The woman who had removed the heart bowed over it in its vessel and turned toward what Emma had taken for another of the nuns. But no living woman would stand with her chest laid open and the gleam of coils and gears within.

  The centre of the mechanism was a globe of glass that opened to the surgeon’s touch, presenting a receptacle for the heart. She bound it in a netting of golden wires, moving swiftly and yet meticulously, connecting each separate artery and vein to a waiting conduit within the automaton. And all the while, the heart continued to beat, as the light that had filled it faded slowly.

  Before the light was altogether gone, the heart was secure in its new home, beating strong and steady, though what fluid or supernatural ichor it pumped through the metal body, Emma could not perceive. The surgeon closed and sealed the receptacle, then sealed the compartment itself, restoring the automaton to its semblance of humanity.

  Perhaps by coincidence, perhaps by design, the waves of chanting died away into silence. In that silence, the automaton stirred. Its face did not go so far as to take on an expression; that most likely was beyond it. Yet its eyes opened, and in them was the light of a human soul.

  It opened its mouth. The sound that came forth was so pure, so clear, so piercing in its beauty, that Emma broke down and wept.

  Emma made no move to resist the nuns who descended upon her. They offered no violence, but they suffered no escape. They escorted her politely but firmly from the chapel back to the infirmary, where they stood guard over her until, at some considerable length, the reverend abbess appeared to judge her.

  She was allowed in the interim to read, but the packet she had taken from Fraser’s greatcoat disappointed her sorely. Its contents were nearly entirely in code. Even the map of the Alpine tracks and the plan of the abbey were labelled in a cipher that she lacked the time or the knowledge to read. Two documents only were written in the Queen’s English: a brief accounting of expenses that included a week’s lodging in the hotel in which Emma had first encountered Fraser, and an even less lengthy letter on the same flowing hand as that which had drawn the plan of the abbey.

  The letter’s contents were intriguing to say the least. B. and I shall attend the première of the new ballet in Paris: ‘Giselle,’ it is called. It would be in your interest to attend us there. It was signed, simply and without a flourish, A.

  While Emma pondered this mystery, the abbess appeared at last. Emma had been given no opportunity to repair her tattered clothing, but that was well enough to her mind: it served as proof of what she had endured. In the same wild and disreputable state in which she had appeared in the chapel, she faced Mother Agatha.

  The abbess offered no censure of her condition, but Emma had no doubt that it was weighed, reckoned, and jud
ged accordingly. Mother Agatha did not at once reveal that judgment. She said with perfect calm, “Your husband has been found in a place and in a state which has given rise to a number of questions. Am I correct in my judgement that you may provide answers for them?”

  “That was not my husband,” Emma said. She made no effort to keep the disgust from either face or voice.

  Mother Agatha raised a brow. “Indeed? Were we misled?”

  “You were lied to,” said Emma bluntly. “That was a rake and an adventurer. He lured me away from the walking party with which I was associated, and bore me off into the storm. He was, it seems, on a mission to seek and find this abbey; I was to be the bait. Or so I presume. He was not inclined to share his secrets with a mere and brainless female.”

  The abbess considered Emma’s words with care. After some little time she said, “He does not seem to have treated you with either tact or respect. Yet if he is what and who I suspect he is, not only is he capable of treating somewhat honourably with a woman, he is in the pay of one.”

  “Ada,” Emma said abruptly. “He spoke the name Ada.”

  “Yes,” said the abbess. “Indeed. That would, I believe, be Ada Byron King, Lady Lovelace: a most estimable woman and a powerful mathematical intellect. She and her associate Mr. Babbage have been causing rather a stir in certain parts of the world.” The abbess paused; she smiled at Emma’s expression. “What, child? You mistook remoteness of location for dearth of information? Our connexions are numerous and extensive. We are well aware of Lady Ada’s mission and her works.”

  “I fear I cannot say the same,” Emma said. “Of that lady indeed I have heard, but only fragments of her mathematical and mechanical attainments. Mr. Babbage of course, being a man, has a wider fame and a greater renown.”

  “That is the gross inequity of this world,” the abbess agreed. “Nonetheless Lady Ada is a powerful woman, and not only by dint of her illustrious, indeed notorious, ancestry. She has set herself upon a quest, a sacred mission if you will, to discover the whereabouts of a certain...mistake in which her father was involved. That was not the first of her agents to attempt to find us, though he was the first to penetrate our walls. The storm served him well in that regard.”

  Emma eyed her narrowly. “You are not implying, surely, that his employer can manipulate the weather.”

  The abbess laughed. “Oh, indeed not! That was luck if you wish, or God’s will if your faith inclines in that direction. You might argue with equal cogency that the storm was your salvation, for it brought you to a place of safety.”

  That safety had been little enough in light of what had occurred in the night. “Would it be presumptuous of me to ask what he was seeking?” Emma enquired.

  “If indeed he was Lady Ada’s agent,” replied the abbess, “then he was searching for evidence as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Shelley—Mary Shelley, the authoress and historian. She has in her possession, Lady Ada believes, a most vital and dangerous invention, which should never have been loosed upon the world.”

  Emma noted the points at which the abbess was specific, and those at which she was not. “The Promethean Man? Was that more than a fabulous fiction?”

  “The Promethean is very real,” Mother Agatha said.

  “She was here,” Emma said as understanding dawned, “with the thing that sometimes she called demigod and sometimes monster. I have read,” she added by way of explanation, “the famed account of its creation. Is there a Dr. Frankenstein, then, as well?”

  “That is a figment of the authoress’ invention,” Mother Agatha replied. “The rest however is true enough, all but the ending; the creature vanished indeed, but not into the icy wastes of the Pole.”

  “Rather, to those of the Alps?” Emma detected assent in the abbess’ glance. “And yet she is here no longer. Lady Ada’s agent seemed most displeased by that discovery.”

  “I can imagine that he would be,” Mother Agatha said.

  Emma was weary suddenly, weary to the bone. It cost her considerable effort to maintain the straightness of her spine. Her mind, fortunately, was less susceptible to the body’s frailty. “No doubt you will be handing me over to the appropriate authorities. I did cause the death of Lady Ada’s agent, accidentally as it happened, but I cannot bring myself to regret his passing.”

  “In the rite of Rome, there is forgiveness for any sin, with due and proper repentance.”

  “Indeed,” said Emma. “My mother subscribed to that faith; she died however when I was small. My father paid lip service to the Church of England, as he deemed advisable for the safety of his employment in the British East India Company, but his own beliefs owed little to convention. He raised me to adapt to any circumstance in which I found myself, and to hear any argument that laid claim to sense or reason. Arguments lacking in either—and with respect, reverend mother, arguments concerning religion fall too often into that category—I might deal with as I felt they deserved.”

  The abbess heard her without visible offence, indeed seemed to find her words both interesting and worthy of consideration. “You were not reared in England, then?”

  “I have been there,” Emma said, “but the place of my birth is the city of Constantinople; we moved thence to Mumbai in India. My father left this life abruptly while on a mission to China; such resources as he had at the time of his passing sufficed to ship me forthwith to England, but little more. I am now the companion of an elder lady of considerable means and poor health, who will be missing me sorely if I fail to return to her.”

  That was meant to convey a message. The abbess received it as such. “What you have seen and heard is known to few beyond these walls. You will understand, surely, when I observe that you may be safer, and much better served, to remain with us; for if certain persons discover that you have been here, they will stop at nothing to relieve you of your knowledge.”

  Emma had surmised as much. The danger of her position did not frighten her; rather, it lifted the burden of weariness and roused in her a kind of joy. She had taken the position with Lady Windermere out of necessity—a person must earn a living, and for a young woman of poor means, there were few palatable methods of doing so. Despite Lady Windermere’s fragile health, she loved to travel, and she had taken the waters all over Europe and the Isles. Emma had grown quite fond of her. Still, it was a placid life in the main, importunate travelling companions aside, and Emma was not a placid spirit.

  Here was adventure and a purpose. Not to stay in this house of ensouled and perpetually pious automata—oh, no; that life was never for her. Lady Ada, she deduced from the letter in Fraser’s possession, was expecting a visitation in Paris. There was neither date nor time to be found, but those were simple enough to obtain.

  Perhaps, thought Emma, Lady Windermere would be amenable to a sojourn in Paris.

  Meanwhile, of course, there was the difficulty in which Emma currently found herself. Mother Agatha had the full resources of the abbey to call upon, and it was clear that she did not intend to release Emma. Emma had seen too much.

  She spoke with care, in a carefully neutral tone. “Your hospitality is generous, reverend mother, but I should be reluctant to tax it much further than I have already. The storm has passed: the wind no longer howls without. If I may trouble you for the return of my clothing, I shall depart as soon as I may, with the sincerest promise of silence. Your secret is safe while I live.”

  “I do believe in the honesty of your intentions,” the abbess said, “but those who would discover the truth of our lives here will think nothing of stripping your soul from your body and enslaving it to their will.”

  In spite of herself, Emma shivered. She had seen the transfer of a soul from a dying body into an automaton. Nor, she deduced, was it the first. She had counted at least twelve others in the chapel with the same cast of face and the same supernally sweet voices. “Would you do the same to me?” she asked steadily.

  “Oh,” said Mother Agatha, and her horror seemed genuine. “Oh,
no! The translation of souls as practised here is a rite both high and holy; the sister who participates in it has dedicated her life to the achieving of it, and has nurtured her soul to the fullest height of its beauty and sanctity. She passes then into a body that will not fade or die, within which she can raise forever the praises of the Most High.”

  “And yet,” said Emma, “by so doing, she assures that she will never enter into the Presence.”

  “The Presence is all about her,” Mother Agatha said. “She lives truly in both this world and the next. It’s a Mystery, child, and a great one.”

  “It is beyond my poor comprehension,” Emma said. “I have no calling to your life, however remarkable some of its manifestations may be. I was born to the world, and the world calls me.”

  “Indeed,” said Mother Agatha. She seemed contemplative rather than wrathful. “Before you choose irrevocably, there is a thing that you must see.”

  She beckoned Emma to follow her. One of the nuns in attendance offered Emma a mantle to cover her near-nakedness. She was deeply grateful for both the gift and the gesture.

  The nun who had given it smiled with no evidence of either shyness or censure. She was a tall woman, strongly and beautifully built, with the face and lineaments of the Romans’ Juno—most peculiar here in the stronghold of holy Minerva. Had she had a calling to the world, too, once upon a time?

  Emma could not envision herself ever shut up within walls, praying to a God whose existence her father had taught her to question early and often. No matter what the abbess showed her, she was sure that her mind would not change.

  They did not go far, which was a mercy: Emma’s weariness had come flooding back. In a chamber near the outer wall, equipped and furnished for the use of a guest, Sister Infirmarer bent over a figure Emma had hoped never to have to see again.

  He had been stripped of his outer garments and laid on the hard narrow bed, and covered to the breast with a woollen coverlet. His face was lifeless, his cheeks as pallid as the linen of his shirt, and yet he breathed. George Fraser was alive.