Frankenstein’s Legions

Chapter 1: STARING IN THE SISTINE

Lady Lovelace stood in the Sistine Chapel staring up. She was rapt: lost: she had been so for hours. Another of the limited blessings of Lazaran ‘life’ were necks that could no longer crick.

Frankenstein glimpsed a flash of gold through Ada’s upturned hair. Upgrading of her tinplate cap was just one of the nice-though-not-necessary projects she’d employed to kill time whilst stalking him in France. Twenty-four carat, apparently. She remained curiously half-brazen, half-embarrassed about it; sometimes blatantly going bonnet-less, as now, to tease the nosey.

Julius felt he might as well join the voyeurs and seek that sight out, for he’d had drunk his fill (and more) of high art within five minutes of arriving. There was only so much of ugly, muscular, saints and meaty madonnas a man could take without repulsion. Even Ada’s covert crown was a relief from them and their excessive antics.

Foxglove seemed of like mind and looked upon Lady Lovelace only. Between them her two Philistine friends were leaving Ada to it—what ever it was she was up to.

It had been her idea (cum command) to visit the Vatican in any case: an order characteristically unexplained. Julius humoured her in that and, soon art-exhausted, took the opportunity for a casual nose round his childhood home. From time to time he popped back to check there was no trouble but always found her exactly as before.

Which was a relief, just as much as it was puzzling why she was so entranced. There had been ‘trouble’ galore to begin with.

‘Unhand her!’

Said in colloquial Swiss-German, the command carried a lot of weight. The Swiss Guardsman swivelled round expecting to see one of his own officers.

Instead, it was Julius bearing down on him: a mere civilian and stranger—and an impudent one at that, never mind that he might be a fellow countryman.

They dressed in archaic uniforms designed by Michelangelo himself (so it was said) and some of them still carried halberds as their main armament, but no one doubted the Swiss Guards were soldiers in earnest. Most had long records of mercenary service behind them and now they’d come here to cap their career and redeem all the mere money-making by service to His Holiness. A service where the entrance exam was a vow to die for him if required.

Though their generosity stopped there. Laying down your life the once was love enough they thought: and so in battle many wore plate-sized medallions packed with gunpowder, ensuring that, if hit, they’d be beyond use by Revivalists and (profane) resurrection. True, the Church was dead-set against Revivalism anyway, but maybe in dire emergency…, under pressure… You couldn’t trust anyone nowadays.

In fact, many soldiers in many armies did the same, but their assured destruction buttons had to be worn covertly, because forbidden. Their armies signed them up for ‘Life-plus’…

Suffice it to say that the Swiss Guard viewed their watch over the Papacy with great (indeed, Swiss) seriousness. Therefore, orders shouted at them (by civilians!) in the august hush of the Vatican were not designed to endear.

The towering Guardsman said nothing and his face revealed even less, but he kept his grip on Lady Lovelace’s shoulder. His colleagues round about tuned in to the potential incident and stood ready. Their intentions were crystal clear.

Even Foxglove understood. If only frowns had power the Guardsman’s paw restraining his mistress would have burst into flames. But they hadn’t, nor was Foxglove the force he once was; not since he lost his leg. In his diminished state the servant simply stood and awaited guidance. Ada merely glowered.

Julius gave thanks for English upbringings and their freezing effect on emotions. Otherwise, hatpins and crutches might have been wielded as weapons before he had time to arrive and take charge.

Though they still might. The Swiss Guardsman’s hold on Ada was firm and he obviously felt no obligation to be polite. He conversed to Frankenstein in their joint native tongue.

‘No walking-dead in here. It is not permitted. As should be well known. There are notices. Is she yours?’

Lady Lovelace had always kept her range of linguistic skills a mystery, but Julius suspected she knew more than she let on. He observed her stiffen.

‘Yes, she is,’ he said. ‘My apologies. I should have kept her on a leash.’

Ada’s lips thinned yet further, to vanishing point.

Frankenstein couldn’t afford such luxuries. His heartfelt but impertinent order to ‘unhand’ Ada must be draped in forgetfulness. Instead of affronted, he had to be all sunshine and light.

So the sun shone and light spread around

And in case that wasn’t visible, Julius melodramatically clapped a hand to his forehead.

‘I’m a dolt! I of all people should have known the ways of this place. I lived here as a boy, you see: whilst my father was in the Guard. Tell me, is Centurion Hauptmann still serving?’

Suddenly, things were different. Admittedly, the grip on Ada’s shoulder remained, but not so severely. She couldn’t bruise in any case, but it was the principle of the thing…

‘Hauptmann retired two years ago, back to Canton…’

The Guardsman paused—pointedly.

‘Canton Uri,’ said Julius, filling in the deliberate gap. ‘He had daughters there. Three daughters. All married now I expect.’

The guardsman actually smiled.

‘With children. Two of them serve with us.’

Julius was genuinely glad to hear it.

‘Carrying on the family line, of course,’ he said, smiling. ‘Like I should have done. Instead, I chose medicine instead of soldiering…’

They were getting on like a house on fire, and the Guardsman even proved to have a sense of humour. Residence in Europe’s soft south sometimes had that de-starching effect, even on the Swiss.

‘But still up to your arms in blood, eh?’ the man said. ‘If not in quite the same way…’

Julius thought about slapping his thigh in out of control hilarity; but decided that might be overdoing it.

‘Very good. Very droll. And I trust Hauptmann’s boys are a credit to his name? He was a fine fellow…’

The guardsman nodded.

‘A great man. He led the Guard’s charge at the Battle of Ravenna. A French ball took his left arm off.’

‘I think you’ll find it was his right arm, actually…,’ Julius corrected, skirting round the obvious trap.

‘So it was,’ ‘remembered’ the Guardsman: the test was passed. ‘You said your Father was here…’

‘Many years ago.’

‘What’s your name? I might have heard of it’

Indeed he might. In fact, Julius dared say (to himself) the probability was approaching certainty. But he absolutely could not admit to the family name here, even though Frankenstein senior had served His Holiness with distinction and honour. Since then, their surname had acquired evil associations, and nowhere more so than in this epicentre of dogmatic opposition to Revivalism.

‘Eberhardt,’ said Julius. ‘Julius Eberhardt. Papa was Marius.’

It was a real name, drawn from Julius’ childhood memories. A dapper little officer with a blonde moustache, as he recalled. A popular man. He’d made Julius a toy sword.

The Guardsman pondered.

‘No, I can’t place it,’ he said eventually. ‘Before my time…’

‘Long before…,’ Frankenstein/Eberhardt agreed.

The Guardsman shot back from memory lane to the present.

‘Even so, we cannot allow this cold-one to enter here. I’m sure you understand. Scripture prohibits their very existence.’

Julius showed by every sign that he couldn’t agree more: even whilst his words contradicted.

‘Yet she does exist, does she not?’ he said, trying to sound reasonable. ‘As does her husband, or ex-husband I should say; my servant here, maimed in the wars against the cursed French. I rescued his beloved when grave-robbers revived her. It was the least I could do after he took the bullet meant for me. Now she is his mainstay and sole support…’

The Guardsman surveyed Foxglove’s as yet amateurish balancing upon his crutches, and conceded some support might be indeed be necessary.

‘Well…,’ he wavered.

‘And you cannot expect me to carry a cripple around!’ said Julius.

‘No, I suppose not…’

The iron law of social etiquette precluded that. In emergency, a master might carry his inferior off a battlefield: but not further or after. It wouldn’t look right.

‘So I wondered,’ said Julius, ‘if… on this occasion? We have come a very long way…’

That was the unvarnished truth—and it seemed even longer. Pursuit, assassination attempts and amputations have that effect on a journey.

The Guardsman beckoned to a nearby nun. Teams of them stood at the Vatican’s main entrance to dole out coverings to those deemed improperly dressed—hussies with a visible ankle or glimpsed shoulder and the like.

‘Drape her head with a mantilla,’ said the Guardsman to Julius, making clear this was a big concession. ‘No, two mantillas. And another as a veil.’

Draped in the black lace head-dresses, Ada could pass for just another pale pious pilgrim lady.

‘In you go,’ said the Guardsman, ‘but don’t say you’ve seen me.’

Julius tapped his nose.

‘Rest assured,’ he replied. We’ve never met…’

It wasn’t far from the truth. Two steps beyond the portal Frankenstein had already forgotten him.

That was partly just Julius’ way with the ever changing tapestry of people that life showed him, but mostly it was because there were weightier things occupying his mind. Getting Lady Lovelace into the relative safety of the Vatican (!) was welcome light relief from the larger thoughts he was juggling.

Then she had been transfixed by the sights of the Sistine Chapel, and her trance or coma or whatever it was took her off Frankenstein’s hands for a while. Foxglove was around if need be, although only a shadow of his former self. His devotion to Lady Lovelace was undiminished by loss of a limb for her sake. He could still lean against a wall and raise the alarm if need be.

Frankenstein smiled to himself. ‘If’? When was more like it on present form…

He entered ‘The Courtyard of the Penitents’: a huge expanse open to the sky; the architect’s conscious act to let sunlight counter the dark sins confessed there. Julius basked in the bright rays and—almost—relaxed.

It had been an eventful trip. The culmination, and quite probably the conclusion, of an eventful life all told.

All told? Phrasing it like that, and seeing the lines of confessionals along the walls, all in heavy use, Julius suddenly felt the impulse to tell it. To tell his tale! Why not?

Likewise, with the book stowed in the pack against his back. The book. What a liberation it would be to lighten himself of that!

The sudden temptation to disclosure was almost unbearable. His feet were taking him in that direction as if of their own volition. He surrendered to their supposed will. Complete nonsense, of course, but Julius wanted to be able to blame his boots.

He had been raised a Catholic and had always thought fondly of the Faith, if only for the childhood it sponsored, the ideals it sustained. Yet now, in sad adulthood, he looked in on it from without, like a man viewing stained glass from outside. There was pattern and form, to be sure, but the glorious colour others perceived was lost on him.

Belief had trickled away into the sand of life, drop by drop with every Lazaran raised and each sordid but necessary compromise. Julius told himself that was simply the way the world was. The Almighty had created that world and could hardly condemn the antics it forced His creatures into.

Yet the temptation remained: to plunge in and confess and come out cleansed! Frankenstein realised he had so many things to say and no one he could say them to. Not normally.

Fate saw fit to empty one confession box just as Julius crunched across the gravel beside it. A shriven sinner emerged. They looked… lighter.

Frankenstein hesitated—and then ducked into the vacated space as though it had always been his intention to.

Those waiting in line tut-tutted at his queue-jumping. Then they recalled that impatience was a sin not only on his part but theirs. So they compensated themselves with the thought that he wouldn’t be long.

They were wrong.

Chapter 2: TRUE CONFESSIONS

‘You took the child? You actually took it?’’

It was not that the grille between them impeded speech. Nor that the priest was hard of hearing. It was simply that he could not believe his ears.

‘She took it,’ Julius corrected him.

‘But you permitted it?’

Back in the shadows Frankenstein shook his head. Words were inadequate and failing him.

‘You have not met her, father. There is no question of ‘permitting.’ You do not permit a bolt of lightning. It either strikes or it does not, according to its own program.’

Dimly seen beyond the grille, the priest was mopping his brow with a polka-dotted handkerchief. The day which began so calm and ordinary had turned dramatic on him; the yellow light of just another morning now shot through with the red and purples of truly grave sins.

Granted, it made a change from the usual furtive fornications, the shoplifting and so on, that the faithful bothered him and God with; but this change was far from ‘as good as a rest.’ Here was the confession of a lifetime for him: both the lifetime of his vocation and the spilling forth of one man’s life lived on the stage of history. The priest knew he must strengthen every spiritual sinew to be equal to it.

‘Nevertheless,’ he persisted in reply, ‘that does not absolve you, my son. You have God-given free will with which to oppose this wicked women of whom you speak. Or at least to reprimand her so that the sin is hers alone…’

Frankenstein sighed.

‘I can only repeat, father, that you do not know her. You were not there…’

The phrase was fatal: before he could restrain his vaunted ‘free will’ Julius’ mind was revisiting the scene…

Children—or near-children… On a sunlit roof-garden.

They were Lazarans, but also more—as well as less. Naked, but also psuedo-clothed with flasks. Strings of flasks…

‘Can you speak?’ Ada asked the best of the infants, one she’d selected as nearest to human.

The boy regarded her with the coldest gaze Frankenstein had ever seen; something dredged up from oceanic depths with no soul to back or warm it at all.

The Old Guard had gladly departed to stamp out the ‘Lazaran rebellion’ elsewhere; and it suited them to believe Julius was the proper person to remain and restore order in this very improper place. So, Frankenstein and Foxglove were now the only living creatures there —and yet there was a crowd.

The white boy opened his eyes again and nodded: a concession to Lady Lovelace—but only conceded by whim.

‘I can speak,’ he said. His voice was more lifeless than his flesh. It had nothing child-like about it at all, but rather the expression an old, old, man—and not a nice one.

‘So why don’t you answer me?’ Lady Lovelace persisted.

Possibly because she was kindred to his condition, the boy humoured her.

‘Why should I? What gain can I expect?’

Ada looked around the roof-garden. Those amongst the milk-white children who could move of their own accord were shuffling nearer. There was little threat in that, but ample horror.

Perhaps she used the pause to count to ten to quell her temper, or perhaps she deemed this exchange so important she was considering her words extra-carefully. Either way, Ada re-engaged conversation without rancour.

‘It is considered polite for children to answer their elders when spoken to,’ she said maternally, as if addressing her own offspring (who she’d not so much as mentioned since leaving them). ‘It is what good children do…’

The boy was languid in his wheelchair. Lady Lovelace meant nothing to him and her guidance even less.

‘We are not good children,’ he said.

Nor healthy ones. He was the most vigorous they could see, but even that short exchange drained him. Not that brevity mattered. Those few words settled the matter as far as he was concerned.

It was the icy arrogance Julius noted. Despite their many afflictions, each of the children remained coolly regal. Nor even a crazed Lazaran incursion had dented their supreme self-assurance.

The boy resumed the doze they’d found him in. They’d received their dismissal.

Some of his companions (or those with the requisite organs to do so) tittered. It was not pleasant amusement. The rattle of bottle-bandoleers festooned across every single body made it worse.

Frankenstein drew one such flask from its holster. Its owner raised no protest. Julius broached and sniffed it.

‘Serum,’ he announced; and sniffed again to be sure. ‘My enhanced serum…’

Meanwhile, Ada looked like she was going to slap the princely youth back into discourse. Lost in disgust, Foxglove would have been too distracted to stop her.

But she did not. Instead she clenched her fists and surveyed the wider scene.

It was limited but rich in diversion. Screens blocked off all view of the countryside beyond—or more likely hid the rooftop’s contents from the world outside. And with good reason.

Not one in ten of Napoleon’s children had bred true. Some of the furthest from the norm were very wide of human. Most slept or writhed listlessly in confinement. All were that particular pallid white that comes from absence of vitality—and yet they still breathed. The likeness of their father was stamped on each of them.

‘These are the best.’ Frankenstein supplied expert commentary as the resident Revivalist. ‘The ones that were kept…’

Foxglove spoke. Till then he’d been silent; revulsion carrying him somewhere far away.

‘Then God preserve us from the rejects…,’ he said, returning to harsh facts.

To which they could only say ‘amen’—but neither did. It would not have been appropriate even if they believed. Here, high up in the sky and thus that bit closer to God’s Heaven, was nevertheless a Godless place.

In any case, whatever ‘preservation’ they’d been favoured with was only a small mercy. With the whole rooftop garden their own to wander and wonder in, they soon found that exploration revealed nothing any easier on the eye or soul. Quite the contrary. Things got worse the closer they looked.

‘How long have we got?’ asked Ada.

Frankenstein calculated.

‘Not long: there can be few Lazarans left for them to suppress down below. Five to ten minutes maybe. But by then a soldier will have mentioned they left someone aloft. ‘Left who?’ will come the question. ‘The Swiss corpse healer’ they’ll say. ‘You know: the doctor chappie…’ Two minutes more will pin a name on that description. Which will be reported and someone senior will realise I am not authorised to know the secret of the roof garden. And then…’

‘By then we’ll be gone,’ said Ada. ‘Meanwhile, let us learn all!’

Only Ada’s heart was in it. Therefore she led the way, sweeping a path, jungle-explorer style, through the undergrowth of monstrous children. Frankenstein followed, even though he didn’t much care to know more. Foxglove formed their rearguard as the infant throng closed up again behind them. Some of the chalk-white children pawed at the party as they went by.

There was a building at the furthest end: a long low barracks-type structure, out of sympathy with the elegance of the rest of the Palace. The brickwork looked hurried and slapdash. Frankenstein received a strong sense of foreboding from the place.

If she shared it Ada didn’t show it. Being charitable, Julius thought some laudable urge—perhaps the desire to see the worst and get it other with—kept her headed in that direction.

Against all better judgement Julius joined her, just in time to hear Lady Lovelace pronounce judgement. Her voice reverberated back from the threshold.

‘Oh my God!’

‘As you may guess,’ said Frankenstein, continuing his confession, ‘God had nothing to do with it. The diametric opposite in fact. Satan reigned there supreme.’

By his silence the priest signalled he agreed. Or maybe it was shock. Doubtless he’d heard a great deal in his time as a confessor, and perhaps it was those things that had helped put snow on his head. Equally doubtless though, Frankenstein’s revelations must have been a first. The highs (or was it lows?) of sin were being taken to hitherto inconceivable limits.

When reply came it was not in the priest’s customary confessional whisper. Instead he husked.

‘A scaffold?’ The tone was that of sheer disbelief. ‘A hangman?’

‘A team of them. France’s foremost professionals.’

‘Beside a nuptial bed?’

‘Well…,’ Julius cavilled, ‘‘nuptial’ is overstating it, unless you subscribe to serial monogamy. Which,’ he added speedily, ‘you obviously don’t, of course. ‘An abode of Venus’ might be more accurate. A jousting ring for bouts of passion: passion, I hasten to say, purely in pursuit of procreation. Though not, now that I think of it, ‘pure,’ nor indeed procreation as commonly understood…’

This wasn’t the normal him. Julius was deliberately waxing lyrical to forestall remembering the scene in explicit detail. If he worked hard at constructing flowery descriptions of what they’d seen—and smelt and heard—on that rooftop, then perhaps it might dissuade his brain from visualisation.

The priest skipped over all that to make sure he’d heard right: in hope that he had not.

‘Women in harnesses?’ he went on, a litany that only increased his distress. ‘Damaged women..?’

‘A harem of them,’ Julius confirmed. ‘A breeding herd.’

It had been obvious from first glimpse: the lolling heads, the slack mouths: somehow sentience had been extracted from the pregnant mothers. At the time, the scene itself had been enough. Subsequent reading of ‘The Book’ and thereby learning the reasons for those sights improved the memory not one whit.

‘But why?’

Julius could tell the priest didn’t want to ask, but felt compelled—just as Julius was compelled to tell.

‘Because what is asked of them,’ he replied, ‘or of their bodies, is so gross a demand on the human frame that the thinking mind rebels against it. Living flesh rises up against the carrying of Lazaran seed. Or so the scientists hypothesised. They observed that where the mother’s higher mental functions were unimpaired there was a far higher spontaneous miscarriage rate. Whereas idiots and the insane tended to breed true—or truer. Consequently, they experimented with the insertion of red hot wire into the forebrain and…’

‘No! No more!’ ordered the priest, leaning back from the grill. ‘I forbid you. These are not your sins, they are the wickedness—the gross wickedness crying out to Heaven for vengeance—of others!’

Julius feared it might come to this: the time of trial. Here was the big question: was he an honest man or not?

Spiritual tests of strength do not conform to conventional time. This one, though a savage struggle, was won between one breath and another.

Frankenstein used the air that that breath drew in to commence his real confession.

‘Well actually, father, that’s not strictly true. Alas. You don’t know my family name. Permit me to introduce myself…’

It was to the credit of the Church he served that the priest did not give up there and then—or just give up Frankenstein to the authorities. Instead, he steeled himself and heard the whole sorry tale.

Morning wore on. Outside in the Courtyard of the Penitents, the queue for this particular box had long since given up and joined other lines.

Chapter 3: MEET THE FAMILY

Back on the roof-garden, a few others heard Lady Lovelace’s appeal to the Deity—but not as many as might do normally. Fortunately, His Imperial Highness had been distressed and fatigued by his last bout in the breeding house, and a day’s respite was decreed. Therefore, there were comparatively few staff around when Frankenstein and friends entered in. Luckier still, several of the hangmen, midwives and other technicians lurking around knew Frankenstein by sight and so didn’t renew the alarm.

All in all, the Lazaran incursion had been drama enough for one day, and compared to that Frankenstein’s friendly face was normality itself. Especially given the horrible eventfulness of their day-to-day duties. They even overlooked his hangers-on and Ada’s exclamation.

Julius waved a cheery greeting.

‘Everything is well?’ he enquired, as though it was his responsibility to find out.

Various affirmatives from around the building suggested it was, more or less.

‘Just thought I’d check.’

Blithe confidence and high acting carried Julius through again. Several of the more cultured staff went so far as to thank him for his concern.

Others had other concerns. Foxglove’s gaze took in the gallows, the dynamos and the suspended breeding racks—and found that actually, no, he couldn’t take them in. And, apart from the sights, there was the smell. The place was scrubbed and sterile but it still stank. The place stank of sex and electricity.

‘I have to go,’ said Foxglove, gorge rising.

‘We all have to go,’ agreed Frankenstein, speaking low. ‘As I said, our being here will be reported and not forgiven. But be so good as to give us a few more moments.’

‘I’ll try,’ said Foxglove, and endeavoured to see no more.

‘Stiff upper lip!’ Lady Lovelace exhorted her servant: which was extreme compassion by her standards. ‘Pull yourself together man!’ had been her first framed response.

Sadly for Foxglove’s resolve, at that moment one of the naked pregnant ladies saw fit to shift in her harness and loll her head in his direction. Inadvertently, he found himself face to face with her.

It was hardly a meeting of minds, not least because one of the minds had gone—and Foxglove even felt his slipping away. He was eye to eye with eyes that beheld nothing and lips the opposite of stiff.

On the contrary, she moaned and drooled. She must have been a pretty girl once, perhaps a maid drawn from the Palace staff, with notions of her own about how motherhood would be. Now she had no thoughts at all, not even about being naked and cocooned mid-air in row after row of many like her.

‘No! Enough!’ said Foxglove, and being a decent soul might have done something drastic at that point to rectify the great wrong before him.

Happily however, by then it was ‘enough’ in another sense. Enough time for the slow fuse Julius had lit as his last act before leaving his rooms, to reach its destination. Time for Julius’ ‘collection’ to be unveiled to the world.

They could hardly ignore it. Home-made ‘Hellburner’ bombs were the weapon of choice for guerrilla movements worldwide when they wished for ‘a spectacular.’ Julius had familiarity with their effects in more than one continent, back when he was a mercenary (and thus should have known better…).

A few people had remarked on the in-preparation project, but it was by no means unknown for single men to have a beer barrel in their rooms (though rarely, it must be said, one so huge). Curious cleaners and Julius’ few visitors were told it contained blood for his experiments, or that—being Swiss—he was a heavy beer drinker. Either way, they didn’t enquire further.

Such squeamishness or national stereotyping meant he could go on with his painstaking accumulation, spending many an empty Versailles evening stealing the necessary powder flasks, bushels of nails and pots of tar. As it grew he gained faith that one way or another his hobby would serve as his default way out of Versailles.

Before escape-plans acquired a point and purpose, he’d envisaged being beside it when it went off, smiling sweetly in the faces of the soldiers come to arrest him. From him to the hissing fuse they’d look, and then back again, saucer-eyed and chasm-mouthed; too late to do anything but whisper ‘oh no…’

Oh yes! A bang and a whimper: that would have worked. As might these revised plans, when all he wanted was to distract people whilst he resigned from Imperial service.

Quite aside from the explosive blast, Frankenstein felt a warm glow knowing casualties were thereby minimised. His rooms were far from the hub and only unlucky passers-by were at risk. This was a material issue. Knowing the staff as he did, it was clear many (most?) were candidates for Hell via his Hellburner. Better they should live longer and maybe repent. This way struck him as by far the kinder option. It was nice when things worked so neatly.

The signs looked good. Distraction abounded. Certainly, indifference and carrying on as before was no longer an option for anyone in Versailles. The whole Palace and surrounding countryside got to hear of Julius’ ingenuity. In fact, it suddenly become priority one for all and no one could speak about anything else. Even Napoleon was shaken from his daydreams of world-domination, and the Old Guard stirred up like an ants’ nest.

Only line of sight deprived those on the roof garden seeing a portion of the Palace pulse outward and then shroud itself in clouds of flame-shot black. However, given the sensational sound effects they could well visualise it. That and the floor heaving beneath their feet and a soon arriving shockwave breaking windows all about.

Frankenstein regained his balance and then his composure.

‘You see?’ he said to Foxglove, with a smile. ‘I told you you need wait only a few more moments…’

He said it softly, lest outsiders should hear and connect him to events, but needn’t have worried. Most were shocked into purely private thoughts and all were deafened. They looked from one to the other for guidance but found none.

Which is generally when the self-motivated can seize the moment and success. Frankenstein seized away.

Foxglove was temporarily hard of hearing like the rest but he got all the visual clues. The minute Frankenstein and Ada stepped doorwards he nipped in front of them and cleared the way. At last: a honest role he could play!

As the gunpowder furore died down a human one replaced it. Clamour rose from the unaffected portions of the Palace and lamentations from the devastated part.

It was perfect cover. Frankenstein issued urgent but contradictory orders to anyone en route inclined to stick their nose in. Foxglove’s intimidating presence did the rest. Within a trice they’d crossed the roof garden to the stairs and made all haste to be away.

Nevertheless, before she left, Ada lingered long enough to take a book and baby.

‘A bomb?’ said the Vatican priest, shocked—and surprised he could still be shocked. ‘A bomb set where innocent folk might be? How could you?’

Well, speaking of ‘could,’ Julius could have quibbled whether anyone in the Versailles set-up might be termed ‘innocent’—but that was a bit too Ada-ish a stance for him. Instead, he pretended to misunderstand.

‘How? he ‘answered.’ ‘It is comparatively simple. My father first showed me how, and I arranged several in the course of my subsequent career. For instance, during the Fifth Basque War, we infiltrated a barracks in Bilbao and… well I digress, but suffice it to say the “Hellburner” is the poor man’s artillery battery. Insurgent movements all over the world use them. The knack is, you see, to layer powder in a container—brandy barrels are good—together with inflammables and shrapnel.’

Guilty conscience was scrambling his mind again, hugging the inconsequential, and spewing out words like one of the new-fangled crank-driven machine guns.

‘It takes time and patience but there is little actual complexity. Procuring sufficient slow-fuse was the only difficult thing, but as for combustibles, no problem! You would not be aware, father, but the armoury at Versailles was as free with its favours as a…’

Fortunately, ‘Father’ interrupted there.

‘I do not need details of such devilry,’ he said, with a firmness that would have stopped a train. ‘They are no use to me—nor to you, man. Consider what you’re here for! And why.’

‘Sorry,’ said Julius—which covered all aspects.

The priest bit his tongue. After so many enormities paraded before him what signified this further bit of moral deadness? It could be included in the total without specific comment.

‘What then?’ he prompted, in vain hope the torrent of horrors had abated.

‘Well,’ said Julius, ‘‘midst the screaming confusion, the fires, the walking wounded and so on, we were able to simply stroll out. Quite remarkable! We feigned injury or shock or an air of command as the situation dictated, and the perimeter troops left us through. A mile or so on brought us to an inn where we hailed a cab.’

The audacity of it all, the sweet living from minute to minute, was a pleasant recollection. Julius smiled but fortunately the priest did not see.

‘Which was afterwards, of course,’ he added, once the sunlit inner image dimmed. ‘After Lady Lovelace had taken the child, I mean. Though I’m pretty sure I’ve already mentioned that. Don’t you remember? You were rather outraged, actually. Also, I said about the book laying beside the breeding program equipment. Technically speaking, I suppose stealing is always a sin so I’d better confess to liberating—well, stealing—the book too…’

‘Yes, tell me about the book,’ said the priest—and soon wished he hadn’t.

Chapter 4: TOP-SECRET TERMINOLGY

PROJECT POSTERITY

Being a manual for senior staff and approved underlings attending his Imperial Majesty in the high matter of perpetuating his line.

NOTE AND AIDE MEMOIR!

Inconceivable as it may seem, the noble nature and vital patriotic import of Project Posterity is not universally perceived or shared. Vile reactionary elements even within our beloved nation, let alone the serried ranks of the enemy ranged against us, may be relied upon to condemn, perhaps even seek to thwart, this great undertaking and cause.

Therefore it is imperative that our work be shrouded in the deepest reticence, that the severest punishments be attached to any betrayal of the slightest whisper of our methods, our purpose and etc. etc.

Accordingly, caution in use of language shall be employed, even amongst ourselves. The following substitute terms have been approved for invariable everyday use in order to achieve the necessary habit of dissimulation.

BE WARNED!

A number of former colleagues have perished in imaginative ways for breathing word of what should not be spoken of. And be aware that their last breath spoke of their agonies, and further believe that their death was neither quick nor easy! The traitors’ remains now rest unmarked, unhallowed, in the turds of the Lazarans to whom their carcasses were fed! The People’s Republic and the still more glorious Empire which shall follow will not remember them!

Yet though the penalties for transgression be terrible, so also are the rewards for virtue glittering. Friends! Frenchmen! We batter at the door barring the way into a life higher than human! We speak of ascension into eternal earthly glory! When successful we shall have seized the powers of creation from the withered hands of god!’

Chapter 5: SISTINE SOLUTIONS

‘Infamy!’ said the priest, loud enough to be heard beyond the confessional. ‘Satanic infamy!’

How could Frankenstein contradict him? What other response was there to this judgement on the book’s contents? From where Julius sat it seemed the priest’s review was spot on.

‘And the child!’ the tirade continued, born on by moral momentum. ‘The end product of such a loathsome process! An abomination! Your companion took it? And you permitted that?’

They’d been here before and Julius welcomed the repetition—maybe it meant he’d almost drained his recent life-story of sin. Perhaps absolution and a fresh start might follow in its trail.

‘She did,’ he replied concisely. ‘I did. And Lady Lovelace said…’

‘Evidence,’ said Lady Lovelace, in response to Frankenstein’s reproving look. ‘Evidence of what is going on here.’

Out on the roof and under the sun, she clutched the snatched baby to her breast. It lay there unmoved and unmoving.

Julius looked again, unable to believe it first time round. He’d never seen anyone in that situation look less maternal.

His face must have continued to express profound doubts. Surprisingly, Lady Lovelace brazenly conceded she’d lied.

‘Very well then,’ she said. ‘Call it insurance. ‘Your soft heart will guarantee it—and thus us—a supply of good serum.’

She had a point. The flask bandoleer which was the child’s only clothing, the huge butts of serum around the roof garden, were evidence of a hearty appetite; indeed, a monstrous dependence.

As if it heard and knew and agreed, the babe turned to look at Frankenstein.

Julius almost took a step back; he had to tighten his grip on the book lest it fall.

The eyes were those of an infant but they were windows into its soul—if applicable. The mind behind them looked older and wiser and colder than mankind.

‘No more,’ said the priest, admitting defeat. ‘Not today. It is… It is too much for me. I cannot.’

Frankenstein boggled. Somewhat like the priest, he’d never heard of such a thing!

‘What? No absolution?’ he protested.

From beyond the grill came authentic tones of panic.

‘Not now…,’ said the priest. ‘I… must seek advice. Come back tomorrow. In fact, I insist you come back tomorrow. Ask for Father Cornelius. At peril of your soul, ensure you find me again! But not today… Tomorrow!’

A wash of something spiritually chill swept through Frankenstein’s guts. Lest it pool and settle inside him he rose in haste.

‘Do not forget!’ urged Father Cornelius to the departing sinner. ‘Be sure not to forget!’

‘How could I?’ thought Julius, as he stepped back out into the sunshine. It seemed less intense than before: as did all the scents and colours. ‘Even Gilles de Rais, the infamous child murderer was shriven before they executed him—slowly. So what does that make me?’

Far more than the bad things he’d done or gone along with, Frankenstein now repented of his snap decision to confess. It had brought things to a head and coalesced the chaos of events into awful summary. If only he’d marched on by he could still have pleaded ignorance. Now he appreciated with greater force than ever just how much ignorance was bliss!

‘Damn!’ he cursed, causing people to stare. ‘Damn!’

Then, more softly but with no less conviction: ‘And damned.’

For all his lengthy absence, Frankenstein found Lady Lovelace still in the Sistine Chapel, still transported. Foxglove, leaning against a far wall, was still keeping patient watch.

Nor was he alone in that. Ada’s prolonged meditation had attracted attention. Two Swiss Guards had her under scrutiny and were in conference with a priest. Passing tourists were pointing her out and the more frivolous elements giggling.

The likelihood of Hellfire, perhaps its inevitability, should have made Julius more, not less, reckless, but common sense is a tough yoke to chuck. The scene before him screamed ‘time to go.’

He crossed straight to her.

‘Come on.’

Ada did not respond. In his upset he shook her shoulder like no gentleman should.

That broke the trance—and had Foxglove been more mobile that might not have been the only thing broken. Yet there was less Lovelace resentment than Julius expected, and no hysterics at all!

‘I almost had it…,’ she told him—or possibly herself. ‘Almost.’

‘Had what?’ asked Julius.

So it was to herself, because she didn’t bother to explain.

‘Don’t worry, mein herr,’ said Ada, acknowledging him for the first time. ‘You didn’t ruin things. It never was going to come; not if I lingered there till Doomsday. It was close but there’s an element missing from the equation…’

Even so, she was pleased about something, to the point of smugness. Frankenstein sensed the balance of power between them had shifted in her favour (or even more in her favour). Not that he was worried about that. Julius didn’t share Ada’s insistence on one-upmanship as integral part of the game of life.

But speaking of life, and by implication its continuation…

It was easy to forget here, in this the oldest of human institutions, about trivial day to day things; like the fact that they were fugitives with an Emperor in pursuit of them. And that Julius might have just added another party to the pack in pursuit.

‘We have to go,’ he said. ‘Now!’

Foxglove had hobbled up to join them. It added little to their safety quotient, though Ada fondly seemed to believe otherwise.

‘Why?’ she enquired. ‘They have not molested me after that initial impudence. Foxglove—and yourself, I suppose—could deal with them if they do.’

In his unshriven state Julius felt no need to mince his words.

‘You are an offence here. Simply by being. We’ve outstayed our limited welcome…’

Lady Lovelace had her shrewd look on. She smiled and studied Julius up and down, still capable of coquetry despite everything.

‘There’s more, isn’t there?’ she teased him. ‘What have you been up to?’

Earlier he’d compared himself (unfavourably) to a notorious child-killer. It recalled to him their present responsibilities.

‘We have an infant, of sorts, in our—no, your—custody. We should attend to it.’

Ada shook her head and smiled artfully again.

‘No. We pumped it full of serum sufficient for hours to come. And you’ve never been so concerned before…’

Another priest, then another, then two more Swiss Guards joined the mini conference by the entrance.

‘Madam…,’ reproved Foxglove, deploying maximum diplomacy against Ada-erism. She ignored him.

She was toying with Frankenstein, her girlish voice almost sing-song.

‘I won’t stir till you tell me…’

It was open to Julius to simply swivel on his heels and depart alone, leaving her to decide on the wisdom of following. Yet some power prevented him. Continuity perhaps—of which there’d been so little in his life. They’d come so far together…

Time for his second confession of the day: more than in the past decade put together

‘Tell me, Lady Lovelace,’ he asked, as arch as she, ‘do you believe in the sanctity of the confessional?’

It was a solid bet that she had been raised up steeped in every prejudice Protestant England had to offer. She came from the landed class which had done so well out of the despoiling of the monasteries and thus invented a history to justify it. Moreover, Ada had hinted before that her mother was a religious fanatic, aiming to atone for her brief marital madness with Byron…

So it proved. What’s bred in the bone comes out in the meat: though as a sceptic in matters spiritual, Ada was more faired minded than most of her peers.

‘In principle,’ she replied. ‘I’ve heard it said that the privacy of that sacrament is inviolate. One has never heard of it leaking secrets…’

Nevertheless, Julius’ point had pierced. Instead of being triumphant she was now wary. Julius pressed home the advantage.

‘Ah, but do you have faith in that?’

Evidently not. Enlightenment dawned. Ada screwed up her face in disgust.

‘Oh, you haven’t have you?’ she said.

Frankenstein simply nodded.

‘Everything?’

‘Everything.’

Before he’d finished speaking Ada was on her way in a flurry of scarlet fabric and white limbs, leaving behind Parthian-shot curses with his name on them. Frankenstein followed regardless, and Foxglove limped after, trying to keep up.

The growing company of Swiss guards and priests did not hinder them. But they watched them go.

Chapter 6: PEEKING AT POSTERITY

PROJECT POSTERITY

Being a manual for senior staff and approved underlings attending his Imperial Majesty in the high matter of perpetuating his line.

Section 13. ‘Harvest Home’: 1 year +

…therefore it should be a source of wonderment that any survive the hazardous odyssey of conception to birth, let alone exposure to the world. Consider if you will the strong evidence that post-mortem seed is intrinsically carcinogenic (for proof of which ponder the precious few fields long-lived enough to take more than one impregnation), consider the feeble pulse of life (if such it truly be) that ebbs along the veins of our charges and what easy prey they fall to any ailment. If these things and the many other fatal snares are soberly considered by Project Posterity personnel they will come to the inevitable conclusion that our painfully few Harvests are jewels beyond price, and thus to be cherished and cosseted to the best of our abilities: yea, and beyond! Our successes may be pitifully few but the prize is correspondingly great!

From that low success rate comes our policy of keeping those runts and sports of Nature and less-than-true breeds which ordinarily might be mercifully allowed to slip away of their own accord. We strive officiously to keep all alive in the knowledge that perfect offspring have been exceeding rare. Therefore, true servants of the Emperor will not turn a cold eye or curled lip upon their charges’ disfigurements, deficiencies and gibberings. They are our reference library of past practice, our source of experimental material, and, sad to say, our reserve troops for the great hope we bear.

Accordingly then, patience and, above all, fortitude should and will be brought to bear on all the distressing aspects of our cause-cum-crusade. The tedious dictates of ensuring sterile conditions in the sty, the sights, sounds and smells of the procreative process itself, the cruel necessity of applying red-hot wires to shrieking fields, the oft-times unbearable fruits emerging from their wombs (to name but a few aspects of the burden we bear) shall one day seem small price compared to the dynasty established and so unceasing centuries of glory for our beloved Motherland!

In the deplorable event that that does not suffice or content, the reader should consider what sufferings our soldiers endure in the cold or heat of a dozen different fronts, the risks they run, the painful deaths by myriad means they court. Those who harbour reservations should ask themselves: is not ours the incomparably better lot?

Any amongst us who cannot approach their work with a spring in their step and joy in their souls should reflect that the Russian front is always in need of fresh assistance. Such chilly natures may be ideally suited to the conditions they would find there…

But assuming zealous co-operation from all authorised to read thus far, we now turn to practical considerations.

Firstly serum. Like a faltering fire, the faint spark of semi-life his Imperial Highness has bestowed on his children requires constant feeding lest it expire. Therefore serum shall be constantly imbibed by all Harvest Homes according to the following prescriptions:

Birth to 1 month—three mini-flask bandoleers daily.

1 month to 3 months—one mini-flask hourly, on a constantly replenished bandoleer.

Three to four years. One ‘apostle’ bandoleer (13 full sized flasks) hourly.

OFF-FILE LOOSE MINUTE

Attach to page 179—effective from 18th Brumaire, Year 17 A.C. (A. D. 1837).

An enhanced serum formula has been developed by the recent Swiss recruit, Frankenstein (a direct descendent of the Father of Revivalism), based on a concept developed by his predecessor, the so-called ‘Egyptian’ (deceased). It has been shown to improve Revival functions in a range from 4 to 9%. Accordingly and henceforth, all Harvest Homes capable of ingesting solids shall be fed on such enhanced-serum marinated foodstuffs. Infants of tenderer digestion and those imperfect specimens incapable of independent feeding shall substitute liquor pressed from proportionate amounts of comestibles.

Adverse reactions of whatever kind shall be immediately reported to the duty officer who will…

… Also likewise, it is envisaged that said Frankenstein will be offered a placement with Project Posterity pending resolution of certain security concerns. However, in the interval it is imperative that no hint be given him of the Project’s existence or his possible promotion to it. Posterity staff are therefore forbidden to dine, take exercise or engage in social intercourse with him or otherwise advertise their presence—on pain of a second degree disciplinary sanction, up to and including mutilation.

Secondly, sunshine. Although no amount of sun seems to brown our charges’ milky skins, it is experimentally observed that maximising exposure to sunlight improves survival rate by 10% in early Harvest Homes. Hence the (at first sight) curious location of the sty high in the open air and exposed to Sol’s beneficent rays.

Project Posterity’s earliest productions were conducted in deepest and literally darkest secrecy, in cellars. The successes attending our labours were correspondingly dim. It was only the chance escape of a previously wasting infant, subsequently found to be much improved by an hours’ liberty in the Palace gardens, which alerted us to this free gift from Nature. Indeed, such was the pleasure attending this discovery that the negligent nursemaid responsible was spared the guillotine and merely lost her right hand…

… but the beneficial effect diminishes in respect of older Harvest Homes and it is proposed that when the first crop reaches the age of reason to progressively dress them in garments appropriate to their Imperial rank and dignity. Some element and hours of nakedness will always be desirable, but at other times they will walk among men robed in suitable splendour…

… Strangely however, though the sun blesses them, its absence, and likewise any inclement weather, does our Harvests no harm. Project workers will observe them bear the lash of storm and bite of frost with entire thermal indifference. Some have speculated that this is related in a way not presently understood to their icy natures…

… for yes, newly recruited servants of the Project will in short order observe Harvest Homes commit what may seem to them gratuitous acts of cruelty, to captive animals, to Palace staff and even to each other. At the same times they will find that mundane concepts of ‘right’ and wrong’ are not so readily subscribed to by our precious charges. Likewise, their expressions of opinion on various subjects may appear excessively pragmatic and unrestrained by the reins of piety or ideals.

If so, then it is our perceptions that are at fault and no correction or even contradiction is to be applied, let alone admonition. There is wisdom in such an outlook not readily perceived by the uninstructed, and a streamlined morality not suited to the common herd. Therefore, intervention may only take place if the discretion of the sty or Project is threatened, if decorum is excessively outraged or if permanent injury portends to either the Emperor’s offspring or Project staff.

On all other occasions, it has been judged permissible to allow free rein to the urges and outlooks of the Harvests. The reason for this is as follows (Nb. on appointment staff shall study the following, memorise and repeat it to their line manager and formally state their entire agreement):

Project Posterity is not an end in itself, nor the mere itching of scientific curiosity. It is the trumpet blast announcing a new era in mankind’s story!

One day—and it shall not long be delayed (if we are crowned with continued success)—the products of Project Posterity shall be revealed to the world and step forth to take their rightful place in the scheme of things. The role of ministers, advisors and generals shall be theirs. Yea, in the fullness of time, the intention is that they shall make the Emperor’s rule immortal by bringing forth Harvest Homes of their own!

Therefore, facing such a glorious destiny, we judge that it is good and fitting that their personalities should be so very in accord with the way of the world. His Imperial Highness himself has commented that in the normal course of things it takes a lifetime of experience and many hard knocks to acquire the clarity of vision required to conduct an Empire. How good it is then, he has graciously gone on to say, that the fruit of his loins have sprung from the womb already well adapted to statecraft!

The Empire we aspire to shall not be easy on those who oppose it, nor will it ever be considered forgiving, or christian or kind. But it will see things clearly and act accordingly, unrestrained by mere sentiment. Consequently, its dominion over mankind will not be short lived.

Be not deluded—instead be advised and rejoice: Project Posterity aims not just at Imperial progeny. It lifts its gaze even above a deathless Imperial line. Citizens, our aim is immortal Empire!

Chapter 7: JOY IN HEAVEN?

Given his recent history of ‘correspondence received,’ Frankenstein wished people wouldn’t write to him any more.

When their hotel room grew claustrophobic Julius had gone for a walk. To justify it he’d risked visiting the Swiss Embassy in Rome, to draw on funds and change money at non-robbery rates. There was a letter waiting for him. The functionary thought he was doing Frankenstein a favour in bringing man and message together. Far from it. He received not even a thank you, let alone a tip.

On the plus side, such as it was, Julius didn’t think they’d located him—not yet. Otherwise, they’d have made their views known in far more direct form: a stab in the dark, or maybe kidnapping for leisurely torture. But pending that decisive day ‘they’ must have distributed missives, shotgun-style, to anywhere and everywhere a fugitive Swiss citizen with a famous name might resort. Accordingly, for security’s sake the letter had to speak in very general terms, but to Julius its brief contents were clarity itself.

Recognising the source, he broke the seal and opened it in the street so that its ill-will should be diluted by sunlight and the passing throng. That plan was only partially successful.

Minister Fouché had abandoned the anonymity he maintained during their intercourse at Versailles. He addressed Julius as ‘tu’ and signed his sentiments by name.

‘Such a shame’ he wrote, characteristically weaving multiple layers of meaning from few words. ‘You stood to receive so many favours, to rise so high! And yet still might…’

It’s said even the Devil can quote scripture and so it proved. Joseph Fouché had been a priest before he was a Jacobin persecutor of the church; the Revolutionary commissioner who’d packed priests and nuns into barges and sunk them in Lyon harbour. Then he’d effortlessly shed that skin to become a pillar of stability and Empire.

‘Luke, 15, 7’ said the letter, which Julius’s sound Church education instantly expanded into: ‘I say unto you, that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner that repenteth, more than over ninety and nine persons, which need no repentance.’

Julius laughed at that, a merriment-free cynical explosion. Some of the passers-by looked at him; but not much or for long: Rome often attracted foreigners who talked to themselves.

‘In Heaven, maybe’ he mused aloud, conceding Fouché’s point. ‘But in the hell of Versailles? I don’t think so…’

Julius was instantly proved right. The Emperor undid all his renegade Minister’s silky cleverness by adding a scrawled, venomous p.s. of his own. Surely Fouché was unaware of the postscript or the letter would never have been sent. It must have been intercepted and… augmented.

The Emperor’s only sacrifice to discretion was in continued use of code words.

‘Wretch!’ he wrote. ‘If you reveal what you know, if you so much as breathe word of my farm, if you cause harm to my herd, then I will—’

Words must have failed him at that point, or else passion overwhelmed, for the pen had blotted and the nib actually pierced the paper, leaving a jagged rip. Julius had a sudden image, perhaps infused into the very substance of the letter by its author’s emotional intensity, of himself receiving the same treatment.

There was more, till the exclamation marks ran out of page, leaving no space for a signature.

‘So believe me you ungrateful and traitorous VILLAIN, if you DEFY me in this matter, if you DARE, then I will do such things to you (I have not thought of them yet but I shall!!) that they WILL be worse than your wildest nightmares!!!!!!!!!!!’

It impacted less than it ought because Frankenstein had seen the Sack of Lille, and a great deal more besides. Which included the Emperor’s ‘farm.’ Consequently, some of Julius’ nightmares were very wild indeed

Back at their hotel Lady Lovelace was shuffling paper and too absorbed to hear Frankenstein’s news on his return, even if it involved threatening letters from Napoleon. In any case, she was ‘not talking’ to him since his confession confession. And that cold shoulder only commenced after she’d extracted a promise from him not to return to ‘that blurting box’ as she called it. Before that he’d been entirely blanked by her, as if he’d ceased to be.

Frankenstein found such an undertaking easy to give. It was clear there was no point or hope for him in the sacrament. He was past saving and wouldn’t go seeking reminders.

Right now and as usual, Foxglove served as Ada’s amen-corner and representative on earth when she was absent. He had his wooden leg unstrapped beside him and was resting his stump up on a stool, massaging its sore end.

‘Leave her be, sir, I should,’ he said. ‘Madam is engaged in important business.’

‘And this isn’t?’ Julius waggled the letter back and forth, more amused than annoyed. ‘Wild ravings against us from the greatest power in Europe, maybe even the world, and it’s not important?’

‘Not as important, sir,’ said Foxglove. ‘And if I may be permitted an observation; as I heard it read to me, the threats are against you, not us…’

Lady Lovelace didn’t deign to look up from her occupation, but took time to silently signal that a good point had been made.

Frankenstein checked the script and saw it was so.

‘True, very true,’ he conceded. ‘However, I suspect, Foxglove, that if Imperial vengeance catches up with us—or, as you correctly note, me—it will arrive as more of a bludgeon than a rapier. Indeed, I have every confidence it will err on the generous side and take in all manner of bit-players…’

Again, Ada indicated she was following the conversation and in agreement.

This was developing into a debate of rare intellectual honesty, for Foxglove accepted with a smile that Julius was right.

‘Mebbe so, sir, but all things duly considered, when you look at matters in the round, what more can they do to us they haven’t done already?’

He was looking at where his lower leg used to be, a zone that still troubled him with phantom itches and genuine sorrow.

That sacrifice had been demanded as soon as they sailed out of Trieste. When Julius despaired of repairing the sniper’s work he demanded the limb as the inescapable price for Foxglove’s survival. The case was too urgent to await dry land and a steady operating table. The ship’s surgeon concurred. However, even with that weight of professional advice, the ashen servant had looked to Ada for guidance.

She’d shrugged and said the decision was his alone. Julius didn’t wait for it and picked up the savage-toothed amputation saw.

Lady Lovelace held Foxglove down throughout and succeeded unaided in that. In other circumstances maybe three or four burly matelots might have been required.

The leg was dumped overboard, in the way of such things, and the last anyone saw of it was as a floating speck caught up in the tide taking them all into Venice.

Then Ada had seen fit to quip that Foxglove would probably be the first of them to set foot in Italy. And wasn’t it a pity he wouldn’t be attached to it at the time?

If ever the bond of mistress-servant loyalty was going to snap Frankenstein assumed it would be then. But no, through his fever Foxglove mustered a smile. And perhaps distraction from the poor man’s woes had been Ada’s intention in saying such a crass thing. Perhaps.

The ambush in Trieste had been fitting culmination to their flight across the continent. They’d been harried all the way, constantly on the verge of capture and sensing the questing feelers of secret services night and day. The lavish bribes they paid out to buy co-operation and silence also attracted attention at the same time, and so depleted their wealth that they arrived at the Adriatic as near paupers. They even looked the part for, en route, they’d slept under hedges as often as in beds. Their faces bore the sleepless, haunted, look that comes from too many moonlight flits and bad meals taken on the move. They now jumped at every hoof-fall, expecting the arrival of cavalry.

Traversing a world at war meant there was no shortage of soldiery passing by to give them palpitations. In some parts they were likely to be French, in others not; but the borders between the two were in constant flux. And even where there was no military, in those few regions at fragile peace or too devastated to be worth occupying, the spies and agents of the Powers were present, looking out to buy and sell people.

Trieste had been the closest shave of all. Unbeknownst to them, though much suspected, they were under observation from their arrival. As Ada and Julius subsequently reconstructed it, reinforcements must have been speeding there, probably complete with cages and implements-of-interrogation, to secure a live prize. However, when the fugitives made moves towards a ship all plans were off and their would-be captors acted with whatever came to hand.

A shot had rung out on the dockside. Foxglove slid to the ground, his face merely puzzled by withdrawal of support from a leg that till then had given a lifetime of loyal service. Simultaneously, from behind them came a cacophony of voices, some French, others fluent ‘international abuse,’ as men sped into the street heading in their direction.

So it came about that Frankenstein and co. took not the ship they’d intended to but the first to hand and ready to sail. Lady Lovelace dealt with ensuring its captain saw things their way whilst Julius got Foxglove below deck and examined the damage. Down there he heard Gallic curses beyond the hull but they stayed on the quayside, not drawing any nearer. Then as the ship got underway the external rage and menaces gradually receded into oblivion.

But it was a close run thing. Only a happy chance had directed their feet to an Austrian-flagged armed-merchantman. It had crew enough aboard to deter unwelcome visitors and a inbred inclination to refuse any French proposal, let alone threat. As such, it was their first stroke of luck in ages.

That it was going just along the coast to Venice initially seemed disappointing, but sober reflection turned the news into great good fortune. Those who’d waved farewell with obscene gestures from the dock would assume a longer voyage in prospect, probably far to the south, aiming to put maximum distance between chasers and chased.

Better still, the Venetian experience under Napoleonic occupation back when he rampaged round Europe the first time, hadn’t exactly warmed them to Revolutionary France or its successor ‘Convention.’ For did not the French snuff out the thousand year old ‘Serene Republic’ like it counted for nothing? Didn’t they then loot the place? True or not (true), that was how the present nostalgic Venetian regime saw things, and perception is all that matters in human affairs. The Doge and his Council famously felt very far from ‘serene’ about recent history and so, all other things being equal, would look with favour, or at least with a blind eye, on these fleeing France. It was even said some French royalists and anti-Revivalists, the most friendless and despised of all exiles, had found asylum there.

Julius and friends never discovered whether that was correct. It was enough—more than—that they found sanctuary. Sort of. Their brief stay in Venice was confined to damp cellars and movement by night. Even the medicine for Foxglove had to be fetched in covertly under cover of darkness. Of what remained of the City’s fine art and architectural delights they saw nothing. And for some strange reason Lady Lovelace bitterly resented that. At loud length.

Then, when Foxglove’s sweating-crisis was finally over and he looked likely to survive, the trio had set off for Rome. Increasingly of late, ‘the Eternal City’ had flared in Frankenstein’s memory as a beckoning refuge, a place when French writ didn’t run and their ideology was rejected. He knew Rome, he’d lived there as a child and (both clincher and sad truth, this) who else would have them? Where else could they go? The Falklands, perhaps, and its windswept, man-free, islands? Or fabled ‘New Zealand’—and risk being eaten by tattooed savages? Anywhere else they would be known and face ‘welcome.’

Or what about suicide, falling on their swords like heroes of old? That might thwart the Emperor and ‘save’ them. Death ruled a country they could not be fetched back from. Or leastways it did till Julius’ great uncle spoilt things…

Julius held all such drastic options in reserve but for the moment settled for Rome.

He returned from reverie and thoughts of a lone English leg touring Venice’s canals. What more could their enemies do to them, that limb’s former owner had enquired? With the implied answer, ‘not much.’

Such naivety! Julius knew better; as must Foxglove. The man had experienced torture in Versailles: he of all people should realise that experts could string out subtle suffering for years.

Such thoughts can travel through time to poison the future, and so shouldn’t be fed or stared at. Doing either only makes them stronger, more virulent. Instead, Julius tried to count their blessings. They had life (except Ada), a full complement of limbs (except Foxglove…) and they were at liberty—albeit in hiding. There was a roof over their heads, a fire in their room and some money left in their wallets to buy basics like food…

‘Food!’ demanded the baby, presumably as mere coincidence. And it must be coincidence, because the alternative didn’t bear thinking about. Speech alone was bizarre enough in an infant barely old enough for solids. If telepathic powers were added as well…

The child stood up in its cot and repeated the imperious command.

‘Cattle: bring me food!’

It was a child’s voice, minus innocence or appeal. Instead it appalled.

Since Frankenstein was the nearest the infant plucked at his sleeve with unnerving strength—though any of the ‘cattle’ present would do. It called them all that without distinction.

Julius shied away, a natural reaction even in a hardened Revivalist. When Ada stole the child it had been normal enough, if paper white and spindly and not properly alive. Back then it cried when hungry and behaved much as other babies do. Now though, just a few weeks later, it spoke loud and clear of its needs. And its vocabulary expanded by the day even though none of them, neglectful foster-parents that they were, primed it with conversation. Now it daily sought to command them and called them ‘cattle.’ The rest of the time its eyes followed their every move in unearthly scrutiny.

‘Have you fed it?’ he asked Ada. ‘And dammit, woman; I detest calling a child ‘it.’ How many more times must I ask you to give… it a name?’

Again, Lady Lovelace didn’t even look up.

‘How many times?’ she echoed. ‘Possibly an infinite number of times. Which incidentally is an interesting concept to a mathematician such as myself. If only we could truly understand infinity then I believe the science of calculation would soar to wonderful new heights…’

‘Really.’ Julius used the ‘couldn’t care less’ variant.

‘Really.’ Ada volleyed back the ‘that’s right’ option. She was soaring, in full flight extra-merciless mode. ‘And if you’re so keen on christening the child why not do so yourself? I wager you’ve never baptised royalty before. Eh? Eh? You’d like that anecdote added to your life-tale, wouldn’t you? Admit it. Why not go the whole hog and name him after yourself!’

‘Julius Frankenstein-Bonaparte?’ mused Julius. It didn’t require much evaluation.

‘No, thank you.’

That was an insensitive thing to say in earshot of a child who, Julius suspected, could understand every word. On the other hand, its feelings were unlikely to be hurt. The ‘Book’ said they had none.

‘Well then,’ Ada pressed on, ‘if you’re stumped for something suitable, may I suggest ‘Insurance’? I told you that’s why it’s here, and I stand by it. ‘Prince Insurance Bonaparte’? How’s that? It’s got a ring to it: it does the job. What do you think, monster-child? Do you like it?’

She finally looked up at the cot-confined infant. It looked back at her and straightaway Lady Lovelace started to lose.

‘Food!’ it instructed. ‘Now!’

Ada gladly returned to her table full of papers, pretending her defeat was voluntary.

‘You’ve been fed,’ she replied, looking down. ‘Exactly as your precious book prescribes. More than, in fact. You dine on the same stuff as me but you don’t hear me whinging…’

All true enough, regarding her rations at least, if not about the moaning. Frankenstein had analysed the serum in the baby’s bandoleer and found it to be ‘just’ the enhanced formula he had brewed and earned his keep with at Versailles. Which proved something. There was no super-secret serum Napoleon used to vivify his seed. Given access to a supply of meat and standard serum Julius had found it relatively simple (if time consuming and thankless) to keep both Ada and baby fed. But not necessarily satisfied…

‘Food!’ said the child, with extra venom. ‘Immediately!’

That was a development: a new and grander word in its vocabulary, got from Heaven knew where. Up till then all demands for urgency were covered by ‘now!’

Inwardly, all the adults present shivered. Extrapolate that process but a little way and soon the child would be conducting conversations—and dominating them.

Mercifully, at present its ‘anger repertoire’ was limited to a glare that should have scorched Ada.

It was silly and superstitious but Julius didn’t care to cross the trajectory of that look. Instead, he went to Lady Lovelace a round-about way.

‘What exactly are you doing?’ he asked her. The constant moving across the table of scraps of paper with scrawls upon them had finally got the better of his curiosity. She often occupied herself with mathematical scribbling but this was more like a complex variant of chess of her own devising. Off would go one bit of paper to join another, only for Ada to reject that pattern and try again. However, most of the montage she’d made was now fairly stable and only one section was still giving her trouble. She ummed and ahhed and muttered to herself over it.

No answer came to Julius’ question. Lady Lovelace was engrossed again, maybe as a refuge from the terrifying child.

‘Milady’s been doing that since returning from the Sistine Chapel,’ said Foxglove, to fill the embarrassing gap: ever the justifier of Ada’s action or inaction. ‘She said it’s important…’

‘Not to me she didn’t,’ replied Julius, and prompted her Ladyship to get his own, personalised, response.

‘Madam…?’

Then he saw that one of the pieces of paper had his name on it. It was placed some way down the table and wasn’t one of the still mobile slips. Above it was another labelled ‘Foxglove,’ and slightly above that was another christened ‘the gondolier who hid us.’ Julius felt even more slighted.

‘Lady Lovelace!’

At last she admitted they shared the same Universe. That concession comprised holding up one hand to hush him.

With the other she slid a paper from middle ranking, slowly at first and hesitantly, but then with ever growing confidence. It was exalted to the top and overlaid on another.

It was held there a second or two, still tentative. Then Lady Lovelace squealed with joy. She pinned the twinned slips hard to the table with a jabbed finger.

‘Yes!’ she cried. ‘Yes! Yes! Yes! Yes!’

Julius was a gentleman and Ada was a Lazaran but inappropriate images still occurred to him. He sternly banished them to his subconscious and deliberate death by neglect. The alternative and decent thing to do was identify her words as Lady Lovelace having a Eureka! moment.

Foxglove jumped in alarm. Even if Ada’s educational programme had primed him with classical references, his first thoughts weren’t going to be of Archimedes’ famous exclamation. Action was more Foxglove’s metier.

‘‘Yes’ milady?’ he queried, in case she was in distress, and started to grapple his peg-leg on.

Distress? Quite the contrary. Ada rose like a rocket, knocking her chair over, energised and ecstatic. She still had those particular pieces of paper transfixed to the table. Julius expected to see fingerprints pressed permanently into the wood.

‘Yes!’ she confirmed to her servant, eyes aglow. ‘Yes! It fits! It works! I think I…’ She could hardly find the words, her eyes wide with disbelief. She had to force herself to go on. ‘I think I understand!’

Only then did she release the papers. Made adhesive by static they briefly adhered to her fingers before flitting to the floor.

It was obvious they wasn’t going to get a sensible answer from her for some while. She struck Julius (who was not without experience in such matters) as almost orgasmic and accordingly best left well alone.

Instead, he went to collect the fallen slips.

On one were the words:

‘The British Secret Service’

And on the other, simply:

‘?’

Lady Lovelace was hurtling back to planet Earth now and near enough to acknowledge Frankenstein—if she had pressing need.

‘Who,’ she asked him, burning up with ‘need,’ ‘runs the British Secret Service?’

‘What?’ he countered, wrong-footed. It was hardly a topic he’d been expecting and, besides, he still hadn’t had the courtesy of an answer to his original question long ago.

‘Quickly!’ Ada urged him. ‘It’s vital!’

Frankenstein considered.

‘The British Secret Service? Well, its Director-General, so I’m told, is…’

‘No, idiot!’ said Ada, almost screeching. ‘Listen: I said this is vital. Vital! Who is in charge of-…’

‘Lady Lovelace!’ interrupted Frankenstein, who still hadn’t got the message, ‘I was attempting to tell you, if you would but listen. It is one Sir Percy Blakeney who has that honour. Nominally. In theory. Or so, as I said, one hears. And I’d be obliged, your ladyship, if you never ever again referred to me as an idio-…’

‘Then don’t act like one and I won’t need to!’ said Ada, still shouting. ‘Or a booby! Or a donkey! Will you damn well listen!’

Profanity from patrician lips! A patrician lady’s lips! Frankenstein gasped. Even Foxglove took an involuntary step back—and almost fell over his false leg.

Ada didn’t care. She stuck to her guns. ‘Not ‘nominally’ she repeated. ‘Nor ‘in theory.’ Who really?’

She was in earnest. Lady Lovelace was always in earnest, which sometimes made her wearying company. Today though, this was the real thing. Julius respected it and thought hard.

‘I’ve heard stories,’ he said finally, ‘from people who might be in a position to know, that the real role is occupied by a foreigner. Or rather, a naturalised Briton…’

‘Who is?’ yelled Ada, urging him on with watermill motions of her hands. ‘Who is?’

‘Lord Vectis. Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand-Perigord.’

Ada subsided. She sighed with deep contentment. Her right hand rose and clenched into a fist, crushing something symbolic.

‘I have him,’ she crowed. ‘And through him, I have my spark back! It arrived just now. Oh God, oh God, oh God! My beautiful spark!’

Her blasphemies aside, Frankenstein saw there might be cause for celebration. Ada certainly thought so, but he held back. Was it true? Could he take her word for it? And if true, what did it mean?

‘You have…?’ he said.

‘I have.’ Ada closed her eyes, suffused with pleasure. ‘I have! It arrived just now, like a flood, an avalanche: but a delicious not deadly one. It leaps and cavorts within me now and can never depart.’

Maybe Swiss people should not linger too long in England. Cross pollination between the two cultures does not cultivate effervescence.

‘Congratulations,’ said Julius, deadpan.

‘I almost had it in the Sistine Chapel,’ Ada gushed on, oblivious. ‘Contemplation of sublime art and tracing its spirit of inspiration nearly got me there. So near… I got the notion from contemplating other masterpieces on the way here; though with them I only received preliminary flashes…’

So that explained her spectacularly filthy mood when they were confined in Venice and Julius and Foxglove combined forces to veto her proposed cultural jaunts. Frankenstein had wondered about such sudden and uncharacteristic zeal for high art…

‘Also, it required massive doses,’ Ada babbled. ‘Even the Sistine failed. I could feel my brain straining to burst through the final thin barrier and back to full humanity. But it could not. I think it never would, not that way. Ultimately, the spirit of it is too personal to Michelangelo for me to borrow as a battering ram to sentience. Art can inspire but not save. However, I was on the trail: it gave me an idea. What art lacked was levels of complexity you could disassemble. Like finding one of Mr Babbage’s ‘Analytical Engines’ for example, whole but unexplained. The mind of a genius such as I might discover its purpose and principles by probing the equal genius that built it. And it’s same with a plan or conspiracy, or leastways a sufficiently subtle one. I mean, think of all that has happened to us! There was signs if we only would see. A hand has guided —no, flicked and prodded us—throughout…’

‘Ah…,’ said Julius. He recalled the Gospel verse perverted by Fouché. He felt Christian gladness that heathen Lady Lovelace had seen the light at last.

She read his expression and poured cold water over that bonfire of piety.

‘No, Switzer: not your God creature. Do you never give up? You should have been a missionary, not a soldier. I refer to earthly genius. Someone who sculpts great art out of human lives. What a pattern! What a tapestry! And us as mere threads in it! The audacity of the man!’

That was quite a speech for her—and unprecedentedly positive. Her look simply challenged them to accept. Loyal Foxglove already had. There was a certain mad logic to it all that was in accord which what the world had showed them of late. However, stumbling blocks remained for Julius to stumble over.

He coughed politely.

‘I’m afraid I don’t quite underst—’

Ada was in such a good mood she forgave him his mental lead boots.

‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t. Only a mathematician—and a great one at that—could follow the elegance of his logic and reduce it to notation. Fortunately, I am such a mathematician. It is in my power to transform events into symbols in my notebook. Then, when I strived with them the event-equations surrendered their meaning to me and expanded like gorgeous blooms. After that it was just a matter of summarisation: manipulating slips of paper to see what led to who. And then I understood!’

She paused for breath (so to speak), or maybe to savour the moment.

‘Oh, gentlemen: the shameless elegance of it! I cannot convey to you: words fail… Better than sex! Far better, in fact!’

‘Indeed,’ rumbled Frankenstein, disapproving. Foxglove blushed and looked away. Ada did not notice.

‘Gentlemen: the sheer subtlety! Subtlety I say! Grasping that slippery subtlety stretched and fired my mind. It enabled me to break through!’

They’d never heard her speak so fast or with such animation. Ada placed one hand to her heart, as if to calm a fluttering breast, or maybe pledge allegiance. She shook her smiling head in admiration and its ringlets seconded and accentuated the movement.

Then she closed her eyes again to enjoy private bliss.

‘I am whole. I have my spark. Thanks to him. The talent was all mine but some thanks must go to him!’

Frankenstein frowned and opened his mouth to speak.

She can only have sensed it because her eyes remained clasped.

‘As must we,’ she pre-empted Julius. ‘We must go to him! Now!’

Which gave Julius the opening he’d been searching for. Such lunacy was well worth a ‘but…’

‘But…’

He got no further. Ada opened her eyes and in beholding them Julius had to admit they were even more lustrous than before. The orbs shone and seduced exactly as they must have done in life.

She saw he had objections and would not be the instant assistance required. Fortunately, a ready alternative was at hand.

‘Foxglove!’

‘Milady?’

‘Get a hotel servant. Get me proper writing paper. Enquire the time of the next post collection for England.’

Things then happened in a flurry and in a way that was good; for activity at least stopped Frankenstein’s headache from worsening.

Foxglove rang the rope for a flunky and one came and went with Ada’s order. She pursued his retreating back with composite Anglo-Italian instructions along the lines of ‘make it snappy.’

‘Right, monsewer Talleyrand,’ said Lady Lovelace, positively crowing while she waited, ‘I’m going to write you a letter! And I shall say that I know your little game! And thank you for it too…’

Frankenstein might have had comments on the wisdom of that but he was distracted. Misgivings added incrementally up in his mind till they amounted to alarm.

He shook his head and Foxglove, who for all his alternative allegiance had respect for the man, noted it.

‘What’s the matter, sir?’

Julius crossed to one of the windows and looked out. Then to an adjoining one. Foxglove stumped over and joined him.

‘No,’ said Julius, pronouncing judgement on the view.

Foxglove looked again.

‘No what?’ he said.

‘This,’ answered Julius, and pointed below. ‘And as for that hotel porter…’

‘What about him?’

‘Have you seen him before?’

Foxglove considered.

‘No: but that signifies nothing. Places like this have many-…’

Frankenstein interrupted with complete confidence. Foxglove saw that his face was fixed and somehow thinner. The lips were compressed. He’d gone into military mode. Foxglove was impressed and willing to listen.

‘That flunky wasn’t flunky-like,’ said Julius quietly. ‘He hasn’t the bearing. Too erect. Normally he lifts muskets not luggage. And these people here…’

He indicated the random passers-by outside. They looked fine to Foxglove. Frankenstein didn’t agree.

‘They’re not civilians. They’re a street-scene from central casting…’

He knocked the window pane. He waved. He whistled. No one looked up.

Frankenstein whirled round and in an instant was beside his valise on the bed. He hurled things into it—after taking his pepperbox pistol out.

‘Pack!’ he ordered his companions. Lady Lovelace, still blissed-out, looked puzzled and then annoyed. She started to say something.

‘He’s right,’ said the pale child, pre-empting her. Ignored in all the excitement he’d been listening avidly throughout.

‘Shut up,’ Frankenstein told it and Ada. ‘We go!’

They weren’t going anywhere. The door came down.

Chapter 8: NO ONE EXEPCTS…

‘So it’s true!’ cried Lady Lovelace. ‘And all lies!’

She was acting like a saintly wife wronged by a sot—except it appeared no act. The eruption of Swiss Guardsmen into the room over splintered wood confirmed her every prejudice, the steady flow of black legend drip-fed into all Protestant Britons for centuries. Priestcraft, weapon of the Red Whore of Babylon who sat in Rome, no more respected the sanctity of the confessional than it did any other part of religion. Probably the Spanish Inquisition was on its way too, only delayed by the unwieldy bulk of its racks, red-hot irons and other torture gear. Plus grim nuns with whips.

If so they were much delayed. After the room was secured by soldiery, only two others entered, a brace of priests, one plainly more senior than the other.

Meanwhile there was nothing to be done. Frankenstein had already observed the street outside was well clamped down: he could reasonably presume the rest of their hotel were likewise. Similarly, they had zero prospect of fighting their way through the ample numbers of Swiss sent in. It was him, a cripple and a shouty woman (oh, and a kidnapped alien baby) versus an elite regiment. That would be so short a contest as to be no contest.

When he wanted to be, Julius was a sensible man. The way he saw things, his options now focused on the preservation of dignity.

Part of that included distancing himself from Ada. She was working herself up into quivering outrage.

‘You…,’ she spat at him, scornfully, ‘you… papist! You and your blabbing to priests! Just when I had…’

Then she noticed her present priestly company were paying great attention to her tirade, especially the last truncated phrase. She instantly shut up: which shed doubt on her foregoing fervour.

‘May I?’ asked Frankenstein in the ensuing hush. He indicated a nearby chair, all the while careful to avoid sudden movements. Half a dozen pistols held in steady hands were tracking him.

‘Please do,’ said the senior priest. He spoke in Italianate French, the aptly termed lingua Franca of civilised European discourse.

‘Thank you.’

Foxglove too slumped down. Only Lady Lovelace remained standing. With what she deluded herself were surreptitious movements Ada was stuffing her revelatory slips of paper into the placket-slits of her skirts. Perhaps she thought that celibate churchman automatically averted their eyes from the female form, or dare not contemplate a search of one.

‘You were saying, madam,’ prompted the younger priest, perhaps the secretary of the first. ‘Our arrival was inopportune because you had just…’

Ada sniffed distaste.

‘I forget…’

The younger priest seemed to accept that.

‘What a pity. It sounded most interesting…’

How she hated being humoured. Her long lost husband had done that.

‘You talk to them,’ she instructed Frankenstein, acting like nothing untoward had happened and their privacy remained intact. ‘They’re your lot: you attracted them. Ask them what they want.’

What she wanted was more time to conceal the paperwork. Yet Julius could see their guests were deliberately ignoring her skirt-stuffing activities. It made him feel like a child denying the obvious before adults.

‘What can we do for you, father,’ he enquired of the older man.

‘May I?’ The priest indicated a free seat. ‘It is your room, and we your guests, after all…’

If he was their nemesis he was a very courteous one. Which was nice. Julius always held that even if you had to kill someone there was no need to be brusque about it.

‘Certainly,’ he said.

‘Thank you.’

The slim, grizzled, prelate positioned the chair so that he could easily address them all. His assistant rushed to dust its seat before posterior met upholstery.

‘Don’t fuss, Simeon,’ he rebuked him, but in the most milk-and-water way. The younger man persisted regardless.

The older priest walked with a stick, an ebony cane topped with amber. Frankenstein’s keen eyesight perceived an insect, a fat fly by the looks of it, preserved forever within that yellow blob.

Before he spoke the priest regarded this decorative flourish, perhaps contemplating eternity to draw strength for the here and now. Then he rested chin and hands on the cane. Ever appraising, Julius noted a gaudy ring on one of those slim fingers. It seemed out of keeping with the man.

The priest glanced at each one of them in turn. It felt like an informed scrutiny, uncomfortably so: a look that bore weight. There was no indication, not the merest hint, what conclusions he drew.

Finally, the priest drew breath again.

‘You asked what you could do for me. That’s charming and polite. But given that I am an uninvited guest: a gate-crasher in fact, permit me to turn that around. What can I do for you?

‘Go?’ suggested Ada.

At last, Frankenstein had something to work on. He saw how the Swiss Guard stiffened at that. Which was revealing…

The priest smiled and shook his head.

‘Alas, I cannot oblige…’

‘Will not, you mean,’ Lady Lovelace corrected him.

He conceded it freely.

‘Indeed. Duty holds me here for the moment, however much you may find it objectionable. And I think the culture you come from finds me very objectionable. Therefore perhaps you’ll permit me to justify myself just a little in your eyes…’

‘Can I stop you?’ she asked. A genuine question.

‘No.’ An honest answer. ‘But you could refuse to listen. That would negate my good intentions…’

Ada considered herself a scientist, which implied an open mind and open ears.

‘No, go on, I’ll listen,’ she said, calm(ish) now.

‘Thank you. ‘Well, firstly may I disabuse you of one of your worse suspicions. And yours too perhaps…’ He’d turned to address Julius. ‘There has been no abuse of the confessional, no sacred secrets spilt. Father Cornelius, he who heard your confession, is unwell: most unwell. In fact, he had a seizure last night. Medical opinion is that he may be gathered to his eternal home before another night passes. Meanwhile… how can I put this with sufficient emphasis? He is most insistent that your repentance be recognised and absolution given. Even on the brink of the great abyss he is more concerned for your immortal soul than his own…’

‘A true priest,’ commented Julius.

‘Exactly. A credit to his kind: I should have promoted him while he was in health, but now it is too late. Meanwhile, all—and I assure, it is all—he has communicated to us is the supreme import of your case and the desirability that you return to the sacrament.’

‘Not much to go on then,’ said Frankenstein, recreating in his mind the pathway of events. ‘Just enough to bring you to this room but little more.’

The priest equivocated with a flicking motion of one hand.

‘Well…’

Julius jumped ahead.

‘Oh, I see…’

The priest smiled as if at a bright pupil.

‘Your father was here, was he not? You too, I believe’

‘That’s true.’

‘Then you know we are not entirely without resource…’

‘They have a diplomatic corps,’ Julius informed his two friends so they could keep up. ‘Which doubles up as a secret service. And an intelligence network reaching right the way to every last Church in Christendom. They’re very effective…’

‘Aha!’ said Ada, glad to have her misgivings stroked again. ‘More priestcraft! Jesuit trickery!’

The priest acknowledged both ‘compliments.’

‘If you like. Did not our Lord enjoin us ‘Be you cunning as serpents…’’

‘‘But gentle as doves,’’ Julius concluded for him. ‘‘Matthew 10, 12…’

‘Chapter 10, verse 16 actually,’ the priest corrected, ‘but broadly: bravo. I hope we conform to both injunctions. But to continue, what Father Cornelius could not supply, intelligence received could suggest. And that intelligence suggested the… stress he placed on your tale was not misplaced. A few enquiries later and here we all are…’

He leant back in his seat and smiled, as though that were it. But since neither he or his troops stirred plainly it was not.

‘And so…?’ asked Julius.

The priest fixed him with a very impressive gaze. It had the full weight of a two millennia old organisation behind it.

‘What you told Father Cornelius,’ said the priest, when the stare had fully sunk in, ‘I’d rather like you to tell me…’

Naturally, given his upbringing, Frankenstein had seen a pope before, but never actually spoken to one. And as for telling one your life history…

It helped when the priest was divested of his lowly disguise and stood revealed in papal purple as His Holiness Simon-Dismas II, Keeper of the Keys, Father of Christendom, Guardian of the Holy Places etc. etc. Then, with his white skullcap on and secretary dancing attendance, he looked far more the part.

Likewise, when a room was found and they had privacy, secrecy even, the situation felt slightly more natural. A thinned-out number of Swiss Guard stood round just out of whisper-earshot.

Even so, Julius hesitated till His Holiness pointed something out.

‘If I cannot absolve you,’ he said, not threatening but stating a simple fact, ‘then who on earth can?’

Frankenstein saw the truth of it and shrugged. He knelt and started off with the very first dead person he’d had brought back to life against its will and his own better judgement.

‘That letter you were writing and have now concealed,’ said the Pope to Lady Lovelace when he and Julius returned to the room (much) later, ‘I urge you to finish it. In fact I insist.’

Ada frowned at this further example of priestly cunning. It disconcerted her that they should even faintly imitate the omniscience of the Deity they served.

‘So you knew of that?’ she accused him. ‘Of my intentions? You were snooping like some insolent servant?’

‘Naturally,’ confirmed the Papal secretary, in order that his master need not admit fault. ‘There are discreet devices—slender listening tubes fed up the eaves, amongst other tools it might be wiser not to specify. We felt it was excusable in the circumstances.’

For someone who thought ‘necessity’ a total explanation for all behaviour Ada’s snort was somewhat hypocritical.

‘I see,’ she said. ‘Or rather, you heard. Well, if you’re so clever perhaps you can tell me what I was about to write?’

The Pope paused.

‘Possibly. But not via prophecy or any preternatural power: just informed speculation.’

He fixed Ada with a wise look.

‘Was it to be a very short letter? A mere one sentence missive maybe? Perhaps only two words? Such as ‘I understand’?’

Lady Lovelace’s shoulders twitched. Simon-Dismas smiled at the involuntary confirmation. It also proved to him she was Human again.

‘Talleyrand will like that,’ he said. ‘His is one of the best minds of his generation: probably the sharpest. And we trained him! What a tragedy we could not keep him…’

Ada de-discombobulated herself by force of will. She was pleased to be able to tarnish the enemy’s oh-so-cleverness…

‘You’re only part right,’ she said. ‘There was going to be more.’

‘Indeed?’ said His Holiness.

‘Indeed. Double the number of words you… guessed.’

Deep down, very deep down, Ada realised she was being petty, but the inner voice of conscience was too faint and long-neglected to make itself heard.

‘Yes,’ she said, ‘I was also going to add: ‘I agree.’’

This was an important moment, too important to concede her even that little victory. To Ada’s chagrin the Pope approved.

‘Good. That makes our task easier. So, kindly write that letter and we will ensure it is delivered faster than you could ever contrive. Not only that, but we shall provide you with another message from our own hand and under our own seal. It will open all manner of doors.’

Ada might well be a dyed in the wool anti-papist but she worshipped at the altar of the effective. When her wants were involved, whether it be Mr Babbage or a Pope made no difference to her. She was converted to gratitude.

‘Thank you, er… reverend,’ she said, and let the merest bob stand in for a curtsey.

The Father of the Faithful was used to more. He held out the hand that bore the Papal ring for her to kiss.

Ada leant forward and shook the hand heartily. The Swiss Guards present stirred.

Julius stepped in.

‘We’re free to go?’ he asked. He was still distracted by thoughts of his penance. It would take years and ruin his knees. Best to start it somewhere not under close supervision.

‘You are,’ confirmed the Pontiff.

‘Tomorrow…,’ his secretary qualified that.

‘What? Oh yes,’ said Simon-Dismas. ‘There are things remaining before we say farewell. That, for instance.’

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 feared, 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.

Ada gingerly looked within—and flinched from a tender place. Her eyes widened.

‘No,’ she said, stunned, ‘more than human…’

Frankenstein realised he stood on the edge of scientific immortality, as great if not more so that his great uncle Victor. Spontaneous Lazaran remission! The recovery by sheer force of will of all that had been lost with life! No: more than all!

And all his to report and claim as his own if he wanted. As long as the species lasted his name would be remembered. A heady temptation!

But in the course of his mad career across the continent in Ada’s company Julius had changed too. Renown no longer blew so strongly upon his trumpet.

‘Do you regret it?’ he asked instead of all the obvious, dry, questions about how and why. ‘Are you sorry you studied the Sistine?’

Lady Lovelace looked at him again and for the first time Julius could see a soul behind the eyes. Her flesh might still be cold but she was not.

Everything was changed accordingly: not just with her or in the confines of the carriage but world-wide. The implications exploded and spread out like his Versailles Hellburner.

‘No,’ Ada answered, shocking herself. ‘No!’

‘Oh ho!’ said Nelson, returning at just the wrong moment and seizing with a death-grip the wrong end of the stick. ‘Turned you down has she, Frankenstein? Never mind. Lazaran flesh is like cold pork anyway—and I speak as one so I should know. Terrible! Be patient. Wait until you see the live ladies of Naples. Mmmmm!’

The Admiral smacked his blue lips.

‘De-licious! Every one of ‘em soft-palmed and full-bottomed to a man—if you get m’drift. And if you’re famous enough they’ll even go with a deader!’

There was a great spray of blood across his tunic—apparently not his own—and he bore a darkly wet sack. Dumped upon the seat whatever was within immediately began to seep out and stain.

With an abrupt movement that made his companions jump, the Admiral rammed his sword pommel against the carriage roof.

‘On,’ he bellowed to those above. ‘On to Naples! Take me to my ships!’

Soon there came the crack of whip and creak of harness, and off they set again.

‘Where were we?’ said Nelson, fidgeting to sit his thin frame comfortably. ‘Oh yes, you two. You three if you count the flunky up there…’

Again he thumped the carriage roof with his sword. Above them both Foxglove and the driver frowned in puzzlement—if they went any faster they’d leave the infantry behind. They reached a silent, tacit agreement between them that the noise hadn’t happened.

A pity, because Foxglove never enquired afterwards and learnt of his mistress’ ensuing vote of confidence. It would have swelled his loyal heart to bursting.

‘Oh, but I do count him,’ said Ada. ‘Never more so.’

‘Very commendable,’ said Nelson, who was known for his democratic impulses (when circumstances allowed). ‘Well, all of you then: tria juncta in uno. Three united as one.’

Frankenstein privately raised an eyebrow at Ada. They were flattered indeed. That was the Latin tag Nelson had coined to cover his curious ménage with Sir William and Emma Hamilton. Classical wrapping round a major social scandal of the day.

What did it matter now? All three of that torrid trio were dead (if not gone): all passion spent. Their little sins of the flesh were surely forgiven, because if not it suggested the Almighty was more merciless than man, His creation. Which was saying something…

‘The motto of the Order of the Bath, I believe,’ said Lady Lovelace.

‘What?’ said Nelson, recalled from reverie.

‘Tria juncta in uno, Admiral. ‘The motto of the Order of the Bath. Which you had the honour of owning, I believe.’

She could well believe it because Nelson actually wore its gaudy golden starburst on his breast along with a Christmas tree of other decorations. Although smeared with bandit blood it remained unmistakable.

‘S’right,’ said the Admiral. ‘Yes indeed.’

Frankenstein realised she’d spoken out of kindness. Ada had acted out of kindness! She’d wanted to spare the Admiral any embarrassment. Astounding!

‘The highest of honours,’ she added. ‘Dearly bought no doubt.’

England’s finest Revivalists might have been able to give Nelson back the semblance of life, but a new arm wasn’t included. Limbs lost pre-mortem couldn’t be regrown, and at the time it wasn’t thought politic to stitch another man’s arm on.

‘Very dearly…,’ Nelson agreed, and the residue of his lost right arm, his ‘flipper’ as he called it, stirred. But it was more likely he was thinking of all the bliss with Emma that duty had deprived him of.

Inspired by Ada, Julius joined in the mercy mission.

‘You were saying,’ he prompted, to get him back. ‘About the three of us…’

‘What? Oh yes: you three. Well, apparently you’re special. Very special…’

He appraised Julius and Ada head to toe.

‘For some reason… That’s why I came in person. To have a look. And because I felt like it, of course. It seemed a challenge to get you back alive, never mind orders. Half of Europe mobilised against you poor three. Nelson knows an underdog when he sees one. I recognised a job calling for my supreme talents. Plus a holiday: the opportunity to do a little hunting…’

He held up the dripping sack. Julius and Ada shrank back.

‘Horatia, my daughter, has a birthday coming up. So I’ve got her a present. I think it’s a parent’s duty to see their children get ahead, don’t you? Get-a-head. Get it?’

Nelson’s laugh was like dead trees creaking against each other in the wind.

‘Terrible!’ said Ada—and meant it. Fortunately, she was either unheard or ignored.

‘Anyhow,’ Nelson continued, dropping the trophy bag to foul a different bit of upholstery, ‘me being here, me saving you, has nothing to do with monsewer Talleyrand’s command! Neo-Nelson doesn’t dance to his tune! Quite the opposite in fact. He’s a Frenchman. ‘You should hate a Frenchman as you would the Devil’: that’s what I always told my new midshipmen. Because that’s what my mother taught me…’

He’d lost her early: a life-time—and afterlife-time—ago now. Thought of the loss made the Admiral raise his remaining arm to wipe away a manly tear. Except that Lazarans were unable to weep.

‘Would have said no in usual circumstances…’

His expression had changed and hardened. They got to see the face of ‘Dark Nelson.’

‘No, in normal circumstances he—and you —could bloody well go hang…’

Frankenstein overlooked that. Nelson wasn’t himself—and never would be again.

‘‘Normal circumstances’?’ he enquired.

‘S’right. Proves what rot all this ‘Dark Nelson’ nonsense is. I still have a soft heart, more fool me…’

Then he realised he’d lost them and kindly backtracked.

‘You don’t know? About Talleyrand? I assumed you would. The Hell-bound old scoundrel is dying.’

Chapter 11: WHEN FELLATIO FAILS

‘02/02/1837: Eighty-three years gone by! I do not know that I am satisfied when I consider how so many years have passed, how I have filled them. What useless agitations, what fruitless endeavours! Tiresome complications, exaggerated emotions, spent efforts, wasted gifts, hatreds aroused, sense of proportion lost, illusions destroyed, tastes exhausted! What result in the end? Mortal and physical weariness, complete discouragement and profound disgust with the past. There are a crowd of people who have the gift or the drawback of never properly understanding themselves. I possess only too much the opposite disadvantage or superiority; it increases with the gravity of old age.’

Insomnia and early hours ennui are not conducive to cheerful journal writing. Talleyrand set down his pen, fatigued by so much intense integrity but still not sleepy. He re-read what he had written and sighed.

Unbeknownst to each other, two trusted retainers had been separately tasked with the destruction of his journal immediately after his death. Meanwhile, within its pages at least, he could be honest with himself.

Yet an act maintained for so long becomes reality. Since gaining the age of reason Talleyrand had cultivated a butterfly spirit, flitting lightly over humanity, laughing at himself and it. That stance now reasserted itself, soaring above so much dull-dog earnestness. He was glad the journal would one day be committed to the flames and thus rid the world of all its cant.

Meanwhile, he knew of some sovereign remedies for spiritual slumps.

Talleyrand reached for the bellrope and rang for champagne! And a strumpet!

When even champagne and fellatio failed Talleyrand he knew he was dying. Or should die: which amounted to the same thing.

He set his barely sipped glass aside. Treacherous taste-buds made it taste acid.

‘Thank you, my dear,’ he said to the shape under the covers. ‘But that will be all.’

When she emerged blinking, the lovely Loseley milkmaid was worried she was in trouble. The Prince went to great pains to reassure her.

‘The fault is all mine,’ he said, feigning the sweetest of smiles. ‘You are entirely exquisite but I am old and failing. My time is done and therefore so is yours. Thank you for all the delectable awakenings. Thank your brother too. Now you should be on your way: morning milking awaits to judge by all the mooing from outside. Be sure to tell my chamberlain I said you should have an extra shilling today.’

Which contented her, if not him, and she left, closing the bedroom door and a whole colourful chapter of his life.

It was indeed early, an uncivilised hour, when he’d summoned her, preceding even her main (respectable) duties of the day. Talleyrand was sleeping worse and worse of late, and some nights were interminable.

In fact, the more he thought of it and faced the cold facts, all manner of things were closing in on him now, all manner of minor aches and pains adding up to something significant.

And now this culminating failure. Talleyrand had been many—indeed, most—things in his long life, but never impotent, not in any sense. That was the final straw. Or a straw in the wind, to continue the metaphor. Or the—limp—straw that broke the camel’s back.

It had been a broad back in its time, a strong one as well that had borne up many things, many burdens, for all his outward appearance of a foppish cripple. Now its work was done. Time to rest. Time to go.

Talleyrand released a long breath and switched off. Off! The mighty survival mechanism, the gleaming machine that had powered him so long, faltered for the first time in nine decades.

Momentum carried it on a few seconds more but then the great betrayal sunk in. It failed, it coughed and finally slid to a halt.

Rising for want of anything better to do in bed, Talleyrand crossed to where his schemes were made manifest. On a tabletop inlaid with a mosaic map of Europe, exquisite porcelain figurines represented anything from armies to individuals playing out their hour upon the stage. For a goodly proportion, knowingly or not, Talleyrand was both their stage manager and acting coach.

When not in use this dolls’-house for statesmen was kept decently shrouded in black velvet. The Prince lifted this cover and studied the work of his hands—and mind and money and cunning and appalling cynicism. Curiously enough, certain patterns therein exactly matched Lady Lovelace’s paper construct in her Roman hotel room. Not that either party would ever know of this conclusive proof that great minds think alike.

Talleyrand picked up a tiny Napoleon from the dot labelled ‘Versailles’ and brought him to eye level.

He smiled.

‘‘Shit in a silk stocking’ was I?’ he proxy-enquired of a thing unable to answer back. ‘Well, who knows? Maybe you were right. Politics is determined as much in the sewer as in the salon…’

In a petty but satisfying act of settlement, Talleyrand rolled the figurine between two fingers, hoping by sympathetic magic to make the Emperor dizzy.

‘And how about a fitting alliterative description for you, mon petit Empereur? Eh? “Butcher in boots”, maybe. Or perhaps “tyrant in tights”. How do they fit? Eh? Eh?’

Nearby on the map, occupying the marker for Paris, sat a group figurine representing the ever changing cast of the Convention. Regular rapid ascents and Icarus-like falls to the overworked guillotine meant it wasn’t practical to personalise the models.

Talleyrand picked this up too and engaged it in fierce combat with the Napoleon figure, also supplying a soundtrack for their struggle for supreme power.

‘Grrr! Merde! Grrr grrr! Arrgh!’

In Talleyrand’s not particularly humble opinion they’d be fighting for real before long, and he knew who his money was on to prevail. Bonaparte versus a gaggle of sleazy lawyers? (an oxymoron, he knew). No contest!

He knew it but also knew he would not be around to see it. Not after turning off his engine of ambition. Already he felt his attachment to the world weakening. Even the appeal of seeing his country’s true enemies knock lumps off each other was not what it would have been yesterday.

Therefore leave them to it: clambering over each other, sans dignity, sans perspective, like slugs in a beer glass. And all for prizes hardly worth having! He wished them joy of it, safe in the knowledge they would have none. Only antediluvian relics like himself retained any memory of the real art of living.

He’d said it oft-times before, causing young people’s eyes to glaze over. Nobody could appreciate life who had not lived before 1789. The Revolution had swept in the modern age and even Talleyrand’s far-sight could not see any end to it. All the more reason then to be gone and make way for a desensitised replacement.

Talleyrand dropped both figurines into the rubbish basket, planning to sweep the rest in to join them. A cleaner could be first to find tangible sign of one of the great players of the age quitting the scene, leaving the board bare and lifeless. And would be blessed by understanding nothing.

Then second thoughts struck.

It occurred to him that the children of the Loseley estate might love to have these brightly painted objects to play with. Just ditching them was a waste: of both the skill employed in their making, and waste of opportunity. Distributed to appreciative boys and girls they might increase the sum of human happiness. Heaven knew it could do with adding to. Back when he was a priest one of the few things Talleyrand had truly believed was that on the Day of Judgement God would be stern about any aborting of chances for joy.

Furthermore, in contemplating the figures’ final seconds his eye caught those representing his deep plan. Here at the end of things he belatedly wondered what had become of them and it.

He had fathered this particular pet project and taken better care of it than any of his other offspring. He’d raised it and seen it out into the world with every blessing he could deploy. Now in adult form it was independent of him but it was only natural that a parent should worry. What would become of it? Could he still help?

The miniature Frankenstein, Lady Lovelace and Foxglove had been placed in an indeterminate location. Last heard of bolting from Versailles, leaving uproar and outrage behind, even Talleyrand’s antennae had picked up only hints since. Reports subsequently trickled in but they could not be all true, not unless his protégés had developed powers of bi-location. That was the penalty of having overlapping agencies engaged in a hunt. Their paid informants boosted income by providing the intelligence people wanted to hear.

However, for good or ill it was out of his hands now. Either the plan had acquired life of its own or it was a Lazaran, devoid of any animating soul. Come what may, it must do without him.

Talleyrand found a jewel box and one by one retrieved the toy kings and emperors and armies and traitors and catalysts, placing them on their backs on the velvet plush inside. Like him, their careers over, they looked much more relaxed now.

Frankenstein and friends he left until last, before rescuing them from unspecified middle-Europe.

‘And where are you tonight, my dear grave-robber?’ Talleyrand enquired. ‘And your cold-blood companion too? I wonder…’

Despite everything, he had to smile. He’d chosen right with these little bundles of energy. Like ball-lightning. Very dangerous energy…

A Hellburner in Versailles, eh? The Emperor wouldn’t have been amused by that. No matter how high he’d risen the tubby little Corsican was conscious of his humble origins. Being housed in a palace, indeed, the palace of palaces, must be a daily scratching of all sorts of itches. Yet now his new home must look rather scorched and bargain basement.

‘Naughty, naughty!’ Talleyrand reproved the Frankenstein figure, waggling a finger at it.

A scratch at the boudoir door. A trusted secretarial face edged round it when the Prince sighed ‘enter.’

‘It’s Sir Percy Blakeney to see you, excellency. He’s very insistent…’

The Prince sighed again, louder and for effect.

‘Well, that does make a change,’ he said. ‘One cannot think of any man anywhere in more need of pleasuring himself each morning before venturing out into the world…’

‘I heard that!’ protested a familiar English voice from the room beyond.

As Talleyrand knew he would. One of the perks of ceasing to care.

‘I have news!’ said Sir Percy.

Of course he did. An inability to filter out the inessential meant he always did.

‘Gracious me!’ said Talleyrand

The third in a recent trinity of serious sighs came from Sir Percy.

‘I do wish you wouldn’t always say the same bloody th-…’

‘What is your news?’ interrupted Talleyrand.

That brought Sir Percy up short. It was too direct, not coated in greasy Gallic evasion. Then the spy-chief suddenly realised there were other things ‘wrong with this picture.’

For a start—and enough for a finish—the Prince was cravatless! Sir Percy should have been kept waiting for at least another hour whilst a swarm of effeminate flunkies dolled their master up like a wedding cake. Not only that but the infuriating superior smile was gone, and there were—Sir Percy took the trouble to count—one, two, three, strands of hair out of place!

Blakeney was not a bad man, when life permitted otherwise. He could be kind to children and lunatics. He felt a pang of compassion.

‘Are you well, Prince?’

Talleyrand was going to say ‘never better’ but out of nowhere a genuine fruity cough appeared. Dealing with it took some time.

‘We can do this some other time…,’ offered Sir Percy.

Talleyrand took out a peach coloured silk handkerchief and dabbed his mouth.

‘Actually, we cannot. I have something to impart to you. But I forget my manners: you spoke first. What is your news?’

Sir Percy recalled issues more important that some frog traitor’s health.

‘We’ve found that chap who deserted from the Heathrow Hecatomb knowing too much. Frankenstein. The one who went on the rampage with the Lazaran Lovelace woman…’

Talleyrand could still cut it, should he care to. His face was a mask. One hand gestured underwhelment.

‘One vaguely recalls…’

‘Well,’ said Sir Percy, ‘her husband—a friend of mine you’ll recall—has been running me ragged about her. Our ambassador in Rome has now picked up the trail. Apparently, Frankenstein has turned papist—perhaps he always was. A lot of foreigners are, apparently.’

Talleyrand would have winced if only he had the energy.

‘Really? Gracious me.’

Sir Percy winced for him but pressed on.

‘And now he’s spilling his guts to priests. Telling all. We can’t have that. The Pope’s already making a fuss of them—and you know how het up the Church gets about raising stiffs. Not only that but it looks like this Frankenstein chappie and her Ladyship are now an item. Very embarrassing for the Lovelace family. They’ve even adopted a Lazaran baby between them!’

Talleyrand sat up straight and one by one tucked in the stray strands of hair—which he’d been fully aware of.

‘Gracious me!’

It wasn’t the normal way he said it. There was meaning. He might even have added more had not the coughing returned. There was a spell of hacking before the Prince forced words out.

‘What do you propose?’

‘Well,’ Sir Percy was mildly embarrassed, ‘that’s where you come in. It’s in the nature of a favour I’m looking for here. There’s the good name of the Lovelaces to consider: an ancient and honourable English family. Plus we don’t want His Holiness roused up about the Hecatomb all over again, just when things had died down—if you’ll excuse the phrase…’

‘I don’t excuse it,’ said Talleyrand. ‘Make amends by speaking plain.’

Which was a bit rich, coming from him of all people, but Sir Percy was on the cadge and couldn’t cavil for the moment.

‘As you wish, Prince. Well, we thought perhaps we could kill two birds with one stone—if you’ll excuse the phr…. What I mean is, you must still have contacts out there, you being an ex-bishop and so forth.’

Talleyrand urged him on with his eyes and Sir Percy decided to go for broke.

‘Assassins,’ he said. ‘That’s the proposal. Not really our thing. But very much yours, we reckoned. Contacts from the old days maybe. Do you have people in Rome who could…’

‘Kill two birds with one stone?’ said Talleyrand for him.

‘Yes, just the two. There’s a servant with them but he can’t know much. He can live…’

Talleyrand cut in.

‘I do have such people, alas. But I have something else. Better. For you.’

Sir Percy leant back. He’d anticipated some sordid bargaining but this morning was going all awry and down unexpected avenues. He wished he’d had more coffee before setting out.

‘Which is what?’ he ventured hesitantly. If one should be cautious of Greeks bearing gifts then how much more so of this arachnid in human form…

‘My job,’ said Talleyrand, succinctly. ‘It’s yours.’

How well things always seemed to fall out for him, Talleyrand reflected, just like he was not a sinner at all! He’d fully intended to offer his resignation free of charge at this, their final meeting. Now he could sell it.

Sir Percy frowned.

‘What would I want with that? I’m already your superior.’

Talleyrand arranged his face into a ‘be-serious-this-is-important’ look that was an expressive universe away from his usual blandness. The ground shifted alarmingly beneath Sir Percy’s riding boots.

‘My job,’ the Prince went on in all earnest, ‘could be yours. Fully. I’ll resign and meddle no more. You’ll be in sole charge.’

To give him credit, Sir Percy could be brutally honest with himself. He opened his mouth to protest—but then shut it, the words unsaid.

‘Along with my agent networks: the whole lot,’ said Talleyrand, spicing the deal. ‘People—resources, that is to say— you’ve never dreamt of! With letters of recommendation for you to each one.’

If even half of what Sir Percy had heard was true that would be like becoming the greatest peeping-Tom ever. It had appeal.

‘And all my files.’ Talleyrand piled on the temptation to intolerable levels. ‘Every scrap. War-winning information…’

Sir Percy knew of them: he had tried to subvert Loseley servants to steal samples but to no avail. If sincere, it was a mouth-watering prospect. But what a huge ‘if’’.

‘Including the file about you and the lady choristers in Sussex,’ added Talleyrand. ‘The hamlet of Folkington wasn’t it? A South Downs church. Such exquisitely curvaceous slopes and valleys—the Downs that is.’

‘Yes,’ agreed Blakeney, deadpan, ‘exquisite.’

‘Well, that’s on offer too. Plus my draft letters on the subject—or was it ‘outrage’—to the Times. Plus the illustrative woodcuts of events that I commissioned. You could have them framed for your walls—or perhaps burn them.’

That settled it. Lady Blakeney had said that the next time she’d take red-hot coal-tongs to his privates. Then she’d mimicked a vicious twisting movement…

‘Probably burn,’ said Sir Percy.

‘I’m sure you know best,’ said Talleyrand sympathetically.

‘And in return?’ asked Sir Percy. He was nervous, expecting a great deal to be asked for so much.

Talleyrand was as straightforward as anyone had seen him since the veil descended between he and humanity long ago. There was no nuance, no shadings, not even the slightest inflection of voice requiring interpretation.

‘Don’t kill them,’ he said: demanded. ‘Frankenstein or Lady Lovelace or the servant. Don’t harm or silence them. Let them speak. Bring them home. Strain every sinew. Send the fleet. Send Nelson.’

Sir Percy realised he was experiencing a once-in-a-very-blue-moon-indeed moment. Compared to this Halley’s Comet was a next-door neighbour you were sick of the sight of. He seized that moment.

‘Done,’ he said, and extended his hand.

For form’s sake Talleyrand shook it, though the ritual added no extra solemnity to him. Indeed, Sir Percy’s rough hand rather rasped…

It seemed a day for major sighs: or so Sir Percy misinterpreted it. In fact the sound was Talleyrand releasing the pent-up tension of a lifetime.

‘Nunc dimittis,’ said the Prince, with relief. ‘Now let thy servant depart in peace.’

As though in answer, he was racked with coughing again. When he took the kerchief from his mouth he saw there was blood upon it.

Talleyrand raised his eyes to the ceiling—and by implication further still.

‘Gracious me!’ he said. ‘Such prompt service!’

Coincidentally, later on that day a letter arrived for Talleyrand from the Pope, discreetly sealed, elegantly worded. Stranger still, it proposed much the same things as the Prince had urged on Sir Percy.

Which just shows you how odd history can be. Up to that point who would have bet a fake farthing that two such contrasted careers might coincide?

Chapter 12: EARNING EMMA

‘…in irons,’ Nelson added to his order.

‘In irons?’ Julius and Ada spoke in chorus—but could have sung it opera-style for all the good protesting did them. Even Frankenstein’s reasonable offer of medical assistance during the battle had been turned down.

‘In irons,’ the Admiral confirmed from his position of god-like authority on the poopdeck. ‘Because I am entrusted with your safety. And I do not trust you. Or like you. Oh, and Hardy,’—this to the captain of the Victory, just setting off to do his bidding.

‘Yes sir?’

‘If they give you trouble, flog them.’

‘Very good, sir.’

So it was that during the famous ‘Second Battle of Trafalgar’ Frankenstein and Lady Lovelace and Foxglove were securely confined below the waterline, safe from enemy shot or from seeing history unfold. The only things they could truthfully recount of being there were sails the size of postage stamps on the horizon and then hour upon hour of ear-splitting noise. Likewise, the only fighting they took part in was against waves of panicking rats sent scurrying across their laps by each thundering broadside.

None of which comprised a memoir worth publishing or even anecdotes worth repeating. The very best they could hope for was to boast being present at ‘Trafalgar II’—and then hope no one asked for further details.

All because, soon after the French fleet’s sailing was reported along the chain of English frigates stretching right to Cadiz, down into the Victory’s stinking depths they went, to be chained up alongside an American awaiting hanging for sodomy. Neither he nor they were cheerful company.

Ada might well be profoundly changed inside but externally she was still Lord Byron’s girl. Some of the phrases she used as they were bundled away brought blushes to the rough tough sailors carrying them. But for the futility of flogging an unfeeling Lazaran back, a likewise shocked Captain Hardy would have implemented Neo-Nelson’s threat of the cat o’ nine tails.

There’d been no prior warning of such degradation. On the contrary, the Admiral had been absolutely jubilant that having them aboard had finally drawn the enemy fleet out.

‘Five years of blockade and not a peep!’ he’d exulted to them, shortly before the sudden exiling below. ‘We couldn’t tempt ‘em out to battle whatever we did. I thought their ships would rot in port before I had a chance to sink the swine!’

In his excitement he’d even reverted to the broad Norfolk accent of his youth, such that there was some difficulty in understanding. His officers, the ‘band of brothers’ stood around amazed.

‘Borr!’ he told Frankenstein and Lady Lovelace, ‘If I’d known old Boney wants what’s in your noddles so bad I’d ‘ave ‘ad ye press-ganged years ago, painted purple and tied to the topmast! God bless ‘ee!’

You could have construed that as flattery of some sort, but shortly after the Admiral turned and issued his harsh instructions.

‘Dark-Nelson’ indeed said Lady Lovelace—or words to that effect.

In a previous professional incarnation Frankenstein had treated the aftermath of a naval flogging. He didn’t want his back similarly turned into steak tatare and so, unlike Ada, held his tongue. However, his mind was given full permission to think harsh things.

The most printable of which was that if Admiral Nelson’s tactics were as unpredictable as his moods then the battle was as good as won.

Which it was. Gloriously and famously, after a tedious—to Julius and Ada and Foxglove and the American—long afternoon of continuous cannon fire, cries and the reek of powder smoke and blood from the surgeon’s space above. As the day wore on—and how it wore on—huzzahs and jubilation were added to the heady mix of sound. British gunfire had always predominated, since Albion’s Jack Tars could load and fire two shots to ‘Jacque Crapaud’s one, but eventually it was playing a solo. Even those imprisoned down in the murky gunnels could draw their own conclusions as firm as those on deck.

Late in the day they had a visitor. By Julius’s pocketwatch it must have been evening outside (much difference it made to them) but Nelson’s beaming visage lit up even their darkness, rendering his lantern redundant. His smile was such they could see every tooth, even the black back-molars.

Nor was that all they could see but would rather not. There was a gaping wound in his chest, obliterating the Order of the Bath, and another exactly where they’d got him last time, down through a shoulder epaulette and into his spine. The difference was that this time round Nelson was still standing—albeit crookedly. There was ragged flesh but no blood. At Trafalgar II the French snipers had been flogging a dead horse. Neo-Nelson was pumped so full of superior serum and unresolved ambitions it would have taken a broadside from a hundred-gunner to lay him low.

‘We won!’ he informed them. ‘Ten sunk and twenty prizes!’

Lady Lovelace was still sour.

‘And our losses?’ she asked, out of malice. Julius could have punched her. Even Foxglove was tempted.

Nelson’s face darkened.

‘None! Of course not, woman. English ships don’t strike their flags!’

‘Did any Frenchies escape?’ asked Julius, hurriedly.

‘Not one!’ replied the Admiral, Ada’s faux paux forgotten. ‘Not one! An annihilation victory!’

In the course of their brief acquaintance Nelson had impressed them as one of those rare specimens: the natural human predator. Accordingly, annihilation was his favourite word. Along with one other…

Somehow he was reminded of it. Suddenly the Admiral was no longer in the bowels of the Victory with them, nor riding a wave of a victory. Neo-Nelson was far away and in other company.

‘They’ll have to give me Emma now…,’ he mused, turning abruptly plaintive. ‘Won’t they?’

Then even the condemned American’s heart was touched as they saw the hero of the hour and age break down and weep—or as best as a Lazaran can.

Chapter 13: A SWEET TREAT

Admiral—soon to be High-Admiral and Earl—Neo-Nelson wasn’t with them. Which was a relief frankly. Ever since setting foot on English soil he and thus they had been mobbed night and day by worshipping crowds. Characteristically quick to seize an opportunity, he had drawn the hordes to besiege the Admiralty whilst he lobbied within for Emma Hamilton’s revival. He reckoned the just-this-side-of-hysteria baying of ‘Nel-son! Nel-son!’ rattling the windows would do his cause a power of good.

Rightly so. A letter would go from Whitehall to the French Government that very night and set off a very grisly series of events. One of the secrets not even Napoleon knew was that Lady Hamilton had already been raised but then lost. She currently walked elsewhere and in a very curious frame of mind—but that’s another story.

Meanwhile, Frankenstein and Ada and Foxglove’s story went like this. The pungent Port of London where they finally landed gave way to the cacophony of the City and debriefings in the wasps’-nest of the War Ministry. Then the summons from Talleyrand arrived, superseding all other claims on their time.

Though quicker, the trains were not trusted. Too high-profile and disruptable. Napoleon’s agents had but to bend a rail and then what? Instead, whisked away in a Government stagecoach with outriders, they cleaved through London’s smoke and congestion out into open country. The air and sunshine, even that little they smelt and saw of either, was welcome, compensating for the haste and hurried comfort-stops at coaching inns.

Just a few action-packed months before, Frankenstein had moped at a window of the Heathrow Hecatomb and watched the ‘413th regiment of Revived Foot’ march off to war in Germania. Now, somewhat older and wiser he unknowingly followed their route to within sight of Loseley House. There, happily, the re-enactment ended.

The more distance put between them and ‘BABYLONdon’—what the exiled Cobbett and other members of the opposition ‘Golden-age Reactionary Party’ termed ‘the Great Wen’—the greener it got. For, despite centuries of ceaseless demands from the shipyards and cannon-foundries much of the ancient Wealden forest survived. Not only that, but they took a discreet route, off the obvious roads. Dark little villages populated by dark little villagers could be glimpsed to either side as the coach rushed through to Surrey’s more modern-world market towns. Then, several changes of horses later the horizon suddenly broadened. There before them were the North Downs and Loseley House.

The coach turned off the road onto a driveway. There were soldiers, strange soldiers in skirts with few social skills. Once past them Julius dared poke his head out and beheld a gracious dwelling built of old stone recycled from another place. Before its grand frontage labourers were stacking timber into a pyramidal pile.

There was no time to enquire about that or anything else. Even their earlier simple ‘where?’ questions had been only grudgingly and partially answered. Now the coach door was wrenched open the second they halted and its inmates allowed minimal time to stretch their legs (or leg in Foxglove’s case) and stare at the new scene.

The high ridge of the Downs bounded one horizon and a road ran along it, complete with toy horsemen and vehicles. That was the route normal and sensible coaches took. Below in the valley were silent woodland and landscaped gardens. A place of peace.

Normally. Right now it seemed to be nothing but frenzied comings and goings. To the eternal hills who’d seen it all before and would see it all again, such transient fevers were presumably nothing, but short-spanned humans were more easily impressed.

They arrived just as a delegation of high-flying Churchmen fled. Considering that they dealt with matters infinite the men of God should have looked more composed than they did. Red-faced exasperated expressions topped some of the clerical collars.

But at least that supplied a spot of colour, for otherwise the flood of black issuing from Loseley would have been in total contrast to Ada’s scarlet (gown) and white (skin), Frankenstein’s dandy waistcoat and the gay motley of their Highland soldiers escort. With the addition palette of Church of England rage or blushes, a charitable eye might mistake the two groups as the same species.

Except that they were heading in different directions. The two parties intermingled, inter-penetrated and then parted without a word. One had come to supply enlightenment and failed, the other now arrived in hope to receive it.

For Talleyrand was dying. It was common knowledge and the only thing about him all could agree on. There was even a tinge of sadness felt here and there, leading to sporadic acts of kindness. Frankenstein had noticed straw strewn on Loseley’s gravel drive to muffle the rattle of coach wheels, and churchmen had volunteered their time to come and shrive the sinner. Even some French relatives and/or former lovers had travelled on specially issued ‘compassionate passports’ to an enemy realm to say farewell—or something.

All in all, for a departing soul preparing to meet his Maker, Talleyrand had a packed program and Julius envisaged having to await their turn in the queue that snaked up the main staircase to the deathbed.

Far from it. Immediately that news of their arrival reached the Prince they were sent for in no uncertain terms. Frankenstein and co were sped through a portrait festooned Great Hall complete with suits of mismatched armour and a minstrels’ gallery. Then chivvied up the ornate carved stairs past suspected old master paintings without opportunity to study either. Outraged others before them in the queue muttered harsh words but their skirted soldier escort deterred anything worse. Within minutes they were ushered into the presence.

And what a presence—still. It filled the room, along with the scent of death. The Prince was propped up in bed on countless pillows and his cravat had never looked crisper or more carefully confected.

But that was the sum of the good news. Talleyrand no longer needed powder to pale his cheeks. Instead, rouge was now required to de-deathshead his face. His chest heaved for breath that was reluctant to come. His eyes were closed against the world.

Yet somehow he seemed to know they had come. Shut eyelids were not signs of surrender but screens across the intimate process of rallying his remaining force.

They heard a sigh of relief. There was the distinct, if illogical, feeling of being studied without being seen.

They’d not met before, not in the flesh. Frankenstein, Lady Lovelace and Foxglove stood in line abreast like culprits brought before the headmaster and wondered what, if anything, to say. Meanwhile, nurses bustled around justifying their being there, and doctors held conference. A residual prelate lurked in the shadows of the four-poster on the off-chance the Prince would relent and sign the retraction that lay unscrolled on the bedspread.

Suddenly, the Princely pink shutters opened. The painted lips likewise.

Talleyrand tried to speak but was out of practice. Only a cough emerged, horribly liquid. A nurse dabbed at him but was gestured back.

The Prince swallowed, ventured a silent dry-run and then had another go.

‘Welcome,’ he said, gaining confidence. ‘Welcome, welcome! Thank you so much for coming…’

Once, not so long ago, Ada might have said ‘did we have any choice?’ Which would have been honest but inappropriate. Today she just thought it and smiled instead.

Frankenstein also. He’d heard of the man’s famous charm but was still impressed it should remain so persuasive, even teetering at Death’s door. Waves of that warm force washed against all, disarming them of any resentment they might be harbouring.

‘The pleasure is all ours,’ said Julius.

Talleyrand smiled: he wished to husband his strength but could not prevent himself.

‘Liar,’ he said, though without malice. ‘This room reeks of sickness. The Angel of Death peeks through its keyhole. Only a ghoul could take pleasure in such a place. But you mean well, for which I thank you. Yet that is the least of things I should thank you for…’

He had to pause and regroup. His audience mistook that for final exhaustion but it wasn’t so. Instead, the Prince returned to the charge, revived for a sustained offensive. He gulped for air and grasped the bedspread like a drowning man, but at the same time seemed set fair to hurtle down a preconceived path, bearing all before him. Onlookers saw the polished politician he’d once been and was now again— perhaps for the last time.

‘The priests want me to recant,’ he said. ‘To formally repent of my life and actions. And I shall, albeit in my own good time and with certain reservations. It will make them happy and also supply a certain symmetrical form to my saga. However, before all that I must explain some things to you. And ask your pardon…’

‘Why?’ said Ada, who could still be sledgehammer blunt.

Talleyrand looked on her with appraising relish. In times gone by she would not have been safe alone with him, Lazaran or not.

‘Two reasons,’ he answered. ‘Firstly, vanity. A weakness for sure, but perhaps I may be excused such indulgence in my present state. It will please me that others shall understand my extreme cleverness and cunning. Therefore, I intend to outline my great scheme to you, and your part in it…’

‘No need,’ snapped Lady Lovelace. ‘I already know.’

‘Oh,’ said Talleyrand, but took it well.

‘Glimpsing it got me my spark back,’ she continued. For which I suppose I should thank you. Even if you did play us like puppets. However, given that there are still details which remain obscure I wish to keep in your favour. Therefore, thank you, sweet Prince. Now, may I enquire-…?’

Talleyrand spread his hands in invitation.

‘By all means my dear. I am at your disposal as once you were at mine, albeit unaware. Until the Grim Reaper arrives, that is. Then, alas, his summons overrules even your appeal…’

Ada drew up a chair without asking permission.

‘Right then: first off, did I need to die?’

Talleyrand looked pained beyond his present afflictions. He sighed regretfully.

‘That was one of the things for which I have to ask forgiveness,’ he said, ‘of both you and the Church. My dear lady, I confess I was of two minds on the subject and erred on the side of caution. You might have trod the path I required without it, but I needed to be sure. What I could be confident of was that you would have left instruction for such an eventuality. And that your death would powerfully motivate you…’

He paused, subject to a pang of regret, or perhaps even shame, before pressing on to spoil the moment.

‘Or would I have got away with it if I protested I never intended things should go so far? What if I’d said my Lazaran agents got out of control—as they so often do? Might you have believed that?’

Ada equivocated.

‘Normally no,’ she answered. ‘But in your silky presence? Who knows.’

Talleyrand winced.

‘Then I have blundered. To miss a chance to deceive in a good cause like that; to incur enmity without need! What a lapse!’

Frankenstein’s rectitude was offended.

‘I thought, sir,’ he said, ‘that today was a time for honesty, however disobliging, however lacerating.’

Talleyrand conceded it cheerfully.

‘Indeed so, Swiss sir. I apologise; the habits of a lifetime die hard.’

He coughed blood again but transcended it.

‘As do I, apparently. However, let me set myself on the straight path again. Madame, permit me to say it formally: I am very sorry my plans required killing you. Likewise with my mischief to poor Mr Babbage…’

‘I did wonder about that,’ said Lady Lovelace. ‘Why him as well?’

‘Two birds with one stone,’ Talleyrand interrupted. Firstly, I understood that his “Analytical Engine” required aborting, in the sure knowledge it would lead to more efficient means of killing: weapons of mass destruction, even! Moreover, if developed in England they would have been deployed against the land of my birth and affections.’

‘True,’ Ada agreed without rancour. ‘That was our next project after the gambling applications.’

‘‘Though it must be said,’ conceded Talleyrand, ‘I erred on the side of caution. Babbage is a mere mechanic who might have changed things. Whereas you, madame, are the type who will change ideas. History dances to the tunes of ideas.’

Ada acknowledged the compliment.

‘However, over-cautious or not,’ he went on, ‘I surmised that you would seek Babbage’s help. I prevented it. I wished you to be friendless: thrown back on to your own formidable devices. Your appalling energies had to be fully liberated to carry you where I wished you to go—and to finally kill this terrible thing.’

Which begged a very obvious question, but Ada declined to be predictable. Talleyrand approved and continued.

‘If it is any comfort, my dear, I have seen to it that Babbage does not suffer in prison. Nor shall he in the humble but harmless employment I have arranged for after his release. Welsh-speaking Patagonia is calling out for men of such talent I’m told.’

‘Oh, all right then,’ said Ada equably, with more forgiveness than was hers to give. ‘All’s well that ends well. The pieces fit now. Your intervention had the effect you intended of setting me on my way. Presumably, you also guessed my former husband would not revive me.’

‘Hardly a guess,’ confirmed the Prince, ‘more like a certainty. Such a dull dog of a man. ‘Whatever possessed you to link with that dreary—’

‘Money,’ Ada cut in, cutting it short. ‘But moving on, you likewise must have known I would seek out the foremost man in the Revivalist field…’

Talleyrand acknowledged Frankenstein with a bed-bound bow.

‘…but even he,’ Ada continued, ‘could not give the entirety of what I wanted.’

‘No,’ Talleyrand concurred. ‘I thought not, and moreover had chosen you precisely because you were a person of unbounded wants. What did you call it? Your “spark’”. How quaint. No, no Lazaran has that.’

He peered at her, more innocently this time.

‘Or leastways, not until now. But be that as it may, I knew I could safely assume that you—I even dared to hope both of you—would crusade forth to seek what was missing. You would traverse the leading edge of research, press the most perilous sources of knowledge and badger away at what is presently hid. First Heathrow, then Compiegne, and finally to my ultimate aim, Versailles, and the Emperor’s dastardly plans.’

‘And then..?’ Ada prompted.

Talleyrand shrugged—and found that it hurt.

‘At the very least,’ he obliged, ‘the glare of publicity. Or, better still, stolen secrets. Boney greatly feared both. What I didn’t dare dream of was an explosion, a stolen child, even an instruction manual! Plain proof for all the world to see! My dears, what a force of nature you are when combined! And cruel nature at that, red in tooth and claw. Bravo! Bravo!’

He tried to applaud but the effort was too much. The Prince had to revise his plans in order to have the strength to outline them. Some of the more sensitive there, including Frankenstein and Ada, averted their eyes to avoid seeing him reduced to this.

Fortunately, cover for his difficulties was provided by an invasion of the room. Deftly swerving the arms put out to detain her, a golden-haired child of perhaps five or six years dashed in. She made a bee-line for the bed, brushing between Foxglove’s walking-stick and Ada’s gown, and threw herself aboard.

The Prince received the arrival with joy and waved back those who would retrieve her.

‘Spring and autumn!’ he told the assembly as he accepted the child’s hand in his. ‘Spring and autumn!’

‘Spring and winter,’ corrected the priest from the shadows. ‘Deepest winter.’ And he pointed to the unsigned retraction on the bedspread.

Talleyrand had always had the greatest affection for Truth, even though he could never be faithful to her. He acknowledged her presence now.

‘Winter? Yes, you are right,’ he said. ‘But sometimes sunshine transforms even the most wintry day.’

His fingers transferred a kiss (and perhaps a blessing) from his lips to the child’s smooth brow. She nestled against him.

‘My great-great niece,’ he explained to the uninitiated. ‘And appropriately termed, for she has been a great great comfort to my twilight.’

The priest and some servants frowned, for they couldn’t recall him making a fuss of her before. Maybe, like so much else, he’d done so privately in the labyrinth of his mind.

‘Uncle,’ asked the child, getting round to the purpose of her visit in her own good time, ‘it is true you are going?’

Talleyrand smiled and nodded.

‘It is, child; yes.’

‘Where to?’

‘I’m not sure, my dear.’

The priest signalled he might have a shrewd idea, but had the grace not to interrupt.

‘Will you come back, uncle?’

Talleyrand shook his head.

‘I’m afraid not, my sweet. Or rather, I am not afraid, because it is time for me to go.’

She looked up at him.

‘Like when it’s time for me to go to bed?’

Talleyrand agreed as vigorously as he could.

‘Precisely. And I’ve heard tales that you make problems about that. Therefore, take your example from your great-great uncle who is a good boy and always does what he is told.’

She wasn’t going to have that. The Prince was able to deceive diplomats but not innocence.

‘I don’t think you’re going to bed. You’re already in bed! I think you’re going to die.’

Talleyrand considered that like it was news.

‘Do you know,’ he said after a while, ‘I do believe you’re right! What a clever girl you are!’

She looked round the po-faced gathering of grown-ups but found nothing of interest there. Even Ada’s Lazaran features detained her only a second.

‘Mama doesn’t want you to die,’ she went on. ‘Not yet. She’s been crying. She says you won’t say sorry to God. She says you’re going to a bad place.’

Talleyrand looked grave.

‘Even mamas can be wrong,’ he said. ‘But listen to this and then be sure to tell her…’

The Prince elevated his face and dignity.

‘Sorry!’ he said, loud and clear, to the upper air. ‘I’m very, very, sorry.’

The child clapped her hands with glee.

‘When I tell mama she might let me stay up late tonight!’

Talleyrand shrank to her level and confided.

‘Tell her I order it!’ he said. ‘Now, hush a moment while we big-people conclude some boring business. And while you are waiting you may have some sweets.’

He gestured that the bowl of bon-bons beside the bed be brought over. It was a rainbow of tempting shapes and colours guaranteed to titillate a jaded palate or silence a child.

‘Except that one,’ said Talleyrand, quite stern for him and pointing out one particular sweet set aside. ‘That is Uncle’s favourite.’

With that warning the child dived in and had soon spoiled her dinner.

‘Now,’ he asked the priest, ‘has the Archbishop gone?’

‘He has, highness. Back to his lodgings to rest. He was exhausted.’

‘No,’ corrected the Prince. ‘He was exhausting. But since that is so, give me the retraction. So long as he’s not here to gloat, I’ll sign.’

The priest rushed at it. He saw a soul to save and fame for himself. Great things in this life and the next might come to he who’d converted a commanding-officer of the forces of darkness.

Talleyrand took a pen from him too. He scanned the proffered scroll with care, striking out a line or two here, adding an alternative word there, each time earning a priestly frown. However, the prize was such he was left to it and in due course a signature was appended. The Prince even managed a flourish of the pen—and then in words too.

‘There, now you have it,’ he said, handing back the historic document. ‘But let me add this in verbal and thus ephemeral form, for veracity’s sake. I believed life was a vale of tears and hard on humanity: because for reasons best known to Himself the good Lord constructed it so. Nevertheless, I hoped that what the Church taught was correct. However, I feared that nothing was true and everything was permissible. Now I go from here to find out the truth of the matter.’

It wasn’t exactly a retraction of his retraction but… Still, the second was mere words and the first on parchment. One would outdistance the other.

Perhaps. Such unique honesty, from this man of all people, silenced all present. Some even committed it to memory to record later, thus rendering the apologia less fleeting than envisaged. Exactly as the Prince intended…

‘And now you must go too,’ he told the priest. ‘Though not like me. Go spread the good news to your hierarchy. I still have a modicum of worldly business left to conduct.’

Exit the cleric. Talleyrand returned to his invited guests.

‘Where were we? Oh yes: about what successful agents you were. Unwitting agents but wildly successful. Maybe that is the best way: when humans introduce their own petty agendas things go askew. They should defer to genius and be guided.’

With a pout Lady Lovelace conceded the principle, if not their relative roles.

Talleyrand didn’t notice and continued.

‘Of course, there were other, conscious, recruits I sent out into the world but they fell by the wayside. Or at least I heard no more of them. One fears they fell into the hands of Fouché.’

‘As did we,’ said Lady Lovelace. ‘Do you wish to see Foxglove’s scars?’

The servant modestly drew his coat together as if to discourage the offer. Talleyrand grimaced.

‘No thank you. Simply consider them the medals you deserve but shall not receive. Badges of honour…’

That did it. That touched upon Frankenstein’s sore point, or rather the one his Father had drummed into him. As did his father before him. And his father before him… probably right back to Adam.

‘‘Honour’?’ he queried. ‘I do not see the honour in any of this!’

The Prince could be kind to children and courteous to womenfolk, depending on what he was after, but grown men, he felt, really should keep up to speed. And besides, time was too short for limping thinking.

‘Then look closer, sir,’ he snapped. ‘And if that fails, allow me to spell it plain. Xavier…?’

A sleek looking servitor emerged from obscurity, discreet efficiency personified.

‘Highness?’

‘The letters, if you please.’

From a locked portion of the bedside cupboard came an armful of letters, all sealed, all portentous. When handed them Talleyrand examined each address.

‘Constantinople, the Ottoman Empire,’ he read aloud from one, and then flung it to Frankenstein’s feet. ‘That better be you, I think: they’ll not listen to a woman. Also have Vienna, the Hapsburg Empire: you’re vaguely middle-Europe: they’ll appreciate that…’ Another missive joined Julius’ portion.

To Lady Lovelace went:

‘America: the President and Senate,’ read Talleyrand. ‘Yes: ideal. Wear that scarlet gown or one similar. And flash those eyes as I’ve seen you do. No rouge though: don’t try to conceal your status. Americans are simple but shrewd folk. Speak slowly as you would to a rustic and without embellishment. I was there in exile for a while, you know. It is a primitive country at present but destined for greatness—or what passes for it in this world. And sooner than people think. It is down to you to determine what sort of greatness. Wean them off Lazarans to good honest slavery. Then allow some future other to wean them off slaves.’

Talleyrand paused for breath and coughed red into his kerchief again. Meanwhile, in an act of mutual solidarity, neither Julius or Ada stooped to pick up their assigned letters.

‘What exactly,’ said she for them both, ‘are these?’

‘Letters of recommendation,’ answered the Prince crisply. ‘And most fulsome ones. My word still counts for something among the worldly, and still will do even when I speak from beyond the grave. Those pieces of paper will gain you admission to the highest echelons of government. Not only that, but I am informed that comparable passports will be provided by his Holiness the Pope for those regions of the globe where his word counts.’

Lady Lovelace still did not stoop to collect or accept her mission.

‘To what end?’ she asked, beating Frankenstein to it by a sliver.

Talleyrand looked at them full on.

‘To what end?’ he said to Ada. ‘The end of your kind!’ Then to Julius. ‘And the end of your trade. We must wipe out this satanic science world-wide!’

And then and thus they understood in full. But Talleyrand gave them no chance to relish the revelation.

‘ “Lo, and Jacob called his sons to bless them”,’ he quoted, drawing on his own distant memories of priesthood, ‘ “and he said, ‘Gather together and I will tell you what will happen to you in the end of days’…”’

The Prince actually did beckon them closer. Reluctantly gathering up the letters they came.

‘It will be difficult without Lazarans,’ he said, ‘but worse with them. When the nations learn what Bonaparte proposes, what he has done, they will ally against him. Humanity will unite against its superseding—which is the one and only cause that will ever unite it. There will be a crusade: a world-war. And there will be civil war wherever Lazarans are the mainstay of the economy, as in America. Those places must again substitute negro slaves: until such time as conscience forbids that too. Also, the Churches will split between the honest and the bought. There will be actual and spiritual strife throughout the world; and it will be vile and long and hard but eventually France will lose. And since I love France and have only ever sought its well-being—the one consistent thread in all I have done—then I am sadly glad of that. But beforehand the Convention and Napoleon will contest together: oh, if only both could lose! There will be scope for true patriots to save France. Because it must not be just foreign armies that sweep both the Convention fanatics and the Napoleon monster and his would-be eternal empire away. Ditto a foreign occupation. Both have been tried before and would only unite all Frenchmen against them. This time it must be my way: the slow but sure way. Only then can France be what it truly is and be loved again…’

An unlikely prophet, Talleyrand relinquished his exhausting grip upon futurity in order to regroup for one final push.

‘This will be your unenviable lot,’ he said. ‘To be in the middle of much unpleasantness. To be both its cause but also its cure.’

He turned to Ada.

‘You know what you are,’ he said. ‘And being a unique sentient version of it surely you realise this all must stop. Stop with you.’

Ada bowed her head and thought.

‘And you,’ Talleyrand addressed Frankenstein, ‘you know full well what wrongness your ancestor unleashed. That is what drove you half mad. That too must stop.’

Julius did not deny it. The Prince pressed his point home.

‘I offer you hope. There is the chance to make amends. You are or you have the evidence of the wrong you represent: Lady Lovelace’s mind, the unnatural child, the book of instruction and so on. Now,’ he indicated the letters of introduction, ‘you also have transport to take that evidence to the rulers of this afflicted world. All that is wanting is eloquence on your part. That I cannot give: it must come from your own inner conviction. Do you have it?’

Ada and Julius looked one to the other. The speed of the mind is such that they reviewed their life story in time to reply without unmannerly delay.

Lady Lovelace nodded. Frankenstein likewise.

Talleyrand seemed to shrink and merge back into the pillows. The child beside him whimpered.

But he was not gone. Not yet. He rallied.

‘That is good,’ he said, now in a whisper. ‘Napoleon must be denied his dynasty, lest being cleverer and colder than humans they supplant mankind. Also, generals must not have their armies of undead lest we end civilisation with ceaseless war. All this… evil must end. The world is for the living and no others: the dead have had their day. Heaven claims them and is not cheated with impunity. Humanity must be natural again!’

A simple enough statement, but a strategic vision that cut across all the complexities of politics and policy. Normal striving for petty advantage sways few men of goodwill, but a vision: that is different. A vision can alter history.

Talleyrand studied them—and was content.

‘Oh,’ he said, ‘and take the servant with you.’ He indicated Foxglove. ‘You owe him that for his love. Besides, even with one leg he is the strongest of you all. Maybe, madame, you should marry him: that might constitute some small reward.’

Foxglove blushed to the roots of his hair. Lady Lovelace raised one eyebrow—but did not dismiss the idea.

‘Or wed the doctor,’ the Prince nodded at Julius. ‘He would do too. It hardly matters…’

Nor did it compared to the weightier matters afoot. Talleyrand realised that in addressing such minutiae he had lingered overlong. He had done what he could with the broad brush strokes: mere detail had to be delegated—forever.

‘Time for that delectable sweet, I think,’ he told his niece. ‘Would you be so kind as to pass the plate, child?’

She would. The Prince partook and soon died of the poison within.

Chapter 14: LOSELEY LIBERATION DAY

It was like setting in motion a well-oiled machine. No sooner had Talleyrand’s soul quit the frame that had carried it across nine lively decades than swarms of servants took over the room to carry out his final wishes.

Two separate flunkies found they had the job of destroying his journals but in the spirit of the moment they did not bicker but instead assisted each other. Every worldly-wise page was shredded and each scrap fed to a furnace. History and humanity both lost and gained thereby.

Meanwhile, faithful Xavier led the squad which ensured their author met a similar fate. Wrapped in a simple shroud, the sometime Prince de Beavente, latterly Lord Vectis, but always Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand Perigord, was borne down through Loseley house out to the huge pyre awaiting.

Then, with little ceremony, and no words but much urgency, his body was committed to the flames. A torch ignited the primed timber. There was not much flesh left on him at the end. The puppeteer who’d had his hand up all Europe was gone within minutes.

In many eyes it was the final scandal in a long life full of them. Some said it was another slap in the face to the Church and implicit denial of the Credal ‘Resurrection of the Body’. Given the notoriety he had acquired over the years that became the default view.

However, the perceptive realised that the Prince would never insult someone whose services he might soon need, whether it be the Almighty or a milkmaid. To that tiny minority it was but a short leap of commonsense to arrive at the truth. The Prince wished to put himself beyond those who might revive him before Judgement Day.

Meanwhile, on the day of his departure, the great and good were not present as they would have wished to be, even if only to check he really was gone. The massed clerics had only just received his amended retraction and were still fuming in their lodgings nearby. As in life so in death: the Prince’s speed of thinking left them standing.

Instead, Frankenstein and Ada and Foxglove and the crack cravat team served as Talleyrand’s sole mourners. Which was probably as he would have preferred it.

They stood and watched as the smoke from his burning rose far into the Surrey sky—and possibly as high as Heaven.

Chapter 15: WORLD LIBERATION DAY

From: Words that Changed the World—Great Speeches of Modern History

(University Press of the Sorbonne, Paris 1895)

‘…and I, being sentient although what is called a “Lazaran”, being possessed of that spark which makes a man a man and child of God, ask this. How can it be that we dare wrench from the grave that which the Almighty has taken to Himself? Do we know better than He?

‘Further, how can we presume to make that poor wretch our slave? Is it not an insult both to He who made us and he who was made? We outrage a being who was as we are; who is as we shall be.

‘And yes, is it not the gravest of insults to our dignity as a race that we should persist with this perversion of human ingenuity, that noble calling, which we call science?

‘Gentlemen of the Senate and Congress, Mr President, I put it to you that here, today, you have it in your power to sweep away this gross shame brought on our species, to start a new day when Life is reserved to those for whom Providence intended it!

‘And if I, the first—and perhaps through your intervention the last—of my kind can find it in my ransomed soul to make this plea, how much stronger comes the cry from my brothers and sisters revived to half-life, to indignity and ceaseless labour, to an existence—yes mere existence—devoid of dignity and any wider hope?

‘There will be those—I suspect in this noble-hearted Republic they will be few in number—but there will be those whose narrow souls say, “why should I liquidate my Lazaran plantations, my undead-worked prairies on some mere point of principle? Why should others, less scrupulous, derive a commercial advantage? For Heaven’s sake,” they might say, “we let our Negroes go, but still you’re not satisfied!”

‘But I have a answer for them, gentlemen, if I may make so bold as a mere Englishwomen to suggest one on your behalf. And it is this:

‘Your words are happily chosen: we do what we do for Heaven’s sake—and in hope of gaining it and God’s favour for our nation. But we also do it because our good name cannot be bought for dollars! We are patriots! We are Americans!’

—Lady Ada Lovelace’s joint address to the USA legislature and executive. May 1st 1840: immediately prior to the abolitionist debate of Emancipation Day.

‘But I have a answer for them, excellencies, if I may make so bold as a mere Swiss infidel to suggest one on your behalf. And it is this…

‘Yes, we do what we do for Paradise’s sake—and in hope of gaining it and Allah’s favour on the Ummah, the community of the faithful. But we also do it because our good name cannot be bought for the fripperies of this fleeting world! We fear the Day of Judgement! We are Muslims!’

—Dr Julius Frankenstein’s address to the Sublime Porte and Grand Mufti of Constantinople. May 1st 1840—immediately prior to the abolitionist fatwah of Emancipation Day.

Fortunately, publication was not so swift or widespread in those days. Ada and Julius’ suspiciously similar words were not immediately matched. They got away with it.

Surely Talleyrand would have looked down (or perhaps up) and smiled.

After which it came to pass pretty much as the Prince predicted, although it took decades. Napoleon would have cursed him all the more had he known—except what insult is there upwards of ‘shit in a silk stocking’?

Epilogue: TOMMOROW (& YESTERDAY) BELONGS…

The American Civil War whimpered to a close and anti-Revivalist laws were enforced both there and in the ‘Old Countries’ too. Peripheral aberrations aside, Revivalism became taboo in most civilised parts of the world.

Towards the end, even the lowest Lazarans grasped what was being done on their behalf and came over to the Abolitionist side. After that final victory was assured.

Granted, there were still grim patches and unfinished business. For instance, dark rumours spread of what was going on in Haiti and Martinique. The oppression there had very great and retribution likewise. What comes around goes around. Apparently, Lazaran former slaves had taken charge there and feasted on their former owners like farm animals: but in slow-motion, limb by limb. Restorative expeditions went in but failed to come out.

Also Japan emerged from its seclusion, learnt of Revivalism and decided they’d like to borrow that too, along with rifles and finance capitalism. No amount of persuasion could persuade them otherwise. So, no sooner had the ‘Great Powers’ steam fleets dragged Nippon out of purdah than they plunged it back again, via blockade and quarantine. Even so, there seemed a frightening amount of activity in those arsenals and cemeteries that could be glimpsed from offshore. Christendom couldn’t bombard a whole nation into submission. Or could it? Some Admirals saw that as a challenge…

And as for what went on in the obscurity of the Brazilian jungle, the refuge of runaway Revivalists, the least said the better. No one went there any more, except bounty hunters and/or madmen. Sullen silence fell over much of the southern continent.

But France succumbed, eventually, which was the main thing. Napoleon and the Convention fell out, as such people always eventually do, just as Talleyrand predicted. In the ensuing interval of civil war the armies of the rest of Europe took their opportunity. As did Minister Fouché, whose ‘patriotic coup d-etat’ was a lasting success, not least for him. For a while.

But Napoleon’s final throw puzzled all…

At the end of all this madness and human inhumanity, Napoleon sat not on a throne but a folding camp-stool. That resting place for his bum in turn sat upon the Russian steppe on an autumnal evening. The sole advantage his famed tactical eye could discern from there was that snow was antiseptic.

For His Imperial Highness would have far preferred to be in the comfortable and germ-free environment of the Palace of Versailles, but Destiny decreed otherwise. The Emperor went along with that: because one thing you could say for the (ex) man was that he always ate what was put before him.

Mind you, if so, he was dining on a dog’s dinner. His normal insistence on strict protocol was suspended the same way as concerns about infection. Right now for instance, Napoleon Bonaparte was having to take unabashed criticism—indeed abuse!—from his Marshals and senior generals, the same ungrateful wretches he’d personally raised from obscurity to greatness and gold braid.

His children, his dynasty, should have been some support but weren’t. It transpired that loyalty wasn’t uppermost in their natures—unlike ambition. The Emperor-in-exile had been obliged to execute some for plotting and worse. Which was, when he considered it, an awful waste of all his effort, not to mention those traumatic ‘galvanic enemas’…

The first few were dealt with discreetly by poisoning their serum, but their depressingly frequent successors got to meet Madame Guillotine. There was entertainment for the rabble in that, so Napoleon reasoned, in thus seeing the high and mighty brought low. Not to mention a fable for all the family, with a strong moral and, most importantly, a hundred per cent record of reform.

So much for ‘reason.’ The policy did prove educational, but not in the way intended. The plots simply got more subtle and in the end, to avoid a King Herod style massacre of offspring, the Emperor was obliged to be forgiving. It ran contrary to his nature, but, looking on the bright side, served to keep him on his toes when advancing years meant natural brilliance might be dimming. However, family meals became a trifle fraught (and crowded) when bodyguards and food tasters easily outnumbered the guests.

But now that Napoleon and his army were on the march (or on the run, to be specific) there was no time for decorum. Family traitors were dealt with en route, and handy trees roped in to hang them from. It made a very public point but proved a bad idea in terms of time-saving. Lazarans, even this new breed of demi-Lazarans, took a frustratingly long time to die by strangulation. In the end, troops were called in to tug on the feet till the head came off.

Yet Bonaparte’s devilish luck still held. Even such sordid spectacles proved grist to the Imperial mill. As it passed by the army reflected that if the Emperor behaved thus to his own kin, then what mercy could others hope for? Their resolve about marching into Muscovite mists temporarily stiffened.

However, like all moods, that passed, to be replaced by something more truculent as the first snows started to fall. Casualties due to cold began and mass desertions occurred for the hovering clouds of Cossacks to hunt down. Like some put-upon mule, the army slowed and then finally stopped dead without being told to.

The Emperor was equal to it. He knew that swine sometimes needed the food-pail rattled to tempt them on. The regiments were gathered round and megaphones set up for him to address as many as possible simultaneously.

For the occasion, the survivors of the Imperial family purges stood in a semi-circle around their father, radiating a personal chill to add to the winding-down-towards-winter steppe ambience. Their gold braid and lace and scarlet finery not only failed but actually highlighted their feeble frames and parchment faces. The whinging military wilted under their inhuman steady stare.

Even so, now was the time the generals found collective strength to hold their ground, to bring their private grumbling out into the open. The Emperor had carried them this far via a dazzling series of manoeuvre victories which left the Allied armies behind, bruised and baffled. That campaign right the length of Europe probably constituted the technical summit of his career—but what had it gained them or him in the long term? Those enemy armies weren’t going away. They remained strong enough in conjunction to crush this last Grande Armée. It was even said a Neo-Wellington had been raised, in contravention of all the anti-Revivalist legislation, to supervise that end-game.

Meanwhile, deep in enemy territory, all Napoleon’s men could see was the scorched earth of Mother Russia and signs of the onset of that infamous winter that had swallowed an entire French invasion last time around.

‘What’s this?’ called out a junior general. ‘1812 all over again?’

That first brave voice of protest was supported—once he wasn’t immediately shot down. Murmurs mounted into cacophony.

The general thrust was that Napoleon was adding to the world’s sum of stupidity and that his rank and file were… well, concerned about this. Apparently, they were concerned to the point of mutiny and stringing him up.

Then Napoleon stood and, through pure personal force, silenced them—for a moment. Which was enough.

In deference to decency and Imperial dignity rather than to the cold, he was clothed in a wrap-around coat of cloth of gold. The Emperor drew it about himself and plunged one hand within to strike an iconic pose.

‘Frenchmen!’ he roared, in a voice not in keeping with his shrunken state. ‘Citizens! Friends! You have come with me this far. We have prevailed against invincible odds with the proverbial two men et un chien. You have shown faith! And now I shall repay that faith. Men unborn will count themselves cursed that they were not here today. And that is because this day I will take you into my confidence—as friends do…’

The soldiers and all within earshot looked from one to another. This was new. During the Revolution and then under the Convention, the great motivator was fear. With the Emperor it was fear and orders. Plus excitement sometimes, from jumping aboard the speeding stagecoach of the Imperial project. But as partners? ‘Friends’ even? They thought not. Here was heady novelty—enough to postpone the shouting and prolong listening.

Neo-Napoleon had perfect timing, both on the battlefield and as a demagogue. He’d paused for effect and then suddenly plunged in.

‘I have brought you back here to a purpose: an end; namely the end thirty years ago of my first Grande Armée. But also to a new beginning. That army, the biggest and best—present company excepted—army that France ever raised, is still with us. It lies here! The corpses of half a million elite warriors reside in pits from here to the outskirts of Moscow. They are as I left them—preserved in perfect state by that same cold which killed them. Do you not see?’

A few did already, and most had a glimmer. They looked around at the birch forest and each green bulge in the ground, seeing everything anew and replete with potential life—of a kind.

‘We have with us,’ the Emperor continued, his voice rising, ‘the last of Europe’s Revivalists: the cream of the Compeigne and Versailles factories. Elsewhere, they are all in disgrace or the grave! Now do you see?’

Now far more did. A buzz of excited chatter grew.

‘They—they—the dull, the reactionary, the mundane, have driven us to the fringes of civilisation, thinking that our dreams will die here. Little do they know. Little do they know me! Reinforcements await us for the asking. Unanswerable reinforcements! We shall revive them!’

All but the hard-of-understanding now understood. They cheered. Hats took to the air.

‘Friends!’ said Napoleon. For I now call you “friends”: a band of brothers! Do we seek to conquer Russia?’

They weren’t sure. Some, carried away, yea’ed. The majority, unsure, hesitated.

‘No, we do not,’ the Emperor answered for all. ‘That can come later. That is mere detail. No, the reason we have come here, together, is to claim our own, our right! Today, a new army. Tomorrow, the conquest of old Europe. And then? Who knows? But I promise you this: there will be medals—and looting! And burning cities! And willing women! There will be immortality. There will be purpose to life. There will be glory!’

He had them then—just as soon he would have many, many more. A whole dead Grande Armée’s worth. Wild cheering scattered wild animals in the forest for miles around.

Wearied, Napoleon slumped back onto his folding seat, but he was smiling. As was—almost—all his army.

The exceptions to that were Napoleon’s children. They were glad but did not exult. It was not in their nature.

The neither living nor dead Imperial offspring looked upon the (possibly their) world with fresh hope. And fresh hunger.

One day all this might be theirs.

THE END