Frankenstein’s Legions

(From the ‘Provincial News’ page of The Daily Sans-Culotte, Paris departement edition, 2nd Thermidor, Year 13.)

Chapter 1: A DAY IN THE LIFE OF JULIUS FRANKENSTEIN (2).

For symmetry’s sake he started keeping a diary of captivity again. The day the two letters arrived it would have said.

The regime at the Grand Mausolée de Compiégne was less liberal than the Heathrow Hecatomb’s—incredible as that might seem. There was no need to send any Gallic equivalent of Sir Percy Blakeney to give Frankenstein a rocket for his lack of discoveries. Every single day he had to interact with Coventionary overseers: rough revolutionaries with no respect, and no manners; and not the slightest delicacy when they bristled their great moustaches and said what they thought of him. Each day he thought of killing one with his bare hands and getting it over with.

What stopped him was sure knowledge of the consequences. There was a guillotine facility in the central yard which saw daily use. After a travesty of a ‘tribunal’ they’d slice his head off. Within the hour both he and the man he killed would be stitched up and in the storage vats waiting to be reborn.

Conventionary Revivalist science was neither neat nor painstaking. They had no time for refinements. Their wars and purges and policy of ‘perpetual terror’ both demanded and supplied a massive flow of ‘New-citizens.’ Accordingly, under that ceaseless pressure Compiegne’s standard products made even the worst Heathrow ‘patchwork job’ looked polished. Frankenstein had seen women’s—even girls’—heads on male bodies, and recycled battle casualties so battered only mummy-style coiled bandages kept them whole. And in his case, if he transgressed they’d be in vengeful mood. God alone knew what freak-show they’d revive him as.

The danger was, that though his gaolers might be coarse as coal-bunkers in their studied way, some had the subtlety of torturers too. They sensed his particular fears and played upon them.

‘If you do go,’ they crowed (and ‘go’ in the Compiegne context meant one thing only: to the meat vats), ‘we’ll make sure you get extra serum. Just so that afterwards you’re aware.’

They really meant it. They laughed about it and chatted about that happy prospect over their evening bottle. They brought him especially botched examples of their handiwork and made them dance for him.

For a sad fact was starting to dawn on the Convention as it had on the English. Frankenstein was not the find they thought they’d made, and all he shared with his genius great-uncle was a surname. He’d been given his own mini Promethean facility but what emerged from it could just as well have rolled off the main production line, and with only half the time and trouble. The daily moustache-bristling grew ever more insolent.

Therefore, the sole promising option Julius had left to consider was escape—and the ball and chain about his ankle forced him to be realistic on that score.

So, he secured extra days with cunning. The bloody-hysteria-as-standard of the Mausoleum meant that his guardians were busy men and liable to distraction. When their attention wavered Frankenstein stole and stored exceptional body parts like robust torsos and thick-hewed limbs. Bribes and threats to lowly carters and ‘Charon-men’ also secured him first pick of any grenadier or guardsman that came in. Accordingly, in moments of crisis he could revive a sturdy New-citizen soldier twice as good as the ramshackle basic product. He’d explain it with mumbo-jumbo about ‘vascular enhancement’ or ‘muscle augmentation,’ (largely made up on the hoof) and the ‘Quality Control’ auditors would be sufficiently intrigued to give him a little while longer. But when stocks failed and he couldn’t directly repeat the trick those same old doubts about him spread. The dreadful day inched nearer.

The Revolution had its own special version of redundancy, notified via a sharp descending blade, and made all the more fearful by surprise. One day a man might be at his desk and the next he was gone and not to be mentioned again.

As motivational regimes went, it worked well. The Convention had long ago observed that fear made far better citizens than love.

Julius was still in good enough grace with the management to receive full rations. Petit déjeuner consisted of bread and sausage and a carafe of wine. Granted, the baguette was gritty pain de guerre, the sausage dubious and wine already dilute, but it counted as haute cuisine in a nation at continual war with itself or others for four decades.

Julius ate it mechanically, without pleasure, merely as a means of strength for another day, whilst trying not to think of the vile rumours circulated about what went into the sausage.

Before being perverted to its current usage, the Mausoleum had been a chateau, and quite a grand one. The usual thing had happened to its owners when the ‘mobile columns’ of the Second Revolution surged out into the countryside, and a few of their of their skulls remained perched on prominent architectural features.

After that the history of the place grew obscure and Frankenstein didn’t enquire too closely. It wouldn’t have been wise even if he’d actually wanted to know. The Convention didn’t care for too much dwelling on the past, holding it to be a symptom of reactionary tendencies—an invariably fatal disease. Suffice then to say that a succession of notables made the place their commandeered home as they rose and then fell in the bloody cauldron of revolutionary struggle. Often it all happened too quick for them to even take possession or enjoy much more than a weekend there. None left an impression, save for some bloodstains on the walls during contested evictions.

Then finally, when the chateau had become ill-omened and dilapidated enough to excite no one’s envy, the ‘Peoples’ Promethean Brigade’ arrived to stay. Beforehand, the unit had been in Paris itself, close to the guillotines and source of supply, but there’d been too many escapes and scandalous sights for the capital of a regime with a keen sense of its own dignity. Therefore, the Convention’s central committee (who’d recently deified ‘Reason’ as the State religion), deemed it reasonable to move things to less sensitive surrounds, a bit nearer the Front. There were already trains of wagons carrying the condemned from prison to Madame Guillotine, and so it took only minor administrative adjustments for them to press on a bit further and ferry the finished product to the Mausoleum.

Those wagon trains had been rolling for a decade now. There’d been ample time to purge the town of Compiegne of reactionary objectors, and restock it with patriots and Mausoleum workers and their families. Now the whole locality was predicated on Promethean science and thus rather prosperous, in a grim sort of way.

Or so Frankenstein had heard, because he hadn’t actually ever seen the place, having arrived by night and in a sealed coach under escort. The Mausoleum’s gate slammed shut behind him and there he’d stayed ever since, as quarantined from normal life as if moved to the Moon. For, in its ten years of operation, there’d been opportunity to erect multiple high walls right round the former Chateau, both to keep ‘New-citizens’ in and prying eyes out. Therefore, all Julius could view now as he ate his breakfast sitting before high (barred) windows was a rumour of forest: a few tree-tops glimpsed over the fortifications, plus smoke columns from where the chimneys of Compiegne must be.

Other than that there was only sky to study—and the sincere wish to fly into it—whether in a galloon or on angel’s wings didn’t much matter.

It was quiet there as soon as (like all hardened Promethean scientists) you ceased to hear the continual Lazaran-lament. Similar to its English counterpart, the Mausoleum functioned in too much of a rush to get round to fitting steam-driven devices throughout. Instead, use was made of the muscle-power of its myriad reject products to make conveyor belts turn and serum-spears descend. They toiled for free, didn’t require coal to function, and when they finally broke down were readily replaced without recourse to mechanics. It… worked, by and large, and that sufficed.

Elsewhere, in less streamlined parts of Europe, scholars criticised Revivalist science’s sedative effect on all other fields of technological progress. They said that exploiting Lazaran power was like the mass slavery of Classical Times, removing the incentive for innovation. And as for its effect on public morals…!

But the Convention didn’t give a fig for what ivory-towered academics or theologians might think. Let them burble on, peddling ‘morality’ for their masters. The Revolution would get to their sleepy hollows sooner or later, and then there’d be an end to such idealist nit-picking…

Meanwhile, back in the Mausoleum and present, in his desperate casting about for positive developments Julius looked on the bright side. At least the absence of machines made for comparative tranquillity—so long as you were careful where you looked. Get that wrong and even silence wasn’t ‘tranquil.’

Frankenstein exercised great care, but 100% avoidance was never going to happen. Not there. For instance, there’d been a batch brought in the day before that were either victims of a lynch mob (nothing unusual in stressed and starving Revolutionary France) or else grapeshot from massed artillery (ditto). The carts held what looked more like off-casts from an autopsy than coherent corpses.

So, no—only by raising one’s eyes to Heaven (and pinching one’s nostrils) could you construct the delusion of living in a place where humans lived—that is to say real humans living real life. The tops of the Chateau’s tall towers (out of bounds to him) and clouds passing by in their eternal journey (likewise) conspired to bolter the notion. If he determinedly thought of nothing else they would metaphorically bear him aloft and above all this for… minutes on end.

Today Fate begrudged him even those minutes. Footsteps on the stairs to his door called him back to earth. He heard and hated them.

With good reason. Hobnails. It could only be one of the Mausoleum moustaches, here to upbraid him—or worse. Or perhaps that long anticipated moment had arrived and nemesis was approaching his door. A sudden strong premonition told him it might be the latter.

Frankenstein considered this and took a possibly last sip of wine. Fittingly, it was acid.

How much did he care? About that or anything?

Not much came the answer—so long as leaving this world was quick. And neat. And dignified. Which he knew to be asking a great deal. Too much probably, especially in present circumstances.

So then: goodbye cruel world—and damn your eyes!

Frankenstein dismissively clicked his fingers at existence—but the visitor took that as summons and entered.

It transpired Julius had libelled life without cause. It was not ‘that moment.’ Nor nemesis. Quite the opposite in fact.

A Mausoleum messenger stood before him, bearing letters that would save his life, not end it.

Chapter 2: R.S.V.P.

‘My dearest Julius,’ said the first letter, in a familiar wild hand.

Frankenstein’s first reaction? He didn’t know how she had the nerve. Then a second’s reflection reminded him he knew all too well. Their history together should have led him to expect nothing else.

A sudden acid storm sloshed around his stomach, taking him to the verge of nausea. The sheer gall of the woman!

‘Any reply, monsieur?’

The messenger had waited, temporarily invisible to Julius.

‘What?’

‘Do you wish to reply, monsieur? There is opportunity. The man who delivered it awaits.’

Julius sucked his lips.

‘Well, that depends,’ he answered eventually. ‘Do you have a loaded gun to hand?’

Messenger took that as a no and departed.

Frankenstein crossed to the french windows of his cell cum quarters cum workplace. Sure enough, far down the drive of the Compeigne Mausoleum, just visible through the bars, beyond the gates and guards, waited a black coach. Before it stood a man who was almost certainly Foxglove, starring up at Frankenstein’s new home.

You had to hand it to them. Or her. If you didn’t hand it to her she’d snatch it anyway. Lady Lovelace had got in! She’d slipped away from the aerodrome kerfuffle and entered by some other means. Probably it was long arranged in advance and the whole galloon business—maybe all their post-Channel plans—a mere humouring of him. She must have been waiting for the first encounter with French authority in strength: a scenario with no prospect of shooting your way out. If they’d chanced to have been shipwrecked on a French rather than Belgian beach it would have happened then. Whichever way the dice fell, the outcome was pre-determined. Julius would be led up the garden path like a dumb beast with no understanding, to be delivered to the butcher.

Bile was mountaineering up his throat. He had to gag and try to think of other things. It proved impossible.

All manner of loose ends now meshed and locked into place. Disparate parts became an understandable whole. A sickening picture. Or perhaps a puppet show, starring Dr. Julius Frankenstein, singing and dancing without dignity to someone else’s tune.

For a second, if he’d had that hypothetical gun, he would have used it on the distant coach. Or maybe hurtled down the drive with it to get right up close and make sure of the job.

Of course, teeming soldiery would have stopped him long before he was within sniffing distance of escape or vengeance, but it would still be cathartic. The visible working out of his inmost thoughts.

Yet if that wasn’t on, it was always possible to take remote revenge. He could have the pleasure of denouncing Ada as she had him. One word, one raising of the alarm, was all it would take to have Mausoleum security all over that coach like rampant pox.

They’d find an Englishwoman—and an aristocrat to boot. An illegal. Someone who’d barged into a society where all things not compulsory were forbidden. Probably an expendable Lazaran spy they’d conclude, one of the rare sentient sort. The secret police would have a field day! Fouché’s men had their own ‘interrogation facilities’ in the Mausoleum, as they did in every state building. Julius sometimes heard the screams from them at night.

The chilling remembrance of which turned Frankenstein to another option. A wholly irresponsible and therefore highly tempting alternative.

It remained open to him to answer the impudent message. To re-engage with mad Ada. To replay their relationship a second time—and this time to play it better…

Her coach still awaited. The Mausoleum messenger could be summoned back to deliver a reply

Which would say… what?

How am I? Answer: a prisoner, as before. In a Gallic mirror image of the Heathrow Hecatomb.

How goes my researches? They do not. They cannot. Which my captors must soon perceive.

And any news? No, no, no, no!

Or possibly… yes.

Julius suddenly recalled that the messenger had delivered two letters. The second lay in still virgin state whilst shock and outrage and multiple beckoning ways distracted him.

And betrayed him almost. The road of life forked. If Frankenstein had acted in haste and gone to her he might never have known there was a counter offer. A offer that blew Ada’s clean out of the water.

It was short but, when interpreted, sweet.

it read, in careless, V.I.P.’s hand. Then:

Then:

You could legitimately have commissioned a conference of scholars to decipher it, timidly exploring the multiple pathways of possible meaning till they were all set out, ready for rational conclusions to be made. Alternatively, you could, as Frankenstein did, shoulder aside all those imaginary academics and make an intuitive leap of faith over their gleaming heads. The end result was probably the same but with the added attraction of being stylish—and a lot quicker.

Since Frankenstein was a man in a hurry he happily took the short route. He also took up paper and pen and he wrote:

Chapter 3: MOUSTACIOED ELOPEMENT

In doing so Frankenstein sensed he’d passed a test. If he’d identified his correspondent correctly they were looking for someone who, when travelling from A to Z, wasn’t scared to skip B—Y. His cryptic response should be spot on. Granted, it was a lie, but that was only an issue for someone not already far from God’s favour.

His way out was made easy for him. On the envelope there was, in another, more clerkish, hand, a return address: one of the myriad numbered postal ‘caches’ serving every Government purpose from the sublime to the sinister. To interfere with anything so sanctioned was a capital offence (like almost everything else in Conventionary France). Dumped in the Messengers’ office ‘out’ sack for tomorrow, alongside many others, a missive thus addressed would not invite notice or scrutiny.

Julius rejoiced and reached for another glass of wine—even the sour stuff they served at the Mausoleum. He’d found a conduit to the outside world through which news of his continued existence might crawl! Would he take it? He most certainly would!

By contrast, any reply to Ada’s plea needed subtle gymnastics (surely a contradiction in terms…) to reach her. He’d missed the chance to put a message in Foxglove’s hands and there was no way of knowing when or if another would arrive. All outbound letters to conventional addresses such as Lady Lovelace’s lodgings (wherever they might be) would be opened, poured over and censored to the point of death, if not beyond. And never more so than in the case of their intrinsically untrustworthy foreign ‘volunteer.’ That sure knowledge (plus absence of anyone to write to) was what had ‘inspired’ Julius to writer’s block so far.

Today he let it deter him again. Answering Ada would only bring a hornets’ nest of trouble down around her pale pretty head, and whilst that had a certain appeal, Julius didn’t doubt a matching nest would be found for him too. Far better then to inflict on her the lesser torment of silence and unknowing. For a while, perhaps a long while, let her seethe in rented accommodation waiting for a word from him. It would do her spiritual good and also serve her right!

Having absorbed what both letters had to say, Frankenstein tore them into digestible strips and proceeded to eat his words. They weren’t noticeably worse than the rest of breakfast…

The inwardly digested letters hadn’t even passed through Frankenstein’s system before his reply was replied to.

It took the unconventional form of a tap upon his window soon after midnight. Which was surprising in itself, since he resided on the first floor.

Even so, Frankenstein ignored it. He was turned on his side away from the window, just getting comfortable, half-asleep, and half-tipsy. And besides, odd night noises were the norm in the Mausoleum and none of them rewarded investigation.

Except that this one was insistent and unwilling to be snubbed. The rap upon his windowpane was repeated, but with more force. Then again, harder. Extrapolate the series but a few steps forward and the glass would shatter.

Not that Frankenstein cared greatly about that. One of the few pluses about his present abode was no requirement to pay for breakages. On the other hand, getting it repaired would take ages and much begging of surly artisans. Meanwhile, a draught would whistle through. On balance, Julius decided to turn over in bed.

His first bleary thought was that there was a new Man in the Moon. Then returning consciousness clarified that. Handily silhouetted against the full moon was a man’s face, masked and urgent. He raised his fist, clearly threatening to put it through the window.

Of course, Frankenstein had been searched and disarmed long before he ever got to the Mausoleum. Now he was left without so much as a letter-opener with which to defend himself. However, in present circumstances, gravity offered itself as his salvation. The man must be perched atop a long ladder. If he proved to be an unwelcome guest it would be easy to end their conversation by sending him back down the quick way. But for that Julius needed to arise.

Arranging his night-gown into decency, Frankenstein crossed over and inserted his arms through the bars to raise the sash window.

In these present strange days, the first thing you determined in any encounter was ‘are they living or not?’ That fundamental fact determined all subsequent intercourse, outranking even race or class. Society had Victor Frankenstein to thank for that

His great-nephew checked. All the vital signs were there. The visitor lived and breathed. Burst capillaries on his cheeks flushed red with life-giving blood.

Satisfied on that score, but still poised to launch the man into space, Julius addressed him.

‘Good evening, monsieur. How are you this fine evening? Ah…’

A splendidly stylish start but spoilt by the ensuing feeble exclamation.

For Frankenstein’s scrutiny had moved on to take in finer details. Beneath the black mask spouted a moustache of extra special luxuriousness. And in turn beneath that was an extra confident smile—of a kind unbefitting an ladder-trapped intruder into a terrible place. Supporting both features was a frame of splendid martial bearing.

For the second day running Frankenstein made a sprightly leap from sparse facts to fascinating conclusions. Hence the ‘Ah…’

The visitor smiled, approving of something. Several crucial teeth were missing, creating a gravestone image highly appropriate to the location.

Finally the man spoke, in soldierly French. Their conversation was conveniently covered by shrieks and laments from the Lazaran pens, so constant as to be part of the aural scenery.

‘I’m well. And you, monsieur?’

In the interval, Julius had recovered his poise—never far from at hand.

‘Likewise. To what do I owe this pleasure? Are you an assassin?’

The visitor considered. Clearly it was a possibility.

‘Not tonight, monsieur. You were right first time with the ‘pleasure’ thing. My master requests the pleasure of your company.’

‘And who can blame him? Is it R.S.V.P.?

The visitor shook his head regretfully.

‘Not as such. More like ‘come now.’..’

Frankenstein deliberated for nearly a second.

‘Then I should be delighted.’

Another smile in response.

‘Very glad to hear it, monsieur. You’re a bit bulky to drag along unwilling. Thank you for making my job so much simpler.’

He waved to unseen friends in the darkness below. Further out in the courtyard Julius detected the stirring of bigger-than-human movement. Air displaced in a straight line from there to his window forced Frankenstein to notice cables attached to the bars.

‘I’d step away if I were you,’ said the visitor, starting to descend. ‘Take the opportunity to get dressed if you like. But don’t go too far…’

There was a team of cavalry mounts, Julius saw now, being roused into action against the metal grid imprisoning him. As his eyes acclimatised, aided by the moonlight, he detected more masked men, urging the horses on. There were yet more around the ladder’s base.

Frankenstein was about to pay tribute to all they’d so far achieved in silence, undetected in this heart of darkness, but then realised any words were redundant. Super-human was expected as standard in this regiment, and praise only cut in beyond that.

He retreated into the room and threw on some clothes. All his other possessions had been stolen, leaving him free as a monk to move on at a moment’s notice.

The cables braced, the bars buckled, the comparatively new (by the Chateau’s standards) mortar gave way.

This, thought Julius, was the moment when all would go wrong. The Mausoleum would awake in all its ghastly glory, including swarms of guards. But no: his callers had every point covered. Naturally, the bars made protest at being wrenched from home but they hit the ground with barely a sound, muffled by some pre-laid padding. No voice was raised to query events, no musket spat.

Yet there still ought to have been both. Discreet as the operation was, no horse can understand the need for total hush, nor will masonry and metal ever fully oblige. There was noise that the sentries should hear.

As he pulled on his boots Frankenstein waited for their intervention and the rip of bullets in the night. He waited in vain.

Having vacated the ladder’s summit to make way for the bars, the masked face appeared again, gesturing impatiently.

‘Courage, monsieur. I shall save you from falling…’

The implication of that worked better than threats. All Swiss are (or have to pretend to be) mountaineers. Frankenstein quit the room at speed, taking nothing, not even a rearward glance, and located the topmost rung with one questing foot. Aiming to impress he descended swiftly; so swift as to catch up with the masked man and plant a foot upon his head.

‘Monsieur!’ the man protested. ‘Have a care! We do not have enough time to hurry…’

Reeling in that gnomic utterance occupied Frankenstein’s thoughts all the way to the gatehouse. En route, he was joined, one by one, by other masked conspirators, all moustachioed and confident as his initial visitor.

That pretty much clinched it. Julius knew who they were and thus where he was going. All that remained was to get there. And if anyone could perform such a miracle these people could.

In one sense they already had. By silvery moonlight Frankenstein discovered how they’d got thus far. The bodies of various sentinels were propped up by the gatehouse like trophies from a good day’s hunting. Their slumped posture was reminiscent of the Mausoleum’s less successful products, but unlike them these weren’t stirring at all. Bayonets pinned each one to the wall in a presumably post-mortem flourish: a message to those who might follow. And all this had been achieved in perfect peace!

Julius felt like saying ‘bravo!’ but equally didn’t feel like attracting these terrible men’s attention. So he merely saw and grew wise instead.

Bowing him through with the greatest respect, the ladder man ushered Julius into the gatehouse. There fresh horrors awaited. Some of its former inhabitants had been New-citizens of sturdy construction. Frankenstein even recognised several burly specimens as his own bacon-saving special productions. Or leastways he thought he recognised them: his handiwork must have taken a lot of second-time-round killing and multiple blows with sabres. The gatehouse was like a charnel house.

Except that the living were also present. A batch of captives were kept under beady eye in one corner and Julius was intrigued. For reasons many and varied they didn’t have the look of French gaolers. If pressed to guess Frankenstein would have placed them on a parade ground in England.

So it proved. Though they were blindfolded and gagged, one had apparently loosened his bonds. He sensed fresh arrivals and spoke out in faultless if frightened English.

‘Who’s there? What are you going to do with us?’

Rather than answer, Julius’ escort simply demonstrated. He took up a discarded musket and plunged its fixed bayonet into the speaker. Years of practise shone through, just like the blood pooling into his victim’s tunic. The man died instantly, with barely a groan.

It proved a cue. One by one the prisoners were taken to various parts of the room and dispatched. Then the fresh corpses were arranged in combative poses alongside pre-existing French dead.

Again, wealth of experience paid off. If Julius hadn’t known better, he would have sworn from the emerging tableaux that a fierce little Anglo-French battle had swarmed through here. One in which the Mausoleum guards had acquitted themselves well.

The Ladder man looked upon the scene like an artist. He wandered round, arranging a limb there, inserting weaponry into dead hands there.

Eventually, he stood up and surveyed the finished work. The mark of a great artist is knowing when to leave a canvas alone.

‘It is good,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’

Someone had oiled the Mausoleum’s main gate. Normally they moaned like a choir of Lazarans with each and every opening, a deliberate feature of the security arrangements. Now they cracked ajar with hardly a protest.

Flowing smoothly like the lubrication on the hinges, Frankenstein’s new friends poured through the gap with him in their midst.

The next morning, when all was revealed and certain tell-tale English artefacts found on the dead, the Mausoleum drew its own conclusions.

Perfidious Albion had struck again; its cursed fleet delivering a raiding party onto France’s sacred shores to snatch a coveted Revivalist. English ships notoriously got everywhere they could find even a duck-pond to float on. You might go on to speculate it was just the sort of thing Neo-Nelson would and could do, damn his one remaining eye. There was no absolute proof, true, but the mission carried all the hallmarks of his audacity.

In drafting the required report its authors upgraded that possibility into nigh certainty, and after that the insult didn’t seem so bad. Also, the records showed that Julius Frankenstein wasn’t so hot anyway and thus maybe the rostbifs had incurred heavy casualties for little gain. Aside from the slight of waltzing into the Mausoleum and then out again, the English were welcome to him.

That interpretation was eventually accepted by the Convention. Heads would have to roll of course, but only token Terror was visited upon Mausoleum staff.

A mere maiden’s kiss, a child’s slap on the wrist: just one in ten.

Chapter 4: SPICK N’ SPAN

‘Welcome, monsieur, most welcome!’

The chamberlain’s array of gold braid was dazzling and his bow exquisitely elegant, but Julius had seen it all before. Moments before in fact. It already seemed like an age since his cheerfully homicidal masked rescuers delivered him here.

‘The chamberlain before you said that,’ Julius replied. ‘And the one before him.’

He indicated his route previous to the high double doors that now sealed them in this ante-room.

This chamberlain went from soft to hard with a speed that put the male generative organ to shame. He showed the steel just below the velvet glove. His eyes glittered.

‘And they meant it,’ he said. ‘As do I. Rest assured, monsieur, you would not have got as far as me had you been found in any way wanting…’

Which was both praise and a slap combined. Frankenstein didn’t know whether to feel honoured or offended. Not that it mattered in any case. His opinions in this palace mattered as little as those of the peacocks that patrolled its county-sized grounds. Even less probably. At least they were decorative and no harm to anyone…

Elbow cupped in one hand, the chamberlain rested his chin for the duration of a close scrutiny of Julius. Contrary to Conventionary fashion, he still wore a short-wig and kept it powdered. Actually, he resembled a throwback to pre-Revolutionary days: a look likely to attract lynch mobs on the Parisian streets today.

If so, the man showed no signs of unease. He was not a man of the streets; here was his place and he was at home in it.

‘Hmm,’ he pondered aloud, sounding like a slightly more effeminate Lady Lovelace. ‘Hmm…’

Now Julius knew how the produce in an Ottoman slave market felt. He fought the urge to pose or disport himself to command a better price.

‘‘Hmm…’?’ he said in turn, as both mimicry and query.

The chamberlain returned instantly from reverie-land to fix Julius’ gaze.

‘The eyes of a man,’ he said, ‘are a window into his soul.’

‘Indeed,’ Julius agreed. He’d lived too long to dispute it.

‘And yours,’ continued the chamberlain, ‘reveal a very dark vista…’

Again, Frankenstein could not but agree. In his shaving mirror he daily saw what the chamberlain referred to.

That gentleman’s elbow was now lowered, a decision arrived at.

‘Darkness may conceal all manner of dirt,’ he said. ‘Proceed into the next room and have it washed away.’

The instruction proved to be literal. To Julius’ amazement the room beyond the next set of double doors proved to be a bathing suite. Rather than yet more gilded courtiers, a team of white-clad flunkies, male and female, waited beside a steaming bath.

‘Disrobe, monsieur,’ ordered their captain, who incongruously wore a chef’s hat as badge of office. ‘Abandon yourself to our ministrations.’

Willing or not, it was going to happen. It seemed routine and they seemed implacable. Also, amongst their number were bulky sorts for the lifting work, plus soldiers lining the walls (also uniformed entirely in white). Frankenstein realised that if he did not comply compulsion was on hand, and then he would lose his dignity as well as his clothes

So, despite the presence of appraising ladies, Julius stepped forward and stripped.

The water was warm and scented and, in other circumstances, might have been welcome. Less enjoyable, however, was being dunked and scrubbed by professionals of exceptional thoroughness. They were insistent on total immersion and cleansing of the most obscure corners. Meanwhile, extremities were periodically gripped and held so that nails and nasal hair could be radically clipped. Someone even brushed his teeth for him—whilst submerged!

Then, as he surfaced short of breath, Julius caught sight through streaming hair of his garments being born away. For some reason the scene had a strong sense of finality to it.

‘What are you doing with my cloth—’ he started to say, before a strong hand on the top of his head plunged him under again. Simultaneously, practised fingers scurried over his head like an aquatic tarantula, questing for nits.

Allowed back into light and air, Frankenstein took exception.

‘How dare you? I am a gentleman! I do not harbour livestock!’

The inspector turned out to be a woman with arms like hams and face to match.

‘Makes no difference if you’re Pope or peasant, my dear,’ she informed him cheerfully. ‘Everyone gets the same treatment.’ Then she turned to address her colleagues. ‘He’s free.’

Those was the only comforting words he was going to get. Other strong limbs lifted Julius out and onto fluffy towels on the floor. It was like being a baby again and long lost memories of infancy arose dusty from burial places in his brain, surprised as any Lazaran at being revived.

If so, they were the only dusty thing about Frankenstein by then. Though a fastidious man by nature he was now cleaner than ever before. He stood there dripping water and indignation.

The captain of the bath approached—and approached—and approached yet again, until far too close for European comfort. If this were Switzerland and the bath-captain a wench, they would have been deemed engaged.

The man then inflicted further rudeness via a series of sniffs over Julius at point blank range. Which in turn permitted—in fact forced—Frankenstein to notice that, scent-wise, Bath-captain didn’t exist. Even the air round him had more character and he was just a void in its normality.

Julius had passed his life to date amidst privileged circles where cleanliness, if not Godliness, was becoming de rigueur, yet such high standards as this struck him as extreme; even unnatural…

Which, he then realised, was a silly thought. In his dictated, not chosen, profession of defying death, the unnatural was natural. How much longer must he go on tormenting himself by noticing it? Those who no longer cared were so much happier men…

But it was no good. He had to scratch the itch. A power stronger than willpower made him ask.

‘What was the point of all—?’ he said, or started to say, but desisted when it became clear no one was interested in Julius any more. He doubted they even heard him. Odourless Bath-captain was indicating the next set of doors.

‘Go in there and dry off,’ he ordered, and then turned away. He and his team had a new mission. A marshal of the Grande Armée had just entered the room as Julius had earlier. All attention was focused on this new visitor from the unclean.

‘Disrobe, monsieur,’ the marshal was told. ‘Abandon yourself to our ministrations.’

Frankenstein let himself out and entered into an sunlit chamber. Floor to ceiling windows flooded it with light to the furthest corners and, as if that did not suffice, the three other walls held polished metal sheets to reflect the rays.

Otherwise the place was empty, devoid of the slightest distraction, but its purpose did not take much deducting. Still dripping water onto the floor, Julius crossed to its centre and basked in the beams. Soon he could feel rapid evaporation underway, plus that revival of animal spirits the sun’s kiss always brings.

Without even a towel to cover his nakedness or supply a fig leaf of normality, Frankenstein felt open to fresh perspectives. The one visible through the high windows seemed an obvious staring point.

Squinting against the sun, he looked into the ornamental gardens stretching into the purple distance. Closer to, the aforementioned peacocks scattered before marching squads of soldiers or other, more casual but still uniformed, strollers. Behind and unseen there was the impression of architectural bulk.

Not that he had any need to rely on intuition. Julius had observed Versailles’ exterior from the coach that brought him there. He instantly recognised the place from numerous prints. Then he’d covertly timed the ride from the first gatehouse beside the road, through interminable security points, and finally, much later, to the front entrance. That and his long walk from there to the bathing room amply confirmed that this was a big palace, a little city in itself. He’d given up as a fruitless exercise counting the rooms and halls and guards and chamberlains en route. Suffice to say, such establishments occupied enough of God’s creation to make their own rules, and visitors simply had to fit in with them.

Surrendering to the flow and a comforting lack of thought, Julius raised his arms like a bird preparing for flight. The sun fell on his skin in a passionate embrace, finally lifting off all excess moisture.

Which was how the next-in-line chamberlain found him, entering the room by a door cunningly concealed in the metalled wall. He wore not gold braid or colourful silk but a garment akin to a toga. It looked light and blindingly white. He carried an identical copy in his arms.

Fancy dress was the final straw. Frankenstein was moved to protest.

‘I am an hygienic man!’ he said. ‘I bathe once a week whether I need to or not. What on earth is all this in aid of?’

This chamberlain waggled his hand equivocally.

‘”On Earth”? I’m not so sure. However, put this on, monsieur, and soon all will be made clear. Then he will see you.’

Chapter 5: BEHOLD THE (FORMER) MAN

‘He’ proved to be a mere two more chambers, plus a host of highly professional guards and yet more searches (even of a near-nude man) away.

Then, finally:

The throne-room was modest considering what ‘he’ had conquered—not least Death. There was a throne and rich battle-scene tapestries, but not much else. It was the opulence of the field camp: rich stuff but thrown together, standing-by ready for swift departure.

‘Cleaner than he came from the womb,’ confirmed the chamberlain from the threshold. Then he withdrew, leaving them alone together.

Frankenstein could either surrender to awe or stand his ground. And it had to be the latter if his personality wasn’t to be blasted away, leaving him naked before the naked power manifested here.

So, Julius assumed a questioning face and plucked at his toga. To emphasise the point he also shook his still damp hair and the locks discharged a light rain of droplets onto the polished floor.

To Frankenstein’s pleasure, Napoleon actually shrank from their insignificant threat, seeking the further recesses of his throne. The panic lasted several seconds before he realised it didn’t look good

‘Disease…,’ ‘explained’ Napoleon. ‘There must be no germs! The living crawl with them! And filth. Filth breeds pestilence. Pestilence brings death. I cannot afford to die again: not before my work is done. Not when I was only brought back with such pain…’

Wrestling from the grip of strong emotions, Napoleon recalled he should be playing host. An all-powerful, condescending, host at that.

‘So you understand the need?’ he asked Frankenstein, semi politely. ‘For the cleansing, the… manhandling?’

He did indeed. ‘Misinformed,’ concluded Julius to himself, accompanied by relief. ‘Plus scientifically ignorant. And therefore fallible.’

‘Absolutely,’ he said.

To some small extent it meant he could now stand at ease before the Revived Emperor. Also, the puzzling minimalist decor was explained: less places for pesky ‘germs’ and ‘pestilence’ to lurk.

In fact, Frankenstein had had his suspicions, starting with the rough fetching from the Mausoleum. Only a daring enemy nation or one particular ego would dare slight the Convention so. That a certain elite regiment were sent to do it removed all doubt on the subject. England might have its Brigade of Guards but only a certain personage had the ‘Old Guard’: veterans and sons of veterans of famous campaigns, at his disposal.

Even so, Julius now boggled at the sheer audacity—which was another clincher in itself. If even one of the raiders had been killed or wounded and left behind then all would have been revealed, as good as leaving a calling card. Arrogant in their excellence (and indulged in it by their master) they distinguished themselves with great sportive moustaches. Those that couldn’t grow them for any reason wore false ones.

Frankenstein had thus identified them from the first face at the window. They might have dispensed with their popinjay uniforms and bearskins that night but the lip furniture remained. Which in turn meant he who sent them was reckless of discovery. ‘He’ must calculate that the Convention needed him as much—perhaps more—than he needed them.

That thought made Frankenstein study this king-amongst Lazarans anew.

Amongst the first details Julius noticed was the length of his fingernails. Yellow and cracked, they curved over the arm-rest of the throne, precisely matching his skin-tone. And texture too.

Second shock was the angry purple marks around his scraggy Imperial neck. Frankenstein frowned. History said Bonaparte had died of natural causes, not hanging…

However, someone didn’t care for being scrutinised, even if it was by a doctor. Napoleon felt the need to re-establish just who was interviewing who.

‘Ahem…,’ he said. ‘Good day to you, herr Frankenstein.’

His voice was that of a vigorous leader of men—and didn’t belong in that prune-like body.

‘And good day to you too,’ replied Julius, ‘monsieur le…’ Then he hesitated, tripping over what might be the proper form.

Napoleon had compassion on him—which would have shocked his courtiers had any been present. He raised one yellow claw to wave away any embarrassment. The fingernails clattered.

‘Do not concern yourself. Beyond these walls to term me Emperor is a capital offence. Perhaps you knew that—although I somehow doubt it would influence your decision. However, here at home my old title is applied to me by my servants. I have no strong views on the subject. One has accumulated so many names in the course of an illustrious career. Use any of them that pleases you. Except the offensive variety of course…’

So that excluded ‘The Wolf of Europe’ and ‘The Great Butcher’ then. Not to mention ‘The Grave-ripped Abomination’ favoured by the British press.

A pity. Finally meeting the man in the flesh, as opposed to state portraits or caricatures, Frankenstein saw that the Times had it about right.

Speaking purely of the view, it had been no act of kindness to haul Napoleon Bonaparte back across the Great Divide—either to himself or others. Serum had worked wonders over and above the ‘mere’ restoring of life. However, in this case it wasn’t wonders but miracles that were required—and an unreasonable multitude of them.

The plain fact was that he’d laid in the grave too long between death on St Helena and the Convention’s decision to raise him. During those years decay had had its way and dried his flesh to leather. Serum could reverse some elements of death but not all. In fact, aesthetically speaking, the part-repairs only made matters worse.

Cumulatively, even Frankenstein, a medical man and someone who’d supped deep from Revivalist science’s cup of horrors, had trouble fixing his eye to the point. He found himself evading the Emperor’s gaze like some bashful maiden.

And the Emperor, who retained his sharp perceptions if not his former shape, noticed it.

‘You think I am not a pretty sight, no?

‘Why,’ Julius thought, ‘should I degrade myself by denying it?’

‘No,’ he said, not in any wounding way but as statement of fact. He’d always strived to be honest with the Lazarans from his own laboratory, going against his nature by being cruel to be kind.

No other answer was permissible re the risen Emperor. A desiccated, jaundiced, frog was the closest description Julius could come to. The man was naked—no dirt-harbouring toga for him—and his body was bleached and alternatively bloated or collapsed. Also hairless, save for atop where the lank locks and kiss curl familiar from all his portraits survived. Plus, of course, the eyes. Their fire remained. Indeed they positively burned.

‘No more need to say ‘not tonight, Josephine,’ eh?’ prompted the Emperor, rubbing salt into his own wounds. ‘No woman, not even my dear departed and so ambitious Josephine would approach me now. Not without spewing her stomach contents. Don’t you agree?’

Actually Julius didn’t. Rather shockingly, he found his take on human nature even more cynical than Bonaparte’s.

‘Maybe some that I’ve met might,’ he ventured. ‘If sufficiently rewarded.’

Perhaps the Emperor liked contradiction—in moderation. Maybe it made a change from the army of yes-men in his palace. Whatever the reason, he smiled.

‘That could be so,’ he replied. ‘One should never underestimate the aphrodisiac charms of power. But you are beyond seduction I see. Which surprises me. You are a doctor, even a famous one, dipped deep in Revivalism; surely you have seen worse than me?’

Frankenstein cursed his stubborn integrity. One day it was going to land him in the embrace of Madame Guillotine. Nevertheless…

‘No,’ he said. ‘Not often.’

Napoleon sighed. Those sections of his rib-cage still responding to stimuli heaved.

‘At least you are honest,’ he answered, after a tense pause. ‘It is a contrast. Last month some greaser from the Convention told me I was a fine figure of a man—“for my age”.’

‘Really?’ said Julius. Again that was one word so vastly richer in English than French. Inflection meant it could carry a whole array of meanings, all subtly different. But not so in their current tongue. The Emperor merely thought his anecdote doubted.

‘Tis true!’ he replied. ‘What a creeping merde-mouth he was! So I have arranged for his transfer to the Russian front. There instructions are given that he be permitted to experience the very fullness of events…’

‘Vindictive’ concluded Julius. He wondered again with fresh urgency if there was any brake mechanism on his own wayward words.

‘And lest the relevant calculation clog your thoughts at this vital time,’ the Emperor pressed on, ‘pray let me enlighten you about my ‘age.’ Nigh seventy years: that’s how long I’ve lived—if you include nearly nine in the tomb. Which equalled nine years of absolute nothingness, in case you were wondering…’

In fact Frankenstein was. Every Revivalist did, however much they pretended otherwise and professed to be wearied by the subject. Much of popular acceptance of Revivalism, contrary to the rulings of the Church and some states, stemmed from that: the outside hope that one day the big question might be answered. People couldn’t help themselves. Julius had even taxed Lady Lovelace on the subject, as he would every Lazaran capable of a sensible answer until the day finally came for Frankenstein to find out for himself first hand.

‘It signifies nothing,’ he said, to comfort the Emperor. ‘Everyone says the same…’

The bulging eyes returned from their wondering study of the room. They blazed at Julius.

‘Imbecile! I am not ‘everyone.’ Do you delude yourself? Do you insult me by thinking that might be so? Think again little man, and think quick. Of course I expected different for myself! Heaven should have flung open its doors to me!’

‘Or the other place’ thought Julius, unable to help himself and concerned lest it communicate to his face. He was under no illusion; a storm had broken out of a clear sky and its thunderbolts might well strike him.

‘First glory here, then glory ever after,’ the little Lazaran ranted on. ‘That was my expectation: my due! That would have been justice. I will not endure injustice!’

Then Julius decided: ‘What the hell….’ He might as well go due to a conscious comment as an inadvertent one. Let this warmed-up Zeus throw lightning if he liked.

‘Injustice is the lot of mortal men,’ he countered. ‘In all times and in all places. Of all men…’

There, he had said it. It was pleasing that his possible last words should be the honest truth.

But the anticipated explosion didn’t come; the fire in the eyes did not flare forth. The Emperor subsided back into the throne.

‘All mortal men,’ he echoed, suddenly calm sounding again. Only the eyes maintained the malevolence.

On balance, Frankenstein decided he preferred the rant mode. This ‘quiet and rational’ mood was probably more hazard rich.

However, it was left at that. The Emperor splayed his fingers over the arms of his throne and subsided into its uncomfortable opulence.

‘I think I may come to like you,’ he said eventually. ‘Maybe. You have backbone. Or is it impudence?’

Frankenstein inclined his head in minimalist bow.

‘Modesty prevents me from reply,’ he said, ‘your highness…’

There, that was it. Thanks to lack of forethought he’d hit upon the right title. It fitted the person addressed but at the same time brought the speaker no discredit.

For most certainly this pale thing upon his throne was high above usual considerations. He had only to say ‘invade!’ and—subject to the Convention’s rubber stamp—whole armies, hundreds of thousands of men, would. He could ask of people ‘die for my cause—whatever it happens to be today’ and they would, also in their many thousands. He held true power. If that was not ‘highness’ in worldly terms, then what was?

The Emperor liked it too. He’d had every opportunity to wear out all the other honorifics. By happy accident, Julius had said the right thing. The preliminaries now over they could proceed to business.

‘So yes,’ the Emperor summed up, intending to curtail any flow of bogglement and blurted gratitude, ‘it was I who plucked you from the Mausoleum. And in such a witty manner, leaving the English with the blame, courtesy of a few expendable prisoners. Did you not suspect before? I mean, who else would dare?’

Which proved that however clever he might be in other respects, the Emperor had not done his research on Julius Frankenstein. The man stood there, not amazed, not noticeably pleased, not even tongue-tied, but reticent simply because he chose to be.

‘Who indeed?’ Julius ‘replied.’

It wasn’t the dazzled response the Emperor was expecting and invariably got. For the first time he actually studied his catch.

‘Is that all you have to say?’

As a soldier’s son Frankenstein had been taught manners. In his childhood, absence of ‘please’ meant your request was ignored; and no ‘thank you’ resulted in loss of whatever you got.

So: ‘Thank you,’ said Julius, and bowed.

This was more like it, but it still failed to satisfy.

‘Don’t thank me,’ commanded the Emperor. ‘Repay me!’

Julius stood easy, his prejudices confirmed. It hadn’t taken long for naked self-interest to show its face and shoulder social niceties aside. That was the way of the exalted and also the reason they’d got that far and high.

‘In what way?’ asked Julius.

The Emperor pursed his lips in pained distaste.

‘Oh dear…,’ he muttered, probably to himself, ‘its makes things so tedious when the footsoldiers are slow…’

Yet he rallied for a further effort. Impatiently, the Emperor spelt it out.

‘The Compeigne Mausoleum,’ he said, ‘deals in quantity. Which is very useful for my armies and the wonders they would have me do, but it’s mere bulk production stuff. A sausage factory. Whereas here, here the emphasis is on quality…’

For the first time Frankenstein’s interest was fully engaged.

‘‘Here’? You have Revival facilities here?’

The Emperor gave him an ‘of course’ look.

‘Do you really think I would entrust my well-being to those… slaughtermen?’

It took the briefest consideration. ‘No,’ agreed Julius. ‘Upon reflection, that would not be wise.’

‘Exactly. Now I want you to be ‘wise’ on my behalf.’

‘In what way, highness?’ asked Julius.

The Emperor was visibly wearying, a dismissive hand was waved.

‘I have a director of research: an Egyptian. Go through the far door and you will find him. He will instruct you in your duties…’

Those vibrant eyes trapped in a dead body tried to lock gazes again, but Julius couldn’t hold it. He blushed for shame.

‘You do know what your duty is, I take it…,’ the Emperor enquired.

Even if his eyes were not his to command Julius could at least stand up straight.

‘I can guess. My duties as regards you, that is…’

The Emperor pulled at a fold of rank flesh. It lifted far too easily and retained finger indents when allowed to fall.

‘Duty, duties…,’ he said, ‘one follows from the other. Though I sense you make a distinction. No matter: one or the other suffices so long as they are… executed.’

Was that a pointed choice of phrase, designed to chill? Probably not, Julius concluded. Individual lifespans lay way below this man’s powers of focus. At a minimum he dealt only in entire regiments of deaths; or sizeable cities ablaze, nothing less. A wholesaler in the mortality trade if you like.

And ditto re salaries, sustenance and suchlike mundane matters: all beneath him. The basics of life (and after-life) had come to him on a plate for so long he thought they arrived like oxygen. However, enough vestigial links with the humdrum remained for him to recall that underlings liked wages. He assumed Frankenstein’s hesitance was lucre related.

‘All your needs will be supplied, if that’s what you’re worrying about,’ said the Emperor, tetchily. He thought he was being very magnanimous to descend so far from Olympus.

‘Those needs are but few, highness…,’ Julius reassured him.

‘All the better—even though my pocket is limitless…’

In the context, mention of ‘pockets’ could only be hilarious. The Emperor was sprawled naked as a cadaver awaiting the anatomists. However, rather than laugh and maybe end it all that way, Julius instead dared all on a whim. Here and now was an opportunity that might never come again, a unique opportunity…

‘However, there is one special boon you could grant,’ he said. ‘In fact that only you could grant…’

The Emperor heard honeyed words too often to be impressed. He was also disappointed to find Frankenstein willing to grovel on the floor for gain like all the rest. The smile upon his face was neither kind or flattering.

‘Doubtless. Spit it out: what is it?’

Julius squared his shoulders and prepared for the possibility of being blown away—first metaphorically for his presumption, and then literally when the guards arrived.

‘An answer to a question, highness. That’s all I ask of you.’

His highness cheered up. So it might not be some sordid transaction involving gold or promotion after all.

‘Ah, that’s different. Such a modest request I’m more inclined to grant…’

‘But will I have the truth, highness? Your very first thought, free of censorship?’

Napoleon, an Emperor, and ‘First Marshall’ of Conventionary France, the greatest man of his age (and also, technically, the one succeeding it), was intrigued. He was growing glad he’d collected this particular butterfly for his collection.

‘I am not to be dictated to, Frankenstein; but what you ask is quite possible. A honest answer: why not? Ask away.’

Julius drew deep breath and let go. It could have been about the rope and stretch marks around the Imperial neck but he dared to dive darker and deeper still.

‘Then my question is this: why?’

The Emperor was puzzled. At the very least he’d been expecting names and dates, say about a specific murder or missing treasure ship.

‘‘Why’ what?’

Frankenstein spread his hands to encompass the room, the palace, the whole wide world moulded by this man, and the glittering career that had led to here and now. With a pleasurable shock the Emperor suddenly understood.

It would be a lie to say his Imperial highness had never posed that question to himself, in sleepless early hours or during tedious state functions. Then, when answer—quite unexpectedly—arrived and was honed to shining perfection, he’d kept it secret like a precious possession. But here was this here-today-and-gone-tomorrow little-person impudently requesting sight of it from him, asking for all—all!—to be revealed!

Initial reaction was to balk and fob off with some witticism, perhaps something stolen from the vast cliché collection of his former first minister, Talleyrand. However, somehow the sheer insignificance of the asker swept away all objections. The ant was asking why? of the elephant that could crush it. It was so novel as to be intriguing: even naughty…

All his life the Emperor had played his cards close to his chest, solitary and secretive as an oyster. He’d always been in charge, first of himself and then of other men. But now the temptation to divulge, just this once, was overwhelming: nigh erotic.

His first framed and dismissive answer was dissolved in emotion, quite melted away. The Emperor closed his eyes and visualised his own epitaph

‘I will tell you ‘why,’’ he said, almost quivering with emotion. ‘I will! It is… because I wish to carve my name upon the stone of history! To carve it so very very deep that not even God can erase it!’

And in this way, by dint of simple daring, Julius Frankenstein learnt what the finest minds in Europe had sweated and spoilt their nights over, but despaired of discovering. The question that kings and prime ministers sponsored secret conferences about, to no avail.

Now, Julius Frankenstein, a mere glorified grave-robber, knew the truth of it. Now there were two in Europe that were aware—and only one of them alive.

‘Even aeons from now,’ the Emperor continued, almost shouting and possessed by passion, ‘it must never be as if I never were!’

Frankenstein’s spirits plunged, though he was careful to keep his face rapt. So that was it? The very same banal impulse that led men to etch their of-no-interest-to-anyone initials upon trees and ancient monuments? Except that this impulse was writ large and in the blood of multitudes. Empires had been moulded like clay and oceans of tears shed for this?

‘I see…,’ he said. Which he did and was sadder for it.

‘Good,’ said Napoleon. ‘But keep it to yourself…’

Both of them were fatigued by their talk, albeit in different ways. Frankenstein was glad to see the Emperor make a signal and cause a curtain to fall between them.

It must have lead-weighted, because Julius had to step back lively to ensure he wasn’t enveloped. That step took him into collision with hitherto invisible guards. They were huge in all dimensions, even bigger than the normal run of Old Guard.

‘Come along with us, there’s a good little dead-doctor,’ said one, laying a plate-like hand on Julius’ shoulder.

Before he was guided away, Frankenstein saw that the reverse of the curtain took the form of a huge map. And although the fall of light did not completely oblige, he got a good glimpse. Good enough to observe that the frontiers shown bore no relation whatsoever to present reality.

Clearly, the Emperor was far from finished carving history yet.

Chapter 6: MUMMY!

Speaking of carving…

‘Who amongst you humble students wishes to know a secret?’

Of course they did: they were scientists, after a fashion, and men of enquiring mind. Yet the Egyptian paused and waited till they’d all raised their hands like schoolboys. Frankenstein felt degraded but realised that secrets usually came at a price. He took a gamble on it being worth paying.

‘Then I will tell you…,’ said the Egyptian, lowering his turban and voice likewise. ‘It is this: that all who came before me erred. They were imbeciles! Blind men in a lightless room, groping for a black cat that is not there. Before the era of I, the Egyptian, Revivalism was indistinguishable from black magic, and just as reliable…’

Julius could have been insulted but instead almost laughed. Memories of great-uncle Victor were few: he’d embarked on his hunt for the murdering monster he’d created whilst Julius was still young. He’d never returned to Geneva and lay buried or burnt, depending on who you believed, in the frozen north. Yet, as Julius grew up, ‘Uncle Victor’s presence remained palpable. His darkened study-cum-laboratory remained untouched in the family home and young Julius had often disobeyed strict instructions to never venture in. He could still visualise it as if there: the orderly rows of medical tomes, the neatly laid-out instruments, sharp and gleaming. Anything less like ‘black magic’ was scarcely imaginable. Victor Frankenstein had been a man of the modern age par excellence: someone who’d dared wrangle with the Almighty about His monopoly on creation.

And look where it had got him! Who in fact was the wiser? Uncle Victor or this pantomime actor from the mystic orient?

So, Julius kept his face straight and said nothing. Indeed, a increasingly promising student of deceit, he even tried to match the agog expressions worn by his fellow ‘inductees.’ Their pens were poised and he copied them.

The Egyptian drew back from their desks, taking his miasma of sweat and incense with him.

‘And the secret of the Egyptian?’ he teased, preparing them for life-changing illumination, even glancing at the guarded door as if to make sure no one could escape to shriek ‘eureka!’ ‘This prize-amongst-prizes? My great discovery?’

This was worse than a certain chambermaid of Julius’ adolescent acquaintance. First she said she would, then she said she might, and finally she transpired to be ‘a good girl.’ Memory of those aching loins of long ago made Frankenstein angry.

‘Is…?’ he prompted, earning a ‘if looks could kill’ instant death from under the bushy brows.

‘Is,’ hissed the Egyptian, licking his lips, ‘unpowdered mummy!’

And all three recent recruits to the Emperor’s secret Revivalist service scribbled away as though their teacher transmitted revelation. Except that had anyone read Frankenstein’s notebook they would see he’d made a fuss of writing just one word, writ large:

‘Charlatan!’

The Egyptian crossed to where, amid a wreckage of mummy cases and bandages, an unwrapped specimen awaited him. Dry and brown as shoe-leather, it personified the patience needed to wait longer still and outlast present company; even present civilisation—such as it was—if left alone.

‘To this day,’ said the Egyptian, laying a proprietorial hand on the long gone man (or possibly woman), ‘fools had added powdered mummy to create the super-serum. And that is one minor, superficial, secret. But attend to me and I will reveal to you a deeper truth. It is this: to grind up the mummy’s flesh is to reduce its powers! This to me was obvious. Its restorative powers are diminished by the crushing pestle and wasted upon the air—which needs it not. Whereas if you cut…’

In a fluid flash of action he drew a knife from within his robes. It was a well practised coup de theatre, Julius recognised: plus a warning that they should still be wary of the old ham.

The blade must have been of well honed steel, for the Egyptian was able to remove a sliver without undue carving. He held out the thin, nigh translucent, slice for them to see.

‘Now, this,’ he said, ‘suitably prepared and infused with serum, is sufficient to give the Emperor a whole inventive day. Ten will inspire him to plan a campaign. Imagine that! Simple slices of forgotten Nile dweller, dead three for thousand years, can topple or raise an empire today!’

‘What if he takes twenty?’ asked Julius.

The Egyptian was deceived by Frankenstein’s seriousness. He rolled his eyes at the mere thought of such super-size portions.

‘I hardly dare to speculate, oh Swiss of much presumption. And I wonder that you dare. Have you no piety? Who knows? Perhaps in such a case our Emperor would ascend to Paradise in a fiery chariot. Or Almighty Allah might send an angel with a sword to chastise us for our arrogance. Both are distinct possibilities. I say again, who knows?’

‘Not you, charlatan’ wrote Frankenstein. And then: ‘But someone should find out…’

Fortunately, the Egyptian was too far away to find out, nor had he acquired the useful skill of reading upside down. So he assumed that Julius was noting the rebuke.

Frankenstein’s forwardness emboldened one of the other students to speak. A renegade Scottish scholar, he was a disciple in desperate search of a master if ever there was one. Julius had caught him making cow-eyes at the Egyptian earlier—once he’d drawn a blank with his colleague bearing the illustrious Frankenstein name.

‘You mentioned ‘preparation,’ wise sir,’ said the Scot. ‘Are we yet at a stage to share in this wisdom?’

Somewhat unfairly as an exile from his own nation, Julius hated traitors. Conventionary France was stuffed with whole foreign legions of them, quite literally: people who’d severed all ties through thinking they’d smelt the spirit of the age. Scottish regiments, Irish battalions, squadrons of Italians-of-advanced- opinions: you name it. Frankenstein certainly had a name for them, and thought it now.

The Egyptian drew a deep breath, as if actually considering the question. Julius would have bet all his years to come that he could guess the answer.

‘No,’ came the eventual crushing verdict, ‘that time is not come.’

The Scot subsided pitifully, and the more robust Dane beside him drew a savage line across the prepared page in his notebook.

‘But it shall come,’ the Egyptian continued, after a perfectly timed pause that allowed hope to almost die, but then rise again like a Lazaran. ‘If you attend and are open to the flow of instruction, if you do not speak when you should listen—unlike some…’

He looked at Frankenstein, who couldn’t care less and waved back.

Why should Julius care? He already had the Egyptian’s secret, better than the man understood it himself. There was no longer any need to demean himself

It was—or now had been—one of the many minor mysteries of Versailles, put to one side whilst greater puzzles were pondered. Frankenstein had noted and wondered about the line of little strips suspended between two high towers, hung out to be dried by sun and wind. He’d observed the permanent guard detailed to scare birds from them, or winch them in should rain threaten. Now all was explained.

It was already known that serum melded well with flesh; and that feeding them on it assisted uptake when Lazarans ‘dined.’ Thus it followed that the dried variety absorbed just that bit more. So, when the Egyptian sun-dried what was already supremely dry, it might just make some infinitesimal difference. The sort of difference noticeable by an Emperor growing acclimatised to super-serum. All the more so if he were desperate for full life, as recalled through rose-tinted perspectives. If he stupidly craved the imagined sparkling thought processes of youth and yesteryear, then yes, it might just delude him that the Egyptian had something.

A heady mix: the ancient civilisation of a land he’d conquered early in his first career, plus the romance of the ineffable past and survivals from it in the form of preserved dead. Dead, moreover, on whom great care had been lavished in hopes of securing an afterlife. Individually, each factor might mean little, but collectively they comprised a straw a drowning Emperor might clutch at.

Frankenstein had nothing but contempt for such sloppy thinking and the opportunists who preyed on it. Circus quacks and pox-doctors had more honour. He stood up.

‘Here endeth the lesson,’ he said, and set off.

The Egyptian had come to expect respect, even deference. He bathed in the Emperor’s favour and others usually wanted to share that sunshine. Now, puffed-ego offended and at maximum inflation, he saw fit to put himself between Frankenstein and the exit.

Almost to the last second he was minded to stand his ground and not make way. Then, in the space of that instant, the Egyptian realised Julius wasn’t going to slow. A Swiss missile was heading his way powered by disdain. The only alternative to being shouldered aside was to lose face.

The Egyptian twirled like a ballerina, or a whirling dervish with only one whirl in him. His remaining students gaped.

Julius Frankenstein gained the door—and an enemy.

Chapter 7: SUN-DRIED PROMOTION

Versailles had been beautiful once; superlative even: a crowning glory of European culture. But now the minds that made it that way were gone, replaced by men of a different mettle (and metal). Now functionality ruled and all the gloss and glory were scuffed. Any repairs or additions were inspired by the ‘it’ll do’ school of thought. Sheaves of muskets were stacked in gilt-drenched salons and the libraries were unloved and muffled by dust. Even the famed formal gardens walk now housed the NCOs’ latrines, hijacking its handy irrigation system.

In short, Versailles had been brought bang up to date and rough-married to modernity…

But there were still enclaves (or last stands) of the old grandeur, kept pristine for special purposes. Julius Frankenstein met a Minister of State in one and had a poison pen letter read to him…

Julius yawned. The man sitting opposite him reading the letter aloud looked up.

‘I should stop, monsieur?’ he asked, surprised. ‘You do not wish to hear the rest?’

Frankenstein finished patting the inadvertent gape. It cheered him to be courtly, even—or especially—in the face of mortal peril.

‘I am indifferent, sir,’ he said. ‘Do whichever is more agreeable to you. One was not listening in any case…’

There was something about this clammy bureaucrat that nagged at Julius. They’d not met before—he would have remembered that—but maybe his pale face had appeared in a news-sheet or the like. If so, identification remained illusive. Not that he was in any rush to strengthen their acquaintance.

Which was a pity from Julius’ point of view. Had he been less sickened by current affairs and paid more attention to their reporting, he might have recognised Joseph Fouché, the Convention’s Minister of Police. He might further have speculated why such a notable was representing the Emperor or talking to mere him—and thus had a feast of food for thought. As it was he was merely wary.

Minister Fouché nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I had gained the impression of being ignored…’

Though he put emphasis in his voice it failed for being carried in such a sibilant whisper. Nothing would ever be gleaned from analysis of it.

Nevertheless, Julius recalled his obligations, even to such a repellent individual.

‘I apologise if I appear impolite, sir,’ he said. ‘I am not usually so arrogant seeming.’

The man adjusted his rimless glasses. Julius had speedily come to dislike those too. When the light hit them in a certain way it made their owner appear eyeless.

‘‘No?’ queried Fouché. ‘But surely, monsieur, your family heritage might justify a certain dignity, even pride…?’

Frankenstein preferred that the man remained still, for every move sent invisible waves of spiritual affliction his way. From the moment they’d met he’d felt himself to be in the presence of something terribly wrong. He’d raised Lazarans with healthier looking skin.

‘No,’ replied Julius, so firmly as to cut off that conversational road.

‘Then kindly explain your demeanour.’

Julius pointed at the letter.

‘Because,’ he said, ‘your man knows nothing.’

Fouché put on a show of being taken aback by such excessive candour, but Frankenstein believed not a single thing about him.

‘No?’ It was a request for confirmation rather than doubt.

‘No,’ Julius obliged. He was being very negative today—and keeping things clipped lest the unclean presence seize on something. ‘Nothing—or next to nothing.’

From a pocket of his shabby fawn frock-coat Fouché extracted a lady-like notepad. It was shod in gold and had a holster for a matching pencil to one side. The Minister made a ritual, perhaps even a sacrament, of opening at a pristine page and then twisting the writing stick till exactly the right amount of lead emerged.

Fouché licked the tip with a tongue that darted snake-like from between thin grey lips. Then he paused, poised.

‘ “Nothing”, Monsieur Frankenstein? Or next to nothing? Which is it? We require precision.’

There was not the slightest overt menace there—usually the default stance of much of the French apparatus. The bureaucrat seemed merely anxious to be enlightened.

Julius was not deceived. This particular cold-fish in human form was new to him, but the type was not. The man had consumed all his tedious debriefings, the sterile interrogations about Revivalism and the Compiegne and Heathrow establishments’ advances (or lack of them) which had gone before. He’d dined on the end product of that sausage-machine process and still deemed it worthy of a second helping. In short: a bore.

‘Let us settle on “next to nothing”,’ said Frankenstein. ‘By accident the Egyptian has stumbled upon a slight refinement of secondary processes. He does not understand the how or why. Hence all the vehemence of his attempts to hang on to favour.’

Notes were being made—more than the bare words warranted. People always find that perturbing and Frankenstein was moved to make conversation.

‘Where did you find him?’ he asked. ‘A medicine wagon at a country fayre?’

Fouché’s pen failed to falter. Nor did he look up.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It was in Egypt. He came recommended. And expensive. We took references. Be aware we are not that easily deceived, monsieur.’ It was a shot across the bow.

‘I see…’

‘Ah, but do you, monsieur? That is the question. Do you see? And speaking of you, I go on to ask: do you know nothing? Or next to nothing? Or maybe something?’

‘The last,’ Julius replied.

‘Really?’

‘I believe so.’

The Minister still only had eyes for his notepad. Julius suspected it was the primary arena of his thoughts, the bank vault in which he stored his true life.

‘Do tell…,’ said Fouché.

Again, it was a cordial invitation from one reasonable man to another, rather than a command.

Should Julius imitate a man divulging all? When ‘all’ didn’t really merit the effort?

‘The Egyptian infuses serum into strips of mummy,’ he said. ‘Which is a singularly absorbent… meat. The resultant admix is made concentrate by sun drying. C’est tout!’

The bureaucrat was intrigued, Julius could tell. Although his pen hand remained steady his nostrils had dilated. Plus, his pinched face was now even more so. The hair-line had drawn back too. Myriad involuntary reflexes betrayed even this most opaque of men, revealing ‘tells’ to those in the know. Doctors make good card-players.

‘C’est tout?’ echoed Fouché.

‘C’est tout.’ Julius batted it back

‘The process need not be performed here?’

‘No. Anywhere there is sun will do. Iceland would be worse but southern France better. You see the principle. African sunlight might be the best, being that much fiercer, but I suspect the Egyptian prefers his Versailles life to hot work by the Nile…’

If he concurred with that slander Fouché gave no sign of it.

‘And you could do this?’ he asked.

‘I—or anyone,’ answered Julius. ‘Indeed, I could even improve the process employing lens to focus the sun’s rays. Or something similar…’

With a wave of one hand Frankenstein dismissed the problem as a minor, merely technical, matter. Nothing beyond a morning’s work and few hours of Swiss expertise. His nation’s reputation for mastery of intricate devices such as timepieces preceded him and paved the way.

Frankenstein perceived his companion was a quick learner, and bold besides. Though appearances suggested otherwise, he dared to dash headlong into worlds not his own. In short, Julius concluded, he was that rarity: a buccaneer amongst bureaucrats. Also, probably way more important than he looked. Not that that was difficult: he looked like a provincial child-molester.

‘And the mummy component, monsieur?’ asked Fouché.

‘Of no intrinsic value: mere superstition: utility by association. Granted, mummies were people preserved for an afterlife, but not of the active, Lazaran, variety we are concerned with here. The two things, superficially akin, are in truth entirely unconnected. Beef steak would do just as well, if sufficiently sun-dried. As would scrag-end or giblets. I’d recommend any of the cheaper cuts if cost is a consideration…’

More notes were dashed down, in a positive frenzy of pencil work now. Again, Fouché spoke without looking up.

‘I regret to inform you, monsieur, that it is. Ordinarily, matters vital to the Emperor are not bound by sordid budgetary fetters.’

Julius mentally sat up. ‘Emperor.’ It was instructive that he called him that. Servants of the Convention shouldn’t.

‘If his Majesty wished to dine on nothing but black swan,’ Fouché continued, compounding his crimes, ‘then he could and would. However, permit me to confide to you the quite shocking cost of procuring a regular supply of mummies. Not to mention ensuring their genuine antiquity. Rogue merchants descend upon our need like flies to a turd. There have been attempts to foist upon us pseudo mummies of quite recent vintage. Murder victims apparently, sourced from the Orient where life is cheap, and then subjected to crash-mummification via chemical baths. Or so one would-be fraudster told us…’

The Minister finally raised his face and locked looks with Julius. ‘Under torture, naturally…’

Frankenstein wouldn’t oblige him with the sought for reaction, or indeed any give-away.

‘Naturally,’ he agreed.

‘So,’ Fouché went on, head bowed again, ‘to acquire the requisite supply the Egyptian demands we have had to go to extreme lengths and expense. Which, of course, we are happy to do for our beloved Emperor.’

‘And country,’ prompted Julius, feeling playful now that he found his point well received.

‘Just so,’ confirmed Fouché, unfazed. ‘However, the Revolutionary government, though generous in many respects, is not possessed of infinite resources. Securing a steady stream of millennia old mummies has caused us to—what is it the English say?—feel the pinch. Which is an apt choice of phrase because it is those same English who have made it so expensive…’

It is not the done thing in polite company, and certainly not in the presence of patriots, to dwell on a country’s misfortunes and defeats—and never less so than in the case of the French. Yet it was he who’d broached the subject and almost invited comment.

‘Ah, yes,’ said Julius—but considerately, as if dredging up an obscure memory of no great weight in the first place, ‘Lord Nelson, the Battle of the Nile…’

‘The very same, monsieur. Leading to the stranding of our expeditionary force in Egypt and their eventual defeat.’

Despite himself, Julius was doubled impressed by this functionary. He’d never yet heard a Frenchman baldly admit defeat before. ‘Betrayal’ certainly, ‘fate’ quite often, but never the dreaded ‘D’ word. Here was a man specially trained to face cold hard facts. Or possibly someone already so cold as to be immune to them.

‘Since which time,’ said Fouché, ‘the English naval blockade, latterly under the revived Neo-Nelson, has closed the sea-lanes to us to the point of strangulation. Our supply of original Egyptian relics ran out long ago and you cannot conceive the pains required to procure ancient cadavers and safely ferry them here. Nor will I impart these details to you…’

The Minister’s gaze had risen again. Just like those implied secret ships it carried an important cargo: the message that it not forgotten Julius was a foreigner, with divergent loyalties.

‘Suffice to say, our country could support several divisions for the same cost. Twice as many if composed of New-citizens. Or perhaps raise another fleet to contest that intolerable English command of the Seas…’

‘After Trafalgar?’ queried Julius, greatly daring.

‘After Trafalgar,’ Fouché confirmed. ‘Even after Yarmouth Harbour…’

Mere mention of that more recent and still worse debacle, which Julius had politely omitted, suggested they were on new and uniquely candid territory. Then Fouché proved it.

‘Though perhaps you are right. Maybe the seas are forbidden us whilst England has so much as a row-boat left. And Lord Nelson is proof against a sniper’s bullet now. But there is more than one way to skin a cat—or flay a nation. In any case, you follow my argument: we have diverted vast resources to the Egyptian’s demands. Diverted elsewhere they might have succoured several campaigns. Now, if what you say is true it may be of inestimable value—and I use the term advisedly—to our cause.’

‘Which is what?’ asked Julius, opportunistic as any fake mummy dealer.

‘Which is confidential,’ replied Fouché, sealing off that promising avenue. ‘Although you may safely consider it to be no petty project. On the contrary, it is a cause of some importance…’

Frankenstein shrugged. Every human’s parochial little agenda seemed important to them. In the majority it swelled to fill their entire panorama till they could see nothing else.

‘Which, by sad extension,’ Fouché concluded, ‘makes you important to us.’ He snapped his notebook shut. ‘Congratulations.’

Even Fouché’s standard tones suggested that a heart of stone lurked beneath his stone-coloured coat. Now he emphasised the point. And despite that being absolutely no surprise, Frankenstein’s stomach squirmed. It was the first time that had happened in some while. Did it mean he was reacquiring an attachment to life? If so, should he be pleased or berate himself?

Therefore it was no mere curiosity that made him enquire:

‘‘Congratulations’? On what?’

Minister Fouché did not smile. Julius didn’t know it, but people said he never had or would.

‘On your promotion.’

‘Oh, I see…,’ said Julius.

‘And survival,’ added the Minister. ‘Probably…’

The culture at Versailles was such that two enemies could not co-exist, least of all in close proximity or competition. Anything else was an insult to its survival of the fittest ethos.

Hence the vehemence of the Egyptian’s letter and its furious drafting mere minutes after the fracas between him and Frankenstein. A relative innocent in such matters, Julius had not taken counter-measures, and only his incisive intellect during the interview with Minister Fouché saved him.

Now, freshly appointed as new ‘Director of Research’ at the palace, Frankenstein had his appointment confirmed by witnessing the previous occupant’s departure. He was roused from bed and ordered to attend.

It was dawn and the rising sun glinted both on the guillotine’s blade and the Egyptian’s bulging eyes. Purely because of the unearthly hour and for no vindictive reason, Frankenstein was unable to suppress a yawn. The Egyptian, trussed up like a turkey ready for the blade, saw.

In his last use of his head before it was detached, the Egyptian called Julius Frankenstein something that made even the hardened executioner wince.

Chapter 8: SWORD OF DAMOCLES (2)

After that little display Frankenstein hardly needed further proof of the presiding regime’s ruthlessness. Nevertheless, new and compelling evidence arrived the very next morning. That and the lesson to be very careful in your choice of words in further interviews with whoever the Bureaucrat was.

Whilst scouring his new offices clear of all traces of the Egyptian’s presence Julius was informed a delivery had arrived requiring his personal attention.

It proved to be a wagon, under escort by Old Guard and also under tarpaulin. Straightaway, Frankenstein feared the worst. A cull of innocent peasants perhaps, plucked from the fields for him to start a new program of mummy-free research? Or maybe a selection of battlefield or guillotine fresh cadavers, hand-picked to be of fit-for-an-Emperor quality?

Julius cautiously sniffed over the draped tarpaulin. The fall of the material and lack of stench suggested happier alternatives.

Some of the Guardsmen smiled wickedly, wrinkling their moustaches in cruel amusement. They knew but weren’t saying.

‘You could at least look pleased, monsieur,’ said the most senior or shameless. ‘We sweated blood to get these for you!’

They were watching and waiting. There was nothing else for it but to plunge in.

Frankenstein lifted a corner of the tarpaulin—and recoiled.

‘How… how could you?’ he spluttered.

That was, he realised even at the time, a weak and womanish thing to say. It would do the rounds of Old Guard drinking holes for years hence. Oh, how they would laugh!

For the space it took to say it, Julius didn’t care. The cart did contain corpses after all, of a sort. But not the kind he was hardened to. Not the usual abused Divine handiwork, torn into components ready for the attentions of Dr. Frankenstein.

And yet that same Dr. Frankenstein, who’d worked on the very worst that robbed graves could offer with unchanged expression and undiminished appetite, could now hardly bring himself to look.

At the same time it was sickeningly brought home to him how far he’d come, how far he’d sunk, and the barbarians he’d sold his talents to. Here and now, spread before his appalled gaze, were the fruits of all those concessions and compromises.

Julius now recalled with great force the Bureaucrat noting his suggestion about how lenses would speed the sun-drying process. Accordingly, an order must have been framed and soldiers sent out. Merely a footling detail in the daily round of Government.

But also a most memorable day, surely, for the observatories that were ransacked as a result. All the signs indicated little patience and still less compunction. Where mountings had been too troublesome to detach, they’d simply been wrenched off, or hacked away by sword.

After all, it was only the lenses that were required. What did blade marks on the telescopes matter when their insides had to come out anyway?

Frankenstein chilled himself considering the streamlined logic of it. He declined to look too closely lest he see astronomers’ blood on their kidnapped babies, or severed hands still gripping tightly.

There must be several whole observatories worth here—major ones too, judging by the scale of the instruments. One casual causal word from Dr Frankenstein and all astronomical endeavour in a broad swathe round Paris had ceased. Yet another of his family’s glorious contributions to science!

Julius’ thoughts had raced far in a short time; a wobbly tightrope walk over an abyss. Meanwhile, back in the material world, the soldiers were still chuckling at his expense.

‘How “could” we?’ mimicked their spokesman, a man with a rift valley of a scar down his brow, ending in the obliteration of an eye. ‘How could we? Well, its pretty simply, ain’t it lads? ‘Specially when you’ve got a decent sized axe!’

It was like a bucket of cold water in the face to Julius, a necessary corrective. Quite inadvertently, while only intending to being cruel they had been kind.

Julius realised that he was the odd one out, the one individual out of step in the parade of life, not them. Outwardly at least he must confirm his pace with theirs.

He reached into the cart and heaved out a murdered telescope. He peered down the tube that would see the stars no more. The lens lurking inside must be eight centimetres breadth or more—the pride of some observatory or wealthy amateur. Then he cradled it in his arms and beamed.

‘Perfect!’ he said, praising the vandals.

‘You like it?’ queried their scarred spokesman, a mite saddened that the fun seemed over.

‘I love it. I wish you’d got more. Now take the lot to the workshops and have them strip the glass out…’

It was a mark of his success that Frankenstein got to meet the man he termed ‘the Bureaucrat’ again. His first impressions were confirmed by subsequent discreet enquiries. This gentleman only arrived from the outside world in circumstances of some secrecy and great need, for the ‘alphas and omegas’ of Versailles: the launching and ending of projects and careers—and people too, probably. Julius ought to have been honoured—and to have guessed.

He got part way, in speculating that ‘the Bureaucrat’ was somehow linked to the Conventionary Government. Normally, to observe the constitutional decencies, it kept its distance from Napoleon’s operation, but earlier that day Julius had observed state coaches deliver high-ups for consultations. Maybe his Bureaucrat had been amongst them.

Whatever the case, by the time Julius was summoned the rest were gone, although their presence lingered on in the form of minor changes of scenery. The marble bust of the Emperor had been put to sleep under a drape and, in deference to outside dogmas, Fouché was wearing a work costume of flamboyant tricolour cravat and cummerbund. Or rather he was in the process of removing them in haste. Which was a good idea: on him they looked like bouquets on a flood victim.

As Julius entered he was handing the offending garments to a ‘New-citizen’ dresser and being fitted with less committed substitutes.

Fouché had the knack of making all conversations seem like his first and most important of the day. It was flattering and frightening in equal proportions to be the focus of such total attention. The effect was the same as with Julius’ newly constructed system of ransacked lens, now up on the Palace roof sun-drying serum-soaked strips of meat. Everything was both speeded up and intensified.

Julius had already mentally girded himself for a ‘mauvais demi-heure’ of carefully watched words and potential pitfalls. It was like dining with someone you knew to be homicidal—sometimes. From second to second the question arose, what use would he put his knife to next?

‘How are things proceeding would you say?’ said Fouché, without preamble, sitting down and arranging the few items on his desk into perfection-plus. ‘Well or not well?’

‘Well.’

That got noted in the little golden notepad, like it was either an admission or wisdom worth preserving. Or maybe, once down in written form it could actually be considered as real.

‘Yes,’ said Fouché, after leisurely delay. ‘That is my assessment also. And, more importantly, it is likewise the Emperor’s opinion. He has confided in me. He has noticed a difference. Therefore you will too.’

‘In what way?’

Fouché indicated something above Julius’ head. Julius looked but could see nothing but air and then a baroque ceiling.

‘An extra thread securing the sword of Damocles over you,’ the unsuspected Minister explained. ‘A slight strengthening of its suspension…’

Dear old Damocles again. He’d hovered over Frankenstein so long they were almost pals. Julius recalled Sir Percy Blakeney wielding that weapon at the Heathrow Hecatomb. Clearly, certain types kept it close to hand in their armoury of cliché.

Frankenstein pretended he had not looked for the dangling threat.

‘But not its removal…,’ he said.

Fouché laughed—an involuntary bark—at the very idea. Then, to cover his lapse, he gestured towards the still shrouded bust.

‘Fifi: deal with that…’

The Lazaran-maid was beyond being pleased now, but had duty as an entire substitute. She shambled over and ensured the Emperor’s marble gaze presided over all again.

‘Specifically,’ Fouché continued, his perfect, polished, self again, ‘His Imperial Highness reports additional clarity of thought, particularly in the evening. He attributes this to prior dining on your infusions. Which, incidentally, are so much more palatable than the Egyptian’s delicacies…’

Which may have been either simple stating of fact, or a hint that he knew Frankenstein had nothing more to put on the table. Corn-fed beef tasted better than long dead human: hardly a revelation! Yet that improvement might convince those who wanted to believe it had yet further benefits…

Frankenstein stepped in to derail that particular train.

‘I am pleased that his Highness is pleased,’ he said—but he thought: ‘Imagination? Wishful thinking? Perhaps a sliver of 1% improvement that his serum-thirsty body picks up on and exaggerates? Or relief at no more mummy-meat? Either way it can’t last…’

Whatever else he might be or look like, ‘the Bureaucrat’ was a remarkable man, worth every sous of the fortune they probably paid him. Either he could read minds or, almost as bad, he understood.

‘And I am pleased that you are pleased,’ said Frankenstein’s shark-smooth opponent. ‘However, it cannot last.’

Despite himself, Julius was taken aback. He tried to stem it but it probably showed.

‘It can’t?’

Fouché shook his head.

‘No. You must surely know that his Imperial Excellency expects initial perfection, followed by continuous improvement. It is not reasonable but it is so. That being so, what fresh wonders can you offer us?’

By then Frankenstein had recovered and replaced his social interaction mask.

‘Draw up a list of required miracles,’ he said, ‘and I’ll see what I can do for you.’

It was the right reply—a bold counter-attack in keeping with the martial spirit of the place. It brought him time and an unknowable delay in meeting the Egyptian’s radical redundancy.

‘I will do so,’ said Fouché, and jotted it down as a ‘to do’ item. ‘In the meanwhile, may I inform you that there is an English couple making frantic efforts to trace your good self. Should I encourage or deter them, do you think? On your behalf. Or perhaps I should deal with them…’

At which point Julius gave up pretending he could be this man’s equal or even play in the same league. Better to just ride the tide and see where it washed you up.

He consoled himself with the thought that he was just one individual in an age increasingly hostile to individuals. Whereas the Bureaucrat was an exceptional talent tapped into a huge amoral conspiracy.

‘A Lazaran woman,’ Julius ventured, ‘but of aristocratic manner? Plus a prize fighter?’

‘You describe them perfectly, monsieur. I may steal your admirably concise pen-portraits for my report…’

And he seemed to do just that, writing them down in his little book-world.

Julius searched within for the answer of his heart but found no strong opinions.

‘I’d… rather you didn’t harm them…,’ he said, then realised that was weak. Would it be enough to save? Ada had used and humiliated him, but he didn’t wish her dead (again).

‘Au contraire,’ replied Fouché. ‘At the moment, only our protection is protecting them from harm. We thought they might be your friends. If not, then the Convention can have them. The pair think they are clever and camouflaged, but to those with eyes to see their presence stands out like a whore in a monastery. Or shit on a wedding cake…’

Neither similes made Julius smile. He was sure Lady Lovelace was doing her very best, but in current company that best just wasn’t good enough.

‘Your departure from the Compeigne Mausoleum greatly puzzled the English couple,’ Fouché went on. ‘As it did many others. Indeed, it is a tribute to their modest talents, plus promiscuous bribery, that their curiosity has come closer to satisfaction than all other competing enquiries. By the way, are they friends of yours?’

‘Travelling companions,’ said Julius. ‘Formerly.’

‘But not friends.’

‘No.’

‘Or colleagues?

‘No.’

‘Or agents of British intelligence? Or any other intelligence apparatus?’

‘No and no.’

Each response was recorded. Therefore Julius felt he should add:

‘As far as I know.’

Fouché’s fish-eyes lifted from the page. They held no capacity for fellow-feeling. And as for empathy…

‘That is all any of us can vouchsafe, monsieur Frankenstein. I took it as said. Meanwhile, in the light of what you say, I presume you are content for their nosings to meet a brick wall…’

‘So long as it is a metaphorical one,’ said Julius.

Fouché was almost—but not quite—amused. He teetered on the brink for a second but then recovered. Julius would have liked to have seen that, if only as reassurance that humanity cannot be entirely scoured from a soul.

‘Just so,’ Fouché confirmed for Julius’ comfort. ‘A symbolic wall then. Not one for being shot against. La! What a low opinion of us you have gained! Where on earth do you people get such notions from? The Emperor’s service is a happy one. Everyone in the Palace of Versailles is happy to be here…’

The Minister of Police looked at Julius again, his expression exactly as before.

‘Otherwise,’ he added, ‘one way or another, they have to go.’

The cobweb spun at Loseley house twitched. However, the human spider at its centre was too old and wily to just rush out rejoicing. He knew full well that not everything that got caught in his sticky strands was food to feed on. Bigger bugs had been known to imitate the writhings of victims so as to set a trap within a trap.

Such wisdom derived not just from the wonderful word of metaphor but observations of the actual world. Back in France of the Ancien Regime, as a club-footed and thus reject scion of nobility (from whom nothing was expected, to whom nothing would come), he’d had leisure to sit and watch Nature at work. In the end it proved a better education that his perfect siblings had from their expensive schools. From it he deduced that as Mammams went Nature was an excellent but icy parent, quite unconcerned about her individual offspring’s welfare. There were no kind words or cuddles for failure, and it entirely sufficed if somehow, anyhow, enough survived and the show went on.

The young Talleyrand drew his own conclusions from that, very different from those offered either by the Church or ‘Enlightenment’ philosophes. These same firm convictions had then stayed with him, unmodified, throughout life, to the great benefit of his career (if not his immortal soul).

Germane to the current situation, in the gardens of the family chateau at Perigord, he’d once observed a bird peck upon a web to draw forth its maker, and then gobble up the deluded arachnid. Right to its final moment Talleyrand didn’t doubt the spider believed itself as oh so wise, sitting there awaiting dinner to come to it. Instead, in a second, it was dinner; the vibrations attending its death agony rapidly fading away, leaving its web deserted to fall into decay.

There was a lesson there for those with the mental strength to see.

Thus enlightened, Prince Talleyrand waited until the reverberations thrumming in from his own imaginary web’s widespread strands made recognisable sounds. He delayed still further until repetition converted sounds into music. Then, recognising the tune from past experience, he interpreted. But it was only when those interpretations were confirmed by other means that the Prince felt free to act.

It sounds like a timid and tedious and lengthy process, but was not. It occupied only the time taken up by that day’s first cup of chocolate and perusing that night’s dinner menu proposals. And no one present would have guessed that the Prince was not giving his full attention to either (highly important) activity.

If so, they were deceived. The short interlude of sipping and selecting enabled Talleyrand to summon his secretary and, without hesitation, dictate a crisp, memoirs-worthy, memo that shifted forces the length and breadth of Europe.

All change. His agents were to draw back. Good and faithful (or well paid…) servants though they were, they had been detected. Which didn’t matter till now. But now had become then and there was a new now. What didn’t matter then now did. All very simple, A.B.C. stuff.

Next, because at heart (deep deep down, when he could be, if circumstances permitted and all other things being equal) he was a kind man, Talleyrand composed additional missives to his auxiliary agents; those who worked for him unwittingly. True, he was in no position to guarantee the safety of anyone involved, or even materially effect their fate, but he could at least save them from being prey to anxiety.

Talleyrand held it as one of his few fixed beliefs that an anxious life was a fate worse than death. As a former bishop he was aware that Christ’s most frequent instruction as reported by Scripture did not concern belief or prayer or that ill-defined quality called love, but the simple command: ‘do not be afraid.’

Who was Talleyrand, a mere man of the world, an unworthy (and indeed excommunicated) Christian, to dispute that emphasis?

Accordingly he wrote.

The letter to Lady Lovelace was short and unsigned. In fact, it contained but one word:

‘Bravo!’

Whereas to Frankenstein he was more forthcoming. Four-fold so. Julius got a whole sentence.

Chapter 9: IN PHARAOH’S BOUDOIR

Julius received and read it by candlelight.

Just before, he’d been surveying a moonlit segment of Versailles revealed through a cobwebbed window. First, baroque masonry and statuary, then a maze, riotous fountains (albeit dry), formal gardens (plus NCOs’ latrine), and an orangery. Still beautiful, though raddled or raped, their original aims remained latent, just waiting to dispense joy, even though water, blooms and fruit be gone.

But what noble thoughts and/or lively ladies had he courted in any of them? What attitudes or garters had he adjusted there? Answer: none.

There was the excuse of being confined, but excuse was what it was. Julius had never tried to truant in those gardens because he lacked will and skill for the thoughts and garters things. Like a metaphor for the rest of creation, the Palace of Versailles lay spread for his delectation, available as a whore in bed, but also unvisited as the Moon which lit it.

Instead, Frankenstein spent his spare time with the dead. Mixing with his own sort, some wits said: getting in some practise for the imminent real thing.

He was in the ‘Pharaoh’s Bedroom’: actually an obscure lumber room renamed in jest when it became home to the sarcophagi required by the Egyptian (RIP) and his mumbo-jumbo. There they now resided, gathering dust, a long way from their contents’ intended resting place, whilst someone (presumably) decided what on earth to do with them.

It was a problem. There was no wish to advertise possession of the stuff, and putting mummies out with the rubbish was fairly certain to excite comment, even amongst the wine-fuddled sorts who worked the refuse carts. One mooted option was a Viking-style mass funeral pyre and barbeque, which would at least be entertaining.

More sober minds suggested discreet reburial, one by one, night after night, in local churchyards. There was, they pointed out, ample space in those since the Revivalists got access to them…

Alternatively, it could just be left for the next owners of Versailles to discover and worry about. What, someone reasonably asked, were a few more decades or even centuries of limbo to those who occupied the boxes? The bandaged former royalty didn’t eat or excrete, they didn’t wander about and they never complained. Which made them perfect guests by the standards of the Palace. Why stir them and everything else up unnecessarily?

To date that question hadn’t had good answer. Since there was lot else going on, it probably never would. Future archaeologists might find half of the Valley of the Kings in the ruins of Versailles and draw all sorts of wrong conclusions.

Meanwhile, Frankenstein had taken to keeping the mummies company when he wanted to think clearly. The jumbled contents of the room helped him to acquire perspective about his own petty troubles. Long ago, these presumably important people had strutted and fretted their hour upon the stage, and afterwards careful provision had been made, and great expense incurred, to get them safe to Heaven. Then circumstances changed and someone else’s agenda had led them here, first to being sliced up like salami, and then when that bright notion was ditched, to abandonment in careless disorder. In the stock market of life (or afterlife) they’d plunged from precious commodities to the junk-shares nobody trusted. And it showed.

The jars and sarcophagi had been stacked higgledy-piggledy by, Julius surmised, servants with no respect for them and even less liking for the task. Lids were askew and partially unwrapped limbs protruded. It was like being in a field hospital’s failures zone after a battle, save for the smell. Rather than the reek of fresh death, here was the scent of ancient dust and long centuries patiently waiting in the dark for… what?

Appropriately enough, it was ‘waiting’ that Julius had come here to ponder on. How long would he have to wait before he was found out again? The Heathrow Hecatomb had been comparatively slow; the Compeigne Mausoleum less so. All the indications were that the Emperor’s establishment was an super-streamlined place. When the breakthroughs failed to arrive on a daily basis he would be asked why—and soon. And in no uncertain manner.

That being so, how long did he have? And what should he do in the interval? There was his ‘collection’ (of which more anon) to preoccupy him, but that was nearly complete. What else could he profitably do? Grow a stylish beard perhaps? Would there be time? And when his head rolled into the guillotine’s basket did he want it to be wearing a beard in any case?

Answer came there none to either big or banal questions. Which was perhaps why, since he was feeling so low in spirits, Fate stepped in to suggest a solution: just so he would keep going and still provide it with amusement.

Someone slid a letter under the door.

Julius heard the rustle of paper and looked up in time to see the missive finish its horizontal journey. Unhurried footsteps receded down the corridor beyond the door.

Unless he’d been followed—and wary Julius didn’t think he had—no one knew he was here. No one else came to this place at all: the lower echelons thought it haunted and the ambitious shunned the remnants of an out of favour project. Either his habits had been the subject of close study (Why? By who?) or someone was writing letters to mummies.

Frankenstein had an opinion on which was more likely. He launched himself from his repose against the sarcophagus of a Ptolemaic high priest.

His repose-to-launch speed wasn’t fast enough. By the time he’d flung the door open the messenger had rounded the corner and was gone. The only other person visible was the girl who collected the chamber-pots—and she was a simpleton.

‘You girl!’

She’d had her back to him. The lumpy child jumped and spilled liquid from her burdened tray onto the carpet.

‘Who was just here?’ said Julius. ‘Did you see them?’

The girl had just enough courage to face the frightening man but insufficient to answer him. She chewed on her lip. The tray wobbled ominously.

As a doctor Frankenstein had previous experience of these ‘innocents.’ Her oriental eyes were wide and when he looked within there were all the indicators. So, definitely not her…

Also, he hated to distress her—and there was the carpet to think about too.

‘It doesn’t matter, my dear. Carry on.’

He retired back into the lumber room and shut the door.

If she weren’t so self-controlled, the chamber-pot girl-would have smirked.

Frankenstein had high hopes. Whoever it was had gone to great effort. It should be good.

He cracked the thin sliver of a seal, unfolded the luxurious paper, and read. It didn’t take long.

Julius flipped the letter to check he was reading the right side, but the choice was still between the two words of his name and, overleaf, two more words comprising a message. Sort of.

‘Probe deeper.’

it said. And then, doubling the word count.

‘PS: (and higher)’

As a suggestion for what to do with the balance of his life it lacked detail. It was also light of a signature, compounding what Frankenstein saw as borderline bad manners.

Repaying it in kind, Julius rolled his correspondence into a cylinder and stuffed it into a crack in the coffin of Seti Nefihotep, a twentieth dynasty middle-ranking scribe. Not that the identification was known to Frankenstein, but it just seemed a suitable repository. Nothing so dramatic had happened in that container for over three thousand years.

Inadvertently, the useless, enigmatic, letter helped Julius come to a decision. This dead Egyptian, who must have had his own troubles in his day, would be his role model in accepting whatever transpired with quiet dignity. Every man came to the same place in due course anyway.

Frankenstein left the inhabitants of the lumber room to their peaceful slumber and strode out into the sunlight and days to come.

Chapter 10: LUST-CRAZED NURSES

For all his boldness in certain fields, Julius’s ‘days to come’ might still have been wasted in wool-gathering till the much-mentioned sword poised above his head dropped. Although a man who might rob a bank (for a third-party!) on impulse, or shoot a officer of the law likewise, he was relaxed to a fault when it came to his own interests. There are penalties as well as comforts in a profound belief in Fate.

‘Know Thyself’ said the Ancients; a precept they considered the summit of wisdom. Well, Julius knew himself all right. With his little collecting project (of which more later) almost ‘done and dusted’ there was insufficient to sedate the sleeping beast of his brain. If should it awake, famished, and find no meat nearby, it might start to feed on itself again, as at Heathrow. Frankenstein couldn’t face that. Not great chunks of his personality self-digesting. There was need of alternative focus.

Like the letter he’d received, for instance. That might do. He deliberately let it prey on his mind. The almost insulting brevity, as much as its anonymity, helped. Like Chinese water torture, the drip drip drip repetition of its minimalist message came to demand even more attention than a fulsome screed might. Finally, its repetitious whispered suggestion started to sound like good advice. Then a day of pretend-resisting that gave it the weight of a command. The nest step up from there was crusade…

Which was precisely the intention of its wickedly clever creator.

Seti Nefihotep’s stoic example was forgotten. Though still the hapless victim of ever changing moods, though still a devout disciple of Destiny, it became obvious to Frankenstein that his only alternative was standing still, awaiting the inevitable—and precious little good that had done him so far. Fate operated to its own timetable, which wasn’t always ideal for those who tried to travel by it. You couldn’t rely on a Lady Lovelace or Old Guard kidnapping detail to arrive when you wanted one…

Therefore…

‘Probe higher,’ the letter said—and so Julius did.

As a man who often perused the Holy Koran (looking for loopholes), the Egyptian (dec’d) might have enlightened Frankenstein from day one.

‘There are signs for those who look…’

is a frequent refrain: with the emphasis on the volitionary ‘would.’

It transpired that the advice of both letter and Holy book was sound. When Julius at long last looked he saw. And once he saw he investigated.

Whereupon one thing led to another, like links in a chain: a stout chain either leading him on—or dragging him in. What he found then chimed with all the other little things he’d noticed but not noted until now: images stored away in the ‘something wrong with this picture’ section of Julius’ brain. Like, for instance, the successive servings at luncheon, the excess chefs and crockery for the visible number of staff, the extraneous servant bells: all things he’s put down, insofar as he thought of them at all, to the French failing of obsessing about food. Belatedly, they now elbowed their way to the front of the picture and shouted ‘Hey you! Look here! Significant!’

It started in this way. Being a man with escape on his mind, Julius was prone to register doors, and in a palace the size of Versailles there was no shortage of them, of every kind, to collect. Julius specifically spotted those in frequent use and soon got to see what lay behind them, if only in glimpses.

Others, the more intriguing, seemed under-unemployed and remained mysteries to him, to greater or lesser degree. ‘Lesser’ applied to those plainly leading to the little kingdoms of Versailles’ servile staff: the refuges where they stored their mops and buckets and hid from onerous duties. ‘Greater’ referred to those barriers as grand as the rest but which stayed strangely shut. Julius put a mental mark against those and, one by one, when no one was looking, tried them out.

That meant discreetly kissing a large number of frogs in hope of finding a prince. Most had good reason for disuse: such as mothballed ballrooms and banqueting halls awaiting a monarch who danced or ate in company. Either that or the doors led the long way to somewhere and so were shunned by Palace staff with a world to conquer and always moving at maximum speed.

But there was one in particular that had Julius intrigued. He never observed it in use but detected the carpet before it was worn. Therefore, that one he saved up till last, reserving it for when his confidence in the mystery letter’s instruction was as threadbare as that square of carpet.

Thus it was only later on in his new nosiness, when momentarily alone in the corridor, that he grasped the nettle. He also grasped the door handle and swung it open.

‘Bingo!’—the English would say.

A sentinel stood right behind. Behind that member of the Old Guard stairs ascended into the heights. Up those stairs there was a fleeting glimpse of structure and the movement of many limbs.

The Guardsman had been meditating, or whatever it was career elite-soldiers do when in standby mode. He stood startled. Things likewise stood in the balance.

Frankenstein had prepared for every eventuality. Before the man had time to prise his shoulder off the wall Julius had said ‘sorry,’ complemented by an innocent and apologetic look. Before any opportunity for the challenge ‘who goes there? Julius had shut the door and was gone.

Less than a second had elapsed. A short enough span for a sentry who’d fallen down on the job to convince himself the lapse might not matter—or maybe hadn’t happened at all…

Shoulder-blades only slightly clenched, Julius continued down the corridor as fast as a casual pace could take him.

As he walked he listened out for the sound of the door opening, but peace reigned for two, then three, then four whole seconds—after which it would never come. The feared bullet or bayonet failed to arrive and prove that clenching is a useless reflex against express-delivery metal. Both Julius and his new knowledge survived.

Two turns of corner later he’d gained the cover of other people. Soon after that he’d slotted himself back into his timetable and was exactly where a trustworthy Palace employee with full buy-in to the Imperial project should be right then. Thereafter he was invulnerable unless the Guardsman wanted to make an issue of his own lapse and implicate himself. Which was unlikely, if Julius’ upbringing amongst soldiers was anything to go by.

Which in turn meant Frankenstein was free to consider the implications of his discovery. An apparently disused door with a sentinel behind it? The very height of discretion and serpentine thoughts! The thinker of those thoughts did not wish that door known about.

Being an obliging fellow, Frankenstein forgot all about it for a while.

That ‘while’ equalled about a day. During that time it was still just about possible the Guardsman might have a change of heart. Whilst light lasted Julius made sure he stayed near a high-up means of exit—from Versailles and life. Likewise, for the whole of the night that followed he dozed fully dressed in an armchair, booted and ready for the hammering on his door which meant he had been informed upon. That way he could hurl himself to a mercifully swift doom and at least die with dignity. Otherwise, he didn’t doubt that the Emperor’s curiosity about his curiosity would be persistent and painful.

Yet the next morning came, as it tends to, and Frankenstein found himself still alive, albeit unrefreshed. Time to resume work.

Blowing up that slightly ragged feeling into full-blown illness, Frankenstein swung lead. He asked for and secured the day off. No one seemed suspicious: on the contrary, the man who Julius in his slowness still called ‘the Bureaucrat’ feigned humanity and sent a servant with tonics and a message asking if there was anything else he could do.

There was. Julius requested some bottles of the finest vintage in the Palace cellars. Hardly a standard cold cure but he was Swiss and therefore strange, and he was amongst Frenchmen with a predisposition to smile on any request concerning wine. Therefore no one turned a hair, the bottles arrived and Frankenstein set to work.

It was a proven technique for emergencies: not swift, granted, but as sure as anything could be in this uncertain world. Julius made himself comfortable and methodically constructed a trap for his perverse mind.

To start with, that comprised assuming a relaxed position, lolling on a chaise-longue and preparing for a long wait if need be. Plus sip sip sipping at the fine wine to lull the brain’s tricky tendencies. An unlikely, languid looking, sort of trap therefore, but none the less effective for that.

To bait it required one indispensable component: a delectable thought. If Julius was sufficiently inventive and the thought delectable enough, he could have sat on a spike and imbibed neat caffeine and yet still the trap would have worked. Assistance of the upholstery and alcohol kind simply streamlined matters.

First Frankenstein recalled what little he’d seen through the curiously guarded door. Which equalled less than a second’s worth of visual information—and most of that involving a moustachioed man’s surprised face. Oh, and some stairs. Of the wider scene and detail he had next-to-nothing, or so he thought. However, the eye takes in more than the mind recalls—without prompting. Julius let the recollection hover in his forebrain for a moment and then dismissed it as if of no importance. ‘I’m not interested in that!’ he misinformed his consciousness.

The trap was set. Now to show a red rag to a bull.

Frankenstein daydreamed as he drank and soon enough, less than a bottle in, he hit upon a delectable thought.

It isn’t necessary to intrude on his privacy further than to say it involved the nursing staff of the first hospital he studied at, when the juvenile Julius was awash with hormones and the female of the species was a novelty to him. Since early impressions run deep he remembered their faces and forms as though it were yesterday. One thing led to another and then… the delectable thought was with him! Somewhat shop-worn through over-use but still good.

What if, he wondered, both at the time and periodically since, what if some strange erotic affliction should descend on all the nurses simultaneously? Perhaps some spell cast on them by Pan or Bacchus—although explanation was hardly important. It was the consequences… What sights would be seen that day if they suddenly beheld the world—and, yes, yes, yes, each other—through the red mist of utterly uncontrollable lust? Oh baby…!

A notion to conjure with! A feast of food for thought, an image to treasure—and myriad other metaphors that needn’t delay him. More importantly, the delectable thought sauntered into Julius’ imagination, rudely shouldering aside everything else, and took up sole occupation.

It is a comment on the likelihood of lasting happiness in this life that Frankenstein’s brain objected. Like one half of a sour marriage, a wife hearing her husband laugh at a party and demanding they leave early, it felt threatened by the other partner’s pleasure. It intervened in no uncertain manner—as he had hoped it would.

And so…

The thing he’d first thought of—and cunningly rejected in favour of reverie—now came hurtling back like a steam train. It ‘chanced’ to be the first bit of ammunition that Julius’ brain had to hand. A perfect image of the scene behind the secret door rocketed into his mind’s eye, evicting all the naughty nurses.

Frankenstein swooped. He seized the scene, he devoured its detail before his mind could realise it had been tricked. He looked around, above and behind the startled Old Guardsman and he memorised what he’d seen but not noticed at the time.

Too late, Frankenstein’s brain perceived it had been had. It tried to withdraw the additional detail that should have been buried in unconscious memory—but Julius had his claws in it. A pathetic offer of having the nurses back, in slow motion plus close-ups, failed to detach him.

Julius sat up. He set down his glass.

So, that’s how it was!

The stairs went up, that much he recalled before, but the extra detail of the worn stair carpet was revealing. The place was much frequented. And the movement he’d semi-seen, that resolved itself into people—of a sort. The Guardsman remained the only living thing behind the door but he had company in the form of Lazarans. A host of them in gaudy imperial uniform, corralled behind the bars of a treadmill working the cage of a lift mechanism. So, heavy burdens went up and down to wherever the stairs led. Or else the route was taken by VIPs too VI to ascend like mere mortals.

There was more. There was also something wrong with the kidnapped image. It wasn’t in the viewing of it but some other aspect: a dog that didn’t bark…

Frankenstein shut his outer eyes and in his mind’s equivalent reached for the wrongness. That mind was sullen and uncooperative now, but as a bare minimum stayed still for its owner to frisk it.

Soon he understood. The picture was almost a silent one! Aside from the Guardsman’s gasp and his own ‘sorry’ there was no other soundtrack. But there should have been…

Lazarans lamented constantly; perhaps without knowing they did it. It was a feature of all but the best of the breed. Early on in people’s acquaintance with the Revived it could drive warm-bloods mad, until they managed to tune it out. Some folk never could manage that trick and vainly tried to whip the habit out of their Lazaran property, or else gave up ownership in despair. A common comparison was to the noise of a barking dog: one that never tired and could mimic mankind. It wore you down…

This lot didn’t do it. They were mute. Their mouths lolled open, as per standard, but nothing emerged save their tongues. Or not even that…

Frankenstein still had the picture vivid before him. He zoomed in and found explanation.

Those tongues were clipped—savagely so. And the throats he saw bore the marks of rough surgery. Someone had felt the need to silence these living lift-mechanisms; had gone to the great trouble of extracting tongues and voice-boxes. Frankenstein even spotted signs of total trachea-blocks: which meant they wouldn’t be able to ‘eat’ and wouldn’t last long.

Which meant… which meant their owners were not only cruel but desired utmost discretion in the duties they assigned to them.

Which in turn meant Frankenstein had stumbled onto something important—no, extra important—in an already supremely important place. What went on in Versailles was always secret to the world outside. Embarrassed by what he was and their need for him, the Convention kept Napoleon’s role as understated as they could. But this, this was a secret within a secret: Versailles’ own private secret that maybe even the Convention didn’t know about. Goodness knows where it might lead!

Inspired partly by the letter he had received—but mostly by his strong streak of madness—Frankenstein resolved to find out where.

Chapter 11: WHAT THE BUTLER SAW

‘I see him! I see him! I think…’

Foxglove went through the motions of believing her. So far during their surveillance of Versailles Lady Lovelace averaged a dozen sightings of Dr Frankenstein per day—and every one a false alarm. It was instructive that her confidence in each announcement never diminished. That in-bred belief that the world would do what she wanted it to explained why Ada was ruling class and Foxglove served her.

But such subversive thoughts were far from the loyal retainer, probably no more than one percent of his conscious faculties. The balance obliged him to oblige her.

‘Really, milady?’

‘Really! I think it is him! He’s in the low adjunct wing with few windows—just where you’d expect a covert laboratory…’

‘May I, milady?’

Though reluctant to lose sight of her quarry lest he vanish like some will o’ the wisp, Ada indicated Foxglove ‘may.’ He gently disengaged the telescope from her eye.

‘Hurry, don’t miss him!’ she said. ‘The third slit window along. He is side on to it, discoursing to some unseen party…’

Foxglove focused and then sighed.

‘Well, up to a point, milady. Although I recall Herr Frankenstein as a younger man, and taller, and slimmer. And if it is him then the sparse white hair is a fresh development. Perhaps some terrible experience at Versailles has transformed the man. And aged him. And shrunk him…’

Used to only hearing ‘yes’ or even ‘yes, three bags full,’ Lady Lovelace knew when she was being humoured to the point of insolence.

‘Give me that!’

She seized back the scope and looked again. The extra information provided by Foxglove enabled her brain to make better sense of the fuzzy shape at the window. It was as he’d said. Unless Frankenstein had been cut off at the ankles, force-fed like a foi-gras goose and then traumatised, she’d mistaken some fat little gnome of a man for him.

‘Well, perhaps not then…,’ Ada conceded. She’d admit that single mistake but not the greater fact that her eyesight had been impaired through excessive reading by candlelight.

‘Just so, madam.’ Foxglove resumed his repose beneath the tree. ‘But I don’t doubt your persistence will triumph in due course. Eventually…’

Suddenly, Ada couldn’t share that optimism or blind faith in her indomitable will. She raised the telescope again but neither heart or eye was in it.

‘He’s in there somewhere…,’ she said, mostly to herself, but Foxglove accepted delivery too.

‘Presumably, milady. So our best enquiries would suggest. If still alive…’

Ada flashed him one of her looks. He’d touched upon a possibility not to be countenanced. Frankenstein must be alive because she wanted it so, and she wanted it so because only he could lead to real serum: royal serum. And only that enhanced stuff, fit for Emperors, could give her back the sentience she desired above everything.

Longing for her old level of living burned like lust inside her. It stirred her up, it fired her dead veins till she felt like her heart pumped at pre-mortem rates again. But that was only a temporary fix: she had to have this all the time, always…

Frankenstein was the key—but a rusty key that refused to turn smoothly for her, even when she’d not mislaid it like now.

A fleeting extra surge of fire within, part fear, part frustration, inspired Ada to action. What profit had there been from all this subtlety; all this lurking in the undergrowth of Palace grounds, all the bribing of low grade Palace flunkies for snippets? False leads, dashed hopes, sore eyes, soiled clothes and empty purses, that’s what. She should never has listened to Foxglove who’d proposed such a policy. Or leastways, he’d not argued strongly enough against it…

Now that she reflected, Lady Lovelace saw clearer than she ever would down a telescope. That ‘key’ must be found, even if it meant turning the world upside down. Then it must be made to turn in the lock, even if it meant applying force. The way must be cleared!

Must: a good and vigorous word. What was she doing? Must had no place hiding in the hedgerows!

Ada snapped the telescope shut. Foxglove, who had the gift of prophecy as far as she was concerned, started to scramble to his feet and prepare a protest.

‘He’s in there somewhere,’ Ada repeated. ‘And therefore so must we be.…’

‘Therefore,’ said a fresh voice, who’d used the telescope’s closing click to mask the cocking of his pistol, ‘perhaps you’ll permit me to escort you in, madame…’

His English was good for a Frenchman, his position of advantage even better. Lady Lovelace found a gun lightly resting against her brow before she could move a muscle. Foxglove ditto, courtesy of the new arrival’s friends who now emerged from the greenery.

It was a tribute to their collective skills that so many could surround so few without the few knowing. How long, Ada wondered, had they been there, listening and watching them watch? Not that it mattered much now…

When all else is lost, poise can still remain: a fig-leaf of self-respect. Careful to move slowly and without the slightest threat, Ada curtsied her thanks for the offer.

‘I should be delighted, monsieur.’

The levity ended there. That one exchange had probably spent the soldier’s annual supply. His moustache bristled.

‘That mood will soon pass, spy bitch,’ he said.

‘You disappoint me,’ said Fouché. ‘Please don’t disappoint me.’

He hadn’t the stomach for the interrogation room and had swiftly withdrawn, handkerchief clapped to his nose against its accumulated perfume of sweat and fear. Yet, out of sight of the gory details, he nevertheless was ravenous for its end-products, like a devotee of sausage suppressing abattoir thoughts.

However, it wasn’t meat Fouché hungered for, but information—a substance he was addicted to. Mentally, he was salivating freely.

‘It is a simple question, Herr Frankenstein,’ said Fouché. ‘Are they the former travelling companions you previously referred to? Yes or no?’

‘Yes,’ said Julius, distracted. Over time, the superficially cultured life of Versailles had lulled him into forgetfulness: forgetfulness of the Egyptian’s fate and the shocking telescopes incident. Now the sudden stripping off of the silk glove to reveal the fist beneath disarmed him.

‘Pardon, monsieur?’ said Fouché. ‘You speak too softly.’

True enough. Julius’s voice was a whisper and easily drowned out by the screams from behind the door.

‘I said yes. It’s them.’

Fouché noted that in his golden book. Frankenstein wanted to ram it so far down the man’s throat that it erupted out the other end.

‘How relieved I am to hear you say that. A Lazaran lady and her thug? One such menagerie in the vicinity was remarkable enough. If you had proposed that there were two it would quite stretch my faith in you…’

In his present vulnerable state innocent words could explode in Julius’ face with extra meaning. Just a door’s breadth away, Foxglove was presently ‘stretched’ out for real, and being worked upon by experts. Their tools and ingenuity had stripped away all English reserve and speech was flowing free as his blood.

In Ada’s unfeeling flesh the torturers could get no purchase, nor transmit any messages along her dead nerves; but their imagination knew of other ways. Instead they made her watch, eyelids clamped open, in order to torment that most sensitive of human organs: the brain. It proved just as effective. She pretended to be hard but soon enough her testimony was matching Foxglove’s in eloquence.

Ada had noticed Julius come in and they exchanged glances. She might well have drawn the wrong conclusions, for whereas she was strapped to a board, skirts raised and hair deliberately messed to strip her of all dignity, he was merely under escort. To the uninstructed eye, Minister Fouché’s company did not look much like compulsion. Frankenstein started to explain but she spat at him like a cat. Which said it all. Fouché made his hasty departure and drew Julius with him.

Now, second by second, the Minister was recovering what little colour he ever had and all his oyster-style self-sufficiency. Soon he was his polished-marble self again.

‘So,’ he said, ‘may I take it that you were unaware of their intrusion?’

‘You may,’ answered Julius.

‘And that you have not solicited and encouraged it.’

‘They had no word from me.’

Fouché shook his head in distaste.

‘That is not the question I asked.’

Frankenstein considered his words. At the same time he seized the opportunity to gather his frayed edges, to be as seamless as the Bureaucrat pretended to be.

‘Very well then. I hereby affirm that I’ve had no part whatsoever in their being here…’

‘Then what do they want?’

Frankenstein wanted to shout back ‘can’t you hear the poor devils telling you?’ but did not. It wasn’t that kind of honesty that might keep him still breathing by day’s end. It was this variety:

‘Me,’ he said.

‘Why?’

‘The woman thinks I can work miracles. Or that I know a man who can.’

‘So,’ Fouché mused, ‘she is here under false pretences…’

‘No, she is here for the reason she states. However, she labours under an illusion.’

‘Which is what precisely?’

It hadn’t worked. The mix needed even more honesty: a proportion that could take it to toxic levels.

‘That I can give her life back,’ said Julius. ‘Real, full, life; as it was before. Specifically, her genius…’

The tiny golden pencil hesitated an instant before continuing to move over the notepad—but something was amiss. A second’s focus revealed it. The scratching that signalled marks being made on paper was absent. Frankenstein pondered that lack and then, without moving his face a fraction, exulted.

No matter how shrewd they thought they were, no matter how careful, excitement betrayed all. Excitement, whether it be sexual or status-based or sordid, knew ways round the mental barricades; it bypassed the personas people constructed over long years. Statesmen blew decades of painstaking advancement for five minutes madness with a floozy. Princes of the Church blasted their professed beliefs to bits to get wealth that their faith warned against. Yet in this case there was nothing of flesh or coin about it: ‘the Bureaucrat’ had scented advancement and was instantly intoxicated.

Fouché was pretending to write, for form’s sake, but his mind was off the leash and running.

‘‘Genius’ you say?’ he said, slightly breathless. ‘And was she one?’

‘Some thought so,’ answered Julius. ‘She certainly does. Her faith has led her all this way. To this fate.’

‘And in vain? said Fouché, his voice level after the initial lapse. ‘I mean regarding this ‘miracle’ you mention…’

It was faint but unmistakable, the hint of a ghost of an embryo of almost erotic abandonment; the incautious question blurted out despite a life-time of caution. What a powerful weapon this thing ‘honesty’ was for ripping through the toughest of shields! Especially when now coated with the poison of falsehood…

‘Not necessarily…,’ replied Julius.

‘No?’

‘No. Merely premature…’

The notepad was snapped shut.

‘I see,’ said Fouché—but he didn’t. Then he departed, trying and failing to conceal urgency.

In that short and bloodless battle Frankenstein had won a great victory. He now knew what to do and that he would have revenge for what was going on behind the door even as they spoke. Most importantly, he realised he would after all survive until dawn—which was all the time he needed.

His hand had been forced, as it always needed doing, but now he was steely and implacable. He had his plan and a third party had just set it in motion. Any ‘if’ had been resolved; now it was merely a question of ‘when.’

Julius considered the question. Lunch would be on the table soon and he was rather peckish. So, after lunch?

No. The continuing screams reminded him that now was probably best.

Chapter 12: EAT! AND BE MERRY

‘Eat,’ Julius ordered, and the Lazaran obeyed.

It was a fairly fresh specimen, still bemused by basic training. That and fuzzy memories of being a soldier before (right up to encountering an Austrian bayonet) pre-disposed it to obedience. Even before crossing the Great Divide it had been conditioned into accepting officer-class instructions. Now, after being dragged back, further tuition had broadened that to any ‘warm-blood’ in authority. They were in charge it had been told repeatedly. Lazarans who couldn’t grasp this blissfully simple message were recycled—in public, on the parade-ground, to hammer home the point.

Thus, although the former-and-once-again Frenchman’s days of appreciating food, or indeed feeling hunger at all, were gone never to return, when now told to ‘eat’ he ate. What warm-bloods told you to do could only be for your own good. And to be fair, that was sometimes true.

So, down the package went in one go, minus chewing, to be absorbed just as thoroughly as all the training had been.

Troubled by residual conscience, Frankenstein looked at the creature and muttered ‘sorry.’

But that signified nothing really, to either party. Julius didn’t mean it and was just scratching an itch. The Lazaran didn’t understand and stayed slumped in position, awaiting instructions.

Now the deed was done, Julius knew he must step lively, before the Lazaran started to receive orders from his own body that would overrule Frankenstein’s authority. He’d calculated the digestive trajectory as best a doctor may, but that same medical and Revivalist expertise also told him it was not exact science. If proceedings got underway before all was ready everything would crash in spectacular fashion.

And so:

‘Stand!’

The rest of the squad shambled up from the floor, moaning their continual dirge.

They were a fine batch from Frankenstein’s own factory. Taller, sturdier and more intact than the general run of battlefield-fruit, Julius had revived them to lusty afterlife with the strongest serum to hand.

He inspected his troops—and shook his head.

Even their mothers would be hard put to love them, just as smart uniforms couldn’t gild this particular stinking-Lilly. Their mouths hung open and their eyes showed no animating light. When one moved the rest tended to imitate, even down to the direction of gaze. It gave their movements a disturbing collectivity.

And that perpetual groaning…

Frankenstein took it as personal reproach aimed at him, the man and lineage responsible for all their woes. That it was fair comment only made things worse.

But it also impelled him to act: further on and along his personal road to damnation.

‘Join them,’ he told the recently fed one, and the Lazaran jostled into the middle of the rest. They didn’t even bother to glance at him.

‘Now follow me.’

Time for one last look around his rooms, accompanied by zero regrets. Just another temporary encampment from which he wished to retrieve or remember nothing. Likewise his collecting project (of which more shortly). Before leaving that he made one last addition. Then off Julius set at the head of his circus troupe.

The Versailles community had gotten used to seeing the eminent doctor up to funny business, or leastways at the centre of peculiar scenes. Add to that a purely natural human aversion to Lazaran company, and in present circumstances Julius became almost invisible. Down numerous broad flights of stairs and along interminable gaudy corridors, he led his latest brew of less-than-life without challenge.

Which, on the minus side, left him prey to his own thoughts. The temptation to skip this detour and simply head to his ultimate destination grew stronger with each step. Any interlude—let alone one of the sort envisaged—was squaring, maybe cubing, the already massive risk.

But there’s solace and virtue in keeping going, and just walking is a classic cure for melancholy. By the time they were drawing near, Frankenstein had got a grip. The realisation came to him that when even the basic danger was mad and monstrous then multiplying it didn’t actually make much difference. Whatever he did, the end was probably nigh and there was cold comfort in that.

So thinking, he came to the interrogation suite. There was the usual guard before its outer door. He knew Frankenstein by sight and still more about him by repute. Presumably it was that which caused a curled lip.

‘Yes, monsieur?’

‘There are two trespassers under interview. I was asked to pop in and see how things are progressing.’

He wasn’t just any old guard (or Old Guard) designed to stand there and look menacing. This one was a cut above and authorised to ask questions, even exercise discretion.

‘Why?’

Julius stood his ground.

‘I knew them from outside. I can corroborate their statements.’

He was halfway there, but objections remained. A squad of them to be precise. The guard nodded at Frankenstein’s friends.

‘Why the company? I don’t see how they’ll help much…’

Julius looked back, as if he’d quite forgotten there were Lazarans trailing after him.

‘Oh, they’re for later,’ he said. ‘Duties elsewhere. They can wait here.’

You could see the guard was thinking ‘Oh joy! Their dead eyes all staring at me…’

‘I’ll check,’ he said. ‘Maybe you can take them in with you…’

Maybe, maybe not. The question was never resolved. It transpired they were not required either in or out of the room.

When the Guard cracked the door to enquire there were others more impatient than he. They got in before him. And in him.

A stiletto blade shot from the ajar gap. It penetrated the Guard’s head with an ease suggesting abnormal force. Then, generating sounds Julius vowed to forget lest he lose sleep ever after, the blade’s tip reappeared. Hello again, it might have said, protruding an inch beyond the guard’s busby, and spat blood and matter.

In fastidious reflex action, Frankenstein brushed the offending stuff from his lapel. It left a smear, a memento of the Guard’s billion+ brain cells and the memories they’d contained. Now all gone, alas, just like their former owner.

Then an arm, brawny and blood-flecked, shot out from behind the door. It encompassed the dead Guard’s neck and drew him in, like a bouncer dealing with a drunk.

If he’d been of that vast majority termed sensible, Julius would have been heading backwards at speed. However, the urgency of his mission overruled his feet. That and the fact that the arm seemed familiar.

Limbs are generic, and pretty or plain according to type rather than stand-out. However, tattoos do help people distinguish. Julius was helped to think he’d seen this one before—and in a context that was benign. Or fairly so.

Nevertheless, given what had just occurred, his staying put was an (in)action of high anti-sense—and his next act the category above that (should such exist).

Julius tapped upon the door.

‘Hello? Anyone home?’

There was and they were listening.

‘Is that…? Herr Frankenstein, is that you?’

‘It is, Foxglove, it is. How are you?’

The door was flung open. There stood Foxglove with Lady Lovelace beside him.

‘Can’t complain,’ answered the servant. ‘In the circumstances…’

Whatever the circumstances, he surely did have grounds for complaint. Life had obviously not been kind of late and what wasn’t bruise was caked blood. One eye was swollen closed but the other was clearly pleased to see a friendly face for a change.

‘No?’ said Julius. ‘Well, I’m sure you know best, Foxglove’

‘No he doesn’t,’ butted in Ada. ‘That’s my job.’

Simultaneously, both sides realised there were wider perspectives to take in. Behind Frankenstein’s ‘friendly face’ were a gaggle of dead-white ones. Behind Lady Lovelace and her flunky lay a picture of carnage.

‘How…?’ said Julius.

‘Who…?’ asked Ada.

They cancelled each other out but Julius, being a gentleman, deferred to the lady.

‘They are with me and harmless,’ he explained away his Lazaran company, before adding out of honesty: ‘for the moment. Things are afoot…’

‘Hmmm…,’ assessed Ada, just like her old self.

Julius took stock of the battlefield scene behind Ada’s shoulder. One, two, three, deceased interrogators were visible, slumped as they had fallen. Frankenstein indicated his close study should be taken as a silent question.

‘Neither you nor God seemed minded to intervene,’ said Lady Lovelace, ‘so we had to save ourselves. Poor Foxglove couldn’t hold out much longer.’

‘But how?’ Julius persisted. The last time he’d seen them both were bound.

‘Time hung heavy whilst we scoured France for you,’ Ada said, glancing up and down the corridor to confirm privacy continued. ‘So I had this fitted.’

She lifted her right arm and let her sleeve fall. A sudden upward flick of the wrist caused the previously seen stiletto to shoot out with speed. It quivered to a halt mere inches from Frankenstein’s face.

Julius was doubly impressed. The weapon emanated from under the skin and must be lodged alongside the long bone.

‘One of the precious few advantages to Lazaran lack of feeling,’ Ada explained. ‘Muscles can be arranged to either fire or retract it.’

She admired the now tarnished blade against the light.

‘Pretty much immune to body searches!’ Ada paid tribute to someone’s workmanship. ‘Leastways, the frogs didn’t detect it, so I sawed through my restraints and beckoned a torturer close. Then…-’

‘… He came close,’ interrupted Foxglove, made bold by feeling the fairer sex shouldn’t swap murder-notes. ‘Suffice it to say, Milady dispatched him and came to my aid whereupon I…-’

His turn to be cut off in full flow.

‘Indeed, indeed,’ said Julius, waving aside the doubtless vile tale. ‘My imagination will supply all additional detail. Meanwhile, suffice it for me to say well done: hurrah! Also time runs short: will you join me?’

‘That was our intention,’ snapped Ada, ‘even if only to use this on you…’ Again she raised her armed-arm. Her point made, she then retracted the stiletto into its fleshy holster. Julius heard springs creaking and finally the click of a catch.

Yet Julius was not yet totally absolved. Nor trusted.

‘How come you keep company with Fouché?’ Ada quizzed him, her enhanced limb still poised.

‘Who?’

It took a tense second, but happily Lady Lovelace chose to believe the innocence and ignorance in his eyes. It took her two more seconds to blow ‘the Bureaucrat’s cover. Frankenstein could be left to judge for himself the significance of such a well-oiled weathervane working for Napoleon. There can never be two powers in any land, not for long; nor, as Scripture says ‘in sundry places,’ can one man serve two masters. The Convention’s own Minister for Police was showing in the most practical way possible who he thought would win.

‘So,’ Ada said, ‘it seems you haven’t betrayed us—not consciously at any rate. Perhaps we may walk together once again. For a while.’

Talk of treachery was a bit rich coming from her. Frankenstein could easily have brought up the scene at the aerodrome, for instance. But he was in a forgiving mood—and they were in a corridor in compromising circumstances…

‘Then, madam,’ he said, ‘by all means let us walk—and in haste. I have pressing business and this place will not lay undiscovered forever…’

Ada nodded agreement.

‘‘Tis true—but give me one further moment: there is something I must do…’

Before anyone could argue she rushed back into the room and did it. One of the dead interrogators on the floor got the benefit of Lady Lovelace’s pointed toecap in the face. Repeatedly. She grunted with the effort put into each savage kick. Frankenstein averted his eyes. Foxglove looked pained, as though it was he suffering under the blows.

When Ada returned she was smiling.

‘That one,’ she said, ‘I particularly disliked.’

In reality that was all, but for form’s sake she felt the need to add:

‘And he was very cruel to Foxglove…’

At the ‘secret door’ Frankenstein occupied himself with his Lazaran attendants, fussing and dressing their ranks till an inconvenient brace of servants had gone by. By that time ‘Team Frankenstein’ was augmented by Lady Lovelace and Foxglove, marching concealed in their midst. Ada needed no blending in, but Foxglove’s battered features and hands were whitened with wig powder Julius had brought along for that purpose.

Further forethought emerged from a knapsack one of the Revived soldiers was carrying. Out came a supply of small packets similar to that fed to the Lazaran earlier: though these were less well wrapped. Frankenstein bustled round to ensure each was swallowed as per his system.

‘Eat!’ he commanded, as before, and the slack jaws complied.

Then Frankenstein drew a deep breath, declining to look into the abyss yawning before him—and knocked on the door.

Nothing. Maybe. Or was that just the slightest sound of someone coming to the alert, someone keen that no one else should know of it?

‘Dr Frankenstein here,’ he said to the door. ‘Reporting with a fresh treadmill team. The old one’s for recycling.’

There: he’d spiced it up as much he dared, without overdoing things to the point of suspicion. It had the authority of his name, the prospect of novelty for a bored guard, plus a hint at grim fate for some present. Added together it ought to add up to persuasion.

And it did. The door opened. Behind stood one of the Old Guard; perhaps even the one he’d seen before, because the breed tended to a muchness. The man presented arms but, as scrutiny ticked off all the expected sights, degree by degree the firearm and its threat descended.

‘That’s news to me, monsieur,’ the man said warily.

The worse thing Julius could have done was try to justify himself. In the little-big world of Versailles, indeed in the wider world outside, Frankenstein’s kind was up there and the Guard’s sort down there. The man should regard it as completely normal not to kept informed.

So it proved. Frankenstein didn’t deign to answer but implied by every non-verbal sign the birth of impatience. He moved forward and the crucial moment for resistance passed. Julius and gang passed through the door and mobbed the stairwell.

Suspicion remained however—though that was probably just as natural to the guard as deference.

‘Shouldn’t the new lot be in lift-team uniform?’ he asked. ‘What they’ve got on belongs to shock-brigade grenadiers. Some staff-officers what come through here are picky about that kind of thing…’

The intelligence was flooding in now. So, this route was frequented by those powerful enough to be pedantic.

‘Perhaps so,’ replied Julius, anxious to spin things out. ‘I wasn’t informed. I can always get them to change clothes I suppose…’

The guard was sorry he’d spoke. Only those with very specialist tastes liked watching Lazarans disrobe. Particularly the ‘jigsaw’ jobs…

‘Well…,’ he prevaricated, calculating how long till he was off-duty and out of the frame. Meanwhile, as the man sought for suitable delaying words something else caught his eye. Alertness flared anew.

‘Hang about: one of ‘em’s a woman!’

‘Was a woman,’ corrected Julius, clutching at straws now.

‘Was, is; don’t matter!’

‘Oh, but it does,’ said Julius, ‘because…’

The guardsman waited politely for a while, but when the meat of the sentence failed to arrive…

‘Because?’ he prompted, the start of a growl in his throat.

‘Because…,’ said Frankenstein. ‘Oh, deal with him, Foxglove, will you?’

He certainly would. The Englishman had suffered a lot from the French of late and was gagging to repay in full.

He put the guard down in one, with a rabbit punch from behind. A dishonourable blow perhaps, but powered by powerful emotions. The man tumbled like a factory chimney, unlikely ever to rise, and Julius deftly caught his musket lest it fall and fire.

Speaking of fire, the first primed Lazaran went off at that moment, rendering all this unpleasantness unnecessary. Not before time: indeed rather poor timing. If it had occurred only a few seconds earlier the guard would have had other things to do than ask impertinent questions. He might even have lived (though probably not for much longer, so there was no harm done).

The first-fed Lazaran foamed at the mouth, and then drummed his boots against the floor in a desperate dance. He looked at Frankenstein in mute appeal but that false mother-surrogate had no solace to give. Even if he’d wanted to.

Then the wrapping around the phosphorous must have finally decayed, releasing its load into the Lazaran’s stomach. It presumably fizzed and burnt in places intolerant to such rough treatment, producing pain even the Revived could feel. In his anguish the poor re-tread human went berserk. Dull-eyes bulging he struck out.

His Lazaran comrades were nearest to hand and so it was they who were struck. And right from revival they’d been taught not to turn the other cheek, but be again the warriors they once (mostly) were. So they struck back. An ugly—very ugly—melee developed that Lady Lovelace and Foxglove snuck out of.

Frankenstein handed Foxglove the late guardsman’s musket.

‘Save the shot, use the bayonet,’ he suggested.

By Foxglove’s easy handling of it you could tell the servant was no stranger to weaponry, but reservations remained.

‘On who?’ he queried.

‘Doesn’t matter,’ replied Julius. ‘We just want chaos.’

He proceeded to prove it by raising the bar to the lift-team’s cage and throwing its door wide. They watched him in enforced silence for a few seconds and then shambled towards freedom.

Frankenstein let several through and then shot the next. Smoke from his ‘pepperbox’ clouded the scene and confused the issue.

The scene was not alone in confusion: Lady Lovelace was coolly reserving judgement from the margins, but Foxglove looked perplexed.

Meanwhile, the lift-team—first released and then shot—scaled several stages above mere perplexity. Yet there was remained the bedrock of their training. The warm-bloods did many inexplicable things but orders were still orders…

‘Mill about,’ commanded Frankenstein, as he twisted the chamber of his revolver to bring another cartridge online. ‘Explore this place. Ascend the stairs.’

And, wonderfully obedient in the face of so much stress, many obeyed. Some chose one option, some another. Soon Frankenstein had the anarchy he wanted.

Then he added to it by shooting one of the Lazarans he’d brought with him. And again, and again, till it was dead-again.

‘And you bayonet another,’ he said to Foxglove.

Annoyingly the man looked to Lady Lovelace and only acted when she nodded approval.

A blade doesn’t have the kinetic energy of a bullet, even when backed by a powerful physique, and so it cost Foxglove great effort to finish off his chosen victim and raise cell damage to critical. That and the fact that the creature resisted. Only fancy fencing enabling Foxglove to fend off its claws and avoid (additional) injuries.

There proved just no end to Frankenstein’s demands. As soon as one randomly selected Lazaran was down he pointed out another: the poisoned and berserk unfortunate. Maddened with pain it was currently wrecking the lift-cage, tearing off metal strips from its mechanism.

‘Now drive that one upstairs.’

This time Ada’s seconding wasn’t sought. Foxglove deftly jabbed and warded, step by step directing the thrashing dying-again Lazaran to the staircase.

It batted off the pricking blade, it sought to get to the shepherder behind, but then, driven by even stronger impulses, gave that up as a bad job and sought escape in the direction required.

Escape, of course, it found none, for its problems went with it, but there must have been some easement in pastures new, if only through novelty. A new scene to suffer in; a change as good as a rest. Up the stairs it went, two at a time, till lost to sight.

‘You lot!’ ordered Julius, singling out a batch of Lazarans; those he’d brought with him and those he’d liberated now hopelessly intermixed. He indicated aloft. ‘Up you go too: at the charge!’

The mournful faces consulted in silence and then went as bidden: to do precisely what they neither knew or cared. All that worrying about futurity was one facet of life gladly left in the grave.

From somewhere up the staircase came identifiably human cries. They sounded like warnings, raised an octave by alarm. There followed shots and the sound of dead weight tumbling down towards the listeners.

Of course, by then the general rough and tumble, and especially Frankenstein’s free way with firearms, had already raised the alert. From out in the corridor came the sadly familiar rumble of military boots heading in their direction.

‘Follow my lead,’ Julius said to his regained companions. ‘Understand? And stay close to me or you’ll picked off.’

What choice did they have? The full weight of the Imperial will was heading their way, or so it sounded. Faith in Frankenstein had to either be forced or faked.

Both Ada and Foxglove nodded and drew near.

A second later, the main door didn’t just open but burst off its hinges. Old Guard poured in, brandishing bayonets. Julius was speaking rapidly, taking charge even before the woodwork hit the ground.

‘A Lazaran mutiny!’ he said, in authoritative parade ground French. ‘Quick! Some have gone above!’

The first statement hit the bull’s-eye for obvious reasons—as intended. Bodies on the floor and powder fumes in the air seemed powerful confirmation. But surpassing that even, Frankenstein had tapped into a visceral fear. Undead insurrection was universal nightmare material. Aside from the intrinsic horrors, if established they took whole armies and years to smother. Some French colonial possessions in the Caribbean had never been returned to warm-blood control, and the fate of the colonists there could not be decently envisaged. All this was common knowledge that even foot-soldiers knew.

Frankenstein’s second statement also hit home, but for reasons not so clear. Those in charge of the charge to assist seemed dead against unauthorised access upstairs. Passionately so. Any infringement swept aside misgivings (or even suspicions) they might have about the lift-room scene.

That and Frankenstein’s fast talking of course. There was a split second when scepticism might have ruled and things turned ugly, but it passed. Waving arms plus high anxiety in Julius’ voice did the rest. The soldiers looked to him for guidance—and decided on a leap of faith towards this vaguely familiar face.

Time spent in Ada Lovelace’s company could convert anyone to shameless opportunism. Julius took both advantage and control.

‘Deal with these,’ he said, indicating the Lazarans still with them; making it sound more a proposal than order, lest it offend military propriety. ‘Then follow me to get the rest…’

For once everything fell just right. Specifically, a dead soldier fell from further up, down to the base of the stairs. His face was missing. As signs went, it was convincing corroboration. To garnish the dish more shooting and shouts descended from the same unseen conflict. That and horrible tearing noises: wood and metal and flesh were protesting—and in vain by the sound of it.

Then the balance of the Lazarans Frankenstein had fed came to fruition. Their phosphorous grenades went off inside and, to the outward eye, they behaved just like mad Lazaran mutineers might do.

What more evidence was required? Fiery writing in the sky? Some soldiers piled into the Lazarans and they, under attack within and without, fought back. The crowded room became a twisting, snarling, dogfight that promised duration and high drama. Meanwhile, some Lazarans even fought their way out of the room into the corridor and Palace beyond. Dismay at the development sounded from there, followed by more musketry and war-cries. All in all, Frankenstein and friends were glad to get out of it. They headed for the stairs.

‘These two are with me!’ he said, physically clutching both Ada and Foxglove to him. That got funny looks but no contradiction. Somehow, the act of clasping them close made a shot or stab less likely: if only because it might harm him too.

They gained the stairs and rushed aloft, stepping over the faceless Frenchman and, soon after, a Lazaran peppered by pellets. Another flight after that there appeared a veritable barricade of dead and dying, entwined as they’d fallen; Lazaran and recently-live finally united in the same state.

Unconstrained by need to finish off the not-quite-gone, they started to pull away from Old Guard company. A further flight onwards and the trio were ‘alone’ when they met another clot of ex-combatants. Gingerly, they picked their way over the cooling or already chill barrier.

Even in such circumstances Ada had delusions of control.

‘Why are we going up?’ she snapped. ‘Surely we should get out!’

Julius barely had breath to spare but her command urges needed to be smothered.

‘Believe me, madam, upwards is onwards at present, I assure you!’

With barely a sour pulled face or pause in pace, she accepted and carried on. That Foxglove didn’t hesitate at all must have helped her decision.

His mind was on more practical matters. Foxglove stared at Julius’ revolver with transparent envy. It looked just the thing to protect his mistress with. Whereas all he currently had was a one-shot weapon, albeit tipped with cold steel.

‘May I enquire,’ gasped the servant as he ran, ‘where sir got that from?’

It seemed just too sordid, not to mention boring, to tell the truth and say ‘stolen from the armoury.’

‘From a dead man,’ Julius lied: although it was also sort of true. A low-grade Lazaran caretaker had been on duty there that night, making matters simple: Versailles’ arsenal was both abundant and free with its favours. An offshoot of its brute-force-solves-everything mentality perhaps.

Fortunately, Foxglove was conditioned into quietism. As with his country’s economic arrangements, once inequality was explained to him by a cultured voice he meekly accepted things as they stood. Foxglove made do with his musket.

Judging by the number of dead and dying from both factions littering the stairs there must have been a sizeable contingent up top, able and willing to put up stout resistance. Frankenstein had been right in surmising he would never have got through under his own steam, no matter how golden-tongued and plausible his excuse. Short of using artillery it really had needed nothing less than a Lazaran revolt to clear the way. The minimum conservative effort to achieve his ends—which was quite a thought when you considered it.

But now that way was clear. At the very top of the stairs they found only dead men. At Julius’ insistence, they waited for some Old Guard to catch up (as cover). Then all advanced.

The landing gave on to a guardroom. Those in it worried about nothing any more. Either their heads were off or their bodies full of lethal amounts of metal.

Beyond that there were (formerly) impressive double-doors—formerly because frenzied hands had wrenched them asunder. Now they hung drunkenly ajar; mute explanation of the carpentry sounds heard before.

The party passed through, stepping over strewn bodies and bits of bodies. Julius graciously let the Old Guard go first. It was, after all, possible that more visitors might not be welcome here; particularly after the last lot. A warm—as in fiery—reception might be waiting.

They stepped into peace and sunshine. A roof garden, or leastways an expanse of lawn, stood open to the air, surrounded by high walls. The glare temporarily blinded them until eyes adjusted and clarity returned. Even then the evidence of those eyes was hard to accept.

The fighting on the roof was over. Just a few Lazarans still flopped about in the last stages of phosphorous death.

Aside from that silence reigned. Which was strange considering that they stood before a field full of children. Or near-children.