Frankenstein's Legions (42 page)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  ‘Cattle: bring me food!’

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

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

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

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

Again, Lady Lovelace didn’t even look up.

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

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

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

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

‘No, thank you.’

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

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

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

‘Food!’ it instructed. ‘Now!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Madam...?’

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

‘Lady Lovelace!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Instead, he went to collect the fallen slips.

On one were the words:

‘The British Secret Service’

And on the other, simply:

‘?’

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

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

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

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

Frankenstein considered.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘You have...?’ he said.

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

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

‘Congratulations,’ said Julius, deadpan.

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

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

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