Frankenstein's Legions (44 page)

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

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

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

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

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

*  *  *

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

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

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

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

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

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

The Pope paused.

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

He fixed Ada with a wise look.

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

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

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

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

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

‘Indeed?’ said His Holiness.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Julius stepped in.

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

‘You are,’ confirmed the Pontiff.

‘Tomorrow...,’ his secretary qualified that.

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

The be-ringed finger pointed out the book lying on Julius’ dresser. The book. Its plain cover little hinted at the sulphurous contents.

‘But we need that!’ protested Ada.

‘And you shall have it,’ the Pope reassured her. ‘But tonight our clerks shall labour to produce copies: many copies. For our own purposes...’

That seemed about all, but the secretary pointedly coughed to indicate otherwise. The Holy Father did not thank him for it. For an instant he looked pained.

‘There is one other thing you brought here,’ he said to them all. ‘We must deprive you of that too.’

He turned to the child in the cot. It was standing up holding onto the rails, naked save for serum flasks, calmly taking everything in.

The Pope took it in his arms, with compassion but firmness. The child lay still, staring straight into his face.

Simon-Dismas accepted that gaze. An old world and a potential new one regarded each other without expression.

‘Will that be returned too, like the book?’ asked Ada. She seemed a lot less committed to this bit of her belongings.

The Pope shook his head.

‘No. He is now our charge—and burden.’

Lady Lovelace smiled brightly.

‘As you wish.’

And out she flounced, without a backward glance, into tomorrow—which was where she lived and belonged.

Chapter 9: HELLO SAILOR!

The Swiss Guard had not left Rome since the days of ‘the fighting Pope,’ Julius II, three centuries before. However, you would never have guessed from the impressive show put on.

Out the Papal army issued from the gates in good order and glorious array, bright blue cross-key banners to the fore. The Swiss formed the core of the formation, in hollow square—with one particular Swiss, plus Ada and Foxglove, as their cosseted charges in its very centre.

Papal dragoons formed the flying buttresses of that mobile fortress, trotting along and reflecting sunlight off their cuirasses and Corinthian helmets. Light infantry, volunteers from every nation, surrounded all in skirmish formation, checking out the world they travelled through. Indeed, so vital was this mission considered that the garrison of Rome was left seriously depleted. If the French task force apparently on its way towards them, punching ruthlessly through friend, foe and neutral state alike, should care to turn aside it might well take the Eternal City at a bargain price.

Should they care to—which was unlikely. Every last scrap of intelligence pointed to unprecedented ‘mission focus.’  The French had taken mad risks and casualties, had adopted the quickest but costliest routes and sucked up crucial garrisons as replacement cannon-fodder en route. Likewise, the Compeigne Mausoleum and probably Versailles too had been co-opted. An unparalleled corps of scientists accompanied the force and fanned out from the army. They ransacked historic cemeteries and holy places hitherto considered sacrosanct as they went, regardless of international outrage, conscripting ‘New citizens’ on the move.

However, such concentration meant attention was diverted from other places. Its master designer distracted, the hitherto faultless tapestry of French success suddenly looked patchy in places. Its many enemies, old and new, such as the punch-drunk Austrian Empire, could hardly believe their luck. They and other lesser players plucked the tempting fruit such recklessness dangled before them. Cities were recaptured, whole provinces were regained and frontiers shifted to their pre-Promethean War patterns.

Similarly, their yoke being lightened, occupied places rose against French rule and drove out their mostly Lazaran garrisons. The Tyrol declared itself free once more and harried its tormentors up into the alpine zones where the air was thin and snow permanent. Few ever came down again; only the Revived living on to haunt the living as black dots against the mountains, half glimpsed through blizzards.

And all because of certain configurations of electrical energy in the minds of three particular people which constituted memories they should not have or spread!

Energy cannot be destroyed, or so scientists were beginning to suspect, but other minds—and one in particular—were powerfully determined to do the next best thing. Those transient patterns of energy in those three heads needed to be transformed, changed in radical ways, and preferably liberated from smashed skulls into the ether before they could replicate themselves in the brains of others.

To that end, every string in the European puppet theatre was pulled, every stop on the Convention’s pipe-organ played. All manner of hitherto unsuspected sleeper agents were mobilised to emerge blinking into the light of open action. Even one or two Princes of the Church; a cardinal here, an archbishop there, saddened His Holiness with counsel about ‘caution’ and ‘periods for reflection...’

And in case treacherous timidity didn’t do the trick, money recruited mercenaries and agents were armed in order to turn a straightforward traverse of the Italian peninsula into a meat-grinding, snarling dog-fight of a journey. Pre-existing banditti were reinforced by ideological supports of ‘Modernity’ and ‘Progress.’  Even the spirit of the ‘Age of Enlightenment’ and ‘Liberty, Equality, and Fraternity’ was exhumed from their graves to roust out a few professors and literati to the cause. Between them they were motivated to either carp at the Papal forces in the press or snipe at them with rifles as they pressed south.

A breadcrumb trail of corpses was left to mark that progress—but not those of the key trio for whom all this effort was expended. Swiss Guardsmen bearing up thick lead shields boxed them in night and day, minimising the danger of death or a suntan. Those shields were dented once or twice but not the bodies behind them.

Yet, Lord knows, it was difficult enough. Like wading through treacle, as Frankenstein put it, with diving boots on. Vital bridges were breached and roads blocked with barricades that had to be expensively stormed. Delaying landslides were provoked and nasty ambushes arranged. Even mundane matters were made difficult and suborned villages sullenly refused supplies even when threatened with excommunication.

So, despite such promptings to speed and the urgency of their aims, progress was desperately slow. No matter how far ahead the Papal scouts pressed, just beyond their vigilance the way was always impeded.

All in all, the French effort was highly impressive. The same single-mindedness brought to bear on the war in general would have ended it years before. Europe might have been Gallic from the Atlantic to the Urals by now.

Yet sheer bloody-minded stubbornness can also get results in the end, though eyes must be averted from the bill. Finally, the square of soldiery came to the southern edge of the Papal States. There awaiting them was Britain’s Royal Navy.

Napoleon said of his first, living, career, that he was thwarted by sea power. ‘Everywhere I went,’ he testified before dying on St Helena, ‘on every puddle they could float a boat on, there I found the British Navy.’

Of course, they had to clean the quote up for publication. The original was replete with ‘
merde
’s and even less decorous words.

Not that he was bitter. When everything was falling about his ears, post-Waterloo, the Emperor had such a high opinion of his nautical foe that he flung himself on their mercy for fear of his former subjects. A British ship had borne Bonaparte away from all the unpleasantness without the slightest thought of hanging him from their yardarm. Unlike him, they believed in fair play.

Nevertheless, the issue still rankled and the point remained that they’d perpetually been the fly—no, the wasp—in his ointment, the disruptive former lover at his wedding feast. One of the few things that could stir anxiety in Napoleon’s otherwise invincible self-confidence were thoughts of British masts looming on the horizon.

Had the Emperor been with Frankenstein and friends in person rather than just in spirit, he would have seen no cause for alarm. Even the ingenuity of the English didn’t extend to moving their squadrons across dry land. There were no men o’ war visible to give a tyrant collywobbles.

Yet he would have feared, indeed might have spewed his serum-dinner, had he known the awful truth. Frankenstein and co. were honoured indeed. Better than mere men o’ war and worth the weight of myriad hundred-gun first-raters, the spirit of the British Navy rather than its ships was there. Neo-Nelson had come to meet them.

Chapter 10: GETTING AHEAD

‘A-hem. Terrible tale,’ said the Admiral periodically as Frankenstein updated him. ‘Terrible!’

What with the close questioning Julius’ tale provoked, the telling took up most of their march to Naples. British seadogs had replaced the travelling Papal square and Frankenstein and Lady Lovelace rode in Nelson’s carriage at its centre, whilst Foxglove enjoyed the open air atop.

He had the best of it. ‘Terrible’ was both Nelson’s reaction to the recounting of their odyssey and also theirs to him. All that time buried in dank St Paul’s meant he reeked of the grave. Not only that but the Admiral was grumpy to the point of sourness. News of other people’s troubles only stirred him to fresh recollection of his own.

‘Talleyrand, eh? Terrible man. A sodomite, so they say. And a Frenchman. The two often go together. Mind you, can’t trust politicians of any breed. Take my case: you’re familiar with my final letter to the British people, the morning of Trafalgar?’

Frankenstein knew Ada was going to say ‘no,’ just for devilment. He covertly scraped her ankle with his heel to prevent it. Neo-Nelson required attentive hero-worship even more than the original.

‘Most certainly, sir,’ he replied for them both. ‘A famous document. You made but one modest request in return for all your services, namely that Lady Hamilton be considered your bequest to the nation and that they should see to her well-being.’