The Derring-Do Club and the Empire of the Dead (11 page)

“Of course, even so the male of the household would have had all the advantages.”

“Alas, only sisters.”

“You are fortunate.”

“You’ve not met my sisters.”

“Sisters… I thought your family tree was–”

“The secret chemicals? They sound ever so interesting.”

Doctor Mordant grimaced her smile again and turned to the bench. Lucky escape, Charlotte thought, clearly the Princess’s family was well known by all but herself.

On the bench a multitude of pipes, flasks and condensation chambers bubbled and spat, powered by a gas burner set at a low rate. There were gauges of brass, thermometers and an open book like a ledger full of figures.

“Patching bodies is straightforward anatomy and considerably easier than surgery on the living. There’s no blood being pumped around the arteries and veins. Once you’ve dismantled enough bodies, it’s clear how they work. Which is precisely why those pompous cretins in Edinburgh are so precious about their dissection classes, they didn’t want their secrets to be known. It’s all handshakes and code words, boy’s games. As if there weren’t enough cadavers to go around. Edinburgh’s Kirkyards are full of them, the poor drop like flies simply because the grand men of medicine refuse to listen to the ideas of a mere woman like Nightingale.”

“She saved so many brave men in the Crimea,” Charlotte added.

“Indeed. And this is where we shall save so many more men and women.”

“Will we?”

Charlotte felt quite caught up in the woman’s severe excitement, her enthusiasm and commitment infecting her like tuberculosis as if she had not washed her hands.

Doctor Mordant took Charlotte around the galvanic engines, the distillation apparatus and the mobile surgical trolley. The Doctor explained everything to the young girl, her plans, the ambitions of the Graf and all the secrets. She gloated about how they would change the world.

Charlotte put on her most attentive expression and thought about airships. They were really exciting and if she asked nicely she was sure that the Graf would let her wear the uniform again with its trousers and–

“Are you listening?”

“Yes Miss.”

“He may well have discovered the principle, but I have applied it on an industrial scale.”

“Who?”

“The doctor I told you about.”

Charlotte racked her brains: “Vincent–”

“Victor!”

“Yes, of course, please continue.”

“This may be the veritable Age of Steam, but soon, very soon, will dawn the Galvanic Era. See this spark leaping from contact to contact, this is lightning that burns the very ether itself, harnessed and contained, flickering like a child’s toy. What is iron and steel, what is coal and steam, when put against flesh, the very power of the Creator of the world? We can choose who we bring back and who we let lie in the silence of the grave. We will defeat that awful spectre, Death himself. Science, the application of Apothecary and Galvanism, will unleash our true potential: and I, a mere woman, will show those Neanderthals at the General Council of Medical Education and Registration of the United Kingdom of Great Britain, India and its Colonies.”

There were lines of batteries on the bench in front of them all ready for the clever boxes that Doctor Mordant had carefully explained after she’d talked about the wotnot and the doo–dah.

Doctor Mordant laughed: “Imagine if Burke and Hare had bought one of their finds in, fresh from the grave, and what if Sir Robert Knox himself had seen it risen before him in the anatomy room. That’s only fifty years ago.”

Charlotte sniggered too, trying to imagine the look on Sir Robert Whatever’s face.

“These Austro–Hungarians have had this science for ninety years – nearly a century – and none of them could apply the principle in practice. They had all the equipment: the galvanisers, batteries and his chemicals, and the man’s notes, for heaven’s sake.”

“Oh yes,” Charlotte agreed.

“Admittedly his handwriting was appalling, but what do you expect from a male doctor.”

Charlotte remembered something that Miss Hardcastle had once told her: “Good handwriting is so important.”

“There will be a war, a war to end all wars, and once the old ways are swept away, those here want this new order to be ruled by the Austro–Hungarian Empire, the so called Kingdoms and Lands Represented in the Imperial Council and the Lands of the Holy Hungarian Crown of Saint Stephen. These men love their titles and uniforms.”

Charlotte rather liked the uniforms, so she said nothing.

“But it will be the dawning of science, reason and common sense. In the future people will be rewarded for their merit.”

“I agree.”

“You know nothing of merit,” Doctor Mordant replied, “you were born with a crown ready for your pretty little head.”

“Which I would gladly give up to be measured according to my merits, my proper merits,” Charlotte insisted. “I’m always being told what is proper and right, what to do, or more often to do nothing, when I should be striving to make my mark upon the world.”

“I wish, Your Royal Highness, that you had been my daughter, but instead the Almighty blessed me with a wastrel son. The words of dead poets mean nothing: all spirits are enslaved that serve things evil. Oh, pleasant enough, but the witterings of a vegetarian. Now, the thoughts of great scientists, their equations and formulae, are what will change the world. Steam pressure, lift ratios or, to use my own research as the example, galvanic voltages, currents, anatomy, enzymatic properties and so forth.”

Doctor Mordant looked to Charlotte for a comment. Hadn’t Doctor Mordant said something about the future, Charlotte thought, so she said, “It is the future.”

“Yes, why should the Fabians, the Speculative Society and the Elect pretend – Chronological Committee indeed – when we can create the future in the present?” Doctor Mordant rewarded her with another unpleasant smile: “It is good that you, from such an aristocratic background, can see the sense in what I say.”

“It’s self–evident,” Charlotte said.

“Indeed. And society will be ordered along rational lines with three pillars – education, medicine and eugenics, and we will see the human animal rise in mind, body and blood.”

Charlotte raised her hands in front of her: “I should applaud,” she announced, clapping a few times.

“Women will lead the way.”

“I have seen examples myself already,” she said thinking of the control she’d had over the airship.

“Enzymes leaven the decaying flesh and reverse the tide of corruption until the spark of life, galvanism that leaps from the storm to strike the ground resurrects the body: life is not a soul, it’s not divine, it’s not the breath of a quaint deity; but rather, it is a process, a complex and understandable mechanism that replicates itself: life recreating life, life feeding off old life, and new life being created from the raw materials.”

Doctor Mordant’s own face crawled with a seeming life of its own as the flickering light of the galvanic engine sparked, a thread of energetic corona jumping up the apparatus burning its glow onto the back of Charlotte’s eyes just as the scientist’s own vision branded itself onto the young girl’s mind.

The air between them buzzed with vitality.

Chapter VI

Miss Deering-Dolittle

There was someone in her room.

“Excuse me!” Earnestine said.

“Fräulein,” came a voice, “I am sorry.”

A hand pulled her bedding away while the other grabbed at her, holding her down. Earnestine fought back. Lying on her back meant she had all four limbs at her disposal against her assailant’s arms. She kicked. The man stumbled back, falling.

“The Prince is too good for you.”

It was Metzger!

“But you are not too good for me,” he said as he pushed her back onto the bed.

“Excuse me.”

“I know that you want it,” Metzger growled, “your sort always do.”

Earnestine pushed him away and kicked, her bare foot going between his legs and having a quite unexpected result. Metzger doubled up, coughing, but when he looked up, his rage was murderous. He shoved Earnestine back again, grabbed her hair and yanked back her head. He pushed his mouth towards her, closer, remorselessly, his breath playing across her tightly closed lips. Wriggle as she might, she was trapped, unable to grip anything, the sheets constraining her, everything she did creating a burning pain where her hair tugged. There was a fireside set nearby: a brush, dustpan, tongs and a poker. If she could just reach… she tried, her stretched finger nearly… but it was no use.

“Achtung!”

Earnestine was mortified to see Prince Pieter standing in the doorway. Irrationally, she didn’t feel relief at her rescue but rather shame at being found in this compromising fashion.

Metzger jumped back, yanking a handful of hair out of Earnestine’s scalp.

“Metzger!”

“Sire, she… tried to seduce me.”

“I blo– bal– jolly well did not.”

Prince Pieter looked at the two of them with revulsion. Carefully, slowly, deliberately, he took out his glove and cast it upon the ground. Metzger stared at the finely stitched grey leather with disbelief.

Pieter shouted loudly.

Metzger didn’t move, couldn’t move.

Finally, Pieter picked the glove up, thrust it into Metzger’s hand and used the man’s own hand to strike himself across the cheek. Metzger let out a strangled cry as if he had been the one struck.

They left, and by the time Earnestine had made herself decent, put on her boots and grabbed a few things, there was an angry gathering downstairs in the hallway. The Innkeeper complained in loud tones until Prince Pieter hollered at him. A soldier ran up with a long fancy case and Pieter opened it to reveal a pair of matched sabres.

The Prince grabbed one and Metzger, when offered the case, took the other out of its felt depression.

Soldiers parted as Kroll came striding up to the Prince: “Warum?”

“English!”

“Why?”

The Prince pointed at Metzger: “Der Hund versuchte, das Mädchen zu entehren!”

“Is this true?” Kroll said, turning to Earnestine as the Prince stripped off his jacket and started exercising his right shoulder.

“I don’t speak German,” Earnestine said.

“He said that Herr Metzger tried to dishonour you.”

“He tried.”

Kroll was aghast, his eyes wide with a moment of disbelief: “Metzger?”

“Yes.”

“Outside!” Pieter commanded.

“We should wait until dawn,” Kroll announced.

“It’s dawn now.”

“Not yet.”

“Fetch lanterns then.”

It was cold outside and dark, the Innkeeper himself came out with three great lanterns and handed one to each of the opponents. The Prince and Metzger held them by their hooks so that they swung about. The light, though weak, caused great shadows to leap and loom.

Kroll was shouting in German. Despite not knowing the language, Earnestine knew he was demanding to know what was going on: why, why? Or pleading for common sense, perhaps.

Everyone gathered in a wide circle, a distorted oval, on the rough ground outside. The two men circled until neither had the advantage of the gentle slope.

“Erstes blut?” Metzger asked.

“Death!”

Pieter and Metzger squared off about three yards apart, came to attention and flicked their swords in front of their faces.

“En garde,” Pieter said.

He attacked.

Metzger parried.

“Fight me!” Pieter commanded, striking his subordinate with his lantern. Metzger’s face was bloodied, a dark shadow on his right side that did not change when the lanterns moved.

The two men went at it again, steel striking steel with their lanterns acting as makeshift shields. Again and again they moved forward or were beaten back. The wall of people shifted aside too as the struggle moved downhill. The crowd followed, forming around them again.

Earnestine’s hands tensed into fists and she realised she was holding something in her right hand. It was the poker from the bedroom fireside set. She didn’t remember picking it up, let alone carrying it downstairs and outside. It was like a sword.

Prince Pieter bled from a cut across his face now.

This made no sense.

She must stop it.

Earnestine stepped forward bringing the poker up, but a hand caught her arm.

“You have done enough, Fräulein,” Kroll said.

The two fighters came together, their sabres clashed, the sharp edges scraping down together until their hilts locked. Both struck with their lanterns causing a sudden shower of sparks. The Prince’s was torn from his hand and fell; Metzger’s went out and the man turned his face from the light to look at it. Pieter jabbed forward and the point of his sword punctured the other man’s jacket up to the hilt. Pieter twisted and pulled his sword out.

Metzger dropped to his knees, spat blood and began to topple forward.

Pieter leapt to his aid, flinging his sword aside: “Metzger!”

The Prince caught his falling comrade and cradled him in his arms: “Why, why?” and then “Get a Doctor! Holen sie einen Arzt!”

“I saw the way you looked at her,” Metzger coughed: “Such risk, I could not allow. You’ve never been one for the camp followers, you would have given her your heart.”

“Metzger… you fool.”

“She’s a commoner…” Metzger swallowed hard, blood was filling his mouth making it difficult for him to speak.

“Metzger… Where is that Doctor!?”

“Promise me…”

But the man was dead. Prince Pieter’s face was speckled with scarlet splatter; his uniform stained, but despite the cut across his face most of the blood had been Metzger’s.

When everyone had left, when they’d carried the body into the inn with the Prince holding his friend’s cold hand, and she was alone, Earnestine could taste ash in her mouth. Both lanterns were out now having cast the last of their sparks into the air. She dropped the poker into the dust and pushed it with her toe. It was light now, dawn, and the men were getting the horses ready, saddling some, attaching others to the coaches and all the activity was churning up the blood stained earth.