Tales of the Shadowmen 3: Danse Macabre

by Jean-Marc Lofficier

  The door of the cell was made of wood, without any cast-iron reinforcements, and the inspection hole set at head-height had a wooden shutter rather than a wrought-iron grille. There was no flap at the bottom through which trays of food could be passed without the necessity of unlocking the door. It was, in consequence, more reminiscent of a monk’s cell than a dungeon–but the door was locked, presumably by means of an external bar. Temple estimated that it would only be the work of ten or twelve minutes to break it down–but he could not do that without making a good deal of noise.

  It was easy enough to push the shutter back and look out, but the corridor beyond was unlit.

  “Hello!” he shouted. “Is anyone there?”

  His ears–which were still keen, despite his age and his failure to hear John Devil enter his bedroom in London–caught the sound of movement from what he guessed to be a cell next to his own, but no one replied.

  “Hello!” he called again. “My name is Gregory Temple. My daughter Suzanne is the wife of Richard Thompson, and the mother of another Richard, who was returned to his home last night.”

  There was no evident reply from the next cell, but his raised voice had attracted attention from elsewhere. The radiance of a flickering candle-flame, approaching from some distance away, shed some little light on the wall opposite his cell, which was grey stone, as solid as the opposite wall of his cell. The reflections brightened as the candle came nearer, until the flame was held up so close to the hole in the door that he could not see through it, at first, to the man who was holding it. Eventually, though, it was moved aside, deliberately displaying the carrier.

  The man’s face was invisible, completely hidden by a ornate mask carefully molded in the form of a death’s-head. There must have been real eyes within what appeared to be empty sockets, but they were not visible; they must have been obscured by something resembling smoked glass–although it must have been very difficult for the masked man to see by feeble candlelight with his eyes screened in that fashion.

  “You have slept for a long time, Monsieur,” said a voice he did not recognize, in French. “You must have been in dire need of it. You owe us a debt for your healing, as well our generosity in granting your request.”

  “My request has not been granted,” Temple replied, in the same language. “I have not seen the children yet.” It occurred to him then that he had called out before in English–a language in which neither the three-year-old Marquis de Belcamp, nor the three-year-old Count Boehm, could be expected to regard as their first. Even the four-year-old Richard Thompson probably spoke French far more often than English, although he must be fluent enough in both languages.

  “That is easily remedied,” the masked man said. “But you must swear an oath that you will be peaceful and obedient. This is a convent, after all.”

  “Is it?” Temple countered. “To judge by the cold and the quality of the air, we are underground. Are we in a crypt, then? Or are we in the catacombs beneath Paris, where the bones of past generations are stored for want of burial-grounds?”

  “The Council will be glad to find you in an inquisitive mood,” the masked man said. “I do need your solemn oath, sworn on the name of almighty God, that you will obey the instructions given to you, and that you will do no violence to anyone while you are here.”

  “I swear by almighty God,” Temple said, speaking in English so that he would not fall victim to any careless or inept expression, “that I will do no violence to anyone while I am here unless I am compelled to defend myself or the children you have stolen. I similarly swear that I will obey the instructions I am given to the best of my ability, so long as they are not in conflict with previous oaths I have sworn and the duties that I fulfill as a servant of His Majesty King George of England.”

  The masked man laughed. “We have nothing against King George, at present,” he said, continuing to speak in the tongue with which he was more comfortable, although he seemed to understand English well enough. “We have not been in sharp conflict with an English King since the 16th century–but more than one of England’s recent enemies has been our adversary.”

  “Times change rapidly nowadays,” Temple reported. “Yesterday’s enemy of England may be today’s ally. May I see the children now?”

  “You may.” Temple heard the sound of the bar being withdrawn, and then had to step back as the door opened inwards. The masked man stood aside, and bowed slightly as he let his prisoner out.

  Temple immediately went along the corridor to the next cell, and removed the bar blocking its door. He pushed the door carefully, in case the children were huddled behind it listening–but they were both sitting on the bed, huddled close for mutual comfort but without either one placing his arm around the other’s shoulder. They seemed very small, although Temple did not know what height a three-year-old boy might be expected to attain. They were very similar in stature and in appearance, although one had dark hair and one was blond.

  “Am I in the presence of the Marquis de Belcamp and Count Boehm?” Temple asked, speaking slowly, in French. “I am here on behalf of your mothers, who asked me to make sure that you are well.”

  The blond boy relied first, saying “I am Armand de Belcamp, monsieur.”

  “I am Friedrich Boehm,” the other said, also in French. He added: “Have you come to take us home?”

  “Now that I have met your captors,” Temple said, “I am convinced that they mean you no harm, in spite of their attempts to seem fearful. They seem to think themselves a cut above the ordinary run of bandits, and will doubtless treat you politely in consequence. You must stay here for a little longer, but I will talk to them, and will try to work out a means of getting you both safely home.” He was not certain that boys so small could follow the logic of this overly florid speech–which was intended as much for his captor’s ears as for theirs–but the blond boy nodded, and said: “Thank you, sir,” in English.

  Temple reached out a hesitant hand to touch Armand de Belcamp on the top of the head, and the young Marquis reached up to grip his wrist, almost as if he were the one doing the reassuring rather than the one being reassured.

  “You’re brave boys,” Temple said. “Your fathers would be proud of you.”

  Friedrich Boehm’s dark eyes–his mother’s eyes–welled with tears then, but the little boy hastened to wipe them way. He had obviously been old enough to be conscious of what was happening while his father died. Armand de Belcamp released Temple’s wrist and put his arm round his friend. There was no reflection here of the tension that had sprung up between their mothers.

  Temple stepped back, and allowed the masked man to secure the door. “Very well,” Temple said, in French, when the task was complete. “Let us proceed to my audience with the Comtes de Saint-Germain and Cagliostro. I am eager to hear what your brotherhood of alchemists and magicians has to say to me.”

  “You are a fortunate man, Monsieur Temple,” the other replied. “It has been 40 years and more since such a council as the one which will interrogate you has been summoned. I hope that you are sensible of the privilege. The world has changed a great deal in the interim–but that is nothing compared with the changes that the next 40 years will bring, if we cannot contain this demon electricity.”

  “A demon, is it?” Temple retorted. “Your friend Balsamo spoke of it quite affectionately. I do hope that he was not misrepresenting his ideas in the hope of teasing some indiscretion from me–that would not be a gentlemanly way to behave.”

  “After you, Monsieur Secret Policeman,” the masked man said, in English, pointing the way that his prisoner should go.

  Temple was as obedient as he had promised to be. He judged by the condition of the corridors along which they walked that they were most certainly underground, and that they were not about to return to the surface. The chamber to which he was taken was a rounded cavern some 30 paces in diameter whose ceiling was a vault of grey rock. The walls were lined with a series of elaborately carved wooden c
ompartments, many of which were equipped with benches and some with writing-desks, while the humblest had the kind of half-seats that were called misericordia by the Romanists–mercy seats, to which the weak might go to the wall for support when the long masses of Medieval times became too burdensome. Temple, not much to his surprise, was shown to an individual chair placed in the center of the near-circle, at the focus of everyone’s attention.

  Less than half the seats were occupied when he was ushered in, but that was because the council had not yet gathered in full. While he sat patiently in the center, a dozen more came in one by one, making 31 in all. Every one of them was wearing a black monk’s habit and a carefully-made death’s-head mask. Had they raised their hoods and taken up scythes, they could have passed for Death himself, multiplied 30 times over–as Death must surely be nowadays, in order to cope with the incessant demands of the present population of Christendom.

  Temple waited until he was spoken to, observing as much as he could his self-appointed judges–which was, for the most part, their hands. It was difficult to be sure, but he suspected that at least five of the 31 were women. There was not a single pair of hands in the entire ominous circle that was as gnarled and wrinkled as his own–but he was reluctant to take that as good evidence that no one else here was as old as he was. Indeed, he had begun to suspect the opposite. If the scene was reminiscent of the Inquisition of the 17th century, he thought, that was probably not entirely by coincidence, nor the result of the careful mimicry of some ancient woodcut.

  Eventually, his examination began. The acoustics of the chamber were odd, making it difficult to determine exactly which death’s-head was speaking. Without the sight of moving lips to prompt him, he could only determine the approximate direction from which each voice came.

  “Thank you for the oaths that you have given, Mr. Temple,” said a voice which might have been that of Giuseppe Balsamo, in English. “We have taken due note of their exactitude, and we are as acutely aware as you are that some of our questions will touch on information that you must have learned in your capacity as a policeman. I repeat, however, that we are not enemies of England, and have nothing against you personally.”

  “As to whether you are enemies of England or not, I cannot judge as yet,” Temple replied, “but there is certainly a matter of personal enmity between us. You have kidnapped my grandson, and two other children who are his closest friends, and have offered them for ransom. That is a despicable criminal act, and no amount of mummery will dignify it. If I can do so, I shall deliver you all to the judgment of the law–but first, I must see the children safe, and it is for that reason that I am here. Let us discuss the terms for the ransom of the two remaining boys.”

  “The matter is not so simple, as you well know,” another voice said, also in English, but more heavily accented. “The most important issue of personal enmity at stake here is that between you and the man who once styled himself the Comte de Belcamp.”

  “That is irrelevant,” Temple said, flatly. “I am here as the representative of the widowed Comtesse Jeanne de Belcamp.”

  “But she is not a widow,” another voice put in. “Let us not waste time with pretense. You were expecting the Comte to join you on the coach from Calais. He did not. Where is he now?”

  “I have no idea,” Temple said. “I can only suppose that he is making his own arrangements, probably in Paris, to hunt you down.”

  “He has no army to bring to bear,” said a voice from the left, again speaking English, seemingly not as a native tongue. “He has no claim on the Deliverance now, and could not muster them if he had.” There seemed to be no president or appointed spokesman in the circle, but neither was there any apparent contest as to who should speak next, nor any obvious system determining the pattern according to which they took turns.

  “I had not seen the man for more than four years, until three days ago or thereabouts,” Temple said. “I know nothing of his resources.”

  “You know his work.”

  “Do I? I have been presented with a bizarre patchwork of evidence and rumor, but I know nothing for sure. He claims to know how to restore the dead to life–but from what I’ve seen, it’s a futile pursuit even if the claim is true. Nor is he the only one who knows the secret. If, as it’s claimed, the method is a matter of science and not of magic, it will be common knowledge soon enough. Even if that were not the case, kidnapping his son in the hope of making him surrender it is a foolish as well as a vile thing to do. If, as rumor has it, you represent yourselves as alchemists and magicians, you are doubtless long practiced in deceit, but I would have thought you capable of greater wisdom. Since you obviously cannot make gold, but must steal it like any other bandit troop, why can we not discuss that business, instead of wasting time with idle fancies.”

  “You have not sworn an oath to tell the truth, Mr. Temple,” said yet another voice, “but it will save us all time if you do. The longer you seek to delay us with your policeman’s tricks, the longer it will be before those two children are returned to their anxious mothers. As a matter of fact, we can make gold–but the process is expensive as well as troublesome. Magic is not wish-fulfillment, Mr. Temple, but labor as hard as any other. Nothing is free–especially the ability to live longer than the normal human span. The resurrection of the dead cannot be expected to be different; it will doubtless be a difficult and tiresome business, requiring hard-won skills and carefully-stored wisdom.”

  “So it seems,” Temple agreed, softly. “You might have done better not to wait for my arrival. Had you sent your note a little earlier, you might have snared a man who knows far more about the dead-alive than I do.”

  “Don’t lie to us, Mr. Temple.” This voice was as calm as all the rest, but it had an edge of exasperation in it. “Edward Knob knows only what he saw. You have access to everything that King George’s police forces know.”

  Temple felt a slight sinking feeling, as he realized that these masqueraders really did think that he knew far more than he actually did. They had assumed that King George’s police forces had been watching the mysterious Arthur Pevensey since the Prometheus had first docked at Purfleet, and that they had kept close watch on the Outremort too. Perhaps there were European nations where foreign ships were monitored as closely as that, but England had too may radicals of her own to deal with, and was obsessed with the danger that her own people might revolt as the French and Americans had.

  Temple and his fellows had been far too busy hunting Tom Paine and suppressing The Rights of Man to take any note of the likes of Pevensey and Mortdieu, whose adventure would have been written off as a mere ghost story had any word of it reached the ears of Temple’ fellow agents. Not a word had been committed to any official dossier until Temple had made his own report of his official interrogation of Ned Knob and the subsequent events at Greenhithe. If his calculatedly-tentative statements concerning Mortdieu had been believed by his superiors, their only response would have been relief that the Outremort had sailed, thus taking the problem away from the troubled English shore. Unless and until he returned to London–or more grey men began to appear in evident profusion–no clerical functionary working for the English government would inscribe a single line to ensure that the matter would be pursued.

  “There may be men in England who would be intensely interested in Ned Knob’s story,” Temple said, dully, “but they are not working for His Majesty’s Government. From the viewpoint of Lord Liverpool, and everyone working in his administration, it would qualify as Jacobin science, to be parodied and suppressed. No Parliamentarian in England has the imagination to see what difference the resurrection of the dead might make to the condition of the world, and none would sympathize if they could. Their response to the notion would be to condemn anyone who espoused it as an enemy of the state, to be pilloried, imprisoned or transported.”

  “Do you have the imagination, Mr. Temple?” someone–who might have been Balsamo–asked.

  “I doubt it–and if
I had, it would be better for my career were I to suppress it rigorously,” Temple replied.

  “You’re too modest, Mr. Temple. Were you a man who put his career before his principles, you would not be here.”

  “The reward for such meager imagination as I have,” Temple told them, “is I am considered a madman, tolerated but not trusted. My past achievements, and the skills that forged them, are grudgingly respected, but I have no friends among those in power, or even positions of petty authority. But that is not the issue. I repeat: I had no idea that the former Comte Henri de Belcamp, alias Tom Brown, was still alive until three days ago. The first conversation I had with him lasted no more than a few minutes, and mostly consisted of threats uttered while he held a gun to my head. The second was solely concerned with the matter of the kidnapped children, which forced us to set aside our differences and make an alliance. I did expect to meet him on the packet-boat from Dover, and to travel with him to Paris thereafter. I do not know why he did not follow his own plan–assuming that plan was any more than a device to manipulate me. All I can do, gentlemen, is to negotiate the release of the two children. That is the only reason why I am here. I strongly suspect that you know far more about this business of resurrection than I do. I am sorry that I cannot tell you more, but it is not my duty to the crown that prevents me from doing so–it is simple ignorance.”

  There was no interval in the séance, nor any whispered conference– merely a few moments of silence while each of the people in the death’s-head masks decided whether they ought to believe him. The one who eventually spoke was not Balsamo, nor the man with the beard he glimpsed in Little Switzerland. It was a voice that spoke with a measure of natural authority.

  “Your achievements and the skill that forged them are respected here, Mr. Temple, and not grudgingly. We have always thought of you as an ally of our cause, even though you probably had no idea we existed, or what our cause might be. You have called us common bandits, and we are certainly outlaws, although we could never concede that we are common; even so, we are entirely in sympathy with the campaigns you have waged against men like Tom Brown–and, for that matter, Tom Paine. We preferred Napoleon to the National Convention, but only as the lesser of two evils, and we had no love for the Ancien Régime, although we thought it the least of the three evils. We do not like Napoleon any better now that the Deliverance has done its belated work, and we are urgently desirous of acquiring the secret of resurrection in order that we might begin to use it in a manner that befits its delicacy as well as its power. We would like you to help us, if you will.”