Frankenstein's Legions

by John Whitbourn

  He coughed politely.

  ‘I’m afraid I don’t quite underst—’

  Ada was in such a good mood she forgave him his mental lead boots.

  ‘Don’t worry,’ she said. ‘You wouldn’t. Only a mathematician—and a great one at that—could follow the elegance of his logic and reduce it to notation. Fortunately, I am such a mathematician. It is in my power to transform events into symbols in my notebook. Then, when I strived with them the event-equations surrendered their meaning to me and expanded like gorgeous blooms. After that it was just a matter of summarisation: manipulating slips of paper to see what led to who. And then I understood!’

  She paused for breath (so to speak), or maybe to savour the moment.

  ‘Oh, gentlemen: the shameless elegance of it! I cannot convey to you: words fail… Better than sex! Far better, in fact!’

  ‘Indeed,’ rumbled Frankenstein, disapproving. Foxglove blushed and looked away. Ada did not notice.

  ‘Gentlemen: the sheer subtlety! Subtlety I say! Grasping that slippery subtlety stretched and fired my mind. It enabled me to break through!’

  They’d never heard her speak so fast or with such animation. Ada placed one hand to her heart, as if to calm a fluttering breast, or maybe pledge allegiance. She shook her smiling head in admiration and its ringlets seconded and accentuated the movement.

  Then she closed her eyes again to enjoy private bliss.

  ‘I am whole. I have my spark. Thanks to him. The talent was all mine but some thanks must go to him!’

  Frankenstein frowned and opened his mouth to speak.

  She can only have sensed it because her eyes remained clasped.

  ‘As must we,’ she pre-empted Julius. ‘We must go to him! Now!’

  Which gave Julius the opening he’d been searching for. Such lunacy was well worth a ‘but...’

  ‘But...’

  He got no further. Ada opened her eyes and in beholding them Julius had to admit they were even more lustrous than before. The orbs shone and seduced exactly as they must have done in life.

  She saw he had objections and would not be the instant assistance required. Fortunately, a ready alternative was at hand.

  ‘Foxglove!’

  ‘Milady?’

  ‘Get a hotel servant. Get me proper writing paper. Enquire the time of the next post collection for England.’

  Things then happened in a flurry and in a way that was good; for activity at least stopped Frankenstein’s headache from worsening.

  Foxglove rang the rope for a flunky and one came and went with Ada’s order. She pursued his retreating back with composite Anglo-Italian instructions along the lines of ‘make it snappy.’

  ‘Right, monsewer Talleyrand,’ said Lady Lovelace, positively crowing while she waited, ‘I’m going to write you a letter! And I shall say that I know your little game! And thank you for it too...’

  Frankenstein might have had comments on the wisdom of that but he was distracted. Misgivings added incrementally up in his mind till they amounted to alarm.

  He shook his head and Foxglove, who for all his alternative allegiance had respect for the man, noted it.

  ‘What’s the matter, sir?’

  Julius crossed to one of the windows and looked out. Then to an adjoining one. Foxglove stumped over and joined him.

  ‘No,’ said Julius, pronouncing judgement on the view.

  Foxglove looked again.

  ‘No what?’ he said.

  ‘This,’ answered Julius, and pointed below. ‘And as for that hotel porter...’

  ‘What about him?’

  ‘Have you seen him before?’

  Foxglove considered.

  ‘No: but that signifies nothing. Places like this have many-...’

  Frankenstein interrupted with complete confidence. Foxglove saw that his face was fixed and somehow thinner. The lips were compressed. He’d gone into military mode. Foxglove was impressed and willing to listen.

  ‘That flunky wasn’t flunky-like,’ said Julius quietly. ‘He hasn’t the bearing. Too erect. Normally he lifts muskets not luggage. And these people here...’

  He indicated the random passers-by outside. They looked fine to Foxglove. Frankenstein didn’t agree.

  ‘They’re not civilians. They’re a street-scene from central casting...’

  He knocked the window pane. He waved. He whistled. No one looked up.

  Frankenstein whirled round and in an instant was beside his valise on the bed. He hurled things into it—after taking his pepperbox pistol out.

  ‘Pack!’ he ordered his companions. Lady Lovelace, still blissed-out, looked puzzled and then annoyed. She started to say something.

  ‘He’s right,’ said the pale child, pre-empting her. Ignored in all the excitement he’d been listening avidly throughout.

  ‘Shut up,’ Frankenstein told it and Ada. ‘We go!’

  They weren’t going anywhere. The door came down.

  Chapter 8: NO ONE EXEPCTS…

  ‘So it’s true!’ cried Lady Lovelace. ‘And all lies!’

  She was acting like a saintly wife wronged by a sot—except it appeared no act. The eruption of Swiss Guardsmen into the room over splintered wood confirmed her every prejudice, the steady flow of black legend drip-fed into all Protestant Britons for centuries. Priestcraft, weapon of the Red Whore of Babylon who sat in Rome, no more respected the sanctity of the confessional than it did any other part of religion. Probably the Spanish Inquisition was on its way too, only delayed by the unwieldy bulk of its racks, red-hot irons and other torture gear. Plus grim nuns with whips.

  If so they were much delayed. After the room was secured by soldiery, only two others entered, a brace of priests, one plainly more senior than the other.

  Meanwhile there was nothing to be done. Frankenstein had already observed the street outside was well clamped down: he could reasonably presume the rest of their hotel were likewise. Similarly, they had zero prospect of fighting their way through the ample numbers of Swiss sent in. It was him, a cripple and a shouty woman (oh, and a kidnapped alien baby) versus an elite regiment. That would be so short a contest as to be no contest.

  When he wanted to be, Julius was a sensible man. The way he saw things, his options now focused on the preservation of dignity.

  Part of that included distancing himself from Ada. She was working herself up into quivering outrage.

  ‘You...,’ she spat at him, scornfully, ‘you... papist! You and your blabbing to priests! Just when I had...’

  Then she noticed her present priestly company were paying great attention to her tirade, especially the last truncated phrase. She instantly shut up: which shed doubt on her foregoing fervour.

  ‘May I?’ asked Frankenstein in the ensuing hush. He indicated a nearby chair, all the while careful to avoid sudden movements. Half a dozen pistols held in steady hands were tracking him.

  ‘Please do,’ said the senior priest. He spoke in Italianate French, the aptly termed lingua Franca of civilised European discourse.

  ‘Thank you.’

  Foxglove too slumped down. Only Lady Lovelace remained standing. With what she deluded herself were surreptitious movements Ada was stuffing her revelatory slips of paper into the placket-slits of her skirts. Perhaps she thought that celibate churchman automatically averted their eyes from the female form, or dare not contemplate a search of one.

  ‘You were saying, madam,’ prompted the younger priest, perhaps the secretary of the first. ‘Our arrival was inopportune because you had just...’

  Ada sniffed distaste.

  ‘I forget...’

  The younger priest seemed to accept that.

  ‘What a pity. It sounded most interesting...’

  How she hated being humoured. Her long lost husband had done that.

  ‘You talk to them,’ she instructed Frankenstein, acting like nothing untoward had happened and their privacy remained intact. ‘They’re your lot: you attracted them. Ask them what they
want.’

  What she wanted was more time to conceal the paperwork. Yet Julius could see their guests were deliberately ignoring her skirt-stuffing activities. It made him feel like a child denying the obvious before adults.

  ‘What can we do for you, father,’ he enquired of the older man.

  ‘May I?’ The priest indicated a free seat. ‘It is your room, and we your guests, after all...’

  If he was their nemesis he was a very courteous one. Which was nice. Julius always held that even if you had to kill someone there was no need to be brusque about it.

  ‘Certainly,’ he said.

  ‘Thank you.’

  The slim, grizzled, prelate positioned the chair so that he could easily address them all. His assistant rushed to dust its seat before posterior met upholstery.

  ‘Don’t fuss, Simeon,’ he rebuked him, but in the most milk-and-water way. The younger man persisted regardless.

  The older priest walked with a stick, an ebony cane topped with amber. Frankenstein’s keen eyesight perceived an insect, a fat fly by the looks of it, preserved forever within that yellow blob.

  Before he spoke the priest regarded this decorative flourish, perhaps contemplating eternity to draw strength for the here and now. Then he rested chin and hands on the cane. Ever appraising, Julius noted a gaudy ring on one of those slim fingers. It seemed out of keeping with the man.

  The priest glanced at each one of them in turn. It felt like an informed scrutiny, uncomfortably so: a look that bore weight. There was no indication, not the merest hint, what conclusions he drew.

  Finally, the priest drew breath again.

  ‘You asked what you could do for me. That’s charming and polite. But given that I am an uninvited guest: a gate-crasher in fact, permit me to turn that around. What can I do for you?

  ‘Go?’ suggested Ada.

  At last, Frankenstein had something to work on. He saw how the Swiss Guard stiffened at that. Which was revealing...

  The priest smiled and shook his head.

  ‘Alas, I cannot oblige...’

  ‘Will not, you mean,’ Lady Lovelace corrected him.

  He conceded it freely.

  ‘Indeed. Duty holds me here for the moment, however much you may find it objectionable. And I think the culture you come from finds me very objectionable. Therefore perhaps you’ll permit me to justify myself just a little in your eyes...’

  ‘Can I stop you?’ she asked. A genuine question.

  ‘No.’ An honest answer. ‘But you could refuse to listen. That would negate my good intentions...’

  Ada considered herself a scientist, which implied an open mind and open ears.

  ‘No, go on, I’ll listen,’ she said, calm(ish) now.

  ‘Thank you. ‘Well, firstly may I disabuse you of one of your worse suspicions. And yours too perhaps...’ He’d turned to address Julius. ‘There has been no abuse of the confessional, no sacred secrets spilt. Father Cornelius, he who heard your confession, is unwell: most unwell. In fact, he had a seizure last night. Medical opinion is that he may be gathered to his eternal home before another night passes. Meanwhile... how can I put this with sufficient emphasis? He is most insistent that your repentance be recognised and absolution given. Even on the brink of the great abyss he is more concerned for your immortal soul than his own...’

  ‘A true priest,’ commented Julius.

  ‘Exactly. A credit to his kind: I should have promoted him while he was in health, but now it is too late. Meanwhile, all—and I assure, it is all—he has communicated to us is the supreme import of your case and the desirability that you return to the sacrament.’

  ‘Not much to go on then,’ said Frankenstein, recreating in his mind the pathway of events. ‘Just enough to bring you to this room but little more.’

  The priest equivocated with a flicking motion of one hand.

  ‘Well...’

  Julius jumped ahead.

  ‘Oh, I see...’

  The priest smiled as if at a bright pupil.

  ‘Your father was here, was he not? You too, I believe’

  ‘That’s true.’

  ‘Then you know we are not entirely without resource...’

  ‘They have a diplomatic corps,’ Julius informed his two friends so they could keep up. ‘Which doubles up as a secret service. And an intelligence network reaching right the way to every last Church in Christendom. They’re very effective...’

  ‘Aha!’ said Ada, glad to have her misgivings stroked again. ‘More priestcraft! Jesuit trickery!’

  The priest acknowledged both ‘compliments.’

  ‘If you like. Did not our Lord enjoin us ‘Be you cunning as serpents...’’

  ‘‘But gentle as doves,’’ Julius concluded for him. ‘‘Matthew 10, 12...’

  ‘Chapter 10, verse 16 actually,’ the priest corrected, ‘but broadly: bravo. I hope we conform to both injunctions. But to continue, what Father Cornelius could not supply, intelligence received could suggest. And that intelligence suggested the... stress he placed on your tale was not misplaced. A few enquiries later and here we all are...’

  He leant back in his seat and smiled, as though that were it. But since neither he or his troops stirred plainly it was not.

  ‘And so...?’ asked Julius.

  The priest fixed him with a very impressive gaze. It had the full weight of a two millennia old organisation behind it.

  ‘What you told Father Cornelius,’ said the priest, when the stare had fully sunk in, ‘I’d rather like you to tell me...’

  * * *

  Naturally, given his upbringing, Frankenstein had seen a pope before, but never actually spoken to one. And as for telling one your life history...

  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 agai
n.

  ‘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.’