Frankenstein's Legions (30 page)

‘To this day,’ said the Egyptian, laying a proprietorial hand on the long gone man (or possibly woman), ‘fools had added powdered mummy to create the super-serum. And that is one minor, superficial, secret. But attend to me and I will reveal to you a deeper truth. It is this: to grind up the mummy’s flesh is to reduce its powers!  This to me was obvious. Its restorative powers are diminished by the crushing pestle and wasted upon the air—which needs it not. Whereas if you cut...’

In a fluid flash of action he drew a knife from within his robes. It was a well practised coup de theatre, Julius recognised: plus a warning that they should still be wary of the old ham.

The blade must have been of well honed steel, for the Egyptian was able to remove a sliver without undue carving. He held out the thin, nigh translucent, slice for them to see.

‘Now, this,’ he said, ‘suitably prepared and infused with serum, is sufficient to give the Emperor a whole inventive day. Ten will inspire him to plan a campaign. Imagine that!  Simple slices of forgotten Nile dweller, dead three for thousand years, can topple or raise an empire today!’

‘What if he takes twenty?’ asked Julius.

The Egyptian was deceived by Frankenstein’s seriousness. He rolled his eyes at the mere thought of such super-size portions.

‘I hardly dare to speculate, oh Swiss of much presumption. And I wonder that you dare. Have you no piety?  Who knows?  Perhaps in such a case our Emperor would ascend to Paradise in a fiery chariot. Or Almighty Allah might send an angel with a sword to chastise us for our arrogance. Both are distinct possibilities. I say again, who knows?’

‘Not you, charlatan’ wrote Frankenstein. And then: ‘But someone should find out...’

Fortunately, the Egyptian was too far away to find out, nor had he acquired the useful skill of reading upside down. So he assumed that Julius was noting the rebuke.

Frankenstein’s forwardness emboldened one of the other students to speak. A renegade Scottish scholar, he was a disciple in desperate search of a master if ever there was one. Julius had caught him making cow-eyes at the Egyptian earlier—once he’d drawn a blank with his colleague bearing the illustrious Frankenstein name.

‘You mentioned ‘preparation,’ wise sir,’ said the Scot. ‘Are we yet at a stage to share in this wisdom?’

Somewhat unfairly as an exile from his own nation, Julius hated traitors. Conventionary France was stuffed with whole foreign legions of them, quite literally: people who’d severed all ties through thinking they’d smelt the spirit of the age. Scottish regiments, Irish battalions, squadrons of Italians-of-advanced- opinions: you name it.  Frankenstein certainly had a name for them, and thought it now.

The Egyptian drew a deep breath, as if actually considering the question. Julius would have bet all his years to come that he could guess the answer.

‘No,’ came the eventual crushing verdict, ‘that time is not come.’

The Scot subsided pitifully, and the more robust Dane beside him drew a savage line across the prepared page in his notebook.

‘But it shall come,’ the Egyptian continued, after a perfectly timed pause that allowed hope to almost die, but then rise again like a Lazaran. ‘If you attend and are open to the flow of instruction, if you do not speak when you should listen—unlike some...’

He looked at Frankenstein, who couldn’t care less and waved back.

Why should Julius care?  He already had the Egyptian’s secret, better than the man understood it himself. There was no longer any need to demean himself

It was—or now had been—one of the many minor mysteries of Versailles, put to one side whilst greater puzzles were pondered. Frankenstein had noted and wondered about the line of little strips suspended between two high towers, hung out to be dried by sun and wind. He’d observed the permanent guard detailed to scare birds from them, or winch them in should rain threaten. Now all was explained.

It was already known that serum melded well with flesh; and that feeding them on it assisted uptake when Lazarans ‘dined.’  Thus it followed that the dried variety absorbed just that bit more. So, when the Egyptian sun-dried what was already supremely dry, it might just make some infinitesimal difference. The sort of difference noticeable by an Emperor growing acclimatised to super-serum. All the more so if he were desperate for full life, as recalled through rose-tinted perspectives. If he stupidly craved the imagined sparkling thought processes of youth and yesteryear, then yes, it might just delude him that the Egyptian had something.

A heady mix: the ancient civilisation of a land he’d conquered early in his first career, plus the romance of the ineffable past and survivals from it in the form of preserved dead. Dead, moreover, on whom great care had been lavished in hopes of securing an afterlife. Individually, each factor might mean little, but collectively they comprised a straw a drowning Emperor might clutch at.

Frankenstein had nothing but contempt for such sloppy thinking and the opportunists who preyed on it. Circus quacks and pox-doctors had more honour. He stood up.

‘Here endeth the lesson,’ he said, and set off.

The Egyptian had come to expect respect, even deference. He bathed in the Emperor’s favour and others usually wanted to share that sunshine. Now, puffed-ego offended and at maximum inflation, he saw fit to put himself between Frankenstein and the exit.

Almost to the last second he was minded to stand his ground and not make way. Then, in the space of that instant, the Egyptian realised Julius wasn’t going to slow. A Swiss missile was heading his way powered by disdain. The only alternative to being shouldered aside was to lose face.

The Egyptian twirled like a ballerina, or a whirling dervish with only one whirl in him. His remaining students gaped.

Julius Frankenstein gained the door—and an enemy.

Chapter 7: SUN-DRIED PROMOTION

Versailles had been beautiful once; superlative even: a crowning glory of European culture. But now the minds that made it that way were gone, replaced by men of a different mettle (and metal). Now functionality ruled and all the gloss and glory were scuffed. Any repairs or additions were inspired by the ‘it’ll do’ school of thought. Sheaves of muskets were stacked in gilt-drenched salons and the libraries were unloved and muffled by dust. Even the famed formal gardens walk now housed the NCOs’ latrines, hijacking its handy irrigation system.

In short, Versailles had been brought bang up to date and rough-married to modernity…

But there were still enclaves (or last stands) of the old grandeur, kept pristine for special purposes. Julius Frankenstein met a Minister of State in one and had a poison pen letter read to him…

‘…Furthermore, I beg to inform you that this interloper among proper scientists has not even brains enough to ascend to the level of incompetence. Between his ears a desert stretches and the wind whistles over its barren expanse without meaning or profit.

Indeed, excellency, I boldly cast doubt over his rightful claim to the illustrious Frankenstein family name. It may well be that he has murdered the true holder and assumed his identity!  Or, in the unlikely event that his claims are true, then I can only commiserate with his afflicted kin and conclude, as they must have done, that even the finest stock can breed idiots.

So, sir, you know full well how I hunger and thirst to serve both science and our beloved Emperor. Therefore, I implore you—indeed, I even dare to say that you must—dismiss from the Imperial service this misbegotten block-headed Swiss. And since he now knows what he should not know, your excellencies may care to consider dispensing with his dubious talents in a manner which will forever seal his lips. It is not for me to suggest, let alone direct, but it is also nothing less than my sworn duty to call to your mind’s eye the image of our very own guillotine standing in the august Courtyard of Justice. You may well think it a neat and relevant image in the context of this satanic viper within our bosom who...’

Julius yawned. The man sitting opposite him reading the letter aloud looked up.

‘I should stop,
monsieur
?’ he asked, surprised. ‘You do not wish to hear the rest?’

Frankenstein finished patting the inadvertent gape. It cheered him to be courtly, even—or especially—in the face of mortal peril.

‘I am indifferent, sir,’ he said. ‘Do whichever is more agreeable to you. One was not listening in any case…’

There was something about this clammy bureaucrat that nagged at Julius. They’d not met before—he would have remembered that—but maybe his pale face had appeared in a news-sheet or the like. If so, identification remained illusive. Not that he was in any rush to strengthen their acquaintance.

Which was a pity from Julius’ point of view. Had he been less sickened by current affairs and paid more attention to their reporting, he might have recognised Joseph Fouché, the Convention’s Minister of Police. He might further have speculated why such a notable was representing the Emperor or talking to mere him—and thus had a feast of food for thought. As it was he was merely wary.

Minister Fouché nodded.

‘Yes,’ he said, ‘I had gained the impression of being ignored...’

Though he put emphasis in his voice it failed for being carried in such a sibilant whisper. Nothing would ever be gleaned from analysis of it.

Nevertheless, Julius recalled his obligations, even to such a repellent individual.

‘I apologise if I appear impolite, sir,’ he said. ‘I am not usually so arrogant seeming.’

The man adjusted his rimless glasses. Julius had speedily come to dislike those too. When the light hit them in a certain way it made their owner appear eyeless.

‘‘No?’ queried Fouché. ‘But surely,
monsieur
, your family heritage might justify a certain dignity, even pride...?’

Frankenstein preferred that the man remained still, for every move sent invisible waves of spiritual affliction his way. From the moment they’d met he’d felt himself to be in the presence of something terribly wrong. He’d raised Lazarans with healthier looking skin.

‘No,’ replied Julius, so firmly as to cut off that conversational road.

‘Then kindly explain your demeanour.’

Julius pointed at the letter.

‘Because,’ he said, ‘your man knows nothing.’

Fouché put on a show of being taken aback by such excessive candour, but Frankenstein believed not a single thing about him.

‘No?’  It was a request for confirmation rather than doubt.

‘No,’ Julius obliged. He was being very negative today—and keeping things clipped lest the unclean presence seize on something. ‘Nothing—or next to nothing.’

From a pocket of his shabby fawn frock-coat Fouché extracted a lady-like notepad. It was shod in gold and had a holster for a matching pencil to one side. The Minister made a ritual, perhaps even a sacrament, of opening at a pristine page and then twisting the writing stick till exactly the right amount of lead emerged.

Fouché licked the tip with a tongue that darted snake-like from between thin grey lips. Then he paused, poised.

‘ “Nothing”, Monsieur Frankenstein? Or next to nothing? Which is it?  We require precision.’

There was not the slightest overt menace there—usually the default stance of much of the French apparatus. The bureaucrat seemed merely anxious to be enlightened.

Julius was not deceived. This particular cold-fish in human form was new to him, but the type was not. The man had consumed all his tedious debriefings, the sterile interrogations about Revivalism and the Compiegne and Heathrow establishments’ advances (or lack of them) which had gone before. He’d dined on the end product of that sausage-machine process and still deemed it worthy of a second helping. In short: a bore.

‘Let us settle on “next to nothing”,’ said Frankenstein. ‘By accident the Egyptian has stumbled upon a slight refinement of secondary processes. He does not understand the how or why. Hence all the vehemence of his attempts to hang on to favour.’

Notes were being made—more than the bare words warranted. People always find that perturbing and Frankenstein was moved to make conversation.

‘Where did you find him?’ he asked. ‘A medicine wagon at a country fayre?’

Fouché’s pen failed to falter. Nor did he look up.

‘No,’ he said. ‘It was in Egypt. He came recommended. And expensive. We took references. Be aware we are not that easily deceived,
monsieur
.’  It was a shot across the bow.

‘I see...’

‘Ah, but do you,
monsieur
?  That is the question. Do you see?  And speaking of you, I go on to ask: do you know nothing?  Or next to nothing?  Or maybe something?’

‘The last,’ Julius replied.

‘Really?’

‘I believe so.’

The Minister still only had eyes for his notepad. Julius suspected it was the primary arena of his thoughts, the bank vault in which he stored his true life.

‘Do tell...,’ said Fouché.

Again, it was a cordial invitation from one reasonable man to another, rather than a command.

Should Julius imitate a man divulging all?  When ‘all’ didn’t really merit the effort?

‘The Egyptian infuses serum into strips of mummy,’ he said. ‘Which is a singularly absorbent… meat. The resultant admix is made concentrate by sun drying.
C’est tout
!’

The bureaucrat was intrigued, Julius could tell. Although his pen hand remained steady his nostrils had dilated. Plus, his pinched face was now even more so. The hair-line had drawn back too. Myriad involuntary reflexes betrayed even this most opaque of men, revealing ‘tells’ to those in the know. Doctors make good card-players.

‘
C’est tout?
’ echoed Fouché.

‘
C’est tout.
’  Julius batted it back

‘The process need not be performed here?’

‘No. Anywhere there is sun will do. Iceland would be worse but southern France better. You see the principle. African sunlight might be the best, being that much fiercer, but I suspect the Egyptian prefers his Versailles life to hot work by the Nile...’