Foxglove complied by not looking at all, but Ada could not be deterred from a slow motion turn. Eventually, the second coach came into Lady Lovelace’s peripheral vision.
‘Mere sight-seers, like us,’ she decreed. ‘A young couple; honeymooners I shouldn’t wonder…’
Save in dire need, it wasn’t Foxglove’s style to gainsay his mistress, but there remained a range of euphemisms he could deploy.
‘Possibly, milady, possibly…,’ he said. ‘But a battlefield’s an unlikely port of call for a nuptial pair, don’t you think? Hardly what you’d call romantic…’
‘The couple are just cover,’ Frankenstein confirmed. ‘Others remain inside. I saw sunlight flash upon a perspective glass…’
Acting like he’d had enough for one outing, Frankenstein casually sauntered back to their own coach driver. He was going to ask if the newcomer was known to him, but the man’s nervy demeanour resolved the matter without words.
By the time Julius returned Lady Lovelace had considered and concurred.
‘Who would have thought,’ she said in wonderment, ‘that the Belgians even had a secret police?’
Frankenstein was amused.
‘The Ancien Regime is over,’ he informed her. ‘The State now stands in for God. What other choice do the poor Belgians have but to conform? Welcome to modernity, madam.’
Lady Lovelace took that compressed lesson away to digest in silence. For once she didn’t mind being lectured. The broad sweep of history be damned: the main thing was that she’d got her way. There’d be no more caveats from Ada—not till the next gap between want and have opened up anyway.
So, Luxembourg it was. And urgently, before the Belgians’ fully justified curiosity evolved into something worse.
‘Mr Tell’ and company set off and, a token while after, the second coach set off after them.
When he heard of it some days later, Talleyrand was delighted that his corps de ballet of spies, some deliberately conspicuous like the ‘Belgian’ coach, others invisible as air, had restored contact. Up till then he’d feared that circumstances beyond control, such as that inconsiderate stormy sea, might have taken Lady Lovelace and entourage from him. To hear otherwise made him clap two lace-fringed hands together and bestow such a charming smile upon the messenger. Later that same evening and for the same reason, a roadside beggar had his life changed forever by a bag of golden guineas cast from Talleyrand’s carriage.
That the (comparatively) innocent Belgian Republic got blamed for his scheming would have been sweet sugar icing on Talleyrand’s cake of deep joy—but sadly he never knew that.
Nevertheless, the Prince was well content with his present level of informedness. To aspire beyond that was to trespass into territory reserved for the Almighty alone: wherefore he humbly withdrew. The excommunicated former Bishop and serial turncoat had many mortal sins on his charge sheet (including those the Church said ‘Cried Out to Heaven for Vengeance’), but blasphemy was not amongst them. The man Emperor Napoleon had described as ‘shit in a silk stocking’ was far too fly to offend the Omnipotent.
‘Tell our people to play them out a little more rope,’ he instructed his agent. ‘There’s not quite enough to hang themselves yet.’
Chapter 21: WE CAN SEE YOU
Surveying another cathedral (save this one was still open for business) Frankenstein and Lady Lovelace and Foxglove behaved like they were family plus flunky passing through on a ‘Grand Tour.’ Devotees of high culture ticking off inspirational architecture on their list.
In Luxembourg the disguise was quite plausible—albeit these particular ‘tourists’ somewhat less so. A unscrubable whiff of ‘post-apocalypse’ hung about Julius and co., whereas residual pre-Promethean War normality lingered in the City. The French hadn’t incorporated the place when they boiled through during the ‘Great Breakthrough,’ but instead respected (after a fashion) the rule of its Prince-Bishop. Of course, it had been pillaged down to its underwear, even (or especially) the Churches, but in theory there remained a self-governing city; one of the patchwork of petty states and historical accidents that collectively comprised Germania. Once the war went east and then global, Luxembourg was left behind and got on with its own business unmolested. For the time being.
In the contemporary lottery of life that was no mean achievement anywhere. On their way in, Frankenstein and friends had received yet another unsolicited crash course in present-day harsh realities. The statelets traversed were silently instructive—but not in the sense they once graced the itinerary of every Grand Tour: as aesthetic academies and/or fun stays. Now, those not physically ravaged by war were indirectly so. Denuded of male citizens (all either dead or in arms or both), Lazarans kept the show going—or limping—along. Resurrected people drove—or, more often, hauled—the ploughs. Death and the scent of ‘serum’ hung over all.
Hence it had been a depressing trip. Shepherded by their shy ‘Belgian’ shadow, they saw only vistas of civilisation visibly in retreat.
Which was why Luxembourg was such a tonic. If only by contrast as a haven of prosperity and home to myriad still-warm humanity. Not only that, but crucial to Ada’s aims, it still boasted a civilian aerodrome.
That had been a sleepy little facility before ‘History’ intruded; catering mainly to the Prince-Bishop’s Episcopal progresses. Changing geo-political imperatives altered all that. Now it was quite a hub. The party were biding their time before heading for its hubbub.
One of the ‘day-one’ acts of French Conventionary Government in all its conquests was to nationalise every aircraft. They couldn’t for the life of them see why mere civilians should gallivant in the sky whilst the class struggle hung in the balance below. And besides, there was the danger of aristocrats and other enemies of the People escaping that way. Instead, collaring the collective national fleet, they used them to rain bombs and air-mobile columns of revolutionaries on their enemies. Zeal and sheer elan carried them halfway across Europe—till the trenches rendered both qualities irrelevant—and suicidal.
Later, when revolutionary ardour cooled and the wars turned gutty, there was even less justification for jaunts and fun. With the rainbow-hued vessels of Europe’s leisured classes long since confiscated and painted grim, and the factories unable to keep up with war losses, those merchants without contacts in the Convention or money for bribes lost their galloon fleets too. Which plunged Europe’s economy further into free-fall recession—though with the happy by-product of creating unemployment just when the army desperately needed fresh flesh. The leaders of the Revolution congratulated themselves on killing two birds with one stone.
All of which is to explain why tricoloured galloons criss-crossing Luxembourg’s airspace, locating their position via the Cathedral’s spire, had become such a familiar sight as to be invisible to the natives. No one pointed any more. Not that it was anyone’s business noting their conqueror’s ways in any case: open curiosity often came at a cost…
Because, in a paradoxically un-revolutionary way, the Convention set great store by its material possessions: aerodromes included. For instance, it was common knowledge what happened to Budapest when its French air facilities were sabotaged by guerrillas. Now there was neither a Buda or a Pest beside the Danube, and the puppet ‘Revolutionary Protectorate of the Magyars’ was casting around for a new capital.