Before being perverted to its current usage, the Mausoleum had been a chateau, and quite a grand one. The usual thing had happened to its owners when the ‘mobile columns’ of the Second Revolution surged out into the countryside, and a few of their of their skulls remained perched on prominent architectural features.
After that the history of the place grew obscure and Frankenstein didn’t enquire too closely. It wouldn’t have been wise even if he’d actually wanted to know. The Convention didn’t care for too much dwelling on the past, holding it to be a symptom of reactionary tendencies—an invariably fatal disease. Suffice then to say that a succession of notables made the place their commandeered home as they rose and then fell in the bloody cauldron of revolutionary struggle. Often it all happened too quick for them to even take possession or enjoy much more than a weekend there. None left an impression, save for some bloodstains on the walls during contested evictions.
Then finally, when the chateau had become ill-omened and dilapidated enough to excite no one’s envy, the ‘Peoples’ Promethean Brigade’ arrived to stay. Beforehand, the unit had been in Paris itself, close to the guillotines and source of supply, but there’d been too many escapes and scandalous sights for the capital of a regime with a keen sense of its own dignity. Therefore, the Convention’s central committee (who’d recently deified ‘Reason’ as the State religion), deemed it reasonable to move things to less sensitive surrounds, a bit nearer the Front. There were already trains of wagons carrying the condemned from prison to Madame Guillotine, and so it took only minor administrative adjustments for them to press on a bit further and ferry the finished product to the Mausoleum.
Those wagon trains had been rolling for a decade now. There’d been ample time to purge the town of Compiegne of reactionary objectors, and restock it with patriots and Mausoleum workers and their families. Now the whole locality was predicated on Promethean science and thus rather prosperous, in a grim sort of way.
Or so Frankenstein had heard, because he hadn’t actually ever seen the place, having arrived by night and in a sealed coach under escort. The Mausoleum’s gate slammed shut behind him and there he’d stayed ever since, as quarantined from normal life as if moved to the Moon. For, in its ten years of operation, there’d been opportunity to erect multiple high walls right round the former Chateau, both to keep ‘New-citizens’ in and prying eyes out. Therefore, all Julius could view now as he ate his breakfast sitting before high (barred) windows was a rumour of forest: a few tree-tops glimpsed over the fortifications, plus smoke columns from where the chimneys of Compiegne must be.
Other than that there was only sky to study—and the sincere wish to fly into it—whether in a galloon or on angel’s wings didn’t much matter.
It was quiet there as soon as (like all hardened Promethean scientists) you ceased to hear the continual Lazaran-lament. Similar to its English counterpart, the Mausoleum functioned in too much of a rush to get round to fitting steam-driven devices throughout. Instead, use was made of the muscle-power of its myriad reject products to make conveyor belts turn and serum-spears descend. They toiled for free, didn’t require coal to function, and when they finally broke down were readily replaced without recourse to mechanics. It… worked, by and large, and that sufficed.
Elsewhere, in less streamlined parts of Europe, scholars criticised Revivalist science’s sedative effect on all other fields of technological progress. They said that exploiting Lazaran power was like the mass slavery of Classical Times, removing the incentive for innovation. And as for its effect on public morals…!
But the Convention didn’t give a fig for what ivory-towered academics or theologians might think. Let them burble on, peddling ‘morality’ for their masters. The Revolution would get to their sleepy hollows sooner or later, and then there’d be an end to such idealist nit-picking…
Meanwhile, back in the Mausoleum and present, in his desperate casting about for positive developments Julius looked on the bright side. At least the absence of machines made for comparative tranquillity—so long as you were careful where you looked. Get that wrong and even silence wasn’t ‘tranquil.’
Frankenstein exercised great care, but 100% avoidance was never going to happen. Not there. For instance, there’d been a batch brought in the day before that were either victims of a lynch mob (nothing unusual in stressed and starving Revolutionary France) or else grapeshot from massed artillery (ditto). The carts held what looked more like off-casts from an autopsy than coherent corpses.
So, no—only by raising one’s eyes to Heaven (and pinching one’s nostrils) could you construct the delusion of living in a place where humans lived—that is to say real humans living real life. The tops of the Chateau’s tall towers (out of bounds to him) and clouds passing by in their eternal journey (likewise) conspired to bolter the notion. If he determinedly thought of nothing else they would metaphorically bear him aloft and above all this for… minutes on end.
Today Fate begrudged him even those minutes. Footsteps on the stairs to his door called him back to earth. He heard and hated them.
With good reason. Hobnails. It could only be one of the Mausoleum moustaches, here to upbraid him—or worse. Or perhaps that long anticipated moment had arrived and nemesis was approaching his door. A sudden strong premonition told him it might be the latter.
Frankenstein considered this and took a possibly last sip of wine. Fittingly, it was acid.
How much did he care? About that or anything?
Not much came the answer—so long as leaving this world was quick. And neat. And dignified. Which he knew to be asking a great deal. Too much probably, especially in present circumstances.
So then: goodbye cruel world—and damn your eyes!
Frankenstein dismissively clicked his fingers at existence—but the visitor took that as summons and entered.
It transpired Julius had libelled life without cause. It was not ‘that moment.’ Nor nemesis. Quite the opposite in fact.
A Mausoleum messenger stood before him, bearing letters that would save his life, not end it.
Chapter 2: R.S.V.P.
‘My dearest Julius,’ said the first letter, in a familiar wild hand.
‘How are you? How go your researches? Any news?
From your most fervent and true friend,
Lady Ada Augusta Lovelace, nee Byron.
xxx’
Frankenstein’s first reaction? He didn’t know how she had the nerve. Then a second’s reflection reminded him he knew all too well. Their history together should have led him to expect nothing else.
A sudden acid storm sloshed around his stomach, taking him to the verge of nausea. The sheer gall of the woman!
‘Any reply, monsieur?’
The messenger had waited, temporarily invisible to Julius.
‘What?’
‘Do you wish to reply, monsieur? There is opportunity. The man who delivered it awaits.’
Julius sucked his lips.
‘Well, that depends,’ he answered eventually. ‘Do you have a loaded gun to hand?’
Messenger took that as a no and departed.
Frankenstein crossed to the french windows of his cell cum quarters cum workplace. Sure enough, far down the drive of the Compeigne Mausoleum, just visible through the bars, beyond the gates and guards, waited a black coach. Before it stood a man who was almost certainly Foxglove, starring up at Frankenstein’s new home.
You had to hand it to them. Or her. If you didn’t hand it to her she’d snatch it anyway. Lady Lovelace had got in! She’d slipped away from the aerodrome kerfuffle and entered by some other means. Probably it was long arranged in advance and the whole galloon business—maybe all their post-Channel plans—a mere humouring of him. She must have been waiting for the first encounter with French authority in strength: a scenario with no prospect of shooting your way out. If they’d chanced to have been shipwrecked on a French rather than Belgian beach it would have happened then. Whichever way the dice fell, the outcome was pre-determined. Julius would be led up the garden path like a dumb beast with no understanding, to be delivered to the butcher.