Of course, Frankenstein had been searched and disarmed long before he ever got to the Mausoleum. Now he was left without so much as a letter-opener with which to defend himself. However, in present circumstances, gravity offered itself as his salvation. The man must be perched atop a long ladder. If he proved to be an unwelcome guest it would be easy to end their conversation by sending him back down the quick way. But for that Julius needed to arise.
Arranging his night-gown into decency, Frankenstein crossed over and inserted his arms through the bars to raise the sash window.
In these present strange days, the first thing you determined in any encounter was ‘are they living or not?’ That fundamental fact determined all subsequent intercourse, outranking even race or class. Society had Victor Frankenstein to thank for that
His great-nephew checked. All the vital signs were there. The visitor lived and breathed. Burst capillaries on his cheeks flushed red with life-giving blood.
Satisfied on that score, but still poised to launch the man into space, Julius addressed him.
‘Good evening, monsieur. How are you this fine evening? Ah…’
A splendidly stylish start but spoilt by the ensuing feeble exclamation.
For Frankenstein’s scrutiny had moved on to take in finer details. Beneath the black mask spouted a moustache of extra special luxuriousness. And in turn beneath that was an extra confident smile—of a kind unbefitting an ladder-trapped intruder into a terrible place. Supporting both features was a frame of splendid martial bearing.
For the second day running Frankenstein made a sprightly leap from sparse facts to fascinating conclusions. Hence the ‘Ah…’
The visitor smiled, approving of something. Several crucial teeth were missing, creating a gravestone image highly appropriate to the location.
Finally the man spoke, in soldierly French. Their conversation was conveniently covered by shrieks and laments from the Lazaran pens, so constant as to be part of the aural scenery.
‘I’m well. And you, monsieur?’
In the interval, Julius had recovered his poise—never far from at hand.
‘Likewise. To what do I owe this pleasure? Are you an assassin?’
The visitor considered. Clearly it was a possibility.
‘Not tonight, monsieur. You were right first time with the ‘pleasure’ thing. My master requests the pleasure of your company.’
‘And who can blame him? Is it R.S.V.P.?
The visitor shook his head regretfully.
‘Not as such. More like ‘come now.’..’
Frankenstein deliberated for nearly a second.
‘Then I should be delighted.’
Another smile in response.
‘Very glad to hear it, monsieur. You’re a bit bulky to drag along unwilling. Thank you for making my job so much simpler.’
He waved to unseen friends in the darkness below. Further out in the courtyard Julius detected the stirring of bigger-than-human movement. Air displaced in a straight line from there to his window forced Frankenstein to notice cables attached to the bars.
‘I’d step away if I were you,’ said the visitor, starting to descend. ‘Take the opportunity to get dressed if you like. But don’t go too far…’
There was a team of cavalry mounts, Julius saw now, being roused into action against the metal grid imprisoning him. As his eyes acclimatised, aided by the moonlight, he detected more masked men, urging the horses on. There were yet more around the ladder’s base.
Frankenstein was about to pay tribute to all they’d so far achieved in silence, undetected in this heart of darkness, but then realised any words were redundant. Super-human was expected as standard in this regiment, and praise only cut in beyond that.
He retreated into the room and threw on some clothes. All his other possessions had been stolen, leaving him free as a monk to move on at a moment’s notice.
The cables braced, the bars buckled, the comparatively new (by the Chateau’s standards) mortar gave way.
This, thought Julius, was the moment when all would go wrong. The Mausoleum would awake in all its ghastly glory, including swarms of guards. But no: his callers had every point covered. Naturally, the bars made protest at being wrenched from home but they hit the ground with barely a sound, muffled by some pre-laid padding. No voice was raised to query events, no musket spat.
Yet there still ought to have been both. Discreet as the operation was, no horse can understand the need for total hush, nor will masonry and metal ever fully oblige. There was noise that the sentries should hear.
As he pulled on his boots Frankenstein waited for their intervention and the rip of bullets in the night. He waited in vain.
Having vacated the ladder’s summit to make way for the bars, the masked face appeared again, gesturing impatiently.
‘Courage, monsieur. I shall save you from falling…’
The implication of that worked better than threats. All Swiss are (or have to pretend to be) mountaineers. Frankenstein quit the room at speed, taking nothing, not even a rearward glance, and located the topmost rung with one questing foot. Aiming to impress he descended swiftly; so swift as to catch up with the masked man and plant a foot upon his head.
‘Monsieur!’ the man protested. ‘Have a care! We do not have enough time to hurry…’
Reeling in that gnomic utterance occupied Frankenstein’s thoughts all the way to the gatehouse. En route, he was joined, one by one, by other masked conspirators, all moustachioed and confident as his initial visitor.
That pretty much clinched it. Julius knew who they were and thus where he was going. All that remained was to get there. And if anyone could perform such a miracle these people could.
In one sense they already had. By silvery moonlight Frankenstein discovered how they’d got thus far. The bodies of various sentinels were propped up by the gatehouse like trophies from a good day’s hunting. Their slumped posture was reminiscent of the Mausoleum’s less successful products, but unlike them these weren’t stirring at all. Bayonets pinned each one to the wall in a presumably post-mortem flourish: a message to those who might follow. And all this had been achieved in perfect peace!
Julius felt like saying ‘bravo!’ but equally didn’t feel like attracting these terrible men’s attention. So he merely saw and grew wise instead.
Bowing him through with the greatest respect, the ladder man ushered Julius into the gatehouse. There fresh horrors awaited. Some of its former inhabitants had been New-citizens of sturdy construction. Frankenstein even recognised several burly specimens as his own bacon-saving special productions. Or leastways he thought he recognised them: his handiwork must have taken a lot of second-time-round killing and multiple blows with sabres. The gatehouse was like a charnel house.
Except that the living were also present. A batch of captives were kept under beady eye in one corner and Julius was intrigued. For reasons many and varied they didn’t have the look of French gaolers. If pressed to guess Frankenstein would have placed them on a parade ground in England.
So it proved. Though they were blindfolded and gagged, one had apparently loosened his bonds. He sensed fresh arrivals and spoke out in faultless if frightened English.
‘Who’s there? What are you going to do with us?’
Rather than answer, Julius’ escort simply demonstrated. He took up a discarded musket and plunged its fixed bayonet into the speaker. Years of practise shone through, just like the blood pooling into his victim’s tunic. The man died instantly, with barely a groan.
It proved a cue. One by one the prisoners were taken to various parts of the room and dispatched. Then the fresh corpses were arranged in combative poses alongside pre-existing French dead.
Again, wealth of experience paid off. If Julius hadn’t known better, he would have sworn from the emerging tableaux that a fierce little Anglo-French battle had swarmed through here. One in which the Mausoleum guards had acquitted themselves well.
The Ladder man looked upon the scene like an artist. He wandered round, arranging a limb there, inserting weaponry into dead hands there.
Eventually, he stood up and surveyed the finished work. The mark of a great artist is knowing when to leave a canvas alone.
‘It is good,’ he said. ‘Let’s go.’
Someone had oiled the Mausoleum’s main gate. Normally they moaned like a choir of Lazarans with each and every opening, a deliberate feature of the security arrangements. Now they cracked ajar with hardly a protest.
Flowing smoothly like the lubrication on the hinges, Frankenstein’s new friends poured through the gap with him in their midst.