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.
The next morning, when all was revealed and certain tell-tale English artefacts found on the dead, the Mausoleum drew its own conclusions.
Perfidious Albion had struck again; its cursed fleet delivering a raiding party onto France’s sacred shores to snatch a coveted Revivalist. English ships notoriously got everywhere they could find even a duck-pond to float on. You might go on to speculate it was just the sort of thing Neo-Nelson would and could do, damn his one remaining eye. There was no absolute proof, true, but the mission carried all the hallmarks of his audacity.
In drafting the required report its authors upgraded that possibility into nigh certainty, and after that the insult didn’t seem so bad. Also, the records showed that Julius Frankenstein wasn’t so hot anyway and thus maybe the rostbifs had incurred heavy casualties for little gain. Aside from the slight of waltzing into the Mausoleum and then out again, the English were welcome to him.
That interpretation was eventually accepted by the Convention. Heads would have to roll of course, but only token Terror was visited upon Mausoleum staff.
A mere maiden’s kiss, a child’s slap on the wrist: just one in ten.
Chapter 4: SPICK N’ SPAN
‘Welcome, monsieur, most welcome!’
The chamberlain’s array of gold braid was dazzling and his bow exquisitely elegant, but Julius had seen it all before. Moments before in fact. It already seemed like an age since his cheerfully homicidal masked rescuers delivered him here.
‘The chamberlain before you said that,’ Julius replied. ‘And the one before him.’
He indicated his route previous to the high double doors that now sealed them in this ante-room.
This chamberlain went from soft to hard with a speed that put the male generative organ to shame. He showed the steel just below the velvet glove. His eyes glittered.
‘And they meant it,’ he said. ‘As do I. Rest assured, monsieur, you would not have got as far as me had you been found in any way wanting…’
Which was both praise and a slap combined. Frankenstein didn’t know whether to feel honoured or offended. Not that it mattered in any case. His opinions in this palace mattered as little as those of the peacocks that patrolled its county-sized grounds. Even less probably. At least they were decorative and no harm to anyone…
Elbow cupped in one hand, the chamberlain rested his chin for the duration of a close scrutiny of Julius. Contrary to Conventionary fashion, he still wore a short-wig and kept it powdered. Actually, he resembled a throwback to pre-Revolutionary days: a look likely to attract lynch mobs on the Parisian streets today.
If so, the man showed no signs of unease. He was not a man of the streets; here was his place and he was at home in it.
‘Hmm,’ he pondered aloud, sounding like a slightly more effeminate Lady Lovelace. ‘Hmm…’
Now Julius knew how the produce in an Ottoman slave market felt. He fought the urge to pose or disport himself to command a better price.
‘‘Hmm…’?’ he said in turn, as both mimicry and query.
The chamberlain returned instantly from reverie-land to fix Julius’ gaze.
‘The eyes of a man,’ he said, ‘are a window into his soul.’
‘Indeed,’ Julius agreed. He’d lived too long to dispute it.
‘And yours,’ continued the chamberlain, ‘reveal a very dark vista…’
Again, Frankenstein could not but agree. In his shaving mirror he daily saw what the chamberlain referred to.
That gentleman’s elbow was now lowered, a decision arrived at.
‘Darkness may conceal all manner of dirt,’ he said. ‘Proceed into the next room and have it washed away.’
The instruction proved to be literal. To Julius’ amazement the room beyond the next set of double doors proved to be a bathing suite. Rather than yet more gilded courtiers, a team of white-clad flunkies, male and female, waited beside a steaming bath.
‘Disrobe, monsieur,’ ordered their captain, who incongruously wore a chef’s hat as badge of office. ‘Abandon yourself to our ministrations.’
Willing or not, it was going to happen. It seemed routine and they seemed implacable. Also, amongst their number were bulky sorts for the lifting work, plus soldiers lining the walls (also uniformed entirely in white). Frankenstein realised that if he did not comply compulsion was on hand, and then he would lose his dignity as well as his clothes
So, despite the presence of appraising ladies, Julius stepped forward and stripped.
The water was warm and scented and, in other circumstances, might have been welcome. Less enjoyable, however, was being dunked and scrubbed by professionals of exceptional thoroughness. They were insistent on total immersion and cleansing of the most obscure corners. Meanwhile, extremities were periodically gripped and held so that nails and nasal hair could be radically clipped. Someone even brushed his teeth for him—whilst submerged!
Then, as he surfaced short of breath, Julius caught sight through streaming hair of his garments being born away. For some reason the scene had a strong sense of finality to it.
‘What are you doing with my cloth—’ he started to say, before a strong hand on the top of his head plunged him under again. Simultaneously, practised fingers scurried over his head like an aquatic tarantula, questing for nits.
Allowed back into light and air, Frankenstein took exception.
‘How dare you? I am a gentleman! I do not harbour livestock!’
The inspector turned out to be a woman with arms like hams and face to match.
‘Makes no difference if you’re Pope or peasant, my dear,’ she informed him cheerfully. ‘Everyone gets the same treatment.’ Then she turned to address her colleagues. ‘He’s free.’
Those was the only comforting words he was going to get. Other strong limbs lifted Julius out and onto fluffy towels on the floor. It was like being a baby again and long lost memories of infancy arose dusty from burial places in his brain, surprised as any Lazaran at being revived.
If so, they were the only dusty thing about Frankenstein by then. Though a fastidious man by nature he was now cleaner than ever before. He stood there dripping water and indignation.