The bulging eyes returned from their wondering study of the room. They blazed at Julius.
‘Imbecile! I am not ‘everyone.’ Do you delude yourself? Do you insult me by thinking that might be so? Think again little man, and think quick. Of course I expected different for myself! Heaven should have flung open its doors to me!’
‘Or the other place’ thought Julius, unable to help himself and concerned lest it communicate to his face. He was under no illusion; a storm had broken out of a clear sky and its thunderbolts might well strike him.
‘First glory here, then glory ever after,’ the little Lazaran ranted on. ‘That was my expectation: my due! That would have been justice. I will not endure injustice!’
Then Julius decided: ‘What the hell….’ He might as well go due to a conscious comment as an inadvertent one. Let this warmed-up Zeus throw lightning if he liked.
‘Injustice is the lot of mortal men,’ he countered. ‘In all times and in all places. Of all men…’
There, he had said it. It was pleasing that his possible last words should be the honest truth.
But the anticipated explosion didn’t come; the fire in the eyes did not flare forth. The Emperor subsided back into the throne.
‘All mortal men,’ he echoed, suddenly calm sounding again. Only the eyes maintained the malevolence.
On balance, Frankenstein decided he preferred the rant mode. This ‘quiet and rational’ mood was probably more hazard rich.
However, it was left at that. The Emperor splayed his fingers over the arms of his throne and subsided into its uncomfortable opulence.
‘I think I may come to like you,’ he said eventually. ‘Maybe. You have backbone. Or is it impudence?’
Frankenstein inclined his head in minimalist bow.
‘Modesty prevents me from reply,’ he said, ‘your highness…’
There, that was it. Thanks to lack of forethought he’d hit upon the right title. It fitted the person addressed but at the same time brought the speaker no discredit.
For most certainly this pale thing upon his throne was high above usual considerations. He had only to say ‘invade!’ and—subject to the Convention’s rubber stamp—whole armies, hundreds of thousands of men, would. He could ask of people ‘die for my cause—whatever it happens to be today’ and they would, also in their many thousands. He held true power. If that was not ‘highness’ in worldly terms, then what was?
The Emperor liked it too. He’d had every opportunity to wear out all the other honorifics. By happy accident, Julius had said the right thing. The preliminaries now over they could proceed to business.
‘So yes,’ the Emperor summed up, intending to curtail any flow of bogglement and blurted gratitude, ‘it was I who plucked you from the Mausoleum. And in such a witty manner, leaving the English with the blame, courtesy of a few expendable prisoners. Did you not suspect before? I mean, who else would dare?’
Which proved that however clever he might be in other respects, the Emperor had not done his research on Julius Frankenstein. The man stood there, not amazed, not noticeably pleased, not even tongue-tied, but reticent simply because he chose to be.
‘Who indeed?’ Julius ‘replied.’
It wasn’t the dazzled response the Emperor was expecting and invariably got. For the first time he actually studied his catch.
‘Is that all you have to say?’
As a soldier’s son Frankenstein had been taught manners. In his childhood, absence of ‘please’ meant your request was ignored; and no ‘thank you’ resulted in loss of whatever you got.
So: ‘Thank you,’ said Julius, and bowed.
This was more like it, but it still failed to satisfy.
‘Don’t thank me,’ commanded the Emperor. ‘Repay me!’
Julius stood easy, his prejudices confirmed. It hadn’t taken long for naked self-interest to show its face and shoulder social niceties aside. That was the way of the exalted and also the reason they’d got that far and high.
‘In what way?’ asked Julius.
The Emperor pursed his lips in pained distaste.
‘Oh dear…,’ he muttered, probably to himself, ‘its makes things so tedious when the footsoldiers are slow…’
Yet he rallied for a further effort. Impatiently, the Emperor spelt it out.
‘The Compeigne Mausoleum,’ he said, ‘deals in quantity. Which is very useful for my armies and the wonders they would have me do, but it’s mere bulk production stuff. A sausage factory. Whereas here, here the emphasis is on quality…’
For the first time Frankenstein’s interest was fully engaged.
‘‘Here’? You have Revival facilities here?’
The Emperor gave him an ‘of course’ look.
‘Do you really think I would entrust my well-being to those… slaughtermen?’
It took the briefest consideration. ‘No,’ agreed Julius. ‘Upon reflection, that would not be wise.’
‘Exactly. Now I want you to be ‘wise’ on my behalf.’
‘In what way, highness?’ asked Julius.
The Emperor was visibly wearying, a dismissive hand was waved.
‘I have a director of research: an Egyptian. Go through the far door and you will find him. He will instruct you in your duties…’
Those vibrant eyes trapped in a dead body tried to lock gazes again, but Julius couldn’t hold it. He blushed for shame.
‘You do know what your duty is, I take it…,’ the Emperor enquired.
Even if his eyes were not his to command Julius could at least stand up straight.
‘I can guess. My duties as regards you, that is…’
The Emperor pulled at a fold of rank flesh. It lifted far too easily and retained finger indents when allowed to fall.
‘Duty, duties…,’ he said, ‘one follows from the other. Though I sense you make a distinction. No matter: one or the other suffices so long as they are… executed.’
Was that a pointed choice of phrase, designed to chill? Probably not, Julius concluded. Individual lifespans lay way below this man’s powers of focus. At a minimum he dealt only in entire regiments of deaths; or sizeable cities ablaze, nothing less. A wholesaler in the mortality trade if you like.
And ditto re salaries, sustenance and suchlike mundane matters: all beneath him. The basics of life (and after-life) had come to him on a plate for so long he thought they arrived like oxygen. However, enough vestigial links with the humdrum remained for him to recall that underlings liked wages. He assumed Frankenstein’s hesitance was lucre related.
‘All your needs will be supplied, if that’s what you’re worrying about,’ said the Emperor, tetchily. He thought he was being very magnanimous to descend so far from Olympus.
‘Those needs are but few, highness…,’ Julius reassured him.
‘All the better—even though my pocket is limitless…’
In the context, mention of ‘pockets’ could only be hilarious. The Emperor was sprawled naked as a cadaver awaiting the anatomists. However, rather than laugh and maybe end it all that way, Julius instead dared all on a whim. Here and now was an opportunity that might never come again, a unique opportunity…
‘However, there is one special boon you could grant,’ he said. ‘In fact that only you could grant…’
The Emperor heard honeyed words too often to be impressed. He was also disappointed to find Frankenstein willing to grovel on the floor for gain like all the rest. The smile upon his face was neither kind or flattering.
‘Doubtless. Spit it out: what is it?’
Julius squared his shoulders and prepared for the possibility of being blown away—first metaphorically for his presumption, and then literally when the guards arrived.