The Guardsman had been meditating, or whatever it was career elite-soldiers do when in standby mode. He stood startled. Things likewise stood in the balance.
Frankenstein had prepared for every eventuality. Before the man had time to prise his shoulder off the wall Julius had said ‘sorry,’ complemented by an innocent and apologetic look. Before any opportunity for the challenge ‘who goes there? Julius had shut the door and was gone.
Less than a second had elapsed. A short enough span for a sentry who’d fallen down on the job to convince himself the lapse might not matter—or maybe hadn’t happened at all…
Shoulder-blades only slightly clenched, Julius continued down the corridor as fast as a casual pace could take him.
As he walked he listened out for the sound of the door opening, but peace reigned for two, then three, then four whole seconds—after which it would never come. The feared bullet or bayonet failed to arrive and prove that clenching is a useless reflex against express-delivery metal. Both Julius and his new knowledge survived.
Two turns of corner later he’d gained the cover of other people. Soon after that he’d slotted himself back into his timetable and was exactly where a trustworthy Palace employee with full buy-in to the Imperial project should be right then. Thereafter he was invulnerable unless the Guardsman wanted to make an issue of his own lapse and implicate himself. Which was unlikely, if Julius’ upbringing amongst soldiers was anything to go by.
Which in turn meant Frankenstein was free to consider the implications of his discovery. An apparently disused door with a sentinel behind it? The very height of discretion and serpentine thoughts! The thinker of those thoughts did not wish that door known about.
Being an obliging fellow, Frankenstein forgot all about it for a while.
That ‘while’ equalled about a day. During that time it was still just about possible the Guardsman might have a change of heart. Whilst light lasted Julius made sure he stayed near a high-up means of exit—from Versailles and life. Likewise, for the whole of the night that followed he dozed fully dressed in an armchair, booted and ready for the hammering on his door which meant he had been informed upon. That way he could hurl himself to a mercifully swift doom and at least die with dignity. Otherwise, he didn’t doubt that the Emperor’s curiosity about his curiosity would be persistent and painful.
Yet the next morning came, as it tends to, and Frankenstein found himself still alive, albeit unrefreshed. Time to resume work.
Blowing up that slightly ragged feeling into full-blown illness, Frankenstein swung lead. He asked for and secured the day off. No one seemed suspicious: on the contrary, the man who Julius in his slowness still called ‘the Bureaucrat’ feigned humanity and sent a servant with tonics and a message asking if there was anything else he could do.
There was. Julius requested some bottles of the finest vintage in the Palace cellars. Hardly a standard cold cure but he was Swiss and therefore strange, and he was amongst Frenchmen with a predisposition to smile on any request concerning wine. Therefore no one turned a hair, the bottles arrived and Frankenstein set to work.
It was a proven technique for emergencies: not swift, granted, but as sure as anything could be in this uncertain world. Julius made himself comfortable and methodically constructed a trap for his perverse mind.
To start with, that comprised assuming a relaxed position, lolling on a chaise-longue and preparing for a long wait if need be. Plus sip sip sipping at the fine wine to lull the brain’s tricky tendencies. An unlikely, languid looking, sort of trap therefore, but none the less effective for that.
To bait it required one indispensable component: a delectable thought. If Julius was sufficiently inventive and the thought delectable enough, he could have sat on a spike and imbibed neat caffeine and yet still the trap would have worked. Assistance of the upholstery and alcohol kind simply streamlined matters.
First Frankenstein recalled what little he’d seen through the curiously guarded door. Which equalled less than a second’s worth of visual information—and most of that involving a moustachioed man’s surprised face. Oh, and some stairs. Of the wider scene and detail he had next-to-nothing, or so he thought. However, the eye takes in more than the mind recalls—without prompting. Julius let the recollection hover in his forebrain for a moment and then dismissed it as if of no importance. ‘I’m not interested in that!’ he misinformed his consciousness.
The trap was set. Now to show a red rag to a bull.
Frankenstein daydreamed as he drank and soon enough, less than a bottle in, he hit upon a delectable thought.
It isn’t necessary to intrude on his privacy further than to say it involved the nursing staff of the first hospital he studied at, when the juvenile Julius was awash with hormones and the female of the species was a novelty to him. Since early impressions run deep he remembered their faces and forms as though it were yesterday. One thing led to another and then… the delectable thought was with him! Somewhat shop-worn through over-use but still good.
What if, he wondered, both at the time and periodically since, what if some strange erotic affliction should descend on all the nurses simultaneously? Perhaps some spell cast on them by Pan or Bacchus—although explanation was hardly important. It was the consequences… What sights would be seen that day if they suddenly beheld the world—and, yes, yes, yes, each other—through the red mist of utterly uncontrollable lust? Oh baby…!
A notion to conjure with! A feast of food for thought, an image to treasure—and myriad other metaphors that needn’t delay him. More importantly, the delectable thought sauntered into Julius’ imagination, rudely shouldering aside everything else, and took up sole occupation.
It is a comment on the likelihood of lasting happiness in this life that Frankenstein’s brain objected. Like one half of a sour marriage, a wife hearing her husband laugh at a party and demanding they leave early, it felt threatened by the other partner’s pleasure. It intervened in no uncertain manner—as he had hoped it would.
And so…
The thing he’d first thought of—and cunningly rejected in favour of reverie—now came hurtling back like a steam train. It ‘chanced’ to be the first bit of ammunition that Julius’ brain had to hand. A perfect image of the scene behind the secret door rocketed into his mind’s eye, evicting all the naughty nurses.
Frankenstein swooped. He seized the scene, he devoured its detail before his mind could realise it had been tricked. He looked around, above and behind the startled Old Guardsman and he memorised what he’d seen but not noticed at the time.
Too late, Frankenstein’s brain perceived it had been had. It tried to withdraw the additional detail that should have been buried in unconscious memory—but Julius had his claws in it. A pathetic offer of having the nurses back, in slow motion plus close-ups, failed to detach him.
Julius sat up. He set down his glass.
So, that’s how it was!
The stairs went up, that much he recalled before, but the extra detail of the worn stair carpet was revealing. The place was much frequented. And the movement he’d semi-seen, that resolved itself into people—of a sort. The Guardsman remained the only living thing behind the door but he had company in the form of Lazarans. A host of them in gaudy imperial uniform, corralled behind the bars of a treadmill working the cage of a lift mechanism. So, heavy burdens went up and down to wherever the stairs led. Or else the route was taken by VIPs too VI to ascend like mere mortals.