Chapter 3: MEET THE FAMILY
Back on the roof-garden, a few others heard Lady Lovelace’s appeal to the Deity—but not as many as might do normally. Fortunately, His Imperial Highness had been distressed and fatigued by his last bout in the breeding house, and a day’s respite was decreed. Therefore, there were comparatively few staff around when Frankenstein and friends entered in. Luckier still, several of the hangmen, midwives and other technicians lurking around knew Frankenstein by sight and so didn’t renew the alarm.
All in all, the Lazaran incursion had been drama enough for one day, and compared to that Frankenstein’s friendly face was normality itself. Especially given the horrible eventfulness of their day-to-day duties. They even overlooked his hangers-on and Ada’s exclamation.
Julius waved a cheery greeting.
‘Everything is well?’ he enquired, as though it was his responsibility to find out.
Various affirmatives from around the building suggested it was, more or less.
‘Just thought I’d check.’
Blithe confidence and high acting carried Julius through again. Several of the more cultured staff went so far as to thank him for his concern.
Others had other concerns. Foxglove’s gaze took in the gallows, the dynamos and the suspended breeding racks—and found that actually, no, he couldn’t take them in. And, apart from the sights, there was the smell. The place was scrubbed and sterile but it still stank. The place stank of sex and electricity.
‘I have to go,’ said Foxglove, gorge rising.
‘We all have to go,’ agreed Frankenstein, speaking low. ‘As I said, our being here will be reported and not forgiven. But be so good as to give us a few more moments.’
‘I’ll try,’ said Foxglove, and endeavoured to see no more.
‘Stiff upper lip!’ Lady Lovelace exhorted her servant: which was extreme compassion by her standards. ‘Pull yourself together man!’ had been her first framed response.
Sadly for Foxglove’s resolve, at that moment one of the naked pregnant ladies saw fit to shift in her harness and loll her head in his direction. Inadvertently, he found himself face to face with her.
It was hardly a meeting of minds, not least because one of the minds had gone—and Foxglove even felt his slipping away. He was eye to eye with eyes that beheld nothing and lips the opposite of stiff.
On the contrary, she moaned and drooled. She must have been a pretty girl once, perhaps a maid drawn from the Palace staff, with notions of her own about how motherhood would be. Now she had no thoughts at all, not even about being naked and cocooned mid-air in row after row of many like her.
‘No! Enough!’ said Foxglove, and being a decent soul might have done something drastic at that point to rectify the great wrong before him.
Happily however, by then it was ‘enough’ in another sense. Enough time for the slow fuse Julius had lit as his last act before leaving his rooms, to reach its destination. Time for Julius’ ‘collection’ to be unveiled to the world.
They could hardly ignore it. Home-made ‘Hellburner’ bombs were the weapon of choice for guerrilla movements worldwide when they wished for ‘a spectacular.’ Julius had familiarity with their effects in more than one continent, back when he was a mercenary (and thus should have known better…).
A few people had remarked on the in-preparation project, but it was by no means unknown for single men to have a beer barrel in their rooms (though rarely, it must be said, one so huge). Curious cleaners and Julius’ few visitors were told it contained blood for his experiments, or that—being Swiss—he was a heavy beer drinker. Either way, they didn’t enquire further.
Such squeamishness or national stereotyping meant he could go on with his painstaking accumulation, spending many an empty Versailles evening stealing the necessary powder flasks, bushels of nails and pots of tar. As it grew he gained faith that one way or another his hobby would serve as his default way out of Versailles.
Before escape-plans acquired a point and purpose, he’d envisaged being beside it when it went off, smiling sweetly in the faces of the soldiers come to arrest him. From him to the hissing fuse they’d look, and then back again, saucer-eyed and chasm-mouthed; too late to do anything but whisper ‘oh no…’
Oh yes! A bang and a whimper: that would have worked. As might these revised plans, when all he wanted was to distract people whilst he resigned from Imperial service.
Quite aside from the explosive blast, Frankenstein felt a warm glow knowing casualties were thereby minimised. His rooms were far from the hub and only unlucky passers-by were at risk. This was a material issue. Knowing the staff as he did, it was clear many (most?) were candidates for Hell via his Hellburner. Better they should live longer and maybe repent. This way struck him as by far the kinder option. It was nice when things worked so neatly.
The signs looked good. Distraction abounded. Certainly, indifference and carrying on as before was no longer an option for anyone in Versailles. The whole Palace and surrounding countryside got to hear of Julius’ ingenuity. In fact, it suddenly become priority one for all and no one could speak about anything else. Even Napoleon was shaken from his daydreams of world-domination, and the Old Guard stirred up like an ants’ nest.
Only line of sight deprived those on the roof garden seeing a portion of the Palace pulse outward and then shroud itself in clouds of flame-shot black. However, given the sensational sound effects they could well visualise it. That and the floor heaving beneath their feet and a soon arriving shockwave breaking windows all about.
Frankenstein regained his balance and then his composure.
‘You see?’ he said to Foxglove, with a smile. ‘I told you you need wait only a few more moments…’
He said it softly, lest outsiders should hear and connect him to events, but needn’t have worried. Most were shocked into purely private thoughts and all were deafened. They looked from one to the other for guidance but found none.
Which is generally when the self-motivated can seize the moment and success. Frankenstein seized away.
Foxglove was temporarily hard of hearing like the rest but he got all the visual clues. The minute Frankenstein and Ada stepped doorwards he nipped in front of them and cleared the way. At last: a honest role he could play!
As the gunpowder furore died down a human one replaced it. Clamour rose from the unaffected portions of the Palace and lamentations from the devastated part.
It was perfect cover. Frankenstein issued urgent but contradictory orders to anyone en route inclined to stick their nose in. Foxglove’s intimidating presence did the rest. Within a trice they’d crossed the roof garden to the stairs and made all haste to be away.
Nevertheless, before she left, Ada lingered long enough to take a book and baby.
‘A bomb?’ said the Vatican priest, shocked—and surprised he could still be shocked. ‘A bomb set where innocent folk might be? How could you?’
Well, speaking of ‘could,’ Julius could have quibbled whether anyone in the Versailles set-up might be termed ‘innocent’—but that was a bit too Ada-ish a stance for him. Instead, he pretended to misunderstand.
‘How? he ‘answered.’ ‘It is comparatively simple. My father first showed me how, and I arranged several in the course of my subsequent career. For instance, during the Fifth Basque War, we infiltrated a barracks in Bilbao and… well I digress, but suffice it to say the “Hellburner” is the poor man’s artillery battery. Insurgent movements all over the world use them. The knack is, you see, to layer powder in a container—brandy barrels are good—together with inflammables and shrapnel.’