Then she closed her eyes again to enjoy private bliss.
‘I am whole. I have my spark. Thanks to him. The talent was all mine but some thanks must go to him!’
Frankenstein frowned and opened his mouth to speak.
She can only have sensed it because her eyes remained clasped.
‘As must we,’ she pre-empted Julius. ‘We must go to him! Now!’
Which gave Julius the opening he’d been searching for. Such lunacy was well worth a ‘but…’
‘But…’
He got no further. Ada opened her eyes and in beholding them Julius had to admit they were even more lustrous than before. The orbs shone and seduced exactly as they must have done in life.
She saw he had objections and would not be the instant assistance required. Fortunately, a ready alternative was at hand.
‘Foxglove!’
‘Milady?’
‘Get a hotel servant. Get me proper writing paper. Enquire the time of the next post collection for England.’
Things then happened in a flurry and in a way that was good; for activity at least stopped Frankenstein’s headache from worsening.
Foxglove rang the rope for a flunky and one came and went with Ada’s order. She pursued his retreating back with composite Anglo-Italian instructions along the lines of ‘make it snappy.’
‘Right, monsewer Talleyrand,’ said Lady Lovelace, positively crowing while she waited, ‘I’m going to write you a letter! And I shall say that I know your little game! And thank you for it too…’
Frankenstein might have had comments on the wisdom of that but he was distracted. Misgivings added incrementally up in his mind till they amounted to alarm.
He shook his head and Foxglove, who for all his alternative allegiance had respect for the man, noted it.
‘What’s the matter, sir?’
Julius crossed to one of the windows and looked out. Then to an adjoining one. Foxglove stumped over and joined him.
‘No,’ said Julius, pronouncing judgement on the view.
Foxglove looked again.
‘No what?’ he said.
‘This,’ answered Julius, and pointed below. ‘And as for that hotel porter…’
‘What about him?’
‘Have you seen him before?’
Foxglove considered.
‘No: but that signifies nothing. Places like this have many-…’
Frankenstein interrupted with complete confidence. Foxglove saw that his face was fixed and somehow thinner. The lips were compressed. He’d gone into military mode. Foxglove was impressed and willing to listen.
‘That flunky wasn’t flunky-like,’ said Julius quietly. ‘He hasn’t the bearing. Too erect. Normally he lifts muskets not luggage. And these people here…’
He indicated the random passers-by outside. They looked fine to Foxglove. Frankenstein didn’t agree.
‘They’re not civilians. They’re a street-scene from central casting…’
He knocked the window pane. He waved. He whistled. No one looked up.
Frankenstein whirled round and in an instant was beside his valise on the bed. He hurled things into it—after taking his pepperbox pistol out.
‘Pack!’ he ordered his companions. Lady Lovelace, still blissed-out, looked puzzled and then annoyed. She started to say something.
‘He’s right,’ said the pale child, pre-empting her. Ignored in all the excitement he’d been listening avidly throughout.
‘Shut up,’ Frankenstein told it and Ada. ‘We go!’
They weren’t going anywhere. The door came down.
Chapter 8: NO ONE EXEPCTS…
‘So it’s true!’ cried Lady Lovelace. ‘And all lies!’
She was acting like a saintly wife wronged by a sot—except it appeared no act. The eruption of Swiss Guardsmen into the room over splintered wood confirmed her every prejudice, the steady flow of black legend drip-fed into all Protestant Britons for centuries. Priestcraft, weapon of the Red Whore of Babylon who sat in Rome, no more respected the sanctity of the confessional than it did any other part of religion. Probably the Spanish Inquisition was on its way too, only delayed by the unwieldy bulk of its racks, red-hot irons and other torture gear. Plus grim nuns with whips.
If so they were much delayed. After the room was secured by soldiery, only two others entered, a brace of priests, one plainly more senior than the other.
Meanwhile there was nothing to be done. Frankenstein had already observed the street outside was well clamped down: he could reasonably presume the rest of their hotel were likewise. Similarly, they had zero prospect of fighting their way through the ample numbers of Swiss sent in. It was him, a cripple and a shouty woman (oh, and a kidnapped alien baby) versus an elite regiment. That would be so short a contest as to be no contest.
When he wanted to be, Julius was a sensible man. The way he saw things, his options now focused on the preservation of dignity.
Part of that included distancing himself from Ada. She was working herself up into quivering outrage.
‘You…,’ she spat at him, scornfully, ‘you… papist! You and your blabbing to priests! Just when I had…’
Then she noticed her present priestly company were paying great attention to her tirade, especially the last truncated phrase. She instantly shut up: which shed doubt on her foregoing fervour.
‘May I?’ asked Frankenstein in the ensuing hush. He indicated a nearby chair, all the while careful to avoid sudden movements. Half a dozen pistols held in steady hands were tracking him.
‘Please do,’ said the senior priest. He spoke in Italianate French, the aptly termed lingua Franca of civilised European discourse.
‘Thank you.’
Foxglove too slumped down. Only Lady Lovelace remained standing. With what she deluded herself were surreptitious movements Ada was stuffing her revelatory slips of paper into the placket-slits of her skirts. Perhaps she thought that celibate churchman automatically averted their eyes from the female form, or dare not contemplate a search of one.
‘You were saying, madam,’ prompted the younger priest, perhaps the secretary of the first. ‘Our arrival was inopportune because you had just…’
Ada sniffed distaste.
‘I forget…’
The younger priest seemed to accept that.
‘What a pity. It sounded most interesting…’
How she hated being humoured. Her long lost husband had done that.
‘You talk to them,’ she instructed Frankenstein, acting like nothing untoward had happened and their privacy remained intact. ‘They’re your lot: you attracted them. Ask them what they want.’
What she wanted was more time to conceal the paperwork. Yet Julius could see their guests were deliberately ignoring her skirt-stuffing activities. It made him feel like a child denying the obvious before adults.
‘What can we do for you, father,’ he enquired of the older man.
‘May I?’ The priest indicated a free seat. ‘It is your room, and we your guests, after all…’
If he was their nemesis he was a very courteous one. Which was nice. Julius always held that even if you had to kill someone there was no need to be brusque about it.
‘Certainly,’ he said.
‘Thank you.’
The slim, grizzled, prelate positioned the chair so that he could easily address them all. His assistant rushed to dust its seat before posterior met upholstery.