‘Don’t fuss, Simeon,’ he rebuked him, but in the most milk-and-water way. The younger man persisted regardless.
The older priest walked with a stick, an ebony cane topped with amber. Frankenstein’s keen eyesight perceived an insect, a fat fly by the looks of it, preserved forever within that yellow blob.
Before he spoke the priest regarded this decorative flourish, perhaps contemplating eternity to draw strength for the here and now. Then he rested chin and hands on the cane. Ever appraising, Julius noted a gaudy ring on one of those slim fingers. It seemed out of keeping with the man.
The priest glanced at each one of them in turn. It felt like an informed scrutiny, uncomfortably so: a look that bore weight. There was no indication, not the merest hint, what conclusions he drew.
Finally, the priest drew breath again.
‘You asked what you could do for me. That’s charming and polite. But given that I am an uninvited guest: a gate-crasher in fact, permit me to turn that around. What can I do for you?
‘Go?’ suggested Ada.
At last, Frankenstein had something to work on. He saw how the Swiss Guard stiffened at that. Which was revealing…
The priest smiled and shook his head.
‘Alas, I cannot oblige…’
‘Will not, you mean,’ Lady Lovelace corrected him.
He conceded it freely.
‘Indeed. Duty holds me here for the moment, however much you may find it objectionable. And I think the culture you come from finds me very objectionable. Therefore perhaps you’ll permit me to justify myself just a little in your eyes…’
‘Can I stop you?’ she asked. A genuine question.
‘No.’ An honest answer. ‘But you could refuse to listen. That would negate my good intentions…’
Ada considered herself a scientist, which implied an open mind and open ears.
‘No, go on, I’ll listen,’ she said, calm(ish) now.
‘Thank you. ‘Well, firstly may I disabuse you of one of your worse suspicions. And yours too perhaps…’ He’d turned to address Julius. ‘There has been no abuse of the confessional, no sacred secrets spilt. Father Cornelius, he who heard your confession, is unwelclass="underline" most unwell. In fact, he had a seizure last night. Medical opinion is that he may be gathered to his eternal home before another night passes. Meanwhile… how can I put this with sufficient emphasis? He is most insistent that your repentance be recognised and absolution given. Even on the brink of the great abyss he is more concerned for your immortal soul than his own…’
‘A true priest,’ commented Julius.
‘Exactly. A credit to his kind: I should have promoted him while he was in health, but now it is too late. Meanwhile, all—and I assure, it is all—he has communicated to us is the supreme import of your case and the desirability that you return to the sacrament.’
‘Not much to go on then,’ said Frankenstein, recreating in his mind the pathway of events. ‘Just enough to bring you to this room but little more.’
The priest equivocated with a flicking motion of one hand.
‘Well…’
Julius jumped ahead.
‘Oh, I see…’
The priest smiled as if at a bright pupil.
‘Your father was here, was he not? You too, I believe’
‘That’s true.’
‘Then you know we are not entirely without resource…’
‘They have a diplomatic corps,’ Julius informed his two friends so they could keep up. ‘Which doubles up as a secret service. And an intelligence network reaching right the way to every last Church in Christendom. They’re very effective…’
‘Aha!’ said Ada, glad to have her misgivings stroked again. ‘More priestcraft! Jesuit trickery!’
The priest acknowledged both ‘compliments.’
‘If you like. Did not our Lord enjoin us ‘Be you cunning as serpents…’’
‘‘But gentle as doves,’’ Julius concluded for him. ‘‘Matthew 10, 12…’
‘Chapter 10, verse 16 actually,’ the priest corrected, ‘but broadly: bravo. I hope we conform to both injunctions. But to continue, what Father Cornelius could not supply, intelligence received could suggest. And that intelligence suggested the… stress he placed on your tale was not misplaced. A few enquiries later and here we all are…’
He leant back in his seat and smiled, as though that were it. But since neither he or his troops stirred plainly it was not.
‘And so…?’ asked Julius.
The priest fixed him with a very impressive gaze. It had the full weight of a two millennia old organisation behind it.
‘What you told Father Cornelius,’ said the priest, when the stare had fully sunk in, ‘I’d rather like you to tell me…’
Naturally, given his upbringing, Frankenstein had seen a pope before, but never actually spoken to one. And as for telling one your life history…
It helped when the priest was divested of his lowly disguise and stood revealed in papal purple as His Holiness Simon-Dismas II, Keeper of the Keys, Father of Christendom, Guardian of the Holy Places etc. etc. Then, with his white skullcap on and secretary dancing attendance, he looked far more the part.
Likewise, when a room was found and they had privacy, secrecy even, the situation felt slightly more natural. A thinned-out number of Swiss Guard stood round just out of whisper-earshot.
Even so, Julius hesitated till His Holiness pointed something out.
‘If I cannot absolve you,’ he said, not threatening but stating a simple fact, ‘then who on earth can?’
Frankenstein saw the truth of it and shrugged. He knelt and started off with the very first dead person he’d had brought back to life against its will and his own better judgement.
‘That letter you were writing and have now concealed,’ said the Pope to Lady Lovelace when he and Julius returned to the room (much) later, ‘I urge you to finish it. In fact I insist.’
Ada frowned at this further example of priestly cunning. It disconcerted her that they should even faintly imitate the omniscience of the Deity they served.
‘So you knew of that?’ she accused him. ‘Of my intentions? You were snooping like some insolent servant?’
‘Naturally,’ confirmed the Papal secretary, in order that his master need not admit fault. ‘There are discreet devices—slender listening tubes fed up the eaves, amongst other tools it might be wiser not to specify. We felt it was excusable in the circumstances.’
For someone who thought ‘necessity’ a total explanation for all behaviour Ada’s snort was somewhat hypocritical.
‘I see,’ she said. ‘Or rather, you heard. Well, if you’re so clever perhaps you can tell me what I was about to write?’
The Pope paused.
‘Possibly. But not via prophecy or any preternatural power: just informed speculation.’
He fixed Ada with a wise look.
‘Was it to be a very short letter? A mere one sentence missive maybe? Perhaps only two words? Such as ‘I understand’?’
Lady Lovelace’s shoulders twitched. Simon-Dismas smiled at the involuntary confirmation. It also proved to him she was Human again.
‘Talleyrand will like that,’ he said. ‘His is one of the best minds of his generation: probably the sharpest. And we trained him! What a tragedy we could not keep him…’
Ada de-discombobulated herself by force of will. She was pleased to be able to tarnish the enemy’s oh-so-cleverness…
‘You’re only part right,’ she said. ‘There was going to be more.’
‘Indeed?’ said His Holiness.