Lady Lovelace still did not stoop to collect or accept her mission.
‘To what end?’ she asked, beating Frankenstein to it by a sliver.
Talleyrand looked at them full on.
‘To what end?’ he said to Ada. ‘The end of your kind!’ Then to Julius. ‘And the end of your trade. We must wipe out this satanic science world-wide!’
And then and thus they understood in full. But Talleyrand gave them no chance to relish the revelation.
‘ “Lo, and Jacob called his sons to bless them”,’ he quoted, drawing on his own distant memories of priesthood, ‘ “and he said, ‘Gather together and I will tell you what will happen to you in the end of days’…”’
The Prince actually did beckon them closer. Reluctantly gathering up the letters they came.
‘It will be difficult without Lazarans,’ he said, ‘but worse with them. When the nations learn what Bonaparte proposes, what he has done, they will ally against him. Humanity will unite against its superseding—which is the one and only cause that will ever unite it. There will be a crusade: a world-war. And there will be civil war wherever Lazarans are the mainstay of the economy, as in America. Those places must again substitute negro slaves: until such time as conscience forbids that too. Also, the Churches will split between the honest and the bought. There will be actual and spiritual strife throughout the world; and it will be vile and long and hard but eventually France will lose. And since I love France and have only ever sought its well-being—the one consistent thread in all I have done—then I am sadly glad of that. But beforehand the Convention and Napoleon will contest together: oh, if only both could lose! There will be scope for true patriots to save France. Because it must not be just foreign armies that sweep both the Convention fanatics and the Napoleon monster and his would-be eternal empire away. Ditto a foreign occupation. Both have been tried before and would only unite all Frenchmen against them. This time it must be my way: the slow but sure way. Only then can France be what it truly is and be loved again…’
An unlikely prophet, Talleyrand relinquished his exhausting grip upon futurity in order to regroup for one final push.
‘This will be your unenviable lot,’ he said. ‘To be in the middle of much unpleasantness. To be both its cause but also its cure.’
He turned to Ada.
‘You know what you are,’ he said. ‘And being a unique sentient version of it surely you realise this all must stop. Stop with you.’
Ada bowed her head and thought.
‘And you,’ Talleyrand addressed Frankenstein, ‘you know full well what wrongness your ancestor unleashed. That is what drove you half mad. That too must stop.’
Julius did not deny it. The Prince pressed his point home.
‘I offer you hope. There is the chance to make amends. You are or you have the evidence of the wrong you represent: Lady Lovelace’s mind, the unnatural child, the book of instruction and so on. Now,’ he indicated the letters of introduction, ‘you also have transport to take that evidence to the rulers of this afflicted world. All that is wanting is eloquence on your part. That I cannot give: it must come from your own inner conviction. Do you have it?’
Ada and Julius looked one to the other. The speed of the mind is such that they reviewed their life story in time to reply without unmannerly delay.
Lady Lovelace nodded. Frankenstein likewise.
Talleyrand seemed to shrink and merge back into the pillows. The child beside him whimpered.
But he was not gone. Not yet. He rallied.
‘That is good,’ he said, now in a whisper. ‘Napoleon must be denied his dynasty, lest being cleverer and colder than humans they supplant mankind. Also, generals must not have their armies of undead lest we end civilisation with ceaseless war. All this… evil must end. The world is for the living and no others: the dead have had their day. Heaven claims them and is not cheated with impunity. Humanity must be natural again!’
A simple enough statement, but a strategic vision that cut across all the complexities of politics and policy. Normal striving for petty advantage sways few men of goodwill, but a vision: that is different. A vision can alter history.
Talleyrand studied them—and was content.
‘Oh,’ he said, ‘and take the servant with you.’ He indicated Foxglove. ‘You owe him that for his love. Besides, even with one leg he is the strongest of you all. Maybe, madame, you should marry him: that might constitute some small reward.’
Foxglove blushed to the roots of his hair. Lady Lovelace raised one eyebrow—but did not dismiss the idea.
‘Or wed the doctor,’ the Prince nodded at Julius. ‘He would do too. It hardly matters…’
Nor did it compared to the weightier matters afoot. Talleyrand realised that in addressing such minutiae he had lingered overlong. He had done what he could with the broad brush strokes: mere detail had to be delegated—forever.
‘Time for that delectable sweet, I think,’ he told his niece. ‘Would you be so kind as to pass the plate, child?’
She would. The Prince partook and soon died of the poison within.
Chapter 14: LOSELEY LIBERATION DAY
It was like setting in motion a well-oiled machine. No sooner had Talleyrand’s soul quit the frame that had carried it across nine lively decades than swarms of servants took over the room to carry out his final wishes.
Two separate flunkies found they had the job of destroying his journals but in the spirit of the moment they did not bicker but instead assisted each other. Every worldly-wise page was shredded and each scrap fed to a furnace. History and humanity both lost and gained thereby.
Meanwhile, faithful Xavier led the squad which ensured their author met a similar fate. Wrapped in a simple shroud, the sometime Prince de Beavente, latterly Lord Vectis, but always Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand Perigord, was borne down through Loseley house out to the huge pyre awaiting.
Then, with little ceremony, and no words but much urgency, his body was committed to the flames. A torch ignited the primed timber. There was not much flesh left on him at the end. The puppeteer who’d had his hand up all Europe was gone within minutes.
In many eyes it was the final scandal in a long life full of them. Some said it was another slap in the face to the Church and implicit denial of the Credal ‘Resurrection of the Body’. Given the notoriety he had acquired over the years that became the default view.
However, the perceptive realised that the Prince would never insult someone whose services he might soon need, whether it be the Almighty or a milkmaid. To that tiny minority it was but a short leap of commonsense to arrive at the truth. The Prince wished to put himself beyond those who might revive him before Judgement Day.
Meanwhile, on the day of his departure, the great and good were not present as they would have wished to be, even if only to check he really was gone. The massed clerics had only just received his amended retraction and were still fuming in their lodgings nearby. As in life so in death: the Prince’s speed of thinking left them standing.
Instead, Frankenstein and Ada and Foxglove and the crack cravat team served as Talleyrand’s sole mourners. Which was probably as he would have preferred it.