Shadow Conspiracy (44 page)

Emma eyed her narrowly. “You are not implying, surely, that his employer can manipulate the weather.”

The abbess laughed. “Oh, indeed not! That was luck if you wish, or God’s will if your faith inclines in that direction. You might argue with equal cogency that the storm was your salvation, for it brought you to a place of safety.”

That safety had been little enough in light of what had occurred in the night. “Would it be presumptuous of me to ask what he was seeking?” Emma enquired.

“If indeed he was Lady Ada’s agent,” replied the abbess, “then he was searching for evidence as to the whereabouts of Mrs. Shelley—Mary Shelley, the authoress and historian. She has in her possession, Lady Ada believes, a most vital and dangerous invention, which should never have been loosed upon the world.”

Emma noted the points at which the abbess was specific, and those at which she was not. “The Promethean Man? Was that more than a fabulous fiction?”

“The Promethean is very real,” Mother Agatha said.

“She was here,” Emma said as understanding dawned, “with the thing that sometimes she called demigod and sometimes monster. I have read,” she added by way of explanation, “the famed account of its creation. Is there a Dr. Frankenstein, then, as well?”

“That is a figment of the authoress’ invention,” Mother Agatha replied. “The rest however is true enough, all but the ending; the creature vanished indeed, but not into the icy wastes of the Pole.”

“Rather, to those of the Alps?” Emma detected assent in the abbess’ glance. “And yet she is here no longer. Lady Ada’s agent seemed most displeased by that discovery.”

“I can imagine that he would be,” Mother Agatha said.

Emma was weary suddenly, weary to the bone. It cost her considerable effort to maintain the straightness of her spine. Her mind, fortunately, was less susceptible to the body’s frailty. “No doubt you will be handing me over to the appropriate authorities. I did cause the death of Lady Ada’s agent, accidentally as it happened, but I cannot bring myself to regret his passing.”

“In the rite of Rome, there is forgiveness for any sin, with due and proper repentance.”

“Indeed,” said Emma. “My mother subscribed to that faith; she died however when I was small. My father paid lip service to the Church of England, as he deemed advisable for the safety of his employment in the British East India Company, but his own beliefs owed little to convention. He raised me to adapt to any circumstance in which I found myself, and to hear any argument that laid claim to sense or reason. Arguments lacking in either—and with respect, reverend mother, arguments concerning religion fall too often into that category—I might deal with as I felt they deserved.”

The abbess heard her without visible offence, indeed seemed to find her words both interesting and worthy of consideration. “You were not reared in England, then?”

“I have been there,” Emma said, “but the place of my birth is the city of Constantinople; we moved thence to Mumbai in India. My father left this life abruptly while on a mission to China; such resources as he had at the time of his passing sufficed to ship me forthwith to England, but little more. I am now the companion of an elder lady of considerable means and poor health, who will be missing me sorely if I fail to return to her.”

That was meant to convey a message. The abbess received it as such. “What you have seen and heard is known to few beyond these walls. You will understand, surely, when I observe that you may be safer, and much better served, to remain with us; for if certain persons discover that you have been here, they will stop at nothing to relieve you of your knowledge.”

Emma had surmised as much. The danger of her position did not frighten her; rather, it lifted the burden of weariness and roused in her a kind of joy. She had taken the position with Lady Windermere out of necessity—a person must earn a living, and for a young woman of poor means, there were few palatable methods of doing so. Despite Lady Windermere’s fragile health, she loved to travel, and she had taken the waters all over Europe and the Isles. Emma had grown quite fond of her. Still, it was a placid life in the main, importunate travelling companions aside, and Emma was not a placid spirit.

Here was adventure and a purpose. Not to stay in this house of ensouled and perpetually pious automata—oh, no; that life was never for her. Lady Ada, she deduced from the letter in Fraser’s possession, was expecting a visitation in Paris. There was neither date nor time to be found, but those were simple enough to obtain.

Perhaps, thought Emma, Lady Windermere would be amenable to a sojourn in Paris.

Meanwhile, of course, there was the difficulty in which Emma currently found herself. Mother Agatha had the full resources of the abbey to call upon, and it was clear that she did not intend to release Emma. Emma had seen too much.

She spoke with care, in a carefully neutral tone. “Your hospitality is generous, reverend mother, but I should be reluctant to tax it much further than I have already. The storm has passed: the wind no longer howls without. If I may trouble you for the return of my clothing, I shall depart as soon as I may, with the sincerest promise of silence. Your secret is safe while I live.”

“I do believe in the honesty of your intentions,” the abbess said, “but those who would discover the truth of our lives here will think nothing of stripping your soul from your body and enslaving it to their will.”

In spite of herself, Emma shivered. She had seen the transfer of a soul from a dying body into an automaton. Nor, she deduced, was it the first. She had counted at least twelve others in the chapel with the same cast of face and the same supernally sweet voices. “Would you do the same to me?” she asked steadily.

“Oh,” said Mother Agatha, and her horror seemed genuine. “Oh, no! The translation of souls as practised here is a rite both high and holy; the sister who participates in it has dedicated her life to the achieving of it, and has nurtured her soul to the fullest height of its beauty and sanctity. She passes then into a body that will not fade or die, within which she can raise forever the praises of the Most High.”

“And yet,” said Emma, “by so doing, she assures that she will never enter into the Presence.”

“The Presence is all about her,” Mother Agatha said. “She lives truly in both this world and the next. It’s a Mystery, child, and a great one.”

“It is beyond my poor comprehension,” Emma said. “I have no calling to your life, however remarkable some of its manifestations may be. I was born to the world, and the world calls me.”

“Indeed,” said Mother Agatha. She seemed contemplative rather than wrathful. “Before you choose irrevocably, there is a thing that you must see.”

She beckoned Emma to follow her. One of the nuns in attendance offered Emma a mantle to cover her near-nakedness. She was deeply grateful for both the gift and the gesture.

The nun who had given it smiled with no evidence of either shyness or censure. She was a tall woman, strongly and beautifully built, with the face and lineaments of the Romans’ Juno—most peculiar here in the stronghold of holy Minerva. Had she had a calling to the world, too, once upon a time?

Emma could not envision herself ever shut up within walls, praying to a God whose existence her father had taught her to question early and often. No matter what the abbess showed her, she was sure that her mind would not change.

They did not go far, which was a mercy: Emma’s weariness had come flooding back. In a chamber near the outer wall, equipped and furnished for the use of a guest, Sister Infirmarer bent over a figure Emma had hoped never to have to see again.

He had been stripped of his outer garments and laid on the hard narrow bed, and covered to the breast with a woollen coverlet. His face was lifeless, his cheeks as pallid as the linen of his shirt, and yet he breathed. George Fraser was alive.

Emma stiffened her back and bade her knees sternly not to buckle. It was a relief that she was not a murderer after all, by accident or otherwise. Nevertheless, this was a difficulty. It might, when he regained consciousness, be something rather worse.

As if in response to her thoughts, Sister Infirmarer met the abbess’ enquiring gaze and shook her head. “It’s not good,” she said. “The body is healthy, if bruised, but the skull was not so fortunate. The opticon detects severe cranial trauma. If he wakes, he may have no power to move or speak.”

“Can you be certain of that?” Emma asked. She spoke out of turn, but she could not help herself. It was vital that she know.

“Nothing is certain in this world,” Sister Infirmarer said, “but I do believe that the damage is significant. It would be most merciful if he failed to wake at all.”

“I am not a good Christian,” said Emma. “I do wish that he would wake and know what penalty he pays for his sins.”

“Do you indeed?” said the abbess. Her tone was odd. “Do you sincerely wish for such a thing?”

“I am not a good Christian,” Emma repeated. “Yes, I do wish it.”

Sister Infirmarer’s breath hissed. “Reverend Mother! You can’t be suggesting—”

“Most probably I should not be,” the abbess said. “And yet, as we know well, the Lord’s ways are often mysterious.”

“He is not consecrated,” the infirmarer said.

“No,” said Mother Agatha, “but the vessel is.”

“That calls for a far more subtle grasp of theology and canon law than I can begin to claim,” said the infirmarer.

“As to that,” the abbess said, “what we do here is not approved in Rome: that we all know well. So too do we know that God approves it, and He stands above any earthly priest or prelate. He brought us together one by one, each with such gifts and arts and skills as few in this world may claim; He gave us friends and allies with great resources and greater devotion to His glory. Now He gives us this, that may serve us in the manner of a priest—if only to assure the Holy See that we are appropriately confessed and shepherded.”

“Yet,” said the infirmarer in a long breath, “to go to
those
lengths...”

“Have we any other choice?” the abbess asked. “We can send to Rome, but I doubt sincerely that we will be blessed again with a pastor who cares so much for his wine and so little for his flock that he takes no notice of any irregularity.”

“It is a pity,” the infirmarer had to concede, “that the good God chose to take him when he was away from here, so suddenly that there was no time to claim either the body or the soul. Still—”

“The good God gave us this,” the abbess said: “a great and terrible sinner, but how many truly good men have you known among the priests of Rome? It’s not the soul that makes the priest. The ritual itself is pure no matter how foul the one who performs it, if only his body has been ordained by a duly consecrated bishop—as this one has, thanks be to the good God and to my cousin the archbishop, who is addled and nearly blind. Who knows? Our faith is a faith of redemption. What greater sacrifice is there for any man, and what greater atonement, than to be given up to the perpetual service of God?”

Emma heard their colloquy in profound astonishment. It was logical, in its way, if one were completely convinced of the rightness of one’s faith. It was justice of a kind that would have gladdened the heart of the most bloodthirsty prophet of the Old Testament. It was mercy, one could suppose, if mercy was to remove the soul from a body that had broken irretrievably, and place it in the heart of an automaton. If the entire goal of one’s life was to survive at any cost, would this cost be reckoned too high?

Sister Infirmarer spread her hands in surrender. “If that is God’s will, then I’ll not stand in the way.”

“We’ll know when the rite begins,” said the abbess. “His soul may be nonexistent, or so feeble or so malformed that the vessel will reject it. God will decide. If He favours us, we have a priest. If not, we’re in no worse state than we were before.”

This vessel had the appearance of a slender man of medium height, with a refined and scholarly face and long elegant hands. It bore no resemblance whatever to the broad-shouldered, devilishly handsome body that lay in front of it. In Emma’s estimation, it was an improvement.

She dreaded even now that the nuns’ God would work a miracle, and Fraser would wake, sit up, and curse them all roundly. But he lay as still as before, save for a sequence of aimless movements that, Sister Infirmarer had said, were common in victims of his particular trauma. She had bound the wrists to the sides of the bier to hold them still, lest he flail when the knife began to cut.