The Steampunk Trilogy (15 page)

“May I read to you from section four, paragraph sixteen, clause nine? ‘The undersigned agrees to offer the Crown first option on his services for a period of time not to exceed two decades after the expiration of this contract. Should the reigning monarch perish (God save him), the option shall pass to his successor.’”

Agassiz attempted a feeble laugh. “Surely such a clause is merely one of those ancient manifestations of
droit de seigneur
, not meant to be actually invoked . . .?”

Folding up the papers and returning them to his coat, Bopp said, “I’m afraid not,
Herr
Professor. It’s actually a modern notion, and quite legal. In fact, it was this very clause which I was able to use—along with my status as ambassador—to convince the Governor to order your arrest. But I don’t wish to invoke courts of law quite yet in our discussion, nor the displeasure of the King, which I, as his duly appointed agent, would be duty-bound to express. No, I intend to appeal to your sense of honor and to our common heritage.”

The sole surviving Teutonic Knight stood up, his sword clattering on his chair, and proceeded to stride martially up and down the room as he spoke.

“You see,
Herr
Professor, I am going to speak to you as a fellow member of the Aryan race. It’s true, you’re not technically a member of the Germanic tribes, but as a pure-blooded Swiss, you represent the next closest branch of our noble family. Perhaps you’re familiar with Comte de Gobineau, the Frenchman? No? Ah, a pity. He is in the midst of composing a monumental work he intends to call
The Inequality of the Human Races
.
I believe you’d find it fascinating. It details the genesis of the Aryans on the Indo-European plateau, their migrations and their proper place as lords and rulers over all other degenerate branches of humanity.

“But this destiny, while ultimately inevitable, is subject, as are all temporal schemes, to setbacks and hindrances. While the glorious rule of the sons of Ahura Mazda will come to pass sooner or later, it can be delayed. The lesser races, you see, are cunning in a primitive way. They can interpose barriers to our success. If nothing else, they outnumber us drastically.

“By Wotan, they are incredibly fecund! We Northerners, with our concentration on matters of the intellect and the spirit, can hardly match the tropical scum in matters of procreation. It’s disgusting how they breed, like maggots in filth! And just as you would crush without compunction a stinging insect that annoyed you, so must the inferior races of the world be brought under the fatherly and wise rule of Germanic efficiency and swiftly exterminated!”

Bopp paused, and Agassiz tried to muster a politic reply. Slowly, he began.

“While I basically agree with you as regards the innate superiority of our white race, I must beg to differ slightly with your aggressive plans for world domination. Surely the wisest and least energetic course is simply to maintain a policy of strict segregation. Let the dark-skinned races be penned up in their portion of the globe, while we keep to ours. For instance, we might begin by shipping all the North American blacks back to Africa—”

Bopp exploded. “And let them squat on the untold undeveloped wealth of that continent!? And what of the possibility of their stealing sufficient arms from us to represent a military threat? No, that will hardly do,
Herr
Professor. It’s a fight to the death, believe me. And although it’s guaranteed that Aryan forces will ultimately triumph, inaugurating a thousand-year rule, the price of the victory can be high or low, depending on what we do today.

“You see, while German scientific and military prowess lead the world, are at an all-time pinnacle and still ascending—consider, if you will, the miracles of the Krupp munitions factories, the useful accomplishments of scientists such as Baron Liebig, and even the somewhat more esoteric findings of men such as yourself—there is another aspect to our culture that has been much neglected of late.

“I speak now of the religious side, the occult sphere.

“Ever since the Enlightenment, Aryan man has tended to disparage that which could not be weighed or measured. By failing to keep in touch with the spiritual elements in his nature, the inner light of Valhalla which alone gives direction to all his drives, he has cut down the tree of Yggdrasil. Look at the sad state of my own order, reduced first to land-grubbing politicians, then to mere retainers, turning our backs on all the secret knowledge we brought out of Jerusalem.

“I will grant the savages this much: whatever trappings of civilization they mimic, they wisely hold on to their religions. Their ancient gods and rituals still fuel their daily activities and their will to survive.

“It is this pagan spiritual vigor which I intend to restore to the Germanic peoples. And I shall begin by employing the fetiche of the Hottentot Venus!”

Agassiz suppressed a curse. That damnable pudendum! Why had Cuvier ever preserved it? Would it haunt him for the rest of his life . . .?

Agassiz sought to dissuade this Prussian Paracelsus from his plans. “But surely,
Herr
Bopp, you cannot seriously intend to contaminate yourself with Negro magicks?”

“Why not? What could be more ironically fitting than to turn the savage’s own weapons against himself? Magic, my dear Professor, knows no ethnic taint. I am perfectly at ease with anything that will achieve my ends, whether it be the shamanism of the Red Man or the taoism of the Yellow.”

Bopp’s lone eye began to gleam. He drew close to Agassiz.

“I have a vision of the German people reinspired with a thousand sects and cults. No more shall the Order of the Rosy Cross offer the sole alternative for seekers after cosmic truth. No, there shall be a hundred orders. The Mystic Aeterna, the Stella Matutina, the Ordo Templi Orientis, the Hammer League, the Thule Society, the Fraternitas Saturni Lodge—The Old Ones shall return! That is not dead which eternal lies! He does not sleep, he only dreams!”

Bopp’s mantic trance fled as quickly as it had come, leaving the Teutonic Knight plainly enervated. He rested a hand on the back of Agassiz’s chair and slumped. With an effort, he straightened.

“It is your duty,
Herr
Professor, both contractually and as a representative of the Aryan race, to assist me in obtaining the fetiche. I take it for granted that you will contact me at the first definite sighting of the sorcerer.”

“And if I should chose not to comply?”

Bopp smiled evilly. “Allow me to show you something.”

Moving to one of the tapestries, Bopp lifted it to reveal a door. He motioned Agassiz to open it and enter.

The moisture-scented room was filled with a rumbling that issued from a large water-wheel whose axle protruded from one wall. An underground stream entered from one side of the room through a stone channel, exiting on the far side.

Strapped to the rim of the water-wheel were two figures. With a shock, Agassiz recognized them as his two visitors of a day or so ago: Hoene-Wro´nski and Levi. With each revolution of the wheel, they alternately plunged into the water and emerged coughing and sputtering, with barely enough time to gather their breath for the next dip.

“Two pitiful would-be players in this great game,” said Bopp sarcastically. “I caught them inquiring about the fetiche. Oh, don’t be alarmed. I don’t intend to kill them, just teach them a little lesson before sending them packing back to Paris. If I were ever to lay my hands on that damn Kosciuszko, however, the story would have a different ending! But enough fun—let us go.”

Outside the torture-room, Bopp said, “I trust I do not have to spell out the application of what you have seen to your own case,
Herr
Professor? I thought not. Very well, then, you are free to leave. Your guard waits outside to conduct you to the prison gates.”

With a hand on the door latch, Agassiz was brought up short by one last comment from Bopp.

“If you still waver, Professor, allow me to assure you that the future of the sub-humans and all their allies can best be depicted by a boot stomping on a face—forever!”

Agassiz found himself on the ground floor of the prison without having consciously made the ascent. The events of the past twenty-fours hours had overtaxed his brain.

Sunlight pouring in through the unbarred windows of an anteroom began to restore him a little to himself. As clerks fussed over the paperwork connected with releasing him, Agassiz sought to reassure himself that the whole interval had been only a horrible nightmare. Surely the affairs of the world were not managed by such madmen. . . .

Another prisoner was brought into the room. It was Dogberry.

“Glad to see you made it through whatever you made it through, Lou, though your face does look like the leeks we used to blanch on the farm. Anyhow, you didn’t miss much of a breakfast. I counted fifteen weevil carcasses in the gruel, not reckoning a few wings and feelers.”

Grateful for a familiar and friendly face, even of a night’s acquaintance, Agassiz said, “I take it you’re to be released today also, Josiah?”

“’Pears so, Lou. Though what I’ll do when I’m out of here, I can’t rightly say. Guess I’ll be moving on to ply my trade in a less cosmopolitan town, one where folks ain’t followers of this newfangled daguerreotype realism—”

Something about the hapless artist—surely not his minuscule talent—reminded Agassiz of Dinkel, his trusted sketcher of twenty years who had chosen to remain in Europe. Almost without intending to, Agassiz found himself saying, “Josiah, would you like a job drawing for me? The subjects would be animal in nature, which might be more in your line.”

Dogberry slapped his trousers, sending up a plume of dust. “Would I! Why, Lou, you’re the kind of patron that Rembrandt had with the Medicis!”

“I believe you have Michelangelo in mind, Josiah.”

“One Spaniard’s the same as another to me, I’m afeared.”

Soon, two free men stepped out into the open air of Charlestown. The simple act of breathing had never filled Agassiz with as much joy as it did right now. He vowed never to forget the feelings of this moment. . . .

Despite the sleepless night and the unsettling interview, Agassiz found himself enjoying the walk through early morning Charlestown. Onboard a ferry heading toward East Boston, he found himself frequently breaking into a foolish grin.

Objectively considered, he knew, his life was a mess. On the one hand, he was forced to play host to a miscegenating colonial and his Bushwoman bride, not to mention a Terpischorean Ojibway sachem. He was simultaneously under surveillance by an autocrat and an anarchist. His wife was at death’s door, and last night’s fiasco had surely erased all chances for him to secure the Harvard professorship.

On the other hand, he was not strapped to the motive apparatus of a gristmill.

Opening the unlocked door of his house, Agassiz called out, “Pourtales, Burckhardt, Desor, hello! Your leader has returned unscathed!”

Jane poked her head out of the pantry. “Shush, Professor! Everyone’s sleeping. They only just got home an hour or two ago. . . .”

“The lazy wretches! And I suppose no one expressed any concern for me . . .?”

Jane looked hurt. “Master Desor claimed he saw you climbing into a carriage filled with trulls and tosspots. He said you had a slattern in each arm and one on your lap.”

Agassiz felt a vein in his temple throbbing. He tried to repress his anger. “I did no such ungallant thing. I spent the night in prison, and this morning nearly escaped a hideous session on the rack!”

Jane gasped, and threw herself into Agassiz’s arms.

“Oh, Louis, to think of it nearly makes me swoon! You poor, poor thing!”

Agassiz caught Dogberry watching with rather too much interest. “Ahem, thank you for your concern, Miss Pryke. Ah, allow me to introduce Mister Josiah Dogberry, a new member of the team. I believe Mister Dogberry could use some breakfast.”

“I should say! A dozen flapjacks and a rasher or two would sit nicely. But light on the insect parts.”

Leaving his servant to attend to Dogberry’s needs, Agassiz retreated to his study. He freshened himself by means of a ewer and basin, then had a short nap on the leather couch.

The arrival of the morning post served as cause for Jane to awaken him. Having informed him archly that the rest of the household was still abed—including Mister Dogberry—she waited patiently for Agassiz to read his mail.

Agassiz singled out three letters for immediate perusal. The first bore the return address of the dwarfish yet powerful Abbot Lawrence.

Striving to maintain the devil-may-care demeanor he had felt earlier—there were plenty of other schools that would have him, Yale for instance—Agassiz slit the envelope.

Dear Professor Agassiz:

I can’t say when I’ve had a more delightful time than I had last night. Probably not since Ben Franklin and I painted Philadelphia red back in ’88. I consider the success of the whole affair to be attributable to you and your charming staff. Damn
that fly! Martha! Where was I? Oh, yes. You may count on my whole-hearted support for your candidacy for the new chair I am about to endow. Marvelous, isn’t it, the divergence of feminine anatomy . . .?

Sincerely yours,

A.L.

Agassiz realized he had been hunched forward tensely while reading. He now flopped back gratefully in the chair. Life was good. He was meant to succeed. All his problems would soon disappear. (But what had Cezar told—or showed—the millionaire about his African mate?)

The second letter was from Hosea Clay.

You dastardly rapscallion:

As you well know by now, sir, I was afixin to sever yet another token from your unclaimed slave when the brute availed hisself of a poker, whanged me upside the haid and made his escape. I have been convalesson these past few days, or you woulda received my alfred david about this shameful affair even sooner. Rest assured that my lawyer will be in contack with yourn, as soon as I employ one. The damages will be treemenjous.

Hurtfully yourn,