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The Idea was to build a human-like creature who would perform various tasks in the future, and the far future ... as long as it could possibly survive. The ingredients would be provided by the fantastically skilled craftsmen who were about at the time. The creature would be a sort of malleable clockwork creation with its controls, or brain, being made of a jelly discovered by a scientist-priest, which under some special conditions (which were never written down) could copy the stored state of a human brain. Normal operational reflexes were also copied, and movement and reflex were to be accomplished by an amplified ether which would now be known as low current electricity. The unit was to be very energy efficient and would eat food as a normal person did but would not actually need very much at all. Some power would also come from the sun, through the eyes. Part of the aim was to build something that could pass as human, even to someone as close as a lover, but not as close as a surgeon. There were a number of technical problems that needed to be overcome plus one non-technical problem -- all of this activity would be classed as a heresy against the church, and the discovery of the sacred jelly would see them torn apart as wizards and witches.

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Charles stood in the booklined room by a window and looked into the walled garden. Beside him stood Berenice. Beyond the garden he could see the gentle pastures leading up to a small hill. In the courtyard, on the other side of the house, the horses and carriage that had brought them from Montreuil, were being put away. Just behind the substantial stables rose another gentle hill, covered in a thick forest of trees and shrub. It could be bleak and windy in these parts but the chateau was well-protected, and the closer he came to it on the mile or so long drive, the more he felt embrased and eased. That day was a sunny, summer's day and now he could see his wife and son in the garden.

Berenice saw them too. "I'll go out and organise the others." Charles smiled. "Yes, but you'll have to come to dinner with the family." Berenice wrinkled her nose, smiled, and left.

Charles thought of the night before when they had stayed at the citadel of Montreuil by the Canche, the only place where they could get across the wide river on the way from the Ile de France and Paris. After they had organised their band to proceed in dribs and drabs towards their destination by different routes, they had walked the ramparts in the balmy evening.

Berenice had looked at Charles's thoughtful profile as he gazed out over the river and the green countryside. "I will always be with you."

"You shouldn't say that. When you are older, you will fall in love with someone your own age, and you will go, and ... "

"No. I will not. And do not be so bourgeouis! Louis may admire them as senior servants to the crown and ... did I tell you about the diaries of the Duc de Saint Simon? They portray the king as a spoilt ninny because Monsieur le Duc is jealous of the bourgeouisie usurping what he sees as his powers. If these survive they could be used to justify another Fronde, or worse ... anyhow, you are not them. And I know you want to sleep with me."

Charles turned and his eyes flicked into hers then away, back to the flow of the countryside. "It is true, I do. Who would not want to? But I will not until you are legally an adult -- seventeen, if that is what you still want. I suppose, in a way, I am afraid because you would be much more than a mistress and ... " he looked back into her eyes "... I don't want to hurt my wife. She doesn't deserve it. And yet I already have. C'est difficile."

Berenice poked him in the ribs with her finger. "Ha! Well, for now we have a job to do, and we cannot do it apart. This will be the greatest project man has ever seen, and yet when it is done, no-one will know or hear of it. Je l'aime ca."

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Athene lay on the bed in her cell considering what to do. In the distance she could hear her voices speaking a flowery French but she put them aside.

Although her own mind was best suited to solving complex problems, she had discovered quite early on, and to her chagrin, that sometimes the most obvious and simple hypothesis was the correct one.

In that spirit, she rose from the bed, walked over to the heavy cell door and pushed it.

It opened.

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The secrecy was as complete as they could make it. Charles had sent their normal priest away for a period of study and the replacement was Father Marron, who would perform services in the small church as well as his other duties in the labs they had built under the large stone barn which formed one third of the perimeter of the square behind the chateau.

This had so far worked quite well except for some references in Messe by Father Marron which referred to extensions of aspects of the gospel that no-one in the congregation had ever heard of. He had been requested to stick to more conventional messages.

Twenty workmen were kept busy. Each one knew very little about the work of the others. The only ones who knew the full scope of the project were Berenice, Charles, and Father Marron, along with the King and Louise, the Duchess de la Vallieres.

It was being said at this time that Louise had been displaced as Louis's mistress by Athenais de Montespan and that as a result, she had sadly gone into a convent. What had happened was that Louise was horrified by what she thought of as sacrelidge. Sometime earlier she had wanted to retire to a convent, and now she did, and prayed every day of her long life for the souls of all those involved, especially for Berenice, who Louise thought too young to know what she was doing.

The work had gone quite well all through the summer and into the winter but just before Christmas there came a note announcing a secret visit by none other than Louis's chief minister, the bourgeouis Colbert.

"They say he is inhuman, you know, so his visit is apt I think" said Berenice.

"Yes, he loves the galleys rowed by slaves doesn't he? I don't know him ... don't want too. Louis will not have told him, and our allegiance is to Louis so if he is difficult ..."

"He will have to be killed ..."

"... and that will not please the King very much. To tell him what is happening here would please him even less. We shall see."

Colbert had come with a small unthreatening guard and came to the point almost immediately.

"There are official funds coming here that I want to enquire about. I have come in person because I know you are a personal friend of the King, and I have not been able to discover what these funds are for. Without belittling the issue, I also have family business in this area and so this was a happy chance to make a small official enquiry."

Charles felt no snobbery towards the man. In fact he thought it a clever idea of the King's to use such men, but he personally did not like him. He looked at Colbert coldly.

Berenice said "Are you sure you want to know, Monsieur?"

Colbert smiled at Berenice and said to Charles "One of the questions I had was whether the money was actually coming here at all. I did doubt it but now I see it is true, and that puts my heart at ease to some extent. If you feel able to tell me any of it, I shall be grateful and that is all. Our main worry is that a neighbour of yours to the South continues to be a traitor to the throne."

Charles warmed slightly "The money mostly goes to England where I fear it is wasted. That is all I may tell you." This statement was mostly true.

Colbert seemed satisfied and after, they had a great meal and lots to drink. At one point, Colbert took Charles aside. "You know there is a rumour in the church that a great heresy has started. They say it started in this area, and that already there are some secret chapels that are visited by people such as yourself. They believe in a fourth being -- a holy quartet, and their insignia is a square with a diagonal cross. They believe that the fourth member is with us now. Have you heard of this?"

Charles showed genuine shock "... a holy quartet? Non, Monsieur!"

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