The Chemickal Marriage (30 page)

‘I did not see Celeste. I could not find her.’

Svenson’s voice bore the same ragged edge. ‘You were occupied with that fellow – you saved us all.’

‘No, Doctor, I did
not
.’

‘Celeste set off the explosion. She fired into the clock. I don’t know how she guessed it held another explosive charge. Who knows how many lives she saved – if it had gone off tomorrow …’ Svenson placed a filthy hand across his eyes. ‘I could only reach the child –’

‘I do not blame you.’

‘
I
blame myself – quite fiercely. She was … Lord … a remarkable, brave girl –’

‘
I will have that bastard’s head
.’

Chang’s words echoed down the sewage tunnel. Doctor Svenson struggled to rise, and placed a hand on Chang’s shoulder. Chang turned to him.

‘Are you well enough to go on?’

‘Of course, but –’

Chang pointed to a wooden door above the stairs. ‘You will be in the lanes behind the cathedral – the blast there will explain your appearance, and you should be able to walk freely.’ He shifted his gaze to Francesca. ‘You will take the Doctor where the Contessa asked?’

The child nodded. Chang clasped Svenson’s arm and took up the lantern. ‘Good luck,’ he managed, and strode into the dark. The Doctor called after him.

‘Chang! You are needed. You are needed
alive
.’

Chang hurdled the fetid stream in a running leap. They were lost behind him. He increased his pace to a jog, already caught up with all he had set himself to do.

The great Library, like every other civic institution, was shot through with privilege and preference. Inside it lay elaborate niches, like endowed chapels in a cathedral, housing private collections that the Library had managed to wrest from the University or the Royal Institute. Though every niche held one or two bibliographical gemstones, these collections attracted more dust than visitors, access being granted only through referenced application. Chang had learnt of their existence quite by accident, searching for new ways to reach the roof. Instead he had found the hidden wing of the sixth floor, and with it the old Jesuit priest.

The Fluister bequest would never have attracted Chang’s interest under normal circumstances. The fancy of an admiral in whom a curiosity for native religions had been instilled by a posting to the Indies, and whose prize money had been lavishly spent on acquiring any volume relating to the aboriginal, esoteric, heretical or obscure – to Chang it was a fortune wasted on nonsense. To the Church, Admiral Fluister’s bequest – pointedly made to the public, yet diverted into its present inaccessible location through proper whispers in the proper ears – represented an outright gathering of poisons. Conquering through kindness, the Bishop had offered the services of a learned father to catalogue such a haphazard acquisition. The Library, caring less for knowledge than possession, had naturally accepted, and so Father Locarno had arrived. Ten years at least he had sorted through the Admiral’s detritus (it was an open wager amongst the archivists as to when
the porters would find Locarno dead) with scarcely a word to anyone, a black-robed spectre shuffling in when the doors opened and out only when the lamps were doused.

In Chang’s experience, there were two kinds of priests: those with their own life history, and those who had taken orders straight away. The latter he dismissed out of hand as fools, cowards or zealots. Amongst the former, he granted one might find men whose calling rose from at least some understanding of the world. In the case of Father Locarno, his nose alone set him in that camp, it having been deliberately removed with a blacksmith’s shears. Whether this marked him as a reformed criminal or an honest man whose misfortune had led to a Barbary galley, no one knew. It was enough to speculate why this weathered Jesuit had been given the task of managing the Fluister bequest – which was to say, Chang wondered how many of the books Father Locarno had secretly amended or destroyed.

He stepped into the Fluister niche. Father Locarno sat, as he ever had in Chang’s experience, at a table covered with books and ledgers. His grey hair was bound with a cord, and his spectacles, because of the nose, were held tight by steel loops around each ear. The exposed nasal cavity was unpleasantly moist.

‘Esoteric ritual,’ said Chang. ‘I have questions and very little time.’

Father Locarno looked up with a keen expression, as if correcting others was a special pleasure. ‘There is no knowledge without time.’ The Jesuit’s voice was strangely pitched, vaguely porcine.

Chang pulled off his gloves, dropping them one at a time on the table. ‘It would be more truthful to say there is no knowledge without commerce – so, churchman, I will give you this. The Bishop of Baax-Sonk has not been in his senses since visiting Harschmort House some two months past. Many others share the Bishop’s condition – Henry Xonck perhaps the most notable. It has been ascribed to blood fever. This is a lie.’

Father Locarno studied Chang closely. They had never done business, though surely the priest had heard rumours from the staff.

‘Do you offer His Lordship’s recovery?’

‘No. His Lordship’s memories have been harvested into an alchemical receptacle.’

Father Locarno considered this. ‘When you say
receptacle
–’

‘A glass book. Whatever he knew, any treasured secret he kept, will be known to those who made the book.’

‘And who would that be?’

‘I would assume the worst. But I should think this much information will allow your superiors to take
some
useful precautions.’

Father Locarno frowned in thought, then nodded, as if to approve at least this much of their transaction. ‘I am told you are a criminal.’

‘And you are a spy.’

Locarno sniffed with disapproval – an instinctive gesture that flared the open passages on his face. ‘I serve only the greater peace. What is your question?’

‘What is a chemical marriage?’

‘My goodness.’ Locarno chuckled. ‘Not what I expected … not a common topic.’

‘Not uncommon in your field of expertise.’

Locarno shrugged. Chang knew the man was now rethinking the Bishop’s fate – and every other recent change in the city – in respect to alchemy.

‘This blood fever – now Lord Vandaariff has recovered, perhaps His Lordship the Bishop –’

Chang cut in sharply, ‘There is no cure. The Bishop is gone. This chemical marriage. What does it mean? Is it real?’

‘
Real?
’ Locarno settled back in his chair, the better to expound. ‘Your
formulation
is naive. It is an esoteric treatise.
The Chemickal Marriage
of Johann Valentin Andreæ is the third of the great Rosicrucian manifestos, dating from 1614 in Württemberg.’

‘A manifesto to what purpose?’

‘Purpose? What is enlightenment without faith? Power without government? Resurrection without redemption?’

Chang interrupted again. ‘I promise you, my interest in this ridiculous treatise is immediate and concrete. Lives depend upon it.’

‘
Whose
life?’

Chang resisted the urge to snatch up his penknife and rumble ‘
Yours
’. Instead he placed both hands on the table and leant forward. ‘If I had the
time to read the thing, I would. The explosions. The riots. The paralysis of the Ministries. One man is behind it all.’

‘What
man
?’

‘The Comte d’Orkancz. You may also know him as the painter Oskar Veilandt.’

‘I have never heard either name.’

‘He is an alchemist.’

Locarno released a puff of disdain through the hole in his face. ‘What has he
written
?’

‘He has made
paintings
– a painting named for this treatise. I need to know what he intends by it.’

‘But that is absurd!’ Locarno shook his head. ‘These works are all inference and code precisely because such secrets can be perceived only by those who
deserve
the knowledge. Such a treatise may indeed tell a
story
, but its
sense
is more akin to symbolic mathematics.’

Chang nodded, recalling Veilandt’s paintings in which shadows and lines were actually densely rendered signs and equations.

‘For example, in such works, if one refers to a man, one also means the number 1. The
Adept
will
further
understand that the author
also
refers to what
makes
a man.’

‘I’m sorry –’

‘For what is man but spirit, body and mind? Which, of course, make the number 3 –’

‘So the number 1 and the number 3 are the same –’

‘Well, they
can
be. But the triune –’

‘What?’

‘Triune.’

‘What in all hell –’

‘Three-parted, for heaven’s sake! Body, spirit, mind. That
triune
constitution of Man will
equally
stand for the Nation and the three estates that form it: Church, aristocracy, citizenry. In today’s parlance one might substitute government for aristocracy, but the comparison holds. Moreover, the three estates – as every man carries the shadow of sin – necessarily contain their opposite, fallen aspects: the bigotry of the Church, the tyranny of the state
and the ignorance of the mob. This duality is precisely why secrecy is of paramount importance in communicating any –’

‘This is exactly the nonsense I had hoped to avoid.’

‘Then your errand is hopeless.’

‘Can you not simply relate the thing as a tale?’

‘But it is no
tale
. I do not know how else to put it. Events occur, but without
narrative
. In its place comes only detail, description. If there is a bird, one must know what colour and what species. If there is a palace, how many rooms? If the seventh room, what colour are the walls? If the Executioner’s head is placed in a box, what kind of wood –’

‘Nevertheless, father, please.’

Father Locarno gave a querulous snort. ‘A saintly hermit attends a royal wedding, along with other guests. The guests undergo several trials, and a worthy few are admitted to the mysteries of the wedding. But before the young king and queen can be married, they and the royal party are executed. Then, by way of more rituals and sacrifices, they are miraculously reborn. This journey – the Chemickal Marriage – is emblematic of the joining of intelligence and love through the divine. The Bridegroom is reality, and the Bride – being a woman – is his opposite, the empty vessel who attains perfection through union with that purified essence.’

‘What essence?’

‘What do you
think
?’

Chang snorted. ‘Is it an instruction book for madmen or for a brothel?’

‘Those outside the veil rarely perceive –’

‘Again, the Bride and Groom. He is also reality and she –’

‘Is possibility, fecundity, emptiness. Woman.’

‘How bracingly original – fecundity and emptiness at the same time. And this king and queen – the Bride and Groom – are
executed
?’

‘By ritual.’

‘Then brought back to life?’

‘Reborn and redeemed.’

‘And what is made, in this spectacular marriage – when these two become one?’ Chang’s voice became snide. ‘Or, excuse me, three – or also six –’

‘They make heaven on earth.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘The restoration of natural law.’

‘What does
that
mean?’

It was Locarno’s turn to scoff. ‘What informs our every dream? The return of Eden.’

In the lowest basement Chang availed himself of a porter’s luncheon, trustingly left on a table. He ate standing, and stuffed the last bites into his mouth before lifting the sewage grate with both hands. He emerged some time later in the shadow of St Celia’s madhouse. Chang washed his hands and face at its carved fountain – an infant baptized by Forgetfulness and Hope – and slopped water onto each boot, the worse for a second journey underground.

Three streets past St Celia’s was Fabrizi’s. Chang’s visit was brief – and cost the second of his rolled banknotes – but he was once more armed: a stick of ash with iron at the tip and, inside it, a double-edged blade, twelve inches and needle-sharp. Signor Fabrizi himself said nothing with regard to Chang’s absence or his present disarray, but Chang knew full well the picture he made. He had seen it himself too many times, men risking all on a last desperate throw – a gamble, it was obvious, they had already lost. If one ever saw them again it was only being pulled from the river, faces as shapeless and swollen as an uncooked loaf.

Before leaving, he had asked Father Locarno if there was anything unique to
The Chemickal Marriage
that might have explained its singular attraction for the Comte.

‘The messenger, of course.’

‘Of course? Then why not mention this before?’

The priest had huffed. ‘You wanted the
story
.’

‘What messenger?’

‘The hermit is summoned by an angel, whose wings are “filled with eyes” – a reference to Argus, the hundred-eyed watchman slain by Hermes –’

‘A reference to what purpose?’

‘The messenger – the Virgin – is a figure of vigilance –’

‘Wait – the Bride is a multi-eyed virgin who is slain?’

Locarno had shaken his head in exasperation. ‘By Virgin I refer to the angel.’

‘Not the Bride?’

‘Not at all –’

‘The Bride is not a virgin?’

‘Of
course
she is. But the angel – the
emblematic
Virgin – messenger, summoner – also presides over the executions, the wedding and the rebirth. She is called Virgo Lucifera, and is quite unique to this particular work.’

‘Lucifer?’

‘Have you no Latin?
Lucifera
.
Light
. The virgin of enlightenment.’

‘A creature of tenderness and mercy, then?’

‘On the contrary. Angels have no more emotion than birds of prey. They are creatures of justice, and therefore relentless.’

A covetous pride infused Locarno’s speech. Chang turned with a shiver. There was enough cruelty in the world without its being worshipped.

Halfway back to St Celia’s was an apothecary’s, where Chang purchased a three-penny roll of gauze. As the clerk measured the cloth to cut, Chang’s gaze passed across the bottled opiates behind the counter. Any one would exhaust the coins in his pocket, requiring him to use the final banknote. He stuffed the gauze in his pocket and walked out before temptation got the better of him.