The Chemickal Marriage (43 page)

The man set Svenson’s revolver next to a crumpled handkerchief, a pencil stub, soiled banknotes, the mangled silver case. The leather case he ignored.

‘Do you like the room, Doctor? Formerly a library, but there was damp – is there not always damp? – and so the books are gone. Abandoned rooms take what usage they can – like people – still, I so appreciate the cork floor. So quiet, so comforting, and with varnish just the colour of honey. Why isn’t
every
room lined with cork? It would make a better world.’

He arched his eyebrows, plucked as thin as an ingénue’s. The man’s face was formed of potent details – ridged hair, wire spectacles, plump little mouth – creating a too-saturated whole.

‘A more quiet world,’ Svenson replied hollowly.

‘Is that not the same?’ The man shook his head to restore a more sober expression. ‘I am sorry – I have anticipated our meeting, and it makes me merry, though the circumstance is most grave. I am Mr Schoepfil.’

‘And you are acquainted with me?’

‘Of course.’

‘
You
sent Bronque to identify me, in the office.’

‘Just to be sure. I had to be elsewhere.’

‘The Customs House.’

Schoepfil chuckled ruefully. ‘And only to discover but that
you
had been there too! How not, after all – how not, given our mutual
studies
?’

‘Where is Colonel Bronque?’

Schoepfil waved a hand. ‘Inconsequential. But you! You were on Vandaariff’s dirigible! And at Parchfeldt! And the Customs House – and
now
the Institute! How I have waited to put questions to a man who
knows
!’

‘You could ask Robert Vandaariff.’

‘
That
gentleman remains beyond my purview.’

‘What
is
your purview, if I may ask?’

‘It would be such a pleasure to exchange tales, but there is no
time
. Would you like a cigarette?’

Schoepfil grinned at the mangled silver case and rang a bell. The soldier re-entered the room, one hand on his sabre hilt. ‘A cigarette for Doctor Svenson. In fact, let us give the poor fellow half a dozen.’

The trooper measured six cigarettes into Svenson’s shaking palm, then set a box of safety matches on top of the stack. He clicked his heels and was gone.

‘Light up – light up!’ urged Schoepfil. ‘I require a man who can think, not a trembling ruin.’ He slipped a pocket watch from his waistcoat and pursed his lips. ‘To the task. How did Robert Vandaariff arrange for the dirigible to sink into the sea? Was a confederate aboard to trigger the descent, or had the machine been sabotaged before leaving Harschmort?’

Svenson inhaled too deeply and began to cough. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘No shyness, Captain-Surgeon. I know of the alliance between Vandaariff, Henry Xonck and the Duke of Stäelmaere. I have identified their top tier of agents and a host of underlings. Their grand plan hovers at the very point of execution … and
then
, in one bold stroke, Vandaariff destroys his two rivals – Henry Xonck and the Duke –
and
launches his minions, their duties done, off to their doom. The entire Macklenburg expedition is but a red herring! Afterwards, to protect himself, he pretends blood fever, but in secret seizes control of Xonck Armaments, the Ministries, and – as is now plain to the simplest corner bootblack – reaches for the nation itself!’

Svenson tapped his ash into the matchbox. ‘Lydia Vandaariff
was
a passenger on that dirigible.’

Schoepfil shrugged. ‘I see you have little experience of men of high finance.’

‘The circumstances of her death were appalling.’

‘Just Lord Vandaariff’s style – the others would believe themselves safe from his hand in Lydia’s presence. What is more, his remaining enemies have been shown he will do
anything
! His own child! They cower in fear! But to my question. When did you realize the dirigible would sink?’

‘When it struck the water.’

‘You jest. Come, was it a triggered device, like those we have seen here?’

‘Why is that important? The airship sank, nearly all aboard were killed –’

‘Ah, and who was not? If there was a confederate, that confederate would have been most likely to survive.’

Svenson let the smoke enter his lungs, drawing strength. ‘If you suspect I am that confederate, what use in denying the fact? You will believe me or you won’t.’

‘My reasons are my own. Could you answer?’

‘Six people survived. Three are since dead – Francis Xonck, Elöise Dujong, Celeste Temple. Two others, Cardinal Chang and the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, may be dead as well – which leaves me.’ He ground the butt into the matchbox. ‘But it does not matter. You are wrong.’

‘About you?’

‘About everything. The airship went down through no pre-existing
plan
. Robert Vandaariff was defeated as much as Henry Xonck or the Duke. His resurrection at Parchfeldt only put a monster in his piece. Whatever Vandaariff once wanted in his life, he does not, I assure you, want it now.’

‘Shocking statements! What can you mean?’

‘He is insane. Quite literally of another mind.’

Schoepfil drummed the fingers of one hand upon the table. Then he rapped the table with his fist. ‘It is no good, Doctor. The attempt is worthy, but I know
you
to be wrong as well!’ A panel in the wall behind him popped open, and Schoepfil turned. ‘Mr Kelling – already? Admirable dispatch.’

Kelling, a slim fellow with the angular features of an apologetic fox, edged in holding a wide tray laden with squat bottles. In each bottle floated an odd-shaped mass – tubular, sponge-like, ink-stained – like a collection of shapeless invertebrates. But Svenson could not hide from his own anatomical knowledge, and his throat tightened. Each specimen jar contained a different sample of corrupted tissue, excised from a child’s body. Francesca Trapping. He leapt for the revolver.

With a speed belying his stoutness, Schoepfil snatched a wooden tray and swung it hard into the side of Svenson’s head. Stunned, the Doctor took two more rapid blows, one to his reaching hand and another to his face, the last forcing him to stagger from the table. He looked up, blinking, furious, impotent. Schoepfil retained his seat – the revolver untouched but within reach. His expression remained cheerful.

‘A surgeon and a spy, yet you retain this
sentiment
– as if ever there were two professions less suited to such a keepsake. The child is dead, sir.
Forbear
.’

Svenson felt his face burning. Schoepfil reached for the nearest jar. But Kelling had not gone, and whispered a private word. Schoepfil nodded eagerly.

‘A reprieve! Though I
will
want your opinion, Doctor, for these samples appear to be
nothing
like those collected from the blast sites. One itches to speculate irresponsibly.’

He sniffed at Svenson’s revolver. ‘That stays here.’ Schoepfil flung the greatcoat across the table for Svenson to catch. ‘Though I should not wear it. On the contrary, you will wish to trade its warmth for an iced orange squash!’

Kelling waited in the corridor, next to an ovoid hatch, as on a warship. Svenson followed Schoepfil into a dark passageway that smelt of mould. He considered attacking Schoepfil – the way was so narrow that the man might not be able to turn – but hesitated, and in his hesitation felt the weight of his exhaustion and despair. If he did escape, where would he go? What would he do? Svenson felt as alone as he ever had in life.

The air was damp, smelling of rust. They walked on. Finally Svenson felt a single gloved finger impertinently touch his lips. He resisted the urge to
bite it. With a gentle scrape, Schoepfil eased aside a tiny panel in the wall: a viewing window the size of a playing card. Through the opening came light and warm, wet air laced with the rotten tang of sulphur … and the echoes of water, splashing, slapping … the sounds of people in a bath.

A very
large
bath. Svenson dug the monocle from his tunic, wiped it on his trouser leg. He had seen bathhouses before, but rarely so opulent or so
old
as the one he was peering at now – as if the city’s Roman bones had been overlaid with stucco flowers and birds, the brick archways enamelled with tile. Attendants crossed between pools bearing trays of refreshment and piles of thick Turkish towels.

A splash recalled Svenson’s attention to the pool before his eyes. Along its far edge floated a line of women, rosy with heat, hair wrapped in turbans, bathing costumes of thin muslin plastered to their flesh. Svenson stared, dull-hearted, at bare throats and shoulders, at bosoms winking above the lapping pool. One lady raised a dripping arm, a signal. More splashes, beyond his view, and a new woman, grey-haired and fat, swam to the centre of the pool. She bobbed her head.

‘The ladies you sent for …’

Svenson could not see whom she addressed – they were beneath the tiny window – but he stifled a gasp as another figure glided forward. A muslin bathing costume clung to her torso, and her bare limbs shimmered. The grey-haired woman made an introduction.

‘Rosamonde, Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, Your Majesty. An
Italian
gentlewoman.’

The Contessa shyly blinked her violet eyes. With her black hair wrapped away, she appeared disturbingly unadorned, almost innocent.

‘I am much honoured by Your Majesty’s attention,’ she murmured, nodding to the space directly beneath Svenson’s panel.

Svenson spun to Schoepfil, but the man eagerly nodded him back to the window. A second figure floated into view. Svenson could not breathe.

‘And the Contessa’s companion …’ The speaker paused to suggest her disapproval. ‘A Miss Celestial Temple.’

The scar above her ear peeped from the turban and fresh abrasions dotted her cheeks … but it was her. She was alive.

Alive and with the Contessa, and somehow here, at an unimaginable audience with the Queen herself. Schoepfil rocked with satisfaction, like a schoolboy.

‘For God’s sake,’ Svenson whispered, ‘who
are
you?’

Schoepfil shifted to better press his mouth to Doctor Svenson’s ear.

‘Who else could I be, Doctor? I am Robert Vandaariff’s heir!’

Following Colonel Bronque down a corridor of silver mirrors, Miss Temple was so taken with excitement at their destination as to forget the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza walking beside her, until that woman reached out to flick Miss Temple’s arm. Miss Temple snapped her mouth shut, abashed to find it had been open. The Contessa’s expression had changed as well. Deference cloaked her animal confidence. Glancing back, Colonel Bronque appraised the women with a gaze that promised nothing.

They reached a bright room where well-dressed men and women gathered, palpably expectant. Bronque did not pause. Twice more their uniformed Virgil ignored similar weigh-points of privilege, delivering them at last to a strange oval door, made of metal and opened by a wheel at its centre instead of a knob. The wheel was spun by a footman and they descended to a shabby landing. Here waited a single man, whose broad face seemed a size too large for the wiry hair that gripped his skull. He consulted a pocket watch. Colonel Bronque came to a military stop and clicked his heels.

‘My Lord Axewith.’

‘Ah. Bronque.’

The Colonel waited. The Privy Minister, marooned, only sighed.

‘My lord?’

Bronque followed the Minister’s wary glance at the women, whose attention was dutifully turned – Miss Temple taking the Contessa’s lead – to the peeling paint.

‘I do not
require
Her Majesty’s seal, Bronque, but Lord Vandaariff is
insistent
. Of course he is correct. Measures of
historic
consequence ought to be enacted by the monarch. But it leaves me waiting until I am a wilted
stick.’ Axewith – whose lantern jaw and spatulate nose suggested the face of a stranded turtle – tugged at his collar. ‘And just when so many other pressing matters are … well …
pressing
.’

Bronque nodded to the satchel under Axewith’s arm. ‘May I wait in your stead, my lord, while you attend to business in a more congenial place?’

‘Damned kind of you.’ Axewith sighed sadly. ‘But Reasons of State, I’m afraid.
Reasons of State
. And I cannot disappoint Lord Vandaariff …’

Another flick on the arm brought Miss Temple’s attention to the arrival of an elegantly dressed older woman, of an age and grudging mutter with Miss Temple’s Aunt Agathe. She addressed the Contessa without a word of greeting.

‘You will remain silent unless spoken to. At a signal from the Duchess of Cogstead, who will make your introduction, the interview is terminated. Now, the attiring rooms are here …’

The older lady opened another oval door and lifted her dress, stepping over the sill. The Contessa went next, eyes darting once behind. Miss Temple glanced in turn, curious to catch Lord Axewith’s reaction, but Lord Axewith was tapping at the clouded face of his pocket watch. It was Colonel Bronque who met Miss Temple’s gaze, his eyes as dull as two tarnished coins.

‘You will be collected. Do not forget the Duchess’s signal.’ Their guide’s voice sank to a vicious warning. ‘
And do not stare.
’

As she stalked off, female attendants appeared, one for each of them.

‘Stare at what?’

‘At
whom
, Celeste. Pay attention.’

The attiring room’s floor was yellowed marble, its walls pebbled with paint blisters. The air was moist and warm, as if they were calling upon the Queen at her laundry – an impression reinforced by the attendants gently guiding them to alcoves hung with linen curtains. Inside stood a wardrobe. A touch from her attendant had Miss Temple sitting on a wooden stool.

‘If the lady would lean her head …’

Miss Temple did so and the attendant gathered up her curls. To her left, the Contessa’s brilliant black hair disappeared into a deftly wound white towel that was quickly pinned up like a Turk’s.

‘If the lady would straighten …’

Miss Temple, her hair tucked tightly away, felt fingers picking down her back. In a trice her dress had been unlaced. The attendant tugged at the ties of her corset, and then removed her shift. The attendants unlaced the ladies’ boots and peeled each stockinged leg until both women sat, apart from their turbaned heads, completely nude. The Contessa kept a grip on Miss Temple, squeezing hard.