The Chemickal Marriage (44 page)

‘Do you recall what we spoke of, Celeste, in the coach?’

Miss Temple quite helplessly shook her head.

‘We spoke of
redemption
– and a certain person you claimed to care for. You quite correctly assumed an ulterior reason for your visit to the tomb. My friend Oskar was new to this city when he received that particular commission. Given all he went on to achieve, the project seems but a trifle and even he – or
especially
he – may have dismissed his efforts. And yet – pay
attention
, Celeste – you should know that every artist is a cannibal, feeding relentlessly on those around them, yet feeding on
themselves
even more. Do you see? You went
there
because, if you will forgive the figure, those oldest bones may make a reappearance on our evening’s menu.’

The attendants had gone, and each woman stood in a muslin bathing costume, sleeveless, their legs bare from the knee. Miss Temple rocked on cork-soled slippers. She tried her best to recall the details of the Vandaariff tomb, but her fragile concentration was undermined by the Contessa’s nearness and her insidious frangipani scent. The tip of the Contessa’s scar arched like a comet from under her shoulder strap. Miss Temple tottered closer, the muslin rough on the tip of each breast. Her breath touched the Contessa’s skin. The Contessa was speaking. She could not follow the words. She could not stop herself from leaning forward –

The Contessa slapped Miss Temple hard across the cheek. Miss Temple staggered, but kept her feet.

‘Wake up. If you ruin this, I’ll have you skinned.’

‘I am perfectly well.’ Miss Temple swallowed. ‘I will be the one skinning
you
.’

‘Say nothing if you can help it. Respectful silence, pliant nubility –
listen
to me.’ She reached out and pinched Miss Temple’s nipple. Miss Temple squeaked. ‘And don’t
stare
.’

‘Stare at what?’ Miss Temple whimpered.

The Contessa turned to the opening door and slipped into a curtsy Miss Temple just managed to echo.

‘
Signora
.’

It did not seem that the portly, grey-haired woman in the doorway approved of the Contessa, any more than she enjoyed her unflattering bathing costume, soaked through and dripping.

‘Your Grace,’ murmured the Contessa.

The Duchess of Cogstead exhaled without pleasure. ‘Follow.’

The sanctum of squalid fairies, a cavern where gaslight laid a uric shimmer across the surface of the water. Miss Temple’s attention darted between the women in the pools, floating with the stolid determination of pondering frogs, and the hundreds more that stood along the walls, eyes lit with envy at those immersed – young and old, thin and fat, pink, pale, mottled, brown and veined. The mineral smell grew sharper as they walked, for the Duchess took them to the thick of the steam, to a wide bath whose far side lay in a cloud. She waded in, first down hidden steps and then, like a lumbering seal finding its ease, gliding gracefully to the centre of the pool. The Duchess stopped before a seat of mineral-glazed brass. Its equally substantial occupant – wide, fat, paste-coloured – was obscured by four servants, each tending to one floating, bloated limb. As the pool’s denizens watched, these servants wrapped and rewrapped their respective arm or leg with strips of cheesecloth, smearing between layers a greasy balm on their patient’s putrid, honeycombed skin.

The Contessa stabbed a nail into Miss Temple’s palm and she obediently dropped her eyes to the water. The Duchess spoke too quietly to hear – the hissing pipes, the low voices, the lapping pools, all rebounded off the tile in a buzz. Miss Temple leant closer to the Contessa’s towel-wrapped ear. She wanted to ask why she was here, why she had been saved, what the Contessa hoped to gain from a despised monarch who, if one could credit popular opinion, cared less about the state of her nation than Miss Temple, a keen
eater of scones, cared about grinding flour. But what she whispered instead was this: ‘Why does everyone here
dislike
you?’

The Contessa replied from the corner of her mouth. ‘Of
all
people, you should know that counts for nothing.’

‘
I
have never cared.’

‘Lying scrub.’

‘She will not grant your request.’

‘I request
nothing
.’

The Queen gave the Duchess her reply, a sibilant fussing that ended in a flip of one puffed hand, and the Duchess extended a formal wave to where they waited. The Contessa descended into the pool, allowing the water to reach her breasts before extending both arms with a pleasing smile and pushing forward. Miss Temple advanced more slowly. The water was very hot and contained an unexpected effervescence. She sank to her chin and pinched herself. The Duchess made the Contessa’s introduction.

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

‘I am much honoured by Your Majesty’s attention,’ the Contessa murmured.

The Queen’s eyes in their leprous folds showed all the emotion of a toad.

‘And the Contessa’s companion,’ continued the Duchess. ‘A Miss
Celestial
Temple.’

Miss Temple bobbed her head, fixing her eyes on the floating basket that held cheesecloth and the greasy cruets.

‘I do not see
why
,’ wheezed the Queen in complaint. ‘Why should I see anyone when I am not
well
.’

The Duchess gave the Contessa a dark glare. ‘I am told the news is
important
.’

No one spoke. The water lapped against the tiles. The Queen huffed.

‘Funny … thing.’ The words came out in exhalations, as if the effort to form full sentences had been lost with her health, grammar perishing alongside mobility and hope. ‘Always to mind with an Italian. Roman honey. Gift from Sultan. Arab? African? Poppy?’

‘Her Majesty’s memory is far superior to mine,’ said the Duchess.

‘Sealed jug. Inch of wax if there was a dab – common clay pot – came with ribbons. Velvet sack. African velvet must be rare. I hope no one stole it, Poppy.’

‘I will consult the
inventory
, ma’am.’

‘Everyone steals everything. Italy?
Italy
.’ She poked a finger, thick as a gauze-wrapped candle stub, at the Contessa. ‘Jar of honey from the bottom of the sea. Roman ship, sunk by …’ The Queen paused, snorted. ‘
Whales
. Wicked. Whales eat anything. Still good. On account of the wax. Thousand-year-old honey. Ancient bees. My tenth year in the seat, or twelfth. Nothing like it on earth, rare as … rare as …’

‘Milk from a snake, ma’am?’ offered a lady clustered behind the Duchess.

‘
Never
,’ growled the Queen. ‘Notion’s absurd.’ The servants took her subsequent silence as an opportunity to work, wiping the mottled skin with a sponge and spreading a new strip of cloth, the yellow oil seething through the weave.

‘Did Your Majesty enjoy the honey?’ the Contessa asked demurely.

‘Ate it all with a spoon.’ The Queen wrinkled one eye against a bead of sweat. ‘Lady Axewith says I must see you.’

‘Lady Axewith is extremely kind.’

‘Bothersome scold. Husband should switch her raw.’ The Queen grunted. ‘
Venice
.’

‘Your Majesty’s memory is very fine,’ replied the Contessa.

‘Should be Rome. One prefers Italians with
pedigree
.’

The Duchess cleared her throat. ‘Lord Axewith waits, Your Majesty, for your seal. Lord Vandaariff is insistent, given the popular crisis –’

‘Popular does not
last
.’

‘No, Majesty. But Lord Vandaariff has made a most generous guarantee –’

‘
Lord Axewith can wait
.’ The Queen shifted on the submerged throne, slopping the water over her arms and draping her voice in a fuller malevolence. ‘What do you
want
?’

The Contessa blinked her violet eyes. ‘Why, nothing at all, ma’am.’

‘Then you waste your time as well as mine! Lady Axewith shall no longer be admitted! Hellfire, Poppy, if every trivial foreign person –’

‘Beg pardon, ma’am. I have come not for myself, but for
you
.’

At the Contessa’s interruption the Queen’s expression became fierce. Her wide mouth snapped like a pug’s. ‘You – you – this –
Poppy
–’

Steam rose up around the Contessa’s placid face. ‘My
errand
concerns Your Majesty’s late brother.’

‘
All my brothers are late!
’ the Queen replied in a roar.

‘The Duke of Stäelmaere, Your Majesty, who was Privy Minister.’

The Queen snorted suddenly, noting the Contessa’s beauty as if it were an unpleasant odour. She waggled her over-fleshed throat. ‘And one supposes you
knew
him.’

‘Indeed, no, ma’am. The Duke had meagre use for any woman.’

‘Then what?’

‘Surely Majesty … you have heard rumours of the
irregular
nature of the Duke’s passing.’

Moisture had pearled across the Contessa’s upper lip. The Duchess was poised to end the audience. The Queen wriggled her nose, then turned for an attendant to wipe it.

‘Perhaps I have. Who is
she
?’

Miss Temple felt every eye around the pool fall upon her.

‘Miss Celestial Temple,’ repeated the Duchess.

‘Ridiculous. Name for a Chinaman. Girl should be ashamed.’

The Contessa slid forward. ‘Your Majesty should know that the Duke, your brother, learnt of a plot against Your Majesty’s health. Naturally he moved to expose it.’

Miss Temple knew this to be an arrant lie.

The Queen glowered. The whispers around the pool hushed. The Contessa continued.

‘Your brother’s death was an act of murder, Your Majesty, of the highest treason. And now others taken into the Duke’s confidence have been attacked. Lord Pont-Joule, murdered yesterday.
Inside
the Palace.’

The Queen’s voice fell to a throaty amphibian quaver. ‘My Pont-Joule? No one has said!’

‘I did not wish to disturb Your Majesty,’ began the Duchess, ‘on the advice –’

‘Of Lord
Axewith
.’ The Contessa shook her head knowingly. ‘Who
of course acts on the advice of Lord Vandaariff.
Lady
Axewith – who has been so kind to me – was another secret ally of the Duke. Her own sudden illness – for illness it
seems
–’

‘I have heard of no illness! Lady Axewith?’

‘Victim to the same poison that slew the Duke. But the good woman had the wit to understand the attack upon her for what it was, an attack upon the
state
.’

The whispers around the pool boiled into an urgent nattering. The Duchess cried out and splashed for quiet. In the turmoil the Contessa’s hidden foot hooked Miss Temple’s knee and drew her closer to the Queen.

‘Majesty, I am dispatched to bring the only proof Lady Axewith could find. Celeste, tell Her Majesty what you know.’

Miss Temple had no idea what the Contessa desired her to say.

‘Is the girl simple?’ asked the Queen.

‘Only frightened, ma’am.’ The Contessa’s hand slipped unseen to Miss Temple’s waist, stroking gently. ‘The
Duke
, Celeste. The Duke and the
mirrored room
.’

Miss Temple felt her throat clench as a memory rose up whole.

The Duke of Stäelmaere’s recruitment by the Cabal had been planned to every degree, exploiting the cruelty for which the Duke was famous. Stäelmaere had duly arrived at Harschmort House and been taken by the Comte d’Orkancz to a secret viewing room. Hidden behind a wall of Dutch glass he had watched Lord Robert Vandaariff receive an apparently endless line of peers, industrialists, clerics and diplomats – all pledging their fealty in the case of an imminent, but unnamed, national crisis. Persuaded by the grovelling of such impressive minions, His Grace had joined the conspiracy, and soon after journeyed to Tarr Manor for a first-hand look at the glories of indigo clay – an expedition that had ended instead with a bullet through the Duke’s heart, and his corpse’s resuscitation, by virtue of the blue glass, as a walking, croaking puppet.

The Comte’s recollections flooded Miss Temple’s brain. She inhaled through her nose, the acrid steam clarifying her mind.

‘By accident, Your Majesty, I became separated from my fiancé, Roger Bascombe, who, before his untimely death, was to be the next Lord Tarr –’

The Queen squinted – there were so
many
lords.

The Contessa gripped her waist. ‘Her Majesty’s
brother
, Celeste …’

‘Just so. I was lost, you see, and the house so very large. I entered a strange room – and who else was in it but the Duke of Stäelmaere? He waved me to silence, and I saw that one entire wall was made of glass. We gazed into another room full of people, and not one of them paid the least attention, though we were as near as I to you. The glass was a one-sided mirror!’

‘Wicked invention.’ The Queen squirmed in her seat. ‘
Wicked
.’

‘
Very
wicked,’ agreed Miss Temple. ‘And through the mirror we watched a
parade
of distinguished figures, bowing and scraping to the same person, as if he were a king. At each fawning suitor the Duke clenched his fist as if to say “Damn you for a traitor, Lord Whatsit!” When the last had gone, His Grace swore me to secrecy, promising justice would be done.’

The Queen furrowed an already layered brow. ‘But who … who was the
person
in the other room?’

‘I
do
beg your pardon,’ said Miss Temple, doing her best to imitate the Contessa’s tone. ‘I was at Harschmort House, of course, and the man the Duke caught planning to overthrow Your Majesty’s government was Lord Robert Vandaariff.’

The ladies at the pool’s edge fell silent. ‘My intent is to warn Your Majesty of the threat to your own person,’ offered the Contessa. ‘Until now, we had put our faith in Lord Pont-Joule –’

‘And Lady Axewith,’ added Miss Temple rather boldly.

‘
Lady
Axewith, yes. Her husband, I fear, may be too naive for the role that has been thrust upon him. In his ignorance, the Privy Minister seems little more than Robert Vandaariff’s confidential secretary …’