The Chemickal Marriage (59 page)

‘No, Cardinal. That is not your place.’ Vandaariff’s eyes shone brightly through the mask. ‘You know the ritual, do you not, from Rosamonde’s memory? I am in her debt, to be sure. So many
celebrants
now come prepared.’

‘This cannot work,’ called Chang. ‘Even if you survive, into what world? The city burns. The Army rules the streets. The people have fled. The Ministries are silent, the bank vaults emptied –’

‘Buzzing flies on a dunghill.’

‘The
nation
hangs on the brink! Your nephew has allies in place. Every power will assist his accession, and your demise. You are unstable. Bronque is alive. His grenadiers –’

The words died on Chang’s lips. The acolytes had returned with two more painted bodies – the angular man from the train, Kelling, and Colonel Bronque himself, whose flesh was marked with wounds. Chang recalled the silence they had noted in the dunes – what could explain it but the glass globes? Even a few of Vandaariff’s men could overwhelm Bronque and his survivors before they fired a shot. Trooste stood above the Colonel, emptying a flask.

‘Precious salts,’ said Vandaariff, following Chang’s gaze. ‘Blood and sex, acid and fire – a sacred tempering, Cardinal. And so the flesh of life becomes the flesh of dreams.’

‘Spare Celeste Temple.’

Vandaariff turned. ‘I beg your pardon?’

‘Spare Celeste Temple.’

‘Why should I do that?’

‘In exchange for myself, for my cooperation.’

‘I will
have
your cooperation.’

‘You won’t.’ Chang drew out the silver knife. He tore off the canvas satchel and his red coat. He lifted his silk shirt and reached behind, isolating the lump of scar near to his spine. ‘I’ll cut out your glass. Even if it kills me.’

Vandaariff studied Chang closely through his mask. ‘It
will
kill you.’

‘So be it.’

‘
Stop
.’ Vandaariff moistened his dry lips with a pallid tongue. Beyond him Trooste watched with an avid curiosity. ‘I cannot spare her. She must act the Bride.’

‘Use the Contessa.’

‘She is the Virgo Lucifera.’ Vandaariff raised a hand to the ceiling of the little room, which was formed of small open tubes, all of which had begun, ever so slightly, to
glow
.

‘She is your enemy. She wants your head.’

‘And I want her parts boiled down for
paste
. Nevertheless, ever we have found a way.’

Behind Chang, an acolyte had crawled to the canvas satchel. Chang stamped on the man’s hand and felt the crunch of a glass globe giving way. The acolyte screamed at the pain, but kicked the brass helmet clear before
he succumbed to the fumes. Chang went after the helmet, but another acolyte – they’d been waiting for their chance – caught Chang’s leg, even as he too collapsed. The helmet spun beyond Chang’s reach.

A muffled roar shook the room. Chang looked up, his lungs tight. Black smoke spewed in from a splintered doorway. Foul air would protect him as much as the helmet. Chang flung himself at the door and wrenched it wide.

Blackened figures lay on the buckled tiles – grenadiers, to judge by their singed and tattered uniforms. Then the smoky air parted and a soot-faced man cracked a rifle-butt into Chang’s chest. Chang tumbled back, the breath knocked from his body. A sharp seizing took his lungs. His dark glasses were swatted away.

Vandaariff shouted from the other room: ‘Excellent! Subdue him!’

Chang had lost the knife. He groped for the helmet. A kick into his ribs knocked him flat again. He saw the face above him and took it for Mahmoud – for Vandaariff’s black Executioner – but this man was shorter and too lithe. Then he saw the white hair.

Foison fell onto Chang’s chest, pinning an arm with each of his knees. He’d a leather case slung across his chest, and snapped it open.

‘No, no!’ cried Vandaariff. ‘The draught – give him the
draught
!’

Chang arched his back but could not shift Foison’s weight. His lungs were on fire.

One of Foison’s hands sought Chang’s battered eyes and peeled back the lids. The other slapped an open glass book onto Chang’s face and pressed down hard.

For a blinding, screaming instant Cardinal Chang perceived the whole of his soul, suddenly naked, balanced on a precipice. Then every part of him was taken away.

Doctor Svenson swung the pistol calmly between Bronque’s soldiers, Kelling and Schoepfil. Any show of weakness would spark their attack.

‘Give my best wishes to Her Majesty. All of Macklenburg is at her service.’

The words were meaningless. He was a criminal in Macklenburg and a criminal here. How many times would he fling himself at death before the black wings caught him up?

He saw Schoepfil move, but the man’s damned speed was such that to stop him meant shooting to kill – and, while he knew Schoepfil to be a villain, the man
had
committed himself to bringing down Robert Vandaariff. Was this – lust apart – any different from his
détente
with the Contessa?

Schoepfil seized Kelling’s crate of paper and hurled it like a stone into the chest of a footman, pages flying in the air. The soldiers charged. Svenson swore in German.

He shot one trooper in the thigh and the other, sabre raised to open the Doctor’s skull, neatly under the arm. His third shot went to the ceiling as the falling soldier’s sabre slapped Svenson across the forehead and knocked him to his knees. He looked up to see the door close behind Miss Temple, Schoepfil battering the second footman to the ground. The footman, with more than thirty pounds and seven inches on Schoepfil, collapsed, groaning. Schoepfil turned a raging gaze at Svenson, fists clenched.

‘Why should I spare you? Why should you not die?’ Schoepfil kicked Svenson’s pistol away and spun round to Kelling. ‘Open this damned door!’

Kelling barked at the Ministry men, standing off to the side, well clear of the struggle. Now that the prevailing wind of power was established, they
willingly joined Kelling at the oval door – Kelling grunting at the pain, but heaving nevertheless – all straining at the iron wheel.

Svenson crawled on his hands and knees. Schoepfil hopped in front of him. ‘Where the devil do you think
you’re
going?’

‘These men.’ Svenson pointed to the soldiers. ‘Someone must bind their wounds.’

‘
And perhaps you should not have shot them!
’ But Schoepfil stepped aside, then shrieked at the courtiers: ‘And
you
! I will remember each of your names!
O I will remember your names!
’

Despite his patients’ hateful looks, Svenson bent to examine each soldier. The leg would heal easily, bone and artery spared, but the arm would be a trial, for the bullet had pierced the shoulder joint.

‘What’s the old crone thinking?’ Schoepfil asked, ostensibly to Kelling, but his secretary was hard against the wheel. Schoepfil thrust his face between the labouring men and shouted, ‘I am not deceived, Your Grace!’

His searching little eyes found Svenson, his only audience. The courtiers had fled.

‘The Duchess claims the Queen is within. She is a
liar
.’

‘Is it some Eastern system of combat?’ asked Svenson.

‘Beg pardon?’ Schoepfil chuckled. ‘O! O no, not at all.’

‘You move with an unnatural speed.’

‘And I shall do something unnatural to the Duchess of Cogstead, you may be sure of it! I
know
who is there! Why should she protect the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza – of all people? And
you
! You gave that colonial chit my
book
! My own glass book and you have thrust it into the arms of an empty-headed girl!’

‘Only because I had no time to smash it.’

‘O!
O!
’ Schoepfil waved both arms at the ceiling. ‘Artless! Crude!
Teuton!
’

‘If the Contessa is inside, these few men will not take her.’

‘
Pah!
I’ll take her myself.’ Schoepfil clapped his grey-gloved hands. ‘So hard it
stings
.’

The wheel gave with a sudden lurch. Schoepfil bustled through, returning
the pistol to his secretary as he passed. Svenson pushed after the Ministry men, but Kelling waved the pistol.

‘Where are
you
going?’

‘Put it away,’ sighed Svenson. ‘If he could spare me, I’d be dead. Since I’m not, I could shoot you in the head and he would only swear at the mess.’

‘You’re wrong,’ Kelling snarled. ‘He remembers – you’ll pay!’

‘You should bind that wrist.’

‘Go to hell.’

Svenson found the others in a low octagonal room, with an oval door in each wall, like the engine room of a steamship. Schoepfil faced the Duchess with his hands on his hips.

‘Well, madam? Your falsehood is exposed!’ When the Duchess did not respond, he screamed again, waving at the doors: ‘
Open them!
Open them all!
’

Doctor Svenson locked eyes for an instant with the Duchess. ‘Whose rooms are these?’

‘Not the
Queen’s
!’ crowed Schoepfil. Three doors were opened to utter blackness.

‘They were given to Lord Pont-Joule,’ said the Duchess.

‘The
late
Lord Pont-Joule.’ Schoepfil’s voice echoed from inside a doorway. He reappeared to shove a Ministry man at the next door. ‘Nothing – go, go!’

‘He was charged with Her Majesty’s safety –’

‘I know who he is,’ said Svenson. ‘Or was.’

Schoepfil hopped back to the Duchess. ‘These tunnels follow the springs!’

‘Spy tunnels,’ said Svenson. ‘Just like where we observed Her Majesty’s baths.’ The Duchess gasped.

‘O well done,’ muttered Schoepfil. ‘Blab every single thing …’

‘You ought to have expected others. The rock beneath the Thermæ must have been honeycombed for a thousand years.’

Schoepfil sniffed at the next door. ‘Sulphur – leading to the baths proper. Would the Contessa seek the baths? She would not.’ He called to the Duchess: ‘
She
killed him, you know – Pont-Joule!’ Schoepfil scoffed on his way to
the next doorway. ‘You arranged her audience. You aided her escape. He was her
lover
! Right in the
neck
!’

The Duchess put her hands over her eyes. ‘I did not –’

‘O I
will
see you punished.
Where is my book?
’

Kelling wrenched open the seventh door. Schoepfil sniffed the air. His face darkened. ‘O dear Lord …’

‘What is it?’ asked Kelling.

‘The
channel
.’ Schoepfil spun to the Duchess. ‘It’s true after all! You knew it! And
she
damn well knew it! Of all the – O this takes the biscuit!’

Schoepfil’s hand flew at the Duchess. Svenson caught the blow mid-air. With an outraged sputter Schoepfil’s other hand delivered three rapid strikes to the Doctor’s face. Still Svenson held on – giving the Duchess time to retreat – until Schoepfil wrenched his arm free.

‘You presume, Doctor Svenson, you
presume
!’

Schoepfil’s voice stopped with a guttural snarl. In the Doctor’s hand hung his grey glove, peeled off while retrieving his arm. The flesh of Schoepfil’s hand was a bright cerulean blue, nails darkening to indigo.

‘Sweet Christ,’ whispered the Doctor. ‘What have you done – what idiocy?’

Schoepfil snatched the glove and wriggled his hand inside, glaring at Svenson with a mixture of abashment and pride, like a young master caught plundering his first housemaid. The instant the glove was restored Schoepfil turned on Kelling with a scream: ‘
What do you wait for? Inside and after them!
’

Kelling dived through, but the Ministry men paused. ‘Is there a light?’ one ventured.

Through the door came a crash and a grunt of pain. ‘There are steps,’ called Mr Kelling.

Svenson opened the doors of a sideboard and pulled out a metal railwayman’s lantern.

‘How did you find that?’ asked Schoepfil.

‘Pont-Joule must have used these tunnels for surveillance.’

‘And look what it got him,’ Schoepfil spat, then shouted at them all. ‘A match! A match!
Light the damned thing up!
’

Kelling was waiting by a pile of clothing. Schoepfil stood at the black pool, glaring at the billowing effervescence. The Ministry men hovered, one, stuck between care and complicity, arm in arm with the Duchess, for Schoepfil dared not leave her alone. Another held the lantern high, but the cavern had no other exit but the pool.

Svenson gave the candle a glance, noticed the ash around its base and the tiniest curl of unburnt paper, coloured red. The Contessa had left a message, which Miss Temple had possessed the presence of mind to burn.

The riddle of the clothing was even simpler: one woman had followed the lead of the other, the clothing removed to swim. Svenson knelt at the water, swiped a finger through the fizz and put it to his nose, then in his mouth.

‘Colder than the baths,’ he said, ‘though the minerals prove a mingling. This channel meets the river. Underground.’

‘It was a secret way,’ said the Duchess. ‘Used for terrible things.’

He did not suppose any explanation was needed; they were beneath a palace, after all. ‘The journey to air cannot be far. Do we follow?’

He plucked his tunic between his thumb and forefinger, as if offering to strip. Schoepfil scowled. ‘Of course we don’t. The ash there, Kelling – what was burnt?’

‘A note. Unreadable, sir.’

‘Blasted female. Shameless. Brazen.’ Schoepfil pointed damningly at the clothes. ‘Does she have a new wardrobe ready on the other side? Of
course
she does. And as soon as your little
beast
arrives she will also have my
book
!’

Svenson had thought Miss Temple dead, only to see her again in the baths – with the Contessa, of all people, and being introduced, of all things, to the sickly, costive Queen. From their concealment he and Schoepfil had heard the entire conversation, the Contessa’s sly blaming of Vandaariff and Lord Axewith for the Duke of Staëlmaere’s murder. Minutes later came Colonel Bronque’s own audience, a litany of abuse received in place of Axewith, whose request for the Queen’s seal was violently refused. Schoepfil had nearly exposed their hiding place, chuckling at this reverse for his uncle. Uncle! What but a life of envious proximity to power could explain this strange creature of a man?