The Chemickal Marriage (66 page)

‘Do not fight him!’ shouted Vandaariff. ‘Mr Foison, retreat!’

But Schoepfil would not allow it. He feinted from side to side, while his fists, not strong but precise and persistent, pummelled Foison’s face and body. Foison’s skill was on full display, for he stopped more blows than struck home, but his counter-strokes found nothing but air. Schoepfil grinned fiercely. He darted about, teasing Foison with the final strike – but then, as he finally came near, Foison hurled himself, arms wide, and pinned Schoepfil’s arms to his body. He lifted Schoepfil off the floor, and squeezed.

Schoepfil gasped – with surprise as much as pain – and kicked his legs and swatted with his forearms.

‘Good Lord! Release me! Release me now and I –
ah
– I will –
ugh
– spare –’

Foison squeezed tight, tottering with the effort. Schoepfil’s eyes locked on Svenson.

‘Doctor – our agreement –
gah
– please –’

Svenson did not move.

‘
Doctor
–’

Mahmoud staggered past Svenson. The wire still held his arms but a swinging kick behind Foison’s knee brought all three men down. In a flash Schoepfil was up, stamping at Foison’s head. Foison did not rise. Schoepfil stamped again for spite. He swept his angry eyes around the room until he found Svenson and screamed.

‘
You!
Snake!
Judas!
’

‘Calm yourself –’

‘
Calm myself?
’

Schoepfil stalked in a ragged circle, glaring at the line of tubs, before stopping short at the sight of Bronque and Kelling.

‘Good Lord! This is not the ritual! What is this?’ He bellowed at the glass wall. ‘What have you done to Colonel Bronque? Uncle! What … wait –
wait
!
Who in hell is that?
’

Svenson followed Schoepfil’s gaze. Vandaariff stood unmoving behind the glass, a bright blade at his throat. Holding the knife was a woman, her head hidden by a brazen helmet, her filth-stained dress hanging heavy, soaking wet.

‘Uncle Robert?’ asked Schoepfil.

‘Do your duty, Doctor Svenson,’ croaked Vandaariff. ‘You know what can be yours.’

‘Be quiet, Oskar,’ buzzed the voice from inside the helmet. ‘Doctor Svenson is of absolutely no importance to anyone.’

The Contessa gave the blade a sharp tug. A ruby jet splashed the glass and rolled down, fed in gouts as Robert Vandaariff slumped into the window and sank lifeless to the floor.

Swimming itself Miss Temple enjoyed, for she was small and water offered a freedom of movement that air never could. She kicked her legs like a frog – a lovely feeling – and pulled with one arm. Bubbles nibbled her skin like the mouths of tiny fish. The water was cold, but as she went deeper she met plumes of different temperature. The warmest water fed the baths, but the colder moved more quickly. Was that the river? She kicked to the cold, her lungs beginning to pinch, and felt her hand slap rock. Miss Temple held on as her body, paused, sought to rise. She felt a current … was there a channel in the rock? Her searching hand grazed a soft tendril – a bit of grass? She caught it and felt the bump of a seam: a strip of the Contessa’s petticoat, looped around the rock.

Miss Temple groped lower, into a pocket of cold, then wriggled through an opening well wide enough for her body. Her lungs were painfully tight. She kicked up into a faster current. Now that she wanted air the seconds grew unbearable.

She broke the surface with a gasp, still in the dark, and immediately swallowed a mouthful of water. She choked and almost lost hold of the leather case. Her loud breath echoed. A current carried along. Miss Temple swam to the side, and eventually her hand struck not rock but slippery brick.

She floated there, easing her breath, then felt her way along the bank. She’d begun to shiver. Her hands found a protrusion in the brick – it took her a moment to realize it was a ladder of inset rungs. Miss Temple climbed onto a dank but dry landing, but did not stand.

She turned to the sound of creaking wood. The formless dark took shape with the glimmer of a candle, well away but coming near, an oval face just glimpsed beyond its glow.

‘At
last
, and what a fright you look. Hurry up.’

‘The problem, of course, is that we may need to swim again.’

Miss Temple shivered under a heavy wool blanket, too chilled for her nakedness to cause disruption. Her teeth chattered and her bare knees pressed cold against her breasts. The Contessa, hair wrapped in a towel, wore a white robe and cork slippers, all purloined from the baths. She poured brandy into a teacup and passed it across.

‘Drink.
Slowly
.’

Miss Temple took small, burning sips, hating the taste but grateful for the warming glow.

‘Now, will anyone follow?’

Miss Temple shook her head. The Contessa glared, this not being enough of an answer, and so Miss Temple provided a brief account of Mr Schoepfil’s assault on propriety and her own escape. At the end her cup was empty and she held it out for more. The Contessa poured for them both, tucking the robe about her knees. Behind the Contessa, in an untidy pile, lay several open hampers. Miss Temple’s arrival had interrupted smoked oysters in sauce and the Contessa restored the jar to her lap. She dipped a finger in the sauce, frowned at the taste, dribbled some brandy into the jar and resumed her meal.

‘You should eat. The passage will take hours.’

Miss Temple sniffed. ‘What passage?’

‘Channel between royal premises,’ replied the Contessa, chewing. ‘Enabling duplicity and outright crime. In a spasm of conscience the way was bricked up – those habits being
impure
. An astute adviser of this present queen made it his business to uncover the legend – in secret, opening the passage enough for one or two very sodden individuals, an
expedience
. And I made it my business to uncover
him
.’

‘Lord Pont-Joule.’

‘Would you like an oyster? They aren’t very good.’

Miss Temple shook her head and the Contessa tossed the jar at the far wall. She frowned at the nearest hamper. ‘Cheese?’

‘No, thank you.’

The Contessa brought a white-moulded
toque
to her nose. ‘It’s very ripe.’

‘Where does the channel lead?’

‘Well, that was the value of Pont-Joule. An older man, desire and capacity so rarely in twain, but philosophic and not sour. A life dedicated to nothing of course – to that moulting cow – but he saw the wind’s way. Can you?’

‘Royal premises,’ said Miss Temple with a sniff.

‘O who
is
a good pup?’ The Contessa broke the cheese with her hands and took an exploratory nibble. She raised her eyebrows with approval and then filled her mouth.

‘I expect they sent people to prison in secret,’ muttered Miss Temple, for the Contessa was no longer entirely listening. ‘Sent them all the way to Harschmort, underground.’

Once the brandy had done its work, however, Miss Temple’s old troubles returned. The Contessa had wiped her fingers on the robe and gone to another hamper, this filled with clothing, her squatting hips an unwelcome gust across the embers of Miss Temple’s desire. She looked away, down at the brick.

‘Perhaps I will eat after all,’ she managed. The Contessa waved vaguely.

‘It is for you or the rats. Or, with that straggling hair, you as the largest rat …’

Miss Temple forced herself to swallow a water biscuit and a lump of cheese, taken from where the Contessa had not chewed. Though it stuck in her throat, she reached in the hamper for more. But, as she reached, the Contessa flung an armful of various garments and the blanket was knocked from her shoulders. Miss Temple turned, covering herself with her hands. The Contessa laughed.

‘I had not planned for two, much less two of such differing sizes. With a corset to wrench it all in, you may be presentable. Probably not.’

‘I will wear my own things,’ said Miss Temple, pulling the blanket up.

‘A mere corset and shift? You will freeze. They will hear your teeth from St Porte.’

‘I do not care.’

The Contessa dropped her robe and stepped into a pale silk shift. She
pulled it over her hips, smiled, and then, as Miss Temple could not but look, slipped one arm and then the other through. The Contessa paused.

‘Celeste, I believe you are biting your lip.’

Miss Temple only swallowed, wet hair in dark ringlets on her nape. ‘You know what has become of me.’

‘But do I know it well enough?’ The Contessa did the last button and tugged the shift against her breasts, as if for comfort, but primarily to drag the silk across her nipples, knowing that Miss Temple could not look away.

‘You are very cruel.’

‘Not
only
cruel. What would you like?’

Miss Temple rocked on her heels. ‘That’s a horrible question.’

‘Only if you have a horrible answer.’

‘You amuse yourself. You will kill me.’

‘I thought
you
were going to kill
me
.’

‘I
am
,’ whined Miss Temple.

‘Stand up, Celeste.’

‘I won’t. I can’t.’

The Contessa came forward and caught the hands Miss Temple raised to put her off. Miss Temple was lifted and the blanket fell away, her pale skin tight with the cold. The Contessa looked at her. Miss Temple trembled.

‘I am ashamed,’ she whispered. ‘I am not myself.’

‘Few people are.’

‘But you –’

‘We are not talking about
me
.’

Miss Temple persisted. She forced out the words. ‘But I – I am not kind. I am not pretty. I want things. I want
people
. I –’ She shook her head. ‘I am so hungry … so
angry
.’

The Contessa set a hand on Miss Temple’s breast, squeezing it with the dispassion of a farmer judging ham. ‘You are not
ugly
. Besides, that matters very little.’ The hand took in the soft pinch of Miss Temple’s waist and the turn of her hips. ‘The person who isn’t angry is a stone. And the person without desire is in the grave.’ Miss Temple squirmed, for the Contessa’s hand had dipped between her legs. An extended finger pushed without warning past hair and skin to wetness and slipped in. Miss Temple gasped.

The Contessa looked her in the eye. ‘We have done this before. Do you remember?’ Miss Temple nodded. The Contessa eased her hand into motion. ‘In the coach, with Oskar. To shame you. To derange your little heart. Did it work?’

Miss Temple shook her head. The motion was already luscious.

‘No. That was my mistake. But what did you learn?’

‘That I am my own,’ whimpered Miss Temple.

‘O that’s a lie, isn’t it?’

Miss Temple did not speak. The Contessa gave her hand a twist and employed a thumb.

‘I said that’s a
lie
, isn’t it, Celeste? You admitted as much just now, this close to tears … because you want a world that isn’t yours … because your pleasure is unbounded … because in your heart you are the biggest
whore
in all Europe.’

Another turn of her hand stopped Miss Temple’s objection.

‘Or is that wrong? Are you not? Or are you? What other word would you use?’

‘Why –
O
– why are you –’

‘Because someone has to die, Celeste. It won’t be me. For this – your demons? Banish shame. Accept desire. Most men
deserve
the whip. You are what you are
now
.’ The Contessa dropped to her knees. She met Miss Temple’s eyes. ‘
Yes?
’

Miss Temple could not move. Sure as the strike of a snake, the Contessa’s tongue shot home. Miss Temple cried out. She writhed, but the Contessa held her hips fast and the crest was already imminent, a swelling of unbearable sweetness. Her fingers found the Contessa’s head and pulled it close.

Miss Temple had tumbled panting onto the blanket. The Contessa gave her a cold-eyed smirk. ‘And what do you know
now
?’

Miss Temple’s voice was small. ‘That this changes nothing.’

‘
Precisamente
.’ The Contessa took a corner of the blanket to wipe her face. ‘Get dressed and help with my corset. I’m damned if I’ll meet Robert Vandaariff without proper underpinnings.’

In the end, the Contessa’s clothing
was
too large, even the undergarments,
and Miss Temple took back her own. She had carefully hidden the glass key upon disrobing, but still hoped she might find the silk-wrapped spur, that it might have slipped lower into her shift. She searched as unobtrusively as she could. Nothing.

‘Is something wrong?’

‘No.’ Miss Temple saw the leather case now lay near the Contessa’s foot.

‘Mine,’ the Contessa said. ‘Fair exchange.’

There being no dress to fit her, Miss Temple tied the Contessa’s cotton robe over her corset and shift, and walked in cork slippers with her hair in a towel. The Contessa wore a dark dress and simple shoes, her combed damp hair hanging past her shoulders. She held the leather case in one hand and the candle in the other. A small hamper was Miss Temple’s to carry, contents unknown. A short tunnel took them back to the embankment and a trim, narrow craft, not unlike the skiff Miss Temple had taken from the Raaxfall dock.

‘In the front,’ said the Contessa. ‘Try not to tip in and drown.’

The hamper went first and then Miss Temple, scrambling to the foremost thwart. The Contessa hitched her dress about her waist and settled in the rear of the skiff, stowed the leather case under her seat, and came up with a small box of glass and metal. She lit the candle inside it and wedged the box into a stand, then reached behind her for the tiller.

‘There is a pole, Celeste, beneath your feet. We should not run into the bank, but, if we do, you will use it to push off. I will steer. If you think to use that pole on
me
you may discard the idea now, for it will not reach. Are you ready?’

Miss Temple extracted the pole, which was indeed not very long, and turned to face forward. The Contessa cut the rope tethering them to the landing with a knife. While the weapon was no surprise, it was nevertheless bracing to see. The current caught the skiff and they shot into the dark.