The Chemickal Marriage mtccads-3

by Gordon Dahlquist

  ‘No,’ said Svenson. ‘I am sure she would have died. But what is death to the Comte’s – now Vandaariff’s – madness? And this new painting is more than three times the size of the Annunciation. We know it is a recipe for something. We must not delude ourselves at how terrible it may be.’

  ‘That is the snap of it,’ said Miss Temple. ‘Now he has the money.’

  ‘Exactly. His plot with Lydia was done in the shadows, indulged by the others in exchange for what they saw as his true work with the blue glass.’ Svenson sighed. ‘But now, what he only imagined before, he can make real.’

  ‘Or so he believes.’ Miss Temple shook her head. Her voice was ragged but firm. ‘And where is Francesca Trapping? Has she been harmed?’

  Svenson was surprised by the leap in Miss Temple’s thought. ‘The Contessa would not say. My guess is that the child has been hidden in the Palace, yet with the Contessa’s flight I think she must have been moved.’

  ‘Have they enslaved her too?’

  ‘Children are resilient,’ said the Doctor, without confidence.

  ‘But she will remember.’

  The words carried a quiet gravity. Svenson waited for her to say more. Chang inhaled through his teeth – the cycle of the card coming full circle. The Doctor nearly pulled the card away. He dreaded to receive Miss Temple’s confidence, despite his curiosity as to what she might say.

  Miss Temple sighed heavily, almost a groan. ‘We were together, you know … the Contessa and I, in a goods van, from Karthe. I was cold, and so tired.’

  ‘Were you harmed?’

  Miss Temple’s voice took on a pleading tone. ‘I did nothing wrong. She is a wicked woman.’

  ‘Celeste.’ Svenson knelt in front of her. ‘Elöise told us you had looked into a glass book – Celeste, you cannot blame yourself –’

  ‘Of course I can’t! I did not ask for this – this – infestation! I cannot think! I cannot go two minutes –’ Her cheeks went red and she covered her face with both hands. Svenson touched her knee and Miss Temple yelped. He stood at once, blushing. ‘I have tried,’ she whimpered. ‘But even with her – her of all people. She sees through my skin. I cannot think but I am overcome. God help me – God help me!’

  He had tended her through fever, bathed her, applied poultices, yet, as Miss Temple so boldly revealed herself a creature of appetite, the Doctor felt his view of her could shift. Was he such an ape? Was he so fragile? He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. Miss Temple pulled her hands away and Doctor Svenson saw, without question, her tear-brimmed eyes dart to his groin.

  ‘Chang and yourself – you mentioned a wardrobe – did you –’

  ‘Did we what?’ she asked hopelessly.

  ‘Did you see anyone else?’

  ‘In the wardrobe?’

  ‘In the Palace.’

  ‘Hundreds of them! That was why we had to hide!’

  ‘Yes – of course –’

  ‘It was terrible! That tiny space! Do you not understand?’

  ‘I do – my poor dear – but – does Chang – I mean to say, did you –’

  His gaze slipped to her bosom, and, before he could shift it, she had seen. To Svenson’s dismay Miss Temple’s expression altered in an instant. Within her undimmed agitation appeared first a flash of unfeigned hunger and directly after a grimace of contempt that shook him to his core. Then her face fell into her hands. Her huddled shoulders shook.

  He felt the cold isolation creep back into his bones. The girl was a quivering ruin.

  ‘My dear Celeste. Gather yourself. Say nothing more. We will find the Contessa. We will find the Comte.’

  ‘They think it all a perfect joke!’

  ‘That is laughter they will choke on. Be brave still, and wipe your eyes. There is no shame. We must reclaim Cardinal Chang.’

  When the card was removed, Chang cursed and set to rubbing his eyes and the skull around them. Svenson heard a new note of hoarseness in Chang’s voice, and noted the pallor of his lips, the shine of fluid at his nostrils.

  ‘Are you ill? Is it the card?’

  ‘It is nothing at all.’

  ‘You should let me examine you.’

  ‘We have wasted enough of the evening.’

  ‘You have not seen the wound – truly, if you would just –’

  ‘No.’ Chang slipped his dark glasses back into place. ‘I am perfectly well. Certainly compared to either of you.’

  Despite Chang’s bad humour, Svenson was glad for the distraction. Miss Temple had done her best to restore her face, turning away as if to examine the tapestry.

  ‘The floors above are thick with people,’ said Chang. ‘We cannot hope to pass unseen. That no one has come down and found us is only due to their fear of past contagion.’

  ‘What contagion?’ asked Svenson.

  ‘The sickness! The glass woman’s legacy!’

  ‘But we are well away from Stäelmaere House, under the Palace – not twenty yards from the river.’

  Chang pointed through the archway. ‘Twenty yards will take you to the Duke’s own cellars.’

  ‘But – but the Contessa told me –’

  Chang snorted.

  ‘But why would she lie?’

  ‘To aide her own escape. Or provoke your capture.’

  ‘But you two fled deeper into the Palace,’ said Svenson. ‘Why come back?’

  ‘We knew no other way out,’ Miss Temple said. ‘And hoped we might find others in hiding – as we in fact did.’

  ‘Then we may be near Phelps and Cunsher. If they are taken, we must rescue them.’

  Chang exhaled with impatience. ‘That would be the height of folly. To search means throwing away our own lives and abandoning all hope of stopping Vandaariff and the Contessa. Phelps and Cunsher know this.’

  Svenson did his best to swallow his irritation, hating how expressing simple decency rendered him, in Chang’s eyes, a sentimental fool.

  ‘Well, then, if we search for Vandaariff –’

  ‘Vandaariff is gone,’ Chang scoffed. ‘He only came for his fireworks in the square, and for the pleasure of his hosts’ abasement.’

  ‘Then where do we find him?’

  ‘Harschmort. Raaxfall. Setting off another blast in Stropping Station. Anywhere.’ Chang jerked his chin at Miss Temple. ‘Ask her.’

  ‘I have no idea.’ Miss Temple spoke quietly, and to his dismay Svenson realized she had just consulted the Comte’s tainted memories, surely to compensate for displaying her weakness a moment before. He had told her to be brave, but hadn’t intended self-punishment.

  Between Chang’s distemper and Miss Temple’s distress, the Doctor felt it was for him to set their path. But he could not make sense of the most basic facts. Had the Contessa left him to be captured? Why reveal the Comte’s painting if she simply wanted to see him hang? Svenson fought the urge for a cigarette. What had the Contessa told him, exactly? And once the Doctor had eventually wrenched himself from the blue glass card, left to himself, would he not have followed her direction?

  ‘What are you staring at?’ Chang asked.

  Svenson pointed to the mirror. ‘The other side of this wall.’

  ‘I don’t understand.’

  ‘Nor I. Follow me.’

  The Doctor crossed to the archway. As Chang stood, his boot slid, scraping on the floor. Svenson turned to see him pick something up, and frown.

  ‘Some idiot’s button,’ muttered Chang, and he threw it away.

  There was no other side of the wall they could reach. The corridor ended in a stack of barrels. ‘I told you,’ said Chang. ‘We are in the cellars.’

  Svenson frowned. ‘She acquainted me with the Comte’s painting to provoke some action. Saying I was near the river must have been deliberate, to send me in that direction …’

  ‘The woman is a vampire,’ said Chang. ‘Cruelty for the sake of being cruel.’

  ‘Cruelty would have meant taking my life.’

  ‘
If the Contessa was civil it must have galled her terribly,’ Miss Temple observed, ‘like playing courtesan to a bitter enemy.’

  ‘Wait.’ The Doctor pointed. ‘Look at the floor.’

  Thin lines of grit curved across the tile from beneath the barrels, as if they had been moved. Chang reached for a barrel and Svenson helped him shift it, revealing a metal door set into the stone. Hanging from the knob by a leather loop was a notched brass tube three inches long.

  ‘The pneumatic vestibule,’ Svenson said. ‘And here is the key.’

  Inside the panelled box, Svenson paused. ‘Do we follow the Contessa, or escape?’

  ‘She may have returned to the attic, to Francesca,’ said Miss Temple.

  ‘We don’t know that the child is there,’ Chang cautioned. ‘I say we descend to where we entered and hope it is not thronged with soldiers.’

  Acknowledging this logic, Svenson thrust the key into the slot and stabbed the lowest button on the brass plate. The car vibrated with life. They descended without speaking – all three with weapons ready – but when they heard the tell-tale clank the car did not stop.

  ‘I thought we entered directly below the cellars,’ said Chang.

  ‘Perhaps we did not pay attention,’ said Miss Temple. ‘Perhaps it was two stops below.’

  ‘It wasn’t.’

  ‘Then there is another floor further below.’

  A second clank and the car came to a halt. Chang pulled the iron gate open and set his shoulder against the tarnished metal door beyond it.

  This was not the underpassage to Stäelmaere House. Instead, they had been delivered to another tunnel, with a tiled floor like a bath house. A single lantern, lit within the hour judging by the level of oil, had been left on the floor. Next to it, like a malicious rose, lay a third red envelope.

  It was empty save for a scrap of white tissue, smeared with a scarlet imprint of the Contessa’s mouth. Svenson said nothing. Chang scowled with displeasure. Miss Temple put her nose to the tissue, and observed that it smelt of frangipani flowers. They began to walk.

  ‘This cannot have been simple to construct,’ said Svenson. ‘The digging must have displaced the coach traffic above us for ages –’

  ‘Nothing of the kind has displaced anything,’ called Chang, walking in the lead. ‘This can only be the old Norwalk.’

  This meant nothing to Svenson or Miss Temple. Chang sighed. ‘The Norwalk fortifications were dismantled to lay the Seventh Bridge, and the new Customs House.’

  ‘I have been to the Customs House,’ said Miss Temple. ‘To learn about trade.’

  ‘That does you credit,’ said Svenson. ‘It is the rare heiress not simply content to spend.’

  Miss Temple made a bothered face. ‘I did not want to be cheated – sugar-men are famous scoundrels. But, once I was inside, tiresome is not the half of it –’

  Chang cleared his throat. They stopped talking. He went on.

  ‘The Norwalk formed one wall of the original Citadel. I would guess this was once a lower catacomb.’

  ‘But why has it been remade?’ asked Svenson. ‘New tile and fresh paint.’

  Chang reached into his coat for his razor. With the handle he scratched a line in the plaster and blew the dust away. ‘Replastered these past two months.’

  ‘Before or after the dirigible went into the sea?’ asked Svenson.

  Chang shrugged. Miss Temple held up the lantern.

  ‘We forget this. Someone lit it. We must keep on and make her tell us everything.’

  A quarter-mile brought the tunnel’s end: a wooden door, and another red envelope left atop its polished handle. Chang tore it open, glanced at the paper and passed it to Svenson with a snort.

  My Dear Doctor,

  As a man of evident Vitality you would have found this Lair in Time, but Time is no good Friend.

  The Task is beyond any single Agent.

  Do not let Love blind your Eyes. Ample Time remains to settle our Account.

  RLS

  Miss Temple raised her eyebrows impatiently and Svenson handed the paper to her.

  ‘Why should she mention “love”?’ asked Chang.

  ‘I expect she means Elöise,’ Svenson replied, wondering if it were true, wondering – despite his surety of the woman’s heartlessness – just how the Contessa viewed their encounter. And how did he view it? ‘She will say anything to mitigate her guilt if she requires our aid.’

  Miss Temple thrust the paper back. ‘I will not be a party to her bargains.’

  ‘If we find the Contessa,’ said Chang, ‘no matter where, she is to die.’

  Svenson nodded his agreement. It was not that he wanted to spare the Contessa – and he did not, truly – but he saw in his companions’ resolve a wilful denial of the fact that their struggle now stretched beyond the individuals who had wronged them. And if he did keep the woman alive to defeat the Comte, would Miss Temple and Chang come to hate him just as much, at the end?

  The ‘lair’ certainly looked to be inhabited by an animal. Clothes, however fine, were strewn across the floor and furniture, unwashed plates and glasses cluttered the worktops, empty bottles had rolled to each corner of the room, a straw mattress had been folded double and shoved against the wall. Despite the Contessa’s detritus, it was clear the low stone chamber had been refitted for another purpose. Metal pipes fed into squat brass boxes bolted to the wall. The chamber reeked of indigo clay.

  Svenson touched the pipes to gauge their heat, then put his palm against the wall. ‘Very cold … could that be the river?’

  Chang slapped his hand against the wall. ‘Of course! I’m a fool – the Seventh Bridge! The turbines!’

  ‘What turbines?’ asked Miss Temple. ‘You say such things as if one mentions turbines over breakfast –’

  Chang rode over her words. ‘The supports of the bridge contain turbines – it was an idea for flushing sewage –’

  ‘These pipes hold sewage?’

  ‘Not at all – the plan was never implemented. But we know Crabbé and Bascombe plotted against their allies – so of course they required their own version of the Comte’s workshop. The bridge’s turbines, with the force of the river, would serve up enough power to satisfy even these greedy machines.’

  ‘And I assume the Contessa learnt their secret from her spy, Caroline Stearne.’ Miss Temple waved the reek from her face. ‘But why has she abandoned it?’

  ‘That is the question,’ agreed Svenson. ‘This night she has given up her refuge at the Palace, and now a quite remarkable laboratory …’

  ‘There is the matter of her death warrant,’ said Miss Temple.

  ‘It did not appear to trouble her especially.’

  ‘Also, if she lit the lamp and left the envelopes to get us here,’ said Chang, ‘where did she go?’

  They did not see any other door. Svenson searched behind the mattress and under the piles of clothing, pausing at a wooden crate. The crate was lined with felt and piled with coils of copper wire. Next to it, in a tangle of black rubber hose, lay a mask, the sort they had all seen before in the operating theatre at Harschmort.

  ‘As we guessed, not only was our view of the painting leached from her own mind, it seems the Contessa did the leaching herself.’

  ‘How can she be sure the machine selects only the memory she desires?’ asked Chang. ‘Does she not risk its draining everything?’

  ‘Perhaps that is determined by the glass – a small card can contain only so much.’ Svenson moved on his knees to one of the brass boxes. It was fitted with a slot in which one might insert an entire glass book, but above this was another, much smaller aperture, just wide enough for a card. ‘I agree, however, that to do this alone is insanity. How can she rouse herself to turn off the machine? We have all seen the devastating effects –’

  ‘Did you see them in her?’ asked Miss Temple, just a little hopefully. ‘Thinning hair? Loosened teeth?’

  ‘Here.’ Chang held out a tiny pair of leather gloves
, dangling them to show the size. ‘The Contessa took precautions after all.’

  ‘They would not fit a monkey,’ said Svenson.

  ‘Francesca Trapping,’ said Miss Temple.

  ‘The sorceress’s familiar.’ Chang hoisted himself onto a worktop to sit. ‘But I still don’t see why she’s left the place, nor why she’s bothered to lure us here …’

  His words trailed away. Svenson followed Chang’s gaze to a china platter, blackened and split, piled with bits of odd-shaped glass, most of them so dark Svenson had taken them for coal. But now he saw what had caught Chang’s eye: in the centre of the platter lay a round ball of glass, the size and colour of a blood orange.

  ‘The painting,’ Svenson said. ‘The black Groom – in his left hand …’

  Chang picked up the reddish sphere and held it to the guttering lantern above them.

  ‘It is cracked,’ he said, and pushed up his dark glasses.

  ‘Chang, wait –’

  Doctor Svenson reached out a warning hand, but Chang had already shut one eye and put the other to the glass.

  ‘Do you see anything?’ asked Miss Temple.

  Chang did not answer.

  ‘I wonder if it is infused with a memory,’ she whispered to Svenson. ‘And what could make it red?’

  ‘Iron ore, perhaps, though I couldn’t speculate why.’ Svenson sorted through the remaining pieces on the platter – several were obviously the remnants of other spheres that had broken, but none were of the same deep shade.

  ‘If this is indigo clay … the refining is not what we have seen. I would guess each piece has been mixed with different compounds – no doubt to alter its alchemical efficacy –’

  ‘Doctor Svenson?’

  Miss Temple stared at Chang, who remained gazing into the glass ball, as still as a stone.

  Svenson swore in German and rushed to Chang’s side. He wrenched the ball from Chang’s grip. A warm vibration touched his hand, but nothing that stopped him from setting it back on the platter.

  ‘Is he poisoned?’ Miss Temple squeaked. ‘Save him!’

  Chang’s naked eyes stared at nothing. Svenson felt his forehead and his pulse. He tapped Chang’s cheek sharply, twice. Nothing. ‘His breathing is not strained. It is not a fit … Celeste, do you have your rings – the rings of orange metal?’