The Chemickal Marriage mtccads-3

by Gordon Dahlquist

  An appreciative smile graced his lips. ‘Do you not worry for your life?’

  ‘I am alive to be ransomed.’

  She could not tell if he laughed at her delusion or at the chance to correct it. ‘You are like a fox intent on its prey, never noticing that the forest around her is aflame.’

  ‘I am not. And, if I am, my prey is still you.’

  ‘But when you so brightly speak of ransom, you should realize that those who might reclaim you do not know to what extent you have been harmed. One bit of glass has scratched your arm – who is to say five more did not scratch your face? What if one exploded straight into your mouth and turned your tongue to stone? You could not tell them what had happened. You could never tell anyone anything.’ He poked the cane at the hem of her dress and dragged it up above the knee. ‘The trick about art, Miss Temple, is to understand how each moment is compounded into another, tempers another. You see the weakness in my body. I see the fever in yours. Does either one of us see true?’

  ‘I have no fever.’

  Vandaariff snorted derisively. ‘I could light a match by touching the tip to your skin.’

  He flipped the cane in the air and caught the opposite end, then pushed the handle – a smooth brass ball – along her calf.

  ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Claiming my property.’ The brass ball slid up her thigh. Miss Temple squirmed.

  ‘You are vulgar and coarse – and no gentleman!’

  ‘An artist is never a gentleman. And a lady ought to be a better liar than you.’

  The cane nudged the seam of her silk pants. Miss Temple shrank from its touch.

  ‘You are withered and old! You torment me because you cannot do anything else!’

  He turned the brass ball with a delicate, teasing motion, and spoke with an airy distraction. ‘If I wanted your submission, I could put a piece of glass before your eyes. If I sought your degradation, I could summon Foison’s men to rape you through the afternoon. Do you think I would not dare?’

  Miss Temple shook her head quickly. The cane pressed hard against her and she whimpered in fear. Vandaariff tugged her dress above her waist, and then her petticoats. He looked down with a musing expression, as if she were a food locker whose jumbled contents might just constitute a meal. He spread his palm against her pelvis, measuring the soft flare, then pressed down. He took her hips with both hands, hefting her body. His stiff fingers cupped her buttocks and squeezed.

  ‘Wide enough,’ he announced, ‘should other plans fail and you still live. I do appreciate your spark.’ He shoved her petticoats higher.

  ‘I beg you,’ she whispered. ‘Please –’

  ‘My interest is entirely contingent, I assure you.’ He caught the waist of her silk pants and pulled. The silk ripped. He pulled again, with a grunt, and they came away. ‘After Rosamonde’s book, you are not intact in any practical sense of the word. Time enough has passed to show you made no mistakes with young Bascombe. But since then, with your mind so swimming – and I know it’s swimming, Celeste – have you remained so careful? This last day with Chang … more time with the Doctor … and how many others have crossed your path at that hotel?’ His thumb stroked the curls between her legs. ‘Have you surrendered or been strong? Or have you found strength to be something else?’ He laid his palm above the hair, against her belly, as if to listen through it. ‘I prefer to think you failed – the guilt burning even as you’ve quenched your need, with one of those paid-off soldiers – yes, Mr Ropp behind you, thrusting away. I imagine you soaked in the history of the world, so many generations of mindless rut.’ His hand slid lower, his thumb dragging along her folds.

  Miss Temple flexed her fist again, but Vandaariff merely took her gasp as a sign of enjoyment.

  ‘What do you want?’ she pleaded.

  ‘Your confession.’ His motions became forceful, his smile more fixed and contemptuous.

  ‘Confess to what?’

  ‘Futility.’

  ‘You are hurting me –’

  ‘Pain is nothing. Desire is nothing.’ Vandaariff’s lips had stretched with effort, tight across his teeth. ‘Trappings of useless vessels … flawed from the start …’

  Miss Temple yelped. Vandaariff raised his fingers, pinching between them three reddish hairs. He flicked them away and plucked again.

  ‘What are you doing! Stop it!’ She cried out over her shoulder towards the door: ‘Mr Foison!’

  ‘All signs of age must be expunged. Age is corruption, ash, decay –’

  ‘Stop! Mr Foison!’

  ‘The alchemical Bride bears no blemish. She is without colour, holds the moon – she cannot be marked –’

  His fingers sank into Miss Temple’s hair and seized hold, tugging her pubis. She raised her hips to stave off the painful wrench, whimpering –

  The door opened behind her. Vandaariff turned, eyes unfocused.

  ‘Lord Robert?’

  Vandaariff followed Foison’s gaze to Miss Temple’s exposed body and released his grip. He wiped his hand across the apron. ‘Is there word?’

  ‘Just now, my lord.’ Foison extended a folded page to his master. Vandaariff slid a crabbed thumb beneath the wax seal. In her shame Miss Temple did not look at Foison. She stared at Vandaariff, watching the paper tremble with his fingers.

  ‘We will depart at once.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  With an easy movement Foison caught the upturned hem of Miss Temple’s dress and swept it down, over her legs. Vandaariff stuffed the note into his pocket.

  ‘It plays out exactly to plan.’

  ‘Yes, my lord.’

  Vandaariff awkwardly pulled the apron strap over his head. Foison slipped behind to untie the knot, draped the apron on the chair and handed Vandaariff his stick. Vandaariff brought the brass handle to his nose, sniffed, then dabbed his tongue across the ball. He gave a disapproving grimace and hobbled from the room.

  As efficiently as he had bound her, Foison released the leather straps. Only after sweeping her legs together could Miss Temple meet his gaze, yet Foison was watchful and withheld. Not unlike Chang, but without Chang’s animal temper … yet that was not true – they were different animals. Where Chang was a loping cat, Mr Foison was a cold reptile.

  ‘Can you walk?’ he asked simply. ‘It is only to the coach.’

  ‘And then where?’ What she wanted was to curl into a ball.

  ‘Where else?’ Foison said, helping her to stand. ‘The Contessa.’

  They entered a courtyard ringed by tall stone buildings. Miss Temple gazed around her.

  ‘The Royal Institute,’ said Foison. ‘Lord Vandaariff is a significant patron.’

  ‘I believe the Comte d’Orkancz conducted experiments here, with Doctor Lorenz. Did you know them?’

  But Foison’s attention was taken by smoke rising in a cloud from what looked like an open cellar door, across the grassy court. Green-coated guards hovered around it with buckets of water and sand. Two black coaches waited under a massive archway. Foison hoisted Miss Temple into the first coach. She slid into place opposite Vandaariff. Foison glanced over his shoulder.

  ‘A moment, Lord Robert –’

  ‘I have no moment. Get in and order the men on.’

  ‘There is a small fire –’

  ‘Let the scholars deal with their fire.’

  ‘Evidently supplies of chemicals have been stored nearby – it will be a matter of minutes to shift them and then attack the blaze. Not doing so risks –’

  ‘Risks what?’ snapped Vandaariff.

  Foison hesitated. ‘Why, the Institute itself, my lord.’

  ‘Fascinating.’ Vandaariff leant to the open coach door and sniffed. He sat back in his seat. ‘Let it burn. I’m done with the place.’

  ‘But Lord Robert –’

  ‘Get in, Mr Foison, and order the men on. I have no spare time. Not in this world.’

  With a grim expression, Foison shouted to the men to drop their bucket
s and be about their orders. He swung himself next to Miss Temple and rapped on the roof to set the coach in motion. Vandaariff’s seat was piled with the day’s newspapers and, already deep in the Courier, he did not acknowledge their departure.

  The other newspapers announced two more explosions, at the Circus Garden and the White Cathedral, with a death toll of at least a thousand, for each blast had provoked a violent riot. A second headline blamed the disaffected populace of Raaxfall – a man from that distant village was recognized before the Circus Garden blast destroyed him. Miss Temple guessed the man was another of Vandaariff’s prisoners, repurposed as a weapon. The Ministry had announced new measures to protect the national interest.

  Vandaariff closed the newspaper. If he took any pleasure in his success, his flat interrogation of Foison did not betray it.

  ‘All is prepared?’

  ‘Yes, my lord. The second coach follows. I have instructed the driver to follow the Grossmaere, as it is lined with hussars.’

  ‘Your face is bruised.’

  ‘It is, my lord. Cardinal Chang.’

  ‘I find it ugly.’

  ‘I will strive to avoid further injury.’

  Vandaariff paused, measuring possible insolence. ‘We have not discussed your failure at the Customs House. Six men, and yourself – against two men and a negligible woman. And how many of your six are of any use to me now?’

  ‘None, my lord. The explosion –’

  ‘I did not ask for excuses.’

  ‘No, my lord.’

  ‘The men are of no account. I must rely upon you.’

  Vandaariff slipped a finger between the black curtains of the coach window and peered out. Miss Temple knew she should keep silent. But Vandaariff had shamed her, and as she watched him – withered neck and knobbed hands – she felt her hatred rise.

  ‘I saw your painting.’ Vandaariff looked up, without expression. ‘O I am sorry, I meant to say the Comte’s painting. I forget of course that the Comte d’Orkancz is dead.’

  ‘He is dead,’ said Vandaariff.

  ‘And thank goodness. What an odious, vulgar, canker-brained, preening madman. Perhaps it’s something in your manner that recalls him.’

  ‘Gag her mouth.’

  Miss Temple laughed. ‘Don’t you even want to know which painting? Or who showed it to me? You are so very sure of yourself –’

  Foison had a cloth between her teeth, but paused at a sign from Vandaariff.

  ‘I have quite a collection of the Comte’s works at Harschmort.’

  Miss Temple spat the kerchief from her mouth and flexed her jaw.

  ‘Bought for Lydia’s wedding – yes, so thoughtful. Is it St Rowena and the Vikings that shows a rape on a church altar? The Viking bracing himself on the crucifix –’

  ‘This was the painting you mean?’

  ‘No, the painting I saw was not at Harschmort. It was called The Chemickal Marriage.’

  The smile on Robert Vandaariff’s lips became perceptibly more stiff.

  ‘You cannot have seen that painting. It does not exist.’

  Miss Temple smirked. ‘Perhaps you tried to buy it and were refused! Of course the composition is demented – depicting a marriage, I suppose, but of symbols. An allegory.’ She turned to Foison. ‘Allegory is for donkeys.’

  ‘That painting was burnt.’

  ‘Was it? Well, it’s odd because the Bride in question wears a mask of the Contessa’s face. Isn’t that strange? The Groom is black as coal, with a red apple in his hand, except it isn’t really an apple – more like a beating heart, and made entirely of red glass –’

  Foison pulled the handkerchief tight between her lips. Vandaariff leant closer.

  ‘Sooner than you imagine, Celeste Temple, I will reclaim you, and service you on an altar. In that the Comte d’Orkancz had things exactly right!’

  Vandaariff sank back. He shut his eyes and reached a shaking hand to Foison.

  ‘The bottle.’

  Foison opened a satchel and removed a squat bottle of dark glass. Vandaariff drank, a thin line of milky fluid escaping down his chin. He wiped his face with a black silk handkerchief, folded it over and then mopped his brow.

  Composure restored, he addressed her again. ‘I have not thanked you for the delivery of such excellent mules, Mr Ropp and Mr Jaxon. Discharged soldiers, they told me – amongst other things. Amongst every thing. And Mr Ramper as well – still, even a stricken animal can be used. You must know that from your plantation. Scrape off the meat and burn the bones for fuel. Will you be pleased to see the Contessa?’

  Miss Temple made a noise in the back of her mouth.

  ‘Tell her anything you like.’ He reached into his coat and came out with another handkerchief, white silk this time. ‘But when you have the chance, Miss Temple – and you will, for the Contessa will underestimate you, as she always has – you would serve us all by cutting the lady’s skin … with this.’

  In the opened handkerchief lay a blue glass spur. He chuckled, a guttural wheeze, and refolded the handkerchief. His crooked fingers reached across the coach and stuffed it down the bosom of her dress.

  ‘Created expressly for our own shared nemesis. Dig it into her arm, across her lovely neck – wherever is in reach. Then I suggest you run.’

  The coach came to a halt. She heard the ring of bolts being drawn and the scrape of an iron gate. Vandaariff nodded, and Foison bound Miss Temple’s hands.

  Her heart went cold. She had not truly believed it until the handkerchief had been tucked into her dress. She was being given to a woman who sought her death. Why not to Chang and Svenson? What could the Contessa offer more precious than Francesca Trapping?

  Foison opened the door and leant out to unfold a metal stair-step. Miss Temple drove her bound hands against his back and sent him flying through the door. She hurled herself at Vandaariff, snarling like a dog. Her hands found his throat, the rope between them digging his wattled flesh like a garrotte. He batted weakly at her face. He gaped, eyes wide, tongue protruding … and then let out a horrible stuttering gasp. Laughter. She met his insane, encouraging nod and squeezed as hard as she could –

  Foison’s strong hands wrenched Miss Temple away and hauled her out of the door. With a snarl of his own he flung her down with enough force to drive the breath from her body. Wet grass and earth were cold against her cheek. She gulped for air. Foison was tending his master. She heaved herself up – only to drop again secured in place. One of Foison’s knives – thrown from the coach – pinned her dress to the ground. Before she could yank it free her wrists were caught by a hand in a leather gauntlet. Miss Temple looked up to a semicircle of men in green uniforms.

  Foison emerged from the coach and called to the driver, who started his team, turning back the way they’d come. Foison retrieved his blade.

  ‘Make sure of her.’

  As they walked Miss Temple’s stomach rose. She shut her eyes against the bile in her throat and sucked air through her nostrils.

  Something in the smell … the Comte had been here before …

  She took the first statues for more green uniforms, for the stones had been overcome by moss. Soon they appeared in lines between the trees, stained by years of leaf-fall, tipped by sinking earth or knocked headless, even toppled, by falling tree limbs. A cemetery …

  Miss Temple’s nausea sapped any notion of escape, and she followed Foison through the woods and down a proper row of tombs. Even here the stones were cracked and crumbled, swathed in green, the names scarcely legible, abandoned … had so many families passed out of time? She turned her attention to the statues: mournful figures, some with wings, some humbly shrouded, facing down in grief or up in supplication. In their hands were open books and closed, torches, laurels, lilies, roses, harps, keys – and on the tombs so many inscriptions, from the Bible or in Greek or Latin.

  None of it touched Miss Temple, for she was too near the Comte’s estimation of such piety. To his mind, and thus persuasively to hers
, such trappings of grief and hope were akin to a toddler’s scrawl.

  The skin of her elbow stung from her awkward fall, and, unable to reach with her hands, she rubbed it against her stomach. She had risked everything in attacking Vandaariff, but Foison had merely pulled her away. At the Customs House, he had twice sought her life with a thrown blade. She had become a valued commodity.

  Beyond a spiked iron gate stretched a dim avenue lined with vaults. The gate stood between Egyptian obelisks, but their plaster had crumbled to reveal red brick, the work of an especially unscrupulous builder.

  Foison unlocked the gate. The vaults had no names across their lintels, only metal numbers nailed into the stone. At the avenue’s end was a vault with the number 8, deliberately placed sideways. Foison sorted another key, then surveyed the sky above them. Miss Temple was reminded of a snake tasting the air with its tongue.

  The vault door scraped open, and from inside the tomb rose a golden light. Someone waited inside.

  Foison went first. He’d no weapon ready, nor had he brought a lantern. Miss Temple came next, prodded by a fellow with a cutlass, and then the others in a line. Instead of a horrid vault lined with niches, they entered an anteroom gleaming with blue ceramic tile. The far wall was fashioned like an ancient city gate, with a crenellated top and narrow windows, all aglow.

  ‘The entrance to Babylon,’ said Foison, removing her gag. ‘The Ishtar Gate.’

  ‘Ah.’ In Miss Temple, vanished cultures met a sense of justice as to their vanishing.

  ‘In Ishtar’s temple is eternal life.’

  A flicker of recognition came from the Comte’s memories. Miss Temple tried to place the source … was it the light? She saw no candles or lanterns – the golden light came from the other side of the blue wall.

  Foison opened the gate with an elaborate key with teeth like a briar’s thorns. His men thrust Miss Temple through and slammed the gate. She cried out, naming Foison a coward and his master a degenerate toad. There was no reply. She heard the vault door close, and the cold lock turn.