The Chemickal Marriage mtccads-3

by Gordon Dahlquist

‘O Doctor … she looks like a queen.’

  He hurried to look. A woman lay on a chaise-longue, draped in silks, eyes closed, hands clasped below her bosom.

  ‘Stay here, Francesca – do not move.’ At the sharpness of his tone, the child obeyed.

  Careful and thorough, the Doctor took the woman’s pulse at the wrist and throat, peeled back both eyelids, opened her mouth, examined her nails, her teeth, and even, remembering the glass sickness, took an exploratory tug at her hair. Svenson’s dispassionate eye put her age at forty-five. Her golden skin seemed sallow, but he did not suppose she’d seen the sun in two months. Was she from India? An Arab? He looked around the inner room, at the Moorish daybed and enormous desk, now cluttered with the detritus of a sickroom. This too was a place of work. Madelaine Kraft was no ordinary woman. The Old Palace was hers.

  He saw no mystery as to why such a woman had been a target of the Cabal. A brothel-keeper possessed the means to blackmail thousands of rich and influential men – capturing Mrs Kraft’s memory delivered them to the Cabal in a stroke. But why had the Contessa gone to such trouble to send Svenson to Madelaine Kraft now?

  ‘Francesca, what else did the Contessa say? Surely there was some clue, some advice?’ He peered behind the desk. ‘Did she forward some parcel of supplies to help us?’

  ‘There is no parcel.’

  ‘Child, there must be. Her own experiments with glass –’

  ‘There is me.’ The girl wore a prideful smirk that turned his stomach. Before he could reply, an explosion of voices came from the outer room.

  ‘They are strangers! What will the Colonel say?’

  ‘What do I care?’ This was Mahmoud.

  ‘Damn you, we agreed –’

  ‘You agreed –’

  A sharp-nosed man with a moustache and long, oiled hair stormed in, his eyes leaping about to make sure nothing had been taken. Mahmoud waited in the doorway. The intruder tugged on his white shell jacket and then, glaring at the Doctor and the child, set to cracking his knuckles, one finger at a time.

  ‘You are Mr Gorine?’ Svenson offered. ‘I am Abelard Svenson, Captain-Surgeon of the Macklenburg Navy, attached to the service of Crown Prince Karl-Horst von Maasmärck –’

  Gorine pulled viciously on his thumb until it popped. ‘And you will cure her? Is that what we are to believe? Macklenburg?’ Gorine stabbed Svenson’s chest with a finger. ‘We have had enough of Macklenburg at the Old Palace!’

  ‘If you refer to the Prince –’

  Gorine slapped Svenson across the face. The blow was not hard – he did not think Gorine had much experience with slapping – but it stung. ‘I refer, Captain-Surgeon, to two women abducted from this house, to seven more who wake screaming from unnatural dreams, to the collapse of our business, and lastly – yes – to Mrs Kraft. All because your worthless Prince came through our door!’

  ‘If it is any solace, the Prince of Macklenburg is dead.’

  ‘Why should that bring me solace? Does that bring back our women?’

  ‘Michel –’ But at Mahmoud’s interjection, Gorine only gave the rest of his complaint directly to the dark man’s face.

  ‘Does that end the tyranny of our occupation – unable to come and go without leave from a gold-jacketed, stone-hearted –’

  Doctor Svenson coughed into one hand. ‘If your two women are Margaret Hooke and Angelique, I must inform you both are dead as well.’

  Gorine turned on Svenson, his fury heightened. But while Gorine’s back was turned, the Doctor had taken hold of his revolver and now pressed the barrel into Gorine’s abdomen. Gorine’s breath stopped.

  ‘O well done, Mahmoud –’

  ‘Be quiet.’ Svenson’s voice was calm. ‘Ignorance makes a man angry, I know. The matter is larger than us – than all of us together. I am here to help – to help her. But I am entirely willing to blow you apart like a pumpkin beforehand.’

  The pressure of the pistol caused Gorine’s Adam’s apple to bob like a cork in a stream. The Doctor lowered the weapon that – he was quite sure – no longer held any bullets. Gorine darted to the side, clearing the way for Mahmoud to fire, but the dark man did not move. Svenson slipped the pistol back into his greatcoat and addressed them both.

  ‘The Prince of Macklenburg was as much of a dupe as your women, sacrificed to the ambition of a wicked few who are still driving this city to its grave.’

  Mahmoud stepped forward. ‘Who? We have ten good men –’

  ‘Save them – even a hundred is too few.’

  ‘But their names –’

  ‘The name that matters is Robert Vandaariff.’

  Mahmoud cast a doubting glance to Gorine. ‘But he was stricken with blood fever – we assumed he was another victim.’

  ‘Forty-seven people were taken ill that night,’ said Gorine. ‘Not one has recovered, save Robert Vandaariff. Are you the one who cured him?’

  ‘No. The recovery is false. His entire character is destroyed.’ Svenson rubbed his eyes. ‘Would either of you gentlemen have any tobacco? I have lost my supply and a touch of smoke would do wonders for my mind.’

  At Mahmoud’s nudge, Gorine took an ebony box from a desk drawer. ‘Mrs Kraft’s. Get on with your story.’

  ‘The man is exhausted, Michel.’

  ‘We are all exhausted,’ Gorine retorted.

  Gorine took a cheroot himself before offering the box to Mahmoud, who declined. The squabbling intimacy of the two men was suddenly plain, especially to one who had spent years sailing in close quarters. Svenson shrugged at the insight – it was nothing to him, after all – and took a tightly rolled cheroot from the box and held it to his nose. Gorine held out a light and Svenson puffed with a palpable greed.

  Mahmoud waited, one hand still resting on his pistol-butt.

  ‘So can you help her, Captain-Surgeon, or can you not?’

  The Doctor began by asking questions, but the narrative of Mrs Kraft’s care only tightened his jaw. Nothing had answered, yet he could think of nothing left to try. At last he stubbed out the cheroot – he must work or fall asleep.

  ‘The attack was on Mrs Kraft’s mind, not her body, and in her mind will be the cure.’

  ‘Her mind is beyond reach,’ replied Gorine. ‘She cannot speak one word.’

  ‘Yes. If I might impose for a supply of chemicals and then a meal – anything at all, though hot soup would be a treasure …’

  Mahmoud went for food while Gorine found paper in the desk. As Svenson made a list of what he required, Gorine studied Francesca. She sat at the foot of the chaise-longue, and for the first time Svenson realized how quiet she had become.

  ‘Heir to the Xonck empire, is it?’ Gorine asked her.

  ‘Once my uncle Henry dies.’

  ‘And you’re with this doctor? Alone?’

  ‘Her parents,’ said Svenson, ‘along with her uncle Francis –’

  Gorine plucked the list from Svenson’s hand. ‘Francis Xonck. One hopes she isn’t heir to that.’

  Gorine left the room. Francesca frowned at the carpet. Svenson had no idea how much the girl had heard at Parchfeldt between her uncle and her mother, or how much she had understood.

  ‘Do not mind him. We are here to help this lady. As you said yourself, a queenly countenance –’

  Francesca still stared at the floor. ‘Did you like my uncle Francis?’

  ‘I’m afraid your uncle did not care for me, my dear.’

  ‘But he loved mother. He loved me.’

  ‘Francesca …’

  ‘He did.’

  ‘Your uncle Francis loved to be happy, sweetheart – how could he not love you?’ It was a feeble attempt, and Francesca Trapping wrinkled her nose. She fell silent again. ‘What … ah … what did the Contessa say to you, about your uncle?’

  Francesca snorted, as if the question was especially stupid.

  Gorine hurried in. ‘There is someone to see you –’

  Svenson reached for his revolver. ‘No one knows I am h
ere –’

  Gorine seized his arm. ‘For God’s sake – don’t be a fool!’

  Mahmoud appeared, and his added strength wrenched the Doctor’s weapon away.

  ‘There is no help for it,’ the dark man said. ‘He recalled your face.’

  Colonel Bronque stood in the doorway. Black hair sat flat against his skull, a widow’s peak accentuating his hawk-like nose. Gorine and Mahmoud retreated to either side.

  ‘Macklenburg.’ The Colonel spat it like a curse. ‘Macklenburg.’

  ‘What of it?’

  ‘You’re Svenson. Surgeon. Spy.’

  ‘Do I know you?’

  ‘Obviously not. If you did, you would be more frightened.’

  The Doctor’s fatigue got the better of him. ‘O no doubt,’ he replied, and sat on the desk.

  Colonel Bronque barked with harsh laughter. Svenson risked a glance to Mahmoud and Gorine – both nodding gamely along with the Colonel’s amusement. Bronque came forward beaming. ‘I did not think you fellows had any humour at all.’

  ‘What fellows?’

  ‘Macklenburgers – Germans. I knew your Major Blach. Tight as a drum head.’

  ‘Indeed, a horrid man. Who are you?’

  Instead of a reply, Bronque extended his arms, and his glittering eyes invited the Doctor to guess – a test. Svenson had no choice.

  ‘Very well. Your name tells me nothing, nor – a priori – does your rank. You are seen in a brothel in full dress, with another man whose clothing is expensive but undistinguished. Judging by the poor crease of your trousers, you have spent the night. One guess says your charge is a high-born personage bent upon his pleasures, requiring an especially trusted chaperone in these troubled days.’

  Bronque grinned with a wolfish satisfaction. ‘But why should I bother with you?’

  ‘Because, as a criminal, my presence opens your personage to scandal.’

  ‘Nonsense.’

  Svenson sighed. ‘Indeed, you would simply kill me.’

  ‘But I have not.’

  The Colonel’s intensity was oppressive. Svenson rubbed his eyes. It was early, and the better part of his mind was tangled with thoughts of blue glass. But then he had it.

  ‘Ah. Because you are not here at all.’

  ‘I beg your pardon?’

  ‘You have not come for the brothel’s wares. You have come for the tunnel.’

  ‘What tunnel?’

  ‘Under the Old Palace is a tunnel to the Royal Institute. At one point the Comte d’Orkancz used the Institute for his research, and employed the tunnel to ferry test subjects –’

  The Colonel looked accusingly at Gorine and Mahmoud. ‘Did they tell you that?’

  ‘Of course not. But it explains why the Old Palace continues to operate – you have demanded access to the tunnel in exchange. Which sets your companion in an entirely new light – not a patron, but perhaps a Ministry official, an engineer, a Doctor of metals –’

  Gorine could bear it no more. ‘Doctor Svenson –’

  ‘Silence!’ Bronque’s lips curled like a twist of uncooked meat. ‘I apply the same logic to you, Doctor. You were attached to the Prince’s party as a spy –’

  Svenson shook his head. ‘I am only here to attend Mrs Kraft.’

  ‘I do not believe you.’ Bronque stepped back, all amusement gone. ‘The tunnel is watched. Consider yourself watched as well.’

  The Colonel strode out as quickly as he’d come.

  ‘Threaten away,’ Svenson muttered. ‘I already face a death sentence …’

  Neither Mahmoud or Gorine replied. Both men were gazing intently at Madelaine Kraft, whose large brown eyes were open.

  Despite the raised voices that had woken her, Mrs Kraft’s attention was entirely taken with Francesca, and the child returned the woman’s gaze with a directness ordinarily reserved for odd-looking insects or younger siblings.

  ‘What will you do?’ Mahmoud whispered to Svenson. He shook his head.

  The girl gently patted Mrs Kraft’s foot under the blanket. ‘I am Francesca Trapping.’

  ‘And I am Doctor Svenson.’ He pulled a chair near to sit. The cost of her subordinates’ well-intentioned treatments – extending to leeches and quicksilver – were etched on the woman. He laid a palm across her forehead. How long could anyone survive in such a cocoon?

  As he had hoped, Francesca watched his every move. She glanced conspiratorially at the tray of chemicals. ‘What did you send for?’

  ‘Nothing that will cure her. We must search Mrs Kraft’s mind.’

  ‘Can she hear us?’

  ‘Yes … but does she understand?’ Svenson shifted his attention to the child. ‘Now it is time for you to say what you know, Francesca.’

  The girl covered her mouth with one hand, stifling a belch.

  ‘How else am I to help her, dear?’

  Francesca shook her head.

  ‘Do you feel ill?’

  ‘No.’

  But her eagerness had fallen before her discomfort. That was natural enough – and as long as she felt sick, the girl would be afraid. Svenson patted the chaise-longue, inviting her closer.

  ‘The Contessa has put us together, Francesca. Let us pool our thoughts. Now, everything I know of the glass tells me Mrs Kraft’s condition is permanent. I met another lady with such a hole in her mind. She’d taken just a peek into a glass book – and in a trice some of her memories were gone. Nothing so serious as our patient here, but though she tried with all her strength, this lady could never recall them.’

  Doctor Svenson placed Mrs Kraft’s hand, heavy with metal rings, onto Francesca’s lap. The girl began to stroke it, as if it were a kitten.

  ‘When I asked what the Contessa had sent to help, you said she had sent you.’

  Francesca’s voice was thick. ‘She did. But I do not –’

  ‘And I believe you. You have absorbed some of the Comte’s book – a frightening thing, I know, which you cannot think on without discomfort.’ Svenson kept his voice easy and calm. ‘However, the Contessa wastes no time on trifles. She believes Mrs Kraft can be cured – and therefore, my dear, you are the puzzle, not Mrs Kraft, and our task is to divulge your secrets safely. We must be clever and we must be brave. Are you brave enough to try?’

  Francesca nodded, and clutched the hand to her stomach.

  ‘Good. You need not fear.’ Svenson forced a smile. The girl’s dull teeth peeped back trustingly.

  The Doctor peeled off his greatcoat, laid it over his chair and then rearranged the supply of chemicals. He felt their expectant eyes upon him as he crossed to Mahmoud’s tray, bent to sniff and then poured the still-steaming black coffee into a mug. By the time the cup was drained – just the limit of his audience’s patience – he had chosen his course.

  ‘The Old Palace stands hostage to Colonel Bronque’s use of your tunnel. What so commands his concern? Could the Institute be a staging area for the attacks upon the city?’

  Gorine waved this away. ‘The Institute is a gaggle of scholars in black robes.’

  ‘Scholars like the Comte d’Orkancz?’

  Mahmoud shook his head decisively. ‘The Comte was only allowed on the premises at the insistence of Robert Vandaariff.’

  ‘But the Comte is dead,’ said Gorine. ‘Without him Vandaariff is just a wealthy man.’

  ‘Do you think so?’ asked Svenson. ‘Does Colonel Bronque?’

  He used a handkerchief to extract the blue glass card from his greatcoat. Francesca’s eyes were wide. Svenson ignored her and, keeping his voice gentle, addressed his patient.

  ‘I am going to show you a thing, Mrs Kraft. Do not be afraid. Nothing will harm you.’

  His patient did not resist when he gently angled her head, but she inhaled with force at first sight of the card, her pupils swelling black. Svenson eased the card into her fingers and they clutched it tight. Madelaine Kraft was completely immersed.

  Svenson kept his voice low. ‘Has either of you ever seen blue glass s
uch as this?’

  ‘Never,’ said Gorine.

  ‘Once.’ Mahmoud knelt at the foot of the chaise-longue. ‘Angelique. Mrs Kraft took it away.’

  Gorine watched with suspicion. ‘What does she see?’

  ‘Dreams. Potent as opium.’

  Immediately Mahmoud reached for the card. Svenson caught his hand.

  ‘It is dangerous. It is deadly. But nothing you have tried has penetrated her mind. This will.’

  Mahmoud threw off Svenson’s arm. ‘And cause her death? Michel –’ Mahmoud appealed to Gorine, but Gorine stared at their mistress.

  ‘Look.’

  Madelaine Kraft’s breathing had deepened and her face had changed – cheeks flushed with colour, with life. Gently, Svenson retrieved the card. Madelaine Kraft looked up. He took her hands, speaking softly.

  ‘The Bride and Groom … did you see them?’

  She blinked at him, and then nodded.

  ‘Do you know those words now, Mrs Kraft? Bride?’

  ‘Bride …’ Her voice was tender with disuse.

  Svenson nodded encouragement. ‘You saw the faces … the angels … the feathered mask and the mouth below, you saw the teeth … the Bride’s teeth –’

  ‘Blue.’ The word was a whisper. Mahmoud and Gorine pressed forward, but Svenson warded them off, fixing his eyes on hers, making sure.

  ‘And the ball … the ball in the black Groom’s hand?’

  Madelaine Kraft’s mouth worked, as if she were calling forth a key she had swallowed. ‘Red.’

  Svenson sighed with relief. Her mind could make new memories, the harvesting process had not robbed her of that – she was no vegetable. Yet through her illness she had not spoken – why did only indigo clay etch its mark into her mind?

  He patted Madelaine Kraft’s hand. ‘What do you think of that, Francesca?’

  The girl had no answer, both arms wrapped across her middle. Was she that delicate, that susceptible? Suppressing the urge to comfort her, fearing it would only make things worse, Svenson turned to the others. ‘I assume Colonel Bronque has gone?’

  Gorine consulted his pocket watch. ‘He has. But why?’

  ‘Because we are going to need your tunnel.’

  The bundle of chemicals lay at Svenson’s feet. Francesca Trapping stood yawning and blinking. The girl had recovered, and though she showed a clumsiness descending the stairs, he ascribed this to exhaustion. At the end of the basement corridor lay an old iron door. Two uniformed soldiers crouched against the wall, bound and, though not cruelly, gagged. Gorine watched them with an unhappy expression and a pistol in each hand. Mahmoud sorted through a ring of keys. Behind, two servants gently held Madelaine Kraft upright between them.