Doctor Svenson was happily directed by the maids’ pointing fingers to a side staircase he never would have seen, reached through a bland-looking door next to a mirror. Still Svenson was unsure as to his responsibility, his best intention. He followed the path of Karl-Horst and his fiancée—yet might it not just as well lead to that of Miss Temple or Elöise? The Cabal would strive to keep the likes of Miss Temple from the sight of its guests—or “adherents” as Miss Poole might arrogantly term them—for as long as possible, as she was sure to give the impression of a prisoner under guard. As they were not on this floor or the one above, this was at least a way for him to descend unseen. But what if he found the Prince before either woman—would that end his search entirely? For an instant he imagined a successful return to Macklenburg, to that life of arid duty, idiot successfully in tow, his heart as ever in its fog of despair. Yet what of the compact he had made on the rooftop of the Boniface, with Chang and Miss Temple? How could he choose between these paths? Svenson left the maids looking after him in the hallway, their heads a-tilt like a pair of curious cats. He fought the urge to wave good-bye and strode on to the staircase.
It was smaller than the main stairs, but only as if to say the Sphinx is smaller than the Pyramids, for it was still magnificent. Every step was intricately inlaid wood of many colors, and the walls were painted with an extremely credible copy, in miniature, of the Byzantine mosaics of Justinian and Theodora at Ravenna. Svenson suppressed an appreciative whistle at the amount Robert Vandaariff must have spent to refinish this one side staircase, and then attempted without success to extrapolate from that imagined sum the cost of fitting out Harschmort Prison into Harschmort House. It was a fortune whose vastness stretched beyond the Doctor’s ability with numbers.
At the foot of the steps he had expected to see a door to the first-floor hallway, but there was none. Instead, he found an unlocked door, like a kitchen door on a spring. Was he near the kitchens? He frowned for a moment, placing himself in the house. On his previous visit, he had come in the front entrance with the Prince and spent his entire time in the left wing—around the ballroom—and then in the garden, where he’d seen Trapping’s body. He was now in unknown territory. He pushed the swinging door gently until there was enough of a gap to peek through.
It was a room of bare wooden tables and a plain stone floor. Around one table were two men and three women—two sitting, and a younger woman pouring beer from a jug into wooden cups—all five in plain, dark woolen work clothes. Between them on the table was an empty platter and a stack of wooden bowls—servants taking a late repast. Svenson threw his shoulders back and marched forward in his best impression of Major Blach, deepening his accent and worsening his diction for maximum haughtiness.
“Excuse me! I am requiring after the Prince Karl-Horst von Maasmärck—he has come this way? Or—excuse me—this way he shall be found?”
They stared at him as if he were speaking Chinese. Again Doctor Svenson assumed the natural actions of Major Blach, which was to say he screamed at them.
“The Prince! With your Miss Vandaariff—this way? One of you tells me at once!”
The poor servants shrank back in their chairs, the pleasant end of their evening meal ruined by his insistent, threatening bellow. Three of them pointed with an abject eagerness at the opposite door and one of the women actually stood, nodding with cringing deference, indicating the same door.
“That way, Sir—not these ten minutes—begging your pardon—”
“Ach, it is very kind of you I am sure—please and be back to your business!” snapped Svenson, stepping to the door before anyone thought to question who in the world he was and why a man in such a filthy, unkempt state was following the Prince in such a hurry. He could only hope that the demands of the Cabal were as oblique, and the figures just as imperious.
It was not difficult to believe.
Once through the swinging door, Svenson stopped again, reaching behind him to still its movement. He stood at one end of a wider, open drawing room—a sort of servants’ corridor with a low overhanging ceiling, designed to allow passage without it being intrusive to the room at large. Above him was a musicians’ balcony from which Svenson could hear the delicate plucking of a harp. Directly across the corridor was another swinging door, perhaps ten yards away, but the way across was fully open to the larger room. He threw himself against the small abutment of wall that hid the swinging door and listened to the raised voices of those people directly beyond it.
“They must choose, Mr. Bascombe! I cannot suspend the natural order indefinitely! As you know, beyond this immediate matter looms the Comte’s transformations, the initiations in the theatre, the many, many important guests identified for collection—to all of which my personal attention is crucial—”
“And as I have told you, Doctor Lorenz, I do not know their wishes!”
“One way or the other—it is very simple! He is made use of at once or he is given over to putrefaction and waste!”
“Yes, you have made those choices clear—”
“Not clear enough that they will act!” Lorenz began to sputter with the condescending pedantry of a seasoned academic. “You will see—at the temples, at the nails, at the lips, the discoloration—the seepage—you will no doubt, even you, discern the smell—”
“Berate me as you please, Doctor, we will wait for the Minister’s word.”
“I will berate you—”
“And I remind you that the fate of the Queen’s own brother is not for you to decide!”
“I say … what was that noise?”
This was another voice. One that Svenson felt he knew but could not place.
More importantly, it referred to the sound of his own entry through the swinging door. The others stopped their argument.
“What noise?” snapped Lorenz.
“I don’t know. But I thought I heard something.”
“Aside from the harp?” asked Bascombe.
“Yes, that lovely harp,” muttered Lorenz waspishly. “Exactly what every slaughtered Royal needs when lying in state in a leaking tub of ice—”
“No, no … from over there …” said the voice, quite clearly turning to the side of the room where Svenson stood, quite minimally concealed.
The voice of Flaüss.
* * *
The Envoy was with them. He would name Svenson and that would be the end of it. Could he run back through the servants? But where after that—up the stairs?
His thoughts were broken by the sound of a large party entering from the far doors, near the others—many footsteps … or more accurately bootsteps. Lorenz called out a greeting in his flat, mocking voice.
“Excellent, how kind of you to finally arrive. You see our burden—I will require two of your fellows to collect a supply of ice, I am told there is an ice house somewhere on the premises—”
“Captain,” this was Bascombe cutting smoothly through the Doctor’s words, “could you make sure we are not troubled by any unwanted visitors from the servants’ passage?”
“As soon as you send two men for more ice,” insisted Lorenz.
“Indeed,” said Bascombe, “two men for ice, four men for the tub, one man to respectfully ask the Minister if there is further word, and one to check the passage. Does that satisfy us all?”
Svenson slipped back to the door and pushed gently against it, straining for silence. It held fast. The door had been bolted from the inner side—the servants making sure he’d not again trespass upon their meal. He shoved again, harder, to no avail. He quickly fished out the pistol—for within the noises of scraping metal and scuffling feet from his enemies across the room came the rapping of deliberate bootsteps advancing directly toward him.
Before he was prepared the man was looking right at him, not two yards away: a tall fellow with hanging lank brown hair, Captain of Dragoons, red coat immaculate, brass helmet under one arm, drawn saber in the other. Svenson met his sharp gaze and tightened his grip on the re
volver, but did not fire. The idea of killing a soldier went against the grain—who knew what these fellows had been told, or what they’d been ordered to do, especially by a government figure like Crabbé or even Bascombe? Svenson imagined Chang’s lack of hesitation and raised the revolver to fire.
The man’s eyes flicked up and down, taking in Svenson’s uniform, his rank, his unkempt person. Without any comment he turned to look in the other direction and then casually took a step toward Svenson, ostensibly—for the purpose of anyone watching from the room—to examine the door behind him. Svenson flinched—but still could not pull the trigger. Instead, the Captain leaned near to Svenson, reaching past him to the door and confirming it was locked. Svenson’s revolver was nearly pressed against the Captain’s chest, but the Captain’s saber had been deliberately dropped to his side.
“Doctor Svenson?” he whispered.
Svenson nodded, unprepared to form actual words.
“I have seen Chang. I will take these people to the center of the house—please go in the opposite direction.”
Svenson nodded again.
“Captain Smythe?” called Bascombe.
Smythe stepped back. “Nothing unusual, Sir.”
“Were you speaking to someone?”
Smythe gestured vaguely toward the door as he walked back, out of Svenson’s sight.
“There are servants in the next room. They’ve seen no one—perhaps their movement was what the Envoy heard. The door is now locked.”
“Undoubtedly,” agreed Lorenz, impatiently. “May we?”
“If you will follow me, gentlemen?” called Smythe. Svenson heard the doors opening, the scuffle and creak of the men lifting the fallen Duke, the thwop of water slopping out of the tub, the scuffle of footsteps and finally the closing of the door. He waited. There was no sound. He sighed and stepped around the corner, shoving the revolver back into his coat pocket.
Herr Flaüss stood just inside the far doorway, grinning smugly. Svenson dragged out the revolver. Flaüss snorted.
“What will you do, Doctor, shoot me and announce yourself to every soldier in the house?”
Svenson began to walk deliberately across the wide room toward the Envoy, his aim never wavering from the man’s chest. After all the torments he had passed through, it was bitter to imagine his downfall at the hands of this petty and puling creature.
“I knew what I had heard,” smiled Flaüss, “just as I knew Captain Smythe was not telling the truth. I’ve no idea why—and I am indeed curious what power you might have over an officer of Dragoons, especially in your present wholly decrepit state.”
“You’re a traitor, Flaüss,” answered Svenson. “You always have been.”
He was within two yards of the Envoy, the main door perhaps a yard beyond that. Flaüss snorted again.
“How can I be a traitor when I do my own Prince’s bidding? It is true I did not always understand that—it is true that I have been assisted to my present level of clarity—but you are as wrong about me, and the Prince, as you have always been—”
“He’s an idiot and a traitor himself,” spat Svenson hotly, “betraying his own father, his own nation—”
“My poor Doctor, you are quite behind the times. Much has changed in Macklenburg.” Flaüss licked his lips and his eyes gleamed. “Your Baron is dead. Yes, Baron von Hoern—his feeble network of operatives was well known—why else should I attend the every move of an obscure naval physician? And of course the Duke himself is also very unwell—your brand of patriotism is passé—very soon Prince Karl-Horst will be the nation, and perfectly placed to welcome the cooperative financial ventures of Lord Vandaariff and his associates.”
Flaüss wore a plain black half-mask across his eyes. With grim recognition Svenson could see the lurid scarring peeking out from the edges.
“Where is Major Blach?” he asked.
“Somewhere about, I am sure—as I am sure he will be most happy at your capture. He and I finally see eye to eye, of course—another blessing! It really is a matter of looking beyond to deeper truths. If, as you say, the Prince is not especially gifted in matters of policy, it is all the more important that those who support him are able to make up that lack.”
It was Svenson’s turn to scoff. He looked behind him. Adding another bizarre touch to his confrontation with the mentally altered Envoy, the concealed harpist continued to play. He turned back to Flaüss.
“If you knew I was there, why didn’t you say anything to your masters, to Lorenz or Bascombe?” He gestured with the revolver. “Why give me the upper hand?”
“I’ve done nothing of the kind—as I say, you can’t shoot me without dooming yourself. You’re no more a fool than you are a brawler—if you want to stay alive, you’ll give me your weapon and we shall walk together to the Prince—and I will establish myself as trustworthy in my new role. Especially so, I should say—for to get this far, I imagine you must have avoided a great number of ostensible foes.”
The Envoy’s smug expression demonstrated for Dr. Svenson the extent and the limit of the Process’s transformation. Never before would the man have been so bold as to risk an open confrontation—much less so brazen an admission of his secret plans. Flaüss had always been one for honeyed agreement followed by backhanded plotting, for layered schemes and overlapping patronage. He had despised the blunt arguments of Major Blach and Svenson’s own diffident independence as quite equal levels of defiance—and, indeed, personal offense. There was no doubt that the man’s loyalty had—as he put it—been “clarified” by his alchemical ordeal and his hesitancies weakened, but Svenson saw that his conniving, narcissistic nature remained quite whole.
“Your weapon, Doctor Svenson,” repeated Flaüss, his voice pointedly yet somehow comically stern. “I have you boxed with logic. I do insist.”
Svenson flipped his grip on the revolver, holding on to its barrel and cylinder. Flaüss smiled, as this seemed the first step to politely handing him the butt of the gun. Instead, feeling another uncharacteristic surge of animal capacity, Svenson raised his arm and cracked the pistol butt across the Envoy’s head. Flaüss staggered back with a squawk. He looked up at Svenson with an outraged glare of betrayal—as if in flouting the man’s “logic” Svenson had broken all natural law—and opened his mouth to scream. Svenson stepped forward, arm raised for another swing. Flaüss darted away, quicker than his portly frame would seem to allow, and Svenson’s blow went wide. Flaüss opened his mouth again. Svenson abruptly switched his grip on the revolver and aimed it directly at the Envoy’s face.
“If you scream, I will shoot you! I’ll have no more reason for silence!” he hissed.
Flaüss did not scream. He glared at Svenson with hatred and rubbed the welt above his eye. “You are a brute,” he insisted. “An outright savage!”
Svenson padded quietly down the hallway—now sporting the Envoy’s black silk mask, the better to blend in with the locals—following Smythe’s directions away from the center of the house, with no idea if this path brought him anywhere near his ostensible targets of rescue. Most likely he was squandering what time he had to save them—he scoffed aloud—like so much else in his life had been squandered. His mind bristled with questions about the Dragoon Captain—he “had seen” Chang (though hadn’t Chang been fleeing Dragoons in the garden?), but how had he known him? If only there had been time to actually speak—it was more than likely the man knew the location of Elöise or Miss Temple. For a moment he’d entertained the idea of interrogating Flaüss, but his skin crawled at the man’s physical presence. Leaving him gagged and trussed behind a divan was more than enough time spent with such a toad. Yet he knew Flaüss would be missed—it was frankly odd he’d not been looked for already—and that his period of anonymity inside Harschmort was severely limited. But at the same time, the house was massive, and blundering senselessly through its hallways would only waste his temporary advantage.
The hallway ended at a T junction, with a path to either side. Svenso
n stood, undecided, like a figure in the forest of a fairy tale, knowing that the wrong choice would lead to the equivalent of a malevolent ogre. One way led to a succession of small parlors, following one to the next like links in a chain. The other opened onto a narrow corridor whose walls were plain, but whose floor was strikingly laid with black marble. Then as he stood, Doctor Svenson quite clearly recognized a woman’s scream … dimly, as if the cry passed through a substantial intervening wall.
Where had it come from? He listened. It was not repeated. He strode into the black corridor—less comfortable, less wholesome, and altogether more dangerous—for if he chose wrong, the sooner he knew it the better.
The corridor was pocked with small niches for statuary—mostly simple white marble busts on stone pillars with the occasional limb-free torso. The heads were copies (though, given Vandaariff’s wealth, who knew?) from antiquity, and the Doctor recognized the varyingly vacant, cruel, or thoughtful heads of Caesars high and low—Augustus, Vespasian, Gaius, Nero, Domitian, Tiberius. As he passed this last, Svenson stopped. Dimly—though louder than the scream—he heard … applause. He spun to place the source of the noise, and saw, cut into the white wall behind the bust of that pensive, bitter emperor, regular grooves running up to the ceiling … rungs. Svenson edged behind the pillar and looked up. He looked around him and—taking a breath and shutting his eyes—began to climb.
There was no hatch. The ladder continued into darkness before his hands found a new surface to grasp. The Doctor opened his eyes and blinked, allowing his eyes to adjust to the dark. He was gripping a piece of wooden scaffolding, the end of a low catwalk. He heard distant voices … and then again the whisper, like a sudden rustle of leaves, of an audience’s applause. Was he backstage at some sort of theatre? The Doctor swallowed, for the dizzying heights from which stagehands operated the lifts and curtains always made him queasy (and his compulsion was to look up again and again, just to torment himself with vertigo). He recalled a performance of Bonrichardt’s Castor und Pollux where the triumphant finale, the titular pair ascending to heaven—an excruciatingly extended duet as they were raised (the twins operatically portly, the ropes audibly protesting) some hundred feet from view—had him near to heaving with dread into the lap of the unfortunate dowager seated next to him.
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