The gears flew as the rope whipped upwards, and the pallet of barrels dropped like a thunderbolt. Assuming this would draw all eyes, Chang burst forth, racing for the barge, waving for the others to run. The barrels crashed onto the wharf behind him, and quite suddenly he was lifted off his feet, the entire dockfront shaking. He landed hard, ears ringing, smoking wood all around him, and began to crawl. Svenson pulled him up and they ran. Chang looked back to see a massive column of smoke obscuring the gate and the canal, lit from within by bolts of light, an angry stormcloud brought to ground.
‘What on earth?’ managed Mr Phelps, but no one had the breath to reply. They were running blindly, simply racing down any clear avenue that appeared. Then, looking left, Chang saw a flash of black.
‘A tunnel!’ he cried, and veered towards it, the others raggedly at his heels. But the tunnel was blocked by an iron grille.
‘Shoot the lock!’ cried Phelps.
‘There is no lock,’ snarled Chang, who nevertheless dug his fingers into the grille-work and pulled. ‘The bars are set into the cement.’
‘It is a blast tunnel,’ said Svenson, ‘for testing explosives. Pull in the centre – better yet, step away.’
Chang realized he had been pulling at the edge of the grille, trying to wrest it from the stone. But the centre of the iron mesh was blackened from who knew how many exhalations of scalding gas. Svenson raised one heavy boot and stamped hard. The bars shook and bent inward. Phelps added his foot to the Doctor’s and one corroded joint snapped clean. They kicked again and two more gave way. The Doctor fell to his knees and strained with both hands, bending the damaged metal enough to clear a hole.
‘Hurry. Celeste, you are smallest – see if you can fit!’
Miss Temple carefully inserted her head and writhed forward. The cage caught her dress but Svenson disengaged it and she was through.
‘It smells dreadful!’ she called. Chang crawled in. He knelt alongside Miss Temple, the two of them together for a moment while Svenson and Phelps each insisted the other enter first.
‘I was foolish,’ she said quietly. ‘I’m sorry.’
Chang did not know if she meant having darted forward to the gate on the dock, or their kiss in the Parchfeldt woods. He had never heard Miss Temple apologize for anything.
‘What’s done is done.’ He reached for Svenson’s flailing hand.
Where Miss Temple passed with a stoop, the men were forced to bend low. Chang called forward irritably, ‘Do you know where this takes us?’
‘No. Would you prefer we turn back?’
Mr Phelps sneezed. Svenson rummaged in his pockets, and then a wooden match flared. The tunnel, walls blackened and stubbled with chemical residue, receded far beyond the match light’s reach. Svenson took the opportunity to light a cigarette, speaking as he puffed the tip to red life.
‘The main gates will be guarded, and we are no party to force them.’ The match went to his fingertips and Svenson dropped it, the flame winking out mid-fall.
‘I should like a pair of shoes,’ said Chang.
‘And I should like to examine your spine,’ replied the Doctor.
‘Whilst we are being hunted in the dark, I suggest it be postponed.’
‘Perhaps we could find that man again,’ said Phelps, ‘with the white hair –’
‘His name is Foison.’
‘The thing is, I believe I have seen him before.’
‘Why didn’t you say so?’ snapped Chang.
‘I was not sure – and we have been running!’
‘Where did you see him?’ asked Svenson.
‘At Harschmort, it must have been – ages ago. Not that he spoke, but when one serves a man of power, as I did the Duke of Staëlmaere, one observes the minions of others.’
‘So he was Robert Vandaariff’s man?’ asked Svenson.
‘But Vandaariff’s body holds another,’ said Miss Temple. ‘Robert Vandaariff is gone.’
‘Does Mr Foison know that?’
‘Why should he care?’ asked Miss Temple, crawling on. ‘The man is a villain. I think you should have killed him. O there now – do you mark it – the air is warmer … is there a join with another passage?’
The Doctor lit a second match. Chang turned his eyes from the flare and noticed, above them in the cement, a perforated hatchway.
‘Here it is …’
He slipped his fingers through the mesh and lifted the hatch from its place, then hauled himself up into darkness, where his bare feet touched cold stone. The Doctor’s match died and he lit another. Chang reached to Miss Temple.
‘And so Persephone escaped from the underworld …’
At this she pursed her lips, but took his hand with both of hers. He lifted her out, then helped Phelps. The Doctor stood in the hatchway, head and shoulders in the room, holding the match aloft. Miss Temple laughed aloud.
‘I am a goose! See here!’ From her bag she pulled a beeswax stub and gave it to Svenson to light. ‘I had forgotten!’
‘O for all love,’ muttered Phelps sullenly.
Chang shared the sentiment, but was happy enough to see where they were: a square chamber with a stone-flagged floor. At the base of each wall lay a scattering of straw, and bolted into the cement at regular intervals – almost to resemble an art salon – were long rectangles.
Doctor Svenson sniffed the air. ‘Vinegar. As if the chamber had been scoured.’
Miss Temple took the candle from him, walking closer to a wall. ‘Look at the straw,’ she said. ‘It has all come out of this burlap sacking …’
The scraps of sacking had been painted with crude faces, and within the straw lurked tattered strips of clothing.
‘Straw mannequins,’ Chang said. ‘Test targets …’ Crossing nearer, he could see the rectangles were of different materials: hammered steel, smelted iron, brass, oak, teak, maple studded with iron nails, each to test an explosive’s power. The power of a prototype explosive set off within the chamber – its gasses venting to the tunnel – could be measured against all kinds of surfaces: wood, armour, fabric, even (he imagined a row of hams hanging from hooks) flesh, all from a single blast.
‘Take care for your feet,’ said Doctor Svenson, joining them. ‘Celeste, hold your light closer to the straw.’
She knelt and Chang saw a glimmer near her boot. She gingerly pulled the straw away to reveal a gleaming chip of blue glass. Miss Temple lifted the light to the rectangle above. Its oaken planks bristled with tiny glass splinters, like a cork board stuck with pins. Higher up, still whole, perched a small, spiked blue disc, perhaps the size of a Venetian florin. Chang bunched the silken sleeve over his fingers and tugged the disc free. The edge was sharp and the spikes as regular as a wicked, wheeled spur.
‘A projectile?’ asked Svenson. ‘Grapeshot?’
‘But why blue glass?’ countered Chang. ‘A broken gin bottle will cut just as well.’
‘What have you found?’ called Mr Phelps from across the room, sniffling.
‘The poor man needs a fire,’ Svenson muttered, before calling back. ‘It is blue glass, perhaps part of a weapon.’
‘Will they not be searching for us?’ Phelps replied. ‘Should we not flee?’
Miss Temple plucked the disc from Chang’s palm. Before he could protest she raised it up to her eye.
‘Celeste!’ gasped Svenson. ‘Don’t be a fool!’
Chang forcibly pulled her arm down, breaking the connection.
Her eyes were wide and her face had flushed – but with anger, he realized. Miss Temple thrust the glass back into Chang’s hand.
‘I saw nothing,’ she growled. ‘It is not a memory but a feeling. Deeply felt, obliterating wrath.’
Chang looked to the shredded straw. ‘What does rage matter when the target’s cut to ribbons?’
‘There is a door,’ called Mr Phelps thickly. ‘I am going through it.’
Svenson hurried after Phelps. Chang caught Miss Temple’s arm and turned her to him. ‘You insist o
n risking yourself –’
‘That is my own business.’
Her cheeks were still red from the glass, and Chang recalled the forest at Parchfeldt. She had been striking his chest in fury before lunging up to kiss him. He imagined slipping a hand through her curls right then and pulling her face to his.
‘Impatience gets a person killed,’ he said instead. ‘And trying to make up for past mistakes only muddles your thinking.’
‘Mistakes?’
‘What of these men you hired, or Jack Pfaff – what of Elöise – what of shooting Roger Bascombe –’
‘I should have spared him, then? And the Contessa – shall we spare her as well?’
‘Are you coming?’ called Doctor Svenson, his words edged with a finite patience.
‘You know full well what I refer to,’ muttered Chang, wishing he had not said a word.
‘An ordnance room,’ explained Svenson, indicating the high scaffolds holding kegs of powder. ‘The racks allow ventilation – and do you mark the slippers?’ A pile of grey felt slippers lay heaped just inside the doorway. ‘To cover one’s shoes, so there is no chance of a spark from a hobnail – an old habit from ships. And there, do you see?’ Svenson pointed to a portion of empty scaffolding against the wall. ‘View-holes into the blast chamber, bent like the mirrored periscopes one uses in trench-works, so no random shot can plunge through, yet still allowing the engineers to view the explosion.’
Mr Phelps had rallied, or perhaps was abashed at his show of peevishness. ‘These barrels are not yet stored away – if they are newer, might they not hold the explosive we saw at the canal?’
Chang took one of Foison’s knives and set to prising the lid from the nearest barrel, grateful for an excuse not to talk. He did not relish companionship for its own sake and often felt, perhaps perversely, that the people one knew best were the most difficult to bear. Over-familiarity with their habits made even the smallest interaction grate, while the obverse notion – of being that much more on view himself – was even worse.
He wedged the knife under the lid and saw Phelps had joined him.
‘If it is the same explosive, might the jostling of your knife set it off? It did strike me as especially volatile.’
Chang applied a slow, strong pressure. The edge grudgingly rose until he could fit his fingers beneath and wrench it clear.
‘Merciful hell,’ muttered Mr Phelps.
Instead of any kind of powder, the barrel was filled with blue glass discs, sharp-spurred, coin-sized … thousands and thousands of them. Chang scooped up a handful and threw it against the wall, but the discs only shattered. Clearly these new glass weapons were not the source of the explosion on the wharf.
Outside the ordnance chamber was another tunnel laid with rail. Miss Temple screwed up her mouth, as if she’d taken a ladle of fish oil.
Svenson reached out with concern. ‘Celeste –’
‘Left at the crossroads takes us back to where we found Chang. Right and straight ahead lead to other blasting chambers … but I believe I know our exit.’
She glanced at Chang, as if daring him to disagree. When he said nothing, she wheeled away. What had happened to her? Chang could feel Svenson watching him, but he had no desire to speak of what he did not understand.
At the crossroads they entered another blast tunnel proper, the men again reduced to ungainly scuttling. Chang managed to slip ahead of Phelps, but he reduced his pace so the Doctor and Miss Temple were soon some yards ahead. Then Chang stopped altogether.
‘Have you hurt your foot?’ asked Phelps.
‘No. It seemed prudent for us to talk. If you are playing Svenson false I’ll cut your throat.’
‘I beg your pardon –’
‘If you cause harm to Miss Temple I’ll hack off your hands.’
‘Harm? Have I not shared their peril? Why would I have saved Svenson’s life –’
‘I have no idea. Didn’t he break your arm at the quarry?’ Chang clamped a hand around Phelps’s wrist. ‘You’ve taken off the plaster, but no doubt the bones remain fragile …’
Was it the insistence on sparing Foison that had fired Chang’s suspicion? Foison’s knife had only pinned Phelps to the wall – on purpose? Had Phelps not delayed them with his snivels and sneezes, perhaps enough to allow recapture? He squeezed. Phelps gasped and tried to pull his arm away.
‘Doctor Svenson is a man of principle! In killing Tackham he saved my life as well!’
‘Where is the Contessa?’
‘If I knew that, I would not be in a stinking tunnel with a madman! I have thrown over my entire life –’
‘Why should I trust a man who’s done his best to kill me?’
‘Because everything has changed!’ Phelps hissed. ‘The city is in chaos!’
Chang seized the man’s damp cravat and twisted the knot against his throat. ‘All part of your mistress’s plan, I think.’
‘Listen to me,’ Phelps wheezed, ‘I think you are a criminal – and that your kind deserves death – but you hardly threaten the state. We need you now – as you need me!’ Phelps jerked his chin towards Svenson and Miss Temple. ‘Do you think they know the codes to summon the militia, or can counterfeit diplomatic ciphers? When it comes to the final battle –’
‘I will be watching your every move.’ Chang released his grip and turned after the others … half expecting a bullet in his back.
If Chang’s bluntness accomplished nothing else, it would make Mr Phelps keen to prove his value, if he was honest – and, if dishonest, that much more likely to misstep, from fear. That he would also hate Chang with a burning fire was neither here nor there.
Miss Temple crouched with Svenson beneath another metal hatchway, waiting for Chang and Phelps to catch up. The Doctor studied Chang’s blank expression but said nothing. Phelps only cleared his throat and apologized for keeping them.
‘But you’ve found another room, it seems,’ he said. ‘How cunning.’
‘It is not a room,’ whispered Miss Temple, ‘but our exit.’
Chang lifted one foot, for the ground was damp. ‘You’ve brought us to a sewer.’
‘Try your luck with Mr Foison,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure he’s forgiven everything.’
This time Svenson shifted the metal hatch cover, then pulled himself from sight. A hand came down and Miss Temple went next, then Chang. He emerged into another cement chamber, but one lined with massive cisterns, each with a spigot the width of a 12-pound cannon at its base. He did not bother to assist Phelps.
‘They contain different solutions,’ Miss Temple explained, her voice thick, ‘released into the tunnels to stifle various kinds of explosive residue. The Comte was taken with the … engineering.’
‘How will that get us out?’ asked Phelps, rising stiffly. Miss Temple pointed to the largest cistern of all, filling one corner of the room and reaching near the roof beams.
‘Because that is full of water – to flush away the other chemicals – and the pipes that feed it run to the canal.’
‘I am just beginning to dry!’ moaned Phelps.
‘But Celeste,’ said Svenson, ‘we have tried the canal – the defences are too strong.’
Miss Temple shook her head impatiently. ‘Not the canal gate at the river. We have walked entirely beneath the works, away from the river and near a spur of the Orange Canal itself, used to ferry goods in the opposite direction, to the Raaxfall railway head. These pipes pass under the border fences to reach the water.’
‘You want us to swim through the pipes?’ squawked Phelps. ‘The plan is blind idiocy!’
Miss Temple was stricken by another fit of choking. It did not stop, and she bent over as if she might be sick. Svenson glared at Phelps, who shrugged and fished out a damp handkerchief to blow his nose. Miss Temple straightened. Her eyes were red and moist.
‘There are valves,’ she rasped. ‘The water can be turned off or reversed – they also use the pipes for drainage. It will be noissome, but the distance
is not far, and we may pass through.’
‘How do we enter?’ asked Svenson.
Miss Temple looked to the top of the cistern, high above. ‘There is a ladder – it may require a bit of a jump.’
‘Ah. Perhaps –’
Chang slashed his hand through the air to indicate silence. They followed his gaze to the hatch, which Phelps had not replaced, and the flickers of light that danced in the tunnel beneath.
Chang waved them brusquely to the cistern of water, where Miss Temple told the other two men which valves to close. The squeaking valves were heard in the tunnel: lantern beams stabbed into the chamber. Chang crossed to a smaller cistern, wrenched at the spigot head and leapt clear of a spew of green liquid. The chamber floor was angled exactly for this purpose, and the steaming chemicals gushed straight at the hatch. Chang ran for the ladder. Phelps was in the lead, then Miss Temple, and finally Svenson, climbing with the speed of a tortoise.
Shouts of outrage echoed from the tunnel, then the crack of lantern glass bursting from contact with the liquid. Chang shoved the Doctor’s rump without ceremony. A hand rose through the sick green flow and then a gasping, shaking head – one of the Xonck soldiers, more intrepid than the rest. Chang looked up to see Phelps’s feet disappearing into a pipe above the cistern pit, Miss Temple right behind, balanced on the slippery rim. Svenson reached the top of the ladder but quailed at the four-foot gap to the pipe.
The soldier hauled himself clear and saw them, his shaven head gleaming green. He aimed a pistol at Chang’s back, but the hammer clicked impotently – the chemical wash had done something to the charge. He tried again – more heads rising to the hatch rim – then threw the gun aside and drew a wicked knife. Miss Temple had entered the pipe, but Svenson stood fixed.
‘It is just like the gangplank of a ship!’ cried Chang.
‘I despise gangplanks!’ But the Doctor lunged forward. Three reckless storklike steps and he was there, Miss Temple catching his arm.
Chang readied one of Foison’s knives. The bald soldier had reached the ladder. Chang considered throwing the knife, but he’d not Foison’s skill. Another two men stood at the hatch, pistols snapping without effect. Chang ignored them, waiting for the bald soldier – climbing with one arm, the long knife held upwards. The green liquid had bleached his uniform yellow, and his coat seams split at the effort of his arms. Chang feinted a cut at the climbing man’s face, which was aggressively parried – but all Chang sought was blade contact. He deftly turned his wrist so the silver tip of Foison’s knife drew a sharp line along the soldier’s hand, cutting deep. The long knife leapt from the man’s grip. Chang snapped a fist into the soldier’s nose, the man’s feet went out from under him, and he slid down the rungs. Chang crossed the cistern rim as quick as a cat and was gone.
The Chemickal Marriage Page 9