The Chemickal Marriage

by Gordon Dahlquist

  He released her and stepped away, pulling the revolver from his belt. The Contessa’s voice remained hushed.

  ‘For a moment I feared you might try to kill me … and then I understood that you have every intention of doing so. You have changed, Abelard Svenson.’

  ‘Is that so strange?’

  ‘When any man changes there ought to be fireworks.’

  ‘You still have every intention of killing me.’

  The Contessa extended her left hand, the jewelled bag dangling, running her own fingers – pressing hard, her lips curling into a smile – the exact length of the scar from Tackham’s sabre.

  ‘I saw you, you know,’ she whispered, ‘bleeding on the ground, groaning like the damned … I saw you kill him. I thought you would die, just as I thought I had killed Chang. It is not often I underestimate so many people.’

  ‘Nor the same people so many times.’

  The pressure on his scar was repulsive, but arousing. She lifted her fingers. ‘We overreach ourselves.’ Her cheeks held a touch of red. ‘Whatever your new provocations, there remains very much to do.’

  At a pillared archway the Contessa raised her hand and they paused, peering into an ancient hall of high tapestries and cold stone walls. A row of tables ran down the centre of the room, arranged with bowls of floating white flowers.

  Svenson craned his neck. ‘This room seems old – and, judging by the medieval decorations, quite out of fashion and unused.’

  ‘How do you account, then, for the flowers?’

  ‘A floral penchant of the Queen?’

  The Contessa laughed. ‘No, because of the drains – the horrible drains! It is a wonder the entire royal household does not perish from disease. This chamber is particularly fragrant – but, while relining the pipes with copper would be an unthinkable expense, it is entirely acceptable to spend a colonel’s salary every fortnight on fresh flowers.’

  ‘Is this where the Privy Council meets, with Stäelmaere House under quarantine?’

  The Contessa shook her head, enjoying her riddle. ‘Axewith took the Regent’s gatehouse. Because it boasts a portcullis – which tells you all you need to know about Lord Axewith. No, Doctor, there is no hope of getting anywhere near Oskar himself – he was always a coward, and he will have soldiers as thick around him as his old bearskin fur. I wonder if he’ll get another one? The real Vandaariff would never wear such a thing, but I don’t suppose anyone will care.’

  ‘Then where have you brought me?’

  She pulled Svenson back into hiding. ‘We each have our talents, Doctor, and I have brought you where my own may shine. Observe.’

  At the head of a cloud of men, all burdened with sheaves of paper, satchels, rolled documents, leather-bound ledgers, strode a thin young man with fair hair, the tips of his moustache waxed to a darker maple: Harcourt, the man they had collided with in the doorway. Svenson knew – from his days recuperating in Rawsbarthe’s attic – that Harcourt was an obsequious fellow whose advancement had come from never questioning his superiors’ commands, no matter how criminal. With so many riddled by sickness, Harcourt had vaulted to real power. Phelps had taken the news with dismay, but Svenson could see the burden did not weigh lightly on Harcourt’s shoulders. The young man’s face was haggard, and his voice – rapping out commands to the crowd that clustered behind him like a burlesque of some multi-limbed Hindu deity – reduced to the flat crack of a toad.

  ‘The port master must receive these orders before the tide; requisitions to the mines must not be sent until after the morning’s trading; these judges called to chambers as soon as the warrants are approved; local militias marshalled for property seizure. Disbursements set against the Treasury’s reckoning as of today, we must draw down to demonstrate our need – Mr Harron, see to it!’

  Harcourt swept on to the nest of tables. The Contessa pushed into Svenson as a determined portly figure – the dispatched Mr Harron, with a thick portfolio, each page dangling a ribbon weighted with a blot of wax – hurried by without stopping.

  ‘Will you drink something, Mr Harcourt?’ asked one aide, more concerned with an alluring ruby decanter than with property seizures.

  ‘There are hours left in the day,’ sniffed Harcourt. ‘Send to the kitchens for strong tea. Where is the list from Lord Axewith?’

  ‘It has not yet come, sir.’

  ‘Vandaariff will dictate terms to us all.’ Harcourt rubbed his eyes and exhaled. He took up a new stack of documents, at once thrusting a page at another aide. ‘Make sure the commanders understand – there is to be no official record of casualties, nor any death benefits charged to the paymaster. They are to draw on Lord Axewith’s fund. Go.’

  The aide bustled out and the next – they were all of an age with Harcourt – stepped up with a ledger and a pen. Harcourt blinked at it, wearily. ‘Just remind me?’

  ‘Transport tariffs, sir – to widen the Orange Canal, from the new Parchfeldt spur down to the sea.’

  ‘Ah.’ Harcourt scribbled his name but kept the pen, his eyes hovering over the ledger. ‘Parchfeldt.’

  The young man took his master’s hesitation for a chance to speak. ‘Do you know how long the quarantine will go on, sir? In Stäelmaere House?’

  ‘Am I in the College of Medicine?’

  ‘Of course not, sir – but you served the Duke, were aide to Mr Phelps –’

  ‘Attend to your canals, Mr Forsett!’ Harcourt slapped the ledger shut, nearly upsetting the inkpot. ‘What in God’s name is keeping Pont-Joule? And where in blazes is that tea?’

  But his last words were drained of wrath – indeed, were quite infused with stammering anticipation. The Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza had appeared before him, the red dress shimmering like a gemstone.

  ‘Sweet Christ,’ Harcourt croaked. ‘To your errands – at once, off with you all!’

  ‘What of your tea?’ squeaked Forsett.

  ‘Damn the tea! Drink it yourselves! I must meet with this lady alone!’

  Harcourt’s officials hurried out, clutching their papers as if fleeing a house fire. Harcourt’s attention stayed fixed on the woman, and his lower lip trembled.

  ‘M-my lady …’

  ‘I told you I would return, Matthew. You look tired.’ The Contessa stood opposite Harcourt, the bowl of white blossoms between them like a ceremonial offering.

  ‘Not at all.’ Harcourt’s nonchalance was betrayed by the twitching of one eye. The Contessa set her jewelled bag onto the table and snapped it open, extracting a pair of silk gloves dyed to match her dress.

  ‘Such service, to manage a nation at risk,’ she said gently. ‘Is it truly recognized? Does such sacrifice ever find reward?’

  Harcourt swallowed. ‘In the absence of other – experienced – Minister Crabbé – with the sickness that has pervaded –’

  ‘That terrible woman …’ The Contessa shook her head, her gloved fingers clicking as they sought inside her bag. ‘Can you imagine if anything like her should appear again? Or a score of them at once?’

  Harcourt stared at the gleaming blue rectangle the Contessa had extracted.

  ‘This is for you, Matthew … for you alone.’ She offered her hand across the perfumed bowl and smiled shyly. ‘I trust you will not think the less of me.’

  Harcourt shook his head, gulped and snatched the glass card. He raised it to his eyes, licking his lips like a hound. His pupils expanded to black balls and his jaw fell slack. Mr Harcourt did not move.

  ‘Come out, Doctor. The fellow is so earnest, it would be a shame not to share his misfortune.’

  Svenson felt like a pet who’d been whistled for. ‘How long until his people return?’

  ‘We have at least … O … three minutes?’ The Contessa leafed through the papers in Harcourt’s portfolio.

  ‘That is no time at all!’

  ‘More than enough …’

  She pulled a sheet of parchment free, reading it quickly. Harcourt gasped – in pain or ecstasy – but his gaze did no
t shift. Svenson inched closer, curious as to what held Harcourt in thrall.

  ‘Time, Doctor, time …’

  ‘What are you hoping to find? You might have waited until he had the news of Vandaariff’s demands –’

  ‘I have told you, Doctor, that does not matter.’

  The Contessa shoved the parchment at Svenson and went back to the portfolio. The page was a list of properties to be temporarily seized by the Crown: railway lines, shipping fleets, mines, refineries, banks, and then, ending the list, at least fifteen different glassworks.

  ‘Glassworks?’

  ‘Curious, isn’t it?’

  ‘That demand has to come from Vandaariff – it’s all been planned in advance.’

  The Contessa raised an eyebrow at his slow arrival and continued to sort through the mounds of paper. Harcourt gasped again.

  ‘What is the memory on that card?’ Svenson asked her.

  ‘Nothing to concern you …’

  ‘It must be extremely alluring.’

  ‘That is the intention –’

  ‘Because he does not wrench himself free. Thus you do not offer him information, but a sensual experience. As this is not your first meeting, I presume each new card draws him deeper into enslavement. Do you have such a storehouse of them? I assumed they had been lost.’

  The Contessa plucked two small pages from a portfolio, folded them to tight strips and slipped each into the bodice of her dress. ‘Doctor, you will find a door behind that tapestry – the Turks besieging Vienna. Though if those are Turks I am a Scottish donkey, and if that is Vienna – well, not that it matters. The experience of one Florentine winehouse apparently equips a man to describe the world. Still, there is but one thing worse than an artist who has not travelled.’

  ‘The artist who has?’

  She laughed. Too aware of his pleasure at sparking her amusement, Svenson lifted the tapestry and found a wooden door. The Contessa plucked the glass card away. Harcourt jackknifed at the waist with a shuddering cry, both hands digging at his groin.

  ‘Until we meet again, Matthew,’ she cooed. Svenson ducked to escape Harcourt’s eye, but need not have bothered. Harcourt had curled into a grunting, sobbing ball.

  As soon as the Contessa closed the door, the light was gone. On instinct, Svenson edged away, to set himself beyond her spike.

  ‘Where are you?’ she whispered.

  ‘Where are we going?’

  ‘Stop running from me, you fool – there are steps!’

  As she spoke, Svenson’s right foot skidded into space. He nearly overbalanced, toppling into the darkness, but managed to claw a handhold on the uneven walls. Before he could recover he smelt her perfume, and felt her breath warm at his ear.

  ‘You will break your neck – and we have not even made our bargain.’

  ‘What bargain is that?’

  ‘Go down – carefully, mind – and I will tell you.’

  The steps were narrow and worn from a century of footfalls, and his boots slipped more than once. ‘Where does this take us? Where in the Palace?’

  He felt her whisper on his neck. ‘Do you know the Palace?’

  ‘Not at all.’

  ‘Then it will be a surprise. Do you like surprises?’

  ‘Not especially.’

  ‘O Doctor – you waste the glory of the world.’

  ‘I shall endeavour to bear it.’

  The Contessa nipped Svenson’s ear.

  At the foot of the stairs his hand found another door, and her whisper reminded him to open it slowly. From behind another tapestry they entered a circular room with walls of stone.

  ‘It is a tower,’ said Svenson, his voice low with caution.

  ‘Well observed.’ The Contessa brushed past – Svenson flinched and brought up an arm – to the room’s exit, an open arch that left him feeling nakedly vulnerable. She peered out. Far away were indefinable sounds – trundlings, calls – but nothing near. The Contessa turned and Svenson retreated several steps. She raised an eyebrow at the distance between them and smiled.

  ‘It is the particular character of royal dwelling places to possess such oddities, because they are in a constant state of being rebuilt and then abandoned and then rebuilt again – what was once a castle must become a house, and then with fashion a different sort of house. Portions are devoured by fire, or cannon, or rotting time – doors are bricked over with haste, walls no longer connect, and – as you see – whole staircases misplaced without care. The myriad adulteries of a court hang upon such lore – such secrets are guarded, after all. But secret-keepers die and it can be possible to have such rooms as this … reliably to one’s self.’

  ‘Ah.’

  ‘And in answer to your persistent questions. Twenty yards through that wall is the Greenway, and beyond it the river.’

  She pointed to a wall upon which hung a wide mirror, the silver spotted with decay. Below the mirror was a divan draped with blankets so tattered as to predate living memory. Svenson sensed a sneeze just looking at them.

  ‘Then we’ve come quite a distance.’

  Further speech died in the Doctor’s throat, and he licked his dry lips. There had been ample opportunity to end his life on the dark staircase. What did the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza possibly need that he should still breathe? He nodded deferentially to the woman’s bosom. ‘You preserved two papers from Harcourt’s portfolio.’

  ‘I did indeed. Will you retrieve them?’

  ‘I should prefer you did not mock me, madam.’

  ‘We all prefer, Doctor, it does not signify.’ She slid two slim fingers beneath her bodice, then drew them out with the papers pinched between. ‘I will happily exchange a view of their contents for another cigarette.’

  Svenson took the papers and handed the Contessa his case, making sure she was occupied before beginning to read. She exhaled a jet of smoke and then, rolling her eyes at his caution, crossed to the divan, swatted a dusty corner, and sat.

  The first document brought a lump to Svenson’s throat: a dispatch from the Foreign Ministry’s attaché in Macklenburg describing the upheaval in the aftermath of the Crown Prince’s death. Konrad, Bishop of Warnemünde – the ailing Duke’s brother – was now the power behind the throne, filling vacant positions with his own appointees. Svenson sighed. Konrad had been the Cabal’s hidden agent in Macklenburg, enabling their acquisition of lands rich in indigo clay. He refolded the letter with a heavy heart. Had the Cabal reached Macklenburg as intended, Konrad would have remained a strictly managed puppet. In the absence of his masters he had simply adopted their ambitions. Had their success in destroying the dirigible accomplished anything at all?

  Svenson read the second document twice, then extended both pages to the Contessa. She nodded without interest to the divan next to her and he dropped them on it, stepping nearer. The second page was the Contessa’s death warrant, signed by Matthew Harcourt.

  ‘I thought he was your creature.’

  ‘Serpent’s teeth, Doctor – we all have felt them.’

  ‘I am surprised you did not end his life.’

  ‘You do not know what the glass has shown him.’ She suddenly chuckled. ‘And the perfection of his people returning to find him thus – it is a small compensation.’

  ‘His career will be ruined?’

  ‘His career is nothing to me – but his heart, his dreams? Those have been spoilt forever.’

  Svenson collected his case and lit a smoke of his own. He nodded to the folded paper. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘That changes nothing. It has not gone out. And if it had – well, you are a fugitive yourself. If caught, your head will be pickled and sent back to Macklenburg in a cask, evidence of this government’s friendship.’

  ‘And what of you?’

  ‘Being a woman, as befits an honourable nation, I will be treated far worse.’

  She looked up at him, and then to the archway.

  ‘What is it about an open door that so fires a body for mischief
? As simply joyful as a sweet breeze or the embrace of hot water – do you not agree? About open doors, I mean, about their spark.’

  The Contessa ground her cigarette into the divan and hooked a foot behind the Doctor’s knee, pulling until he stood between her legs. She parted his greatcoat with both hands, eyes fixed somewhere near his belt buckle.

  ‘That is an intrusive, large pistol in your belt. Do you mind?’

  Before Svenson could reply she had eased the weapon from its place, sliding the long barrel clear, and dropped it atop her papers. He looked into the crease of her white breasts. Perfume rose from her hair. He ought to take hold of her soft neck and squeeze. This woman had killed Elöise. No greater good, no compromise could justify –

  The Contessa laid one hand – still in its thin silk glove – flat upon the Doctor’s groin, her palm conforming to the stiffening shape beneath. He gasped. She did not look up. Her other hand caressed the outside of his leg. He looked wildly about and saw the jewelled bag, pushed away, the spike inside. Her fingers closed about his length. She dragged along the fabric with her thumbnail. He quickly gripped her hand with his.

  ‘You – ah – you mentioned a bargain …’

  ‘I did … and you never answered me about open doors.’

  ‘Your point seemed indisputable.’

  ‘What a charming thing to say – I appreciate being indisputable … most ardently …’

  She pulled away his hand, taking the cigarette from his fingers. She inhaled once, then flicked it into a corner. As she exhaled, the Contessa unbuckled the Doctor’s belt with three sure, unhurried movements. Her fingers returned for a single delicious slow stroke, and then, with the same easy efficiency, set to unbuttoning his trouser-front. Unable to contain himself, Svenson reached down and gently sank his fingers under the Contessa’s bodice and corset. For the first time she met his eyes. She smiled, warmly – to his shame the whole of his heart leapt – and shifted her posture to give his hand more room to grope. His fingers went deeper, until the tips curled beneath the curve of her breast, the edge of his hand dragging against the soft stud of her nipple. His other hand smoothed the hair from her eyes with a tenderness at odds with his desire.