The Chemickal Marriage

by Gordon Dahlquist

  ‘Arms in the sleeves. Be quick about it.’

  She realized that the Contessa’s dress, which Miss Temple had taken for a dusky violet, was in fact closer to a shimmering charcoal. ‘Who has died?’

  ‘O who has not?’

  The Contessa cinched the laces with as little regard for comfort as a farmer trussing goats. Her hands darted purposefully, flicking the skirts free of Miss Temple’s feet, batting the dress over her petticoats, and alternately tugging down the bodice and lifting her bosom. Throughout it all the silken handkerchief remained in Miss Temple’s hand, balled tight.

  The Contessa stepped back with a sigh of resignation. ‘Your hair would shame a sheepdog. Have you a hat?’

  ‘I dislike hats. If you would allow my maid –’

  ‘No.’

  The Contessa took Miss Temple’s curls with both hands. They stood near to one another, the Contessa fixed upon her task and Miss Temple, shorter, gazing at the other woman’s throat, inches away.

  The Contessa frowned. ‘With charity, one could say you looked Swiss. But we are already late. What did you make of Oskar? Is he in health, Celeste? In his mind?’

  ‘We scarcely spoke. I had been injured –’

  ‘Yes, he must have liked that. Probably wanted to eat you whole.’

  ‘Why did you not kill Doctor Svenson?’

  ‘Beg pardon?’

  The question had flown from Miss Temple’s mouth. ‘You left him alive with the glass card.’

  ‘Did I?’

  ‘Half of him wants to die, you know. Because of Elöise. Because of you.’

  The Contessa met her censorious gaze and laughed outright, her pleasure the more for being taken unawares. Still smiling, she opened the door and walked out, leaving Pfaff to collect Miss Temple. He hooked her arm with his, but paused at the side table where she’d set Roger’s notebook.

  ‘She’ll need a bag,’ he called. ‘It will look odd not to have one.’

  The Contessa snorted from the foyer – a judgement on such propriety or, more likely, Miss Temple’s taste in bags. Pfaff snatched up a handbag, deftly stuffed the notebook inside and shoved Miss Temple through the door. The Contessa rolled her eyes.

  ‘Jesus Lord.’

  Pfaff looked hurt. ‘It matches perfectly well.’

  ‘Like a headache matches nausea. Perhaps it will attract sympathy.’

  Marie had vanished, and, though Miss Temple considered shouting to the desk clerk for rescue, in the end she allowed herself to be swept into the street. The door to a shining coach was held by a footman in rich livery. Miss Temple climbed up first and took the instant of solitude to return the silk handkerchief to the bosom of her dress. Pfaff installed himself next to her and the Contessa opposite, flouncing her dress with a deliberate thoroughness. Though she carried a black clutch, large enough to keep her cigarette holder, it was of no size for a glass book. Once more Miss Temple wondered where the dark volume had been cached. She cleared her throat.

  ‘That footman’s uniform – I mean – are we truly –’

  ‘Celeste,’ sighed the Contessa, ‘if you can guess, must you ask?’

  Pfaff only smirked and tugged at the lapels of his coat. Miss Temple could not think what the man seriously hoped to attain. That he had shifted his banner to the Contessa made Pfaff’s character more clear – one might as well protest a bee being drawn to a more splendid flower. She recalled Mr Phelps insisting, so rudely, about society’s divisions. As deluded as she saw Pfaff to be, so the Contessa saw Miss Temple – and no doubt there were circles where the Contessa appeared a garish parvenu …

  The streets around them clattered with hoof beats. Their coach had attracted an escort of horsemen. Miss Temple stared at the Contessa.

  ‘What is it, Celeste?’

  ‘The Vandaariff crypt.’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘You wanted me to see it.’

  ‘This insistence on confronting me with what I already know –’

  Miss Temple nodded to Pfaff. ‘Does he know?’

  ‘Why should I care?’

  Pfaff’s lips turned in a tolerant smile, as if he saw past the Contessa’s disdain. ‘I already told her – the tomb is isolated, easy to watch –’

  ‘How did you know I’d been taken?’ Miss Temple demanded. ‘Was it that Francesca Trapping never appeared with Doctor Svenson?’

  ‘If I cared for the child I should not have left her behind. She is nothing to me. No more than the Doctor.’

  ‘But you spared his life. And have gone to some effort to save mine.’

  ‘None of which, Celeste Temple, changes our understanding.’

  Despite the Contessa’s tone, Miss Temple sat back and grinned, showing her small white teeth. Both Vandaariff and the Contessa had preserved her life when she ought to have been slain, each to employ her against the other. They were fools.

  ‘That’s a repellent little smile,’ said the Contessa. ‘Like a weasel about to suck eggs.’

  ‘I cannot help it,’ said Miss Temple. ‘I am excited – though you have not told me what I am to do when we arrive.’

  ‘Nothing at all. Remain silent.’

  ‘And if I don’t?’

  ‘I will cut your throat and spoil everything. And then what will I tell Cardinal Chang?’

  The Contessa raised one eyebrow, waiting for her words to penetrate.

  ‘Cardinal Chang?’

  ‘How else do you think you were redeemed? For a chocolate cake?’

  ‘You gave Chang to Vandaariff?’

  ‘When a thing is already owned, one prefers the term “restoration” –’

  ‘But where was he – how did you – he would never –’

  ‘My goodness, we are here. Do try to honour the Cardinal’s sacrifice. Remember – respectful silence, humble grief, pliant nubility.’

  The Contessa pinched Miss Temple’s cheeks to give them colour, then swatted her out onto a walkway of red gravel. The Contessa joined her, taking Miss Temple’s hand. Pfaff remained in the coach. A richly uniformed man strode towards them, cradling an enormous busby, as if he’d come from beheading a bear. He clicked his heels and nodded to the Contessa, the gesture as sharp as a hatchet stroke.

  ‘Milady.’

  The Contessa sank into an elegant curtsy. ‘Colonel Bronque. I apologize for our delay.’

  The Colonel scrutinized Miss Temple with an icy scepticism, then ushered them on with a sweep of his gold-encrusted arm.

  ‘If you will. Her Majesty is never one to be kept waiting.’

  Five

  Reliquary

  Chang ignored the gunshots. It was up to Svenson to deal with the men behind them. The slightest break in concentration and Foison would have Chang’s life: he could no more heed the commotion around him than a surgeon marked a patient’s screams.

  The razor was open in Chang’s right hand. In his left he held a black cloak, long enough to tangle a blade and which, accurately thrown, could baffle Foison’s vision. Foison matched him with two knives, balanced to throw, made for thrust, heavy enough to snap the razor clean. Instead of broad strokes to keep Chang back, Foison would favour point: one blade to entangle Chang’s defence, then the other for the kill. Chang’s options were more limited. The razor might spill quantities of blood, but to incapacitate a man like Foison the edge must reach his throat. Nothing less would prevent the second knife from stabbing home.

  An observer would have sworn that neither man moved, but to Chang it was a flurry of threats and counters signalled in subtle shifts of weight, flexing fingers, pauses of breath. Skill ran second to what advantage could be seized from circumstance: a blade, a chair or a shove down a staircase, Chang hardly cared, and expected the exact lack of courtesy in return. He was no fop to entertain the notion of a duel.

  Fast as a bullet, Foison moved, a high thrust at Chang’s face. Chang whipped the cloak in the air, hoping to catch the knife-tip –

  Both men were blown off their feet in the roar of f
lame and debris, and the whistle of flying glass.

  Chang rose and pushed off the cloak that had caught the debris of the blast. Not two yards away, Foison groped for his knives in the smoke. Chang’s swinging fist caught him below the eye, and then a merciless kick dropped Foison flat.

  Chang’s ears rang. The soldiers’ shadows already danced in the portico. Any moment the trading hall would be swarmed. A writhing movement at his feet – the kicking legs of Francesca Trapping, her body shielded by the arms and greatcoat of Doctor Svenson. Chang pulled the girl to her feet and raised Svenson by the collar, unsure if the man was alive. The Doctor’s hand slapped at Chang’s arm and Svenson erupted into a coughing fit, dust caking his face and hair.

  Chang did not see Celeste Temple.

  All around lay corpses whose white coverings had been blown away by the explosion. With the dust and smoke and so many women and children amongst them, it was impossible to isolate one small body with auburn hair. The fact entered his brain like a bullet. Body. The dead were everywhere. Nothing else moved.

  He had failed her. Without further hesitation, Chang sprinted to the nearest archway, the girl beneath one arm and Doctor Svenson hauled along by force.

  He kicked out a window, heaved his squirming burdens through, then compelled them the length of the alley to a low brick hut. He knew exactly where they were.

  The girl was in tears.

  Chang snatched two lanterns, set them alight and crossed to a greasy stone staircase, leading down. He held one out, impatiently, for the Doctor.

  ‘Hold hands, the way is slick.’ Chang’s voice was hoarse. They kept the wall on their left and the dark, stinking stream to the right, until they reached a place where the steps were relatively clean, and at Chang’s gesture the others sat.

  ‘We are in the sewers. We may travel unseen.’ Svenson said nothing. The girl shuddered. Chang held the lantern to her face. ‘Are you hurt? Can you hear me – your ears?’

  Francesca nodded, then shook her head – yes to hearing, no, she was unharmed. Chang looked to Svenson, whose face was still streaked by white dust, and nearly dropped the lantern.

  ‘Good Lord, why did you not speak!’

  The bullet hole was singed into the front of Svenson’s greatcoat, directly above his heart. Chang tore open the coat … but there was no blood. For all their running, Svenson’s front ought to have been soaked. With a wince the Doctor extracted his mangled cigarette case, a lead pistol slug flattened into the now misshapen lid. Svenson turned it over so they could all see the opposite side – bulging from the bullet’s impact, but never punched through. He worked a handkerchief gingerly under his tunic, pressed it tight against his ribs and then pulled it out to look: a blot of blood the size of a pressed tea rose.

  ‘The rib is cracked – I felt it running – but I am alive when I ought not to be.’

  Chang stood. Francesca Trapping’s eyes gazed fearfully up to his. Behind him in the dark, the trickle of sewage. He felt the smoke in his lungs, heard its abrasion when he spoke.

  ‘I did not see Celeste. I could not find her.’

  Svenson’s voice bore the same ragged edge. ‘You were occupied with that fellow – you saved us all.’

  ‘No, Doctor, I did not.’

  ‘Celeste set off the explosion. She fired into the clock. I don’t know how she guessed it held another explosive charge. Who knows how many lives she saved – if it had gone off tomorrow …’ Svenson placed a filthy hand across his eyes. ‘I could only reach the child –’

  ‘I do not blame you.’

  ‘I blame myself – quite fiercely. She was … Lord … a remarkable, brave girl –’

  ‘I will have that bastard’s head.’

  Chang’s words echoed down the sewage tunnel. Doctor Svenson struggled to rise, and placed a hand on Chang’s shoulder. Chang turned to him.

  ‘Are you well enough to go on?’

  ‘Of course, but –’

  Chang pointed to a wooden door above the stairs. ‘You will be in the lanes behind the cathedral – the blast there will explain your appearance, and you should be able to walk freely.’ He shifted his gaze to Francesca. ‘You will take the Doctor where the Contessa asked?’

  The child nodded. Chang clasped Svenson’s arm and took up the lantern. ‘Good luck,’ he managed, and strode into the dark. The Doctor called after him.

  ‘Chang! You are needed. You are needed alive.’

  Chang hurdled the fetid stream in a running leap. They were lost behind him. He increased his pace to a jog, already caught up with all he had set himself to do.

  The great Library, like every other civic institution, was shot through with privilege and preference. Inside it lay elaborate niches, like endowed chapels in a cathedral, housing private collections that the Library had managed to wrest from the University or the Royal Institute. Though every niche held one or two bibliographical gemstones, these collections attracted more dust than visitors, access being granted only through referenced application. Chang had learnt of their existence quite by accident, searching for new ways to reach the roof. Instead he had found the hidden wing of the sixth floor, and with it the old Jesuit priest.

  The Fluister bequest would never have attracted Chang’s interest under normal circumstances. The fancy of an admiral in whom a curiosity for native religions had been instilled by a posting to the Indies, and whose prize money had been lavishly spent on acquiring any volume relating to the aboriginal, esoteric, heretical or obscure – to Chang it was a fortune wasted on nonsense. To the Church, Admiral Fluister’s bequest – pointedly made to the public, yet diverted into its present inaccessible location through proper whispers in the proper ears – represented an outright gathering of poisons. Conquering through kindness, the Bishop had offered the services of a learned father to catalogue such a haphazard acquisition. The Library, caring less for knowledge than possession, had naturally accepted, and so Father Locarno had arrived. Ten years at least he had sorted through the Admiral’s detritus (it was an open wager amongst the archivists as to when the porters would find Locarno dead) with scarcely a word to anyone, a black-robed spectre shuffling in when the doors opened and out only when the lamps were doused.

  In Chang’s experience, there were two kinds of priests: those with their own life history, and those who had taken orders straight away. The latter he dismissed out of hand as fools, cowards or zealots. Amongst the former, he granted one might find men whose calling rose from at least some understanding of the world. In the case of Father Locarno, his nose alone set him in that camp, it having been deliberately removed with a blacksmith’s shears. Whether this marked him as a reformed criminal or an honest man whose misfortune had led to a Barbary galley, no one knew. It was enough to speculate why this weathered Jesuit had been given the task of managing the Fluister bequest – which was to say, Chang wondered how many of the books Father Locarno had secretly amended or destroyed.

  He stepped into the Fluister niche. Father Locarno sat, as he ever had in Chang’s experience, at a table covered with books and ledgers. His grey hair was bound with a cord, and his spectacles, because of the nose, were held tight by steel loops around each ear. The exposed nasal cavity was unpleasantly moist.

  ‘Esoteric ritual,’ said Chang. ‘I have questions and very little time.’

  Father Locarno looked up with a keen expression, as if correcting others was a special pleasure. ‘There is no knowledge without time.’ The Jesuit’s voice was strangely pitched, vaguely porcine.

  Chang pulled off his gloves, dropping them one at a time on the table. ‘It would be more truthful to say there is no knowledge without commerce – so, churchman, I will give you this. The Bishop of Baax-Sonk has not been in his senses since visiting Harschmort House some two months past. Many others share the Bishop’s condition – Henry Xonck perhaps the most notable. It has been ascribed to blood fever. This is a lie.’

  Father Locarno studied Chang closely. They had never done business, th
ough surely the priest had heard rumours from the staff.

  ‘Do you offer His Lordship’s recovery?’

  ‘No. His Lordship’s memories have been harvested into an alchemical receptacle.’

  Father Locarno considered this. ‘When you say receptacle –’

  ‘A glass book. Whatever he knew, any treasured secret he kept, will be known to those who made the book.’

  ‘And who would that be?’

  ‘I would assume the worst. But I should think this much information will allow your superiors to take some useful precautions.’

  Father Locarno frowned in thought, then nodded, as if to approve at least this much of their transaction. ‘I am told you are a criminal.’

  ‘And you are a spy.’

  Locarno sniffed with disapproval – an instinctive gesture that flared the open passages on his face. ‘I serve only the greater peace. What is your question?’

  ‘What is a chemical marriage?’

  ‘My goodness.’ Locarno chuckled. ‘Not what I expected … not a common topic.’

  ‘Not uncommon in your field of expertise.’

  Locarno shrugged. Chang knew the man was now rethinking the Bishop’s fate – and every other recent change in the city – in respect to alchemy.

  ‘This blood fever – now Lord Vandaariff has recovered, perhaps His Lordship the Bishop –’

  Chang cut in sharply, ‘There is no cure. The Bishop is gone. This chemical marriage. What does it mean? Is it real?’

  ‘Real?’ Locarno settled back in his chair, the better to expound. ‘Your formulation is naive. It is an esoteric treatise. The Chemickal Marriage of Johann Valentin Andreæ is the third of the great Rosicrucian manifestos, dating from 1614 in Württemberg.’

  ‘A manifesto to what purpose?’

  ‘Purpose? What is enlightenment without faith? Power without government? Resurrection without redemption?’

  Chang interrupted again. ‘I promise you, my interest in this ridiculous treatise is immediate and concrete. Lives depend upon it.’

  ‘Whose life?’