The Chemickal Marriage

by Gordon Dahlquist

  Chang resisted the urge to snatch up his penknife and rumble ‘Yours’. Instead he placed both hands on the table and leant forward. ‘If I had the time to read the thing, I would. The explosions. The riots. The paralysis of the Ministries. One man is behind it all.’

  ‘What man?’

  ‘The Comte d’Orkancz. You may also know him as the painter Oskar Veilandt.’

  ‘I have never heard either name.’

  ‘He is an alchemist.’

  Locarno released a puff of disdain through the hole in his face. ‘What has he written?’

  ‘He has made paintings – a painting named for this treatise. I need to know what he intends by it.’

  ‘But that is absurd!’ Locarno shook his head. ‘These works are all inference and code precisely because such secrets can be perceived only by those who deserve the knowledge. Such a treatise may indeed tell a story, but its sense is more akin to symbolic mathematics.’

  Chang nodded, recalling Veilandt’s paintings in which shadows and lines were actually densely rendered signs and equations.

  ‘For example, in such works, if one refers to a man, one also means the number 1. The Adept will further understand that the author also refers to what makes a man.’

  ‘I’m sorry –’

  ‘For what is man but spirit, body and mind? Which, of course, make the number 3 –’

  ‘So the number 1 and the number 3 are the same –’

  ‘Well, they can be. But the triune –’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Triune.’

  ‘What in all hell –’

  ‘Three-parted, for heaven’s sake! Body, spirit, mind. That triune constitution of Man will equally stand for the Nation and the three estates that form it: Church, aristocracy, citizenry. In today’s parlance one might substitute government for aristocracy, but the comparison holds. Moreover, the three estates – as every man carries the shadow of sin – necessarily contain their opposite, fallen aspects: the bigotry of the Church, the tyranny of the state and the ignorance of the mob. This duality is precisely why secrecy is of paramount importance in communicating any –’

  ‘This is exactly the nonsense I had hoped to avoid.’

  ‘Then your errand is hopeless.’

  ‘Can you not simply relate the thing as a tale?’

  ‘But it is no tale. I do not know how else to put it. Events occur, but without narrative. In its place comes only detail, description. If there is a bird, one must know what colour and what species. If there is a palace, how many rooms? If the seventh room, what colour are the walls? If the Executioner’s head is placed in a box, what kind of wood –’

  ‘Nevertheless, father, please.’

  Father Locarno gave a querulous snort. ‘A saintly hermit attends a royal wedding, along with other guests. The guests undergo several trials, and a worthy few are admitted to the mysteries of the wedding. But before the young king and queen can be married, they and the royal party are executed. Then, by way of more rituals and sacrifices, they are miraculously reborn. This journey – the Chemickal Marriage – is emblematic of the joining of intelligence and love through the divine. The Bridegroom is reality, and the Bride – being a woman – is his opposite, the empty vessel who attains perfection through union with that purified essence.’

  ‘What essence?’

  ‘What do you think?’

  Chang snorted. ‘Is it an instruction book for madmen or for a brothel?’

  ‘Those outside the veil rarely perceive –’

  ‘Again, the Bride and Groom. He is also reality and she –’

  ‘Is possibility, fecundity, emptiness. Woman.’

  ‘How bracingly original – fecundity and emptiness at the same time. And this king and queen – the Bride and Groom – are executed?’

  ‘By ritual.’

  ‘Then brought back to life?’

  ‘Reborn and redeemed.’

  ‘And what is made, in this spectacular marriage – when these two become one?’ Chang’s voice became snide. ‘Or, excuse me, three – or also six –’

  ‘They make heaven on earth.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  ‘The restoration of natural law.’

  ‘What does that mean?’

  It was Locarno’s turn to scoff. ‘What informs our every dream? The return of Eden.’

  In the lowest basement Chang availed himself of a porter’s luncheon, trustingly left on a table. He ate standing, and stuffed the last bites into his mouth before lifting the sewage grate with both hands. He emerged some time later in the shadow of St Celia’s madhouse. Chang washed his hands and face at its carved fountain – an infant baptized by Forgetfulness and Hope – and slopped water onto each boot, the worse for a second journey underground.

  Three streets past St Celia’s was Fabrizi’s. Chang’s visit was brief – and cost the second of his rolled banknotes – but he was once more armed: a stick of ash with iron at the tip and, inside it, a double-edged blade, twelve inches and needle-sharp. Signor Fabrizi himself said nothing with regard to Chang’s absence or his present disarray, but Chang knew full well the picture he made. He had seen it himself too many times, men risking all on a last desperate throw – a gamble, it was obvious, they had already lost. If one ever saw them again it was only being pulled from the river, faces as shapeless and swollen as an uncooked loaf.

  Before leaving, he had asked Father Locarno if there was anything unique to The Chemickal Marriage that might have explained its singular attraction for the Comte.

  ‘The messenger, of course.’

  ‘Of course? Then why not mention this before?’

  The priest had huffed. ‘You wanted the story.’

  ‘What messenger?’

  ‘The hermit is summoned by an angel, whose wings are “filled with eyes” – a reference to Argus, the hundred-eyed watchman slain by Hermes –’

  ‘A reference to what purpose?’

  ‘The messenger – the Virgin – is a figure of vigilance –’

  ‘Wait – the Bride is a multi-eyed virgin who is slain?’

  Locarno had shaken his head in exasperation. ‘By Virgin I refer to the angel.’

  ‘Not the Bride?’

  ‘Not at all –’

  ‘The Bride is not a virgin?’

  ‘Of course she is. But the angel – the emblematic Virgin – messenger, summoner – also presides over the executions, the wedding and the rebirth. She is called Virgo Lucifera, and is quite unique to this particular work.’

  ‘Lucifer?’

  ‘Have you no Latin? Lucifera. Light. The virgin of enlightenment.’

  ‘A creature of tenderness and mercy, then?’

  ‘On the contrary. Angels have no more emotion than birds of prey. They are creatures of justice, and therefore relentless.’

  A covetous pride infused Locarno’s speech. Chang turned with a shiver. There was enough cruelty in the world without its being worshipped.

  Halfway back to St Celia’s was an apothecary’s, where Chang purchased a three-penny roll of gauze. As the clerk measured the cloth to cut, Chang’s gaze passed across the bottled opiates behind the counter. Any one would exhaust the coins in his pocket, requiring him to use the final banknote. He stuffed the gauze in his pocket and walked out before temptation got the better of him.

  He hurried towards the high walls of St Albericht’s, a seminary given over to the Church’s more worldly concerns: finance, property, diplomatic intrigue. Was the blast at the cathedral damaging enough to force the Archbishop to shift his residence? Chang slipped into the shadows opposite St Albericht’s and was gratified by a veritable parade of displaced churchmen.

  Something about the look Fabrizi had given Chang – that presentiment of doom – sparked a reckless daring. He emerged behind two black-frocked priests escorting an elderly monsignor in red, a satin toque capping his bald head like a cherry atop a block of ham. Chang stepped hard on one priest’s ankle. The man stumbled and when
the second priest turned Chang knocked him, arms a-flailing, into the gutter. Chang’s arm hooked the Monsignor’s neck and dragged him into an alley, out of sight. It took perhaps five seconds to remove the long scarlet coat, and fewer to snatch the wallet beneath it, hanging by a strap across the old man’s chest.

  He left the Monsignor slumped against the bricks. It was not often that Chang practised open thievery, but he was of the opinion that priests had no possessions themselves, only goods in common. Cardinal Chang, as common as they came, was pleased to liberate his share.

  As he rushed on, Chang felt a distracting lightness. Attacking the priests might have been impulsive, but he’d never been truly at risk. No, the sharp edge to his mood was entirely due to time, as if death were a destination his nerves already sensed.

  He had lost her. Undeserving people had died before – why was she different? Her mulish presence had destroyed his solitude, just as her ignorant ideals had exposed his complacency. The three of them on the Boniface rooftop. Without his realizing, Celeste Temple had come to embody Chang’s notion of the future. Not his own future so much as the possibility that someone might, with all the ridiculous attending symbolism, be saved.

  Chang was unable to imagine a life beyond this fight.

  When the ground began to rise, Chang ducked into a filthy alcove whose use as a privy had overtaken that for assignations. He balled up Foison’s silk coat and threw it into the corner. He tucked his glasses inside the fine red coat and did up the buttons to its high collar. He then wound the gauze around his eyes, thinly enough to still see, but so his scars peeked out. He left the alcove and continued with a slower pace, tapping his stick, until he reached the high stone steps. Almost immediately a man in an attorney’s robe offered Chang his arm. Chang accepted with a gracious murmur and they climbed together.

  The ancient bones of the Marcelline Prison had been laid as an amphitheatre, built with the seats climbing naturally up the slope. The marble had long been stripped away to drape church fronts and country homes. All that remained of the original edifice was an archway carved with masks, jeering and weeping at each soul ferried through.

  At the top of the steps Chang thanked the attorney and tapped his way to the guardhouse, introducing himself as Monsignor Lucifera, legate to the Archbishop. As hoped, the warder found it impossible to look away from Chang’s bandaged eyes.

  ‘I was at the cathedral. Such destruction cannot, of course, deter my errand. I require a man called Pfaff. Yellow hair, with an ugly orange coat. He will have been taken by your constables at the Seventh Bridge, or near the Palace.’

  The warder paused. Chang cocked his head, as if listening for the man’s compliance.

  ‘Ah, well, sir –’

  ‘I expect you require a writ.’

  ‘I do, sir, yes. Standard custom –’

  ‘I have lost all such documents, along with my assistant, Father Skoll. Father Skoll’s arms, you see. Left like the poor doll of a wicked child.’

  ‘How horrid, sir –’

  ‘Thus I lack your writ.’ Chang could sense a restless line forming behind him, and made a point to speak more lingeringly. ‘The document case was in his hands, you understand. Shattered altogether. One would have thought poor Skoll a porcupine for the splinters –’

  ‘Jesus Lord –’

  ‘But perhaps you can make it right. Pfaff is a negligible villain, yet important to His Lordship. Do you have him here or not?’

  The warder looked helplessly at the growing queue. He pushed the log book to Chang. ‘If you would just sign …’

  ‘How can I sign if I can’t see?’ mused Chang. Without waiting for an answer he groped broadly for the warder’s pen and obligingly scrawled – ‘Lucifera’ filling half the page.

  Chang made his deliberate, tapping way inside, to another warder with another book. The warder ran an ink-stained finger down the page. ‘When delivered?’

  ‘Last night,’ Chang replied. ‘Or early this morning.’

  The warder’s face settled in a frown. ‘We’ve no such name.’

  ‘Perhaps he gave another.’

  ‘Then he could be anyone. I’ve five hundred souls in the last twelve hours alone.’

  ‘Where are the men arrested at the Seventh Bridge – or the Palace, or St Isobel’s? You know the ones I mean. Delivered by the Army.’

  The warder consulted his papers. ‘Still don’t have any man named Pfaff.’

  ‘With a p.’

  ‘What?’

  ‘Surely you have those men all rounded into one or two large cells.’

  ‘But how will you know if he’s there? You can’t see.’

  Chang rapped the tip of his stick on the tiles. ‘God can always smell a villain.’

  Chang had three times been in the Marcelline, on each occasion luckily redeemed before proceedings advanced to outright torture, and it was with a shiver that he descended to the narrow tiers. Chang did not expect the guards to recognize him – the cleric’s authority granted him an automatic deference – but a sharp-eyed prisoner might call out anything. If Chang was recognized, he had placed himself well beyond hope.

  The corridors were slick with filth. Shouts rang out as he passed each cell – pleas for intervention, protests of innocence, cries of illness. He did not respond. The passage ended at a particularly large, iron-bound door. Chang’s guide rattled his truncheon across the viewing-hole and shouted that ‘any criminal named Pfaff’ had ten seconds to make himself known. A chorus of yells came in reply. Without listening, the guard roared that the first man claiming to be Pfaff but found to be an impostor would get forty lashes. The cell went quiet.

  ‘Ask for Jack Pfaff,’ suggested Chang. He looked at the other cells along the corridor, knowing the guard’s voice would carry, and that if Pfaff were elsewhere in the Marcelline he might hear. The guard obligingly bawled it out. There was no response. Despite the increased chance of recognition, Chang had no choice.

  ‘Open the door. Let me in.’

  ‘I can’t do that, Father –’

  ‘Obviously the man is hiding. Will you let him make us fools?’

  ‘But –’

  ‘No one will harm me. Tell them that if they try, you will slaughter every man. All will be well – it is a matter of knowing the sinning mind.’

  The cell held at least a hundred men, crowded close as in a slave ship. The guard waded in, swinging his truncheon to make room. Chang entered a ring of faces that gleamed with sweat and blood.

  Pfaff was not there. These were the refugees Chang had seen in the alleys and along the river – their only sins poverty and bad luck. Most were victims of Vandaariff’s weapon, beaten into submission after the glass spurs had set them to a frenzy. Chang doubted half would live the night. He extended his stick to the rear, waving generally – since he could not see – but guiding the guard’s attention to where a vaulting arch of brick created a tiny niche.

  ‘Is anyone lurking in the back?’

  The guard shouted for the prisoners to shift, striking the hindmost aside with a deep-rooted, casual savagery. A single man lay curled, barely stirring, his face a mask of dried blood.

  ‘Found one,’ muttered the guard. ‘But I don’t –’

  ‘At last,’ cried Chang, and turned away. ‘That is the fellow. Bring him.’

  The guard following with his burden, Chang tapped his way back to the first warder.

  ‘The Archbishop is most deeply obliged. Will I sign your book again?’

  ‘No need!’ The warden made note of the prisoner’s number, then carefully tore out half the page. ‘Your warrant. I am glad to have been of service.’

  Chang took the paper and nodded to the slumping man, upright only by the guard’s vicious grip. ‘I require a coach – and those shackles off. He will do no further harm.’

  ‘But Father –’

  ‘Not to worry. He’ll have confession before anything.’

  As soon as the coach was in motion, Chang tore the b
andage from his head and used it to wipe the blood and grime from Cunsher’s face. The cuts above the man’s eyes and the bruising around his mouth spoke to a punishing interrogation, but Chang detected no serious wound.

  Chang tapped Cunsher across the jaw. Cunsher flinched and rolled away his head. With a sigh, Chang wedged his other hand under Cunsher’s topcoat and pinched the muscle running along his left shoulder, very hard. Cunsher’s eyes opened and he thrashed against the pain. Chang forced Cunsher’s gaze to his.

  ‘Mr Cunsher … it is Cardinal Chang. You are safe, but we have little time.’

  Cunsher shuddered, and he nodded with recognition. ‘Where am I?’

  ‘In a coach. What happened to Phelps?’

  ‘I have no idea. We were taken together, but questioned apart.’

  ‘At the Palace?’ Cunsher nodded. ‘Then why were you sent to the Marcelline?’

  ‘The officials who took us were fools.’ Cunsher probed for loose teeth with his tongue. ‘Did you take such trouble to find me?’

  ‘I sought someone else.’

  Cunsher shut his eyes. ‘That you came at all is luck enough.’

  In the minutes it took the coach to reach the Circus Garden, Chang explained what had happened since they had parted, revealing the loss of Celeste Temple only in passing.

  ‘The Doctor goes with the child to the Contessa’s rendezvous, but I cannot guess what she has gone to such lengths to show him, save this painting.’

  ‘Has she not already shown you the painting?’ asked Cunsher. ‘This glass card –’

  ‘But the actual canvas must be the heart of whatever Vandaariff plans.’

  Cunsher frowned. ‘My being sent to prison shows how low my interrogators set my worth – a foreign tongue is a useful tool to suggest one’s idiocy – but it suggests the contrary for poor Phelps.’ Cunsher pressed the gauze to his oozing cheekbone. ‘Either he remains at the Palace, or he has been given over to Vandaariff. Or – and most likely – he is dead.’

  ‘I am sorry.’

  ‘And I for you. But this is what I wanted to say. Phelps did go to the Herald –’

  ‘Did he learn the painting’s location?’

  ‘The salon was in Vienna.’

  ‘Vienna?’