The Chemickal Marriage

by Gordon Dahlquist

  ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ muttered Gorine. ‘Bronque will summon his soldiers, the doors will be stormed –’

  ‘You could take him hostage,’ observed Mahmoud. From his tone, and Gorine’s reply, it was no new suggestion. ‘Allow him inside the house, have our men ready –’

  ‘The Colonel will defend himself, and if he is injured or killed it is our lives – if he doesn’t kill us outright to begin with –’

  Sensing a tirade, Svenson broke in. ‘If there was time to ask the Colonel to join us, I would. There is not. Mrs Kraft’s only hope to recover her mind lies in defiance. Moreover, it is not the Colonel who controls your survival, but the man who comes with him.’

  ‘We don’t even know who he is!’

  ‘I suggest you find out. Now which of you stays and which comes along?’

  ‘Mahmoud knows the tunnel.’ Gorine squeezed the pistols in his hands. ‘If anything happens to Mrs Kraft you will answer. As we will answer to Her Majesty’s displeasure.’

  ‘I would expect no less,’ said Svenson, noting Gorine’s naive conflation of the Colonel with the Queen. ‘Now who has a lantern?’

  As a boy, Doctor Svenson had prided himself on his knowledge of the forest bordering his family’s fields. In an adolescence of discontent, he made a practice of stalking at random into the trees, stopping only when the light had gone and darkness had instilled the place with shapeless dread. He made it his task to return by instinct. With each twig that popped beneath his feet or dragged across his night-chilled face, the stale misery of his days gave way to a deeper engagement, where his sacrificial determination echoed that of a knight sitting vigil in a cold stone church. In time he had seen the pride behind the romance, and the fear behind the pride, and these memories made him wince.

  ‘Where have you been?’ his mother would ask.

  ‘Walking,’ went his invariable reply.

  He had always gone home – to light, to warmth – and his relief at being so recovered was a way of infusing his quotidian life, taken for granted, with value. But after so many years, was it not the dark wood that had held constant? What home was there to walk to now? In his rambles he had misplaced the life around him, but perhaps he had truly seen the world.

  Mahmoud’s lantern settled on stone steps beneath an angled doorway. ‘This opens to the courtyard – the simplest entrance, but hardly concealed, given it is full morning.’

  ‘Is there another way?’

  ‘Do you have a specific destination?’

  ‘I do. Across the courtyard is a brick roundhouse – rather like an iceberg, it extends a hundred steps below ground. The main chamber was fitted for the Comte d’Orkancz. Enough machines may remain to restore Mrs Kraft.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘That hardly matters if we cannot reach it.’

  ‘As Lord Vandaariff once sponsored the Comte, so he now sponsors others, even offering his own men to guard the gates … still, there are other, older ways.’ Mahmoud’s teeth were bright in the shadows.

  They followed the glow of the lantern to what seemed a dead end. Mahmoud pushed with both hands, and the entire panel of brickwork swung inward.

  ‘It is an actual hidden panel!’ enthused Svenson.

  ‘Thus the King reached his mistress,’ called Mahmoud, stepping through. ‘Take care where you put your feet …’

  The process by which a king’s bedchamber became a dusty storeroom for scientific specimens – Svenson could see cephalopods in murky jars, geologic samples, piles of bound notebooks – struck the Doctor as emblematic of some larger entropic theory, one requiring a metaphor beyond his immediate wit. As he lifted Francesca over a row of bell jars, the lantern illuminated the ceiling: a peeling fresco of a nude man in the sea surrounded by women. Then the light was gone, Mahmoud playing it around the room, leaving Svenson to wonder what grand tale had graced a king’s most intimate hours. The rescue of Jonah? Poseidon and his nymphs? Or a final crisis of the flood – death in ecstasy?

  ‘I do not like the spiders,’ whispered Francesca, staring at a shockingly large specimen under glass. Svenson picked her up again, to let the servants pass with Mrs Kraft.

  ‘No one likes them, sweetheart.’

  ‘He does.’ Her voice had thickened. ‘He thinks they are beautiful … he makes me look, when I don’t want to.’

  ‘Look at Mrs Kraft instead.’

  ‘Looking at her makes me sick.’ Francesca belched. Svenson grimaced at the foul smell.

  ‘She did not make you sick before.’

  ‘She does now.’

  ‘Then we must drive the sickness from you.’

  ‘How?’

  ‘By following the Contessa’s plan. You trust the Contessa, don’t you?’

  Francesca nodded.

  ‘Well, then,’ Svenson assured her. ‘We will do nothing she did not intend.’

  He sent off the servants with detailed instructions. It might not work – the men might be seen, or his formula mistaken (was he sure of the treated paraffin?). Nevertheless, they crouched in silence, peering from a ground-floor window, Francesca hunched next to Svenson, Mrs Kraft leaning with a glazed expression against Mahmoud.

  Directly across the courtyard stood the massive gate with its medieval portcullis. A score of men in green uniforms lounged around it, bantering with the Institute personnel. As Svenson watched, one black-robed figure was pulled to the side and questioned by the guards before being allowed to pass.

  Mahmoud used the disturbance as an opportunity to ease the window open. The brick roundhouse lay directly between their window and the gate. A single guard stood at its door.

  ‘Stay as low as you can,’ Svenson whispered. ‘And run. Can Mrs Kraft do this?’

  ‘A bit late for that question, isn’t it?’

  ‘Yes, of course – I only –’

  Having made his point, Mahmoud cut Svenson off: ‘It hardly matters.’

  Across the courtyard, an iron door set into the ground was flung open – the courtyard entrance to the tunnel – and then a cloud of black smoke billowed up into the air.

  ‘Where is the sound?’ asked Mahmoud. ‘There is no explosion – something has gone wrong.’

  ‘Wait for it!’ hissed Svenson. ‘Listen!’

  But something had gone wrong. The thunderclap he had hoped to achieve was absent, and in its place came only a roiling cloud. Slowly, painfully they watched, but not one of the guards took notice.

  A voice cried out – finally! – but not from the guards. The shout came again, from the rooftop: sentries silhouetted against the sky. At last a man from the gatehouse jogged to the courtyard for a look. At his yell two more followed … and then in a blessed rush the rest of the guards ran to the tunnel entrance, calling for water, for axes, for everyone.

  The man posted at the roundhouse hesitated, but at last set down his rifle and ran after his fellows. In a flash Mahmoud vaulted out. Svenson passed Francesca through and then did his best with Mrs Kraft, only to have Mahmoud pluck her easily from his grasp. Svenson clambered over the sill, all knees and elbows, and gathered Francesca. Mahmoud was already a dozen strides gone, his mistress over his back like a rolled carpet.

  Svenson’s side jolted with pain at every step. Mahmoud reached the roundhouse and slipped Mrs Kraft from his shoulder. Svenson thudded up next to them.

  The door was not locked and they ducked inside. ‘Down, my dear, fast as you can!’

  Francesca gripped the rail and descended with a painful delicacy. The Doctor could not blame her – the merest slip on this high staircase meant a broken neck. Keeping firm hold of Mrs Kraft, Mahmoud gave the girl his other hand and made sure of them both. Svenson closed the door and turned the lock. Had they been seen? How long would they have? He dug out the revolver and rapped the open cylinder on the heel of his hand, scattering brass cartridges onto the landing. He pawed through the pockets of his tunic. Only three bullets. He slotted them in and told himself it was no shooting situation. If he
needed more, he had already lost.

  ‘Do not move.’

  At Svenson’s words, the laboratory’s only occupant spun with shock, a glass flask slipping from his hand. The man yelped and hopped clear, batting at the greenish smoke that rose from the stone-flagged floor.

  ‘Damn you, sir! Look at what you’ve done! What is this trespass?’

  The indignant man was fair and unkempt, with a well-fed jaw blooming from his tight collar like a toad’s. ‘Do you know whose works these are? I promise you, when Lord Robert is made aware –’

  ‘Professor Trooste,’ Mahmoud called from the door.

  The Professor swallowed nervously. ‘Bloody Christ – I mean to say – hello. My goodness – and Mrs Kraft!’

  ‘Professor Trooste is a patron of the Old Palace.’ Mahmoud secured the door with an iron bolt. ‘When someone sponsors his visit, of course. He’s been travelling – haven’t you, Professor? Research expedition?’

  ‘Where?’ Svenson demanded. ‘Quickly – where?’

  ‘Nowhere at all –’

  ‘Polksvarte District,’ said Mahmoud. ‘And Macklenburg before it.’

  ‘Damn your black eyes! Not that it matters – what are the rivalries of science to the likes of you? If you must know, I was advised of certain mineral deposits – utterly unprofitable, as it happens, waste of time all round –’

  ‘You’re a liar.’ Svenson cocked the revolver. ‘What does he have you doing?’

  ‘He?’

  ‘Robert Vandaariff.’

  ‘Your uniform and voice, sir, suggest a foreign soldier. I am a patriot. Shoot me through the heart – threats mean nothing.’ Trooste struck a noble posture, but then broke into a knowing cackle. ‘In all candour, if I were to break my word, the Ministry would punish me tenfold –’

  Svenson cracked the butt of the revolver on the Professor’s forehead. Trooste fell with a cry. Before he could scuttle under the table the Doctor dragged him clear.

  ‘Mahmoud – place Mrs Kraft on the table.’

  ‘But what do you intend?’ whined Trooste, both fat hands flat across his forehead. ‘I am sorry this woman is unwell – but I am no physician –’

  Svenson sought out Francesca. The girl stood staring at a little hut against the far wall.

  ‘What is that room?’ Svenson asked Trooste.

  ‘The foundry.’

  ‘For what is it used?’

  ‘Smelting metals, what else?’

  ‘Is there a door inside, to the corridor?’

  ‘Of course not –’

  Francesca coughed into her hands and sank down on a wooden crate. Her lips were dark and moist. Trooste squirmed to his feet. ‘Is it plague?’

  ‘It is not. Mahmoud, if you would prevent the Professor from leaving?’ Svenson crossed to the child. ‘What do you remember, Francesca?’

  The little girl groaned, as if the disturbance in her body would not submit to speech.

  ‘Try shutting your eyes. The memories will be less insistent –’

  She shook her head with a whine. ‘I can’t – I can’t look away.’

  Svenson turned to find Trooste had edged near.

  ‘She is sick with the genius of your master, through close contact with indigo clay.’

  ‘Indigo clay?’

  ‘Do not pretend you do not know it.’

  ‘On the contrary …’ Trooste studied Francesca like a fox eyeing a fallen fledgling. ‘Close contact, you say?’

  A sharp word from Mahmoud called Trooste to assist in situating Mrs Kraft on the table. Mrs Kraft remained silent, gazing into the high, conical ceiling, an enormous brick beehive.

  Svenson wiped Francesca’s mouth with a handkerchief and left it in her hands. ‘Once this is finished, you shall have anything. Back in your own home, safe with your brothers, all the tea cakes you can eat –’

  Francesca nodded weakly, but her pallor forestalled further mention of food. The child had visibly deteriorated, the laboratory too resonant for her frail frame. It could not last.

  ‘We need to align these machines,’ he told Trooste. ‘You will obey the child’s instructions.’

  ‘Obey her?’

  ‘Exactly.’

  ‘How provocative. That a child might possess such knowledge – one speculates …’

  Svenson ignored him and began to take stock of each device, speaking aloud for Francesca’s benefit. ‘Copper wiring connects each gearbox to leads at the foot of the table, and runs inside these rectangular crates –’

  ‘Crucibles,’ interjected Trooste. Svenson glanced at Francesca, who nodded, pinching her nose. Svenson went on.

  ‘More wires pass from the crucibles to the table and hoses, which attach to the subject’s body – no doubt there is an esoteric meaning to each point of contact – and also, most prominently, a mask …’ He found the thing hanging from a peg, rubberized canvas on a metal frame. ‘The current is passed through a bolus of blue glass inside the crucible. I assume you have an adequate supply?’

  This was to Trooste. The Professor nodded, adding in a crafty undertone, ‘Lord Vandaariff assured me there was no rival inquiry in these subjects.’

  ‘He is a liar. And I tell you here: every man to study indigo clay has paid with his life. Gray, Lorenz, Fochtmann, the Comte d’Orkancz himself – all of them dead.’

  Trooste chewed his lip, shrugged.

  ‘You knew this?’

  ‘O yes. Lord Vandaariff was quite candid. But once I knew the details of each man’s failure, I saw how my own efforts –’

  Doctor Svenson dug into his tunic and came out with one of the glass spurs. He flung it at Trooste. The disc harmlessly struck the Professor’s chest and dropped into his gloved palm.

  ‘Packed into every bomb set off in the city,’ Svenson announced. ‘By the thousands. I trust you recognize the provenance.’

  ‘But that’s ridiculous –’

  ‘Look into it, Professor!’

  At Svenson’s shout, Trooste raised the blue disc to his eye. An ugly grunt came from his mouth. Before the anger in the glass could fully insinuate itself, Svenson slapped the spur away.

  ‘Doctor Svenson.’

  With a cold horror, Svenson followed Mahmoud’s gaze. From within the foundry came the rattling of a doorknob.

  Mahmoud whipped a sheet of canvas over Mrs Kraft and shoved Svenson under the table. He plucked Francesca off her feet and carried her behind a tall cabinet, a hand across the child’s mouth.

  Trooste stood blinking, still confused by the glass and staring at the tip of Svenson’s revolver beneath the hoses, ready to fire at the Professor’s first mischosen word.

  Mr Foison entered from the foundry. With the knife in his right hand he pointed past Trooste to the main entrance. ‘Why is that door locked?’

  ‘Is it?’ asked Trooste.

  Foison surveyed the room. ‘What are you doing?’

  ‘Nothing objectionable, I hope. I am working.’

  ‘Lord Vandaariff is delayed. He will send word.’ Foison flipped the knife into the air and caught it again, as if the action helped him to think. ‘Did you lock that door?’

  Trooste’s voice hovered at the edge of a stammer. ‘Perhaps I did. Lord Vandaariff said our work was extremely sensitive –’

  ‘What sort of idiot locks one door but not the other?’

  Trooste visibly fought the urge to glance at Svenson. ‘I suppose an idiot like me.’

  ‘The same idiot that dropped that flask?’

  ‘Indeed, yes – an accident –’

  ‘You are anxious, Professor. You have not been anxious before. No, I should have described you as singularly satisfied.’ Foison’s contempt entered his words like the surfacing eyes of a crocodile.

  ‘Ah – well, perhaps – the state of the city.’

  ‘I hadn’t heard.’ Foison flipped the knife again. Abruptly he stepped to the wooden crate where Francesca had been sitting. He drew a fingertip across the crate and flicked it at Trooste: a s
patter of black across the Professor’s pink cheek. Trooste dabbed a finger to his face and sniffed.

  ‘A chemical residue – carbolic phosphate – I thought I had cleaned it all –’

  Beyond Trooste, Svenson could just detect the tip of Mahmoud’s shoe. He knew Mahmoud had his own pistol ready to fire. With a sickening dread Svenson saw Foison casually shift his stance to place Trooste between, blocking any clear shot.

  ‘What you are doing, Professor?’

  ‘I am assisting Lord Vandaariff –’

  ‘And your guest?’

  ‘Guest?’

  Foison flipped up the canvas, revealing Madelaine Kraft’s slippered feet. He pinched her toe and provoked a noise from beneath the canvas. ‘I did not know your work at the Institute had graduated to … live subjects.’

  ‘I do nothing save follow Lord Vandaariff’s instruction.’

  ‘I see. And – now your work has taken this turn – do you find Lord Vandaariff’s instructions troubling?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  ‘Of course not,’ Foison echoed.

  ‘I – ah – ascribe them to his own f-fever – and – and his recovery. To be candid, we have all heard the rumours –’

  ‘I have been abroad, until quite recently. Rumours?’

  Trooste retreated into the table, rattling the hoses in front of Svenson’s face. ‘Lord Vandaariff’s interest in Macklenburg – and the marriage of his daughter –’

  ‘One explains the other, does it not? Where the daughter marries, the father invests.’

  ‘Indeed. But his patronage of the Comte d’Orkancz, who had also been to Macklenburg – ah!’ Trooste gasped at a sudden movement from Foison. Was the knife at his throat?

  ‘You will not take advantage of Lord Vandaariff, because of his ill health.’

  ‘Never. Christ above, I promise you –’

  ‘No, Professor. I promise you.’

  Foison stepped away, the knife back in his coat. ‘Whatever happened to your face?’

  Trooste touched his forehead where Svenson had struck it with the pistol-butt. ‘Ah, that. One of the machines. Flay-rod. One’s attention wanders –’