The Chemickal Marriage

by Gordon Dahlquist

  ‘Explain,’ said Foison.

  ‘Vanity. The Chemickal Marriage.’ Chang tapped the new-made slash of ink. ‘The Executioner puts on the blindfold to kill – that mark is the order for Bronque, for our lives.’

  ‘We know that.’

  ‘Yes, but look at the image itself – torn from an old book –’

  ‘So? Drusus Schoepfil has copied his uncle’s esoteric habits –’

  ‘Do you know the details of this story – The Chemickal Marriage?’

  ‘Should I? My duties do not –’

  Chang cut him off. ‘Precisely the point. You know it exists, but only because of your master’s interest.’ Chang held up the paper. ‘Schoepfil is no different. He knows the topic and pours himself into learning – from books. But the Comte d’Orkancz abandoned books to make his own versions – do you see? Schoepfil cannot know the Comte’s vision of The Chemickal Marriage, because he cannot have seen the painting.’

  Foison paused. ‘And you have?’

  ‘We all did – Svenson, Celeste Temple and myself. A memory from before the canvas burnt – preserved in blue glass.’

  One of Foison’s men hissed from the road ahead. Foison extended a palm so the man should wait, never taking his eyes from Chang. ‘So you lied. Why raise the question now?’

  Chang thrust the paper back at Foison. ‘Because this is not from any book.’

  A line of letters crossed the top and bottom of the image, so closely written as to appear decorative, like an engraved frame – yet without question recently added in the same black ink as the blindfold. Foison read the top line aloud. ‘ “Virgo Lucifera. No heart but goblet.” ’ He looked to Chang.

  ‘In the Comte’s painting,’ Chang explained, ‘there is no heart in a casket. The Executioner decapitates the Bride and Groom and their blood flows into a goblet. Don’t you see? It’s a message from someone who does know the painting, and who saw me in the foyer of Schoepfil’s house. To anyone else the words are alchemical nonsense.’

  ‘You believe Doctor Svenson inserted his own message into the one for Bronque?’

  ‘Who else? That first line is to prove his identity to me. Now read the second.’

  Foison rotated the page, for the letters on the lower edge had been written upside down. ‘ “Mother Child Heir … Virgin Lucifera … I’m sorry –” ’

  ‘The symbols!’ Chang ran a finger along the text, as if he were schooling a child. ‘ “Mother Child Heir” is followed by two elemental signs taken from the Comte’s work, for iron and wind. “Virgin Lucifera” is followed by signs for water and fire. Svenson had no time, so used code – look closely, It’s not “Virgo” that’s written but “Virgin”. Virgin and Lucifera. Two people.’

  Foison studied the paper, then nodded with an exasperated impatience at his own slow thinking. ‘ “Mother Child Heir” is Kraft, her son and Schoepfil. They are together, and – iron and wind – will travel to Harschmort by train. “Virgin” is Miss Temple, “Lucifera” the Contessa. Heat and water – since the Colonel is involved, this means the Royal Thermæ. Either they remain there in the Queen’s protection –’

  ‘Or?’ asked Chang.

  Foison returned the paper to his coat. ‘Or the old stories are true.’

  ‘What stories?’

  Foison’s face went still. Chang spun round to follow the man’s gaze. The third green-coat, guarding their rear, was nowhere to be seen. How long had they been standing like fools?

  With a drumming of boot steps, the darkness behind them filled with Bronque’s grenadiers, bayonets fixed for silent work. Foison and Chang broke as one, waving the lead men on, racing blindly into the next intersection. A shot cracked out and the green-coat next to Chang staggered and fell.

  The far end of the road had been blocked with overturned wagons. Chang ran towards them, weaving to present a shifting target, ready to hurl his body over the makeshift wall. More shots came from the soldiers, missing their mark but splintering the wagons.

  The last green-coat reached the barrier first, caught hold and began to climb. As soon as his head cleared the wagon, a fist-sized lump of plaster potted him square on the ear. The man dropped hard to the cobbles. Chang and Foison veered, careening from both the bullets snapping around them and a hail of bricks and stones from the wagons – now topped by a line of angry faces.

  He seized Foison’s shoulder and they turned to see the crowd’s fury directed at the grenadiers. How many errant bullets had torn into the unseen crowd? The grenadier lieutenant waved his sabre for order, but a brick struck the officer on the arm and his sabre rang on the stones. The soldiers answered with a ragged volley, plumes of smoke spitting forward. Another shower of stones. The Lieutenant flat on his face. From the wagons, shrieks –

  Foison jerked free of Chang’s grasp and ran. Chang followed, wondering what had happened to the world.

  He caught an arm on a lamp-post and wheeled himself to a stop, ribs heaving. They had entered a warren of close lanes, but these were not streets simmering with discontent. Men in uniform stood scattered amongst the refugees, dismounted horsemen without their brass helmets, constables, even a priest, but no one claimed authority. Muskets cracked in the distance. A canopy of cloud hung over the city, its underside lit orange like an iron pot over a flame.

  ‘Why do you stop?’ called Foison.

  Chang shook his head. These choked lanes led to the railway station. ‘Stropping will be mobbed. And who’s to say your master hasn’t set off another device in the heart of it?’

  Punctuating another grudging concession, Foison sniffed. ‘Then what?’

  ‘Schoepfil.’

  ‘He has no army. He is but one clever man.’

  ‘He may give us Svenson and Madelaine Kraft.’

  ‘They are gone. More sensible to find Axewith – he can get us horses, escorts.’

  ‘Schoepfil’s house is on the way.’

  A knot of children stared at them, two strangely dressed demons conversing under the lamp light. Foison grunted and reached into his coat. He flung a fistful of coins onto the paving. The children didn’t move. Foison’s flat nostrils flared at his useless gesture and he stalked off. Behind the children stood a fat man in a stained waistcoat with a heavy walking stick. Chang extended one arm and snapped his fingers. With a nervous nod the man offered up the stick – strong ash with a brass grip shaped like a bird. Foison glanced back, saw the weapon in his prisoner’s hand, but continued on.

  The cordon of soldiers had withdrawn, and with them the angry crowds, dispersing with the decision of Axewith and his engineers to abandon this district. The orange glow in the sky seemed no closer, but Chang wondered how many houses would survive the dawn. He snorted at the thought – that it had become a refrain – and focused his attention on the dark windows of Drusus Schoepfil’s home.

  ‘No one,’ whispered Foison from the servant’s lane behind. Chang followed to the rear door. The house had no rear garden or stable.

  ‘No coach,’ observed Chang.

  ‘The allowance from Lord Vandaariff is small.’

  ‘Why?’

  ‘Schoepfil is Lady Vandaariff’s nephew, no tie of blood.’ Foison slipped a knife from his silk coat. ‘Drusus Schoepfil is a parasite, his every gesture an imitation, of as little merit as a parrot’s speech.’

  ‘But if he has allied with more powerful –’

  ‘Allied.’ Foison spat the word. ‘At a word from Lord Vandaariff each man would sprawl on his belly and beg.’

  Foison wedged the knife in the lock, but Chang caught his arm. Foison twisted quickly and Chang released his grip, raising an open palm.

  ‘Before we go in. The Royal Thermæ. You said the old stories might be true. What stories?’

  ‘You’re the native. I’m the monkey.’

  ‘Don’t be an ass. The Contessa and Miss Temple – where would they be?’

  ‘With your old Queen, rotting in a pool.’

  The discussion of Schoepfil had pricked
Foison’s loyalty back to prominence. Chang stepped back. The lock was as cheaply made as the rest of the house.

  Having done his share of housebreaking, Chang was accustomed to inferring the character of a man from his furnishings, but the home of Drusus Schoepfil was as devoid of attachment as a hotel parlour. Foison lit a brace of candlesticks and passed one to Chang, who brought his to a mantelpiece topped with a line of identical Chinese jars, glazed with pagodas and bamboo. Likewise a case of silver showed no family pieces, only a tea service of middling value and cutlery purchased by lot.

  The house was silent. Chang crossed to the foyer, smiling grimly at a view-hole behind a screen. Bronque’s words – ‘the woman and the black man were seen’ – were spoken as a threat, but had been a warning from one ally to another, placing the decision of what to do next in Schoepfil’s hands. Svenson must have watched from the window, but Chang discovered no sign of the Doctor’s presence.

  Deeper in the house they found a padlocked door. Foison passed his candlestick to Chang and drew a knife for each hand. The first kick rocked the bolts holding the padlock. The second sheared them from the frame.

  ‘Worse than I’d feared,’ Foison said quietly.

  If the rest of the house adopted polite decor without feeling for use – for life – this inner room had been dedicated to another more strident imitation. Every inch of the wall was covered with alchemical scrawls, layered to create different shapes – flowers, bodies, planets – almost like one of the Comte’s canvases. But Chang had been to Harschmort, to Parchfeldt, and Schoepfil’s room only made clear the actual art of the Comte’s vision. This was the work of a schoolboy set to copy … markings of paint without passion, nothing insidious or disturbing or mad …

  As Chang peered at an open mouth, the curving lips formed by an arching line of tiny glyphs, he thought of his conversation with Father Locarno, and The Chemickal Marriage. An alchemical narrative was less a story than a recipe: sequence, ingredients, actions. For the Comte, the art, the grace was all important – but was that, alchemically speaking, necessary? Granting any of this nonsense in the first place, did Schoepfil’s vulgarity of vision make any difference if he had successfully captured the formula? With a growing chill, Chang wondered if Vandaariff’s parasite nephew was unexpectedly dangerous?

  ‘Schoepfil means to inherit more than his uncle’s wealth,’ he said. ‘Alliances be damned, here is your enemy. You say he is no intimate of his uncle’s. What of his uncle’s associates – Francis Xonck or Harald Crabbé?’

  ‘I have been gone these months. Not that I am aware.’

  The words were an admission of neglect, and Chang sensed Foison’s mind working, the urge to make up lost ground.

  ‘What of Colonel Arthur Trapping?’

  ‘A wholly negligible person.’

  ‘Whose daughter’s death was worth your sending a messenger.’

  ‘I had standing orders –’

  ‘And why was that?’

  Foison’s eyes loomed even blacker beyond the flickering candle. ‘The approach of death is taken differently by each man. The actions of the powerful are naturally more … grandiose.’

  ‘People are being sacrificed on its altar. That child. Lydia.’ Chang rapped his stick against a lewdly painted rose. ‘The girl had scarcely seven years.’

  ‘Seven or seventy.’ Foison walked from the ruined little room. ‘Death is inevitable.’

  They retraced their steps past the front parlour. Chang noticed a coat closet left ajar and looked to Foison before opening the door. He pushed the hanging coats aside with his stick to reveal the curled body of a soldier in green, bloodstained above the heart. The messenger sent to Vandaariff from the stable. Foison said nothing.

  At a noise from outside both men blew out their candles. Foison peered through the slats of a wooden shutter. Abruptly Foison stalked to the foyer and wrenched open the door of Schoepfil’s house, leaving it wide. In the shadows across the road loomed a band of tired refugees, who went still at the sound. When no one emerged from the house, a few of the braver souls crept forward. Foison retreated past Chang without a word, towards the rear door. The first of the crowd had reached the steps and begun to climb. Chang hurried after Foison.

  ‘You’re inviting them to loot the place.’

  ‘I’m inviting them to do what they will.’

  A hundred yards from Schoepfil’s house Chang stopped. ‘Enough of this wandering. Svenson’s note gives us two choices – Schoepfil’s train or the Contessa and Celeste Temple at Bathings.’

  Foison glanced about with caution, but their immediate location, a modest, tree-lined lane, was silent. ‘We cannot reach Stropping before Schoepfil leaves. The Contessa is long departed from Bathings. We have a third option –’

  ‘Axewith?’ Chang pointed with his stick to the west. ‘The cordon has retreated beyond his command post. Given the fire’s speed, we have little hope of finding him on foot before his place is abandoned once again.’

  ‘We do not need the man,’ countered Foison. ‘If we walk north-east we will strike his troops, at which point Lord Vandaariff’s name will get us transport.’

  ‘It’s no longer that simple.’

  Foison gently shifted his stance. ‘I thought you had agreed to come.’

  Chang could not run. Foison would put a knife in his back – or more likely his leg – and drag him to the nearest horse. But Chang had come to his decision. He slipped into a defensive crouch. Foison drew two knives with an unpleasant ease.

  ‘I will force you.’

  ‘You will have to kill me. Perhaps you can, but it is against your orders. I, however, may kill you most freely.’

  ‘You need me to reach Harschmort.’

  ‘I disagree. And once I get there I will kill your master.’

  ‘You won’t get within ten yards of the door. How many men did Miss Temple send? How many dozens came from other rivals? Harschmort has changed. You know how they died.’

  Chang extended the walking stick like a blade, the tip floating at the level of Foison’s eyes. Foison sighed with impatience.

  ‘This is madness.’

  Chang feinted at Foison’s abdomen, then swung the stick like a sabre blade, a cross-cut at the man’s head. Foison deflected the blow with one knife, but his counter thrust was slow. They watched each other. Foison could not attack freely and risk the possibility of Chang’s death, while Chang could attack and attack again, and finally – inevitably – strike home.

  Foison retreated two steps. ‘Stop this – I am willing to follow, as long as we leave. If you’re not at Harschmort in time, Celeste Temple will be consumed.’

  Chang advanced again, a jab to the face and then a swipe at Foison’s knee. Foison parried, dodged, fell back.

  ‘She’ll be consumed anyway. You know full well.’

  ‘I have no idea.’

  ‘You lie.’

  With a swift motion Chang cracked the haft of the stick across Foison’s wrist and one knife clattered to the road. Foison brought the wrist to his mouth with a hiss, and fell back. Chang scooped up the knife, a weapon now in each hand. Foison flipped his remaining knife in the air and caught it by the tip, ready to throw.

  ‘You change nothing. She will die.’

  ‘She shouldn’t.’

  ‘We are all tested.’ Foison’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘And if I kill you here and now … so be it.’

  Foison whipped back his arm and threw. Chang dived, taking the cobbles on his shoulder. He felt a sting at his hip, but Foison – still seeking to wound instead of kill – had missed. Chang rolled up, slashing the stick across the empty hands that reached to take him. Foison hissed at the pain, yanking both hands back as Chang lunged and stuck the knife into Foison’s thigh. Chang brought the walking stick down hard on Foison’s head. Foison fell and lay still.

  The knife had pierced his coat, but the point had gone wide, scarcely a prick. Chang tucked a knife into his belt and glanced at Foison’s wound
. He would live. Chang began to run.

  It was half a mile before he found the cordon: exhausted militiamen doing their best to tend to those displaced – handing out blankets and serving soup from a makeshift canteen. He presented himself to a weary subaltern as an emissary of the Church and was passed through. Soon Chang was running again, angling away from where he’d been directed – if Foison did attempt to follow, Axewith would appear to have been Chang’s goal – and towards the train.

  Not Stropping Station – there Foison had been right. The place would be a madhouse. But he recalled Foison’s suggestion that Bronque post men beyond Stropping on the route to the Orange Canal. Now, because of Foison, Schoepfil would make his transit safely under the protection of the Colonel’s men.

  At the next checkpoint, further from the chaos, the troops again fed refugees from steaming pots suspended over open fires. He passed in easily, trading on the Archbishop’s name to request transport. A sergeant directed him to a line of people pressing similar claims of urgency. He stood behind a dishevelled older man and woman, their rich clothing spoilt by soot and water. The woman’s pleasure to see a churchman was visibly curdled by the Monsignor’s scars.

  ‘A terrible night,’ she managed.

  ‘We must reach our home,’ explained her husband, shifting to maintain his place in line ahead of Chang. ‘The grandchildren. The horses.’

  Chang craned his head to the front. Despite there being any number of apparently free vehicles, no one moved. With a sigh of disgust he strode forward.

  ‘We have to wait!’ cried the old woman.

  ‘Take us with you!’ pleaded the husband.

  Their calls caught the attention of others as Chang advanced, like a match to a trail of powder, igniting shouts of protest at his refusal to wait and calls of support from those attaching their frustration to his own.

  Chang cared only that no one blocked his way – that they’d remained docile for this long showed how little destruction this crowd had really seen. At the head of the queue stood a major of engineers, looking up from a folding field table of maps at the growing cries. The weary officer raised his hoarse voice for everyone to hear. ‘A system is in place, without favouritism – if you would just go back to your place –’