Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

stout man that stood with him.

“Excuse me,” called Miss Temple. “What is your name?”

The soldier frowned, as if her speaking to him was an unseemly breach of etiquette. The scarred man—who it seemed had recovered his sensibilities somewhat, being a bit less glassy about the eyes and more fluid in his limbs—answered her with a voice that was only a little oily.

“He is Major Blach and I am Herr Flauss, Envoy to the Macklenburg diplomatic mission accompanying the Prince Karl-Horst von Maasmarck.”

“He is Major Blach?” If the Major was too proud to speak to her, Miss Temple was happy enough to speak about him as if he were a standing lamp. She knew that this was the nemesis of both the Doctor and Chang. “I had no idea,” she said, “for of course I have heard a great deal about him—about you both.” She really had heard nothing much at all about the Envoy, save that the Doctor did not like him, and even this not in words so much as a dismissive half-distracted shrug—still she expected everyone liked to be talked of, Process or no. The Major, of course, she knew was deadly.

“May we be of service?” asked the Envoy.

“I am hungry,” replied Miss Temple. “I should like something to eat—if such a thing exists on the train. I know it is at least another hour until we reach the Orange Locks.”

“In truth, I have no idea,” said the Envoy, “but I will ask directly.” He nodded to her and padded down the passageway. Miss Temple watched him go and then caught the firm gaze of the Major upon her.

“Get back inside,” he snapped.

When the train stopped at St. Triste, the Major entered with a small wrapped parcel of white waxed paper along with his canteen. He gave them both to her without a word. She did not move to open it, preferring to do it alone—there was precious little entertainment else—and so the two of them waited in silence for the train to move. When it did he reached again for the canteen. She did not release it.

“May I not have a drink of water with my meal?”

The Major glared at her. Clearly there was no reason to deny her save meanness, and even that would betray a level of interest that he did not care to admit. He released the canteen and left the compartment.

The contents of the waxed paper parcel were hardly interesting—a thin wedge of white cheese, a slice of rye bread, and two small pickled beets that stained the bread and cheese purple. Nevertheless she ate them as slowly and methodically as she could—alternating carefully small bites of each in succession and chewing each mouthful at least twenty times before swallowing. So passed perhaps fifteen minutes. She drank off the rest of the canteen and re-corked it. She balled up the paper and with the canteen in her hand poked her head back into the passageway. The Major and the Envoy were where they had been before.

“I have finished,” she called, “if you would prefer to collect the canteen.”

“How kind of you,” said Envoy Flauss, and he nudged the Major, who marched toward her and snatched the canteen from her hand. Miss Temple held up the ball of paper.

“Would you take this as well? I’m sure you do not want me passing notes to the conductor!”

Without a word the Major did. Miss Temple batted her eyelashes at him and then at the watching Envoy down the passageway as the Major turned and walked away. She returned to her seat with a chuckle. She had no idea what had been gained except distraction, but she felt in her mild mischief a certain encouraging return to form.

At St. Porte, Major Blach did not enter her compartment. Miss Temple looked up to the compartment door as the train slowed and no one had appeared. Had she annoyed him so much as to give her a chance to open the window? She stood, still looking at the empty doorway, and then with a fumbling rush began her assault on the window latches. She had not even managed to get one of them open before she heard the clicking of the compartment door behind her. She wheeled, ready to meet the Major’s disapproval with a winning smile.

Instead, in the open door stood Roger Bascombe.

“Ah,” she said. “Mr. Bascombe.”

He nodded to her rather formally. “Miss Temple.”

“Will you sit?”

It seemed to her that Roger hesitated, perhaps because she had been found so evidently in the midst of opening the window, but equally perhaps because so much between them lay unresolved. She returned to her seat, tucking her dirty feet as far as possible beneath her hanging dress, and waited for him to stir from the still-open door. When he did not, she spoke to him with a politeness only barely edged with impatience.

“What can a man fear from taking a seat? Nothing—except the display of his own ill-breeding if he remains standing like a tradesman…or a marionette Macklenburg soldier.”

Chastened and, she could tell from the purse of his lips, pricked to annoyance, Roger took a seat on the opposite side of the compartment. He took a preparatory breath.

“Miss Temple—Celeste—”

“I see your scars have healed,” she said encouragingly. “Mrs. Marchmoor’s have not, and I confess to finding them quite unpleasant. As for poor Mr. Flauss—or I suppose it should be Herr Flauss—for his appearance he might as well be a tattooed aboriginal from the polar ice!”

With satisfaction, she saw that Roger looked as if a lemon wedge had become lodged beneath his tongue.

“Are you finished?” he asked.

“I don’t believe I am, but I will let you speak, if that is what you—”

Roger barked at her sharply. “It is not a surprise to see you so relentlessly fixed on the trivial—it has always been your way—but even you should apprehend the gravity of your situation!”

Miss Temple had never seen him so dismissive and forceful, and her voice dropped to a sudden icy whisper.

“I apprehend it very fully…I assure you…Mr. Bascombe.”

He did not reply—he was, she realized with a sizzling annoyance, allowing what he took to be his acknowledged rebuke to fully sink in. Determined not to first break the silence, Miss Temple found herself studying the changes in his face and manner—quite in spite of herself, for she still hoped to meet his every attention with scorn. She understood that Roger Bascombe offered the truest window into the effects of the Process she was likely to find. She had met Mrs. Marchmoor and the Prince—her pragmatic manner and his dispassionate distance—but she had known neither of them intimately beforehand. What she saw on the face of Roger Bascombe pained her, more than anything at the knowledge that such a transformation spoke—and she was sure, in her unhappy heart, that it did—to his honest desire. Roger had always been one for what was ordered and proper, paying scrupulous attention to social niceties while maintaining a fixed notion of who bore what title and which estates—but she had known, and it had been part of her fondness for him, that such painstaking alertness arose from his own lack of a title and his occupation of yet a middling position in government—which is to say from his naturally cautious character. Now, she saw that this was changed, that Roger’s ability to juggle in his mind the different interests and ranks of many people was no longer in service to his own defense but, on the contrary, to his own explicit, manipulative advantage. She had no doubt that he watched the other members of the Cabal like an unfailingly deferential hawk, waiting for the slightest misstep (as she was suddenly sure Francis Xonck’s bandaged arm had been a secret delight to him). Before when Roger had grimaced at her outbursts or expressions of opinion, it had been at her lack of tact or care for the delicate social fabric of a conversation he had been at effort to maintain— and his reaction had filled her with a mischievous pleasure. Now, despite her attempts to bait or provoke him, all she saw was a pinched, unwillingly burdened tolerance, rooted in the disappointment of wasting time with one who could offer him no advantage whatsoever. The difference made Miss Temple sad in a way she had not foreseen.

“I have presumed to briefly join you,” he began, “at the suggestion of the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza—”

“I am sure the Contessa gives you all manner of suggestions,” interrupted Miss Temple, “and have no doubt that you follow them eagerly!”

Did she even believe this? The accusation had been too readily at hand not to fling…not that it seemed to find any purchase on its target.

“Since,” he continued after a brief pause, “it is intended that you undergo the Process upon our arrival at Harschmort House, it will arise that, although we have been in the last days sundered, after your ordeal we shall be reconciled to the same side—as allies.”