The Chemickal Marriage

twirled a hand with a flourish. ‘My uncle is not, in fact, a fool!’

Schoepfil turned his attention to Kelling, who nodded with a professional deliberation, memorizing his master’s commands. Svenson shut his eyes. His last cigarette had been sacrificed to calm his nerves after the Contessa’s departure. A foolish indulgence, for he’d been desperate for another after studying the glass spur.

The grenadier had collected the mugs, scowled at the spilt-upon floor and come back with a rag, swabbing with an angry, protective zeal. Then Svenson had been alone. He had unfolded the square of silk, staring at the blue disc as if it were some faerie token that, wrongly handled, would serve his doom.

The spurs found at the Xonck works had been infused with rage, and it seemed reasonable that the simplicity of the content was determined by the small amount of glass. But here was a spur made for the specific target of the Contessa.

Such were both the Contessa’s power and Vandaariff’s invention that Svenson hesitated to touch the thing with bare flesh, much less gaze inside. He thought of Euripides’ sorceress giving a poisoned gown to her lover’s new bride, consuming the girl in flames … but that seemed wrong. The spur would never be so volatile, because of Celeste. Vandaariff could not depend on his messenger’s lack of curiosity – thus, unless Miss Temple was its true target, which Svenson did not believe, the spur must be benign to Miss Temple yet deadly to the Contessa. Would it be safe for him as well?

He grazed the glass with a fingertip and felt a flutter at the back of his neck. He took a breath and pressed his finger onto the flat side of the disc. The hair rose on his nape and his breath quickened …

Svenson raised the spur to his eye.

A hollow lightness filled his chest. He was with Eloise, standing on the sand. He was with Corinna in the trees, her hand in his, knowing he must release it before their walk ended and they could be seen. Tenderness overwhelmed him. His eyes brimmed and then spilt tears down the Doctor’s face.

Of course. The deadly spur held love.

They drove past soldiers and torches, angry crowds and noise, even the clatter of hurled stones bouncing off the coach. Doctor Svenson ignored it all. He was exhausted, disgusted by Schoepfil’s self-satisfaction and sick with worry for Celeste. Chang had delivered himself to death to save her, not unlike Svenson himself in the Parchfeldt woods. He twisted into the corner of the seat and felt the pull of the long, puckered scar. Why her, of all people? Why he and Chang? A more unlikely trio would be hard to imagine. Yes, he was a spy, and Chang an assassin – yet Miss Temple remained unlikely in the extreme. But was she the strongest of the three? He recalled their morning in the abandoned tower, the awkward conversation after so long, her palpable distress. Could he or Chang have borne such a torment?

Schoepfil looked up from his papers. ‘Are you uncomfortable, Doctor?’

‘He drank two mugs of beer,’ said Mr Kelling. ‘The guard confessed it.’

‘I do not enjoy beer,’ observed Schoepfil in a tone that made clear, in the imminent domain of Schoepfil, no one else would either. ‘A peasant’s beverage.’

‘Peasants also drink wine,’ said Svenson. ‘And make brandy.’

‘Nonsense.’ Schoepfil returned his nose to a battered notebook. ‘Stuff.’

The coach reached Schoepfil’s home, passing through a cordon of militia. Schoepfil left the box for Kelling, who in turn heaved it into the arms of the first serving man they met. Svenson came last, and was commanded to wait in the main parlour.

‘Would you, or any of your people, have tobacco?’

‘Tobacco stains the teeth,’ replied Schoepfil. ‘Just look at yours!’

A traditionally dressed serving man, in a grey-striped jacket and gloves, eased into his master’s range of vision.

‘What can it be now, Danby?’

‘Callers, sir. They insisted on being seen.’

‘Insist?’

‘An unusual pair of persons, Mr Schoepfil. The lady is most demanding, claiming that you need to see her. I have allowed them to wait.’

‘A lady and a younger man?’ asked Svenson. ‘He darker than her?’

‘Yes, sir.’

Schoepfil snapped his fingers in Danby’s face as he marched away. ‘He is not a sir. He is no one. Need, do I? We shall see. Kelling – everything for transport!’

Servants piled up more boxes taken from an inner room. When Schoepfil reappeared, all smiles, it was with Madelaine Kraft and Mahmoud. Doctor Svenson rose. Schoepfil ignored him.

‘If there was but time!’ He prised the lid off a box and peered inside. ‘O yes – you will enjoy this!’

He offered a square of parchment to Mrs Kraft. Svenson met the eyes of Mahmoud, but the dark man’s face was impassive.

‘A woodcut, aus dem Rheinland, only one other copy, and that owned by my uncle! From the fourth day of the narrative. Extremely rare. The Executioner.’

Mrs Kraft nodded appreciatively, passed the page to Mahmoud. ‘And how did you come to share your uncle’s interest?’

‘Let us say I follow the wind,’ said Schoepfil. ‘You know Doctor Svenson, I believe? One might say you were in his debt.’

‘One might.’

‘He is my captive. If either of you makes a single gesture of aid our bargain is null. If you wish to reach Harschmort, you will submit to my management in this and all things.’

‘The girl died,’ Doctor Svenson told them. ‘Bronque stripped the Old Palace to its nails. Michel Gorine is their prisoner. This man, with whom you ally, has destroyed your livelihood and scattered your people to the law, or worse.’

Schoepfil raised both hands as if to take hold of Svenson’s throat. The butler in the grey-striped jacket stopped him with a cough.

‘Christ alive, what is it, Danby!’

‘Men at the door, sir. And soldiers surrounding the house, sir. Grenadiers.’

‘Grenadiers, you say?’

‘Also members of an irregular unit, sir, in green.’

With an exaggerated care Schoepfil tiptoed to a latticed Chinese screen and put his face to a viewing-hole. At his signal Danby answered the door. Madelaine Kraft joined Schoepfil at the screen. He made room with a scowl.

It took a moment for Svenson to place the voice at the door: Vandaariff’s white-haired captain, whose request for Schoepfil was deflected with a lie. Then a second voice, hard and loud, Colonel Bronque …

Svenson leant close to Mahmoud. ‘They beat him very badly. Bronque himself.’

The door was closed and Schoepfil skipped from the screen to the shutters, watching his visitors go down the stairs.

‘Who was there?’ Mahmoud asked.

‘My uncle’s man, Foison,’ replied Schoepfil. ‘Ghastly fellow.’

‘And Colonel Bronque?’

‘O yes. Bronque slipped in that they search for you, they know. We must buy time. Danby – I’ll need a messenger, no one wheezy.’

‘And Cardinal Chang,’ observed Madelaine Kraft. ‘In chains.’

Mahmoud frowned. ‘I thought Chang was dead.’

‘No one dies when they ought to,’ said Schoepfil, ‘uncles least of all. So that was Cardinal Chang? Provocative …’ He took the woodcut print from Mahmoud, and chuckled. ‘Yes, this will do perfectly.’

Mr Kelling stood ready with pen and ink. Schoepfil dipped the nib and scratched a careful line across the woodcut.

‘What is that?’ asked Mrs Kraft.

‘A message, of course. And misdirection …’