The Chemickal Marriage

‘What is this?’

Mahmoud had reached into the box of papers and lifted out a leather volume that, even as he handled it, began to moult paper and ash. Schoepfil hurried to take it from his hands.

‘No! That is an extremely valuable grimoire! Please set it down!’

For the briefest instant Mahmoud’s eye caught the Doctor’s, then the dark man twisted away from Schoepfil, towards the light. ‘Valuable? But so much of it has been burnt –’

‘Yes, yes – an accident at the Therm? –’

Mahmoud innocently shifted further from Schoepfil. With the stealthy ease of a cat Doctor Svenson took the pen and began to write, tiny letters, quickly made. Kelling had joined his master in retrieving the precious book, and Mrs Kraft chided her son to return it. By the time Schoepfil finally snatched up the woodcut to fold and seal, the Doctor had retreated to his seat.

An hour later Svenson sat across a coach from Mrs Kraft. Mahmoud was beside her and Kelling next to Svenson, boxes between them and cluttering the floor. Mr Schoepfil travelled with Colonel Bronque, a wedge of soldiers clearing their way to Stropping.

‘Mrs Kraft, what did you learn from being healed?’

She studied Svenson closely, and he saw with pity how every transaction of her life must be a thing of leverage and guile. He did not doubt her desire for revenge, her determination to wager all. That she was willing to risk those around her should not have surprised him – what brothel keeper does not rise on the destruction of others? – but that it would include her own son took him aback. Had he misjudged her, or the hell to which she’d been consigned?

‘Your hands shake, Doctor.’

He raised one to his face and saw the thin vibration. ‘I am in the habit of consuming more tobacco than has been available. And I am tired. And …’ He met her eyes and smiled. ‘I am sad.’

‘Sad?’

‘When I ask what you have learnt, it is not as physician or confessor, but what you remember about the Comte d’Orkancz, as only that would be valuable to Mr Schoepfil. Something he did to one of your women? Or is your insight from another source – Francis Xonck? You must have known him very well –’

‘Do not say a thing!’ warned Mr Kelling.

The Doctor wanted to smile, for there was no better lever against Mrs Kraft’s silence than a presumptuous underling demanding that she keep it. But either she was not so easily provoked, or Mr Kelling was too insignificant.

At Stropping, as they waited for the soldiers to clear a path, the Doctor had the presence of mind to put money into Mahmoud’s hands and shove him to a kiosk, open to brisk business despite the hour. ‘Anything – anything he has.’

Schoepfil glanced from where he stood with Bronque – letting the Colonel, who clearly relished the task, harangue the militia officers charged with keeping order – scowling at Mahmoud’s departure, and then, having discerned the cause, wagging a finger in Svenson’s direction. Svenson only looked away. The station echoed with every sound ten thousand desperate people could make. Whistles shrieked. Railwaymen laboured to add extra carriages to trains going in every direction.

‘Turkish.’ Mahmoud handed him a flat red tin. ‘All that was left.’

‘Bless you.’ Svenson popped the lid with a thumbnail and inhaled. He plucked out a slender cigarette in coffee-coloured paper, tapped it twice on the tin and stuck it in his mouth. ‘You have no idea.’

‘Why do we wait?’ Mahmoud asked Mr Kelling.

‘Our special arrangements have been misplaced in all this nonsense. This fire.’

Svenson met Mahmoud’s gaze over a flaming match set to the cigarette.

‘Damned inconvenient,’ added Kelling.

‘I expect it spoils Lord Vandaariff’s plans as well. He counts on our arrival as much as we do.’

‘Not mine,’ said Mrs Kraft.

‘Of course yours – unless Foison and Chang are dead. He will expect us all.’

‘They are dead. With all of the Colonel’s men hunting them? Men like that are common enough, and they die commonly too.’

‘I do not think you know Cardinal Chang.’

‘I assure you, I do, Doctor. And his faults. Do you know of his feeling for Angelique?’

‘Something of it. I was called to treat her, by the Comte.’

Mrs Kraft shook her head. ‘Chang could have had her. Of course she was indifferent to him, as his behaviour was – almost courtly. But he could have taken her.’

‘That is not Chang.’

‘A man who indulges desire without acting to satisfy it deserves contempt. And that is Chang’s doom.’

‘What will be yours?’ asked Doctor Svenson.

‘Stop.’ Mahmoud cut in, for they had both grown sharp. ‘Where are they going?’

The bulk of Bronque’s grenadiers jogged past, double time, a blue column returning up the grand staircase and into the night.

‘The other stations.’ Mr Kelling raised a knowing eyebrow. ‘To make sure.’

‘That means Foison and Chang still live, and we must take care.’ Mahmoud reached for the red tin and helped himself to a cigarette.

‘I do beg your pardon!’ Svenson fumbled for a match. ‘I did not think to offer.’

Mahmoud leant to the light, and then exhaled. ‘People often don’t. One would think I were invisible. Or small. Or – what is the word? – property.’

A weary conductor let them board the east-bound train, a motley group nevertheless given precedence over the waiting elite. In the third carriage Schoepfil pointed to a compartment. ‘Here, Mr Kelling! And Mrs Kraft, with your man. To Orange Locks – as we have agreed.’

‘We have not agreed on anything,’ replied Mrs Kraft.

‘Kelling has the particulars – I have considered your every wish! Do not fret, you will have the advantage of our numbers.’

‘What if you and I need to speak?’

‘We will not. I will be further up the train – quite impossible.’

‘Why?’

‘Now, now – I have given you sanctuary; you must give your trust. Doctor Svenson?’ Schoepfil wagged his finger. ‘With me, sir. You are required.’

The door to the front-most carriage had been augmented with a metal plate and a substantial lock that Colonel Bronque, leaving two men posted outside, turned once he, Schoepfil and Doctor Svenson had passed through. The compartment walls and seats had been removed, the draperies replaced with more sheet metal.

An array of machines took up the centre of the carriage – not the pipe organ of brass and steel that Svenson had seen at the Institute, but rather a modest scatter of brass canisters and tin-lined tubs, linked by copper wire and rubberized hose. Two much thicker bundles of cable ran to the far end of the car and out through holes cut in the wall.

‘Amazing, yes?’ Schoepfil clapped his hands. ‘You have seen it before – Margaret Hooke, Elspeth Poole, even Angelique – marvels misunderstood and too soon gone! Now you will assist us!’

‘Vandaariff must fall, Doctor.’ Colonel Bronque turned a chair and straddled it. ‘For the common good.’

‘So you can replace him?’

Schoepfil removed his jacket and laid it on the table to avoid a crease. ‘I am his heir.’

‘Better us than that Italian hellcat.’ Bronque gave a sour look to Schoepfil. ‘You should not have allowed her to escape.’