The Chemickal Marriage

‘Celeste – we did not see you –’

The three men dropped their pace to a rapid walk, aware that the mob was slowly following them onto the planking. Svenson reached her and spoke low.

‘Celeste – what has happened? The townspeople –’

‘Pish tush,’ she managed. ‘There are boats below: I suggest we secure one.’

Quite belying his bulky gait on land, Mr Brine swung himself over the pier like an ape, seized a rope and slid into an open skiff. Mr Phelps and Doctor Svenson took out their pistols and at this the mob halted, perhaps thirty yards away.

‘Citizens of Raaxfall,’ called Phelps, ‘we have come to discover why you have been put out of work – why the Xonck factory has barred its doors. We are here in your own interests –’

With his city accent Phelps might as well have been Chinese; nor did the presence of Miss Temple – and a foreign soldier – help to make any credible show. Another rock whipped past Phelps and splashed into the water. Svenson seized Miss Temple with both arms and held her over the edge – she squawked with surprise – where she was caught about the waist and hustled to a seat in the bow.

‘The rope, miss.’ Brine returned his attention to the pier.

Miss Temple tore at the knot linking the skiff to the pilings. Another rock struck the water, and then three more. Phelps’s pistol cracked out as Doctor Svenson dropped into the skiff, the entire craft tipping as his weight came home.

A cry came from above, and Mr Phelps’s black hat struck the water, floating like an upturned funereal basket. The man himself lurched into view, blood pouring from his cheek, and stepped into the air. He plunged into the river and came up gasping. Mr Brine extended an oar to his flailing hands, and Svenson snapped off six deliberate shots above them, emptying his revolver, but keeping the mob back from the edge long enough for Brine to gather Phelps and push off.

Brine stroked at the oars to propel them away from the teeming mass that lined the dock. The stones came in a hail, but, barring two that bounced dangerously off the wood, they were only splashed. Phelps slumped between the thwarts, water streaming from his clothes, a handkerchief held against his face. The natives of Raaxfall hooted at their ungainly retreat as if they’d chased a gang of armoured Spaniards off a palm-strewn strand. Phelps shrugged off Svenson’s attempt to see the wound and took up an oar, pulling with Brine. The Doctor shifted to the tiller and when enough distance had been gained turned the small skiff east.

No challenge came from the Xonck docks as they neared, fully visible in the afternoon light. The main canal into the works was blocked with a gate of rusted metal bars, like a portcullis sunk into the water. They bobbed before it, unable to see into the shadows beyond. At Svenson’s nod the other men pulled to the nearest floating dock. Miss Temple scrambled out with the rope. She looped it around an iron cleat and held it tight until the Doctor could tie a proper knot.

‘Here we are,’ sighed Mr Phelps. ‘Though I confess it seems a wasted journey.’ He peered at the lifeless canal.

‘How is your face?’ Miss Temple did not feel responsible for what had happened at the pier, but nevertheless appreciated Mr Phelps’s bravery.

‘It will do,’ he replied, dabbing with the handkerchief. ‘Stoned by an old woman – can you believe it?’

‘Can all that truly be a response to no work?’ Svenson had opened the cylinder of his revolver, and from a pocket he retrieved a fistful of brass.

‘No work in the city anywhere,’ offered Mr Brine.

Svenson nodded, slotting in the new shells. ‘But when exactly did the Xonck works close?’

‘After we returned, some three weeks now.’ Phelps patted his coat and looked behind them. ‘My weapon is in the river.’

‘It cannot be helped,’ said Svenson. ‘But before this recent stoppage, did not the people of Raaxfall enjoy near total employment? The marriage between a crocodile and the birds that pick its teeth?’

‘You can imagine the wages Henry Xonck would pay – they will have no savings to last out one bare week, let alone three.’

The Doctor sighed. ‘You are right, of course … yet I cannot credit poverty with such an unprovoked attack. On strangers, no less – on a woman!’

‘Why should you think it unprovoked?’ asked Miss Temple. The three men turned to her in silence. At once she flushed. ‘Do not be absurd. I did nothing but stand in the air!’

‘Then what do you imply?’ asked Phelps.

‘I do not know – but perhaps there is more to their discontent than we understand.’

‘Perhaps. And perhaps this same mob tore your Mr Ramper to pieces in the street.’

They climbed rusted stairs and met another wall of iron bars. The Xonck works were a honeycomb of huts and roads, bristling with towers and catwalks. It was divided by earthen redoubts and moats of sickly green liquid and caged blast tunnels, the earth around each entrance black as coal.

‘The lock is on the other side,’ Svenson said, slapping a wide metal plate. ‘Nothing to pick or even to shoot open. We need a field gun.’

‘There must be someone within,’ observed Phelps.

‘No one especially mindful,’ said Miss Temple. ‘We are veritable tradesmen at the door.’

‘We might climb,’ offered Mr Brine, pointing up. The fence was ten feet high, topped with sharp spikes.

‘Surely not,’ said Phelps.

Miss Temple went onto her toes to peer through the bars. ‘Do you see that barge?’

Svenson screwed his monocle in place. ‘What about it?’

‘Was it not at the Parchfeldt Canal?’ she asked. ‘I recognize the rings of red paint around the mast.’

‘Perhaps it came from Parchfeldt with the machines.’

Miss Temple turned to Phelps. ‘From the river here, could one reach the Orange Canal – and Harschmort?’

Phelps nodded. His hair was plastered to his skull, and Miss Temple saw that the man was shivering. ‘But if they have gone to so much trouble, where is everyone? What is more, if the people of Raaxfall are so exercised against the factory, what has stopped them from storming it? Not their own reticence, I am sure, yet – no, no! What is this?’

His last words were petulantly addressed to Mr Brine, who had nimbly clambered halfway up the fence.

‘Mr Brine,’ Miss Temple called. ‘There are spikes.’

‘Not to worry, miss.’ Brine gathered himself just beneath the spikes, curling his legs, then recklessly sprung over them, slamming into the other side of the fence with a clang. Miss Temple gasped, for a spike had gouged through his sleeve.

‘Not to worry,’ he repeated, and lifted the arm free. Brine landed with a solid thump on the other side.

‘Well done!’ cried Miss Temple.

‘Is there a lock?’ called Svenson. ‘Can you –’

Before Mr Brine could reply, he was surrounded by a dozen sudden lines of jetting smoke, each lancing towards him with a serpentine hiss. Brine staggered, eyes wide with shock, then toppled off the platform and out of sight.

Miss Temple had the sense not to scream, and instead found that she – like both men – had dropped to her knees.

‘What happened?’ she whispered. ‘Where is he?’

‘Is he killed?’ asked Phelps.

She quite quickly began to climb, fitting her feet like a ladder.

‘Good God!’ cried Phelps.

Both men reached for her legs but Miss Temple kicked at their hands.

‘He will die if I do not help him.’

‘He is dead already!’ called Phelps.

‘Celeste,’ whispered Svenson. She was too high to pull down without causing her harm. ‘It is a trap. Think – you render Brine’s sacrifice without purpose –’