The Chemickal Marriage

‘I have many plans. But, as I had not seen the channel landing at St Porte, I have not seen the one at Harschmort either – because of Oskar’s construction, his great chamber. The foundation of the place was walled off, even as he exploited the channel itself for power.’

Miss Temple frowned. ‘But that chamber was destroyed by explosives. Chang said so.’

‘Yes, I know.’

‘What if there is no landing?’ The Contessa did not reply. Miss Temple turned to look at her. ‘I am hungry.’

‘You should have eaten before.’

‘Did you bring food or not?’ Miss Temple reached for the hamper.

‘Celeste.’

‘If you try to stop me it will tip the skiff.’ Without waiting for a reply she flipped back the wicker lid. Inside were three squat bottles sealed with cork and a layer of black wax. Miss Temple plucked up the nearest and held it to the light.

‘Damn you to hell, Celeste Temple, put that down.’

‘Tell me what’s in it or I’ll throw it overboard.’

‘You would not. You would not be so stupid – O damn you. It is a liquid you have seen before, derived from something called bloodstone. It is orange, and in most instances very harmful.’

‘In all three bottles?’

‘All three, you little pig.’

Miss Temple leant into the hamper. The open space inside showed a glimpse of blue beneath the bottles. The glass book the Contessa had taken from Parchfeldt. The book that held the corrupted essence of the Comte d’Orkancz. Miss Temple replaced the bottle.

‘I am not a pig. But I would have thrown it.’

‘Of course you would have.’

‘As long as we know each other,’ said Miss Temple.

The rest of their journey passed in silence, Miss Temple brooding again, bitter that, with the exception of some sofa-bound groping with Roger Bascombe, which she dismissed, and a single misguided kiss at Parchfeldt, her body’s charms had been sampled only by the worst of people. Kings and mistresses were nonsense, she knew full well. Most people made horrid marriages, mismatches of beauty and temper that only provoked a person to imagine the couple conjoined, as one hearing of an accident imagined the wounds. Was it so strange that her legitimate affection – if any such thing existed, and this was, the more she thought, the exact matter for doubt – had settled on a man such as Chang, suspect and unpresentable in every way?

She glanced back. Earlier, when the Contessa had stepped into her shift, a new scar, on her thigh, had come into view, a knife-cut by Miss Temple’s own hand from their fight at Parchfeldt. She remembered the other scar across the Contessa’s shoulder, from a train window in Karthe. No doubt there were more – no doubt there were scars within – and she wondered at the woman’s continuing beauty. How long would it last? Would some rash plan finally be met with disfigurement or death? She thought of Chang’s face – did not the Contessa deserve the same? Did not Miss Temple herself?

How – and, honestly, why – could the woman so persist?

‘You said before we’d swim again,’ she called. ‘Does that mean you’ve lied and you do know where we’ll go?’

‘Eyes ahead, Celeste. We ought to be near.’

‘How do you know?’

‘Eyes ahead, Celeste. I cannot see past you.’

Miss Temple turned, pleased to have pricked another nerve, then sat up straight.

‘Celeste! You cannot just move –’

‘Do you hear the water? Listen! The sound has changed.’

The channel had gone glassy calm, but, as their circle of light reached out, Miss Temple detected a shadow, an oddly shaped depression pointing down. She frantically waved her arm. ‘To the left, quickly!’

The Contessa pulled on the tiller and the skiff shot to the side, but not before the stern crossed into the glassy oval. Their motion was checked. They were being pulled.

‘It’s sucking the water down!’ cried Miss Temple. ‘Like the drain in a tub!’

‘The pole, Celeste! Use the damned pole!’

Miss Temple plunged the pole into the water to try to push them away but found no bottom to push against.

‘The landing!’

The Contessa strained on the tiller as the skiff spun stern-first towards the sink-hole in the centre of the pool. For it was a pool, Miss Temple now saw, flowing underground instead of further on. She stabbed at a piling with the hooked end of the pole – she had not actually believed the thick hook was for fish – and it caught fast, then she squealed as the weight of the skiff nearly tore it from her gasp.

‘Hold on! Just a moment … there!’

The skiff swung to the landing wall. The Contessa looped a rope around a rusted stanchion and tied it off.

‘You can let go.’

Miss Temple sat back and shook her fingers. ‘How do you know about boats?’

‘I am a Venetian.’

‘And I’m from an island. Ladies don’t sail boats.’

‘Then ladies should be careful getting out, because if they fall in they’ll get sucked down into the gears.’

Miss Temple again bore the hamper while the Contessa kept the leather case and the candle-box from the skiff. Harschmort’s platform was littered with broken masonry.

‘It does not seem as if Robert Vandaariff knew about this landing at all.’

‘No,’ agreed the Contessa. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t on the plans …’

‘How can something built not be on the plans?’

‘Celeste, how do you even eat breakfast?’

Miss Temple followed her to a door that had once been formidable, ironbound planks four inches thick. Now the wood was eaten by worms and hung by a single hinge. The Contessa lifted her dress and kicked with the flat of her foot, turning her head at the dust blown up when the thing fell in. She let the cloud settle and stepped over the mess.

‘Why did you say we had to swim?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘Because we may. Or I may.’

‘Why not me?’

‘Perhaps you.’

‘Perhaps I’ll go my very own way.’

‘Perhaps that is my intention.’

‘Your intentions can go hang,’ replied Miss Temple. ‘This leads nowhere.’

The ceiling had collapsed, blocking the passage with debris. The Contessa set the candle-box on the leather case and bent for a tumbled stone. She lifted it with a grimace and heaved it behind them.

‘Put down that hamper and help.’

‘You cannot be in earnest.’

The Contessa raised a second stone. ‘If you do not help me I will club out your brains.’

Miss Temple snatched up the light and climbed the pile, dislodging bricks and gravel where she stepped. At the top, she poked an arm between two beams and then wormed her head to follow. Threads of dust traced the air around her.

‘Celeste, you are just making more work.’

‘There is a way.’

‘You cannot fit. I cannot fit.’