The Chemickal Marriage

‘Such service, to manage a nation at risk,’ she said gently. ‘Is it truly recognized? Does such sacrifice ever find reward?’

Harcourt swallowed. ‘In the absence of other – experienced – Minister Crabbe – with the sickness that has pervaded –’

‘That terrible woman …’ The Contessa shook her head, her gloved fingers clicking as they sought inside her bag. ‘Can you imagine if anything like her should appear again? Or a score of them at once?’

Harcourt stared at the gleaming blue rectangle the Contessa had extracted.

‘This is for you, Matthew … for you alone.’ She offered her hand across the perfumed bowl and smiled shyly. ‘I trust you will not think the less of me.’

Harcourt shook his head, gulped and snatched the glass card. He raised it to his eyes, licking his lips like a hound. His pupils expanded to black balls and his jaw fell slack. Mr Harcourt did not move.

‘Come out, Doctor. The fellow is so earnest, it would be a shame not to share his misfortune.’

Svenson felt like a pet who’d been whistled for. ‘How long until his people return?’

‘We have at least … O … three minutes?’ The Contessa leafed through the papers in Harcourt’s portfolio.

‘That is no time at all!’

‘More than enough …’

She pulled a sheet of parchment free, reading it quickly. Harcourt gasped – in pain or ecstasy – but his gaze did not shift. Svenson inched closer, curious as to what held Harcourt in thrall.

‘Time, Doctor, time …’

‘What are you hoping to find? You might have waited until he had the news of Vandaariff’s demands –’

‘I have told you, Doctor, that does not matter.’

The Contessa shoved the parchment at Svenson and went back to the portfolio. The page was a list of properties to be temporarily seized by the Crown: railway lines, shipping fleets, mines, refineries, banks, and then, ending the list, at least fifteen different glassworks.

‘Glassworks?’

‘Curious, isn’t it?’

‘That demand has to come from Vandaariff – it’s all been planned in advance.’

The Contessa raised an eyebrow at his slow arrival and continued to sort through the mounds of paper. Harcourt gasped again.

‘What is the memory on that card?’ Svenson asked her.

‘Nothing to concern you …’

‘It must be extremely alluring.’

‘That is the intention –’

‘Because he does not wrench himself free. Thus you do not offer him information, but a sensual experience. As this is not your first meeting, I presume each new card draws him deeper into enslavement. Do you have such a storehouse of them? I assumed they had been lost.’

The Contessa plucked two small pages from a portfolio, folded them to tight strips and slipped each into the bodice of her dress. ‘Doctor, you will find a door behind that tapestry – the Turks besieging Vienna. Though if those are Turks I am a Scottish donkey, and if that is Vienna – well, not that it matters. The experience of one Florentine winehouse apparently equips a man to describe the world. Still, there is but one thing worse than an artist who has not travelled.’

‘The artist who has?’

She laughed. Too aware of his pleasure at sparking her amusement, Svenson lifted the tapestry and found a wooden door. The Contessa plucked the glass card away. Harcourt jackknifed at the waist with a shuddering cry, both hands digging at his groin.

‘Until we meet again, Matthew,’ she cooed. Svenson ducked to escape Harcourt’s eye, but need not have bothered. Harcourt had curled into a grunting, sobbing ball.

As soon as the Contessa closed the door, the light was gone. On instinct, Svenson edged away, to set himself beyond her spike.

‘Where are you?’ she whispered.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Stop running from me, you fool – there are steps!’

As she spoke, Svenson’s right foot skidded into space. He nearly overbalanced, toppling into the darkness, but managed to claw a handhold on the uneven walls. Before he could recover he smelt her perfume, and felt her breath warm at his ear.

‘You will break your neck – and we have not even made our bargain.’

‘What bargain is that?’

‘Go down – carefully, mind – and I will tell you.’

The steps were narrow and worn from a century of footfalls, and his boots slipped more than once. ‘Where does this take us? Where in the Palace?’

He felt her whisper on his neck. ‘Do you know the Palace?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Then it will be a surprise. Do you like surprises?’

‘Not especially.’

‘O Doctor – you waste the glory of the world.’

‘I shall endeavour to bear it.’

The Contessa nipped Svenson’s ear.

At the foot of the stairs his hand found another door, and her whisper reminded him to open it slowly. From behind another tapestry they entered a circular room with walls of stone.

‘It is a tower,’ said Svenson, his voice low with caution.

‘Well observed.’ The Contessa brushed past – Svenson flinched and brought up an arm – to the room’s exit, an open arch that left him feeling nakedly vulnerable. She peered out. Far away were indefinable sounds – trundlings, calls – but nothing near. The Contessa turned and Svenson retreated several steps. She raised an eyebrow at the distance between them and smiled.

‘It is the particular character of royal dwelling places to possess such oddities, because they are in a constant state of being rebuilt and then abandoned and then rebuilt again – what was once a castle must become a house, and then with fashion a different sort of house. Portions are devoured by fire, or cannon, or rotting time – doors are bricked over with haste, walls no longer connect, and – as you see – whole staircases misplaced without care. The myriad adulteries of a court hang upon such lore – such secrets are guarded, after all. But secret-keepers die and it can be possible to have such rooms as this … reliably to one’s self.’

‘Ah.’

‘And in answer to your persistent questions. Twenty yards through that wall is the Greenway, and beyond it the river.’

She pointed to a wall upon which hung a wide mirror, the silver spotted with decay. Below the mirror was a divan draped with blankets so tattered as to predate living memory. Svenson sensed a sneeze just looking at them.

‘Then we’ve come quite a distance.’

Further speech died in the Doctor’s throat, and he licked his dry lips. There had been ample opportunity to end his life on the dark staircase. What did the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza possibly need that he should still breathe? He nodded deferentially to the woman’s bosom. ‘You preserved two papers from Harcourt’s portfolio.’

‘I did indeed. Will you retrieve them?’

‘I should prefer you did not mock me, madam.’

‘We all prefer, Doctor, it does not signify.’ She slid two slim fingers beneath her bodice, then drew them out with the papers pinched between. ‘I will happily exchange a view of their contents for