The Chemickal Marriage

Miss Temple sighed heavily, almost a groan. ‘We were together, you know … the Contessa and I, in a goods van, from Karthe. I was cold, and so tired.’

‘Were you harmed?’

Miss Temple’s voice took on a pleading tone. ‘I did nothing wrong. She is a wicked woman.’

‘Celeste.’ Svenson knelt in front of her. ‘Eloise told us you had looked into a glass book – Celeste, you cannot blame yourself –’

‘Of course I can’t! I did not ask for this – this – infestation! I cannot think! I cannot go two minutes –’ Her cheeks went red and she covered her face with both hands. Svenson touched her knee and Miss Temple yelped. He stood at once, blushing. ‘I have tried,’ she whimpered. ‘But even with her – her of all people. She sees through my skin. I cannot think but I am overcome. God help me – God help me!’

He had tended her through fever, bathed her, applied poultices, yet, as Miss Temple so boldly revealed herself a creature of appetite, the Doctor felt his view of her could shift. Was he such an ape? Was he so fragile? He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. Miss Temple pulled her hands away and Doctor Svenson saw, without question, her tear-brimmed eyes dart to his groin.

‘Chang and yourself – you mentioned a wardrobe – did you –’

‘Did we what?’ she asked hopelessly.

‘Did you see anyone else?’

‘In the wardrobe?’

‘In the Palace.’

‘Hundreds of them! That was why we had to hide!’

‘Yes – of course –’

‘It was terrible! That tiny space! Do you not understand?’

‘I do – my poor dear – but – does Chang – I mean to say, did you –’

His gaze slipped to her bosom, and, before he could shift it, she had seen. To Svenson’s dismay Miss Temple’s expression altered in an instant. Within her undimmed agitation appeared first a flash of unfeigned hunger and directly after a grimace of contempt that shook him to his core. Then her face fell into her hands. Her huddled shoulders shook.

He felt the cold isolation creep back into his bones. The girl was a quivering ruin.

‘My dear Celeste. Gather yourself. Say nothing more. We will find the Contessa. We will find the Comte.’

‘They think it all a perfect joke!’

‘That is laughter they will choke on. Be brave still, and wipe your eyes. There is no shame. We must reclaim Cardinal Chang.’

When the card was removed, Chang cursed and set to rubbing his eyes and the skull around them. Svenson heard a new note of hoarseness in Chang’s voice, and noted the pallor of his lips, the shine of fluid at his nostrils.

‘Are you ill? Is it the card?’

‘It is nothing at all.’

‘You should let me examine you.’

‘We have wasted enough of the evening.’

‘You have not seen the wound – truly, if you would just –’

‘No.’ Chang slipped his dark glasses back into place. ‘I am perfectly well. Certainly compared to either of you.’

Despite Chang’s bad humour, Svenson was glad for the distraction. Miss Temple had done her best to restore her face, turning away as if to examine the tapestry.

‘The floors above are thick with people,’ said Chang. ‘We cannot hope to pass unseen. That no one has come down and found us is only due to their fear of past contagion.’

‘What contagion?’ asked Svenson.

‘The sickness! The glass woman’s legacy!’

‘But we are well away from Staelmaere House, under the Palace – not twenty yards from the river.’

Chang pointed through the archway. ‘Twenty yards will take you to the Duke’s own cellars.’

‘But – but the Contessa told me –’

Chang snorted.

‘But why would she lie?’

‘To aide her own escape. Or provoke your capture.’

‘But you two fled deeper into the Palace,’ said Svenson. ‘Why come back?’

‘We knew no other way out,’ Miss Temple said. ‘And hoped we might find others in hiding – as we in fact did.’

‘Then we may be near Phelps and Cunsher. If they are taken, we must rescue them.’

Chang exhaled with impatience. ‘That would be the height of folly. To search means throwing away our own lives and abandoning all hope of stopping Vandaariff and the Contessa. Phelps and Cunsher know this.’

Svenson did his best to swallow his irritation, hating how expressing simple decency rendered him, in Chang’s eyes, a sentimental fool.

‘Well, then, if we search for Vandaariff –’

‘Vandaariff is gone,’ Chang scoffed. ‘He only came for his fireworks in the square, and for the pleasure of his hosts’ abasement.’

‘Then where do we find him?’

‘Harschmort. Raaxfall. Setting off another blast in Stropping Station. Anywhere.’ Chang jerked his chin at Miss Temple. ‘Ask her.’

‘I have no idea.’ Miss Temple spoke quietly, and to his dismay Svenson realized she had just consulted the Comte’s tainted memories, surely to compensate for displaying her weakness a moment before. He had told her to be brave, but hadn’t intended self-punishment.

Between Chang’s distemper and Miss Temple’s distress, the Doctor felt it was for him to set their path. But he could not make sense of the most basic facts. Had the Contessa left him to be captured? Why reveal the Comte’s painting if she simply wanted to see him hang? Svenson fought the urge for a cigarette. What had the Contessa told him, exactly? And once the Doctor had eventually wrenched himself from the blue glass card, left to himself, would he not have followed her direction?

‘What are you staring at?’ Chang asked.

Svenson pointed to the mirror. ‘The other side of this wall.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Nor I. Follow me.’

The Doctor crossed to the archway. As Chang stood, his boot slid, scraping on the floor. Svenson turned to see him pick something up, and frown.

‘Some idiot’s button,’ muttered Chang, and he threw it away.

There was no other side of the wall they could reach. The corridor ended in a stack of barrels. ‘I told you,’ said Chang. ‘We are in the cellars.’

Svenson frowned. ‘She acquainted me with the Comte’s painting to provoke some action. Saying I was near the river must have been deliberate, to send me in that direction …’

‘The woman is a vampire,’ said Chang. ‘Cruelty for the sake of being cruel.’

‘Cruelty would have meant taking my life.’

‘If the Contessa was civil it must have galled her terribly,’ Miss Temple observed, ‘like playing courtesan to a bitter enemy.’

‘Wait.’ The Doctor pointed. ‘Look at the floor.’

Thin lines of grit curved across the tile from beneath the barrels, as if they had been moved. Chang reached for a barrel and Svenson helped him shift it, revealing a metal door set into the stone. Hanging from the knob by a leather loop was a notched brass tube three inches long.

‘The pneumatic vestibule,’ Svenson said. ‘And here is the key.’

Inside the panelled box, Svenson paused. ‘Do we follow the Contessa, or escape?’