The Chemickal Marriage

shipping –’

The porter hesitated, as if he doubted his licence to say more. His eyes fell to Miss Temple and the girl. ‘If you don’t mind my speaking, it’s no sight for a lady, or a child. No sight for anyone. Straight from hell itself.’

‘Thank you for your kindness,’ said Miss Temple softly. The porter excused himself, fumbling for words. He hurried away, but not before Miss Temple noticed that the water in his bucket was stained red.

On her visit to the Customs House, Miss Temple had been shown the famous trading hall like a child visiting a grist mill is shown the great wheel. She had dutifully murmured amazement at the clamour around the dais, where busy clerks posted the latest figures in chalk. Her father’s agent had escorted her to the firm’s own office above the fray, hoping to shed her presence after a single cup of tea, but Miss Temple had insisted on examining every ledger, matching her resolve against that of the crisp-cuffed men forced to attend her. In the end she had affected a grudging satisfaction, aware that reticence and a scowling demeanour were her best defence against thievery. She had decided to get a recommendation from Roger for someone to study her accounts independently. No doubt that person would have been enmeshed with the Cabal, and she shuddered to think how near her holdings had come to being plundered …

But now the enormous trading hall was silent. Heatless shafts of morning light fell onto rows and rows of oblong bundles, quite unmistakably human beings, covering the entire floor. At first it seemed the trading hall had been given over as a dormitory for Chang’s dispossessed, but then she perceived their utter stillness, the shapeless huddling … there had to be hundreds … hadn’t the porter said the Shipping Board had been so consigned as well? He’d said something else … the cathedral –

Moving through the bodies were several cloaked figures, some standing, some bent low, making observations. Were they Ministry officials? Or perhaps the bereaved searching amongst the dead – only a few let in at a time, out of decency? One figure waved to the others. A lantern was shone on the corpse in question, and a satchel brought forward. The crouching man rifled the bag’s contents, but his back was to Miss Temple and she could not see his work.

The crouching figure rose and hobbled along the row of bodies – an elderly man, walking with a cane. He must be a doctor, or a savant from the Royal Society. Surely the authorities had found the glass spurs, but had they placed them as the source of the chaos?

Before Miss Temple could step forward or call out – not that she would have called out – Cardinal Chang pulled her from the archway.

‘The scale of it,’ Svenson whispered. Miss Temple assumed he meant the slaughter, but then the Doctor waved back towards the storage room in which they had emerged. ‘The bridge closed, the riverfront seized – now the Customs House shut down? And the Shipping Board? There are private warehouses that could be guarded to contain rumours, but they use this – by design. We know the explosions were deliberate – and now, just as deliberately, the city is strangled to a halt.’

‘Axewith and Vandaariff,’ said Chang. ‘This is why they met.’

‘But why?’ asked Miss Temple. ‘Even if Vandaariff wishes everything in ruins, why should the Privy Council agree to –’

‘The oldest lure of all,’ said Svenson. ‘He has given the Ministry an excuse to expand its power. Whether Axewith is a pliant fool or a knowing rogue scarcely matters. If money cannot move and the streets are filled with soldiers, who can fight him?’

Miss Temple did not understand at all. ‘But how does expanding Axewith’s power serve Vandaariff? I should think it makes it harder for any villainy to occur. As you say, soldiers on every street corner –’

‘But whose soldiers?’ Svenson asked with a vexing certainty. Miss Temple knew her mind was not strategic – the month after next might as well be Peru – but the Doctor spoke as if the world were a chess game worked out three moves in advance.

Chang eased himself between them, speaking quietly. ‘Whether this carnage justifies the soldiers or conceals their purpose, they are in place – and, especially after the gunplay in the Palace, they reduce our efforts to skulking.’

‘As being in hiding has reduced the Contessa’s,’ added the Doctor, ‘and if we are in her position, perhaps we can better understand her own intentions. Remember, she was in the Palace, but showed no interest in Vandaariff’s meeting with Axewith –’

‘All the more reason not to emulate her methods,’ replied Miss Temple.

‘That she follows a separate path does not make it wrong.’

Miss Temple huffed. ‘But all that has so exercised you – the soldiers, these writs, the Ministry – if those have nothing to do with the Contessa, then why do we speak of her? There are only the three of us – which would you have us address? Vandaariff, the Ministries or the Contessa?’

Svenson sighed. ‘We must address them all. I cannot see which holds the key.’

‘But that is impossible –’ Miss Temple stopped at a sour exclamation from Chang. ‘What?’

‘Keys. I had forgotten. The book that contains the Comte’s memories. The Contessa forged glass keys to read it safely.’

Miss Temple clenched her throat. ‘Even with a key that book is deadly.’

‘The Contessa is no fool.’ Svenson laid a gentle hand on Francesca’s shoulder. ‘She would recruit an exceptionally brave assistant to do the reading for her.’

The girl acted as if she did not hear, idly rubbing her shoe against the floor, proud of her secrets.

The cloaked figures had left the trading hall. At Chang’s insistence they clung to the edge on their own way across, creeping beneath the great chalkboards upon which the previous day’s figures were still visible. Atop the dais stood a massive clock, large enough to be seen from the floor. Its ticking echoed oddly – perhaps the machine contained a double works to prevent winding down in the midst of trading. To Miss Temple, the doubled ticking only made clear the narrowness of her luck. But for Chang’s swift action in the square, she might well have lain amongst these anonymous dead.

They were nearly to the other side when Svenson pressed Francesca’s hand into Miss Temple’s, to the dismay of both.

‘A moment. Keep going, I beg you.’

The Doctor dashed through the lanes of bodies to where the party of cloaked men had been. He knelt, lifting the covering from several corpses in turn. Svenson went still, staring down, then hurried to rejoin them.

Chang extended a hand for silence. They had reached the other side, and he cautiously peered into the column-swept portico. Miss Temple detected voices echoing from the front entrance.

She turned to ask what Svenson had seen, but the words died in her throat. From the field of corpses three figures had risen, wrapped in sheets like ghosts on the stage. Then the sheets fell away to reveal three cloaked men, positioned to block any angle of retreat. Beneath their cloaks Miss Temple glimpsed flashes of green. Soldiers from Raaxfall.

A dry chuckle drifted from the portico and from the columns emerged three more soldiers, Mr Foison and the man – the one amused – who’d hobbled with a cane.

‘Forgive my little ruse,’ called Robert Vandaariff. ‘Spirits from beyond! And yet you were fooled – of course you were, so inevitable as to be dull.’ The soldiers with Foison fanned out, blocking their way forward. Chang had a knife in each hand. Miss Temple tugged the revolver from her bag and felt her back touch that of Doctor Svenson, who faced the men behind.

‘The corpse I examined,’ Svenson whispered, ‘the transformed flesh had been removed, for study.’

‘For the future, Doctor! What convenience to find all three of you at a stroke …’ But then Vandaariff saw the girl. His voice took on an ugly tremor. ‘Sweet hell, the child. Is the Contessa dead?’

‘Don’t you want her dead?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘Eventually – O everything eventually. And how do you do, Cardinal? Counting the hours?’ But Vandaariff kept his gaze on Francesca. ‘Step away – let me see her. She is mine by rights, legally so. I am chief shareholder of Xonck Armaments and have been named guardian of all three Trapping orphans. Once their uncle Henry succumbs I will adopt them formally. Would you like that, my dear?’

The girl stood as still as a frightened rabbit. Vandaariff’s eyes glowed as he appraised her.

‘Your father – your true father – was a dear old friend. You have his eyes, and hair – now so wild …’