The Chemickal Marriage

‘By ritual.’

‘Then brought back to life?’

‘Reborn and redeemed.’

‘And what is made, in this spectacular marriage – when these two become one?’ Chang’s voice became snide. ‘Or, excuse me, three – or also six –’

‘They make heaven on earth.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘The restoration of natural law.’

‘What does that mean?’

It was Locarno’s turn to scoff. ‘What informs our every dream? The return of Eden.’

In the lowest basement Chang availed himself of a porter’s luncheon, trustingly left on a table. He ate standing, and stuffed the last bites into his mouth before lifting the sewage grate with both hands. He emerged some time later in the shadow of St Celia’s madhouse. Chang washed his hands and face at its carved fountain – an infant baptized by Forgetfulness and Hope – and slopped water onto each boot, the worse for a second journey underground.

Three streets past St Celia’s was Fabrizi’s. Chang’s visit was brief – and cost the second of his rolled banknotes – but he was once more armed: a stick of ash with iron at the tip and, inside it, a double-edged blade, twelve inches and needle-sharp. Signor Fabrizi himself said nothing with regard to Chang’s absence or his present disarray, but Chang knew full well the picture he made. He had seen it himself too many times, men risking all on a last desperate throw – a gamble, it was obvious, they had already lost. If one ever saw them again it was only being pulled from the river, faces as shapeless and swollen as an uncooked loaf.

Before leaving, he had asked Father Locarno if there was anything unique to The Chemickal Marriage that might have explained its singular attraction for the Comte.

‘The messenger, of course.’

‘Of course? Then why not mention this before?’

The priest had huffed. ‘You wanted the story.’

‘What messenger?’

‘The hermit is summoned by an angel, whose wings are “filled with eyes” – a reference to Argus, the hundred-eyed watchman slain by Hermes –’

‘A reference to what purpose?’

‘The messenger – the Virgin – is a figure of vigilance –’

‘Wait – the Bride is a multi-eyed virgin who is slain?’

Locarno had shaken his head in exasperation. ‘By Virgin I refer to the angel.’

‘Not the Bride?’

‘Not at all –’

‘The Bride is not a virgin?’

‘Of course she is. But the angel – the emblematic Virgin – messenger, summoner – also presides over the executions, the wedding and the rebirth. She is called Virgo Lucifera, and is quite unique to this particular work.’

‘Lucifer?’

‘Have you no Latin? Lucifera. Light. The virgin of enlightenment.’

‘A creature of tenderness and mercy, then?’

‘On the contrary. Angels have no more emotion than birds of prey. They are creatures of justice, and therefore relentless.’

A covetous pride infused Locarno’s speech. Chang turned with a shiver. There was enough cruelty in the world without its being worshipped.

Halfway back to St Celia’s was an apothecary’s, where Chang purchased a three-penny roll of gauze. As the clerk measured the cloth to cut, Chang’s gaze passed across the bottled opiates behind the counter. Any one would exhaust the coins in his pocket, requiring him to use the final banknote. He stuffed the gauze in his pocket and walked out before temptation got the better of him.

He hurried towards the high walls of St Albericht’s, a seminary given over to the Church’s more worldly concerns: finance, property, diplomatic intrigue. Was the blast at the cathedral damaging enough to force the Archbishop to shift his residence? Chang slipped into the shadows opposite St Albericht’s and was gratified by a veritable parade of displaced churchmen.

Something about the look Fabrizi had given Chang – that presentiment of doom – sparked a reckless daring. He emerged behind two black-frocked priests escorting an elderly monsignor in red, a satin toque capping his bald head like a cherry atop a block of ham. Chang stepped hard on one priest’s ankle. The man stumbled and when the second priest turned Chang knocked him, arms a-flailing, into the gutter. Chang’s arm hooked the Monsignor’s neck and dragged him into an alley, out of sight. It took perhaps five seconds to remove the long scarlet coat, and fewer to snatch the wallet beneath it, hanging by a strap across the old man’s chest.

He left the Monsignor slumped against the bricks. It was not often that Chang practised open thievery, but he was of the opinion that priests had no possessions themselves, only goods in common. Cardinal Chang, as common as they came, was pleased to liberate his share.

As he rushed on, Chang felt a distracting lightness. Attacking the priests might have been impulsive, but he’d never been truly at risk. No, the sharp edge to his mood was entirely due to time, as if death were a destination his nerves already sensed.

He had lost her. Undeserving people had died before – why was she different? Her mulish presence had destroyed his solitude, just as her ignorant ideals had exposed his complacency. The three of them on the Boniface rooftop. Without his realizing, Celeste Temple had come to embody Chang’s notion of the future. Not his own future so much as the possibility that someone might, with all the ridiculous attending symbolism, be saved.

Chang was unable to imagine a life beyond this fight.

When the ground began to rise, Chang ducked into a filthy alcove whose use as a privy had overtaken that for assignations. He balled up Foison’s silk coat and threw it into the corner. He tucked his glasses inside the fine red coat and did up the buttons to its high collar. He then wound the gauze around his eyes, thinly enough to still see, but so his scars peeked out. He left the alcove and continued with a slower pace, tapping his stick, until he reached the high stone steps. Almost immediately a man in an attorney’s robe offered Chang his arm. Chang accepted with a gracious murmur and they climbed together.

The ancient bones of the Marcelline Prison had been laid as an amphitheatre, built with the seats climbing naturally up the slope. The marble had long been stripped away to drape church fronts and country homes. All that remained of the original edifice was an archway carved with masks, jeering and weeping at each soul ferried through.

At the top of the steps Chang thanked the attorney and tapped his way to the guardhouse, introducing himself as Monsignor Lucifera, legate to the Archbishop. As hoped, the warder found it impossible to look away from Chang’s bandaged eyes.

‘I was at the cathedral. Such destruction cannot, of course, deter my errand. I require a man called Pfaff. Yellow hair, with an ugly orange coat. He will have been taken by your constables at the Seventh Bridge, or near the Palace.’

The warder paused. Chang cocked his head, as if listening for the man’s compliance.

‘Ah, well, sir –’

‘I expect you require a writ.’

‘I do, sir, yes. Standard custom –’

‘I have lost all such documents, along with my assistant, Father Skoll. Father Skoll’s arms, you see. Left like the poor doll of a wicked child.’

‘How horrid, sir –’

‘Thus I lack your writ.’ Chang could sense a restless line forming behind him, and made a point to speak more lingeringly. ‘The document case was in his hands, you understand. Shattered altogether. One would have thought poor Skoll a porcupine for the splinters –’