The Chemickal Marriage

Cunsher grimaced at his thumbnail, bruised purple, and brought it to his mouth to suck. ‘And conditions in the city?’

Chang’s reply was swallowed by an oath as the coach came to a sudden halt. He stuck his upper body out of the doorway. The street was a tangle of unmoving coaches. Trumpets clamoured ahead of them, followed by a menacing rush of drums and the crash of stamping boots. Chang ducked back inside, speaking urgently.

‘The Army holds the road – we should escape on foot, before there is violence.’ Chang leapt down, ignoring the protests of the driver, and extended a hand to Cunsher. ‘Can you walk?’

‘O yes, since I must. If we are blocked from above the Circus Garden, then this is … Moulting Lane? Just so – and if we keep to it as far as the canal –’

But Chang had already set off. The smaller man followed gamely, calling to Chang as they threaded a path through the debris.

‘The soldiers are not constables – that is, they do not think of suspects and disguises. The likes of us may escape notice.’

‘Unless they have been ordered to detain everyone,’ replied Chang. ‘You know full well how many of the men in your cell were innocent.’

Cunsher looked over his shoulder at another flourish from the trumpets. A gunshot cracked out, then a spatter of five more. Cunsher stumbled into a box of rotten cabbages and came to a stop. The next chorus of trumpets came laced with screams.

‘Dear God.’

Chang took Cunsher’s arm and hauled him on. ‘God is nowhere a part of it.’

The Duke’s Canal was a narrow channel of green water, so choked with bridges and scaffolding that it vanished for wide stretches, then tenaciously reappeared, like an elderly aunt determined to survive her younger relations. But the route was bereft of soldiers and, mindful of Cunsher’s weakness, Chang spared a moment for a nearby tavern. He bought them each a pint of bitter ale, and pickled eggs from a crock for Cunsher. The small man consumed his meal in silence, sipping the beer and chewing as steadily as a patient mule.

‘Were you at the cathedral?’

Chang turned to the tavern’s brick hearth, where a grizzled man in shirtsleeves sat with a serving woman. Chang nodded.

‘When will it be stopped?’ the woman asked. ‘Where is the Queen?’

‘Queen?’ The man rumbled. ‘Where’s the old Duke? He’s the one we need! He’d lay ’em down like mowing wheat – damned rebels.’

‘A mob went to Raaxfall,’ called the barman. ‘Burnt the place like a pyre.’

The pensioner at the hearth nodded with grim relish. ‘No more than they deserved.’

‘Were the rebels from Raaxfall?’ asked Chang.

‘Of course they were!’

‘And yet we are just come from the Circus Garden,’ said Chang. ‘No one from Raaxfall in sight. Soldiers are shooting folk in the street.’

‘Rebels in the Circus Garden?’ piped the girl.

‘Dig ’em out!’ The old man slammed his tankard onto the bench, so the foam slopped over his hand. ‘Right into the grave!’

Chang took a pull at his mug. ‘And what if they come here?’

‘They won’t.’

‘But if they do?’

The old man pointed at two rust-flecked sabres over the hearth. ‘We’ll have at ’em.’

‘Before or after the soldiers burn the entire street?’

The mood in the tavern went cold in an instant. Chang set down his mug and stood. ‘The Duke of Staelmaere has been dead these two months.’

‘How do you know that?’ called the barman.

‘I saw his rotting corpse.’

‘By God – you’ll speak with respect!’ The old man rose to his feet.

‘There’s been no announcement,’ said the girl. ‘No funeral –’

‘Where are the funerals for the dead in the Customs House?’

‘What kind of priest are you?’ growled the barman.

‘No kind of priest at all.’

The barman stepped back nervously. Cunsher cleared his throat. He had finished the third egg. Chang set two coins on the counter, and flipped a third to the serving girl on his way to the door.

‘If you cannot see who you are fighting, then you ought to run.’

‘I see no use in scaring these people,’ Cunsher observed as they continued along the canal. ‘Does one blame sheep for their shyness?’

‘If the sheep is a man, I do.’

Cunsher scratched his moustache with a forefinger. ‘And if they did rise, like the mob that burnt Raaxfall – would you not despise them just the same?’

They walked on. Chang felt the man’s eyes.

‘What is it?’

‘Your pardon. The scars are extraordinary. How are you not blind?’

‘A gentle nature preserved me.’

‘Everyone is very curious to know what happened. Doctor Svenson and Mr Phelps discussed the matter one evening, in medical terms –’ At Chang’s silence Cunsher caught himself and bobbed a mute apology. ‘You are perhaps curious about my own history. The facts of exile, life left behind –’

‘No.’

‘No doubt it is a commonplace. How many souls does each of us preserve in memory? And when we pass, how many pass with us, remembered no more?’

‘I have no idea,’ Chang replied crisply. ‘What do you know of the Contessa’s patron in the Palace, Sophia of Strackenz?’

Cunsher nodded at the shift in conversation. ‘Another commonplace. An impoverished exile with the poor taste to have become unattractive.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘The Princess is insipid to an exceptional degree.’

Chang frowned. ‘The Contessa does not act without reason. She sequestered herself in the Palace while employing the glassworks and Crabbe’s laboratory. Now she has abandoned them all – as if an event she had worked for, or awaited, has finally occurred.’

Chang stopped. Cunsher came up to him and stood, breathing hard. When he saw where Chang had brought them, he clucked his tongue.

‘You grasp my idea,’ offered Chang.

‘Quite so. Court society is about patronage.’

‘And her target’s elevation is recent.’

‘Brazen, of course, but that is the lady.’

‘Precisamente.’

Given his appearance, Cunsher offered to remain outside and observe.

‘And if you do not reappear, or are exposed?’ he asked.

‘Escape. Find Svenson. Make your own way to Harschmort and put a bullet in Vandaariff’s brain.’

Cunsher twitched his moustache in a smile. Chang crossed to a mansion guarded by black-booted soldiers in high bearskins – elite guardsmen. The officer in charge had just given entry to a society lady with a beefy jawline and hair stained the colour of a tangerine. At Chang’s approach the officer resumed his former position, blocking the way.

‘Father.’

‘Lieutenant. I require a word with Lady Axewith, if she is at home.’

‘At home is not the same as receiving, Father. Your business?’

‘The Archbishop’s business is with Lady Axewith.’ Chang was an inch taller than