The Chemickal Marriage

each nostril with the shock of it. Then the cotton ball was removed and he gasped with relief, barely noting the Doctor’s procedural murmur.

‘And last of all, quicksilver …’

Each of the other applications had brought a sudden, specific reaction, but this last swallowed Chang’s senses as wholly as if his head had been forced into cold water. His bearings were lost in a swirl of visions from the Comte’s painting. His hands were black … his foot sank into the fertile earth of a new-tilled field … he was naked … he wore a swirling robe … he held a sword bright as the sun… and all around him faces, in the air like hanging lamps, people he knew – laughing, begging, bloodied – and then before him knelt the Contessa – blue teeth, one hand groping his thigh, and in the other, offered up, vivid red, visceral, oozing –

He was gasping, his face pressed into the leather table top. What had happened? What had been done to him?

‘It is the worst result,’ the Contessa was saying. ‘All tempered into one.’

‘That is impossible,’ replied Piersohn. ‘Whatever his intention, the chemical facts –’

‘A moment, Doctor.’ Chang felt her touch. ‘Are you with us, Cardinal Chang?’

‘Can you remove it?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Chang pushed himself to his feet, and called harshly to Piersohn, ‘Can you remove it without killing me?’

Piersohn shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, whatever has been implanted, enough time has passed that the seeding –’

‘Seeding?’ Chang kicked the standing tray, crashing it back into the Doctor’s desk.

‘That is the Comte’s own term,’ protested Piersohn.

‘For what?’ shouted Chang. ‘What has he done?’

Piersohn glanced warily at the Contessa. ‘He made many notes – untested theories … a procedure for the assimilation of glass within a body.’

‘To make me his servant.’ Chang pulled his shirt over his head.

‘But are you, Cardinal?’ The Contessa waited for Chang to restore his dark spectacles. ‘Are you his creature?’

‘No more than I am yours.’

‘Exactly. But Oskar is arrogant. He will believe his magic has worked. Do you see? If you are convincing, his hopes will blind him.’

Had Vandaariff’s plan worked? What if the implanted glass was just another sort of timed device, ticking its way towards detonation? The third day was not finished. Chang thrust his arms through the cleric’s coat and began on the buttons. ‘And Celeste Temple will be freed?’

‘She will.’

‘And she is whole? Undamaged?’

‘As far as I know.’

Chang looked at Pfaff, who wore a pale expression of unease. The stick had been restored to one piece, and Chang snatched it away. He turned to the Contessa. ‘As soon as she arrives, you will deliver her to Doctor Svenson.’

‘As you wish. And once you are with Robert Vandaariff, you know what to do.’

‘Cave in his skull.’

‘With the first brick that comes to hand.’

The Contessa led Chang and Pfaff back to the arid garden square. The streets remained empty, though in the distance Chang thought the sky had darkened.

‘Is that smoke?’

The Contessa shrugged. ‘Off you go, Jack. Find me when you have finished.’

‘Finished what?’ asked Chang.

‘None of your damned business, old fellow.’ Pfaff took the Contessa’s hand, bending to kiss it. Chang could have kicked Pfaff’s head like a ball, but took the moment to glance around him … the shrubbery of the park, brick gateposts, the shadow of an ornamental column …

Pfaff straightened, lifting the Contessa’s hand to his mouth for another kiss, then turned on his heel, his orange coat-tails swinging dramatically. Chang stooped and took a stone from the gravel walkway.

‘What are you doing?’ asked the Contessa. ‘We must –’

Pfaff had gone twenty paces when Chang threw the stone, perhaps the size of a pigeon’s egg, striking square between the man’s shoulder blades. Pfaff cried out, arching his back, and wheeled round, whipping a blade from beneath his coat, his face flushed red.

‘God damn you, Chang! Damn you to hell!’

Cardinal Chang swept off an imaginary hat and waved with foppish deference. Pfaff snorted with rage and stamped across the square.

Chang straightened with a sigh. He only hoped he’d guessed correctly, and that his signal had been seen.

‘I would ask if you are always such a child,’ observed the Contessa, ‘if I did not already have the answer. A child and a bully.’

‘I would not say you are in any position to judge.’

‘On the contrary, I am expert in each field.’ The Contessa smiled broadly. ‘That is why I find you so diverting – as much as any dancing, collared bear.’

‘Even when your man takes the brunt?’

‘Tish! Mr Pfaff is his own, or at least intends to be – his skills extend only so far, of course, a fledgling peeping from the nest.’

‘He kisses your hand.’

‘A hand is easily washed.’ Chang frowned his disapproval and she laughed again. ‘O I forget myself – it is not every day I stroll with Monsignor Virtue, beside whom I am the very Whore of Babylon. Dear Cardinal, do you want to kiss my hand instead?’

He took hold of her arm. She tensed, watching, mouth just open, daring him to act, though whether in violence or passion he had no idea – did the woman even distinguish?

‘Such a shame …’ she whispered.

They stood in broad daylight at the edge of the square, yet he could no more step clear than if they were trapped in the crush of a ballroom. Chang’s voice was tight. ‘Since when did you care for shame?’

Her words remained hushed. ‘Afterwards … after you kill Vandaariff … after Miss Temple is redeemed … we must once more seek each other’s life. It seems a terrible waste … two such well-matched creatures …’

‘I am no creature, madam.’

Her eyes traced his jugular. ‘And that is why I shall win.’

They walked beneath a canopy of trees on streets bereft of traffic. The Contessa’s eyes became restless and distracted, scanning the fine house-fronts but seeing none of them.

‘Have you ever been on a ship, Cardinal Chang? On the sea?’

‘No. Have you?’

‘Of course. I’m not a peasant.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘But I have never sailed any distance – for weeks.’

‘Does that matter, aside from outlasting seasickness?’

‘Have you not wanted to visit Africa? China? To feel the Indian sun on your face?’

‘No.’

She sighed. ‘Neither have I.’

‘I fail to see the problem.’

‘Did you ever hear Francis Xonck speak of Brasil?’

‘Once, which was enough.’

‘All Francis ever sought was excess.’