The Chemickal Marriage

The sanctum of squalid fairies, a cavern where gaslight laid a uric shimmer across the surface of the water. Miss Temple’s attention darted between the women in the pools, floating with the stolid determination of pondering frogs, and the hundreds more that stood along the walls, eyes lit with envy at those immersed – young and old, thin and fat, pink, pale, mottled, brown and veined. The mineral smell grew sharper as they walked, for the Duchess took them to the thick of the steam, to a wide bath whose far side lay in a cloud. She waded in, first down hidden steps and then, like a lumbering seal finding its ease, gliding gracefully to the centre of the pool. The Duchess stopped before a seat of mineral-glazed brass. Its equally substantial occupant – wide, fat, paste-coloured – was obscured by four servants, each tending to one floating, bloated limb. As the pool’s denizens watched, these servants wrapped and rewrapped their respective arm or leg with strips of cheesecloth, smearing between layers a greasy balm on their patient’s putrid, honeycombed skin.

The Contessa stabbed a nail into Miss Temple’s palm and she obediently dropped her eyes to the water. The Duchess spoke too quietly to hear – the hissing pipes, the low voices, the lapping pools, all rebounded off the tile in a buzz. Miss Temple leant closer to the Contessa’s towel-wrapped ear. She wanted to ask why she was here, why she had been saved, what the Contessa hoped to gain from a despised monarch who, if one could credit popular opinion, cared less about the state of her nation than Miss Temple, a keen eater of scones, cared about grinding flour. But what she whispered instead was this: ‘Why does everyone here dislike you?’

The Contessa replied from the corner of her mouth. ‘Of all people, you should know that counts for nothing.’

‘I have never cared.’

‘Lying scrub.’

‘She will not grant your request.’

‘I request nothing.’

The Queen gave the Duchess her reply, a sibilant fussing that ended in a flip of one puffed hand, and the Duchess extended a formal wave to where they waited. The Contessa descended into the pool, allowing the water to reach her breasts before extending both arms with a pleasing smile and pushing forward. Miss Temple advanced more slowly. The water was very hot and contained an unexpected effervescence. She sank to her chin and pinched herself. The Duchess made the Contessa’s introduction.

‘Rosamonde, Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, Your Majesty. An Italian gentlewoman.’

‘I am much honoured by Your Majesty’s attention,’ the Contessa murmured.

The Queen’s eyes in their leprous folds showed all the emotion of a toad.

‘And the Contessa’s companion,’ continued the Duchess. ‘A Miss Celestial Temple.’

Miss Temple bobbed her head, fixing her eyes on the floating basket that held cheesecloth and the greasy cruets.

‘I do not see why,’ wheezed the Queen in complaint. ‘Why should I see anyone when I am not well.’

The Duchess gave the Contessa a dark glare. ‘I am told the news is important.’

No one spoke. The water lapped against the tiles. The Queen huffed.

‘Funny … thing.’ The words came out in exhalations, as if the effort to form full sentences had been lost with her health, grammar perishing alongside mobility and hope. ‘Always to mind with an Italian. Roman honey. Gift from Sultan. Arab? African? Poppy?’

‘Her Majesty’s memory is far superior to mine,’ said the Duchess.

‘Sealed jug. Inch of wax if there was a dab – common clay pot – came with ribbons. Velvet sack. African velvet must be rare. I hope no one stole it, Poppy.’

‘I will consult the inventory, ma’am.’

‘Everyone steals everything. Italy? Italy.’ She poked a finger, thick as a gauze- wrapped candle stub, at the Contessa. ‘Jar of honey from the bottom of the sea. Roman ship, sunk by …’ The Queen paused, snorted. ‘Whales. Wicked. Whales eat anything. Still good. On account of the wax. Thousand-year-old honey. Ancient bees. My tenth year in the seat, or twelfth. Nothing like it on earth, rare as … rare as …’

‘Milk from a snake, ma’am?’ offered a lady clustered behind the Duchess.

‘Never,’ growled the Queen. ‘Notion’s absurd.’ The servants took her subsequent silence as an opportunity to work, wiping the mottled skin with a sponge and spreading a new strip of cloth, the yellow oil seething through the weave.

‘Did Your Majesty enjoy the honey?’ the Contessa asked demurely.

‘Ate it all with a spoon.’ The Queen wrinkled one eye against a bead of sweat. ‘Lady Axewith says I must see you.’

‘Lady Axewith is extremely kind.’

‘Bothersome scold. Husband should switch her raw.’ The Queen grunted. ‘Venice.’

‘Your Majesty’s memory is very fine,’ replied the Contessa.

‘Should be Rome. One prefers Italians with pedigree.’

The Duchess cleared her throat. ‘Lord Axewith waits, Your Majesty, for your seal. Lord Vandaariff is insistent, given the popular crisis –’

‘Popular does not last.’

‘No, Majesty. But Lord Vandaariff has made a most generous guarantee –’

‘Lord Axewith can wait.’ The Queen shifted on the submerged throne, slopping the water over her arms and draping her voice in a fuller malevolence. ‘What do you want?’

The Contessa blinked her violet eyes. ‘Why, nothing at all, ma’am.’

‘Then you waste your time as well as mine! Lady Axewith shall no longer be admitted! Hellfire, Poppy, if every trivial foreign person –’

‘Beg pardon, ma’am. I have come not for myself, but for you.’

At the Contessa’s interruption the Queen’s expression became fierce. Her wide mouth snapped like a pug’s. ‘You – you – this – Poppy –’

Steam rose up around the Contessa’s placid face. ‘My errand concerns Your Majesty’s late brother.’

‘All my brothers are late!’ the Queen replied in a roar.

‘The Duke of Staelmaere, Your Majesty, who was Privy Minister.’

The Queen snorted suddenly, noting the Contessa’s beauty as if it were an unpleasant odour. She waggled her over-fleshed throat. ‘And one supposes you knew him.’

‘Indeed, no, ma’am. The Duke had meagre use for any woman.’

‘Then what?’

‘Surely Majesty … you have heard rumours of the irregular nature of the Duke’s passing.’

Moisture had pearled across the Contessa’s upper lip. The Duchess was poised to end the audience. The Queen wriggled her nose, then turned for an attendant to wipe it.

‘Perhaps I have. Who is she?’

Miss Temple felt every eye around the pool fall upon her.

‘Miss Celestial Temple,’ repeated the Duchess.

‘Ridiculous. Name for a Chinaman. Girl should be ashamed.’

The Contessa slid forward. ‘Your Majesty should know that the Duke, your brother, learnt of a plot against Your Majesty’s health. Naturally he moved to expose it.’

Miss Temple knew this to be an arrant lie.

The Queen glowered. The whispers around the pool hushed. The Contessa continued.

‘Your brother’s death was an act of murder, Your Majesty, of the highest treason. And now others taken into