The Chemickal Marriage

white jacket and dark trousers. He had been beaten and his face swelled with bruises. Even as he spoke, his body did not move, as if to do so lay beyond him.

‘Who are you?’

‘Michel Gorine. Late of the Old Palace, now Her Majesty’s guest.’

‘I am Miss Temple. I’m not anyone’s guest at all.’

‘Forgive my not rising.’ He raised his hands, bound about the wrists with knotted rope. ‘Would you mind trying to untie me? My teeth will not do – our hosts knocked a few loose and I am loath to risk my smile.’

Miss Temple did not move. ‘Is this the Old Palace, where we are now?’

‘The Old Palace is a brothel. We are in a shed outside Bathings.’

‘What is Bathings?’

‘What everyone calls the Royal Therm?. I wish you would untie my hands.’

Miss Temple pulled at the door, then kicked it again, without heat. She looked at the man in the corner. ‘I suppose you told him everything?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘If you had not talked they would still be at you. Now they must be confirming what you said, in case you tried to lie. Did you lie?’

‘About what?’

‘I would be happy to know. The fellow I met was named Schoepfil. Stout and weaselly.’

Gorine shifted to a sitting position. ‘Why would anyone interrogate you?’

‘What did, or didn’t, you lie about, Mr Gorine, and to whom?’

Gorine carefully touched his split lip. ‘An iron rooster named Bronque.’

Miss Temple nodded. ‘I thought he was wicked.’

‘He has a wicked fist.’

‘Why should he care about a brothel?’

‘Who are you?’

‘No one at all. I don’t suppose you saw a beautiful woman with black hair and a dark dress?’ Gorine shook his head. ‘I can’t think they killed her – how could they have killed her but not me? No, the real question is whether she is a prisoner or their ally. She’s very good at getting people to do things. Did you see the dead girl?’

‘What dead girl?’

‘Francesca Trapping. A poor pale thing with red hair.’

Gorine shook his head carefully. ‘How did she die?’

‘That is the mystery. Those beasts have cut her to pieces to find out.’

‘Good Lord,’ cried Gorine. ‘Why?’

‘Because there is very little time – for anyone.’ She crossed to Gorine. ‘If you touch me I will do my best to hurt you, and my best is keen.’

‘I recline forewarned.’

She tugged at the knots to no great success. ‘You’ve bled into the rope.’

‘My apologies.’

Miss Temple lifted his hands to her mouth, taking a knot in her teeth and tugging until the first strand grudgingly pulled loose. She spat it out and made quick work of the rest, until the sticky rope lay uncoiled on the floor. She snatched up some straw to wipe her hands. Gorine studied the raw bands around his wrists. ‘You should wash that with salt and hot water,’ said Miss Temple. ‘It will hurt, but otherwise your hands will puff like a brace of adders.’

‘I’ll have my manservant boil some up directly,’ muttered Gorine, but then he looked up at Miss Temple and caught her smile. He shook his head. ‘You’re an odd creature.’

‘I suggest we escape, but I do not know where to go. My friends have vanished, if they are even alive.’

‘My friends as well.’

‘You have friends?’

‘A shock, I know,’ Gorine replied. ‘A man named Mahmoud. A woman named Madelaine Kraft.’

‘I do not know them.’

‘Why should you, unless you have traffic with our business?’

‘Which I do not.’ But then Miss Temple sighed at an unwelcome thought. ‘Unless you were acquainted with a woman named Angelique.’

Gorine leant forward. ‘How in hell do you know of her?’

‘Part of the same exceedingly long story. She died at Harschmort House.’

‘By whose hand?’

Though she herself had fired the bullet, Miss Temple scarcely considered her answer a lie. ‘The Comte d’Orkancz. He did terrible things to her body, with machines.’ Before Gorine could give vent to his anger – anger that, she knew, would be fuelled to excess by the shame of his own imprisonment – she changed the topic. ‘The fact is, I know all sorts of things – perhaps more about your own troubles than you. But if you expect me to help you must say what you divulged to Colonel Bronque.’

Gorine snorted with disbelief. ‘How can you help me?’

‘I have already untied your hands.’

‘And I thank you. But tonight my place of business has been destroyed, my friends – my family – have disappeared, others whose welfare is my charge have been thrown to the law.’

Miss Temple crossed to the door. ‘Obviously first we must quit this shed.’

‘It is bolted from the outside – and made to withstand the strength of a horse.’

‘But I am not a horse.’ Miss Temple dropped into a far from ladylike crouch.

‘One wonders what you are.’

Miss Temple smiled, for she took pleasure in being wrongly doubted. This was hardly the first time she had been shut in a stable. As a girl, being a routine nuisance, she’d often found the door bolted behind her by some resentful groom. When Kelling had pushed her in, she had noticed the similarity to her father’s stable: instead of a wooden bar across the front, the doors were joined by an ostensibly stronger metal bolt, waist-high, which was further pinned in place by an iron pole sunk into the ground. Unable to shift the bolt, the young Miss Temple discovered that one could lift up the pole. Doing so while carefully pushing outwards opened the doors in tiny increments and eventually slid the bolt from its socket.

It took her a minute of grunting effort to raise the pole. She stood, wiping the rust from her hands and glanced over at Gorine. He had not moved. She began to rock the doors forward.

‘What are you doing?’ Gorine called. ‘Where did you learn that?’

The door scraped free of the bolt. Miss Temple caught it before it swung wide and peered out. The derelict courtyard was empty as before. She looked back at Gorine.

‘It’s almost dark. With any luck –’

Miss Temple shrieked at the figure who appeared out of nowhere in the doorway. Gorine leapt to her defence, but Miss Temple had already turned with an outstretched hand. ‘A friend – it is a friend!’

‘I thought it might be you, mistress. We’ve little time.’ Cunsher’s voice was but a whisper, and Miss Temple was chagrined at her shriek, especially as she had been doing so well.

‘This is Mr Gorine,’ said Miss Temple, making it plain that she could whisper too.

Cunsher narrowed his eyes, then nodded. ‘Mrs Kraft.’

‘How do you know that?’ asked Gorine.

‘Mr Cunsher has my complete confidence,’ she said pointedly, and then explained to Cunsher, ‘I arrived in the custody of the Contessa, who may be either the prisoner of Mr Schoepfil or his ally. I believe she intended to depart with the contrivance of Mr Pfaff.’

‘How I’m here, miss. Cardinal Chang set me on Pfaff, while he went off with the Contessa.’

‘But the Contessa has been with me these hours. What happened to Chang?’ Her voice had risen and she felt Cunsher’s touch on her arm.

‘I cannot say. Pfaff has a carriage. Beyond the southern wall, under a stand of trees. He creeps into the courtyard every few minutes, and even goes so far as to peer into the windows.’

‘Did you see the German doctor?’ Both Miss Temple and Cunsher turned to Gorine with surprise. He held up his hands. ‘I am sorry, I should have been more trusting – I arrived in chains with Doctor Svenson. The child was