The Chemickal Marriage

with him – she was killed, in the fire.’

‘Doctor Svenson is here?’ hissed Miss Temple.

‘What did Svenson say?’ Cunsher demanded. ‘Anything at all –’

‘He went to the Institute, with Mrs Kraft. She has been without her mind – the Doctor knew of a laboratory at the Institute. He said she has been restored.’

Cunsher’s sharp gesture brought them to silence. Miss Temple glimpsed a shadow flit past a window, far across the courtyard. Cunsher moved in pursuit, pulling the others after him.

The skulking shadow led them ably around a guard post and a strolling pair of gentlemen with cigars. Cunsher paused and motioned Miss Temple and Gorine near.

‘There is a postern gate,’ he whispered. ‘His coach waits on the other side.’

Ahead of them Pfaff edged along the outer wall, in his orange coat like a fox skirting a farmhouse. Cunsher followed just as deliberately, with Gorine at his heels. Miss Temple let them creep away. Their attention fixed on Pfaff, the men had not noticed an unwatched doorway back into the Royal Therm?. But Miss Temple darted to it, her business unfinished.

With the exception of her proper Aunt Agathe, Miss Temple had never met anyone who held the old Queen in the slightest regard. The image of Lord Axewith waiting in the mouldy vestibule spoke to how rarely the mechanics of government ever touched the monarch, and Miss Temple wondered at all the ladies in the baths – how their ambitions were tied to a sinking ship, how they must know this perfectly well. What kept them in such close attendance – Miss Temple shuddered anew to recall the Queen’s skin – was it actual loyalty, or had they wagered all to extract a crumb of favour from the doomed woman’s final testament? Miss Temple knew very little about the Crown Prince – only that he was becalmed in a lax sixth decade amongst actresses and wine – but guessed that he too carried a penumbra of hangers-on and hopefuls. No wonder active men like Harald Crabbe and Robert Vandaariff could manipulate the mighty with such ease, and with such relative anonymity. The courtiers they would formerly have served had exchanged actual accomplishment for comfort and prestige.

All of which was only to clarify Miss Temple’s position. If she were a man, all she would have required to brazen any corridor was a Ministry topcoat and a scowl. For a woman, it was more difficult. She was in less danger of being named as a fugitive than of being cast out for inferior couture.

She followed the sound of water to a bustling laundry room, where harried, red-faced women stirred steaming tubs, and others wrung out linens and hung them to dry. Miss Temple emerged with a stack of fresh towels, hoping they would proclaim a legitimate errand. Managing several corridors without being challenged, she steeled herself to stop a young maid, who carried a covered tray.

‘I beg your pardon. I am looking for Mr Schoepfil.’

The maid apologized for not knowing the gentleman.

‘He may be with Colonel Bronque.’

Again the maid knew nothing. Miss Temple waited for a pair of older ladies to pass, aware of the maid’s discomfort in their presence.

‘They will be in their own part of the house, near the hall of mirrors,’ she explained. ‘I do not expect anyone else is allowed.’

The maid’s mouth formed a knowing O. ‘Is it … the lady?’

‘It is,’ Miss Temple confided. ‘And she needs these towels directly.’

Rather proud of herself, Miss Temple followed the maid’s directions, which happily took her to another servant’s corridor, past locked doors and covered eye-holes. When she reached the proper door – seventh after the turn, painted yellow – it was with satisfaction that she set down the towels and rose on her toes to peek.

Mr Schoepfil sat at a table piled high with papers and books. The walls around him were covered with maps and charts, as well as three canvas squares of dense scrawls that, from a distance, formed pictures – flowers, a mask and two interlaced hands. Mr Schoepfil impatiently turned the pages of an ancient book until, not finding what he sought, the book was closed. The man held still, eyes shut, lips moving, as if in a private ritual of self-pacification … then he strode to the far door and made his exit. Miss Temple opened the servant’s panel and crept in.

She went first to the far door and braced Schoepfil’s chair beneath the knob. Three days of leisure would not have been enough to plough through everything the small room held. Next to the books were printed pages – newspapers and journals in many languages – and great piles of handwritten notes. Of the latter, each stack represented a unique hand. She identified notes by Doctor Lorenz, others by Mr Gray, and Marcus Fochtmann. At least seven piles came from the Comte himself, notes and diagrams and indecipherable formulae. On the walls were maps of the Polksvarte District (Tarr Village and its quarry marked with pins), the Duchy of Macklenburg, the cities of Vienna and Cadiz, and finally an engineer’s plan of the Orange Canal. Opposite the maps hung a star chart: black parchment pricked with white paint to spell out constellations. Miss Temple had always intended to learn the stars – one spent enough time staring at them – but, as she never had, she continued to the three squares of scribbling she had glimpsed through the spy-hole.

The back of her throat began to burn. The flowers were blue, the mask white, and of the two hands one was white, the other jet black. She recognized each from The Chemickal Marriage. Were these sketches to get the correct form? But what made any form correct? Just framing the question made her head throb – and, as she stared, each image seemed to swell, as if drawing life from her attention …

She rubbed her eyes. When she looked up Miss Temple gasped aloud. How could she not have seen it? It was no star chart at all! With the memory of The Chemickal Marriage bright in her mind, she saw every part of its composition – the Bride and Groom, the floating figures, each allegorical flourish – represented on the star chart by a mark of white paint. Schoepfil had found the Comte’s blueprint for the entire canvas! Did he know what it was? Miss Temple tore the chart from the wall, rolling it tight. She looked about her and with a happy cry saw a cylindrical document case, sheathed in leather. She emptied the maps inside onto the floor, slid the parchment away, fitted the cap and then slapped the tube on her open palm, a diminutive boatswain ready to administer Sunday punishment.

Her smile froze for, until that moment hidden by the document case, her eyes fell across Roger Bascombe’s notebook – taken from her purse and deposited, like any other bit of evidence, in Schoepfil’s trove. Her regret at having lost it unread rose within her, but now Miss Temple thrust it down. That life was done. She would be free of it, by force of will if nothing else. She snatched up the notebook and wrenched at the cover. The fibres of its binding gave and with another tug came free. Miss Temple hurled both vanquished halves at the wall.

Abruptly she shoved a pile of Doctor Lorenz’s notes off the table, where it exploded like feathers burst from a seam-ripped pillow. In quick order the rest of the papers followed. Between two stacks of books nestled a pair of fountain pens and bottle of black ink. With a grin she uncorked the ink bottle and flung the contents in wet bolts across the papered floor. She opened the books wide and heaped them together, tearing what pages she could on the way. She yanked the maps and canvases from the wall and balled them up atop the books. The painting of the hands she rolled into a tube and shoved its paint-clogged end into the gaslight sconce.

She glanced at the door. Were those footsteps? They were. The knob was turned, but the chair held, catching on the floorboards. The knob was worked again, and then the key tried. The tip of the canvas blackened and began to curl. The door was pushed with force. Flame crawled up the canvas, turning green and blue as it licked the coloured paints. Miss Temple stepped to the table, the door now rattling hard, and plunged the flaming tip into the pile of papers, maps, canvases and books.

‘Open this door!’ shouted Mr Kelling. ‘Who is there?’

He flung himself against the door, the chair skidding back an inch. The flame leapt across the maps with a sudden hunger. Kelling’s hand came through the gap, groping to dislodge the chair. Curls of white smoke climbed the wall. Miss Temple slipped into the servant’s passage. Holding the leather tube in both hands, she began to run.

Her face glowed with the pleasure of mayhem. How long they must have searched to gather those artefacts together! Even if Kelling could smother the fire – she knew from childhood how hard it was to burn a book, especially a thick one – she’d ruined so many pages. She laughed at the hours needed to sort it back to sense – and who knew, perhaps it would catch after all!

She tumbled into the brightness of the main corridors. The danger of being recognized and denounced for Lady Hopton’s death was as real as the prospect of Mr Kelling’s appearing at her heels, yet exhilaration lent an air of invulnerability. What was more, something in the atmosphere of the Royal Therm? had changed. The crowds