‘What of the Contessa?’ asked Miss Temple.
‘Nothing,’ spat Mr Phelps. ‘Not one sign.’
The tower had a primitive barracks, six musty bunks, now echoing with Mr Brine’s snores. Miss Temple peered across the room, unable to see whether Svenson and Phelps were asleep, though she assumed they were.
A dream had awoken her. She had been in Harschmort, standing before the Dutch mirror, naked but for a green silk bodice. Someone was watching from behind the glass and she felt a keen pleasure in imagining their hungry eyes as her hands traced the sweep of her white hips. She wondered who it was and turned her buttocks to the glass. Someone she knew? Chang? In delicious provocation, Miss Temple bent forward and reached between her legs … and in answer, like delight’s inevitable consequence, the room changed. The mirror was gone, revealing the niche behind it and her observer. Stretched upon the velvet chaise was the dead-eyed, grey-skinned corpse of Eloise Dujong.
The threads of sleep slipped away and with them the chill of horror. But, as she stared at the bunk slats above her, bowed against the weight of Mr Brine, Miss Temple felt the dream’s hunger remain. Her mouth tasted sour – the wine, along with her own spoilt essence – and she ran her tongue along her teeth in hopes of subduing her desire through disgust. But the urge would not subside. She sucked the inside of one cheek between her teeth and bit hard. The others were too near. They would hear – they would smell –
In an abrupt rustle of petticoats Miss Temple rolled from the bunk and padded to the other room, hugging herself tight at the stove and rocking on cold bare feet. She forced her mind to the dream. What did it mean to bare her lust to Eloise, of all people? Miss Temple was not at heart shamed by her desire, only that so much of what informed it derived from other minds. Was her feeling of debasement more truly a matter of pride?
Eloise had been married. She had loved men – perhaps even the Doctor, in some bare-planked room at the fishing village. At this thought Miss Temple’s imagination flared: Svenson’s unshaven face kissing the pale skin above Eloise’s breasts, her dress pushed up her thighs, his knees bent with effort. Miss Temple whimpered aloud, and in sorrow. In her dream, desire had been grotesque. But that was wrong, and the truth came cruelly in the gaze of care her imagination placed between Eloise and the Doctor, her liquid brown eyes up to his clear blue. Miss Temple wiped her nose with a sniff. What made desire unbearable was love.
She turned at a sound. Doctor Svenson stood in the doorway.
‘I heard you rise. Are you well?’
She nodded.
‘Aren’t you cold?’
‘I had a dream.’ Miss Temple exhaled with more emotion than she cared for. ‘Of Eloise. She was dead.’
Svenson sighed and sat near her in a chair, his hair across his eyes.
‘In mine she lives. Small consolation, for I wake to sorrow. Yet my memory retains Eloise Dujong in this world – her smile, her scent, her care. She is that much preserved.’
‘Did you love her?’ Her back was to the stove, her dress bundled forward so it would not singe.
‘Perhaps. The thought is a torment. She did not love me, I know that.’
Miss Temple shook her head. ‘But … she told me …’
‘Celeste, I beg you. She made her feelings clear.’
Miss Temple said nothing. The thick stone walls cloaked them in silence.
‘You were with Chang?’ the Doctor asked. ‘At the end?’
Miss Temple nodded.
‘The night was chaos. I remember very little after the ridiculous duel –’
‘It was not ridiculous,’ said Miss Temple. ‘It was very brave.’
‘I heard you call and guessed something had happened to Chang. I did not know until this night it was the Contessa. Nor that she killed Eloise.’
Svenson had changed, as if the blue of his eyes had been run through a sieve. Again she wondered at his wound – how raw the scar, how long, imagining the blade slicing across the Doctor’s nipple –
She whimpered under her breath. Svenson half rose from his seat but she kept him back with a shake of her head and a half-hearted smile. The Doctor watched her with concern.
‘I have been quite out of the world,’ he said softly. ‘You had best tell me what you can.’
Her story poured out, everything that had taken place from the clearing where Eloise had died to Albermap Crescent – Pfaff, the vanishing of Ropp and Jaxon, the red envelopes, the Comte’s painting, the scrap of inscribed glass. She said nothing of her own distress, the books roiling inside, her deracinating hunger. She said nothing of Chang. Yet, as she spoke, she found her attention catching on the Doctor’s features, the efficient movement of his hands as he smoked, even the new rasp to his voice. She found herself guessing his age – a decade older than she, surely no more than that – his German manners aged him next to a man like Chang, but if one only looked at his face –
Miss Temple started, deep in her own mind. Svenson had stepped closer to the stove and rubbed his hands.
‘I am growing cold after all.’
‘It
Svenson chuckled, and shook his head. ‘To keep your humour, Celeste, after all you’ve seen.’
‘I’m sure I have no humour at all. Speaking one’s mind is not wit.’
‘My dear, that is wit exactly.’
Miss Temple reddened. When it was clear she had no intention of replying, the Doctor knelt and scooped more coal into the stove.
‘Mr Cunsher has not come. He may be hiding, or in pursuit – or taken, in which case we cannot remain here.’
‘How will we know which? If we leave, how will we find him?’
‘He will find us, do not fear …’
‘I do not like Mr Cunsher.’
‘Upon such men we must rely. How long did it take until you trusted Chang?’
‘No time at all. I saw him on the train. I
Svenson met her determined expression, then shrugged. ‘Harschmort is too perilous until we know more. Our struggle has become a chess match. We cannot strike at king or queen, but must fence with pawns and hope to force a path. Your Mr Pfaff –’
‘Went to a glassworks by the river, which led him somewhere else.’
‘And Mr Ramper went to Raaxfall. Phelps and I have hopes to waylay Mr Harcourt as he leaves the Ministry –’
‘We should go back to the Boniface,’ Miss Temple said. ‘As it is watched, my arrival may provoke one of these pawns to action – which you and Mr Phelps can observe. I will be safe with Brine, and with any luck Mr Pfaff will have returned.’
‘Spelt out like that, I cannot disagree.’
She smiled. ‘Why should you want to?’
Breakfast was quick and cold, well before dawn. Fog clung to the stones. The streets on the far side of the tower were of a piece with the tents on the common they had passed in the night – even at this hour crowded with faces from other lands, tiny shops, carts, mere squares of carpet piled with copper, beadwork, spices, embroidery. Miss Temple found herself next to Mr Phelps. Unable to shed her distrust, yet feeling obliged because of the Doctor’s alliance, she did her best to strike up a conversation.
‘How strange it must be, Mr Phelps, to be so uprooted from your life.’
The pale man’s expression remained wary. ‘In truth, I scarcely note it.’
‘But your family, your home – are you not missed?’
‘The only ones to miss me are already dead.’
Miss Temple felt an impulse to apologize, but repressed it. Behind them Svenson listened to Mr Brine describe his service abroad, apparently spurred on by the dark faces around them.
‘When you say “dead”, Mr Phelps, do you refer to your former allies – Mrs Marchmoor, Colonel Aspiche and the others?’
