The Chemickal Marriage

Three Palace

Doctor Svenson’s mind was elsewhere. After years of bleak service to the Duchy of Macklenburg, he had glimpsed in Elöise Dujong another possibility – had felt his heart crack into life – only to have that hope laid bare as the groundless optimism of a fool. He blamed no one save himself, mourning Elöise yet allowing no claim to her memory, for he had shamed himself enough as it was. Instead, still haunted and, if he could admit it, stunned, Svenson had thrown himself back into service as soon as his health allowed – assisting Phelps and Cunsher. Now he had been reunited with the quite obviously disturbed Celeste Temple, and the wilfully grim Cardinal Chang, but the company of these comrades reminded him only of what he’d lost. As he stood with his back to the cold stone of St Isobel’s statue, he wondered how much of his life had passed without purpose, every abdication punctuated with a crisp bow and a click of his heels?

The Doctor exhaled sharply and shook his head. He had his own discipline, and his own pale fire.

The action saved his life. Svenson heard Chang’s warning and at once dropped to the ground, the hail of glass shards screaming past his head.

He staggered up, ears ringing. Next to Chang lay an old woman, one of hundreds brought down. Though never in an outright battle, Svenson had witnessed accidents involving artillery ordnance and seen his share of shredded human beings. St Isobel’s Square had been thronged. Svenson stared at the scorched black spot where the bomb had detonated.

All around him, victims struggled with an unholy energy – howling and lashing at whomever they could reach, flailing like horses in a coach collision – unable to rise, unable to comprehend their condition. Chang rolled off Miss Temple, who seemed unharmed. Behind him, Phelps and Cunsher, both alive, wrestled with a man in a blood-spattered waistcoat. The man roared, and, as he twisted the dark stains on his waistcoat cracked and broke apart – the blood from his wounds had congealed into glass. Without a qualm Chang delivered a solid kick to the man’s jaw, freeing Phelps and Cunsher. The Doctor read Chang’s lips as much as heard his words.

‘There is nothing here! Hurry!’

The cavalry sounded their trumpets, at last moving to restore order, and with a dreadful prescience Svenson saw what would happen. He shouted, stumbling in the opposite direction, hauling Miss Temple with him.

‘This way! We cannot be caught between!’ Chang spun, his expression shot with impatience. Svenson pointed to the advancing horsemen, his own voice strangely far away. ‘The glass! The anger!’

The first cobblestone flew from the crowd – hurled by a tottering, blood-swept man – knocking the horsetailed helmet from a rider. A woman, blue-faced and screaming, charged blindly into the advancing line. A trooper reined in his horse, and the animal reared. Any sane person would have fallen back, but these two rushed on, the man catching a hoof in the chest that knocked him flat. The woman cannoned into the horse, scratching with her nails, even biting, until the soldier struck her down with the guard of his sabre. But by then dozens more had attacked the horsemen. The trumpets sounded again, to no effect.

Chang wheeled round and they forced a path away. Behind erupted more screams, shouting, trumpets. A wave of madness had overtaken the entire square. Phelps called to Chang, ‘If you had not shouted when you did –’

‘We must keep on,’ Chang broke in. ‘If we can reach the river –’

‘Wait,’ said Svenson. The ringing would not leave his ears. ‘Is this not the opportunity we desired?’ He looked to the white buildings of the Ministries and the Palace beyond. ‘In this chaos, might we not find an entry – find Vandaariff?’

Chang turned to Phelps. ‘Do you know a way?’

Phelps nodded. ‘I did not spend my life in that beehive without learning something –’

His words were cut off by the crash of gunshots.

‘Jesus Lord!’ cried Phelps. ‘Do they fire on their own people?’

The mob roared in echo of his outrage. The soldiers’ reprisals had only provoked the rest of the crowd to action. This would be an out-and-out riot.

Without another word Phelps drove for the Ministries, Cunsher at his heels. Doctor Svenson took Miss Temple’s hand, only to notice that Chang had taken her other.

‘It was Foison in the coach,’ Chang called over the noise. ‘They made Ropp into their weapon.’

‘But how?’ Miss Temple’s cheeks were wet with tears. ‘What did they do to him?’

‘The Process!’ Svenson shouted. ‘Overturning a man’s mind is the Comte’s first principle.’ He flinched at the crash of an ordered volley. The crowd ahead of them roiled and then split before a squadron of black-jacketed lancers, each man’s high czapka sporting a single red plume.

‘Behind!’ yelled Phelps. ‘Cross behind!’

The horsemen clattered past – lances menacingly low – and the way was momentarily clear. Phelps dashed forward and they followed at a run. With a shock Svenson saw an entire column of infantry advancing behind the lancers.

‘Are they planning to kill everyone?’ Chang yelled across Miss Temple’s head.

Svenson had no reply. Only moments ago a single line of cavalry had seemed an ample expression of force.

A line of constables blocked their final passage to the Ministries. Phelps shouldered his way to the front.

‘Officer!’

A constable with frightened wide eyes spun to face him, but Phelps retained an official bearing that won the man’s attention.

‘Why are only you officers posted here? Does no one realize the danger?’ Phelps’s voice sharpened. ‘I am Mr Phelps, attaché to the Privy Council. What provisions have been made for securing the underpassage?’

‘Underpassage?’

Phelps pointed past to the maze of white buildings. ‘To Stäelmaere House! Through it one can access both the Ministries and the Palace. How many men have you posted?’

The constable gaped at Phelps’s extended, damning finger. ‘Why … no men at all.’

‘O Lord above, man! There is no time!’

Phelps burst through the line of policemen. The constable darted after. ‘Wait now, sir – you can’t – all these people – you cannot –’

‘They are with me!’ snapped Phelps. ‘And no one will bar my passage until I am personally assured of the Queen’s safety!’

‘The Queen?’

‘Of course the Queen!’ Phelps directed the constable’s attention to Mr Cunsher. ‘This man is a foreign agent in our service. He has information of a plot – a plot employing significant distraction, do you understand?’

The constable, for whom Svenson was by now feeling a certain pity, looked helplessly to the square, echoing with screams and gunfire.

‘Exactly,’ said Phelps. ‘I only pray we are not too late.’

The constable gamely followed to a cobbled lane descending below Stäelmaere House.

‘Down there?’ he asked, dismayed by the darkness.

Phelps shouted into the cavern, ‘You there! Sentries! Come up!’ No soldiers appeared and Phelps snorted with bitter satisfaction. ‘It is the grossest oversight.’

‘I’ll run to the guardhouse –’ offered the constable.

Chang caught the constable’s arm. ‘If the attack has already begun, we will need every man.’

He pulled the constable with them, tightening his grip as the man’s countenance betrayed his doubts. They descended to a dank vaulted chamber. Phelps hurried to a heavy wooden door and pulled the knob. It was locked.

‘Safe after all,’ ventured the constable. ‘So … all is well?’

Doctor Svenson spoke gently. ‘You need not worry. We wish your Queen only long life.’ The constable’s expression sank further. ‘Restored health.’ Svenson’s words ran dry. ‘Dentistry.’

Phelps peered at the door’s lock while Cunsher and Chang combined to secure the constable: wrists and ankles tied and mouth stuffed with a handkerchief.

‘Dentistry?’ asked Miss Temple.

Svenson sighed. ‘I had the privilege of the royal presence, when the Prince was first received.’

‘I suppose one would not see it on the coins.’

‘A rotting dockfront hardly inspires monetary confidence.’

‘Surely there is carved ivory or porcelain.’

‘The monarch lays her trust in the Lord’s handiwork,’ replied the Doctor.

‘One enjoys all manner of advancements not strictly from the Lord.’

‘Apparently matters of the body have their own strictures.’

‘Surely she styles her hair, and uses soap.’

Svenson tactfully said nothing.

‘Royalty are in-bred dogs,’ said Chang, joining them, ‘yapping, brainless, and fouling any place they can bring their haunches to bear. What is he doing?’

This last was directed at Mr Phelps, but Chang did not wait for an answer, crossing to Phelps and repeating his question directly.

Miss Temple whispered to Svenson,‘It is a pneumatic vestibule.’

‘A what?’

‘A room that moves up and down. I travelled in it with Mrs Marchmoor and the Duke, and with Mr Phelps.’

‘Do you accept his repentance?’ asked Svenson quietly.

‘I accept his guilt. One does not care why a cart-horse pulls.’

‘Chang fears Phelps will betray us. Did you not mark their discussion in the blast tunnel?’

‘What discussion?’ asked Miss Temple, a bit too loudly.

They turned at the sound of Mr Cunsher clearing his throat. Miss Temple took interruption as censure, and addressed Cunsher directly: ‘It is easy to repent when one has lost.’

Cunsher studied her face, which Miss Temple bore for perhaps three seconds before returning the stare doubly hard.

‘Any luck with the door?’ called Doctor Svenson.

‘The problem,’ Mr Phelps replied, ‘is that there is no lock.’ He nodded at a metal key plate. ‘To summon the car, one inserts the key, at which point the vestibule car descends. Only when the car is in place will the door open. Even had we an axe, we could only reach the empty shaftway.’

‘Then why did you bring us here?’ snarled Chang.

‘Because the way is unguarded. The hallways of Stäelmaere House connect to the Palace on one side and to the Ministries on the other. This was the private exit for the Duke himself – only his most intimate servants and aides know of it. Once inside we can search for the Comte – for Vandaariff – in any direction.’

‘Is there no signal?’ asked Miss Temple. ‘Some sort of bell?’

‘Of course,’ huffed Phelps, ‘the use of which will alert those inside. We will be taken and killed!’

‘Perhaps I do not understand,’ Svenson offered. Phelps had so deftly managed the cordon, it was dismaying to see him at such an impasse. ‘If we do ring the bell –’

‘Whoever hears it may well send the car down. But ringing the bell after the Duke’s death will spark all kinds of suspicion. The car will rise to a reception of armed men.’

‘And that is because we lack a key.’

‘Yes. Without a key, it will only return to whoever sent it down. It is a protection against any stranger using it. With a key, we could go to any floor without pause –’

‘But that could still deliver us to armed men,’ said Chang. ‘You have no idea.’

‘I descended from the Duke’s rooms to this sub-basement without stopping,’ announced Miss Temple rather unhelpfully.

‘We should press on to the river,’ muttered Chang.

‘I disagree,’ replied Svenson. ‘The idea to infiltrate is sound, a chink in our opponent’s armour.’

‘Entering a lion’s den does not constitute a chink.’

‘Then I will go,’ the Doctor snapped. ‘I will go by myself.’

Miss Temple took his arm. ‘You will not.’

Chang sighed with impatience. ‘Lord above –’

Phelps raised his hands. ‘No. I have brought us here – no one else need take the risk. Stand away.’

He pressed a disc set into the keyplate. Somewhere above them echoed a distant trill.

They waited, the sole sound the muffled breath of the constable, which they all chose to ignore. But then came a mechanical thrum … growing louder.

‘Well begun at least,’ Phelps said with a brittle smile. ‘Someone is home.’

His relief was cut short by the click of Cunsher pulling back the hammer of his pistol. Svenson dug out his own and soon they all stood in a half-circle, weapons ready. The car descended, settling with a clank.

The door opened wide. Beyond an iron grating, the vestibule car was empty. Phelps shoved the grate aside and stepped in.

‘I will go where it takes me, and if all is safe return to collect you.’

Chang shook his head. ‘All of us together may be able to overcome resistance – if you are taken alone, it will expose everyone.’

‘And there is no time,’ added Svenson. ‘Vandaariff is in the Palace now.’

Svenson entered the car and turned, averting his gaze from the figure of the trussed, wriggling constable. Overruled, Phelps slammed the iron gate home and the car rumbled into life. Cunsher took Chang’s arm, looking up. ‘Count the floors …’

They waited, listening. Cunsher nodded at a particularly loud clank.

‘Do you hear? We have passed the cellars.’

Svenson gripped his revolver. Another clank.

‘The ground floor,’ whispered Phelps. ‘Which offers passage to the Ministries.’

‘We’re still climbing,’ said Cunsher. They waited. The cables above them groaned. Another clank.

‘The first floor.’ Phelps nodded to Miss Temple. ‘The Duke’s chambers.’ Another loud clank. ‘We will reach the second, with passage to the Palace. Of course the corridor leads not to the Palace proper – first to suites of older apartments, where no royal has lived these fifty years – but technically speaking –’

‘Who will be there?’ hissed Chang.

‘I have told you!’ replied Phelps. ‘Absolutely anyone!’

The vestibule came to a shuddering halt. The iron gate slid into the wall and a wooden door was before them. Its lock snapped clear. Before the door could be opened from the other side Chang kicked it wide. An elderly man in black livery took the door across his chest and sprawled on the carpet. In a second Chang was above him like a ghoul, his razor against the servant’s throat.

‘Do not! Do not!’ Phelps spoke quickly to the stunned old man. ‘Do not cry out – it is your life!’

The servant merely gaped, his webbed old mouth working. ‘Mr Phelps … you were pronounced a traitor.’

‘Nonsense,’ said Phelps. ‘The Duke is dead and the Queen in danger. The Queen, I say, and there is little time …’

Svenson inhaled, tasting the dank air of a sickroom. Stäelmaere House had been the glass woman’s lair, staining all who came there with decay. The Duke’s old serving man showed dark circled eyes, pasty flesh, livid gums – and this after weeks of recovery. Phelps interrogated the servant. Svenson walked to a curtained window at the corridor’s end.

‘Where are you going?’ called Chang.

Svenson did not reply. The corridor was lined with portraits, intolerant beaks above a progression of steadily weaker chins, watery eyes peering out between ridiculous wigs and lace collars as stiff and wide as serving platters – an archive of the Duke’s relations, whose exile to the upper floor reflected the degree to which they’d been forgotten. Was there a plainer emblem of mortal doom than the extravagant portrait of an unremembered peer?

The Ministry of War blocked his view of St Isobel’s Square, but beyond its slate rooftops echoed regular spatters of musketry. That gunfire continued after the lancers and the column of infantry only confirmed the extent of the uprising, and the savagery employed to put it down.

To his left was a small wooden door. Svenson put an ear against it. Miss Temple motioned to return. Instead, the Doctor carefully turned the knob and eased the door open: a bare landing with a staircase leading down and, unexpectedly, continuing up. Was there a higher floor Phelps had not mentioned? He walked back to the others.

‘What did you see?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘Nothing at all,’ he said. ‘There is more gunfire in the square.’

‘Even better for a distraction,’ said Chang, stepping behind Svenson and Miss Temple and herding them along. Chang leant close to Svenson’s ear. ‘What did you see?’

Svenson shook his head. ‘Nothing – truly –’

‘Then what is wrong with you?’

By then they had reached Phelps, who laid a hand on the door behind him and spoke in a nervous rush. ‘Stäelmaere House is all but abandoned, under quarantine. The lower floors are a sick ward. The Privy Council has shifted to the Palace, and Axewith and Vandaariff will meet in the Marble Gallery, only a minute’s walk from the Queen herself. Axewith must be desperate, practically begging Vandaariff for the money to solve the crisis –’

‘But is money the issue?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘No, which Axewith does not understand. Without sound strategy, Vandaariff’s entire treasure is but a bandage on an unstitched wound. The crisis will continue, and Vandaariff has to know it.’

‘Then why appear?’ asked Chang. ‘Why associate himself with Axewith’s failure?’

‘Perhaps he only seeks an excuse to enter the Palace,’ said Cunsher.

At this Phelps opened the door and hurried them through. ‘We are now in the Palace. We will quietly descend and proceed east – east, I repeat – until the décor changes first to lemon, and then to a darker yellow, like the yolk of a freshly poached egg. It is a question of concentric layers – ah … here is the balcony.’

Svenson forced a yawn in hopes it might end the nagging whine in his ears. He looked at the faded and splitting blue wallpaper. Why had this wing of the Palace been allowed to go to seed? When had its last royal resident died – and was its lack of care an expression of poverty or grief? Svenson found the squalor a comfort.

Phelps started down the staircase and Svenson followed, last in line, the revolver heavy in his hand. His eyes darted along the opposite balconies, recalling a mission to Vienna long ago, a search for documents that had brought him to an abandoned brothel … bedsheets spread across a barrelhead, upon which a consumptive whore played cards with a one-legged pensioner –

Phelps hissed from the foot of the stairs and pointed to a heavy door. ‘Remember the walls: blue, then lemon –’

‘Then a poultry yard, yes,’ Chang sighed. ‘We have grasped the sequence.’

‘It is a precaution if we become separated.’

‘We will only become separated if we are seen – and in that case we all know enough to run for our lives.’

It was an ill-timed remark, for as the sour words left the Cardinal’s mouth Mr Phelps opened the door. Directly before them stood a detachment of the Palace guard in helmets, doublets and hose – holding halberds of all things – and a group of men in black topcoats. One of these, with pale hair and a waxed moustache, yelped in shock, staring at Phelps.

‘You!’

‘Harcourt!’ cried Phelps, but Cunsher lunged at the door and slammed it closed. The door leapt in his hands as the soldiers pushed from the opposite side.

‘Run!’ shouted Chang, seizing Miss Temple’s arm. ‘Run!’

The door was flung wide and an axelike blade shot through, nearly severing Cunsher’s arm. The others fled, but Svenson raised the revolver with an unfamiliar coolness and fired into the mass of men. The two in front sprawled, but a guard behind came on, his long weapon aimed at Svenson’s chest. A third bullet and this man toppled into the guards behind him.

The fire drew their pursuers, and Svenson retreated up the stairs, hopping like a hare as a halberd stabbed through the railing. He fired again, splintering the rail, and scrambled upwards. His companions had vanished. His boot slipped on the carpet. The last of the halberdsmen charged up the staircase. Svenson deliberately squeezed the trigger. The man flew back in a windmill of limbs. No one took his place.

At the top of the staircase Svenson dropped into cover, just ahead of a hail of bullets tearing at the wall – halberds finally succeeded by modern weaponry. Svenson charged back to Stäelmaere House, racing for the pneumatic vestibule.

It had been called to another floor. He pelted down the corridor to the little door by the window. To go down would only deliver him to his enemies. Svenson took the staircase leading up. The door was unlocked. He tumbled through, shut it behind him and – blessedly – found a key sticking out of the hole. He turned it, heard the sweet sound of a bolt going home and let out a deep, heaving sigh of relief.

His coolness of mind was gone. Svenson’s fingers were shaking. He looked down the attic hall, its angled ceiling echoing the rooftop. Twenty yards away, in a flaming silk dress, stood the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza.

At once the Doctor raised the revolver, aiming for her heart. The hammer snapped on an empty chamber. He squeezed again – nothing. The Contessa stumbled back, lifting her dress with both hands. A rush of hatred enflamed the Doctor’s body and he ran at her, already tasting the satisfaction of cracking the pistol-butt upon her head.

She ran but he was faster, seizing a fistful of her dress. He pulled hard and she spun towards him, eyes blazing, swinging a small, jewel-encrusted handbag. Svenson swore at the stinging impact and launched a roundhouse blow with the pistol-butt that struck her shoulder. The Contessa overbalanced on her heels and fell. Doctor Svenson stood over her, ignoring the blood on his face, and snapped open the cylinder of the revolver. With a flick of his wrist he dumped the spent shells onto the carpet and groped in his pocket for more.

The Contessa dug in her handbag and pulled out a fist wrapped with an iron band from which protruded a vicious sharp steel spike. Svenson retreated two quick steps and slotted another cartridge into place. She struggled to her feet, weighing whether to attack him or to flee. He did not care – he would quite happily shoot her in the back. He slammed the cylinder home, having loaded three shells – more than enough – and extended the weapon.

‘If you kill me now you are a fool, Abelard Svenson.’ She spoke quickly but without desperation, a statement of fact. ‘Without my knowledge you will fail.’

Behind them, the staircase door flew open and two uniformed guards tumbled into the corridor. Svenson spun round and fired twice, the shots roaring in the cramped confines. The Contessa bolted and he dashed after her. At the end of the corridor stood a narrow door. Svenson fired his last bullet and the panel near her head split wide. She slammed it shut but before she could turn the lock he crashed through. She slashed at his throat but the blow went wide. Svenson tackled her to the floor.

‘You idiot!’ she snarled. ‘You idiot!’ She kicked with both legs, but her dress had caught them up. He dropped the revolver and pinned the spike-hand down. Her other clawed at his face – more scratches, more blood – but he caught that too and slammed it to the carpet. He lay atop her, both of them panting, inches away from one another.

With a shock his gaze found her pale throat, strung with garnets, and then her bosom, heaving with exertion. He lay between her legs. His groin pressed to hers. He met her gaze and swallowed, stupefied.

‘The door! The door!’

She stabbed her mouth at his nose, teeth flashing, and nearly snapped it off. Svenson rolled back with a cry and the Contessa flew to her knees. But instead of running she leapt for the door and turned the bolt. Had the guards followed? Had he shot them? He did not even care. He fumbled for the pistol. The Contessa faced him with malice and disdain, hair in disarray, breathing hard. The knob was worked roughly from the other side.

She brushed past, but his weakness had broken the spell of hate and he did not attempt to bring her down. Svenson stumbled after the woman he was sworn to kill.

The Contessa obviously knew the Palace. Within seconds, her twisting path had shaken their pursuers. Svenson kept close but never within range of her spike. At last, with an angry snort, she dropped the pretence of ambushing him, and, with this tacit suspension of hostility, they moved still more swiftly. Her movements remained sure – he remembered the woman navigating the forest of Parchfeldt with the same wolf’s confidence – and he held himself ready for when she must finally turn and attack. But the Contessa pressed on, glancing only to make certain he followed.

The apartments they passed through were unused, the tattered blue wallpaper familiar from before. Soon they trespassed into occupied (and lemon-papered) rooms, picking past the detritus of the court’s poorest relations. More than anything, Doctor Svenson noticed the papers – bundles of correspondence testament to the endless pleading for place and favour that made up life at court. How many days had Svenson stood at the side of Baron von Hoern, as the great man dismissed such petitions as if he brushed tobacco ash off his sleeve.

Had the others been taken? Though Doctor Svenson so often found reason to question his own courage – altitude, women, an especially haughty clerk – he knew his quick work with the pistol had saved their lives. Still, he felt no satisfaction. Other men might perform marvels, but if Svenson possessed a talent, its employment carried no mystery, and was no matter for praise. Stopping the soldiers had been his task, and was scarcely more than a postponement, after all.

They reached an apartment whose wallpaper in the gloomy gaslight suggested a more bilious discharge than Phelps’s sunny yolk. Here the Contessa – finally, decisively – turned to face him. He closed the door they had come through. She indicated an empty chair.

Instead of sitting, Doctor Svenson reached into his pocket for more shells and began to reload. The Contessa watched him carefully, then opened her jewelled purse and dropped the spike inside. She snapped the purse shut, ignoring the clicking work of his fingers, and crossed to a small sideboard cluttered with bottles. She pulled the cork from one and poured ruby port into a glass. Svenson closed the recharged cylinder. The Contessa sipped her port.

‘You’d have a score of men upon you before my body strikes the floor. We are well inside the Palace.’

‘Just above the Marble Gallery, I should guess.’

‘Honestly, Doctor, you have pursued me this distance –’

Svenson extended the pistol. ‘To hear you talk. Do so, madam, or be damned.’

Why did he not pull the trigger? This woman had murdered Elöise.

He watched her breathe. Her complexion had reclaimed its lustre, her violet eyes were as sharp as ever, and yet … he thought of his own weeks of healing … had the Contessa changed since the disaster at Parchfeldt? He knew her body bore new scars – a wound on her shoulder, another at her thigh. However, just as her wit and grace complemented rather than contradicted a savage heart, Svenson saw her beauty enhanced by these injuries – and wondered at the emotional wounds that had come with each, that lingered within …

His eyes dropped to her bosom. He hurriedly raised his gaze, only to meet a contemptuous flip of a smile.

‘You are not all grief, then.’

Svenson felt his face redden. He shifted the pistol to his left hand and reached for his silver case. ‘Whose apartment is this?’

‘As long as we are quiet, we will be safe.’

He returned the pistol to his right and aimed it at her heart.

‘You will answer me, madam.’

‘My goodness. Well – we are above the Marble Gallery, as you said, in the rooms of Sophia, Princess of Strackenz. Do you know her?’

‘Not personally.’

‘No? One assumes the German aristocracy to be its own small-minded village, fed by petty rivalry, drunken duels and spouse-breach. Your late master, Karl-Horst von Maasmärck, was especially keen on the latter, with whoever he could entice for two minutes into a closet.’

‘Sophia of Strackenz has been exiled these many years.’

‘Poor thing. Now that I think of it, arranging for your prince to encounter Sophia would have made for an exquisite wager – he had no end of reckless appetite, and she is an outright hag. Would you be so very kind, while we are waiting?’

He had set a cigarette between his lips. She snapped open her jewelled bag and removed a black lacquered holder. He extended the silver case and the Contessa made her selection, fitting the black-papered tube into the nib.

‘You have resupplied yourself with your Russians.’

‘You have managed a new dress.’

‘Many, many of them – nothing says beggar like fine clothes twice-worn.’ She lit her cigarette and exhaled. ‘How strong these are.’

‘Why Strackenz? She has no sway at court.’ Svenson puffed his cigarette to light, then answered his own question. ‘And that is the idea itself. Protection from the unloved Sophia provides sanctuary without exposure.’ He studied the sparsely furnished room. ‘And where are these many, many dresses? Does that explain your presence in the attic of Stäelmaere House – garment storage?’

She sneered through blown smoke. ‘And what explains your presence? That Oskar comes to the Palace to save the nation? Did you hope to shoot him down?’

‘It seemed worth the attempt.’

‘Peh.’

‘Is it coincidence to find you here too, just when Lord Vandaariff has arrived?’

Svenson had taken several steps as he spoke, and he realized she was watching him closely, as if he were near an open flame. He stepped decisively to the high-canopied bed.

‘Doctor Svenson –’

Svenson extended the pistol and carefully flipped up the pillows. Underneath lurked a blue glass book, like a cobra at the bottom of a basket.

‘Poor Sophia,’ he said. ‘Does she sink her mind in its depths every night – living glories she’d never know on her own? Does she even bother to eat and bathe?’

The Contessa laughed. ‘She was fat to begin with, and never fond of a wash.’

‘She will die.’

‘Not while I need her.’

Doctor Svenson brought the pistol-butt down with a crack onto the book, starring the thick cover and punching a gritty hole in the centre.

‘Hell’s damnation!’ snarled the Contessa.

Svenson struck the book again, cracking the cover into shards and splitting the layers below. The Contessa spat with fury.

‘Doctor! The Princess is an empty-headed, greedy – she is despised – O the waste!’

A final blow broke the book to pieces, like the battered carcass of a horseshoe crab. Svenson wiped the pistol on the bedlinen.

‘You have no idea –’

‘But I do – and besides, you have another.’

‘I do not!’

‘You have the volume tainted by the Comte’s own mind. This isn’t it – the Princess would be driven mad. This was a book of allurement, a honeyed trap filled with pleasures. With any luck it is the last. And, now we come to the topic, you do not look ill – which means you’ve found a way to consult the Comte’s corrupted book without harm. Where is it?’

‘Safely stowed.’

‘Where is Francesca Trapping?’ the Doctor demanded. ‘In an attic room with your clothes racks?’ He gestured to the shattered book. ‘Is she enslaved? Have you flooded her mind with wickedness as well?’

‘As well.’ The Contessa laughed. ‘As well as Celeste Temple? Tell me, does she tremble? Does she drool? Can you smell her like a barnyard mare?’

Svenson raised the pistol.

‘Doctor, if you act the fool we will be taken. They search from room to room – they are not all idiots – we are only safe here a few minutes more.’ She reached to what he realized was a second door, painted to appear flush with the wall. ‘If I intended to betray you, Doctor, I would not have brought you here.’ She put her head to the panel, listening. ‘Indeed, it did occur to me, while you strove to take my life, that our meeting might well serve us both.’

‘How?’

‘What do you think Oskar will demand, for his money and guns?’

‘Whatever it is,’ said Svenson, ‘Axewith will give it to him.’

‘What Oskar wants, Lord Axewith does not have.’

She smiled, allowing Svenson to guess what things – or persons – she meant. From outside came the chime of a silver bell.

‘Exactly on time.’ The Contessa ground her cigarette on the tabletop. ‘If you would just tuck the gun behind your back?’

She sailed into a lush corridor ablaze with light. Standing not ten yards away were three men in stiff black topcoats: a pair of Ministry officials and a grey-bearded figure with a blue sash.

‘My dear Lord Pont-Joule, what a relief it is to see your face!’ the Contessa cried. ‘The rumours one hears are frightful! Is Her Majesty safe? Has there truly been violence?’

The blue-sashed lord bowed kindly, but his deep voice rumbled with disapproval. ‘Who is the man behind you, madam? Sir – what uniform is that? Whom do you serve? How are you here? Is that blood on your face?’

‘It is Abelard Svenson!’ The Contessa’s voice dropped to a whisper. ‘Captain-Surgeon of the Macklenburg Navy. Surely you know him – he is a fugitive!’

Svenson whipped the pistol from behind his back. The Contessa gave a yelp and leapt to the side of Pont-Joule, who stammered angrily, even as the Ministry men – evidently unarmed – advanced towards the Doctor with earnest, awkward stances copied from boxing matches.

‘Now, sir!’ cried Pont-Joule. ‘That will not do – you must surrender! You cannot escape! You will not harm the lady –’

His next words were lost in a gurgling choke, his stiff white collar dark with spurting blood. Pont-Joule’s aides turned in time for the first to take the Contessa’s spike into his throat. The second stood in shock, covering his mouth with one hand. The Contessa came for him, but before she could land her blow Svenson struck the man behind the ear. The man arched his back and fell. Without a pause the Contessa knelt down, hiked her dress out of the way and opened his throat with a stroke of her hand.

‘Are you a savage?’ cried Svenson. ‘Dear God –’

‘He has seen us both,’ she answered flatly. A bead of red had caught her cheek. With a grimace of irritation the Contessa wiped it off with a fingertip, and then impatiently stuck the finger in her mouth. She stepped carefully past the spreading pools and called to Svenson, white-faced, rooted to the spot. ‘Pont-Joule is the Queen’s Master of Comportment.’

‘Comportment?’

‘Etiquette and safety – if we are past him, we are past the cordon of soldiers, who will now be posted at every exit. But our way should be clear – come.’

‘Then we cannot escape?’

‘O Doctor, for shame! When the cradle waits unguarded at our feet?’

Svenson hurried after her into what could only have been the Marble Gallery – a gaudily elegant chamber draped with crystal. Their footsteps echoed across the chequered parquet floor. They were alone.

‘Is it not a lovely room?’ the Contessa called, her voice echoing. She spun like a girl, arms outstretched, laughing. Svenson came doggedly after, glancing at the wide chair on a dais that must have once held the Queen. Two more were set near it for Axewith and Vandaariff. Tables were still laden for tea, with plates of thickly iced pink petits fours. The Contessa snatched one up, took a bite with a satisfied growl, then dropped the rest onto the floor, walking on.

In the sickroom of his heart, Doctor Svenson condemned these three new murders … but again found himself shrugging off the guilt. The Contessa paused at the double doors, her composed features studying his face. He could imagine how she had seized every chance to flirt with poor Pont-Joule over these past weeks, just to make possible so deft a slaughter. The wall panels framing the door were set with mirrors, but the man reflected there bore scant resemblance to the officer he had once been. This figure was unshaven and hollow-eyed. Even his hair seemed to signal with its lack of colour the weight of withering experience.

It had not been fear that kept him from shooting her in the bedchamber. He knew it was better for anyone who remained in the Doctor’s affections that he had been the one to collide with the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza. Phelps or Cunsher would have hesitated and been slain. Miss Temple and Chang would have shown no quarter, killed her or been killed in turn. But their principles were founded on hope, and his reflection showed a man cut free. Svenson admitted expediency. Alone amongst his comrades, he might sacrifice himself – might make such an alliance, murder innocents, sink to unanticipated depths – and so spare them all.

‘What a stricken face,’ observed the Contessa. ‘I tell you we are on the verge of a most profitable collaboration –’

Svenson seized her wrist and pinned her spike-hand against the door. She stared at him, eyes questioning and fierce, but his face was calm – indeed he felt altogether absent from his own body as it moved. Her left fist was ready to swing the jewelled bag. He deliberately shoved the pistol into his belt.

He caressed the soft curve of her jaw. She did not move.

His hand slipped lower, trailing the soft pulse in her throat with a fingertip, and then with a deliberate slowness slid his outspread palm over her bare collarbone, her bosom, and down her torso, feeling the silk and whalebone, until he reached her thin, cinched waist and the exaggerated sweep of her hips. Still the Contessa said nothing. Svenson sensed the span of her body between his fingers. He moved higher and squeezed again, feeling her ribs beneath the corset.

‘There is blood on your face,’ she murmured.

‘A way of dressing for the occasion.’

He released her and stepped away, pulling the revolver from his belt. The Contessa’s voice remained hushed.

‘For a moment I feared you might try to kill me … and then I understood that you have every intention of doing so. You have changed, Abelard Svenson.’

‘Is that so strange?’

‘When any man changes there ought to be fireworks.’

‘You still have every intention of killing me.’

The Contessa extended her left hand, the jewelled bag dangling, running her own fingers – pressing hard, her lips curling into a smile – the exact length of the scar from Tackham’s sabre.

‘I saw you, you know,’ she whispered, ‘bleeding on the ground, groaning like the damned … I saw you kill him. I thought you would die, just as I thought I had killed Chang. It is not often I underestimate so many people.’

‘Nor the same people so many times.’

The pressure on his scar was repulsive, but arousing. She lifted her fingers. ‘We overreach ourselves.’ Her cheeks held a touch of red. ‘Whatever your new provocations, there remains very much to do.’

At a pillared archway the Contessa raised her hand and they paused, peering into an ancient hall of high tapestries and cold stone walls. A row of tables ran down the centre of the room, arranged with bowls of floating white flowers.

Svenson craned his neck. ‘This room seems old – and, judging by the medieval decorations, quite out of fashion and unused.’

‘How do you account, then, for the flowers?’

‘A floral penchant of the Queen?’

The Contessa laughed. ‘No, because of the drains – the horrible drains! It is a wonder the entire royal household does not perish from disease. This chamber is particularly fragrant – but, while relining the pipes with copper would be an unthinkable expense, it is entirely acceptable to spend a colonel’s salary every fortnight on fresh flowers.’

‘Is this where the Privy Council meets, with Stäelmaere House under quarantine?’

The Contessa shook her head, enjoying her riddle. ‘Axewith took the Regent’s gatehouse. Because it boasts a portcullis – which tells you all you need to know about Lord Axewith. No, Doctor, there is no hope of getting anywhere near Oskar himself – he was always a coward, and he will have soldiers as thick around him as his old bearskin fur. I wonder if he’ll get another one? The real Vandaariff would never wear such a thing, but I don’t suppose anyone will care.’

‘Then where have you brought me?’

She pulled Svenson back into hiding. ‘We each have our talents, Doctor, and I have brought you where my own may shine. Observe.’

At the head of a cloud of men, all burdened with sheaves of paper, satchels, rolled documents, leather-bound ledgers, strode a thin young man with fair hair, the tips of his moustache waxed to a darker maple: Harcourt, the man they had collided with in the doorway. Svenson knew – from his days recuperating in Rawsbarthe’s attic – that Harcourt was an obsequious fellow whose advancement had come from never questioning his superiors’ commands, no matter how criminal. With so many riddled by sickness, Harcourt had vaulted to real power. Phelps had taken the news with dismay, but Svenson could see the burden did not weigh lightly on Harcourt’s shoulders. The young man’s face was haggard, and his voice – rapping out commands to the crowd that clustered behind him like a burlesque of some multi-limbed Hindu deity – reduced to the flat crack of a toad.

‘The port master must receive these orders before the tide; requisitions to the mines must not be sent until after the morning’s trading; these judges called to chambers as soon as the warrants are approved; local militias marshalled for property seizure. Disbursements set against the Treasury’s reckoning as of today, we must draw down to demonstrate our need – Mr Harron, see to it!’

Harcourt swept on to the nest of tables. The Contessa pushed into Svenson as a determined portly figure – the dispatched Mr Harron, with a thick portfolio, each page dangling a ribbon weighted with a blot of wax – hurried by without stopping.

‘Will you drink something, Mr Harcourt?’ asked one aide, more concerned with an alluring ruby decanter than with property seizures.

‘There are hours left in the day,’ sniffed Harcourt. ‘Send to the kitchens for strong tea. Where is the list from Lord Axewith?’

‘It has not yet come, sir.’

‘Vandaariff will dictate terms to us all.’ Harcourt rubbed his eyes and exhaled. He took up a new stack of documents, at once thrusting a page at another aide. ‘Make sure the commanders understand – there is to be no official record of casualties, nor any death benefits charged to the paymaster. They are to draw on Lord Axewith’s fund. Go.’

The aide bustled out and the next – they were all of an age with Harcourt – stepped up with a ledger and a pen. Harcourt blinked at it, wearily. ‘Just remind me?’

‘Transport tariffs, sir – to widen the Orange Canal, from the new Parchfeldt spur down to the sea.’

‘Ah.’ Harcourt scribbled his name but kept the pen, his eyes hovering over the ledger. ‘Parchfeldt.’

The young man took his master’s hesitation for a chance to speak. ‘Do you know how long the quarantine will go on, sir? In Stäelmaere House?’

‘Am I in the College of Medicine?’

‘Of course not, sir – but you served the Duke, were aide to Mr Phelps –’

‘Attend to your canals, Mr Forsett!’ Harcourt slapped the ledger shut, nearly upsetting the inkpot. ‘What in God’s name is keeping Pont-Joule? And where in blazes is that tea?’

But his last words were drained of wrath – indeed, were quite infused with stammering anticipation. The Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza had appeared before him, the red dress shimmering like a gemstone.

‘Sweet Christ,’ Harcourt croaked. ‘To your errands – at once, off with you all!’

‘What of your tea?’ squeaked Forsett.

‘Damn the tea! Drink it yourselves! I must meet with this lady alone!’

Harcourt’s officials hurried out, clutching their papers as if fleeing a house fire. Harcourt’s attention stayed fixed on the woman, and his lower lip trembled.

‘M-my lady …’

‘I told you I would return, Matthew. You look tired.’ The Contessa stood opposite Harcourt, the bowl of white blossoms between them like a ceremonial offering.

‘Not at all.’ Harcourt’s nonchalance was betrayed by the twitching of one eye. The Contessa set her jewelled bag onto the table and snapped it open, extracting a pair of silk gloves dyed to match her dress.

‘Such service, to manage a nation at risk,’ she said gently. ‘Is it truly recognized? Does such sacrifice ever find reward?’

Harcourt swallowed. ‘In the absence of other – experienced – Minister Crabbé – with the sickness that has pervaded –’

‘That terrible woman …’ The Contessa shook her head, her gloved fingers clicking as they sought inside her bag. ‘Can you imagine if anything like her should appear again? Or a score of them at once?’

Harcourt stared at the gleaming blue rectangle the Contessa had extracted.

‘This is for you, Matthew … for you alone.’ She offered her hand across the perfumed bowl and smiled shyly. ‘I trust you will not think the less of me.’

Harcourt shook his head, gulped and snatched the glass card. He raised it to his eyes, licking his lips like a hound. His pupils expanded to black balls and his jaw fell slack. Mr Harcourt did not move.

‘Come out, Doctor. The fellow is so earnest, it would be a shame not to share his misfortune.’

Svenson felt like a pet who’d been whistled for. ‘How long until his people return?’

‘We have at least … O … three minutes?’ The Contessa leafed through the papers in Harcourt’s portfolio.

‘That is no time at all!’

‘More than enough …’

She pulled a sheet of parchment free, reading it quickly. Harcourt gasped – in pain or ecstasy – but his gaze did not shift. Svenson inched closer, curious as to what held Harcourt in thrall.

‘Time, Doctor, time …’

‘What are you hoping to find? You might have waited until he had the news of Vandaariff’s demands –’

‘I have told you, Doctor, that does not matter.’

The Contessa shoved the parchment at Svenson and went back to the portfolio. The page was a list of properties to be temporarily seized by the Crown: railway lines, shipping fleets, mines, refineries, banks, and then, ending the list, at least fifteen different glassworks.

‘Glassworks?’

‘Curious, isn’t it?’

‘That demand has to come from Vandaariff – it’s all been planned in advance.’

The Contessa raised an eyebrow at his slow arrival and continued to sort through the mounds of paper. Harcourt gasped again.

‘What is the memory on that card?’ Svenson asked her.

‘Nothing to concern you …’

‘It must be extremely alluring.’

‘That is the intention –’

‘Because he does not wrench himself free. Thus you do not offer him information, but a sensual experience. As this is not your first meeting, I presume each new card draws him deeper into enslavement. Do you have such a storehouse of them? I assumed they had been lost.’

The Contessa plucked two small pages from a portfolio, folded them to tight strips and slipped each into the bodice of her dress. ‘Doctor, you will find a door behind that tapestry – the Turks besieging Vienna. Though if those are Turks I am a Scottish donkey, and if that is Vienna – well, not that it matters. The experience of one Florentine winehouse apparently equips a man to describe the world. Still, there is but one thing worse than an artist who has not travelled.’

‘The artist who has?’

She laughed. Too aware of his pleasure at sparking her amusement, Svenson lifted the tapestry and found a wooden door. The Contessa plucked the glass card away. Harcourt jackknifed at the waist with a shuddering cry, both hands digging at his groin.

‘Until we meet again, Matthew,’ she cooed. Svenson ducked to escape Harcourt’s eye, but need not have bothered. Harcourt had curled into a grunting, sobbing ball.

As soon as the Contessa closed the door, the light was gone. On instinct, Svenson edged away, to set himself beyond her spike.

‘Where are you?’ she whispered.

‘Where are we going?’

‘Stop running from me, you fool – there are steps!’

As she spoke, Svenson’s right foot skidded into space. He nearly overbalanced, toppling into the darkness, but managed to claw a handhold on the uneven walls. Before he could recover he smelt her perfume, and felt her breath warm at his ear.

‘You will break your neck – and we have not even made our bargain.’

‘What bargain is that?’

‘Go down – carefully, mind – and I will tell you.’

The steps were narrow and worn from a century of footfalls, and his boots slipped more than once. ‘Where does this take us? Where in the Palace?’

He felt her whisper on his neck. ‘Do you know the Palace?’

‘Not at all.’

‘Then it will be a surprise. Do you like surprises?’

‘Not especially.’

‘O Doctor – you waste the glory of the world.’

‘I shall endeavour to bear it.’

The Contessa nipped Svenson’s ear.

At the foot of the stairs his hand found another door, and her whisper reminded him to open it slowly. From behind another tapestry they entered a circular room with walls of stone.

‘It is a tower,’ said Svenson, his voice low with caution.

‘Well observed.’ The Contessa brushed past – Svenson flinched and brought up an arm – to the room’s exit, an open arch that left him feeling nakedly vulnerable. She peered out. Far away were indefinable sounds – trundlings, calls – but nothing near. The Contessa turned and Svenson retreated several steps. She raised an eyebrow at the distance between them and smiled.

‘It is the particular character of royal dwelling places to possess such oddities, because they are in a constant state of being rebuilt and then abandoned and then rebuilt again – what was once a castle must become a house, and then with fashion a different sort of house. Portions are devoured by fire, or cannon, or rotting time – doors are bricked over with haste, walls no longer connect, and – as you see – whole staircases misplaced without care. The myriad adulteries of a court hang upon such lore – such secrets are guarded, after all. But secret-keepers die and it can be possible to have such rooms as this … reliably to one’s self.’

‘Ah.’

‘And in answer to your persistent questions. Twenty yards through that wall is the Greenway, and beyond it the river.’

She pointed to a wall upon which hung a wide mirror, the silver spotted with decay. Below the mirror was a divan draped with blankets so tattered as to predate living memory. Svenson sensed a sneeze just looking at them.

‘Then we’ve come quite a distance.’

Further speech died in the Doctor’s throat, and he licked his dry lips. There had been ample opportunity to end his life on the dark staircase. What did the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza possibly need that he should still breathe? He nodded deferentially to the woman’s bosom. ‘You preserved two papers from Harcourt’s portfolio.’

‘I did indeed. Will you retrieve them?’

‘I should prefer you did not mock me, madam.’

‘We all prefer, Doctor, it does not signify.’ She slid two slim fingers beneath her bodice, then drew them out with the papers pinched between. ‘I will happily exchange a view of their contents for another cigarette.’

Svenson took the papers and handed the Contessa his case, making sure she was occupied before beginning to read. She exhaled a jet of smoke and then, rolling her eyes at his caution, crossed to the divan, swatted a dusty corner, and sat.

The first document brought a lump to Svenson’s throat: a dispatch from the Foreign Ministry’s attaché in Macklenburg describing the upheaval in the aftermath of the Crown Prince’s death. Konrad, Bishop of Warnemünde – the ailing Duke’s brother – was now the power behind the throne, filling vacant positions with his own appointees. Svenson sighed. Konrad had been the Cabal’s hidden agent in Macklenburg, enabling their acquisition of lands rich in indigo clay. He refolded the letter with a heavy heart. Had the Cabal reached Macklenburg as intended, Konrad would have remained a strictly managed puppet. In the absence of his masters he had simply adopted their ambitions. Had their success in destroying the dirigible accomplished anything at all?

Svenson read the second document twice, then extended both pages to the Contessa. She nodded without interest to the divan next to her and he dropped them on it, stepping nearer. The second page was the Contessa’s death warrant, signed by Matthew Harcourt.

‘I thought he was your creature.’

‘Serpent’s teeth, Doctor – we all have felt them.’

‘I am surprised you did not end his life.’

‘You do not know what the glass has shown him.’ She suddenly chuckled. ‘And the perfection of his people returning to find him thus – it is a small compensation.’

‘His career will be ruined?’

‘His career is nothing to me – but his heart, his dreams? Those have been spoilt forever.’

Svenson collected his case and lit a smoke of his own. He nodded to the folded paper. ‘What will you do?’

‘That changes nothing. It has not gone out. And if it had – well, you are a fugitive yourself. If caught, your head will be pickled and sent back to Macklenburg in a cask, evidence of this government’s friendship.’

‘And what of you?’

‘Being a woman, as befits an honourable nation, I will be treated far worse.’

She looked up at him, and then to the archway.

‘What is it about an open door that so fires a body for mischief? As simply joyful as a sweet breeze or the embrace of hot water – do you not agree? About open doors, I mean, about their spark.’

The Contessa ground her cigarette into the divan and hooked a foot behind the Doctor’s knee, pulling until he stood between her legs. She parted his greatcoat with both hands, eyes fixed somewhere near his belt buckle.

‘That is an intrusive, large pistol in your belt. Do you mind?’

Before Svenson could reply she had eased the weapon from its place, sliding the long barrel clear, and dropped it atop her papers. He looked into the crease of her white breasts. Perfume rose from her hair. He ought to take hold of her soft neck and squeeze. This woman had killed Elöise. No greater good, no compromise could justify –

The Contessa laid one hand – still in its thin silk glove – flat upon the Doctor’s groin, her palm conforming to the stiffening shape beneath. He gasped. She did not look up. Her other hand caressed the outside of his leg. He looked wildly about and saw the jewelled bag, pushed away, the spike inside. Her fingers closed about his length. She dragged along the fabric with her thumbnail. He quickly gripped her hand with his.

‘You – ah – you mentioned a bargain …’

‘I did … and you never answered me about open doors.’

‘Your point seemed indisputable.’

‘What a charming thing to say – I appreciate being indisputable … most ardently …’

She pulled away his hand, taking the cigarette from his fingers. She inhaled once, then flicked it into a corner. As she exhaled, the Contessa unbuckled the Doctor’s belt with three sure, unhurried movements. Her fingers returned for a single delicious slow stroke, and then, with the same easy efficiency, set to unbuttoning his trouser-front. Unable to contain himself, Svenson reached down and gently sank his fingers under the Contessa’s bodice and corset. For the first time she met his eyes. She smiled, warmly – to his shame the whole of his heart leapt – and shifted her posture to give his hand more room to grope. His fingers went deeper, until the tips curled beneath the curve of her breast, the edge of his hand dragging against the soft stud of her nipple. His other hand smoothed the hair from her eyes with a tenderness at odds with his desire.

With a two-handed wrench the Contessa peeled his trousers to his thighs and then with another ripped open his knitted woollen undersuit, bursting the buttons to his ribcage. She laughed at the flying buttons and then chuckled more deeply – with pleasure and, Svenson wanted to believe, appreciation – at the sight of his arousal. One gloved hand wrapped around his extended flesh, the grip of silk perfectly exquisite. The Contessa coyly bit her lip.

‘True bargains are tricky things, Doctor … would you not agree?’

‘They are the soul of civilized society.’

‘Civilization?’ Her hand resumed its measured stroke. ‘We live in the same riot as old Rome and stinking Egypt … my goodness, there it is …’ Her free hand reached to push aside his underclothes and expose the pink whorl of his scar. ‘That you did not die is a miracle.’ Her hand slid upwards, and, as she stretched, the Contessa’s full mouth came closer to her stroking. ‘But bargains, Doctor … between the likes of us, we have no need for such veneer.’

‘What would you offer, then?’

The Contessa grinned at his dry tone. ‘Well … I could give you what I gave Harcourt. The card is in my bag.’ She smeared a bead of fluid across the sensitive plumskin with the flat of her thumb and the Doctor hissed with pleasure. ‘The experience it holds is singularly transporting … if transport is what you want.’

‘And if I decline?’

‘Then perhaps I could give you the key to Oskar’s grand strategy.’

‘You know what he plans?’

‘I have always known. He is complicated, but still a man.’

As a man well in her power Svenson let this pass. ‘And in exchange I would do my best to stop him. Is that why I am alive?’

‘O Doctor Svenson,’ she cooed disapprovingly, ‘we are alive for pleasure …’

Her head dipped and the Doctor gasped with anticipation of her tongue, but instead he felt only the cool tease of her blown breath. The Contessa rose and with both hands took his greatcoat’s lapels and shoved him into her place on the divan. Bared and straining, trousers balled at the knees, with the pistol to one side and her jewelled bag to the other, he looked up at her. The Contessa gathered her dress – revealing her splendid, shapely, stockinged calves – and knelt astride him, her thighs upon his own, the mass of red silk covering his body near to the neck. His stiffness pulled against her petticoats. He gripped her waist.

‘This means nothing to you,’ he gasped.

‘What a ridiculous thing to say.’ Her voice was husky and low.

‘I remain your enemy.’

‘And I may kill you.’ She nudged her hips forward, sliding herself along his length. ‘Or make you my slave.’

‘I would rather die.’

‘As if the choice were yours.’

She drew her tongue over the gash below his eye. Svenson shifted his hips, seeking her with a blind nudge, but the Contessa edged away. His hands slid to her buttocks and pulled her closer, encountering another tangled layer of frustrating silk. The Contessa chuckled and raised her face. Too late he saw that she had reached into her bag. Before he could blink her gloved fingers had a blue glass card before his eyes, sticking Svenson as fast as an insect impaled on a board.

The Doctor’s mind traversed the entire cycle of experience inside the card but without understanding. So immersive were the colours that he lost all sense of space, and so vivid the curving lines and modelled forms that their images vibrated inside his brain, as if they’d been accompanied by silent explosions of gunpowder. More confusing still was the disconnection between the chaotic tableau before him and the still position of his body – and the body of the person from whom the memory originally came, the mind from whom this card had been harvested.

But slowly the space around him cleared …

A brightly lit room … an enormous room, for the canvas it held was immense.

Another cycle swept by, his attention lost in the details of swirling paint. The back of his mind throbbed with warning. Was this Harcourt’s card after all? But no, Harcourt’s transfixion had been erotic, and such was not, despite the extreme arousal of only moments before, his present experience. No … the emotion here was fear, controlled through great force of will, a deep-rooted dread emanating from the vision before his eyes, and in the sickening realization that far too much of the painting – and thus the intentions of its maker – remained incomprehensible.

This fear was especially strange coming from the body of the Contessa, for the memory came from her mind. However much the painting set the senses ablaze, he could not deny an anxious, thrilling tremor at feeling her body as his own – the weight of her limbs, the lower pivot of gravity, the grip of her corset …

The Contessa had learnt to make glass cards herself, from consulting her book. No doubt Harcourt’s card was also infused with some incident from her own life. Why had she sacrificed her own memories? Was her desperation so great as to warrant boring these holes into her own existence? Such questions the Doctor could only sketch in the backroom of his thoughts, as the greater part of his attention was devoured by the painted spectacle.

In form, the composition resembled a genealogical chart, centring around the joining of two massive families, each branching out from the wedded pair – parents, uncles, siblings, cousins, all punctuated by children and spouses. The figures stood without strict perspective, like a medieval illuminated manuscript, as if the painting were an archaic commemoration. Svenson felt his throat catch. A wedding.

This was the Comte’s canvas, mentioned in the Herald … what had it been called? The Chemickal Marriage …

That this was the work of Oskar Veilandt brought the canvas into clearer focus. The obsessively detailed background, which he had taken to be mere decoration, became a weave of letters, numbers and symbols – the alchemical formulae the Comte employed throughout his other work. The figures themselves were as vivid as Veilandt’s other paintings – cruelly rendered, faces twisted with need, hands groping for fervent satisfaction … but Svenson’s gaze could not long alight on any single figure without his head beginning to spin. He knew this was the Contessa’s experience, and that his path by definition followed hers.

Still, she had looked again and again, staring hard …

And then he knew: it was the paint; or, rather, that the Comte had inset slivers of blue glass within the paint; and sometimes more than slivers – whole tiles, like a mosaic, infused with vivid daubs of memory. The entire surface glittered with sensation, undulated like a heaving sea. The scope was astonishing. How many souls had been dredged to serve the artist’s purpose? Who could consume the lacerating whole and retain their sanity? His mind swarmed with alchemical correspondences – did each figure represent a chemical element? A heavenly body? Were they angels? Demons? He saw letters from the Hebrew alphabet, and cards from a gypsy fortune-teller. He saw anatomy – organs, bones, glands, vessels. Again the cycle played through. He felt the Contessa’s heroic determination to carve out this very record.

Eventually, Svenson was able to fix his gaze on the central couple, the ‘chemickal marriage’ itself. Both were innocent in appearance, but their voluptuous physicality betrayed a knowing hunger – there was no doubt of the union’s carnal aspect. The Bride wore a dress as thin as a veil, every detail of her body plain. One foot was bare and touched an azure pool (from which Svenson flinched, for it swam with memories), while her other wore an orange slipper with an Arab’s curled toe. One hand held a bouquet of glass flowers and the other, balanced on her open palm, a golden ring. Orange hair fell to her bare shoulders. The upper part of her face wore a half-mask upon which had been painted, without question, the exact features of the Contessa. The mouth below the mask smiled demurely, the teeth within bright blue.

The Groom wore an equally diaphanous robe – Svenson was reminded of the initiation garments of those undergoing the Process – his skin as jet black as the Bride’s was pale. One foot was buried in the earth up to the ankle, while the other was wrapped in shining steel. In his right hand he held a curved silver blade and in his left a glowing red orb the size of a newborn’s skull. His hair, as long as hers, was blue, and, like his mate, the upper portion of his face was masked – a blank mask of white feathers, save the eyes that shone through were bright ovals of glass. Svenson knew that each eye, perhaps more than anywhere else on the canvas, contained charged memories that might make sense of the whole. But the Contessa had not dared to look. The cycle of the card ended, and swept the Doctor helplessly back to its dizzied beginning.

He blinked and saw the tower chamber, the blue card safe in Cardinal Chang’s gloved hand. At Chang’s side stood Miss Temple, frowning with concern. Doctor Svenson sat up like a yanked puppet, only to find that his clothing had been completely restored. The pistol lay to his side. They stared as if he were mad.

‘What has happened?’ he asked, his voice cracking.

‘What has happened to you?’ Chang replied.

Svenson turned to the open arch, saw no one beyond it, then pointed vaguely at the tapestry hiding the staircase door. He saw the exasperation in Chang’s sneer, and the confusion on Miss Temple’s brow. They had not done up his trousers. It had been the Contessa. But when? His arousal had passed – he could not suppress a downwards glance – but under what circumstances?

Cardinal Chang held up the blue card. ‘Where did you get this?’

‘The Contessa.’ In his companions’ presence his complicity with the woman seemed utterly indefensible. ‘I met the Contessa –’

‘How could you have been such a fool to look into it?’

‘I tried to kill her – I failed – somehow we ended up fleeing from the guards –’

Miss Temple took his hand and sat next to him. ‘You must tell us everything.’ Her gaze caught the glass card in Chang’s hand. ‘And you must tell us what you saw.’

Doctor Svenson kept the tale decorous, aided by the fact that any impropriety with the Contessa lay beyond their imagination. Whenever his narrative faltered, Miss Temple or Chang would cut in with a question whose answer allowed an elision. Interwoven with their questions were details of their own struggle. Under the cover of Svenson’s gunfire they had fled deeper into the Palace. A wave of soldiers had swept each floor, but they managed to hide. When Miss Temple related this last, Svenson was sure he saw her cheeks redden.

‘Where did you conceal yourselves?’ he asked.

‘A wardrobe,’ muttered Chang. But Miss Temple, compensating for her blush, seemed determined to dismiss all mystery.

‘The trick of it being that a wardrobe full of clothing does not allow two people in it, and a wardrobe without clothing does not hide them if a diligent searcher opens its door. Further, it does not do at all to heave out half the contents to strike the proper balance – a heap of clothing serving as advertisement for close scrutiny.’

‘Quite the puzzle,’ offered the Doctor.

Her blush returned.

‘We saw nothing of Phelps or Cunsher,’ said Chang brusquely, shovelling earth on the subject of wardrobes.

‘Nor I,’ said Svenson. He described the death of Lord Pont-Joule, the Contessa’s enslavement of Princess Sophia and Mr Harcourt, and the two purloined documents.

‘And you left her alive.’ Chang’s voice was flat, as if the fact of Svenson’s action was damning enough. ‘And she spared you. Why?’

‘For the same reason she sent the red envelopes to Celeste’s hotel. She is not strong enough to defeat the Comte on her own – now that the Comte is Robert Vandaariff.’

‘What did she want you to do?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘I cannot say – yet the answer lies in that bit of glass. Infused with her own memories.’

‘Uncharacteristic,’ said Chang. ‘Such harvesting is for the lower orders.’

Svenson nodded. ‘There is no way to explain. You must each look into that card.’

Already seated, Miss Temple took the card first. Svenson remained next to her. Though she’d displayed no ill-effects from viewing the glass map, he wanted to be sure that this more potent card did not provoke any. She gasped softly as the cycle completed, but he detected no sudden pallor, no chill upon her skin. Chang watched with a sour expression.

‘How long should we allow her to look?’

‘Another minute.’ Svenson spoke quietly, as if Miss Temple were asleep. ‘The level of detail is prodigious, almost impossible to comprehend.’

‘What is it? You have not said.’

‘The Comte’s great painting. The one mentioned in the cutting from the Herald.’

‘That cannot be coincidence. Did Phelps find where it is, where it had been shown?’

‘I do not know.’

‘He did not tell you?’

‘We were distracted by the crowd –’

‘But that fact is extremely important! I assume you told him about your errands. Was he hiding the information deliberately?’

‘No – yes, we did ask him, but he was not – excuse me …’ Svenson rubbed his eyes.

‘What’s wrong? Are you sick?’

‘In a manner of speaking. It is the glass card – the bodily perspective. One inhabits the Contessa herself.’

Chang took this in, then snorted with a wolfish appreciation.

‘Indeed,’ said Doctor Svenson drily. ‘One is taken aback in unexpected ways.’

Both men turned to Miss Temple. Svenson realized he was staring and cleared his throat. ‘The Contessa made a deliberate examination of that man’s masterwork – again, one assumes she had a reason.’

‘Where is the memory from? Or when? Does she tell us where to find the painting?’

Svenson shook his head. ‘The very scale places the execution in the past. The Comte simply wouldn’t have had time in these last months. What’s more, as the clipping cites Oskar Veilandt, it more likely dates to before the artist remade himself as the Comte. As to location, that would have to be someplace large.’

‘Harschmort?’

‘I have to think we would have seen it already – we have walked miles through those halls.’ Svenson was painfully aware that only one of Chang’s questions had been answered: the Contessa had spared the Doctor’s life, for her own reasons … but why had Svenson spared hers?

‘I assume she cannot hear us,’ said Chang.

‘I should not think so.’

‘You say the Contessa makes her own glass. I agree. She may have made Miss Temple’s man Pfaff as much her creature as that Princess.’

‘Does Celeste know this?’

‘She knows not to trust him. What about you?’

‘Me? I should not even recognize the fellow –’

‘No. You are continually distracted. Yes, you were injured – and certainly your losses weigh upon you –’

‘No, no – I am perfectly able –’

‘Able? You left this monstrous woman alive!’

‘And my presence of mind with a pistol kept both of you from being taken.’

‘Perhaps, but if we cannot rely upon –’

‘Perhaps? Rely?’

‘Do not become agitated –’

‘Do not presume to be my master!’

Svenson’s words were sharper than he intended, the venting of too many worries, and they echoed off the stone walls. Chang’s hands balled into fists – in the silence Svenson could hear the stretching of his leather gloves.

‘Cardinal Chang –’

‘There is no time for any of this,’ Chang announced coldly. ‘It must be half nine o’clock. Wake her up.’

Distracted by her experience, Miss Temple did not notice their anger. She insisted that Chang too must look, promising to pull the card away after two minutes. Once he was installed on the divan with the card before his livid eyes, she turned to Doctor Svenson with a shrug.

‘Five minutes will do just as well. You are right to say one cannot get one’s mind around the painting, if one can even term it that. Beastly thing.’

Svenson studied her face for a toxic reaction. This painting went straight to the Comte’s alchemical cosmology, to his heart.

‘One does not appreciate being stared at,’ she told him hoarsely.

‘My apologies, my dear – I am worried about you.’

‘Do not be.’

‘I’m afraid I must. Did you – well, from the Comte, did you recognize the painting?’

‘In fact I did not,’ she replied, ‘or, I did, but not in the detail I should have expected – I should have expected to lose my last meal – but it struck me like the memories of a distant summer. The awareness of being there, but no longer the knowledge.’

‘Because the memory comes through the Contessa?’

‘Possibly, though I couldn’t say why. Perhaps the Comte wasn’t himself at the time.’

‘You mean opium?’

‘I don’t mean anything. But I’m sure we will puzzle the matter out. I have a great fondness for reading maps, you know, and you must have experience with codes and ciphers – we are halfway home.’

‘It is more than that, Celeste. Think of the thirteen paintings of the Comte’s Annunciation, and the alchemical recipe they contained for physical transformation. Think of Lydia Vandaariff.’

Svenson recalled the hellish scene in the laboratory at Harschmort: the Comte in a leather apron, cradling a snouted device of polished steel, Karl-Horst von Maasmärck lolling in an armchair, stupid with brandy, and Robert Vandaariff’s daughter tied to a bed, a pool of bright blue fluid between her legs. Whether she had been impregnated by the Prince or by the Comte himself barely mattered. Sailing to her wedding in Macklenburg, oblivious to all that had been done, the young woman had grown rapidly more ill, as poisons strove to remake her issue for a madman’s dream.

Miss Temple shuddered. ‘But it cannot have worked. Lydia would not have given birth to … to any living … I mean – transformed –’

‘No,’ said Svenson. ‘I am sure she would have died. But what is death to the Comte’s – now Vandaariff’s – madness? And this new painting is more than three times the size of the Annunciation. We know it is a recipe for something. We must not delude ourselves at how terrible it may be.’

‘That is the snap of it,’ said Miss Temple. ‘Now he has the money.’

‘Exactly. His plot with Lydia was done in the shadows, indulged by the others in exchange for what they saw as his true work with the blue glass.’ Svenson sighed. ‘But now, what he only imagined before, he can make real.’

‘Or so he believes.’ Miss Temple shook her head. Her voice was ragged but firm. ‘And where is Francesca Trapping? Has she been harmed?’

Svenson was surprised by the leap in Miss Temple’s thought. ‘The Contessa would not say. My guess is that the child has been hidden in the Palace, yet with the Contessa’s flight I think she must have been moved.’

‘Have they enslaved her too?’

‘Children are resilient,’ said the Doctor, without confidence.

‘But she will remember.’

The words carried a quiet gravity. Svenson waited for her to say more. Chang inhaled through his teeth – the cycle of the card coming full circle. The Doctor nearly pulled the card away. He dreaded to receive Miss Temple’s confidence, despite his curiosity as to what she might say.

Miss Temple sighed heavily, almost a groan. ‘We were together, you know … the Contessa and I, in a goods van, from Karthe. I was cold, and so tired.’

‘Were you harmed?’

Miss Temple’s voice took on a pleading tone. ‘I did nothing wrong. She is a wicked woman.’

‘Celeste.’ Svenson knelt in front of her. ‘Elöise told us you had looked into a glass book – Celeste, you cannot blame yourself –’

‘Of course I can’t! I did not ask for this – this – infestation! I cannot think! I cannot go two minutes –’ Her cheeks went red and she covered her face with both hands. Svenson touched her knee and Miss Temple yelped. He stood at once, blushing. ‘I have tried,’ she whimpered. ‘But even with her – her of all people. She sees through my skin. I cannot think but I am overcome. God help me – God help me!’

He had tended her through fever, bathed her, applied poultices, yet, as Miss Temple so boldly revealed herself a creature of appetite, the Doctor felt his view of her could shift. Was he such an ape? Was he so fragile? He bit down hard on the inside of his cheek, tasting blood. Miss Temple pulled her hands away and Doctor Svenson saw, without question, her tear-brimmed eyes dart to his groin.

‘Chang and yourself – you mentioned a wardrobe – did you –’

‘Did we what?’ she asked hopelessly.

‘Did you see anyone else?’

‘In the wardrobe?’

‘In the Palace.’

‘Hundreds of them! That was why we had to hide!’

‘Yes – of course –’

‘It was terrible! That tiny space! Do you not understand?’

‘I do – my poor dear – but – does Chang – I mean to say, did you –’

His gaze slipped to her bosom, and, before he could shift it, she had seen. To Svenson’s dismay Miss Temple’s expression altered in an instant. Within her undimmed agitation appeared first a flash of unfeigned hunger and directly after a grimace of contempt that shook him to his core. Then her face fell into her hands. Her huddled shoulders shook.

He felt the cold isolation creep back into his bones. The girl was a quivering ruin.

‘My dear Celeste. Gather yourself. Say nothing more. We will find the Contessa. We will find the Comte.’

‘They think it all a perfect joke!’

‘That is laughter they will choke on. Be brave still, and wipe your eyes. There is no shame. We must reclaim Cardinal Chang.’

When the card was removed, Chang cursed and set to rubbing his eyes and the skull around them. Svenson heard a new note of hoarseness in Chang’s voice, and noted the pallor of his lips, the shine of fluid at his nostrils.

‘Are you ill? Is it the card?’

‘It is nothing at all.’

‘You should let me examine you.’

‘We have wasted enough of the evening.’

‘You have not seen the wound – truly, if you would just –’

‘No.’ Chang slipped his dark glasses back into place. ‘I am perfectly well. Certainly compared to either of you.’

Despite Chang’s bad humour, Svenson was glad for the distraction. Miss Temple had done her best to restore her face, turning away as if to examine the tapestry.

‘The floors above are thick with people,’ said Chang. ‘We cannot hope to pass unseen. That no one has come down and found us is only due to their fear of past contagion.’

‘What contagion?’ asked Svenson.

‘The sickness! The glass woman’s legacy!’

‘But we are well away from Stäelmaere House, under the Palace – not twenty yards from the river.’

Chang pointed through the archway. ‘Twenty yards will take you to the Duke’s own cellars.’

‘But – but the Contessa told me –’

Chang snorted.

‘But why would she lie?’

‘To aide her own escape. Or provoke your capture.’

‘But you two fled deeper into the Palace,’ said Svenson. ‘Why come back?’

‘We knew no other way out,’ Miss Temple said. ‘And hoped we might find others in hiding – as we in fact did.’

‘Then we may be near Phelps and Cunsher. If they are taken, we must rescue them.’

Chang exhaled with impatience. ‘That would be the height of folly. To search means throwing away our own lives and abandoning all hope of stopping Vandaariff and the Contessa. Phelps and Cunsher know this.’

Svenson did his best to swallow his irritation, hating how expressing simple decency rendered him, in Chang’s eyes, a sentimental fool.

‘Well, then, if we search for Vandaariff –’

‘Vandaariff is gone,’ Chang scoffed. ‘He only came for his fireworks in the square, and for the pleasure of his hosts’ abasement.’

‘Then where do we find him?’

‘Harschmort. Raaxfall. Setting off another blast in Stropping Station. Anywhere.’ Chang jerked his chin at Miss Temple. ‘Ask her.’

‘I have no idea.’ Miss Temple spoke quietly, and to his dismay Svenson realized she had just consulted the Comte’s tainted memories, surely to compensate for displaying her weakness a moment before. He had told her to be brave, but hadn’t intended self-punishment.

Between Chang’s distemper and Miss Temple’s distress, the Doctor felt it was for him to set their path. But he could not make sense of the most basic facts. Had the Contessa left him to be captured? Why reveal the Comte’s painting if she simply wanted to see him hang? Svenson fought the urge for a cigarette. What had the Contessa told him, exactly? And once the Doctor had eventually wrenched himself from the blue glass card, left to himself, would he not have followed her direction?

‘What are you staring at?’ Chang asked.

Svenson pointed to the mirror. ‘The other side of this wall.’

‘I don’t understand.’

‘Nor I. Follow me.’

The Doctor crossed to the archway. As Chang stood, his boot slid, scraping on the floor. Svenson turned to see him pick something up, and frown.

‘Some idiot’s button,’ muttered Chang, and he threw it away.

There was no other side of the wall they could reach. The corridor ended in a stack of barrels. ‘I told you,’ said Chang. ‘We are in the cellars.’

Svenson frowned. ‘She acquainted me with the Comte’s painting to provoke some action. Saying I was near the river must have been deliberate, to send me in that direction …’

‘The woman is a vampire,’ said Chang. ‘Cruelty for the sake of being cruel.’

‘Cruelty would have meant taking my life.’

‘If the Contessa was civil it must have galled her terribly,’ Miss Temple observed, ‘like playing courtesan to a bitter enemy.’

‘Wait.’ The Doctor pointed. ‘Look at the floor.’

Thin lines of grit curved across the tile from beneath the barrels, as if they had been moved. Chang reached for a barrel and Svenson helped him shift it, revealing a metal door set into the stone. Hanging from the knob by a leather loop was a notched brass tube three inches long.

‘The pneumatic vestibule,’ Svenson said. ‘And here is the key.’

Inside the panelled box, Svenson paused. ‘Do we follow the Contessa, or escape?’

‘She may have returned to the attic, to Francesca,’ said Miss Temple.

‘We don’t know that the child is there,’ Chang cautioned. ‘I say we descend to where we entered and hope it is not thronged with soldiers.’

Acknowledging this logic, Svenson thrust the key into the slot and stabbed the lowest button on the brass plate. The car vibrated with life. They descended without speaking – all three with weapons ready – but when they heard the tell-tale clank the car did not stop.

‘I thought we entered directly below the cellars,’ said Chang.

‘Perhaps we did not pay attention,’ said Miss Temple. ‘Perhaps it was two stops below.’

‘It wasn’t.’

‘Then there is another floor further below.’

A second clank and the car came to a halt. Chang pulled the iron gate open and set his shoulder against the tarnished metal door beyond it.

This was not the underpassage to Stäelmaere House. Instead, they had been delivered to another tunnel, with a tiled floor like a bath house. A single lantern, lit within the hour judging by the level of oil, had been left on the floor. Next to it, like a malicious rose, lay a third red envelope.

It was empty save for a scrap of white tissue, smeared with a scarlet imprint of the Contessa’s mouth. Svenson said nothing. Chang scowled with displeasure. Miss Temple put her nose to the tissue, and observed that it smelt of frangipani flowers. They began to walk.

‘This cannot have been simple to construct,’ said Svenson. ‘The digging must have displaced the coach traffic above us for ages –’

‘Nothing of the kind has displaced anything,’ called Chang, walking in the lead. ‘This can only be the old Norwalk.’

This meant nothing to Svenson or Miss Temple. Chang sighed. ‘The Norwalk fortifications were dismantled to lay the Seventh Bridge, and the new Customs House.’

‘I have been to the Customs House,’ said Miss Temple. ‘To learn about trade.’

‘That does you credit,’ said Svenson. ‘It is the rare heiress not simply content to spend.’

Miss Temple made a bothered face. ‘I did not want to be cheated – sugar-men are famous scoundrels. But, once I was inside, tiresome is not the half of it –’

Chang cleared his throat. They stopped talking. He went on.

‘The Norwalk formed one wall of the original Citadel. I would guess this was once a lower catacomb.’

‘But why has it been remade?’ asked Svenson. ‘New tile and fresh paint.’

Chang reached into his coat for his razor. With the handle he scratched a line in the plaster and blew the dust away. ‘Replastered these past two months.’

‘Before or after the dirigible went into the sea?’ asked Svenson.

Chang shrugged. Miss Temple held up the lantern.

‘We forget this. Someone lit it. We must keep on and make her tell us everything.’

A quarter-mile brought the tunnel’s end: a wooden door, and another red envelope left atop its polished handle. Chang tore it open, glanced at the paper and passed it to Svenson with a snort.

My Dear Doctor,

As a man of evident Vitality you would have found this Lair in Time, but Time is no good Friend.

The Task is beyond any single Agent.

Do not let Love blind your Eyes. Ample Time remains to settle our Account.

RLS

Miss Temple raised her eyebrows impatiently and Svenson handed the paper to her.

‘Why should she mention “love”?’ asked Chang.

‘I expect she means Elöise,’ Svenson replied, wondering if it were true, wondering – despite his surety of the woman’s heartlessness – just how the Contessa viewed their encounter. And how did he view it? ‘She will say anything to mitigate her guilt if she requires our aid.’

Miss Temple thrust the paper back. ‘I will not be a party to her bargains.’

‘If we find the Contessa,’ said Chang, ‘no matter where, she is to die.’

Svenson nodded his agreement. It was not that he wanted to spare the Contessa – and he did not, truly – but he saw in his companions’ resolve a wilful denial of the fact that their struggle now stretched beyond the individuals who had wronged them. And if he did keep the woman alive to defeat the Comte, would Miss Temple and Chang come to hate him just as much, at the end?

The ‘lair’ certainly looked to be inhabited by an animal. Clothes, however fine, were strewn across the floor and furniture, unwashed plates and glasses cluttered the worktops, empty bottles had rolled to each corner of the room, a straw mattress had been folded double and shoved against the wall. Despite the Contessa’s detritus, it was clear the low stone chamber had been refitted for another purpose. Metal pipes fed into squat brass boxes bolted to the wall. The chamber reeked of indigo clay.

Svenson touched the pipes to gauge their heat, then put his palm against the wall. ‘Very cold … could that be the river?’

Chang slapped his hand against the wall. ‘Of course! I’m a fool – the Seventh Bridge! The turbines!’

‘What turbines?’ asked Miss Temple. ‘You say such things as if one mentions turbines over breakfast –’

Chang rode over her words. ‘The supports of the bridge contain turbines – it was an idea for flushing sewage –’

‘These pipes hold sewage?’

‘Not at all – the plan was never implemented. But we know Crabbé and Bascombe plotted against their allies – so of course they required their own version of the Comte’s workshop. The bridge’s turbines, with the force of the river, would serve up enough power to satisfy even these greedy machines.’

‘And I assume the Contessa learnt their secret from her spy, Caroline Stearne.’ Miss Temple waved the reek from her face. ‘But why has she abandoned it?’

‘That is the question,’ agreed Svenson. ‘This night she has given up her refuge at the Palace, and now a quite remarkable laboratory …’

‘There is the matter of her death warrant,’ said Miss Temple.

‘It did not appear to trouble her especially.’

‘Also, if she lit the lamp and left the envelopes to get us here,’ said Chang, ‘where did she go?’

They did not see any other door. Svenson searched behind the mattress and under the piles of clothing, pausing at a wooden crate. The crate was lined with felt and piled with coils of copper wire. Next to it, in a tangle of black rubber hose, lay a mask, the sort they had all seen before in the operating theatre at Harschmort.

‘As we guessed, not only was our view of the painting leached from her own mind, it seems the Contessa did the leaching herself.’

‘How can she be sure the machine selects only the memory she desires?’ asked Chang. ‘Does she not risk its draining everything?’

‘Perhaps that is determined by the glass – a small card can contain only so much.’ Svenson moved on his knees to one of the brass boxes. It was fitted with a slot in which one might insert an entire glass book, but above this was another, much smaller aperture, just wide enough for a card. ‘I agree, however, that to do this alone is insanity. How can she rouse herself to turn off the machine? We have all seen the devastating effects –’

‘Did you see them in her?’ asked Miss Temple, just a little hopefully. ‘Thinning hair? Loosened teeth?’

‘Here.’ Chang held out a tiny pair of leather gloves, dangling them to show the size. ‘The Contessa took precautions after all.’

‘They would not fit a monkey,’ said Svenson.

‘Francesca Trapping,’ said Miss Temple.

‘The sorceress’s familiar.’ Chang hoisted himself onto a worktop to sit. ‘But I still don’t see why she’s left the place, nor why she’s bothered to lure us here …’

His words trailed away. Svenson followed Chang’s gaze to a china platter, blackened and split, piled with bits of odd-shaped glass, most of them so dark Svenson had taken them for coal. But now he saw what had caught Chang’s eye: in the centre of the platter lay a round ball of glass, the size and colour of a blood orange.

‘The painting,’ Svenson said. ‘The black Groom – in his left hand …’

Chang picked up the reddish sphere and held it to the guttering lantern above them.

‘It is cracked,’ he said, and pushed up his dark glasses.

‘Chang, wait –’

Doctor Svenson reached out a warning hand, but Chang had already shut one eye and put the other to the glass.

‘Do you see anything?’ asked Miss Temple.

Chang did not answer.

‘I wonder if it is infused with a memory,’ she whispered to Svenson. ‘And what could make it red?’

‘Iron ore, perhaps, though I couldn’t speculate why.’ Svenson sorted through the remaining pieces on the platter – several were obviously the remnants of other spheres that had broken, but none were of the same deep shade.

‘If this is indigo clay … the refining is not what we have seen. I would guess each piece has been mixed with different compounds – no doubt to alter its alchemical efficacy –’

‘Doctor Svenson?’

Miss Temple stared at Chang, who remained gazing into the glass ball, as still as a stone.

Svenson swore in German and rushed to Chang’s side. He wrenched the ball from Chang’s grip. A warm vibration touched his hand, but nothing that stopped him from setting it back on the platter.

‘Is he poisoned?’ Miss Temple squeaked. ‘Save him!’

Chang’s naked eyes stared at nothing. Svenson felt his forehead and his pulse. He tapped Chang’s cheek sharply, twice. Nothing. ‘His breathing is not strained. It is not a fit … Celeste, do you have your rings – the rings of orange metal?’

She rummaged in her clutch bag and came out with a canvas pouch. The Doctor extracted a single ring and – feeling something of a fool – held it close to Chang’s eye. Chang did not react. Svenson pressed the whole pouch against Chang’s cheek.

Like a wine stain seeping through thick linen, the skin in contact flushed pink, then red, then went purple, like a deepening bruise. Miss Temple shrieked.

‘What is happening? Take it away!’

Svenson dropped the pouch. A pattern had been scorched onto Chang’s face, the colour of cherry flesh. The Doctor looked hurriedly around him.

‘The mattress! We must set him down –’

Miss Temple leapt to the mattress, dragging it close. Svenson lugged Chang off the worktop and they laid him down. Already the scorched ring had faded again to the pink of health. How had the effects reversed so quickly? Svenson seized Chang’s shoulder and belt. With a heave he rolled the man over, face down on the mattress.

‘What are you doing?’

‘Celeste, when you saw Chang’s wound, at Raaxfall, did you query your own memories of the Comte?’

She nodded, then choked in the back of her throat. ‘I found nothing.’

‘As I thought. You see, he is attempting something new. Our friend will not be another Lydia Vandaariff.’

The Doctor lifted Chang’s coat. The brief glimpse at Raaxfall had been in poor light.

‘Celeste, please look away –’

She shook her head. Svenson raised the silk shirt.

The wound lay to the right of the lumbar vertebra. The original puncture had been enlarged through what looked like at least three different surgeries, expanding the scar to the shape and size of a child’s splayed, thumbless hand. The scar tissue was an unsettling vein-blue, with a rough, thickened surface like the hide of a starfish. But it was the flesh around the wound that had made them gasp in the wicked room at Raaxfall, and the Doctor winced to see it again. Like dye dropped into a milky basin, virulent streaks of red radiated from the centre, as if signifying a flowering of infection.

‘The same colour as the ring against his face,’ Miss Temple whispered.

Svenson delicately palpated the discoloured area. The flesh was cold, and beneath it his fingertips met an unnatural resistance.

‘Something has been placed inside.’

Her voice was small. ‘Will he die?’

‘If the Comte had wanted to kill him, he would be dead. We saw the other bodies –’

‘Then what has happened? Can you remove it? Why has he collapsed when he was perfectly fine?’

Svenson caught her flailing hand. ‘Clearly he was not fine. I cannot hope to remove it, even had I the tools. Whatever is implanted lies too near the spine. The slightest mistake and he is a cripple.’

‘That isn’t true!’

‘Please, Celeste – you must let me think –’

‘But he will die!’

Svenson looked helplessly around him, searching for any idea. The orange metal had always been effective in reversing the predations of the blue glass, but its application here had worsened Chang’s condition … could it be as simple as that, a matter of opposites? Svenson crawled to the china platter and pawed through the jumble of glass … was all of it so discoloured? He shouted to Miss Temple.

‘The card – the blue glass card!’

She dug in her bag and he snatched the card from her grasp, protecting his fingers with his coatsleeve. He rolled Chang onto his back. The man’s eyes remained disturbingly open. Svenson dropped to his knees and thrust the card before them.

At first he saw no reaction, his close observation echoed by Miss Temple’s silence as she held her breath. But then the pink colour began to drain away. Had that happened when Chang looked into the card, to view the painting? Svenson had no clear memory. Chang’s breathing thickened. His skin went paper-white. The blue card made things worse as well. Svenson yanked the card away and heaved a sigh of relief as these latest symptoms too reversed themselves.

‘It is not science,’ Svenson said helplessly. ‘It is not medicine, playing with a life as if it were a cooking pot, adding this and subtracting that. I am sorry, Celeste – desperately sorry –’

He turned, expecting to find a face in tears. But Miss Temple stood at the platter. He saw her hand close around the reddish ball, but he was on his knees, and Chang lay between them. Svenson’s reaching arm fell short.

Miss Temple’s shoulders heaved with convulsions. He spun her round, tearing the ball from her grasp and hurling it against the wall, where it shattered. Miss Temple’s eyes were dead. Black fluid rimmed her mouth.

‘Celeste! Celeste – you idiot girl! Celeste!’

She did not hear. He eased her down, but her eyes refused to clear. Oily bubbles bloomed between her lips, but he could not make out the words, if words they even were. She arched her back against a bout of choking. Doctor Svenson knelt between his fallen comrades, ridiculous victims, and groaned aloud.

A cupboard door below the worktop popped open, driven by the heel of a diminutive black boot.

He blinked. The cupboards. They had not looked in the cupboards.

She wriggled out legs first, stockings stretched around a colt’s knobbed knees, then little hands pulled her body into view. Francesca Trapping stood and brushed at her very rumpled dress in an automatic gesture that had no effect whatsoever. Her red hair was all tangles and snarls, her face unclean.

‘You are alive,’ Svenson whispered.

Francesca took in Miss Temple and Chang, nodding as if their conditions were steps in a recipe she had memorized.

‘There is little time.’ Her shrill voice was raw. ‘By tomorrow Oskar will have had his way.’

With a shudder Svenson saw the teeth in her mouth had gone grey.

‘Francesca … what has she done?’

‘What was required. What she has done to you.’