The Chemickal Marriage

Five Reliquary

Chang ignored the gunshots. It was up to Svenson to deal with the men behind them. The slightest break in concentration and Foison would have Chang’s life: he could no more heed the commotion around him than a surgeon marked a patient’s screams.

The razor was open in Chang’s right hand. In his left he held a black cloak, long enough to tangle a blade and which, accurately thrown, could baffle Foison’s vision. Foison matched him with two knives, balanced to throw, made for thrust, heavy enough to snap the razor clean. Instead of broad strokes to keep Chang back, Foison would favour point: one blade to entangle Chang’s defence, then the other for the kill. Chang’s options were more limited. The razor might spill quantities of blood, but to incapacitate a man like Foison the edge must reach his throat. Nothing less would prevent the second knife from stabbing home.

An observer would have sworn that neither man moved, but to Chang it was a flurry of threats and counters signalled in subtle shifts of weight, flexing fingers, pauses of breath. Skill ran second to what advantage could be seized from circumstance: a blade, a chair or a shove down a staircase, Chang hardly cared, and expected the exact lack of courtesy in return. He was no fop to entertain the notion of a duel.

Fast as a bullet, Foison moved, a high thrust at Chang’s face. Chang whipped the cloak in the air, hoping to catch the knife-tip –

Both men were blown off their feet in the roar of flame and debris, and the whistle of flying glass.

Chang rose and pushed off the cloak that had caught the debris of the blast. Not two yards away, Foison groped for his knives in the smoke. Chang’s swinging fist caught him below the eye, and then a merciless kick dropped Foison flat.

Chang’s ears rang. The soldiers’ shadows already danced in the portico. Any moment the trading hall would be swarmed. A writhing movement at his feet – the kicking legs of Francesca Trapping, her body shielded by the arms and greatcoat of Doctor Svenson. Chang pulled the girl to her feet and raised Svenson by the collar, unsure if the man was alive. The Doctor’s hand slapped at Chang’s arm and Svenson erupted into a coughing fit, dust caking his face and hair.

Chang did not see Celeste Temple.

All around lay corpses whose white coverings had been blown away by the explosion. With the dust and smoke and so many women and children amongst them, it was impossible to isolate one small body with auburn hair. The fact entered his brain like a bullet. Body. The dead were everywhere. Nothing else moved.

He had failed her. Without further hesitation, Chang sprinted to the nearest archway, the girl beneath one arm and Doctor Svenson hauled along by force.

He kicked out a window, heaved his squirming burdens through, then compelled them the length of the alley to a low brick hut. He knew exactly where they were.

The girl was in tears.

Chang snatched two lanterns, set them alight and crossed to a greasy stone staircase, leading down. He held one out, impatiently, for the Doctor.

‘Hold hands, the way is slick.’ Chang’s voice was hoarse. They kept the wall on their left and the dark, stinking stream to the right, until they reached a place where the steps were relatively clean, and at Chang’s gesture the others sat.

‘We are in the sewers. We may travel unseen.’ Svenson said nothing. The girl shuddered. Chang held the lantern to her face. ‘Are you hurt? Can you hear me – your ears?’

Francesca nodded, then shook her head – yes to hearing, no, she was unharmed. Chang looked to Svenson, whose face was still streaked by white dust, and nearly dropped the lantern.

‘Good Lord, why did you not speak!’

The bullet hole was singed into the front of Svenson’s greatcoat, directly above his heart. Chang tore open the coat … but there was no blood. For all their running, Svenson’s front ought to have been soaked. With a wince the Doctor extracted his mangled cigarette case, a lead pistol slug flattened into the now misshapen lid. Svenson turned it over so they could all see the opposite side – bulging from the bullet’s impact, but never punched through. He worked a handkerchief gingerly under his tunic, pressed it tight against his ribs and then pulled it out to look: a blot of blood the size of a pressed tea rose.

‘The rib is cracked – I felt it running – but I am alive when I ought not to be.’

Chang stood. Francesca Trapping’s eyes gazed fearfully up to his. Behind him in the dark, the trickle of sewage. He felt the smoke in his lungs, heard its abrasion when he spoke.

‘I did not see Celeste. I could not find her.’

Svenson’s voice bore the same ragged edge. ‘You were occupied with that fellow – you saved us all.’

‘No, Doctor, I did not.’

‘Celeste set off the explosion. She fired into the clock. I don’t know how she guessed it held another explosive charge. Who knows how many lives she saved – if it had gone off tomorrow …’ Svenson placed a filthy hand across his eyes. ‘I could only reach the child –’

‘I do not blame you.’

‘I blame myself – quite fiercely. She was … Lord … a remarkable, brave girl –’

‘I will have that bastard’s head.’

Chang’s words echoed down the sewage tunnel. Doctor Svenson struggled to rise, and placed a hand on Chang’s shoulder. Chang turned to him.

‘Are you well enough to go on?’

‘Of course, but –’

Chang pointed to a wooden door above the stairs. ‘You will be in the lanes behind the cathedral – the blast there will explain your appearance, and you should be able to walk freely.’ He shifted his gaze to Francesca. ‘You will take the Doctor where the Contessa asked?’

The child nodded. Chang clasped Svenson’s arm and took up the lantern. ‘Good luck,’ he managed, and strode into the dark. The Doctor called after him.

‘Chang! You are needed. You are needed alive.’

Chang hurdled the fetid stream in a running leap. They were lost behind him. He increased his pace to a jog, already caught up with all he had set himself to do.

The great Library, like every other civic institution, was shot through with privilege and preference. Inside it lay elaborate niches, like endowed chapels in a cathedral, housing private collections that the Library had managed to wrest from the University or the Royal Institute. Though every niche held one or two bibliographical gemstones, these collections attracted more dust than visitors, access being granted only through referenced application. Chang had learnt of their existence quite by accident, searching for new ways to reach the roof. Instead he had found the hidden wing of the sixth floor, and with it the old Jesuit priest.

The Fluister bequest would never have attracted Chang’s interest under normal circumstances. The fancy of an admiral in whom a curiosity for native religions had been instilled by a posting to the Indies, and whose prize money had been lavishly spent on acquiring any volume relating to the aboriginal, esoteric, heretical or obscure – to Chang it was a fortune wasted on nonsense. To the Church, Admiral Fluister’s bequest – pointedly made to the public, yet diverted into its present inaccessible location through proper whispers in the proper ears – represented an outright gathering of poisons. Conquering through kindness, the Bishop had offered the services of a learned father to catalogue such a haphazard acquisition. The Library, caring less for knowledge than possession, had naturally accepted, and so Father Locarno had arrived. Ten years at least he had sorted through the Admiral’s detritus (it was an open wager amongst the archivists as to when the porters would find Locarno dead) with scarcely a word to anyone, a black-robed spectre shuffling in when the doors opened and out only when the lamps were doused.

In Chang’s experience, there were two kinds of priests: those with their own life history, and those who had taken orders straight away. The latter he dismissed out of hand as fools, cowards or zealots. Amongst the former, he granted one might find men whose calling rose from at least some understanding of the world. In the case of Father Locarno, his nose alone set him in that camp, it having been deliberately removed with a blacksmith’s shears. Whether this marked him as a reformed criminal or an honest man whose misfortune had led to a Barbary galley, no one knew. It was enough to speculate why this weathered Jesuit had been given the task of managing the Fluister bequest – which was to say, Chang wondered how many of the books Father Locarno had secretly amended or destroyed.

He stepped into the Fluister niche. Father Locarno sat, as he ever had in Chang’s experience, at a table covered with books and ledgers. His grey hair was bound with a cord, and his spectacles, because of the nose, were held tight by steel loops around each ear. The exposed nasal cavity was unpleasantly moist.

‘Esoteric ritual,’ said Chang. ‘I have questions and very little time.’

Father Locarno looked up with a keen expression, as if correcting others was a special pleasure. ‘There is no knowledge without time.’ The Jesuit’s voice was strangely pitched, vaguely porcine.

Chang pulled off his gloves, dropping them one at a time on the table. ‘It would be more truthful to say there is no knowledge without commerce – so, churchman, I will give you this. The Bishop of Baax-Sonk has not been in his senses since visiting Harschmort House some two months past. Many others share the Bishop’s condition – Henry Xonck perhaps the most notable. It has been ascribed to blood fever. This is a lie.’

Father Locarno studied Chang closely. They had never done business, though surely the priest had heard rumours from the staff.

‘Do you offer His Lordship’s recovery?’

‘No. His Lordship’s memories have been harvested into an alchemical receptacle.’

Father Locarno considered this. ‘When you say receptacle –’

‘A glass book. Whatever he knew, any treasured secret he kept, will be known to those who made the book.’

‘And who would that be?’

‘I would assume the worst. But I should think this much information will allow your superiors to take some useful precautions.’

Father Locarno frowned in thought, then nodded, as if to approve at least this much of their transaction. ‘I am told you are a criminal.’

‘And you are a spy.’

Locarno sniffed with disapproval – an instinctive gesture that flared the open passages on his face. ‘I serve only the greater peace. What is your question?’

‘What is a chemical marriage?’

‘My goodness.’ Locarno chuckled. ‘Not what I expected … not a common topic.’

‘Not uncommon in your field of expertise.’

Locarno shrugged. Chang knew the man was now rethinking the Bishop’s fate – and every other recent change in the city – in respect to alchemy.

‘This blood fever – now Lord Vandaariff has recovered, perhaps His Lordship the Bishop –’

Chang cut in sharply, ‘There is no cure. The Bishop is gone. This chemical marriage. What does it mean? Is it real?’

‘Real?’ Locarno settled back in his chair, the better to expound. ‘Your formulation is naive. It is an esoteric treatise. The Chemickal Marriage of Johann Valentin Andreæ is the third of the great Rosicrucian manifestos, dating from 1614 in Württemberg.’

‘A manifesto to what purpose?’

‘Purpose? What is enlightenment without faith? Power without government? Resurrection without redemption?’

Chang interrupted again. ‘I promise you, my interest in this ridiculous treatise is immediate and concrete. Lives depend upon it.’

‘Whose life?’

Chang resisted the urge to snatch up his penknife and rumble ‘Yours’. Instead he placed both hands on the table and leant forward. ‘If I had the time to read the thing, I would. The explosions. The riots. The paralysis of the Ministries. One man is behind it all.’

‘What man?’

‘The Comte d’Orkancz. You may also know him as the painter Oskar Veilandt.’

‘I have never heard either name.’

‘He is an alchemist.’

Locarno released a puff of disdain through the hole in his face. ‘What has he written?’

‘He has made paintings – a painting named for this treatise. I need to know what he intends by it.’

‘But that is absurd!’ Locarno shook his head. ‘These works are all inference and code precisely because such secrets can be perceived only by those who deserve the knowledge. Such a treatise may indeed tell a story, but its sense is more akin to symbolic mathematics.’

Chang nodded, recalling Veilandt’s paintings in which shadows and lines were actually densely rendered signs and equations.

‘For example, in such works, if one refers to a man, one also means the number 1. The Adept will further understand that the author also refers to what makes a man.’

‘I’m sorry –’

‘For what is man but spirit, body and mind? Which, of course, make the number 3 –’

‘So the number 1 and the number 3 are the same –’

‘Well, they can be. But the triune –’

‘What?’

‘Triune.’

‘What in all hell –’

‘Three-parted, for heaven’s sake! Body, spirit, mind. That triune constitution of Man will equally stand for the Nation and the three estates that form it: Church, aristocracy, citizenry. In today’s parlance one might substitute government for aristocracy, but the comparison holds. Moreover, the three estates – as every man carries the shadow of sin – necessarily contain their opposite, fallen aspects: the bigotry of the Church, the tyranny of the state and the ignorance of the mob. This duality is precisely why secrecy is of paramount importance in communicating any –’

‘This is exactly the nonsense I had hoped to avoid.’

‘Then your errand is hopeless.’

‘Can you not simply relate the thing as a tale?’

‘But it is no tale. I do not know how else to put it. Events occur, but without narrative. In its place comes only detail, description. If there is a bird, one must know what colour and what species. If there is a palace, how many rooms? If the seventh room, what colour are the walls? If the Executioner’s head is placed in a box, what kind of wood –’

‘Nevertheless, father, please.’

Father Locarno gave a querulous snort. ‘A saintly hermit attends a royal wedding, along with other guests. The guests undergo several trials, and a worthy few are admitted to the mysteries of the wedding. But before the young king and queen can be married, they and the royal party are executed. Then, by way of more rituals and sacrifices, they are miraculously reborn. This journey – the Chemickal Marriage – is emblematic of the joining of intelligence and love through the divine. The Bridegroom is reality, and the Bride – being a woman – is his opposite, the empty vessel who attains perfection through union with that purified essence.’

‘What essence?’

‘What do you think?’

Chang snorted. ‘Is it an instruction book for madmen or for a brothel?’

‘Those outside the veil rarely perceive –’

‘Again, the Bride and Groom. He is also reality and she –’

‘Is possibility, fecundity, emptiness. Woman.’

‘How bracingly original – fecundity and emptiness at the same time. And this king and queen – the Bride and Groom – are executed?’

‘By ritual.’

‘Then brought back to life?’

‘Reborn and redeemed.’

‘And what is made, in this spectacular marriage – when these two become one?’ Chang’s voice became snide. ‘Or, excuse me, three – or also six –’

‘They make heaven on earth.’

‘What does that mean?’

‘The restoration of natural law.’

‘What does that mean?’

It was Locarno’s turn to scoff. ‘What informs our every dream? The return of Eden.’

In the lowest basement Chang availed himself of a porter’s luncheon, trustingly left on a table. He ate standing, and stuffed the last bites into his mouth before lifting the sewage grate with both hands. He emerged some time later in the shadow of St Celia’s madhouse. Chang washed his hands and face at its carved fountain – an infant baptized by Forgetfulness and Hope – and slopped water onto each boot, the worse for a second journey underground.

Three streets past St Celia’s was Fabrizi’s. Chang’s visit was brief – and cost the second of his rolled banknotes – but he was once more armed: a stick of ash with iron at the tip and, inside it, a double-edged blade, twelve inches and needle-sharp. Signor Fabrizi himself said nothing with regard to Chang’s absence or his present disarray, but Chang knew full well the picture he made. He had seen it himself too many times, men risking all on a last desperate throw – a gamble, it was obvious, they had already lost. If one ever saw them again it was only being pulled from the river, faces as shapeless and swollen as an uncooked loaf.

Before leaving, he had asked Father Locarno if there was anything unique to The Chemickal Marriage that might have explained its singular attraction for the Comte.

‘The messenger, of course.’

‘Of course? Then why not mention this before?’

The priest had huffed. ‘You wanted the story.’

‘What messenger?’

‘The hermit is summoned by an angel, whose wings are “filled with eyes” – a reference to Argus, the hundred-eyed watchman slain by Hermes –’

‘A reference to what purpose?’

‘The messenger – the Virgin – is a figure of vigilance –’

‘Wait – the Bride is a multi-eyed virgin who is slain?’

Locarno had shaken his head in exasperation. ‘By Virgin I refer to the angel.’

‘Not the Bride?’

‘Not at all –’

‘The Bride is not a virgin?’

‘Of course she is. But the angel – the emblematic Virgin – messenger, summoner – also presides over the executions, the wedding and the rebirth. She is called Virgo Lucifera, and is quite unique to this particular work.’

‘Lucifer?’

‘Have you no Latin? Lucifera. Light. The virgin of enlightenment.’

‘A creature of tenderness and mercy, then?’

‘On the contrary. Angels have no more emotion than birds of prey. They are creatures of justice, and therefore relentless.’

A covetous pride infused Locarno’s speech. Chang turned with a shiver. There was enough cruelty in the world without its being worshipped.

Halfway back to St Celia’s was an apothecary’s, where Chang purchased a three-penny roll of gauze. As the clerk measured the cloth to cut, Chang’s gaze passed across the bottled opiates behind the counter. Any one would exhaust the coins in his pocket, requiring him to use the final banknote. He stuffed the gauze in his pocket and walked out before temptation got the better of him.

He hurried towards the high walls of St Albericht’s, a seminary given over to the Church’s more worldly concerns: finance, property, diplomatic intrigue. Was the blast at the cathedral damaging enough to force the Archbishop to shift his residence? Chang slipped into the shadows opposite St Albericht’s and was gratified by a veritable parade of displaced churchmen.

Something about the look Fabrizi had given Chang – that presentiment of doom – sparked a reckless daring. He emerged behind two black-frocked priests escorting an elderly monsignor in red, a satin toque capping his bald head like a cherry atop a block of ham. Chang stepped hard on one priest’s ankle. The man stumbled and when the second priest turned Chang knocked him, arms a-flailing, into the gutter. Chang’s arm hooked the Monsignor’s neck and dragged him into an alley, out of sight. It took perhaps five seconds to remove the long scarlet coat, and fewer to snatch the wallet beneath it, hanging by a strap across the old man’s chest.

He left the Monsignor slumped against the bricks. It was not often that Chang practised open thievery, but he was of the opinion that priests had no possessions themselves, only goods in common. Cardinal Chang, as common as they came, was pleased to liberate his share.

As he rushed on, Chang felt a distracting lightness. Attacking the priests might have been impulsive, but he’d never been truly at risk. No, the sharp edge to his mood was entirely due to time, as if death were a destination his nerves already sensed.

He had lost her. Undeserving people had died before – why was she different? Her mulish presence had destroyed his solitude, just as her ignorant ideals had exposed his complacency. The three of them on the Boniface rooftop. Without his realizing, Celeste Temple had come to embody Chang’s notion of the future. Not his own future so much as the possibility that someone might, with all the ridiculous attending symbolism, be saved.

Chang was unable to imagine a life beyond this fight.

When the ground began to rise, Chang ducked into a filthy alcove whose use as a privy had overtaken that for assignations. He balled up Foison’s silk coat and threw it into the corner. He tucked his glasses inside the fine red coat and did up the buttons to its high collar. He then wound the gauze around his eyes, thinly enough to still see, but so his scars peeked out. He left the alcove and continued with a slower pace, tapping his stick, until he reached the high stone steps. Almost immediately a man in an attorney’s robe offered Chang his arm. Chang accepted with a gracious murmur and they climbed together.

The ancient bones of the Marcelline Prison had been laid as an amphitheatre, built with the seats climbing naturally up the slope. The marble had long been stripped away to drape church fronts and country homes. All that remained of the original edifice was an archway carved with masks, jeering and weeping at each soul ferried through.

At the top of the steps Chang thanked the attorney and tapped his way to the guardhouse, introducing himself as Monsignor Lucifera, legate to the Archbishop. As hoped, the warder found it impossible to look away from Chang’s bandaged eyes.

‘I was at the cathedral. Such destruction cannot, of course, deter my errand. I require a man called Pfaff. Yellow hair, with an ugly orange coat. He will have been taken by your constables at the Seventh Bridge, or near the Palace.’

The warder paused. Chang cocked his head, as if listening for the man’s compliance.

‘Ah, well, sir –’

‘I expect you require a writ.’

‘I do, sir, yes. Standard custom –’

‘I have lost all such documents, along with my assistant, Father Skoll. Father Skoll’s arms, you see. Left like the poor doll of a wicked child.’

‘How horrid, sir –’

‘Thus I lack your writ.’ Chang could sense a restless line forming behind him, and made a point to speak more lingeringly. ‘The document case was in his hands, you understand. Shattered altogether. One would have thought poor Skoll a porcupine for the splinters –’

‘Jesus Lord –’

‘But perhaps you can make it right. Pfaff is a negligible villain, yet important to His Lordship. Do you have him here or not?’

The warder looked helplessly at the growing queue. He pushed the log book to Chang. ‘If you would just sign …’

‘How can I sign if I can’t see?’ mused Chang. Without waiting for an answer he groped broadly for the warder’s pen and obligingly scrawled – ‘Lucifera’ filling half the page.

Chang made his deliberate, tapping way inside, to another warder with another book. The warder ran an ink-stained finger down the page. ‘When delivered?’

‘Last night,’ Chang replied. ‘Or early this morning.’

The warder’s face settled in a frown. ‘We’ve no such name.’

‘Perhaps he gave another.’

‘Then he could be anyone. I’ve five hundred souls in the last twelve hours alone.’

‘Where are the men arrested at the Seventh Bridge – or the Palace, or St Isobel’s? You know the ones I mean. Delivered by the Army.’

The warder consulted his papers. ‘Still don’t have any man named Pfaff.’

‘With a p.’

‘What?’

‘Surely you have those men all rounded into one or two large cells.’

‘But how will you know if he’s there? You can’t see.’

Chang rapped the tip of his stick on the tiles. ‘God can always smell a villain.’

Chang had three times been in the Marcelline, on each occasion luckily redeemed before proceedings advanced to outright torture, and it was with a shiver that he descended to the narrow tiers. Chang did not expect the guards to recognize him – the cleric’s authority granted him an automatic deference – but a sharp-eyed prisoner might call out anything. If Chang was recognized, he had placed himself well beyond hope.

The corridors were slick with filth. Shouts rang out as he passed each cell – pleas for intervention, protests of innocence, cries of illness. He did not respond. The passage ended at a particularly large, iron-bound door. Chang’s guide rattled his truncheon across the viewing-hole and shouted that ‘any criminal named Pfaff’ had ten seconds to make himself known. A chorus of yells came in reply. Without listening, the guard roared that the first man claiming to be Pfaff but found to be an impostor would get forty lashes. The cell went quiet.

‘Ask for Jack Pfaff,’ suggested Chang. He looked at the other cells along the corridor, knowing the guard’s voice would carry, and that if Pfaff were elsewhere in the Marcelline he might hear. The guard obligingly bawled it out. There was no response. Despite the increased chance of recognition, Chang had no choice.

‘Open the door. Let me in.’

‘I can’t do that, Father –’

‘Obviously the man is hiding. Will you let him make us fools?’

‘But –’

‘No one will harm me. Tell them that if they try, you will slaughter every man. All will be well – it is a matter of knowing the sinning mind.’

The cell held at least a hundred men, crowded close as in a slave ship. The guard waded in, swinging his truncheon to make room. Chang entered a ring of faces that gleamed with sweat and blood.

Pfaff was not there. These were the refugees Chang had seen in the alleys and along the river – their only sins poverty and bad luck. Most were victims of Vandaariff’s weapon, beaten into submission after the glass spurs had set them to a frenzy. Chang doubted half would live the night. He extended his stick to the rear, waving generally – since he could not see – but guiding the guard’s attention to where a vaulting arch of brick created a tiny niche.

‘Is anyone lurking in the back?’

The guard shouted for the prisoners to shift, striking the hindmost aside with a deep-rooted, casual savagery. A single man lay curled, barely stirring, his face a mask of dried blood.

‘Found one,’ muttered the guard. ‘But I don’t –’

‘At last,’ cried Chang, and turned away. ‘That is the fellow. Bring him.’

The guard following with his burden, Chang tapped his way back to the first warder.

‘The Archbishop is most deeply obliged. Will I sign your book again?’

‘No need!’ The warden made note of the prisoner’s number, then carefully tore out half the page. ‘Your warrant. I am glad to have been of service.’

Chang took the paper and nodded to the slumping man, upright only by the guard’s vicious grip. ‘I require a coach – and those shackles off. He will do no further harm.’

‘But Father –’

‘Not to worry. He’ll have confession before anything.’

As soon as the coach was in motion, Chang tore the bandage from his head and used it to wipe the blood and grime from Cunsher’s face. The cuts above the man’s eyes and the bruising around his mouth spoke to a punishing interrogation, but Chang detected no serious wound.

Chang tapped Cunsher across the jaw. Cunsher flinched and rolled away his head. With a sigh, Chang wedged his other hand under Cunsher’s topcoat and pinched the muscle running along his left shoulder, very hard. Cunsher’s eyes opened and he thrashed against the pain. Chang forced Cunsher’s gaze to his.

‘Mr Cunsher … it is Cardinal Chang. You are safe, but we have little time.’

Cunsher shuddered, and he nodded with recognition. ‘Where am I?’

‘In a coach. What happened to Phelps?’

‘I have no idea. We were taken together, but questioned apart.’

‘At the Palace?’ Cunsher nodded. ‘Then why were you sent to the Marcelline?’

‘The officials who took us were fools.’ Cunsher probed for loose teeth with his tongue. ‘Did you take such trouble to find me?’

‘I sought someone else.’

Cunsher shut his eyes. ‘That you came at all is luck enough.’

In the minutes it took the coach to reach the Circus Garden, Chang explained what had happened since they had parted, revealing the loss of Celeste Temple only in passing.

‘The Doctor goes with the child to the Contessa’s rendezvous, but I cannot guess what she has gone to such lengths to show him, save this painting.’

‘Has she not already shown you the painting?’ asked Cunsher. ‘This glass card –’

‘But the actual canvas must be the heart of whatever Vandaariff plans.’

Cunsher frowned. ‘My being sent to prison shows how low my interrogators set my worth – a foreign tongue is a useful tool to suggest one’s idiocy – but it suggests the contrary for poor Phelps.’ Cunsher pressed the gauze to his oozing cheekbone. ‘Either he remains at the Palace, or he has been given over to Vandaariff. Or – and most likely – he is dead.’

‘I am sorry.’

‘And I for you. But this is what I wanted to say. Phelps did go to the Herald –’

‘Did he learn the painting’s location?’

‘The salon was in Vienna.’

‘Vienna?’

‘Indeed, and the only reason the Herald printed the report was the rather large fire that consumed the entire city block, along with every piece of art in the salon. With regard to Veilandt’s œuvre, it was not seen as a loss.’ Cunsher’s puffed lip curled to a wry smile. ‘To the empire.’

Chang could not believe it. The painting was gone? What, then, was the point of the Contessa giving Svenson the glass card?

‘Do the others know?’ He shook his head, correcting himself. ‘Does Svenson?’

‘No, Mr Phelps told me as we walked to the fountain. Lord knows where the Doctor truly has been taken.’ Cunsher grimaced at his thumbnail, bruised purple, and brought it to his mouth to suck. ‘And conditions in the city?’

Chang’s reply was swallowed by an oath as the coach came to a sudden halt. He stuck his upper body out of the doorway. The street was a tangle of unmoving coaches. Trumpets clamoured ahead of them, followed by a menacing rush of drums and the crash of stamping boots. Chang ducked back inside, speaking urgently.

‘The Army holds the road – we should escape on foot, before there is violence.’ Chang leapt down, ignoring the protests of the driver, and extended a hand to Cunsher. ‘Can you walk?’

‘O yes, since I must. If we are blocked from above the Circus Garden, then this is … Moulting Lane? Just so – and if we keep to it as far as the canal –’

But Chang had already set off. The smaller man followed gamely, calling to Chang as they threaded a path through the debris.

‘The soldiers are not constables – that is, they do not think of suspects and disguises. The likes of us may escape notice.’

‘Unless they have been ordered to detain everyone,’ replied Chang. ‘You know full well how many of the men in your cell were innocent.’

Cunsher looked over his shoulder at another flourish from the trumpets. A gunshot cracked out, then a spatter of five more. Cunsher stumbled into a box of rotten cabbages and came to a stop. The next chorus of trumpets came laced with screams.

‘Dear God.’

Chang took Cunsher’s arm and hauled him on. ‘God is nowhere a part of it.’

The Duke’s Canal was a narrow channel of green water, so choked with bridges and scaffolding that it vanished for wide stretches, then tenaciously reappeared, like an elderly aunt determined to survive her younger relations. But the route was bereft of soldiers and, mindful of Cunsher’s weakness, Chang spared a moment for a nearby tavern. He bought them each a pint of bitter ale, and pickled eggs from a crock for Cunsher. The small man consumed his meal in silence, sipping the beer and chewing as steadily as a patient mule.

‘Were you at the cathedral?’

Chang turned to the tavern’s brick hearth, where a grizzled man in shirtsleeves sat with a serving woman. Chang nodded.

‘When will it be stopped?’ the woman asked. ‘Where is the Queen?’

‘Queen?’ The man rumbled. ‘Where’s the old Duke? He’s the one we need! He’d lay ’em down like mowing wheat – damned rebels.’

‘A mob went to Raaxfall,’ called the barman. ‘Burnt the place like a pyre.’

The pensioner at the hearth nodded with grim relish. ‘No more than they deserved.’

‘Were the rebels from Raaxfall?’ asked Chang.

‘Of course they were!’

‘And yet we are just come from the Circus Garden,’ said Chang. ‘No one from Raaxfall in sight. Soldiers are shooting folk in the street.’

‘Rebels in the Circus Garden?’ piped the girl.

‘Dig ’em out!’ The old man slammed his tankard onto the bench, so the foam slopped over his hand. ‘Right into the grave!’

Chang took a pull at his mug. ‘And what if they come here?’

‘They won’t.’

‘But if they do?’

The old man pointed at two rust-flecked sabres over the hearth. ‘We’ll have at ’em.’

‘Before or after the soldiers burn the entire street?’

The mood in the tavern went cold in an instant. Chang set down his mug and stood. ‘The Duke of Stäelmaere has been dead these two months.’

‘How do you know that?’ called the barman.

‘I saw his rotting corpse.’

‘By God – you’ll speak with respect!’ The old man rose to his feet.

‘There’s been no announcement,’ said the girl. ‘No funeral –’

‘Where are the funerals for the dead in the Customs House?’

‘What kind of priest are you?’ growled the barman.

‘No kind of priest at all.’

The barman stepped back nervously. Cunsher cleared his throat. He had finished the third egg. Chang set two coins on the counter, and flipped a third to the serving girl on his way to the door.

‘If you cannot see who you are fighting, then you ought to run.’

‘I see no use in scaring these people,’ Cunsher observed as they continued along the canal. ‘Does one blame sheep for their shyness?’

‘If the sheep is a man, I do.’

Cunsher scratched his moustache with a forefinger. ‘And if they did rise, like the mob that burnt Raaxfall – would you not despise them just the same?’

They walked on. Chang felt the man’s eyes.

‘What is it?’

‘Your pardon. The scars are extraordinary. How are you not blind?’

‘A gentle nature preserved me.’

‘Everyone is very curious to know what happened. Doctor Svenson and Mr Phelps discussed the matter one evening, in medical terms –’ At Chang’s silence Cunsher caught himself and bobbed a mute apology. ‘You are perhaps curious about my own history. The facts of exile, life left behind –’

‘No.’

‘No doubt it is a commonplace. How many souls does each of us preserve in memory? And when we pass, how many pass with us, remembered no more?’

‘I have no idea,’ Chang replied crisply. ‘What do you know of the Contessa’s patron in the Palace, Sophia of Strackenz?’

Cunsher nodded at the shift in conversation. ‘Another commonplace. An impoverished exile with the poor taste to have become unattractive.’

‘Nothing more?’

‘The Princess is insipid to an exceptional degree.’

Chang frowned. ‘The Contessa does not act without reason. She sequestered herself in the Palace while employing the glassworks and Crabbé’s laboratory. Now she has abandoned them all – as if an event she had worked for, or awaited, has finally occurred.’

Chang stopped. Cunsher came up to him and stood, breathing hard. When he saw where Chang had brought them, he clucked his tongue.

‘You grasp my idea,’ offered Chang.

‘Quite so. Court society is about patronage.’

‘And her target’s elevation is recent.’

‘Brazen, of course, but that is the lady.’

‘Precisamente.’

Given his appearance, Cunsher offered to remain outside and observe.

‘And if you do not reappear, or are exposed?’ he asked.

‘Escape. Find Svenson. Make your own way to Harschmort and put a bullet in Vandaariff’s brain.’

Cunsher twitched his moustache in a smile. Chang crossed to a mansion guarded by black-booted soldiers in high bearskins – elite guardsmen. The officer in charge had just given entry to a society lady with a beefy jawline and hair stained the colour of a tangerine. At Chang’s approach the officer resumed his former position, blocking the way.

‘Father.’

‘Lieutenant. I require a word with Lady Axewith, if she is at home.’

‘At home is not the same as receiving, Father. Your business?’

‘The Archbishop’s business is with Lady Axewith.’ Chang was an inch taller than the grenadier and studied the man over his glasses, an ugly stare. The Lieutenant met it for perhaps two seconds.

‘How do I know you’re from the Archbishop?’

‘You don’t.’ Chang reached into the cleric’s coat and extracted a scrap of paper.

‘This is a prison warrant.’

‘Do you know how many criminals have been taken these last two days alone? Do you think the prisons can bear it?’

‘What is this to Lady Axewith?’

‘That’s for her to decide. Your choice is whether thwarting an archbishop puts paid to your career.’

It would be an exceptional junior officer to withstand such rhetoric, and the way was cleared. Chang stumped into the courtyard, leaning hard upon his stick, wondering if the Contessa had already spied him from a window.

Born Arthur Michael Forchmont, Lord Axewith succeeded to his title only after a withering year had claimed the uncle, cousins and father standing in his way. Lacking opinions of his own, he happily accepted those of the Duke of Stäelmaere, and at His Grace’s demise this tractability marked him as a reliable heir. Earnest, bluff, and blessedly disinterested in drink, the future Privy Minister had spent the bulk of his first forty years in the company of horses (even a fondness for stage actresses was affectionately tolerated by the public, as the assignations seemed limited to actual horseback riding). Upon his ascension to the title and entry to politics, Lord Axewith had chosen a wife and in turn that wife had doggedly given birth on a regular basis – seven births in near as many years, with four surviving. And for her pains, his child-ridden spouse now found herself the first lady of the land.

Chang could imagine the tide of flattery that had swelled around the wife of the new Privy Minister, bringing with it inclusion and isolation in equal measure. The Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza could hardly have found better circumstances in which to insinuate herself; too insignificant for any real interest at court, she would appear to be the safest soul in whom Lady Axewith might confide …

Two more guardsmen stood inside. A butler advanced with a tiny silver tray.

‘I have no card,’ Chang told him. ‘Monsignor Lucifera, sent by the Archbishop – Lady Axewith will not know me.’

The butler indicated a well-proportioned parlour. Chang’s eyes fell on a soft upholstered chaise. The prospect of stretching upon it pulled at him like a throbbing tooth. He shook his head.

‘No doubt many suitors beg for Lady Axewith to intervene with her husband. I have come for the lady herself, on a most private – if you will understand me – and intimate matter.’

The word hung in the air and Chang wondered if he had gone too far. An ‘intimate matter’ first and foremost meant accusations of scandal.

‘From the Archbishop?’ asked the butler.

Chang nodded gravely. The butler glided off without seeming to move his legs.

Chang stood in silence with the guards. The well-made walls would have muffled a gunshot. He wondered if the furnishings resembled what Celeste Temple had desired for her house with Roger Bascombe. A house was the venue through which a young woman’s every social ambition would be expressed. For the first time he realized that Celeste must have been well into the work before Bascombe had severed their engagement. Did her desk at the Boniface still contain those lists, the letters of inquiry to tradesmen, or had she burnt them, ashamed at those catalogues of outlived desire?

The butler returned, his voice as warm as old amber. ‘If you would follow me.’

Cardinal Chang had been employed by his share of wealthy clients, but strictly through a veil of intermediaries. His presence in a fine home usually came about through a forced lock or an unguarded window – which was only to say that Chang’s experience of the polite society of women was limited in the extreme. He knew there was a proper protocol, laid out with iron-bound rigour; yet, as he entered the foyer of Axewith House to call on the wife of the new head of the Privy Council, Chang might as well have been calling on the Empress of Japan.

‘He told the newspapers that trains were not stopping because of the rebels. But his diary claims otherwise. In truth, the entirety of the line from Raaxfall to Orange Canal –’

Upon Chang’s entrance the speaker went silent. He recognized the dress and hair – this was the lady who had preceded him through the gate – but the whole of her face, like that of the other eight women in the room, was concealed behind a mask of hanging tulle. What was more, despite the greedy cadence of gossip, Chang very much felt as if he had interrupted a formal report.

The butler murmured an introduction and slipped away. The women sat without any indication of precedence. Chang fell to a respectful bow. He did not know what Lady Axewith looked like.

‘How kind of you to call, Monsignor.’ This was a woman to his left, thick forearms poking from tight satin sleeves. ‘I do not recall you amongst the Archbishop’s retinue, though it seems a face one is bound to remember.’

She sniggered into one hand. Chang nodded in reply. At this the woman giggled again, along with several others.

‘Would you care for tea?’ Another lady, with a ribbon around her throat.

‘No, thank you.’

‘Then we shall go straight to your intimate matter. A provocative entrance.’

‘And unpleasant, Monsignor.’ The woman with tight sleeves shook her head. ‘A pernicious preamble used to justify anything.’

‘Even to put soldiers in one’s foyer,’ added the woman with the ribbon. ‘For protection, of course. Have you come to protect us too?’

‘Having met the Archbishop, I should not expect charity.’ This was the woman with tangerine hair, whose voice had lost its lilt.

‘Lucifera is a wicked-sounding name, for a churchman,’ observed the woman with the ribbon.

‘The name is from the Latin, meaning light.’ Chang addressed the far end of the room, the women who were so far silent. ‘As Lucifer is Lightborn, the first of the angels. Some say the Virgin Lucifera presides over executions, weddings and rebirth. An angel.’

‘Presides how?’

This woman had not yet spoken. Her pale hair, the colour of sea-bleached wood, fell onto a sable collar. Moderately stout, not too old. Just above the collar, he saw a silver necklace with blue stones.

‘Presides how?’ she repeated.

‘Some would call it alchemy.’ A disdainful twitter danced around the room.

‘I’m sure the Archbishop cannot have sent you to raise such forbidden topics.’

Chang silently crossed to her. He took the teacup from her saucer. He brought it to his nose – he could not smell a thing – and sniffed. ‘That you hide yourselves shows you have some minimal awareness of the risk …’ He emptied the contents onto the floor and then released the teacup. It landed on the carpet with a bounce, unharmed. The woman laughed.

‘If you suspect the tea, I am already doomed. That was my second cup!’ The other women laughed with her, their amusement falling suddenly silent at the realization that, as they had watched the cup, Chang had slipped a dagger from his stick. The blade hung inches from the chain of blue stones that ringed – Chang was sure – Lady Axewith’s throat.

Chang kept his voice as courtly as before. ‘With the confusion at the cathedral, how simple would it be for a man to bluff an entry and end this woman’s life?’

He brought his heel down onto the teacup, grinding the shards. ‘Are you so very sure of yourselves – your network of intelligence? Did she tell you nothing?’

Lady Axewith could not help but touch her throat. ‘She?’

‘Where is the Contessa?’

‘What Contessa? Who are you?’

‘Someone who has seen her face in a bride’s mask.’

‘What bride?’

‘Tell her. She will see me – her life depends upon it.’

‘I am afraid there is no Contessa –’

‘Do not lie! Where is she? The Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza.’

Chang’s fierce pronouncement of the name was followed by a sudden hushed silence. Then the entire circle of women erupted with laughter.

‘Her? Why should anyone want her?’

‘That vulgar Italian? She is no one at all!’

‘Strackenz’s lap dog!’ called the woman with the ribbon, setting off a fresh cascade.

‘Dirty Venetian,’ said the woman with tangerine hair. ‘Mind like a monkey.’

‘Who gave you her name?’ asked another. ‘Pont-Joule? Some other rake with personal experience?’

‘One of the guardsmen?’

‘She skulks in the Palace as if it were an alleyway –’

‘Rubbish through and through!’

‘Low born.’

‘Desperate.’

‘Husbandless.’

‘Stained.’

‘Diseased. I know it for a fact!’

‘Truly, Monsignor,’ Lady Axewith observed acidly, ‘who knew the Church contained such wits? I am in need of more tea – though you have robbed me of my cup! Byrnes!’ A bald-headed footman arrived with a fresh cup and saucer and set to pouring around the room, a dutiful bee in a bed of overblown peonies.

Chang did not know what to do. Their response was not, he was sure, put on for his benefit. To these women, the Contessa’s independence, her disdain, her association with outrageous figures such as the Comte or Francis Xonck, would inspire only resentment and ridicule. For the first time he understood that the women whom the Cabal had drawn to its inner circles – Margaret Hooke or Caroline Stearne – were not themselves high-born. Women of real social power had been targeted for harvest – their memories absorbed into a glass book – and then flung aside. But if he had guessed wrongly, if she had not organized these ladies to gather information for her … why had the Contessa gone to the Palace?

‘Tea, Monsignor?’ The servant hovered near, cup and saucer in one hand and a silver teapot in the other. The man was slender and the pot was heavy, his grip made unsure by pearl-grey gloves.

‘No.’ Chang restored the dagger to his stick, turning his gaze to Lady Axewith. Her eyes, above the veil, were animated, but the whites shot with blood. His gaze dropped to her fingers. Did they all wear gloves? No, only Lady Axewith.

‘Perhaps our false Monsignor will confess the true reason for his visit …’ This was the woman with the ribbon. ‘Which is to serve notice that our enterprise is known!’

‘Yes,’ said the woman with tight satin sleeves. ‘If we are to quiver in fear, should we not know by whom we have been warned?’

‘Is it the Archbishop?’

‘Is it the Ministries?’

‘Robert Vandaariff?’

Lady Axewith shook her head. ‘Those parties would never send such an agent.’

‘Then who?’ cried the woman with tangerine hair. ‘Is he one of these rebels after all?’

She was on her feet and tugging on a hanging bell-pull. Chang met the prim satisfaction in her eyes, and spoke calmly.

‘You take great pride in yourselves – and, no doubt, as an organ of intelligence, none can match you in the city. So, with respect, I tell you this. The explosive devices detonated across this city were packed with spurs formed of blue glass. These glass spurs were produced in quantities at the Xonck works at Raaxfall, a fortress – I assure you – your supposed rebels have never penetrated. The authorities know this. They have told no one. I leave you to your own conclusions.’

By the time he rose from his bow, the butler stood waiting in the open doorway.

At the end of the corridor, Chang bent his head to the butler’s ear. The butler’s silence transmitted disapproval, but he nevertheless led Chang to a tiny anteroom. Inside was a modern commode, and, above it, for ventilation and a touch of light, a transom-window. Chang stood on the seat. The window was hinged and he hauled his body through, finding handholds in the crevices of brick. He flicked the window shut with his foot. Any search would first be on the ground …

Chang crouched in an upstairs corridor, listening. Even if he had guessed correctly, there was little time. Voices rose from the foyer, women requesting their coaches. Chang hurried along the hall, opening doors – a bedchamber, a closet, another commode – and finally found one that was locked. His hand on the knob, he heard footsteps behind it, but then the sounds faded, rising upwards … a stairwell. Chang waited a count of ten, then forced the bolt. The sharp crack brought no cry of alarm. Was he already too late?

Two flights up Chang saw the butler knocking on a door.

‘My lady? It is Whorrel. Answer me, please – are you well?’

Whorrel turned at Chang’s approach, but Chang overrode any protest. ‘Don’t you have a key?’

‘It is the lady’s own retreat – the cupola room –’

Chang pounded with his fist. No response. ‘How long has she been from your sight?’

‘But how did you – the soldiers were instructed –’

‘How long?’

‘I cannot say! Only minutes –’

Whorrel sputtered as Chang once more forced an entrance. Again, the jarring snap was met with silence. Chang pushed inside and saw why.

Lady Axewith lay on the carpet, staring at a pane of swirling blue – a single page detached from a glass book. Her mouth was open and saliva dripped onto the glass. The nails on Lady Axewith’s bare hand were ragged and yellowed, as if each fingertip had begun to rot. Unmasked, her lips were scabbed, gums blazing, nostrils crusted with a pink discharge.

Whorrel rushed for his mistress, but Chang caught his arm.

‘What is wrong with her?’ asked Whorrel.

‘Pull her away. Now.’

The butler tried to raise his mistress to a sitting position, but she fought to stay near the glass. Chang drove his foot into the plate, snapping it to pieces. Lady Axewith wheezed in protest. He heard the clutch in her throat and stepped clear as she spattered vomit, first onto the broken shards and then, tumbling into Whorrel’s arms, over the front of her own dress. Her eyes rolled in her head and her hands clutched at the air.

‘Sweet Christ! Is it a fit?’ Whorrel looked helplessly at Chang. ‘Is it catching?’

‘No.’

The window behind the writing desk was open. Atop the desk sat a box lantern, wick alight, next to a pile of coloured glass squares. The squares fitted across the lantern’s aperture, tinting the light: a signal lamp, and it could even be used during the day, if the receiver possessed a telescope. Chang scanned the nearby rooftops, then – cursing his dullness of mind – set to searching the desk.

‘I cannot allow any trespass!’ cried Whorrel. ‘Lady Axewith’s private papers –’

But Chang had already found a small brass spyglass. He squinted into the eyepiece, easing the sections back and forth to find his focus. Foreshortened gables and eaves slanted up and down like theatrical scenery of painted waves. He wiped his eye on his sleeve and peered again. An uncurtained upper window … a desk, a table … and another lantern.

‘What shall I do? Shall I call a doctor?’

The butler had dragged his mistress clear and wiped her face and front. Her eyelids fluttered. The silver necklace of blue stones gleamed below her throat. Chang wrenched it free, snapping the clasp. Lady Axewith screamed. Whorrel reached for the necklace, but Chang held it at arm’s length, as if the man were a child after a sweet. He raised the necklace to the light, peering into a blue stone. His body met its delirious contents like a lover, and it was only Whorrel’s touch on his shoulder that broke the spell. Chang shook his head, marvelling at the Contessa’s raw practicality. The harvested memories of an opium eater were every bit as addictive as the drug itself, only more portable and easily hidden – so simply insinuated into the life of this respectable lady and in constant contact with her skin. His eyes caught the shattered plate of glass on the floor and he shuddered to think what extremities it had contained to deepen Lady Axewith’s dependency.

He dropped the necklace on the floor and stamped on the stones, smashing each one to dust. Whorrel struggled to stop him and Chang shoved the man against the wall.

‘The necklace is poison,’ Chang said hoarsely. ‘Search her things for the blue glass. Destroy it all. Do not touch it, do not look into it, or it will be you rotting to pieces.’

‘But what … what of Lady Axewith?’

‘Destroy the glass. Find a doctor. Perhaps she can be saved.’

Chang strode out and down the stairs, Whorrel’s plaintive cry echoing above him. ‘Perhaps? Perhaps?’

Chang walked wordlessly past the Lieutenant at the gate. Around the first corner he broke into a run for the front of St Amelia’s. Cunsher dodged through traffic to join him, and in a few broken, huffing sentences Chang explained what had occurred.

‘She was just there,’ said Chang. ‘I’m sure she saw me enter.’

‘Constanza Street,’ gasped Cunsher. ‘Or such would be my guess.’

Constanza Street was blocked by another picquet of horsemen. Cunsher skirted behind the crowd waiting to cross. Chang had no idea where Cunsher was going, but followed – Cunsher was like a startled mouse that always managed to find a hole, no matter the circumstances of its discovery.

‘The soldiers will block her progress as much as ours.’ Cunsher’s mutter was only half audible. ‘So, what does the lady do? The further from Axewith House she appears, the better, thus – ha – she will exit from the rear –’

‘And to the opera!’ Chang groaned. ‘Its cab stand is three streets away!’

They burst across the avenue in a desperate rush, dodging into the first narrow alley they found. Chang’s longer stride took him past Cunsher at the first turn. The alley’s end showed a narrow slice of the opera’s stone façade. Cunsher careened into a side street, but Chang sped on, straight for a line of black coaches. The foremost coach, drawn by a pair of mottled grey horses, was just pulling away.

He raced after it, shouting at pedestrians to clear his path. The grey team had entered the wide roundabout in front of the opera, beyond which it would vanish into the city. Chang bowled into the roundabout, dodging horses and curses equally, and leapt to the island at its eye, a vast fountain. Funded by colonial interests, the fountain celebrated the splendours of Asia, Africa and America with three goddesses, each atop heaps of indigenous plenty – deities, beasts and native peoples all spouting water from their mouths with an equal lack of dignity. Chang hurried round the circle, pacing the coach – hidden now behind two tribeswomen riding a tiger – and readied himself to dash back into the road.

Quite suddenly the coach pulled short and the driver stood, slashing his whip at something on the coach’s far side. Seizing his chance, Chang crossed the distance and leapt onto the door, reaching through the unglazed window. At the impact, the Contessa spun from the window opposite and swore aloud. She hacked at his fingers with her spike, but Chang thrust his stick through the doorway. The tip struck the Contessa like a fist and drove her back to the corner of her seat. Chang swept himself in, kicking the spike from her hand. Before she could find it Chang had his stick apart and the dagger poised.

The coach had stopped. Through the far window Chang caught a glimpse of a small figure in brown, just beyond the driver’s whip. Cunsher had anticipated correctly, once again. In his hands were cobblestones, to throw. The mortified driver called to the Contessa – was she in danger? Should he shout for the soldiers?

The dagger touching her breast, Chang caught the swinging door and pulled it shut.

‘Drive on!’ the Contessa shouted, her eyes never shifting from Chang’s. ‘And if anyone else gets in your way, run them down!’

‘You will forgive me,’ he said, and snatched up her spike, half expecting the Contessa to attack him in the instant his attention was split. She did not move. He felt the weight of the custom-made weapon, recalled its impact near his spine. Chang threw it out of the window.

‘Well, the highwayman in full daylight. Will you cut my throat now, or after my ravishment?’

Chang settled in the opposite seat. They both knew that had his object been her life, she would be dead.

‘Who was your confederate, the gnome with the moustache? If I’d a pistol I would have shot him dead. And not a word of protest would have been raised – just as no one cares when a lady’s coach has been waylaid.’ She cocked her head. ‘How is your back?’

‘I run and jump like a stallion.’

‘The spine is damnably narrow – in the dark, one’s aim goes awry. I don’t suppose you would remove your spectacles?’

‘Why should I?’

‘So I can see what he’s done, of course. You’d be surprised how much one can tell – the eyes, the tongue, the pulse – I do not venture to bodily discharge in a moving coach. Oskar would have made a fine physician, you know, within his particular realm.’

‘His realm is monstrous.’

‘Ambition is always monstrous. You should have seen him in Paris – the house in the Marais, the stench – and that was just his painting!’

Chang slid the dagger back into his stick. The Contessa tensed herself as he reached deliberately to her and pressed a gloved finger on the exact spot, just below her sternum, where his stick had struck home.

‘Do not doubt me, Rosamonde.’

‘Why would I do that?’ She dropped her eyes. ‘That is tender.’

Chang was suddenly aware how simple it would be to turn his threat to a caress. She would not have stopped him. The woman’s appetite was as flagrant as a peacock’s feathers and as private as – well, as any woman’s inner mind. She laid a hand on his wrist.

‘I had words with Doctor Svenson –’

‘Release my arm or I will hurt you.’

The Contessa restored the hand to her lap. ‘Must you be so unpleasant – so stupid?’

‘I am stupid enough to have you in my power.’

The Contessa sighed with exasperation. ‘You carry the past like a convict carries chains. What has happened means nothing, Cardinal. Time may change every atom of our minds. Whose youth has not held a quaking fool, distraught, disgraced – a razor’s edge from taking their own life? And for causes that, if one can call them to mind after even four months, are no more worth dying for than last year’s fashions are worth ten pfennigs to the pound.’

‘You speak to excuse yourself.’

‘If you will take my life at the end of things, Cardinal, then you will, or I will take yours, or both our skulls will serve as Lord Vandaariff’s finger-bowls. But until then – please.’

The Contessa laid a hand across her brow – her left hand, he noticed, remembering the gash across her right shoulder. Did she still favour it?

‘I do congratulate you on the costume,’ she said. ‘The irony sings.’

Chang nodded towards the driver. ‘Where were you going?’

‘Does it matter? I’m sure you have your own plans for everything.’ The Contessa shook her head and smiled. ‘Now I am the sour cloud. Did you know Doctor Svenson nearly shot me dead? I trust his not being here means the child has finally spurred him to business. I do not recommend the use of children, in all truth. They whine, they forget, they are hungry – and the tears! Good God, every way you turn there is snivelling –’

‘Where were you going?’

She glared at him, her cheeks touched with colour, then laughed – still a lovely sound, for all that the merriment was forced.

‘Where we can, Cardinal. Every thoroughfare between the Circus Garden and the river is blocked and Stropping Station is its own armed camp. Thus’ – she arched an eyebrow – ‘the mighty Robert Vandaariff takes the city in his all-powerful fist.’

Chang nodded to the window. ‘But our present path takes us straight to the Circus Garden.’

‘I am aware of it, yet I think we have a few minutes to extend this fascinating talk.’

‘You speak of Vandaariff’s fist. According to Doctor Svenson, these explosions apparently elude your concern.’

‘On the contrary, I am inspired to avoid large gatherings.’

‘Is that why you quit the Palace?’

‘The Palace is in actuality as dreary as a beehive – the buzzing of drones –’

‘Enough. On every front where Vandaariff has extended himself, you have only ceded ground. The explosions, his control of Axewith, martial law, property seizures – you have opposed none of it.’

‘How could I? Have you?’

‘I have tried.’

‘With what result, apart from Celeste Temple being blown to rags?’ The Contessa reached for a small clutch bag at her side. Chang caught her hand and she disdainfully opened the bag to reveal a flat lacquered case and her cigarette holder.

‘How did you know that?’ he asked tightly.

‘How do you think? From the wife of a deputy minister who heard it directly from Vandaariff himself – what else is that gaggle of harpies good for? I am at least informed.’ The Contessa wedged a white cigarette into her holder. She set a match to the tip, shut her eyes as she inhaled, and then let the smoke out through her nose. ‘Sweet Christ.’

Her momentary surrender to pleasure – or, if not pleasure, relief – brought the taste of opium back to Chang’s mind. How simple it would have been to preserve just one of Lady Axewith’s jewels. The Contessa waved the smoke from her face.

‘Oskar was never like the rest of us. He truly is an artist, with the calling’s every dreadful quality. He seeks no sensation for itself, but only to further his work.’

‘But Oskar Veilandt is not Robert Vandaariff. You saw what happened at Parchfeldt – if you have tasted that book, you know what he’s become. Whatever may have guided his intentions before –’

‘I disagree – or, yes, he has changed his destination, but not the path. Not his style.’

‘You cannot pretend this chaos is what the Comte d’Orkancz would have done.’

‘Of course not, but neither does he care about it now.’

‘I have seen him care for nothing else!’

‘You are wrong. He stretches the canvas and sets his paints in order. He has not begun.’

‘But the city –’

‘The city can burn.’

‘But Axewith –’

‘Every lord and every minister can burn as well – to Oskar they are mindless ants.’

‘But how can you stand apart –’

‘For the moment, I am trying to survive.’

Chang snorted with disbelief. ‘The day you are content with mere scrabbling –’

‘Don’t be a damned fool!’ hissed the Contessa. ‘That day has dawned. Ask the corpse of Celeste Temple if it hasn’t.’

At the Contessa’s instruction, the coach left them in a trim French-styled square of gravel paths and flowers. Chang helped the Contessa to the cobbles, scanning the park for any sign of Vandaariff’s agents. The Contessa thrust coins into the driver’s hand, whispering in the man’s ear. Before Chang could overhear she had broken off, walking along the square.

‘This way, Cardinal, if you insist on coming.’

Many of the large houses bore brass plaques, some announcing a nation’s diplomatic mission, in other cases an especially exclusive practice in medicine or the law. That the streets were empty seemed a strangely opposite reaction to the city’s turmoil. Were these enclaves so protected? The Contessa paused at a narrow alley next to the Moldovar Legation. She took his hand, turning so as not to drag her dress against the wall, and held a finger to her lips for silence. He had assumed their destination to be the embassy, but instead it was the mansion next door, a servant’s entrance, he would have said, though the alley was too narrow to allow deliveries. The Contessa rapped lightly, then looked past Chang’s shoulder.

‘Is that man watching us from the street?’

He turned, like an idiot, and then it was too late. He felt the edge against his neck – a blue glass card snapped raggedly along its length.

‘I have not been entirely honest,’ the Contessa confessed.

The wooden door opened, to Chang’s utter disgust.

‘Well, look who it is!’

Jack Pfaff gave the Contessa an adoring smile.

Pfaff relieved Chang of his stick and led them in. The ground floor of the house had been converted to the needs of a consulting physician, with examination rooms, surgery and a private study, where the proprietor awaited them.

‘Doctor Piersohn, Cardinal Chang. We have little time – Cardinal, if you would remove your clothes.’ The Contessa nodded to Pfaff, who pulled apart Chang’s stick. She rummaged in her bag and set to fitting a cigarette to her holder. Chang had not moved.

‘Your clothes, Cardinal. Piersohn must examine you. We must send an answer at once.’

‘What answer?’ Chang gazed coldly at Piersohn, who stood behind his desk. The Doctor was short and barrel-chested. His protuberant eyes were ringed with the faintest excrescence of dried plum: the fading scars of the Process. Piersohn’s thick hair matched the surgical coat he wore over a patterned waistcoat, and shone with pomade. His hands were chapped like a laundress’s. Chang wondered what sort of practice Piersohn actually pursued.

‘To Robert Vandaariff, of course,’ replied the Contessa. ‘He has offered an exchange, and I must decide how best to prepare the one sent.’

‘Prepare for what?’

‘For God’s sake – will you take off your coat at least? I promise you I have seen a man in his shirtsleeves and will not faint.’

Chang began to undo the red silk buttons of the cleric’s coat. He glanced at Pfaff, measuring the distance between them. The Doctor, behind the desk, could be discounted, and the Contessa had made the mistake of sitting down. The dagger cane would be an unfamiliar weapon to Pfaff, and, once Chang’s coat was off – their request put his best weapon straight in hand – it would be a moment’s work to whip it across Pfaff’s eyes and step past the blade. Two swift blows and Pfaff would be down. Chang did not even need to recover the dagger. He could snatch up an end table and dash out the Contessa’s brains.

He slipped off the scarlet coat and took casual hold of the collar. ‘If you hope to exchange me, may I ask what you will receive in trade?’

The Contessa blew smoke at the ceiling. ‘Not what, but whom. I was not strictly forthcoming during our ride. Celeste Temple lives. Vandaariff has her, and offers her to me, in hopes that I will hand over Francesca Trapping. However, my intuition says he would be even more delighted to get you.’

Chang blinked behind his dark spectacles.

‘That is a lie, to make me cooperate.’

‘It is not.’

‘Why should I trust you, of all people on earth?’

‘Because our interests are one. Besides, Cardinal, can you afford not to believe me? Will you fail her yet again?’

The Contessa’s face might have been made of porcelain for all he could penetrate her thoughts. He knew she viewed his compliance with contempt.

‘Where do you gain in this? Celeste Temple is your enemy.’

‘She remains useful – providing Oskar has not too much despoiled her, of course – another reason time is of the essence. Because I will not deliver Francesca Trapping –’

‘As you’ve given her to Doctor Svenson.’

‘I have done nothing of the kind. She is quite easily recovered.’

‘You underestimate him.’

‘The question is whether I have underestimated you. If you do not choose with speed, I must refuse his offer, and Miss Temple will surely die.’

‘What would you have done had I not found you?’

‘Something else. But once you did appear, I was able to oblige everyone. Our driver has carried word to Vandaariff.’

‘Then take me to him and be done with it.’

‘I said I was obliging, not that I was stupid. Take off your shirt.’

She tapped her ash into a dish of liquorice sweets. ‘Near the base of the spine, Doctor. Any adaptation will be there.’

Chang draped his coat over a chair and set his spectacles atop it. He hauled his black shirt over his head, restored the spectacles and laid the shirt next to the coat. Piersohn had come around the desk, pulling behind him a standing tray of shining implements.

‘So many scars.’ The Contessa studied Chang’s bare torso. ‘Like one of Oskar’s paintings. Sigils, he calls them – as if some ancient, lost god has scratched its name on your flesh. Isn’t that a charming thought, Cardinal, fit for poetry?’

‘Fit for a graveyard,’ said Pfaff. He aimed the stick at a line along Chang’s ribcage. ‘How’d you get that one?’

‘Do you mind, sir?’ snapped Piersohn, waving the stick away.

Pfaff only lifted it out of reach and then, as soon as the Doctor’s attention returned to his tools, darted it forward, tapping Chang’s scar. Chang snatched at the haft, but Pfaff, laughing, was too quick.

‘Please, Jack,’ the Contessa called genially. ‘The time.’

Pfaff grinned, his point made, and gave the Doctor room.

‘If you would turn, and place your hands there.’ The Doctor indicated a leather-topped table. Chang did as he was asked, leaning forward.

‘Christ in heaven!’ blurted Pfaff. ‘Is it plague?’

‘Be quiet, Jack!’ hissed the Contessa.

Chang felt the rough tips of Piersohn’s fingers palpate the perimeter of his wound.

‘The original puncture just missed the spine on one side and the kidney on the other – a shallow wound, and lucky, as the blade pulled upwards –’

‘Yes,’ the Contessa said impatiently. ‘But what has been done? That colour.’

Piersohn pressed against the object Vandaariff had placed in Chang’s body. Chang clenched his jaw, not at pain, for he felt none, but at a queasy discomfort. Each time Piersohn touched the wound, Chang sensed more clearly the piece of glass inside him. Piersohn reached to feel Chang’s forehead.

‘The inflammation,’ the Contessa asked, ‘is it sepsis or an effect of the stone?’

‘As far as I can determine, the discoloration is inert, almost a kind of stain.’ Doctor Piersohn resumed his pressure on Chang’s back. ‘Is this painful?’

‘No.’

The Contessa leant over the arm of her chair so she could see Chang’s face. ‘Did he say anything? You must tell me, Cardinal, even if you took it for nonsense –’

Chang stared at the table. He could feel the heat in his face and sweat under each eye. ‘He told me I could cut his throat in three days.’

‘What?’

‘Just that. As if it were a joke.’

‘When?’ The Contessa shot to her feet. ‘When did he say this?’

‘Three days ago. Today is the day. Believe me, I am perfectly willing to take him up on his offer –’ Chang turned at the rattle of Piersohn taking something from his tray. ‘If that man draws a drop of blood I will break his neck.’

The Contessa whispered in Piersohn’s ear, ‘Pray do not mind. He is deranged.’

‘That seems all the more reason to mind, madam.’

‘Is drawing blood strictly necessary?’

‘All manner of tests depend upon it.’

‘Derangement, Doctor, mere derangement –’

‘But what threads bind him to reason? Without knowing the programme of his new master –’

‘I have no master!’ shouted Chang.

The Contessa nodded to one of the squat bottles. ‘Very well, Doctor. Do what you can.’

The Doctor doused a ball of cotton wool from the bottle, staining it a pale orange. ‘Now, let us see. If the inflammation recedes –’

‘It won’t,’ said Chang quickly. Piersohn paused, the cotton suspended inches from Chang’s lower back. ‘Doctor Svenson attempted a similar procedure, with the same orange mineral, with drastic results.’

‘Doctor Svenson?’ asked Piersohn. ‘Who is he? Did he even know how to apply –’

The Contessa grasped the Doctor’s arm. ‘Drastic how, Cardinal?’

‘I was not in a position to take notes,’ replied Chang. ‘The inflammation deepened and spread. He also applied blue glass, with an equally dismal effect – a congestion in the lungs –’

‘An imbecile could have foreseen that,’ sniffed Piersohn.

‘Shouldn’t you cut him open?’ asked Pfaff. ‘If we want to see what it is, that’s the simplest way.’

‘Why don’t I open up your head?’ Chang growled.

‘Hush. I have an idea of my own.’ Chang felt the Contessa’s slim fingers on his spine and tensed himself. ‘Try the iron.’

Piersohn dunked another cotton ball from a second bottle. Chang inhaled sharply as it touched his wound, icy cold. He could not hear them speak for a hissing in each ear. He arched his back and broke the contact.

‘A palpable reaction,’ muttered Piersohn, ‘but it fades already. Perhaps if we try the metals in sequence –’

‘What in hell are you doing?’ demanded Chang. It was as if he had returned to the table at Raaxfall.

‘Isolating the alchemical compound, of course.’

Chang flinched again. The taste of ash curled his tongue.

‘Why, look at that. Do keep going, Doctor …’

Chang shut his eyes, wanting to pull away, to thrash Pfaff to a pulp, to kick Piersohn across the room, but he did not move, knuckles whitening as he squeezed the table. Celeste Temple was alive. If he was not exchanged, there was no telling what Vandaariff would do.

The next application sent sparks across his vision. The one after that was like he’d been pricked with a hundred needles. The one following – against every bit of reason – sparked a vivid scent. Chang had lacked the ability to smell for more than ten years, but now he shook his head at the searing aroma of cordite. The next set off a fire in his loins and for the instant of contact he felt like a bull in rut, snorting air through each nostril with the shock of it. Then the cotton ball was removed and he gasped with relief, barely noting the Doctor’s procedural murmur.

‘And last of all, quicksilver …’

Each of the other applications had brought a sudden, specific reaction, but this last swallowed Chang’s senses as wholly as if his head had been forced into cold water. His bearings were lost in a swirl of visions from the Comte’s painting. His hands were black … his foot sank into the fertile earth of a new-tilled field … he was naked … he wore a swirling robe … he held a sword bright as the sun… and all around him faces, in the air like hanging lamps, people he knew – laughing, begging, bloodied – and then before him knelt the Contessa – blue teeth, one hand groping his thigh, and in the other, offered up, vivid red, visceral, oozing –

He was gasping, his face pressed into the leather table top. What had happened? What had been done to him?

‘It is the worst result,’ the Contessa was saying. ‘All tempered into one.’

‘That is impossible,’ replied Piersohn. ‘Whatever his intention, the chemical facts –’

‘A moment, Doctor.’ Chang felt her touch. ‘Are you with us, Cardinal Chang?’

‘Can you remove it?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

Chang pushed himself to his feet, and called harshly to Piersohn, ‘Can you remove it without killing me?’

Piersohn shook his head. ‘I’m sorry, whatever has been implanted, enough time has passed that the seeding –’

‘Seeding?’ Chang kicked the standing tray, crashing it back into the Doctor’s desk.

‘That is the Comte’s own term,’ protested Piersohn.

‘For what?’ shouted Chang. ‘What has he done?’

Piersohn glanced warily at the Contessa. ‘He made many notes – untested theories … a procedure for the assimilation of glass within a body.’

‘To make me his servant.’ Chang pulled his shirt over his head.

‘But are you, Cardinal?’ The Contessa waited for Chang to restore his dark spectacles. ‘Are you his creature?’

‘No more than I am yours.’

‘Exactly. But Oskar is arrogant. He will believe his magic has worked. Do you see? If you are convincing, his hopes will blind him.’

Had Vandaariff’s plan worked? What if the implanted glass was just another sort of timed device, ticking its way towards detonation? The third day was not finished. Chang thrust his arms through the cleric’s coat and began on the buttons. ‘And Celeste Temple will be freed?’

‘She will.’

‘And she is whole? Undamaged?’

‘As far as I know.’

Chang looked at Pfaff, who wore a pale expression of unease. The stick had been restored to one piece, and Chang snatched it away. He turned to the Contessa. ‘As soon as she arrives, you will deliver her to Doctor Svenson.’

‘As you wish. And once you are with Robert Vandaariff, you know what to do.’

‘Cave in his skull.’

‘With the first brick that comes to hand.’

The Contessa led Chang and Pfaff back to the arid garden square. The streets remained empty, though in the distance Chang thought the sky had darkened.

‘Is that smoke?’

The Contessa shrugged. ‘Off you go, Jack. Find me when you have finished.’

‘Finished what?’ asked Chang.

‘None of your damned business, old fellow.’ Pfaff took the Contessa’s hand, bending to kiss it. Chang could have kicked Pfaff’s head like a ball, but took the moment to glance around him … the shrubbery of the park, brick gateposts, the shadow of an ornamental column …

Pfaff straightened, lifting the Contessa’s hand to his mouth for another kiss, then turned on his heel, his orange coat-tails swinging dramatically. Chang stooped and took a stone from the gravel walkway.

‘What are you doing?’ asked the Contessa. ‘We must –’

Pfaff had gone twenty paces when Chang threw the stone, perhaps the size of a pigeon’s egg, striking square between the man’s shoulder blades. Pfaff cried out, arching his back, and wheeled round, whipping a blade from beneath his coat, his face flushed red.

‘God damn you, Chang! Damn you to hell!’

Cardinal Chang swept off an imaginary hat and waved with foppish deference. Pfaff snorted with rage and stamped across the square.

Chang straightened with a sigh. He only hoped he’d guessed correctly, and that his signal had been seen.

‘I would ask if you are always such a child,’ observed the Contessa, ‘if I did not already have the answer. A child and a bully.’

‘I would not say you are in any position to judge.’

‘On the contrary, I am expert in each field.’ The Contessa smiled broadly. ‘That is why I find you so diverting – as much as any dancing, collared bear.’

‘Even when your man takes the brunt?’

‘Tish! Mr Pfaff is his own, or at least intends to be – his skills extend only so far, of course, a fledgling peeping from the nest.’

‘He kisses your hand.’

‘A hand is easily washed.’ Chang frowned his disapproval and she laughed again. ‘O I forget myself – it is not every day I stroll with Monsignor Virtue, beside whom I am the very Whore of Babylon. Dear Cardinal, do you want to kiss my hand instead?’

He took hold of her arm. She tensed, watching, mouth just open, daring him to act, though whether in violence or passion he had no idea – did the woman even distinguish?

‘Such a shame …’ she whispered.

They stood in broad daylight at the edge of the square, yet he could no more step clear than if they were trapped in the crush of a ballroom. Chang’s voice was tight. ‘Since when did you care for shame?’

Her words remained hushed. ‘Afterwards … after you kill Vandaariff … after Miss Temple is redeemed … we must once more seek each other’s life. It seems a terrible waste … two such well-matched creatures …’

‘I am no creature, madam.’

Her eyes traced his jugular. ‘And that is why I shall win.’

They walked beneath a canopy of trees on streets bereft of traffic. The Contessa’s eyes became restless and distracted, scanning the fine house-fronts but seeing none of them.

‘Have you ever been on a ship, Cardinal Chang? On the sea?’

‘No. Have you?’

‘Of course. I’m not a peasant.’

‘I beg your pardon.’

‘But I have never sailed any distance – for weeks.’

‘Does that matter, aside from outlasting seasickness?’

‘Have you not wanted to visit Africa? China? To feel the Indian sun on your face?’

‘No.’

She sighed. ‘Neither have I.’

‘I fail to see the problem.’

‘Did you ever hear Francis Xonck speak of Brasil?’

‘Once, which was enough.’

‘All Francis ever sought was excess.’

‘Are you any different?’

‘I never had to seek,’ she replied tartly.

‘Is this about Miss Temple?’ Chang asked. ‘You mention the Indies –’

‘She is from the Indies. To her, we are the Dreamland – if more vaguely apprehended. But her obvious dissatisfaction here makes my point. One avoids Africa, Cardinal, because Africa will unfailingly disappoint. New horizons are always seen through one’s old set of eyes.’

‘But you are a traveller. When were you last in Venice? Or wherever you called home?’

‘I am home every minute of the day.’

Chang bit off his reply. For the first time in his experience, the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza was behaving like a conventionally galling woman.

‘You are frightened,’ he said.

‘Of Oskar Veilandt? Cardinal, I am tired. And hungry.’ The tone underscoring this last made perfectly clear that the Contessa was not talking of her dinner. ‘Why, are you afraid?’

‘Not for myself.’

‘Pah. You are exactly as noble as a cart-horse.’ She plucked the shoulder of Chang’s scarlet coat. ‘Did you actually murder a priest?’

‘I did not need to.’

‘Are you willing to murder Oskar?’

‘Of course.’

‘And if he promises to save your life?’

‘I would not believe him. My life is forfeit – and along with me, how many others? The city? The nation?’

‘When I am dead, Cardinal, cities and nations can go hang.’

Chang saw she was smiling and immediately became wary. ‘Have we arrived?’

‘Near enough … we are certainly observed.’

Chang saw only the same well-tended streets. ‘Observed by whom?’

‘To answer that is the reason I am here. I was not asked to accompany you – merely to deliver you to their hands.’

‘If you had simply sent me off, I might not have cooperated.’

‘If you were going to abandon Miss Temple, you would have done so earlier, when you could have pummelled Jack Pfaff raw. No, apart from the splendour of your company, I have come to see who else does Oskar’s bidding.’

‘And is this the house of someone you know?’

She looked at him quizzically, and then nodded towards a white-painted mansion at the end of the street. ‘I thought you had been here. It was where he worked on Angelique.’

Chang sighed, recalling too vividly the abandoned greenhouse and its bloodstained bed. ‘I did not realize we had walked so far. The house is improved – from the rear it looked a shambles.’

‘Vandaariff money. And he is a resurrectionist.’

‘What stops them from shooting us dead in the street?’

‘How do you ever manage to feed yourself? If there are two people Robert Vandaariff is more keen to preserve than ourselves, I cannot name them. No, whoever he has charged will emerge, and then I will better know my enemies.’

‘At which point you will saunter away? Why not take you as well, if he desires you so ardently?’

‘Well, that is Oskar. I would end his life the first chance I had, but he will ever postpone. He has pretensions to theatre.’

‘Like the Chemickal Marriage?’

She did not answer, for the white door of the mansion opened and a dozen green-coated soldiers poured forth. Behind them came a man whose Ministry-black topcoat belied his young face and fair hair. He stabbed an arm at the Contessa.

‘That woman is wanted by the Crown! Seize her!’

Four soldiers broke forward. Chang only raised his hands.

The Contessa’s nostrils flared with rage. ‘I will cut off that man’s –’ But then the soldiers had seized her arms.

‘The pride – the pride of it!’ Harcourt’s voice shook. ‘Truly, madam, are you so brazen? So arrogant to think no one might withstand you?’

‘Release her.’

Foison stood far away in the open door, but his voice stopped the soldiers cold. Harcourt stamped up the steps like a schoolboy.

‘I beg your pardon! I am Deputy to the Privy Council – and this woman – this woman –’

‘Release her.’

‘Do you know Mr Foison?’ Chang ventured.

‘I had hoped he would be elsewhere,’ replied the Contessa. ‘But now I prize him above all other minions.’

It was clear that Harcourt was terrified of Foison, but the young man had enough pride – at least for his office – to stand firm. ‘This woman is a murderer, a spy, a saboteur –’

‘There is an arrangement,’ Foison corrected him, menacingly calm. ‘If that woman steps through these doors – I do hope you understand me – you will answer for Lord Vandaariff’s displeasure.’

Harcourt wavered. ‘But – but surely she may be brought in – or if not brought in – surely remanded to the Marcelline –’

‘No.’

Harcourt wavered and in the silence his authority gave way. The Contessa gently extracted herself from the soldiers. Harcourt wheeled to her, his slim hands balled to fists.

‘It is not finished, madam! You will be taken – you will be hanged!’

The Contessa whispered to Chang, ‘Au revoir. Remember your pledge.’

‘Remember yours.’

‘Celeste Temple will be delivered to Doctor Svenson.’

‘Alive.’

The Contessa laughed. ‘Stickler.’ She dipped her head and walked away.

Chang knew she was lying, and that Celeste would be delivered to whomever the Contessa found most advantageous, or – in the absence of any advantage at all – to a grave. It made managing his mission now all the more vital. He noted with satisfaction a bruise below Foison’s eye.

Foison relieved Chang of his stick, tugged it open and studied the blade. Chang gestured at her receding figure. ‘If only my stick were half as deadly.’

One corner of Foison’s mouth twitched to acknowledge the remark. Ignoring Harcourt, Foison nodded to the soldiers and Chang was escorted inside.

The renovations were not limited to the exterior. The carpets had been piled against a wall, and the floorboards were slippery with plaster dust. Harcourt disappeared with Foison deeper into the house. Despite a slammed door, their muffled argument reached Chang where he waited. He turned to his nearest guard.

‘A soldier cannot love taking orders from a rich man’s secretary – especially a man like that. An Asiatic.’

‘Aren’t you a Chinaman yourself?’

‘That’s why I know.’

The soldier peered more closely at Chang. ‘Are you a Chinaman?’

Foison reappeared, still carrying Chang’s stick. ‘Hold his arms. Search him.’

The findings were presented to Foison, arrayed on the green-coat’s open palms like a tray: razor, money, key, the prison writ, the samples of glass from Pfaff’s room, including the broken key.

‘Dispose of it. Bring him in.’

A man had been bound to a high-backed wooden chair, a canvas bag over his head. His once-starched shirt was stained with blood, some dried rust-brown, some still a festive red. Whatever he had endured, it had spanned hours.

The man, whose head rose at their entrance, became more agitated at Foison’s approaching footsteps, pulling on the ropes that held him fast. Foison’s voice remained characteristically soft, with an absence of intent that nearly seemed kind.

‘Someone to help you.’

The captive’s bare feet kicked against the cords. His voice was smothered by the bag. ‘Stop your torments! No one has come!’

‘By God – you have won your way with Lacquer-Sforza, but here you do trespass, Mr Foison! That man is mine!’

Harcourt stood in the doorway with several Ministry men, reinforcements muttering at their superior’s collar.

Foison nodded at Chang. ‘And he is mine. Is it not possible they are acquainted?’

‘Perhaps! Perhaps! And now that we are all present – well, go ahead and ask your best – but any attempt to exclude the Council will not stand. My prisoner is here only at Lord Axewith’s personal instruction –’

‘Your prisoner is here so we may learn what you could not.’

‘If you throw them together they will only lie – you will be forced –’

‘To take measures?’

‘Exactly. And it will be no business of mine.’

‘Though it was your business with this gentleman.’ Foison sighed at the man in the chair. ‘Rather crudely.’

‘He is no gentleman!’ Harcourt’s eyes were hard. It was clear to Chang that the prisoner had been savaged precisely because of Harcourt’s indecision – with the ferocity boiling forth in resentment at his dilemma.

Foison shrugged. ‘He bleeds like one, but such distinctions are not my expertise. I do know that Cardinal Chang –’

‘A criminal of the first water.’

‘If by that you mean he will be more difficult to persuade, I agree.’

‘Do not say that where he can hear!’ Harcourt sputtered. ‘You steel his purpose – now he will hold out even longer!’

‘I tell the Cardinal nothing he does not know. Just as he knows, no matter his resistance, that I will break him. The only question is how badly broken he will be.’

‘If you think we will spare you,’ Harcourt called to Chang, deciding after all to support Foison, ‘you are deeply mistaken. The nation is in peril. The Crown. And in setting yourself against us, you’re nothing but a common traitor.’

Chang nodded towards their prisoner in the chair. ‘Is he?’

Foison pulled the bag away. Mr Phelps flinched from the light as if it too might strike him. What Cunsher had endured at the Marcelline was nothing to the ordeal inflicted on Phelps. Dark blood smeared his face. One eye had swollen shut, and the other peeped through a veil of seeping fluid. His nose was broken and one lip split like a rotten plum.

Chang felt his stomach tighten. Phelps had been one of their own, and this is what they’d done. Foison gently turned Phelps’s face to Chang. ‘Do you know this man, Mr Phelps?’

Phelps nodded. His voice was a slurred croak. ‘Criminal … ought to be hanged.’

‘You just heard Mr Harcourt voice the same opinion. Perhaps you would explain why he should be hanged?’

‘Outlaw … the Duke signed a writ on his life.’

‘I don’t believe he did.’

‘Lost … never delivered –’

‘Come, Mr Phelps. When did you last see this man?’ Phelps shook his head at the question, as if such a thing were beyond his scattered mind, but Foison remained patient. ‘At Parchfeldt? At Harschmort? This evening at the Palace?’

With a pang, Chang saw Phelps shake his head at this last suggestion, too vehemently. Harcourt pointed a finger, triumphant.

‘He is lying.’

A tight, pleading gasp of distress escaped Phelps’s throat. ‘Chang is a killer … you know it yourselves –’

‘Who did he kill?’

‘I don’t know –’

‘Did he kill Colonel Aspiche?’

‘I don’t know –’

‘What of Arthur Leverett? Or Charlotte Trapping?’ Foison remained calm. ‘The Crown Prince of Macklenburg? The Comte d’Orkancz?’ Phelps gulped air, unable to reply. Saliva flecked his purpled lips. Foison rested a hand on Phelps’s shoulder. ‘So many deaths …’

‘I would like nothing more than Cardinal Chang on a scaffold,’ said Harcourt.

‘Why in hell are you here?’ Chang’s voice was as dark as he could make it. Harcourt quailed.

‘I – I – Lord Axewith – I am appointed, deputized, in the immediate crisis –’

‘Do not speak to the prisoner, Mr Harcourt, he only seeks your discomfort.’ Foison stepped away from Phelps, hands at his waist, near his knives. ‘In truth, perhaps it would be better if you left.’

‘Phelps is my prisoner,’ protested Harcourt.

‘But Chang is a different matter. I require this room free.’

Harcourt sniffed and took a pocket watch from his waistcoat. ‘Very well. Five minutes. But then we will consult.’ Foison said nothing. Harcourt nodded, as if they had agreed, and backed into his assistants. They left in a scuffle. The soldiers remained at either side of the door.

Chang spoke as brightly as possible. ‘My turn?’

‘I must deliver you alive. You understand the breadth of options I can exercise without compromising that condition. Whether I do so is up to you.’

‘You will not break my teeth for your own revenge, then?’

‘No.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because I know what awaits you, Cardinal Chang. Revenge enough.’

He was bound to a chair. When it was done, Foison crossed to the door, waving the green-coats out ahead of him. ‘I will return momentarily – Mr Harcourt, for all his faults, is energetic and must be contained. You cannot escape – nor, if you value the young woman’s life, will you try.’

The door closed and the room fell into silence, apart from Phelps’s straining wheeze. Chang knew there was little time. He snapped his fingers

‘Phelps! Wake up! Phelps!’

Phelps raised his head with difficulty, his one clear eye helpless and apologetic. Was he even in his right mind?

‘Your friend is alive,’ said Chang.

Phelps swallowed, blinked. ‘Friend?’

‘The one taken with you. He is alive and free.’

‘Dear God. Thank heaven.’ Phelps cast a wary glance to the door. ‘The Doctor?’

‘You need not worry. But there is little time –’

‘No.’ Phelps began to shake his head. ‘No – I am so sorry – so ashamed –’

Chang dropped his voice. ‘You had no choice. No one does. Listen to me – I must know what you said –’

But Phelps did not hear, still working to form his words. ‘I did not know – you must believe me, Chang, I had no earthly idea. A failure from the start.’

‘No one knows – and everyone submits. Phelps, there is no shame –’

Tears rolled lines through the blood on Phelps’s shaking face. ‘All this time, I had thought myself reclaimed –’

‘They were bound to apprehend us –’

‘But who am I, Chang? How much have I betrayed? Have I done so all this time?’

‘Done what?’

‘Betrayed everything!’

‘But what did you tell them?’

‘I don’t know!’

Chang forced himself to stay calm. ‘Phelps, they are about to set in on me – it will doom us both if I contradict you –’

‘My soul is already taken.’

The man was useless. Chang changed tactics. ‘Have you seen Celeste Temple? She is to be exchanged – have you seen her? Did they speak of her? Is she here?’

Phelps shook his head. ‘Heard nothing. Seen nothing. If the girl is here …’

‘What? What?’

‘… she has already been consumed.’

The door opened. Phelps flinched at the sound and began to babble. ‘I assure you – for God’s sake – we said nothing –’

Foison smiled regretfully. ‘Of course not. Still, one attempts what one can.’ He took a third chair, facing Chang, but putting Phelps between them.

‘Cardinal. Will you tell me of the Contessa?’

‘By all means. She claims to be Italian, her figure is handsome, her personal habits are slovenly in the extreme –’

A knife appeared in Foison’s hand, and he extended his arm until the tip pricked Mr Phelps’s earlobe. Phelps gasped but kept still.

‘No,’ said Foison. ‘Mr Phelps has divulged everything, or so I am convinced. Do you understand? I lose nothing in his disposal.’

‘And I do?’

‘Such is my perception. Start from the Customs House. After the explosion – how did the Contessa find you?’

‘I found her.’

‘She has sworn to kill you.’

‘And I, her. It is deferred.’

‘How did you find her?’

‘I saw her coach and forced my way inside.’

‘Another lie.’

Phelps gasped again as a whisper-thin line of blood formed across his earlobe. As Chang watched, a bead of red slid off the line and hung like a pirate’s ear-ring, then dropped to stain Phelps’s shirt. Chang had barely seen Foison move.

‘Cardinal?’ Foison tapped the knife against Phelps’s shoulder.

‘I guessed where she would be. She had hidden herself in the Palace, hoping to enslave as many highly placed courtiers as possible –’

‘If you are referring to Sophia of Strackenz –’

‘I refer to Lady Axewith.’

Foison shifted in his chair, the knife cradled in his lap. ‘Do you have proof?’

‘The lady’s appearance, for one. But also the network of society women she has enlisted to gather information. They have been swarming Axewith House like bees a hive – all at the unseen behest of the Contessa.’

‘Where is the Contessa now?’

‘Laughing at you, I expect. Why did you stop Harcourt from taking her?’

Foison ignored the question. ‘Where is Doctor Svenson?’

‘We were separated after the blast.’

‘Where is Francesca Trapping?’

‘With Doctor Svenson.’

‘How did he acquire her?’

‘At the Palace. The Contessa had hidden her.’

‘That isn’t true.’

The words hung there. Phelps glanced desperately at Chang. Foison’s grip shifted on the knife. Chang knew it was a test, exerting pressure to establish how far he would go to preserve Phelps. Chang kept his face empty. If he made up anything now, it would make matters worse. Foison flicked his head, flipping a lock of white hair from his eyes. ‘Tell me about the painting.’

‘Which painting?’

‘You know very well.’

Another test – Chang had no idea what Phelps had already confessed. ‘A newspaper clipping. From the Herald, critiquing an art salon, especially a painting of the Comte d’Orkancz entitled The Chemickal Marriage –’

‘And you saw this painting yourself?’

‘None of us did.’

‘I will ask you once more. Did you see this painting?’

‘No. The salon was in Vienna.’

The knife sliced through the earlobe. Phelps shrieked and hopped against his bonds. The gash streamed blood, the severed nub of flesh somewhere on the floor.

‘The salon burnt down with the painting in it!’ Chang shouted. ‘The clipping came from the Contessa – if you want to know more, ask her!’

Foison ignored his anger. ‘Again, please, how did you acquire Francesca Trapping?’

‘I didn’t! We were separated in the Palace – when I found Svenson, he had the child –’

‘So Doctor Svenson had seen the Contessa?’

‘If he had, she would have killed him.’

‘She did not kill you.’

‘Doctor Svenson would have given her no choice. She murdered the woman he loved, Elöise Dujong.’

‘So he stole the Contessa’s property – this child – out of revenge?’

‘You do not know Svenson. He rescued a child in danger.’

‘Has the child been mistreated?’

‘You saw her yourself, you damned ghoul. She’s been poisoned by that glass book. By your filthy master. Who’s no more Robert Vandaariff than I’m the Pope – or you’re the God damned Queen!’

The door opened, and Robert Vandaariff tottered in. He had aged even since the Customs House, his face grey and his bony fingers fiercely gripping the head of his cane. His throat was wrapped in a neck cloth, but a red bruise extended past its white border. Harcourt slipped in behind, eyes darting covetously between Chang and Mr Phelps.

‘Time ticks on,’ Vandaariff announced blandly. ‘Close the door, Mr Harcourt. We have no need of soldiers.’

‘But, my lord, your safety – Cardinal Chang –’

‘Is tied to a chair. Mr Foison will preserve me. Will you not trust him, too?’

With a gesture somehow grudging and haughty at the same time, Harcourt sniffed at the grenadiers and shut the door in their faces.

‘And the lock,’ added Vandaariff.

Harcourt turned the bolt. A curl of dread climbed Cardinal Chang’s spine. He had returned himself to this madman’s power. Every impulse cried out to fight, but he’d thrown away the chance.

‘Do you have … headaches?’

Chang did not answer, and then Vandaariff repeated the question, turning to Harcourt.

‘Mr Harcourt? The pains – they grieve you, yes?’

‘Beg pardon, my lord –’

‘I think they must. Speak freely.’

Harcourt shuffled back a step, aware of everyone watching. ‘Perhaps, my lord – but, given the crisis, regular sleep is impossible – much less regular meals –’

Vandaariff tapped Harcourt’s forehead with a knuckled claw. ‘There. Is it not?’

Harcourt smiled awkwardly.

‘And your eyes … have you seen your eyes, Mr Harcourt?’

‘No, sir. Should I?’

‘Take off your glove.’

Chang had not noticed the gloves: a self-important prig like Harcourt would naturally wear them. Harcourt squeezed his hands together.

‘I know already that your nails are yellow, Matthew. That the cuticles bleed, that gripping a pen gives you pain.’

‘Lord Robert –’

‘Not to worry, my boy. I also know what to do about it.’

Harcourt gushed with relief. ‘Do you?’

Vandaariff drew a handkerchief and laid it on Harcourt’s open palm. Harcourt gently plucked the handkerchief apart. When a blue glass card was revealed, Harcourt went pale, licking his lips.

‘You have met such an object before.’

‘Excuse me, my lord – it is difficult – ah – it is extremely difficult –’

‘Take it up, Matthew.’

‘I dare not – I cannot – given the current –’

‘I insist.’

Harcourt’s resistance gave way and he sank his greedy gaze into the blue card’s depths. No one spoke, and after a moment, like a dog in a dream, one of Harcourt’s legs began to shake gently, heel tapping softly on the floor.

‘The Contessa has no subtlety, no art,’ Vandaariff muttered sourly. ‘Yet she is effective, and through this fool has learnt far more than I would have liked.’ He cocked his head at Phelps. ‘But I’m afraid I interrupted your conversation, Mr Foison. Do you care to continue?’

‘Not if Your Lordship wishes otherwise.’

‘They spoke together?’

‘Nothing you did not anticipate.’

‘Too much to hope.’ Vandaariff sketched a stiff bow in Phelps’s direction. ‘I thank you, sir, and regret your discomfort.’

‘Mr Phelps,’ prompted Foison. ‘Late of the Privy Council.’

‘Mr Phelps. It is a shame to make an acquaintance under such conditions.’

‘Renew an acquaintance, you mean,’ said Chang.

Vandaariff fluttered a hand near his ear, like a fop’s handkerchief. ‘I did not hear.’

‘I said you do know Mr Phelps. He was the Duke’s deputy.’ Chang called to Phelps, hoping the man had strength. ‘How many times did you visit Harschmort? A dozen?’

‘At the very least,’ Phelps muttered, rousing himself. ‘But there were also private meetings at Stäelmaere House –’

Chang nodded. ‘Perhaps Mr Foison was away on your business, my lord, but you cannot have forgotten the man who in your own chambers negotiated the Duke of Stäelmaere’s rise to power.’

‘Indeed.’ The grey tip of Vandaariff’s tongue wet his lips. ‘I have been unwell. Even now, some … memories … they elude my grasp.’

‘How do you not recall a man you’ve met above a dozen times?’

Phelps attempted to straighten himself in the chair. ‘In the gardens of Harschmort, facing the sea – Your Lordship pointed across the water, to Macklenburg –’

‘I do apologize, Mr Phelps,’ Vandaariff cut in. ‘If I have not, in our present dealings, been mindful of this past service. We need no longer trouble you.’

‘I beg your pardon?’ Phelps looked up without comprehension as Vandaariff tugged a slim leather glove onto one hand. ‘You’re setting me free?’

‘I am.’

‘My lord?’ This was Foison. ‘Without comparing the prisoners’ accounts –’

‘A question of balance, Mr Foison.’ Vandaariff dug in the pocket of his waistcoat. ‘You are not wrong – and yet, where is the right? Look at Mr Harcourt – ready to serve. Look at Chang, compelled to obey. But poor Mr Phelps …’ Vandaariff sorted what seemed like coins in his gloved palm. ‘I believe he has done all he can.’

Vandaariff raised what Chang had taken for a coin to the light – an edged disc glowing blue.

‘My lord, with respect –’

Vandaariff jabbed the disc into Phelps’s jugular, just enough to draw blood – which immediately crusted around the cut. Chang watched a vivid line crawl in both directions from the incision, up into his skull and under Phelps’s shirt, to his heart. Phelps stiffened, but no sound escaped his mouth. Vandaariff wrenched the disc free and dropped it to the floor. He ground it to powder with his shoe.

Phelps slumped, lifeless. Vandaariff took another handkerchief from his coat and blew his nose. ‘Mr Foison, inform Mr Harcourt’s companions that they must report to Lord Axewith in his stead. He is unwell.’

‘My lord.’

Foison left the room. Chang stared at Phelps’s still-open eye.

‘You gave me no choice,’ said Vandaariff. ‘And if you mention my memory again, I will shove a glass card between your teeth and force you to chew.’

With the croak of a carrion bird, Vandaariff began to softly sing.

My love is gone beneath the ground

though I was ever true

a dearer child would ne’er be found

until I first spied you …

Foison reappeared in the doorway. ‘The coaches await, my lord.’

‘Then let us be off.’ Vandaariff patted Chang on the head. ‘Everyone’s ready.’