The Chemickal Marriage

Seven Thermæ

Following Colonel Bronque down a corridor of silver mirrors, Miss Temple was so taken with excitement at their destination as to forget the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza walking beside her, until that woman reached out to flick Miss Temple’s arm. Miss Temple snapped her mouth shut, abashed to find it had been open. The Contessa’s expression had changed as well. Deference cloaked her animal confidence. Glancing back, Colonel Bronque appraised the women with a gaze that promised nothing.

They reached a bright room where well-dressed men and women gathered, palpably expectant. Bronque did not pause. Twice more their uniformed Virgil ignored similar weigh-points of privilege, delivering them at last to a strange oval door, made of metal and opened by a wheel at its centre instead of a knob. The wheel was spun by a footman and they descended to a shabby landing. Here waited a single man, whose broad face seemed a size too large for the wiry hair that gripped his skull. He consulted a pocket watch. Colonel Bronque came to a military stop and clicked his heels.

‘My Lord Axewith.’

‘Ah. Bronque.’

The Colonel waited. The Privy Minister, marooned, only sighed.

‘My lord?’

Bronque followed the Minister’s wary glance at the women, whose attention was dutifully turned – Miss Temple taking the Contessa’s lead – to the peeling paint.

‘I do not require Her Majesty’s seal, Bronque, but Lord Vandaariff is insistent. Of course he is correct. Measures of historic consequence ought to be enacted by the monarch. But it leaves me waiting until I am a wilted stick.’ Axewith – whose lantern jaw and spatulate nose suggested the face of a stranded turtle – tugged at his collar. ‘And just when so many other pressing matters are … well … pressing.’

Bronque nodded to the satchel under Axewith’s arm. ‘May I wait in your stead, my lord, while you attend to business in a more congenial place?’

‘Damned kind of you.’ Axewith sighed sadly. ‘But Reasons of State, I’m afraid. Reasons of State. And I cannot disappoint Lord Vandaariff …’

Another flick on the arm brought Miss Temple’s attention to the arrival of an elegantly dressed older woman, of an age and grudging mutter with Miss Temple’s Aunt Agathe. She addressed the Contessa without a word of greeting.

‘You will remain silent unless spoken to. At a signal from the Duchess of Cogstead, who will make your introduction, the interview is terminated. Now, the attiring rooms are here …’

The older lady opened another oval door and lifted her dress, stepping over the sill. The Contessa went next, eyes darting once behind. Miss Temple glanced in turn, curious to catch Lord Axewith’s reaction, but Lord Axewith was tapping at the clouded face of his pocket watch. It was Colonel Bronque who met Miss Temple’s gaze, his eyes as dull as two tarnished coins.

‘You will be collected. Do not forget the Duchess’s signal.’ Their guide’s voice sank to a vicious warning. ‘And do not stare.’

As she stalked off, female attendants appeared, one for each of them.

‘Stare at what?’

‘At whom, Celeste. Pay attention.’

The attiring room’s floor was yellowed marble, its walls pebbled with paint blisters. The air was moist and warm, as if they were calling upon the Queen at her laundry – an impression reinforced by the attendants gently guiding them to alcoves hung with linen curtains. Inside stood a wardrobe. A touch from her attendant had Miss Temple sitting on a wooden stool.

‘If the lady would lean her head …’

Miss Temple did so and the attendant gathered up her curls. To her left, the Contessa’s brilliant black hair disappeared into a deftly wound white towel that was quickly pinned up like a Turk’s.

‘If the lady would straighten …’

Miss Temple, her hair tucked tightly away, felt fingers picking down her back. In a trice her dress had been unlaced. The attendant tugged at the ties of her corset, and then removed her shift. The attendants unlaced the ladies’ boots and peeled each stockinged leg until both women sat, apart from their turbaned heads, completely nude. The Contessa kept a grip on Miss Temple, squeezing hard.

‘Do you recall what we spoke of, Celeste, in the coach?’

Miss Temple quite helplessly shook her head.

‘We spoke of redemption – and a certain person you claimed to care for. You quite correctly assumed an ulterior reason for your visit to the tomb. My friend Oskar was new to this city when he received that particular commission. Given all he went on to achieve, the project seems but a trifle and even he – or especially he – may have dismissed his efforts. And yet – pay attention, Celeste – you should know that every artist is a cannibal, feeding relentlessly on those around them, yet feeding on themselves even more. Do you see? You went there because, if you will forgive the figure, those oldest bones may make a reappearance on our evening’s menu.’

The attendants had gone, and each woman stood in a muslin bathing costume, sleeveless, their legs bare from the knee. Miss Temple rocked on cork-soled slippers. She tried her best to recall the details of the Vandaariff tomb, but her fragile concentration was undermined by the Contessa’s nearness and her insidious frangipani scent. The tip of the Contessa’s scar arched like a comet from under her shoulder strap. Miss Temple tottered closer, the muslin rough on the tip of each breast. Her breath touched the Contessa’s skin. The Contessa was speaking. She could not follow the words. She could not stop herself from leaning forward –

The Contessa slapped Miss Temple hard across the cheek. Miss Temple staggered, but kept her feet.

‘Wake up. If you ruin this, I’ll have you skinned.’

‘I am perfectly well.’ Miss Temple swallowed. ‘I will be the one skinning you.’

‘Say nothing if you can help it. Respectful silence, pliant nubility – listen to me.’ She reached out and pinched Miss Temple’s nipple. Miss Temple squeaked. ‘And don’t stare.’

‘Stare at what?’ Miss Temple whimpered.

The Contessa turned to the opening door and slipped into a curtsy Miss Temple just managed to echo.

‘Signora.’

It did not seem that the portly, grey-haired woman in the doorway approved of the Contessa, any more than she enjoyed her unflattering bathing costume, soaked through and dripping.

‘Your Grace,’ murmured the Contessa.

The Duchess of Cogstead exhaled without pleasure. ‘Follow.’

The sanctum of squalid fairies, a cavern where gaslight laid a uric shimmer across the surface of the water. Miss Temple’s attention darted between the women in the pools, floating with the stolid determination of pondering frogs, and the hundreds more that stood along the walls, eyes lit with envy at those immersed – young and old, thin and fat, pink, pale, mottled, brown and veined. The mineral smell grew sharper as they walked, for the Duchess took them to the thick of the steam, to a wide bath whose far side lay in a cloud. She waded in, first down hidden steps and then, like a lumbering seal finding its ease, gliding gracefully to the centre of the pool. The Duchess stopped before a seat of mineral-glazed brass. Its equally substantial occupant – wide, fat, paste-coloured – was obscured by four servants, each tending to one floating, bloated limb. As the pool’s denizens watched, these servants wrapped and rewrapped their respective arm or leg with strips of cheesecloth, smearing between layers a greasy balm on their patient’s putrid, honeycombed skin.

The Contessa stabbed a nail into Miss Temple’s palm and she obediently dropped her eyes to the water. The Duchess spoke too quietly to hear – the hissing pipes, the low voices, the lapping pools, all rebounded off the tile in a buzz. Miss Temple leant closer to the Contessa’s towel-wrapped ear. She wanted to ask why she was here, why she had been saved, what the Contessa hoped to gain from a despised monarch who, if one could credit popular opinion, cared less about the state of her nation than Miss Temple, a keen eater of scones, cared about grinding flour. But what she whispered instead was this: ‘Why does everyone here dislike you?’

The Contessa replied from the corner of her mouth. ‘Of all people, you should know that counts for nothing.’

‘I have never cared.’

‘Lying scrub.’

‘She will not grant your request.’

‘I request nothing.’

The Queen gave the Duchess her reply, a sibilant fussing that ended in a flip of one puffed hand, and the Duchess extended a formal wave to where they waited. The Contessa descended into the pool, allowing the water to reach her breasts before extending both arms with a pleasing smile and pushing forward. Miss Temple advanced more slowly. The water was very hot and contained an unexpected effervescence. She sank to her chin and pinched herself. The Duchess made the Contessa’s introduction.

‘Rosamonde, Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza, Your Majesty. An Italian gentlewoman.’

‘I am much honoured by Your Majesty’s attention,’ the Contessa murmured.

The Queen’s eyes in their leprous folds showed all the emotion of a toad.

‘And the Contessa’s companion,’ continued the Duchess. ‘A Miss Celestial Temple.’

Miss Temple bobbed her head, fixing her eyes on the floating basket that held cheesecloth and the greasy cruets.

‘I do not see why,’ wheezed the Queen in complaint. ‘Why should I see anyone when I am not well.’

The Duchess gave the Contessa a dark glare. ‘I am told the news is important.’

No one spoke. The water lapped against the tiles. The Queen huffed.

‘Funny … thing.’ The words came out in exhalations, as if the effort to form full sentences had been lost with her health, grammar perishing alongside mobility and hope. ‘Always to mind with an Italian. Roman honey. Gift from Sultan. Arab? African? Poppy?’

‘Her Majesty’s memory is far superior to mine,’ said the Duchess.

‘Sealed jug. Inch of wax if there was a dab – common clay pot – came with ribbons. Velvet sack. African velvet must be rare. I hope no one stole it, Poppy.’

‘I will consult the inventory, ma’am.’

‘Everyone steals everything. Italy? Italy.’ She poked a finger, thick as a gauze-wrapped candle stub, at the Contessa. ‘Jar of honey from the bottom of the sea. Roman ship, sunk by …’ The Queen paused, snorted. ‘Whales. Wicked. Whales eat anything. Still good. On account of the wax. Thousand-year-old honey. Ancient bees. My tenth year in the seat, or twelfth. Nothing like it on earth, rare as … rare as …’

‘Milk from a snake, ma’am?’ offered a lady clustered behind the Duchess.

‘Never,’ growled the Queen. ‘Notion’s absurd.’ The servants took her subsequent silence as an opportunity to work, wiping the mottled skin with a sponge and spreading a new strip of cloth, the yellow oil seething through the weave.

‘Did Your Majesty enjoy the honey?’ the Contessa asked demurely.

‘Ate it all with a spoon.’ The Queen wrinkled one eye against a bead of sweat. ‘Lady Axewith says I must see you.’

‘Lady Axewith is extremely kind.’

‘Bothersome scold. Husband should switch her raw.’ The Queen grunted. ‘Venice.’

‘Your Majesty’s memory is very fine,’ replied the Contessa.

‘Should be Rome. One prefers Italians with pedigree.’

The Duchess cleared her throat. ‘Lord Axewith waits, Your Majesty, for your seal. Lord Vandaariff is insistent, given the popular crisis –’

‘Popular does not last.’

‘No, Majesty. But Lord Vandaariff has made a most generous guarantee –’

‘Lord Axewith can wait.’ The Queen shifted on the submerged throne, slopping the water over her arms and draping her voice in a fuller malevolence. ‘What do you want?’

The Contessa blinked her violet eyes. ‘Why, nothing at all, ma’am.’

‘Then you waste your time as well as mine! Lady Axewith shall no longer be admitted! Hellfire, Poppy, if every trivial foreign person –’

‘Beg pardon, ma’am. I have come not for myself, but for you.’

At the Contessa’s interruption the Queen’s expression became fierce. Her wide mouth snapped like a pug’s. ‘You – you – this – Poppy –’

Steam rose up around the Contessa’s placid face. ‘My errand concerns Your Majesty’s late brother.’

‘All my brothers are late!’ the Queen replied in a roar.

‘The Duke of Stäelmaere, Your Majesty, who was Privy Minister.’

The Queen snorted suddenly, noting the Contessa’s beauty as if it were an unpleasant odour. She waggled her over-fleshed throat. ‘And one supposes you knew him.’

‘Indeed, no, ma’am. The Duke had meagre use for any woman.’

‘Then what?’

‘Surely Majesty … you have heard rumours of the irregular nature of the Duke’s passing.’

Moisture had pearled across the Contessa’s upper lip. The Duchess was poised to end the audience. The Queen wriggled her nose, then turned for an attendant to wipe it.

‘Perhaps I have. Who is she?’

Miss Temple felt every eye around the pool fall upon her.

‘Miss Celestial Temple,’ repeated the Duchess.

‘Ridiculous. Name for a Chinaman. Girl should be ashamed.’

The Contessa slid forward. ‘Your Majesty should know that the Duke, your brother, learnt of a plot against Your Majesty’s health. Naturally he moved to expose it.’

Miss Temple knew this to be an arrant lie.

The Queen glowered. The whispers around the pool hushed. The Contessa continued.

‘Your brother’s death was an act of murder, Your Majesty, of the highest treason. And now others taken into the Duke’s confidence have been attacked. Lord Pont-Joule, murdered yesterday. Inside the Palace.’

The Queen’s voice fell to a throaty amphibian quaver. ‘My Pont-Joule? No one has said!’

‘I did not wish to disturb Your Majesty,’ began the Duchess, ‘on the advice –’

‘Of Lord Axewith.’ The Contessa shook her head knowingly. ‘Who of course acts on the advice of Lord Vandaariff. Lady Axewith – who has been so kind to me – was another secret ally of the Duke. Her own sudden illness – for illness it seems –’

‘I have heard of no illness! Lady Axewith?’

‘Victim to the same poison that slew the Duke. But the good woman had the wit to understand the attack upon her for what it was, an attack upon the state.’

The whispers around the pool boiled into an urgent nattering. The Duchess cried out and splashed for quiet. In the turmoil the Contessa’s hidden foot hooked Miss Temple’s knee and drew her closer to the Queen.

‘Majesty, I am dispatched to bring the only proof Lady Axewith could find. Celeste, tell Her Majesty what you know.’

Miss Temple had no idea what the Contessa desired her to say.

‘Is the girl simple?’ asked the Queen.

‘Only frightened, ma’am.’ The Contessa’s hand slipped unseen to Miss Temple’s waist, stroking gently. ‘The Duke, Celeste. The Duke and the mirrored room.’

Miss Temple felt her throat clench as a memory rose up whole.

The Duke of Stäelmaere’s recruitment by the Cabal had been planned to every degree, exploiting the cruelty for which the Duke was famous. Stäelmaere had duly arrived at Harschmort House and been taken by the Comte d’Orkancz to a secret viewing room. Hidden behind a wall of Dutch glass he had watched Lord Robert Vandaariff receive an apparently endless line of peers, industrialists, clerics and diplomats – all pledging their fealty in the case of an imminent, but unnamed, national crisis. Persuaded by the grovelling of such impressive minions, His Grace had joined the conspiracy, and soon after journeyed to Tarr Manor for a first-hand look at the glories of indigo clay – an expedition that had ended instead with a bullet through the Duke’s heart, and his corpse’s resuscitation, by virtue of the blue glass, as a walking, croaking puppet.

The Comte’s recollections flooded Miss Temple’s brain. She inhaled through her nose, the acrid steam clarifying her mind.

‘By accident, Your Majesty, I became separated from my fiancé, Roger Bascombe, who, before his untimely death, was to be the next Lord Tarr –’

The Queen squinted – there were so many lords.

The Contessa gripped her waist. ‘Her Majesty’s brother, Celeste …’

‘Just so. I was lost, you see, and the house so very large. I entered a strange room – and who else was in it but the Duke of Stäelmaere? He waved me to silence, and I saw that one entire wall was made of glass. We gazed into another room full of people, and not one of them paid the least attention, though we were as near as I to you. The glass was a one-sided mirror!’

‘Wicked invention.’ The Queen squirmed in her seat. ‘Wicked.’

‘Very wicked,’ agreed Miss Temple. ‘And through the mirror we watched a parade of distinguished figures, bowing and scraping to the same person, as if he were a king. At each fawning suitor the Duke clenched his fist as if to say “Damn you for a traitor, Lord Whatsit!” When the last had gone, His Grace swore me to secrecy, promising justice would be done.’

The Queen furrowed an already layered brow. ‘But who … who was the person in the other room?’

‘I do beg your pardon,’ said Miss Temple, doing her best to imitate the Contessa’s tone. ‘I was at Harschmort House, of course, and the man the Duke caught planning to overthrow Your Majesty’s government was Lord Robert Vandaariff.’

The ladies at the pool’s edge fell silent. ‘My intent is to warn Your Majesty of the threat to your own person,’ offered the Contessa. ‘Until now, we had put our faith in Lord Pont-Joule –’

‘And Lady Axewith,’ added Miss Temple rather boldly.

‘Lady Axewith, yes. Her husband, I fear, may be too naive for the role that has been thrust upon him. In his ignorance, the Privy Minister seems little more than Robert Vandaariff’s confidential secretary …’

‘Poppy?’

The Queen was querulous. The Duchess swam to her. ‘You are safe, Your Majesty –’

‘Won’t see anyone! Won’t talk to a soul! Won’t sign a scrap!’

‘Of course not, Majesty. But if we can get news of Lady Axewith –’

The Contessa tugged at Miss Temple’s bathing costume, signalling their subtle retreat.

‘Says she’s poisoned!’ hissed the Queen.

‘We will send word, Your Majesty, and hurry to Lady Axewith,’ the Contessa offered. ‘But I do urge every precaution be taken with regard to your person. The threat is grave.’

The Queen groaned aloud and began to flail, her attendants moaning in choric sympathy. The Duchess pleaded uselessly for order. The Contessa hauled Miss Temple from the pool.

‘Meet no one’s eye, do not hurry, do not speak.’ They had not reached the doorway before details of Vandaariff’s plot echoed around them, rebounding in a dozen more dire variations. In the attiring room, the Contessa flung Miss Temple to an attendant and hurried to her own, the buttons of her bathing costume ripped free, dancing on the floor.

‘My dress!’ she barked at an attendant, and then to Miss Temple, ‘Stop staring, you imbecile! Move!’

But Miss Temple could not move: too much was happening too quickly. Her bathing costume was stripped away and her skin chuffed to vigorous life by the attendant’s strong hands – hands that thrust the towel without apology, like a dog’s prodding nose, into every tender crevice. Again the Contessa stood nude, arms up, tearing the white turban and shaking her dark curls free. Her breasts shifted with the movement, a sketching measure of their soft weight, and with a whimper Miss Temple arched to her toes. Heedless of her distress, the Contessa primped with a practised economy, while the attendant worked the first stocking up her leg and towards the tangle of black hair.

‘With luck, if your Mr Pfaff is not a total donkey …’

Miss Temple shut her eyes, yet in her mind she knew more, too much, the tips of her fingers tingled, a pearling cleft, her tongue –

In utter frustration Miss Temple slapped her thighs until the white skin burnt with the imprint of each hand. The attendant retreated, in fear. The Contessa caught Miss Temple’s wrists.

‘Celeste.’

Miss Temple turned her face, not wanting another slap.

‘O good Lord.’ The Contessa motioned her attendant to help the other. ‘I will manage my own. Get her sorted.’

With both women tugging her to order, Miss Temple’s shame overcame her stimulation and eventually she stood, corset tight and tied, dress restored. The Contessa pushed money at the attendants and waved them out. She met Miss Temple’s hapless, tear-streaked face with an intolerant glare.

‘Our survival depends on whether Lord Axewith still waits outside.’

‘Why Lord Axewith?’ Miss Temple’s eyes burnt. ‘I thought it was Lady Axewith –’

‘Lord Axewith waits for Her Majesty’s seal. His declarations do not require it, but – the crisis being what it is – he is frightened. Lord Vandaariff – who is rich and never wrong – has offered his aid and Axewith has leapt for it like a bishop in a choir loft. Yet, because these orders will spark new blazes of unrest – people displaced and their property claimed – Axewith, for he is weak, and Vandaariff, for he is shrewd, want the Queen to issue the commands, allowing Her Majesty – who is despised already – to take the blame. But now, because of your story, the Queen will refuse to sign any order coming from Vandaariff, whom she considers a traitor. The Queen’s refusal will be a denouncement, which means the orders cannot be issued at all! Unless, that is, Axewith has lost patience, walked out and issued them himself!’

‘But why should he? If he has waited so long –’

‘O Celeste, why should a man do anything?’

‘So if Axewith is gone –’

The Contessa pulled Miss Temple to the door. ‘Then we, little piglet, are undone!’

The door was thrust open by a heavy woman with hair as bright as a Spanish tangerine. For an instant each side smiled in apology, but then the heavy lady’s face went white with shock.

‘You! How dare you! How dare you show yourself here!’

‘Lady Hopton, how unexpected –’

‘Harlot! I have just come from Axewith House!’

The Contessa stepped back, eyes lowered before the other woman’s rage, hands submissively behind her back. ‘Indeed? I trust Lady Axewith is well –’

‘You trust! Lady Axewith is dead! But, unlike her physician, I am not blind to the cause!’ Lady Hopton raised a fist. She shook it at the Contessa – still cowed by the woman’s anger – then wheeled round with a snort for the far door. ‘Out of my way, you filth! Once I speak to the Queen –’

The Contessa lunged, a cord in her hands. In a flash it was around Lady Hopton’s throat.

Lady Hopton careened in a circle, straining for the door she’d come through. Her face went cherry-red, her mouth a garish, gasping hole. The Contessa tightened the cord with a convulsive snarl, dislodging Lady Hopton’s tangerine wig. The hair beneath was thin and grey. But still the woman bulled forward, swiping at Miss Temple, her voice a terrified rasp.

‘Help –’

‘Stop her!’ grunted the Contessa. ‘If she opens that door we will be seen!’

Miss Temple froze, transfixed by the bulging eyes – this poor proud woman who had spoken to the Contessa just as Miss Temple had always wanted to. With a helpless clarity Miss Temple saw where she had placed herself, and how desolate her future had become.

She ducked Lady Hopton’s arms and seized her dress, wrenching the woman from the door. Lady Hopton whined with dismay, but the Contessa twisted the cord and the sound soured to an ugly rattle. For five seconds the three of them hung suspended, then Lady Hopton collapsed. Without pause the Contessa knelt on the fallen woman’s chest and, leverage improved, pulled the cord taut for another half-minute.

‘Took you long enough.’ The Contessa dragged the dead woman to the nearest wardrobe niche. ‘Pick up her filthy wig.’

The attendants were told with a tactful nod that Lady Hopton required privacy for a conversation, and that any new arrivals might be shown to another attiring room altogether. Back on the mildewed landing, Colonel Bronque waited alone at the rail. The older lady who had shown them to the attiring room called with a knowing smile. ‘Did you meet Lady Hopton?’

‘I beg your pardon?’

The old woman’s eyes glittered. ‘I believe she took your same route to the baths.’

‘We did not see her for the steam,’ the Contessa answered blandly. ‘No doubt Lady Hopton waits upon Her Majesty even now.’ The Contessa turned to Colonel Bronque and raised an eyebrow.

‘Lord Axewith was called away.’ Bronque indicated the satchel at his feet. ‘I am entrusted with his errand.’

‘Called away?’

‘The city is on fire.’

The Contessa wound an errant strand of hair around a finger. ‘How much of the city?’

The old lady cleared her throat with a peevish determination. ‘Not one to make your enemy, is Lady Hopton.’

The Contessa’s reply was interrupted by a door opening behind them and the Duchess of Cogstead, wrapped in a robe, stepping through.

‘You!’ she called.

Miss Temple did not move.

‘Colonel Bronque!’ shouted the Duchess, with impatience. ‘You have Lord Axewith’s papers?’

Bronque clicked his heels together. ‘I do, Your Grace –’

‘Then you are required, sir! At once!’

Bronque rattled down the stairs and disappeared after the Duchess. The Contessa turned to the old lady.

‘I am obliged for your kindness.’

The old lady glared. ‘Kindness played no part in the matter.’

The Contessa grinned. ‘It so very seldom does.’

Miss Temple’s hands shook. Half the time it seemed as if her senses would overwhelm her – but when she had been in her mind and thinking clearly, what had she done but assist with outright murder?

‘Why am I here?’ she demanded recklessly. ‘You are a terrible woman!’

They were hardly alone, and the well-dressed men and women passing in either direction turned at Miss Temple’s angry tone. With a tight smile, the Contessa pressed her mouth to Miss Temple’s ear. ‘Once we are alone –’

‘Signora?’ An older man in a topcoat had approached the Contessa. She showed him a graceful smile, keeping hold of Miss Temple’s arm.

‘Minister. How do you do? May I present Miss Celestial Temple – Celeste, Lord Shear is Her Majesty’s Minister for Finance.’

Lord Shear had no interest in Miss Temple. ‘Signora, you know Matthew Harcourt.’

‘By acquaintance only, my lord.’

‘Still, perhaps you can explain –’

‘You know Robert Vandaariff,’ Miss Temple blurted out, stinging at the memory of Lord Shear through the mirror at Harschmort, kneeling like the rest. ‘If he asked it, you would lick his shoes. And then I daresay you would lick his –’

The Contessa spun Miss Temple to the nearest door and shoved her through. ‘I beg your pardon – the girl’s not well – father ruined, drink and gambling –’

She slammed the door in the face of the sputtering peer. The Contessa snatched a paper-knife off a writing table. Miss Temple backed away, arms outstretched. She opened her mouth, wanting to shout her defiance, but no words came. Her chest shuddered. She could not breathe. Miss Temple sank down to her knees, her words a half-voiced wail.

‘What has become of me?’

She choked with sobs, cheeks wet and hot, half blind. The Contessa advanced. Miss Temple swatted at her, fingers splayed. But instead of an attack the Contessa knelt and extended the hand without the knife to Miss Temple’s face.

‘You are not so very pretty, you know, that you can withstand such fits. Round faces when they redden extinguish sympathy in a person. You are better served by disdain. Which I suppose is usually your own luck.’

Miss Temple sniffed thickly. Though soft, the Contessa’s voice was not kind.

‘There are two things I can think of to address your problem – you may well imagine what they are – but both will make you scream’– here the Contessa smiled and Miss Temple whimpered – ‘and too many people are too near.’

‘That woman – Lady Hopton –’

‘Had to die, and at once. But half the court has seen you with me, and, while I may brazen out an ignorance of Lady Hopton, I can hardly do so for you – and so …’ She tapped Miss Temple’s nose with the paper-knife. ‘I cannot take your life here. Unless, Celeste, you give me no other option.’

Miss Temple swallowed. ‘But why did you bring me?’

‘The Comte’s memory, of course. You had seen those rooms. You spied on me.’

‘But – but it was the Comte with the Duke, watching Vandaariff – I had to change everything –’

‘Which you did.’

‘But if the story had to be made up and changed, what did it matter that I knew it at all? Why didn’t you tell it yourself?’

‘O I could have, but never so feelingly. The Queen is highly suspicious of anyone seeking favour – by claiming no favour for myself, and by producing a witness without hope of advancement, the odds she would believe the tale were much increased. And besides, you did know the story. Even with the necessary embroidery, it did not sound a lie. And if the Queen did declare it a lie – always possible, she is as contrary as a mule – it was not me who’d done the lying.’

‘But Lord Axewith is gone –’

‘Axewith left his papers with Bronque. By now Her Majesty has flung those papers in the Colonel’s face and the main goal of our visit is achieved. That Axewith is called to some entirely unrelated crisis only benefits us further. It keeps him from the tragic news at Axewith House, and also from Vandaariff. Now, will you stand?’

Miss Temple nodded and rose. ‘Colonel Bronque is your lover.’

‘Celeste Temple, how did you ever escape strangling?’ The Contessa slipped the paper-knife into her bag and came out with a handkerchief. ‘Yours to destroy.’

Miss Temple wiped her nose and eyes and then dabbed at her fingers, for the lace was too thin for its task. ‘Why do all the Queen’s ladies dislike you?’

‘Why does everyone dislike you?’

‘But – but I am not –’ Miss Temple flushed. ‘I am not beautiful.’

The Contessa’s voice was flat. ‘No. Beauty is more a danger than intelligence or wit. One becomes a living mirror for the inadequacies of others. Without the whip hand, which as a foreigner in the court is denied me, one proceeds in secret. Such constraints are exactly why unexpected encounters, such as Lady Hopton, such as yourself, are so gratifying.’

‘But you have not killed me.’

The Contessa sighed wistfully. ‘O Celeste …’

When she had stepped off the ship into the incomparably more complicated world of the city – a hailstorm of sounds and smells and people – Miss Temple’s reaction, true to her nature, had been to retreat and, from behind a barrier of sceptical politeness, observe. The vectors of her relations were antagonistic, this new home defined by its otherness. When elements of her transplanted life did in time penetrate her reserve – a grudging familiarity with her maids, an appreciation for certain tea shops – the result was an expansion of her private enclosure to include these new pleasures, not a shift from her essential detachment. Now that enclosure, her castle’s keep, housed only mortifying betrayal. Even her hate for the Contessa was blunted, first by the indiscriminate desire that ran in her blood like an infection, and, worse to admit, by Miss Temple’s fear that the Contessa alone understood, however contemptuously, the truth of her polluted soul.

She wondered how many people the Contessa had murdered, and why she had been so many times spared? Certainly the Contessa had tried once or twice in earnest, but on so many other occasions the woman had refrained. Miss Temple believed that once a person was an enemy – horrible Cynthia Hobart, for example, whose plantation lay across the river – one worked against them without end. Moral sophistication – that one would not merely dissemble, biding time for a master stroke, but actually allow one’s feelings to change – laid a chill in the pit of her stomach.

She shook off her thoughts. They had retraced their steps to the hall of mirrors, where they had first entered with Colonel Bronque.

‘At last,’ sighed the Contessa. ‘If we can just find a coach – che cavolo!’

Blocking the way stood four soldiers and an unimpressive man with wire spectacles and a little beard, the tip of which he twirled between two grey-gloved fingers.

‘Mr Schoepfil.’ The Contessa released Miss Temple’s hand. ‘I had wondered if I would have the pleasure.’

‘The pleasure is mine,’ Mr Schoepfil replied. ‘I insist.’

Miss Temple turned and ran, but another line of soldiers barred her way. She was taken to an empty room and left inside without a word.

Miss Temple disliked waiting at the best of times, and to do so without knowing where she was only made her feel more powerless, more like a child. She looked out of the window of the little room, wondering if she might simply smash the glass and climb through, but, while she did not remember having climbed so many stairs, the drop was at least thirty feet to an ugly gravelled courtyard.

She wondered if the Contessa would set the blame for Lady Hopton’s death on her. And who was this Mr Schoepfil – another lover, along with Bronque? She thought of the indifference that ringed her own existence at the Boniface, where she was tolerated but hardly loved. And what of those people she had met in her romance with Roger Bascombe? Not all had been Roger’s direct friends or family; there had been some who might have, had they desired, maintained relations with Miss Temple. Scarcely a single call had come.

Her handbag containing Roger’s notebook had been taken by the soldiers without her ever having read it. Miss Temple wished she’d never seen the thing, hating her curiosity. She put her head in her hands and sighed.

She looked up with a dawning revulsion and walked to a knobbed wall panel. The back of her mouth burnt. Miss Temple pulled the panel wide. In the centre of a bare room stood a table covered with an oilskin sheet. A second, stained square of oilskin protected the floor beneath.

In the Comte’s memories the horrid odour echoed necrotic tissue first encountered in a Parisian atelier, but Miss Temple’s main recognition came from the pollution in her own body, from the tainted book.

She lifted the oilskin sheet. Her stomach seized. Whatever she had expected, it was not this. Saliva filled her mouth and she wheeled, willing herself to vomit, but nothing came. With a punitive determination Miss Temple reached again for the oilskin and, so as not to lose her nerve, flipped it wide. Francesca Trapping lay on the table like a forgotten doll, broken and tattered. The dress had been cut away and so had parts of the corpse, dark cavities opened with an unstinting cruelty. Miss Temple put her fist to her mouth and forced herself to look. She had abandoned the girl. She had triggered the explosion at the Customs House. This was her doing.

She felt her throat catch, aware of a stupidity she could not see past. The gaping holes … missing portions of the child’s body. This was like the victims at Raaxfall, from whose corpses the knots of transformed flesh had been removed … but … but no, it was not the same. Those cavities had been ragged and irregular, formed by blue glass blooming into flesh. These incisions were precise and clean … surgical.

She stared down at the bloodless small hands, the feet turned in to touch at the toes – and realized the clothes had been cut away. The fabric was not torn or burnt, nor was it stained with blood – there was no sign of death by explosion or violence. What was more – she choked as the thought came home – the excavations in Francesca’s body were not from any random blast. Through the Comte’s knowledge of anatomy she saw what had been removed: kidney, spleen, lung, heart, thyroid, even the roof of the girl’s open mouth … Francesca had been dissected as deliberately as a hanged man sold for science. She had not been killed in the Customs House. Francesca had been poisoned by the Comte’s book, her organs wholly consumed with rot.

How soon before Miss Temple succumbed as well?

It was not a generous thought, and she was ashamed. The murdered child lay before her. The small mouth yawned, slate-coloured lips gore-smeared from the extracted palate. How in the world had Francesca Trapping ended up here? Knowledge of the Comte’s alchemy had been confined to an extremely small circle, and most of them lay in the grave. Francesca’s dissection cast this Mr Schoepfil, who held both Miss Temple and Francesca’s body in his custody, in an entirely more terrifying light.

Francesca’s dress hung off the table like discarded wrapping paper. Miss Temple wondered when the dress had been purchased, and by whom, if it was a final memento from the girl’s mother or something the Contessa had purloined for their stay in the tunnels. Sensible cloth, well sewn. Miss Temple cocked her head … several bits seemed of a double thickness.

The first pocket contained a tangled tuft of hair poorly tied with ribbon. Miss Temple recognized its colour. This was Charlotte Trapping’s, not taken from her head, but scavenged by Francesca from her mother’s hairbrush. The child had kept it with her, from Mrs Trapping’s disappearance right to the very end. Miss Temple put it back. The second pocket held a tiny leather sleeve, like a case for the Doctor’s monocle. She prised it open and revealed, snug in an impression of orange felt, a blue glass key.

Miss Temple tucked the key sleeve in her own pocket and turned at a scuffing from the outer room. A tall man with a starched collar, whose pointed features were undone by coarse tufts of hair in his ears, peered past the panel with disapproval.

‘Who are you?’ Miss Temple demanded, before he could speak.

‘I am Mr Kelling.’

‘Why do you not keep such a door locked, Mr Kelling, instead of allowing innocent women to blunder onto so shocking a sight? It is disgraceful and cruel!’

Kelling studied her shrewdly. ‘You were told to wait.’

‘With that smell? Now I’ve been sickened. Now I just want some air.’

‘Of course. If you would follow me.’

Kelling stepped aside. Under his arm was tucked an oblong box of dark wood. He led her into the corridor and locked the door behind him.

‘Who was that girl?’ asked Miss Temple. ‘And what was that horrid stink?’

‘An unfortunate orphan.’ Kelling’s voice was glazed with apology, like watered honey on a poor-quality gammon. ‘The odour is regrettable.’

‘I did not expect dead orphans in a palace.’

‘One wouldn’t.’

‘What did she die of?’

‘An inevitable question.’

A period of silence made clear it was also a question to which Miss Temple would get no answer. ‘What do you do here, Mr Kelling?’

‘Whatever I am asked.’

‘So you’re someone’s spaniel?’

They reached another door. Kelling waved her through.

‘Mr Schoepfil.’

Miss Temple stopped where she stood. ‘I don’t want to see any Mr Schoepfil.’

‘He insists on seeing you.’

She was offered an upholstered chair. The only other furniture in the room was a little table on wheels, stacked with folders. Kelling gave Schoepfil the oblong box, then made a discreet exit. Schoepfil opened the narrow casket eagerly, pecking at its contents with the tip of one gloved finger, counting to seven. He snapped the box shut and impishly raised his eyebrows, inviting Miss Temple to share his pleasure.

‘Your first audience with the Queen?’ He nodded before she could reply, and rapped the stack of folders with a grey-gloved fist. ‘I offer no refreshment – there is no time – as much as I would enjoy chatting at length with someone who, however inadvertently, might answer so many matters digging at my mind. I believe you even knew my cousin – I expect you saw her die! I imagine the event was spectacular.’ Mr Schoepfil’s hands flapped at either side of his neck and a wretched squawk came from his mouth, enacting – it took Miss Temple a moment to realize – Lydia Vandaariff’s decapitation. ‘Dreadful! Still, a stupid girl, and sacrificed with no more thought than a loaf of stale bread given to pigs. But you – you’re a different fish. One gathers – one sifts – even within the lies! – and the name of Miss Celestial Temple persistently appears.’

He pursed his lips with a lemony expectation.

‘I would like to leave,’ said Miss Temple.

Schoepfil shook his head. ‘No, no, no – think and move on.’

‘What can you want with me?’

‘Less by the second, I assure you.’

‘Where is the Contessa?’

‘Is she your patroness?’

‘She can go hang. Where is Lord Axewith?’

‘Why should a little thing like you care about him?’

‘He was at the baths. His watch stopped working for the steam.’

‘Lord Axewith was called to his wife, who is unwell.’

Miss Temple gazed back, blankly, knowing this was a lie – or, conversely, that it was the truth and Colonel Bronque was the liar.

‘Is not the city on fire?’

‘Yes, sometimes others are kind enough to manage things for you.’ Schoepfil unexpectedly grinned. ‘Most likely you should die here and now! What would you say to that? I am nearly in jest – but not all, because I know – and when one knows, one must always fear. Have you learnt that – learnt it enough? When did you last see the Trapping child alive?’

Miss Temple did not want to answer, but saw no value in the information. ‘At the Customs House, before the explosion.’

‘Ah. As I suspected.’

‘But that’s not where she was killed.’

‘Of course not.’ Schoepfil let out a frustrated huff, his torso compacted in a contemplative hunch. Again Miss Temple attempted to prompt him.

‘Francesca’s sickness –’

‘Too fragile, could have predicted it ten miles away.’ He tapped his thin lips with a thumb. ‘But where does that leave you?’

‘I have killed four men,’ said Miss Temple.

‘I do not doubt it. One’s fingertips tingle. Come!’

He snatched up the oblong box and hauled her to the door, Miss Temple restraining an urge to kick. They passed Kelling in the corridor, and the servant fell in step.

‘You asked to be reminded, sir –’

‘There is no hope, Kelling – they must wait!’ Schoepfil turned with an exasperated smile. ‘Is there an hour in the day that might not be doubled and still found too brief?’

‘Every last one of them,’ she replied, not liking to be pulled.

Mr Schoepfil’s eyes twinkled. ‘You affect to be sour.’

‘You are a ghoul.’

‘The world is ghoulish. I do not see you hiding your head in a rabbit-hole!’ Kelling darted forward to open a door, allowing Schoepfil to sweep through without pause. ‘Figures such as ourselves do not arise without purpose.’

The door closed on Miss Temple’s heel, Kelling outside. Schoepfil approached another table, piled not with papers but, to her dismay, a heap of metal tools.

‘But whose purpose, Miss Temple?’ Schoepfil sorted the tools with an extended finger. ‘We navigate currents of influence as Magellan did the sea, and glean what? The source, if to address it thusly does not impugn the term, of integrity. In your own case, what puppeteer has hung you in my reach?’

‘Since you saw me with the Contessa, I assume you’ve solved that mystery.’

‘And whatever shall I do about it?’

‘What you can get away with. But you had best make sure that woman’s dead.’

Schoepfil gave her an indulgent smile and opened the oblong box. He peered at her above his spectacles. ‘I suppose you know what I have?’

‘Why should I?’ replied Miss Temple. ‘I am a puppet nobody.’

‘O buck up.’

To her surprise Miss Temple bit back a retort that was palpably obscene. Was that next for her disintegrating character, the manners of a fish-wife? She nipped the inside of one cheek between her teeth. Heedless of her silence, Schoepfil again pecked at the contents of the box. Now his counting grew ever more complex, as if Schoepfil were attempting to solve a larger mathematical question. Miss Temple cast a wary eye at the iron tools.

‘Who are you to have the free possession of so many rooms in the Queen’s Palace?’

‘Queer, isn’t it?’

‘Does the Queen even know?’

Schoepfil laughed and rapped the table with his fist, a gesture Miss Temple already found affected and odious. ‘Why should she?’

‘I don’t suppose you slipped in with the tradesmen.’

‘I did not. Those who do not belong here are noticed.’

‘I was not.’

‘Au contraire! Every bit as much as your dynamic companion.’

‘Why would anyone notice me?’

Schoepfil nodded in agreement, a condescending dismissal. ‘The true question was how so disreputable a figure as the Contessa managed an audience? It had to be you, her companion, however unimpressive, who bore some vital news. And then you mentioned Roger Bascombe, which changes everything.’

‘You said I was of no genuine interest.’

‘Was I wrong? You have killed, you say, four men – one of whom, unless I am a fool, was Bascombe himself.’ He raised his eyebrows, waiting for her contradiction. When it did not come, Mr Schoepfil barked with satisfaction. ‘To the business! What say you to these?’

Schoepfil spun the oblong box to her view. It was lined with orange felt, with eight indented slots made to hold glass cards. Seven had been filled, but the glass cards were swirled with different colours, only one of them properly blue. The last slot was empty.

What came to Miss Temple’s mind, for the second time that day, was her former neighbour and rival, Miss Cynthia Hobart, the identification suggested by Schoepfil’s fingers, flitting from square to square like indecisive bees, an exact mirror of Cynthia’s hand above a tray of tea cakes. For years Miss Temple had been daunted by Cynthia in social matters, by the other girl’s ability – no matter what opinion Miss Temple might express – to adopt a contrary and, it was disdainfully implied, superior point of view. Again and again the young Miss Temple had returned from teas or suppers or dances stinging with the hidden weals of Cynthia’s condescension, victories well noted by everyone else in attendance.

But a day had come – brilliant, precious, a pearl. The matter was trivial: a pot of marmalade from the Hobarts’ cook. The fruit had been coarsely cut and stood out by the spoonful in sweet gleaming chunks. At Miss Temple’s demurral Cynthia had loudly announced a preference for firm, palpable fruit in her marmalade, an opinion shared by no less a personage than the Vice-Roy of Jamaica – who, it was implied, ought well to know. But Miss Temple, whose care for pastries and jams ran deep, knew that the finer the cut of the fruit, the more suffused the syrup became with juice. While she allowed, in the abstract, for a variance of taste, she did not consider variety a worthy excuse – and if the Vice-Roy of Jamaica felt otherwise, then he was a leather-tongued scrub. More to the purpose, she knew that Cynthia was wrong, and more – since her positions were only adopted to contradict Miss Temple’s own – that Cynthia had no idea, and never, ever had.

When, at the pronouncement of vice-regal opinion, Cynthia turned with her customary sneer, Miss Temple, instead of retreating to cold silence, laughed outright. It was hollow, mocking, more fit for a bragging jay than a lady. The audacity stopped the table dead – and that silence provoked another triumphant and damning bray from Miss Temple. Never again had Miss Hobart given her trouble, though the poor thing had tried. Miss Temple had seen into her rival’s heart and, to her great satisfaction, found it weak.

She was not fool enough to think that mere contempt would break Mr Schoepfil’s control, but Miss Temple was sure of an essential similarity. Despite the impression Schoepfil projected of balancing a hundred facts at once, she marked his persistent reluctance to spell out exactly what he wanted to know. Hers was not a logical opinion, yet, even as Schoepfil studied the glass cards, it struck her as a performance – that, far from possessing a host of questions about the Comte’s alchemy, Mr Schoepfil, who was unquestionably clever, sought to goad Miss Temple into asking questions of him, questions that would divulge her own knowledge – in this case, perhaps, the whereabouts of the missing card.

‘Such colour,’ observed Schoepfil. ‘Brilliance. I suppose you’ve never seen the like.’

He extracted a card for Miss Temple to see.

‘Why is it green?’ she asked.

‘You may well wonder.’ He raised an eyebrow.

‘I expect it’s ground-up emeralds.’

‘Rather costly, don’t you think? Besides …’ He held it higher, so the light shone through. ‘The actual colour cast is more yellow –’

‘Then I expect it’s dried lemon peel, lemons being less expensive than emeralds.’

‘Do you tweak my nose?’

His voice betrayed a hint of steel – not exactly like Cynthia Hobart – but she kept on.

‘How could a mere puppet do that?’

‘You cannot. So you will tell me what you know of these glass cards.’

‘I don’t know anything.’

‘I think you do.’

‘Perhaps you should ask the Contessa.’

‘Perhaps I already have.’

The menace of his last words, that he had forced the Contessa to his will, hung in the air. But Miss Temple did not take well to threats – that is, she took them to heart, and whenever a thing touched Miss Temple’s heart, she answered resentfully in kind.

‘All right, then, I’ll tell you this.’ She paused, allowing him to grin in anticipation. ‘If you are the man who cut up Francesca Trapping, I’m going to make you number five.’

Schoepfil jerked his head back at the bluntness of her threat. He snapped shut the box. ‘Mr Kelling!’

Kelling’s head poked in. Schoepfil’s smile was gone, and without it his face seemed a lifeless mask. ‘This woman wastes my time. Get rid of her.’

Mr Kelling’s grip fell painfully across Miss Temple’s injured arm. She was pulled from the room and dragged into the open air to a wooden outbuilding. Kelling opened the bolt using one hand, levered the double door open with his foot – was it a stable? – and shoved her in. A moment later the bolt was shot and his footsteps were fading away. She held her arm, glad that the cut had not reopened, strode back to the door and kicked it. It was only then that Miss Temple realized that not once during all the time gazing at the oblong box and its glass cards had she felt ill. No echo of such a box came from the Comte’s memories, nor of glass in those swirling colours. Schoepfil may have acquired his prize without understanding its function, but her own ignorance meant the cards, and the science behind them, had only come into existence since the Comte’s demise, in these last months. But then Miss Temple frowned, for there was something … she tasted the bile on her tongue … an echo from the vast painting, The Chemickal Marriage. The different colours of paint were connected to the different colours of glass. The Comte had not realized the alchemical potential at the time, but – in the body of Robert Vandaariff – he must have done so since.

‘Are you just going to stand there?’

She turned with a start. In the dying light she had not seen the figure slumped in the corner: a thin man in a white jacket and dark trousers. He had been beaten and his face swelled with bruises. Even as he spoke, his body did not move, as if to do so lay beyond him.

‘Who are you?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘What is Bathings?’

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

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

‘I beg your pardon?’

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

‘About what?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘He has a wicked fist.’

‘Why should he care about a brothel?’

‘Who are you?’

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

‘What dead girl?’

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

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

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

‘Good Lord,’ cried Gorine. ‘Why?’

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

‘I recline forewarned.’

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

‘My apologies.’

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

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

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

‘My friends as well.’

‘You have friends?’

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

‘I do not know them.’

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

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

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

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

‘By whose hand?’

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

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

‘I have already untied your hands.’

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

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

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

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

‘One wonders what you are.’

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

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

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

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

‘It’s almost dark. With any luck –’

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

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

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

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

‘How do you know that?’ asked Gorine.

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

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

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

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

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

‘Doctor Svenson is here?’ hissed Miss Temple.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

The maid apologized for not knowing the gentleman.

‘He may be with Colonel Bronque.’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

She tumbled into the brightness of the main corridors. The danger of being recognized and denounced for Lady Hopton’s death was as real as the prospect of Mr Kelling’s appearing at her heels, yet exhilaration lent an air of invulnerability. What was more, something in the atmosphere of the Royal Thermæ had changed. The crowds seeking favour had dispersed. In their place were preoccupied individuals rushing in opposite directions. No one paid her the slightest mind, and when her path was crossed by officials or soldiers, they cared even less than the guests. What had happened while she’d been in the stable?

Shouts echoed behind her and a glance showed a gang of men in shirtsleeves, faces black with ash. She prudently retreated to an empty reception room whose walls were hung with red draperies. The far door abruptly opened.

‘Stop!’

Miss Temple froze. The uniformed man with his hand on the knob did not see her, his face turned behind him.

‘What is it now?’ called Colonel Bronque with impatience.

Miss Temple darted behind a curtain, flattening her dress and carefully angling her eye to peer out. The imperious voice that had called she recognized too well.

The Colonel stepped aside at the Contessa’s entrance, and gave a grim nod to the two soldiers who were her escort, before closing the door in their faces.

‘What has happened now?’ Bronque’s voice was wary, but the Contessa’s reply was only plaintive.

‘Where have you been?’ she complained. ‘I expected you this last hour, but have seen only that horrid Drusus Schoepfil. Such preening satisfaction.’

‘Why should you care? If he has taken you under his protection –’

‘I am his to deliver to the law at any time.’ The Contessa caught the Colonel’s hand. ‘You are my only friend. If you go, I am at Schoepfil’s mercy.’

‘Rosamonde, please. If you’ve been honest –’

The Contessa slapped the Colonel’s face with an echoing crack.

‘Honest?’ she cried. ‘There is a warrant for my life. Everything I know of Vandaariff’s intentions I have told you both.’

Bronque said nothing. In the charged silence she traced the red mark on his cheek with an extended finger.

‘Such indifference humbles a lady.’

‘I have explained, once I return –’

‘And if you don’t?’

‘Robert Vandaariff’s hired brutes cannot stand against trained regiments.’

‘But you’ve not said where you are going – or why.’

‘You must make yourself content.’

‘That’s very cruel.’

Bronque caught her finger in his hand. ‘Then you must be content with my cruelty.’

‘Must I?’ The Contessa ducked her head. ‘May I ask just one more tiny, tiny question?’

‘By God, you will press every advantage. What is it?’

‘Were you a friend of Francis Xonck?’

Her voice retained the same shy lilt, but the Colonel’s indulgent smile froze. ‘Why in hell do you mention him?’

‘Because you never said how you met Drusus Schoepfil, how you became of use.’

‘We are partners –’

‘Schoepfil is nothing to his uncle, after all – always the dog smelling supper from another room. Admittedly, a clever dog – no doubt why Vandaariff distrusted him. Smart animals make people nervous.’

Bronque sighed. ‘We have spoken too long. You must go back, and be patient –’

‘Blue Caesar blue palace ice consumption.’

She whispered the words and then stepped away. A shudder shook Bronque’s body. His eyes went dull.

‘Drusus Schoepfil is a boat that can venture only on the smoothest seas. He doubts. He trusts no one – which means he should not trust you … yet he apparently does. At first I wondered why, but then it was clear – Francis. I can imagine your relief at his death, silencing the secret of your corruption. But Schoepfil guessed, didn’t he?’

‘He’d seen me at Harschmort … knew I played cards with Arthur Trapping …’

‘And so you secretly underwent the Process. Did you enjoy it?’

Miss Temple recalled Roger Bascombe on the dirigible, slumped against a wall, calmly confessing his own treachery. Every initiate of the Process was instilled with a control phrase. The speaking of this phrase, which the Contessa had deduced from her knowledge of Xonck, delivered the initiate into the power of the speaker, a passive state in which any questions would be answered and all commands obeyed. Colonel Bronque’s reply was vacant and cool.

‘Enormously.’

‘You planned to betray me all along.’

‘Of course.’

The Contessa slapped Bronque’s face twice more, echoing blows that left a bead of red at the corner of his mouth. ‘Tell me.’

‘Schoepfil will sell you to Vandaariff, forcing a meeting where Vandaariff will be killed.’

The Contessa’s lips curled with fury. ‘Why?’

‘We no longer need you.’ Bronque’s reply was distant. ‘And Harcourt’s warrant for your death absolves our action.’

‘Where are you going now?’

‘First to Axewith, so he knows the Queen has refused his writ, then to Vandaariff, to arrange your sale. After the Queen’s denial, he will leap at the chance, and we will have him.’

‘And where is Axewith?’

‘At the fire. The longer he is distracted, the more time we have.’

‘What weapons do you carry, apart from that ridiculous sword?’

Bronque unbuttoned his jacket and plucked out a horn-handled clasp-knife. ‘I keep this for luck, it belonged to my father –’

The Contessa snatched it from his hand, opening the blade – a malignant flashing finger – then snapping it home. The doorknob rattled. She tucked the knife away and hissed at Bronque. ‘You have not told me a thing. Wake.’

Bronque brought a hand to his cheek. He squeezed his eyes shut and turned to an agitated Mr Schoepfil, bustling in with the oblong box gripped tightly in one hand.

‘What are you doing alone with this woman?’

‘Nothing of your concern, I assure you.’ Bronque’s voice had recovered its strength, but his face still blazed with the impact of the Contessa’s hand.

Schoepfil glared at the Contessa, who had retreated behind the Colonel. ‘Someone has set a fire in our rooms!’

‘Another fire?’ The Contessa bit her lip. ‘Is the entire town tinderwood? Must we evacuate? Is Her Majesty safe?’

Schoepfil gave a derisive snort and quickly snatched her hands in his. He turned them to study each side, then lifted them to his nose.

‘How gallant. Do you expect to smell paraffin or kerosene?’

He thrust her hands away and waved angrily to the two soldiers who had followed him in. ‘Remove this woman.’

Schoepfil shut the door on the Contessa’s heels and turned, fuming, on Bronque.

‘A fire set in our rooms. Kelling will need hours to even divine the damage. And I find you with her here – alone! Please, Colonel! Think!’

‘How could she be responsible? I distrust her as much as you do –’

Schoepfil reached to rebutton Bronque’s jacket. ‘What has happened to your face?’

‘Nothing has happened.’

‘You are very red.’

‘From the steam. Wasn’t the Contessa under guard?’

‘But who else knew of our trove?’

‘The German doctor?’

‘He was with me,’ said Schoepfil.

‘The other prisoners –’

‘Kelling locked them in the stable.’

‘Then an agent of Vandaariff?’

‘But Vandaariff wants my collection for himself. No, the Contessa is frightened, thus she has become desperate – perfectly natural … and perhaps even advantageous.’ Schoepfil urgently dug under the cuff of one glove with the poking fingers of the other. ‘Ah! The itching becomes unbearable – any excitement sets it off –’

He peeled down the glove and Miss Temple stifled a gasp of surprise. Mr Schoepfil’s hand was a brilliant cerulean blue. He raised it to his mouth and nipped the flesh between his teeth, then tugged the glove back into position. Bronque watched with distaste.

‘Drusus, I assure you. The woman means nothing. She’s a monster – I know she’s a monster. She’ll get her comeuppance from Vandaariff or she’ll hang. But what if we have another enemy entirely, perhaps one of the Queen’s retainers? They cannot be pleased at your taking up residence, and they are not all fools.’

‘Aren’t they?’

‘The Duchess of Cogstead, for example.’

‘Is it possible?’ Schoepfil frowned in thought, then abruptly slapped Bronque on the shoulder. ‘I will consider – as I will continue to consider the Contessa. Go – to Axewith, then Vandaariff. Make the offer.’ Bronque turned on his heel, but Schoepfil hopped after him. ‘Wait! Do you credit this story about Madelaine Kraft – that she was cured?’

‘Do you?’

‘Svenson says so.’

‘Svenson is a hero or a liar. Does he look like a hero to you?’

‘I wouldn’t know,’ laughed Schoepfil. ‘I’ve never seen one!’

Bronque marched out. Schoepfil stood staring at where Bronque had been. Then he lifted his nose and began to sniff the air. Miss Temple pressed herself against the wall. Schoepfil turned to her hiding place, but stopped sniffing as abruptly as he’d begun. He tugged his jacket into position and hurried after the Contessa.

Miss Temple crept to the keyhole. She saw the Contessa escorted away and Schoepfil, instead of following, disappear surreptitiously behind a Moorish screen. When he did not re-emerge, Miss Temple took a breath for courage and scampered down the corridor after him. The screen concealed another room. Schoepfil spoke into a copper funnel attached to the wall. He returned the funnel to its hook and shoved two fingertips under his glove, scratched, then briskly clapped his hands together, as if the sting might suspend the itching.

Beyond Schoepfil a door opened, his summons answered. At the distraction Miss Temple slipped in, as low as a spaniel, and dropped behind a sofa.

‘Doctor,’ called Schoepfil warmly. ‘Enter, enter – so much to discuss, so little time. You have eaten – no? Well, hardly time now – you have been told of the fire?’

‘I saw enough of it myself.’ Miss Temple craned around a sofa leg. Doctor Svenson looked like a beaten dog. Schoepfil poked him playfully.

‘Not that fire. Can you not smell?’

Svenson swatted at his greatcoat. ‘I would smell smoke if we stood in a rose garden.’

‘Yes, a shocking conflagration, by all accounts, and now that these accounts are arriving, thick as migrating crows – do crows migrate? – the Queen’s court is a-boil with fear.’ Schoepfil lifted a folder of papers from a table and raised a cloud of ash. ‘Thus the extremely small blaze in my own quarters prompts a request that I relocate.’

‘What caused this extremely small blaze?’

‘Do you truly not know?’

‘I have been locked in a room.’

‘The Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza. She has provoked an abominable inconvenience.’

‘I should say you came off lucky.’

‘I did not count you amongst her admirers.’

‘I am not. Where is Miss Temple? They were together in the baths.’

Schoepfil shrugged, as if the question were trivial. Svenson reached for the man, but Schoepfil’s hand shot out and quickly twisted the Doctor’s arm at the elbow. Svenson grimaced, but managed to repeat his question.

‘Where is Miss Temple?’

‘Perfectly safe – how you will squirm! – locked with that fellow from the brothel.’

‘Let me make sure of her safety. I can as easily be locked up there as here.’

Schoepfil released the Doctor’s arm. ‘An extraordinary request. Does the Contessa care for her as well? What if I threatened to cut off her nose?’

‘The Contessa would probably ask to eat it.’

Schoepfil sighed. ‘Perhaps. Before I decide the fate of Miss Temple’s nose, however, I must know more about Madelaine Kraft.’

‘There is nothing to tell. She recovered. I cannot say how.’

Schoepfil reached into his coat pocket and removed a cork-stopped flask of brown dust. ‘I believe this is called bloodstone.’

‘Is it?’

‘It was in your own tunic, Doctor. Gorine confirms that you employed bloodstone to effect the lady’s restoration.’

‘Mr Gorine was not present. He tells you what you want to hear.’

‘What I want are Mrs Kraft’s whereabouts.’

‘She died in the fire.’

‘Who taught you the properties of bloodstone? Vandaariff? He’s resumed production of the Comte’s library, as you know.’ Miss Temple’s eyes went wide at the sight of a leather case propped next to the papers. She bore a scar where another such case, containing the glass book preserving the Comte d’Orkancz, had nearly cracked her skull.

‘With luck he’s set a book aside for you.’

Schoepfil trilled with amusement and shook his head, too quickly, like a little dog shaking off sleep. ‘You tweak me, Doctor Svenson – you tweak me because nothing has gone your way. I accept it – accept the impulse – though I insist on a serious response before we leave.’

‘Leave for where?’

‘Excellent question. And since I admire your abject determination, Doctor, I will tell you – well, tell you a little …’ Schoepfil held up a hand, stepped to the archway and poked his head through. He re-emerged, smiled, and then without warning leapt behind the sofa. But when Mr Schoepfil’s attention had been diverted at the archway, Miss Temple had crept to the cover of an over-stuffed fauteuil. Schoepfil lifted the sofa to glare at the carpet beneath.

‘Are you quite well?’ asked Svenson.

‘Of course I am,’ growled Schoepfil. ‘Didn’t you hear?’

‘Hear what?’

‘A spy.’ Schoepfil returned to the archway, scowling out. ‘Breathing.’

Svenson sighed impatiently. ‘If you refuse to tell me –’

‘I will tell you when I want! And you will tell me – whatever I want – more than I want – you will beg for the chance!’

‘No doubt,’ agreed the Doctor blandly.

Schoepfil marched straight to Svenson and struck him across the face. Neither man spoke. Miss Temple dared not peek to see their expressions.

‘I will not endure that … that tone,’ hissed Schoepfil. Svenson’s silence was excruciating. Schoepfil sniffed. ‘Set the matter aside. What I was going to say – what I was going to offer – was a chance for your own skills to turn a profit, Doctor. A chance to follow in the footsteps of greater men. Doctor Lorenz, Mr Grey –’

‘They were corrupt fools.’

‘Better to follow fools than your neck in a noose, eh?’

‘Follow where? Robert Vandaariff controls every such laboratory, does he not? For heaven’s sake, what is your serious question?’

Schoepfil hesitated, and his voice dropped to a nervous whisper. ‘What has my uncle done to this Cardinal Chang?’

A discreet cough announced Mr Kelling, soot-smeared but unperturbed. ‘The Duchess of Cogstead, sir. She insists –’

Before Mr Schoepfil could welcome the lady or attempt to refuse, the Duchess made her entry. Miss Temple hardly recognized the old put-upon woman she had seen in the baths, for here was a high lady of court, wig and powder perfectly applied, and her dress, in happy contrast to the clinging bathing costume, a triumph of buttresses.

‘Your Grace.’ Schoepfil made an unctuous bow. ‘As you see, we do prepare our exit –’

‘Where is that woman?’

‘Woman?’ Schoepfil fluttered a hand, a grey wren shaking its feathers, at the leather case and papers. ‘Kelling, if you could collect all that and bring it to the coach?’

‘The woman in your protection,’ said the Duchess.

Schoepfil chuckled. ‘I am no church offering sanctuary –’

‘The Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza. She is in your hands. I want her. Now.’

‘Goodness!’ Schoepfil turned, distracted by politeness, to Svenson. ‘My apologies, madam, do you know Doctor Svenson? Personal attaché to the late Crown Prince of Macklenburg. Doctor Svenson, Her Grace the Duchess of Cogstead, Mistress of Her Majesty’s Bedchamber and de facto mistress of this entire facility –’

The Duchess shifted her voice, hard as a stone, to Kelling, who was gathering items as instructed. ‘Put that down. Nothing will leave this room.’

Schoepfil raised his hands. ‘First you tell me to go, now –’

‘Until I have this woman your effects are impounded. You will not leave. You will not communicate. Your moment – yes, I am aware where Colonel Bronque has gone, and where Lord Axewith has been diverted – your moment to engage with events, Mr Schoepfil, will pass. Unless I have that woman.’

‘I’d no idea the Contessa held such value at court –’

‘You have three seconds to reply.’

‘Your Grace, I need only one. Of course you shall have her. At Colonel Bronque’s suggestion, she waits in the custody of his soldiers. Allow me to escort you, and understand that I myself have no position on the lady. Apparently the Contessa and the Colonel are acquainted by way of the Duke of Stäelmaere …’

But instead of following Schoepfil, the Duchess only called to a group of courtiers who stood outside. ‘Mr Schoepfil will take you to her. Once she is in your hands, you know what to do. Mr Nordling!’ A grey-haired courtier came forward. ‘Escort Mr Kelling and his crate of goods to the guardhouse. Nothing to leave until you have my word.’

Schoepfil pursed his lips. ‘O Your Grace, I do assure you –’

‘Go.’

Schoepfil disappeared down the corridor, waving both arms to hurry the pace of his escort. The Duchess and Mr Nordling watched Kelling put the last of the papers into the box. Before Kelling could prevent him, Doctor Svenson slipped a hand through the strap of the leather case and slung it over his shoulder. Kelling looked up with shock.

‘I’ll carry this,’ said Svenson.

‘No!’ cried Kelling. ‘You will give that back!’

Svenson switched the strap to his further shoulder, ahead of Kelling’s grasping hand. He spoke to Nordling. ‘It was mine to begin with, you know.’

‘No!’ insisted Kelling, but he was suddenly a mere servant in a roomful of his betters.

‘Whatever takes the least time,’ said the Duchess. ‘To the guardhouse, Mr Nordling.’

Svenson clicked his heels to the Duchess and marched out. Mr Kelling snatched up the crate and hurried after. Mr Nordling bowed gravely and left his mistress alone.

The Duchess of Cogstead cleared her throat.

‘That can’t be comfortable, no matter how small you are. Come out, child, so I can decide whether you ought to hang as well.’

Miss Temple emerged on her hands and knees, meeting the Duchess’s gaze as proudly as possible. She knew enough to understand that, while highly placed people expected deference, they did not respect it, and that, properly presented, confidence could serve as a compliment instead of an affront.

‘Miss Celestial Temple?’

‘Yes, Your Grace.’

‘Your voice tars you a colonial. How are you here with the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza?’

‘Under compulsion, Your Grace.’

‘Explain.’

‘I am afraid it would require an hour.’ Miss Temple batted her eyes to signal a lack of insolence. ‘I doubt you will find her.’

‘Schoepfil will defy me?’

‘She is already gone.’

‘That is impossible.’

Miss Temple shrugged. The Duchess folded both arms beneath her heavy bosom, a gesture of discontent.

‘Are you acquainted with Lady Hopton? She has also vanished.’

‘She is dead, Your Grace. You will find her in an attiring room. Hidden in a niche.’

That the Duchess did not blanch confirmed that someone had already done so.

‘But why in heaven’s name?’ Beneath the Duchess’s anger lay genuine confusion. She clasped her hands, the knuckles so thick it seemed to Miss Temple that the woman’s flesh was but a pair of gloves, and the fingers beneath studded with rings. ‘You saw it happen.’

Miss Temple nodded.

‘Do your veins run with ice, girl?’

‘No, Your Grace, it is simply that over the course of recent events –’

‘Lady Axewith!’ The Duchess grimaced at her own slow realization. ‘Lady Axewith persuaded me to grant the Contessa an audience with the Queen – I did not understand the urgency. And now Lady Axewith is poisoned. Lady Hopton must have known –’

‘I expect she had certain conclusions to share with Her Majesty – or, more importantly with you, as you are Her Majesty’s – well, I am not sure of the term –’

‘Friend,’ the Duchess stated, her flat tone an implicit corrective.

‘Friend,’ Miss Temple echoed softly. ‘The Contessa and her allies discovered how to compel cooperation. I say compel, but the truth is closer to enslavement.’

‘As you were compelled?’

Miss Temple shook her head. ‘O no – I am not the Contessa’s slave. I am her enemy.’

‘But you helped her.’ The Duchess fixed Miss Temple with a threatening glare. ‘That story you told Her Majesty, was it a lie?’

Miss Temple felt the urge to make a clean breast of everything, but she knew the truth about the Duke, the glass, the books, Vandaariff and the Cabal – all necessary to impart before her tale to the Queen made sense – lay beyond her ability to persuade.

‘No, Your Grace. That is the irony of it all. Lord Vandaariff is a traitor. The Duke of Stäelmaere was murdered.’

‘Then why could not the Contessa merely deliver that message? Why did Lady Axewith and Lady Hopton have to die?’

‘It is not the truth of the story, but the timing of its delivery. The Contessa is against Lord Vandaariff – and in that she is for the realm – but she is one who thrives on havoc, and in that she is the realm’s enemy. Lady Hopton’s arrival would have muddled the Contessa’s plans when they brooked no muddling. Surely Your Grace knows the realm is under attack.’

‘There is unrest …’

‘If Robert Vandaariff has his way – O I cannot recall the name, but wasn’t there a place – destroyed and forgotten –’

‘At least by you.’

‘They sowed the ground with salt?’

‘That would be Carthage.’

‘Would it?’

‘Why should Robert Vandaariff seek another Carthage? How could he think such a result within his power? Is he insane?’

‘O absolutely.’ The Duchess stared at Miss Temple, a downwards tuck at the corners of her mouth. Well used to this, Miss Temple went on. ‘What you ought to understand – and I don’t know if it is worth the trouble to tell the Queen, that is, whether one actually tells her or tells the Crown Prince or even if one did whether it would make a bit of difference – I suppose that is why I’m telling you –’

‘You are telling me because I caught you crouched behind a chair.’

‘Yes, but in trusting Vandaariff Her Majesty’s government has laid itself at the feet of a madman. The highest ranks of your nation are riddled with secret slaves, serving a master whose wealth insulates him from all reprisal.’

‘But … but the Contessa –’

‘You feel her acts more keenly being personally responsible for her presence here.’ Miss Temple knew she’d found the heart of the Duchess’s concern, and risked touching the woman’s arm. ‘You cannot blame yourself. I don’t blame myself, because I know the Contessa. Even forewarned she would have found a way. You must not think you have betrayed your Queen – for here you stand, working to protect her.’

Miss Temple did not believe this at all. She blamed herself keenly for almost everything and knew in her heart that, however much she might, like the Duchess, assuage her complicity through effort, such actions would never shift the damage already done, nor, she was fearfully sure, alter the dark trajectory of her future. She gave the Duchess’s arm another squeeze and ceased further argument. She had seen the look now inhabiting the woman’s face on too many occasions to number: someone with her immediate fate in their hands attempting to gauge how much of what she’d said could be believed – which was to say, how much had been an inveterate lie. The Duchess stabbed a finger at the leather tube under Miss Temple’s arm.

‘Does that belong to Mr Schoepfil?’

‘It does not,’ replied Miss Temple, and then in a more honeyed tone, ‘I do not mean to be forward, but will I be hanged?’

‘Very possibly.’ The Duchess took her hand. ‘And myself along with you …’

On her father’s plantation privilege arrived with possession, and those organs of advantage – servants of every role and function – were integrated into all the facets of her life with a blunt cruelty. What had been characterized since, by everyone from the staff of the Boniface to the greater Bascombe family circle, as Miss Temple’s intolerant manner was but a natural inheritance. The subtleties that distinguished mere employment from outright property were no part of that landscape, and so escaped both her attention and interest. In a stroke of some irony, once Miss Temple had been catapulted into a life of adventure, which was to say a variety of social stripes and circumstances, her original notions of hierarchy and power had only been reinforced. Whether it was seeing the Prince’s Own 4th Dragoons in service to Minister Crabbé, or Ministry officials doing the bidding of Mrs Marchmoor, or the hired rogues of the Xonck private army, Miss Temple’s youthful assumptions of autocracy had been confirmed again and again as the model of the world’s true working. Great power, like a swollen insect queen, was marked by a population of compliant drones.

Walking with the Duchess, Miss Temple perceived an entirely different mechanism. The Duchess presented no awesome presence, in beauty or violence or wit, but nonetheless provoked a willing deference from each soul they passed. Miss Temple compared this to her own arrival, trailing Colonel Bronque, and the relative disinterest with which the Colonel himself had been viewed, though the importance of his errand had been clear. The Duchess, despite her personal lack of affect, inspired unfeigned respect. And, while these courtiers, like Mr Nordling, sent off with Kelling and the Doctor, would have instantly done the Duchess’s bidding, they did not seem to be her minions.

Was not the Queen’s inner court the most stiffly hierarchical body in existence?

Miss Temple listened intently to her guide’s mutters of greeting and her comments on a host of matters that seemed wholly trivial, given the crisis. Why should anyone care about the milk delivery or invitations to next week’s concert? She realized that the more trivial the task, the more agitated the person assigned to manage it had been, and that their entire progress had been one in which the Duchess – herself emotionally wrought, Miss Temple knew – had smoothed the disarray of the court like a tortoiseshell comb smoothed wet, tangled hair … and all without a threat, a slap or a single urgent word.

Miss Temple drew no conclusion, for when it came to a fight – as it seemed everything in her world, at the finish, must – she did not see how the Duchess could stand against Colonel Bronque’s troopers. But she kept her eyes and ears open.

The prospect of violence returned Miss Temple’s thoughts, as she supposed would be inevitable in the whole of her remaining life, to the Contessa. Assuming the woman had finally fled, why now? What had changed, or what had she at last achieved? Miss Temple admitted it was possible the Contessa had put her trust in Colonel Bronque and departed only at the news of his betrayal. But Miss Temple was not satisfied, and her dissatisfaction took firmer root as she realized the Duchess was leading her down damp staircases and past peeling walls, back to the level of the baths.

They stopped at another metal door with an iron wheel in its centre, flanked by two burly footmen. The footmen, white wigs drooping in the damp, came to attention at the sight of the Duchess, but her gesture to open the door was interrupted by an echoing cry. Miss Temple turned as a party of some dozen figures clattered down the stairs in their wake.

‘Stand with them,’ said the Duchess. Miss Temple was pulled behind the footmen with her back against the wheel, feeling like a weak but valuable chess piece.

Mr Schoepfil arrived first, anger evident in his ruddy face and strident tone. ‘I will have answers, madam! I will have answers!’

After him in a jumble came Mr Kelling, still carrying the crate, leather case restored within it, then Doctor Svenson, sullenly rubbing his jaw, with Mr Nordling interposed between them. Miss Temple did not recognize the rest of the party – soldiers from Bronque’s regiment, men in Ministry top-coats and several fellows who, like Nordling, wore more fashionable garments of different colours and were most likely to be courtiers.

Schoepfil gripped his oblong box in one hand and waved it for emphasis. ‘Where is she, Your Grace? Where have you hidden her? Two men are dead at this woman’s hands. But she has not passed the guardhouse. She has not passed any exit, nor out any window.’

‘I dislike your tone, Mr Schoepfil.’

While the Duchess of Cogstead was taller than Miss Temple, this was no particular feat, and Mr Schoepfil – a man used to dominating conversations from below – met her eyes with disdain. ‘You arranged today’s audience. You and Pont-Joule have indulged her time and again.’ He snorted once at Miss Temple. ‘That you have this one with you is all the proof I need.’ Schoepfil flicked his head at the iron oval door. ‘You know where she’s gone, and I demand you stand aside.’

The Duchess pitched her voice to the group. ‘Mr Schoepfil has been commanded by royal writ to retire, at once. Any man that stands with him will pay the penalty.’

‘What penalty?’ demanded Schoepfil. ‘Your city is burning and you’re here, no more pertinent to its fate than a blood-stuffed tick is to a cart-horse.’

‘Mr Schoepfil! No matter whose nephew –’

‘My uncle will not survive this night. You do not want me for an enemy. Step aside.’

The Duchess did not move. The soldiers behind Schoepfil stood ready. Miss Temple sought Doctor Svenson, but Svenson’s eyes met hers as if from a great distance – not cold so much as uninflected. She swallowed with dismay. Had he given up?

She went to her toes and whispered to the footmen.‘You must open the door and pull the Duchess through.’ They did not reply, but one shifted his weight nearer the iron wheel.

‘You cannot pass,’ the Duchess insisted. ‘Her Majesty is within.’

‘O she is not,’ retorted Schoepfil.

‘Mr Schoepfil, your insolence paints no good prospect for your future at court.’

Schoepfil’s eyes gleamed. The man found real delight in such contests of will, but hesitated to use force against the Duchess. However, though he would not attack, nor would he leave – and should the door open, he would push through. A soldier loosened his sword in its scabbard. The courtiers with Nordling inched backwards. Doctor Svenson looked at the floor, as if to confirm his altered heart.

What lay behind the oval door that could be so important?

That Schoepfil believed the Contessa could be within spoke to the woman having insinuated herself more deeply into the Queen’s household than anyone had suspected. If Lady Axewith had employed the Contessa as a confidante, perhaps she’d managed a similar intimacy here, with this Lord Pont-Joule or – was it possible – even with the Queen? Why else had the Duchess come to this room but to answer her own fears? At once Miss Temple saw that to allow Schoepfil’s entry – for he would take hold of whatever evidence he found – was to grant him unspeakable leverage: proof that a murderer had been granted favour by the Crown.

‘This man should be under arrest!’ Miss Temple pointed an accusing finger at Schoepfil. ‘He is a threat to Her Majesty’s person! Your duty is clear! Unless you are all cowards –’

Mr Kelling dropped his crate with a crash and reached into his topcoat. He yanked out a shining short-barrelled revolver, but no sooner had Kelling extended his arm than the weapon sprung from his hand and Kelling split the air with a shriek. Mr Nordling had pulled apart his cane and thrust its thin blade into Kelling’s wrist. The Ministry men retreated, taking no side. Schoepfil roared with rage and struck Nordling three times across the face before the courtier could bring his weapon to bear. Kelling tripped over his crate and went down, holding his wounded limb. The soldiers swept out their sabres. The courtiers leapt to Nordling’s defence and were struck repeatedly in turn. The footmen shoved Miss Temple aside and turned the iron wheel.

A shot rang out and Miss Temple flinched at the spray of plaster from the splintered ceiling. Doctor Svenson held Kelling’s revolver.

Svenson aimed at the troopers, then swung the barrel at Schoepfil. ‘The first to make a move will die … and probably the second.’ He addressed the soldiers, nodding to Schoepfil. ‘Perhaps this man is worth your lives – if so, you are welcome to come at me.’

‘You wouldn’t dare,’ called Schoepfil. ‘This is murder.’

Svenson ignored him. ‘The case, Mr Kelling. Slide it across the floor.’

‘Do nothing of the sort!’ shouted Schoepfil.

Svenson extended the pistol towards Kelling and drew back the hammer with his thumb. ‘Look at me, Mr Kelling.’

Kelling’s face was white, and he turned guiltily to his employer, who sputtered and threw up his hands. ‘Lord above, this cuts it!’ Schoepfil protested. ‘This cuts it fine!’

Kelling made to push the leather case to Svenson, but the Doctor nodded at Miss Temple. ‘Not to me. To her.’

Kelling slid the case to Miss Temple’s feet. Behind her the Duchess had passed through the oval doorway, but stood watching.

‘Of all the idiocy,’ declared Schoepfil.

Svenson returned his aim to the soldiers. ‘Lay your blades on the floor …’

But the soldiers did not move. Instead, each took a careful step away from the other, and extended their sabres, measuring the distance they would need to cut Svenson down.

‘Well, then,’ said the Doctor. ‘That’s clear enough. Anyone who wants to leave, I would suggest it. Stray shots, you know.’

‘Any man who leaves is dead,’ cried Schoepfil, a smile playing again on his lips. ‘At least to my favour.’

The Ministry men glanced at one another, but did not flee. The courtiers stood next to Nordling, who dabbed a bloody nose with his shirt-cuff. Svenson tightened his grip on the pistol. ‘Celeste, please go. Seal the door behind you.’

‘Come with me,’ she whispered.

‘Give my best wishes to Her Majesty. All of Macklenburg is at her service.’

She had not noticed Schoepfil moving – or he simply moved too quickly – but then the wooden crate was in the air. Svenson dodged and the missile smashed into the footman who had opened the door, a hammer blow that filled the air with fluttering paper and knocked the footman flat. Miss Temple jumped through the door. The Doctor’s pistol roared, three rapid shots – cries of anger and pain – but before she could see, the second footman shoved the oval door closed and spun the wheel, sealing Miss Temple and the Duchess tight.

The room was silent, not a trace of the mayhem outside piercing through. Miss Temple found a heavy iron candelabrum and wedged it hard into the door’s inner wheel. She turned to the Duchess, still stunned to immobility.

‘Is Her Majesty truly here?’

‘Of course not. These rooms belong to Lord Pont-Joule.’ The Duchess led her into a strange octagonal room whose every side held another of the oval doors.

‘They are tunnels,’ declared Miss Temple. ‘Spy tunnels to listen or watch.’

‘With so many passages carved over the years for so many different baths, Pont-Joule thought he might exploit the fact for Her Majesty’s safety.’

‘Didn’t the Contessa say Pont-Joule had been killed as well?’

‘Quelle coïncidence,’ the Duchess muttered drily. Both women spun to a wrench of metal at the entry door. The obstructing candelabrum held the wheel in place.

‘It will not be long,’ said the Duchess. ‘The Contessa was Pont-Joule’s lover. If she did not pass through any guard post, and I trust Mr Schoepfil’s intelligence –’

‘I beg your pardon,’ said Miss Temple, ‘but I believe it is more than that – that her audience with the Queen was at least in part an excuse to come here, to this very room.’

‘Why? Just to escape?’

‘No. I believe Lord Pont-Joule, without his knowledge, gave her a place to hide a thing she could not keep on her person.’

‘What thing?’

Miss Temple set the leather case on a side table and snapped it open. The Duchess gasped at the shining blue glass book.

‘Good Lord … I heard whispers …’

Miss Temple quickly shut the case. ‘I do not know where Doctor Svenson found this, nor what it might contain, but the Contessa has in her possession another book, and her attempts to use it may kill us all.’

The door was jolted again.

‘Where do the tunnels go?’ asked Miss Temple.

‘They all go to the baths.’

‘No, where do they exit?’

‘They don’t. In one or two cases, there is an outlet elsewhere in the house –’

‘She needs to leave the house.’

The Duchess nodded. ‘I know. It makes no sense. Unless …’

An arm of the candelabrum snapped like a gunshot. The wheel lurched halfway round.

‘Unless what?’ demanded Miss Temple.

The Duchess indicated a door by a daybed. ‘That way leads to the spring itself –’

Miss Temple was already across the room. She heaved open the door to find a red envelope on the tunnel floor. She tore it open.

‘What does it say?’ cried the Duchess. ‘Is it from her?’

The rest of the candelabrum broke apart and Lord Pont-Joule’s rooms echoed with the voices of men. Miss Temple leapt through, yanked the door closed and spun the wheel, leaving the hapless Duchess on the other side.

They would not know which door she’d used, but for how long? She groped in the darkness, knowing she must hurry. Would Schoepfil strike the Duchess down? Was Doctor Svenson still alive?

Her outstretched hand touched a wall and her feet found stairs. The blackness was leavened by a tallow stub, wedged into the rock. She stood before a hissing pool of black water, its surface seamed by blooms of effervescence. Miss Temple gasped. On the ground lay the Contessa –

She cursed her own credulity. Heaped on the ground was the Contessa’s black dress. Miss Temple glanced back. She dropped into a squat, opened the case, pulled the star chart from the leather tube and folded it, wincing at the creases, until it fit atop the book. She took the small pouch holding Francesca’s key and wormed it into the bosom of her corset. She stopped. She dug her fingers deeper. The handkerchief with Vandaariff’s glass spur was no longer there.

There was no time. Without care, for she would never see it again, she ripped her dress to the waist and let it drop next to the Contessa’s. A metallic scrape from the passage behind her. Had the Contessa left her petticoat? She had. Miss Temple thrust hers off and kicked free. A shaft of light in the tunnel. The door was open. She closed the case and set the red envelope onto the candle flame, where it caught and began to curl. Inside had been a single carelessly scrawled line: ‘And so they shall be redeemed.’

Miss Temple inhaled as deeply as she could. Hugging the case to her body, she stepped into the black water and sank like a stone.