The Chemickal Marriage (16 page)

He realized that he was squinting, despite the hour, and looked up. The sky was aglow with torchlight from the rooftops of the Ministries lining the far side of the square. Was there an occasion he had forgotten? A gala for the Queen? The birthday of some inbred relation – perhaps the exact idiot inside the black coach?

‘Cardinal Chang!’

Phelps waved his arms above the crush. Cunsher and Svenson stood near with Miss Temple dwarfed between them.

‘At last!’ called Phelps. ‘We had despaired of finding you!’

Chang pushed himself through to meet them. ‘What in hell is happening?’

‘An announcement from the Palace,’ Svenson replied. ‘Did you not hear?’

Before Chang could reply that if he had heard he would not have
asked
, Miss Temple touched Chang’s arm.

‘It is Robert Vandaariff!’ she said excitedly. ‘He has emerged, and will call on the Queen and Privy Council! Everyone looks to him for rescue! Have you ever seen such a gathering?’

‘We have waitied for you,’ Phelps yelled above the noise, ‘ but our thought is to move closer and observe.’

‘Perhaps even brave a rear entrance to the Ministries,’ added Svenson.

Chang nodded. ‘If he meets the Queen, there will be a regiment around them – but, yes, let us try.’

They edged around the great statue, the martyr scoldingly content in her sacrifice. Chang tugged Svenson’s sleeve and gestured to Miss Temple, who had taken the Doctor’s other hand. Svenson nodded. ‘The fabric
was
gone, and all purchased by a single customer.’

‘Who?’

‘Not who so much as
where
.’ Svenson pointed to the row of tall white buildings. ‘Sent to the Palace.’

‘The
Queen
?’

‘Or someone well placed at court.’

‘That could be one of five hundred souls.’

‘Still, it fits with where we thought the Contessa might be hiding.’

Chang glanced at Miss Temple. ‘You were right after all, Celeste.’

‘I was indeed.’

It was not a remark Chang had any desire to answer, so he called to Cunsher. ‘Did Pfaff leave word at the Boniface?’

Cunsher shook his head.

‘The Contessa?’

Cunsher shook his head again.

‘Anything?’

‘The maid is frightened.’

Before Chang could ask Phelps about the
Herald
clipping, the air was split by the bray of trumpets. Horsemen in bright cuirasses had formed a line between the crowd and the Ministries and pushed forward to clear a lane. Every third horseman had a brass trumpet to his lips, while the men in between rested drawn sabres against one shoulder. The crowd gave way.

Chang searched for some other avenue. He saw the black coach again, in the thick of the crowd, and a figure – only half seen – slipping from it. At once the driver whipped his team into motion. But who had been left behind?

‘What is it?’ Phelps went to his toes, following Chang’s gaze. ‘Do you see Vandaariff?’

The trumpets came again and Svenson touched Chang’s shoulder. Behind the horsemen came a train of coaches, skirting the square. In an open brougham sat Robert Vandaariff, hatless, waving to the sea of staring faces. Lord Axewith of the Privy Council sat opposite. They swept through the ceremonial iron gate that marked the Palace proper.

‘Mr Ropp!’

Miss Temple pointed across the crowd. It took a moment for Chang to place the man she meant – barrel-chested in a black greatcoat. She shouted again, her words lost in the trumpets and the noise. Ropp was Pfaff’s man, a former soldier. Had he escaped from Harschmort? Miss Temple pushed towards him. The Doctor tried to catch her hand. Ropp vanished in the shifting crowd, then reappeared. Something was wrong. Ropp walked stiffly, as if his torso were made of steel. Had he been stabbed? Miss Temple hopped up and down, waving. Ropp finally turned to her squeaks. Even at thirty yards Chang was shocked by the man’s dull eyes. Ropp tottered and thrust a hand into his topcoat, as if he were clutching a wound.

Chang’s mind cleared. The white-wigged figure in the coach had been Foison. The barrels at the Raaxfall dock. The boxed carapace of Ropp’s body.

‘
For God’s sake – get down!
’

Chang tackled Miss Temple, doing his best to cover her body. His ears were split by a deafening roar as a blast of smoke and fire consumed the air. An inhuman high-pitched shrieking, dense as a cloud of arrows, whipped at the crowd, which answered with a chorus of blood-curdling screams. Chang
raised his head, glasses askew, ears throbbing. All around them bodies were flattened, pulped, writhing – a perfectly scythed circle of destruction. Where Ropp had stood was a scorched and smoking hole. A grey-haired woman thrashed beside Chang, mouth flecked with foam, a blue glass spur embedded in her eye. As he stared, the white orb filled with indigo and the woman’s screams turned from shrill agony to blind wrath.

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

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

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

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

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

‘There is nothing here! Hurry!’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

His words were cut off by the crash of gunshots.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘
Officer!
’

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

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

‘Underpassage?’

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

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

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

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

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

‘The Queen?’

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

‘Dentistry?’ asked Miss Temple.

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

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

‘A rotting dockfront hardly inspires monetary confidence.’

‘Surely there is carved ivory or porcelain.’

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

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

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

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

Svenson tactfully said nothing.

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

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

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

‘A what?’

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

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

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

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