The Chemickal Marriage by Gordon Dahlquist
Svenson nodded at the machines, the tin-lined tubs of water. ‘And now?’
‘My legs! I shall move like a ghost! The perfect provocateur.’
Schoepfil undressed to cotton underwear whose legs had been removed, so that he might undergo the procedure and retain his modesty. On the table lay what looked like an oversized bandolier. Each loop of leather was padded with orange felt and held a bolt of blue glass, larger than a shell for an elephant gun. Several loops were empty, but in one the charge of blue glass had been replaced with the flask of bloodstone Svenson had brought from the Institute. He fished out a handkerchief and prised loose a bolt of glass.
‘This fits in the first chamber?’
‘It does.’ Schoepfil settled himself on a padded stool with each foot in a tub and flicked his toes in the water.
Svenson slotted the glass in place and fastened the chamber’s hatch. He began to gather the black hoses. ‘The Comte did attempt something like this, you know …’
‘Well, his mind was exceedingly fertile. One entire notebook dedicated to hair –’
‘Angelique, from Mrs Kraft’s brothel. I was called in to consult, after the fact.’
Schoepfil shrugged, having no interest in a whore.
‘The experiment went wrong. It was as if she were drowned, without ever going underwater.’ Svenson strapped the hoses to Schoepfil’s bare legs and fitted his feet with webbed leather slippers. ‘His inability to reverse the effects led to her being substituted as the third glass woman, instead of Caroline Stearne.’
‘What exactly went wrong?’ asked Bronque.
‘I never learnt.’
‘Doesn’t help us, then,’ said Schoepfil.
The whistle sounded. The train began to slow. Bronque consulted his watch.
‘Crampton Place. Once the train starts again we’ll throw the switch.’
Through the next stations, from Packington to St Porte, every time the Colonel stepped from the carriage, two grenadiers entered to make sure Doctor Svenson did nothing to Mr Schoepfil, asleep on a straw pallet. Bronque had drawn a blanket around Schoepfil to his neck, as the last thing soldiers going into battle needed was to see a man with his limbs turned blue.
The procedure went smoothly. Svenson followed the mechanics of energy, his understanding augmented by the ordeal of Mrs Kraft. Well into the change Schoepfil could still converse, guiding Svenson through tight-clenched teeth until the blue colour began to saturate his skin. Bronque caught Schoepfil’s head when he fell back insensible, but it was for Svenson alone to judge the moment when the power must be cut off, when going further risked the next stage of transformation, turning Schoepfil’s flesh to glass.
Had he erred, he knew, Bronque would have taken his life. He wondered at the strange alliance between the two men, both possessed of a certain talent, yet judged by their betters to be mediocrities. Were they kindred spirits of spite? Certainly they had staked their lives on this one throw. Without Schoepfil inheriting his uncle’s empire – that protecting influence – Bronque’s diversion of an elite regiment in a time of public crisis would bring a court martial and disgrace, if not a firing squad. And if Schoepfil failed, for his abuses at the Thermæ alone he would be banished or imprisoned. For the next hours, however, both men remained free as lords.
With the second leg finished and Schoepfil collapsed into a stupor, Svenson was left alone with Bronque. He blew smoke at the rear of the train. ‘How is Mrs Kraft here, after what you did to her people?’
Bronque laughed harshly and fished out his flask. ‘If Vandaariff dies, she won’t care about a few sticks of furniture and some trollops.’
‘You are an expert on women’s feelings?’
Bronque screwed up his face and took a pull of whisky. ‘Still brooding about the Contessa? Well, you may indeed. I’ve never had a more magnificent –’
‘No, Colonel, I am not brooding. Nor do I desire your narrative of conquest. But I am obliged to ask, are you so sure she did not conquer you? And the details of this very campaign?’
‘What in hell do you mean?’
Svenson said nothing. Bronque made to drink, but put the flask down.
‘I would know.’
‘Would you? She has learnt to make her own blue glass. With it, she could have stolen your memories or persuaded you with new ones. Ask yourself, Colonel, did you ever have her? Are you sure? I was there when she cut Pont-Joule’s throat. I did not know they were en amour, but it did not stay her blade. If you think she would not ransack your mind like a trunk, then you’re an ass.’
Bronque flushed with anger but did not speak. Instead he pocketed the flask and rubbed his face with both hands. He stood and stalked to the door. Svenson heard him address his men, but not the words. Bronque came back and reclaimed his seat.
‘If there is coffee on this train we will have some.’ Svenson nodded blandly, for Bronque’s sharp face still showed rage. ‘And I’m a fool not to allow for what you say. Which means that Mrs Kraft’s information must be considered in an altogether new light.’
‘Because she has only recently appeared,’ said Svenson.
‘And thus represents the one thing the Contessa categorically cannot know. And not only did that woman escape her captivity, by doing so she avoided a very specific fate. I planned to inform Vandaariff of the Contessa’s location, and Lord only knows what he would have done to her. But somehow she chose just that time to get away.’
‘As if she knew … or that you’d told her?’
‘But why would I? It was my plan!’ Bronque glared at Schoepfil on the pallet. ‘If you tell him this I’ll cut your throat.’
‘Why should I?’
‘Because you’re as desperate as I am. And, because a damned whore-mistress knows something the Contessa can’t anticipate, I must protect her at all costs. But, however important it might now be to reach Vandaariff before sunrise, that doesn’t change our having to get through his front door.’
Colonel Bronque slapped his thigh with frustration. Doctor Svenson took that moment to palm the flask of bloodstone and drop it in his pocket.
They woke Schoepfil before Orange Locks, where Bronque and his men would disembark. Schoepfil exulted in his altered legs: vivid blue from the toes to mid-calf, with marbled streaks extending up each sparsely haired thigh.
‘Did it work?’ asked Bronque.
‘O I do expect so!’ Schoepfil rotated each ankle, then hopped from one leg to the other. He snapped his fingers – a command for his clothing – and the Doctor grudgingly passed Schoepfil his trousers.
‘Do mind the crease!’ Schoepfil chided, shaking them out and slipping one foot through. ‘Anything in the meantime?’
‘Nothing to change our plans,’ Bronque replied. ‘A few prisoners. Pretending to be bankers. Michel Gorine, for one.’
‘No! That little nuisance must have set him free.’
‘What matters is that he tried to see Mrs Kraft.’
‘Very good of you to prevent it. Who are the others?’
‘One I don’t know – foreigner. The second is Vandaariff’s man from the Institute. Augustus Trooste.’
Schoepfil paused between shirt buttons. ‘With Gorine? Is it a scheme?’
Both men turned to Svenson. He sighed. ‘I have been under guard with you.’
‘Could be Chang,’ Bronque admitted. ‘Neither he nor Foison showed at any station, and the men sent after them did not return.’
Svenson made a point of balling up Schoepfil’s waistcoat and tossing it across. Schoepfil caught it with a frown and stroked the silk to smooth it.
‘Perhaps they are all dead. The violence in the town.’
‘Perhaps.’ Bronque snapped shut his watch. ‘You know what to do?’
Schoepfil wormed into his jacket. ‘Not to worry. I shall pass like a shade.’
Bronque gave Svenson a warning glance not to speak. ‘We do not know what to expect. It may be that Mrs Kraft’s knowledge –’
‘Yes, y
Bronque shook his partner’s hand, but did not speak. He turned for the door.
‘O do not be dour, Colonel! We will not fail!’
Bronque rapped on the metal panel. The door swung open, letting in the racket of the wheels. He nodded to them, without speaking, and stepped through.
Schoepfil sat on the table, legs dangling. Svenson had taken the Colonel’s chair. On his lap Schoepfil held an oblong wooden box, the lid positioned to block Svenson’s view. He ran a finger across its contents with a satisfied smile. The train rattled to its terminus.
‘You’re a soldier – of sorts, anyway. Are they all so superstitious?’
‘Most people are, when it comes to death.’
‘They should be confident.’
‘Solitude lacks comfort. And there is no greater solitude than mortality.’ Svenson rubbed his eyes. ‘Your uncle who will not die, I expect you think him a fool.’
‘The biggest.’
‘You have given your body to his same foolishness – this alchemy.’
‘I am not dying.’
‘You might have died ten times today. I could have shot you through the head myself.’
Schoepfil smiled. ‘You would not have!’
‘I would have very well,’ replied Svenson testily. ‘But for the same reason you keep me – that you may prove of use. Another man would have spattered your brains –’
But Schoepfil had already burst into laughter. ‘I be of use to you! O that is prime!’ Schoepfil drummed a hand on his knee. ‘You will be lucky to avoid the scaffold!’
The Doctor tapped his ash onto the floor, loathing the man, and even more the truth in his words. For a blessed moment Schoepfil did not speak. Svenson allowed his mind to touch upon the painful day he and Phelps had returned to Parchfeldt … the air wind-kissed, the clouds blooming white. He was no stranger to death. The medical habit of distance had run deep enough to let him search through the woods, and to at last identify the bundle of limbs – taken first for weather-beaten twigs – and the colour of the tattered dress she’d worn. Phelps had hung back with a handkerchief to his face, but Doctor Svenson could not. His hand had gently turned the corpse’s face, no longer Elöise, and, yet, he could not un-see her, still the woman he’d loved in all her ruined parts. The gaping, gummy crease from the Contessa’s blade, blackened with long-dried blood. The eyes cruelly sunken, glazed pale as milk. Her fingers in the grass, always so thin, now grey at the tips, puffed with bloat, foreign. He had spread the tarpaulin and so very tenderly eased her onto it, turning his eyes from the flattened earth where she had lain, the insects and worms writhing at the sudden light.
It is an illusion that we are not such objects while we still live, the Doctor had told himself. And in the time since, while Elöise mouldered in the garden of her uncle’s cottage, where had time carried him – what achievement lay in his staying alive?
Small gestures with Phelps and Cunsher, meagre checks against their enemies. Preserving Celeste Temple’s life, and Chang’s – for a time. And his own animal resurgence – the compulsion of life – had come at the provocation of an outright monster. Could there be any stronger proof of an indiscriminate world?
He groped for the red metal tin. ‘I assume we approach Harschmort by the canal? Timed to coincide with the Colonel’s arrival at the gate?’
‘O more than that, Doctor.’
Svenson sighed, then asked, as was expected. ‘How so?’
Schoepfil snapped the box shut and set it aside. ‘I do not expect to be alone.’
They disembarked at the Orange Canal Station with two grenadiers, the last of Bronque’s men, not a single other soul to be seen. The Doctor inhaled the salt tang of the sea.
‘I thought we would be joined.’
‘Not here, Doctor. We must to the canal.’
So rapid was Schoepfil’s pace that Svenson and the grenadiers were forced into an awkward trot. The Doctor addressed them as they ran.
‘Despite your orders, I wish to be civil – there is no telling what difficulties may drive us together. I am Captain-Surgeon Svenson of the Macklenburg Navy.’
Neither soldier spoke, so Svenson bent to the nearest, stripes on his sleeve. ‘Sergeant of grenadiers is no small achievement. Had I a hat, I would touch it to you.’
At this the tall sergeant smiled. ‘Barlew, sir, sergeant these two years. This is Poggs. You don’t want to cross Private Poggs.’
Svenson spoke across Barlew to Poggs, with a respectful gravity. ‘I’m sure I do not. But I am more concerned with your own safeties.’
‘Not to worry, sir,’ said Barlew. ‘But very good of you.’
They nearly collided with Schoepfil when the man suddenly stopped. Sergeant Barlew muttered an apology but Schoepfil hissed him to silence, peering around him in the gloom. Svenson saw nothing and heard only the wind. Schoepfil flexed his hands, as if stroking the air for scent. He whispered to the soldiers, ‘One of you stay here. Wait five minutes, then catch up to us. Be careful. Keep your guard. Come.’
Trooper Poggs diligently stepped aside and the others hurried on until the dunes were replaced by the shining surface of the Orange Canal. Its walkways were empty, with not even a watchman’s lantern. Schoepfil pointed away to a glow across the grass.
‘Harschmort.’
Svenson turned to the canal. ‘But is this not where we expect whoever will join us?’
‘Be patient, Doctor. Who is this?’
Schoepfil darted to the side with astonishing speed. Footfalls came towards them from the dark. The Sergeant’s bayonet was fixed and ready, but a whisper made clear it was Poggs.
‘Report!’ hissed Schoepfil.
‘Someone following all right. I couldn’t get him, sir. Kept hanging back.’
‘But who is it?’ Schoepfil squeezed his hands to fists. ‘And are you sure it is a man?’
‘Wouldn’t be a woman, sir – not out here.’
Abruptly Schoepfil looked up, listening intently. With a pale, questioning expression he turned to Svenson. ‘I don’t hear a thing.’
‘Ought you to?’
‘Colonel Bronque should have reached the gate.’
‘Perhaps he was delayed. Vandaariff has his own men –’
‘No, we should have heard.’
Sergeant Barlew cleared his throat. ‘There was the fire, sir.’
‘What fire?’
‘We saw it behind us, from the train. The Colonel must have burnt the station. Didn’t you see? We were told not to disturb you –’
‘There was no plan to burn any station!’
‘I’m sorry, sir. We must have it wrong, then.’
‘Of all the blasted idiocy! Follow me and watch – beware what traps I avoid – pay attention! Our purpose is stealth, not confrontation. Colonel Bronque is the broadside of cannon. We are the stiletto in the ear. Do you understand?’
‘Why do you need us at all?’ asked Doctor Svenson.
‘I need them to watch you. I will need you to preserve my life.’ Schoepfil darted away, his short, thin legs as brisk as a bird’s.
‘And why in hell should I do that?’ called Svenson.
Schoepfil’s reply echoed off the still canal. ‘Because otherwise she wins!’
The nearest Svenson had seen to it was watching men such as Chang, whose instincts had been thoroughly etched onto the most primitive portions of the brain, where action preceded thought. In Schoepfil’s case it had nothing to do with experience.
Running at full speed, Schoepfil abruptly jumped in the air. When Svenson and the soldiers reached the same point, they found black wire stretched between two huts, tied to an explosive charge. Carefully they stepped over and kept on – past more wires and beds of glass spikes hidden in the path. Veering
Muffled cries and the crack of breaking glass reached them with Schoepfil’s warning.
‘Stay back! Wait for the wind!’
Svenson perceived a cloud of smoke and watched it break apart, towards the sea. He advanced to find two men in green on the ground, their heads encased by brass helmets. Each carried a canvas satchel of apple-sized glass balls, several of which lay broken at their feet.
‘Hurry!’ called Schoepfil, already well ahead.
More traps and men – so many that Barlew and Poggs, wading in with their bayonets, reached Schoepfil before he could finish the last. Svenson, without a weapon, hung back, hoping to snatch something off one of the fallen men, but Barlew took the Doctor’s arm before he could.
They joined Schoepfil at a set of glass garden doors. This was the eastern wing of Harschmort. Schoepfil’s face gleamed with perspiration but he smiled.
‘Now we are to it! Follow some steps behind, weapons ready. The new construction has been concentrated in the western wing –’
Schoepfil whipped his head towards the outbuildings, then lunged for the door. Svenson heard the explosive pop of breaking glass as Schoepfil hauled himself through. Poggs and Barlew sank in a cloud of smoke. Schoepfil slammed the door even as the panes shattered, smoke rising around them from the shards.
Svenson clapped a hand over his mouth and ran – for an instant after Schoepfil, but then veering wildly away. He heard Schoepfil’s cries of outrage, but still more glass and smoke prevented any pursuit. Svenson crossed the ballroom floor before risking a look back: a distant figure like a tall tropical insect, all orange and brass, with two pitiless glass eyes that marked the Doctor as he fled.
Construction in the western wing, Schoepfil had said. Svenson gathered his memories of Harschmort as he ran, but the carpets were gone and the furniture covered with white sheets. He brought himself to a panting stop when the floor changed to black-and-white chequers. This was near the kitchens – at the corridor’s end had been the staircase descending to the Comte’s underground chamber. Chang had described it destroyed, collapsed to form a vast crater. And yet … renovation. Svenson began to trot in that direction.