The Chemickal Marriage (62 page)

Bronque laughed and took another drink. Svenson felt his face redden. ‘She may be beautiful, but her heart is black.’

‘Spoken like a man never asked,’ said Bronque. He tucked the flask away. ‘Shall we?’

‘I would prefer to be in
motion
,’ replied Schoepfil.

‘Why? You’ll need to rest. And I’m getting out before you.’

‘O very well.’ Schoepfil sniffed, almost girlishly. ‘Doctor, we take you into our confidence.’

‘I have not agreed to anything.’

‘But you
will
agree. Because my uncle, as my colleague says, must fall.’

‘You forget Chang. You forget Miss Temple.’

‘One cannot forget what one has never considered in the first place. The former is doomed through my uncle’s science; the latter insignificant altogether.’

Svenson found the red tin and selected another cigarette.

‘My
Lord
, Doctor,’ sighed Schoepfil. Bronque laughed and held out a hand. Svenson offered him the box and struck a match for them both. The smoke touched his lungs like a perfume of nettles.

‘If you need me, your disapproval can go hang. Now take off your gloves and show me what you’ve done, then tell me how you did it, and what madness I’m to help you do next.’

‘Power, of course, comes from the engine. We sacrifice speed, but the duration is brief – has to be, or the same mistakes are made. No one understands the degree to which the Comte’s achievement was determined by
aesthetics
. Three women turned to glass.’ Schoepfil tugged at his goatee. ‘
Beautiful
– no doubt of it –’

‘An abomination,’ said Svenson.

‘An opinion –’

‘I knew the women.’

‘The
point
is that
complete
transformation is neither necessary nor useful.’ Schoepfil raised one bright blue hand, then rapped it hard on the table top. ‘As you can see, still flesh, still mine to command. And
yet
…’

Schoepfil closed with Doctor Svenson and, showing the same preternatural speed as before, stabbed his hands in half a dozen places about the Doctor’s body, well ahead of any attempt to block him. The blows became mere touches at the last instant, but the potential damage was unpleasantly clear. Red-faced again, Svenson raised his arms and stepped away.

‘I have experienced your skill.’

‘You did not know the cause.’

‘But I knew there was one. You are no athlete. You have acquired only speed.’

‘More than that, Doctor, speed is but the scent off the dish. The
advance
is in the mind.’ Schoepfil grinned. ‘Everything my uncle has acquired, I have plundered – he is betrayed by his own people, who already cleave to my inheritance.’

Svenson turned to Bronque. ‘And were you a part of this? He can’t have done it by himself.’

‘But I did, Doctor! One hand at a time – the left is a touch less sensitive, but one learns!’

‘We became partners after the fact.’ Bronque clapped his hands. ‘
Drusus
. There is not time. And Doctor Svenson is not our friend.’

‘No, he is
not
!’ Schoepfil returned to the jumble of machines. ‘I cannot
tell
you how much I wanted to throttle him at the Thermæ.’ He peered at Svenson over his spectacles. ‘The Kraft woman’s cure is a miracle. You must dedicate the same knowledge and skill to our interests. Only then will you survive.’

‘And if I told you I know nothing, that I merely followed instructions?’

Schoepfil laughed. ‘The Colonel would dangle you from this train until your head met the wheels.’

After examining the paths through which the power flowed, how it was held and released in the different brass and glass chambers, the Doctor had to admit, and the admission frightened him, that Schoepfil was right. The Comte’s alchemical creed had driven his discoveries to extreme forms, such as Lydia Vandaariff’s pregnancy and the three glass women. With the
exception of the glass books, the Comte had largely eschewed practical applications. Schoepfil’s moderation – unburdened by ideology or belief – exposed a vaster and more terrifying danger.

‘The speed of
thought
.’ Schoepfil wiggled the fingers of both hands to mimic the energy coursing through the wires. ‘The property of blue glass that touches the mind – that speaks in
thought’s
chemical tongue. By lengthening time of exposure and lessening its intensity, the transformational effects are diminished – and, since I do not
desire
to be made of glass, there is no penalty. And, at the sacrifice of discoloration, what I
do
acquire is sensitivity. While Mrs Marchmoor could sift the thoughts of others, I am content to sense their impulses – their energy. And then respond with all of thought’s speed.’

‘Imagine an army,’ said Bronque. ‘Untouchable swordsmen. Accuracy of fire.’

‘I do not know how much of the Comte’s lore my uncle has digested, though it seems he feeds at the same alchemical trough, that he
believes
. If he’s wrapped around visions of triple-souled births and exaltations of new flesh, we are halfway home!’

‘Do not discount his practicality,’ said Svenson. ‘The explosions in the city, the spurs.’

Schoepfil pursed his lips. ‘Well. Perhaps.’

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, yes, you are the
tactician
. I leave it to you, though Gorine may serve as leverage over the woman.’ Schoepfil pulled on his gloves, as dapper a figure as he had ever been. He extended a hand to Bronque. ‘Until the finish.’ He laughed. ‘
Rebirth
.’

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.