The Dark Volume (61 page)

Mrs. Trapping appeared nowhere, yet her absence was not its source. What reason did Arthur Trapping have to be so bitter? His ambition had been handsomely rewarded… and suddenly Svenson placed Colonel Trapping's bottomless resentment: he owed the Xonck brothers for
everything
he had achieved. Each gleaming point of disgust spelled it out: a calling card in the foyer from Francis, Trapping's red uniform a disgraceful sign of Henry's patronage, the very house itself a wedding present, the children—even
these
, Svenson thought, shuddering, came under Trapping's eyes with guilty sparks of hatred, before the lightness of their voices spun the anger into a binding net of grief. And this struck Svenson most of all—that the lasting impression from Colonel Trapping was not rage, but unanswerable sadness.

If Mrs. Trapping was absent from the card, Elöise Dujong was even more so—was she not the man's mistress? This was convenient if Elöise hoped to assuage Svenson's anger, but Doctor Svenson was not truly angry—perhaps, he thought dryly, it was a lifelong failing. The choices Elöise had made, however much apart from his own desires, were too easily seen to be contingent and human. She had done what she had done—though he did not especially want to
think
about it— just as he had buried his own grief for Corinna in useless service. And yet, to present him with the experience of
this
man—was that not simply
cruel
? Being the object of such cruelty deadened his heart. What else would she expect? What could trump the visceral distaste of being placed
within
his rival's body? That Trapping was sad? That Trapping loathed his in-laws? What did either of these matter when Svenson would have happily seen Trapping horsewhipped by both brothers and thrown into a salt-bath?

THE LIGHT still blazed through the factory's windows, and Svenson could see the shadows of a gathered crowd against the wooden wall. As he came nearer he heard a buzz of discontentment, affronted mutters, and calls of disbelief. The gate had not opened, a turn of events the crowd found altogether unexplainable. The men with torches held them high, the better to shout to the unanswering windows. Their dress was not as formal as when he'd seen these same people at the final Harschmort gala, but there was no question they represented the highest levels of profession, the military. There was also a rank of younger faces within the whole—those for whom profession was but a path to pass the time, high-born siblings or cousins living near enough to taste the titles they would never hold, forever nursing jealousies and resentments. Svenson compared this gathering with the servants and clerks he'd met on the train to Tarr Manor, seduced into selling the dark secrets of their masters in exchange for what to the Cabal must have seemed like red feathers given to South Sea islanders for land—a decent place to live and enough money for a new coat in winter. What could any of the well-placed people before him lack, by what lures had they been led along? The Doctor shook his head—the terms did not matter at all. The Cabal had suborned each group by dangling before their eyes a credible prospect of
hope
.

HE DROPPED onto his knees in the grass. The way into the factory was twice blocked—by the spreading crowd and by the wall. The crowd bunched in front of the gate, but their numbers were such that the mass had spread along the wall—perhaps as many as two hundred people altogether. Svenson could hear people knocking on the gate and calling for entrance, but their calls were so arrogantly presumptuous in their tone that the Doctor began to doubt that any of the crowd really knew where they were… or what might be inside. Did they not even register the contrast between the isolation of the factory and its fantastic new blazing inhabitation, between the derelict road and the recently raised outer wall?

Svenson did not see the Contessa.

He had seen a bust of Cleopatra once, in Berlin—his thoughts were wandering, it was getting cold—life-sized, but he had been struck by how small it seemed, that she was only one woman, who no matter how much of the world she had set aflame remained only so many pounds of flesh and bone, so much breath, so much warmth within one bed. He thought of the Contessa's lacerated shoulder, her quiver of pain beneath his touch, and laid against it like a wager her determined and rapacious—and cruel, he could not forget that—
hunger
. What life could have constructed such a creature? What events had shaped a man like Chang? Svenson had seen the scars of course, but those were only outward signs, the oil-slicked surface of a pool. He could not be less like them, despite his own bursts of invention or courage. Those moments were not who he was. And what of Miss Temple? He compared her with the men of privilege milling about before his eyes, discontented and hungry… was she not as restless and peremptory? The Doctor's mind went to Elöise, but he rubbed his eyes and shook the entire train of thought away.

He stood and straightened his tunic. Some of these people had no doubt witnessed him being knocked on the head at Harschmort and dragged away to die—but that only meant they assumed he
was
dead. If the Contessa had avoided the restive mob, as he was quite sure she had, then there seemed all the more reason for him to do the exact opposite.

Svenson reached the crowd and shouldered his way past the rearmost ranks before speaking aloud, in a disdainful voice borrowed from the late Crown Prince. “Why do they not open the gate? Do they intend we should wait like tradesmen in the lane? Have we not traveled all these miles?”

A man next to him, in a crisp wool overcoat, snorted in commiseration. “No one answers at all! As if we were not even expected!”

“There can be no mistake,” whispered a thin, older fellow with gold spectacles. “When so many of us have received the message.”

This was met with a general murmur of agreement, but still the gate did not open. Farther down the wall—Svenson was some distance from the gate itself—he could hear the rapping of steel-toed boots kicking hard against the wood.

“Have you seen no one?” Svenson asked.

“When we first approached, the gate was open. They barred it shut at the sight of us!”

“They must know we are summoned!”

“They do not act as if they do!” complained the older man. “And now it has grown cold… and the country is so
damp
.”

“Gentlemen,” offered the Doctor, hesitating enough to make sure of their attention. “Is it possible… there is trouble?”

The man in the overcoat nodded vigorously. “I have the exact notion!”

“What if it is all a… a…
test?”
whispered the older man.

Svenson was aware that their small conversation had attracted many listeners.

“Then we were best not to fail,” he replied, pitching his voice more loudly. “Would you not agree?”

He was answered by nods and mutters by others around them.

“I beg your pardon,” one said, “but your voice…your accent—”

“We are not to know one another any more than necessary!” the older man broke in.

“Our league is intended to be invisible in the world,” the Doctor agreed, “like a fishing net in the ocean, yes? Yet I will say, since you hear it clear enough, that I am from the Duchy of Macklenburg, serving my Prince, who serves the same…
principles
… as you yourselves.”

“You are a soldier.” The older man indicated the Doctor's uniform.

“Perhaps we are all soldiers now,” replied Svenson gravely, feeling an absolute ass. The men around him nodded with a cloying self-satisfaction.

“Something
has
gone wrong,” announced the man in the overcoat. “I am sure of it.”

“You were not told why you were summoned?” asked Svenson.

“Were
you
?”

Svenson felt the entire gang of men around him waiting for his answer.

“Not
told
…” he began carefully. “Perhaps I over-reach myself…”

“Tell us what you know!” urged the older man, and he was echoed by many others. Svenson surveyed their faces and then shook his head seriously, as if he too had come to a decision—to trust them all.

He lowered his voice. “On the other side of this wall is a factory… the property of Xonck Armaments.” At this revelation came a gasp from the older man. “Exactly who controls the factory at this moment is a mystery. Francis Xonck has journeyed to Macklenburg. Henry Xonck has been taken with an attack of blood fever… and yet there has been a summoning.” Svenson swatted at his less-than-scrupulous uniform. “I say ‘summoned,’ but you will notice I am here later than you all, and after traveling for a longer time. I have come from Harschmort House, where the miraculous machinery of the Comte d'Orkancz has all been removed… removed and relocated into this very factory, behind this very wall.”

“But is not the Comte gone to Macklenburg as well? Upon whose orders has this been done?”

“Is that our business?” asked the older man. “Have we not sworn to serve?”

“Serve
who
?” called out a voice from the knot of men around them.

“If we were summoned, why are we shut
outside
?” called another.

“Clearly we were not summoned by whoever is master in this place,” said the man in the overcoat.

“So we must ask ourselves,” said Svenson, “just who can issue such a summons …and who cannot.”

The men around him erupted into mutterings that spread along the wall like a wildfire leaping from treetop to treetop in the wind. The man in the overcoat bent closer, but his words were lost in the growing noise—outright shouts that the gates must be opened at once, and an explosion of kicks and fists upon the wooden wall. He caught Svenson's arm in a powerful grip. The Doctor stood ready to rip it free, but the man only squeezed harder, hissing into Svenson's ear, “What
exact
message did you receive?”

In his other hand the man held a small volume bound in red leather—the book given to every loyal servant of the Cabal for deciphering coded messages. The crowd surged closer to the wall, jostling them both. Svenson pointed to the book.

“I am afraid I have lost mine.”

“And yet you are here.”

Svenson groped for an explanation that would not expose him further. Before he could speak the man tugged him away from the wall, where they might hear one another clearly. If he struck the man hard enough, might he reach the woods before the others brought him down?

“You were at Harschmort,” the man said. “As was I. But these others… I do not know them, or where they have been enlisted.”

“Or by whom,” Svenson added.

“As I say, Harschmort. You were there…”

“
That
night?” said Svenson. “The Duke sent off in his carriage— the Comte's
ladies
—”

“You remember them, their sifting your thoughts.”

“Not, I confess, with any pleasure,” said Svenson.

“Nor I, and yet…” The man looked down at the red leather book. The others were now shouting quite loudly to be let in. “I felt it again not six hours ago.”

“I had not wanted to say. It is
she
who summoned me also.”

“She? You know which of the three has done it?”

“Only one survived the night,” said the Doctor. “There was chaos and violence—I know this from the Prince.”

“But…but…that just makes it worse!” the man cried, now barely audible against the escalating roar. “Who has given
her
the order to summon
us?
And who else, though you say this is a Xonck factory, bars our way?”

“What did she tell
you
, in your summons?”

“Nothing—it was not even words! Just the certain impression that I must travel at once to this place.”

“Your dedication distinguishes you,” said Svenson.

“My dedication leaves me flat,” the man replied. “We do not know our situation—how can we serve in ignorance?”

Before Svenson could answer, the man pulled him back into the agitated crowd, raising his voice above their shouting.

“Listen! Listen all of you! Here is one who has been this day to Harschmort House. More is afoot than we know! We have been called here for a
rescue
!”

Any answer Svenson might have made stopped in his throat when he saw that the crowd of angry men had all turned to him, waiting for his words.

“Ah… well… the trick of it is—”

“He is a soldier serving the Prince of
Macklenburg!”

They gazed at Svenson with a new veneer of respect. Once more, he was appalled.

“Gentlemen, gentlemen, while that is true—”

“Send him over the wall!” It was the old man with gold spectacles, his mouth a rictus of spite. “These blackguards won't let us in? Let's give them one who can sort them out!”

Before Svenson could dispute this especially stupid idea he felt something cold and heavy pressed into his hand, and looked down to see he was now holding a silver-plated revolver.

“Wait a moment, all of you! We do not know—”

“You will shoot them!” cried the old man. “You will open the gate!”

“That is
unlikely,”
snapped Doctor Svenson, but no one heard. They had already taken hold of his arms and legs, lifting him abruptly to the level of their shoulders and marching straight to the wall—indeed, slamming him into the planks. The men holding his legs hefted him higher with exuberant force. The Doctor clutched the wall convulsively with both hands, ignoring the drop to either side, and threw a leg over the top to grip tightly with all four of his limbs.

The men behind him shouted with triumph, but the Doctor expected at any moment to be shot at or perforated by a pike. He looked down into a grassy compound, lit from the factory's high windows— the light streaming so brightly he was forced to squint. They called to him—what did he see, who was there, what had he found? Someone bounced the fence and he promptly lost his grip on the pistol, dropping it onto the grass inside. Svenson swore. His outer leg was suddenly shoved upwards and he toppled over. With a grunt he caught himself before he fell completely, hanging by one arm, but there was no way he could pull himself back up. He spat with frustration—suspended between the louts outside and the rogues within, all convinced he had murdered the barge-master. He dropped with a squawk into an ungainly roll. A triumphant cry soared at his disappearance—and he groped urgently for the pistol. A door in the factory opened wide. Someone had seen him.