The Dark Volume Part 37

"Andrew!"

She felt the clawlike grip of his fingers on her arm as she opened the next door. Beyond lay a table spread with white cloth, dotted with small reddish stains.

"Can you smell her?" she asked.

"I cannot smell myself," he whimpered. "Though any mirror says I ought to."

"She has left with Captain Tackham and the children."

"What does she look like exactly?"

"You have seen her yourself, Mr. Rawsbarthe."

"Andrew," he whined.

"Andrew-you have seen her. She has seen you. Have you no memory of it at all?"

He shook his head dumbly. "I saw your man," he said.

"What man?" Miss Temple had grown impatient and pulled him round the table to the door. "Roger?"

"Roger is dead. And I have been thinking, since we spoke-you will wonder that I have come back to find you-but all of what you said has been gnawing at my mind, and-I will say it-at my body. I can imagine where you have been, what you have done, what experiences you have cast yourself open to, what wanton impulses-"

"Mr. Rawsbarthe-"

"Do not deny it! I am speaking of your criminal!"

Miss Temple's hand was on the k.n.o.b, but stopped mid-turn.

"You saw Cardinal Chang? At the station?"

"Of course not. At the Trappings'."

"When was that? What were you doing? What was Chang doing?"

"Looking for her."

"Mrs. Trapping?"

"Why should you care for him?" Rawsbarthe whined. "He is a brute! Your curls are so beautiful-"

Rawsbarthe erupted in a coughing fit. His face was bright with fever. Clumps of hair fringed his lapels. His eyes had acquired a slick cerulean oil, and she doubted he could see a thing. Miss Temple pulled free. He sank against the table. She retreated to the far door.

"Where are you going?" he rasped, his voice shrill with concern.

"I must find Captain Tackham. I will return, I promise!"

"You will not!" Rawsbarthe moaned, then toppled. He scrabbled to steady himself but found only the tablecloth, balling it up in his hands. He collapsed to the floor with a shriek, pulling the white sheet on top of him. Miss Temple plunged into the darkness of another room.

RAWSBARTHE'S PLAINTIVE cries ("Celeste! Celeste!") penetrated the door to Miss Temple's back, but she did not pause. She followed Mrs. Marchmoor's path, the smell growing more bitter and the stains more bright until she finally emerged in a far part of the garden, lined with hedges. Crushed on the threshold was a broken chocolate biscuit.

The gla.s.s woman's journey to Harschmort had yielded nothing. In the absence of the book, and the Comte's machines, and Vandaariff, was Mrs. Marchmoor in flight? Or did she follow some desperate strategy? One thing was sure: since the children had been taken out this way, not back through the house, Mrs. Marchmoor did not intend a return via carriage or train...

So much pointed to Charlotte Trapping. Yet if the children were only hostages to their mother's cooperation, what could one make of the vials and bloodstained cotton wool? With a grimace Miss Temple opened her mind to the memories of the Comte d'Orkancz-the three children, their mother, the vials-but was rewarded only with bitter retching and tears in her eyes. She wiped her mouth on the back of her hand. She must rely on her own wits. The children had been brought here... and now they were being taken away. Why?

WHEN SHE ran out of lawn-the house now a darkening shadow behind her-Miss Temple tumbled into the beach gra.s.s without a break in stride. Another two minutes of running, her pace now spurred by fear, and she dropped into a sudden crouch. Ahead stood a silhouetted man smoking a cigar, its tip winking red. It was Captain Tackham. Miss Temple flung herself down.

Tackham stood scanning the high gra.s.s, turning his head stiffly like a marionette, his face emptied of all expression and intelligence. She held her breath. Another ten seconds and Tackham erupted into a fit of coughing. He raised both hands to his head, gagging like a man given poison.

From behind him came a call.

"Captain Tackham!"

Tackham wiped his mouth with dismay. "In a moment!"

He threw his shoulders back and staggered from Miss Temple's view. Quietly, she slipped after him. She could hear bootsteps on planking and creaking ropes... another few yards and she could see the ca.n.a.l itself. To either side of a long barge scurried shadowed figures-soldiers on deck and others, actual bargemen, readying sails and coiling the ropes that bound the craft to the ca.n.a.l side. Miss Temple saw nothing of the Trapping children, nor of Mrs. Marchmoor, but the gla.s.s woman had just inhabited Tackham in order to search the dunes. She must be in a cabin belowdeck. Tackham strode up the gangway to a knot of men. She recognized Mr. Phelps, Colonel Aspiche, and-his forehead wrapped with gauze-the ambitious engineer, Mr. Fochtmann.

Captain Tackham saluted the Colonel, gave some minimal report, and then stood back from the others, who talked on. Tackham's gaze was restless, studying the sailors, sweeping the dock, then returning to the gra.s.sy dunes. He raised a hand and the other men at once followed his gaze. Miss Temple plunged her head down to the sand, too terrified to move.

"Where have you been?" Mr. Phelps called directly toward her. "We have been waiting!"

Miss Temple pressed her body closer to the ground, hoping it was all a mistake, fighting the urge to leap up and run.

"Did you find Rawsbarthe?" called Phelps again.

"I did," gasped a voice right behind her. Miss Temple nearly yelped with surprise. Not inches away, his feet kicking gra.s.s into her face, appeared the young Ministry man, Mr. Harcourt.

"My apologies to you all!" Harcourt was out of breath as he stumbled down to them. Phelps turned to the others.

"I suppose we can rendezvous with Rawsbarthe tomorrow."

"I cannot think he will see morning," gasped Harcourt, as he reached the gangway. "Mr. Rawsbarthe is overcome. He is quite unable to travel."

"Lord preserve us," muttered Phelps, and rubbed his eyes.

"What happened to this girl-this Miss Stearne?" asked Colonel Aspiche, his voice low.

"I questioned Mr. Rawsbarthe-but to be frank, he was no longer lucid." Harcourt's voice was heavy with concern.

"Miss Stearne indeed!" snapped Phelps. "We have all been fools-"

Phelps stopped speaking, for Harcourt had suddenly begun to weave on the gangway, dangerously near to pitching headfirst into the water. Tackham took a step away, but Phelps caught Harcourt's arm. Harcourt tottered, then slowly spun, surveying the ca.n.a.l side and the darkened dunes. He seemed to stare directly at her. Miss Temple did not breathe.

"Gentlemen..." announced Harcourt, still facing into the night, his voice unpleasantly hollow. "Is it not time to set off?"

"We were only waiting for Mr. Harcourt," replied Phelps.

"Has he seen Miss Stearne?" asked Fochtmann, his voice stiffly conversational.

"Mr. Harcourt has not," said Harcourt, a phrasing that made the men visibly uncomfortable.

"She is dangerous," said Fochtmann firmly. "She must be found."

"Perhaps some soldiers could continue the search here," offered Phelps.

"She is nothing," announced Harcourt, his voice hollow. "An insignificant liar. Mr. Phelps is required in the forward cabin with Mr. Fochtmann and the Colonel. Captain Tackham will see to his men."

"May I suggest that Mr. Harcourt remain on deck?" offered Phelps delicately. "I expect he will feel... unwell."

"As you like," intoned Harcourt. "It makes no difference."

The younger man staggered again and Phelps rushed to catch his arm, guiding him off the gangway. Tackham hovered, but Phelps turned to him sharply.

"You have your orders-get below! I will follow in a moment." Tackham went with a curt nod. Phelps looked at Harcourt-dazed and distractedly sniffing-and then shouted at the bargemen, startling them back to duty.

"Cast off at once! Barge-master! Make sail!"

MISS TEMPLE knew very well that she could stay where she was, allow the barge to go and walk back to the house and then to the train station-that her journey could end in a suite at the Anburne, with a proper bath and a proper pot of tea. Yet when she pushed herself up and drove her body on, it was toward the ca.n.a.l. The bargemen pulled the gangplank onto the deck, but Miss Temple kept running. With a catch in her throat came an awareness of how delicate the blue gla.s.s was. She cradled the case in both arms, holding it tight against her chest, and leapt the distance onto a pile of netting, the rough hemp biting into the soft skin of her knees and forearms. She rolled quickly off the ropes and into the shadow of a sail, out of sight but dangerously near to where Mr. Harcourt sat slumped.

The bargemen ran back and forth around her, their hard bare feet slapping the deck, gathering lines. She could see the pale hair above Harcourt's stiff collar. The knife was at hand and the ease of his murder fluttered atop her thoughts, a rippling pennant of cruelty. She imagined the man's s.h.i.+rtless back-she wondered if there would be scars, Chang would have all sorts of scars... even the Doctor might have them, as a soldier... ugly things... disfigurements-she felt a desire to trace her fingers down Mr. Harcourt's spine... or someone else's, anyone else's... and slide her hand beneath his belt like a knife into an envelope.

MISS TEMPLE slipped from her shadow to a hatchway at the rear of the barge. She stuffed the knife into her boot, and pushed the hatchway wide, wrinkling her nose at the stink of bilge water below her in the dark. She slid the hatchway closed above her, perched in pitch black, listening. Footsteps thumped above... but no cries of alarm, nor was the hatch flung wide. She groped around her-boxes, bales of moist cloth, coiled rope-and then wormed her way behind the ladder so that anyone looking down would not see her, no matter that they had a light. s.h.i.+fting her b.u.t.tocks and shoulders made room between the bales where she could sit and Miss Temple did so, leaning back, Lydia's case on her lap.

No doubt the barge was rife with rats. She snorted. If the rats knew what was good for them they would steer clear.

Miss Temple snorted again. For the very first time she understood the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza's slovenly room at the St. Royale. With death and desire such constant companions, what attention would a woman like that possibly waste on decor?

Or indeed, thought Miss Temple-curling onto her side to sleep, an animal in its lair-a woman like herself.

Eight. Reticence.

THE SHOUTING from the open French doors must have been very loud, for it penetrated-like the first perceived drop of rain out of a thousand others-just enough to disrupt Chang's velvet enthrallment. He was on his knees in Harschmort's garden. Someone was pulling his hand. He turned-his gla.s.ses askew on his nose, half his head still surrounded by morning light and perfume, the voices of young women-as the pistol was wrenched from his fingers.

Before him lay the Duke. Francis Xonck slithered from view behind an ornamental boxed juniper. The black-coated Ministry man fired the pistol, the bullet splintering the box near Xonck's foot. Bodies rushed past Chang to cl.u.s.ter around the gla.s.s woman, her shattered wrist waving above their heads and steaming blue. The Ministry man's pistol clicked on an empty chamber.

"Reload, Mr. Phelps! Where can he hide?"

Too slowly Chang spun on his knees. The sharp toe of Colonel Aspiche's boot caught him square on the shoulder. The blow knocked Chang onto his back, the whole of his left arm gone numb. Aspiche swept out his saber. Chang scuttled farther away, feet hopelessly tangled, still unable to stand, raising his stick as Aspiche came on with his blade. Chang knew from experience that stabbing or slas.h.i.+ng at a man on his back was more difficult than one might a.s.sume-cold comfort when he still felt half-asleep. Aspiche cut at Chang's left knee, to maim him. Chang deflected the blow with his stick, cracking the wood.

"Ought I to shoot him?" asked Phelps. He stood quite prudently beyond Chang's reach, the cylinder of the revolver opened out, digging in his waistcoat for bra.s.s cartridges. Both men gasped at another sharp silent spasm from Mrs. Marchmoor-some tall fellow grappled to wrap her hand. Chang rose to one knee. Again the impact of her distress had pa.s.sed him by.

"Cardinal Chang is entirely my business," barked the Colonel. "Find Mr. Xonck. Predators are most dangerous when they are hurt..."

Aspiche did not bother to feint, but hacked directly at Chang's head. Chang dodged to the side, another chip of wood flying out from his stick. Around them dashed more servants and soldiers, as if he were nothing but an animal being put down in a corner.

He called to Aspiche, "How can you kill Xonck? You underwent the Process! Where is your loyalty?"

"Ask me rather why he-like you-has lived so long!"

Aspiche's curved blade lanced viciously at Chang's stomach. Chang slashed the stick desperately across his body, splintering the tip, and the saber's deflected point disappeared into the earth. Behind them came two more pistol shots-Phelps putting Xonck from his misery-but their sudden sound launched another shattering vibration from Mrs. Marchmoor's mind, and Aspiche flinched.

The vibration did not stop Chang. He flung himself forward. The Colonel stumbled back, flailing wickedly with the blade, but Chang rolled free. Around him a nest of dragoons and servants and Ministry men all took sudden notice of his presence-blades swept from scabbards in every direction. Chang plunged after Xonck around the same boxed juniper-but in three long steps came to an abrupt halt, arms circling to keep his balance, at the sudden edge of the collapsed cathedral chamber, a dizzying slope of jagged, smoking wreckage beneath his feet, dropping at least a hundred feet. Not five yards away stood Phelps. The man raised the pistol straight at Chang's head. Without a second's thought, Cardinal Chang launched himself into the void.

HE LANDED ten feet down on a blackened iron beam and without pause sprung recklessly onto the shattered remains of a jail cell, a fall of perhaps fifteen more feet, the breath driven from his body. His stick flew from his hand, and before he could see where it landed a shot crashed out from above, the bullet pinging like a hammer near his head. Chang writhed over the twisted prison bars, hanging so the metal floor of the cell s.h.i.+elded him-at least until Phelps moved to a better angle. He looked past his dangling legs-a straight drop some sixty feet into a wicked pile of sharp steel that would finish him as neatly as the press of an iron maiden.

Phelps fired again-the b.a.s.t.a.r.d had moved around-the bullet sparking near Chang's left hand. Chang swore and began to vigorously swing his body back and forth. The earth wall had fallen in, some yards away, creating at least the pretense of a slope. If he could reach that, there was a chance. He looked up. Phelps stood directly above him, Aspiche at the Ministry man's side. Phelps extended the pistol. Chang kicked out his feet and let go.

WHEN HIS body came to rest-after perhaps as brief a time as ten seconds, but seconds as eventful and bone-shaking as any Chang had ever known-he lay on his back with his legs-fortunately unbroken-stretched out above him. His knees were bleeding and his gloves were torn, and he could feel abrasions on his face that would unpleasantly scab. His dark spectacles had remarkably remained in place (Chang had long ago learned the virtues of a well-tightened earpiece), but his stick was lost in the heights above. Roused to his danger, Chang scrambled into the cover of a buckled sheet of steel-part of the cathedral tower's skin, half-embedded in the ground like the blade of a gigantic shovel. The wreckage around him was so complete and his pa.s.sage down so chaotic that he'd no idea where he was, or whether his enemies could see him. He peeked around the metal sheet. A shot rang out and he darted back, the bullet ringing harmlessly off the debris. That was one question answered.

In the silence, and quite near, Cardinal Chang heard a distinctive and odious chuckle.

The chuckle was followed by an even more disgusting gagging swallow. Francis Xonck crouched in a nook of mangled ducts and prison bars, just across the clearing from where Chang had come to rest. The wound in his chest had congealed to a sticky cobalt.

By now, Phelps might have been joined by twenty dragoons with carbines.

"I thought you'd been shot," he called casually to Xonck, keeping his voice low.

"My apologies," sneered Xonck. "It is a younger son's natural talent to disappoint."

Chang studied the man, taking his time since neither of them seemed likely to go anywhere soon. Xonck's face was more altered than Chang had realized. The eyes were wild with fever, nostrils crusted, and his blue lips blistered raw. Where his skin was not discolored it was pale as chalk.

The gla.s.s woman's fingers had been inside Xonck's body... when her wrist had broken, had they come out? Or were they still inside? What delirium must be swimming through Xonck's head, bearing so much gla.s.s in direct proximity to his heart, his lungs, his rus.h.i.+ng blood. Yet during their own recent battle in the train car, he'd shown no weakness...

"But you were shot before... I see you've dressed the wound in an extremely sensible fas.h.i.+on."

Xonck spat a ribbon of clotted indigo onto the broken stones.

"I can only imagine what it's doing to your mind," continued Chang. "One recalls those African weevils that chew from ear to ear, right through a man's brain. Their victim stays alive the entire time, losing control of his limbs, unable to speak, to reason, no longer noticing when he's fouled himself."

Xonck laughed, eyes shut tight against his mirth, and playfully stabbed his plaster-cast arm at Chang. "The sensations are singular, Cardinal-you have no idea! The pleasure in action, the impact of feeling, even pain... like having opium smoke for blood, except there is no sleep in it. No, one is most viciously awake!"

His laughter stopped short in a cough and he spat again.

"Your mood seems strangely merry," said Chang.

"Why shouldn't it be? Because I am dying? It was always possible. Because I'm a stinking leper? Was that not always possible too? Look at yourself, Cardinal. Did your mother breed you for such work? Would her eyes s.h.i.+ne with pride at your fine habit? Your high-placed companions? Your virtue?"

"It does not seem you are anyone to speak of family. What are you but an inheritance, and the debauchery that came with it?"

"I could not agree more," growled Xonck, with all the spite of a viper that has bitten itself in its rage.

CHANG RISKED another glance at the high crater's edge. No bullet followed, but he tucked his head back into cover. Xonck's eyes were closed but twitched like a dreaming dog's. Chang called to him.

"Your former a.s.sociates have not welcomed you with affection."