The Chemickal Marriage

of scandal.
    ‘From the Archbishop?’ asked the butler.
    Chang nodded gravely. The butler glided off without seeming to move his legs.
    Chang stood in silence with the guards. The well-made walls would have muffled a gunshot. He wondered if the furnishings resembled what Celeste Temple had desired for her house with Roger Bascombe. A house was the venue through which a young woman’s every social ambition would be expressed. For the first time he realized that Celeste must have been well into the work before Bascombe had severed their engagement. Did her desk at the Boniface still contain those lists, the letters of inquiry to tradesmen, or had she burnt them, ashamed at those catalogues of outlived desire?
    The butler returned, his voice as warm as old amber. ‘If you would follow me.’
    Cardinal Chang had been employed by his share of wealthy clients, but strictly through a veil of intermediaries. His presence in a fine home usually came about through a forced lock or an unguarded window – which was only to say that Chang’s experience of the polite society of women was limited in the extreme. He knew there
was
a proper protocol, laid out with iron-bound rigour; yet, as he entered the foyer of Axewith House to call on the wife of the new head of the Privy Council, Chang might as well have been calling on the Empress of Japan.
    ‘He told the
newspapers
that trains were not stopping because of the
rebels
. But his
diary
claims otherwise. In truth, the entirety of the line from Raaxfall to Orange Canal –’
    Upon Chang’s entrance the speaker went silent. He recognized the dress and hair – this was the lady who had preceded him through the gate – but the whole of her face, like that of the other eight women in the room, was concealed behind a mask of hanging tulle. What was more, despite thegreedy cadence of gossip, Chang very much felt as if he had interrupted a formal
report
.
    The butler murmured an introduction and slipped away. The women sat without any indication of precedence. Chang fell to a respectful bow. He did not know what Lady Axewith looked like.
    ‘How kind of you to call, Monsignor.’ This was a woman to his left, thick forearms poking from tight satin sleeves. ‘I do not recall you amongst the Archbishop’s retinue, though it seems a face one is bound to remember.’
    She sniggered into one hand. Chang nodded in reply. At this the woman giggled again, along with several others.
    ‘Would you care for tea?’ Another lady, with a ribbon around her throat.
    ‘No, thank you.’
    ‘Then we shall go straight to your
intimate matter
. A provocative entrance.’
    ‘And unpleasant, Monsignor.’ The woman with tight sleeves shook her head. ‘A pernicious preamble used to justify anything.’
    ‘Even to put soldiers in one’s foyer,’ added the woman with the ribbon. ‘For protection, of course. Have you come to protect us too?’
    ‘Having met the Archbishop, I should not expect
charity
.’ This was the woman with tangerine hair, whose voice had lost its lilt.
    ‘Lucifera is a wicked-sounding name, for a churchman,’ observed the woman with the ribbon.
    ‘The name is from the Latin, meaning light.’ Chang addressed the far end of the room, the women who were so far silent. ‘As Lucifer is Lightborn, the first of the angels. Some say the Virgin Lucifera presides over executions, weddings and rebirth. An angel.’
    ‘Presides how?’
    This woman had not yet spoken. Her pale hair, the colour of sea-bleached wood, fell onto a sable collar. Moderately stout, not too old. Just above the collar, he saw a silver necklace with blue stones.
    ‘Presides how?’ she repeated.
    ‘Some would call it alchemy.’ A disdainful twitter danced around the room.
    ‘I’m sure the Archbishop cannot have sent you to raise such forbidden topics.’
    Chang silently crossed to her. He took the teacup from her saucer. He brought it to his nose – he could not smell a thing – and sniffed. ‘That you hide yourselves shows you have some minimal awareness of the risk …’ He emptied the contents onto the floor and then released the teacup. It landed on the carpet with a bounce, unharmed. The woman laughed.
    ‘If you suspect the tea, I am already doomed. That was my second cup!’ The other women laughed with her, their amusement falling suddenly silent at the realization that, as they had watched the cup, Chang had slipped a dagger from his stick. The blade hung inches from the chain of blue