The Chemickal Marriage

ventilation and a touch of light, a transom-window. Chang stood on the seat. The window was hinged and he hauled his body through, finding handholds in the crevices of brick. He flicked the window shut with his foot. Any search would first be on the ground …
    Chang crouched in an upstairs corridor, listening. Even if he
had
guessed correctly, there was little time. Voices rose from the foyer, women requesting their coaches. Chang hurried along the hall, opening doors – a bedchamber, a closet, another commode – and finally found one that was locked. His hand on the knob, he heard footsteps behind it, but then the sounds faded, rising upwards … a stairwell. Chang waited a count of ten, then forced the bolt. The sharp crack brought no cry of alarm. Was he already too late?
    Two flights up Chang saw the butler knocking on a door.
    ‘My lady? It is Whorrel. Answer me, please – are you well?’
    Whorrel turned at Chang’s approach, but Chang overrode any protest. ‘Don’t you have a key?’
    ‘It is the lady’s own retreat – the cupola room –’
    Chang pounded with his fist. No response. ‘How long has she been from your sight?’
    ‘But how did you – the soldiers were instructed –’
    ‘
How long?
’
    ‘I cannot say! Only minutes –’
    Whorrel sputtered as Chang once more forced an entrance. Again, the jarring snap was met with silence. Chang pushed inside and saw why.
    Lady Axewith lay on the carpet, staring at a pane of swirling blue – a single page detached from a glass book. Her mouth was open and saliva dripped onto the glass. The nails on Lady Axewith’s bare hand were ragged and yellowed, as if each fingertip had begun to rot. Unmasked, her lips were scabbed, gums blazing, nostrils crusted with a pink discharge.
    Whorrel rushed for his mistress, but Chang caught his arm.
    ‘What is wrong with her?’ asked Whorrel.
    ‘Pull her away.
Now
.’
    The butler tried to raise his mistress to a sitting position, but she fought to stay near the glass. Chang drove his foot into the plate, snapping it to pieces. Lady Axewith wheezed in protest. He heard the clutch in her throat and stepped clear as she spattered vomit, first onto the broken shards and then, tumbling into Whorrel’s arms, over the front of her own dress. Her eyes rolled in her head and her hands clutched at the air.
    ‘Sweet Christ! Is it a fit?’ Whorrel looked helplessly at Chang. ‘Is it
catching
?’
    ‘No.’
    The window behind the writing desk was open. Atop the desk sat a box lantern, wick alight, next to a pile of coloured glass squares. The squares fitted across the lantern’s aperture, tinting the light: a signal lamp, and it could even be used during the day, if the receiver possessed a telescope. Chang scanned the nearby rooftops, then – cursing his dullness of mind – set to searching the desk.
    ‘I cannot allow any trespass!’ cried Whorrel. ‘Lady Axewith’s private papers –’
    But Chang had already found a small brass spyglass. He squinted into the eyepiece, easing the sections back and forth to find his focus. Foreshortened gables and eaves slanted up and down like theatrical scenery of painted waves. He wiped his eye on his sleeve and peered again. An uncurtained upper window … a desk, a table … and another lantern.
    ‘What shall I
do
? Shall I call a doctor?’
    The butler had dragged his mistress clear and wiped her face and front. Her eyelids fluttered. The silver necklace of blue stones gleamed below her throat. Chang wrenched it free, snapping the clasp. Lady Axewith screamed. Whorrel reached for the necklace, but Chang held it at arm’s length, as if the man were a child after a sweet. He raised the necklace to the light, peering into a blue stone. His body met its delirious contents like a lover, and it was only Whorrel’s touch on his shoulder that broke the spell. Chang shook his head, marvelling at the Contessa’s raw practicality. The harvested memories of an opium eater were every bit as addictive as the drug itself, only more portable and easily hidden – so simply insinuated into the life of this respectable lady and in constant contact with her skin. His eyes caught the shattered plate of glass on the floor and he shuddered to think what extremities it had contained to deepen Lady Axewith’s dependency.
    He dropped the necklace on the floor and stamped on the stones, smashing each one to dust. Whorrel struggled to stop him and Chang shoved the man against the