The Chemickal Marriage

extract the blue glass card from his greatcoat. Francesca’s eyes were wide. Svenson ignored her and, keeping his voice gentle, addressed his patient.
    ‘I am going to show you a thing, Mrs Kraft. Do not be afraid. Nothing will harm you.’
    His patient did not resist when he gently angled her head, but she inhaled with force at first sight of the card, her pupils swelling black. Svenson eased the card into her fingers and they clutched it tight. Madelaine Kraft was completely immersed.
    Svenson kept his voice low. ‘Has either of you ever seen blue glass such as this?’
    ‘Never,’ said Gorine.
    ‘Once.’ Mahmoud knelt at the foot of the chaise-longue. ‘Angelique. Mrs Kraft took it away.’
    Gorine watched with suspicion. ‘What does she see?’
    ‘Dreams. Potent as opium.’
    Immediately Mahmoud reached for the card. Svenson caught his hand.
    ‘It
is
dangerous. It
is
deadly. But nothing you have tried has penetrated her mind. This will.’
    Mahmoud threw off Svenson’s arm. ‘And cause her death? Michel –’ Mahmoud appealed to Gorine, but Gorine stared at their mistress.
    ‘
Look
.’
    Madelaine Kraft’s breathing had deepened and her face had changed – cheeks flushed with colour, with
life
. Gently, Svenson retrieved the card. Madelaine Kraft looked up. He took her hands, speaking softly.
    ‘The Bride and Groom … did you see them?’
    She blinked at him, and then nodded.
    ‘Do you know those words now, Mrs Kraft?
Bride?
’
    ‘
Bride
…’ Her voice was tender with disuse.
    Svenson nodded encouragement. ‘You saw the faces … the angels … the feathered mask and the mouth below, you saw the teeth … the Bride’s teeth –’
    ‘
Blue
.’ The word was a whisper. Mahmoud and Gorine pressed forward, but Svenson warded them off, fixing his eyes on hers, making sure.
    ‘And the ball … the ball in the black Groom’s hand?’
    Madelaine Kraft’s mouth worked, as if she were calling forth a key she had swallowed. ‘
Red
.’
    Svenson sighed with relief. Her mind
could
make new memories, the harvesting process had not robbed her of that – she was no vegetable. Yet through her illness she had not spoken – why did only indigo clay etch its mark into her mind?
    He patted Madelaine Kraft’s hand. ‘What do you think of that, Francesca?’
    The girl had no answer, both arms wrapped across her middle. Was she that delicate, that susceptible? Suppressing the urge to comfort her, fearing it would only make things worse, Svenson turned to the others. ‘I assume Colonel Bronque has gone?’
    Gorine consulted his pocket watch. ‘He has. But why?’
    ‘Because we are going to need your tunnel.’
    The bundle of chemicals lay at Svenson’s feet. Francesca Trapping stood yawning and blinking. The girl had recovered, and though she showed a clumsiness descending the stairs, he ascribed this to exhaustion. At the end of the basement corridor lay an old iron door. Two uniformed soldiers crouched against the wall, bound and, though not cruelly, gagged. Gorine watched them with an unhappy expression and a pistol in each hand. Mahmoud sorted through a ring of keys. Behind, two servants gently held Madelaine Kraft upright between them.
    ‘I hope you know what you’re doing,’ muttered Gorine. ‘Bronque will summon his soldiers, the doors will be stormed –’
    ‘You could take him hostage,’ observed Mahmoud. From his tone, and Gorine’s reply, it was no new suggestion. ‘Allow him inside the house, have our men ready –’
    ‘The Colonel will defend himself, and if he is injured or killed it is our lives – if
he
doesn’t kill us outright to begin with –’
    Sensing a tirade, Svenson broke in. ‘If there was time to ask the Colonel to join us, I would. There is not. Mrs Kraft’s only hope to recover her mind lies in defiance. Moreover, it is not the Colonel who controls your survival, but the man who comes with him.’
    ‘We don’t even know who he is!’
    ‘I suggest you find out. Now which of you stays and which comes along?’
    ‘Mahmoud knows the tunnel.’ Gorine squeezed the pistols in his hands. ‘If anything happens to Mrs Kraft you will answer. As we will answer to Her Majesty’s displeasure.’
    ‘I would expect no less,’ said Svenson, noting Gorine’s naive conflation of the Colonel with the Queen. ‘Now who has a lantern?’
    As a boy, Doctor Svenson had prided himself on his knowledge of the forest bordering his family’s fields. In an adolescence of