The Chemickal Marriage

cinder. The right side of the road – a single line of townhouses – was all that stood between the penned-in crowd and the growing blaze. A few water-carts would not stop its spread. In five minutes the street would be a deathtrap.
    Black-jacketed lancers blocked the road. Beyond the lancers came the water-carts. Suddenly a wave of shrieking rose from the rear of the crowd. The fire had reached the townhouses. The mob swelled into the cordon of horsemen. Svenson stumbled to one knee.
    ‘Back, damn you!’ roared a sergeant of lancers, as if his throat were boiled leather. ‘If these carts don’t pass the entire district will burn! Once they pass you can go on!’
    His voice was strong, and might have swayed the crowd if not for another eruption from the Institute. The sky bloomed to a rolling orange ball, showering the street with debris. The crowd surged without care into the horsemen. The Sergeant danced his horse away, but the troopers lacked his skill. Fearing for their lives, the lancers dipped their bloody points into the churning mob. People fell screaming – as those behind them screamed at debris and flame. A horse went down with a spastic thrashing of hooves, its rider pinned. The cordon broke and the terrified mass poured blindly through. In front of Svenson an elderly man fell and tried to rise – blood on his brow, pomaded hair flapping like a dove’s broken wing – but his leather shoes slipped on the stones and he disappeared. For an instant the crowd parted around the obstruction – those who had seen him fall did their best to step clear, but those who had not tumbled heedlessly through the opening: a last ripple and he was gone.
    Svenson ran as he never had in his life, past struggling horsemen, around an overturned water-cart, careening from the frenzy. He’d been kicked in the back, struck across the face and nearly skewered. He stood gasping with his back against a tattered sapling, upright in an otherwise trampled garden. The fire had entirely possessed the first line of houses and would certainly jump the road. Huddled shapes littered the street. Scavengers searched pockets and gathered trinkets and cutlery abandoned by the fallen and the fled.
    The stitch in his rib sent a line of pain all the way to Svenson’s jaw. He pulled Francesca tighter to his chest and did his awkward best to chafe the circulation in her limbs. Her breath came thick with congestion.
    ‘Not much longer, my dear. The green guardhouse door and then hot tea and a bath – and tobacco for me, by God.’
    The girl’s hair stuck to her brow, curled with sweat and grime. He jogged her gently, hoping for a response. She blinked, the blue of her eyes clouded with an opaque film.
    ‘You did very well, sweetheart – just wait until we tell the Contessa –’
    A fresh chorus of trumpets. The lancers returning for more blood. He hurried in the opposite direction and, like a message from heaven, there was the signpost for Aachen Street.
    ‘Thank goodness – sweet Christ, thank goodness –’
    At a clatter of boots, Svenson stopped short. The Old Palace was untouched by the fire, but the guardhouse was smashed and the front of the brothel yawned wide. The garden was littered with debris, and as he stared, stupid with fatigue, two soldiers emerged lugging a wooden chest from Madelaine Kraft’s office. Behind came two more, driving a gang of frightened women whose attire seemed as ill placed in the open air as a powdered wig in a poor house. Bronque’s men had sacked the Old Palace as if it were their prize.
    The Doctor turned to flee – if he could find Mahmoud and Mrs Kraft, if they had not been taken – but a firm hand shoved him into the iron fence. A burly corporal smiled grimly, his musket-butt ready to smash the Doctor’s face.
    ‘For God’s sake,’ gasped Svenson. ‘I have a child –’
    ‘Hold! Hold there!’
    An officer stood across the road, where Bronque’s men formed a cordon.
    ‘His uniform, ass!’ shouted the officer. ‘That’s the Colonel’s German! Get him in the wagon –
now
!’
    Before Svenson could address the officer, the Corporal heaved him into a panelled goods wagon. He landed awkwardly on his side, rolling to protect the girl, and just pulled his legs free of the slamming door. A rattle of iron caused the Doctor to start. Chained to the opposite bench – bloody, bruised and brutally gagged – sat Mr Gorine.
    Svenson reached across for the gag, but paused when he noticed