The Chemickal Marriage

Contessa.
    ‘Should be Rome. One prefers Italians with
pedigree
.’
    The Duchess cleared her throat. ‘Lord Axewith waits, Your Majesty, for your seal. Lord Vandaariff is insistent, given the popular crisis –’
    ‘Popular does not
last
.’
    ‘No, Majesty. But Lord Vandaariff has made a most generous guarantee –’
    ‘
Lord Axewith can wait
.’ The Queen shifted on the submerged throne, slopping the water over her arms and draping her voice in a fuller malevolence. ‘What do you
want
?’
    The Contessa blinked her violet eyes. ‘Why, nothing at all, ma’am.’
    ‘Then you waste your time as well as mine! Lady Axewith shall no longer be admitted! Hellfire, Poppy, if every trivial foreign person –’
    ‘Beg pardon, ma’am. I have come not for myself, but for
you
.’
    At the Contessa’s interruption the Queen’s expression became fierce. Her wide mouth snapped like a pug’s. ‘You – you – this –
Poppy
–’
    Steam rose up around the Contessa’s placid face. ‘My
errand
concerns Your Majesty’s late brother.’
    ‘
All my brothers are late!
’ the Queen replied in a roar.
    ‘The Duke of Stäelmaere, Your Majesty, who was Privy Minister.’
    The Queen snorted suddenly, noting the Contessa’s beauty as if it were an unpleasant odour. She waggled her over-fleshed throat. ‘And one supposes you
knew
him.’
    ‘Indeed, no, ma’am. The Duke had meagre use for any woman.’
    ‘Then what?’
    ‘Surely Majesty … you have heard rumours of the
irregular
nature of the Duke’s passing.’
    Moisture had pearled across the Contessa’s upper lip. The Duchess was poised to end the audience. The Queen wriggled her nose, then turned for an attendant to wipe it.
    ‘Perhaps I have. Who is
she
?’
    Miss Temple felt every eye around the pool fall upon her.
    ‘Miss Celestial Temple,’ repeated the Duchess.
    ‘Ridiculous. Name for a Chinaman. Girl should be ashamed.’
    The Contessa slid forward. ‘Your Majesty should know that the Duke, your brother, learnt of a plot against Your Majesty’s health. Naturally he moved to expose it.’
    Miss Temple knew this to be an arrant lie.
    The Queen glowered. The whispers around the pool hushed. The Contessa continued.
    ‘Your brother’s death was an act of murder, Your Majesty, of the highest treason. And now others taken into the Duke’s confidence have been attacked. Lord Pont-Joule, murdered yesterday.
Inside
the Palace.’
    The Queen’s voice fell to a throaty amphibian quaver. ‘My Pont-Joule? No one has said!’
    ‘I did not wish to disturb Your Majesty,’ began the Duchess, ‘on the advice –’
    ‘Of Lord
Axewith
.’ The Contessa shook her head knowingly. ‘Whoof course acts on the advice of Lord Vandaariff.
Lady
Axewith – who has been so kind to me – was another secret ally of the Duke. Her own sudden illness – for illness it
seems
–’
    ‘I have heard of no illness! Lady Axewith?’
    ‘Victim to the same poison that slew the Duke. But the good woman had the wit to understand the attack upon her for what it was, an attack upon the
state
.’
    The whispers around the pool boiled into an urgent nattering. The Duchess cried out and splashed for quiet. In the turmoil the Contessa’s hidden foot hooked Miss Temple’s knee and drew her closer to the Queen.
    ‘Majesty, I am dispatched to bring the only proof Lady Axewith could find. Celeste, tell Her Majesty what you know.’
    Miss Temple had no idea what the Contessa desired her to say.
    ‘Is the girl simple?’ asked the Queen.
    ‘Only frightened, ma’am.’ The Contessa’s hand slipped unseen to Miss Temple’s waist, stroking gently. ‘The
Duke
, Celeste. The Duke and the
mirrored room
.’
    Miss Temple felt her throat clench as a memory rose up whole.
    The Duke of Stäelmaere’s recruitment by the Cabal had been planned to every degree, exploiting the cruelty for which the Duke was famous. Stäelmaere had duly arrived at Harschmort House and been taken by the Comte d’Orkancz to a secret viewing room. Hidden behind a wall of Dutch glass he had watched Lord Robert Vandaariff receive an apparently endless line of peers, industrialists, clerics and diplomats – all pledging their fealty in the case of an imminent, but unnamed, national crisis. Persuaded by the grovelling of such impressive minions, His Grace had joined the conspiracy, and soon after journeyed to Tarr Manor for a first-hand look at the glories of indigo clay – an expedition that had ended instead