The Chemickal Marriage

Thermæ. But Miss Temple darted to it, her business unfinished.
    With the exception of her proper Aunt Agathe, Miss Temple had never met anyone who held the old Queen in the slightest regard. The image of Lord Axewith waiting in the mouldy vestibule spoke to how rarely the mechanics of government ever touched the monarch, and Miss Temple wondered at all the ladies in the baths – how their ambitions were tied to a sinking ship, how they must
know
this perfectly well. What kept them in such close attendance – Miss Temple shuddered anew to recall the Queen’s skin – was it actual loyalty, or had they wagered all to extract a crumb of favour from the doomed woman’s final testament? Miss Temple knew very little about the Crown Prince – only that he was becalmed in a lax sixth decade amongst actresses and wine – but guessed that he too carried a penumbra of hangers-on and hopefuls. No wonder active men like Harald Crabbé and Robert Vandaariff could manipulate the mighty with such ease, and with such relative anonymity. The courtiers they would formerly have served had exchanged actual accomplishment for comfort and prestige.
    All of which was only to clarify Miss Temple’s position. If she were a man, all she would have required to brazen any corridor was a Ministry topcoat and a scowl. For a woman, it was more difficult. She was in less danger of being named as a fugitive than of being cast out for inferior
couture
.
    She followed the sound of water to a bustling laundry room, where harried, red-faced women stirred steaming tubs, and others wrung out linensand hung them to dry. Miss Temple emerged with a stack of fresh towels, hoping they would proclaim a legitimate errand. Managing several corridors without being challenged, she steeled herself to stop a young maid, who carried a covered tray.
    ‘I beg your pardon. I am looking for Mr Schoepfil.’
    The maid apologized for not knowing the gentleman.
    ‘He may be with Colonel Bronque.’
    Again the maid knew nothing. Miss Temple waited for a pair of older ladies to pass, aware of the maid’s discomfort in their presence.
    ‘They will be in their own part of the house, near the hall of mirrors,’ she explained. ‘I do not expect anyone else is allowed.’
    The maid’s mouth formed a knowing O. ‘Is it … the
lady
?’
    ‘It
is
,’ Miss Temple confided. ‘And she needs these towels
directly
.’
    Rather proud of herself, Miss Temple followed the maid’s directions, which happily took her to another servant’s corridor, past locked doors and covered eye-holes. When she reached the proper door – seventh after the turn, painted yellow – it was with satisfaction that she set down the towels and rose on her toes to peek.
    Mr Schoepfil sat at a table piled high with papers and books. The walls around him were covered with maps and charts, as well as three canvas squares of dense scrawls that, from a distance, formed pictures – flowers, a mask and two interlaced hands. Mr Schoepfil impatiently turned the pages of an ancient book until, not finding what he sought, the book was closed. The man held still, eyes shut, lips moving, as if in a private ritual of self-pacification … then he strode to the far door and made his exit. Miss Temple opened the servant’s panel and crept in.
    She went first to the far door and braced Schoepfil’s chair beneath the knob. Three days of leisure would not have been enough to plough through everything the small room held. Next to the books were printed pages – newspapers and journals in many languages – and great piles of handwritten notes. Of the latter, each stack represented a unique hand. She identified notes by Doctor Lorenz, others by Mr Gray, and Marcus Fochtmann. At least seven piles came from the Comte himself, notes and diagrams and indecipherable formulae. On the walls were maps of the Polksvarte District(Tarr Village and its quarry marked with pins), the Duchy of Macklenburg, the cities of Vienna and Cadiz, and finally an engineer’s plan of the Orange Canal. Opposite the maps hung a star chart: black parchment pricked with white paint to spell out constellations. Miss Temple had always intended to learn the stars – one spent enough time staring at them – but, as she never had, she continued to the three squares of scribbling she had glimpsed through the spy-hole.
    The back of her throat began to burn. The flowers were blue, the mask white, and of the two hands one was white, the other jet