The Chemickal Marriage

if he was attempting to leave through the rear door.’
    Bronque’s voice deepened. ‘Are you saying he wasn’t? Wait a moment …’
    The Colonel slipped two gloved fingers into the messenger’s boot and came out with a folded square of paper. ‘A message, by God.’
    He handed the paper to Foison, who opened it for them all to see: a page torn from an old book, a woodcut depicting a muscular black man in a turban, with an axe. At his feet lay an open casket, a jewel box that contained a human heart. But the woodcut had been freshly amended by its sender: with the crude stroke of an ink pen the axeman’s eyes had been wholly covered by a thick black bar, like a blindfold.
    Bronque frowned at the corpse, as if to doubt such a message could have come from such a courier. ‘What can it mean?’
    ‘The Executioner,’ said Chang. ‘From
The Chemickal Marriage
.’
    ‘What does
that
mean?’ demanded Colonel Bronque.
    Foison sighed, almost sadly, and refolded the page. ‘That Drusus Schoepfil must die.’
    Foison sent another man into the night, this time on foot, with news of their discovery.
    ‘But what
have
we found?’ Bronque looked at them hopefully, then exhaled through his nose in the general direction of the corpse. ‘We can leave this lot here, and I’ll set my men to search the surrounding houses –’
    Foison shook his head. ‘You don’t have enough men both to search and to establish a cordon. Anyone wary, and they are, would escape. Of course, with the messenger unable to speak and the message so obscure, we do not even know if it was meant for Mrs Kraft.’
    ‘Who else?’
    ‘Drusus Schoepfil – his people passing on your threat, no doubt to advise surrender.’
    Bronque let this go. His men stood formed and ready. ‘Well, what next? Are we finished or aren’t we?’
    ‘Perhaps we are.’
    ‘Good.’ Bronque did not bother to hide his relief. ‘Where will you go? We can provide an escort –’
    ‘Cardinal Chang and I can make our own way.’
    ‘To Harschmort? On foot? It would take two days.’
    ‘Perhaps Stropping, and an east-bound train.’
    ‘Then let us walk together; Stropping Station is not so far from where Lord Axewith –’
    ‘That won’t be necessary.’
    ‘But what will I tell Lord Axewith?’
    ‘That we arrived too late. Our search was a fool’s errand – and now you are relieved of it. Best of luck in the night.’
    Foison flicked Chang’s chain and began to walk, his three remaining men trotting across the courtyard to join him. Chang looked over his shoulder. Framed first by his grenadiers and then by the disaffected crowds, Bronque watched them go, a statue in the torchlight.
    Around the first turn Foison stopped, listening. ‘Will he come?’
    ‘He must,’ Chang replied. ‘Once there are fewer witnesses.’
    They had entered a walled avenue offering little cover. Foison stepped behind Chang to unwrap the chain. ‘When did you know? Before the clumsy murder?’
    ‘The interrogation of Gorine.’
    ‘How so?’
    ‘Svenson. If he cured Madelaine Kraft, we ought to be looking for
him
. We aren’t – because someone already has him. And not Vandaariff, or you would know.’
    Foison coiled the chain into a loop he could carry, then thought better of it and threw it to the side. ‘Svenson could be dead.’
    ‘Then why not say so?’
    Foison set off without replying. Chang kept pace, rubbing his wrists. Two green-coats jogged before them, while the third hung back to guard the rear. At the cross street, the lead men paused, peering cautiously ahead. Foison and Chang stopped as well, waiting.
    ‘The message was for Bronque,’ Chang said, ‘commanding our deaths. The Executioner’s resemblance to Mahmoud was but a witty coincidence.’
    Foison sighed. ‘So Schoepfil was home when we called.’
    ‘Who else could send such a message to Bronque, one that he would follow?’
    ‘And if Madelaine Kraft was there as well – which would, as you say, inform the image – she is gone by now too.’
    ‘The real question is the extent to which your master’s been betrayed. Bronque has allied with Schoepfil – but who are they? Who pulls their strings – Axewith?’
    ‘It makes no sense,’ said Foison. ‘He owns them all.’
    The lead men waved them on, and they dashed across the open road. Once on the other side, the third man fell back and the lead two loped ahead.
    Chang was aware of his own place in Foison’s catalogue of men-as-property, yet