The Chemickal Marriage

the explosion. Their injuries were more cruel: suffered at the hands of comrades deranged by glass spurs. How many of their own had they been forced to put down like rabid dogs? A deadly bitterness constricted every face.
    In front of the ragged column – Chang counted thirty men – marchedColonel Bronque, bareheaded, gold brucade in tatters, left arm in a sling, singing louder than anyone. Bringing up the rear came the wagon, with Mrs Kraft, Mahmoud and Kelling. Chang ducked away from Mahmoud’s higher vantage, and waited a full minute before risking another look. The column had passed like a funeral cortège into the darkness, the death song’s echo like a trail of black crêpe.
    Chang restored his glasses. ‘We can follow at a distance on the road, but risk being caught up in their collision with Vandaariff.’
    ‘Likely another blast,’ said Cunsher.
    ‘They’re going to die,’ said Gorine miserably. ‘Every one of them.’
    ‘Or we continue over open ground,’ Chang continued. ‘Easy enough to walk, but the closer we come to Harschmort the more dangerous it will be. In the past, the grounds were salted with steel traps.’
    ‘
Traps?
’ Trooste looked at the grass around him with an appalled suspicion.
    Chang patted the Professor’s knee. ‘That would snap the leg off a bear.’
    ‘We are caught between,’ said Cunsher, ‘while Vandaariff waits, a worm in its cave. The key element is
time
. He cannot wait for long. He needs you, Miss Temple, perhaps others.’
    ‘Worm?’ protested Gorine. ‘He is rather more than that!’
    ‘My apologies,’ said Cunsher. ‘I select the wrong word. Not worm, but
dragon
.’
    ‘I see, yes, lovely.’ Gorine frowned. ‘But what does he intend?’
    Chang tapped Trooste with the toe of his boot. ‘Professor?’
    Trooste sighed. ‘He is dying. And believes he does not have to.’ He gestured to Cardinal Chang, but thought better of saying more. ‘In any event – he has made
plans
.’
    ‘Like the Comte with Angelique,’ said Gorine bitterly.
    ‘And what do you know about that?’ asked Chang, deadly cold.
    Gorine shook his head. ‘I
don’t
. I swear to you. Mrs Kraft drove us from the room. But she and the Comte bargained for an hour, and then she gave him the Oyster.’ Gorine saw their looks of incomprehension. ‘The Oyster
Room
. Reserved for the highest quality – everything laid on, the most luxurious single chamber for a hundred miles.’
    ‘But she didn’t trust the Comte,’ said Chang. ‘Why show him that kind of favour?’
    ‘He has already said,’ said Cunsher. ‘A room for the highest quality – kings, ministers, generals. It thus follows that clients were given this Oyster Room only to be
observed
by Mrs Kraft herself. And there her secret lies.’
    The Comte d’Orkancz had been unable to avoid a simple sabre blade, and Robert Vandaariff would fall the same way if Chang could get near enough to land the blow. The larger task was not so clear. While the Comte had been the only soul in the airship with any understanding of indigo clay, now there were too many others – Trooste, Schoepfil, Kraft, even Svenson and, with her corrupted mind, Miss Temple. Must they all perish too?
    Chang paused at the crest of a dune, saying nothing until Trooste, lagging and out of breath, reached the top. Chang extended an arm to the low line of lights. Originally constructed as the Queen’s prison, Harschmort House was a large horseshoe-shaped structure, only three storeys tall but stretching from end to end as far as a parade ground. The flagged courtyard and forbidding gates looked north. The rear of the house, a hollow around which both wings curled (once an ornamental garden, since destroyed by the implosion of the dungeons beneath), faced south to the sea. To the east lay the terminal spur of the Orange Canal. The western approach, where they now stood, offered only dunes and fen.
    ‘Surely Bronque has reached the gates,’ said Gorine. ‘We should hear shots.’
    ‘I agree,’ said Chang. ‘One way or another.’
    ‘What of these
traps
?’ asked Trooste.
    ‘We send the least essential man to test the way.’ Chang smiled over his shoulder at Gorine. ‘Since you failed to convince Mrs Kraft, the honour is yours.’
    ‘Good God!’ cried Trooste. ‘Do not joke of such things.’
    ‘He isn’t,’ muttered Gorine. ‘In the past I have not been Cardinal Chang’s good friend.’
    Chang ignored this confession and pointed ahead: