The Chemickal Marriage

uncomfortable, Doctor?’
    ‘He drank two mugs of beer,’ said Mr Kelling. ‘The guard confessed it.’
    ‘I do not enjoy beer,’ observed Schoepfil in a tone that made clear, in the imminent domain of Schoepfil, no one else would either. ‘A peasant’s beverage.’
    ‘Peasants also drink wine,’ said Svenson. ‘And make brandy.’
    ‘Nonsense.’ Schoepfil returned his nose to a battered notebook. ‘
Stuff
.’
    The coach reached Schoepfil’s home, passing through a cordon of militia. Schoepfil left the box for Kelling, who in turn heaved it into the arms of the first serving man they met. Svenson came last, and was commanded to wait in the main parlour.
    ‘Would you, or any of your people, have tobacco?’
    ‘Tobacco stains the teeth,’ replied Schoepfil. ‘Just look at yours!’
    A traditionally dressed serving man, in a grey-striped jacket and gloves, eased into his master’s range of vision.
    ‘What can it be
now
, Danby?’
    ‘Callers, sir. They insisted on being seen.’
    ‘
Insist?
’
    ‘An unusual pair of persons, Mr Schoepfil. The lady is most demanding, claiming that you
need
to see her. I have allowed them to
wait
.’
    ‘A lady and a younger man?’ asked Svenson. ‘He darker than her?’
    ‘Yes, sir.’
    Schoepfil snapped his fingers in Danby’s face as he marched away. ‘He is not a
sir
. He is no one.
Need
, do I? We shall see. Kelling – everything for transport!’
    Servants piled up more boxes taken from an inner room. When Schoepfil reappeared, all smiles, it was with Madelaine Kraft and Mahmoud. Doctor Svenson rose. Schoepfil ignored him.
    ‘If there was but time!’ He prised the lid off a box and peered inside. ‘O yes – you will enjoy this!’
    He offered a square of parchment to Mrs Kraft. Svenson met the eyes of Mahmoud, but the dark man’s face was impassive.
    ‘A woodcut,
aus dem Rheinland
, only one other copy, and that owned by my uncle! From the fourth day of the narrative.
Extremely
rare. The
Executioner
.’
    Mrs Kraft nodded appreciatively, passed the page to Mahmoud. ‘And how did you come to share your uncle’s interest?’
    ‘Let us say I follow the wind,’ said Schoepfil. ‘You know Doctor Svenson, I believe? One
might
say you were in his debt.’
    ‘One might.’
    ‘He is my captive. If either of you makes a single gesture of
aid
our bargain is null. If you wish to reach Harschmort, you will submit to my management in this and all things.’
    ‘The girl died,’ Doctor Svenson told them. ‘Bronque stripped the Old Palace to its nails. Michel Gorine is their prisoner. This man, with whom youally, has destroyed your livelihood and scattered your people to the law, or worse.’
    Schoepfil raised both hands as if to take hold of Svenson’s throat. The butler in the grey-striped jacket stopped him with a cough.
    ‘Christ alive, what
is
it, Danby!’
    ‘Men at the door, sir. And soldiers surrounding the house, sir. Grenadiers.’
    ‘Grenadiers, you say?’
    ‘Also members of an irregular unit, sir, in
green
.’
    With an exaggerated care Schoepfil tiptoed to a latticed Chinese screen and put his face to a viewing-hole. At his signal Danby answered the door. Madelaine Kraft joined Schoepfil at the screen. He made room with a scowl.
    It took a moment for Svenson to place the voice at the door: Vandaariff’s white-haired captain, whose request for Schoepfil was deflected with a lie. Then a second voice, hard and loud, Colonel Bronque …
    Svenson leant close to Mahmoud. ‘They beat him very badly. Bronque himself.’
    The door was closed and Schoepfil skipped from the screen to the shutters, watching his visitors go down the stairs.
    ‘Who was there?’ Mahmoud asked.
    ‘My uncle’s man, Foison,’ replied Schoepfil. ‘Ghastly fellow.’
    ‘And Colonel Bronque?’
    ‘O yes. Bronque slipped in that they search for you, they
know
. We must buy time. Danby – I’ll need a messenger, no one
wheezy
.’
    ‘And Cardinal Chang,’ observed Madelaine Kraft. ‘In chains.’
    Mahmoud frowned. ‘I thought Chang was dead.’
    ‘No one dies when they ought to,’ said Schoepfil, ‘uncles least of all. So
that
was Cardinal Chang? Provocative …’ He took the woodcut print from Mahmoud, and chuckled. ‘Yes, this will do perfectly.’
    Mr Kelling stood ready with pen and ink. Schoepfil dipped the nib and scratched a careful line across the woodcut.
    ‘What is that?’ asked Mrs Kraft.
    ‘A message, of course. And misdirection