The Chemickal Marriage

myself.’
    Schoepfil smiled. ‘You would not have!’
    ‘I would have very well,’ replied Svenson testily. ‘But for the same reason you keep me – that you may prove of use. Another man would have spattered your brains –’
    But Schoepfil had already burst into laughter. ‘I be of use to
you
! O that is
prime
!’ Schoepfil drummed a hand on his knee. ‘You will be lucky to avoid the scaffold!’
    The Doctor tapped his ash onto the floor, loathing the man, and even more the truth in his words. For a blessed moment Schoepfil did not speak. Svenson allowed his mind to touch upon the painful day he and Phelps had returned to Parchfeldt … the air wind-kissed, the clouds blooming white. He was no stranger to death. The medical habit of distance had run deep enough to let him search through the woods, and to at last identify the bundle of limbs – taken first for weather-beaten twigs – and the colour of the tattered dress she’d worn. Phelps had hung back with a handkerchief to his face, but Doctor Svenson could not. His hand had gently turned the corpse’s face, no longer Elöise, and, yet, he could not un-see her, still the woman he’d loved in all her ruined parts. The gaping, gummy crease from the Contessa’s blade, blackened with long-dried blood. The eyes cruelly sunken, glazed pale as milk. Her fingers in the grass, always so thin, now grey at the tips, puffed with bloat, foreign. He had spread the tarpaulin and so very tenderly eased her onto it, turning his eyes from the flattened earth where she had lain, the insects and worms writhing at the sudden light.
    It is an illusion that we are not such objects while we still live, the Doctor had told himself. And in the time since, while Elöise mouldered in the garden of her uncle’s cottage, where had time carried him – what achievement lay in his staying alive?
    Small gestures with Phelps and Cunsher, meagre checks against their enemies. Preserving Celeste Temple’s life, and Chang’s – for a time. And hisown animal resurgence – the compulsion of
life
– had come at the provocation of an outright monster. Could there be any stronger proof of an indiscriminate world?
    He groped for the red metal tin. ‘I assume we approach Harschmort by the canal? Timed to coincide with the Colonel’s arrival at the gate?’
    ‘O more than
that
, Doctor.’
    Svenson sighed, then asked, as was expected. ‘How so?’
    Schoepfil snapped the box shut and set it aside. ‘I do not expect to be
alone
.’
    They disembarked at the Orange Canal Station with two grenadiers, the last of Bronque’s men, not a single other soul to be seen. The Doctor inhaled the salt tang of the sea.
    ‘I thought we would be joined.’
    ‘Not
here
, Doctor. We must to the canal.’
    So rapid was Schoepfil’s pace that Svenson and the grenadiers were forced into an awkward trot. The Doctor addressed them as they ran.
    ‘Despite your orders, I wish to be civil – there is no telling what difficulties may drive us together. I am Captain-Surgeon Svenson of the Macklenburg Navy.’
    Neither soldier spoke, so Svenson bent to the nearest, stripes on his sleeve. ‘Sergeant of grenadiers is no small achievement. Had I a hat, I would touch it to you.’
    At this the tall sergeant smiled. ‘Barlew, sir, sergeant these two years. This is Poggs. You don’t want to cross Private Poggs.’
    Svenson spoke across Barlew to Poggs, with a respectful gravity. ‘I’m sure I do not. But I am more concerned with your own safeties.’
    ‘Not to worry, sir,’ said Barlew. ‘But very good of you.’
    They nearly collided with Schoepfil when the man suddenly stopped. Sergeant Barlew muttered an apology but Schoepfil hissed him to silence, peering around him in the gloom. Svenson saw nothing and heard only the wind. Schoepfil flexed his hands, as if stroking the air for scent. He whispered to the soldiers, ‘One of you stay here. Wait five minutes, then catch up to us. Be careful. Keep your guard.
Come
.’
    Trooper Poggs diligently stepped aside and the others hurried on until the dunes were replaced by the shining surface of the Orange Canal. Its walkways were empty, with not even a watchman’s lantern. Schoepfil pointed away to a glow across the grass.
    ‘Harschmort.’
    Svenson turned to the canal. ‘But is
this
not where we expect whoever will join us?’
    ‘Be patient, Doctor. Who is this?’
    Schoepfil darted to the side with astonishing speed. Footfalls came towards them from the