The Chemickal Marriage

you to hell, Celeste Temple, put that
down
.’
    ‘Tell me what’s in it or I’ll throw it overboard.’
    ‘You would not. You would not be so
stupid
– O damn you. It is a liquid you have seen before, derived from something called bloodstone. It is orange, and in most instances
very
harmful.’
    ‘In all three bottles?’
    ‘All three, you little pig.’
    Miss Temple leant into the hamper. The open space inside showed a glimpse of blue beneath the bottles. The glass book the Contessa had taken from Parchfeldt. The book that held the corrupted essence of the Comte d’Orkancz. Miss Temple replaced the bottle.
    ‘I am
not
a pig. But I would have thrown it.’
    ‘Of course you would have.’
    ‘As long as we know each other,’ said Miss Temple.
    The rest of their journey passed in silence, Miss Temple brooding again, bitter that, with the exception of some sofa-bound groping with Roger Bascombe, which she dismissed, and a single misguided kiss at Parchfeldt, her body’s charms had been sampled only by the worst of people. Kings and mistresses were nonsense, she knew full well. Most people made horrid marriages, mismatches of beauty and temper that only provoked a person to imagine the couple conjoined, as one hearing of an accident imagined the wounds. Was it so strange that her legitimate affection – if any such thing existed, and this was, the more she thought, the exact matter for doubt – had settled on a man such as Chang, suspect and unpresentable in every way?
    She glanced back. Earlier, when the Contessa had stepped into her shift, a new scar, on her thigh, had come into view, a knife-cut by Miss Temple’s own hand from their fight at Parchfeldt. She remembered the other scar across the Contessa’s shoulder, from a train window in Karthe. No doubt there were more – no doubt there were scars
within
– and she wondered atthe woman’s continuing beauty. How long would it last? Would some rash plan finally be met with disfigurement or death? She thought of Chang’s face – did not the Contessa deserve the same? Did not Miss Temple herself?
    How – and, honestly, why – could the woman so
persist
?
    ‘You said before we’d swim again,’ she called. ‘Does that mean you’ve lied and you
do
know where we’ll go?’
    ‘Eyes ahead, Celeste. We ought to be near.’
    ‘How do you
know
?’
    ‘Eyes
ahead
, Celeste. I cannot see past you.’
    Miss Temple turned, pleased to have pricked another nerve, then sat up straight.
    ‘
Celeste!
You cannot just
move
–’
    ‘Do you hear the water? Listen! The sound has changed.’
    The channel had gone glassy calm, but, as their circle of light reached out, Miss Temple detected a shadow, an oddly shaped depression pointing
down
. She frantically waved her arm. ‘To the left, quickly!’
    The Contessa pulled on the tiller and the skiff shot to the side, but not before the stern crossed into the glassy oval. Their motion was checked. They were being pulled.
    ‘It’s sucking the water down!’ cried Miss Temple. ‘Like the drain in a tub!’
    ‘The pole, Celeste! Use the damned pole!’
    Miss Temple plunged the pole into the water to try to push them away but found no bottom to push against.
    ‘The
landing
!’
    The Contessa strained on the tiller as the skiff spun stern-first towards the sink-hole in the centre of the pool. For it
was
a pool, Miss Temple now saw, flowing underground instead of further on. She stabbed at a piling with the hooked end of the pole – she had not actually believed the thick hook was for fish – and it caught fast, then she squealed as the weight of the skiff nearly tore it from her gasp.
    ‘Hold on! Just a moment …
there
!’
    The skiff swung to the landing wall. The Contessa looped a rope around a rusted stanchion and tied it off.
    ‘You can let go.’
    Miss Temple sat back and shook her fingers. ‘How do you know about boats?’
    ‘I am a Venetian.’
    ‘And I’m from an island. Ladies don’t sail boats.’
    ‘Then
ladies
should be careful getting out, because if they fall in they’ll get sucked down into the gears.’
    Miss Temple again bore the hamper while the Contessa kept the leather case and the candle-box from the skiff. Harschmort’s platform was littered with broken masonry.
    ‘It does not seem as if Robert Vandaariff knew about this landing at all.’
    ‘No,’ agreed the Contessa. ‘Perhaps it wasn’t on the plans …’
    ‘How can something
built
not be on the
plans
?’
    ‘Celeste,