The Chemickal Marriage

fields from heatstroke. She had stood over the body with a gang of housegirls, everyone wondering what could have taken the woman so far from the great house. Mrs Kallack’s fingers were red with the clay of the sugar fields, as if she had clawed in the dirt before death, and her false front teeth had come loose in her mouth. One of the housegirls had laughed aloud, and Miss Temple – understanding for perhaps the first time the responsibilities of her station – had kicked the housegirl’s shin. Before the young woman could do anything in return – and, luckily, for if she had, it would have meant the skin off her back – her father’s overseer arrived with the wagon.
    She wondered how Francesca Trapping carried the indigestible knot of her parents’ murders. Miss Temple knew she ought to take her hand – especially since Doctor Svenson had all but shut his eyes as they climbed, gripping the rail – but she did not. The child made her angry.
    At the top of the staircase they found another metal door, fastened with heavy chain looped round an iron hasp. As they passed through, Chang plucked a tuft of fabric snagged on the hasp’s ragged edge: a scrap of wool the colour of an overripened peach. He showed it to Francesca.
    ‘I don’t suppose you’ve ever seen this before?’
    She shook her head. Chang flipped the fabric to Miss Temple.
    ‘What is it?’ asked Svenson.
    ‘Ask
them
.’ Chang stood and walked on.
    ‘It belongs to Jack Pfaff,’ Miss Temple said, and then called at Chang’s receding back, ‘He was charged to investigate the glass – this only suggests he was successful. You are determined to mistrust him!’ She held up the scrap of cloth. ‘Here is welcome news! Jack Pfaff – in
my
employ – may even now have her at bay!’
    Chang turned to face her. ‘And where would that be?’
    ‘How should I know? I do not even know where we are!’
    ‘We are on the Contessa’s errand,’ said Doctor Svenson flatly. ‘The Contessa charged Francesca to lead me to a certain place –’
    ‘Then why won’t she tell us where?’ asked Chang.
    ‘Because I would guess she doesn’t know the name. Do you, child?’ Francesca shook her head. ‘No,’ continued Svenson, ‘the only way is to get there. The Contessa is nothing if not mercurial – yet perhaps Mr Pfaff has managed to best her after all.’
    ‘Did you
see
Mr Pfaff?’ Miss Temple asked the girl. ‘What did he do?’
    ‘I can’t say,’ Francesca replied. ‘When he was there she put me in the cupboard.’
    The brick passage echoed with a gust of cold wind. Chang crept ahead to an open arch, then waved them forward.
    ‘We’ve reached the bridge from the northern piling,’ he whispered.
    Miss Temple clapped a hand across her mouth. ‘The entire bridge is swarming with soldiers!’
    ‘Not only the bridge.’ At Chang’s silent indication she saw the dockside was ringed by soldiers in torchlight. On the river lay ships moored out in the channel, and on their decks stood more men in uniform.
    ‘Then it has begun,’ said Svenson. ‘Harcourt authorized property seizures across the land, for the public good.’
    ‘Are the people taken as well?’ asked Chang. ‘Earlier this evening the riverside was thronged with the dispossessed.’
    ‘Perhaps they went to the square,’ suggested Svenson.
    ‘Not so many – every damned street was crawling.’
    Whatever Chang had seen before, the cobbled riverfront was as well ordered as a military parade ground. Miss Temple picked out officers on horseback, troops mustered into line. The bridge itself bore a cordon at each end, limiting traffic – those few allowed to cross did so between uniformed escorts. Chang spoke to Francesca.
    ‘If we are seen by the soldiers, we will be captured, and
he
’ – Chang nodded to Svenson – ‘for he has made havoc in the Palace, will be shot. Which direction do we go?’
    Francesca pointed to the nearer end of the bridge, back at the heart of the city.
    Chang stood. ‘Doctor, if you would pass me the lantern.’
    ‘Will it not be seen?’
    ‘Indeed, but there is seen and
seen
, you know.’
    They crept after Chang onto the bridge proper. He pointed to a railing ten feet away.
    ‘Go now – as quick as you can, over the side – Celeste, you first.’
    Miss Temple did not like to baulk – she knew Chang had chosen her to lead only because he could not ask the height-stricken Doctor or a seven-year-old-girl – but neither did she relish