The Glass Books of the Dream Eaters

favor of drinking schnapps and discussing markets and tariffs, as Roger had assured her they would. Reasoning that the gallery would not mind another such visit of ill-attention, she pulled Svenson and Chang into the outer lobby to speak to the attending gallery agent. She explained in a low tone that she had been part of the Austrian party and here brought a representative of the Macklenburg court, in search of wedding presents for his Prince—a figure of
taste
—surely the man had heard of the impending match? He nodded importantly that he had. The man’s gaze drifted to Chang and Miss Temple noted with some tact that her second companion was also an
artist,
much impressed with Mr. Veilandt’s reputation as a
provocateur
. The agent nodded in sympathy and ushered them into the main viewing room, delicately slipping a brochure with printed prices and titles into the hands of Doctor Svenson.
    The paintings were as she remembered them: large, lurid oils depicting in an almost obscenely deliberate manner incidents of doubt and temptation from the lives of saints, each chosen for its thoroughly unwholesome spectacle. Indeed, without the establishing context within each composition of the single figure with a halo, the collection of canvases created a pure pageant of decadence. While Miss Temple perceived how the artist used the veil of the sacred to indulge his taste for the depraved, she was not sure whether, on a level deeper than cynical cleverness, the paintings were not more truthful than was ever intended. Indeed, when she had first seen them, among the throng of self-important financiers, her dismay had been not with the profligate and blasphemous carnality but, on the contrary, the precarious isolation, the barely persuasive presence, of virtue. Miss Temple led her companions down the length of the gallery, away from the agent.

    “Good Lord,” whispered Doctor Svenson. He peered at the small card to the side of a largely orange canvas whose figures seemed to slither from the surface fully fleshed into the air around them.
“St. Rowena and the Viking Raiders,”
he read, and turned up to the face that could perhaps charitably be said to be glowing with religious fervor. “Good
Lord
.”
    Chang was silent, but equally transfixed, his expression unreadable behind the smoked-glass lenses. Miss Temple spoke in a low tone, so as not to attract the agent.
    “So…now that we may speak without concern…”
    “The Blissful Fortitude of St. Jasper,”
read the Doctor, glancing up at a canvas on the other wall. “Are those
pig snouts
?”
    She cleared her throat. They turned to her, slightly abashed.
    “Good Lord, Miss Temple,” said Svenson, “these paintings do not take you aback?”
    “In fact they do, yet I have already seen them. I had thought, since we have already shared the blue cards, we could weather their challenge.”
    “Yes—yes, I see,” said Svenson, at once even more obviously awkward. “The gallery is certainly empty. And convenient.”
    Chang did not offer any opinion on the place or the paintings of Mr. Veilandt, but merely smiled—once more rather wolfishly, it seemed.
    “My own idea…,” began Miss Temple. “You
did
look at the glass cards, Cardinal?”
    “I did.” The man was positively
leering
.
    “Well, in the one with Roger Bascombe—and myself—” She stopped and frowned, gathering her thoughts—there were too many at wing inside her brain. “What I am trying to decide is where we ought to next direct our efforts, and most importantly whether it is best for us to remain together or if the work is more effectively accomplished in different directions.”
    “You mentioned the
card
?” prompted Chang.
    “Because it showed the country house of Roger’s uncle, Lord Tarr, and some kind of quarry—”
    “Wait, wait,” Svenson broke in. “Francis Xonck, speaking of Bascombe’s inheritance…he referred to a substance called ‘indigo clay’—have you heard of it?”
    She shook her head. Chang shrugged.
    “Neither had I,” continued Svenson. “But he suggested that Bascombe would soon be the owner of a large deposit of the same. It has to be the quarry, which has to be on his uncle’s land.”
    “
His
land,” corrected Chang.
    Svenson nodded. “And my thought is that it may be vital to making their glass!”
    “Thus why Tarr was killed,” said Chang. “And why Bascombe was chosen. They seduce him to their cause, and then this indigo clay is under their