‘Indeed, and the only reason the Herald printed the report was the rather large fire that consumed the entire city block, along with every piece of art in the salon. With regard to Veilandt’s œuvre, it was not seen as a loss.’ Cunsher’s puffed lip curled to a wry smile. ‘To the empire.’
Chang could not believe it. The painting was gone? What, then, was the point of the Contessa giving Svenson the glass card?
‘Do the others know?’ He shook his head, correcting himself. ‘Does Svenson?’
‘No, Mr Phelps told me as we walked to the fountain. Lord knows where the Doctor truly has been taken.’ Cunsher grimaced at his thumbnail, bruised purple, and brought it to his mouth to suck. ‘And conditions in the city?’
Chang’s reply was swallowed by an oath as the coach came to a sudden halt. He stuck his upper body out of the doorway. The street was a tangle of unmoving coaches. Trumpets clamoured ahead of them, followed by a menacing rush of drums and the crash of stamping boots. Chang ducked back inside, speaking urgently.
‘The Army holds the road – we should escape on foot, before there is violence.’ Chang leapt down, ignoring the protests of the driver, and extended a hand to Cunsher. ‘Can you walk?’
‘O yes, since I must. If we are blocked from above the Circus Garden, then this is … Moulting Lane? Just so – and if we keep to it as far as the canal –’
But Chang had already set off. The smaller man followed gamely, calling to Chang as they threaded a path through the debris.
‘The soldiers are not constables – that is, they do not think of suspects and disguises. The likes of us may escape notice.’
‘Unless they have been ordered to detain everyone,’ replied Chang. ‘You know full well how many of the men in your cell were innocent.’
Cunsher looked over his shoulder at another flourish from the trumpets. A gunshot cracked out, then a spatter of five more. Cunsher stumbled into a box of rotten cabbages and came to a stop. The next chorus of trumpets came laced with screams.
‘Dear God.’
Chang took Cunsher’s arm and hauled him on. ‘God is nowhere a part of it.’
The Duke’s Canal was a narrow channel of green water, so choked with bridges and scaffolding that it vanished for wide stretches, then tenaciously reappeared, like an elderly aunt determined to survive her younger relations. But the route was bereft of soldiers and, mindful of Cunsher’s weakness, Chang spared a moment for a nearby tavern. He bought them each a pint of bitter ale, and pickled eggs from a crock for Cunsher. The small man consumed his meal in silence, sipping the beer and chewing as steadily as a patient mule.
‘Were you at the cathedral?’
Chang turned to the tavern’s brick hearth, where a grizzled man in shirtsleeves sat with a serving woman. Chang nodded.
‘When will it be stopped?’ the woman asked. ‘Where is the Queen?’
‘Queen?’ The man rumbled. ‘Where’s the old Duke? He’s the one we need! He’d lay ’em down like mowing wheat – damned rebels.’
‘A mob went to Raaxfall,’ called the barman. ‘Burnt the place like a pyre.’
The pensioner at the hearth nodded with grim relish. ‘No more than they deserved.’
‘Were the rebels from Raaxfall?’ asked Chang.
‘Of course they were!’
‘And yet we are just come from the Circus Garden,’ said Chang. ‘No one from Raaxfall in sight. Soldiers are shooting folk in the street.’
‘Rebels in the Circus Garden?’ piped the girl.
‘Dig ’em out!’ The old man slammed his tankard onto the bench, so the foam slopped over his hand. ‘Right into the grave!’
Chang took a pull at his mug. ‘And what if they come here?’
‘They won’t.’
‘But if they do?’
The old man pointed at two rust-flecked sabres over the hearth. ‘We’ll have at ’em.’
‘Before or after the soldiers burn the entire street?’
The mood in the tavern went cold in an instant. Chang set down his mug and stood. ‘The Duke of Stäelmaere has been dead these two months.’
‘How do you know that?’ called the barman.
‘I saw his rotting corpse.’
‘By God – you’ll speak with respect!’ The old man rose to his feet.
‘There’s been no announcement,’ said the girl. ‘No funeral –’
‘Where are the funerals for the dead in the Customs House?’
‘What kind of priest are you?’ growled the barman.
‘No kind of priest at all.’
The barman stepped back nervously. Cunsher cleared his throat. He had finished the third egg. Chang set two coins on the counter, and flipped a third to the serving girl on his way to the door.
‘If you cannot see who you are fighting, then you ought to run.’
‘I see no use in scaring these people,’ Cunsher observed as they continued along the canal. ‘Does one blame sheep for their shyness?’
‘If the sheep is a man, I do.’
Cunsher scratched his moustache with a forefinger. ‘And if they did rise, like the mob that burnt Raaxfall – would you not despise them just the same?’
They walked on. Chang felt the man’s eyes.
‘What is it?’
‘Your pardon. The scars are extraordinary. How are you not blind?’
‘A gentle nature preserved me.’
‘Everyone is very curious to know what happened. Doctor Svenson and Mr Phelps discussed the matter one evening, in medical terms –’ At Chang’s silence Cunsher caught himself and bobbed a mute apology. ‘You are perhaps curious about my own history. The facts of exile, life left behind –’
‘No.’
‘No doubt it is a commonplace. How many souls does each of us preserve in memory? And when we pass, how many pass with us, remembered no more?’
‘I have no idea,’ Chang replied crisply. ‘What do you know of the Contessa’s patron in the Palace, Sophia of Strackenz?’
Cunsher nodded at the shift in conversation. ‘Another commonplace. An impoverished exile with the poor taste to have become unattractive.’
‘Nothing more?’
‘The Princess is insipid to an exceptional degree.’
Chang frowned. ‘The Contessa does not act without reason. She sequestered herself in the Palace while employing the glassworks and Crabbé’s laboratory. Now she has abandoned them all – as if an event she had worked for, or awaited, has finally occurred.’
Chang stopped. Cunsher came up to him and stood, breathing hard. When he saw where Chang had brought them, he clucked his tongue.
‘You grasp my idea,’ offered Chang.
‘Quite so. Court society is about patronage.’
‘And her target’s elevation is recent.’
‘Brazen, of course, but that is the lady.’
‘Precisamente.’
Given his appearance, Cunsher offered to remain outside and observe.
‘And if you do not reappear, or are exposed?’ he asked.
‘Escape. Find Svenson. Make your own way to Harschmort and put a bullet in Vandaariff’s brain.’
Cunsher twitched his moustache in a smile. Chang crossed to a mansion guarded by black-booted soldiers in high bearskins – elite guardsmen. The officer in charge had just given entry to a society lady with a beefy jawline and hair stained the colour of a tangerine. At Chang’s approach the officer resumed his former position, blocking the way.
‘Father.’
‘Lieutenant. I require a word with Lady Axewith, if she is at home.’
‘At home is not the same as receiving, Father. Your business?’
‘The Archbishop’s business is with Lady Axewith.’ Chang was an inch taller than the grenadier and studied the man over his glasses, an ugly stare. The Lieutenant met it for perhaps two seconds.
‘How do I know you’re from the Archbishop?’
‘You don’t.’ Chang reached into the cleric’s coat and extracted a
scrap of paper.
‘This is a prison warrant.’
‘Do you know how many criminals have been taken these last two days alone? Do you think the prisons can bear it?’
‘What is this to Lady Axewith?’
‘That’s for her to decide. Your choice is whether thwarting an archbishop puts paid to your career.’
It would be an exceptional junior officer to withstand such rhetoric, and the way was cleared. Chang stumped into the courtyard, leaning hard upon his stick, wondering if the Contessa had already spied him from a window.
Born Arthur Michael Forchmont, Lord Axewith succeeded to his title only after a withering year had claimed the uncle, cousins and father standing in his way. Lacking opinions of his own, he happily accepted those of the Duke of Stäelmaere, and at His Grace’s demise this tractability marked him as a reliable heir. Earnest, bluff, and blessedly disinterested in drink, the future Privy Minister had spent the bulk of his first forty years in the company of horses (even a fondness for stage actresses was affectionately tolerated by the public, as the assignations seemed limited to actual horseback riding). Upon his ascension to the title and entry to politics, Lord Axewith had chosen a wife and in turn that wife had doggedly given birth on a regular basis – seven births in near as many years, with four surviving. And for her pains, his child-ridden spouse now found herself the first lady of the land.
Chang could imagine the tide of flattery that had swelled around the wife of the new Privy Minister, bringing with it inclusion and isolation in equal measure. The Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza could hardly have found better circumstances in which to insinuate herself; too insignificant for any real interest at court, she would appear to be the safest soul in whom Lady Axewith might confide …
Two more guardsmen stood inside. A butler advanced with a tiny silver tray.
‘I have no card,’ Chang told him. ‘Monsignor Lucifera, sent by the Archbishop – Lady Axewith will not know me.’
The butler indicated a well-proportioned parlour. Chang’s eyes fell on a soft upholstered chaise. The prospect of stretching upon it pulled at him like a throbbing tooth. He shook his head.
‘No doubt many suitors beg for Lady Axewith to intervene with her husband. I have come for the lady herself, on a most private – if you will understand me – and intimate matter.’
The word hung in the air and Chang wondered if he had gone too far. An ‘intimate matter’ first and foremost meant accusations of scandal.
‘From the Archbishop?’ asked the butler.
Chang nodded gravely. The butler glided off without seeming to move his legs.
Chang stood in silence with the guards. The well-made walls would have muffled a gunshot. He wondered if the furnishings resembled what Celeste Temple had desired for her house with Roger Bascombe. A house was the venue through which a young woman’s every social ambition would be expressed. For the first time he realized that Celeste must have been well into the work before Bascombe had severed their engagement. Did her desk at the Boniface still contain those lists, the letters of inquiry to tradesmen, or had she burnt them, ashamed at those catalogues of outlived desire?
The butler returned, his voice as warm as old amber. ‘If you would follow me.’
Cardinal Chang had been employed by his share of wealthy clients, but strictly through a veil of intermediaries. His presence in a fine home usually came about through a forced lock or an unguarded window – which was only to say that Chang’s experience of the polite society of women was limited in the extreme. He knew there was a proper protocol, laid out with iron-bound rigour; yet, as he entered the foyer of Axewith House to call on the wife of the new head of the Privy Council, Chang might as well have been calling on the Empress of Japan.
‘He told the newspapers that trains were not stopping because of the rebels. But his diary claims otherwise. In truth, the entirety of the line from Raaxfall to Orange Canal –’
Upon Chang’s entrance the speaker went silent. He recognized the dress and hair – this was the lady who had preceded him through the gate – but the whole of her face, like that of the other eight women in the room, was concealed behind a mask of hanging tulle. What was more, despite the greedy cadence of gossip, Chang very much felt as if he had interrupted a formal report.
The butler murmured an introduction and slipped away. The women sat without any indication of precedence. Chang fell to a respectful bow. He did not know what Lady Axewith looked like.
‘How kind of you to call, Monsignor.’ This was a woman to his left, thick forearms poking from tight satin sleeves. ‘I do not recall you amongst the Archbishop’s retinue, though it seems a face one is bound to remember.’
She sniggered into one hand. Chang nodded in reply. At this the woman giggled again, along with several others.
‘Would you care for tea?’ Another lady, with a ribbon around her throat.
‘No, thank you.’
‘Then we shall go straight to your intimate matter. A provocative entrance.’
‘And unpleasant, Monsignor.’ The woman with tight sleeves shook her head. ‘A pernicious preamble used to justify anything.’
‘Even to put soldiers in one’s foyer,’ added the woman with the ribbon. ‘For protection, of course. Have you come to protect us too?’
‘Having met the Archbishop, I should not expect charity.’ This was the woman with tangerine hair, whose voice had lost its lilt.
‘Lucifera is a wicked-sounding name, for a churchman,’ observed the woman with the ribbon.
‘The name is from the Latin, meaning light.’ Chang addressed the far end of the room, the women who were so far silent. ‘As Lucifer is Lightborn, the first of the angels. Some say the Virgin Lucifera presides over executions, weddings and rebirth. An angel.’
‘Presides how?’
This woman had not yet spoken. Her pale hair, the colour of sea-bleached wood, fell onto a sable collar. Moderately stout, not too old. Just above the collar, he saw a silver necklace with blue stones.
‘Presides how?’ she repeated.
‘Some would call it alchemy.’ A disdainful twitter danced around the room.
‘I’m sure the Archbishop cannot have sent you to raise such forbidden topics.’
Chang silently crossed to her. He took the teacup from her saucer. He brought it to his nose – he could not smell a thing – and sniffed. ‘That you hide yourselves shows you have some minimal awareness of the risk …’ He emptied the contents onto the floor and then released the teacup. It landed on the carpet with a bounce, unharmed. The woman laughed.
‘If you suspect the tea, I am already doomed. That was my second cup!’ The other women laughed with her, their amusement falling suddenly silent at the realization that, as they had watched the cup, Chang had slipped a dagger from his stick. The blade hung inches from the chain of blue stones that ringed – Chang was sure – Lady Axewith’s throat.
Chang kept his voice as courtly as before. ‘With the confusion at the cathedral, how simple would it be for a man to bluff an entry and end this woman’s life?’
He brought his heel down onto the teacup, grinding the shards. ‘Are you so very sure of yourselves – your network of intelligence? Did she tell you nothing?’
Lady Axewith could not help but touch her throat. ‘She?’
‘Where is the Contessa?’
‘What Contessa? Who are you?’
‘Someone who has seen her face in a bride’s mask.’
‘What bride?’
‘Tell her. She will see me – her life depends upon it.’
‘I am afraid there is no Contessa –’
‘Do not lie! Where is she? The Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza.’
Chang’s fierce pronouncement of the name was followed by a sudden hushed silence. Then the entire circle of women erupted with laughter.
‘Her? Why should anyone want her?’
‘That vulgar Italian? She is no one at all!’
‘Strackenz’s lap
dog!’ called the woman with the ribbon, setting off a fresh cascade.
‘Dirty Venetian,’ said the woman with tangerine hair. ‘Mind like a monkey.’
‘Who gave you her name?’ asked another. ‘Pont-Joule? Some other rake with personal experience?’
‘One of the guardsmen?’
‘She skulks in the Palace as if it were an alleyway –’
‘Rubbish through and through!’
‘Low born.’
‘Desperate.’
‘Husbandless.’
‘Stained.’
‘Diseased. I know it for a fact!’
‘Truly, Monsignor,’ Lady Axewith observed acidly, ‘who knew the Church contained such wits? I am in need of more tea – though you have robbed me of my cup! Byrnes!’ A bald-headed footman arrived with a fresh cup and saucer and set to pouring around the room, a dutiful bee in a bed of overblown peonies.
Chang did not know what to do. Their response was not, he was sure, put on for his benefit. To these women, the Contessa’s independence, her disdain, her association with outrageous figures such as the Comte or Francis Xonck, would inspire only resentment and ridicule. For the first time he understood that the women whom the Cabal had drawn to its inner circles – Margaret Hooke or Caroline Stearne – were not themselves high-born. Women of real social power had been targeted for harvest – their memories absorbed into a glass book – and then flung aside. But if he had guessed wrongly, if she had not organized these ladies to gather information for her … why had the Contessa gone to the Palace?
‘Tea, Monsignor?’ The servant hovered near, cup and saucer in one hand and a silver teapot in the other. The man was slender and the pot was heavy, his grip made unsure by pearl-grey gloves.
‘No.’ Chang restored the dagger to his stick, turning his gaze to Lady Axewith. Her eyes, above the veil, were animated, but the whites shot with blood. His gaze dropped to her fingers. Did they all wear gloves? No, only Lady Axewith.
‘Perhaps our false Monsignor will confess the true reason for his visit …’ This was the woman with the ribbon. ‘Which is to serve notice that our enterprise is known!’
‘Yes,’ said the woman with tight satin sleeves. ‘If we are to quiver in fear, should we not know by whom we have been warned?’