The Chemickal Marriage (12 page)

Chang took one of Foison’s knives and set to prising the lid from the nearest barrel, grateful for an excuse not to talk. He did not relish companionship for its own sake and often felt, perhaps perversely, that the people one knew best were the most difficult to bear. Over-familiarity with their habits made even the smallest interaction grate, while the obverse notion – of being that much more on view himself – was even worse.

He wedged the knife under the lid and saw Phelps had joined him.

‘If it is the same explosive, might the jostling of your knife set it off? It did strike me as especially volatile.’

Chang applied a slow, strong pressure. The edge grudgingly rose until he could fit his fingers beneath and wrench it clear.

‘Merciful hell,’ muttered Mr Phelps.

Instead of any kind of powder, the barrel was filled with blue glass discs, sharp-spurred, coin-sized … thousands and thousands of them. Chang scooped up a handful and threw it against the wall, but the discs only shattered.
Clearly these new glass weapons were not the source of the explosion on the wharf.

Outside the ordnance chamber was another tunnel laid with rail. Miss Temple screwed up her mouth, as if she’d taken a ladle of fish oil.

Svenson reached out with concern. ‘Celeste –’

‘Left at the crossroads takes us back to where we found Chang. Right and straight ahead lead to other blasting chambers … but I believe I know our exit.’

She glanced at Chang, as if daring him to disagree. When he said nothing, she wheeled away. What had happened to her? Chang could feel Svenson watching him, but he had no desire to speak of what he did not understand.

At the crossroads they entered another blast tunnel proper, the men again reduced to ungainly scuttling. Chang managed to slip ahead of Phelps, but he reduced his pace so the Doctor and Miss Temple were soon some yards ahead. Then Chang stopped altogether.

‘Have you hurt your foot?’ asked Phelps.

‘No. It seemed prudent for us to talk. If you are playing Svenson false I’ll cut your throat.’

‘I beg your pardon –’

‘If you cause harm to Miss Temple I’ll hack off your hands.’

‘Harm? Have I not shared their peril? Why would I have saved Svenson’s life –’

‘I have no idea. Didn’t he break your arm at the quarry?’ Chang clamped a hand around Phelps’s wrist. ‘You’ve taken off the plaster, but no doubt the bones remain fragile …’

Was it the insistence on sparing Foison that had fired Chang’s suspicion? Foison’s knife had only pinned Phelps to the wall – on purpose? Had Phelps not delayed them with his snivels and sneezes, perhaps enough to allow recapture? He squeezed. Phelps gasped and tried to pull his arm away.

‘Doctor Svenson is a man of principle! In killing Tackham he saved my life as well!’

‘Where is the Contessa?’

‘If I knew that, I would not be in a stinking tunnel with a madman! I have thrown over my entire life –’

‘Why should I trust a man who’s done his best to kill me?’

‘Because everything has changed!’ Phelps hissed. ‘The city is in chaos!’

Chang seized the man’s damp cravat and twisted the knot against his throat. ‘All part of your mistress’s plan, I think.’

‘Listen to me,’ Phelps wheezed, ‘I think you
are
a criminal – and that your kind deserves death – but you hardly threaten the
state
. We need you now – as you need me!’ Phelps jerked his chin towards Svenson and Miss Temple. ‘Do you think
they
know the codes to summon the militia, or can counterfeit diplomatic ciphers? When it comes to the final battle –’

‘I will be watching your
every
move.’ Chang released his grip and turned after the others … half expecting a bullet in his back.

If Chang’s bluntness accomplished nothing else, it would make Mr Phelps keen to prove his value, if he was honest – and, if dishonest, that much more likely to misstep, from fear. That he would also hate Chang with a burning fire was neither here nor there.

Miss Temple crouched with Svenson beneath another metal hatchway, waiting for Chang and Phelps to catch up. The Doctor studied Chang’s blank expression but said nothing. Phelps only cleared his throat and apologized for keeping them.

‘But you’ve found another room, it seems,’ he said. ‘How cunning.’

‘It is not a room,’ whispered Miss Temple, ‘but our exit.’

Chang lifted one foot, for the ground was damp. ‘You’ve brought us to a sewer.’

‘Try your luck with Mr Foison,’ she replied. ‘I’m sure he’s forgiven everything.’

This time Svenson shifted the metal hatch cover, then pulled himself from sight. A hand came down and Miss Temple went next, then Chang. He emerged into another cement chamber, but one lined with massive cisterns, each with a spigot the width of a 12-pound cannon at its base. He did not bother to assist Phelps.

‘They contain different solutions,’ Miss Temple explained, her voice
thick, ‘released into the tunnels to stifle various kinds of explosive residue. The Comte was taken with the … engineering.’

‘How will that get us out?’ asked Phelps, rising stiffly. Miss Temple pointed to the largest cistern of all, filling one corner of the room and reaching near the roof beams.

‘Because
that
is full of water – to flush away the other chemicals – and the pipes that feed it run to the canal.’

‘I am just beginning to
dry
!’ moaned Phelps.

‘But Celeste,’ said Svenson, ‘we have tried the canal – the defences are too strong.’

Miss Temple shook her head impatiently. ‘Not the canal gate at the
river
. We have walked entirely beneath the works,
away
from the river and near a spur of the Orange Canal itself, used to ferry goods in the opposite direction, to the Raaxfall railway head. These pipes pass under the border fences to reach the water.’

‘You want us to swim through the pipes?’ squawked Phelps. ‘The plan is blind idiocy!’

Miss Temple was stricken by another fit of choking. It did not stop, and she bent over as if she might be sick. Svenson glared at Phelps, who shrugged and fished out a damp handkerchief to blow his nose. Miss Temple straightened. Her eyes were red and moist.

‘There are
valves
,’ she rasped. ‘The water can be turned off or reversed – they also use the pipes for drainage. It will be noissome, but the distance is not far, and we may pass through.’

‘How do we enter?’ asked Svenson.

Miss Temple looked to the top of the cistern, high above. ‘There is a ladder – it may require a bit of a jump.’

‘
Ah
. Perhaps –’

Chang slashed his hand through the air to indicate silence. They followed his gaze to the hatch, which Phelps had not replaced, and the flickers of light that danced in the tunnel beneath.

Chang waved them brusquely to the cistern of water, where Miss Temple told the other two men which valves to close. The squeaking valves were heard in the tunnel: lantern beams stabbed into the chamber. Chang crossed
to a smaller cistern, wrenched at the spigot head and leapt clear of a spew of green liquid. The chamber floor was angled exactly for this purpose, and the steaming chemicals gushed straight at the hatch. Chang ran for the ladder. Phelps was in the lead, then Miss Temple, and finally Svenson, climbing with the speed of a tortoise.

Shouts of outrage echoed from the tunnel, then the crack of lantern glass bursting from contact with the liquid. Chang shoved the Doctor’s rump without ceremony. A hand rose through the sick green flow and then a gasping, shaking head – one of the Xonck soldiers, more intrepid than the rest. Chang looked up to see Phelps’s feet disappearing into a pipe above the cistern pit, Miss Temple right behind, balanced on the slippery rim. Svenson reached the top of the ladder but quailed at the four-foot gap to the pipe.

The soldier hauled himself clear and saw them, his shaven head gleaming green. He aimed a pistol at Chang’s back, but the hammer clicked impotently – the chemical wash had done something to the charge. He tried again – more heads rising to the hatch rim – then threw the gun aside and drew a wicked knife. Miss Temple had entered the pipe, but Svenson stood fixed.

‘It is just like the gangplank of a ship!’ cried Chang.

‘I despise gangplanks!’ But the Doctor lunged forward. Three reckless storklike steps and he was there, Miss Temple catching his arm.

Chang readied one of Foison’s knives. The bald soldier had reached the ladder. Chang considered throwing the knife, but he’d not Foison’s skill. Another two men stood at the hatch, pistols snapping without effect. Chang ignored them, waiting for the bald soldier – climbing with one arm, the long knife held upwards. The green liquid had bleached his uniform yellow, and his coat seams split at the effort of his arms. Chang feinted a cut at the climbing man’s face, which was aggressively parried – but all Chang sought was blade contact. He deftly turned his wrist so the silver tip of Foison’s knife drew a sharp line along the soldier’s hand, cutting deep. The long knife leapt from the man’s grip. Chang snapped a fist into the soldier’s nose, the man’s feet went out from under him, and he slid down the rungs. Chang crossed the cistern rim as quick as a cat and was gone.

Like fools, the others were waiting in the pipe. He shouted them on, but then caught Svenson’s foot and called for a pistol. He could not count on all their pursuers’ firearms being disabled. Svenson passed back his revolver. Chang crawled furiously, then turned and aimed for the diminishing circle of light at his heels. He squeezed off four roaring shots and slithered on – the pipe was coated with slime – then turned and fired two more.

The pipe angled abruptly down and Chang slid out of direct range with relief, and just in time, for the metal behind him echoed with gunfire. He pressed himself flat, but the ringing ricochets spent themselves at the turn. He kept crawling. The pipe changed its construction – intrusive ridges where each individual piece had been riveted together. Chang clipped his knees and elbows groping forward.

More shots came from the cistern, but nothing found its mark. Chang feared the other end of their journey. Surely Foison’s men knew where the pipes led, and might run over land more quickly than they could crawl like worms. Abruptly Chang’s face met the grimy sole of Doctor Svenson’s boot. He swore aloud, spitting, and the Doctor’s whisper reached him. ‘Do you hear it?’

‘Hear what?’

‘The
water
.’

Chang listened. Of course … far more effective than any scramble of men, Foison would simply reverse the valves. He wondered how it had taken them this long to think of it. Chang slapped Svenson’s foot.

‘Go on, as quickly as you can – we cannot go back!’

‘We will drown!’

‘And if we go back they will shoot us! For all we know we are near the finish!’

They scuttled like crabs before a looming wave. Chang heard Phelps’s cry, though by then the water’s rush echoed all around them.

‘I am to it! O – the cold – O damnation!’

The icy black water swallowed them all. Chang used the riveted ridges as ladder rungs, hauling himself forward against the current. Again he struck Svenson’s boots, and shoved the Doctor to go faster. The pressure in Chang’s lungs flowered into pain. He felt a tightness in his ears but pressed on, the idea of drowning like a rat in a drainpipe still worse to bear.

Then Svenson’s feet were no longer there, and Chang’s fingers found the pipe rim itself. He wriggled his way through and shot for the surface of the canal, breaking into the air with a gasp. The others were bobbing near him, pale and heaving, hair plastered to their heads. Chang spun round, searching the banks for men with carbines.

‘We have to go on,’ he gasped. ‘They will be here.’

‘Go where?’ called Phelps, teeth chattering. ‘Where are we? We shall catch our deaths!’

‘This way, sir! There is a rope!’

A crouching man in a long brown coat had appeared on the canal bank, a hat pulled low over his eyes.

‘O Mr Cunsher!’ exclaimed Phelps. ‘Thank God you have found us!’

The small hut felt like a room at the Slavic baths. Their clothing hung on lines and steamed in the heat of a squat metal stove so stuffed with coal that one could not approach within a yard. A separate line had been draped with a sheet from the cabin’s cot, and behind lurked Miss Temple, unseen.

Chang wrapped a blanket around himself and cleared his throat, as if the sound might clear his mind. Svenson sat with a mouldy blanket of his own. Phelps had taken the other bedsheet and now stood like a dismal Roman, his bare feet in a pan of hot water.

The strange foreigner had pulled them from the canal and led them pitilessly through brown scrub woodland to a scattering of squat shacks – stonecutters he said – one of which he unlocked with a hook-ended metal pin. Cunsher spoke only to Phelps, gave an occasional respectful nod to Svenson, and ignored Chang and Miss Temple altogether. He had found their carriage in Raaxfall, heard the explosion and observed the movements of guards at the gate, finally deducing that the canal was the only possible exit within his reach. Cunsher then left them, muttering something to his master that Chang had not heard. To Chang, the drainpipe was no sensible option to occur to anyone. He was glad for this second rescue, but trusted the fellow no more than he trusted Phelps.

It was not suspicion that now gnawed his peace of mind. Whatever their
danger, Chang found his thoughts quite irresistibly settled on the proximate nudity of the young woman, not ten feet away behind a single pane of threadbare cloth. He could hear her bare feet on the floorboards, the creak of her body on the wooden stool. Were her arms huddled for warmth or modesty – or were they raised to recurl her hair, breasts exposed and high on her slim ribcage? Chang shifted on his own seat, willing his thoughts elsewhere against tumescence. How long had it been since he’d had a woman?

‘Are you warm enough, Celeste?’ Doctor Svenson called.

‘Yes, thank you,’ she replied from behind her curtain. ‘I trust you will recover?’

‘Indeed.’ Svenson selected a cigarette from his silver case, a civilized veneer already returned to his voice. ‘Though I must admit – when the water rose, my heart was in my throat. You did very well to drive on,’ he said to Phelps. ‘The slightest hesitation would have done for us all.’