The Dark Volume mtccads-2 Page 44

  THE GROUND fell steeply toward a trickling watercourse, edged on either bank by a trough of rich black mud. Chang slid down through a moist layer of last year's leaves—doing his best to avoid snapping twigs or low-hanging branches—along the tight, muddy valley to where the smoke seemed to rise. He had assumed it was a campfire— woodsmen or hunters—but was surprised to meet the crumbled remnants of an outlying wall, netted with vines that seemed intent on pulling the stones back to the torpid earth. Over the wall lay an abandoned garden, thick with high-grown weeds. Beyond the garden stood the roofless frame of a redbrick house, the windows empty… yet out of its still-standing chimney rose the white plume.

  Crossing the tangled garden in silence was impossible, so Chang crept around the wall, sinking to his ankles in the black mire. The watercourse fed an unkempt pool lined with stonework and once fitted with a mill wheel, now toppled half-rotted to one side. The pool's surface was thick with green scum, like the spittle of toads, and the air above it beset by hovering insects. On the bank near the ruined house lay a small flagged yard. The stones would allow a silent approach.

  Chang studied the back of the house: two windows with a doorway leading out between them. One window had been covered with planking, and the other draped with oilcloth. He looked up at the smoking chimney—most likely it was a refuge for gypsies, or a rough lodge for hunters… had it not been for the lack of any sign of another horse, he would have thought it a perfect refuge for Xonck. Chang advanced to the oilcloth-covered window and listened.

  The last thing he expected was the sound of a woman in tears.

  There, there…” It was the voice of a man, hesitant and low. “There, there…”

  “I am fine, thank you,” the woman whispered. “Do sit down.”

  A scrape of a chair and then silence. Chang reached for the oilcloth, pausing as he heard footsteps.

  “A cup of tea,” announced a clipped new voice. Another woman. Chang could hear the fatigue and impatience beneath her simple words. “One for each of you.”

  “Thank you,” said the man, and at once he whimpered.

  “It is hot,” the second woman snapped. “Take it by the handle! It is lemon verbena.” The woman sighed bitterly after a sip of her own. “Too weak.”

  “It will do perfectly well,” said the first woman. Chang felt a spark on the back of his neck. He knew her. Why was she crying? And who was the man?

  “I'm sure it will have to,” responded the other, tartly. “I am not used to making tea at all, of course—still less in such a pot, on such a fire. Any more than I am used to any of what has happened to my former existence! Though what has truly changed after all? Am I not still a shuttlecock batted back and forth by the more powerful?”

  To this opinion the other two had no answer.

  “I do not mean to compare my losses to yours,” the woman went on. “Whatever your losses might be, I'm sure I do not fully comprehend them—who comprehends anyone?—but from what you have told me and what I have in the meantime guessed—I am not wholly without deductive powers—I do not know why you find yourself still so distraught. Indeed, Elöise, it is most difficult to bear.”

  “I am sorry.”

  “It has been some time. No matter what you say about memory and forgetting, all of which you take so seriously—of course a measure of seriousness does credit to a person, but not an excess—yet here we are, flown from what seemed a perfectly fine cottage, because of you. It is nearly dark—I suppose we shall sleep here! I myself am enduring all manner of outright tiresome privations.”

  “Of course you are.”

  “I am. And yet you are the one in tears! They are pernicious!”

  Elöise did not answer. It was obvious to Chang that the other woman was as terrified as she was arrogant.

  “And who was he again? That fellow?”

  “Doctor Svenson,” replied Elöise softly.

  “O yes, the Prince's man. Lord above—”

  “He has saved my life repeatedly.”

  “So you intimated. Or,” the woman added dryly, “so you remember…”

  “He saved my life from Francis.”

  “Why would Francis hurt you?”

  “Charlotte—”

  “Why would Francis hurt any one of us? What nonsense!”

  “Charlotte.” Elöise sighed with some forbearance. “Charlotte, that is not true.”

  To Chang's astonishment, Charlotte Trapping laughed.

  “Ah, well, there you have me.” She chuckled quite merrily. “Per haps I fathom one or two elements after all!”

  “Charlotte—”

  “Stop blubbering! Your dear friend—of, goodness, ten days?—is still alive. And left behind he will remain so, and there's an end to him. What did you want instead, Elöise? A romance to sweep you away? After all you've done?”

  “What I've done for you—”

  “You say that—so often that I nearly believe you. Do you believe her?”

  This last was to the man.

  “She is very pretty,” he answered gently. Charlotte Trapping huffed.

  “Pretty! What girl isn't pretty? I was perfectly pretty, and look what happened! Come now, Elöise, did you really expect—and from a German—”

  “He is very decent.”

  “Decent!” Mrs. Trapping crowed. “A word to describe a churchman! Elöise, a woman cannot put her hope in a man she pities!”

  “I do not pity him. Doctor Svenson—”

  “He struck me as—O I don't know—rather weedy—”

  “He was injured!”

  “Not like Arthur. Arthur was a strapping man, with very broad shoulders. Even if you grant your Doctor his uniform—though it was extremely shabby—you cannot allow his shoulders are anywhere near as broad. What's more, your fellow's hair was unpleasantly fair—not like Arthur with his very thick whiskers. I do not believe this Doctor possessed any whiskers at all. You approved of Arthur's shoulders and his whiskers yourself, didn't you, Elöise? I am sure you said something very much like that—perhaps you did not know that I could hear you. I made a point to hear everything, you know.”

  “Yes, Charlotte.”

  “Arthur. My husband promised to save me, but he was always promising things he didn't understand.”

  “I am sorry, Charlotte.”

  “Everyone is always sorry for everything.”

  “Not Francis,” said Elöise.

  To this, Charlotte Trapping was silent.

  “THE TEA is hot,” said the man, quietly, as if he had been waiting for some time to speak. Both women ignored him.

  Chang eased two fingers to the oilcloth and edged it aside with glacial patience. Elöise sat on a broken-backed wood chair. She still wore her black dress, but had added a dark shawl. Her hair had become curled with the moisture of the woods and rough travel. There was a lost look in her eyes Chang had not, even in their determined struggles aboard the airship, seen before. The veil of kindness and care that had been so customary had gone, and a frank, bitter clarity had taken its place.

  To her right, on a rotting upholstered bench, the still-steaming mug of tea held tight between his palms, sat Robert Vandaariff, hat-less, in a black topcoat with silk lapels and the muddy shoes and trouser cuffs of a sheep farmer. Like a child for whom an absent parent bears responsibility, the mindless magnate's hair was uncombed and his cravat had gone askew.

  Charlotte Trapping sat with her back to Chang, in what was obviously the only whole chair in the ruined house. The widow's hair was pale with a touch of red (he would have taken it to be a henna wash had he not known her brother), silhouetted against the light of the glowing fire. She wore a well-cut jacket of blue wool over a warm straight dress. Next to her chair was a leather travel case, a hat, and long gloves, all spelling out that Mrs. Trapping had attired herself for travel and difficulty. A patterned velvet clutch bag had been looped around her wrist and hung heavily. When Mrs. Trapping raised her mug of tea, the bag clacked as if it were stuffed wi
th Chinese ivory tiles. Near to Vandaariff lay another awkward bundle, wrapped in a blanket and bound with twine.

  “SO YOU have seen Francis,” remarked Charlotte Trapping.

  “I have,” replied Elöise. “Have you seen your brother Henry?”

  Mrs. Trapping waved her hand toward Vandaariff with a sniff. “The world will lose no sleep over Henry,” she said, and then too lightly, “I did not know if Francis was alive.”

  Elöise did not respond, and once more Chang noted the dull hardness of her gaze. Mrs. Trapping must have noticed it too, for she muttered with disapproval.

  “I thought you liked Francis.”

  “Charlotte… your brother Francis… has changed.”

  “But that is where you are ignorant, Elöise. Francis has always changed—it is why he is the opposite of Henry! You would not have known him before he went to school, or again before each of his celebrated travels. Every time he returned he appeared entirely new— and each time he made new friends with no inkling how strange or dissipated he had become. It was as if portions of his character kept vanishing one after another—given over in exchange for… well… something. And what did he have to show for it—for all his boasting? Land? A title? I will tell you, Elöise, and it is Francis all over: nothing but more wicked stories… more cruel tricks.”

  “But this is different, Charlotte. It is physical. It is monstrous.”

  “Really, Elöise—”

  “Francis is beyond whims and cruelties—it is the blue glass!”

  Mrs. Trapping pursed her lips and took an unsatisfying sip of tea. “I am heartily sick of this blue glass. Is it true that especially nasty man is dead?”

  “The Comte? Yes.”

  “And who killed him?”

  “Cardinal Chang.”

  Mrs. Trapping snorted. “Are you sure you remember correctly? Are you sure it was not my brother?”

  “Your brother and the Comte were fast allies!”

  “I very much doubt it.” Mrs. Trapping smirked. “Francis is not one to keep promises. He was never the Comte's true friend! And who can blame him? I never liked the way that man smelt. Just like a Russian—or how one imagines a Russian—”

  “Charlotte—”

  “If you take that tone with me, Mrs. Dujong, I will forbid you shelter in even this crude ruin! We find ourselves at liberty—and you find yourself rescued—precisely because I have learned all there is to know about this blue glass, about this supposedly alchemical woman—and these apparently all-powerful books. Not that I have seen any of them, you understand, but I have done my share of work. You will not perhaps credit that as children I always got the better of Francis playing chess, and always got the better of Henry too—whenever he would play me, which was very rarely, because he hated to lose! Do you think I spent my time at those dreadful Harschmort galas worrying about my evening gown? I watched Henry, and I studied Robert Vandaariff. Look at him now, Elöise! Smarter than Henry, smarter even than Francis, though of course without Francis' appetites.”

  “I saw Francis shot in the chest. Yet he lives.”

  Mrs. Trapping stopped talking.

  “I thought him dead,” Elöise said. “We all did—and drowned beneath the sea. But then there were signs, Charlotte, murders—innocent people, terrible attacks made to look like an animal. Then I saw him myself. He has poisoned himself to stay alive, and the only man who could cure him is dead. It is all hopeless. You must abandon this business. You must go home. You have other responsibilities. Francesca needs you, and Charles, and Ronald. They have no one else.”

  Mrs. Trapping remained silent.

  “I am sorry,” continued Elöise. “I know how… how… how—”

  “Who shot him?”

  Elöise's face fell. The woman had not heard a word.

  “Charlotte—”

  “Who shot my brother Francis?”

  “It was Doctor Svenson,” said Elöise, heavily.

  Mrs. Trapping stood up and emptied the whole of her tea mug into Elöise's face.

  TAKING THIS as the best opportunity he might find, Cardinal Chang took the sill with both hands and vaulted through the window, shooting past the oilcloth to land in a crouch. Charlotte Trapping wheeled to face him, quite obviously wishing she had not just emptied her cup on such a lesser target. Vandaariff stood as well, but this was in mere imitation of the woman, for the man did nothing other than stare as Chang rose, the razor slipped from his pocket.

  “It is Cardinal Chang,” said Elöise quickly, her face wet, taking a warning step toward Mrs. Trapping.

  “Is he your lover as well?”

  “Charlotte, come away from the window.”

  Elöise gently reached both hands for Mrs. Trapping's arm, but at her touch the woman sharply shrugged herself free.

  “So you are the one who killed that odious Comte,” Charlotte Trapping cried to Chang, her eyes bright and glittering. “I daresay it has saved me the effort, and yet the timing has proven most unfortunate. Ought I to be frightened by your fearsome appearance? I am not. What do you intend with that implement?” She nodded at the razor.

  Chang looked at his hand as if he had not known what it held. “This? I suppose I hold it out of instinct—like an animal. Or because I do not choose to share the fate of Doctor Svenson.” Chang kicked Mrs. Trapping's chair across the room with enough force to make both women flinch. “You will sit down until I tell you otherwise.”

  The women did so, Elöise moving hastily to right the chair and brush off the seat. Chang watched with disgust, wondering what could possibly drive her to abandon the Doctor, who had saved her life, in favor of an employer. He turned to Vandaariff, still standing with an expression of blank concern.

  “Sit down, Lord Robert.”

  Vandaariff did. Chang plucked the tea mug from the man's grasp and drank it down, then handed the mug back with a nod of thanks.

  “I think you are an animal—” began Charlotte Trapping.

  “Be quiet,” growled Chang, and turned to Elöise. “Where is Miss Temple?”

  “How on earth are you here?”

  “Dry your face and answer my question.”

  “Elöise, do not tell this man one thing.”

  Chang shot out his hand and slashed Mrs. Trapping's jacket— trusting the razor would not cut through the whalebone in her corset— clean across her torso, causing the blue fabric to hang, the gash made before the woman could even squeak.

  “Do not speak again until I am asking questions of you. I promise, we will talk, for I have spoken to your brother. Elöise?”

  Elöise looked into Chang's black lenses for the first time since his entry, her gaze grim and beaten.

  “I left Miss Temple at the town of Karthe. We became separated. We had quarreled. The Contessa was there, and Francis Xonck. If you have truly seen him—”

  “I have seen him.”

  “I believe he took me for the Contessa. He attacked me, with a sliver of glass.”

  “Elöise,” muttered Charlotte Trapping, “really.”

  But Elöise had already pried free the third button down between her breasts, and pulled the fabric open with her hands. Chang saw the bandage, and its coin-sized stain of blood.

  “The Doctor found me—”

  “What was Svenson doing in Karthe?”

  “I have no idea. He left the fishing village not long after you yourself… we had quarreled—”

  “Elöise quarrels with everyone,” whispered Mrs. Trapping.

  “When I woke I was on the train. The Doctor removed the glass. He saved my life.”

  “Again,” said Chang.

  “Again,” echoed Elöise, miserably.

  “I found him rather weedy,” whispered Mrs. Trapping.

  “Charlotte, please!” cried Elöise, her voice a whisper.

  “Francis Xonck was also on that train,” said Chang.

  Mrs. Trapping looked up.

  “And the Contessa,” sighed Elöise, “hiding in a freight ca
r. When the train stopped at Parchfeldt, she fled and the Doctor and I went to find her. The last we saw, Francis was bent double on the trackside, sick as a sailor. The Contessa escaped into the park. Abelard insisted that we follow.”

  “And what of you? Did you want to follow?”

  “I believe I more wanted to die,” sighed Elöise, and she covered her face with both hands.

  CHANG LOOKED down at the unhappy Elöise, whose dismay only inflamed his desire to cuff her face. Instead, he stepped to the bound bundle. He flicked the razor at the blanket and then ripped enough of an opening to see the vivid colors of the painted canvas beneath it. Charlotte Trapping had gone to Harschmort, burned the laboratory, taken the paintings, and captured Robert Vandaariff all by herself. He had taken her for a society ninny. He glanced up and met her fierce, determined gaze—the green eyes unpleasantly like her brother's— and recalled Xonck's story, that the second child had inherited the intelligence of their powerful father. From the conversation he had just overheard he knew she was whimsical, cruel, and insufferably proud—that she was here at all proved her bravery and determination … and that she was a Xonck meant she was also probably insane.

  But he was not finished with Elöise Dujong.

  “Where is the Doctor now?” he demanded, harshly.

  “We left him at my uncle's cottage.”

  “Struck on the head,” added Mrs. Trapping.

  “He will be safe,” said Elöise quickly. “The cottage is warm and there is food and firewood and a bed—Lord knows he deserves an excuse to let all of this go, to let me go.”

  “I'm certain he feels the same way,” said Chang.

  “He is alive,” said Charlotte Trapping haughtily. “He need not be.”

  “And how long will he stay there, do you think?” Chang ignored her, directing his words to Elöise. “And where will he go? The Prince is dead. The Doctor has been declared an outlaw by his own government—and our Ministries, presently in the hands of his enemies, are more than happy to capture or execute him. I do not imagine he has any money. A destitute foreigner hunted by the law? Your Abelard will be lucky not to be hanged on the spot by the first country sheriff to run him down!”