The Dark Volume mtccads-2 Read online

  Elöise began to sob before he finished.

  “You're an ugly fellow, aren't you?” observed Mrs. Trapping.

  Chang took hold of Elöise's jaw, tugging her face up so their eyes met. “I've been to your room—I know. Were you Xonck's spy from the beginning? Or was it the Contessa?”

  “Cardinal—”

  “Of course, none of this was worth mentioning! When people were dying! When people were saving your life!”

  He released his grip with a push.

  “Caroline Stearne summoned you both to a private room in the St. Royale,” Chang went on. “Doing the Contessa's bidding—was it only blackmail, or something else? What did she demand in exchange? Who else did you betray?”

  Tears streamed down Elöise's cheeks. He turned away from her to Mrs. Trapping.

  “Why don't you tell me—there are no holes in your memory, are there?”

  “I am completely capable of telling you about Caroline Stearne,” said Charlotte Trapping. “But I want you to tell me why I should.”

  Ironically, Chang realized her blithe dismissal of his anger actually meant that, for the first time, she truly understood how dangerous he was. Was this her Xonck tenacity rising to—and there was the pity, perhaps only to—a mortal challenge?

  “These are family matters,” she said coolly. “Why should you be part of it?”

  “Clearly I am already.”

  “But what is your stake, sir? Is it this Doctor? Is it revenge? Or—” she allowed her eyes to traverse his ruined habit—“merely a matter of money?”

  With an effort Chang stopped himself from backhanding the woman across the face.

  “I am here because people have tried to kill me. People like your brother.”

  “But he has not killed you. I don't know what you're so afraid of— you must be very formidable to survive Francis. You must tell me where he has gone. What are his plans?”

  “So you can assist him?”

  She smiled almost girlishly. “O I do not say that…”

  The woman was insufferable.

  “When did you last see your children?” asked Chang.

  Mrs. Trapping did not answer, realizing at once what the question meant.

  “It is that terrible man!” she whispered. “Noland Aspiche. Always watching, disapproving—he never accepted Arthur as his rightful commanding officer.”

  “He hired me to kill your husband, actually,” said Chang dryly.

  “What?”

  “Chang did not kill Arthur,” said Elöise quickly.

  “But—but that man—he hired you.”

  Chang smiled. “Your husband was loathed.”

  “I beg your pardon.”

  “Your husband was an undeserving ass.”

  “But—the arrogance—the presumption—”

  “Charlotte!” Elöise cried. “Your children! Could they have been taken by Francis?”

  “Of course not! Why would he endanger—”

  “Charlotte!”

  “I do not know!”

  Both women turned to Chang. To tell them what he knew was to step away from interrogation and toward alliance. Did he want that? Did he care? What was his stake? Had he not been wrestling with Charlotte Trapping's question since the first night in the fisherman's hut? Why was he still involved in this business? He thought of the Doctor, with a broken head and a ruined heart, and of Miss Temple, running for her life, a captive, or already dead. He looked at the two women, their bundle of paintings, their idiot tycoon, squatting in a shambles like the meanest gypsies.

  “At the command of the Privy Council, your children were put on a train to Harschmort House, under the immediate authority of a Captain Tackham.”

  Charlotte Trapping's eyes narrowed. “David Tackham made advances to me at a regimental function. He was not even drunk. He is an adder.”

  “Are they still at Harschmort?” Elöise asked Chang.

  “Am I?”

  “Did Francis see them?”

  “I do not know.”

  “Did he speak of them?” pressed Elöise. “You said the two of you talked—did he speak of them?”

  “Not at all.”

  “What did he say?” This was Mrs. Trapping, but her voice had gone cold.

  “Very little that bears repeating,” replied Chang. “The blue glass has deranged his mind.”

  “Cardinal, please!” cried Elöise. “Francesca! The boys! Where are the children now?”

  “No,” he said. “Tell me about Caroline Stearne.”

  FROM OUTSIDE the window came the sound of splashing water. Chang turned to it, trying to pick out anything unusual within the normal noises of the woods at night—for night had indeed fallen while they spoke—but it all sounded strange to him. Who knew what shuffling steps would be covered by the pond water rushing past the broken mill wheel?

  He spun again and pulled his head back as sharp as any bantam rooster. The brick in Charlotte Trapping's hand swung inches past his face. He caught her wrist and, had the razor been open, could not have prevented an instinctive counter-stroke from slicing her jugular. As the razor was folded into his right fist he merely snapped a blow to the woman's jaw, dropping her to the floor with a protesting grunt of pain. He looked at Elöise, who stood with both hands over her mouth.

  “I did not see her!” she whispered. “O Cardinal Chang—O Charlotte, you fool!”

  She went to her mistress, sprawled and kicking, then looked to Chang, her eyes wide.

  “Cardinal!”

  The door behind was kicked open. Three dragoons filled the window, carbines aimed at his chest, while in the doorway stood an officer with his saber drawn. Behind the officer were the shadowed forms of at least another ten soldiers.

  “Whatever is in your hand, drop it,” ordered the officer—a lieutenant by the bar on his collar and the single thin epaulette. “You are all prisoners of the Crown.”

  Chang opened his palm and let the razor fall to his feet. The Lieutenant stepped into the room, the tip of his saber pricking Chang's breastbone. Chang retreated so he stood in a line with the two women and Vandaariff, who had leapt up at the crash of the door. The officer kicked the razor to the side with one muddied boot. Behind him four more dragoons entered, their saber blades glinting in the firelight.

  “You are Chang,” announced the Lieutenant, as if to cross the name off a list of tasks. “Do not move.” He nodded once at Vandaariff. “Berkins, Crimpe—take him.”

  Two troopers seized Vandaariff's arms and marched him away into the darkness. The officer's blade did not waver from Chang's chest.

  “Ladies. I am Lieutenant Thorpe—”

  “I know you very well, sir,” said Mrs. Trapping.

  The Lieutenant nodded stiffly, not meeting her eyes. Instead his gaze went to Charlotte Trapping's leather travel case. Without a word he stepped to it, pulled it open, and sorted carefully through the clothing inside. He stood and then saw the clutch bag around her wrist. The Lieutenant held out his hand for it—the woman handed the thing across with a huff of indignation—and then pulled open the top. Chang heard clinking from inside, and then saw a glint of blue light reflecting off Thorpe's face. The bag was stuffed with blue glass cards… no doubt all looted from secret corners in Arthur Trapping's study.

  Lieutenant Thorpe closed the bag and hardened his voice. “I have been pursuing this criminal from Harschmort House. That I have located your party as well is a kind coincidence. Sergeant!”

  From the doorway came a massive man. He placed an iron hand around an elbow of each woman.

  As she was pulled past Chang, Elöise whispered, “I am so sorry, so very sorry.”

  Chang had no answer, and then she was gone. Thorpe sheathed his saber with a sweeping ring and followed the women outside, to whisper in his sergeant's ear. Chang stood alone, facing the firing squad of carbines in the window. Then Thorpe returned, studying him with a professional detachment.

  “It was the horse, you know. We saw it from
the road.”

  “I know little of horses,” Chang replied.

  “And that has cost you. Take off those glasses.”

  Chang did so, having no other option, and took some satisfaction in the discomfort on the faces of the soldiers at the revelation of his scars. He folded the glasses into his pocket.

  “I am obliged,” said Thorpe, and called behind him, “Corporal!”

  A young soldier stepped forward, yellow chevrons on his sleeves. Chang smiled bitterly. The man's left leg was wet above his boot— here was the oaf who'd tripped into the pool.

  “Secure him.”

  The Corporal quite savagely drove a fist into Chang's abdomen, doubling him over, then stepped behind and laced his arms with Chang's, pinning them tight. With a brutal shove he drove Chang onto his knees. Chang looked up, fighting for breath. The three troopers had left the window. Thorpe was tugging on a thick pair of leather gauntlets, and the dragoon next to him held an open leather satchel. Another dragoon stood to Thorpe's other side, with a drawn saber, but Chang could no longer see any troopers through the door.

  Had they all left with the sergeant and the prisoners? So they wouldn't see him die?

  “My orders are simple,” said Thorpe. “You are too dangerous to keep alive, and yet what you know is extremely valuable. Therefore I have been instructed to take it.”

  He reached carefully into the satchel and removed a square parcel wrapped in cloth. He looked at Chang, measuring him, and then spoke generally to his men.

  “If one word of this is breathed to any other soul, I will see all your backs whipped raw.” Thorpe nodded to the dragoon with the satchel. “Help hold him fast.”

  Thorpe picked the cloth away with thick leather fingertips. The blue glass book flickered in the firelight. He knelt in front of Chang, so their faces were at a level, and delicately opened the book. Chang glanced once into the swirling blue depths and wrenched his eyes away.

  “I am told,” the Lieutenant said, “that after this, when you are killed, you will not feel a thing. I have no relish for executions, so I hope it is true. Corporal?”

  Chang felt a hand grip the hair on the back of his head and push him down. He twisted his face and shut his eyes, resisting with all his strength. This was an empty book. Gazing into it, or touching it with his flesh, would cause the whole of his memory to be drained like a wine-cask.

  And why was he fighting it—merely pride? Was this not what he had wanted—oblivion after Angelique's destruction? Was this not what he sought in opium, in poetry, in the brothels? It was not a decision he cared to be made for him… yet… his eyes drifted closer to the swirling blue plate, daring to be seized…

  The Corporal pushed down even harder. Chang's face was inches away. Would the orange rings in his pocket protect him? Or merely prolong his agony? He could feel the cold emanating from the slick surface—

  THE DRAGOON standing guard with a saber shrieked like a woman and thrashed forward onto his face. Thorpe leapt free of the man's weapon, cradling the fragile book beneath his body. Chang just glimpsed a glittering spike of blue sticking out of the dying trooper's spine before a black-cloaked figure hurdled the body and tackled the Lieutenant into the rotting bench where Vandaariff had perched. The two men landed with a hideous crash, but then the shadowed figure rose and swept the cloak aside to reach for another blue stiletto. The officer's mouth gaped with harsh astonishment, the bulk of his torso frozen stiff, for the book had been crushed on impact and the broken sheets driven deep into his chest.

  The men holding Chang went for their blades. Chang dove for the razor and slashed wildly behind him. The Corporal howled, blood spitting from his wrist, and Chang drove a heel into his groin. The Corporal doubled over and Chang kicked the man brutally across the jaw. Francis Xonck stood over the second soldier—whose open eyes gazed unnaturally backwards from his twisted head—a dragoon's saber in his non-plastered hand. Chang rolled to his feet, dropping the razor to seize the Corporal's blade.

  But Xonck's face was a death mask, chin and neck dark with blue discharge, and his eyes fluttered, as if the room before him made up but a portion of what he saw, as if the effort of the attack—of controlling his mind enough to make it—had been too much. He stabbed the saber into the dirt, and held out an empty hand.

  “There will be too many for myself alone… too many for you… perhaps you will accept… a temporary… expedience.” The words emerged from Xonck's mouth as if through a sack full of slick stones.

  “These soldiers…” said Chang. “Mrs. Marchmoor…Margaret… she is coming.”

  “I should think so.” Drool covered Xonck's lips. “That means she's found your little miss.”

  AN HOUR later, twisting through the woods until even with the moon above them Chang had no idea of where they'd gone, and stopping twice for Xonck to be ill, they reached a ridge, and upon it a sudden gap of meadow. Far below curled a gleaming snake of canal water. From the canal a pale road had been cut through the trees, at the end of which loomed a bright building. Its high windows bled enough light into the black air for a Royal christening.

  In the silence Chang could hear the thrum of machines.

  “Frightfully bad form,” Xonck rasped next to him. “The swine have begun without us.”

  Nine. Incision

  DOCTOR SVENSON refused to consider himself the sort of man who might kill a woman, under even the most heinous of circum-stances, heinous being a perfectly apt word to describe the woman before him. The Contessa had requested a cigarette from the Doctor's case and was deftly inserting it into her black lacquered holder. She caught the Doctor's gaze and shyly smiled.

  “Would you have any matches?”

  Svenson slipped the dead barge-master's clasp knife into his trouser pocket and pulled out a box of matches. He lit one and offered it to her, nodding to his own case, still in her hand.

  “May I?”

  “It is very lovely,” she remarked. “I suppose the laws of salvage compel me to return it.”

  She held it out and his fingers just barely grazed hers—cool, soft—as he took it.

  “As if you were one for laws.”

  The Contessa blew a plume of smoke toward the guttering fire.

  “These are quite raw,” she said. “Where do you get them?”

  “Purchased from a fisherman,” replied the Doctor. “Danish.”

  “In the city, you were smoking something else. They were black.”

  “Russian,” said Svenson. “I buy them from an agent in Riga. I used to call on him when my ship stopped in port. Being no longer with a ship, I order them over land.”

  “I'm sure you could acquire them nearer.”

  “But not from him. Herr Karoschka—one so rarely finds a decent man of business.”

  “Rubbish.” The Contessa tapped her ash toward the fire. “The world is ankle-deep with decent men of business—it is exactly why so many are so poor. Their delusion is merely the ordure in which more hardy crops thrive.”

  Svenson nodded in the direction of the barge-master's body. “Are you always so merry after killing a man?”

  “I am this merry when I have survived. Will we speak like reasonable people or not? The food is wholesome, the bottle contains—it is the country, one condescends—a clean-tasting cider, and if you put more wood on the fire like a kindly person, it might well revive.”

  “Madame—”

  “Doctor Svenson, please. Your querulous niceties only make it more awkward to speak freely, as we must. Unless you have decided to dash out my brains after all.”

  Her tone was arch and impatient, but Svenson could see the fatigue in her face—and it surprised him. The Contessa's normal temperament was so fully armored—he naturally thought of her as a seductress or a killer, but never anything so fragile as a woman. Yet here the Contessa di Lacquer-Sforza had been reduced to cutting a man's throat for his dinner and a meager fire.

  “Where is Elöise Dujong?” he asked, his voice even.
/>   The Contessa burst out laughing. “Who?”

  “You were with her, madame. In her uncle's cottage—you arranged—”

  “Arranged what? And when?”

  “Do not hope to lie to me! You saw her—”

  The Contessa choked gleefully on her cigarette.

  “Madame! She directed you to Parchfeldt Park.”

  “We did not meet at all. I saw her in Karthe, I admit it—a slag-heap I have scrubbed from my memory—but she did not see me. She was skulking after some man.”

  “She was attacked by Francis Xonck.”

  “I don't suppose it was fatal?”

  “He mistook her for you.”

  The Contessa shrugged as if to say this meant nothing, but then met the Doctor's cold gaze. Her smile faded away. “And so Francis followed on the train—not reaching the freight car before I was gone. It was you that prevented him from doing so, wasn't it? That gunshot.”

  Doctor Svenson was silent. The Contessa exhaled again, wearily.

  “Being obliged in any way is hateful. Very well. I have not seen Elöise Dujong since the train yard at Karthe. Miss Temple traveled with me. I left her quite alive, free to re-enter her cocoon of respectable hotels and tractable fiancés. Now, will you please sit down?”

  HE KNEW the Contessa to be the worst of women, and yet whenever she spoke, even if he knew it to be a honey spun of nightshade, it was as if her candor was meant for him alone. He stuffed the kindling into what remained of the embers. Could she truly not have been at the cottage? The Contessa uncorked the cider, took an unhurried pull, and held out the bottle. He felt the dizzy throb at the back of his skull and drank, reflexively wiping the bottle with his sleeve—at which the Contessa chuckled. She pushed across the barge-master's dinner: a half loaf of coarse brown bread; a block of cheese, its edges scumbled with mold; and perhaps six inches of blood sausage. The Contessa raised her eyebrows with a knowing expectation. He looked at the sausage, then met her eyes again and felt his face grow warm.

  “You have the fellow's knife, I believe,” she said.