Blood and Ice

  Blood and Ice

  Robert Masello

  Robert Masello

  Blood and Ice

  PROLOGUE

  ABOARD HM BRIG COVENTRY, IN THE SOUTHERN OCEAN. L

  AT. 65 DEGREES 28 MINUTES S., LONG. 120 DEGREES 13 MINUTES W.

  December 28, 1856

  Sinclair bent low over the wooden bunk where Eleanor lay. Though she was snugly wrapped in his greatcoat and buried under every blanket and sheet he could lay his hands on, her teeth still chattered and her breath fogged in the dank, freezing air. By the flickering light of the oil lamp, he could see that her eyes were rolling up under her lids, and her face was as white and cold as the ice that had surrounded the ship for weeks.

  With his own numb hand, he stroked her brow, brushing a wisp of her dark brown hair away from her eyes. The skin felt as lifeless and implacable as the blade of a sword, but underneath it he could still detect the slow coursing of her blood. She would live, somehow, but he would have to see to her needs, and soon. There was no way around it, anymore; he would have to leave the cabin and go below to the stores.

  “Rest,” he said, gently, “and I will be back before you know I've gone.”

  She sighed in protest, her pale lips barely moving.

  “Try to sleep.” He pulled the woolen cap more tightly around her head, kissed her cheek, and stood up, as much as the low ceiling of the stifling cabin would allow. Holding the lamp in one hand- its glass was smudged, and only an inch or so of whale oil remained at its bottom-he listened at the door for a moment before easing it open to the black passageway outside. He could hear the muttering of the crewmen somewhere in the hold. He didn't need to hear their words to know what they were saying. Ever since the ship had been blown off course, driven farther and farther toward the southern pole by unrelenting storms and wind, he had overheard their curses and seen the growing enmity in their eyes. Sailors were a superstitious lot, even at the best of times, and he knew it was their mysterious passengers-Eleanor and himself-that they had come to see as the source of their present calamity. But what, he wondered, would they choose to do about it? He did not like to leave Eleanor alone for even a few minutes.

  He had long since removed the spurs from his boots, but it was impossible to move down the corridor without the creak of the timbers underfoot. Sinclair tried to take a step only when the ice battering the hull was especially loud, or the sails up above flapped in the night wind; but as he passed the galley the light from his lamp fell on Burton and Farrow huddled over a bottle of rum. The ship pitched to starboard, and Sinclair had to reach out and steady himself against the wall.

  “Where you off to?” Burton growled. There were ice particles in his gray beard, glinting like diamonds, and a large gold hoop through one ear.

  “The stores.”

  “What for?”

  “That's none of your affair.”

  “We could make it that,” he heard Farrow mutter, as the ship righted itself with a thundering groan.

  Sinclair stepped to the ladder leading to the storerooms below. The rungs were coated with frost, and as he descended them the oil in the lamp sloshed from one side to the other; wild shadows flickered across the vats of salted pork, dried cod, and hard tack-all nearly empty-and the Chilean rum that the crew had broken into. His own cargo lay just beyond, in a large chest secured with heavy padlocks and chains. At first glance, it looked unsullied.

  But when Sinclair bent lower and the feeble glow from the lamp fanned across the top of the trunk, he could see scratch marks and subtle indentations, as if someone had tried to pick the lock or even pry it loose. It came as no surprise. In fact, he could think of only one reason his belongings had not been rifled: The crew not only hated, but feared, him. He knew that they looked on him-a hardened cavalry veteran of the Crimean campaign, and an acknowledged master with pistol, lance, and saber-as someone to be reckoned with. He pulled the collar of his army tunic higher around his neck, then drew from its vest pocket the keys to the chest.

  After glancing behind him to make quite sure he was alone and unobserved, he opened the padlock, slipped the wet chain loose, and lifted the lid. Inside, beneath a layer of riding tackle, uniforms, and several books-the works of Coleridge, Chatterton, and George Gordon, Lord Byron-he found what he had come for. Two dozen bottles, bearing the label MADEIRA-CASA DEL SOL, SAN CRISTOBAL, carefully wrapped and packed. He wiped one clean with a pair of riding breeches, tucked it under his arm, and secured the chest again.

  Climbing back up the ladder, while juggling the lantern and the bottle, was a tricky proposition, made worse by the sight of Burton lurking at the top.

  “Find what you were looking for, Lieutenant?”

  Sinclair made no reply.

  “Give you a hand there?” Burton went on, extending one mit-tened hand.

  “No need.”

  But Burton had seen the bottle by now. “Spirits, is it? Well, couldn't we all use a warming cup.”

  “You've been warmed enough already.”

  Sinclair stepped away from the ladder and brushed past Burton, then Farrow-who was beating himself with both arms to stimulate the circulation-and once out of their sight, ducked into the galley. He held the bottle near the stove, where a low coal fire still smoldered, to thaw its contents, then returned to his cabin, praying that he would find Eleanor no worse.

  As it happened, she was not alone. A guttering light shone from beneath the door, and within Sinclair discovered the ship's physician, Dr. Ludlow, hovering over her. Ludlow was a revolting specimen of a man, baggy and hunched, with a manner at once obsequious and arrogant; Sinclair wouldn't have trusted him to cut his hair (another of the good doctor's shipboard duties), and he especially mistrusted him around Eleanor, in whom he had shown an unseemly interest ever since they had come aboard. At the moment, he was holding her limp wrist in one hand and shaking his head. “The pulse is very low, Lieutenant, very low indeed. I fear for the poor girl's life.”

  “And I do not,” Sinclair declared, as much for Eleanor's benefit as the wretched doctor's. He removed her hand from Ludlow's damp grasp and slipped it under the blankets. Eleanor did not stir.

  “Even my leeches are frozen, I'm afraid.”

  That at least was good news. The one thing Sinclair knew Eleanor did not need was any further loss of blood. “A pity” Sinclair said, knowing full well that it was the application of the creatures to Eleanor's bosom and legs that the doctor most enjoyed. “If you will leave us alone, I can manage quite well on my own.”

  Dr. Ludlow gave a cursory bow, then said, “I came with word from the captain. He wishes to speak with you on deck.”

  “I'll be there when I can.”

  “I'm so sorry, Lieutenant, but he was rather insistent.”

  “The sooner you leave, the sooner I shall speak to the captain.”

  Ludlow paused, as if to prove that he had not been dismissed, then left the cabin. The moment he was gone, Sinclair braced a stool against the door and used the dirk sheathed beneath his tunic to open the bottle. “Wait,” he said to Eleanor, though he was not sure if she was beyond hearing, “wait for me.”

  With one arm, he raised her head from the makeshift pillow- a bundle of rags stuffed into a burlap sack-and put the bottle to her mouth. “Drink,” he said, but she still didn't respond. He tilted the bottle until the liquid met her lips, turning them pink, giving them a semblance of life again. “Drink.”

  He felt her breath on the back of his hand. He tilted the bottle more, until a rosy trickle ran down her chin and spotted the ivory brooch she wore at her collar. The tip of her tongue appeared, as if chasing the errant drops, and Sinclair smiled. “Yes, that's it,” he encouraged her. “Take more. More.”

  And she did. After a minute
or two, her eyes opened. She looked up at Sinclair with a confused expression, one that mingled deep regret with an even deeper thirst. He held the bottle steady as she suckled at its tip. Her eyes became more focused, and her breathing more regular. When he felt she had had enough-too much and she might regurgitate the lot-he laid her head back on the pillow, wedged the cork back in place, then hid the bottle beneath the pile of bedclothes.

  “I have to see the captain,” he said. “I won't be gone long.”

  “No,” she said, barely audibly. “Stay.”

  He squeezed her hand. Was it already warmer to his touch?

  “Talk to me,” she said.

  “And so I shall, so I shall… About coconut palms as tall as St. Paul's…”

  The tiniest hint of a smile creased her lips.

  “And sand as white as Dover.” It was one of their private catch-phrases, drawn from a popular ditty, and they had often murmured it to each other in moments far less trying than this.

  Sinclair took the stool away from the door, extinguished the lamp-what oil remained had to be conserved-and left it in the cabin. Only a pale shaft of light penetrated from the upper deck to the passageway, but it was enough to guide his way to the steps.

  Cold as it was below, it was far worse above, where the wind, like a bellows, sucked the very breath from the lungs and filled them instead with a chilling blast. The captain, Addison, stood at the wheel, wrapped in several layers of clothing, the last of which was a torn sail; in Sinclair's eyes, he was nothing but a privateer, who had extorted three times what the fare should have been for his and Eleanor's passages. The man could sense desperation and had no scruples about exploiting it.

  “Ah, Lieutenant Copley,” he declared. “I was hoping you might pass the time with me.”

  Sinclair knew it was more than that. He looked around him, at the rolling, gray sea, strewn with great slabs of ice, and the night sky that, at such a southern latitude, gave off a kind of unchanging pewter gleam. Two crewmen stood watch, one on either side of the deck, looking for especially jagged or insurmountable bergs; another clung to his perch, high above, in the crow's nest. The ship's progress was slow and precarious, and the mutable winds made the frosted sails-those that could still be unfurled-flap and luff with the rumble of thunder.

  “How is your wife faring?”

  Sinclair came closer, his boots sliding on the slippery deck.

  “The good doctor,” Addison continued, “tells me she remains unwell.” His tricorner hat was tied to his head with a frayed crimson sash running under the chin.

  Sinclair knew that if there was one thing on which he and the captain could agree, it was on the utter unreliability of the ship's physician. Every man aboard, in fact, was of a suspect nature, but it was only on just such a boat that Sinclair could have booked immediate and unquestioned passage.

  “She is better,” Sinclair replied, “and resting.”

  Captain Addison nodded thoughtfully, as if he cared, and gazed at the overcast, starless sky. “The winds remain against us,” he said. “If we don't change course soon, we shall find ourselves at the pole itself. Never seen such winds, in all my time.”

  Sinclair read into the remark precisely what the captain doubtlessly intended-a reminder that the foul weather was attributed to the presence of these mysterious passengers on board. Women were considered bad luck to begin with, but the fact that Eleanor was ailing-that she appeared as white as a ghost-only made matters worse. Initially, Sinclair had done all that he could to enter into the life of the ship, to make himself a steady and agreeable guest, but between his duties to Eleanor and the conditions imposed by his own secret infirmity there was simply no way that he could carry it off. Even the two crewmen on deck-their names, if he was not mistaken, were Jones and Jeffries-glanced at him from under their woolen caps and the rags knotted around their faces with unconcealed malevolence.

  “Tell me again, Lieutenant,” Captain Addison said, “what was your business in Lisbon?”

  It was in Portugal that Sinclair had booked passage.

  “Diplomatic matters,” Sinclair replied, “of a sensitive nature. Nothing that I may disclose even now.”

  The wind picked up, whipping the ragged sail around the captain's legs as he stood with both hands gripping the wheel. In the strange penumbral glow of the night sky, he looked to Sinclair like an image from some daguerreotype, washed of all color, reduced to shadows and shades of gray.

  “And was it there your wife fell ill?”

  The plague, Sinclair was aware, had visited the city only a few years before.

  “My wife is ill with no contagion, I can assure you of that. It is an internal disorder, which we will see to when we reach Christchurch.”

  Sinclair noticed one of the sailors-Jones-throw a glance at Jeffries, a glance that clearly said, “If we reach Christchurch…” It was a question that haunted Sinclair, too. Would they have come so far, in such haste, only to perish in a frozen sea?

  The next words from Addison's mouth were swallowed in a sudden gust of wind that set the sails billowing and the masts creaking, but which carried with it a strange sight indeed-a giant, soaring bird. An albatross. Sinclair had not yet seen one, though he knew from the lines of Coleridge's marvelous poem that this must be one now. It hovered overhead, its underbelly white, its outspread wings-no less than ten or twelve feet wide in Sinclair's estimation-tipped with black, its long beak a ruddy pink. Even in the tumultuous air, the bird maintained an attitude of utter serenity, dipping and turning around the masts, tacking on the invisible currents with no greater movement than a slight adjustment of its feet.

  “A gony” Jones said, using the seaman's term, and Jeffries nodded appreciatively; the albatross was a bird of good omen and brought misfortune down only on those who tried to do it harm.

  The ship hit a rising wave, its hull grating on chunks of broken ice, and Sinclair had to grab hold of a rope with both hands to keep his footing. The albatross swooped low, across the brig's prow, then up again and onto a shuddering yardarm. There, it perched, its wings now furled, its claws clutching the slick wood. Sinclair marveled at the sight; how, he wondered, could the great bird survive, flying for countless miles over nothing but rolling seas and slabs of ice, under such a desolate sky?

  “Captain, sir! Captain Addison!”

  Sinclair turned his head, and saw Burton clambering up onto the deck from below, his frozen beard as stiff as a plank; right behind him came Farrow, cradling something beneath his black sealskin jacket.

  His legs spread wide for balance, Burton marched toward the wheel, without so much as a glance in Sinclair's direction. “Something to report, sir!” he bellowed. “Of great concern!”

  Sinclair had to crane his neck to see, as Burton and Farrow seemed intent on blocking his view. He saw the flash of something- glass? — and heard the men jabbering away, in low tones, over one another. Addison held up his hand, as if to calm them, then looked down at the prize they carried. Sinclair could see it, too, now, and to his dismay, saw that it was a wine bottle, marked MADEIRA.

  The captain looked puzzled, then indignant, as if he were not a man to be trifled with. “See for yourself, Captain!” Burton urged, but Addison was still resistant. Farrow pulled a glove off with his teeth and used his bare fingers to pull the cork from the bottle. He held the open bottle under the captain's nose. Spitting his glove onto the deck, he said, “Smell it! Better yet, Cap'n, touch it to your lips!”

  Addison reluctantly lowered his face to the bottle, then recoiled, as if affronted by an especially foul odor. But it was only when Dr. Ludlow crawled up on deck, too, and silently nodded his agreement, that the captain, an expression of horror on his face, peered at Sinclair.

  “Is it true?” he said, taking the dark bottle from Farrow's hand.

  “It's true,” Sinclair said, “that you hold my wife's medicine. Stolen, no doubt, from our cabin.”

  “Medicine?” Burton blurted.

  “Bloody he
ll it is!” Farrow threw in.

  “Didn't I tell you they was trouble?” Burton shouted to Jones and Jeffries, who understood nothing but looked ready to welcome any mayhem about to ensue.

  “Found it under the bedclothes, I did!” Farrow cried, in an apparent bid to claim the lion's share of the credit. “That's no denying!”

  “And ask ‘im what happened to Bromley!” Burton went on, his beard shaking with fury. “Ask ‘im how a man like that, an able-bodied seaman who twice rounded the Horn, fell overboard while keeping watch!”

  Suddenly, everyone's voices were raised and a half dozen other crewmen spilled from the hold, four of them carrying the trunk that Sinclair had just secured. They dropped it upside down on the ice-rimed deck, with the sound of spurs jangling against the bottles still inside. Before Sinclair could even reach for his sword, he felt his arms pinioned and a coil of rope slipped over his wrists, then knotted tight. His shoulders were pressed against the main mast, and while he shouted his protests, he saw Burton and Farrow charge back below.

  “No!” he cried out. “Leave her be!”

  But there was nothing he could do now; he couldn't even move. Captain Addison shouted at one of the seamen to take the helm, then strode across the deck. Staring directly into Sinclair's eyes, he said, “I'm not one to believe in curses, Lieutenant.” He kept his voice low, as if confiding a secret. “But with this,” he went on, brandishing the bottle, “you have pressed my hand beyond endurance.”

  The sailors holding his arms tightened their grip.

  “The men already hold you responsible for the death of Bromley, and I no longer doubt it myself.” Weighing the black bottle in his hand, he whispered, “I'll have a mutiny on my hands if I don't do it.”

  “If you don't do what?”

  But Addison didn't answer. Instead, he looked over at the hatchway, where Burton and Farrow were maneuvering themselves back onto the deck, holding Eleanor in a blanket like a sling. Her eyes were open, and one arm was held out toward Sinclair; her makeshift bonnet had fallen off, and her brown hair, once so thick and glossy, blew in loose tendrils about her head.