Blood and Ice

CHAPTER FORTY-FIVE

December 21, 11 p.m.

ELEANOR FELT LIKE A PRISONER who had been returned to her cell. Dr. Barnes had left her yet another of the blue pills and a glass of water, but she did not want to take it. She did not want to sleep anymore, and she did not want to hide in the infirmary any longer… especially because the temptation in the white metal box was too great. (What, she pressed herself, had they called it? A fridge? Was that it?)

Regardless, she'd seen the bags inside-clear like a haggis casing, but brimming with blood. And she could feel the need coming upon her, again. The very walls around her seemed drained of color, and she often had to close her eyes, then reopen them, simply to restore everything to its natural state. Her breath, too, was growing short and shallow. Dr. Barnes, she believed, had noted the change in her respiration, but Eleanor could hardly explain to her the cause-much less the remedy.

And here she was, alone again, or, as Sinclair had often recited from his book of poetry, “All, all, all alone, alone on a wide, wide sea!” Where is Sinclair right now? In the church, sheltered from the storm? Or lost in the snow and ice, searching for me?

She paced the room like a tiger she had seen in the London Zoo, back and forth, over and over again; even then she had felt for the poor beast's isolation and confinement. She struggled to keep her gaze from the “fridge” and her thoughts from straying into the same dismal channels. But how could they not? Her past life had been taken from her completely-her family, her friends, her very country-and her present life was reduced to a sick bay at the Southern Pole… and a ravening need that it appalled her even to think of.

On that fateful night in the Barrack Hospital, after Sinclair had come to her, she had indeed rallied. By the next day her fever was nearly gone. Moira had exulted over her, and Miss Nightingale herself had brought her cereal and tea and drawn a chair up to her bedside.

“We have missed you on the wards,” Miss Nightingale said. “The soldiers will be glad to see you back.”

“I will be glad to see them, too.”

“One soldier, I should think, in particular,” Miss Nightingale said, and Eleanor had blushed.

“Isn't he the man who once barged into our hospital in London,” Miss Nightingale went on, while holding up a spoonful of cereal, “and required stitching up?”

“Yes, mum, he is.”

Miss Nightingale nodded, and when Eleanor had eaten the cereal, said, “And an attachment has formed between you since?”

“It has,” Eleanor admitted.

“My greatest fear, when recruiting my nurses, was that they would become too attached to certain soldiers in their care. It would reflect badly on the nurse herself, and more importantly, it would put our entire mission into question. You know, of course, that we have many detractors, both here and at home?”

“I do.”

“Narrow-minded people who believe our nurses are nothing more than opportunists and worse?”

Miss Nightingale offered another spoonful of the cereal, and though Eleanor had not yet regained her appetite, she was not about to refuse it. “That is why I must ask you to do nothing-and I cannot emphasize this strongly enough-that would bring your service here, or ours, into disrepute.”

Eleanor signaled her assent with a mute tilt of the head.

“Good,” Miss Nightingale said. “Then I think we understand each other.” She got up, carefully placing the cereal bowl on the seat of the wooden chair. “I trust in your judgment and take you at your word.” With a rustle of her skirt, she went to the door, where Moira was waiting. “I'm afraid there has been more bloodshed near the Woronzoff Road. I will need you both to report for duty tomorrow at first light.”

Then she was gone. Eleanor's head fell back on the pillow and stayed there until the night came… and with it, again, Sinclair.

He had studied her face in the candlelight as if he were looking for clues, but seemed happy with what he saw. “You're better,” he said, putting his hand to her brow. “The fever's gone.”

“It is,” she said, resting her cheek against his palm.

“Tomorrow, we can leave this accursed place.”

Eleanor didn't know what he was talking about. “Leave?” Sinclair was in the army, and she was to report for duty in the morning.

“We can't very well stay here, can we? Not now.”

Eleanor was confused. Why not? What had changed, apart from the fact that they had both recovered?

“I'll manage to find some horses,” he went on, “though we might have to make do with just one.”

“Sinclair,” Eleanor said, worried that his own fever might have returned after all, “what are you saying? Where would we go?” Was he delusional?

“Anywhere. The whole damn country is a battlefield. Wherever we go, we shouldn't have any trouble finding what we need.”

“What we need?”

That was when he had met her gaze most steadily, cupping her face between his hands, before speaking. He had knelt by the bed and, in a low voice, told her a story, a story so terrible she had not believed him-not a word of it. A tale of creatures that haunted the Crimean night, and preyed upon the dying. (“I see it in my dreams every night,” he said, “and still I could not tell you what it was.”) Of a curse, or a blessing, that defied death itself. Of a need that never stopped… and to which she was now, like him, a slave. She couldn't believe it, and she wouldn't believe it!

But she could feel the wound just above her breast-it had left a telltale scar-which Sinclair said was the proof.

He kissed it now, contritely, and she felt the hot tears burning in her eyes. She turned her face to the wall, gasping for breath. The room, which had a tall window opening onto the sea, suddenly felt unbearably close and stifling.

Sinclair clutched her hand, but she withdrew that, too. What had he done to her? What had he done to them both? If he was lying, then he was mad. If he was telling the truth, then they were both doomed to a fate worse than death. Eleanor had been raised in the Church of England, but she had never been particularly devout; she left that to her mother and her sisters. But what Sinclair was telling her was even to her mind a sacrilege of such magnitude that she could barely contemplate it… or dwell on the life that it would necessitate.

“It was the only way I could save you,” Sinclair was saying. “Forgive me. Eleanor. Please say that you can forgive me.”

But at that moment, she could not. At that moment it was all she could do to breathe the damp air of the Bosporus, and consider what she might do…

Even now, it was a dilemma that offered no easy way out.

As she paced the floor of the infirmary, it was a struggle to keep her thoughts from the white metal box-with the blood inside it- that stood before her. All she had to do was reach out, open it, and take what she needed. There it was, beckoning to her.

She forced herself to look away and went to the window.

The constant sun imparted a dull glare that reminded her of the light in the sky on their ill-fated voyage aboard the Coventry. By the clock, it was getting on toward midnight, but she knew that there would be no proper night. Here, it was all a seamless unraveling of time, and she knew that she'd already taken, in the eyes of God, far more days than could ever have been her allotted share.

Michael. Michael Wilde. The moment he came into her mind, she did feel her thoughts lift. He had been so kind, and then, when he had taken the liberty of joining her on the piano bench, so mortified at his transgression. Importunate as his conduct had seemed, Eleanor did understand she was in a new world, where customs differed. There was so much she would have to learn. Symphony orchestras that played from little black boxes! Lights that came on and burned steadily with the flick of a switch. Women-and African women, to boot-serving as doctors!

Then she remembered how shocked her mother had been at the idea of her traveling to London-a single, unaccompanied young woman-to become a nurse. Perhaps everything that was once shocking eventually became routine. Perhaps the terrible toll of the Crimean War had startled the conscience of humanity and put an end to such mindless slaughter. Perhaps this world was a more enlightened one. A world where even ordinary things were made to smell sweet and nations settled their differences with raised voices but never raised swords.

She allowed herself to feel an unfamiliar ray of hope.

It had felt so good-so normal -to be seated at the piano again. Her fingers had so enjoyed touching the keys. It had brought back all of her lessons from the parson's wife, playing in the front parlor with the casement windows flung open and the family's cocker spaniel chasing rabbits across the wide green lawn. Mrs. Musgrove had a standing order with a music shop in Sheffield, and twice a year they sent her a selection of popular compositions. That was how Eleanor had come to fall in love with so many of the old, traditional ballads and songs, like “The Banks of the River Tweed” and “Barbara Allen.”

Michael had seemed to enjoy the song, too. He had a sensitive face, but there was something haunted about it, too. He had borne his own tragedy, of some kind, and perhaps that was why he had elected to come to such a lonely place. Who would choose such a destination if it had not, in some way, been chosen for him? She wondered what it was that had befallen him… or from what memory he might be fleeing. She did not recall seeing a ring on his finger, and in their time together he had certainly never mentioned a wife. Though she couldn't have said why, he struck her as a bachelor.

Oh, how she longed for sunlight- true sunlight, not an empty imitation. Sunlight as warm and golden as syrup, pouring over her. She had lived an eternity in the shadows, fleeing with Sinclair from one town to another lest they linger too long in one place and their secret be discovered. They had made their way from Scutari through the Carpathians, then on to Italy where Eleanor had held her face out the carriage window just to catch every ray she could of the warm Mediterranean sun. Often, she had suggested they stop and stay somewhere, but as soon as Sinclair felt any of the local inhabitants taking too much of an interest in who exactly this mysterious young English couple was, he insisted they leave again. He lived in dread of his desertion being discovered, and often said that he hoped his father would hear only that he had been lost on the battlefield at Balaclava.

As for Eleanor, she didn't know which she feared more-never seeing her family again or seeing them and knowing that they could sense she had changed in some ineffable way.

In Marseilles, Sinclair had spotted an old friend of his family strolling along the quay, and dragged her into an artisan's shop to escape detection. When the shopkeeper asked what he could show them, Sinclair answered, in perfect French so far as Eleanor could tell, that he was interested in the first thing his eye happened to fall on-an ivory brooch, with a gold rim, lying on a worktable.

The shopkeeper had lifted the brooch into the light from a window, and Eleanor had marveled at its execution. It was a cameo of a classical figure-Venus rising from the waves.

“What more perfect theme could we have chosen,” Sinclair declared, pinning it to her bodice, “than the goddess of love.”

“It's lovely,” she said, in a low voice, “but shouldn't we save what money we have left?”

“Combien d'argent?” Sinclair asked the shopkeeper, and settled the bill without question. Eleanor never knew where their funds came from, but somehow there was always enough to transport them to the next spot. She suspected that Sinclair, posing as someone he was not, managed to borrow funds from Englishmen they encountered abroad, and parlayed those loans into even greater sums at the gaming tables.

In Lisbon, they had taken a room at the top of a small hotel, overlooking the crenellated facade of Santa Maria Maior. The ringing bells of the cathedral were like a constant reproof, and one morning, Sinclair, perhaps intuiting her thoughts, said, “Shall we marry there?”

Eleanor did not know how to answer. Already she felt damned in so many ways, and much as she would have liked to be properly wed, the very thought of entering a church, and taking holy vows in her present state, was too daunting. But Sinclair prevailed upon her, saying, “At least let's go and look. From all accounts, it's a very beautiful church.”

“But we cannot enlist a priest, not with all the lies we would have to tell.”

“Who said anything about a priest?” Sinclair scoffed. “They speak Portuguese, anyway. We can stand there, if you like, and make our own vows. God can hear them without the help of some Papist intermediary… provided, of course, that there's a god to hear them at all.” He made it sound like a very dubious proposition.

And so she had put on her finest dress, and Sinclair his uniform, and arm in arm they had crossed the square to the cathedral. They had made a handsome couple, and she could see the impression they made in the eyes of passersby The church itself had been built in the twelfth century, and though badly damaged by the earthquakes of 1344 and 1755, it had been repaired and rebuilt where necessary; its twin bell towers rose like a white fortress on either side of the high, nobly arched entranceway Between the arches was a rounded window, through whose colored panes the sunlight lent a golden hue to the antique gilding and massive columns of the interior. Marble tombs, each with its coat of arms, were ensconced in private chapels behind iron gates. On one tomb, Eleanor saw the figure of a recumbent nobleman in armor, holding his sword and guarded by his dog; on another, a woman in classical dress, reading a Book of Hours. The cathedral was vast, and though there were worshippers in the pews, and visitors in the aisles, a hush prevailed over everything, and all Eleanor could really hear was the sound of their own footsteps echoing up the nave.

An elderly priest in a black robe, a white rope belted around his waist, was consulting with several well-dressed men and ladies at one end of the transept, and Eleanor instinctively moved in the other direction. Sinclair felt the tug on his arm and smiled.

“Are you afraid he's picked up our scent?”

“Don't make such jests.”

“Do you think he'll chase us out?”

But she didn't answer him at all this time.

“We don't have to go through with it,” he said. “I was only doing it for you.”

“That's not a very becoming sentiment,” she replied, pulling away, wondering what had possessed her to do this in the first place.

Sinclair came after her, clutching her sleeve. “I'm sorry. You know I didn't mean that.”

Eleanor felt several people observing them-they were creating a scene, the last thing in the world she wanted to do-and she ducked behind the column closest to the altar itself, raising a handkerchief to conceal her face.

“I would marry you anywhere,” he said, in a low but urgent voice. “You must know that. In Westminster Abbey, or in the middle of the forest with no one there to witness it but the birds in the trees.”

Eleanor did know it, but it wasn't enough. Sinclair had lost his faith in everything, and he had profoundly shaken hers. What were they doing there? What had she hoped would come of it? It was a terrible mistake, and she'd known it the moment she crossed the threshold of the cathedral.

“Come,” he said earnestly, slipping a hand into the crook of her elbow. “Let's stand in the open.”

She tried to resist, but he pulled her out of the shadows, and afraid of causing any more commotion, she let him prevail.

“We have nothing to hide,” he said.

He drew her first into the center aisle, then out in front of the ornate and glittering altar itself. The stained-glass window, in brilliant blues and reds and yellows, glowed like a kaleidoscope that Eleanor had once seen in a London optical shop, and it was so beautiful she could hardly take her eyes away.

Sinclair clasped both of her hands in his, and in a soft voice said, “I, Sinclair Archibald Copley, do take thee, Eleanor-” He stopped. “Isn't that odd? I don't know your middle name-do you have one?”

“Jane.”

“Do take thee, Eleanor Jane Ames,” he continued, “to be my lawfully wedded wife. To have and to hold, for richer or for poorer, in sickness and in health, until death do us part.”

Eleanor felt that they were being far too conspicuous, and she tried to lower her hands.

But Sinclair hung on. “I hope I remembered that correctly. If there's anything I missed, please tell me.”

“No, I believe you had it right.”

“Good, then once you recite the vows yourself, we can go and have a toast at that noisy cantina on the square.”

“Sinclair,” she pleaded, “I can't.”

“You can't?” he inquired, a brittle edge entering his voice. “Or you won't?”

Eleanor was sure that the priest had taken notice of them. He had a long white beard and sharp dark eyes under bushy brows. “Sinclair, I think we should leave now.”

“No,” he said. “Not until we have asked the assembled congregation-”

“What congregation?” The other Sinclair, the one she dreaded, was coming to the fore.

“Not until we have asked the congregation if any of them knows of any just impediment to our being wed.”

“That's meant to come before the vow,” she said. “Don't make any more of a mockery of this than we already have.”

She knew that they had to go. She could see, out of the corner of her eye, the priest disengaging himself from the Portuguese aristocrats.

“We are making a spectacle of ourselves,” she whispered, “and it isn't safe. You know that better than anyone.”

He fixed her with a dull glare, as if wondering how much further to go. She'd seen that look in his eye before; he could be tipped over-from mirth to fury, from kindness to callousness-in an instant.

He had just opened his mouth to speak when she heard a rumbling in the stone slabs beneath her feet, and from the wall behind the altar-a wall that had stood for centuries-she saw the heavy crucifix tilt, then sway. The priest, who'd been striding toward them, stopped and looked up in horror as cracks rippled through the plaster. All around her, people screamed, or threw themselves to the floor with their hands clasped in prayer.

As Sinclair and Eleanor stepped back, the cross broke free, ripping bricks from the wall and throwing up a cloud of white dust. Sinclair dragged her behind a column and they huddled there, expecting the earthquake to level the entire church around them. The great stained-glass window fractured like sheer ice on a pond, then crumbled into a thousand shining shards of glass. Dust and debris billowed out into the nave. Eleanor clutched her handkerchief over her mouth and nose, and Sinclair raised the sleeve of his uniform over his own. Through the cloud, Eleanor could discern the priest, crossing himself, but pressing forward… toward them.

“Sinclair,” she said, coughing. “The priest, he's coming.”

Sinclair turned around and saw the man waving the plaster dust out of his path.

“This way,” he said, leading Eleanor toward one of the side chapels. But a couple of men-the ones wearing fine velvet tailcoats-were standing there, aghast but stubbornly unmoving, and he had to suddenly change course. By the time he did, the priest had intercepted them, and was clutching at the gold braid on Sinclair's doublet and shouting angry words that they could not understand. His arms waved, as if indicating that the chaos had been brought on by some terrible sacrilege Sinclair had been performing.

Had it? Eleanor wondered.

Sinclair batted the man's hands away, and finally, when that didn't stop him, he drew back his fist and punched him hard in the belly. The old priest fell to his knees, then, gasping for air, toppled over into the dust. Clutching Eleanor's hand, Sinclair hurried down the nave and out a side door near the chapel of the knight in armor. The bright sunlight blinded them for a moment, and the earth gave another jolt. People were still fleeing from their shops and houses; dogs were barking and pigs were squealing in the street. They turned down a flight of winding steps and into a cobblestoned alley. Loose red tiles skittered off a roof and shattered in their path. A few minutes later, they had lost themselves in the mayhem of a panicked marketplace.

It was not the wedding day that Eleanor, as a young girl lying in a meadow in Yorkshire, might have imagined.

And now? Now she was standing in front of the squat white box-the fridge-her breath shallow, and the room in the infirmary fading to white before her eyes. She put out a hand to steady herself, but her knees were weak. She let herself sink and came to rest with her head against the cool surface of its door. Inside it, she knew, was what she needed, and without really willing it, her fingers found the handle. She opened the box, and took out one of the bags, with the blood sloshing inside. It said “O Negative” on it. She wondered what that meant, but not for long. With her teeth, she tore it open, and there on the floor, her soft white robe spread out around her, she suckled at the bag like a newborn babe.