Blood and Ice

CHAPTER SIX

June 20, 1854, 6 p.m.

IT WOULD HAVE BEEN an altogether typical night for Sinclair Archibald Copley, lieutenant in the 17th Lancers, had it not concluded in such an unforeseen way.

It began about six, with several rounds of ecarte in the barracks, at which Sinclair lost the sum of twenty pounds. His father, the fourth Earl of Hawton, would not be pleased at another request for funds-he had sworn, after buying Sinclair the army commission, that he would offer no more help. But rather than suffer any damage to the family name, he had already quietly settled an outstanding bill with Sinclair's tailor, then another with the Oriental proprietor of a dubious establishment in Bluegate-fields, where Sinclair had indulged in what the earl decried as “depraved behavior.” He could hardly refuse one more small request, certainly not from a son who might well be dispatched any day to fight the Russians in the Crimea.

“What would you say to dinner at my club?” Rutherford asked, raking in his winnings. “As my guests, of course.”

“That's the least you can do,” said Le Maitre, the other loser for the night. Because of his surname, he was known to his friends as Frenchie. “It's my money you'll be spending.”

“Now, now,” Rutherford said, stroking his extravagant side-whiskers, “let's not quarrel about it. What do you say, Sinclair?”

Sinclair wasn't eager to go to the Athenaeum just then, either. He had a small indebtedness to several of the members there, too. “I'd prefer the Turtle.”

“The Turtle it is, then,” Rutherford said, lumbering up from his chair-they had all done a fair amount of drinking while gambling-”and perhaps a late visit to Mme. Eugenie?” He winked broadly at Sinclair and Le Maitre, while stuffing their pound notes into the pocket of his scarlet pelisse. He was in a good mood, and rightly so.

The three of them careened out into Oxford Street, sending several civilians scurrying out of their way, and splashed through the muddy London thoroughfares. At the corner of Harley Street, where a Miss Florence Nightingale had recently founded a hospital for indigent gentlewomen, Sinclair stopped to watch as a pretty young woman in a white bonnet leaned out to close the shutters on a third-story window. She saw him, too-his epaulettes and gold buttons gleamed in the dusk-and he smiled up at her. She ducked her head back inside, and the shutters closed, but not before he thought he'd seen her smile back.

“Come along!” Rutherford cried from down the street. “I'm famished.”

Sinclair caught up to his companions, and together they made their way to the beckoning globe of the Turtle tavern. A wooden placard, depicting a bright green turtle standing, improbably enough, on his hind legs, swung over the door, and Sinclair could hear the roar of many voices and the clattering of cups and cutlery from inside.

The door banged open as a fat man in a top hat spilled out, and Rutherford held it wide for Sinclair and Le Maitre to enter.

Long trestle tables ran the length of the low-ceilinged room, and a crackling fire burned in the vast stone hearth. Waiters in grease-spattered vests moved among the diners with platters of roasted chicken and slabs of bloody roast beef. Customers banged empty beer mugs on the wooden tabletops to signal the need for replenishment. But Sinclair was neither hungry nor thirsty.

“Rutherford, give me back a fiver.”

“What for? I already said I'm buying.”

“I'm going out back.”

Nearly all the taverns had a fighting pit out back, but the Turtle's was especially well attended. With a bit of luck, Sinclair would be able to win back what he'd lost at cards.

“You're incorrigible,” Rutherford replied, while obligingly providing the five-pound note.

“I'll join you,” Le Maitre said, and Rutherford looked shocked.

“You're leaving me to dine alone?”

“Not for long,” Sinclair said, as he drew Le Maitre by the arm toward the rear door of the tavern. “We'll be back with our winnings.”

Behind the tavern there was a filthy alley, littered with bones and offal, and beyond that an old stable that had been converted to gaming use. It was insufferably warm and fetid inside; gas lamps burned from iron stanchions, illuminating the mob that crowded around the fighting pit-a square about fifteen feet on each side, and perhaps four feet deep.

The pit boss, bare-chested and sporting a tattoo of the Union Jack across his back, was standing in its center, announcing the next bout. The sand in the floor of the pit was wet with blood and spittle and littered with scraps of mangled fur.

“We got Duke, a black and tan,” he shouted, “and we got Whitey! If you will make way, gentlemen, you will be afforded the opportunity of seeing these fine beasts before placing your wagers!”

The crowd parted, opening crooked avenues for two men with pit bulls on short chains, their muzzles tied with rope. The dogs strained ferociously at their leashes as they moved toward the lip of the pit, and it was all their masters could do to keep them from leaping inside, or going after each other.

“Duke, he hails from Rosemary Lane,” the boss announced, “and Whitey, why Whitey's the pride of Ludgate Hill. Two fine champions, gentlemen, and a right even match. So place your bets!” he cried out. “Place your bets, if you please!”

He stepped up out of the pit and rolled a barrel to its rim.

“Have you seen either of them fight?” Frenchie asked, leaning close to Sinclair's ear to be heard over the crowd.

“Yes, I've won on Whitey,” Sinclair replied, while raising his hand to a passing bookmaker. “Five on Whitey!”

“Make it ten!” Frenchie threw in.

The bookmaker tipped his cap-as they were clearly gentlemen, he would not insist on the cash in advance-and turned to an old drunk pulling at his sleeve.

“Last call, gentlemen,” the boss called out as he pounded a fist on the closed barrel at the rim of the pit. “Place all bets!”

There was a sudden flurry of cries and raised hands as the dogs’ masters removed the ropes from their muzzles. The dogs barked furiously, foam flying from their lips. Then a bell rang, the pit boss shouted, “All done!” and everyone's eyes turned toward the barrel. The boss yanked off its lid, and with his foot tipped it over.

A swarm of rats, black and brown and gray, tumbled out and fell in a frenzied torrent into the pit. They righted themselves quickly and ran in all directions, some nipping at each other, others scrabbling at the wooden boards that lined the pit. Several actually managed to leap out, but the laughing gamblers booted them back in again.

The dogs went into a frenzy at the sight of the rats, and their masters had no sooner unhooked the leads than the dogs sailed into the pit, jaws snarling and claws bared. The white one was the first to make a kill, grabbing a fat gray rat and biting clear through it.

Sinclair clenched a fist in triumph, and Frenchie shouted, “Good work, Whitey!”

Duke, the black and tan, quickly evened the score, shaking a brown one like a rag until its head flew off. The rats scurried to the sides of the pit, clambering over each other's backs in their rush to escape. Whitey lunged at the one on top of a pile and tossed it into the air. The rat landed on its back and before it could turn over Whitey had lunged for its belly and ripped it open with one swipe.

There was a huzzah from Whitey's supporters in the crowd.

And so it went for the full five minutes. Blood and bone and bits of rat flew everywhere-Sinclair always made it a point to stand well back so that his uniform would remain unmarred-but at some point Whitey seemed to lose his enthusiasm for the kill and decided to eat his prey. That was not good training, Sinclair thought; while the dog should be kept hungry before a bout, enough to keep its instinct for blood alive, it should not be so starved that it stopped to consume the quarry.

“Get up, Whitey!” Frenchie shouted, as did many others, but the dog remained on all fours munching the dead rodents scattered around its paws. Duke, meanwhile, continued about his grim business.

Sinclair could see his money evaporating even before the bell rang and the boss called out “Time, gentlemen!” The dogs’ masters leapt into the pit, landing between the dogs and among the few maimed rats still crawling about, half-alive.

The pit boss looked to his fellow judge-a dirt-covered urchin holding the brass bell-and announced, “It's Duke, gentlemen! Duke of Rosemary Lane has carried the day with a baker's dozen.”

There was a happy clamor from Duke's supporters, and the passing of notes and coins among the mob. The bookmaker in the cap appeared before Sinclair, who grudgingly handed him the fiver. Frenchie did the same.

“Won't Rutherford gloat,” Le Maitre said.

Sinclair knew he was right, but he had already put the loss out of mind. It was always best not to dwell on misfortune. And his thoughts, as it happened, had already turned in a decidedly more pleasant direction. As he joined the raucous throng heading back to the tavern, he was thinking of that fetching young woman he'd seen, in the crisp white bonnet, closing the hospital shutters.