Robert Masello - Blood and Ice

The ship careened suddenly from one side to the other. The Ops spun the wheel back to the right and said, “Hard starboard, sir!” to the captain down below. Michael saw the wave, too, gathering force and coming at them like a wall, spreading its wings to either side, lifting chunks of ice the size of houses, and blotting out even the deadening light of the constant sun.

“Hold on tight!” Kathleen barked, and Michael braced himself against the walls, his legs straight, his feet spread. He had never seen anything so large move with such velocity and force, carrying everything-the whole world, it seemed-before it.

The Ops tried to turn the boat so that it would miss the brunt of the wave, but it was too late and the wave, no less than a hundred feet high, was too huge. As it rushed toward the cutter-a streaming wall of angry gray water, rising and widening every second- something else-something white, no, black-something out of control, caught in the storm's unbreakable grip-rocketed toward them even faster. A second later, the window shattered with the sound of a shotgun blast, and shards of ice sprayed the compartment like flying needles. Kathleen screamed and fell away from the wheel, knocking into Michael, who tried to grab her as she slid to the floor. Freezing water pelted his face, and he shook it off, to see- alive and cawing-the bloodied head of a snow-white albatross lying atop the wheel. Its body was wedged against the broken window, its twisted wings splayed uselessly to either side. The wave was still surging over the boat, and the bird clacked its ruined bill, flattened like a boxer's nose. Michael was staring straight into its black unblinking eyes as Kathleen huddled on the floor, and the blue light of the flooded console screens sputtered and went out.

The wave passed, the ship groaned, rolled one way, then back in the other, and finally righted itself.

The albatross opened its mangled beak one more time, emitting nothing more than a hollow rattle, and then, as Michael tried to catch a breath, and Kathleen moaned at his feet in pain, the light in the bird's eyes went out like a snuffed candle.

June 20, 1854, 11 p.m.

The Salon d'Aphrodite, known to its regular clientele simply as Mme. Eugenie's, was located on a busy stretch of the Strand, but back from the street. A brace of lanterns always hung from the gates of the porte-cochere, and so long as they were lighted, the salon was open for business.

Sinclair had never known them to be out.

He was the first to step down from the hansom cab, followed by Le Maitre and then Rutherford, who had to pay the cabbie. Thank God he was of a rich, generous-and just now drunken-nature, as he would also have to pay for their privileges of the house. Mme. Eugenie could occasionally be persuaded to extend credit, but it was at a usurious rate of interest, and no one wished to be hauled into court for an outstanding debt to the Salon d'Aphrodite.

As the three of them mounted the stairs, John-O, a towering Jamaican with a pair of gold teeth in the front of his mouth, opened the door and stepped to one side. He knew who they were, but he was paid in part never to say so.

“Good evening,” Rutherford said, rather thickly, “is Madame at home?” As if he were paying a call on a society acquaintance.

John-O nodded toward the parlor, partially concealed by a red velvet drape; Sinclair could hear the sound of the pianoforte, and a young woman singing “The Beautiful Banks of the Tweed.” With the others in tow, he moved toward the light and gaiety. Frenchie lifted the drape to one side, and Mme. Eugenie looked up from a divan, where she was seated between two of her girls.

“Bienvenue, mes amis!” she said, quickly rising. She was like an old bird, with bright new feathers; her skin the texture of leather, her dress an elaborate green brocade studded with rhinestones. She came forward with her hands extended, a gaudy ring on every finger. “I am so glad you have come to call.”

As Le Maitre guffawed, Sinclair sank gratefully onto a well-cushioned ottoman; he wasn't feeling much steadier on his feet than his companions. The room was spacious-it was once the exhibition hall of a bibliographical society, but as there had been too few bibliophiles to keep the house solvent, Mme. Eugenie had swooped in and snapped it up for a song. The bookshelves held knick-knacks-busts of Cupid and silk flowers in chinoiserie vases. A large oil painting, badly rendered, of Leda Seduced by Zeus hung above the hearth.

The studies and workrooms upstairs had been converted to more private and intimate use.

At present, Sinclair counted perhaps half a dozen of th e femmes galantes circulating around the parlor, in clinging or revealing costume, and an equal number of customers, lounging about on the sofas and chairs. A servant asked him if he would care to have a drink, and Sinclair said, “Gin, yes. And one for each of my friends.”

Rutherford said, “Make mine a whiskey,” and threw him a cautionary look that said: If I'm to pay for all this, I'll bloody well have what I want.

Sinclair knew he was only going deeper into trouble, and debt, but sometimes, he reflected, the only way out was down. And there was still a ways to go.

Frenchie, he noted, was already entangled with a raven-haired harlot in jeweled slippers.

“That you, Sinclair?” someone asked, and Sinclair could guess whose voice it was. Dalton-James Fitzroy a fool of the first water, whose family's lands adjoined his own. “My lord, Sinclair, what are you doing here?”

Sinclair turned on the ottoman, and saw Dalton-James Fitzroy his bulky rump parked on the piano bench, beside the singing girl. Now that the girl turned, Sinclair saw that, despite her gangly frame, she couldn't be more than twelve or thirteen years old, with a simple country face.

“I thought you'd been hounded out of town by your creditors,” Fitzroy said. His pudgy cheeks were gleaming with sweat, and Sinclair steeled himself not to rise to the bait.

“Evening,” he simply replied.

But Fitzroy was determined. “How will you pay the apothecary if you catch a dose here tonight?”

This time, he was saved the trouble of answering at all by Mme. Eugenie's intervention, who rushed to the defense of her establishment. She fluttered between them, saying “Messieurs, my companion ladies are clean as whistles! Dr. Evans, he inspects them regulierement. Every month! And our visitors,” she declared, sweeping one hand around the room, “are la creme de la societe. Only the finest gentlemen, as you may see for yourself.” Wagging one bejeweled finger at Fitzroy, playfully but with meaning, she said, “Shame on you, sir, in front of these agreeable ladies, to be so rude.”

Fitzroy took his chastisement in the spirit of irony, bowed low over the piano keyboard, and begged forgiveness. “Perhaps it is best that I sheathe my sword and depart the field,” he said, which was rich, Sinclair thought, coming from a coward like Fitzroy-always full of bluster until the army came calling for recruits.

He stood up, his silk waistcoat straining at its seams, and clutching the girl's hand walked unsteadily toward the main stairs.

“John-O,” Mme. Eugenie called out, “please show our guest to the Suite des Dieux.”

The girl cast a frightened eye back toward Sinclair, of all people. But he could see-under her rouge and makeup-just how young and inexperienced she was. And he could not resist one sally.

“Why not have a woman?” he taunted Fitzroy.

Two of the other gentlemen in the room laughed.

Fitzroy stopped, teetering, but did not turn. “Chacun a son gout, Sinclair. You, above all people, should know that.”

As Fitzroy left the room with his reluctant prize, Mme. Eugenie came to Sinclair, clucking her tongue. “Why are you so quarrelsome tonight? It is not like you, my lord.” Sinclair was not a lord, not yet, but he knew that Mme. Eugenie liked to flatter her customers that way. “That is bad form, and Mr. Fitzroy has paid well for this privilege.”