Frostbitten Fairy Tales

by Melanie Karsak

  “See, you’re the most famous actress on the ice,” Kai teased.

  I rolled my eyes at him. “There,” I said, spotting a table for the two of us at the back.

  Even though there were braziers inside to ward off the chill, it was still desperately cold. I slipped into my seat and rubbed my hands together, blowing on my fingertips.

  “Your nose is red,” Kai said.

  “You’d think I’ve been swimming in wine all night.”

  Kai smiled. “Then we best get you started.”

  The barmaid came to our table. “Drinks?”

  “Let’s begin with two mulled wines,” Kai told her.

  The girl smiled coquettishly at him. “As you wish, sir.”

  I rolled my eyes. It had almost become commonplace to see the girls flirt shamelessly with Kai. Of course, he was handsome, but the physician’s bag also worked as bait. He was an excellent catch. But what they didn’t know was that he seemed to have no intentions of marrying. Though women always flirted with him, I wasn’t sure he even noticed.

  “How did the rest of the performers do? Did you like the play?” I asked.

  Kai nodded. “The Rude Mechanicals were amusing. Hippolyta, however, was far too serious. You did a very fine job, but they didn’t let you dance enough.”

  “There’s hardly any dancing in Shakespeare.”

  “I thought, perhaps, Lord Waldegrave would come see you perform,” Kai said. I couldn’t help but hear the stiffness in his voice.

  John and I had, albeit covertly, been seeing one another for the last two months. He’d spotted me in a showing of Hamlet and was, at least per his own accord, enchanted at once.

  “He was there before the performance but was called away at the last moment,” I said, pulling the note from inside my sleeve where I’d stashed it. I handed it to Kai.

  Kai read the note—twice—then slid it back across the table to me. Hooking his thumb under his chin, he curled his finger on his lips and looked pensive.

  “Don’t say anything,” I told him. “It’s not what you’re thinking. John isn’t like that.”

  “Like what?”

  “A rake.”

  “Elyse, you are beautiful and talented. And despite the fact that you are also stubborn and relentless, I am sure many young men will see beyond those flaws,” he said, trying to lighten the mood before he added, “but as much as I esteem you, you are also below Lord Waldegrave’s station. Even a hint at an inappropriate association with you would tarnish his reputation. Surely you must—”

  “That’s not true. Actresses marry above their stations all the time. Last year, Miss Prynn, an actress from the Lyceum Theatre, married Lord Roberts. And two years back, an actress at the Adelphi caught the eye of a Bohemian gentleman. They, too, were married.”

  “I’m not bringing this up to hurt you. I just want you to be caut—”

  “Here you are,” the barmaid said, setting down our cups. She lingered an extra moment to smile at Kai before walking away, swinging her hips in an obvious fashion. She looked back over her shoulder at Kai, frowning when she saw he was not looking in her direction.

  “You were saying?” I bit my lip. Kai was right. John had asked me to keep our liaison a secret—for now. But it still hurt to hear it, and especially to hear it from Kai, whose opinion mattered most to me.

  “I just want to protect your heart. Forget I mentioned it. Now, let’s toast. Cheers to your excellent performance,” he said, lifting his cup.

  I clinked my mug against his. “And to your health.”

  We both drank. I let the warm wine slip down my throat. It eased the ache that lingered there after a performance. The wine had been spiced beautifully. I tasted orange, anise, and cinnamon brewed into the dark red liquid.

  “The girls said the stage manager from the Theatre-Royal in Covent Garden was in the audience,” I said after I swallowed.

  “Excellent. Did he come backstage?” Kai asked.

  I shook my head. Kai was right to ask. If the stage manager had seen something he liked, he would have inquired with Marve. But he hadn’t.

  “No matter. I’m sure he’ll be back,” Kai said, giving my hand a reassuring squeeze.

  Just then, a man rushed into the tent. “I need a surgeon. Someone said Doctor Murray came in here. Doctor Murray?” the man called, looking around the tavern.

  The patrons went silent.

  Kai rose. “What’s the matter?”

  “Are you Doctor Murray?”

  “Yes.”

  “We’ve found a man in the river. We thought he’d drowned. But, sir…well, you should come.”

  Kai dropped two coins on the table, grabbed his bag, and looked at me. “I need to—”

  “I’m coming.”

  Kai nodded then we both turned and followed the man back into the frozen night.

  Chapter 4: Onion Soup

  The young man who’d come to fetch Kai led us from The Frozen Mermaid to a spot on the Thames away from the tents. We rushed across the ice toward a group of men who stood with torches in hand.

  “Someone noticed a stick poking out of the ice. It had a cravat attached to it. A bank of ice concealed him, but his head and shoulders were just above the water.”

  “How long ago?” Kai asked.

  “About fifteen minutes. By chance, one of the lads remembered seeing you enter The Frozen Mermaid with Miss McKenna. Sir, I’m not sure he’s alive. His skin…” the man said then paused to look back at me.

  “Don’t worry, she’s quite used to medical ministry,” Kai said.

  While Kai was the one who’d taken the formal training as a doctor, he never shied away from showing me what he had learned. At this point, if my career as an actress or a dancer faltered, I’d make a good physician’s assistant.

  “His skin was blue in the manner of death. We thought he was gone, but then he took a breath.”

  “Any heartbeat?”

  “We couldn’t tell. Some of the lads were trying to give him some Scotch to revive him.”

  “Fools,” Kai muttered then hurried his step. I followed quickly behind him.

  Kai rushed forward as we drew close. Five men stood around another man who lay on the ice. His skin had paled to an ashen color tinged with the same blue as the Frost Fair roses. The man’s black hair was washed back in straight lines; the damp hair at the base of his neck appeared to be frozen to the river’s icy surface. His lips were blue. The man, I noticed, wore an expensive suit. He was a gentleman of some distinction. How odd that he would be found in this condition. Kai dropped to his knees as he pulled his instruments from his bag. He did it with so swift a motion that it seemed natural. Mixed emotions of worry for the frozen man and pride in my oldest friend swelled in my heart. For many years I had watched Kai study, advancing from apothecary to surgeon, then his years in service as an apprentice until he became a doctor. I was fairly sure there was no man in London as brilliant as Kai.

  “Quickly, gentlemen. Your coats,” Kai called to the others. At once, each man pulled off his jacket and laid it on the frozen man as Kai pressed his ear to the man’s chest, searching for a heartbeat.

  Shaking his head, Kai grabbed the man’s shirt and ripped it open down the front. The silver buttons snapped off the garment. They flew through the air, shimmering like diamonds, then fell on the ice, twinkling dimly in the torchlight. The effect of it enraptured me so that I stared at the brilliant pieces. A moment later, a swirl of snow rose off the surface of the Thames. It glimmered crystalline as it swept toward the buttons. The light must have struck the powdered snow just right, because amongst the frozen powder, I could have sworn I’d seen something thumb-sized and brilliant blue zipping to and fro. Perhaps the moonlight was being reflected in the swirl of snow? A moment later, however, the snow settled. When I looked once more, I realized that the silver buttons were gone. Had they been blown away?

  “Shh,” Kai hissed, motioning for the men to be silent.

  The men mutter
ed quietly.

  Kai frowned as he strained to listen.

  “Be silent, gentlemen,” I told them.

  Rightly chastised, they quieted.

  Kai listened intently then sat up.

  Frustrated, he pushed his hair back. When he went to lean in again, he spied a boy standing beside his father. The child held a cone with a ball attached.

  “May I use that?” Kai asked him.

  The boy nodded absently then handed the cone to Kai.

  Kai set the wide part of the cone on the man’s chest and gently placed his ear on the smaller end. A moment later, his eyebrows arched and a wisp of a smile crossed his face. He sat up. “There is still a chance. You,” he said, turning to the boy. “Run to the soup maker. Tell her to prepare a barrel of warm water. Go quickly. This man may yet survive, but we need to move him.”

  “Grab his legs, boys,” one of the men said to his comrades in a slurred voice.

  “No,” Kai said. “We need a stretcher.”

  The men looked around, puzzled.

  “Here,” I said, unfastening the tie at the neck of my long winter coat. I unbuttoned the garment and pressed it toward Kai.

  Kai motioned to the men to lay my coat on the ice while he absent-mindedly pulled off his jacket. Without another word, he handed it to me. I slid into the coat. It was still warm from his body heat. I was overcome with his familiar scent. I caught a hint of the spicy shaving soap he preferred and the sharp, tangy smells of medicines. But more than that, I could smell him, the deep scent a person’s body carries that you recognize with familiarity. To me, Kai’s very essence carried the smells of sunshine and summer. And after a lifetime of being with him, it was an essence I knew as well as my own.

  Kai moved to help the others lift the man from the ice onto my coat. I could not help but notice how the man’s clothes and hair stuck to the surface of the river. The Thames seemed unwilling to let go of what she’d won.

  The men dashed quickly across the ice, carrying the man toward the soup maker’s tent.

  “Clear the way,” a man yelled, moving the crowd aside.

  As we approached the tent, an old woman stepped into the lane. “Here, here,” she called, motioning us forward.

  We rushed ahead.

  The woman directed us to a large barrel.

  Kai motioned to the other men, and on the count of three, they lifted the drowned man and slid him into the barrel of warm water. The man bobbed oddly in the barrel, the water reaching his chest.

  “We must heat his trunk uniformly, or the icy blood will stop his heart. Do you have anything else? Anything?” Kai asked the cook urgently.

  “Kai,” I said, pointing to a pot heating over a stove.

  “Madame, is it boiling?” he asked her.

  “No, Doctor. It’s just…it’s stock, beef and onions.”

  “Help me,” Kai said and moving quickly, the three of us lifted the cauldron. Careful not to burn ourselves, the cook handling the pot with covered hands, we poured the hot broth into the barrel where the unconscious man slumped weirdly.

  Keeping Kai’s words in mind, I grabbed a bundle of linens from the nearby table, dashed them into the hot water, and covered the man’s head with the steaming towels.

  Kai stood behind the man and pressed him into the water as deeply as possible, pushing him down until just a little of his face protruded from the steaming liquid.

  Bits of meat and onions bobbed at the top of the barrel.

  A moment later, the man’s eyelashes fluttered.

  “Did you see that?” I whispered to Kai.

  He nodded. “Madame, please ask the others to bring blankets and warm wraps, as many as can be spared,” Kai told the cook who went to the door of her tent and relayed the request to the crowd.

  “A few more minutes in the hot liquid. Then, once the wraps are here, we must get him dry and close to a hearth,” Kai told me.

  “He needs to get off the Thames,” I said.

  Kai nodded.

  A moment later, Kai and I both paused when we heard the man whisper.

  “Mother? Are we having onion soup?”

  I suppressed a laugh.

  “Sir? Sir, can you hear me?” Kai called.

  The man’s eyes fluttered open for a moment. A confused expression crossed his face. “I don’t like onion soup,” he whispered then closed his eyes once more.

  I smiled gently at him and mopped his head once more with the heated cloths. “So quick bright things come to confusion,” I whispered, stealing a line from Shakespeare’s play.

  A few minutes later, the cook returned, men following behind her carrying heaps of blankets.

  “Gentlemen, please stay. Ladies, I must ask you to step out,” he said, motioning to the cook and me.

  “I can help,” I offered.

  Kai shook his head. “He must be undressed.”

  Nodding, I stepped outside.

  A large crowd had gathered around.

  “Miss? Is he dead? What’s happening?” someone called.

  “He did wake for just a moment, but he is not clear of danger yet,” I informed them.

  “Miss,” the young boy, whose toy had been such aid, tugged at the sleeve of Kai’s jacket. “You dropped these,” he said, handing me my roses.

  I bent down and kissed the boy on the forehead. “Thank you. What a help you are, young man.”

  He smiled. Even in the dim evening light, I could see his cheeks burn red. He bowed to me then ran off.

  I waited by the brazier just outside the tent. My chest ached. I realized then that tension had racked at me. I’d been holding my breath in fits and spurts. I stared at the tent flap, wishing for Kai to reappear.

  A moment later, one of the men quickly exited the tent and ran into the night. After him, another man rushed out, calling for a wagon.

  Cautiously, I stepped back inside. The man lay on the table covered in blankets. His eyes were open, but he babbled incoherently.

  “He’s alive,” Kai told me. “But his wit’s diseased. I’ve sent a messenger to Master Hawking. It is the nearest amiable place I can think of.”

  I nodded but said nothing. I was very certain that amiable was an understatement of Kai’s esteem for the tinker, Master Hawking, and his daughter, Isabelle.

  I moved to the table where the man lay staring at some unknown point in the distance. “Does anyone know who he is?” I asked.

  Kai shook his head.

  “Sir, what is your name?” I asked him.

  He turned and looked at me. “Titania?”

  I looked up at Kai. “He must have been at the play.”

  “Titania, tell mother I don’t like onion soup,” he whispered.

  “I will remind her,” I said, smiling softly at him. Unsure what to do, I pulled a stool out and sat beside the man, and gently set my hand on his arm. “Shall I sing for you?” I asked.

  I looked to Kai who nodded in approval as he checked the man’s feet.

  When the man made no other comment, I began singing lightly. An old tune my granny used to sing to me, the song of two lovers who met in secret in a rose garden, came to mind. The song, which took place in summer, reminded me of warmer days and bright sunshine. I closed my eyes and imagined bright light beaming down on the man, filling his entire body with sunshine and warmth.

  It felt like an eternity passed before one of the men returned. “Master Hawking is expecting you, Doctor,” the man said as he held open the tent door just as I warbled the last line of my song.

  I looked past the man and outside. Amongst the crowd, I spotted the fair-haired foreign gentleman in the blue suit.

  I smiled at him.

  He returned my smile, tipping the brim of his top hat toward me, but then others crowded around, and I couldn’t see him anymore.

  Kai nodded. “The wagon?”

  “Just pulled up.”

  “We’re ready, Doctor Murray,” another man called as he appeared at the tent door.

  I s
tepped aside as the men moved to carefully carry the insensible gentleman to the wagon. It was just a short ride along the Thames to the Hawkings’ workshop.

  “Elyse, why don’t you go home,” Kai suggested, gently taking my hand in his. “Your hands are freezing. This has been quite enough for you for one night, I think.”

  “You may need my help,” I offered.

  “I may need to spend the night unless we can call in the local surgeon to look after him.”

  I nodded. Still, I hated to let him go alone.

  Kai squeezed my hand. “Have someone walk you home.”

  “I will. Be safe.”

  Kai nodded then slid into the back of the wagon with his patient. He passed a word to the driver, then they headed down Freezeland Lane out of sight.

  I stared in the distance at London Bridge. They said the old bridge was falling apart. There was already talk of tearing her down. Light shone from the gas lamps lining the bridge. From my point of view on the river, they shimmered like gaudy stars.

  “Miss McKenna,” the cook said.

  I turned to look at her.

  “How about a bowl of soup to warm you before you leave?”

  I smiled and nodded. “Thank you. Yes. Anything but onion,” I said with a laugh which she joined.

  Chapter 5: Ignoring Cassandra

  “Here you are, Miss McKenna,” Old Master Williams said, slowing his carriage in front of my door. He slipped out of the carriage to help me down.

  “Thank you again, sir.” Taking his hand, I stepped onto the street. The fog was so thick that I couldn’t see the buildings at the end of the row.

  “Think nothing of it,” he said with a tip of the hat. “Such strange weather, isn’t it? I don’t remember seeing such fog before.”

  I nodded. “Strange, indeed.”

  “You haven’t enchanted it, have you, faerie queen?”

  I laughed. “Perhaps. But I would never tell if I had.”

  The man grinned then bowed.

  “Again, my thanks,” I told him then reached into my reticule for my key. “Good night.”