The Arctic Fury

by Greer Macallister

  The mapmaker’s shop was small and close, mostly taken up by a broad, long counter, with crammed shelves on every wall from floor to ceiling, giving the impression the walls were closing in.

  Virginia had no choice but to gawp, taken aback. Most of the shelves were stuffed to bursting with maps: rolled into scrolls or bound into books, framed for hanging or folded for use. The accumulated knowledge these maps represented was truly breathtaking. Her own travels had almost entirely followed maps retained only in people’s minds, communicated only in words and gestures.

  One shelf stood out from all the rest. A foot from her shoulder, she could see a small collection of what appeared to be embroidered globes. The silk spheres ranged from fist-size down to not much larger than Virginia’s thumbnail, all with fine, elegant stitching that picked out important geographical features on the surface of the earth. One was pockmarked with mountains. Another sported only the names of oceans and seas, white thread bright against the loveliest blue silk Virginia could remember seeing. She could not help but step closer, then closer still, trying to make out the features of the smallest one, which gleamed a rich purple under its thickly embroidered pattern of silver.

  “I see you are drawn to things of beauty,” said a woman’s voice, with an unmistakably mournful note. “Sadly, beauty is not what interests the world.”

  “It interests me,” said Virginia.

  The shopgirl came forward, but she wasn’t like any shopgirl Virginia had seen. She was older than Virginia, for one thing, not a girl at all, yet there was something very young about her. The mapmaker’s daughter, Virginia assumed. Men who had the choice of who to hire in their shops hired smart men or pretty women. This woman had a long nose, close-set eyes, and frizzed hair that somehow gave the impression of being every color at once. Her clothes were somber and worn, in stark contrast to the elegance of the silk globes Virginia had been examining.

  Virginia told the woman, “Your shop is lovely.”

  “Glad you like it,” she responded, leaning her elbows against the long counter. “Wish more did.”

  “Business isn’t good?”

  “Business isn’t,” the woman said grimly. “My father’s health keeps him from the shop, and I’m sad to say, I don’t inspire confidence in the same way he always has.”

  “Did you make these?” Virginia gestured to the silk globes.

  “I did.”

  “Well then. I find you delightfully inspiring.”

  “I suppose that’s because you care more about what’s between my ears than under my skirts.”

  Virginia laughed, a little shocked at the woman’s directness but amused. “Well, yes, that’s true.”

  “Rare’s the mariner who’ll come to a woman for his maps, no matter what shape they come in. And my father knows it, but he’s got no sons, so it’s either put me in the shop or close the shop altogether. So far, you see what wins out.”

  “I’ll buy a map from you,” Virginia said. “Maybe even several. Won’t keep you afloat forever, but it’s what I can do.”

  “Much appreciated, miss. I’m Dorothea Roset,” she said, extending her hand to shake. “People here call me Doro.”

  Virginia shook it. “Virginia Reeve.”

  “Pleasure to meet you, Virginia,” she said with a bright sincerity. “So what sort of map do you think you’ll be needing? An expensive one, I hope.”

  “Well, we’re headed north.”

  “How far north?”

  “As far as it takes,” Virginia said, feeling like it was a bit of a boast. “Into the Arctic.”

  Doro cocked her head. “Do tell! Over land or sea?”

  “A bit of both. Travel by ship up the west length of Hudson Bay, then by sledge toward Victory Point.”

  The change in the woman’s face was immediate. The light in her eyes flashed, as if someone had lit an unseen gas lamp inside the dark shop. “Fascinating! That would speed the miles… Where do you plan to disembark in Hudson Bay? Repulse Bay, perhaps? Or Chesterfield Inlet, perhaps, to use the river?”

  Something unfurled in Virginia’s chest at the words, some kind of hope, like a small flower. She had read these words before, seen them spattered across the maps, but Brooks was the only person she’d ever heard speak them aloud. It felt like a modest miracle to hear them from another woman’s lips. Everything felt infinitely more real.

  “Repulse Bay,” said Virginia, unable to hold back a grateful smile.

  “Bold!” said Doro, slapping the counter, returning her smile. “I like it. Don’t you love the place names up there? Repulse Bay, Fury Strait. The very maps tell you what you’re getting yourself into. No illusions there.”

  “Have you been?” asked Virginia tentatively.

  “Oh, me? No! But I’ve made rather a study of the ice. Read everything I can get my hands on. Those British sure like to write about everything they’ve seen. Especially if they overwinter or if they’re sailing back home: nothing but time to write. But tell me, are you a captain’s wife? What’s the purpose of your journey?”

  Virginia weighed exactly what to tell her and decided to keep it vague. “We’re looking for someone.”

  Doro slammed her flat palm on the counter again, this time harder, and it made a noise like a shot. “You’re going in search of the man who ate his boots! Franklin!”

  Virginia was startled. “You know who Franklin is? Is that what he’s called?”

  “You don’t know the story?”

  “I know a story. Not the boots part.”

  “This wasn’t his first trip.” Doro leaned forward with obvious excitement. “Went overland in 1819. Didn’t go well, that journey. Took three and a half years to find their way back to civilization. Not all of them did either. Left with twenty men, came back with nine. Starved to bone. And when you haven’t got anything left to eat up there, you chew leather. Like your own boots. Which Franklin did.”

  “Sakes alive!” exclaimed Virginia.

  “Not enough alive,” Doro said. “But that seems to be their pattern over there. To keep the men encouraged to go, whether or not they come back with anything useful. Anyone who makes it back gets a promotion and a prize. So others will try.”

  “Try and fail,” Virginia muttered.

  “Well, yes. It’s funny, now that I think of it. Had a man come in a week or so back, asking lots of questions about what I knew of that part of the world, then asked to talk to my father.”

  “What happened?”

  “Nothing,” shrugged Doro. “My father said he couldn’t get the man what he wanted. Just funny. Life is full of coincidences, I suppose.”

  “I suppose,” echoed Virginia, who knew that there were, although in this case, what seemed like coincidence to Doro was not.

  “But I’ve got a great map of that area. Based on Rae’s overland survey. Now he’s an explorer. Knows what he’s doing. Read him. His work’s stunning. Not the words themselves—he’s an atrocious writer—but what he writes down about what he did. The amount of ground he covers. Fast as the wind. He lives on the land as he goes, keeps the party small, trades with the local Esquimaux for supplies. Hold on. I’ll get it.”

  She lifted an invisible panel in the counter and passed Virginia on her way to a shelf.

  As Doro searched, Virginia pondered. Clearly, Brooks had considered this young woman for the expedition, but he’d dismissed her. Why? What had happened during the conversation with her father? She couldn’t ask, because it would seem too strange, but maybe she didn’t need to. Brooks had chosen not to include Doro. That didn’t mean Virginia had to make the same choice.

  “Here,” said Doro, fetching the map down and spreading it out. “See here, this is more detail than we’ve ever had north of Repulse Bay. He trekked overland up the Melville Peninsula, north almost to Fury and Hecla, then back down and across the Simpson Peninsula t
oo.”

  “What did you say his name was?”

  “John Rae. Wintered up there too, without a ship, if you can believe it. First man to do so.”

  As she spoke, jabbing here and there with her finger, the young woman’s face was aglow, her body fairly vibrating with excitement. Then she looked Virginia full in the face. “He was the first white man, so they say, to see many of these places. Do you have your heart set on being the first white woman?”

  “Not exactly,” said Virginia. “My patron intends that we search out Franklin first and foremost.”

  “Well, that’s almost as good. Wouldn’t mind finding him myself, were I to head up that way. Who’s your patron?”

  “I’m not to share the name, I’m sorry.” She realized she was in danger of telling this virtual stranger everything. It was just that she could tell Doro understood, and she had not, since Ames, felt understood.

  “Is he American? British? I heard there’s an expedition out of New York that some merchant captain intends to run. More big ships, through Baffin Bay, but if that was where Franklin was, British would’ve found them by now. Your patron, does he have a better idea?”

  “Well, she—”

  “She!” interrupted Doro. “Dare I—is it—I won’t ask, but oh. She.”

  Virginia wanted to smile but decided to keep a straight face. “She wants to send a dozen women north in search of Franklin’s ships.”

  “The Erebus and the Terror.”

  “Precisely. This will be the opposite of previous expeditions in every way. Small and agile. Over land instead of sea. Instead of men, women.”

  “Of course! And you can go everywhere these other parties couldn’t. Live off the land for longer, if you’ve got good hunters. That’s what Rae did. You said going by schooner to Repulse Bay? Now, even in summer, that bay is full of ice, so you’ve got to cling close enough to the shore to avoid the ice boulders but not so close that you run aground. Shallow beds there running miles out from shore. If the big boulders are coming at you, they say, sometimes you just have to anchor to a big one and let the little ones hit you.”

  “I can’t believe you know so much about the Arctic. I wish I could take you with me,” said Virginia.

  Without missing a beat, Doro said, “Then do.”

  Virginia was momentarily speechless. Could it be that simple?

  Doro said, “There’s a prize, isn’t there? For anyone who finds Franklin or evidence of him? The latest is that it’s risen to twenty thousand pounds. If you could cut me in on that, it’d be more than I could make in six months at this lousy shop.”

  “It’s not lousy,” Virginia said automatically, but her mind was still spinning. Doro was practical, knowledgeable. Lady Franklin and Brooks had chosen a group of smart, skilled women, but none of them had any loyalty to Virginia in particular. Doro, unlike the others, would start out owing her something. An instant ally.

  “I think I could be a real help to you besides,” said Doro brightly. “I know the territory better than anyone else who hasn’t been there. Probably better than some who have. I’ll bring my maps, help direct the search, though of course, all the decisions will be yours.”

  “Won’t your father object?”

  “Oh, he’s objected to plenty about me over the years, for all the good it’s done him. He’s always jawing about closing the shop for a while, sticking to his private clients. I’ll do it and see how he likes it. Is your patron giving out advance payments to smooth the way?”

  “She is.”

  “Then I have everything I need. All that’s missing is your invitation.”

  At that, Virginia was done fighting her instincts. She said with a smile, “Consider yourself invited.”

  Chapter Ten

  Virginia

  Massachusetts Superior Court, Boston

  October 1854

  When they all file into the courtroom to start another day of questioning, Virginia looks at the five. Like rosary beads she goes over them, one and the next and the next and so on, only without touching them. She would if she could.

  Doro is all the way to the far end, closest to the center aisle, solid, strong. Her hair is styled over her missing ear, smoothed over her temples and pulled in an unusually low knot to hide the lack. It does not look fashionable, but Doro was never one for fashion. Her countenance is not as impassive as Virginia’s. Worry is written into every muscle of her face.

  Next to Doro sits Althea, her ringlets of shining blond hair the only aspect of her appearance unchanged by the journey. All the women are far worse for wear, but since Althea started out the prettiest, she lost the most. While she once had the complexion of an English rose, her cheeks are now chapped and worn, making her look older than her true age. Virginia can see her gloves from here but not her boots. Inside the boots, she knows, there are not as many toes as there used to be. If Althea were the joking kind, she would laugh that at least it was easy to hide the lack. But she has always been sweetly serious, for as long as Virginia has known her, and from what Ebba said of their shared history, she was that way long before.

  Poor Ebba.

  Foolishly, when the police took Virginia into custody for the murder of Caprice Collins but didn’t mention any of the other women who had died or disappeared on her watch, she was initially confused.

  “What makes that one so special?” she asked her counsel the first time they’d met.

  “I think you know,” said Clevenger, the most—or possibly the only—intelligent thing he’d ever said in her presence.

  Of course. Money. No one was asking about Stella, who had been only a maid. No one knew where Ann had come from, so there was no one to wonder where she went.

  There had not even been questions about Elizabeth, whose fate the Collinses must certainly be curious to know. They only sought vengeance for the loss of their daughter, who Virginia had not returned to them, and it seemed they would satisfy themselves by taking anything and everything she had in compensation. Including, if they could manage it, her life.

  As civilized as Americans liked to think themselves, she reflected, they were not so far from the primitive rituals of, say, old Scotland. There, a village’s sin eater would consume bread and wine from the chest of a dead person to absorb and carry away that person’s sin. That way, the dead could ascend unencumbered to heaven. This, in Virginia’s opinion, is what the Collinses are doing to her: using her to erase Caprice’s mistakes. Sin eaters, like Virginia, were outcasts. And the prison’s bread can’t be much worse than an ancient Scottish crust. She’s only missing the wine.

  The prosecutor wakes her from her reverie by booming, in his customary imperious tone, “The prosecution calls to the stand Mr. Tiberius Collins.”

  Caprice’s father is a smaller man than Virginia thought she recalled from the one time they met, but every inch of him looks the born aristocrat, slim-hipped and perfectly fitted in a fabric that even Virginia can tell is a fine weave of rare quality. His hair is paler than his daughter’s, his complexion a touch darker, though still no darker than an egg’s shell. He does not have her lovely gray-green eyes, which must have come from her mother’s side. His eyes are dark-blue marbles in his patrician face. His hands are soft.

  He takes the witness stand with a rough energy; even the way he stands is commanding. Virginia does not want to hear what he has to say, but she will have no choice but to listen. Penance, she thinks again. Her sentence has already begun. The judge and jury are mere formality.

  “Sir,” begins the prosecutor, “I am so sorry for your loss.”

  “Thank you,” says Mr. Collins stiffly. “You are kind to say so. My wife and I are grateful for the support we’ve received from the community.”

  “In the wake of this disaster.”

  “Yes.”

  “Could you tell us about Caprice?”

  �
�I could tell you everything.”

  “Yes.” The prosecutor allows himself a mirthless chuckle. “Of course. Let me be more specific. Could you tell us about her personality? How she spent her time?”

  “She was an excellent daughter. My wife did a superb job raising her.”

  He leans forward, indicating someone in front of him in the crowd, and Virginia realizes it must be the wife he’s mentioned. Without moving her head too far—she doesn’t want to be seen gawking—she manages to catch a glimpse of the woman.

  With the angle, it’s hard to make out the features of her face, which she has raised a handkerchief to partially cover, but her jewels are plainly visible. She wears a spectacular necklace of gleaming pearls—three strands, if Virginia’s not mistaken—interrupted with inky jet beads, perfect spheres. Virginia is momentarily distracted, wondering how many pounds of pemmican one could trade for a necklace like that, but she forces her attention back to the witness.

  “She was a gem,” Mr. Collins concludes, “and she never gave us even the slightest cause to be ashamed of her.”

  “Some would say that she was unconventional,” the prosecutor says, his tone a bit more critical. “She wasn’t married, despite her age, and she had some…unusual hobbies. Yet this didn’t change your good opinion?”

  The fact that Caprice’s father is not charging out of his seat, shouting at the prosecutor for impugning his daughter’s legacy, is the tell. Virginia sees it all clearly. They have planned this, rehearsed it, down to the gnat’s eyelash. The prosecutor will air all Caprice’s dirty laundry so her father doesn’t have to, and the old man will claim he never had any second thoughts about his daughter’s reputation. Even though those are all lies. Virginia knows how Caprice’s father felt about her. She heard it from Caprice herself.

  “My good opinion of her was unblemished. Unusual hobbies did not make her less of a sterling daughter, a young woman of whom I am—was—utterly proud.”

  The prosecutor presses. “Even though she hadn’t done what you would expect a daughter to do by her age?”