Blood and Ice

by Robert Masello

  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 o
ther 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.

  CHAPTER FORTY-SIX

  December 22, 10 a.m.

  Sinclair wasn't sure what had awakened him. He was slumped forward on a high stool, his head lying on the altar, the book of poetry under one hand and his other hand resting on a nearly empty chalice. A sputtering candle sent a thin trail of smoke into the air.

  A dog, sitting on his haunches in the aisle, let out a hungry cry.

  He'd been dreaming of Eleanor-what else did he ever dream of? — but it was not a happy dream. It was hardly a dream at all. He was remembering a quarrel that they had had, just before he'd gone off hunting. From the belfry, he had done some reconnoitering and determined that the coast bellied out to the northwest, promising perhaps some escape route. “We may not be so marooned, after all.”

  “Sinclair,” she'd replied, softly and with great deliberation, “we are marooned as no two people have ever been before.”

  “None of that,” he replied, tearing another hymnal into pieces and tossing it into the fire. “We've as much right to the world as anyone else.”

  “But we're not like anyone else. I don't know what we are, or what the Lord intended for us to be, but this… this cannot be His plan.”

  “Well, then, it's mine,” he barked, “and for the time being, that will have to serve.” He could feel the shortness of breath, the dimming of his vision, as he stared into the blazing grate. “I've seen God's plan, and I'll tell you this much-the Devil could have done no worse. The world's a slaughterhouse, and I've played my own damned part in making it so. If I've learned anything at all, it's that we must make up our own fate, from scratch, every day.” He ripped another hymnal in two and added it to the fire. “If we hope to survive at all, we must fight for every breath we take, every bite we eat, and every drop we drink.” Looking around for the nearest bottle, he'd concluded, “God helps no one.”

  Raising his eyes to the dog now baying in the aisle, he saw no sign of God there, either… unless it was in the strange silence outside. The storm had passed. The wind had died to just a whisper. Perhaps it was the cessation of the constant battering that had awakened him… awakened him to the chance, at last, of going in search of Eleanor.

  God helps no one, but if he could find the strength to harness the dogs and provision the sled, he could help himself. He could take matters into his own hands. He lifted the chalice and drained its last drops.

  Michael, not surprisingly, was the first to arrive at the flagpole, the rendezvous spot for the search party. Standing by his snowmobile, he stomped his feet on the ground to keep the blood flowing. Someone had wrapped a long chain of red-and-green tinsel around and around the flagpole; it had become pretty much soldered to the metal, and Michael doubted anyone would ever be able to get it off. It would forever be Christmas at Point Adelie.

  He glanced up at the sky; even through his sunglasses, it was a hard, blazing blue, the color of Easter eggs he'd painted as a kid. A bird shot across his field of vision-a dirty gray bird-and wheeled in the sky, then returned to swoop down at his head. He ducked fast, and heard it squawking as it came back for another pass. He held his gloved hand up above his head, remembering that the birds always dived for the highest point of their target, but it was only when it swooped by again that he realized there was no nest anywhere near here-at least none that he could see-and no carrion that the bird could have been claiming for itself. He quickly wiped the ice crystals from his glasses to get a better look at the whirring bird. Could it, by any chance, be Ollie?

  It was flitting in a wide circle around the top of the flagpole, where Old Glory flapped listlessly in the cold breeze, then landed atop the administration module. Michael dug into his pocket, and found a rock-hard granola bar. Skuas, he knew, weren't too particular. With his gloved fingers, he fumbled to remove the wrapper, as the bird watched him intently. He held it up for inspection, then tossed it onto the ground a few feet away. These birds were scavengers and they knew enough not to miss a chance; in a second, it was zooming off the roof and plopping down with its beak already open. With a couple of quick pecks, it had broken the bar into several pieces, and o
ne or two had already gone down the hatch. Michael studied him, hoping to see anything that might tell him if it was Ollie or not. The bird gulped down the last of the granola bar, and Michael crouched to get a better look.

  “Ollie?” he said. “Is that you?”

  The bird's beady black eyes regarded him impassively, but he didn't fly away. When Michael put out his gloved hand-not, he knew, the smartest thing to do with omnivorous skuas-the bird took one hopping step closer, pecked gently at his palm, then waited there.

  “I'll be damned,” Michael said. And though he would have been hard put to say why, he felt a lump form in his throat. Maybe it had something to do with the fact that the little runt had managed to survive, after all… or that it was one of the few things Michael had touched that had. He flashed, oddly enough, on Kristin lying in her hospital bed… and then on the funeral he had not been able to attend. In his mind's eye, he saw a bunch of sunflowers-big and yellow-surrounding a coffin. The bird pecked at his hand again, and he wished he had something else in his pockets to give it.

  “All out,” he said, standing up again with his empty hands extended.

  The skua strutted around the immediate ground, then gave up the hunt and shot back into the air like a rocket. Michael watched it skim the quad, then disappear in the direction of the dive hut. Several other birds gathered in the sky to join it, and Michael felt, stupidly, like a parent whose kid had just been accepted on the playground by his classmates.

  There was an increasing roar from the concourse behind the administration module, followed by the sight of Murphy, Lawson, and Franklin, all riding their own machines. They reminded Michael of a posse, especially when he noticed that they were armed. Murphy had his gun in its holster, and the barrel of Franklin's rifle stuck out of the cargo compartment.