But once he turned the corner of the rec hall, the wind suddenly hit him full in the face, so hard that he could lean into it, almost falling, and yet be kept standing. He picked his way carefully across the loose scree, the wind tearing at his clothes, and down toward the icy shore. It was never clear where the ground ended and the ice entirely took over, but it hardly mattered. It was all rock hard and equally unforgiving. In the distance, he could see a flock of penguins skittering down a frozen hill, then sliding on their bellies into the freezing waters. With a mittened hand, he fumbled for the drawstring on his hood and pulled it so tight that only his goggles remained uncovered. The sun, as cold and silver as an icicle, hovered slightly higher in the sky than it had the week before, making
its slow but inexorable progress toward the southern horizon, and oblivion. The temperature, the last time he'd checked, was twenty below zero � but that didn't take into account the infamous wind-chill factor.
A gray-and-white blur shot past his face, and he instinctively raised a hand against it. A second later, it shot past again. It was a skua, one of the scavenger birds of the Antarctic, and he realized he must be standing too close to its nest. Knowing that the birds always aimed for the head, the highest point of any intruder, he lifted one arm above his hood and, as the bird buzzed his mitten, looked around. He didn't want to step on anything. A few yards behind him, there was a tiny hillock, which afforded some protection from the raging winds. The skua's mate was tending to two chicks there. She had a live krill in her beak, one she must have just plucked from the water. Its many legs were still waving wildly. Michael stepped a few paces back, and the papa bird, apparently satisfied by his retreat, returned to the nest.
The two chicks were both crying for the food, but one was larger than the other, and every time the little one chirped, the bigger one whipped round and pecked at it. Each time that happened, the littler bird was driven farther from the protection of the nest, but the parents seemed completely unperturbed. The mother dropped the krill from her hooked bill and, while the little chick looked on forlornly, its sibling snatched it up and wolfed down the entire thing.
Michael wanted to say,
Come on already, share and share alike,
but he knew that no such rules were in play here. If the little chick couldn't fend for itself, its parents would simply let it starve. Survival of the fittest, at its most unadorned.
The little chick made one last try at returning to the nest, but the bigger one flapped its wings and pecked again, and the little chick retreated, its head down, its pale gray wings clutched tight around its body. The mama and papa stared impassively in the other direction.
And Michael took his opportunity. He stepped forward, and before the baby bird, not yet fully fledged, could scuttle away, he bent down and scooped it up between his mittens. Only its white head and the black buttons of its eyes poked out from his hands. The papa bird screeched, but not, Michael knew, at his kidnapping the
chick; it was only because he'd come too close to the nest and the fat heir apparent.
�Get lost,� Michael said, holding the baby chick close to his chest. Then he turned around, the wind at his back, and let it blow him halfway up the slope and toward the warmth of the rec hall. What, he wondered, would Kristin have named the little foundling in his mitts?
���
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
July 6, 1854, 4:30 p.m.
ASCOT.
For Eleanor, it had always been just a word, the name for a place she would never get to see. Not on her meager salary, and certainly not unaccompanied.
But there she was, leaning close to the wooden rail as horses� the most beautiful she had ever seen, with gleaming coats, colorful silks draped beneath their saddles, and white cloths wrapped around their lower legs�were led from the paddock to the starting gate. All around her, and in the grand pavilion above, thousands of people�more than she had ever seen in one place in her whole life�were shouting and milling about, waving racing calendars and arguing loudly about things like sires and dams, jockeys and muddy tracks. Men drank from flasks and puffed on cigars, while women� some of them, she felt, of rather dubious aspect�paraded about, showing off their costumes and twirling pink or yellow parasols in the sun. Everyone was laughing and gabbling and clapping each other on the back, and all in all it was the merriest, and noisiest, scene she had ever been a part of.
She felt Sinclair's eyes upon her a moment before he spoke. �Are you enjoying your day?�
She blushed at how transparent she probably was to him. �Yes,� she said, �I am,� and he looked quite pleased with himself. He was dressed in civilian clothes, a deep blue frock coat and crisp white shirt with a neatly tied, black silk cravat. His blond hair curled just over his collar. �May I suggest a rum punch? Or some cold lemonade?�
�No, no,� she quickly said, thinking of the additional expense. He had already paid for a private carriage to take them all the way to the racecourse, and for admission to the park�for three. Eleanor, for the sake of propriety, had not wanted to travel alone with the young lieutenant, and he had been very gracious about inviting the nurse with whom she shared a room at the boarding-house�a Miss Moira Mulcahy�to join them for the afternoon. Moira, a chubby Irish girl with a wide smile and an outgoing, though occasionally coarse, nature, had been only too quick to accept.
And she accepted the offer of a drink with the same alacrity.
�Oh, sir, I would quite enjoy a lemonade,� Moira said, barely taking her eyes from the grandstands behind them, where a teeming multitude had gathered for the most celebrated race of the afternoon, the Ascot Gold Cup. �This sun is positively��she paused, as if looking for the most aristocratic way of saying it��parching.� She smiled broadly, happy at her choice, and Sinclair excused himself to go and fetch the drink. Once he was gone, Moira nudged Eleanor with her elbow, and said, �That chicken's already in the pot.�
Eleanor professed incomprehension, but as with most of Moira's aphorisms, the point was plain.
�Haven't you seen the way he looks at you?� Moira scoffed. �Or, to be sure, the way he looks at naught else? And such a gentleman! Are you sure he's not a lord?�
Eleanor was not sure of much. The lieutenant was still a man of mystery in many ways. After she had stitched his arm at the hospital, a box of raspberry marzipan had arrived for her the next day, with a note addressed to �Nurse Eleanor Ames, My
Sweet
Angel of Mercy.� Miss Nightingale had intercepted the package at the door,
and when she passed it along, it was with a distinct expression of disapproval.
�This,� she had said, �is what comes of precipitous conduct,� as she swept back toward the garden, where she cultivated her own fresh fruits and vegetables. But Eleanor was hard-pressed to see the crime, and Moira didn't even pause long enough to look for one. She had pulled the lavender ribbon off the box, tucking it into her pocket��it's too beautiful to waste, and you don't mind, do you, Ellie?��and then waited, bouncing on the balls of her feet, for Eleanor actually to open the box. When she did, Moira dug right in, while Eleanor simply marveled at the smooth beauty and the sweet fruity aroma of the candy. The lid of the box, which she held in her hands as if it were a fine painting, had a gold fleur de lis stamped upon it, and the words CONFECTIONS DOUCE DE MME. DAUPIN, BEL-GRAVIA. No one had ever sent her candy before.
A few days later, Lieutenant Sinclair had sent by messenger a note, asking when it might be convenient for him to call upon her, but she had had to reply that, apart from Saturday afternoon and evening, she received no time off; on Sunday morning, at 6:30, she again resumed her usual duties at the hospital. To which he had replied that he would request her company, then, on the Saturday next, at noon. He said he would brook no denial, and Moira, who'd read the note over her shoulder, said she should by no means offer any.
A bugle sounded, and Moira said, �Look, look, Ellie!� as the horses were rounded up and settled into place behind a long, thick rope that was stretched between two poles on either side of the oval track. �Is the last race about to begin?�
�It is,� Sinclair said, reappearing through the crowd, with two glasses in hand. He gave one to Moira, and one to Eleanor. �And may it please you, ladies, I have taken the liberty of entering a wager on your behalf.� He gave Eleanor a paper chit, with several numbers scrawled on one side, and the name �Nightingale's Song,� on the other. Eleanor did not entirely understand.
�The name of the horse,� he said, as Moira leaned closer to see, �seemed especially lucky, don't you think?�
�How much have we wagered?� Moira gleefully asked, though Eleanor wished she hadn't, and Sinclair said, �Ten pounds � to win.�
They were both aghast at the very idea of wagering ten pounds on anything. Their salaries were fifteen shillings a week, and one meal a day courtesy of the hospital commissary. That you might lose ten pounds, in a matter of minutes, on nothing but a horse race, seemed well-nigh incomprehensible. Eleanor knew that to her family�a barely solvent dairyman with five children and a long-suffering wife�it would be worse than that; it would be sinful.
Moira, in a quieter voice now, said, �And what do we win, if she does?�
�At the present odds, thirty guineas.�
Moira nearly dropped her lemonade.
A portly man in a red cutaway strolled past the starting line, then up to the top of the judging scaffold, draped in red and gold velvet; a Union Jack rippled from a very tall flagpole behind him. �Ladies and gentlemen,� he announced through a speaking trumpet in stentorian tones, �we are now honored to welcome you to the running of Her Majesty's first Ascot Gold Cup!�
There was a chorus of huzzahs and hooting and clapping that momentarily perplexed both Moira and Eleanor. Sinclair bent toward them and said, �Traditionally, this race has been known as the Emperor's Plate, after Czar Nicholas of Russia.�
They immediately understood.
�But given the situation in the Crimea,� Sinclair added, �the race has been renamed this year.�
The clamor died down, and the bugle sounded again, a trill of rounded notes aimed at the topmost balconies in the pavilion, and the horses paced impatiently, as if anxious to stretch their long legs and run at last. The jockeys stood high in their stirrups to keep their weight off the horses� backs until the last possible second, with their whips tucked under their arms, the silken sleeves of their jackets billowing out in the afternoon breeze. The portly man in the cutaway pulled a pistol from his cummerbund and raised it in the air. Two stable hands untied the rope wrapped around the poles and threw it in a coil onto the grass. The jockeys fought to maintain control of their steeds and keep them behind a chalk line in the dirt.
�Riders, prepare!� the judge called out. �And on the count� one, two �� and instead of saying three, the gun fired, and the horses, bumping and jostling for position, stumbled or leapt forward
onto the open track. There was a brief skirmish, as each horse and jockey vied for position, and then they were galloping off.
�Which one is ours?� Moira cried, jumping up and down at the rail. �Which one is Nightingale's Song?�
Sinclair pointed at a chestnut filly, currently running in the middle of the pack. �The crimson silks.�
�Oh, she's not winning!� Moira cried in despair, and Sinclair smiled.
�It's not even the first furlong,� Sinclair advised, �and there are eight in all. There's plenty of time for her to catch up.�
Eleanor took a drink of her lemonade and hoped to appear composed � but inside she was as excited as Moira. She had never wagered on anything, even if it
was
with someone else's money, and until then she'd had no idea what that might feel like. But now she knew, and it felt oddly�wonderfully�exhilarating. The idea that thirty guineas was at stake�which, if she won, she would surely return to Sinclair, their rightful owner�was enough to make her head spin.
And again, she could tell that Sinclair had intuited her excitement. In her feet, she could still feel the vibration of the thundering hooves, and from the grandstands she could hear a chorus of voices cheering and jeering and crying out instructions that no jockey would ever hear.
�Keep to the inside rail!�
�Use the bloody whip!�
�Whatcha waiting for, Charger!�
�Ascot,� Sinclair confided to Eleanor, �is a hard track.�
�How so?� To Eleanor it looked like a wide and inviting oval, with a center expanse of deep green grass.
�The dirt is hard-packed. It takes a great deal out of the horse, more so than Epsom Downs or Newmarket.�
