He lifted his saber out of its scabbard—it stuck for a second, before sliding free—then slid it back in again. He hoped he would not have to draw it, but it was best to know, that if things came to such a pass…
“What do you want me to do?” Eleanor asked, her voice not only soft but weak. He knew she hadn’t really tested her strength yet—for that matter, neither had he—but he wondered if she would be fit to travel, as they would no doubt have to do, and especially in what appeared to be the same hostile climes they had last encountered.
“I want you to get dressed again,” he said, undraping her shawl from the stool where it had been drying, “and come with me.” She stood up, a bit unsteadily, and he wrapped the shawl, still warm from the grate, around her shoulders. She stepped into her shoes, and he bent down to button them for her.
“But perhaps we should wait, here?” she said. “Who’s to say that we will be harmed?”
“A nurse,” he said, still fastening the shoes, “would not be—not if they have the slightest shred of decency. But a nurse with your peculiar affliction,” he said, standing and looking into her emerald eyes, “might prove to be another matter. How should you explain it to them?” He did not even need to elaborate on the additional problems that a British officer, also so afflicted, might face, should he fall into the wrong hands. If there was one thing that he had learned from his time in the East, one thing that he knew could be relied upon, it was the boundless cruelty of one man to another.
He had also learned to trust no one; if you prized your life at so much as a farthing, it was critical to do your own reconnaissance and make your own decisions. Otherwise, you could find yourself in dire straits indeed…riding, to take a wild example, straight down the barrels of a Russian gun battery…
When he had wrapped her as warmly as he could, he climbed up onto the stool, saw that the two men had gone, then, getting down, went to the door. He pried it open a crack—the wind came howling in to greet him—and then enough to step outside.
Looking to either side, he saw no one—only low dark buildings, made not of wood but of tin or some other metal—squatting, at intervals, along a barren concourse. The sky had the same burnished glow he remembered from the deck of the Coventry, when the snowy albatross had sailed onto the yardarm and watched, impassively, as he and Eleanor were grappled in chains and hurled into the freezing sea.
Eleanor tentatively stepped out after him, lifting her face to the sun; she closed her eyes, and to Sinclair her skin looked as smooth and white and lifeless as marble. Her long brown hair blew loosely around her cheeks, and her lips parted to take in the frigid air as if she were about to taste some rare delicacy. In a way, that’s just what it was—windblown air, as cold and unsullied as a glacier, coursing across their exposed skin. Cold as it was—so cold it made their faces burn and their fingers tingle—it was the taste, and the scent, and the feeling, of being alive. For years—centuries, perhaps—they had been immured in their frozen cell, unmoving and untouched. But this, even more than the breaking of the ice, or the warming air from the grate, brought back that painful bliss of living. Sinclair didn’t have to say a word, nor did she; they simply stood there, at the top of the snowy ramp, savoring the physical world—even one as hostile and intemperate as this.
One of the dogs across the way looked up from licking his bowl and let out a low growl. Eleanor opened her eyes and took them in.
“Sinclair…” she began, but he interrupted, saying, “There’s a sled, too.”
“But where will we go?” Her eyes traveled down the dreary alleyway and off at the distant mountains.
“The dogs will know. Surely they’re employed to go somewhere.”
He took her hand before she could offer it and started down the ramp. His boots were ill suited to the snow and ice and he found himself slipping several times. His scabbard clanged against the metal handrail, and he quickly looked about in alarm, but in the roar of the wind it was doubtful anyone had heard. They scurried across the passage, and into the glare of the shed, where they were separated from the dogs only by a wooden partition a few feet high.
As Eleanor leaned back against the wall—already she was exhausted, and her knees were shaking—Sinclair made straight for the clothing rack on the wall. He selected a long, billowy coat—it was as smooth as silk, but its fabric had no sheen—and forced Eleanor into it. It weighed much less than he thought it would, and was so big that she could virtually wrap it around herself twice. The bottom hung down onto the floor, and the hood, when he drew it up, fell around her face like a monk’s cowl. But she had soon stopped her shivering.