The Winter Rose

by Jennifer Donnelly

Ella smiled. "Ever see Sid in a fight? Never had any trouble from that crew again. Nor anyone else. You're looking at me like I'm the biggest fibber in Whitechapel. It's true, I swear it."

  "I believe you. I'm just surprised."

  Ella shrugged. "He's not a bad man. He's a good man who happens to do some bad things. Listen, you all right? You need any help?"

  "I'm fine," India said. It was after seven p.m. and she knew that Ella had started at six that morning. She could see the weariness in her face.

  "All right, then. See you tomorrow."

  "Good night, Ella."

  India returned to Sid's bedside to take his vital signs once more. There was no improvement. She crossed her arms over her chest and looked at him, debating between a cold bath, another course of quinine, or both. As she watched him, he began to toss and mutter again.

  "Fee," he said. "Where are you, Fiona?"

  Out of his mind, India thought. Completely delirious. "Come on, Mr. Malone," she said, readying the quinine. "You're going to have to do better than this. After all, we can't give poor Dr. Gifford any more paper-work."

  Chapter 12

  Short Susie Donovan, the Taj Mahal's colorful madam, put her hands on her broad hips and frowned. "What's wrong with Addie, then?"

  Frankie Betts shrugged.

  "For Christ's sake, Frankie, she's brand new! Young. Clean. Tits pointing up at you like two horns on a bull. And here you sit cryin' in your beer. Take her upstairs, will you? You're getting up my nose with all your moaning."

  "I can't. Me heart's not in it."

  "It's not your heart what's needed, lad. Look at Bowesie there," Susie said, pointing to a fat man who was halfway up the stairs with a girl on each arm. "He didn't waste no time, did he? You should be celebrating, not moping. You got out, didn't you?"

  "Aye, we did," Frankie said.

  In fact they'd barely spent any time in jail at all. Harry Bowes, the Firm's legal counsel, had rushed down to Whitechapel police station only an hour or so after Frankie and Tommy had been arrested. He bustled down to the cells and asked them what had happened. Frankie told him.

  Bowes listened, frowning. He paced a bit, then pointed at Frankie's blackened eye, and said, "How'd you get that?"

  "Donaldson hit me," Frankie said.

  Bowesie smiled.

  "Where?"

  "In the hospital."

  "Anyone see it?"

  "Tommy did."

  Bowesie rolled his eyes. "Anyone a magistrate might believe?"

  Frankie thought hard. "The doctor saw. She was right there."

  "Beautiful!" Bowesie crowed. "I'll be right back. You wait there," he chuckled, patting the bars. "Don't go anywhere."

  "Very fucking funny," Frankie grumbled.

  Half an hour later Harry Bowes was back with a disgruntled constable in tow. "You're out," he said, as the officer unlocked the cell. "You'll have to pay a fine for the pub violation, is all. No arraignment. Donaldson's sending one of his men to take the cuffs off Sid straightaway."

  "You're the cream, Bowesie! How'd you do it?" Frankie asked.

  "Told him I'd have him up on assault charges if he kept you in here one minute longer. Told him I knew he'd walloped you, that there were wit-nesses, and that we'd call Dr. Jones to testify."

  They passed Donaldson in the station's entryway on their way out. Frankie was ready to open his mouth, but Bowesie grabbed his sleeve. "None of that," he said, leading him straight out through the doors.

  "C'mon, Bowesie, he deserves to be told what an arsehole he is," Frankie complained.

  "Frankie, lad," Bowes said, "you and the boys will want to watch your step for a bit."

  "How do you mean?"

  "Rumor has it that the Honorable Mr. Lytton is out to collar Sid. He wants him for the Stronghold, but he can't get him, so he'll use anything at all to put him away. Be careful. No wrong moves. We were lucky this time. Might not be next time."

  Susie snapped her fingers in front of Frankie's face now. "Go on," she said. "Get yourself upstairs."

  But Frankie still wasn't in the mood. He was relieved to be out of the nick, but there was something worrying him far more than his arrest had.

  "For Christ's sake, Susie, how do you expect me to go and have it off with me guv dying in the hospital?" he asked.

  Susie sighed. "Will you stop? Sid's not dying."

  "You didn't see him! He was bad off. You can't imagine how bad. I never should have listened to him. Nor Tommy neither. Should have taken him to a doctor days ago."

  "He's going to be all right. Sid's made from tough stuff. You don't survive life on the streets of London, a spell with Denny Quinn's crew, hard time in the nick, fights with the peelers, and Bowler Sheehan and Billy Madden and God knows how many other villains, just to call it a day in a hospital bed."

  Frankie looked down at his pint. "He's all I've got, Susie. Something ever happened to him, I don't know what I'd do."

  Susie nodded sympathetically. She knew Frankie's story. Everyone around Sid did. Sid had saved Frankie's life. He'd been orphaned at ten and put in a workhouse. He'd run away from the place after a month. He'd been on the street for two years, barely surviving, when he'd met Sid. He was a pickpocket. A good one. But one day he picked the wrong pocket-- Sid's. He didn't know it was Malone, or he never would have done it. He'd made it halfway down the street and thought he was in the clear when Sid nabbed him. Lifted him clear off the ground and practically threw him into the Bark. Frankie prayed then like he never had before. Not for his life, he knew that was a lost cause, but that Malone would make the end come quick.

  Instead, Malone sat down and talked to him. He told him that if he hadn't reached for his wallet just then, he'd never have known it was gone. He asked him to do it again. Frankie did and Sid, impressed, said he hadn't felt a thing. "You've talent, lad," he said. "You're good." Frankie remem-bered those words to this day. He treasured them.

  Then Sid asked his story. After Frankie told it, Sid sent Desi for a plate of food. An hour later, instead of finding himself dead, Frankie had found himself quite alive--with a full stomach and a bed in the Bark's attic.

  That was six years ago. He was eighteen now and no longer a street kid, cold and hungry. People stepped out of his way these days. Publicans hur-ried to serve him. Tailors to fit him. Barbers to shave him. He was Mad Frank to his friends, but Mr. Betts to everyone else.

  Sid had given him a whole new life. A good one. He'd given him a job, plenty of dosh, and a family of sorts. Made him one of his crew, a villain who was feared and respected. Most important to Frankie, though, was the interest Sid had taken in him. He'd taught him things. Small things at first--how to crack a safe. Pick a lock. Case a building. And then he'd taught him bigger things. How to gain power and how to wield it. Who to trust. He made him understand that being tough was only part of the equation--being smart was the rest of it.

  It had taken him time to learn, though. For a while it seemed like he was getting into a fight every day. Desi had fixed a broken nose for him. A cracked jaw. An ear that nearly had been torn off. He remembered sitting at the bar one night, barely able to see out of his swollen eyes, with Desi pouring him whisky to kill the pain. Sid had sat down next to him and asked him what the fight was about this time. Frankie told him one of Billy Madden's boys had looked at him the wrong way and the next thing he knew it was tables going over and fists flying.

  Madden controlled London's West End, running whorehouses and gaming dens there, knocking off mansions. He made a tidy sum, but he was greedy. He wanted East London, too, with its docks and wharves and immense river wealth. He was always sending his boys over to nose around. It drove Frankie wild.

  Sid had listened, then he'd said, "It's not about Madden's boys, though, is it? What they say and what they do don't really matter. It's about you, Frankie. You're angry. Furious, in fact. It smashes at you from the inside, don't it? Makes you half mad."

  When he heard that, Frankie felt as if Sid had seen right
inside of him. Seen his drunken mother stumble in front of the carriage. Seen the work-house matron beat him senseless. Seen the other boys steal his food, his blanket, his shoes. He couldn't answer Sid. Couldn't speak at all.

  Sid didn't make him. He'd just stood up, patted his shoulder, and said, "You want your own back? Then use your rage. Don't let it use you."

  Frankie tried. He could control his anger better now. Not always, but most of the time. He'd started to see things the way Sid saw them--that it was better to keep shtum, to let the other bloke swagger and boast about a five-quid blag, and get himself nicked into the bargain, while you walked out of Stronghold Wharf with two thousand in your pocket and the rozzers scratching their heads.

  Frankie listened and learned. And in return for all the things that Sid had given him, Frankie gave Sid his loyalty, and--though he would never have used the word--his love. Sid became everything to him--father, brother, boss, friend. And Frankie was never happier than when he was in Sid's company, picking a lock, cracking a safe, plotting a job, living the life.

  And then he'd gone and nearly wrecked everything. He'd got into an-other fight with some of Madden's boys and had so thoroughly destroyed a pub that the police were called. He'd been arrested, held in the Deptford nick, and was about to be sent down for half a dozen different charges. Word was, Sid was furious and refused to do anything for him. And then the day before he was supposed to go before the magistrate, the door to his cell had suddenly been opened and he was free to go. Sid had been waiting outside. He'd taken him straight back to the Bark. It was deserted. Even Desi was gone. Frankie had thought that odd. The Bark was never empty.

  "Cost me a thousand bleedin' pounds to get you out, you tosser," Sid had said to him.

  "I'm sorry, guv. I didn't mean--"

  Sid hadn't let him finish. "I saw you smirking when the screws marched you out. You think the nick's funny? What if I wasn't around to pay off the beak? Think you'd be sitting here now? You wouldn't. You'd be looking at five in Wandsworth. Prison, Frankie."

  Sid took off his jacket and put it on the table. Then he started to unbut-ton his shirt. Frankie wondered why he was doing that. And then it hit him--he didn't want to get blood on his clothes.

  "Please, guv. Don't. I'm sorry. I'll never do it again. I swear," he pleaded.

  Sid said nothing. He finished unbuttoning his shirt and took it off. His chest was broad. Muscles rippled under the smooth, pale skin. He looked Frankie hard in the eye, then turned around. It was all Frankie could do not to gasp.

  Sid's back was an obscene crosshatch of welted red flesh. The scar tissue was thick and knotted in some places, and so thin in others that Frankie could see his ribs moving underneath it.

  "Jesus Christ," he whispered.

  "Cat-o'-nine-tails. Tore me to ribbons. Sentence was ten lashes. Screw gave me thirty."

  "Why?"

  "Because he felt like it and there was no one to stop him. When he finished, he slung me into a punishment cell. No mattress. Damp dripping down the walls. No one thought I'd make it. Bastard told me he'd ordered my coffin." He put his shirt back on. "Remember that, Frankie. And remember this: the scars the screws put on the outside of you are nothing compared to the ones they put on the inside."

  Frankie had wanted to ask Sid about those scars, the ones on the inside. He'd wanted to ask if they were why he never slept, why he walked the streets at night to the point of exhaustion. Why Desi sometimes found him asleep sitting up in a chair by the fire, but rarely in his bed. He wanted to know if the scars had anything to do with the money he gave away to any sorry sod who asked. And how he'd look at the dosh they'd made from a job--the notes stacked up on the bar--as if he hated it. He'd wanted to ask about all of these things, but something in Sid's eyes had forbidden it. So instead he promised to try harder to stay out of the nick, and he'd mostly succeeded.

  Frankie felt Susie's hand on his back now. "Sid'll be out in no time, mark my words. And you lot will be right back at it. Wearin' my girls out and the coppers, too."

  "You think so?"

  "I know so. Meantime, get out and about and do some work. Go back and see if you missed anything at the Stronghold. Go hassle Teddy Ko. Work takes your mind off your troubles."

  Frankie nodded. "Think I will, Susie. Ta, luv," he said.

  "Don't come back until you're smiling," she warned. "Long faces are bad for business. I don't want to have to tell Sid I'm short this week."

  "You're short every week, darlin'," Frankie said, kissing the top of her head.

  "Go on with you!" she scolded.

  Frankie left the Taj with a spring in his step. Susie was right on both counts. Sid was tough, and a bit of work was just the thing. Sid would come out of the hospital, and when he did Frankie wanted to be able to show him that he'd been busy in his absence. He wanted him to know that he was good for more than picking locks and cracking safes. He wanted to show him that he was not just a fighting man, but a thinking man.

  He'd show Alvin Donaldson, too. And that pillock of a Lytton. Throw him in the nick because they hadn't closed the Bark on time? He'd give them a bleeding crime. Just watch.

  Out on the street, Frankie headed south. Toward the river. He wouldn't be mucking about at the Stronghold again any time soon, and Teddy Ko was in the good books this week. No, tonight would be all about new prospects.

  After a half hour's walk, Frankie arrived at his destination--the Morocco Wharf on Wapping's High Street. It loomed up at him, immense and impenetrable. Well, that was all right. He wasn't looking to break into it. He was only looking for a chat with the watch. Bloke by the name of Alf Stevens.

  Sid had always shied away from Morocco Wharf. He'd never given a reason for doing so, and as far as Frankie could see, there was none. It housed goods for a firm called Montague's--a very profitable business owned by a bloke named Joe Bristow. He had shops on every corner in London. Frankie had heard that Bristow was an East End lad. All the better. He would understand that there were costs of doing business ...and that it was high time he started paying them.

  Chapter 13

  There had to be a way to let go. A way to die.

  There had to be something inside a man that held body and soul together. Some handle or clasp or lock that could be turned or slid, releasing one from the other.

  If only I can find it, Sid thought.

  He was drowning in a sea of pain. Red waters washed over him, drag-ging him under, tumbling him along in their currents.

  He felt a hand upon him. Pulling him out of the sea. Fingers at his wrist. He heard a voice, a woman's voice. It sounded distant. Concerned, she said. Threat. Sepsis.

  "Release it," he whispered to her. "Release me. Please..."

  "Shh..." And then the hand again, small and strong, pressed against his heart.

  It was later, much later. Days later. Weeks. Or maybe it was only minutes. He didn't know. He heard water still. Not the sea this time, but rain lashing against a window. He couldn't tell if it was real or in his head.

  He opened his eyes. It was her. The doctor. She was looking at his face. She had gray eyes. As pale and soft as a gull's wing.

  "Where am I?" he asked.

  "In the hospital. You have a bad wound. You're very ill."

  In the hospital. That was bad news. Hospitals grassed you up. Someone had taken the cuffs off him, but Donaldson might come back any minute. Or Lytton. He didn't trust this place. He didn't trust her.

  "Give me my clothes. I'm leaving," he said.

  He tried to sit up, but the pain broke over him like a tidal wave, slam-ming him back against the bed.

  "Don't do that," the doctor said.

  He felt a thermometer slide between his lips.

  She timed it, pulled it out, and said, "A hundred and five. Better. Maybe we've got it on the run."

  "Why are you doing this?" he asked brusquely.

  "To see if the fever's breaking."

  He shook his head. "No. Why are you helping me?"

>   "Because I'm a doctor, Mr. Malone. This is what I do. Now, hold still. This will prick a bit."

  Something bit his arm. His skin went all warm. His pain receded slightly. He was so grateful he nearly wept. "More. Please," he said.

  "I can't. Not for another few hours."

  "What time is it?"

  "Just after nine. You can have another dose at midnight." She stood to go.

  "Three hours? I'll never make it. Where are you going? Talk to me."

  "Talk to you? I can't. I have to--"

  He grabbed her wrist, startling her. He hadn't wanted to do that, to frighten her. But he was afraid himself. He was terrifled.