The Ice Maiden

by Sara Sheridan

She hesitated before she shook it. Pearse didn’t appear to notice her reticence.

  ‘It was crisp. Sweet. Made with custard. A small thing – only a mouthful or two but delicious. Dusted with cinnamon.’

  ‘Like the Portuguese fashion them?’

  ‘Ah. Portuguese. Yes. Maybe. It might have been a Portuguese hostelry, now you come to it.’

  ‘They call them pastel de natas.’

  ‘I see.’ His tone was serious. ‘It was very good. I wondered if you might …’

  ‘I can try, sir.’

  ‘Yes. Thank you.’

  She smiled as she drew back the door. Perhaps it wouldn’t be so bad here. She was fed, after all. And fed first, if it came to that. She’d get back to Marijke and life in a skirt, if only she could wait it out and keep herself to herself. It seemed somehow possible, in this odd situation, to get on.

  Below decks the days passed. During the day with the oven fired up, it was boiling in the galley and noisy too. The pastel de natas, when she tried them, were a roaring success. ‘Lad,’ Si Bevan said, as if the word itself was a wonder.

  Occasionally he sent her to fetch goat’s milk. The animals were kept below. There were chickens in a coop – for eggs and for the meat. ‘We’ll keep them alive as long as we can,’ Bevan told her. In the store, there was cheese stored in a wire-fronted cupboard to which he kept the key. And jute bags of sugar piled up. ‘More than I thought we’d need,’ the old cook admitted. He let her make what she wanted, instructing only a dessert for the captain or a soup for the men. He was speechless sometimes as she laid her offerings on the warmed metal plates.

  ‘Where in heaven’s name did you learn …’ His voice trailed.

  ‘Paris,’ she replied smartly. Or Haiti. Chile. Lisboa.

  Thebo had taken her around the world.

  The news spread and a week after the chocolate cream and two nights after the natas, the officers of the Erebus rowed over to dine with their counterparts on the Terror. From below deck, Karina heard the rowboat clattering against the side of the ship.

  ‘Permission?’ they called up from the dark waters.

  So strange, she thought. As if their friends had not invited them. As if the flags had not been raised. As if here on the blank waters, with nothing around, permission might be denied.

  Ross kept fancy bottles of port among his many other luxuries and he released three for the dinner. Bevan had a pig slaughtered and roasted the belly, but it was Karina’s spun sugar that was the object of the evening. A tranche of lemons was donated to it. She spent hours that afternoon creating a sculpture as fine as lace to tower over the citrus posset, as Bevan fussed around her, boiling rice and salting flesh. Even Hepworth stopped in his tracks when he saw what she had made. He grunted. The only sound he ever made.

  At the end of the night, the plate came down clean but the last of the port was sent to the galley. A gentleman’s thank-you. Bevan swore he preferred buttered rum but still, he splashed the rich red liquid into one of the captain’s silver tumblers that had been returned for polishing. The cups were rounded on the bottom and didn’t fall, no matter the keeling of the ship. The old timer downed a tot, then poured another a measure and passed it to Karina. As he watched her sip, he shuddered. The ovens had fired down, and the old man’s blood was thin. ‘It’s cold where we’re going,’ he said. ‘Cold! That’s an understatement.’ Already the air seemed to eat the heat the further south they sailed. She gave him back the tumbler and Bevan smartly finished off the last of the bottle. ‘Well done, lad,’ he said, as he stumbled out of the galley for the night.

  The next morning he arrived as pink in the face as ever. The dishes were cleaned and put away. Karina had already set the dough aside to rise.

  ‘That’s right. We mustn’t forget the common men,’ Si sounded almost relieved, as if her success with the spun sugar might have turned Karina’s head. ‘All this fancy cooking is one thing but the crew need to eat too.’

  The men had taken to gathering above the stovepipe, where she had first stowed away, to smell the food in anticipation. There was, after all, little entertainment on board. Karina baked cornbread, which was both buttery and light. She became a curiosity, she supposed, but still, her days were busy and the galley and the storerooms became her world.

  Eventually, when she had the confidence, she ventured above deck. It was late one night. Dinner was over and the crew were sleeping. The air was like cool, black silk on her face, the darkness punctuated by two lamps hoisted at the end of the ship so the Erebus could make them out. Across the water the other ship’s lights moved smoothly in the Terror’s wake and beyond them only a wide well of darkness, the moon a mere sliver reflected on the surface of the water.

  Karina shivered, relishing the freezing air as it filled her lungs. It was all but silent bar the wash of the tide. It felt good to be above decks, more or less alone in the darkness. No clattering of pots and pans. None of Si’s chatter. She reached over the side to catch the breeze and wondered where on the map of the world Thebo had carried with him the Terror might end up. There had been nothing marked to the south of Deception that she could remember. Was it possible there was another country? And if so, what kind of men might live there?

  ‘You’re the stowaway,’ a voice said suddenly behind her. She jumped and swung around. It was another officer, by the sound of him. But still, she could hear a little twist on the vowels.

  ‘Sir,’ she said, struggling to make out the man’s face.

  ‘Can’t sleep, eh?’

  ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Nor can I. I thought I’d keep an eye out for the whale. He’s been swimming alongside all afternoon. Did you see? I think it’s too dark to catch sight of him now. There’s no moon to speak of. Fascinating creatures.’

  Karina shuffled. As her eyes adjusted she made out the man’s frame. He wasn’t wearing uniform – there was not a scrap of gold braid or button to catch what little light there was. The figure settled against the wooden rail.

  ‘Did you work on a whaling ship?’ he asked. ‘Before?’

  She wasn’t sure how to answer. Thebo hadn’t talked much about his work except there was no thrill like being the first to have his spear hit home. He’d had a strong arm and he was brave, by all accounts. That’s what had done for him. The one time he had misjudged it, he’d fallen foul of everything. Or that was what Van Kleek had told her when he came to deliver the news. ‘He died just over halfway through the voyage,’ he had said. What he meant was that he was not going to advance her the captain’s bonus that was due on return from a successful whaling trip because Thebo had not completed what he set out to do. Van Kleek paid her from his purse – a derisory sum but there had been no point in arguing.

  ‘I’m not a whaler,’ she said, deciding she couldn’t keep up the conversation if it turned that way.

  ‘Shame. You might have been able to reckon them for me. I’m the botanist, you see. The zoologist.’

  ‘Botanist?’

  ‘I record the plant life and the animals. I collect samples for the herbarium at Kew. Back at home. Near London. And for the Royal Society too.’

  ‘I have never been to London,’ she admitted.

  The officer warmed to his subject. ‘Oh, it’s a wonderful city. The biggest and best in the world.’

  Karina did not tell him she had heard it was a stinking, rat-infested hole and that the river that ran through it was as good as slime. Thebo always said you cannot trust the English. Danish sailors had not forgotten the war, the battle of Copenhagen. Nelson and Napoleon were as bad as each other, Thebo had sworn.

  ‘You’re from London?’ she turned the conversation back on the man, with a sting of resentment that he had intruded into the luxury of the dark silence.

  The officer remained bluff. ‘I’m from Glasgow. It’s to the north. The name means Green Meadow.’ He laughed. ‘Sorry. It’s just so dark.’ He paused before continuing. ‘You were a lucky find for us, boy. Standards at the captain’s
table have risen considerably since you came aboard. Ross said he almost regretted the flogging. The ship you left must certainly mourn your loss. What’s your name?’

  ‘Karl, sir.’

  She loitered, deciding she must not come up like this again. It was too dangerous. The officer waited but there was nothing more to say.

  ‘Well, Karl,’ he ventured. ‘I’ll go to the heads, I expect.’

  ‘Yes, sir.’

  ‘Goodnight.’

  Karina thought no more about it, but the man in the darkness called for her the next day.

  ‘Mr Hooker asks you deliver his plate. He has it in his cabin,’ Si Bevan announced.

  ‘The botanist?’ It was a guess but a fair one.

  ‘Hark at you. Yes. And the ship’s doctor, if it comes to that. You’re quite the favourite. Well, don’t dawdle.’

  Hepworth usually served the food. He had a jacket the captain had supplied which he wore for the purpose. He was, she’d heard it said, the image of a famous footman who served the royals. There was a portrait – not of Hepworth but of the other man.

  Hooker’s cabin was the second largest after the captain’s own. Karina knocked smartly and entered. Inside, several lamps were burning, positioned round the botanist’s desk. Every surface was covered with books and sheaves of paper laid untidily about. In the eye of it all, the botanist was cataloguing a pile of fish bones over which a brass magnifying glass was set on a pole. He was the same age as she was, she noted, now she could see him in the light. His hair was brown, almost nondescript, though he sported extravagant sideburns and had a sensitive face, she thought. The doctor was bent on concentration. As he peered at what he was doing, his spectacles slipped slightly down his nose.

  ‘The bone density changes as you get further south,’ Hooker said absentmindedly, gesturing her to come in and pointing at the only clear space in the room, beside him. Carefully she laid down the tray and peered at the skull of a large cod.

  ‘You’re probably good at filleting ’em, eh?’ Hooker said.

  ‘No, sir. My skill is with the oven. Pastry, mostly. And some sugar.’

  He sniffed in the direction of the food and lifted the fork, only with difficulty taking his eyes off the magnifying glass. ‘Smells good. Well, as good as I can make out. Have you noticed that the colder it gets, a fellow’s sense of smell is impaired? It must affect your cooking, I imagine. I would make a study, but it’s almost impossible. No standardization, you see. You can’t measure it.’

  Karina hovered but he didn’t dismiss her. She felt her curiosity piqued. ‘Why don’t you dine with the other gentlemen, sir?’

  Hooker paused. He sat back in his chair. There was something elegant about the doctor. He pushed his hair off his face and she took in the thick nap of his velvet jacket. He wore a scarf bundled at the neck. The scarf was silk.

  ‘I’m sorry.’ Her eyes plummeted to the boards at her feet. Her question had overstepped the mark. ‘I’m sorry,’ she said again, and edged towards the door.

  ‘No.’ Hooker stopped her. ‘It’s a fair question, boy. Conformity, you see, is normal in the navy. Not only in the navy. We are queer creatures, we men. We like to ape each other.’

  ‘Creatures, sir?’

  ‘I dine some nights with the other officers but sometimes it does not please me and the truth is, I am the only one with an excuse. I have my work and I am not strictly speaking an officer. That is, a naval man. So if I say that I must catalogue fish bones or see to a sailor with the fever, I can go my own way.’

  Karina’s eyes landed on the pile of fish bones.

  ‘Science,’ Hooker said. ‘And before you question it, I asked for you because Hepworth does not speak. He never utters a word. You’ve never heard him, have you?’

  Karina smiled. Men didn’t talk to women this way. They didn’t include them in their scientific endeavours or gossip about the crew. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘I have examined him. There is no medical reason I can make out for his silence but he will not be encouraged. In any case, this seemed an altogether more pleasant arrangement.’ Hooker slid his fork into the slice of pie.

  ‘Sir,’ she cut in, ‘that is the pudding. The dessert.’

  The doctor grinned. ‘A fellow can eat whichever way he prefers. In his own quarters.’

  ‘Yes, sir,’ she said.

  ‘All right then,’ he waved her off.

  As she turned for the door she caught sight of a leather case, open on the bunk. Inside there was a saw and several other surgical tools.

  ‘I haven’t had to use that yet this year,’ Hooker said, swallowing his first bite and shifting back towards his desk. ‘Let’s hope I don’t have to use it at all.’

  FOUR

  She was woken first by a whistle and then by a bell – an unholy racket from above. Outside the small porthole it was light but still too early for Bevan to have lumbered in and taken his place by the stove. They had fallen into a routine over these first few weeks. Si prepared the meat or fish and Karina bent over the block making pastry or bread, rolling it out when it was ready. Si had always kneaded in a bowl on his lap before. Karina shook her head slowly when he showed her.

  ‘None of your cheek, Karl,’ he had insisted with a smile.

  In the evenings, Karina turned out some kind of confection to delight the officers. The brioches and nut pies had become so commonplace that Bevan had ceased to remark on them. Then, once the officers’ table had been served, Karina would deliver the doctor’s tray. It was the same every day. But this racket was unusual. In the morning the ship was generally quiet.

  She jumped to her feet, stretching out the stiffness in her limbs after the night on the boards. She had filled out a little, but not so much as to betray her and in this weather the men went around swaddled in any case, even doing their business at the heads. Above, the sound of whooping started on deck – the men cheering and shouting. She put aside the blanket she had been given. It had got colder as the journey had worn on. And then colder, still. The captain had ordered heavy greatcoats to be cracked out for every man and day on day, the crew who had business visiting the galley seemed wearier. A week further in and the use of hats, cuffs and collars was ordered. They were issued as uniform, but it was still difficult to get warm right through and even if you succeeded, it didn’t last – the weather went from freezing to even colder and back again. There were more blocks of ice than open water and a watch was mounted for icebergs, day and night. The pace of the ship had slowed.

  Karina’s eyes darted as the noise above became more insistent. Then the galley door burst open and Hepworth looked in.

  ‘What is it?’ she asked uselessly.

  He motioned and turned tail, setting off down the corridor. There was nothing else for it, she realized, and fell into step behind him. Above, the sky was bright. In the chill air, the port side thronged with men. Hepworth pushed his way through with Karina still in his wake. Bevan was at the rail and she slipped into place beside him. Ahead was a jaw-dropping coast of white cliffs – stark and thrilling. After weeks of all but vacant sea, they rose like a blue-and-white cathedral that glistened in the oncoming sunlight – a strange and deadly sculpture.

  ‘Is that it? Is that where we’re going?’ she asked.

  The men’s cheers seemed to disappear over the side, swallowed by the piercing silence. There was a kind of glamour, a magic hanging in the chill air. She felt it draw her in from the first – the sheer emptiness of the place. It seemed too clean.

  ‘Aye.’ Bevan nodded. ‘That’s it all right.’

  ‘And nobody knew it was here?’

  ‘I wouldn’t say that. There was never a map. There were sailors’ tales of course. But we are the first to take proper soundings.’

  ‘Where do we port?’ she asked. ‘What is the town called?’

  Bevan laughed. ‘Town? Nobody lives here. This is the summer, boy. Think what the winter must be like. How could anyone live here? No, there’s nothing but ice a
nd snow and a few lousy birds. You’ll see. It’s the emptiest place in the world, and that’s the truth.’

  Karina gasped and then shuddered. There was something majestic about the ice cliffs ahead. Something ominous.

  On the Erebus, they had hoisted flags but she could not read their meaning. Below the cheering, though, she discerned a low grumble, no matter that with the great white continent came the prospect of limitless fresh water melted from the ice. The men knew the dangers. Around her they enumerated them in a low chatter. There were treacherous, submerged icebergs and the lottery of distinguishing between what was land and what was only frozen brine. The seawater was always in rotation – freezing and melting so that deadly plates of ice peppered the surface close to the land and, the men said, even in summertime, the weather beggared belief.

  ‘She’s like some beautiful whore who puts you through misery,’ the ship’s carpenter, Archie, said to Bevan with a sigh.

  The cook nodded. These men had followed Ross to the Northern Circle and signed up again, for this tour of duty in the south.

  ‘There ain’t no snow bears, which is a crying shame. Down here the birds are useless for eating and the seals ain’t much better,’ Bevan complained. ‘Some days it seems almost warm and then out of nowhere the wind rises.’

  Karina turned away. At the other end of the ship some of the able seamen were whooping into the silence and laughing. Then, last on deck, ever one to make an entrance, Captain Ross appeared and the men parted. The grumbling abated and so did the cheering.

  ‘It’s a veritable fiesta,’ the captain commented regardless.

  Behind him, Hooker, resplendent in a large fur hat that rested low on his brow, pushed into the space created by the captain’s wake. His eyes were shining and his cheeks glowed with the cold.

  ‘Back again, eh, Joseph?’ Ross said. ‘And we are to start at Penguin Bay, so you shall have your way.’

  ‘The Royal Society will be most exercised,’ Hooker replied. ‘We must collect as many as we can.’

  ‘Indeed. Well, let’s get her to anchor.’