The Winter Rose (69 page)

After she'd gone a few more yards she saw a turning to the right and
took it. Only one more and then a left, bear to the right, and she'd be
there. It wasn't as bad as she'd thought it would be. She'd be at the
Beggar in no time.

But a few steps into the turn the ceiling suddenly seemed lower and the walls closer together.

Did I take the first right turn? she wondered. Or did I take one of the smaller tunnels Sally warned me about?

Something gleamed whitely a few feet ahead of her. She lowered her
candle to it, then gasped. It was a skeleton. The long bones poked
through what was left of its rotted clothing. Black beetles crawled over
its ribs. India started to shake. She had seen plenty of skeletons, but
never one like this. Its wrists were tied together with a frayed rope.
Its skull was fractured. Whoever this person was, he had not come down
here willingly.

She turned and ran back down the tunnel. Hot wax dripped from the
candle onto her hand. The pain made her wince, but she welcomed it. It
brought her up short.

Stop it. Stop it right now, she told herself, slowing to a walk. If
you don't keep your wits about you, someone will find your bones down
here.

She got herself back to the main tunnel, wrapped her skirt hem around
the candle's base to shield her hand, and pressed on. It was only a
quarter of a mile. That wasn't so much. All she had to do was pay
attention and get the turns right. After nearly a quarter of an hour she
came to another turning. She held her candle to the ceiling and the
walls to make sure it was a proper turning, not a small tunnel, then
took it. A few minutes later she sighted the second right. There was
only one more turn now. Only one more. She would make it. It couldn't be
far.

The ground grew soggier as she walked, and the constant trickling of
water grew louder. She knew she was walking under houses, under their
cisterns and their middens, and shuddered to think what was in that
water.

And then she smelled it--something far worse than cistern water, a
stench that was low and gut-tightening: rats. She'd tried not to think
about them. She'd tried to tell herself that they might not be there
anymore, but they were.

She stopped, not knowing whether to laugh with relief that she was
going the right way--or cry with fear. Sid had carried her over them
before, but Sid wasn't here now. She would have to walk through them
alone.

India heard the trickling water grow louder still. That must be why
they like it here, she thought. There's water for them. And then her
foot caught on something and she stumbled. She flailed wildly, trying to
right herself. The candle fiew out of her hand. She landed facedown in
something soft and wet. Her arms and chest sank into it. It oozed into
her nose and mouth. She sat up, screaming and spitting, trying to wipe
it off. It was mud, stinking and thick. She rose up on her knees and
reached for the wall, trying to pull herself up on it, but there was no
wall.

She sank back to the ground and felt for the candle. Her movements
were jerky and random in the darkness. Her hands covered some patches of
ground over and over again and skipped others entirely. She realized
she would never find the candle this way. It was gone. Buried in the
mud. Even if by some miracle she did find it, its wick would be sodden
and impossible to light.

Fear frothed up inside her, threatening to boil over into hysteria.
She remembered that she had the matches. She had put them in her skirt
pocket. She got to her feet and patted her pocket. They were still
there. Her skirt was wet with mud, though. Would the matches be too wet
to use? She wiped her hands on her jacket, then carefully took the box
out of her pocket. Her fingers told her that part of it was wet, but
part of it was dry. She slid the cover back ever so slightly, careful to
make sure she had the box right side up, then pulled a match out. She
struck the match. It sputtered, then flared. India nearly sobbed with
relief. She held the match up and saw that part of the wall had
collapsed. The trickling water had turned the earth to mud. She walked
through the sucking mud, then suddenly turned back, disoriented. She was
going the wrong way, she was sure of it. And then the match's flame
burned her fingers and she dropped it and stood in darkness again.

She went to light another one, but stopped herself. How many matches
did she have left? Twenty? Ten? Two? She opened the box again and felt
for them, counting with her fingertip. Five, she had five matches left.
How would she find the Beggar's doorway with only five matches?

She leaned against the wall, beaten. She simply did not know what to
do next. She couldn't go forward. Without light, she couldn't see where
she was going. Without light, she had nothing to keep the rats at bay.
They would smell her, and when they did they would swarm her. She
couldn't go back, either. It was too far and the police might still be
there. She felt tears welling behind her eyes, tears of terror and
despair.

An image flashed into her mind--of Sid as a boy. He was alone,
keening in the hull of an abandoned boat after his mother's death.
Another image followed it. He was a young man now. He was sitting on a
metal cot. His hands were clenched into fists. His head was bent. A door
clanged open. His head lifted. And then he was on his feet, leaping at
the tiny window far above him in the wall. Scrabbling at the uncaring
stones, half-mad with the awful knowledge of what was coming and that
nothing and no one would stop it. And then a final image. Of him
covering a sleeping street child with his coat the night they'd walked
the streets of London.

India did weep then--not for herself, but for Sid. For all that he'd
suffered. She'd convinced him that he could break away from his past,
and he was trying, but someone didn't want him to. Someone wanted to
pull him back in. She didn't know who or why, but she knew that she
could not let it happen. Even if she had to cross an ocean of rats. She
had to help him, because no one else would. She tried to wipe the tears
from her face, but her sleeve was covered with mud. She laughed
bitterly. How could she help Sid when she couldn't even get herself out
of this damned tunnel?

"Improvise, Jones. Improvise," a voice said.

Some people heard the voice of God in times of trouble. Or the voice
of a beloved mother, long dead. A husband. A friend. Not her. She heard
Professor Fenwick.

"You are out for an evening at the theater," he was saying to her and
her classmates. "As you stroll down Drury Lane, a runaway carriage
mounts the curb. The horses trample a man. His leg is crushed. His
femoral artery is severed. You left your doctor's bag at your home. What
will save him? Armstrong?"

"Making the proper diagnosis, sir?"

Fenwick had closed his eyes at that; the pain of his students' stupidity was too much to bear.

"Hatcher?" he barked.

"A thorough knowledge of anatomy, sir?"

"Jones?"

"Technical abilities, sir?"

"No, no, no, no, no! When all hell is breaking loose, there is only
one thing that will save you--improvisation. Turn your gloves into
tourniquets. Your bloomers into slings. A bottle of whisky, obtained
from a nearby pub, becomes your antiseptic. Jackets and shirts are your
dressings. Hardly ideal, but in extremis you have little choice."

India took a deep, calming breath. "Improvise, Jones," she said determinedly. "Improvise."

She thought back to the night she and Sid had come down here. He had
been wearing heavy boots and thick trousers. She had neither of those.
Her kid shoes and woolen stockings and cotton skirts were no match for
sharp teeth. She thought of what she did have: a few matches, a
matchbox. She could light the matchbox itself, but it wouldn't blaze for
long, and when it went out she'd have nothing left.

"Come on, Jones, what else have you got?"

She had her medical bag. She quickly reviewed its contents. Scalpels
and scissors and clamps--all useless. Gauze and needles and suturing
thread and chloral. She thought about lighting the gauze, but it was so
thin and she didn't have much of it. It would burn out long before she
got past the rats.

Chloral, she thought, chloral ...She ied to move on, to think of other

tr

things in her bag, but her mind kept circling back to the anesthetic.
It knocked people out. Could it do the same to rats? She scrabbled in
the bag for the bottle. It was there. Maybe it would work. Maybe she
could knock out enough of them. Maybe they'd run from the smell.
Maybe...

"Maybe you've lost your mind," she said. "What are you going to do?
Make a tiny rat mask? Ask them to line up in an orderly fashion?"

She'd have to open the bottle and splash the liquid around in order
to knock the rats out, and she was as enclosed in the tunnels as they
were. She might put a few of them under, but she'd certainly knock
herself out. Perhaps permanently.

Panic was gnawing at her, fraying the edge of her resolve. The
darkness was unnerving. She decided to use one of her precious matches.
She needed light, if only for a few seconds. She was still holding the
bottle of chloral. Checking to make sure its stopper was in place, she
put it back in her bag, then lit the match. The liquid was highly
flammable, and...

Flammable. A flame. A torch. I could use the chloral to make a torch,
she thought. The only thing is, I haven't anything to burn.

She held the match over her bag, hoping against hope that she'd put
extra dressings in it, and forgotten about them, but she hadn't. The
match went out. "Bloody hell!" she yelled. It was hopeless. Futile.
She'd never get out of here. Someone would find her body here. Her
bones, actually. The rats would get the rest. They'd eat the leather of
her bag, her shoes, everything but her muddy cotton suit.

Her suit... her suit! She put the chloral down and unbuttoned her
jacket. It was muddy and damp, but underneath it her blouse was dry. She
stood up and felt under her skirt for her petticoat. It was also damp,
but her bloomers were dry. She took her blouse off, stepped out of her
bloomers, and wadded them up. She had an idea and it might just work.

She shrugged her jacket back on and knelt on the ground. Feeling her
way with her fingers, she pulled out a pad of gauze from her bag and
laid it on the ground. Then she took the matchbox from her pocket, took
the four remaining matches out of it and laid them on the gauze to keep
them dry. Next, she took her scalpel from its case and used it to poke a
hole in the top of the matchbox. Then she took her forceps out of the
bag, and the chloral, and placed them both on the ground. Satisfied that
her preparations were complete, she picked up one match, lit it, and
quickly jammed it into the hole in the matchbox.

Working swiftly in its light, she bundled her blouse and bloomers
together, grabbed the forceps, and clamped the fabric in its blades. The
blades opened on her, the fabric flopped over limply. The match died.

"Damn it!" she cried.

She began again, twisting her blouse tightly. She did the same with
her bloomers, then wound them together. The knot of fabric felt small in
her hands. She wished it were bigger. A lot bigger. She lit another
match and dropped it into a puddle.

She took another deep breath to steady herself, lit another match,
and placed it in the box. Then she grabbed a spool of suturing silver--a
filament used for closing birth lacerations--clamped the fabric in the
forceps, wound the filament tightly around the blades to keep them
closed, then secured it around the handle.

The match went out. India laid her jury-rigged torch on her lap. She
checked for the chloral one last time, took a deep breath, and lit her
last match.

Moving like lightning, she unstoppered the bottle, poured chloral on
the fabric, and held it to the fading match. For a long second, nothing
happened, then there was a tremendous whoosh, and the torch was blazing.

India jumped to her feet. The metal grew hot in her hand. She wrapped
her skirt around it, grabbed her bag, and started to run. The tunnel
snaked sharply left, the smell intensified, and then she saw
them--hundreds of them. For an instant she faltered, then she plunged
ahead yelling like an Amazon and holding the torch low to the ground.
Frightened by the noise and light, the rats scrambled madly over one
another to get away from her. A few ran at her, clawing at her boots,
her skirt. She kicked at them and kept going.

And then the tunnel veered sharply left and she was past them. She
stopped to catch her breath, to slow the mad banging of her heart. She
closed her eyes, willing the sound and smell and sight of the rats away.
When she opened them again, she felt calmer--until she glanced at her
torch. Most of the fabric had burned away; the flame was dying.

"Bloody hell!" she swore, running again.

Two rights and a left. She'd made the two rights, was that last bend
the left? It had to be. She remembered it from the time before,
remembered the feeling of being safe in Sid's arms as he carried her
past it. Two rights and a left and then the tunnel veers to the right
and then you're there, Sally had said.

The tunnel had just started leading to the right when the torch began
to gutter. India made another five yards before the flame died. There
was no more chloral. No matches. She would have to make the rest of her
way in the dark.

Fear started whispering in her ear again, but she refused to listen
to it. She was almost there; she knew she was. The Beggar couldn't be
far. Another twenty feet. Thirty at the most. She could feel her way.
She put her forceps into her bag, placed her hand on the wall, and
started to walk again.

It was then that she heard it. A noise up ahead of her. It sounded
like a cough... like a cough cut short. She stopped dead to listen, but
heard nothing. She stood perfectly still for a full minute, then two,
but there was no more sound.