The Ice Swan by J’nell Ciesielski

Wynn grabbed her and pushed her against the side of a building, covering her with his body. Svetlana didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see the horrible image before her, but Wynn’s weight immobilized her against the wet stone with her unblinking eyes pinned on the shot man.

Scrambling backward on his hand, the man pulled a gun from his jacket and fired down the alleyway. The shot ricocheted off the walls.

“Cowards! Shooting me in back!” he shouted in Russian. Feet scuffled, growing farther away. “That is right. Run!” He collapsed, clutching his bleeding shoulder.

“Stay here,” Wynn hissed in her ear. His weight lifted from her, leaving a terrible chill in his absence as he rushed to the fallen man.

The blood rushed from Svetlana’s extremities until they shook from deprivation. She watched as if standing in a water bubble that deafened all sound, thought, and movement. She blinked heavily, yet her eyes could not belie what her brain tried to deceive her with. Reds. Guns. A man bleeding. Wynn bending over him, fingers prodding the wound.

He turned to her. Eyes urgent as his mouth moved. What was he saying? She couldn’t hear anything beyond the thudding of her heart.

“Svetlana!” The vacuous bubble burst. Sound and understanding flooded in, shocking her with its force. “Here.”

She shook her head to clear the vestiges of fog and hurried to his side on wobbly legs.

“Do you have a handkerchief?” Wynn’s question rolled in her ear, but the ability to discern its meaning eluded her as she stared at the hurt man’s face. Sickly pale and dotted with rain, he clenched his crooked teeth behind thin lips. Wynn’s voice prodded her once more. “Svetlana. Look at me.”

Slowly Svetlana turned her attention to him as the vacantness threatened its hold once more. Wynn’s gaze was calm, steadying her against the trembling moving through her body.

“Do you have a handkerchief?”

She felt her head shake no.

“Your shawl. Take it off and wrap it around his shoulder while I hold him up. Do you understand?” The man moaned and convulsed. Red seeped between Wynn’s fingers as he pressed against the shoulder. “Svetlana. Look at me. Do you understand?”

She felt herself nodding. So much blood.

“Do it now.” His sharpness cut through the haze, severing her from the stupor it trapped her in.

Whipping off the shawl, she carefully wrapped it under the man’s thick arm and over his shoulder as Wynn propped him up. She tried to focus on her task. Up, over, under. Red splattered the sidewalk. Up, over, under. It feathered out between cracks in the pavement, turning blotchy as raindrops collided with the red rivulets. A life washing into the gutter. She wrapped faster, water squeezing between her fingers.

“The material is too wet to soak up the”—she swallowed against the roil of sickness—“the blood.”

“Better than nothing.” Wynn steadied the man’s head as it lolled to the side. “No you don’t, mate. I need you awake.”

Svetlana didn’t blame the man. If she’d been shot, she’d rather remain unconscious throughout the ordeal as well.

“What shall I do with the ends?”

“Tie them. We don’t need the dressing slipping off before we get to hospital.”

“Nyet!” The man wrestled awake as he cried out in Russian. “No hospital! Do no take me there. Nyet.”

Fresh blood seeped out from the shawl as he flailed in an effort to throw them off. Svetlana had gone to too much trouble wrapping the wound. This fool wasn’t going to undo it all now.

She slapped his pudgy cheek.

“Calm yourself. Do you not see this doctor is trying to help you?”

The man froze and stared at her in disbelief. “Russkaya?”

“Da.” She knotted the ends of the shawl and looked at Wynn, who didn’t seem the least bit distressed by the terrifying situation in which they found themselves. “He says he doesn’t want to go to the hospital.”

“He’s been shot. He doesn’t get much of a choice.”

“There choice, da,” the man said in broken English, bobbing his head and sending rain from his hair streaking into his eyes.

Wynn’s brow lifted. “Oh, speak English, do you? Good. Makes things easier.” He glanced at Svetlana. “Not that I don’t appreciate hearing your lovely interpretations. Grab the umbrella and try to keep it over his wound. Hospital is three blocks over. Can you make it, mate?” Swiping his hands against his trouser leg and leaving a swath of red on the dark gray material, Wynn stood and hooked an arm around the man’s thick waist and hauled him to his feet.

Staggering, the man grimaced in pain. “There choice. Apartment street over. Mine.” He jabbed his finger in the intended direction.

Wynn secured the man’s uninjured arm around his shoulders while maintaining a steady arm around the man’s waist. “I understand we all want the comforts of home when we’ve taken a beating, but this isn’t going to be cured with an aspirin and a lie-down.”

The man turned flat brown eyes to Svetlana. Flat face. Flat nose. Flat lips. All Russian. “You tell him. You russkaya. Make him understand. English hospital no good. They find me again. Only safe in apartment.”

Svetlana formed a protest but snuffed it cold at the terrifying prospect of truth in his words. What was to stop those men from finishing their heinous murder at the hospital? All those innocent people. If it was the Reds, the last thing they should be offered was open grounds to exact vengeance on opposing soldiers too injured to fight back once they’d taken this man’s life.

“We’ll take him to the apartment,” she said.

Wynn shook his head. “Absolutely not. I’m the doctor here and this man needs—”

“He needs you to attend him and you can do that anywhere. Though preferably not in the street, yes?” Walking back to where she’d dropped the umbrella, she picked it up along with Wynn’s package, then stared down a curious woman watching them through her window. The woman crossed herself and made a hasty retreat behind her curtains. Others who had fled at the gunshots crept back onto the sidewalk and watched with unabashed curiosity. Ignoring them, she returned and held the umbrella over the man.

“For the safety of all your patients it is best we take this man to a quiet place. I will retrieve anything you need.”

He stared at her. His stubborn need for medical superiority warring with concern for all involved patients transpired like a shifting wall across Wynn’s face.

At last he settled on a decision. “Where’s the flat?”

*  *  *

Wynn scrubbed his hands in the basin of water and soap as his patient slowly regained consciousness on the ornate bed. The man had passed out no sooner than they had entered the building. Rather rude of him considering the four flights of stairs they had to traverse before arriving at his door with limp body in tow, but the blackout proved to be a blessing. Wynn was able to make a quick examination of the entry and exit wounds, clean away debris, and dress the injuries with a few shirts Svetlana had found in a bureau and cut into strips.

After checking his patient once more, Wynn left the bedchamber and stepped into the sitting room. Expensive furniture and artwork crammed the space with plush Aubusson rugs covering the parquet floor. Faux columns stood in the corners with spiky green plants sitting on top while a marble fireplace was half hidden behind a trolley loaded with amber liquid–filled decanters and tumblers.

Not knowing what to make of the gaudy taste, Wynn ambled to the kitchen where Svetlana brooded over a silver contraption with a spout that looked suspiciously like an oversize tea kettle. Her hair rested in a limp coil at the base of her neck with escaped silvery strands straggling off in all directions. Her dark blue dress was wrinkled and water stained, but her erect posture didn’t sag under the mistreatment. Nor did her odd foot arrangement, one flat and the other pointed to the side. Snapped to the front. To the side again.

If one thing could be said for this princess, it was that she was a brick. Not once had she complained or backed away when he requested assistance. If another thing could be said, it was that this princess was no nurse. She’d managed to jab their patient in the exit wound as the dressing was applied and brought Wynn cologne water to wash his hands instead of soap, arguing he had worked up quite the “aroma” on the trudge through the streets and up the stairs. The sweat dampening the back of his shirt couldn’t deny that statement.

“Espèce de rate.” Svetlana smacked the silver contraption with her palm.

“Having trouble?” Wynn stepped into the small yet serviceable room that didn’t appear to have cooked a meal in all its existence. No dishes, no cutlery, nothing to indicate it was more than a passing thought to its occupant.

Svetlana turned to face him, her scowl giving way beneath a pink of embarrassed frustration. “I thought to make tea.”

“With that? It looks more suitable to holding the remains of the deceased. Or sterilizing equipment in the surgery.”

“It is a samovar. A Russian tea maker.”

“Have you used one before?”

“No. Our cook always prepared our trays in the kitchen. I shouldn’t think it that difficult being only hot water and tea leaves.” She pointed to the curved spout etched with intricate scrollwork. “I only know the hot water comes from this spout and into the teapot where the leaves are. The leaves were difficult to find.” She frowned at the matching silver teapot on the counter.

A coffee man himself, and only a good slug to get him through a grueling shift, Wynn didn’t have much practice in the domestic arts, but he’d seen his mum make the watery brew often enough.

Unable to resist a challenge of inner workings, especially with a beautiful woman watching, he pried off the lid and gazed inside. It was an open chamber half filled with water and a metal pipe running vertically through the middle.

“There are burnt wood pieces in this smaller pipe. We’ll need to light them to boil this water for the teapot.”

“Yes, that seems logical.” Svetlana reached toward the windowsill and pulled down a box of matches. With a dainty flick of her wrist, she struck the match to a fiery orange and dropped it into the kindling tube. The fire crawled down the bits of dry wood and flamed the other pieces to life. “Does that look right?”

“It’ll take a few minutes, but metal is a good conductor of heat. Fanciest way I’ve ever seen it brewed.”

Svetlana smiled faintly and gazed out the rain-speckled window, the sides of her mouth turning down. With the tea underway and nothing left to divert her attention, exhaustion traced its wearisome existence over her drawn features. The natural reaction of adrenaline leaving the body after coursing through the veins in bursts of oxygen and blood to overcome stress. How she’d managed to resist its crashing effects thus far was a miracle.

“Let’s take a seat while we wait.” He crossed to the small table tucked in the corner and pulled out one of the two elaborately carved chairs. She sat and he took the chair opposite. “Better?”

She nodded. “Too much standing without stretching grows the legs stiff.”

Wynn settled back and propped one ankle atop his opposite knee. “Mine were like that when I first started medical school. Could hardly put one foot in front of the other at the end of the day, but you get used to it.”

Her gaze dropped to the table as the warm scent of burning wood drifted around them. “Seeing a man shot in the street is not a thing to become accustomed to.”

“No, it’s not. Neither is war, and yet we are surrounded by it. An ugly reality brought to our doorstep that we can’t turn away from.”

“He was lucky to fall at your feet. A physician to save his life.”

Wynn shifted as always when a compliment veered his way. Easier to deflect the discomfort with humor. “Good thing I didn’t give in to that career impulse of being a chimney sweep like I wanted to when I was younger. Lot of good a blackened broom would do him.”

Her gaze lifted to him with not a trace of humor to be found. “How do you remain so calm?”

“I have good training to rely on. Besides, what good will it do my patients if I give in to hysterics? A surgeon must always remain in control of himself in order to control the situation.”

“Unlike myself.” Her voice grew smaller, curling into itself in search of shelter.

What meager comfort he had in words, he offered to her. This amazing woman, this princess born with every luxury of life who now found herself lost in uncertainty.

“You were more composed than most would have been. It’s not easy to step into a situation like that without training. With training, for that matter. I’ve seen many a good nurse go down or turn green after seeing a gruesome injury. It’s a strength of character not forged in many people. A strength gained by trial of fire. Not everyone could have escaped a revolution in the dead of winter. You did.”

She dipped her head as a single tear escaped. “Leaving Russia I had to remain resilient for Marina and my mother. Today I wanted only to run.”

“But you didn’t.” Thinking of nothing beyond the need to ease her pain, Wynn reached across the table and placed his hand over hers. “I’m sorry I put you in that situation. You were very brave, and I’m grateful for your assistance.”

Her hand moved beneath his, her little finger curling around his. Slender and finely boned, her cool fingers were soft as cream against his skin. His physician’s concern for a patient warmed to desire to ease her hurt far beyond the abilities of prescription and bandages. It surprised him how easily the desire to protect came. The sentiment had always existed, it was part of his calling as a physician, but it came in increments like carefully measured pills at the dispensary. A bit given to each patient before moving to the next, never in full doses. Until her.

She tugged at something deep within him, a part yet to be unlocked, since the day he’d called to her in the street. An irresistible pull that kept him tethered to her presence. If given the chance, what might he find at the end of their rope? Dare he dwell on the possibility of a key to unlock that hidden part?

He gently squeezed her hand, drawing her eyes to his. Eyes of pale blue. Melted were the ice shards she carried day to day and in their place was a vulnerable heartbeat.

“Perhaps next time we take a walk we might avoid injuries,” she said.

He curled his fingers and touched the sensitive skin inside her wrist. Elevated pulse. If he took his own, he bet it matched. “We do seem to attract them when we’re together.”

Steam billowed from the samovar, dousing the quiet moment they had escaped to. Svetlana yanked her hand back and jumped to her feet, the jerkiest movements he’d ever witnessed from her. She turned a knob on top of the spout and out poured hot water into the waiting teapot. Keeping her back to him, she busied herself pulling glasses with silver bottoms and handles from a cabinet.

“What business is a man about when he is shot in the street?” Gone was the tremor of vulnerability in her voice. In place once more reigned control.

Wynn rubbed his palm with his thumb, trying not to linger on the memory of her fingers curled against his. “From my experience, never anything good.”

“Yet you took pity on him. For all you know he could be a criminal, a murderous zealot.”

“Makes no difference if he’s the Archbishop of Canterbury or Jack the Ripper. I swore an oath to preserve all human life.”

“What made you choose such an oath?”

A question he’d been asked several times over on any given week. Finding his own path held far more appeal than traversing the well-laid one his title procured. Steadfast and secure was for Hugh, not him.

“As a second son there were only so many options available. Barrister. Too many rules. Clergyman. Even more restrictions and they don’t appreciate a sense of humor. Soldier. Well, I’d rather put people back together than a hole in them.”

The teapot gulped softly as Svetlana poured the amber brew into the glasses. “My father and brother are soldiers. The men in our family always are.”

A thousand questions flooded Wynn’s mind at the mention of her father and brother. “Are they still fighting in Russia?”

“They fight against those who would destroy everything, leaving nothing but a faint memory of what was once our glorious homeland.”

“Have you heard from them?”

“No.” She plunked the teapot on the counter, rattling the lid.

“In a war letters are difficult to—”

“Tea.” Her expression drawn tight, she placed one of the glasses in front of him. The personal conversation was over. “There is no sugar or milk, if you take them in your drink.”

“I’ve never had the luxury, at least not with the coffee I get at hospital. Faster to drink it straight and move on to the next patient. Spooning and stirring are for the gentleman at ease.”

Svetlana slid into her chair and raised her glass. “Santé.”

One minute they spoke of Russia and the next she was speaking in French. “Why do you speak French and not your native tongue?”

“I speak several languages; French is merely one of them.”

“How many is several?”

“French, English, Russian, Spanish, German, and a touch of Swedish. I can also read in Latin and Greek.”

“Impressive, but you still haven’t answered my question about your native tongue.”

“My native tongue is French, as it is for all the nobility in Petrograd. Peter the Great was enamored with all things French. He dignified it as the height of sophistication and brought the customs to what was once Petersburg. Anything Russian was and is considered déplaisant. My native tongue, as you put it, is spoken only by the peasants, of which many go on to become nannies for the nobles’ children. It is from the time in the nursery and our peasant nannies that we learn Russian.”

He’d heard enough French in the past four years. He wanted to hear her language. “What do Russians say to cheer?”

“Za zdarovje.” Warm and round and husky. “To your health.”

“Za zdarovje.” Wynn took a swallow and spit out the foulness accosting his mouth. “What’s in this?”

Svetlana’s eyebrows pinched in confusion. “Tea.”

He smelled the so-called tea. “Where did you get it?”

“The pouch. Little was left to be found.” She pointed to a small brown bag half hidden behind the samovar.

Grabbing the pouch from the counter, Wynn wafted it under his nose. “Stale tobacco. Did you not notice the smell?”

Red danced across Svetlana’s cheeks as she shook her head. “I never assumed identification was required in the making of a pot of tea.”

Despite her cringing with embarrassment, Wynn couldn’t stop the corner of his mouth from curling. Nor could he stop the laugh building up his throat and bursting free. Svetlana’s gaze lifted to his. The red slowly faded to pink across her cheeks as her lips perked up. She covered her mouth and giggled. A free, feminine sound that skipped around the room and filled it with light. And filled Wynn with the intense desire to hear it again and again.

A crash sounded in the other room.

Wynn sprinted out of the kitchen and into where his patient grappled with the bedside table in an attempt to sit himself upright. He reached out to push the man back onto the pillows, but the man knocked away Wynn’s hands and shouted in Russian.

Svetlana entered and stood behind Wynn as she replied to the man’s outburst before considerately switching to English. “You must stay still or do your injury harm.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “Who you?”

“Svetlana Dalsky. We were on the street when those men shot you. Do you not remember?”

The man slowly raised a hand to his sagging cheek and scratched. Recognition dawned. “Angel who slap me. Like kiss from heaven.” His attention swung to Wynn, all excitement dropping. “Who you?”

“Dr. Edwynn MacCallan.” Wynn took his new stethoscope from the bureau where he’d left it and placed the earpieces in his ears.

“He saved your life,” Svetlana added.

“Speak truth, angel? Da, of course do. Angels no lie. In such case I indebted you, Doctor.” He loudly kissed the back of Wynn’s hand before bowing his head over it.

“Er, think nothing of it.” Wynn withdrew his hand and discreetly wiped it against his trouser leg before placing the stethoscope bell against the man’s chest. “We’ve yet to get your name.”

“Leonid the third. My father second, but no confuse me with him. He fat. No mention to him this. He very sensitive about waistline.” Leonid pawed at his nightstand and frowned. “Where cigarettes?”

“No smoking.” Satisfied with the heartbeat and lungs, Wynn unplugged the earpieces and slung the instrument around his neck. “I don’t have morphine to offer you, but I can bring a bit tomorrow when I return to check on you. You’re lucky the bullet went clean through. We would’ve had a wee mess on our hands if it hadn’t.”

“That good, Doctor. Appreciate you after what durak do me.” Leonid scowled at his bandaged shoulder as if it were a minor inconvenience and not a gaping hole.

“Who were those men and why were they shooting at you?” Stock-still, Svetlana crossed her arms with the inquiring intensity of a London bobby.

“Crazies. I not know names. One minute I at café sitting reading newspaper—never pleasant stories anymore—and next they shoving me in alley with gun. Say over money.” Leonid raked his hand through the wisps of hair waving like flags from a last stand atop his balding head. “No talk more about in front of lady. It rude, and one thing my papochka taught me never politics before breakfast. Or front of lady.”

The lady didn’t relent. “Were these men Russian?”

“Da, but everyone here Russian. Russkiye neighborhood. Little Neva. What say name was, angel?”

“Svetlana Dalsky.”

“Dalsky. Name familiar, da?” He snapped his fingers near his head as if to summon wandering thoughts. “Will come to me.”

Wynn cleared his throat before she had the chance to launch a formal version of the Inquisition. “I’ll come again tomorrow morning to check on you, Leonid, but for now we should be leaving. I’ve left a list of instructions here on the table. The most important thing is to rest. No unnecessary moving about. And no smoking.”

Leonid’s flat face fell with disappointment. “Go? No, no, no. Cannot leave until thank proper. I know! Join name day celebration in two nights. Big party. My papochka want meet you. Meet other friends, listen at music, enjoy food and vodka. Fountains of vodka.”

“I must insist on no vodka. Not with your injury.”

Frowning, Leonid’s gaze swiveled to Svetlana. “What he mean no vodka?”

Svetlana turned her head to Wynn and whispered, “I think you do not understand Russian culture and its vodka.”

“Believe it or not, I do understand,” he hissed back. “We have a similar epidemic where I come from, only it’s whisky.”

“Whisky? Ah! You make joke.” Leonid’s grin revealed two rows of teeth that surprisingly crowded his wide mouth. Wynn couldn’t help warming to the interesting fellow. “You funny doctor, da? Almost fool me you serious. Here, here, take card. Show doorman. He let in.” Grimacing, Leonid leaned over and pulled two cards from the bedside table drawer and handed them to Wynn and Svetlana. “If ever need help, show card. I loyal friend.”

It was a thick, cream cardstock of the finest quality with a strip of gold embossed around the edges. The White Bear was printed in fine scroll on the front. On the back a name in matching font.

Svetlana inhaled. “Sheremetev?”

Leonid nodded. “Muscovy branch. You come, da? Both.”

Wynn hesitated. “I may be on shift—”

Svetlana grabbed his wrist and squeezed. “Da. We will be there.”

Before Wynn could decipher the cryptic vice around his hand, Leonid Sheremetev of the White Bear’s infamous vodka fell back on his pillow with a loud snore.