PART I
AMPUTATION
PROLOGUE
Mae Casper had some reservations about bringing her grandfather to a brothel. Unfortunately, they were superseded by the other obligations that had arisen today.
He, of course, had no such qualms.
“I can’t wait to tell your grandmother,” he said, more than once, scratching at his sparse white hair while chuckling to himself. “She’s going to be so cross with you, Mae! Dinner will be terribly awkward.”
Mae only sighed in response. Not because he was right, but because she was accustomed to his gleeful antagonizing. If she’d had any other choice of surgical theater, she would have taken it, of course.
She hadn’t.
The man with the foot that needed to be amputated was already living in the bawd house on Dyott Street, and, as luck would have it, the madam of that particular brothel was also trained as a midwife.
It might not be respectable, but it certainly was lucky.
They’d had a tent before it got cold, over on the border between Clerkenwell and St. Giles. The dip in temperature had made that particular solution untenable, so while they waited for a more permanent clinic to be built, the patients had been dispersed throughout the city into any charitable rooms willing to have them.
It just so happened that the most willing charity had come from the city’s underbelly.
It had been a lesson in assumptions for Mae, she supposed, both that she had some incorrect ones and that she herself was guilty of prejudice and unwarranted judgement—that second one had been a surprise.
Given the color of her skin, she had always thought of herself as the recipient of those behaviors, never the instigator.
She glanced at her grandfather, who glowed alabaster white opposite her red brown, and chuckled to herself as he spun on his heels in admiration of the brothel’s red-draped and velvet-lined receiving foyer.
Perhaps everyone was capable of being surprised, at the end of the day.
“Mae!” called Sally, the brothel madam, who bustled over, already holding a stack of linens topped with two rolls of gauze and a look of anxiety on her plump face. “Did you find any ether? I looked everywhere for strong spirits, but we’re down to nothing but wine here in the off season and I couldn’t find anyone to sell me something stronger on short notice.”
“I’ve a friend with a gambling hell,” she said, reaching forward to take the top half of the stack from the other woman, ignoring the sound of protest she made. “He’s promised to not only bring something disgustingly potent, but also one of his minions who apparently has a talent for knocking men unconscious without a blow to the head. It’s the best we’ve got, for now.”
“I’m curious to see that last part,” Dr. Casper said, turning from his close admiration of a particularly graphic tapestry hung on the near wall. “How do you think he does it? Bit of smothering?”
“I can’t imagine any other way,” Mae said with a shrug. “This is likely to be a rough man, given that he works as an enforcer, so we ought to be patient and understand completely what he plans before we allow him to lay hands on the patient.”
“That’s always been a rule here, anyhow,” Sally said with a raise of her brows. “Honest.”
They turned to trudge up the stairs, where the man was awaiting them in a room that Sally had prepared as best as she could for the procedure.
“I’ve put down a lot of old sheets. Got some from the neighboring establishments, rags and the like. The butcher even lent me a tarp,” she was chattering as they walked. “And the saw, of course.”
“Of course,” Mae said with a grimace. “I trust that you gave it a wash?”
“Oh, several,” Sally assured her grimly. “Several. Though I think the city’s pigs are cleaner than many of its men, to tell you true.”
“She’s not wrong,” Dr. Casper agreed, still seemingly fascinated with every detail of the hallway as they walked.
One of the brothel girls was pacing around outside of the room, bouncing a baby on her hip. She frowned as they approached.
“Are you sure you have to do it?” she said to Sally. “Are you certain?”
“I’m afraid so,” Sally replied, giving the baby’s leg a little pinch and a tiny smile. “He’ll be better for it.”
“It’s only a foot,” said Dr. Casper, grinning at the baby, who immediately grinned back. “We’re more than our feet, aren’t we, little one?”
