The Amazing Dr. Darwin Read online

  “Certainly am.” Jacob Pole crouched by the box and lovingly stroked the shining metal. “You’ll never see a prettier cannon than Little Bess. Brass-bound, iron sheath on the bore, and fires a two-inch ball with black powder. Show me a devil or a leviathan in Loch Malkirk, and I’ll show you something that’s a good deal more docile when he’s had one of these up his weasand.” He held up a ball, lofting it an inch or two in the palm of his hand. “And if the natives run wild I’m sure it will do the same for them.”

  Darwin reached to open the lid wider. “Musket and shot, too. Where do you imagine that we are travelling, to the moon? You know the Highlanders are forbidden to carry weapons, and we have little enough room for rational appurtenances. The ragmatical collection you propose is too much.”

  “No more than your medical chests are too much.” Pole straightened up. “I’ll discard if you will, but not otherwise.”

  “Impossible. I have already winnowed to a minimum.”

  “And so have I.”

  The coachman stood up slowly and carried his empty tankard back into the inn. Once inside he went over to the keg, placed his tankard next to it, and jerked his head back toward the door.

  “Listen to that,” he said gloomily. “Easy money, I thought it’d be, wi’ just the two passengers. Now they’re at each other before they’ve set foot in the coach, and I’ve contracted to carry them as far as Durham. Here, Alan, pour me another one in there before I go, and make it a big ’un.”

  * * *

  The journey north was turning back the calendar, day by day and year by year. Beyond Durham the spring was noticeably less advanced, with the open apple blossom of Nottingham regressing by the time they reached Northumberland to tight pink buds a week away from bloom. The weather added to the effect with a return to the raw, biting cold of February, chilling fingers and toes through the thickest clothing.

  At Otterburn they had changed coaches to an open dray that left them exposed to the gusts of a hard northeaster, and beyond Stirling the centuries themselves peeled away from the rugged land. The roads were unmetalled, mere stony scratches along the slopes of the mountains, and the mean houses of turf and rubble were dwarfed by the looming peaks.

  At first Darwin had tried to write. He made notes in the thick volume of his Commonplace Book, balancing it on his knee. Worsening roads and persistent rain conspired to defeat him, and at last he gave up. He sat facing forward in the body of the dray, unshaven, swaddled in blankets and covered by a sheet of grey canvas with a hole cut in it for his head.

  “Wild country, Colonel Pole.” He gestured forward as they drove northwest along Loch Shin. “We are a long way from Lichfield. Look at that group.”

  He nodded ahead at a small band of laborers plodding along the side of the track. Jacob Pole made a snorting noise that could have as well come from the horse. He was smoking a stubby pipe with a bowl like a cupped hand, and a jar of hot coals stood on the seat behind him.

  “What of ’em?” he said. His pipe was newly charged with black tobacco scraped straight from the block, and he blew out a great cloud of blue-grey smoke. “I see nothing worth talking about. They’re just dreary peasants.”

  “Ah, but they are pure Celt,” said Darwin cheerfully. “Observe the shape of their heads, and the brachycephalic cranium. We’ll see more of them as we go further north. It’s been the way of it for three thousand years, the losers in the fight for good lands are pushed north and west. Scots and Celts and Picts, driven and crowded to the northern hills.”

  Jacob Pole peered at the group suspiciously as he tamped his pipe. “They may look like losers to you, but they look like tough fodder to me. Big and fierce. As for your idea that they don’t carry weapons, take a look at those scythes and sickles, and then define a weapon for me.” He patted his pocket under his leather cloak. “Ball and powder is what you need for savages. Mark my words, we’ll be glad of these before we’re done in Malkirk.”

  “I am not persuaded. The Rebellion was over thirty years ago.”

  “Aye, on the surface. But I’ve never yet heard of treasure being captured easy, there’s always blood and trouble comes with it. It draws in violence, as sure as cow dung draws flies.”

  “I see. So you are suggesting that we should turn back?” Darwin’s tone was sly.

  “Did I say that?” Pole blew out an indignant cloud of smoke. “Never. We’re almost there. If we can find boat and boatman, I’ll be looking for that galleon before today’s done, Devil or no Devil. I’ve never seen one in this world, and I hope I’ll not see one in the next. But with your ideas on religion, I’m surprised you believe in devils at all.”

  “Devils?” Darwin’s voice was quiet and reflective. “Certainly I am a believer in them, as much as the Pope himself; but I think he and I might disagree on the shapes they bear in the world. We should get our chance to find out soon enough.” He lifted a brawny arm from under the canvas. “That has to be Malkirk, down the hill there. We have made better time from Lairg than I anticipated.”

  Jacob Pole scowled ahead. “And a miserable looking place it is, if that’s all there is to it. But look close down there—maybe we’re not the only visitors to these godforsaken regions.”

  Half a mile in front of them two light carriages blocked the path that led through the middle of the village. The ill-clad cluster of people gathered around them turned as Pole drove the dray steadily forward and halted twenty yards from the nearer carriage.

  He and Darwin stepped down, stretching joints stiffened by the long journey. As they did so three men came forward through the crowd. Darwin looked at them in surprise for a moment before nodding a greeting.

  “I am Erasmus Darwin, and this is Colonel Jacob Pole. You received my message, I take it? We sent word ahead that we desire accommodation for a few days here in Malkirk.”

  He looked intently from one to the other. They formed a curiously ill-matched trio. The tallest of them was lean and dark, even thinner than Jacob Pole, and the possessor of bright, dark eyes that snapped from one scene to the next without ever remaining still. He had long-fingered hands, red cheeks that framed a hooked nose and a big chin, and he was dressed in a red tunic and green breeches covered by a patchwork cloak of blues and greys. His neighbor was of middle height and conventionally dressed—but his skin was coal-black and his prominent cheekbones wore deep patterns of old scars.

  The third member stood slightly apart from the others. He was short and strongly built, with massive bare arms. His face was half hidden behind a growth of greying beard, and he seemed to crackle with excess energy. He had nodded vigorously as soon as Darwin asked about the message.

  “Aye, aye, we got your message right enough. But I thought it came for these gentlemen.” He jerked his head to the others at his side. “There was no word with it, ye see, saying who was comin’, only a need for beds for two. But ye say ye’re the Darwin as sent the note to me?”

  “I am.” Darwin looked rueful. “I should have said more with that message. It never occurred to me there might be two arrivals here in one day. Can you find room for us?”

  The broad man shrugged. “I’ll find ye a bed—but it will be one for the both of ye, I’ll warn ye of that.”

  Jacob Pole stole a quick look at Darwin’s bulky form.

  “A good-sized bed,” said the man, catching the glance. “In a middlin’ sized room. An’ clean, too, and that has Malcolm Maclaren’s own word on it.” He thumped at his thick chest. “An’ that’s good through the whole Highlands.”

  While Maclaren was speaking the tall, cloaked man had been sizing up Pole and Darwin, his look darting intensely from one to the other absorbing every detail of their appearance. “Our arrival has caused problems—not expected, we must solve.” His voice was deep, with a clipped, jerky delivery and a strong touch of a foreign accent. “Apologies. Let me introduce—I am Doctor Philip Theophrastus von Hohenheim. At your service. This is my servant, Zumal. Yours to command.”

  The black
man grinned, showing teeth that had been filed to sharp points. Darwin raised his eyebrows and looked quizzically at the tall stranger.

  “I must congratulate you. You are looking remarkably well, Dr. Paracelsus von Hohenheim, for one who must soon be approaching his three hundredth year.”

  After a moment’s startled pause the tall man laughed, showing even yellow teeth. Jacob Pole and Malcolm Maclaren looked on uncomprehendingly as Hohenheim reached out, took Darwin’s hand, and shook it hard.

  “Your knowledge is impressive, Dr. Darwin. Few people know my name these days—and fewer yet can place my date of birth so accurate. To make precise—I was born 1491, one year before Columbus of Genoa found the Americas.” He bowed. “You also know my work?”

  As Hohenheim was speaking, Darwin had frowned in sudden puzzlement and stood for a few moments in deep thought. Finally he nodded.

  “In my youth, sir, your words impressed me more than any others. If I may quote you: ‘I admonish you not to reject the method of experiment, but according as your power permits, to follow it without prejudice. For every experiment is like a weapon which must be used according to its own peculiar power.’ Great words, Dr. Hohenheim.” He looked at the other man coolly. “Throughout my career as a physician, I have tried to adhere to that precept. Perhaps you recall what you wrote immediately after that advice?”

  Instead of replying, Hohenheim lifted his left hand clear of his cloak and waved it rapidly in a circle, the extended fingers pointing toward Jacob Pole. As he completed the circle he flicked his thumb swiftly across the palm of his hand and casually plucked a small green flask from the air close to Pole’s head. While the villagers behind him gasped, he rolled the flask into the palm of his hand.

  “Here.” He held it out to Jacob Pole. “Your eyes tell it—fluxes and fevers. Drink this. Condition will be improved, much improved. I guarantee. Also—more liquids, less strong drink. Better for you.” He turned to Darwin. “And you, Doctor. Medicine has come a long way—great advances since I had to flee the charlatans of Basel. Let me offer you advice, also. Barley water, licorice, sweet almond, in the morning. White wine and anise—not too much—at night. To fortify mind and body.”

  Darwin nodded. He looked subdued. “I thank you for your thoughtful words. Perhaps I will seek to follow them. The ingredients, with the exception of wine, are already in my medical chest.”

  “Solution.” Hohenheim snapped the fingers of his left hand in the air again, and again he held a flask. “White wine. To serve until other supply is at hand.”

  The villagers murmured in awe, and Hohenheim smiled. “Until tomorrow. I have other business now. Must be in Inverness tonight, meeting there was promised.”

  “Ye’ll never do it, man,” burst out Malcolm Maclaren. “Why, it’s a full day’s ride or more, south of here.”

  “I have methods.” There was another quick smile, a bow toward Pole and Darwin, then Hohenheim had turned and was walking briskly away toward the west, where the sea showed less than a mile away. While Malcolm Maclaren and the villagers gazed after him in fascinated silence, Jacob Pole suddenly became aware of the flask that he was holding. He looked at it doubtfully.

  “With your permission.” Darwin reached out to take it. He removed the stopper, sniffed at it, and then placed it cautiously against his tongue.

  “Here.” Pole grabbed the flask back. “That’s mine. You drink your own. Wasn’t that amazing? I’ve seen a lot of doctors, but I’ve never seen one to match his speed for diagnosis—it’s enough to make me change my mind about all pox-peddling physicians. Made you think, didn’t it?”

  “It did,” said Darwin ironically. “It made me think most hard.”

  “And the way he drew drugs from thin air, did you see that? The man’s a marvel. What were you saying about him being three hundred years old? That sounds impossible.”

  “For once we seem to be in agreement.” Darwin looked at the flask he was holding. “As for his ability to conjure a prescription for me from the air itself, that surprises me less than you might think. It is a poor doctor who lacks access to all the ingredients for his own potions.”

  “But you were impressed,” said Pole. He was looking pleased with himself. “Admit it, Dr. Darwin, you were impressed.”

  “I was—but not because of his drugs. That called for some powers of manipulation and manual dexterity, no more. But one of Hohenheim’s acts impressed me mightily— and it was one performed without emphasis, as though it was so easy as to be undeserving of comment.”

  Pole rubbed at his nose and took a tentative sip from his open flask. He pulled a sour face. “Pfaugh. Essence of badger turd. But all his acts seemed beyond me. What are you referring to?”

  “One power of the original Paracelsus, Theophrastus von Hohenheim, was to know all about a man on first meeting. I would normally discount that idea as mere historical gossip. But recall, if you will, Hohenheim’s first mode of address to me. He called me Doctor Darwin.”

  “That’s who you are.”

  “Aye. Except that I introduced myself here simply as Erasmus Darwin. My message to Maclaren was signed only as Darwin. So how did Hohenheim know to call me doctor?”

  “From the man who carried your message here?”

  “He knew me only as Mister Darwin.”

  “Maybe Hohenheim saw your medical chest.”

  “It is quite covered by the canvas—invisible to all.”

  “All right.” Pole shrugged. “Damme, he must have heard of you before. You’re a well-known doctor.”

  “Perhaps.” Darwin’s tone was grudging. “I like to believe that I have a growing reputation, and it calls for effort for any man to be skeptical of his own fame. Even so…”

  He turned to Malcolm Maclaren, who was still watching Hohenheim and Zumal as they walked toward the sea. Darwin tugged gently at his leather jacket.

  “Mr. Maclaren. Did you talk of my message to Dr. Hohenheim before we arrived?”

  “Eh? Your message?” Maclaren rubbed a thick-nailed hand across his brow. “I was just startin’ to mention something on it when the pair of ye arrived here. But did ye ever see a doctor like that. Did ye ever?”

  Darwin tugged again at his jacket. “Did Hohenheim seem to be familiar with my name?”

  “He did not.” Maclaren turned to stare at Darwin and shook his jacket free. “He said he’d never before heard of ye.”

  “Indeed.” Darwin stepped back and placed his ample rear on the step of the dray. He gazed for several minutes toward the dark mass of Foinaven in the northeast, and he did not move until Pole came bustling up to him.

  “Unless you’re of a mind to sit there all day in the rain, let’s go along with Mr. Maclaren and see where we’ll be housed. D’ye hear me?”

  Darwin looked at him vacantly, his eyes innocent and almost childlike.

  “Come on, wake up.” Pole pointed at the blank-walled cottages, rough stone walls stuffed with sods of turf. “I hope it will be something better than this. Let’s take a look at the bed, and hope we won’t be sleeping sailor-style, two shifts in one bunk. And I’ll wager my share of the bullion to a gnat’s snuffbox that there’s bugs in the bed, no matter what Malcolm Maclaren says. Well, no matter. I’ll take those over Kuzestan scorpions if it comes to a nip or two on the bum. Let’s away.”

  * * *

  West of Malkirk the fall of the land to the sea was steep. The village had grown on a broad lip, the only level place between mountains and the rocky shore. Its stone houses ran in a ragged line north-south, straddling the rutted and broken road. Jacob Pole allowed the old horse to pick its own path as the dray followed Malcolm Maclaren. He was looking off to the left, to a line of breakers that marked the shore.

  “A fierce prospect,” remarked Darwin. He had followed the direction of Pole’s gaze. “And no shore for a shipwreck. See the second line of breakers out there, and the rocks of the reef. It is hard to imagine a ship holding together for one month after a wreck here, still less for
two centuries.”

  “My thought exactly,” said Pole gruffly. “Mr. Maclaren?”

  “Aye, sir?” The stocky Highlander halted and turned at Pole’s call, his frizzy mop of hair wild under the old bonnet.

  “Is the whole coastline like this—I mean, rocky and reef-bound?”

  “It is, sir, exceptin’ only Loch Malkirk, a mile on from here. Ye can put a boat in there easy enough, if ye’ve a mind to do it. An’ there’s another wee bit landing south of here that some of the men use.” He remained standing, arms across his chest. “Why’d ye be askin’? Will ye be wantin’ a boat, same as Dr. Hohenheim?”

  “Hohenheim wants a boat?” began Pole, but Darwin silenced him with a look and a hand laid on his arm.

  “Not now,” he said, as soon as Maclaren had turned to walk again along the path. “You already said it, the lure of gold will attract trouble. We could have guessed it. We are not the only ones who have heard word of a galleon.”

  “Aye. But Hohenheim…” Jacob Pole sank into an unquiet silence.

  They were approaching the north end of the village, where three larger houses stood facing each other across a level sward. Maclaren waved his hand at the one nearest the shore, where a grey-haired woman stood at the door.

  “I wish ye could have had a place in that, but Dr. Hohenheim has one room, and his servant, that heathen blackamoor, has the other. But we can gi’ ye a room that’s near as good in here.” He turned to the middle and biggest house, and the woman started over to join them.

  “Jeanie. Two gentlemen needs a room.” He went into a quick gabble of Gaelic, then looked apologetically at Pole and Darwin. “I’m sorry, but she hasna’ the English. I’ve told her the place has to be clean for ye, an’ that ye’ll be here for a few days at least. Anythin’ else ye’ll need while ye are here in Malkirk? Best if I tell her now.”