Charles Sheffield - The Amazing Dr. Darwin

At the door Maclaren halted. “Dr. Darwin, I’m not one to want to deceive myself. It’s a bad wound, that I know, and I’m a man that respects the truth. I’m not after lookin’ for ill news, but will ye gi’ me the word, that ye’ll tell me honest if it’s good news or bad?”

The light was spilling out into the quiet night. Darwin turned to look steadily into the other man’s worried eyes.

“Unless there is good reason to do it, to save life or lessen suffering, it is my belief that a full and honest diagnosis is always best. You have my word. No matter where the truth may take us tonight, I will provide it as I see it. And in return I ask that what I say should not create ill feeling to me and to Colonel Pole.”

“Ye have that word, an’ it’s my life that stands behind it.” Maclaren pushed the door wide open and they went on in.

The room had not changed, but now lamps had been placed in eight or nine places around it. Everything was well lit and spotlessly clean. There were lamps on each side of the big bed, where a man lay covered to the chest by a tartan blanket.

Darwin stepped forward. For many seconds he was motionless, scrutinizing the man’s chalk-white face and loose posture.

“What is his age?”

“Fifty-five.” Maclaren’s voice was a whisper.

Darwin stepped forward and turned the blanket back to the thighs. When he rolled back an eyelid under his thumb the man did not move. He opened the mouth, studying the decaying teeth, and grunted to himself thoughtfully.

“Here. Help me turn him to his side.” Darwin’s voice was neutral, giving no clue as to his thoughts. With Maclaren’s help they moved the man to his right side, revealing the red cicatrix that ran all the way from the crown of his head down to above the left temple. Darwin bent close and moved his hand gently along it, feeling the shape of the bone beneath the scar. The wound was indented, a deep cleft in the skull, and no hair grew above it.

Darwin sucked in a deep breath. “Aye, a sore wound indeed. One cleavage, straight from the sphenoid wing to the top of the calvaria . It is a wonder to see any man living after such an injury.”

He pulled the blanket back farther, to show the legs and feet covered in a white and gold robe. Then he was a long while silent, scowling down at the patient. He sniffed the man’s breath, examined nose and ears, and finally lifted the arms and legs to palpate the joints and muscles. The palms of the hands and the short, well-trimmed nails came in for their own brief examination, and he felt the condition of the sinews in wrists and ankles.

“Lift him to a sitting position,” he said at last. “Let me see his back.”

The skin over the ribs was white and unmarked, free of all sores and blemishes. Darwin nodded, looked again at the white of the eye that showed beneath the lid, and sighed.

“You can let him lie back again. And you can tell some man or woman that I have never in my life seen an injured person better cared for. He has been fed, washed, exercised, and lovingly looked after. But his condition…”

“Tell me, Doctor.” Maclaren’s look was resolute. “Do not disguise it.”

“I will not, though my medical opinion will bring bitter news for you. His wound will prove mortal, and his condition cannot be improved. It can only worsen, and you must not expect there will be any waking from unconsciousness.”

Maclaren clenched his teeth, and the muscles stood out along his jaw. “Thank you, Doctor,” he said in a whisper. “An’ the end, how far away will it be?”

“I can answer that only if you will give me some information. How long has he been unconscious? It is apparent that this is not a recent wound, with the degree of healing that it now exhibits.”

“Aye, ye speak true there.” Maclaren’s face was grim. “Near three year, it has been. He was hurt in the summer of ’73, an’ has not wakened after that. We’ve tended him since then.”

“I am sorry to end your hopes.” Darwin drew the sheet back over the man on the bed. “He will die within the year. You brought me a long way for this, Malcolm Maclaren. Your devotion deserves a better reward.”

Maclaren looked swiftly to the door, then back again. “What do ye mean, Doctor?”

Darwin waved his arm to door and window. “Let them all come in, if you wish. They are as worried as you are, and it serves no purpose to have them hide and listen outside.”

“Ye think…” Maclaren hesitated.

“Come on, man, and do it.” Darwin leaned again to look at the figure on the bed. “If you worry still about my state of knowledge and discretion, I could offer you a tale. It is a story of loyalty and desperation. Of a man, who might be this very man here”—he touched the smooth brow of the unconscious patient—“returned after many years to his homeland. There was an accident. Let us put it that way, although a sword or axe could leave just such a wound. After the accident the man was lovingly cared for, and the doctors of these parts did all they could, but there was no progress in his condition. At last, despite daily exercise of muscles and the best food that could be found, he began to weaken, to show signs of worsening. More expert advice and medical attention seemed to be the only hope. But how to obtain it, without revealing all and risking the wrath of a still vengeful government?”

“Aye, how indeed?” said Maclaren. He sighed and walked over to the door. A few words of Gaelic, and a file of somber men and women came into the room. Each went to the bed, knelt there for a moment, then moved back to stand by the wall. When all had entered, Maclaren spoke to them again, a longer speech this time. While Darwin watched, the faces in front of him seemed to fold and crumple as all hope drained from them.

“I have told them,” said Maclaren, as he turned back to the bed.

Darwin nodded. “I saw it.”

“They are brave folk. They will bear it bravely, whatever I tell them. But to ye I have told nothin’, not one word, an’ yet ye seem to know all. How can that be?” Maclaren’s voice was husky but he held his head up high. “How can ye know this, as well as I know it? Are ye what Hohenheim has claimed to be, a man who can divine all by magical methods?”

“I would never claim what I believe impossible for any human.” Darwin had moved forward again to the bed and was gently turning the head of the unconscious man. “I proceed by much simpler methods, ones available to all. Let me, if you will, continue with my tale. This man needed help, if help could be found, from other physicians. It would be futile of me to plead excessive modesty, and to deny that in the past few years my reputation as a court of last resort for difficult medical cases has spread throughout England—aye, and through Europe, too, if my friends are to be believed. Let us suppose it is true, and that my name was known here. Perhaps I could help, or at least tell the worst. But the idea of a direct approach, with a patient who was perhaps an outlaw and an exile—not to add that he is one of royal blood—why, that would be unthinkable. A subterfuge of some kind was necessary, one that would allow an examination without revealing too much. And if the patient could not easily be carried for a long distance, the presence of the physician in the Highlands must somehow be assured.”

He paused and looked up at Maclaren. “Who was it worked out the details of the plan?”

Maclaren was sitting on the stone floor, his chin resting on his cupped hands. “It was I,” he said softly. “An’ God knows, it came from desperation, not from choosin’. But I still do not see how ye could know any of this.”

“I was suspicious before I left Lichfield. You followed the first rule of successful deception: build upon what is real, and invent as little as you must. But you went too far, with a double lure, of great treasure and of a fantastic animal. The beast in Loch Malkirk would have been sufficient to bring me here without further embroidery, but you could not have known that. So there was added the galleon, and the priceless treasure, all to be revealed to me by the words of a dying man.”