Charles Sheffield - The Amazing Dr. Darwin

“No, sir!” Maclaren’s voice was high and urgent. “Not in that house, sir. There’s no room there.”

He came after Darwin, who had reached the half-open door and was peering inside.

“Ye see, there’s no place for ye.” Maclaren had moved around and blocked the entrance with a thick arm. “I mean, there’s no furniture there, no way that ye could stay there, you or the Colonel.”

Darwin was looking carefully around the large stone-floored room, with its massive single bed and empty fireplace. He frowned.

“That is a pity. It has no furnishings, true enough, but the bed is of ample size. Could you perhaps bring some other furniture over from another house, and make it—”

“No, sir.” Maclaren pushed the door to firmly and began to shepherd Darwin back toward the other house. “Ye see, sir, that’s my brother’s house. He’s been away inland these past two month, an’ the house needs a cleanin’ before he comes back. We expect him in a day or two—but ye see, that house isna’ mine to offer ye. Come on this way, an’ we’ll make you comfortable, I swear it.”

He went across to the dray, ripped away the canvas with a jerk, grunted, and lifted the box containing Little Bess clear with one colossal heave. The other two men watched in amazement as he braced his legs, then staggered off toward the center house with his burden.

Pole raised his eyebrows. “I won’t argue the point with him. It took two of us to lift that. But what’s over there that he’s so worried about? Weapons maybe? Did you see guns or claymores?”

“There was a bed in there—nothing else.” Darwin’s intrigued tone was at odds with his words.

“You are sure?” Pole had caught the inflection in the other man’s voice. “Nothing mysterious there?”

“I saw nothing mysterious.” Darwin’s voice was puzzled. He went over to the dray and took one of his bags down from it. His expression was thoughtful, his heavy head hunched forward on his shoulders. “You see, Colonel Pole, that is one of the curiosities of the English language. I saw nothing, and it was mysterious. A room two months empty and neglected, and I saw nothing there—no dust, no cobwebs, no mold. Less than I would expect to see in a house that had been cleaned three days ago. The room was polished .” He rubbed at his chin.

“But what does that mean?”

Darwin shrugged. “Aye, that’s the question.” He looked at the dirty grey smoke rising from the house in front of them. “Well, we will find out in due course. Meanwhile, unless my nose is playing me tricks there’s venison cooking inside. A good dish of collops would sit well after our long journey. Come on, Colonel, I feel we have more than earned an adequate dinner.”

He went in, through a door scarcely wide enough to permit passage of his broad frame. Jacob Pole stared after him and scratched his head.

“Now what the devil was all that about? Him and his mysterious nothings. That’s like a sawbones, to conceal more than they tell. I’ll still bet there’s weapons in that place, hidden away somewhere. I saw their looks.”

He picked up a small case and followed into the house’s dark interior, where he could now hear the rattle of plates and cups.

Jacob Pole awoke just before true dawn, at the first cock crow. He climbed out of bed, slipped on his boots, and picked up the greatcoat that lay on the chest of drawers. Despite his misgivings, the bed had been adequately large and reasonably clean. He looked to the other side of it. Darwin lay on his back, a great mound under the covers. He was snoring softly, his mouth open half an inch. Pole picked up his pipe and tobacco and went through to the other room to sit by the embers of the peat fire.

He had spent a restless night. Ever since dinner his thoughts had been all on the galleon, and he had been unable to get it out of his mind. Hohenheim was after the bullion, that was clear enough. Maclaren had made no secret of the galleon’s presence, but it was also clear from the way that he shrugged the subject away with a move of his great shoulders that he knew nothing of anything valuable aboard it. He had seemed amazed that anyone, still less two parties, should be interested in it at all. The Devil, too, had been casually shrugged off.

Yes, surely it was there—had been there as long as anyone in the village could remember.

Its dimensions?

He had pondered for a while at Darwin’s question. As large as a whale, some said— others said much larger. It lived near the galleon, but it was peaceful enough. It would merely be a man’s fancy to say that the creature guarded anything in the loch.

The three men had played a curious game of three-way tag for a couple of hours. Pole had wanted to talk only of the galleon, while neither Darwin nor Maclaren seemed particularly interested. Darwin had concentrated his attention on the Devil, but again Maclaren had given only brief and uninformative answers to the questions. He had his own interests. He pushed Darwin to talk of English medicine, of new drugs and surgical procedures, of hopeless cases and miracle cures. He wanted to know if Hohenheim could do all the things that he hinted at—make the blind see, save the living, even raise the dead. When Darwin spoke Maclaren leaned forward unblinking, stroking his full beard and scratching in an irritated way at his breeches’ legs, as though resenting the absence of the kilt.

Pole shook his head. It had been a long, unsatisfying evening, no doubt about it.

He picked up a glowing lump of peat, applied it to his pipe, and sucked in his first morning mouthful of smoke. He sighed with satisfaction, and went at once into a violent and lengthy fit of coughing. Eyes streaming, he finally had to stagger across and take a few gulps from the water jug before he could breathe again and stand there wheezing by the window.

“You missed your true vocation, Colonel,” said a voice behind him. “If you were always available to wake the village, the cockerel would soon be out of work.”

Darwin stood at the door in his stockinged feet. He was blinking and scratching his paunch with one hand, while the other held his nightcap on his head.

Pole glared at him and took another swig from the water jug. Then he looked out of the window next to him, stiffened, and snorted.

“Aye, and it’s just as well that one of us gets up in the morning. Look across there. A light in that house, and that means Hohenheim is up already—and I wager he’ll be on his way to Loch Malkirk while we’re still scratching around here. He’s ahead of us already, and with his powers I wouldn’t put anything past him. We have to get moving ourselves, and over to the loch as soon as we can.”

“But you heard Hohenheim last night, announcing his intention to be in Inverness. What makes you think that he is still in Malkirk?” Darwin nodded to the grey-haired woman, who had silently appeared to tend the fire and set a black cauldron of water on it. “He is probably not even here.”

“He is, though.” Pole nodded his head again toward the window. The door of the other house had opened, and two figures were emerging. It was too dark to make out their clothing, but there was no mistaking the tall, thin build, backed by a shorter form that seemed to be a part of the darkness itself.

“Hohenheim, and his blackamoor.” Pole’s voice held a gloomy satisfaction. “As I feared, and as I told you, we come to seek bullion, and we find we are obliged to compete with a man who can see the future, travel fast as the wind to any place that he chooses, and conjure powerful nostrums from thin air. That makes me feel most uneasy. By the way, did you take the draught that he provided for you?”