“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.”
“I think not,” said Darwin. But he swung lightly to the ground from the seat of the dray and began to walk quickly across to the black-shuttered third house. He had seen the repeated looks that Malcolm Maclaren and the woman had cast in that direction.
“I don’t suppose there is any chance of rooms in here?” he said, not slowing his pace at all. “It will be some inconvenience, sharing a room, and if there were a place in this house, even for one of us—”
“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.”