Anna struggled to her feet and went over to look out of the window. It was still foggy and bleak, and the fell was barely visible through the mist. “So they are humans, out there,” she said. “I hope, then, that they have some happiness in life, living in the cold and the dark.”
“I think they do,” said Darwin. “They were dancing when first we saw them, and they did not appear unhappy. And they do come out, at night, when the fell is shrouded in mist—to steal a few sheep of yours, I’m afraid. They always return before first light. They fear the aggressive instincts of the rest of us, in the world outside.”
“What should we do about them?” asked Anna.
“Leave them alone, to live their own lives,” replied Darwin. “I already made that promise to the red fiend, when we began to exchange medical information. He wanted an assurance from us that we would not trouble them, and I gave it. In return, he gave me a treasure-house of botanical facts about the plants that grow on the high fells—if I can but remember it here, until I have opportunity to write it down.” He tapped his head.
Anna returned from the window. She sat down again and sighed. “They deserve their peace,” she said. “From now on, if there are lights and cries on the fell at night, I will have the sense to ignore them. If they want peace, they will have it.”
“So, Erasmus, I’ve been away again chasing another false scent. Damn it, I wish that Thomas of Appleby were alive and here, so I could choke him. All that nonsense about the Treasure of Odirex—and we found nothing.”
Pole and Darwin were sitting in the coach, warmly wrapped against the cold. Outside, a light snow was falling as they wound their way slowly down the Tees valley, heading east for the coastal plains that would take them south again to Lichfield. It was three days before Christmas, and Anna Thaxton had packed them an enormous hamper of food and drink to sustain them on their journey. Darwin had opened it, and was happily exploring the contents.
“I could have told you from the beginning,” he said, “that the treasure would have to be something special to please Odirex. Ask yourself, what sort of treasure would please the King of Hate? Why was he called the King of Hate?”
“Damned if I know. All I care about is that there was nothing there. If there ever was a treasure, it must have been rifled years ago.”
Darwin paused, a chicken in one hand and a Christmas pudding in the other. He looked from one to the other, unable to make up his mind.
“You’re wrong, Jacob,” he said. “The treasure was there. You saw it for yourself, and I had even closer contact with it. Don’t you see, the fiends themselves are the Treasure of Odirex. Or rather, it is what they bear with them that is the Treasure.”
“Bear with them? Sheepskins?”
“Not something you could see, Jacob. Disease. The fiends are carriers of plague. That’s what Odirex discovered, when he discovered them. Don’t ask me how he escaped the effects himself. That’s what he used to drive away the Romans. If you look back in history, you’ll find there was a big outbreak of plague in Europe, back about the year four hundred and thirty—soon after the Romans left Britain. People have assumed that it was bubonic plague, just like in the Black Death in the fourteenth century, or the Great Plague here a hundred years ago. Now, I am sure that it was not the same.”
“Wait a minute, Erasmus. If the fiends carry plague, why aren’t all the folk near Cross Fell dead?”
“Because we have been building up immunity, by exposure, for many hundreds of years. It is the process of selection again. People who can resist the plague can survive, the others die. I was struck down myself, but thanks to our improved natural resistance, and thanks also to the potion that the red fiend made me drink, all I had was a very bad day. If I’d been exposed for the first time, as the Romans were, I’d be dead by now.”
“And why do you assert that it was not bubonic plague? Would you not be immune to that?”
“I don’t know. But I became sick only a few hours after first exposure to the fiends— that is much too quick for bubonic plague.”
“Aye,” said Pole. “It is, and I knew that for myself if I thought about it. So Odirex used his ‘treasure’ against the Romans. Can you imagine the effect on them?”
“You didn’t see me,” said Darwin, “and I only had the merest touch of the disease. Odirex could appear with the fiends, contaminate the Roman equipment—touching it might be enough, unless personal contact were necessary. That wouldn’t be too difficult to arrange, either. Then, within twelve hours, the agony and deaths would begin. Do you wonder that they called him Odii Rex, the King of Hate? Or that they so feared his treasure that they fled this part of the country completely? But by then it was too late. They took the disease with them, back into Europe.”
Pole looked out at the snow, now beginning to settle on the side of the road. He shivered. “So the fiends really are fiends, after all. They may not intend to do it, but they have killed, just as much as if they were straight from Hell.”
“They have indeed,” said Darwin. “More surely than sword or musket, more secretly than noose or poison. And all by accident, as far as they are concerned. They must have developed their own immunity many thousands of years ago, perhaps soon after they branched off from our kind of humanity.”
Jacob Pole reached into the hamper and pulled out a bottle of claret. “I’d better start work on the food and drink, too, Erasmus,” he said morosely. “Otherwise you’ll demolish the lot. Don’t bother to pass me food. The wine will do nicely. I’ve had another disappointment, and I want to wash it down. Damn it, I wish that once in my lifetime— just once—I could find a treasure that didn’t turn to vapor under my shovel.”
He opened the bottle, settled back into the corner of the coach seat, and closed his eyes. Darwin looked at him unhappily. Jacob had saved his life in the mine, without a doubt. In return, all that Pole had received was a bitter letdown.
Darwin hunched down in his seat and thought of all that he had omitted to say, to Jacob and to the Thaxtons. In his pocket, the necklace from the female fiend seemed to burn, red-hot, like the bright red gold from which it was made. Somewhere in their explorations of the tunnels under Cross Fell, the fiends had discovered the gold mine that had so long eluded the other searchers. And it was plentiful enough, so that any fiend was free to wear as much of the heavy gold as he chose.
Darwin looked across at his friend. Jacob Pole was a sick man, and they both knew it. He had perhaps two or three more years, before the accumulated ailments from a lifetime of exploration came to take him. Now it was in Darwin’s power to satisfy a life’s ambition, and reveal to Jacob a true treasure trove, up there on Cross Fell. But Darwin also remembered the look in the red fiend’s eyes, when he had asked for peace for his people as the price for his medical secrets. More disturbance would break that promise.
Outside the coach, the snow was falling heavier on the Tees valley. Without doubt, it would be a white Christmas. Darwin looked out at the tranquil scene, but his mind was elsewhere and he felt no peace. Jacob Pole, or the red fiend? Very soon, he knew that he would have to make a difficult decision.