The Apothecary's Curse (15 page)

The morning light woke Gaelan to yet another day of despair. He scratched at his itching skin; the rats and insects had dined well. But the lesions had already faded to nothing but irritated prickles. The cell gate opened, and a guard hauled him from his pallet, thrusting Gaelan down a long row of cells and into the prison courtyard.

“Fresh air time, Erceldoune. Treasure it whilst you might. For in less than a week, you shall meet your Maker!”

The yard was nearly empty; the few prisoners huddled along an immense stone wall with battlements one hundred feet high.

“What are you doing here on this side of Newgate?”

Gaelan was startled by a small, wiry man standing at his shoulder. The man's face was vaguely familiar.

“Man like you, educated and all—an apothecary,
I've
heard tell—Smithfield, isn't it? Likely have some money set aside; so why are you here with the rabble when you might acquire for yourself a nice spot on the other side of our little village?”

A second man approached, and now he recognized them both: Tremayne's men. This one could barely speak for his raucous coughing; disease ate away at his arm.

“Aww, I see you remember us. Lovely. Well, word from our . . . boss . . . has it that you're some sort of magical healer, Erceldoune! So heal me!”

More men approached, and Gaelan searched the yard for guards—anyone who might forestall the likely outcome of this “welcome.” There were no routes of escape, and no way to fight off the growing gang, which seemed to increase magically as men appeared from every corner, pulling closer and closer.

“I was talkin' to you, healer!” the prisoner persisted. The circle of men drew tighter still.

“What would you have me say? Had I my herbs, I would do my best to cure you, or at the very least give you laudanum to diminish your pain.” He was unconvincing.

“Well, apothecary, you will soon enough pray that you had some for yourself!” A knife's blade flashed in the periphery of Gaelan's vision, trained on his left flank.

Ah, so that's what they've in mind—beat the executioner to the draw, here and now. Why take chances on a reprieve?
The first blow was to his lower back—he was ready for it—but the second drove him hard into an iron grate. He licked away the pungent taste of salt and metal as blood poured from his lip. He moved to stand, but the blade of a rusty knife came down hard, slicing through his abdomen again and again, until there was nothing but silence and the stillness of unconsciousness.

CHAPTER 18

Gaelan awoke slowly. Night had come again. No, not night, he realized as coarse buckram bit into his face from brow to cheek. He'd been blindfolded!

The attack flooded back to him in vivid detail. But how long had he been . . . here? Was he back in his cell, or had he entered some new circle of hell? He moved, trying to sit upright, yanked back by the sharp pressure of metal around his neck and wrists. Why had he been chained to a wall? And when?

This is not my cell.
The smell was different, mustier, more oppressive; the rank stink of congealed blood and vomit pervaded his nostrils. Then there was the complete silence: no shouting, no clanging of cell doors. No sight, no sound, no idea where the bloody hell he . . .

A man's voice fractured the silence. Close by . . . just above him. Gaelan jumped, and the irons pulled tighter. How long had the man been there, waiting?

“Mr. Erceldoune, you are awake. Welcome to Bethlem Royal Hospital.”

Gaelan drew a sharp breath as the coarse band prickled at the tender skin of his temples. He knew of this place and shunned it, as did all Londoners. “Bedlam! What the devil am I doing in Bedlam—and shackled?”

“Better question: how in the blazes did you manage to survive so expert a knifing? Pierced straight through to kidney, spleen, stomach, liver. By rights, you should be quite dead, bled to death in the prison courtyard. And here you are but three days hence awake, coherent, and with barely a scratch upon you as evidence of injury. Might you enlighten me on how that might possibly be?”

The amiable even-temperedness of his visitor's voice unnerved Gaelan more than the shackles. A chill shuddered down his spine. “Why am I here?”

The pungent stink of his captor's breath drew nearer yet, beneath the suffocating aroma of his sweet, spicy cologne. The man's breath tickled the shell of Gaelan's ear through the blindfold. “A man who is able to sustain such severe injury yet, paradoxically, not be injured presents to society quite a danger, you must agree—as a medical practitioner yourself, that is?”

A line of cold sweat shivered down Gaelan's back as he struggled not to be sick. Bedlam was run by the worst sort of sadists, preying on the mentally unfit and impoverished; he'd heard the stories. “Who
are
you?” he demanded, unable to hide the tremble in his voice.

“I, sir, am Dr. Francis Handley, physician, anatomist, and qualified mad doctor. You have been given over to me, Mr. Erceldoune, so that I might study the phenomenon of your . . . unusual . . . physiology. It is a keen interest of mine to study rare species, of man in particular, just as Mr. Darwin examines the adaptability of his Galapagos finches. Your healing abilities are, to say the least, extraordinary, and I must wonder whether you are a harbinger of our own human future.”

Gaelan struggled as futilely with his bonds as with his terror. What in God's nature did this madman have in store? “Am I not to hang, then? What of that scheme?” Beads of perspiration trickled from beneath the blindfold and down his face; his reserves were running thin as his imagination played out the terrible possibilities, not one a good outcome. He yanked again on the shackles, more instinct than hope.

“I am afraid, Mr. Erceldoune, that pulling on your binds will only serve to tighten them; they are designed that way, and it is quite an effective deterrent. So it is in your best interest not to struggle thus.

“No, you shall not hang, and for that you have me to thank. You ought to be grateful to have been spared that circus. And what a waste that would be! Besides, I suspect the noose would do little other than make you uncomfortable.”

Gaelan spoke through gritted teeth, fighting to maintain the semblance of defiance. “I've no bloody idea what you mean!”

“I will explain, though I wager you know more than you say. That attack would have killed any man of ordinary constitution within hours, minutes! Yet the physician at Newgate witnessed quite an extraordinary marvel as you lay in the sick ward. It was he brought you to my attention, knowing of my interest in Mr. Darwin's work. And so here we are.”

Gaelan tried to muster disdain, but fear and exhaustion muddled his thoughts.
Lasciate ogne speranza, voi ch'intrate
. Abandon all hope, indeed.

“Please, then, would you remove the blindfold, at least? I wish to view my surroundings—I grow dizzy and disorientated without the ability to see. . . . I need . . .” The sound of his own pathetic voice made him nauseous. But Gaelan could not get his bearings, clutching at the solid metal of his manacles as if they were a lifeline. He tried to calm himself, evening his breathing in the hope it would steady him, if only a little.

“Ah, yes. That could well be the sedating medicines we have fed to you. They can render one . . . slightly out of kilter, Mr. Erceldoune. They shall wear off in due course and, if you stay calm, will not be used again.”

“The blindfold?”

“I've some questions for you.” Wood scraped on wood, and Gaelan sensed Handley even closer by. “First, the obvious: how did you do it?”

“Apparently, my attackers were not as effective as they'd hoped.”

Handley laughed heartily. “By Jove!
Apparently
is a good word for it. Appearances can be deceptive, can they not? And by the way, trying to be clever is not the way to earn the removal of that blindfold, which you so ardently desire.”

Gaelan sucked moisture from his cheeks, trying to wet his parched tongue. “Then I shall tell you in all seriousness,” he croaked, “I haven't a notion
at all
. Perhaps it is the water of Newgate's cisterns—or the food. Perhaps better clues lie there.” Just the exertion of talking sapped Gaelan's remaining strength.

“Still too clever an answer, I am afraid. Is it possible, then, that you truly
not
know your abilities? Highly doubtful, yet . . . Perhaps it was fortuity spared your life? Again, you do not strike me a lucky sort of fellow. But you are an apothecary, a gifted apothecary, I hear tell. Have you some skill in alchemy as well, I wonder? And then, perchance, have you conjured in your laboratory the most elusive secret of life eternal? It is quite the shame your workroom was destroyed by fire, your library as well, I assume, since none of your possessions were found. Well, I say, it is of no matter; we shall know soon enough, and if indeed it was chance spared your life, we shall then not keep you a moment longer from the waiting arms of death the law has prescribed for you.”

Without warning, the rough bandages were ripped away, and Gaelan was staring into a candle flame held so close that it singed the raw skin of his face. He squeezed his eyes tight against the brightness.

“I want to see them, Mr. Erceldoune; do open them for me.” Handley's voice coiled around him. “We shall begin our study tonight, after you've had something to eat. You must be quite famished.”

Gaelan was left alone in the cell.

At least the blindfold was gone, but it took only a moment to wish it was not. The oily-slick stone walls dripped foul moisture, and insects of several varieties—all well-fed and swift—darted from straw to wall and back again. But his surroundings were the least of his worries.

A tray was thrust beneath the bars. Maggots basked in the thin gruel.
Revolting.
Let them have at it.
They were soon joined by a small host of creeping things. Gaelan kicked the tray away and tried to dispel the image.

The cell doors banged open; Handley had returned, a large leather pouch in his hand. “So, Mr. Erceldoune. Shall we become partners in this grand scientific adventure?” he asked, scrupulously avoiding the dinner tray as he pulled a chair before Gaelan.

Handley withdrew a scalprum of gleaming metal from the pouch. “A small cut, Mr. Erceldoune, on your forearm. That is all—a simple experiment. You shall barely feel it for the sharpness of the blade, though you should prepare yourself, for I shall go quite deep, but I promise to be swift and precise. And then . . . then, Mr. Erceldoune, we shall observe.”

Gaelan withdrew his arms within the confines of his shackles as far as he could, feeling the irons tear at the skin of his wrists, but it was better than being touched by this lunatic.

Handley nodded, and two turnkeys appeared from the gloom beyond the cell. “Surely, sir, you are not disquieted by this small blade, and I
was
rather hoping for your cooperation. But if not—”

The men stood on either side of him, hauling his arms out into the open. Gaelan felt the tear of sinew as they twisted his wrists forward, exposing them to Handley's blade.

Handley took firm hold of Gaelan's arm as the blade slid easily through skin and vessels, stopping only when it hit bone. The scalprum was removed, and blood flowed in a claret river.

Gaelan watched, transfixed, as tender skin closed around the wound, and the bleeding stopped. Not in a long while had Gaelan observed the process of his skin knitting, tissue healing. “I—” He wanted to say . . . something. But the dim light further faded until awareness fled him and darkness enveloped him.

Awareness returned with a slap on the back and raucous laughter!

“Jolly well done, Mr. Erceldoune. Jolly well done!”

How long had he been asleep? The wrist and hand were now washed free of blood, an expanse of pale skin amid the griminess of his right arm, with nary a mark upon it.

He shivered. So now Handley knew. Two hundred years Gaelan had managed to elude discovery, and here he sat, powerless, in the hands of a lunatic doctor bent on “studying” his anatomy. No reprieve, no chance of escape, even into the arms of death. Gaelan cursed the ouroboros book, his father, and the goddess Airmid for burdening him with this curse.

“Who knows I am here? Besides you.” What of the men who attacked him: the gaolers and turnkeys, the doctors? What of his execution?

“To all but me and the physician who treated your injuries at Newgate—and the two guards you've just met—Gaelan Erceldoune died of wounds suffered during an unfortunate attack by a notorious gang. And henceforth you shall be known only as ‘the patient,' a man with no name but to me.”

CHICAGO'S NORTH SHORE, PRESENT DAY

CHAPTER 19

Gaelan drifted toward wakefulness, his surroundings unfamiliar.
Where is this?

Panic whispered through his nerve endings as he tried to move his arms, finding them bound.
What the bloody hell . . . ?

Harsh phosphorescent yellow-white light seared his eyes. When he turned his head, the room seemed vaguely familiar: shining steel and drab green.

The clatter of metal upon metal—instruments in an aluminum pan—pummeled his shredded nerves. Behind him, a steady beep—oddly comforting. Around him, the astringent clean smell of alcohol and strong soap, iodine and starched linen . . . 
Is this
a hospital?

Memory returned in quick bursts. He is falling, the bike a ball of fire, careening down the bluff. . . . More falling . . . flames. Landing hard, then . . . nothing. A siren . . . being carried, then wheeled . . . An ambulance . . . 
Christ.
He had to get out of here before . . .

A muffled voice echoed from somewhere nearby. “Three broken ribs. Fracture of the left femur—two places, right tibia. Grade three splenic laceration . . . BP 96/59. Isolated third-degree burns: left arm, right thigh. We'll need to go in. Get the bleeding stopped. Let's prep him—”