The Apothecary's Curse (21 page)

CHAPTER 25

Simon's carriage stopped at Bedlam's gate, the asylum's central black dome an ominous shadow looming over the grounds. The immense façade swallowed the main entry, the doors a small mouth into the abyss—a living, breathing gateway to hell.

Inmates stared as he progressed through the main hall: wild, manic eyes, glaring warily at anything moving; frightened, furtive eyes, half-closed, looking barely ahead; dead eyes with blank expressions so vacant, he wondered whether any life at all lay behind them.

Wraiths consumed by dull light and stale air, small islands of isolation. Some were attired in finery befitting an aristocrat; some in rags, torn and unlaundered for who knew how long. Others roosted, rooted to every flat surface, muttering apathetically to none any could see; or fulminating, their cries and shrieks of loves lost or suffering endured, a fugue to God that fell upon deaf ears.

All sound liquefied into a muted cacophony, discordant but somehow symphonic as it rose and fell in odd rhythm. Simon stood in its midst, trying to make sense of it, but the music defied interpretation.

A sudden tap on his shoulder. Pivoting abruptly, he nearly collided with a frail, elderly man, standing far too close. A soft-spoken voice, disconcerting and incongruous in this hall of strangers, asked, “Forgive me. Dr. Bell?”

Simon nodded.

“I did not mean to startle you, sir. I am Dr. Francis Handley, director of this hospital and mad doctor to the lunatics of the Bethlem Royal Hospital.” The doctor's warm smile and proffered hand failed to put Simon at ease. “I am sorry I missed your arrival; all of this must be disturbing to you, as it would to any
gentleman
,
even a physician
.”

“No, not at all,
Doctor
.” Simon did nothing to mask his contempt. “If you will—”

“Yes, our inmate. I cannot give you his name, you see, to protect his privacy and that of his family, poor soul.”

An elderly woman approached, her white hair a feathery cloud, her painted lips a ruby pout. “You're quite the lovely . . .” Her gnarled fingers uncurled as she reached out to caress Simon's hair. Handley brushed her aside, gesturing to a keeper; her shrieks echoed even as she disappeared down a dark corridor, dragged by two keepers.

“I beg your pardon, Dr. Bell. I shall see that she is properly restrained—”

Simon could only imagine what Handley meant; he shuddered at the thought. “You have, I take it, been informed of my request? I should like to speak with this inmate
in private
.”

“I really do not think it a good idea—”

Simon pitched his voice just a notch below threatening. “Did not Lord Braithwaite hand over to you sufficient funds to cover this expense . . . your indulgence on the matter? I was certain the amount was—”

Handley stopped Simon, raising a hand in retreat. A benign smile crept over his face. “As you wish, then. This way.”

They walked, miles it seemed, through twisted corridors and great halls, a sea of somnambulists, their bodies crammed into every alcove and corner, looking everywhere but toward Simon, the presumptive latest recruit to this mouth of hell.

An iron gate reaching floor to ceiling granted Simon and Handley entry into a separate wing, empty, quiet—a different world than the one from which they emerged. Simon sighed, tension gathering in his neck as they walked on, finally reaching a large room sectioned off by black iron bars, its floor covered with straw.

A lone figure huddled in a far corner of one cage, shackled to the wall. “I shall leave you here. Be assured, there are keepers close by; shout if you need assistance.” Handley warned Simon not to expect much in the way of company. “He says nothing—just stares ahead. I honestly do not know what's got into him this day. He was animated enough earlier in the week. But suddenly . . . Well, he is a singular one, I must say.”

“Might I have a candle to examine him? It is quite dark in here.”

The doctor paused as if to consider an odd request, then handed Simon his own. Simon waited until he heard the clanging of the gate, signaling that Handley had departed this desolate little corner of Bedlam.

“Forgive the intrusion, my dear sir.” Simon held the candle up to the bars, but the man remained still, his face to the wall.
Might he be asleep?
Simon waited, observing for a few moments as a keeper entered. The inmate flinched at the creak of old metal as the bars slid open.

Simon took a tentative step into the cell, then another; still the prisoner did not move. Drawing near, Simon heard it: the harsh, shaky gasps of breath. And then the familiar reek of blood and vomit slithered into Simon's senses; he fought the nausea rising from deep within his stomach.

The glint of dark liquid caught Simon's eye, and he drew the candle closer: blood and tissue.

How was it that this man, so obviously injured, likely dying, remained here in the filth of a cage, untreated? The blood was fresh and flowing, although Simon had yet to ascertain from where. “Sir, can you tell me, please . . . I wish to help you, but I need to know the source of the bleeding. Might I examine you?” He tried to erase the fear from his voice.

Simon stepped to the inmate's side and crouched low, candle flame the only light. He was mouthing nonsense, like the rest of Bedlam's inmates. He seemed not to sense Simon at all; perhaps the lunatic was beyond caring, lost in his own world.

Suddenly, the caged man turned on Simon, wild eyes boring through him. Simon was wrong; it was not nonsense the madman spoke, but Ovid, and in Latin.

“
Opiferque per orbem dicor, et herbarum subiecta potentia nobis.
” This he repeated over and over sotto voce, a repetitive chant.

Yes.
Metamorphoses
. Simon knew this well:
Inventum medicina meum est, opiferque per orbem dicor, et herbarum subiecta potentia nobis. Hei mihi, quod nullis amor est medicabilis herbis; nec prosunt domino, quae prosunt omnibus, artes!

Simon whispered the translation almost to himself, hoping the words would touch some chord of recognition deep inside the inmate. “Medicine is my invention, throughout the world, I am called the bringer of help, and the power of herbs is under my control; alas for me, love cannot be cured by herbs, and the skills which help everyone else do not benefit their master
.
”

CHAPTER 26

Erceldoune! How could it be?

This was no indestructible, immortal figure shivering in the corner of a cell. Had he not been murdered at Newgate years ago?

Any thoughts of the inmate's super-human physiology, immortality, or indestructibility were shoved away as Simon considered how to help this wretch. Cleary, Braithwaite had been at the very least badly mistaken. Far from indestructible, this poor man was dying, growing weaker by the second.

Erceldoune was barely recognizable: rail thin, hair in greasy tangles reaching beyond his shoulders. There was no sign he recognized Simon at all. Clothing, what remained of it, hung from his skeletal body, as worn and filthy as the man himself. But it was this impenetrable stillness that shredded Simon's heart.

Kneeling carefully at his side, Simon addressed him gently. He must stem the bleeding, which pooled beside Erceldoune's knee. “Mr. Erceldoune,” he ventured, trying to break through his chanting. “Do you know me?”

Erceldoune nodded almost imperceptibly, and the Ovid suddenly halted as his gaze darted from Simon to a point beyond the bars and back again. Simon raised a comforting hand, placing it firmly but unthreateningly on Erceldoune's arm—but the apothecary scuttled away, curling into himself protectively as if expecting a blow.

Dear God, what have they done to you?

Erceldoune slowly lifted his arm into Simon's view, saying nothing. The limb trembled with the effort, a branch in a harsh winter gust, before falling back to his knees. He hissed.

Simon sucked in a breath. Erceldoune's left hand was a bloody stump, a gaping, raw void where the last three fingers should have been. Little wonder he could barely move, barely speak. “Mr. Erceldoune, listen to me. You are suffering wound shock. I . . . Sit tight whilst I—”

Simon threw off his frock coat, quickly ripping from it the inner lining and binding Erceldoune's hand best he could. Placing his coat about the injured man's shoulders, Simon could feel him quake beneath its light weight.

He must contrive the means to get Erceldoune from this place—and quickly. This man was no
immortal
—that much was obvious—and Simon feared that should he be left in Handley's care, Erceldoune would be dead by morning.

The doctor entered, keepers close at hand. Simon needed to keep his wits about him; he could not accuse, or Handley would never let him leave with Erceldoune. Swallowing back bile as disgusting as the words now forming on his lips, Simon put forward his proposition. “I would very much like,
Dr
. Handley, to borrow your . . . patient. Clean him up a bit and study his anatomy. I . . . I have a
keen
interest in your latest experiment.” He waited, observing Handley's reaction, stifling his rage, his balled fists thrust deep in his trouser pockets.

Handley smiled. “Do go on.”

“I see you have severed three digits from his hand.” Simon raised his voice to quell its quiver. “I assume . . .” He cleared his throat, forcing back the remains of his lunch before they spilled forth from his mouth. “I assume, sir, you wish to observe whether he has the properties of a salamander and will regenerate them.” Simon ignored the urge to look back at Erceldoune.

Handley crowed, cold, raucous. “
Very good
, Dr. Bell. Your observational skills are quite remarkable. Your brother-in-law's commendation was well deserved. But I cannot allow this man to depart Bedlam.”

Simon knew not how much longer he could keep up the charade. “Dr. Handley, I have a proposition I believe you will find adequate.”

“I am listening.” Handley folded his arms across his chest, waiting.

“I shall give to you the sum of one thousand pounds . . . for your scientific endeavors.” Simon had no idea by what amount his brother-in-law had enriched Handley for his “experiments,” but it seemed an amount that would at least gain Handley's attention. “And of course,
whatever
my discoveries, sir, you shall have the lion's share of credit at the next Royal Society meeting.”

“Lord Braithwaite pays me a sum twice that over the course of one year, for his participation in our grand enterprise.”

Simon seethed, his face hot, arms tense as rope. He tamped down on the urge to send Handley flying across the cell. It would not do for him to join Erceldoune as an inmate in this perverted vision of hell. “But this . . . 
sir
 . . . is for a mere two weeks' time,” he managed between clenched teeth.

Long before the two weeks had passed, Simon promised himself, Handley would be put out of business for good, and never again have opportunity to harm any of the poor souls under his supposed care, most especially Gaelan Erceldoune. Simon needed to end this negotiation soon; Erceldoune had already lost so much blood, Simon feared death was too close at hand for him to survive.

“You have no idea what he is—”

“Do we have a bargain?” Simon spat, his control slipping with each syllable. He stared the little man down, not waiting for a response. “I shall send forth the funds on the morrow. You have my word as a gentleman and brother . . .” The word stuck in his throat. “As a
brother
physician
.”

“Very well, I shall release him to you—for
one
week.”

Simon knew this game had to be played with delicacy if he had any hope of prevailing. “Very well . . . a week, then.”

“We have a bargain, sir! However, do not forget—any findings shall be accredited to me.”

“I'd not have it any other way, sir.” Simon watched as Handley nodded to the keepers, who undid the shackles. Handley disappeared through the doors.

Simon sagged, his back and hand hitting the greasy wall of Erceldoune's cell. Sickened, he lost the remains of his luncheon as he retched, adding to the foul fluids covering the straw.
How could anyone force another to live like this?

Recovered, Simon turned to Erceldoune, who had been watching, curious. “Can you walk?”

Erceldoune nodded tentatively.

“I've my carriage outside the gates.” Helping Erceldoune to his feet, Simon virtually carried him through the chaos of Bedlam, Handley meeting them in the main hall.
How could it be, such horror in our time? In London?

Finally through the gate, Simon was grateful to breathe in the relatively fresher air of London, his chest heaving with exertion and disgust as he trundled Gaelan Erceldoune into his carriage. “Get us quickly to my house,” Simon ordered his coachman. “There is no time to lose.”

CHICAGO'S NORTH SHORE, PRESENT DAY

CHAPTER 27

Simon was incredulous as he listened to Gaelan. He paced the hospital room, swiping a long-stemmed rose from a bedside vase. “You can't be bloody serious! You really mean to reveal all?”

“I am, Simon, I'm tired. And what harm would it do? All they know is I heal quickly; the last thing on their minds is that they're dealing with a four-hundred-something-year-old patient. To tell the truth, I've no other ideas.”

And it was an awful idea, a dreadful idea—especially hand in hand with the discovery of Handley's diaries in London. Simon snapped the stem in two before hurling the entire thing across the room. “How could you, of all people, be so bloody reckless? It would be bloody ironic if this little brush with fame brought your . . . condition . . . to the chaps investigating those Bedlam journals. We need to get you out of here. The media are still hanging about; I was accosted by two bloggers and a reporter from Fox News in the café. Saw me leaving your room earlier.”