Vectors (42 page)

"You realize," said Thaxton cautiously, "that your statements are at variance with all the teachings of the Church—and with the words of the Bible?"

"I do," said Darwin indistinctly, through a mouth crammed full of pie. He held out his mug for a refill of the spiced wine.

"But what of your other assertion, Erasmus?" said Pole. "If the fiends were not on Cross Fell for the past fifteen hundred years, then where the devil were they? And what were they doing?"

Darwin sighed. He was torn between his love of food and his fondness for exposition. "You didn't listen to me properly, Jacob. I never said they weren't about Cross Fell. I said they weren't living in the mine tunnels for fifteen hundred years."

"Then where were they?" asked Anna.

"Why, living on the surface—mainly, I suspect, in the woods. Their murals showed many forest scenes. Perhaps they were in Milburn Forest, south-east of Cross Fell. Think, now, there have been legends of wood-folk in England as long as history has records. Puck, Robin Goodfellow, the dryads—the stories have many forms, and they are very widespread."

"But if they lived in the woods," said Anna, "why would they move to the mine tunnels? And when did they do it?"

"When? I don't know exactly," said Darwin. "But I would imagine that it was when we began to clear the forests of England, just a few hundred years ago. We began to destroy their homes."

"Wouldn't they have resisted, if that were true?" asked Pole.

"If they were really fiends, they might—or if they were like us. But I believe that they are a very peaceful people. You saw how gentle they were with us, how they cared for us when we were sick—even though we must have frightened them at least as much as they disturbed us.
We
were the aggressors. We drove them to live in the disused mines."

"Surely they do not propose to live there forever?" asked Anna. "Should they not be helped, and brought forth to live normally?"

Darwin shook his head. "Beware the missionary spirit, my dear. They want to be allowed to live their own lives. In any case, I do not believe they would survive if they tried to mingle with us. They are already a losing race, dwindling in numbers."

"How do you know'" asked Pole.

Darwin shrugged. "Partly guesswork, I must admit. But if they could not compete with us before, they will inevitably lose again in the battle for living-space. I told you on the fell, Jacob, in all of Nature the weaker dwindle in number, and the strong flourish. There is some kind of selection of the strongest, that goes on all the time."

"But that cannot be so," said Thaxton. "There has not been enough time since the world began, for the process you describe to significantly alter the balance of the natural proportions of animals. According to Bishop Ussher, this world began only four thousand and four years before the birth of Our Lord."

Darwin sighed. "Aye, I'm familiar with the bishop's theory. But if he'd ever lifted his head for a moment, and looked at Nature, he'd have realized that he was talking through his episcopal hat. Why, man, you have only to go and look at the waterfall at High Force, not thirty miles from here, and you will realize that it must have taken tens of thousands of years, at the very least, to carve its course through the rock. The earth we live on is old—despite the good bishop's pronouncement."

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 let-down.

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.

* * *

Author's Exegesis: All works of fiction contain at least a few facts. Since Erasmus Darwin was a real person—and a fascinating one—it seems like a good idea to tell the reader what is true, and what was made up to help the story.

Darwin, the grandfather of Charles Darwin, was born in 1731 and died in 1802. At the time this story takes place, he was forty-six years old and already on his way to becoming the most celebrated physician in Europe. Although Charles Darwin, as the most famous proponent of the theory of evolution, is today more famous than Erasmus, the latter is in many ways a much more interesting character. He was so accomplished, in so many fields, that it was difficult to do justice to him without making the reader think I was exaggerating. He was one of the most famous poets of his day, and two of his long poems, 'The Botanic Garden' and 'The Temple of Nature,' were best-sellers. He was a prolific inventor, with modern ideas in engineering. Many of his inventions were developed further by others, who found them sufficient to lead to fame and fortune. He founded the Lunar Society while living at Lichfield, and the list of its members reads like a catalog of the most influential literary and technological figures of the time: James Watt, Josiah Wedgewood, Matthew Boulton, Joseph Priestley, Samuel Galton, Thomas Day, John Baskerville, William Murdock, and of course Darwin himself. All these men enjoyed great fame in their day, and helped to launch the Industrial Revolution in England.

That's enough on Darwin himself. It is easy to write enough about him to make a book of its own, and that has been done several times. I recommend Desmond King-Hele's biography,
Erasmus Darwin,
as the best overview of Darwin's extraordinary life. Perhaps I should mention just a couple of more things. Darwin was very fat, he did stammer, and he lost his front teeth when he was young. He developed a theory of evolution, and in many people's opinion (including mine) he deserves to be regarded as the man who steered Charles Darwin to the theory that eventually appeared in
The Origin Of Species.

In 1777, Darwin attended one of his patients, Milly Pole, the three-year old daughter of Colonel and Elizabeth Pole. Later, he saved Elizabeth Pole from a raging fever. When Colonel Pole died, in November, 1780, Darwin courted and married Elizabeth.

I took considerable liberties in describing the relationship between Pole and Darwin. So far as I know, they were not particular friends, and in fact Pole did not care for Darwin's interest in his wife—which had begun well before Pole's death. Nor, to my knowledge, was Colonel Pole an inveterate treasure hunter (but he
might
have been, so I feel no shame).

Cross Fell is real. It is the highest point of the Pennines, the range of hills that run from the English Midlands to the Scottish border. At one time, Cross Fell
was
called Fiends Fell, and according to legend St. Augustine drove the fiends away with a cross, and it was then re-named Cross Fell. Lead mines abound on and near Cross Fell, and have since Roman times.

The Helm is real. It is a bank of cloud that sits on or just above the summit of Cross Fell when the 'helm wind' is blowing. As a natural but puzzling meteorological phenomenon, the Helm has attracted a good deal of scientific attention. The reasons for the existence and persistence of the Helm are discussed in Manley's book,
Climate and the British Scene
(1952).

As for the botany, the medications used by Darwin to treat Elizabeth Pole are pretty much those available to the practitioner of eighteenth-century medicine. The plants used by the red fiend are consistent with the botany of the high fells, but so far as I know the medical value of most of them is not established.