Lest Darkness Fall (10 page)

            "Well," said
Nevitta dubiously, "maybe you're right. I've been using my land of harness
for a long time, and I don't know that I'd care to change."

            Padway shrugged. "Any
time you want one of these outfits, you can get it from Metellus the Saddler on
the Appian Way. He made this to my specifications. I'm not making them myself;
I have too much else to do."

            Here Padway leaned against
the doorframe and closed his eyes.

            "Aren't you feeling
well?" asked Nevitta in alarm.

            "No. My head weighs as
much as the dome of the Pantheon. I think I'm going to bed."

            "Oh, my word, I'll help
you. Where's that man of mine?
Hermann!
" When Hermann appeared,
Nevitta rattled a sentence of Gothic at him wherein Padway caught the name of
Leo Vekkos.

            Padway protested: "I
don't want a physician —"

            "Nonsense, my boy, it's
no trouble. You were right about keeping the dogs outside. It cured my wheezes.
So I'm glad to help you."

            Padway feared the
ministrations of a sixth-century physician more than he feared the grippe with
which he was coming down. He did not know how to refuse gracefully. Nevitta and
Fritharik got him to bed with rough efficiency.

            Fritharik said: "It
looks to me like a clear case of elf-shot."

            "What?" croaked
Padway.

            "Elf-shot. The elves
have shot you. I know, because I had it once in Africa. A Vandal physician
cured me by drawing out the invisible darts of the elves. When they become
visible they are little arrowheads made of chipped flint."

            "Look," said
Padway, "I know what's wrong with me. If everybody will let me alone, I'll
get well in a week or ten days."

            "We couldn't think of
that!" cried Nevitta and Fritharik together. While they were arguing,
Hermann arrived with a sallow, black-bearded, sensitive-looking man.

            Leo Vekkos opened his bag.
Padway got a glimpse into the bag, and shuddered. It contained a couple of
books, an assortment of weeds, and several small bottles holding organs of what
had probably been small mammals.

            "Now then, excellent
Martinus," said Vekkos, "let me see your tongue. Say ah." The
physician felt Padway's forehead, poked his chest and stomach, and asked him
intelligent-sounding questions about his condition.

            "This is a common
condition in winter," said Vekkos in a didactic tone. "It is
something of a mystery. Some hold it to be an excess of blood in the head,
which causes that stuffy feeling whereof you complain. Others assert that it is
an excess of black bile. I hold the view that it is caused by the conflict of
the natural spirits of the liver with the animal spirits of the nervous system.
The defeat of the animal spirits naturally reacts on the respiratory system
—"

            "It's nothing but a bad
cold —" said Padway.

            Vekkos ignored him. "— since
the lungs and throat are under their control. The best cure for you is to rouse
the vital spirits of the heart to put the natural spirits in their place."
He began fishing weeds out of the bag.

            "How about
elf-shot?" asked Fritharik.

            "What?"

            Fritharik explained the
medical doctrine of his people.

            Vekkos smiled. "My good
man, there is nothing in Galen about elf-shot. Nor in Celsus. Nor in
Asclepiades. So I cannot take you seriously —"

            "Then you don't know
much about doctoring," growled Fritharik.

            "Really," snapped
Vekkos. "Who is the physician?"

            "Stop squabbling, or
you'll make me worse," grumbled Padway. "What are you going to do to
me?"

            Vekkos held up a bunch of
weeds. "Have these herbs stewed and drink a cupful every three hours. They
include a mild purgative, to draw off the black bile through the bowels in case
there should be an excess."

            "Which is the
purgative?" asked Padway.

            Vekkos pulled it out.
Padway's thin arm shot out and grabbed the weed. "I just want to keep this
separate from the rest, if you don't mind."

            Vekkos humored him, told him
to keep warm and stay in bed, and departed. Nevitta and Hermann went with him.

            "Calls himself a
physician," grumbled Fritharik, "and never heard of elf-shot."

            "Get Julia," said
Padway.

            When the girl came, she set
up a great to-do: "Oh, generous master, whatever is wrong with you? I'll
get Father Narcissus —"

            "No, you won't,"
said Padway. He broke off a small part of the purgative weed and handed it to
her. "Boil this in a kettle of water, and bring me a cup of the
water." He handed her the rest of the bunch of greenery. "And throw
these out. Somewhere where the medicine man won't see them."

            A slight laxative should be
just the thing, he thought. If they would only leave him alone ...

            Next morning his head was
less thick, but he felt very tired. He slept until eleven, when he was wakened by
Julia. With Julia was a dignified man wearing an ordinary civilian cloak over a
long white tunic with tight sleeves. Padway guessed that he was Father
Narcissus by his tonsure.

            "My son," said the
priest. "I am sorry to see that the Devil has set his henchmen on you.
This virtuous young woman besought my spiritual aid ..."

            Padway resisted a desire to
tell Father Narcissus where to go. His one constant principle was to avoid
trouble with the Church.

            "I have not seen you at
the Church of the Angel Gabriel," continued Father Narcissus. "You
are one of us, though, I hope?"

            "American rite,"
mumbled Padway.

            The priest was puzzled by
this. But he went on. "I know that you have consulted the physician
Vekkos. How much better it is to put your trust in God, compared to whose power
these bleeders and stewers of herbs are impotent! We shall start with a few
prayers  ..."

            Padway lived through it.
Then Julia appeared stirring something.

            "Don't be
alarmed," said the priest. "This is one cure that never fails. Dust
from the tomb of St. Nereus, mixed with water."

            There was nothing obviously
lethal about the combination, so Padway drank it. Father Narcissus asked
conversationally: "You are not, then, from Padua?"

            Fritharik put his head in.
"That so-called physician is here again."

            "Tell him just a
moment," said Padway. God, he was tired. "Thanks a lot, Father. It's
nice to have seen you."

            The priest went out, shaking
his head over the blindness of mortals who trusted in
materia medica.

            Vekkos came in with an
accusing look. Padway said: "Don't blame me. The girl brought him."

            Vekkos sighed. "We
physicians spend our lives in hard scientific study, and then we have to
compete with these alleged miracle-workers. Well, how's my patient today?"

            While he was still examining
Padway, Thomasus the Syrian appeared. The banker waited around nervously until
the Greek left. Then Thomasus said: "I came as soon as I heard you were
sick, Martinus. Prayers and medicines are all very well, but we don't want to
miss any bets. My colleague, Ebenezer the Jew, knows a man, one of his own sect
named Jeconias of Naples, who is pretty good at curative magic. A lot of these
magicians are frauds; I don't believe in them for a minute. But this man has
done some remarkable —"

            "I don't want
him," groaned Padway. "I'll be all right if everybody will stop
trying to cure me ..."

            "I brought him along,
Martinus. Now do be reasonable. He won't hurt you. And I couldn't afford to
have you die with those notes outstanding — of course that's not the only
consideration; I'm fond of you personally ..."

            Padway felt like one in the
grip of a nightmare. The more he protested, the more quacks they sicked on him.

            Jeconias of Naples was a
little fat man with a bouncing manner, more like a high-pressure salesman than
the conventional picture of a magician.

            He chanted: "Now, just
leave everything to me, excellent Martinus. Here's a Little cantrip that'll
scare off the weaker spirits." He pulled out a piece of papyrus and read
off something in an unknown language. "There, that didn't hurt, did it?
Just leave it all to old Jeconias. He knows what he's doing. Now we'll put this
charm under the bed, so-o-o! There, don't you feel better already? Now we'll
cast your horoscope. If you'll give me the date and hour of your birth
..."

            How the hell, thought
Padway, could he explain to this damned little quack that he was going to be
born 1,373 years hence? He threw his reserve to the winds. He heaved himself up
in bed and shouted feebly: "Presumptuous slave, know you not that I am one
of the hereditary custodians of the Seal of Solomon? That I can shuffle your
silly planets around the sky with a word, and put out the sun with a sentence?
And you talk of casting
my
horoscope?"

            The magician's eyes were
popping. "I — I'm sorry, sir, I didn't know ..."

            "Shemkhamphoras!"
yelled Padway. "Ashtaroth! BaâlMarduk! St. Frigidaire! Tippecanoe and
Tyler too! Begone, worm! One word from you of my true identity, and I'll strike
you down with the foulest form of leprosy! Your eyeballs will rot, your fingers
will drop off joint by joint —" But Jeconias was already out the door.
Padway could hear him negotiate the first half of the stairway three steps at a
time, roll head over heels the rest of the way, and race out the front door.

            Padway chuckled. He told
Fritharik, who had been attracted by the noise: "You park yourself at the
door with your sword, and say that Vekkos has given orders to let nobody see
me. And I mean
nobody
. Even if the Holy Ghost shows up, keep him
out."

            Fritharik did as ordered.
Then he craned his neck around the doorframe. "Excellent boss! I found a
Goth who knows the theory of elf-shot. Shall I have him come up and —"

            Padway pulled the covers
over his head.

-

            It was now April, 536.
Sicily had fallen to General Belisarius in December. Padway had heard this
weeks after it happened. Except for business errands, he had hardly been
outside his house in four months in his desperate anxiety to get his press
going. And except for his workers and his business contacts he knew practically
nobody in Rome, though he had a speaking acquaintance with the librarians and
two of Thomasus' banker friends, Ebenezer the Jew and Vardan the Armenian.

            The day the press was
finally ready he called his workers together and said: "I suppose you know
that this is likely to be an important day for us. Fritharik will give each of
you a small bottle of brandy to take home when you leave. And the first man who
drops a hammer or anything on those little brass letters gets fired. I hope
none of you do, because you've done a good job and I'm proud of you. That's
all."

-

            "Well, well," said
Thomasus, "that's splendid. I always knew you'd get your machine to run.
Said so right from the start. What are you going to print? The
Gothic
History
? That would flatter the pretorian prefect, no doubt."