Master of the Moors (11 page)

Please...

He blinked them away and
looked up, to a gathering of shadows he had detected in the
periphery of his vision.

At last, the pain began to
ebb.

Thank
God
.

The shadows began to
uncoil from where they'd been nestling above him.

Mansfield stiffened.

There was a dead woman on the
ceiling.

9

Jesus, Mary, and all the
blessed saints
. Campbell had to restrain
the urge to cross himself. The bar was quiet but for the sound of
the stranger's boots thudding across the floor. The doctor was
aware he was staring, aware that his gawking was hardly the
appropriate way to greet a man, and yet he couldn't look
away.

Leprosy
, he thought with a shiver of revulsion.
Some kind of skin cancer
.
The stranger carried himself with an
air of confidence, which Campbell assumed false, a gait contrived
to foil the sympathy and pity he inevitably attracted. He seated
himself three chairs down on Campbell's right and, "Ale," he said
as he tossed his coins on the bar.

The farmers recommenced
their celebration, but it was more subdued now. The lamps
flickered, sending shadows jerking across the floor.

At last Campbell managed
to tear his stare away from the stranger. He spent the next few
moments watching a curiously unperturbed Sarah fill the man's
glass, then looked down at his own drink, and frowned. The smell of
earth and rot had grown stronger, tinged with an acrid scent like
burnt leaves; it invaded the nostrils as surely as having one's
face thrust into the filthy ground. Struggling to preoccupy himself
so he would not feel compelled to look in the sick man's direction
again, Campbell drummed his fingernails on the countertop and
thought of Kate Mansfield, the audacious little whelp. That only
served to touch a flame to the kindling of his ire, however, so he
sighed and decided to make this drink his last one. Here, at least.
He would finish off a bottle at home, away from the leper and the
stench he carried with him, and away from the potential heartbreak
of having Sarah continue to act as if his existence were a burden
in a list of the many she had to bear. But as he was raising his
glass, he felt the stranger's eyes on him, and turned to regard
him.

"Do I know you?" Now that
he was facing him, Campbell used the opportunity to examine the man
further. His face was wreathed in soiled, ragged bandages that
revealed only his eyes---two small dark holes---and a pair of light
pink scaly lips curved by scarring, it appeared, into a permanent
grin. Tufts of dark hair poked out from loose gaps in the bandage
and what skin could be glimpsed here and there glistened and wept,
as if only the bandage kept it from sloughing off. He wore a long
filthy overcoat, missing its buttons, the hands that emerged from
the tattered sleeves unusually large, with far too many knuckles,
as if he'd broken his fingers so many times the bones were now
packed like pebbles beneath the skin. The fingers themselves were
long and thin, ending in splintered, mud-encrusted
nails.

"I'm not sure you do," the
stranger replied. The strong, sanguine voice was unexpected, given
the scabrous mess of his mouth.

"Well, I'm Doctor
Campbell."

"Are you now?"

"Yes. And your
name?"

"Stephen."

Sarah appeared with his
drink and scooped the money from the counter without sparing either
of them a glance. Campbell couldn't resist taking a surreptitious
whiff of the air she left in her wake as she passed him by. Quickly
he became aware that Stephen's eyes hadn't left him, and, as the
color rose in his cheeks, he cursed the lapse in his attention. He
smiled, embarrassed, and sipped his drink.

"Stephen, eh? You're not
from around here."

A shrug. "I used to
be."

"Is that so? How might I
know you?"

"I doubt you
would."

Campbell raised his
eyebrows. "I've been this village's physician for close to twenty
years now. I'm sure I'd know your family. What did you say your
surname was?"

"I didn't." Stephen hefted
his glass and took a tentative sip of his pint. The skin of his
lips separated into dry red grooves as he did so, prompting
Campbell to hurriedly avert his gaze.

"So what brings you
back?"

Stephen lowered his pint
and carefully wiped his lips, a motion that brought an involuntary
wince from Campbell. When the man looked up, there was the
slightest gleam to his eyes, like the hint of diamonds in a pile of
coal. "A reunion," he said.

"Oh yes? May I ask with
whom?"

"You may," said Stephen,
humor stretching his burnt grin. "But you'll be waiting a
considerable amount of time for an answer."

Campbell searched for a
response, but found none. He waited a few moments, long enough for
him to realize that his vision had started to blur slightly from
the alcohol, before he spoke again. He knew if he was sober, he
wouldn't have bothered trying to engage the man in conversation,
but in his current condition, he needed it. Listening to the
farmers cackling about their wives, the wind whistling through the
cracks in the door, and with Sarah shunning him, he had only his
thoughts for company, and even they had turned bitter. He firmly
believed conversation to be the saving grace of unhappy men, which
rendered him unparticular about his choice of drinking partners,
even if they took the form of half-rotted men.

After a long sip of his
whiskey, he raised the glass to indicate to Sarah that he was ready
for another, then turned back to the bandaged man.

"I didn't mean to pry," he
said apologetically. "Strangers tend to arouse the curiosity in
villages as dreary and banal as Brent Prior, that's
all."

Stephen said nothing.
After a moment, Campbell sighed and turned in his chair to look at
the muted light pressing against the glass. As he watched, a leaf
smacked against the glass. The sun had all but drowned beneath the
thickening mist. "Dreadful weather," he remarked.

"I quite like
it."

"Really? Well then you
must like this area of the country. One month of sun, eleven of
gloom, and that's if we're lucky!" He chuckled and shook his head
in wonder at his own wit. "So, are you staying close
by?"

"You ask a lot of
questions." The humor had left Stephen's voice.

Campbell spread his hands
in a placating gesture. "I'm just trying to make conversation. It
wasn't my intention to bother you."

"A fire."

The doctor frowned,
wondering if he'd missed some bridge in their conversation. "I beg
your pardon?"

"It's the question you
really want to ask isn't it?" He gestured with one gnarled finger
at the bandages. "What happened? I sincerely doubt you'd be so
curious about me if not for the bandages and the tantalizing hint
of ravished skin beneath."

Campbell shook his head in
protest. "Sir, I assure you---"

"I look for no assurances
from you, Doctor Campbell, and I am not offended. If you were a
layman, scrutinizing me like some rare biological prize, then I'd
have you rent apart before you saw me rise from my chair. You,
however, are a physician, and I choose to take your interest as
strictly professional, borne of concern and not
morbidity."

Campbell was a little
shaken by the threat. He was less afraid of an altercation (which
at his age and in his condition he would surely lose) than he was
of being
touched
by the man. He repressed a shudder of repulsion and
swallowed. "I meant no disrespect, Stephen. My staring---and I
apologize for being so obvious about it---is as you say, strictly a
professional thing, not a result of any ghoulishness in my nature."
When Stephen offered no response, Campbell persisted. "A fire, you
say?"

"Yes, quite a blaze." He
spoke of it with undisguised awe, his eyes glassy and
distant.

"Well..." said the doctor
when the silence began to stretch. "I'm sorry to hear
that."

The focus returned to
Stephen's eyes. "Don't be," he said. "We can't shutter ourselves
away in the dark and moan about the unfairness of fate, the cruel
caprices of destiny. Everything happens for a reason, as they say,
and I believe that to be true. I may no longer have the looks that
carried me so easily through my younger years, but I find I have no
need of them now, nor have I any use for costumes, capering or
social graces. Not here, oh no. These are the wilds, Doctor
Campbell, and here everything has its place. There are hunters, and
there are the hunted, the prey. Sooner or later we all discover
which category is ours. Of course, like destiny, the balance is not
always fair."

To Campbell, the man's
words seemed to echo, and linger. He was getting very drunk and
couldn't for the life of him think of a coherent response, so he
nodded thoughtfully instead.

"I wonder..." Stephen
continued after another sip from his glass, "...which one are
you?"

Campbell chuckled, hoisted
his drink in a silent cheer and drained it. "My father used to take
me hunting," he said, stifling a burp, "but I wasn't very good.
Made him very frustrated with me. I was actually quite a good shot,
if I remember correctly. But as soon as a pheasant stepped into my
sight, I froze and started quivering. No matter what I tried, no
matter how many threats my father threw my way, I couldn't pull the
blasted trigger. Eventually he gave up on me. In more ways than
one." He raised his glass and hailed Sarah, who gave him an
irritated look before snatching the glass from his hand. When he
looked back to the burned man, he saw the ruined mouth had once
more tugged itself into a crooked smile.

"What?"

"You may be more of a
hunter than you think."

"How so?" Campbell said,
with a frown. The room was beginning to move faster than his eyes
could follow, so he blinked a few times and squinted.

"You seem intent on that
prize there," said Stephen, nodding in Sarah's direction. "I saw
you sniffing the air earlier. Her scent excites you, and now that
you've caught it, you intend to pursue her until you've run her
down. Ambitious prey for a man like you."

Campbell found it
difficult to ascertain whether or not he'd just been insulted. His
head was beginning to swim, a development that annoyed him
considerably and he pressed a hand to his temple. "A man like me,"
he mumbled.

"Yes." Stephen leaned
close, so close that Campbell's mouth and nose filled with the
stench of burning flesh. He almost gagged. "A frail, alcoholic,
wasted man who spends his days trying to remember who he is, and
more importantly
why
he is. You probably dream of murdering your patients, because
despite their sicknesses, no matter how chronic, they will
always
be better off than
you. If they die, they get the kind of peace you only dream about.
If they live, they get another few years to spend their money, to
be happy. In the meantime, you stumble about in search of oblivion,
fantasizing about a woman who would rather see you in a casket than
in her bed, trying to ignore the total lack of respect you command
in your own community." He shook his head in mock admiration. "My,
my. What a symbol of healing you are."

This time, Campbell
straightened, teeth clenched. Gone was the fear of having to touch
this ruined man. The bastard was goading him now, demanding he
strike back with word or fist, and with alcohol bolstering him, he
was suddenly willing to oblige. Twice today his integrity had been
insulted, and while he could do nothing about the first offender,
he could certainly put this sneering leper back in his place. He
rose and the chair spun away from him. Gripping the edge of the
counter, he leered at the bandaged man, whose ugly grin only
maddened him further.

"Who asked you for my life
story, you putrescent blackguard?" he said, rolling up his sleeves.
"What I do or who I am is none of
your
bloody business."

"Doctor Campbell," Sarah
said chidingly. He ignored her.

"You swan in here with
your bloody face in tatters and have the gall to degrade one of
Brent Prior's finest citizens. I should add some more scars to that
shredded countenance of yours."

If Stephen was offended,
his eyes didn't show it.

"Who the hell do you think
you are?" All the hatred and bitterness poured from Campbell in a
torrent. "Stand up," he said through clenched teeth.

"Doctor Campbell," Sarah
said, as if addressing a particularly troublesome child. "You'll
not do anything in here."

"I said
stand up
," Campbell
repeated and swatted his hand in the air. It missed Stephen's face
by mere inches, but connected with the man's drink, which toppled
off the bar and smashed on Sarah's side of the counter. The
bandaged man didn't even spare it a glance. He remained intent on
the doctor's outrage. But still, he made no move to comply with
Campbell's demand.