Merrick (2 page)

I kept my eyes
fixed on the ceiling, telling myself it was surely part of his healing methods.
But the third time his hand passed over my chest, grazing my nipples lightly, I
felt a tingling there and the mortification of realizing that the traitorous
bastards were getting tight and stiff from the contact. It couldn’t be helped,
could it? What with the way he was tickling over them like that! “Is this something
to do with, erm, circulation, sir?” I asked awkwardly.

“You are familiar
with the concept of circulation?” Before his hand could make another round over
my chest, he withdrew it and reached for the wooden bowl.

“Well, yes. I have
a rudimentary knowledge.”

A warm poultice
was laid over my ribs. It smelled of spearmint and something less sharp. “You
have quite a vocabulary for a young man condemned to servitude.”

I cleared my
throat, not sure how to reply. Something about the trace of his touch reminded
me of a particularly scintillating morning with Miss Molly Wrigs a couple weeks
before – and Lord, that was all shades of wrong! That wasn’t the sort of memory
that was meant to be associated with an old man’s hands. I almost squirmed with
discomfort, and tried to make things a bit more mundane. “It’s kind of you to
treat my injuries, sir. What’s that in the poultice? Mint?”

“Yes. Spearmint,
and arnica.” I felt another poultice on my skin, this one just inside and above
my left hipbone. That blow had hurt mightily. “Have you Indian blood, William?”
His hand rested on my hip for a moment, squeezed gently, and began moving down
my left thigh.

Was I injured
there? I couldn’t remember. My heart was beating in my ears. Oh, right. A club
had hit me just above the knee. I was feeling a little lightheaded. The
poultices were tingling now. His hand moved over my knee and then back up
towards my hip, his fingertips trailing up the inside of my thigh before moving
around and back down again. He made another slow circle, the same ritual he’d
done before.
Circulation. Circulation,
I repeated to myself.

Had he asked me a
question? Indian blood… “Yes,” I said cautiously, for I never knew what a
person would think of that, although judging from the charms he was at least a
bit sympathetic. “One quarter. My grandmother was Seneca, on my mother’s side.”

“I see.” His
fingertips grazed the edge of the patch of hair between my legs, then left for
the wooden bowl. A moment later another poultice rested on my thigh.

My blood was
racing. “What do you put in your poultices, sir?” I asked suddenly, trying to
distract myself. My cheeks felt hot.

He reached to lift
the corner of the first warm pack. “It all depends.” The sleeve of his robe
brushed between my thighs. I tensed, pressing my hands into the mattress and
then relaxing them by force of will. He checked the second poultice and the
long sleeve again trailed up over my most sensitive parts.

To my complete
horror, I felt my body stir in response.

“Master Merrick,”
I blurted. “I’d like to stand up.”

“Wait.” He was
gently prodding a bruise at my chest now, near my right nipple, which was still
hard as a stone.

“Sir, I don’t feel
well at all. Perhaps I…” I made to sit, and was pressed back onto the bed by a
hand at the center of my chest. My pulse was beating furiously. I started to
make another desperate plea, but it was choked off when I felt his hand cupping
my rising sex. I went completely still, staring up at the ceiling with wide
eyes.

“It’s perfectly
normal, William,” he said quietly. “A mere matter of circulation.” Slowly, he
took his hand away. “Let the poultices work.”

I could say
nothing. The throbbing between my legs increased, and I knew if I looked down
I’d see the evidence of my inexplicable arousal standing stiff and eager over
my stomach. My cheeks were on fire.

“Did you have
plans for yourself before this mischief?” Merrick asked after a spell.

Now small talk?
What in the God damned hell was this devil up to? After a hard swallow and a few
beats, I said, in a voice so hushed it sounded nothing like mine, “I deal in
books. Or did. I intended to own a book shop one day.”

“That’s a fine
profession,” he murmured. I couldn’t help noting again how much smoother his
voice was than before. The gravel was gone, replaced by dark velvet.

Oh, I was all out
of sorts. “Thank you, sir.”

He began to take
the poultices off in silence. After the last, he pulled my nightshirt down. I
felt the linen hanging on my stubborn erection and truly wanted to die.

“I have a few
appointments coming,” Merrick said. “Rest.”

“Is this where I
sleep, sir?”

His slow nod
didn’t surprise me. I’d shared plenty of beds with men. It wasn’t an uncommon
arrangement, and it was preferable to being on the floor with the vermin. At
least the bed was big enough for two to sleep with space.

“Goodnight,
William.”

“Goodnight, Master
Merrick. Many thanks.”

I lay awake for a
good while, first dealing with my mortification. I’d feared a lecherous old
man, and it turned out the only lewd behavior was my own! What in God’s name
was that about? Had I really gotten randy being touched by an old shrouded
spook?

Circulation
,
I told myself fiercely.
A mere matter of circulation.

I was lucky he was
calm. He could just as easily have reacted with disgust.

Yes, all in all, I
supposed I was very lucky indeed. Instead of a prison, I was bathed and mended
in a nice clean bed in a fragrant room with a hospitable old man who was going
to teach me a trade that, as a matter of fact, had always been of some interest
to me.
For God’s sake, William. Make the best of it.

I could only hope
this strange start could be forgotten.

My first week
passed with unexpected ease.

Instead of the
menial labor most apprentices performed in their first months, I was surprised
by an altogether educational array of tasks. Each day, after I’d had a simple
breakfast of milk and toast with tea, Merrick instructed me to take a walk
through the surrounding woods. I carried a small blade with me in order to
collect a handful of samples on each excursion – sometimes he gave me a
description I was to match, and other times he simply told me to pick something
I had never noticed before. Upon my return he would tell me about the plant in
his low, serious voice, and I would repeat it back to him. For the rest of the
day, he set me to work bundling herbs, separating leaves from stems, washing
and arranging jars and bottles, and doing chores about the house as he
concocted tinctures and teas from mysterious, intricate recipes.

Though I had not
chosen this path for myself, and was still sorry to have had my own trade go up
in smoke, it was clear that I had stumbled into a learning program of
surprising quality. Merrick was a patient and devoted instructor who seemed
committed to teaching me as much as I would learn.

And he allowed me
full access to his astonishing collection of books. I was shocked when I
finally got a look at them. He had dozens upon dozens of tomes, many of them
hand-scripted volumes dating to medieval times! The subjects they covered were
diverse, and many were written in other languages. It was an extraordinary
pleasure to behold, and I examined each of them tenderly, critiquing and
pricing them in my mind.

I quickly got used
to his strange appearance – though I couldn’t help but occasionally wonder what
was beneath those layers of cloth.

But Merrick was
unfailingly calm and well-mannered, deeply knowledgeable, and gentle in his
corrections. To my surprise, I found myself feeling quite fond of him. His
strange garb faded beside his dignified and gallant manner, and I was in awe of
both his intellect and his etiquette. And, well, there was that book
collection. How could I have disliked a man with a library like that?

Most of his
business took place through order and delivery to the nearby villages. An
awkward and surly young man named Joseph came by each day near lunchtime on a
scraggly horse to deliver messages and payments to Merrick and to receive a
number of packages for transport back to the nearest villages.

But every couple
of days, customers arrived at night. Many of them were young women, and it
wasn’t difficult to guess what they were after. I marveled at their boldness,
and at Merrick’s – especially when the woman’s condition was owed not to a
lecherous employer or neighbor, but to her own husband. He was always calm and
firm with them, giving them their instructions with no condemning remarks.

I noticed
something very curious in these interactions between Merrick and his visitors.
In their presence, his gravelly voice became more hoarse and pronounced, and
his movements slower and stiffer. I wondered why he would put on such airs.
With me alone, especially in the evening, his voice was velvety-smooth and his
movements were nothing short of graceful. I sometimes found myself watching
intently as he performed regular tasks, such as grinding and mixing, or even
just turning the pages of one of his books. There was a fluid elegance to each motion
that was strangely mesmerizing. At times it seemed there must be a young man
beneath the layers that hid him, for no old man could possibly have such grace.
After a while, I even started to think his robes looked less gloomy, and more –
I knew it was strange – exotic.

There was
something else, too. Merrick rarely took off his gloves, instead asking for my
assistance when he had to perform a wet or messy task with his concoctions. But
once, he peeled one off to perform some kind of delicate procedure on a root –
and I was surprised to see a strong, smooth hand with not a wrinkle or age spot
in sight. It was the hand of an artist, large and sure, with long, slim fingers
and fine, silky skin.

He probably used
one of his special salves to keep his hands soft and firm, I guessed. There was
no doubt he was a masterful healer – the morning after he applied those
poultices to my bruises, they had completely disappeared.

Merrick always
sent me to bed first, while he stayed up late into the night. He kept dark
hours, taking his dinner after I had retired and his breakfast before I woke
up. I had surprisingly little trouble sleeping, though I always woke when he
laid his weight beside me on the bed. He slept silently, and I never noticed
him moving during the night.

All told, things
weren’t bad. I even got to send a letter to my mum. My heart ached when I
thought how I’d never be able to repay her for what she’d done to keep me out
of shackles, but I hoped she’d be pleased to know my current situation – for
she had always told me we had nature in our blood, trapped in the city though
we were.

And then,
everything changed.

One evening, while
trimming leaves from a tough, unruly mess of ivy with a sharp blade, I let my
mind wander. And then, so suddenly I did not feel the pain, I had a disastrous
slip.

Merrick was at my
side in an instant, grabbing me by the wrist with an iron grip and then
clamping his other hand upon the gash that had cleaved the thin skin between my
thumb and index finger and sliced down toward my wrist. “Come,” he said calmly.

I hissed at the
pressure, my stomach turning. I had cut to the bone! He pulled me sit at the
table, placed a pad of cloth on the cut and instructed me to hold it tightly
there. I heard him behind me mixing something in a hurry, and then he sat
beside me. He pinched my index finger and asked if I could feel it.

“No,” I muttered,
feeling sick to my stomach. God, I had crippled myself.
Damn it all!
Was
I doomed to destroy my life and self before I turned nineteen?

My blood was
soaking through the cloth quickly. It must have soaked Merrick’s gloves, too,
for he had peeled them off and was now using his smooth bare hands to take a
wet mass of herbs from the bowl he’d brought over. “Let go,” he murmured.

I couldn’t stand
to look as I did so. My eyes were on the stove as I felt the cool lump hit my
hand, and then I clenched my teeth and let out a cry of pain.

“Bear it,” he said
in his calm, quiet voice, and told me to hold the poultice there as he left the
table again.

Gripping the table
with my good hand, I heard a string of profanities leaving my lips as the pain
seared through my palm and even up my wrist. My eyes were squeezed shut, and I
only opened them when I caught a whiff of medicinal-smelling smoke. Merrick had
lit a small pile of herbs in a stone dish and brought my injured hand over it.
To my relief, the pain faded quickly. I watched the smoke curl about my hand
and fingers, and then cringed apprehensively when Merrick began to peel the
poultice from my hand.

My mind went
blank, then.

My hand was
stained a little with blood, but there was no injury there.

Not a cut.

Not a scratch.

Not a trace.

I held it before
my face, wide-eyed. A full minute passed, and I could not summon a word.

“Be more careful,”
Merrick said quietly, and rose from the table.

The day passed
without another word between us. At nine o’clock, Merrick told me to retire.

I lay on my back,
staring up at the charms above the bed as I sifted uneasily through my
increasingly paranoid thoughts.

The old man had
charmed me, and I’d had no complaints about it. He’d charmed me enough that I
hadn’t thought much on the peculiarities. But it was clear now that something
unnatural was afoot.

First, there was
the healing. The bruises were one thing – certainly, it had been surprising to
see they’d vanished that next morning, but I’d been able to dismiss it easily
enough. Sometimes bruises faded faster than expected.

But this gash on
my hand was something else entirely. I’d seen the injury myself, a cut straight
to the bone! I’d felt the damage. And now my hand felt, and looked, better than
it had before!

Then there were
Merrick’s own hands. How were they so youthful? Merrick was a master healer
who’d been in practice on his own for forty years. That placed him around sixty
at the very least! He appeared much older due to the creaky movements he put on
display for visitors, and the age-roughened voice he dropped when we were
alone. So what of those firm, silky hands? What of the graceful, easy movements
he consistently displayed when no one but me was around?

And how about
Weather, the horse? The fine black mare did exactly as Merrick wished. It was
never tied, but never failed to be around when Merrick wanted. This was where
my thoughts took a darker turn. For didn’t all witches supposedly have animal
familiars?

Not that I
believed in witches! But…
What
of the baffling healing abilities? What of
the charms and trinkets? The mysterious resins burning? What of my own lack of
suspicions up to now? Had I already been bewitched? Was
that
the real
purpose of those strange caresses the first night I’d arrived? Had those
poultices been nothing more than pretense for a binding ritual?

Oh, perhaps my
mother was right – I read too many books! My imagination was running wild. And
so far from the city, with all this strangeness, all this time to think and no
one to talk to, it was getting hard to tell fantasy from reality.

I was still wide
awake when Merrick came in for the night. I squinted in the dark, straining to
see as he sauntered into the room and removed his outer robe. It was no use.
The room was black as coal.

What was under
that hood and veil? As he lay down beside me, I was suddenly consumed with the
question. I needed a clue, something to help me understand what I was involved
in, who Merrick was.

As I was
considering how I might catch a glimpse of him in this perpetually dark room,
perhaps by rising in the middle of the night and lighting a candle, Merrick
stunned me again by reaching over and placing his hand upon mine.

I froze.

“Your hand feels
in good condition?”

“Yes, sir,” I
whispered.

“Good.” He kept
his hand upon mine, and not merely that – his thumb began to stroke the sensitive
skin of my palm where the gash had been.

“Are you a
magician, sir?” I asked, my throat dry.

“I am an
apothecary,” he said peacefully.

I didn’t believe
him. But as he seemed unbothered by the question, I felt somewhat emboldened to
continue. “How old are you, Master Merrick?”

“I am
seventy-seven.”

I blinked up at
the ceiling, though the room was pitch-black. “How is that possible, sir?” I
asked weakly. “Your hands seem quite young, and you move without trouble…”

“Have you other
questions, William?”

Why not answer
that one, first?
I swallowed. “Why do you never remove your hood?”

“I have learned it
is best not to challenge expectations if one wishes to live peacefully.”

I thought about
this for a moment. “What expectations would be challenged?”

Merrick was
silent, and then the bed creaked and shifted. I felt him moving closer, until
he was leaning over me. In the dark, I only knew it from the heat of his body
and the weight of his hand beside my shoulder.

“I’m pleased to
have you as my apprentice, William,” he murmured. “You are nothing like what I
had feared when I put in the request to the courts. I never expected such a
well-mannered and educated young man. I suspect you are one of a kind, and I
would hate for anything to disrupt this arrangement.”

“Anything like
what?” I whispered, and stiffened when I felt him take my hand and bring it
towards himself.

He flattened my
palm against his chest and pressed it there. “I had not intended to reveal
these things so soon after making your acquaintance. But I hope you understand
I had little choice today, when you nearly crippled yourself.”

I could not fathom
why he was holding my hand to his heart, much less come up with a coherent
reply. “I thank you, sir,” I managed, still unable to speak above a whisper.
“Your skill with herbs is startling indeed.” His chest was firm and solid
beneath my palm. Seventy-seven? I did not believe it. It occurred to me that my
reaction was being tested. I swallowed. “I am likewise pleased to be your
apprentice, Master Merrick. I…I shudder at the thought of what other fate might
have befallen me. You have been kind and generous with me and I don’t intend to
disappoint you. I do not…I cannot go elsewhere, and I do not wish to.” As I
said and meant these words, Merrick began to guide my hand over the thin linen
of his nightshirt, down his chest and over the rippled muscles of his abdomen.

The rippled
muscles of his abdomen?!

“You are not
seventy-seven,” I blurted.

“No,” he murmured,
and let go of my hand. I heard a soft whish of fabric and then he brought my
fingers to his smooth, firm face, trailing them from his sculpted cheekbone to
the sharp line of his jaw.

“You are…you must
not be a day over twenty-five,” I stammered, astonished, as my fingertips were
drawn along the silky skin.

“I am much older
than that.”

His lips moved
against my fingertips when he spoke, and I felt his breath. A shiver ran
through me before I could stop it, and warmth rose in my cheeks. The way he was
leaning over me…

Christ’s sake
.

Not again
.

What in God’s name
was wrong with me?

“Are you afraid of
me, William?”

At least the room
was dark. “No, sir.”

He slowly let go
of my hand. “Can I trust you with this secret?”

I nodded, then
remembered the darkness and managed to reply, “You can.”

“Good.” He trailed
the backs of his fingers down the side of my face, sending another shiver
through me. This one shot straight between my legs.

My heart was
pounding as he returned to his side of the bed.

I could hardly
think of what I’d just learned. All I felt was dismay at the throbbing
stiffness between my legs and what it meant about me.

Think of Molly,
I told myself.
Or Susan. Or Chalice. Or Eva. Think of anyone. You just miss
women. That’s all. In the dark, you get confused. That’s all there is to it!