The Serpent's Shadow

physician.

'You don't believe me,' the injured man said flatly. 'You think I'm mad. That's what he's told everyone, that my 'nerves failed me' and the dog attacked me because it thought I was going to harm its master.' Beneath the bandage that swathed most of his head, his pale face was only a shade darker than the linen surrounding it, and his single visible eye was a mournful burned-out coal dropped into a snowbank.

Maya glanced at Bill load, who only shrugged. Evidently he had no notion who this man was, or if his story was true or not. The man was new here; Bill's former neighbor had been another of Maya's patients whom she had discharged yesterday. She was actually surprised that there hadn't been another body in that bed before the sheets had a chance to cool. Despite the fact that people were afraid to go to hospitals— because people died there, far more often than they were cured—there were never enough beds.

'He's not a doctor, by the way,' the stranger continued, his single eye staring off into the distance, as if he didn't want to meet Maya's gaze and see doubt and disbelief there. 'Mostly he pretends to work in the city, at the behest of his father. He's got positions in the main offices of two companies that trade in the East, one in China and one in India, and by day, when he isn't at his club, he's usually pretending to work. Really, though, all he does is saunter late into one of his two offices, read the paper, sign a few letters, dawdle to his club, and go home again, proclaiming how difficult his job is and how the firms couldn't get on without him.'

Bill laughed without humor. 'Puppy!' he snorted in contempt. 'Meantimes, th' loiks uv us is breakin' their 'ands an' 'eads an' 'ealth from dark t' dark. Tlja's enough t' make ye disbelieve in God, so 'tis! For sure, there's a Divil.'

The stranger nodded. 'Oddly enough, he'd like to be a doctor—he claims—and I know he tried to study to be one, but he hadn't the stomach for it. Or the brains,' the man added, by way of an afterthought. 'He got sent down from Oxford in disgrace after failing utterly at everything but cricket and football.'

'Interesting.' Maya was trying to remain noncommittal, but it was difficult to remain that way in the presence of such abysmal bitterness. How does he know? Why is he telling us all of this? 'You know his history well, then.'

'I think that might be why he hired me, so that he could humiliate Oxford in my person,' the man said distantly, as if he wished with all his heart that he could pretend his misfortunes had happened to someone else. 'I knew him by sight and reputation before he offered me a position; we were in the same College—Trinity. He knew I was as poor as a churchmouse when I finished my degree, and I thought—well, never mind what I thought.' He uttered a sound that might have been a laugh, but might equally well have been a sob. 'It hardly matters. How I'm to get another position looking like Frankenstein's monster and with the reputation of a madman—'

He broke off there, as if he had said too much. Maya waited for him to continue, but he had run out of words, and the noise of the ward filled the place his speech would have taken. It was never silent in the wards; the constant background noise of moans, weeping, coughing, and buzz of talk echoed all throughout the enormous room. The walls of sound surrounded those who were having quiet speech, and gave their conversations a strange feeling of privacy.

Amelia clearly did not share Maya's doubts about this fellow. She held herself back from converse with him with great difficulty, and there was sympathy warring with anger in her eyes on his behalf.

Careful, Amelia. This might be no more than a story to get our attention and our sympathy. There are plenty of people here who would like to see us overreach ourselves and get into trouble.

'Who is your physician, if he is not?' Maya asked, when Bill wriggled his eyebrows at her, urging her silently to keep up the conversation.

'Anyone. No one,' he said listlessly. 'I've been seen by half a dozen people since I was brought in. There was an Irishman that stitched me up. He's looked in on me, but so have a flock of jackdaws posing as medical students. I've been on a cot in a corridor and was just moved here when the bed went empty, I suppose; I don't remember much before this morning. That's when they stopped giving me anything for the pain. When I woke up, I was here.'

This was altogether very strange, and Maya didn't quite know what to make of the situation. One thing she could do, though, was to have a look at the man. 'Could you go get me some fresh dressings, Amelia?' she asked in an undertone. 'It doesn't look as if he's been attended to today.'

With a great deal of lively interest on her face, Amelia hurried off to the nurses' station.

'I take it that you wouldn't object to me having a look at you, then?' she asked.

He waved a hand at her. With his initial burst of accusation over with, all of the life and energy seemed to have drained out of him. 'Go ahead. I can't see that it makes any difference one way or the other,' he replied listlessly. 'If you're a doctor, I suppose you have the stomach to look at wrecks like me.'

With great care, she unwrapped the layers of gauze, and winced at what she found. He caught the wince, and a brief flash of despair passed over his face, before disappearing into malaise. 'Not very pretty, is it?' he asked dully.

'I have seen worse,' she replied truthfully. 'There was a girl at the Fleet who'd had acid thrown in her face. . . .' It wasn't as bad as it could have been; it definitely was the result of an attack by some sort of canine, probably of the mastiff or pit bull breeds. It had essentially seized the flesh of the forehead and ripped downward, leaving the