“Jak has been gone for some months, your majesty.”
“Really?” smiled the king. “A somewhat longer stroll, then.”
Tom announced their arrival with whoops of exhilaration as Udovox fell over the side of the gunwales, fell flat on his face in the sand, and when he attempted to rise again, he stabbed himself in the eye with one of the large wooden oars. Tom leapt over the boat’s sides and was already pulling the keel up onto the higher sand, just a little north of the great steam ship lying marooned on its side along the same beach.
No one immediately saw them, but Jak, sitting back against a tree trunk while plaiting reeds, looked up with a frown. “Voices?” He was sweating beneath the loose shirt he wore, and its scrubbed linen slipped across his shoulders, sliding from beneath his arms to the width of his chest, and down even to his waist. “Working physically, and in this heat,” he yawned, “is a matter of soaking your clothes, and ending so exhausted that you forget why the devil you were working in the first place.”
“Take the bloody shirt orff,’ Symon suggested, and tugged his own over his head. Taller and wider than Jak, his body was rigid with muscle, his upper arms like the branching of boughs on a heavy trunked tree, or the growth of ivory on a tusked boar. His britches slipped down to his hips, the belt tied twice around, and the stomach muscles showing beneath. Over previous days with his shirt off, back on at night, his skin had bronzed.
Jak shrugged. He flung off his own shirt, discarding it beside the river. A young crocodile skittered back down the bank and into the water. Jak was also deeply tanned by the sun. Slimmer and more fluid than Symon, his muscles slid in supple curves like dark polished wine. His britches also hung low, tied around his hips, the first dark curl of hair pushing up like an arrow to his flat stomach.
They stood, Symon already clasping a heavy branch of wood, Jak gripping his knife. “They be all around,” Symon said, turning. “Three behind through them trees. Two in front. Reckon they come from the sea.”
“If some are simply the Shammites returning –“
One voice, so blindingly familiar, confused Symon, seeming impossible. Already judging whether the voices came from right or left, Symon yelled, “Be you, Tom?”
Then answering as loudly as possible, and already running, Udovox yelled, “Yes. No, that is, tis me and him.”
“No doubt the natives have finally found us,” muttered Jak. “But at this stage I won’t be dragged back to that damned ludicrous tunnel of theirs. But they’re coming. I can hear them. Perhaps not so many. It’s only three voices I hear.”
The three men racing through the trees had not yet appeared when two others ran inland from the beach, both salt-crusted, sun-scorched, and waving weapons. One was short, his legs misshapen but he carried an oar, and ran as best he could. The other, not so much taller, was slim and beautiful as a woman. He called, “Thanks to all the fishes in the bloody sea, Symon, you’re here.”
Jak stared. He had never met either, but he recognised his miracle.
Tom clasped Symon’s shoulders, hugging him although his head came lower than Symon’s chin, and the other man, grinning and hopping from one foot to another, came lower still. Then they stared at Jak. Tom asked, “Lord Lydiard?” And bowed with considerable elegance.
Jak grinned. “I’m damned sure I no longer look like a lord.”
Tom avoided licking his lips. “You do indeed, my lord. Quite luscious, if you will pardon the expression. And we are here for both of you, though we hadn’t expected you to be together.”
“No time fer stories,” Symon yelled, grabbing his shirt and striding forwards.
The three natives pushed from between the darker trees, waving their swords. And from behind, waving arms, knives and bows, the four Shammites hurtled into the crowd. For a moment it was impossible to tell who was enemy or friend. Leaves fluttered as though a sudden hurricane had arrived in style, and a small nest of birds flew up to escape the disturbance.
“We got them both,” yelled one of the natives.
“Us too,” Shozwall bellowed. “And you know we don’t allow slaves.”
“Nor abductions.”
“Nor bloody enemies telling us what to do.”
“Nor stupid battles with bloody crocks watching cos they end up wiv the feast.”
Jak therefore lowered his knife, and yelled, “Oh, stop the foolishness. You can’t all want us?” He turned to the Islander he recognised. “Lank? Yes, we are useless slaves and managed to escape. But do you need us so desperately? Drag us back, and we’d only escape again. I doubt we’re worth your time and trouble.”
“We treated you well,” sulked Lank.
“But we have lives of our own, and homes that call to us,” said Jak softly.
“So bugger orf,” said Symon in a blast of impatience. “Folks has come wiv a boat and we’s going, like it or not.”
“And –“ Shozwall interrupted, “if you don’t like it, we can talk about it. Now as it happens,” he lied, “being from the Island Happua, we’ve got our own ancient stories. And our stories say the Isle of Giardon floated up to the top of the sea one afternoon when we and the folks of Shamm were all having a picnic. You lot came last.”
Lank glared, “That never happened.”
“Your story never happened.”
“I’m going home,” said Jak.
“We could take a couple of baby crocodiles with us,” said Udovox, staring at them with interested curiosity. “Never seen one close up before. And we’ve already got a lacine.” A group of the younger reptiles had formed a half circle around the humans, as though hoping to be fed.
“The boat’s this way,” Tom pointed. “But we need food. It’s a four-seater with eight oars, so we might go faster. But it’s still nearly a ten-day.”
“Damnation,” sighed Jak. “All we have is half a cooked pigeon and some berries.”
“You’re not coming with us to Shamm?” Shozwall sounded somewhat disappointed.
Symon snorted. “You got any foods ta spare?”
Taking it in turns to sleep, and sometimes all four rowing together, once having discovered the rhythm, the journey stretched over seven long hot days and the food disappeared after the fifth. But Symon caught crabs, floating barnacles and a furious octopus. Jak was more fascinated by the octopus than he had been by the crocodiles, and apologised to its tentacles for cooking and eating it. They made a tiny fire mid-ship on a slab of granite brought from Giardon. They undercooked the things they caught, but the blazing sun seemed hotter than the little hesitant fire.
As they sailed north the gleaming crystal of the calm water’s surface swelled and tipped. Where the azure had been simply sweetly rippled, now the threat of high waves and flying spray smashed against the hull and changed their course. They watched the great sea creatures breaching, and gulped when one was wedge nosed and black eyed, almost certainly a bulge fish.
The southern sun in their eyes had made Tom and Udo sleepy, squinting and sore, but sailing north became a grey gloom, and the days drifted so slowly that Jak, in particular, felt they made no progress. They battled the Probyn winds, and often, although four men rowed, they made little obvious progress.
Jak was asleep when they sighted Eden. He had never seen it look quite so beautiful. “It is,” he murmured, still half in dreams, “the miracle I expected. But it may be a long time before I am sent another.”
The haze became a coast, the coast became a beach. The four men staggered ashore, and each fell to the sand, on their backs and staring up at the same sky that had shimmered over them for the past endless days. But now it was an Eden sky, and seemed just a little more welcoming. The gulls screeched, and the white wings blocked out the southern glare. Jak rolled over and shut his eyes.
“That’s the shipwrights,” Udovox, now even more uncomfortable on his knees, pointed away up the coastal stretch. “Tis where we bought this – and need to take it back. For the moment, I reckon we’re too far south.”
&nb
sp; “I always meant to explore the south,” Jak mumbled into the sand. “But they say it’s too damned hot. Personally, I’m finding it too damned cold.”
“My lord, it will be colder once we move north of the Corn. And here we’re not so far from the city. It’s further south and into the desert country where they say the heat burns noses into shrivelled red spots, and toes into burned splinters.”
“My dear friend Kallivan comes from further south,” Jak murmured, “but I have no wish to examine his toes.”
Symon reached down and hauled Udovox to his small feet. “Reckon we’d best follow yer, lad.”
They tramped the shallows, hauling the boat behind them, rarely stopping in spite of the heat and their own stumbling exhaustion. The boat’s front wheel ran smooth, and Udovox assure them that the shipwright was not so far away. All were now shirtless, all were now a little slimmer, all except Symon were also now more muscled, the tops of their arms shining beneath the orange heat.
Tom had never really wanted to be muscular and masculine, but now that his upper arms swelled, he was quite proud of it.
Chapter Fourteen
Winter never arrived in the south. It sneaked into the Grand Gorge of caverns and cliffs where the Corn slipped deep and narrow down into the snake-like trail to its final estuary. Frost, especially at night, sometimes tickled those solid stones. Yet in the true south summer, autumn, winter, Probyn, spring and Mandell, then back to summer, all blazed the same. Across the gorge and across the Cornucopia, the city recognised winter and turned to ice.
Further north, the farms froze, and the coal mines and quarries disappeared beneath the snow.
In the far north, where Lydiard sat shivering while winter swallowed both autumn and Probyn, and lasted twice as long as summer, it was still chilly as spring crept into the hills.
After the long and mysterious absence which had so worried his people, Lord Jak Lydiard arrived home, having ridden slowly up from the city. The announcement by the dowager that her stepson was dead, having been drowned on the crossing to Giardon, still echoed through the farms and forests, and had been believed by most, including his majesty, the court, and the council. But as the solitary horse plodded through the cobbled streets, folk rushed from their cottages and the shout went up, cheering filled the air, banners waved from windows, and minstrels grabbed their instruments from their darkened chambers, then ran to catch up with the lord himself. They played “The Homecoming”, a most cheerful melody with a clomp of drums and a triumphant horn. Jak arrived at the castle with a tail of followers all grinning, as though they’d inherited a fortune after all.
He came alone, but later that same day the entire Verney household arrived, with Verney himself, his wife Grallia, his eldest daughter Jally with her most welcome husband Mereck, and the forlorn and solitary Reyne.
A ten-day later on a bright clear morning with the frost like spears against their faces, the cavalcade left Lydiard’s small castle, with their own substantial escort of three litters and half the Verney household now doubled by the guards and servants of the Lydiard palace. Fifty stout men from the north, armed by their lord, marched at the rear while the original entourage straggled before them, the women silently praying for a journey without disasters, broken wheels, robbers or violent storms, while the horses pranced, fractious in the cold. Their passage through the winter lands and on into the south proved safe indeed, for no highway robber would raise his knife against such a well mounted and armed procession. So comfortably slow and without mishap, they stopped each day for a hot dinner, a generous supper, and finally for a snugly warmed bed. The sedate pace was to accommodate the ladies as they and their maids sighed within the trundling litters, but it was also forced upon them by the bitter weather. Yet frozen streams were easier crossed than flowing streams and the high snowbanks could be swept aside by the outriders sent on ahead. Then as they neared the southern counties, the snow cleared, the winds ceased to bluster, and a feeble spring sunshine thawed their backs.
On the eighth day they approached the city, and bustled in past the ancient walls, to the palace with its bright fluttering flags and banners, the echoes of the minstrels and the bustling of a thousand servants. With his mouth full, the king was at the dining table and content with his courtiers, his wife at his side and his remaining two mistresses hovering nearby.
The five Lydiard outriders were sent back to Lydiard, the private servants, male and female, of both families, were kept to fulfil their duties in comfort, while the fifty guards camped outside the city walls. Well warmed, well fed, well-armed and well trained, these men settled down to the usual entertainment of bickering, whoring and sleeping until they were called for.
“It may be a few days,” their lord Jak Lydiard had told them, “or it may be a few months. But eventually I shall call on you, and you must be ready.”
Lord Mereck and his lady arrived home to the comforts of their own familiarity and the huge fires and welcome feast already awaiting them. Jak stayed just one night. Reyne’s husband, the one man that Jak had a fervent desire to meet, was not within the guarded respectability of his own palace home that day, but word had been left that he would return shortly. Shortly was an ambiguous promise, and Jak slept poorly, in spite of a bed as sweet as that on the island had been rough.
At dawn the next morning, and accompanied only by his groom, Jak set out for a building he had never wished to see before and did not particularly wish to see now. But he entered Pearly Webb’s brothel on the Bridge without hesitation, and left his personal groom standing outside holding the reins of his horse. Edilla, pre-warned, curtsied, managed her sweetest and widest smile, and sent the page upstairs to tell Tom, Udovox and Symon that their highly important visitor had arrived.
While waiting, Jak, with veiled surprise, stared around at the luxury of the decorations and the comforts of the main salon. Cleanliness was the biggest surprise, and although a faint smell of stale lovemaking pervaded the corridor, the establishment appeared well kept. Superior, perhaps. Being early, it was certainly quiet.
The three men trotted downstairs and beamed. Shared memories were now a link of considerable friendship, sealed by their shared intentions. Within the salon, neither girl nor customer having appeared, they sat, speaking quietly for some moments. Jak watched the river below. The Corn flowed sluggish under a dull sky and the gulls whirled like small boat’s sails, wailing and screeching as the wind strengthened. Although the brothel had not yet started business, the river was busy with a multitude of small boats as always – wherries, barges, covered showtes – with their lightermen complaining as they steered a passage through the bumping bustle, the splash and squabble; their passengers kept a wary eye out for gulls swooping to steal the bread from their baskets.
They were still talking, voices low, when Edilla peeped in and waved two fluttering fingers at her impressive guest, whispering, “My lord, you know our trade. You are not obliged, naturally, but should you wish to take advantage of one of our girls this morning, I would not dream of setting a charge.”
He laughed. “Madam, no, but I thank you. I’m here on a very different matter, but your – er – hospitality is appreciated.”
“Wine then?”
“Now that,” said Jak, “would be kind indeed. Somewhat early, but hippocras would be gloriously warming.”
The doorway to the world outside was partially open to air the night’s activities, and an argument was becoming so loud that although Jak could not follow the cause of the problem, he could clearly hear some of the more inventive words which he doubted he had heard for a good few years previously. But the argument stopped abruptly as Edilla appeared. “Off with you,” she shouted. “There are powerful guests here who don’t wish to be disturbed.”
It was the page who brought the wine, then the discussion between Tom, Jak, Udovox and Symon continued. When Jak finally left, he thanked Edilla, whose name he had already forgotten, but she had not forgotten his. “My lord, you will always
be most welcome.”
Walking back down the Bridge, Jak turned back along the riverbanks. The buds were opening. They recognised spring. Raising one hand briefly, he hailed a wherry.
“The Central Island and the Council.”
“My lord, I am forbidden. Unless you show me the badge –”
He stared coldly back into the wherryman’s hesitant eyes and was already holding out the palm of one hand. “Not the official badge,” he said, voice cold. “But you will recognise it, and you will take me to the Council Chambers now.”
The wherryman bowed his head, and held tight to the quay, enabling Jak to step in, and sit briefly at the stern. Within less than half an hour, they banked and tied up below the great black building of the council. Jak nodded, paid, and stepped up onto the pathway, its tiled paving a rich pattern of scrolls and colours which existed nowhere else. Jak strode towards the main doors. He knew his arrival would be watched. He was not surprised that the door had already been opened to him, and two pages in council livery stood waiting, one each side of the doorway. They bowed. Jak walked immediately inside, turned right along the short corridor and entered the huge vaulted chamber they called the council room.
Eight men, each hooded and unrecognisable, sat at the great oak table, each sitting with their hands clasped in front of them on the table. Each faceless hood of shadows was turned towards him. He walked slowly to the end of the table, where an empty chair was pushed beneath and the number ten was painted on its wooden arms, and on the table before it. Every head swivelled back to where he stood. Now Jak rested his hands on the back of the empty chair and started to speak.
“My lords,” he began, his voice cool and measured, “some of you I know. Some off you I do not. Some of you I may know but cannot yet recognise old friends beneath their hoods. As yet, as you see, I wear no hood. But I have twice been invited to discuss a seat on the council board, no doubt the one where I now stand. However, at first I was unable to accept your appointment since I felt obliged to spend more time managing my family affairs and my duties in the north as the new lord on my father’s death. I was also concerned by the manner of my father’s death. You all know this.” He paused, looking around at the eight nodding hoods. “The second offer,” he continued, “arrived during my absence. I had considered my position and was interested to discuss the situation here within the month. The notification of your impatience was delivered during my absence, and I have only recently discovered this on my return home. My absence was enforced and in no manner voluntary. I am not sure of who among you is aware of this fact. Whereas other actions taken against myself and my family remain obscure, this final act is entirely unarguable. For with the aid of the royal guard, I and my companion at the time were taken under royal arrest, although without mention of cause or any kind of explanation or accusation. Yet instead of being returned to the palace, we were deported to the coast, forced onto the steam ship waiting there, imprisoned aboard, and then transported to the Isle of Giardon. All this, with compliance by his majesty, was conducted by order of Sir Kallivan, Knight of Eden. Indeed, the ship’s captain informed me that further orders had been issued, that I and my companion be killed, presumably by drowning, during the voyage. The captain, however, had an existing arrangement with the natives of Giardon, that all prisoners should be delivered to them for enforced slavery.”
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