Sir Vassil had now swept one hand to the ground, bent one knee, and lowered his head. When he stood again, he seemed quite red in the face. The blood slowly oozed back, and he smiled. “Your majesty, my beloved king, we have a matter of some interest to tell and discuss, if you will be so kind to listen.”
Knowing Vassil extremely well, Frink sniggered. “Tell me, sir.”
And Vassil began the tale that he and Jak had already agreed on. “Your majesty, Lord Lydiard has given me remarkable insight into the recent decisions of the Council. I naturally cannot say whether or not he is a member, but he knows much of their business. Firstly, sire, in accordance with his own wishes, Lord Lydiard knows that the united Council wishes to ask for your attendance, and if possible, your regular seat on the table. Naturally you would take the head place, being Number One. Evidently the Council recently had difficulty with their Number One who objected to the idea of losing his place. But I have heard that Number One has disappeared. That place is now free and you are begged to take it.”
“Humph,” said the king.
“Sire,” Vassil continued, “I trust you will accept. I understand the Council members are eager to include the most powerful and most intelligent man in the country onto the head of their table of wisdom.”
Watching the king, Jak began to smile. The bright brown eyes, creased within the wrinkles of an aged and sun-tanned face, spoke far more loudly than the king’s words could. “You seem to have expected our announcement, your highness,” Jak said. “Since the arrest of Number One, I imagine you’ve been waiting for some cover-up visit?”
With a small gulp of shock, followed by a wide grin, Frink leaned back, wriggled himself into a somewhat more comfortable position and said, “Ah, another brain that works on the same level as my own.” He paused. Both Vassil and Jak waited. Finally the king sat forward again, saying, “So you are on the Council, Lord Lydiard?”
“I’ve attended three meetings so far after a very recent invitation to the lowest seat,” Jak told him. “I can only trust what others have said, your majesty, but it would appear that you distrust the Council, or what you know of it so far. We all decided it would be much more sensible to try to make you like us.”
The king laughed. “We all want to be liked, my Lord Jak. That’s an honest explanation at last, and something I can finally respect. Now – tell me,” and he sat on the edge of the throne where the velvet padding finished. “So now, what made you think I didn’t like you?”
Jak shrugged. “You weren’t hiding it, sire. The law to take over and rebuild the older islands made it clear. The council sits on the oldest island, which most certainly needs no alteration having been there for at least a couple of hundred years. Then the tumbleweed. Not that I care much about tumbleweed. Frankly, I find the whole anonymity business unnecessary. Most of us know who we are.”
Quite abruptly the king stood, tottered down the steps from the throne to the carpeted floorboards, and clapped both hands on Jak’s shoulders. “So you want to be liked, my lord? Well, I can tell you now – I like you. Come and have some wine.” He walked off, one hand remaining on Jak’s shoulder. He then looked over his own shoulder, saying, “And you, Vassil, and you. Come along. Don’t dawdle.”
Cheap wine, but neither Jak nor Vassil pulled a face. “Well now,” Vassil asked. “Does a seat on the Council seem worth the effort, your majesty.”
“Well,” slurped the king, “it seems to please you two.”
“I didn’t say that –,”
“Oh, you didn’t have to,” the king drained his cup and called for the page to refill all three, “of course you do. But now I have a good opinion of you two, I’ve my own proposition to put forward.”
“It’s a good idea,” said Jak, ignoring the second cup of inferior wine.
Frink bounced and grinned. “What? What is it I’m about to say, then my lord?”
“Your son, who was our Number One,” said Jak without hesitation, “has presumably told you whatever the council has decided in the past. I doubt very much whether he’s been arrested, and I simply presume you have him tucked away in some cosy corner of the palace.” Now he too leaned forwards. “Since you distrust the council, and considering some of the past Council resolutions during past reigns, you are now deciding to start your own royal council, which will meet in the palace, with your royal self at the head of the table, and eliminate the secret meetings entirely.”
Clapping his hands and avoiding Vassil’s frown, Frink called back his page. “The best wine this time, boy, and get rid of this stuff. Clean cups. Biscuits. Apple codlings if the kitchen has any.” And he turned back to Jak. “You’re right of course. Good man. Now, we don’t need ten idiots all pretending to agree with me. I’ll take eight. You, lord of the bloody freezing north, will hereby be my number four.” He turned to Vassil. “Number three, perhaps. How does that strike you? And for my number two, I want my chief steward. He’s the brightest fellow I know. That priest idiot too, perhaps. You can recommend some too.”
Vassil stared at him. Jak raised his clean cup full of superior wine. “I thank you, sire, and accept. I’m honoured. And I have a couple of possible councillors to recommend.
“I go north this evening, sire,” Jak continued. “Indeed, my men are waiting for me now. When is this council likely to form, sire? When will you first require my presence?”
“As soon as possible since I’d like to know you better.” The king stood, sat, and then very quickly stood again. The crying howl of a small baby echoed through the door, left ajar by the page, and a woman’s voice responded. “Shut up, please, sweetie-bum. What a noise. You’ll frighten Daddy.”
As if summoned by all eight gods at the same time, the king jumped back on his feet and hurried to the door, reappearing with a bundle of swaddled white wool, a slightly moving but now entirely silent package.
“Laxim,” said the king, bending his head to deposit the squelch of a loud and eager kiss on the package’s forehead. A minute coo murmured back. Frink turned to the queen. “Well, well, my two little darlings. Time for his din dins?” He was leaving when he remembered the two guests and turned back. “That’s it, then, my two new council members. Let’s say sometime next month. Where are we? Spring? Well I’ll fix up something and have another chat in a few ten-days. How about the first day of summer? Easy to remember. Oh, and by the way, no plotting my death anymore while I’m busy.”
Vassil hiccupped, Jak finished his wine and laughed, and both marched from the building with reasonable optimism.
With high spring flooding the air with birdsong and the perfume of flowers, the north no longer froze. Jak faced Symon. Symon’s nose was buried in a pewter tankard of stone ale. He emerged with a small dollop of froth on the tip of his nose, illuminating the dark curls which protruded from each nostril
Symon paused, about to speak but thinking. Jak had also been about to say something of some importance but had changed his mind. Their eyes watched. Finally Jak said, “I have been waiting five days, my friend. You’ve no need to delay your speech since I am interested in whatever you consider so important.”
Shaking his head and thumping down the empty tankard, the brown curls bobbed and the smear of froth flew. “I were waiting,” Symon said. “But I doesn’t know wot fer. So t’were mighty difficult to know when to say, as it were.”
Having managed to follow this, Jak added, “And you’ll say it now?”
A noisy group of men sat on the grass in the field, their own tankards in their hands, shouting insults, enjoying the sunshine, and watching their quiet lord stretched on the bench outside the adjacent tavern, hoping he did not intend to drag them away just yet. Their horses grazed nearby, saddles and bridals removed and piled by the stables.
“I reckons,” Symon said, eyes half closed again the sun, “I owes you summint I done ortta said a long time back.”
Patiently, Jak smiled. “About yourself, my friend? Or about our friend, Freya?”
S
ymon snorted. “Well, mayhaps both, as it happens, but I doesn’t see how you done guessed that, m’lord.”
“Jak,” sighed Jak. “Accept the friendship and move past the lord. Now, tell me.”
“I reckon you done knows fair enuff ‘bout me,” Symon decided. “Being as I done plenty bad stuff, and there be plenty o’ times when I doesn’t know the bloody difference. ‘Tis true. I done thinked a lot ‘bout this lately. T’was meetin you, if that don’t sound proper rude, m’lord Jak. I only ever met one other person like you, and she were not a talker. You is, and I done learned a lot. But me brain, well it ain’t as big as me feet, as you might say. And after the Bridge fell and me house done toppled, well, it seemed like a sigh from them gods I’s never sure whever to believe.”
Jak smiled. “Forget the lord, my friend, please. Simply Jak as you are simply Symon. Now tell me about Freya.”
“I met her some years past,” he replied slowly, contemplating as he spoke. “I were in the market wiv Feep. You never knowed him. One o’ them boys downstairs, an’ mighty special to me. We was at the dog pit, and me dog Toby won the fight. But he were bad hurt. Feep done talked to this pretty lass wot said she hated fightin’ but were ready to help them wot was hurt. So now Feep brung her over. I took her back to the Molly House, though I reckon she were proper frighted. But brave, you know. Right brave and right kind. Patched Toby up real good, she did and I paid her. A bit more than usual, ‘cos wot she done were more than usual. It were a bit later when she were tryin’ to rent a shop fer medicines and the like, when I found she were turned away ‘cos she were female and looked a beggar. Soiled clothes and the like. So I done sorted it. Wiv a bit o’ blackmail and a bit o’ coin, I bought the shop and done gived it to the lass.”
Now sitting forwards, his legs no longer stretched to the sun, Jak was listening intently. “So you do kind deeds as well, my friend.”
“Well,” Symon said through his kerchief, wiping his mouth and the tip of his nose, “I done liked the lass. Courage, wanting to work, big helps fer Toby, nice to the lads, and pretty too. She seemed special.”
Jak was nodding. “I thought her so.”
“She dun opened that shop,” Symon said. “And I reckon it were doing mighty well. Them top lords come by fer all sorts, and the ladies, and the lower lot like meself. I found later as how she started work at court – washing stuff in them wash-houses. But when the king got the pestilence, the top boss there, he done called her to help and he said she were bloody good. I dunno why she left. I never asked.”
Jak, aware that King Ram had died of the plague, said nothing, but then asked, “And you continued to be her customer?”
“Feep dun it,” Symon continued. “He were shitting cut bad, poor little lad, begging pardon fer the language. Them fellows wot go to Molly Houses, you know, they’s not good men, them as want to hurt little boys. So Feep dun went to the lass’s shop and she let him in and sewed him up and put him in her own bed.” Symon sighed. “T’wer like the start o’ a whole new life, good as they comes. A year or more it were, though I doesn’t remember times mighty well. All seems the same to me. Anyhow, I got arrested and throwed in the clink. You knows a bit about this, wiv that bastard Kallivan. But when I was outta the story, as it were, there be other sods come a’calling. The shop were burned to the ground, Feep were killed, poor lad, all them stock medicines done destroyed, and Freya got no life left, no coin, no hope.
“Now, one o’ them fellers I does know, cos he were a fixer name o’ Bryte. He hurt the poor lass, mighty bad hurt I reckons. And he dragged her off to the nastiest stewe over in Bog Dock. She were put on the poppy and forced to work whoring. And all I could do from the clink were to tell Tom to look fer the lass. Which be wot he done. Got her away from that sick’un, and cos he lived at the Bridge Stewe, that’s where he dun took her.”
At last he leaned back, still staring at Jak, attempting to judge his reaction. Yet it was some time before Jak finally said, “This is a story to cry over, my friend.” He spoke in a half whisper, but then looked up. “And then I was told she went south.”
“Yerh.” Symon frowned. “I weren’t around, wiv troubles meself, and I never done the proper thing. I ortta looked fer the lass, but I were selfish and done only fer meself. T’wer Tom later wot told me she dun disappeared. He thought it were that bugger Kallivan, or mayhaps Bryte again. We ain’t seen her since, as you knows. But it were anovver lass at the Bridge wot told Tom as how the friend Hawisa says the lass is gone south to run away, and she dun went after her.”
“And she remains lost?”
“Sadly yes.” But Symon once again looked up, leaned forwards and this time lowered his voice. “I reckon I’s got one more fing ter say, Jak, and tis important. Fer the lass dun told Tom and the girls as how your grand lord father, he found her at the shop afore it were burned, and he dun told her he were her real father too. She were proper upset. Means she were your sister, shocked, she were. All her friends dun told her it might not be proper true, but fer the lass, it meant there were no way she could tell you nor find you. Afore that she asked a hundred folks where be Lord Jak. Then poor little Freya, she just sits and cries.”
Chapter Thirty
Lying on his back, legs cuddled up and claws tucked away, Raani closed his big blue eyes and fell asleep in the sun. Unaware that his parents were not the usual kind for a lacine, he was content with warmth, good food and so many cuddles that he had very little time for himself. He was still on four bottles a day, but did enjoy the nibble on soft minced raw meat occasionally. Although still a baby, and certainly still the size of a baby, at more than two months old he was growing interested in the adult activities to come and adored hunting. After a long ambush, Raani had managed to trap and eat a butterfly and once nearly caught a spider. He had been extremely pleased with himself.
Udovox watched his baby with tender pride. “You are going to have a more restful time very soon,” said Tom in a soothing tone. “You’ve been working too hard, my dearest. Soon Raani will be full grown, and you won’t be able to pick him up anymore. Indeed, I suppose he’ll be picking you up.”
Looking up, Udovox seemed startled. “My dear boy, I have always felt a little guilty since you took so many more customers than I did, and used to help run the whole place as well, finding top custom, tracing reputations.”
“Which has all stopped,” Tom nodded. “Here we are in luxury with exquisite food cooked and served, and the best wine with it. No work. No expense. But, my love, at the Bridge you were such a hard-working darling. You not only took on so many customers, but also helped me with mine, and did most of our shopping and all of the cleaning in our attic rooms.”
“And now all I do is feed a kitten.”
Sossanna was leaning over the back of Tom’s chair, a high-backed and well padded seat in grey velvet, patterned in cream. It was the perfect shape at the back to rest a small head with long hair, skin soft to sink into the velvet. She was standing, but half asleep. “I’m getting so lazy. I don’t never do a thing.”
“Well find something to do.”
“We can’t bring customers here,” Edda said loudly, “so what’s we supposed to do, then?”
“I have a bed,” sighed Tom, “so soft it almost swallows me. Udo and I take only half of the space, and the quilt is a dream itself. Feather full, all the colours of the oceans, and pillows as fluffy as Raani. But,” and he spread his hands in supplication, “I cannot spend all day in bed.”
Edda kicked off her shoes. “Why not?”
“Because I’d die of boredom.”
“Then we find this shop to rent or buy,” Sossanna said, marching to the centre of Jak’s salon. “It’s spring. Everything starts in spring. Tis what spring’s for, and all them little bulbs turn into flowers and all them boring green trees turn into pretty blossoms.”
“You want us all to turn into flowers?”
“I,” said Tom, “am already and always a pretty blossom.”
“
There’s no Jak. No Symon. No Freya. So what do we do, even if we find something suitable for a business”
“More importantly,” Maggs said from the corner, “how do we know what’s suitable? We want a business for Freya, and one of us will help her. But then we want a shop for the rest of us. But what can we do? What can we sell? What do we know a single bloody thing about?”
“And do we all live in the same house?” demanded Tom. “That will feel mighty strange. There’s an apothecary downstairs, and let’s say a greengrocer next to it. At the back there’s our salon and some sort of fireplace for cooking. And bedrooms? Me and Udo, that’s one. But will you girls all want one each. Freya has to be alone, after all, she’s got the biggest business. So five separate bedchambers? We’ll never find something that large unless it’s a palace.”
“Maggs and me and Edda can share,” Sossanna said, questioning them, waiting for a complaint, and then nodding. So that be three beds. Easier.”
“Tis pointless looking for this magic building yet,” Edda said. “It’ll be hard enough to find, and his lordship said as how he’d help with the costs. And he’s not here.”
“I wouldn’t even know where to start looking.”
“Not Bog Dock. And half the islands have gone.”
“And if we go Upper City, the ordinary sick and wounded wouldn’t come.”
“But if we go Lower City there won’t be a lord would look at us.”
“Well, my parents made a generous contribution, but we can’t afford the Upper regions.”
“We need the middle ground,” Tom said, “as Freya found for herself before.”
“Which don’t exist anymore cos some bastard burned it down. And anyway, there were only one bedroom.”
Udovox cursed softly, slid from his chair to the rug and hauled up the kitten for a cuddle. Raani woke with a start and yowled, spreading his claws, but changed the yowl to a purr and settled down again. “We wait,” Udovox said. “For Lord Lydiard, if no one else. And in the meantime, we start to look. A few walks around the city isn’t going to hurt, and at least its better than sleeping all day.”
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