Jak shrugged. “I never met him. But a laundry girl in his bed sounds strange, especially while ill.”
“No,” Axtoor laughed, “She never shared his bed, since that was one thing he never wanted and shared his prick with boys only. She claimed to be a herbalist, perhaps an apothecary, and the steward told her to attempt a cure for the Pestilence. And she did. She achieved the impossible, and I know it. I saw it. I’ve never heard of such a thing before. Those few who survive the plague have been only a touch affected. No one claims a cure.”
Jak stared. Now he was interested. “A young girl? Brown hair with the sunshine glowing through? Green eyes and as pretty as you’d ever see?”
Surprised, Axtoor nodded. But Errin interrupted. “An ugly little bitch, rude and skinny.”
“She disappeared and some think her guilty of the king’s death,” Axtoor continued. “But why cure a man only to kill him afterwards? There was another killer in the night, and he might even be one of the Council. Many wanted the king gone and thought him wicked for his love of boys.”
Jak asked, almost breathless, “Do we know the girl’s name?”
Nobody remembered the name of a laundry girl who then disappeared. Axtoor said, “And I saw her only briefly once. Errin has shouted that it was the girl. But he’s simply bitter since an unknown child had a cure to the most terrible disease in Eden, whereas he never cured anyone of anything in his life, in spite of rising to the level of a Court Doctor.”
Errin glared. “You’re a rich man, Axtoor. It doesn’t stop you being a fool.” He turned to Jak, ignoring the man he despised. “And what, young lord, do you find so interesting in the tedious desert?”
“The beauty of the chasm, the heat that shimmers on my back, and the calls of the birds,” Jak grinned. He was sure of one thing now, although it had been years before and offered no help to anyone who wanted to find her. Freya was surely alive.
The birds nesting along the Corn spread their wings to shield their young. Sun beams sparkled along the bright blue swirls of current, and the smaller ducks buried their heads and clucked to their babies as the eggs began to crack where they roosted, and the first feathered tufts began to break through. The great white swans poked their proud heads from the weeds, the thorns and the bushes, their nests tucked within the protection of the growth along the banks. The geese were out on the water, fishing, heads down below the surface, while the splash of the wherries rowed out further upriver. Without the Bridge, the passenger business had concentrated around the islands, and the water birds reclaimed their old nests.
A fierce Amber wing, the largest of the resident breeds, sailed her home waters, closely followed by six tiny copies in a line of eager fluff balls, minute heads poking from the amber feathers, golden eyes bright, tails twitching, each behind the other like one great swimming serpent of many faces, and mother menacing any who dared touch.
Standing on the bank, Freya gazed into the wide and open space where once there had been a Bridge, and on it had been her home. Not a place she had loved, and not a place she had owned, but she had discovered comfort and, more importantly, friends. It now seemed she had no one, but Pod was beside her. He had promised always to stay beside her, and she loved him for that, and for his kindness, and for his care. So in effect, she loved him and knew he loved her.
The river was clear now; only on the south and north banks where once the Bridge had begun its arches, was there any reminder of where it had once been. And behind her, as she stood on the banks, watching a hundred birds of different sizes and colours, she knew the dark and empty corner of the alley leading back into the Lower City had once been where her real home had stood.. The one place she had owned herself, working, loving the boy she had adopted, and imagining a blessedly bright future. Beside the stumped remains of the Bridge’s first rise, a metal sign had been erected, a little crooked but large enough to contain the names of all those who had died in the destruction of the Bridge itself. The names, although roughly engraved, were clear enough. Hesitating, frightened she might see the names of the friends she valued in memory, Freya stood and read through the list.
Father Brunai, the preacher.
Balsted, the Smith, best knife sharpener in the city.
Crooked Crumb, the baker.
Ruffstan, younger son of the Assistant Captain of the Royal Guard.
Freya stopped and bit her lip. Ruffstan had been her ‘average’ customer – the young man who had become her most regular and trustworthy visitor at the Bridge brothel. For a moment Freya felt the sudden rise of misery and unjust cruelty. He had been utterly pleasant and utterly kind. Yet only a customer. She had known no one else on the list.
Freya turned abruptly. “Alright,” she told Pod. “Now it’s another new future, isn’t it? We are back in the city, with no real idea of what to do, but lots of hope and lots of ideas. I can write theatrical plays. The palace entertains the court with that sort of thing sometimes. Your singing. You should tour the country, and everyone would know your name.”
He was grinning, laughing at her optimism. “Then I’d have to change my name to something grand.”
“Hanklerod. Dregasson. Vernapleso.”
“Not all the grand gentlemen have long impressive names.”
“I know. I knew one.”
“Yes,” Pod was sympathetic. “Name of Jak, but a lord all the same. Come on, my love, keep up the optimism. “
“And I can do things I could never do before. I can swim. I can ride a camel. I can act, and dance. Perhaps best of all, I can play a lute. I’m no master at it, but I can create a gentle backing when you play the guitar.”
Turning, she allowed herself to look where the apothecary shop had been, now so long ago, and saw something had been rebuilt. The Lower City was a maze of tiny dirty streets, either cobbled or left to the mud. Houses leaned against each other to hold themselves up, and one wall was often the last of one home and the first of the next. Top stories bent over, almost touching across the narrow streets and closing off the sunlight, even the drizzle, with windows closed with ground horn or stretched parchment, some even open to the wind. For glass was too expensive and existed only in the churches and the Upper City. Central gutters ran with filth, from chamber pots emptied from the top windows early each morning, and from the drunk staggering home each night and puking as they stumbled. There was blood from the gang fights, and the river rubbish blown up by the nights’ winds. Lost food, dropped while carrying it home, was soon grabbed by the wandering and hungry dogs, pigs and goats left to roam since their owners had no yard or garden, and then those animals left excrement while passing. In the Lower City, men stopped at the gutters to shit, and the starving lay to die in the cold nights.
Turning away, Freya said, “Living on the Bridge was better. It was a sad place, and, yes, life seemed sad until I got so accustomed, I didn’t care. But I’ll never go back. Not to whoring, not to the poppy, and not to terrible poverty either. We still have a little money from the south?” She questioned Pod, smiling up.
“Just a little,” he said. “Some coins, and enough for a place to stay. Somewhere there’s a camel trader.”
“Must we sell them?”
“People ride horses in the city, not camels.”
A tall white winged stork stood in the first shallow dip of the bank into the Corn, watching intently for the hint of a ripple or the movement of a fish deep below. His long beak and longer neck were reflected in the water, merging with the reflections of fluffy passing babies following their mothers, and sometimes fathers too, often proudly at the back of the queue, watching for marauders.
“Will you go to the palace, Pod, and sing for the king?”
“I’d need an invitation,” Pod laughed. “Unlikely, since he doesn’t know I exist. I have to make my name in the slums first, where no invitation is needed. Then someone from Upper Eden will eventually see me, come to hear me, and invite me to sing for the rich folk. From there – who knows?”
&nb
sp; “I have some nice clothes now,” Freya reminded him. “I can come behind and strum the lute to your tune.”
“I need to write the tune first.”
She was surprised. “You’ve written so many, my love. And no one in the north has heard any of them yet.”
But Pod shook his head. “Most of them are mournful. The rich and powerful love sad songs, so they can pity the poor and sometimes their selves. But the poor want happy music. They want to laugh and dance and be cheered by song.”
“If we sell the two pack camels. That’ll be a little more money. But keep our two riding camels. They feel like friends.”
“Well, for the moment anyway.” It seemed so final, so safe and almost organised. But both Freya and Pod stood for some time on the riverbanks, without really having the faintest idea of what to do next.
It was some distance upstream where Jak stood outside the bankside Chapel. The Council meeting had long finished, but Jak was uncomfortable with much of what had been said, and he stood staring, almost unseeing, down at the reflections in the Corn. The wherries rowed, busy crossing to the islands and the south bank, calling their prices as they slung their ropes to the buoys along the northern bank, forming a pier of wooden hulls and shouting men. Beyond, risking the part of the waters they shared with humanity, the ducks swarmed between the splashing oars, and the sloping drift of the smaller islands. Their newly hatched chicks in a cluster behind, nervous but trusting their mother.
An eagle flew, swooping down from the high bright invisibility of the sky, and snatched up a duckling, feathers frantic as it squeaked in terror. Clutched in the eagle’s claws, it struggled without hope of escape. But the mother Braggard, the size of a black goose and a courageous parent, flew up to the tail of the eagle, squawked and grabbed the wing tip in its beak, then thrust at its legs.
Releasing the baby, it flew on and upwards, thwarted and hungry while the baby, unable yet to fly, plummeted back to the water, righted itself with a frantic grooming of tiny feathers, was quickly joined by its mother who calmed its chirps, and groomed it herself.
Jak had stayed in the castles of his apprenticeship with moats thick with birds, and had passed days watching their life cycle and listening to their songs. But now, hands clasped silently behind his back, it was his own thoughts he listened to, and the opinions of the tumbleweed cloaked men of the Council, interrupted by the sly disagreements of the king. But the attraction of the king’s council had not yet materialised, and if he joined the airship crew, he would spend little time in Eden City.
He recognised the voice from behind, since he had heard it often. Pentaggo, no longer hidden and hooded, stood in the sunshine with a small boy standing just a little behind. Pentaggo indicated the boy, saying, “My page, Cavo. I trust him, so speak as openly as you wish, my lord. I have questions. Yet the questions may deserve no answers. Your choice supersedes my own, as is natural, my lord.”
As he turned, Jak paused, knowing his own questions, yet unsure whether he wished to voice them.
Pentaggo bowed, and so did the page. Finally Jak said, “I am not a lover of questions, sir, nor am I much given to answering them. However, this time I have a question of my own. One answer might deserve another. But I do not bargain words, so ask first, sir, and we shall see.”
“You know a little of my prejudice, my lord, knowing me as Number Four in the Council.” Pentaggo also paused before saying softly, “I work for his majesty the king, but am no friend of his. Knowing many things unknown by others, I keep myself alive. I might also keep his majesty alive should he diminish his ambitions and close his torture cellars, as he has done since spending more time with his queen’s illegitimate child rather than with his militant sons.”
“You are not, I hope, asking me to name the child’s true father?” Jak began to walk slowly across the flower pricked slope. A crowd of women from the court had come too close, laughing, bending to pick the wild blossoms, and chattering of court gossip. It seemed that Pentaggo also wished to talk court gossip but including matters of greater secrecy.
They stood together again, a little further downstream, and Pentaggo smiled. “I am surprised if you know it, my lord. Most of the courtiers accept that the child is that of a serving maid, inexplicably adopted into the royal family by the queen.”
“I love gossip no more than questions.” Jak shook his uncovered hair. “But some rumours are impossible to ignore.”
Pentaggo wore livery, scarlet and gold edged, without the tumbleweed which he had left in the chapel. His brimmed scarlet hat shaded his eyes, but his frown was visible as he replied. “Then I am hoping you know the truth behind another rumour, my lord, regarding a man I know we both strongly dislike. The king’s grandson now travels with two henchmen never seen before. One resembles him, but is older and deeply scarred, having entirely lost one eye. What is more, Kallivan himself has lost one hand. Lost, I imagine is not the most accurate word. It has been hacked or sliced, dismembered or amputated. Rumour says this was your work, my lord.”
“And the question?” Jak said, still looking over the river as it slopped into low tide.
“I have several, my lord, and I doubt you’ll wish to answer them all. But with an interest in whether this Kallivan should live or die, and a further interest in whether you would consider a similar route, leading to a small and untethered fraternity with one like myself, I greatly wish to know whether it is true that your lordship removed this Kallivan’s hand, and why. Further, what other plans this Kallivan has stored, and why he so regularly travels south. Little of interest exists in the south I am told, and yet you have recently spent some time there yourself, my lord. I would treasure, value and honour any replies, and am known for keeping other men’s secrets in strict silence.”
Having expected much of what had been asked, Jak now smiled. “I shall answer the questions of least interest, sir,” he said, “since I have disliked the man Kallivan ever since meeting him at court. A recent disagreement led to my sword unsheathing itself and with comparative justice, depriving the man of one hand. He is no swordsman and will not miss it.”
Also smiling, Pentaggo asked, “And the motive, my lord, for the newborn interest in the south?”
“Kallivan suspects a new seam in the quarry, of something more interesting than coal. He believes, which I do not believe, that some newcomers have discovered how to mine gold, silver or diamonds from the same earth. He is a fool but may be prepared to kill in order to prove his belief.” Jak looked up. His hands were still clasped behind him, his hat between his fingers. The clouds were thickening above, and Jak said, “It is going to rain. I imagine our business is complete, sir.”
Pentaggo did not step away. “I accept you have no reason to confide your own motives for travelling south, my lord. But since you must know something of the quarry in order to inform me that Kallivan is wrong in his suppositions, you must also be interested in mining.”
“Not in the least,” said Jak. “However, I have my own question, as yet unanswered. When King Ram still lived, he was evidently treated by a laundry girl working within the palace, and she was able, most unexpectedly, to cure his majesty of the Pestilence. I presume you authorised the presence of a serving maid in the king’s bedchamber? No one else could do this.”
“True.” Now Pentaggo was surprised. “I had been told this girl claimed knowledge of medicines and was an apothecary of sorts. I found this hard to believe, but investigated, discovering that she had indeed cured some kitchen brat of the warts, another girl of the measles, and a third of the pink pox. I therefore took her to see his majesty and she stayed there for several days, even making friends with the king. As hard a job as curing him, I believe.”
Jak nodded. “And her name? Do you remember this?”
He did. “Freya. She was attractive, and intelligent for a laundry scrubber. But the king died of some more sinister aggravation, and finding him dead, this girl disappeared from the royal bedchamber and the laundry, both.”
“And,” Jak asked carefully, “this girl was not suspected of the royal murder?”
“By some yes,” Pentaggo said. “Errin should never sit on the council, and his medicinal skills are utterly lacking. He hated the girl because she was granted friendship, money and honour whereas he was sent away. Simply jealous, he accused the girl of murder. But I know she did not commit the crime.”
“How can you be sure?” Jak demanded.
Pentaggo finally broke another pause. “Because she was well paid and could have stayed as a royal nurse. Even a doctor. Killing him after curing him, having proved her metal, and crashing her own chances of promotion and glory would be absurd even for a laundry maid.”
“And,” suggested Jak, “you also know it could not have been her, because you know exactly who it was who committed regicide. Because, naturally, it was you.”
With a flicker of focus, Jak noticed the young page’s interest in these words, but no one spoke. The next pause was longer. A wave of deep fear and resentment blurred Pentaggo’s vision. This was not and never had been information he’d admitted, nor hinted at. Finally he said, “A remarkable accusation, my lord. If you said such a thing to anyone else, I believe I would be immediately executed.”
“Like yourself sir,” Jak smiled, “I am perfectly experienced and quite passionate about keeping secret matters secret. I keep my own, and I also keep those of my friends You will keep secret the situation regarding Kallivan, since he is the king’s supposed grandson, and I will never utter one word of rumour concerning who might have assassinated our previous king. And,” – he stretched out a hand, “with this in mind, sir, I am prepared to fulfil your desire for fraternity. A – mild, let us say – form of friendship, in particular where Kallivan is concerned.”
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