The money was becoming a matter of concern, however. Not because she had too little, which had been her problem for most of her life, but because she now had too much. The two small purses originally tied around her waist, payment from Lord Lydiard supposedly for saving his son’s life, or perhaps simply to encourage her to go away. These coins were now quite spent on clothes, furniture, other possessions and ingredients for her new business. But she still owned a magnificent purse from beneath the dead king’s pillow, given freely and including a jewelled badge of honour as well as coin, and now had a heavy purse from the man Symon for having saved the life of his mutilated dog.
Saving other folk’s lives, if she could continue achieving such a thing, clearly paid better than washing dirty underwear.
Her mother had once said the opposite. “Killing is more profitable than curing, my dearest. For those who buy poison must pay not only for the poison of tasteless quality, but they must also pay for your silence.” But although Freia carried vials already mixed to kill, and the ingredients to mix many more, she had no intention of slaughtering folk she did not even know.
Now she did not even need to pay rent or lease costs for her new home, and although she had spent a good deal on furniture and clothes, there was a small fortune left. She could eat well, buy what she needed, and hopefully earn her own money from her future apothecary’s business.
Chapter Fourteen
Over a busy ten-day, with visits and explorations to the three great markets and a hundred or more small shops, Freia collected firewood herself and hung the great iron cauldron over the flames as her mother had done, ready for cooking anything from pottage and posset to cures for chilblains and purges for stomach cramps. Then, with the fire crackling and the cookpot bubbling, the one downstairs chamber was bathed in a glow of warmth and contentment. The upstairs window was bayed and seated, and Freia sat there often, watching the white swans sailing on up the river to the Bridge and beyond. Idle contemplation, which her mother would have censored as improper for a young girl, now constituted one of the joys of living alone. So the bedchamber became her haven, and she thought her new home a palace, being without doubt almost as grand as the kings. Straight from grey laundry slavery, she was just turned fifteen years old and now owned her own business.
Having wished to move as far from the great castle as possible, Freia had not searched for any neighbourhood seemingly housing the rich upper echelons, but nor did she feel any inclination to hide in the slums. Living those days in proximity to Symon’s home and business on the handmade island had been disturbing. Each evening the noise next door had become intense, numerous visitors arriving, often well after curfew, staying only a short time and then leaving as loud and imperious as they had come. Fights often broke out with swearing so loud and so imaginative that Freia soon learned expressions never previously imagined, but sufficiently explicit not to mistake their interesting meanings.
So it had been good to leave. And when Freia walked briskly from her past to her future, her heart all sparkles and her chin up to the summer sunshine, she became, in full view and for the first time in her life, a respectable trader. Respectability was the luxury which she now believed made all the difference.
The young man sighed and shook his head. “A sad reflection on my ingenuity. But I can only say I have not the faintest idea. Not even an inkling. Not even a guess. Besides,” and he leaned back in the large cushioned chair, “strictly speaking, it’s a taboo subject. We aren’t supposed even to discuss the matter, let alone make any conclusions. So since we have to sit in absolute silence and stare at each other. At the very least, Jak, you could pour me some of that wine.”
Jak passed the brimming cup. “So I was about to poke my nose into royal business and ask questions I’ve no right to ask. But you must have some idea Mereck, since your title beats mine.”
“Not only not a single frayed sniffle of an idea, my friend,” Mereck said, crossing his legs, “but I don’t think anyone does. That’s the whole trouble. There’s no actual heir– unless you go back to Frink. But that would mean we acknowledge the last two kings should never have sat the throne. But Ram never had a son, not even a daughter, and he died fairly young. The council hadn’t even started to work out the next possible dynasty. They thought they had loads of time.”
“So the council isn’t as clever as it presumably thinks it is.” Jak refilled his own cup, raised it and drank. “But I suppose I don’t care. It makes no difference unless the crown sits some absolute maniac.”
“Like Frink.”
“Never met him. Never met his poor murdered son either, though folk said Atterick was as much like his father as the gods to the demons.” Jak closed his eyes. He was bored rather than tired. No one spoke of much else these days, and although forbidden by public announcement, everybody was fascinated by the prospect of who to choose as the next king of Eden.
“Some idiots stand to earn a fortune from this,” Mereck sighed. “Betting on one or another seems to be the only attractive pastime now, and the odds are growing huge. I back either Tamid or Borg.”
“You’ve put your money on both? But how can you back Borg, when he’s Frink’s son? You mean to ignore the father for the son?” Jak shook his head, grinning. “Doesn’t make sense, my friend. Besides, it doesn’t make sense to throw away money on such a thing when it’s now illegal even to talk about it.”
“Who cares about the law?”
“People like me who have very little title. But,” Jak continued to grin, “I admit I did try to ask my colours about the next king. I said the names aloud and watched how the colours changed. But it didn’t really bring any clues.”
“Blistering bacon, Jak,” his friend accused him. “You really are a pickle-brain, you and your funny colours.”
Jak yawned, taking no offence. “I’m off back to Lydiard tomorrow to find my girl. I feel as strong as I ever have, and she’s the one who saved my life. Now I’m going to abduct her.”
“Sounds thoroughly enjoyable. Much better than this dreary court.” Mereck heaved himself up from the cushions. “I should come with you. I’m dying of boredom here.”
“I don’t want you,” said Jak. “It’s a damn long way, I want to sleep on the train, and when I get there, I want to be alone with Freia. We’ll see you when we get back. In a month’s time maybe.”
“It’ll be the month of Forge by then, with the trees turning red and the rain turning everything to slush, the river overflowing and the days getting horribly colder while the nights freeze. I hate Forge. Three ten-days of bloody misery.”
“It’s even colder up north in Lydiard,” said Jak. “But I might come back to a new king and a wedding of my own to celebrate.” He laughed. “What does the weather matter when you‘re about to get married? Kings? Do I poke my nose into this well-spiced pie and risk royal displeasure? Dare I try to satisfy my curiosity? No. I wed the girl I want and take her to bed for the very first time.”
Mereck raised an eyebrow. “You mean that you never -? Oh well, no business of mine. Do as you always do, Jak. Forget manners and diplomacy and rush in regardless.”
It was early in the morning of the second day that Jak marched from his father’s quarters, and meeting with Mereck outside the stables, walked with him to the end of the courtyard. The weather was fine, the train would be waiting quietly for one hour more at the station, and once Jak had boarded, Mereck would ride back to the castle leading his horse since there was no place for it on the train unless left in considerable danger at the rear. They rode together to the station, which was large and dour, like an oversized box made of wooden slabs with a metal roof, a long queue for paying fares and commandeering seats, and absolutely no comfort. But the train rested on its rails in peaceful silence, and Jak, having already paid and arranged his seat some days previously, climbed up the four little steps and clambered aboard. He carried only a small hessian bag stuffed with his own clothes and gifts for Freia, he pushed this under his s
eat in the most luxurious and most expensive carriage and waved from the window as Mereck rode off.
The train began its lethargic surge to power within a few moments, the drivers’ guard calling through his megaphone that no one would now be permitted aboard since the journey had begun. The four drivers clambered into the tiny cabin at the front where the great steam press, the fire already lit, had begun to puff its smoke. Pumping began, and the low pressure condensed as the levers raised the engine into high pressure. The deep whistle growled three times and the train slid slowly into movement. One by one the linked crates, containers, carriages and flat platforms took on the rattle of the forward chug, and the train sped as it left the station.
With the steam still clouding the windows, Jak settled back in his double seat and attempted to sleep. The noise and the jolting made sleep difficult, but once the endless monotony conquered every other difficulty, most passengers dozed, and Jak was one of them.
Three days later and as stiff as the wooden planks on the floor, those still travelling looked from their laps to the station declaring Lydiard across its doorway. The train chugged slower and slower until able to stop. Sometimes when the drivers were inexperienced, the train might miss the station altogether and stop some distance further up the tracks, but at Lydiard, with no other place to visit further north, the train stopped exactly where everyone could stagger from their confinement, and stretch with desperation, before climbing up the slope to the town.
Jak hailed the guard, demanding a horse from the hiring stables to take him as far as the Lord’s Manor. He mounted, swearing under his breath at his screaming backache and barely moveable knees, slung his baggage over his shoulder, and within less than half an hour he was back in the castle he now, although sometimes reluctantly, called home.
Servants had been warned, although only a handful were needed. Jak asked for a bath to be set up, with water as scalding as could be managed, threw his bag to the floor of his bedchamber, and remembered with a mixture of horror and delight the last time he had been here. More than half dead and in a swelter of agonising pain, he had expected to pass away within a day or two at the most.
Yet Freia had come, and then her mother. He had returned to life. He had kissed the girl he adored, and he had passed a whole delicious night of close caresses, both chaste and tantalising.
It did not take him long to bathe, dress in clothes without the dust and creases of three days on the train, ask for his own much-loved horse to be fed, groomed and saddled and set off across the lower hills to Freia’s cottage where she had always lived with Hyr, her witch mother, whom Jak called no witch at all.
The truth sprang out at him before Jak was close enough to the cottage to see the broken door, the smashed windows, or the charred marks down one wall. From some distance, Jak had seen the billowing colours which swarmed up like a warning from all around the roof. He saw black darts and the yellow slime of looming clouds. It was therefore, an empty cottage, with no space for the blue and green haloes of Freia and her mother, nor the pink and white fluffy dots sent up by clucking chickens and ducks leading their ducklings. Once he arrived at the broken door, Jak saw it was worse than the colours had warned him.
The ducks and hens had clearly been stolen, the house torched, and the furniture smashed or purloined. The vandalism showered on the small building showed a hectic hatred, Jak began to guess the reasons.
Inside a part of the ceiling had gone, presumably in flames, and the blue sky shone through. A small bird’s nest took advantage of the thatching. Where Freia had slept, the bed had been entirely burned, and Hyr’s wide bed and the three steps up to it were in splinters all across the floor.
He rode back to the town, stopping at the haberdashers, a large shop which overcharged and therefore catered to the lords and their ladies.
Although known as a good natured young man by everyone except his father and step-mother, Jak felt a bubbling rage which raised his voice and shortened his manners.
“The medicine-woman Hyr, often called witch by the ignorant, I want to know exactly where she is and what has happened to both her and her daughter. Clearly, they had not occupied their own home for ten-days or considerably more.”
The woman behind the counter wore swirling pink with a neckline to her waist with a blossomed bunch of artificial flowers tucked into her cleavage. She curtsied at once. “Ah, my lord. What a pleasure. You are home again and look mighty well.”
“I should appreciate an answer to my questions,” Jak said without any smile.
The woman seemed perturbed and blushed. “My lord, indeed yes, but first I must assure you that I had nothing whatsoever to do with any of this. The old butcher and the ironmonger Cob marched through town while you were dead or dying, they said, and would never recover. They claimed it was the gods who were punishing us for past crimes, but the worst was the witch since she was the greatest sinner. It was her poison killed your mother, my lord, many years ago, and no doubt, brought the Pestilence to our town. So Cob and Rucomp went to the witch’s cottage. The daughter wasn’t there, but the witch was, and they dragged her out to the town square. A lot of the people ran out to help. I promise I wasn’t one of them, me.”
“That so-called witch brought me medicines and saved my life,” Jak growled. “What was done to her?”
The haberdasher paused, then looked away. “They stoned her to death,” she said softly. “When the daughter came back, she was told the truth, and she cried and ran away.”
For a long time, Jak stood and stared. There were also tears in his eyes and one streaked one thin wet line down his cheek. Then he turned on his heel and rode back to the manor.
He called his groom. Giles ran from the stables to the young lord’s bedchamber, fell to one knee, and asked what was wrong. “Find out where Freia went,” he demanded. “Collect eight or ten men with some spark of intelligence and get them searching. She is no longer in her own home and must have taken work in some other place. Perhaps one of the villages, perhaps in the countryside on a farm or working for some hospice for the sick. But I want her found. And I want others found too. Cob and Rucomp, both dishonest and unpleasant characters, have been accused of setting up some mass hysteria against Hyr the Healer, and caused her death in a cruel and brutal manner. I want the true culprits named, whether it is them or someone else, and I want them brought to trial. Depending on the results, they will be executed.”
Stalking back down the stairs, Jak stamped out into the grounds and stood staring down the cliff edge, swearing at all the gods beneath his breath.
It was a ten-day later when Cob, Runcomp and Desforo were hung from the gibbet in the town square. Jak did not watch. He sat in the main hall, one leg stretched out, eyes glazed as he stared at nothing, losing his focus in spiced wine, and waiting to be told that it was over and done. No one had discovered Freia, nor had anyone been able to follow her trail. Jak had met the same emptiness. He had galloped every village and town and explored every step of Lydiard Town itself. He had roamed the country roads and asked on every farm. But she could neither be found, nor did anyone seem to know where she had gone.
“Mahaps Shamm, m’lord. A lass on the run will go far.”
“To the city, I reckon. Every female wants a chance at a good marriage in the city.”
“Try the hospitals, my lord. But I think there’s a hundred or so across the land.”
“Hard for a pretty girl to find work. Reckon she’ll be in a brothel in some town. Down south.”
“Got no horse so can’t go south. Try east, my lord.
Eventually, after a long and deeply dismal period of time, Jak returned to Eden City, the castle and court, his family and his friends.
Without her colours flying in his face, he could be fairly sure that Freia was not nearby, but he did not surrender determination.
Chapter Fifteen
There were few in the land who resembled Kallivan from the south, the strong fighter having been awarded the honour
of knighthood after many events when he claimed to have had protected and even saved the life of the great Lord Frink, possibly the true heir to the throne.
Having killed his first son and heir, Frink had married again. This seemingly placid second wife, being considerably younger than her new husband, had birthed two sons by her lord, and the younger of these had been unfortunately discovered as lacking in the usual level of understanding. Ross was called dim-witted by his infuriated father, but he found himself a sweet wife and together they had a son, an unusual child from birth itself. He appeared to have no colouring at all except in his small masculine parts, which wobbled and sweated a light tan, especially while pissing. His eyes, however, were such a pale blue they appeared almost white, and his hair was a white fluff of thin scraps across his head. The main stretch of his skin was exceedingly pale, and even his toenails and fingernails appeared more white than could be expected. But he grew tall enough and wide enough as well, with muscles and teeth, long solid legs and matt white hair to his shoulders. His tongue was pink, and his teeth grew rather yellow, but most of him remained white as the summer clouds or the spray of the high tide. Kallivan also appeared intelligent, learned quickly, quickly knew far more than his dim-witted old father, and soon exhibited a filthy temper. The only two things he seemed to lack were colours and any sense of humour.
Kallivan rode north, crossed the vast open sands, the busy Bridge over the river, and entered Eden City for the first time. He turned east along the Corn banks and aimed for the great towers of the castle which had been visible from the Bridge. Having entered the castle, he insisted on meeting with the High Steward and introduced himself with such regal imperialism, pride and arrogance that the steward did not dare disbelieve exactly who he said he was.
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