The Corn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  “Not like you to be irascible, Jak,” remarked his friend.

  “Even my father warned me against the man.” Jak shrugged. “My father loathes him and insists he has good reason. Well – wife’s lover – not surprising perhaps. He has a couple of mistresses himself.”

  Merrick rubbed his chin as though igniting the brain. “He’s from the south. Only appeared at court a couple of sixty-days back. First, he wants the throne. Now he just wants your step-mother.”

  “He hasn’t stopped claiming the crown. But he likes some prick-play while he’s at it.”

  “Well, fair enough, Kallivan’s not the problem, Jak.” He was losing interest. “Rayne of Verney. Heiress. That’s what we ought to discuss.”

  “So why not involve my father anyway?” demanded Jak. “Does he disapprove of this match for some reason? Or is he simply being ignored?”

  Mereck shook his head. “Oh nothing like that, Jak. Just that their chambers at court lie close, so Kallivan offered to do the introductions. Poked his nose in, if you like. Claimed a close relationship. Likes claiming this and that, I reckon. Fair enough. Make the overtures casual first – approach through the father afterwards if it gets serious.”

  With a sigh, Jak lifted his second cup of wine and drained it. “I avoid my father when possible. I avoid Kallivan permanently. And I certainly avoid all marriage propositions. Dammit, Mereck, I’d be delighted to become your future wife’s future brother-in-law, but I’m not yet turned nineteen, for goodness sake. I can keep my bachelorhood for a few years yet, I think.”

  “Is living with your dear father such a cosy alternative?”

  “I won’t be.” Jak shook the last snow frosting from his hair. “The court’s as corrupt in slander-school as any bordello. So I’ve leased a place of my own in Ferrod Street and will leave my father to the care of his mistress.”

  Mereck frowned over his cup. “Getting lost here, Jak. Besides, never been to a bordello. And this dreary insistence on Kallivan. So are we talking about your father’s mistress or your mother’s lover?”

  “Both. But she’s not my mother.” The grin came back. “Which of the Verney daughters do they want me for, anyway? Jally or Rayne? And is mine the same one you’re trying to escape?”

  “Coddled codfish, Jak, what an untrusting friend you are,” said the future bridegroom. “You’d be carrying off the younger, Rayne. She’s thirteen or some such, and plumply pretty. It’s my Jally with the squint. Besides, I’ve met my bride on a few occasions now, and I’m reconciled. She’s nice enough.”

  There was a new push of customers from outside. With the snow heavier and a sharp wind moaning down the chimneys, the weather being as unsuited to boating as the turd swelled river was unsuited to swimming, the last wherries had moored along the northern quay, and the wherrymen were eager for ale and a hot pie before taking their frozen bones off to their beds.

  Jak removed his feet from the spare stool and sat up. “It’s a pointless discussion, my friend, since I’ve no desire to marry anyone at present. If my wretched father brings it up, then I’ll be forced to act the dutiful heir, but I’ll still get out of it somehow. For now, it’s time to leave before this place gets overcrowded.”

  “Still dreaming of your little dairymaid, Jak?”

  Jak stood, looking down on his friend’s fox furred hat. “She’s not a dairymaid, Mereck. And I don’t dream of anything anymore.”

  Mereck finished his ale and looked hopefully into the bottom of the jug. “Leaving the dregs to me, then?”

  “I expect something better when I come to your wedding feast.”

  “Will you dare meet old Verney once you’ve turned down his prettiest daughter?” The other man stood, a little unsteady, reaching for stability at Jak’s arm. “Seems I’m pissed again, Jak. Perhaps the wine was stronger than I thought.”

  “Or maybe the first jug was, since you were just enjoying the dregs of that as I arrived.”

  “Dregs and more dregs, Jak, and the Verney dregs to come. It’s the wheel of fortune, and no escape once you see your destiny clear.” Lord Mereck clasped tightly to his friend’s sleeve, and together they left the tavern, pushing between the new jostle and squeeze.

  “Too much mutton tallow and the fierce sweat of the hard working man.” Jak let the tavern door swing shut behind him. “I need to breathe clean.”

  Outside the cold hit hard. Mereck part sobered with a slap of icicles in the face. “But it’s not like you to be pious, Jak, nor too damned proper. Since the old mare’s not your real mother, why care if she’s swiving someone else? And if your father has his own dalliance, then why bother at all?”

  Jak turned into the wind, bracing himself against the whistle and whack. He was not at all positive about his own sobriety. “Hopefully the palace isn’t locked against me yet,” he said, “so if you want support on the way home, you’d best come back with me. There’s a bed wide enough for six and you can snore yourself into a hangover.” He caught Mereck’s hat as it took sudden flight and grabbed his own off his head as a precaution. “But if you’re determined to talk about Kallivan the bastard, then forget it and you can hobble back to the palace on your own. I’ve reason to loathe the man, and it has nothing to do with my father being cuckolded, for which I don’t give a fig. My step-mother can swive with the King of Shamm for all I care. Now, my drunken friend, will you stagger home with me – or risk a solitary walk back to your own?”

  The attack came from behind.

  With a snow-laden gale and the pound of the river at their right, neither man heard the assault until the steel was in their faces. Jak swallowed hard, whirled, dropped both hats, and reached for the hilt of his sword. With his left arm, he caught his assailant’s blade in the thick folds of his cloak. Twisting, wrong-footing the other man, Jak wrenched his sword from his grasp, dropped loose the swathes of oiled cape and sent the assailant’s sword spinning. It landed at some distance with a wet thwack into the snow. With the swirling white storm and the swirl of heavy cape, the wind and the icy snow underfoot, both men slipped. The other man, now unarmed, stumbled, grabbed his knife from his belt, and stabbed upwards.

  Mereck, suddenly released from Jak’s shelter, fell to one knee in the slush. His fall brought his attacker with him, unexpected sprawling and gasping for breath. Then Mereck realised what was happening. He shouted, “Robbers,” and rebounded.

  The cold helped. Jak’s head, fuzzy from ale, candle smoke and sweat clouded warmth, had cleared. He kicked out, and the attacker’s knife jerked backwards, the man fumbled but before he could rise, found Jak’s sword point at his throat. Jak’s steel hovered. Then he called, “Where the devil are you, Mereck? Are you alright?”

  Out of breath, Mereck wheezed, “Of course I’m alright,” as he swept his own weapon in one great arc of snow spangled reflections.

  “Run for your life, fool,” Jak told his attacker, “or my blade goes straight through your gullet.”

  Small, wiry and spitting icicles, the little man scrambled up, didn’t stop to retrieve either his sword or his knife, and ran, skidding down the alley and into the riverside shadows. The second assailant backed off, saw his companion leave at speed, gulped once, and quickly ran off into the same shadowy distance.

  Jak turned at once and caught his friend as he fell. “What the –?” Mereck was bleeding heavily, a pump of lurid scarlet through chest, doublet and cape. Jak knelt, laying him down in the snowdrift.

  “Not as bad as it looks,” Mereck assured him, fingers tentatively feeling across the bloodstains. “Hurts a bit. Probably nothing.”

  “Probably something,” Jak said, ripping open the doublet lacings and tearing at the linen shirt beneath. The wound kept bleeding. Below the shirt was a fleece-lined and padded undercoat which Jak pulled open, and sighed. “It’s a nasty hole, but high enough to miss kidneys and liver, and well away from the heart. But if it’s punctured the lungs, I can’t say. Can you breathe?”

  “Breathing now, aren’t I?�
� Mereck objected. “It’s only a flesh wound, Jak. Besides, I can’t die at this age, not flat as a haddock in the middle of the Corn Banks. Not even a decent battlefield. Damned shameful death and I refuse to allow it. I was pissed, or the bugger would never have got his steel into me.”

  “Well, you must be able to breathe since you certainly manage to talk a lot,” said Jak. “Lie still while I find something to tie up this hole.”

  “It’s bloody freezing,” Mereck pointed out. “And you can’t tie up holes. Doesn’t make the slightest sense, Jak. You must be pissed too.”

  “Probably am,” conceded Jak. “But not so pissed not to realise you can’t walk. And how much blood does any man have, anyway? You must have lost at least half of it already.”

  “Making a mess, am I?” sighed Mereck. “Pissing plastrons, no doubt.”

  Jak shook his head. “It’s a battle between you and this endless wretched snow. You turn the stuff bright red. Snow comes down, and it goes white again. Then you keep bleeding – and there it is again – red as blood. Well, after all, it is blood.”

  “And over there,” said Mereck with a snort, “there’s black footsteps and sliding skid marks. That’s where those two ruffians dashed off. You should have killed them, Jak.”

  “Well, they certainly wanted to kill us,” and Jak paused, thinking. “Just robbery, I suppose. We must look as though we’ve a few kamps on us. Anyway, my daft friend, are we going to sleep here or move on?”

  “It’s too shitting cold to sleep in the street,” Mereck decided. “So we have to do something. So do we go and get some medicines or something to drink?”

  “It’s the middle of the night,” said Jak with disdain. “Everything except the tavernas will be shut.”

  “Wake them up, then,” said Mereck “Tell them your friend is messing up the nice clean snow.”

  “I’d sooner wake up your future father-in-law,” Jak said. “We’ve got three choices. Leave you here and I’ll go and get some of Verney’s staff to carry you up there. Or I try and carry you as far as Verney’s. Or you try and walk.”

  Mereck managed to elbow himself onto a wedge of arm, feeling for solid earth beneath the icy sludge. He frowned. “Thought you was taking me to your place. But probably too late for that. I can see stars. The Castle will be locked up.”

  “Those stars are snowflakes,” Jak said. “But it must be late. But I’ll rattle every door until the guard opens up.”

  Mereck thought a moment and then lay down in the snow again, seemingly finding it comfortable. He stared up into the white blur and allowed the flurry of crystals to settle on his eyelashes. “Well, that’s alright then. But you can’t carry me, Jak,” eyes closing. “I’m about the same size as you and you’re nearly as pissed as I am. You’d drop me. That’s bad medicine. Go to find an apothecary’s instead. He can help.”

  “Certainly not,” said Jak. “How can I ask a perfect stranger to carry you? And he might be even smaller than you for all we know.”

  “My mother says there’s a new one downtown. A woman. Good with herbs.”

  “That settles it then,” said Jak sitting suddenly cross-legged in the snow beside his friend. “Can’t ask some unknown woman to try and carry a man twice her size. I’m surprised you suggested it. Doesn’t make any sense at all.”

  Lord Mereck seemed increasingly confused. “Did I suggest that? Not quite sure why. But you’re right, Jak. You usually are. Wake some woman in the middle of the night and drag her out of bed and tell her to carry someone up the road to a castle where he doesn’t live, and where they’ll all be fast asleep anyway? No, best not after all. Not quite sure why I thought it would be a good idea. There was something to do with herbs and apothecaries and medicines. But now my head’s going around and round. Hold onto my head, Jak, and tell it to stay still.”

  “You need bandages, not medicines,” Jak decided. “So we’re going to try and make it to the palace. There’s a butler and a steward and a doctor with a hoard of scullions who can wrap you up and haul you into my bedchamber for the night. And your head looks quite normal to me, Mereck. Not spinning at all.”

  “I can feel it,” insisted Mereck, his voice becoming fainter. “Not the slightest idea why. So you could take me to my father-in-law’s quarters if you don’t want blood on your sheets, Jak. But Kallivan’s next along the corridor so don’t go knocking on the wrong door. I don’t know bloody Kallivan’s door from a cowshed. Not that there are any cowsheds in the Palace, far as I know, but there’s the Verney heraldic crest on our door. Eagle, or some such large bird. Or maybe it’s a falcon. Never asked him. You’ll just have to do your best, Jak, if you’re sober enough to recognise an eagle from some putrid partridge.” He closed his eyes, muttered something about pissing peacocks, and managed to open one eye again.

  Jak staggered to his feet and stamped the snow from his boots. “I’ll go get guards from the palace, with a stretcher,” he said, preparing for a long solitary trudge. “But just don’t die from the cold before I get back.”

  “Well, I’ve not plucked the lute yet, Jak. I’ll wait, and die later,” Mereck assured him. “But I wish you’d just gone to the apothecary’s in the first place,” and promptly fainted.

  “Think I’ve lost my hat,” decided Jak, and set off up the lane towards the Castle.

  Chapter Twenty

  Feep helped himself to Freia’s own store of cloves and made her a pomegranate pomander to put in the big chest amongst her gowns in order to deter moths. Not that moths were plentiful since it was late winter, and the big freeze had only recently gentled.

  The river had previously begun to freeze along the banks, but now a moment’s pale winter sunshine shuffled its reflection over that icy veneer, dazzling along the yellow smeared gutters, melting the thrown contents of the past ten-days’ chamber pots. As Fardox, the last month of winter, eased into Probyn a faint but unexpected warmth filled all Eden’s cluttered alleys, men risked leaving off their woollen petticoats, and the women tossed off fur-lined hoods for a day or two, showing off their bright silk chimney hats and turkey bonnets thick rolled with a fine veil to flutter like spiders’ webbing. There was a hint of more warmth to come.

  Freia was infusing boiled raspberry leaves and tansy for the monthly cramps, hairyhound and juniper berries to avoid the dangers of conceiving a child, angel’s leaf boiled with willow bark for the headache, and tonics of marsh whortles and pondweed to treat burning indigestion brought by feasting for too long. Such popular infusions had made friends amongst her customers, but she no longer asked the courtiers’ servants about that most obscure of lords and his handsome son. With a country finally at peace, there was no one missing good King Ram who had discovered sloth, celebrated pleasure and kept a grand court. So it appeared that the land thrived. An empty throne had once been thought a disaster. But the court still existed, still feasted, and still kept themselves aloof from the common man. Whether one Jak Lydiard had yet joined it, Freia could not know and would not inquire. He was forbidden to her, and even the long black nights forbade her to dream of him.

  At some small distance, Lord Mereck lay flat on his back and stared up at the inside of a bright silk tasselled tester which canopied the bed where he had been sleeping. Stripped, heavily bandaged and drowsy, his lordship’s principal agony came from the pounding headache, which was the consequence of the previous night’s drinking, fighting, and collapse in the freezing snow. He had remained in the snow while his friend trudged off to get help, and being already half-stripped, had suffered considerable discomfort. He was a good deal warmer now, but the discomfort had grown even worse.

  Jak Lydiard looked him over. “You’ll live,” he said.

  “You don’t appear so happy about it,” mumbled the other.

  Jak said, “Happy? Dammit, Mereck, you’ve brought me straight into the bull pit. Verney keeps glaring at me, his lady simpers, his daughter peeps at me around every door as if she’s weighing up my prospects from every angle, the other
daughter constantly clasps my hand, thanking me for saving your life, and then there’s the risk of that bastard Kallivan walking in at any moment.” He shook his head. “Not sure your life’s worth it.”

  “Probably not.” groaned his lordship, clammy palm to his forehead. “Better off dead then.”

  “Get used to it. They seem to think you can’t be moved for ten-days.”

  “I didn’t do this on purpose, you know Jak,” Mereck objected. “I was pissed perhaps, but not entirely cupshotten. And it’s only a little hole. I’m not that bad a swordsman, and I’ll not have people thinking some putrid little thief out manoeuvred me.”

  “But the whole of Eden knows you can’t fight your way out of a wet shadow,” smiled his best friend. “Stop complaining, concentrate on looking healthy, then bribe the doctor to let you out of bed.”

  “A cold lonely bed too.”

  “Reminds me,” said Jak. “Your Jally. Nice girl. Very affectionate. What’s a small squint between friends?”

  But it was the other daughter who caught up with him as he escaped the Verney rooms. Bowing deep to his host and hostess, Jak had left by the river entrance, where a sweep of hedged paths led down to the Corn. He was aiming for the steps and the wherries for hire, but he had barely set boot to path when a small hand crept from behind and clasped his arm. “My lord? Forgive the impropriety, but I have been hoping to meet – to know the man – is it true, my lord? Are we affianced?”

  Jak turned, gazing down on a round pink face and trusting blue eyes. “Mistress Rayne?” He took a deep breath. “I must tell you we are not, but through no fault of yours. You must discuss this with your lady mother, and not, I think, with me. Indeed, there have been talks, yet involving the wrong people, and I doubt, I’m sorry my lady, but it cannot take place.”

  “Jally always tells me I act without decorum,” sighed the girl gazing up at him. “And Maman tells me I behave like a little child. But I think it quite sensible to want to meet the man you’re going to marry.”