The Corn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  The cobwebs hung like swathes of greenery at a Christmas feast. Each footstep raised dust. There was a hole in the roof and rain had seeped through, leaving a circle of spreading mildew below, like a little blue rug all pretty in its damp woven tapestry.

  The feather mattresses were ruined too, with a musty smell and black with mould, mouse droppings and drifting sooty spores. There were still old sheets, torn and dirty, and a pile of pillows with their fluff all bursting out in wet lumps, shreds of down floating in the entering twilight. A torn quilt was nest to a startled family of small brown country rats, glossy-eyed and twitching pink noses, trying to hide their heap of bald babies suckling and squeaking below.

  And, feeling the intensity of watchfulness above his head, Jak looked up. Golden and green, cat shaped eyes stared down, unblinking, as he stared up, unblinking. For the first time in his life, he saw a lacine.

  Enchanted by the beauty of the gaze, Jak stayed. This was an animal that could kill him, but clearly it was well fed and content. It did not threaten the mice, the rats, not even the ducks out in the long grass. It bedded amongst the destruction of feathers and linen and remained in private seclusion. Freia had slept there, in the small attic room at the top of the ladder, its mezzanine opening peeping down onto the living area and the cooking fire. But the cottage sat lower on the slopes than any wild cat would be expected to nestle, for they were creatures of the mountains.

  “Do you smell her perfume?” Jak whispered. “Is it restful where she used to rest?” Then he turned, breathed deep, and left the cottage.

  They stood on the doorstep, lining up and smiling, neat in their aprons and livery, the principal stewards, the chief secretary and his assistant, the butler, his father’s valet, the barber-surgeon, the chef and his three apprentices, five scullions, two spit boys, pantry, bakehouse, buttery and spicery staff, two laundry maids, eight cleaning boys, six dairy workers and two pages. At a small distance stood the stable boys and groomsmen, and with them the eight armed guards who had stomped up from the guardhouse. Not a large household, but sufficient for an insignificant country lord of limited power, with no desire to entertain the surrounding gentry or live the grand life, and where the numbers had been much reduced by the passing of the previous year’s pestilence, the steward had carefully replaced them. The butler clicked his fingers, and a tray was carried forward with a jug and a full cup of Brandisco wine. Everyone bowed, welcoming their lord. Then the high steward came forward from the open doorway and accompanied his new master inside to the great hall.

  It was a month later and the new growth of Probyn and then Spring had started to sprout its feathery green shoots and the sweet smells of blossom, when Jak finally realised how much he had grown to love the place, loving the routines, the sweet familiarity through every window and knowing that the land was his and his alone, with the smiles of a contented household and the responsibility of seeing to the everyday safety, organisation and happiness of so many people, including his own. The lilting melody of the blackbird each morning, soft echoes through the dewy greens and again as twilight dusted its greys over the golden fields, were the calm reminders of a new importance based within the land itself. His land. His blood, his flesh.

  The steward had designated and delegated, administering the charge of house and farms and tithes. But Jak had been brought up in this land stretching off into the far blue mists, understand the weaknesses and strengths of a dutiful staff, their needs and dues, had long been educated in what was necessary for growth, for profit, and for peace across the valleys, with the farms ripe and sweet under the sun, gardens and parks, brooks, woods and villages all looking to their lord for guidance. Though many years of his youth had been spent in apprenticeship to other greater lords in the north, learning the arts and development of a knight in preparation for possible war and the defence of his country, he had also learned to care for the people. It had been his right from birth, whether at home or away, to love his land and protect the folk dependent upon it. Now, at last, he felt that passion hot through his veins with a sweet and overpowering paternal pride.

  There were few problems. From the light lemon-green of Probyn, growth gradually ranged over the months into the dark ripe growth of summer. Summer waned slowly as though reluctant to face the industry of autumn. The sowing and the harrowing, the stamp of the huge horses pulling the plough, the threshing and harvesting. Hay soft golden, barley and wheat scattered with cornflowers, the prosperity of a simple land. The mills whirled like wind-born seagulls, the pheasant and partridge flushed from the undergrowth, the cockerels crowing on the farm gates, the chapel bells calling each ten-day, and three times mid-season, echoing across the meadows. Jak rode to all the far boundaries, inspected, nodded, stretched his legs, ordered the wine cellars restocked, and, refusing the ornate, outworn and out of date gloom of the master chamber, settled back into his old room. There were bad memories hanging limp in his own chamber too, but there were also sweet ones. It was that delicious glow he would re-live, with dreams of one special smile, one special face, and her drifting blue aura that had surrounded them both. He cherished the last memories of Freia and the only night they had ever spent together. So he ordered the making of a new bed with new hangings, and each night slept deep. His dreams were deep too, but they were his alone.

  The great busyness of the land reached its zenith with the haymaking and harvesting. There was fruit to be collected and the preserves to boil, put undercover and hide away in the dark pantries. There were the pigs to slaughter and the bacon to smoke, fish to salt in barrels, vines to strip and the grapes to keg for fermentation, eggs to pickle and preserve, and the grain to store, filling the huge sheds for winter.

  Jak sent to to the village and invited his old nurse Alma to come back to the manor as housekeeper. She had been his only mother all through his childhood, with his known mother as distant as Shammite crystal. She knew, as perhaps no other including himself, all his family history, their secrets and their needs. Alma bustled in with the smile of a woman exchanging the prospect of dreary old age for the invigorating pleasure of once again caring for the young man she had always loved as a son. Jak made no other changes to staff, either within the house or on the land. In all respects, the manor and its new lord thrived.

  Late autumn harvesting was nearly complete when Mereck turned up. One of the pages dashed from the manor out into the fields. “My lord, there’s a grand nobleman riding this way with a retinue of no less than twelve.”

  Jak blinked and turned, for Mereck already stood peering over the low hedgerow which divided clover from crop, calling, “Coddled codfish, Jak, you look like a peasant. Worse. With stalks in your hair and your nose turning red. And if you must wear a smock, can’t it be bleached linen at the very least? And do you still serve your guests wine, or must I help bale the hay first to earn my supper?”

  But Marrok had brought the rain with him, a steely drizzle at first, while every man and woman in the fields rushed to bring in the last of the hay under the cover of the old barn, lead the horses back into their stables where they might munch the first of the turnips collected that morning, and then hurry indoors where they might change their wet working clogs for their indoor shoes.

  Chapter Thirty-Two

  Two hours later, sitting in the great hall as the pages began to light the candles, it stopped raining, and the westering sun flung all its burgundy and carmine reflections against the manor’s windows. A hundred windows, three storeys, all ablaze like a wall of fire to warm the coming night. Mereck blinked, yawned and turned his head from the glaze. Jak said, “Go to bed if you’re tired already. Must be old age.”

  “Been in the saddle three days,” Marrok excused himself. “I could have sent a message, my friend, and perhaps I should have. But it’s you Jak, a lord now yourself and my ally forever so I wanted to tell you in person. This is an official invitation. Wedding. Marriage. Me and her. You have to come. With winter on the way, you can’t stay in the north anyw
ay. The snow reaches your rooftops, no doubt.”

  “I expected it, my friend.” Jak refilled the glasses. “She’ll make you a great wife, Marrok. If you can forgive the squint.”

  Marrok jerked himself awake and frowned, “Squint? I’d forgotten about that. I’ve learned to love the girl, you know Jak. It happened slowly, but she’s quite a darling. And it’s a peaceful land you have here, Jak, with those huge valleys and blue horizons. So now you have the title to go with it, old Verney will be asking me to call you to the church porch again, to wed his other pretty daughter.”

  “I’d almost forgotten about that,” Jak sighed, leaning back, hands clasped behind his head. “Reyne, isn’t it? Hasn’t her father found another suitor for her yet?”

  “He has.” Mereck scowled. “Although I’ve tried to tell the old man he’s made a bad mistake. Oh no, not Reyne’s fault. She’d be good for you, and she’s a sweet-natured girl. Marriage doesn’t frighten me Jak, though it seems to scare you rigid. No, it’s the old man that itches my knuckles. Never stops telling me what to do. And he wants you tamed for his Rayne.”

  Even slightly puzzled, Jak lifted one eyebrow. “I’m not even sure what you’re telling me, Marrok. I should marry Reyne, you mean? Well we’ve been through that over a year ago, and now you’re saying she has to marry someone you don’t approve of?” He looked up suddenly at his friend. “How does Reyne feel about it?”

  “Happy as a duckling in a puddle,” said Marrok, slumping back down again. “She doesn’t know the man, has no knowledge of him at all and her parents who want to arrange the whole thing. He’s probable royalty, could even be king one day after all.”

  It became gradually obvious. “Her father isn’t making the poor child marry that sick bastard Kallivan?”

  “Fraid so.”

  “Doesn’t he know the freak’s my step-mother’s lover?”

  “Probably not.” Mereck shook his head, his long hair still a little damp. “Tried to tell the fool once. Didn’t listen to me. Hoping after I’ve married Jally, they’ll have to take more notice. I’ll tell her for a start.”

  “I’d hoped Kallivan had gone back south after the coronation,” said Jak, although in truth he’d given the matter very little thought. Nor had he attended the coronation. In the past, this would have been considered rebellious and a lord refusing to meet his new king, swearing the obligatory oath of allegiance, and kneeling to honour the appointment, would have been seen as bordering on treason.

  Not this time. Very few had approved the council’s final choice of king, and many had found excuses not to attend the ceremony which had been held in late Probyn.

  Although the date arranged for the coronation had been kept secret until two days previously, thus hoping to give insufficient time for anyone to organise an assassination, the court had been warned with just those two days for getting suitable clothes and wash their underwear, and the public woke to the announcement on the morning itself. The castle had been illuminated with lanterns of perfumed oil. The trains did not run that day and were held in silence as the chapel bells played their triumphant melodies, and the minstrels lined the city streets. Within the great hall the depleted court, in their most sumptuous clothes, stood clapping and cheering as his new majesty, King Frink, was anointed by the Eden-High-Priest, and the spired crown was placed on the wrinkled half-bald head.

  “I pronounce you King of the World,” said the priest, as usual ignoring the existence of Sham and the many islands. “May you live long and reign long your majesty, and rule over your people in health and happiness.”

  Stepping back, the priest then moved aside as the new king, slowly gliding down the open aisle, permitted each member of the nobility to kiss his hand, collapse onto their well-padded knees, and swear to love and obey their king for as long as they lived.

  This ceremony was followed by a feast of roast pork on the spit, pork crackling tied into parcels with the long leaves of the edible blue seaweed and filled with apple dumplings. Then the fowl course was served, including every wretched bird existing in Eden, each one baked in honey and garlic. The third course was a mixture of rosebuds with custard, bullock’s testicles and brains fried in wine flavoured batter, and layers of black fungus, parsnips in treacle, grilled cauliflower with cheese, spinach and parsley, and poppy seeds topped with strawberry syrup. Finally, as a special mark of respect to King Frink, a cream and lemon cake was brought out, since this was known to be his absolute favourite. Unfortunately, his majesty had fallen fast asleep on his throne long before the cake was carried to his table. The night ended with music and dancing, but the king was helped carefully to his bedchamber, and since he had confessed to being incontinent, a large sheet of thick leather was stretched over the mattress, and three chamber pots were placed in a row beside the bed. The king’s young wife did not share the bed, nor even the bedchamber, and instead trotted off, slightly inebriated, to an entirely separate room where she cuddled up cheerfully, wondering if any of the servants might be attractive enough for her to seduce. Denda, having put up with her husband for many years now, was no longer the pretty little sprite she had been when the future king tossed her into bed, got her pregnant, and then condescended to wed her. She had been thirteen, and a river of years had slogged past since then, but she still looked and felt younger than her age.

  Meanwhile Frink’s son Ross was accepting the adulation of court members for the first time in his life, and his grandson Kallivan, unaccompanied by his mistress, was striding the hall, his white hair tied back from his neck with black velvet ribbons, ensuring that every person of note, male and female, knew his name and his relationship to the ruler of the nation.

  The secret council was satisfied. Their meeting, held on the following day, was attended by every member even including Number One. It was Number Eight who frowned when the others smiled.

  “That little bitch of a laundress signed the oath to attend, but then couldn’t be found. Damn the idiot girl.”

  Number One shook his head. “It’s of no importance,” he said softly. “and we could just as easily have given the poison to the young apprentice who took her place. But we deemed it unnecessary. Indeed, we decided against the poison altogether.”

  In a voice almost turning to snarl, Number Eight disagreed. “We want Frink gone. He’s a creature of filth and sin.”

  The high priest, disguised within the shadows of his hood, laughed faintly. “You, my lord Number Eight, are clearly a sacred priest with a horror of human sin?”

  Being nothing of the sort, Number Eight snorted, but it was Number Four who answered. “I mourned our last king,” he said, soft-voiced to accentuate the truth of it, “but I am quite sure that young laundress was never responsible. However, whatever the name of the murderer, would it not have been highly suspicious if the next king was killed the same way, and on the day of his coronation?”

  “Suspicion, yes indeed,” grumbled Number Eight. “And that little bitch would have been arrested for the poisoning, which we could have proved since it would have been us who gave it to her, and she’d have been hanged. A just ending.”

  “Even though she would have been innocent?”

  “Of killing King Frink,” admitted Number Eight. “But as punishment for killing King Ram, of which she was guilty.”

  Number One waved a tired long fingered hand. “Enough, enough. The girl disappeared, and it is of absolutely no consequence. King Frink will soon die. There are various methods open to us. His death could even be natural. He’s old enough and looks even older, I believe. Had we Atterick, his original heir, waiting to inherit the throne, then I would have gladly waited for nature to take its normal climb into the pit. But Atterick is dead and Frink’s two remaining sons by his second wife are both toads. Witless toads. Therefore I will not wait. Possibly one of those sons, or Kallivan the grandson, will eliminate Frink and save us the trouble. But since we want none of those as a future monarch, I intend to arrange a story of scandals, a provable
story of incest and mystery, which will mean Frink’s removal and the disinheritance of his whole family.”

  This speech awakened considerable interest.

  “You didn’t tell us before. Why?”

  “Because,” said Number One, “we are all creatures of conspiracy and secret plotting,” Number One answered cheerfully. “So I prefer to keep my plans to myself. But I’ll explain every detail once the plan can be implemented. So patience, my friends. We will not be kneeling to good King Frink for much longer.”

  “You came back here to find your disappearing light o’ love, Jak. And you haven’t found her. What’s there to wait for now?”

  “I’ll see the estate through the winter,” said Jak, ignoring the question. Beyond the unshuttered window, the first blink of a sickle moon was silver behind the clouds. The smaller moon had not yet risen. One star sat tremulous above the low hills on the eastern horizon. “I intend staying here for the winter. I have no love of the freeze. It gets damned cold, but it’s a difficult time for most folk. The barns need stocking, the animals need bringing in to shelter, and for this first year anyway, I need to be here.”

  “They say it’ll be cold everywhere this time,” frowned Marrok. “They expect the Corn to freeze over where it’s especially shallow. The wherries will be out of business and folk will walk from island to island.”