Cuddled on the other side of her friend, Sossanna patted Freia’s barely covered knee. “She knew a real lord once. Jak someone. He said he loved her, but reckon he run off with a real lady.”
“No,” mumbled Freia, “it wasn’t like that.” She had stopped crying and instead gazed up at Tom. “You see,” she was still a little hoarse, “I found out he was my brother.” And she told her story.
Freia had finished her explanations when Tom laughed, which she had not expected. “You say your mother wasn’t the type to succumb to a fat lord, not by seduction, nor for flattery at a nobleman’s interest?” Freia nodded, bewildered. “Did she ever tell you,” asked Tom, “how you were born before your time, perhaps? And larger than normal for your short sleep in the womb?”
“No. Not that I remember.” Freia clutched at Sossanna’s fingers. “My mother never – gossiped. She never mentioned my birth.” She did not understand.
“Because,” Tom continued to laugh, “you are as unworldly and naive as a fledgling, and the most innocent whore I’ve ever had the pleasure to tutor.”
“I take that as a compliment.”
He leaned down, still laughing, and pinched her chin. “Because, my dear, it’s clear as the maggoty fruit falling from the apple tree, and I shouldn’t have to explain it to you. So listen to me, Symon’s lady, and then dust yourself off and get back to work.”
Sossanna was smiling too. “Tell her, Tom.”
Tom now stood and leaned against the wall, speaking slow, as if telling an old story. “A woman is taken, whether by force or desire, and finds herself with child. But the father has gone. Perhaps she loved him and hoped he’d marry, but she’s no fool and must face the truth. She must carry a child to birth, with the stigma of illegitimacy, and the even greater disadvantage of poverty. Few women great with child can work and without a man to protect her, she is at her most vulnerable. So she finds another man to stand parent. Who better than the local lord, who already pants for her, and will be fool enough to believe what she tells him? So she takes him to bed, holds her breath and bites her tongue while he swives, and then in a month, she tells him he’s about to be a father. She gains attention, some respect, and most of all she gains the lord’s blessing and backing. She’ll be looked after, well paid, with baskets of clothes, provender and care for the babe. It happens every day, in every county. What father can ever prove his parentage? But when it’s a lord has sired a peasant’s child, and that child is born well before expected, then we can all guess the truth, even if the lord cannot.”
Sossanna nodded. “’Twas the same story I was thinking, dear one. Oh, there’s lords enough will take rough advantage of the women on their lands, but that’s not your story, Fray. Since it weren’t neither rape nor cajolery, you can be bloody sure that’s how it was.”
“So your gallant Jak’s no brother of yours, Symon’s friend. Of that, you can be confident enough,” Tom said, turning on his heel as he went to the doorway. “But,” he looked back over his shoulder, “it’s no matter now, not a wit, for he’s gone. And you’re here. Remember it, and concentrate on your work, my dear. Once you face the bare truth, you’ll do well. With my help, very well indeed.”
“But,” Freia whispered, half to herself, “my mother knew herbs and cures. She could have rid herself of the child, of me, had she wished.”
“Then,” Tom looked back over his shoulder, “you can be sure the true father was a man she loved. Women are weak, my dear, and wilt for a lost love – just as you do. But would your Maman have been so desirous of her fat lord’s babe?”
Freia shook her head and stared down at her toes. “No. I don’t know. I can’t think.”
“Then don’t think,” Tom called as he left her room. “Action, Symon’s girl. There’s a job to be done. Learn it. Do it.”
It was Sossanna who turned to her and kissed her wet cheek. “Did your mother have a true love, Fray sweetie? Someone she loved nine months afore you was born, but who ran away, or died, or wed some other bitch?”
But Freia did not know. Her mother had never spoken of such private matters, had sworn she had no father, and had loved only her medicines and her poisons, stored in dark vials at home.
Garth smiled at his furious guest. “As for business, you have very little choice, my lord. We may be equal in one sense, since all I know of you is your name, and as yet that’s all you know of me. Death is one choice of course, which was my own first intention. I was more than tempted to tumble you overboard as far from shore as would ensure your corpse would be lost forever. In fact, I have saved your life for you, sir, and now you owe it to me. But we shall get to that later.”
The silence was Jak’s as he gazed down, cold-eyed, at the man who sat before him. A tiny desk stood, nailed to the cabin’s floor, separating them. Behind the only chair was a wooden bed, narrow as the hammer which had secured it. The ship rolled, and everything rolled with it unless nailed to solidity. Finally, Jak stared down, put the flat of both hands on the top of the desk and leaned forward, eye to eye with the captain he had only just met. “You do a vile trade, if you accept prisoners without even knowing who they are, or why someone wants them gone. And that is not a trade I will enter, either as a victim or as a trader. “
He stayed, his stare ice green, and his balance steadied by his hold on the desk. The other man, meanwhile, and his chair, were sliding.
“Since you are my prisoner, my lord,” he said, rolling himself back in place, “you’ll be watched day and night. And you’ll obey me, day and night, or be whipped for disobedience, as I’d whip any member of my crew for the same thing. But while we sail, I shall have your hands unbound. If you wish to throw yourself into the ocean, you are free to do so. But I would not advise it. There are rocks beneath the surface, stinging fish and sea monsters. And you would only be fulfilling my own preference in the end. In the meantime you will be fed and permitted the freedom of the ship. You can plot and scheme with your idiot friend if you wish, but remember, I hold power here, and no spoiled lord and his brainless servant will ever outwit me. But no doubt I shall see you again once we land.” He nodded to the two sailors who stood quietly behind Jak in the open doorway. “Take him away.”
Suddenly, everything had changed for Jak now knew that Symon had also been taken and was somewhere on the same ship. No lack of confidence, nor lack of ideas, would hold him prisoner, but Jak was well aware that two men against twenty would be easier than one, and with a companion who still commanded the gangs of the Lower-City and had been protecting both himself and others since before turning twelve years old, Jak counted the odds as better than he’d feared. Not excellent perhaps, since they’d previously been outnumbered by nine ruffians when first taken, but they had killed several and were not dead themselves. Indeed, he was surprised that any crowd had managed to abduct Symon. It was possible he’d come willingly, with the intention of helping Jak to freedom, as Jak would help him. The possibility struck Jak as suddenly humorous, and the captain, as he stood to close his cabin door, was both puzzled and discomforted to hear his prisoner abruptly laughing to himself.
It was no longer Eden’s coast, but another low horizon of deeply indented coves, scrubby sand and a hundred rivers swirling in from estuaries around cliffs and islets, reefs, and submerged crags.
Navigation here was dangerous. Jak stood on deck and shaded his eyes, peering towards land. It was mist that obscured sight. The mist held rain. Beside him the fukke sail was being drawn in, a flapping sodden white turned grey in the damp, and then the sudden slap as sailcloth hit wood in the wind. The chief mate stood wide-legged high at the upper helm, screaming his orders to a scrambling barefooted crew. The tide carried the ship forwards as white froth tipped their bow wave. The wind, stronger now, whistled in the rigging, the clouds dipped down almost to the slithering timbers and a squall of black intent suddenly hid the horizon.
“Bastard Shammite shackles,” Jak said under his breath. “Did I have to arrive in a storm?”
They had been four days at sea. On the first day after speaking with the captain, Jak had discovered Symon hunched beneath the mast, and staring ahead. Next to him in a long row sat the huge baskets of fish, some still skipping, others sinking lifeless, glazed eyes and colourless scales still glistening with brine. Those still trying to leap from their prison were, said Symon, looking up at Jak’s shadow, “Then wiv the strength to hope, poor little sods.” And he caught the tail of a large bright-eyed creature between finger and thumb and tossed it back into the ocean. Jak smiled.
“I’m delighted to see you,” he admitted.
“Pleased, is you?” Symon discovered another smaller fish still vibrating with the will to live, and he tossed it overboard. “Pleased to see I ain’t so bloody clever as I’d like to think – eh?”
“You mean, just as pathetic as me?” Jak grinned. “Both overcome by a hoard of warriors and thrown into carts to be sold to a slaver.”
The next fish was tiny, bright blue, white-eyed, bobbing with vivid determination. Symon scooped it into one large hand and returned it to its proper home. He said, eyeing the rest of the basket, “But doesn’t you worrit none, my lord, fer once we lands, t’will be easy to chuck them bastards into the water alongsides them poor fishes.”
Jak, absently, as though it was a practice now established, hauled six living fish from the next basket, and threw them back with a splash. “And where the hell are we going? We sail west. So Shamm, I’d say.”
“There be islands,” nodded Symon, discovering a large black fish with a gape of long yellow teeth. It shivered in his grasp. “A lad after me own heart,” said Symon, and threw it way out into the darker waves.
Leaving the baskets, both men wandered to the prow where the keel cut the waves like a butcher’s knife. Jak peered down at the billow of sludge brown ocean rising up to meet the ship’s gunwales, then moved quickly back as the hull crashed against the water, then rising again to carve its path.
The mate had moved amidships, continuing to direct their passage with the dialect of a man who has never been quite sure which land he calls home. Seeing Jak, he yelled, “Ye thinking to jump, my grand lord? Wait there, and you be saved the trouble. The water’ll kiss you with all the love o’ the mermaids.”
Cackling, Symon shouted back, “And where will yer bloody ship take us, man, if we stays safe?”
“We’s heading fer Giardon, but ye be in the fuckin’ way. If the front boom smacks ye in the maw, then the fault’ll be all your own, m’lord, and vaffanculo.” The man scowled and stomped off, boots a’slosh as the sea streamed over the ship’s gunwales and found its own dark level, trickling down gangways and into the lower stores.
Jak addressed not the pirate ship ‘s second-in-command, but a sweep of white and grey, wings braced wide to counterbalance the wind, the gull perched on the guard rail and then flopped splay footed to the lower helm. Then another, and another, riding a lift into shore and an escape from the spit and anger of the weather. Jak had seen a thousand gulls squabbling the banks of the Corn and scavenging among fish heads and cockle shells, but these regarded him calm and black-eyed, far larger, and disdainful as if they knew this was their world, and he the interloper, ill-equipped to sail the great seas. “Well,” said Jak, since no one else was listening, “I’ve not the slightest idea what’s going to happen next, but I very much doubt if it’ll be anything I like.”
“Giardon,” repeated Symon, ignoring the gulls. “Tis an island south o’ Shamm, ain’t it? Never been there o’course. Never bin outta Eden City afore I come lookin fer you, me lord.”
“Jak,” said Jak.
“Six o’ you,” howled the ship’s mater, his voice caught and thrown back into his throat by the wind. “Betwixt the sheets, you scoundrels, and hold course.” He turned back to Jak. “Tis a good wind and will save us mebbe a day or a night” He held to the tiller while the gamut of the waves hurled themselves across the tossing decks, visibility unclear through the ocean mists and sleeting grey.
On the third day, with the sighting of the island’s rocky coast, the crew began to scramble. But Jak and Symon, with no weapons and no baggage, but with their capes wrapped tightly around them from chin to knee, stood leaning on the gunwales, staring as they docked and with no interest for anything other than land.
It was a harbour, of sorts, and ten mounted men were waiting, the horses tossing their heads and wheeling. They watched from the clifftop above the stone quay. As the ship docked, they picked their way down the trail through the rain to the jetty.
The ice of the silver sleet closed off the hills beyond. Without waiting for guidance or invitation, both Jak and Symon strode down the gangplank as it lurched and bounced, and then finally onto the bliss of solid land. All those on land watched the ship as it bobbed, thumping against the side of the quay. Three came forward, their horses, prancing against the restraints of their riders, surrounding both Jak and Symon.
“You’ll come with us,” one said, leaning down. “You get a comfy ride, if you come willing. But you’ll travel arse up over the back of our horses, your arms roped to your ankles if you try to escape.” Two spare mounts were brought forward.
Jak regarded a small mare, her eyes tired and her muzzle down. “You and I, my girl,” he whispered to her drooping ear, “will arrange our own destiny, I think. I name you Fray and will treat you as I would her.” He saw Symon watching him, and grinned. “Well, not entirely, perhaps.”
Chapter Thirty-Nine
Shadows, endless shadows, lay short and bulbous as the sun rose high, then lengthened as the sun fell behind the distant gorge, but shadows, always shadows, and the massive prison’s bulk created its own eternal darkness. Below ground where the great dungeon lay in its murmuring misery, shadows against the master with rape, theft and murder committed without retaliation within the black forgotten lives. The higher cells held one or two prisoners, either those of importance themselves, or those whose crimes would soon, either during trial or during execution, be scrutinised by king or council.
For many years the prisoners occupying one of the top attic cells had waited for explanations, release, or death. None of these had arrived within the dreary monotony yet the two men of disparate ages were content, in lassitude, with each other’s company and their endless conversations. Fraygard only left his friend’s company when his wife visited him, permitted only once each three month period, or less if the prisoner was deemed to have behaved badly in some way. And Logon only left Fraygard’s company one day every three months for a whoring session, the woman sent by prison regulations. A man will lose his brains forever, and perhaps die, they said, if he doesn’t fuck once a month. Years before, the sexual allowance had been once every six months, now increased to once in three – but never, said the council, to every month. Let the criminals lose their brains, for after all, it was doubtful they’d ever had any in the first place.
Chia had long ago moved to live in the city. Near to the Corn and its islands, and near to the prison where she longed to visit as often as possible, bringing love and comfort, books, food and blankets to her husband. She had rented a one room basement in the Lower slums at first, for once leaving Lydiard and her great friend Hyr, she had neither money nor acquaintance, and had no job. Several times she had returned north to Lydiard, to see what, and who, she had left behind. Then she heard that Hyr had been killed, and horrified, she stayed away. Eventually Chia found work in a back-street barn near the Corn’s banks, where fruit was delivered to be washed and simmered with honey before finally sold in small earthenware tubs, an excellent addition to any family’s pantry. She worked hard and earned enough to change her home. From one room, she began to rent three, a home with windows and comfort on the first floor of a tenement. Chia forgot the meaning of happiness, but she remembered patience, persistence, duty, and love for her husband.
Then Frink was crowned king. And Frink was Chia’s only uncle.
After three visits to the royal palace,
and once she had borrowed a gown which made her seem more respectable, she was permitted to enter and crave an audience with the king. Knowing he would not believe any claim of being his sister’s legal daughter, Chia sent a message through the Chief Steward, saying she had discovered treasure within a special part of the Cornucopia. She did not say this treasure was her husband. But she remembered sufficient of her uncle to believe he would see a woman who spoke of treasure.
His majesty looked up and snorted. “You! What sort of treasure is this?”
Frink was on the throne, not simply symbolically but also in fact. He straddled one large cushioned arm, his leg swung over, both arms flung wide, the other leg outstretched, giving a grotesque vision of his embroidered codpiece. He glared at his niece, who smiled back. “Sweet uncle,” she said, walking to stand at the bottom of the three steps, facing him. “It’s so long since I saw you. This is such a pleasure.”
“No bloody doubt,” grumbled the king, “since you buggered off without any proper apology. Years ago, stupid girl. Never thought I’d get to be king, did you?”
Of course she hadn’t. “I hoped.”
“So, what is it? Twenty years?” He scratched the back of his neck. “More?”
“Almost twenty-four.” She climbed the three little steps, stared down at her uncle, and prepared the speech in her head. “My dear uncle, we never fought. Yes, I left, but I returned sometimes to see my mother until she died, and I always wished you well. Now I desperately need your help.”
“Surprising,” said the king, “how many loving friends and family members you rediscover when it’s known you have more power and more money.”
“Yes,” Chia sat on the top step at her uncle's feet, just as Kallivan had done some days previously. “I admit, it, uncle, but once we had affection for each other, and I know if our situations were reversed, you would do the same. And I would help you as I hope you’ll help me.”
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