The Corn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  Sir Kallivan paid well. Then replaced his hat, adjusting the ornamental broach, and before he left, he turned to the heavy-muscled woman who was now my friend and protector and inquired abruptly, “Are they previously ordered to silence?”

  Hawisa nodded, narrow-eyed. “They are, m’lord.”

  The man frowned. “Next time, I prefer they are not. And next time, I will take four together. The youngest you have.”

  “The order to silence ain’t for your sake,” said Hawisa half under her breath, half grumble. “With screeching and sobbing echoing down the stairs, we’d not keep most our other customers, those prized and regular at that. Squeals and screams from the next room while they’re happy humping and heaving themselves, will surely send those gents elsewhere.”

  “Then find me a chamber where nothing can be overheard,” said Sir Kallivan, clicked his fingers at the pageboy waiting at the doorway, left briskly and slammed the heavy oak door behind him. It seemed as though the whole bridge first shook, and then resettled with a gentle sigh of relief.

  With faint nausea, I tumbled back into my chamber and flopped on the bed. It was rumpled of course and smelled rank, of sweat and sex. For the first few months, I had changed the sheets carefully after every single customer. But Now I accepted the standards of the slut. And, I smiled to myself, sometimes failed to live up to them.

  My smile, stupidly, turned into sudden silent tears. As always, I cried for the loss of Jak and Feep, even for the loss of Symon who had promised me a new life. Naturally, I cried for myself. Overwhelming self-pity gnawed constantly when left alone. But it was also poppy melancholy; a misery of motiveless and random practise, a mood which slipped down like evening shadows before the inevitable chill of a winter’s night, a spring-shower to blow away the new-born blossom, and with it the sudden eradication of hope – even when that hoping had been for nothing in particular.

  Several times I had tried desperately to reduce the morning dosage, even to stop. But the drug’s absence left only desolation to fill up my empty corners. Poppy dreams had begun to nauseate but were preferable to the vacancy of a life without any dream at all. The knock on the door no longer mattered. I trusted Tom to keep out the violent customers, and the others arrived, took more time or less time, annoyed me or made no impression, and then left. I was vaguely aware of them.

  But something interested me. I had lost the three people I had ever loved, and now even Symon, Tom and Hawisa, my remaining friends, could rarely be seen. They were always busy. So was I. But I knew exactly who I hated, and they were very much alive.

  Kallivan was sometimes a customer at the Pearly Web, but neither Bembitt nor Bryte, I supposed, could afford us. I wanted all three dead. I had given Hawisa her orders more than a year previously, and I’d told Tom and Vox too. Hawisa had grinned and plumped down on the bed. “To do them in?”

  I began to understand how my mother had sold poisons as well as medicines. The past two years of my life had brought me a terrible nonchalance concerning death, pain, and sex. “Yes, to do them in,” I’d told her.

  “That’s that then,” had said Hawisa with waning interest.

  As I lay dishevelled on the bed, she came marching in, no warning as usual, and sat beside me, patting my knotted hair. “Now, let’s see if I can cheer you up, my lovely. I’ve seen your Bryte again,” Hawisa told me. “Yes. He lives exactly where I said I saw him before. And so you think of him, my girl, instead of moping on some titled fool what can never be yours, nor likely wants to. Plan your pay-back, girl, and forget all else. There’s profit in whoring, and there’s profit of another kind in revenge. There’s no profit of no kind in sniffing and sniffling and dreaming of past failures.”

  “Was Jack a failure?”

  Hawisa sighed, put both her large arms around me, and grunted sympathetically. “From what you’ve told me, the silly lad never even touched you. So was either fool or paederast. Now that’s failure. Then you save his life, and his father sends you off, but the lad never caught you up nor took you back. Now that’s a big failure. And now you’ve heard he might be your brother. Failure again, lass, as I see it.”

  I shook my head between sniffs but stayed clinging to Hawisa’s embrace. “Remember what Tom told me – and Sossanna too – so I don’t think Jack’s my brother anymore. He might be. But I won’t think about that.”

  “Who?” Another voice from the passageway. “What not to think about my lovely?” The door had been left ajar, and two other women had peeped in, hearing whispers, coming to dispel boredom at the end of a working day.

  “I heard my name.” Sossanna drifted in trailing transparency. “Was you wanting me, Freia dear?”

  “It’s raining yet again,” said the other. “So no last look at the shops for me. I’ll take the warmth of your bed instead, dearest.”

  I shrugged. “So come in and tell me good news. I need company.”

  “Remember this, my lass.” Hawisa pushed me back down to the bed and pulling a grubby comb from her purse, began to rearrange my ragged tangle of loose russet curls. “There’s not a woman, finding herself pregnant without a husband, will not take the best and most likely man on offer to bed quick, and then claim he’s the poor little bastard’s father. And a lord into the bargain. What better manner to ensure a little help with coin and courage, and to stop the local slander? And there’s no doubt in the world that’s what your poor mother did. Them oh so proper village folk will turn their heads away from an unwed lass with child. But you’ll not throw that same trollop from your house if it’s the local lord’s acknowledged bastard she’s got tucked inside her. Common sense, my pet. You can rely on it. You’re no more that nasty fat lord’s daughter than you’re mine.”

  With no proof and very few ideas, it was at least sweet to imagine the best, and I laughed. “Yes, he was nasty. And he was fat too. So perhaps he wasn’t my real father after all. I look nothing like him.” But I paused. Finally I said, “nor does Jak.” The picture burst back in waves of sorrow and mixed delight; Jak’s face, his beauty, the golden smile in his deep brown eyes. “So,” I sat up, stared straight ahead, and squared my shoulders, “Let’s organise what to do about that vile pig Bryte.”

  “That’s the way, my girl.” Hawisa grinned and put away the comb. “They’ll all help. Me. Mags.” And she looked at the other women who now sat curled on the crumpled bed cover. “And Sossanna. And Edda. Won’t you, girls?”

  “It’ll be blood and gore.”

  Edda wrapped the ends of her Blanchard across her breasts and breathed deep. “Good. Bloodier the better. The bastard raped you, didn’t he?”

  “Oh, much more than that,” I sighed, lying back, eyes to the ceiling beams where I could see a little red beetle chasing a small yellow moth. “He ruined my life in every way he could and murdered little Feep.”

  “Then kill the pig,” Sossanna said.

  Hawisa shook her head. “The bugger’s a Fixer. Has friends. Revenge might be sweet, but not if it’s some bastard trying it out on us in return. And in my profession, it’s not the law I want to come calling neither.”

  “No. Not death.” I smiled, and for once my thoughts raced clear and coherent. “He didn’t kill me, though he nearly did and could have, easy enough. But I was left wishing I was dead after he set out to ruin my life. So now I’m going to ruin his.”

  “Tell us, tell us,” squeaked Edda, cuddling closer.

  “Have the bugger sorry he’s not dead? Sounds good to me. How do we do that, then?”

  “It’s careful organising we need first.”

  “Then call Mags too,” I said in a rush. “And don’t forget to bring up some cake and wine. This will be a night of planning, laughter and deliciously degenerate drunkenness.”

  A couple of the girls were called off to work during the evening, but were back, a little flustered and creased, after fifteen minutes or so. We all clustered around in my bedchamber, drank too much, sat on the floor on the thick rugs, cuddled each other, laughed
at each other, flopped onto our backs giggling, and generally developed from sober idiots to pissed idiots. Sossanna shook her head, and Edda was still giggling when Mags said, “One fuck more or less makes no difference. And I’ve been pretending all my life. This’ll be fun. I don’t know the bastard, but I hate him already.”

  “So what I’m asking you to do isn’t improper?”

  “No it ain’t,” Edda objected. “It’ll be justice.”

  “And don’t worry, my girls,” Hawisa said, glowering at the fluster of women. “If he tries to hurt any of you, I’ll kill the vile bugger at once.”

  “We might get hurt a bit. So what?” Sossanna shrugged. “Hurting a lot matters. But hurting a little doesn’t. Plenty of men like to hurt us. We put up with it. Otherwise, they’d just be off shagging their wives and we’d be out of business.”

  I interrupted. “You all know my story and how he almost killed me and killed Feep. When Sal bought me from the filthy bastard in the first place, Hawisa cleaned me up. She knows I was close to death. Now at last, I know where he lives. I’m ready. I always pay my debts. Both kinds.”

  Intermittent showers and the sudden bluster of spring storms had then slipped with a smile into the short season of Mandell. Now Mandell calmed into approaching summer, sunshine’s shimmer and a flurry of flowers with wild roses along the riverbanks and all the lemon-soft ducklings now grown fat and sleek and proud. Time passed, testing patience, but the man we waited for was rarely at home, nor always easy to follow, and spent half his life in the crowded marketplaces where the gangs often met, and where they did business, but I could not. Approaching anyone amongst the crowds would have been highly suspicious and in no manner private. Of course, neither were we women ourselves always free to leave our stewe to find him. Then the last season’s mighty winds blew in from the east. The city wives, nervous for their skirts and headdresses, stayed indoors. The awnings on the stalls flapped like little sails, and all the guild’s arms creaked and swung. Apples rolled from their counters, and little boys scrambled to catch them, free fruit and who cares if bruised or dropped in muck. Fair enough to wipe the skins on your smock and bite quick before another hungry urchin grabs.

  Bryte left his lodgings and began to stroll down the street. He was unarmed, this being a casual morning, one hand to his fashionable new turban which wobbled like a red-tailed piglet draped around his head, and his eyes firmly and nervously on the mounting clouds above. It might bluster, it might very probably rain, which could mark his velvet doublet, the gold tissue slashings, the pale beige leather of his shoes, and further ruin the marten trimmings on his cote. His clothes were grander than when I had known him. His dubious trade had perhaps grown increasingly successful, but there was another possibility which made me want to scream and run at him, claws outstretched like a lacine. Because the probability was, that the money he had stolen from me had bought those clothes.

  Already much practised and now well staged, our small group of women moved into place. Sossanna stepped quickly from the adjacent doorway and stretched out one dainty blue leather shoe. Concerned for the weather, Bryte had been watching rooftops rather than gutters. Chimneys were apt to tremble and even topple when a gale swept up the Corn from the sea beyond. With Sossanna’s foot between his scurrying legs, the man I loathed immediately tumbled, feet scrabbling on the slippery cobbles, arms flailing, knees inches from the slimed gutter, before finally recovering his balance and staggering upright. He was furious.

  As Sossanna stumbled, she kicked up her skirts. One bare knee revealed, and one neat little ankle in a fine black woollen stocking tied with a blue satin garter, even a tantalising glimpse of naked thigh, and all pointing directly at him. She had carefully torn her neckline already and now unhooked the collar, looking suitably dishevelled with one breast naked to the nipple and the other bulging its soft mountain of white skin. “Oh, my lord,” she gasped, “the fault was mine, and I’m mighty sorry. Are you hurt?”

  Her little headdress was lopsided, and some bewitching curls were sneaking down her neck. Should Bryte dare resist such temptation, Maggs was preparing an entrance, but Edda was already rushing from behind. “Oh, my lord,” breathed Edda with suitable distress, “I saw it all. Was my friend at fault? But the wind, sir, this shocking weather, it blows us all ways, and catches in our skirts.” She paused, lifting her hems just a little too high. “Look,” she said, somewhat unnecessarily, “it makes walking quite an improper business, sir. We females can bare keep our modesty.”

  Bryte gulped and held out one hand. “My dear young – ladies,” he said in a hurry, “I’m afraid it is you who might be hurt. May I offer assistance? You appear to have – that is – become undone.”

  Edda giggled. “Oh, we ain’t no ladies, my lord.” Being already perfectly obvious from their speech, clothes and manner.

  But Bryte simpered in return. “And I am no lord, mistress. But – that is – perhaps, we should indeed become better acquainted.”

  Sossanna looked down at her own bosom, blushed prettily, and began to tuck herself back into place. “My dress seems shockingly torn,” she wailed. “I just knew I shouldn’t come out walking without me lady-in-waiting.”

  Bryte managed not to laugh and bowed instead. “I sympathise, mistress. Unchaperoned, and then accosted by a stranger. I humbly apologise for my carelessness. May I perhaps offer you the privacy of my lodgings, which happen to be immediately adjacent, to tidy yourself up? I shall, of course, stand guard.” He sniggered. “Unless, perhaps, you need any assistance.”

  Sossanna brightened, with a dimpled smile. “Oh thanks, sir. However so kind.”

  And Edda murmured, “Then perhaps a small cup of wine, sir, to calm our nerves and bring a little warmth on this nasty cold day?”

  “Oh, indeed, mistress. Most assuredly.” And he turned quickly back to his own shadowed doorway, opened the door wide and ushered his two unexpected guests inside.

  Around the building’s corner bricks, I stood waiting with Maggs and Hawisa. “How long?” Hawisa demanded.

  Maggs said, “One – maybe two cups of wine. A bit of hitching up stockings and so forth. A little chat. And then the play starts.”

  “And just how long is that all going to take?”

  “I think,” I had already decided, “we wait for a count of ten times ten. That’s enough for Sossanna to have half his clothes off, I’d think.”

  “I can’t count to that much,” objected Hawisa. “What comes after ten?”

  “I’ll count,” I said, and I did, we were quickly impatient.

  “Oh, he’ll surely have his clothes off by now,” Hawisa mumbled, “and if he hasn’t, then we’ll have to finish it off for him. Come on – and see where they’re up to.”

  The door was unlocked.

  It had begun to drizzle, striking the downstairs windows like a patter of mice paws while the wind rattled and whistled and blew the smattering of raindrops into tiny maelstroms. All other sound was concealed beneath the weather’s intrusion. No scampering footsteps up the stairs echoed into the chamber above, and we knew we hadn’t been heard. Within the narrow house and its dull flaking plaster, no candlelight illuminated activity, but enough puffing and grinding led us directly to the place of activity. From above, Sossanna obligingly called out twice. “Oh yes, yes, my lord. How huge. How hot.”

  The small front room on the first floor was cheerfully vibrating with the thump and grate and all the familiar noises. Now I lived my life with such familiar sounds and could recognise exactly at what stage the activity had reached. Edda’s feigned pleasure shook the house with a shudder of timbers like a ship in a storm and Sossanna cried, “Oh, sir. What joy.”

  “Now,” said Hawisa and thrust open the door. Sossanna had Bryte on the floor, a woollen blanket thrown quickly down on the boards. Both girls were on top of him, bouncing obediently, and meanwhile keeping him a willing prisoner. Seeing the others arrive, Sossanna immediately unspeared herself, grabbing his ankles. Edda remai
ned sitting heavily on his chest.

  Bryte heard Hawisa and immediately realised that he was trapped. Expecting theft, he tried to twist free, straining to discover who had entered.

  I walked over, standing where I knew he could look up and see me, recognising not just his one-time friend, but the probable consequences of my visit. No idiot could suppose I had come with sweet intentions. I looked down at his frantically darting eyes, and said, “How nice to see you again, Master Bryte. I do hope you’re as delighted as I am.” He had exploded into a suffocating crimson.

  Hawisa promptly knelt and caught up both his arms above his head against her billowing waist. She could have pulled them out from their shoulder sockets, but she was content to hold him still. Then Maggs stuffed the moth-eaten woollen shift she had brought into his mouth, tying it tightly at the back of his neck. His colour deepened from crimson to cinnabar to puce. He could barely wriggle and could hardly breathe.

  Bryte had not bothered to remove all his clothes, nor even his stockings, which were now creased around his ankles. His brais and codpiece were strewn across the floor however, in the excitement of passion, I presumed. Now between us, we set about unlacing the belt he still wore as he squeaked, heavily muffled, and panting for breath. “The little turd’s already undone,” Sossanna pointed at the codpiece lying on the rug. “Ain’t that enough to grab him by?”

  “I want a clearer view, and nothing in my way,” I said. “And aren’t there any candles you can light?”

  Maggs began to rummage. “Not too much noise, now,” warned Hawisa.

  Hawisa pulled the stockings from his ankles. The man’s legs, grubby white with the knees sharp boned and the calves blue-veined and hairy, began to kick. Sossanna sat back down on his feet and looked with dislike at the shrunken flesh now fully exposed, simply a lost white worm in its thatch. Sossanna wrinkled her nose. “Smells of dung and looks like a dead maggot.”