“Not so opportune,” Kallivan sneered, “since now I am leaving.” He snatched up his hat, gloves and cape from the long sideboard beside the door to the corridor and outside, bowed and wished the dowager Valeria goodbye, and then turned back to Jak. “Out of my way, my lord, or I shall immediately use my knife.” He stepped to the outer doorway, flung open the door, and marched out.
The narrow stairway lay in thick shadow. The steps creaked as Kallivan hurried downwards. Immediately behind him, Jak took the first two steps. His sword was already unsheathed. “Do you suppose,” Jak continued, “that I might entirely ignore your attempts to have me killed?”
“Really, Lydiard?” said the other man, glaring up through the gloom. “I, on the other hand, never think of you at all. Now, if you wouldn’t mind and stop following – ,”
Stepping past with one foot and the steel blade, Jak had blocked the third step. “Oh, but I would mind,” smiled Jak. “I think I’d mind quite noticeably. Instead, I believe you should turn around and head back to my stepmother’s waiting bosom. Then we can all have a civilised discussion. I’m sure she’d be enchanted at the prospect of entertaining you for a little longer.” He grinned. “There is an alternative, of course, though not a comfortable one, I believe.”
With two more steps, Jak stood waiting on the small wooden landing where the steps twisted towards the ground level. As Kallivan hovered, unsure whether to follow down, or return upstairs, he realised that Jak’s sword point was resting directly on his codpiece. Now most carefully, Kallivan kept his hand away from his own belt and the knife hilt tucked there. “Since you seem intent on threat of violence,” said Sir Kallivan, scrabbling to turn around in the small space available to him and wary of the steel now touching the vulnerable joint of his britches, “you leave me little choice. But I must warn you, sir, that my protectors –”
“Kings, priests and councillors, no doubt, all eager to save your wretched life?” Jak laughed. “But I’ve not the slightest belief in any sane man who would accord you protection. And nor do I give a damn, sir. I’m also quite ready to prove it if you aggravate me today. I’m not in a merciful frame of mind.” As the other man had turned, now attempting dignity while blundering upwards step by step, Jak had transferred his sword point to the lower curve of Kallivan’s back where the pinched verdant coat hung in squirrel trim, hiding the lacings of his stockings.
Kallivan’s buttocks felt the steel and twitched. He climbed the remaining steps and bumped into the dowager who had heard voices and come out onto the upper landing. “Dear heavens,” she said.
“Just your ardent lover and your dearly beloved step-son,” smiled Jak, gaining the last stair to her side. “I’m delighted to see you again, madam. Down on the landing, I felt the deep remorse of having left too quickly.”
“Then the pleasure is all yours, sir,” said the lady, standing stoutly in the doorway of her small front chamber. The corridor was already over-peopled. “You are uninvited, and frankly, I wish you’d go away.”
“The fool threatens me,” Kallivan twisted, his hand now moving to his belt. “You, madam, will call for the royal guard at the first signs of violence.”
“I make no secret of my intentions,” Jak said at once. “I dislike my step-mother and see her as little as is possible. I came here because of you, to discover from her where you might be, where you have taken your daughter to the devastation of her mother and gain some clear explanation of why you want me dead. You’ve endeavoured to have me slaughtered but I intend staying very much alive. I also desire your death, and will ensure it either today, or soon enough.” He grinned suddenly. “And try to use that knife, and I’ll be obliged to finish you now.”
The dowager stamped her foot, and the floorboards squeaked and shuddered. “You’re a brainless fool, Jak,” she informed her stepson. “And far too rash. But,” and she turned to Kallivan, “you’re no better. How can I run all the way from here to the palace to call the guard who don’t even know who I am. You want protection? Call for help yourself.”
Laughing again, Jak pushed the other two before him into the chamber beyond. “No doubt, madam,” he said, “but I now add extreme lack of patience to my list of sins. I’m tired of lies and subterfuge. It’s time to indulge in a little action.”
“I hardly believe you’d attack a woman, sir,” said the lady with a hearty intake of breath.
“Antagonise me further, and discover for yourself,” suggested Jak. He pulled the door hard shut behind him, kicked a stool into place directly in front, barring the way out, and sat immediately, crossing his arms and smiling. “Now,” he continued pleasantly. “Answers. Or action?”
The small apartment, first floor and cramped, enjoyed no grand views of the city and its small windows gazed only on shadows from the buildings opposite. It was a narrow street and the sky was a stripe of warm cloud between rooftops. A crow was pecking at some dead thing caught against a tottering chimney pot and now the first drops of rain had begun to fall. The crow turned, ruffling its feathers. Where the warmth had previously cradled Jak’s back, now he felt cold.
Lady Lydiard now occupied the window seat where Jak had sat before, clasping and unclasping her hands in her lap. There was no fire in the low hearth and the room was turning cold. Sir Kallivan stood before the empty grate and glared at Jak. He quickly unbuckled his belt and let the small knife fall on the floor at his feet. “There,” he said. “I am unarmed sir. Would you attack an unarmed man?”
“What a sadly timorous conspiracy you have here,” sighed Jak. “It seems you shudder at the sight of a blade, but are ready enough to smuggle away small children and, let us say, others. Though I daresay you have another knife still hidden on you somewhere.”
Kallivan held his hat before him and shook his head. The feathered fringe of pale hair lay flat across the high white brow. He frowned, saying, “I simply came here to speak with a lady who is, as you well know, sir, an old and treasured friend. I hardly expected such behaviour or aggravation, nor did I come prepared. I carry no sword as you can see. Please say whatever it is you wish, and quickly, as I have an appointment with his majesty and the king does not like to be kept waiting.”
Almost too bored to continue with a tedium that seemed to lead to no conclusion, Jak yawned. “So you aim for power? The council? High honours at court? But what will you gain from my death, and before that from my father’s? Since he already knew you to be his wife’s lover and made no complaint.”
Sir Kallivan managed a smile. “Ah, and so to the truth. Not worried about the fate of my little daughter after all, but simply about yourself. Let me tell you, my lord, that taking what I have heard of you, Eden would benefit from your death. You may have murdered your father yourself, since you are eager to tell his wife that she inherits nothing, and only you gain from his passing. I also understand you were ruthless in your rejection of Mistress Reyne, breaking her heart and that of her sister. It was I, sir, who stepped in to save the lady. Whilst you, on the other hand, search for a whore and visit brothels.” Oh yes indeed, I know the rumours, my Lord Lydiard, of when you searched for your long-lost mistress, and asked of everyone you met, where Freya was. But since I do not traffic with whores and trollops, I do not know your lost wench.”
There was a sudden pause of shocked silence, as Jak stared at Kallivan’s sneer. Finally Jak stretched his legs, and the cold flicker in his eyes turned black. “Yet you call her whore and trollop, even though you claim she’s a stranger to you. And you know sufficient of her to call her my mistress, which she is not, but was once my friend.” His sword remained unsheathed, and he twisted the point of his steel, turning it in the light from the window. “I did warn you concerning my impatience,” he sighed. “Sadly, it’s growing noticeably worse.”
“But I insist,” insisted Sir Kallivan, “this matter has nothing to do with me. Abduct my dearest daughter? Why sir, why would I? To conspire in your father’s death? And what did I gain? To attempt your own disappear
ance? What for?”
“I owe you a slow death for that damned sickening sea voyage alone. Blame others if you wish, but I know it was you who planned the assault, and who ordered my death. Now, do you want me to march you at sword point all the way through the city to the Bridge for corroboration from the one man who accompanied me to Giardon, and saw what you did?”
Kallivan appeared astounded. “Abduct you, sir? By no means. I heard you’d been smuggled out of the country, but that was not of my making, nor to my liking. Your step-mother was greatly concerned, and I believe others, including my wife, were puzzled and insulted by your sudden departure.”
The dowager interrupted. She sat rigid and furious, and hissed her words through her teeth. “You’re not welcome here, and if you do not leave, then I shall be forced to call for help. And remember this – ,” she clenched her hands, glaring at her step-son, “even if Sir Kallivan were acquainted with females of low type such as whores and sluts, then he would deal with them in the place of their work and would have no conceivable motive for taking one such female elsewhere. No doubt the hussy has met a foul end in the city’s gutters somewhere. Such creatures often meet violent deaths in London’s back streets. As for relating such a sordid matter in my hearing, Jak, you should be ashamed.”
“But,” he answered her mildly, “it wasn’t me who referred to her as a whore.” He was still smiling but the golden halo in his eyes had long blinked out. “Indeed, I have not once mentioned Freya since I came here today, and I had no idea that your lover might either know her or know of her. I visited the Bridge brothel for an entirely different reason, to speak there with men in fact, and am puzzled as to this sudden conversation not of my making.”
Lady Lydiard recognised the signs. “You’ll not intimidate me, and if you think to be rash enough – and stupid enough –,” She stood and hurried towards him, brushing the blade of his sword aside. “Of course, I know all about your silly infatuation with that gutter brat in the north. Godfrey told me you wanted to marry the trollop. What appalling shame, sir. I know of your childish desires, and I know the girl who inspired them.”
“And how, exactly,” Jak asked, remaining seated firmly before the closed door, regarding her with contempt, “do you claim to know that Freya now lives and works in a brothel, unless you have been doing the same yourself?”
With a heave and inhalation of breath, the dowager spat back, “I know the girl, and can guess exactly where she must be.”
“No doubt you know more of whores than I do, madam,” he smiled, “since the man you swive frequents the brothels often enough. But your crimes are far worse than simple adultery, since there’s poison, and murder, abduction and treason.” He stood so abruptly that neither expected it, and the dowager tumbled back, losing balance. Jak leaned across her and slapped the man sharply across the face with his clasped gloves. Leather reinforced, the blow was audible. Then, as Sir Kallivan flushed and reached immediately for his second dagger, its hilt now partially protruding from his coat’s opening, Jak drew the blade of his sword sharply and suddenly across the other man’s hand.
Kallivan yelped, and stepped back, clutching his wounded hand to his chest. The palm lay partly open, the flesh sliced like carved raw pork. It began bleeding profusely and the exposed muscle hung in pumping layers, fatty and bubbling. Jak wiped his blade clean on the fallen cushion where the dowager had been sitting. “Now,” said Jak amiably, “if you lie or prevaricate any further, I’ll sever your hand completely. What do you know of Freya?”
The dowager was very quietly crawling to the doorway. She managed to lever herself up and stood. But her frightened breathing betrayed her. Jak reached quickly behind him and caught the base of the wooden candlestick as it descended. He pushed his stepmother back into the nearest chair. “Sit still, madam,” he commanded, “and don’t tempt me to retaliate. I could do considerably more damage to you than you’re capable of doing to me.” He turned back to Kallivan who stood panting before him, staring in shock at the bloody mess of his maimed hand.
Lady Valeria was mewing like an injured peregrine falcon and gasping for breath. Sir Kallivan, losing all control, spat, “Fool. Do you think this sort of behaviour will make me tell you anything? Your bitch will serve me when I want her and until I’m tired of her. I know exactly where she is, so once I’ve finished with the slut, then I’ll leave her to starve to death. You’ll never find her.”
It had never been to discover Freya’s home, or lack of it, that he had come. Aware of Kallivan’s crimes, and also of the virtual impossibility of having him arrested and gaoled, Jak had been looking for him, not his lost love. Yet now he was discovering so much that he had never suspected, his priorities were spreading like flood waters over the plane. In fury he stepped forwards, swinging his blade, double handed, down with force on Kallivan’s injured wrist. “Freya is not the type of female to work the streets, nor to join a brothel,” he said, soft voiced and almost hissing. “But clearly you know something of her. And now you will tell me of Freya, of your daughter, of my father’s death, of your wish for my own death, and for every other foul crime you have committed.”
The blood pumped from Kallivan’s wrist, oozing down his arm to the ground where it collected across the woven rush matting and puddled around the amputated hand, fingers bloody and stiff, lying there.
Whimpering, Valeria stared first at the man standing there as though paralysed, his wrist an open mess of muscle, torn flesh and shattered bone. Then down at the hand, palm up, at her feet. It lay like a supplication, fingers stiffening, the thumb twisted inwards. “No, stop it now. What are you thinking? What shall I do?”
It seemed that every movement was sudden, each spontaneous, each unexpected, and each alarming. Jak barely moved his sword, but the blade twisted again, turning silver in the streaks of dust ridden light. He was a finger-tip taller than the pale man, now paler. Jak looked down as his blade first sliced across Kallivan’s other arm. But it barely pierced the velvet sleeve, for Kallivan slipped soundlessly to the carpet and lay unconscious with the bloody pools and the unattached hand lying beside his chin.
The flesh of his face appeared to unravel like the cords of his doublet, peeling back into dark red sponge. His mouth gaped and his eyes filled with bloody tears as they closed. One hand seemed to bend, ready to clasp the other hand lying unattached and stiff.
Jak turned and left abruptly as the dowager began to scream.
Chapter Seventeen
As the cart trundled from the dreary late Probyn of the north, the dull light edged further from its boundary of cloud. They trotted into a glisten of sunshine streaking over the distant sand-dunes and knew they had travelled from civilisation and all its horrors, into simplicity, and all its peaceful warmth.
The villages had spread into urban sprawl along the banks of the southern Corn. Hawisa and Freya both knew Bog Dock, the only part of the south they could recognise, but they did not travel that far east, and avoided both villages and the view over the river to the city. At first the change was slow. They had crossed the Corn not on the city Bridge where Hawisa and Freya had lived, but way upstream where, soon after the narrow cascade of its birth, the water could be crossed by foot, and the sumpter horse, head down, stopped only to drink, and then the cart wheels rolled through, a splash of spray washing off the last of the mud from the ribbed spokes.
Freya realised that she had been kept all this time at a small deserted farm where long before the farmer had grown wheat and milled it to sell flour. But too small and too isolated for profit, he surely had abandoned the place, leaving the mill, the cottage, the land and the stream as Freya had seen it. It was the Garway Stream, which had birthed in the Lydiard hills close to the Cornucopia, a source she knew although she could not recognise it once it flowed into the middle plains of Eden, where there were no buzzing markets, no towns and not even a village, a church or a train station. It was a good place to hide crime, abduction and cruelty.
Now they app
roached the heat of the south, travelling far west of the massive gorge where even the Corn diminished as it rode the rocks and hid in the caves. Pod slowed the pace, pulling back a little on the reins, approaching the blast of the heat to come with caution, especially for his sumpter and his passengers, who could never have experienced it. But first they stopped overnight at an inn where they ate well and slept well, Hawisa and Freya cuddled together, and Pod on the truckle bed. Hawisa snored. No one cared. They dreamed of miracles to come, and slept well. They also breakfasted well, and it was late the next morning when they stretched their stiffened joints and once again clambered up onto the cart’s bench. The horse shook its mane and clomped to the dust haze of the true southern plains.
Freya had left the north in bliss for her freedom but shivering still beneath her cloak. Now she threw off the furred lining and the voluptuous material and breathed deeply. The sun began to sting her eyes, and she felt a hundred times more alive than before. Pod was singing very softly. The birds sing of sun beams, but I sing of love. There’s the magic of sweet dreams, but I search for ----- he was searching for the next word, making it up as he gazed out at the sands.
“Dove,” suggested Freya.
“Gloves,” said Hawisa. “Tis true. I’m always searching for my damned gloves.”
“You won’t need any here,” Pod smiled. “As we get further into the sand country, you’ll never see another winter. It rains twice a year. The winds shift the hills, so you sleep in a valley and wake on the hilltop. A storm means sand in your face and a wind howling as it carries clouds of tumbleweed onto your roof. But you can throw your gloves away.”
“I can’t,” muttered Hawisa. “Lost ‘em months ago.”
Avoiding the rumble and screech of the train lines, they swept deeper into desert country, and gazed all around at golden land beneath a vivid blue sky.
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