“You’re sure it’s him?”
“He’s too recognisable to be mistaken.” Jak leaned forwards. “There’s another possibility. Frink spoke to Borg regarding bringing down the council. That was why Borg started bringing up the suggestion of killing him off. But then, thinking better of this plan and deciding that the king was too strong, instead Borg turned traitor and revealed the council plans to his father. The love of a son – and so forth. Frink promptly removed Borg from the council and has hidden him away with the lie of prison – in order to keep him safe when he burns down the entire council with everyone in it.”
“Get in, quick,” Logon said, pushing Jak towards the door back into the Hall. “Sit down, Hurry. We’re all here except Number One, and you need to tell that story.”
Some councillors lived there. Others came and went. There were servants, and a library of rare documents and recorded history; there was a wine store which, apart from the palace itself, was said to hold the greatest number of the best wines in existence; there were paintings and portraits, lavish kitchens and pantries, laundries, rest rooms with highly expensive fittings, and – of course – a store of hooded tumbleweed capes.
“We can get out and stay away,” said Number Two with a gulp. “I have never wished to be involved with cruelty and murder, but I knew the king had to go. But if he retaliates as you’ve said, Number Ten, then there will be the death of a hundred innocent servants and the destruction of much valuable beauty.”
Number Four thumped the table. Jak knew him, knew exactly who he was, and had liked the man on the several past moments of meeting him at the palace. “We switch the trick,” he said. “Someone who does not fear exposing himself as a council member must go to the king and announce a very different plan. I suggest we say we had all long since decided that the king must be invited to sit on the council, being much admired for his strength and wisdom. But Number One, whose identity we do not know, was furious at such an idea since the king’s advancement to the Council would of necessity mean sitting at the head, thus eliminating the existing Number One. He therefore continued to vote for the king’s murder. But now Number One is incarcerated safely for at least a year, we can speak out without fear. We can invite the king to sit at Number One. Of course, we say with a regretful sigh, since the king wishes to relay the older islands, some of our most comfortable hospitality must first be removed and the island will be impossible to use for some months. But eventually, with different costumes, the king should sit with us.”
“I like it,” said Number Three. “We can still sit without him, in this building or another, if we just don’t tell him about half the meetings.”
“I have no qualms about approaching his majesty,” Number Four said. “But there may be others who would be senior and therefore taken more seriously.”
“I shall,” said Number Three. “I know his majesty well, but I choose Number Ten to accompany me.”
Jak looked up. “You know me, sir?”
“Since your first visit here was openly unhooded,” nodded Number Three, “we all do, my lord, except for Number One himself. And as a lord of the realm, sir, you would be an excellent companion. Will you come?”
“I had arranged to travel north at dawn,” Jak said. Then he sat forwards. “If you plan on an early appointment, sir, then yes, I’ll gladly come with you to approach the king.”
Number Three sniffed. “I speak of the king, sir. You cannot set conditions. You may have little personal respect for authority, but authority holds power. We all respect power. .”
Jak was unconvinced but agreed. Once the discussion was finished, he and Logon wandered outside. “You know the king?” Logon asked.
“Very slightly. He’s no friend. I doubt he remembers my name. Yet the proposal is mild enough and it seems ungracious to refuse.”
“You know the real identity of Number Three?”
With a vague smile, Jak nodded. “I believe so. Do you, my friend?”
“No,” Logon said. “I have been absent for a considerable time, and know few residents of any importance in the city.” He chuckled to himself. “Tell me.”
“He’s Vassil,” Jak said softly, “the Eden-General, leader-in-chief of all military exercises, the royal guard, and the army, such as it is. If there is war, he would lead it. If there is invasion, he would lead the defence. He’s both the most trusted – and the most dangerous – man in the kingdom. And what is more, he’s the king’s personal choice and was brought to his position on the day following the coronation. Before that, he was head of the royal guard alone.”
“I admit to being impressed,” Logon nodded. “But will he admit to sitting high in this now loathed council?”
“I cannot imagine the king throwing this trusted general in gaol,” Jak said quietly. “But I could be in danger.”
“Now knowing who he is, I doubt it,” Logon told Jak. “I imagine he will claim to have discovered the truth, through you naturally, as you, my friend Jak, are the one on the Council, and not him.”
“Not the sweetest plan from my point of stance,” Jak smiled. “Do I run now? Or later?”
“Later,” Logon told him. “Run first, and you’ll look too damn guilty, for Number Three will still tell the same tale. And he’ll name you as the guiltiest man on the Council.”
“I can hardly wait until the appointment tomorrow,” Jak told him, smiling.
He left the Council Island with an immediate wherry and returned to the camp on the outskirts of the city. Men had already started packing up, and Jak strode into their midst and raised a hand. “We no longer leave at dawn,” he said. “We leave roughly two to three hours later, but still within the morning. It is possible that we will then leave – at around nine of the clock – in complacent contentment, happy to march home. But it is also somewhat possible,” Jak shook his head, tired, “that I shall arrive here in an unexpected hurry, demanding that we leave without any delay, and take the first few miles at a trot.” Finally, shrugging, he said, “The last possibility is somewhat more ominous. I may not come at all, but I will manage to send a messenger. This means I am in need of – let us call it – rescue. Violent rescue from a violent situation. And I shall hope for my men to arrive armed and ready. But the messenger, if one is needed, will explain every necessity.”
Chapter Twenty-Nine
Denying impatience, Pod sighed and said, “You need to cheer up, my love. There’s only us. Us and that blistering sun. It’s getting better, you must see that.”
“I don’t want to be happy,” she whispered. “I’d feel guilty. I cry for Hawisa. She was so kind. I cry for Feep. Oh, Feep was my special love. My son. I still cry for my mother, and her death was so cruel. What sort of horrible fear there is in the world – a good woman forced to sit and face a crowd of glaring, screeching people holding big rocks and jagged stones, and all these come hurling into your face and your head and your body. You die slowly. What a foul and cruel thing. Who thought of killing in such a brutal way.”
“Your mother that way?” Pod hadn’t known.
Freya nodded. “I was only fourteen. I ran away and came to the city.”
“I’m so sorry. How horrible for you, my love. And how dreadful for – but it’s long past. If there’s life after death as the churches say, then she’s happy now. And if there’s nothing after death, the way others say, then – well – nothing is nothing.”
“I know she’s alive,” Freya said, clutching Pod’s hand, fingers entwined, “because I feel her. She spoke to me once, long ago, just after it all happened.”
“Then I hope they’re all happy. We have to be happy too,” and he put an arm around her neck and drew her head down against his shoulder.
She did not mention missing Jak. Even caught in the misery of withdrawal from the poppy, she knew it would be cruel to tell her sweet protector that she still loved the man of her dreams. And, after all, that was all it was now. Dreams.
At first she had only dreamed of the p
oppy and had begged Pod for it. He had almost laughed. “You think I have it hidden in my pocket? More packets of powder, or the cake, nicely crumbled. Even the tincture hidden in my guitar, or perhaps a handful of the poppy seeds themselves?”
Thinking he was laughing at her while she felt a grinding pain so dreadful her head was cracking into pieces, made her angry. But her thoughts were ingrained with poppy fields and she could think of nothing else. “The market?”
“Have you forgotten how many days we walked to arrive here? And that market’s now gone. I suppose another will have built up by now, but the time I’d take to get there, buy the poison you want, and then return – well, I don’t know. We’d probably both be dead before that.”
For a moment she thought he’d threatened to kill her. But then, holding her close, he sang to her and she knew it was love he threatened, not death.
Freya sank back against the pillow of his shoulder. “I wanted to stop. So many times I wanted to stop but I never had the courage. Already it frightens me. I can think of little else, and it hurts. Cramps and stabbing pains, and I can’t think. My mind wanders off as if I’m utterly mad. Does this drug make you mad?”
“It’s the opium can make you mad, after many years,” Pod murmured to the top of her head. “It ruins lives, and disguises both truth and happiness. So tell me, little one, what you want. I shall try and get you anything you need except the poppy, and I’ll do anything you ask except leave you.”
“What I need is willow bark,” she said, “to help lessen the pain. But you can’t get that either. There’s no great willow trees around here, and I don’t want you to go away. I can’t be alone.” She clutched his hand more tightly, and for a moment she knew she hurt him. “When wanting the poppy becomes urgent, you’ll hate me Pod. And I’ll think you’re a demon. Or a ghost. But Rudd was the demon. Truly a demon. And you killed him for me, and that was the greatest magic of all.”
“Listen, my love,” Pod sat forwards and turned to face Freya, resting her back against the one pillow and the folded blankets beneath. “I won’t make plans without you, and you won’t be able to decide anything much over the next ten-day. But you’re going to know real happiness. Real freedom. We’ll be married, just here ourselves under the sun, a handfasting with any promise you want me to make. Then we’ll go somewhere. You won’t be a slave to that poison, so we can stay here alone, or travel off to some other town or village. I can earn money singing and playing with a minstrel group, or start a market stall, since I can build lutes if I get the right wood. Or we go north. To the city. To Lydiard. To anywhere you like. We’re free. We can go by train, since at least we’ve still got a little money, a purse full, even if we haven’t got much else.”
“It sounds wonderful,” Freya told him, then turned away. “But by tomorrow, I’ll be angry and confused, and stupid and wracked with cramps. You shouldn’t come near me. I shall be horrid and rude. I’ll beg for the poppy and I’ll hate you when you tell me no.”
His fingers smoothed across her palm. She had found his hands strong and comforting, understanding the meaning of the ridged fingertips and the warmth of the palms. But taking her hand in his, Pod knew the meaning of the blisters, the scars down both palms and fingers, the callouses, the coarse overlay across the skin, the skinless knuckles and the welts on the thumbs. He knew working on the Bridge had been, however much hated, a life of slavery in luxury. But the slavery at the mill had been very different.
“Already you forget what I tell you, my dearest, and ask the same again within the same hour,” said Pod over her head to the vast horizon, empty of any hint for the future. “But all the pain will pass. And once the pain is gone, you will be safe, and happy, and adored. That I swear.”
A sea breeze calmed the overwhelming heat, bringing whispers of other places from far away. Freya said, “The juice comes from Shamm. Perhaps they need it there.”
“I’ve heard they grow fields and fields of poppies. They’re pretty too. I wonder who first discovered what you can do with the seeds.”
“They say it’s a country of madmen. Cruelty to wives and daughters.” It helped her to think of other things while the sweat drained through her, and the cramps increased.
“Eden says everything horrible about Shamm, because they used to be the enemy. They invaded Eden and I suppose it was hell for years. But I’ve never been there so I don’t know the truth. And I’ve never taken poppy juice and I’ve never suffered poppy denial.” Pod spoke slowly, as though he doubted she’d understand. “So I can’t be sure. But when I knew you were addicted to it, I studied what they said about stopping. I know it’s bloody beastly pain. But I also know it stops. First it gets worse. Then slowly it gets better. And then it’s gone forever.”
Already the fever burned inside and out, and the cramps bit and twisted. Pain spun from belly to head. As the tide swept in from the ocean each day, flooding the sands, the pain lapped at her endlessly but came also in huge waves crashing over her head, receding only slowly, leaving a muddy swamp and the sad dying ruins of eddying ripples behind. That was exactly how she felt.
For three days she begged him to get what she wanted. With her knees to her belly, unable to stretch as the cramps pulled violently at each muscle, she could not even remember what she wanted except for the relief of it.
“Get it.” She shouted at him, but he had expected that. “I’m dying, Pod. The pain is too real. Too deep. I’m made of pain. You have to get it.” He made a small fire and heated the last of the wine, bringing the cup to her, with steam and bubble and the scent like a drug itself. After that, as he built up the shade around her, she slept. But when she woke, she begged again. “I don’t care if you have to walk for miles. I can wait, knowing it’s coming. But you have to promise you’ll get it.”
Pod found it easier not to answer. But he held her, combed her hair gently, told her stories, and sang to her. “When you want to think of other things,” he whispered to her, “think of this. The poison was a trick. It hurt you. It never brought you happiness. It simply blocked your craving, because it blanked your mind. Now the real Freya, from beneath all the trickery that enslaved you, is being reborn. Birth is always painful, both for the mother and for the baby. And in a way, you’re both. You cry as both. But soon you’ll open those glistening green eyes, as a newborn child would, and see the fresh bright world. And you’ll never be a slave again. Never shackled and never roped to habit.”
She was crying, but she could hear him and knew it was true. “Perhaps I’m too weak,” she wondered. “Too much of a coward.” Then, once again losing coherence, she muttered something about courage, and how did she know whether anything was false or real, and then fell, dizzy, confused, crying into the pillow.
Wiping her face, kissing her eyes, Pod said, “I’ve been a coward all my life and know the signs. Well, that was stupid. I was sick almost every day as a kid, truly sick, vomiting into the Corn before I had to crawl back indoors and face the men who wanted to use me for the thing that made me sick. And I didn’t dare run away. I dreamed of it but I couldn’t do it. I didn’t have parents, I didn’t have a home, I didn’t have coin and I didn’t even have friends except the ones that were molly boys like me.” He smiled, kissing the tip of her nose. “What I didn’t realise, was I had me. And when I recognised the me inside me, I left. I didn’t even need to run away. I just left and walked to a better life.”
“And you started looking for me?”
“I wondered about getting a job. I looked for a minstrel group to join, I played with one troupe for a year or more, and played with the Christmas mummers. They mimed while I sang.” Pod shook his head. “Then I heard how you’d been abducted. I – well, I wanted to help. People had helped me – I wanted to help you. But it took a long time and I’m so sorry about that. You must have suffered terribly while I was still searching. And the Bridge brothel, and everything before that – you’ve suffered more than I ever have.:
She was crying again. �
�I had friends. There was Hawisa too.”
“She was the one who got you the juice. She was the one who started you on it years ago.”
“But that was kindness too, because it stopped me knowing what was happening to me.”
“Now I’m being kind,” Pod said, leaning down to kiss her forehead, his eyes bright as he gazed into hers, wet and glazed in denial. “And I’m still not brave. But I’m kind because I love you.”
She remembered him being brave. Pictures rushed through her mind, dashing away into the waves, boats sailing in, and someone waiting on deck, waving to her. Then the spray tipped waves rolling back as Freya saw Pod killing Rudd and Thribb and wrapping her in freedom as he wrapped her in his cloak.
It was not the most comfortable throne. The back rose high, straight and hard, and although it was well padded in crimson velvet, this served to push the sitter forwards without the ability to lean back. The seat was large, indeed, wide enough for two cuddled together, but the velvet padding was only in the centre and felt more like a lump than a welcome. The arms were gold studded, glistening wood and very grand. Holding onto them, however, was not advisable. The king frequently found his fingers splintered.
Frink received the two grim faced lords with a certain satisfaction, however uncomfortable the throne he was expected to enjoy, and he knew in advance just what would be said. He recognised one of the men and not the other. So he smiled first at Lord Jak Lydiard.
The Chief Steward of the Castle introduced both men, and quickly departed the throne room. Frink said, “Ah, a lord of the north. Pretty cold up there, they say. But I’ve not seen you at court.”
Jak stayed standing. He had bowed, but then straightened. “Your majesty, you are correct as always. Lydiard is the coldest of all the Eden counties, but that matters very little to me. I do not live within the court, although I did so for many years. I now have lodgings in the Upper City, but frequently travel home to my people.” He bowed again, his hands loose at his sides.
The Mill Page 31
