McCann, Maria - As Meat Loves Salt

by Balefanio

  'You know that won't wear.'

  'How will we sell them?' Caro screamed. Some small creature skit­tered through the bushes at her back, and she collapsed again into silence.

  Zeb's voice suddenly rang out, anguished. 'Jacob! Jacob!'

  Caro leapt upright. I plunged through the branches where Zeb was gone before, seeing nothing but scrub and trees, my wife stum­bling after me.

  'There are footpads in these woods,' Caro hissed.

  I shook my head. 'He's seen something.'

  We stood straining our ears.

  'Zeb?' I called.

  And then I saw him, not far off. My hands flew to my mouth as I took it all in. Zeb had climbed a tall tree as a lookout. Now he dangled from a branch by his arms, legs kicking free. Below him, on the grass, lay a freshly broken bough. A strip of torn bark drooped like a hang­nail from the trunk.

  Caro's eyes had followed mine. 'Elm,' she moaned. 'Hateth and waiteth.'

  I moved forwards, wondering if I could catch him. He had about fifteen feet to fall. A man dropping from that height might well break the bones of one beneath.

  'He's going!' Caro screamed. I saw Zeb's hands peel from the branch. There was not time to get beneath the elm. His legs strained upwards in a wild attempt to scissor them round the trunk, but it was much too thick for him. He fell fists clenched, with a howl which exploded in terror as he struck the ground.

  There was silence, broken by Caro's whining, 'O Lord, Lord, O Lord, O.'We clambered over logs and leaves. He was stretched on his back, face white and eyes closed. She wet her finger and held it to his nose and mouth. 'I can't feel anything! Jacob, there's no breath, he's not — he's — Jacob—'

  'Calm yourself.' I felt under Zeb's coat and shirt, pressing my palm

  flat to the skin. Strangled sobs came from Caro. My brother could not be dead. He was warm. Only that morning, looking on his nakedness, I had remarked how strong he was grown.

  'He lives, be at rest,' I said, feeling Zeb's heart leap under my hand.

  'Let me.' She pushed my fingers aside, pressed her own to him and at once sighed. I saw her shoulders loosen and her head drop forward as if praying. Then she stiffened again.

  'He's not right here.'

  Here was his waist. I unfastened his coat properly, from top to bot­tom, and pulled up his shirt. Zeb groaned without coming back to us. I saw now that his flesh was darkened and puffed up round the lowest rib, and he was not lying straight.

  "There's something broken,' Caro wailed. 'O, look there!'

  I did look and saw that he had landed across a branch lying in the grass. I covered him up again, thinking that we were in the very worst plight for tending him — no surgeon, not even a blanket. He groaned again and opened his eyes.

  'Zebedee!'Caro kneaded his hand. 'Do you know us?'

  He muttered, 'Too well.' But even this feeble joke lost all relish when he tried to sit up and fell back crying.

  'Move your foot,' Caro implored him.

  His right foot flexed.

  'Your back's not broken,' she whispered, but he had swooned from the pain.

  'We have to go on,'I told her. 'Here we are like to be surprised.'

  'He can't.'

  'Do you want him hanged?' I urged.

  Caro wrung her hands. 'Will you carry him?'

  'We'll put him on horseback.'

  We tortured him into the saddle. I walked on one side of him and Caro, trembling, rode on the other horse, at every minute afraid that her animal might bolt. Strung out like this we had great trouble in passing along the narrower paths, and our progress was slow indeed. I was close to tears, having not the slightest idea where we were headed

  or how we would do now that Zeb was hurt. We walked seemingly for hours, and many were the groans Caro and I heard before we at last stopped near a stream: Zeb had twice been sick, and had once fainted onto my shoulders. I stood ready to catch him as he dismounted. He gasped - 'Ah!' - but was able to walk almost to the water, sinking down just before he reached it. Caro knelt by his side, stroking his cheek and pushing his hair out of his eyes.

  'Don't put me back on the horse,' Zeb begged.

  'No, no,' she murmured.

  I said, 'Tomorrow we will get you a surgeon.'

  'I'm thirsty.'

  Caro cupped her hands in the stream and I supported him so that he could drink. Most of the water dropped onto his chest and he shiv­ered. The wood was beginning to grow dark.

  I took Caro by the sleeve and led her away. 'Sit down,' I urged in a whisper. 'What think you? Is there more than a rib broken?'

  'What do I know!' Her voice came cold and dispirited. 'Why should there be?'

  'He faints. I didn't faint when mine was broken,' I reminded her.

  'O,you ...!' She got up and went back to Zeb, soothing him with soft pitying noises as one might a child.

  He lay staring at the branches above. I heard him say, 'Sister, I'll die.'

  'Pain talking,' I said, going over to him. 'You'll not die. Now act the man.'

  'I'm starting a fever.'Zeb reached for Caro's hand and pressed it to his forehead.

  'He's very hot.'Caro looked at me helplessly.

  'Broken bones do get hot.'

  'Feel, here,' Zeb pleaded with Caro. He indicated his chest.

  'Let me.' I fingered his shirt front. It was soaked with sweat.

  'I can cool him,' said Caro, loosening the collar. 'Put my handker­chief in the stream.'

  'No,' I said, laying my hand on hers as she began easing the shirt up over his chest. 'Best he sweat it out.'

  'I'm burning,' moaned Zeb.

  'He shouldn't be half naked like that. Cover him up.'I straightened Zeb's shirt and pulled his coat close over his breast. The wind, growing stronger, stirred the tops of the trees so that they hissed like a poker in ale. 'Come away and rest,' I told Caro.

  We lay down together a few yards from Zeb, barely able to see one another. I took my coat from her and arranged it over both of us. It was not much of a blanket, for cold air crept in on every side. Faintly from under the stench of horse and vomit came the scent of her po­maded hair.

  'How will you get him a surgeon?' whispered Caro.

  I pulled her on top of me. 'We have gold.'

  'But—' She checked herself. I felt her shake as she went on, 'We could go home with him. Take back the jewels, say you feared a false accusation — you were in drink. What is whipping, what is gaol, even, when Zeb may die?'

  'I can never go back, and nor can you. It means hanging.'

  'What, for a few pamphlets?' She twined her arms round me. 'Let me go to the Mistress. Let me beg mercy. Peter burnt all the papers -it is their word against ours—'

  'Take it from me, wife, we are tarred with the same stick.'

  'I can face it out!'

  There was no light left in the wood. I knew what I had to do, and it was like sliding down ice in pitch darkness. I had stood on the brink of this slide for so long now I was come to desire it, was dangling the first foot over the edge. Better push off boldly, I thought, than crouch there forever.

  'Caro,' I breathed into her neck. 'It isn't what you think.'

  One foot on the ice.

  'Patience fled for fear of me. She's out for blood, and Cornish too.'

  Both feet.

  Caro lifted her head. 'You? You and Patience?' Her voice was thick, stupid with baffled suspicion. 'The child! You — you—'

  'No!' I shouted, so hard that I hurt my throat. 'Don't you see it? Caro!'

  'Jacob, don't—'

  'Caro, it was I killed Christopher Walshe.'

  I had pushed off. The polished blackness of the slide dropped away to a place I could not see; I was falling out of life. Caro's breath heaved and choked. Her body lay against mine rigid as a plank.

  'I heard noises and went down in the night. Cornish and Patience were in the garden by the maze, only I did not know who they were, then. I was listening. The boy jumped me.'

  'Why would he!'


  'I had not time to ask him,' I retorted.

  Caro's breathing slowed a little. After a while she asked, 'And Pa­tience? Doing what?'

  'I told you, I did not see.'

  'You did not see,' she repeated as if she had been there. 'But you saw it was Patience.'

  'I saw a woman, and next day Patience was gone.'

  'Not true,' Caro kept saying. 'No.'

  But it was true, and not the worst of the truth neither.

  When first the boy leapt out to bar my way he took me unawares. I thought him a man, but then the moon coming out showed me the little fool standing about a yard off, waving his dagger. Though furious at his insolence, I laughed aloud. He was so easy; I had the knife off him and his arm twisted up his back before he could make one good pass with the blade.

  'Be quiet,' I said, 'and come along with me, or I'll slit your throat.' He came along like a lamb, and I marched him away from his friends, over to the large trees near the pond.

  Not daring to call out, Walshe fell to whining for pardon. 'O Jacob,' says he, 'you see it is only me, pray let me go,' and all the time he was looking out for his father, but I had taken care to get the trees between us and any help that might come to him. At last he fell silent, gaping at me much as he had gaped from the protection of my brother's arm.

  'What of dear Zeb?' I mocked. 'Not here, is he?'

  The moonlight showed me tears on Walshe's cheeks. He was pant­ing with fear, breast rising and falling beneath his white shirt. Show him, said the Voice, what becomes of a boy who insults a man.

  'Well, little warrior.' I pushed him up against the tree and pressed my left hand hard over his mouth, and just tickled his belly with the point of the knife before driving it in. He tried to push away my arm with both of his but could not, and his struggles were so feeble that the savage fit in me was still not worked off. I pulled the knife down and out, and feeling my fingers warm and wet from the blood, I said to him, 'Let us see what Jacob will do now.'

  Twisting his arm again to keep him in front of me, lest he bleed on my coat, I wrestled him over to the pond. On seeing where we were headed he turned his face to look up into my eyes, and I tightened my grip on his mouth, and smiled and nodded. By the time we got there he was very weak, and too confused to call out when he got his chance. I held him by the legs into the deep water at the side of the runway. There was not even much splashing.

  'It was dark,' I pleaded to Caro. 'Else I should never— I took him for a robber—'

  My wife clamped her hands to her ears.

  'Caro, hear me.'I reached up and prised the hands away.

  'You put him in the pond! O you should have brought him back -fetched a surgeon—'

  'Too late, he was dead. I thought to hide the corpse. Besides, he was a Judas, they all of them meant us harm—'

  Caro cried, 'O what do I care what they meant!'

  'I am telling you how it was!'

  'You killed him. And here have I been—' She began weeping again, a breathless, driven sob. 'Here have I been — wondering — if I drove Patience away. We had words that day.'

  'Do you hear me? Patience—'

  'Patience saw it.' Caro's voice was become a lash. 'And for that she left, and returned.'

  For once her quick understanding struck fear into me.

  'Who knows? Possibly she heard.'I tried to keep my voice calm.

  'All this because he spoke against you!'

  'Not for that, not at all,' I said. 'You don't listen.' I tried to put my arm around her but she rolled off me and lay by my side. 'Caro, I was set on in the dark, Walshe set on me—'

  There was a scuffling in the leaves and Caro spoke from some­where above my head. 'I am going back to Beaurepair.'

  'Don't you understand?' I was exasperated: there she stood as if nothing had happened. 'You cannot go back.'

  'I shall try whether I can or no.'

  'You read the pamphlets and stole the gold with the rest of us,' I answered. 'As for Walshe, I did it for you. He would have—'

  'Did it for me!' Caro screamed. There was a sharp pain in my side: she had kicked out, and not in jest. 'When you didn't know what he was! How, for me?'

  My side throbbed. ‘Another kick,' I promised, 'and you'll wish you hadn't.'

  'Don't ever say you did it for—'

  'Enough! The thing is done. You stay here,' and I sprang up.

  Caro leapt back, panting. 'You let me contract myself to you.'

  'You cannot go back,' I hissed. 'Do you want us to be taken?'

  'You were keeping ahold of me until the betrothal. I don't know you, O God, God help me.'

  'O but you do know me, Mistress.' I stepped forward to where her voice had been, but found she had moved further off. I heard her pushing through branches. Then a frenzied whisper: 'Zeb, Zeb! Zeb, wake, please, O God, Zeb—'

  I closed in on her voice as it floated upwards from where she crouched over my brother's body. There was a faint slapping sound which I took for her patting his face. Zeb groaned once or twice, and Caro shrieked, 'He's here! He's—'

  I was upon her before she had time for more. Pawing my brother like that, calling myself, her lawful husband, He ...! I dragged her up­right by the hair and forced her along with me, ignoring her wails, until we were some yards off, tussling all the way.

  'Lie down,' I said.

  'Jacob, let me—'

  Amorous propensities heated by struggle, whispered the Voice. Other men took their pleasure, even with sluts like Patience, whilst I, a lov­ing fool, had waited weeks, months for a wife who at the first trial offered to leave me. I grabbed her by the waist and pulled her down. The wedding gown was heavy and in the dark I knelt on it. My fin­gernails tore in trying to hitch it up. A squib exploded in my head: she had hit me in the eye. I brought my fist down on her face as if chopping wood. She commenced screeching, and I gave her another, and another, until she learnt better. At last all I could hear was stifled gasps.

  'Now keep still,' I said.

  Her thighs under the robe were damp and cool as mushrooms. My hand gouged between them, found the soft place where I would slake myself. I undid my breeches.

  'Jacob, please.' Her voice quavered; she coughed and snorted and I guessed her nose was bleeding. 'Zeb hears you.'

  Again I saw her hand move under his shirt. 'Let him.'

  'Please, Jacob, Jacob.' Caro's tears and spittle all but choked my name. 'How will you feel tomorrow?'

  'Married.'

  She whimpered, mingling prayers and sobs as I pushed into her. She had still her maidenhead; I drove in hard until the flesh gave way and I was packed tight.

  'You're killing me!'Caro shrieked. 'Killing!'

  I pushed harder, for mastery.

  'Zeb!' she screamed.

  'Keep him away if you love him,' I snarled. 'I'm able for him, too.' Let him hear that. Let him hear all - let—

  The spasm was upon me and it was intense unto agony. I heard myself growl. Teeth clenched, I crushed my hips against her, the pleas­ure surging in me so that for a moment I was nothing but that, I was dying, and even as I let go the gasping of the flesh slowed, slackened and I knew where I was and who lay with me. Heart pounding, I col­lapsed onto her breast. Caro at once shifted under me so that my body slipped out of hers. She then tried to pull the gown over her thighs, but my weight prevented it.

  There was silence apart from our breathing.

  From the side of the stream came Zeb's voice, timid: 'Caro?'

  'Don't make me come over,' I threatened.

  'Caro!'There was a pause, then he commenced weeping. I made to rise and stop his noise.

  Caro at once called, 'Take courage,' and the crying grew quieter.

  'What should he want with courage?' I demanded. 'Have I hurt him?'

  She gave no answer. I knew then that Zeb, listening to our strug­gle, had feared Caro was killed outright.

  In time, pain in my knees obliged me to raise myself. My wife turned on her side and curle
d up like a child, her back to me. I lay stretched out, staring into the invisible trees. My coat was lost in the dark, and now that the animal heat was gone off the cold of the wood struck to my very bones.

  It was already coming to me what I had done, the ruin I had made. Rage and lust had sharpened in me to a madness. I had even wanted Zeb to hear this butchery of a wedding night, and now my cheeks burnt with shame. Whatever it was that Zeb did with his women, it was not this.

  'Caro?' When I touched her neck she shuddered. 'Wife, are you cold?'

  'If you will do it again, just do it,' came her voice, crackling with hatred.

  'You must be cold. Let me put my arms around.'

  Caro gave a terrible laugh. 'Here, take this.' She prodded at my hand with something hard. I felt for it with my fingers and found myself holding the wedding ring.

  'How can I take what's yours?' I fumbled for her own hand and pressed the ring back into it.

  'Very well,'she said and I felt her body jerk. Something landed in the leaves.

  'What was that?' I asked.

  'The ring gone. Thrown away. Now leave me.'

  I listened while she strained with sobs that went on and on like some beast mourning for its young. Tears slid out of my eyes, and my throat was contracted to an ache. It was not what I had meant. Not

  the boy, not fleeing the house, not this — connection — with Caro. Not what I had meant.

  When I laid my hand on her shoulder she only wept the more loudly. There was nothing to do but lie and wait for sleep. Zeb did not call again. I rolled away from her in my turn and lay facing in the opposite direction, listening to the wind-battered trees, thinking of the bridal bower I might have had, and had rent in pieces at that moment when I spitted Christopher Walshe. Caro should by rights be cradled in my arms and I in hers, each drunk on the other, or sleeping innocent as surfeited babes. Instead we lay back to back, the whole of the earth between us.

  At last I slipped into a dream of shifting trees and paths. Some­thing moved, and I woke in a terror, heart clanging; but all was still. I slept again, and Father came to me, saying that my life was in God's hand, and I saw the hand with a little flame of fire in it, and was afraid. When next I woke, it was dawn, mist sieving through the trees and a pearly grey just sweetening the sky. There was a great coldness all round my belly, and feeling down there I found myself still unbut­toned. I sat up. The grass next to me was pressed flat, but Caro, Zeb and the horses were gone.