by Balefanio
I peered upwards into his face as I had never seen it before. The eyes looked bruised and were fixed on me as if on some poisonous serpent. His lips curled back from his teeth and I felt the thing in my neck push deeper into the flesh.
'Understand this,' he said. 'If you ever — do that — again, best kill me. For if you don't I will surely kill you.'
'You, kill?' I meant it as an appeal to his gentle nature, but in my shock the words came out coloured with contempt.
'I could do it now,' and he jerked the blade, making me wince. 'Give thanks to God that you are in my aunt's house and not in the wood.'
I thought, He has considered it.
'You could never overpower me in the wood,' I said.
'There are ways.'
I lay back and felt an ache, wages of my drunkenness, grip my skull. The probing of the knife in my skin was intolerable. 'Ferris, stop that! There's no call for it—'
'I am learning what it is to force someone.’ A fine spray of his spit dampened my cheeks and jaw.
'I did not force you! My heart, I couldn't—'
'You were incapable, else you'd have fucked me till I split in half
I remembered the final wrench at his arm, when his very bones had cried out, and I felt sick. 'I was a drunken beast,' I muttered. 'If you knew how sorry—'
'O, but I know. Aren't you always sorry! First Nathan, then Rowly, and myself with a head full of glass. Each time I told myself would be the last.'
'It will be the last,' I pleaded.
"The last time you lie with me. Drunk or sober.'
I stared at him. 'Not lie with you?'
'You're possessed of a devil, your greatest joy is to hear me cry out.' Still he held the blade to my neck. 'You and George Byars are a pair. He's a great one for arm-twisting.'
'You told me there were no devils.' I tried to lift my hand and promptly received an excruciating jab from his knife.
'And I hold to what I said. A man's own evil is his devil and yours, Jacob, is mastery.'
I remembered the talk about devils, after our first night, when he was so enamoured he could scarce keep his hands off me. He had not been afraid of my strength then.
'So I am not to lie with you?' I sneered. 'We have danced this dance before, and it ended in you clawing my breeches.'
'Did you hear what I told you or is it all to say again?' His voice was icy. I began to feel afraid, not for my neck but for the many days that lay ahead of us. More humbly I asked, ‘Are you very much hurt?'
'Your prowess is as great as ever.'
'Ferris, believe me—'
'You must leave the colony.'
At that I struggled to breathe and for a moment I thought his weight on my chest would suffocate me. 'Wait, Ferris. Wait.' The words jerked out from my throat. 'By tonight you will think differently.'
'Don't deceive yourself.’ He shifted his knees and my breath eased a little.
'I can serve you against Sir George.'
'Serve me! That's not it at all. I want friends to work together, protect their own.'
'Can't you use my strength for a good cause?'
'Good causes are the most dangerous for men like you. That was one reason I took you out of the army.'
'If we are going to preach, let us call things by their right names,’ I cried out, angered at this sermonising. 'You were on fire to get your big stupid friend back to London and break him in.'
'I don't deny it.'
He spoke as if I were some vice to which, having renounced it and repented, he could freely admit. Frighted, I tried retraction. 'Forgive me, I spoke unjustly.'
But Ferris was not listening. He said as if to himself, 'Lust addled my judgement. I should have taken Nat.'
That was a sword through me. I stared up at him and he steadily, unsmilingly, returned my gaze. The silence thickened between us. Then Ferris took the knife away from my neck, got up from the bed and went out.
And so it was that the coach journey back to Page Common outwent my worst imaginings. We ate bread in silence at half past six. My mouth was sour, my belly brimming with bitter yellowish stuff which from time to time voided itself by means of a retching so intense as to leave me all over sweat. I did not want the bread but ate it, and as I chewed my skull throbbed. From time to time I stole a look at Ferris and saw him pale with swollen eyes. I wondered had he wept in rage and humiliation after the beating. When he caught me watching him he turned his face away and I saw a small bruise on the side of his neck. At the thought of all the others beneath his clothes I shook inwardly.
Just after seven he went up to kiss his aunt once more. When he came down, it was with his pack already on his shoulders and he took his station near the street door without looking at me. I went to my room and shouldered my burden likewise, and on my coming down he whispered, 'I see you will force your way, as ever.'
Becs had been risen some time and she now came from the kitchen to stand with us on the doorstep. Perhaps she saw something of how the land lay, for she spoke gently with me almost as if in pity,
from which I concluded that she had heard nothing of my monstrous performance the night before. Neither kisses nor bites this time, but decorous partings all round, while I was eaten up body and soul with wretchedness, like a carcass with worms. Ferris reminded her to write, or to make the physician write, and I started at the huskiness of his voice. As soon as he had finished his instructions to her we passed into silence. We walked down the street abreast, at the same pace, not looking at one another. I remembered our quarrel in the army, when he said he would not be my thing, and wondered would he ever love me again.
TWENTY-SEVEN
Things Not To Be Compelled
The company in the coach was talkative: a husband and wife, the wife carrying a babe, and opposite these a great prattler, a schoolmaster in his middle years, harmless, tedious and happy. He struck up a conversation first with Ferris, next with me, and then had the idea of introducing us to one another.
Ferris nodded coldly to me and said in his broken voice, 'I had indeed the impression of knowing you, Mister Cullen, but find that I was mistaken.'
I could think of no reply. The rage that had swelled within me and almost burst out of my flesh was now shrivelled and blasted. Had I thought it would be of use, I would have kissed his shoes in the coach. Instead I sat inhaling the stink of damp clothing and garlic breath, trying to keep down my vomit.
The vehicle rattled on. From time to time I had to push past my neighbours to void my sickness from the window and while under going these torments I heard the coachman's curses floating past on the wind, damning the horses without cease even when the going was smooth and the road empty. I was astonished to find him so foul-mouthed, and for the sake of hearing my own voice I said so to our tiresome companion. He replied that the man had more than once been reported and suffered correction, but the habit was so grown into him that he could not shake it off.
Seeing that Ferris was listening, I said that an evil habit, say drink, might well destroy a man's happiness against his own will, and that
such a case were pitiable. There was more cunning than I at first knew in mentioning drink by name, for even as I spoke I remembered that my friend could well understand this example. Perhaps, in recollection, he might judge my crime less harshly.
Ferris did not look at me but addressed his remarks to the schoolmaster. 'Whatever makes a man a beast also renders him pitiable. But it behoves us to be wary of these bestial men despite our compassion, for they frequently turn on their friends.'
The schoolmaster said that was very true, and an example might be seen in his sister's neighbour who beat his wife for no fault at all. 'And thus,' he said, 'he grievously injures himself, both in reputation and in the sense that they are, after all, one flesh.'
This piece of pedantry proving more painful to me than any I had endured as a boy, I was glad when his conclusion was lost in a shriek of laughter from the other passengers, who were talking, much more loud
ly than we, of jests played upon bumpkins newly come to London.
I wanted to take up Ferris upon what he had said. 'But you are compassionate to such men, Sir?' I pressed him, my breath struggling in my throat. 'For what our friend here says is true. Though guilty, the suffering caused comes back also on themselves, and so—'
'I think my friends would grant that I am compassionate,' Ferris replied. 'Long-suffering, even. But there are two things to be said here.’ My stomach turned over at his measured tone. 'The first consideration,' he went on, 'is that a man must already have degraded himself in no small degree, to beg compassion where once he freely enjoyed the privileges of love.'
The schoolmaster was listening with interest and nodding. Never, I thought, had 'the privileges of love' seemed so like a lost Paradise, and never had Ferris been so cruel to me.
'And the second,' he continued, his voice hoarser yet still level, 'is that love and compassion have both their limits. I may forgive a friend seventy times seven for the love I bear him, but there are some things which, if a man resent them not, he ceases to be a man.'
'For the love I bear him'. I wondered had he meant to say that. 'Ceases to be a man'— looking up I saw his eyes contracted with pain
despite the controlled voice, and the sight cut me with a terrible pain of my own.
'Let us take a case,' I began desperately. 'Suppose I offer violence to a dear, dear friend. I repent—'
The pedant cut in. 'You, Sir,' he cried, 'I hope you never do offer violence. I should fancy that when you resent something there are few men would stand against you!'
I tried to make myself clear. 'My word was repent, not—'
But the fool was listening no more than before. He invited Ferris to join him in roasting the stranger.
'I imagine our tall friend here generally carries the day. Crushes all opposition, hey?' He made to feel the muscles in my arm and I knocked his hand off my sleeve. How I did not knife him there and then is still a wonder to me.
Ferris smiled grimly. 'You would indeed do well to avoid his resentment. But suppose our friend — you understand I speak of him only for the sake of an example?'
The other man nodded. Ferris shot a look at me which filled me with dread, and continued, 'As you remarked, Mister - Cullen? - is well equipped to compel obedience. But friendship, love — these are not to be compelled.'
'But what has this to do with evil habits and repentance?' asked the schoolmaster.
'I mean that repeated offences, even when they secure forgiveness, drive out love. And from that I came to say that one may compel obedience but never love.'
'That's every husband's tragedy, eh?' smiled the other. 'Still, obedience is much in a woman.'
A dog's virtue,' said Ferris, turning his head away as if sick of the talk. 'Those who would enforce it should marry with the beasts.'
The schoolmaster hawed, decided that my friend was joking after all, and settled back in his seat with a philosophical sigh as if to say, Well, what of it.
The darts Ferris had shot into me now poisoned my breast with the most intense fear and shame. I again felt the sheets pulling on my thigh as I ground my weight into him. A woman thus put to it can call
for help. He could not, and as he tried to grapple with me I got a hold on his arm and set about enforcing obedience—
'Mister Ferris!' I cried. Some of the other passengers broke off their chatter at the sudden loudness of my speech. 'You are in the right - love is, is—!'
He raised his eyebrows in mockery and I remembered a knee in the small of his back. My throat closed up.
For a moment the sea-grey eyes rested on mine. I stared back, pleading with him, but he dropped his eyelids and shut me out. The coach staggered over the uneven ground and I had to go to the window, heaving and gasping with my own vileness. Back in my seat, my forehead wet with perspiration, I watched his head roll against the wood behind him, studied the shape of his mouth.
The schoolmaster was grown very quiet and had perhaps at last some glimmer of what he had stumbled into. Much I cared, just then. I was already burning alive.
Passengers got out, got in. The people with the baby left us and were replaced by a withered crone who stank of piss. At one stage, having nodded off, I woke suddenly with the feeling that something was wrong. Ferris had moved to the window. There he spent the rest of the journey, staring out of it, dull grey light clinging about his cheeks. Motionless, he put me in mind of a statue I had seen somewhere, but no sculptor would give his statue a face of such sullen intensity. The schoolmaster had long since reached his destination, leaving Ferris and myself strangers again.
A fine spray speckled the seats and floor near the window. He had guessed the weather aright. I saw the yellow hair darken, little drops running off the ends of it. Ferris stayed where he was. Once he had looked up to me with dripping hair, his face bright with candlelight, and brighter with love. When was that?
We slowed as the coach splashed through country roads brimming with ruts and rainwater, and the wheels sank into clay. At the thought of wet huts and clothes to endure along with my shame and pain, I was tempted to jump from the coach and walk back to Lon-
don. I could seek refuge with Harry. But I caught myself in this delusion, that I had been secretly hoping that Ferris would leap from the coach after me. In truth I was more likely to stand in the mud and watch him go out of my life forever, staring back at me from the window with his statue's eyes. I was not made to be loved. The flesh was a different thing; once I had thought none would ever look at me (that was when I lived always with Zeb) but even then— I pulled my thoughts away from Caro. In the army was Ferris, and then the glances of the London people had told me that I was far from ugly. But I was afflicted with an ugliness of soul that no physick could correct. Though Ferris stayed unmoving at the window, he was leaving me, just as surely as if I were got down into the road while the coach rolled away.
The door was pushed open and he stepped down; I heard the splash as he landed outside. The driver handed him his pack and he slung it across his shoulders as he marched away, slipping a little on the wet ground. My pack took longer to untie from the roof of the coach. By the time the swearing coachman had dangled it down to me and I had fastened the thing in place, Ferris was some fifty paces off. I followed without much spirit, trying to read his walk for signs of relenting. He held himself as upright as the pack permitted and went at a fierce pace, recalling to me that first day in the colony when I had given him too heavy a load and he had set his jaw and carried it. It came to me that with such resolve he had the makings of an excellent soldier. But then again I thought not, for soldiers must obey.
The first person I saw was Hathersage. He looked up from his hoe as Ferris approached and they waved each to the other, then Hathersage ran towards my cruel friend as if he were the Prodigal Son, shouting the news to the others so that in a short time Ferris was surrounded by an eager group. I saw hands clutched, embraces, kisses pressed on dear Brother Christopher. They waved to me, too, and smiled in my direction, but none would quit him to welcome me, such a difference they made between us. O Brother Wisdom, I said to myself, did you but know what this man, that you fawn on,
did with me in London every night but one! The things he freely yielded who now, if we were in Hell together, would not give me a gentle look!
I came up with them. They still had hold of Ferris, who was answering their questions in his ragged voice. Aunt was in the way to recovery and we had brought back some newfangled tools. His sincere thanks for their prayers, which had doubtless been effective. Had there been any sign of movement from Sir George? Was all well with the crops?
The colonists greeted me with a civil but cursory word or two, before turning back to their darling. Only Susannah sought me, moving away from the huddle and holding out her hand with pleasant frankness. 'Well Brother Jacob, I trust you had good cheer in London? Brother Christopher says you have new knives and axe-heads
in your pack.'
'He says true.’ I lowered my voice. 'And something for you, Susannah.'
'For me? A gift?'
I would be glad to get away from Ferris and his disciples.
Inside the dry space of the tent I laid the pack down and began unfastening the strings.
'I can't think what it can be,' she mused. 'Did I ask you for something?'
'Close your eyes and hold out your hands,' I said.
She did so. 'Hurry, Jacob, I'm mad with curiosity!'
'Now don't expect silver and gold, for there's none,' I warned her. 'Sniff, can't you smell anything?'
She snorted. 'Lavender, is it? You brought lavender?'
I laughed at her puzzled face. 'Here.' I put a washball in each outstretched hand.
Ash’s her fingers closed on them her eyes opened and she turned a smile of pure joy on me. 'You are too kind. Too kind.'
An easy errand.' I had covered the rest of the washballs and did not intend to leave them in the tent. 'The only thanks I require is that you be so good as not to mention them to anyone,' I warned, for I had no wish to share with the others.
'Not even Catherine,' she promised, and at once stuffed the things between her breasts.
"Thank you, thank you, Jacob.'
She whirled about to go like a much younger woman, paused, ran back and kissed my hand before dancing out of the tent. I was left smiling despite the pain between myself and Ferris. I could tell by the business-like way she had stored my gift in her bosom, anything but flirtatious, that he was wrong about her being soft on me, but I thought I might count her a friend. The odd thing was that I had never intended to make such a gift, yet her fair greeting when the rest could scarce spare me a word, being all of them wrapped up in Ferris, had called to something in me — a sudden need to share and be thanked. How did men make themselves loved, I wondered. I had passed all my life with men who were loved but I seemed never to have learnt the lesson.
Left alone, I began to unwrap the axe-heads. They were beautifully keen and heavy. I balanced the largest on my palm and tested the edge with my thumb. No wonder, I thought, that lords and ladies chose to die by the axe rather than the noose. I laid out the deadly things on one of the crude tables knocked together by Harry, until there should be time to fit them with stocks.
