The Corn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  I sniffed and said, “Will the peace last?”

  “There’s nothing left in the North to fight over,” Jak insisted. “But we lost our fish. Come and help me catch another.”

  The vagabond soldiers kept their promise and did not try to cause trouble for the village, but they brought something else with them that did. They brought the pestilence, contagion and death.

  Chapter Three

  It had been many years since the last local outbreak of the pestilence. Just a few months ago there was rumour of a woman living near who had broken out in pustules and quickly died. Hearing the story, our neighbours had begged my mother to prepare and store a supply of herbal potions ready for the spread that was feared, yet if it was the Great Death indeed, which soon seemed unlikely, at least no wandering minstrel or itinerant beggar carried it to our village.

  But after the soldiers passed through, the Great Death came to stay.

  I hadn’t seen Jak for a few soggy and rain-drenched days since we had met the soldiers, but he came for me early one dewy fresh morning. He took my hand, following the old deer trail through the wooded slopes, helping me collect kindling. It took some searching to discover anything even partially dry, and the forest smelled musty and close. Tangled fern dipped into mossy sludge underfoot where dew and rain had pooled, and around the knotted tree roots the low lying bracken had turned boggy. My thin shoes were badly worn and the wet leaked through the fraying seams. Suddenly I slipped, and my feet slid from under me. I fell heavily back into Jak’s arms, and as he caught me, quite unprepared, his hands grasped me around my breasts. His palms, warm and hard, closed tight, but he released me so quickly it seemed I had burned him. Stepping back, he looked wildly at me, panting like a shocked virgin. “You must never,” he said, breathless, “allow me to do that to you again, Fray. Promise me. Promise you’ll never let me hurt you, or spoil what we have.”

  Naturally, I was disappointed. “You do this to girls all the time,” I said accusingly. “I’ve watched you. But if it’s so wrong, shouldn’t it be me getting upset?”

  “No, because you trust me,” he said, now looking contrite. “But I’m not always trustworthy. I hurt people. Perhaps I ought to care, but usually I don’t. With you, I would care. Very much. I keep telling myself not to take advantage, but one day – being tempted – and wanting so hard – I might still – you know – if you let me. Even though I’d hate myself afterwards.”

  Although I had stopped growing upwards, I had started growing outwards and was, at last, aware and tentatively proud of high budding breasts and a slight curve at the hips. Yet Jak’s continued determination to touch no part of me except my hands, or sometimes to smooth back a wisp of unruly hair from my cheek, shamed me as if I was permanently twelve years old and inviolate. Now I tried not to sound pitiful, and mumbled, “I know I’m not beautiful. I know I’m skinny. But am I truly so – awfully – unattractive?”

  “O, Fray.” He stared at me and sighed. “Of course you’re attractive. Beautiful in fact. It’s wanting you so much that makes it so difficult. And if I ever – well, you have to stop me.”

  “In that case,” I said, cross because I still felt the pleasurable warmth of his hands and my breasts tingled where he had clasped me, “you must be the guardian of your own behaviour. Don’t expect me to be your target and your shield too.” I rather enjoyed a little temptation and didn’t understand Jak’s rigid gallantry at all. My moral upbringing included murder by poison and had never encompassed the strictures of Church-taught chastity. Now I noticed some velvety death-caps in the beech shade and wondered if I should collect them for my mother. “Personally,” I continued as calmly as I could, “I have been waiting for you to make love to me for a year and a half.”

  Jak’s black frown brightened into a slightly reluctant grin. “I’m perfectly well aware of that,” he said, “which I can promise you makes it a good deal harder for me. But I won’t do it.” He paused and the grin widened. “Well, one day I will,” he added, “but not until you grow up and I marry you.”

  I stared at him and then at my feet where the fungi nudged my toes. “Don’t be silly.” I thought I sounded ridiculously breathless. “Your father wouldn’t let you.”

  “I won’t always have to do what he tells me,” said Jak. He leaned forward and I leaned back against the trunk of the oak. I hoped he would kiss me, but he didn’t. He took my hand again and linked my fingers Between his. “We’ll have a wedding night worth waiting for, Fray, I promise it. I’ve been struggling with temptation ever since I met you, but it’s a struggle I mean to win. I intend treating you with respect until I’m able to marry you. I’ll pledge it now if you like.”

  His words surprised me, but I wasn’t taking him seriously yet. He often teased me, and I thought this must be more of the same. Marriage? A lord’s son to the local mad woman’s brat? So I giggled and said, “And will you be faithful, just to me?”

  It seemed he hadn’t thought of that. “What, from now on?” he said, sounding quite startled and distinctly reluctant. Then he paused, almost blushed, and said, “I suppose I should. I mean, it’s another sort of being respectful, isn’t it. Anyway, there aren’t many left.”

  “Women? Or do you mean virgins?” I was intrigued. “Or don’t you like repeat visits?”

  Now he had the grace to blush properly, which amused me. “What I meant was, there aren’t many of the local girls left who trust me anywhere near them anymore. Their parents have warned them to keep away.” Jak squeezed my fingers. “Yes, I’ll be faithful, Fray, if that matters to you. We’ll make the pledge now, and when you grow up a little, we’ll do it properly.”

  “I’m nearly fifteen now,” I lied, chin up. “And you’re not much more.” Now late June, it was three months since I had turned fourteen years, and as far as I was concerned, this made me as close to fifteen as could be counted.

  “You’re three years old and as innocent as a butterfly, and I’m sixteen, which is nigh grown for a man,” Jak said. “But in any case, we have to wait because of my father. One day he’ll die or be called off to war again. If I ignore him now, he’d kill you and me too and cause trouble like saying your mother’s a witch.”

  “Everyone calls her a witch,” I pointed out.

  “She’s a herbalist and a doctor and a good woman,” he nodded. “I don’t believe what they say about her selling curses and poisons. I know better than listen to village gossip.” I didn’t answer. After all, they weren’t my secrets.

  He pulled me down to sit amongst the old mushrooms and years of decay and we faced each other, cross-legged. The ground was mulchy beneath my skirts. I clung tightly to his hands and looked into those beautiful sea-green eyes, heavy-lidded over the filtered sunlight dancing in his pupils, and as deliciously seductive as I ever remembered him. “I swear,” his voice very soft, “to marry you one day, Freia. I’m yours, and you’re mine, and I won’t ever take anyone else to wife, whatever happens. There, now we’re pledged with a proper Accorder de Futuro.”

  “Kiss me then,” I whispered. “Being betrothed means being allowed to kiss.”

  He lifted my right hand to his mouth and kissed each fingertip without moving his eyes from my face. Then he pulled off the heavy gold ring from his thumb and pushed it onto the index finger of my right hand. It was far too big for me. I hooked my finger over to stop it slipping off. “We haven’t any witnesses,” said Jak. “But this is my proof.”

  “I’ll hang it on twine and put it around my neck,” I said. Then I realised I had started to cry. He rubbed my tears away with the ball of his thumb and kissed the tip of my nose. It was the most intimate thing he’d managed yet.

  “I can’t kiss you properly, my dear,” he said gruffly, and his breath felt hot on my cheek. “I can’t even hold you close. If I did, I wouldn’t be able to stop. Just remember, even if I have to go away, we belong to each other, and I’ll come back and get you when I can.”

  In all his life so far probably no gir
l had ever said no to him, so as far as self-control went, he was hopelessly unpractised. I still wanted his embrace, his kisses and his caresses, but I was deeply touched, amazed and inordinately thrilled by what he’d said. I was even a little scared by the solemnity, finding the prospect of actually wedding Jak virtually impossible to believe. So I knelt on the soft ground in front of him and picked the death caps, my face down, hiding blush and breathlessness. “Do you think they’ll really let us? One day, I mean? Be properly married like real husbands and wives? Even with me being no one at all?”

  Jak eyed the velvet fungi with some mistrust. “I wouldn’t have those for supper, if I were you, Fray. And yes, of course they’ll let us.” He leaned forward again and took my hand, his ring warm between our entwined fingers. “Well, that is, my father wouldn’t. He’d as soon spit toads and beat me and send me away again. But once it’s done, it’s done, and no one can undo it.”

  “You have other relatives,” I pointed out.

  “My vile step-mother has no authority over me. I have cousins but they’re fools and braggarts.” He nodded, insistent.

  I stared back at him and said, “Well, I think I’m a poor choice for anyone. I don’t have any debts. But I don’t have property either apart from some ducklings. And obviously, you’ve no interest at all in getting me into bed.”

  He clearly wasn’t falling into my trap, and he just grinned at me. “Not interested? Oh, if only you knew. But I’m not going to tell you, and I can’t talk about it because then I might end up doing it. Besides, I’m hardly the king. And a good king – well, he’d have less freedom to do what he wants than his own peasants in the fields.”

  “I don’t care about the king,” I whispered. “I only care about you and getting married and wondering if you really, really mean it. Can I tell my mother?”

  He stood quickly, pulling me up with him, and shook his head. “She wouldn’t approve, and she might tell my father. But I mean every word I say, Fray, and you have my ring to prove it. So if you want a witness, tell a friend. One of the village girls, someone you trust.”

  “The village girls are all in love with you,” I pointed out. “They’d be jealous and cause trouble. I don’t have any friends.”

  “Then tell the priest,” said Jak. “And I’ll tell our chaplain under confession so he can’t pass it on. Then we have to forget all about it and act normally.”

  “What’s normal?” I demanded. “You treating me like your baby sister and then tumbling every other girl you see?”

  He smiled and held my hand and led me home, just as he had when we first met. “I told you,” he said. “I promised, and I meant it. From now on, now we’re really betrothed, I’ll be faithful. Absolutely faithful. Even in my head.”

  My mother scolded me for the grass stains on my gown. I gave her the death-caps and she added them to her secret larder. That night I dreamed the dream that would haunt me for many agonising years ahead, of Jak’s arms around me and his kiss hot on my mouth. It happened only in dreams. Once awake, I could only guess what that felt like, but in sleep, I felt it hot and loving every night.

  Jak’s ring was not only too big for any of my fingers, but it would also have been far too noticeable. I threaded it on ribbon cut from my shift and hung it around my neck, nestled between my breasts together with my mother’s talisman. When I was alone, I pulled it out and held it tight and imagined what it would be like being married to Jak. I don’t know if my mother noticed. Usually, she noticed everything. What she didn’t notice, she managed to know anyway.

  The local priest disliked me intensely but mostly because of my mother and the fact that neither of us ever attended his church. He was still obliged to listen to my confession. “Forgive me, gods above and below, and everything else I ought to say whatever that is,” I muttered, kneeling before him, Jak’s ring clutched in my palm. “I just want to tell you that Jak Lydiard and I are pledged. We’ve made a betrothal promise, so one day we’ll be married. But it’s secret.”

  “Well, that’s a fine thing to confess,” pouted the priest, “and you certainly don’t sound contrite. I’m sure what his lordship does is no concern of mine, and once he becomes the Eden-Lord he can do what he likes, but in the meantime, I can tell you that half the foolish females of this county seem to consider themselves promised to him. I’ll give no absolution for improper fornication unless you show proper shame.”

  I stared into his frown. “This is different,” I mumbled. “We really are engaged to each other. He’s given me his ring as a pledge. We swore an oath. I just want you to remember since Jak seems to think we might need a witness one day.”

  “I’m a witness to nothing,” said the fat man. “I heard no oaths and saw no pledges. I want no trouble from the Lord, and I can tell you here and now, I disapprove as much as he would if he knew. Whatever sins you and the young lord get up to, I’m sure it’s not the first time nor the last, and you can run off and confess to your mother instead of me. You and she may live in my parish, but you’re not part of my congregation. I’m not interested.”

  I scowled at him. “There wasn’t any fornication. We didn’t get up to anything, and I haven’t sinned at all, at least, not in the way you mean.” Unfortunately. “Jak respects me,” I sniffed.

  “Yes, no doubt, so you may think,” snorted the priest. “But wickedness is wickedness, and you show no remorse. Remember, death comes early in these troubled times to those who sin.”

  But it wasn’t me who died, it was the priest. He caught the pestilence. Three days after I had told him my secret and asked him to bear witness, he woke sweating in terrible pain. He lived in a cottage in the shadow of his own domed church. Here my mother visited him for the first time in her life. The local doctor had taken one look at the fat naked man in the saturated bed, diagnosed the Great Death, and abandoned him. Word travelled fast. My mother took him drinks, bathed his tonsured forehead, supported his bulk while he drank, and then left him to say his own prayers. He died some four days later and alone, but by then there were many just as sick.

  There were no celebrations in the village that year, no bonfires or feasting. The Monthly-pyre was not even erected in the square. The people hid, closed their shutters tight, or gathered in the church to pray.

  For five nights, my mother went out on the hills under the lowering skies, searching for herbs and special remedies. During a swirling black storm, she found the last precious ingredient she believed would keep us alive if either of us caught the Sickness. Then she sat on the beaten earth floor by our central stone slab where she lit the cooking fire, set the pot trivet high and boiled the tincture three times over until it was concentrated and dark and smelled like rotting tree bark.

  “Listen carefully to me, Freia. There is not enough for others,” my mother told me. “Most of these herbs are those I always use, and there’s willow of course, to dull the pain. But some of these berries and roots are very rare, and so are these mould scrapings and fungi. I have added fermented gyst and spores grown in the dark on damp manchet. This is a secret mixture, both difficult to assemble and difficult to brew in the right quantities. I cannot share it.”

  “But we aren’t sick,” I mumbled, suddenly afraid.

  She nodded. The condensation from her cooking pot rose in clouds to the rafters where black droplets hung for hours, darkening the smoke-stained wood even further and wetting the strings of sausages and bacon slabs hung there to dry. “I have different medicines, ointments and tonics which will help other folk. They will even cure a few, perhaps,” she said. “Some will live, and some will die, and that is the law of all nature. But for you and me there must be something very special. No, we are not sick yet. But even in spite of my talismans, our danger is as great as anyone’s for the pestilence is wildly infectious, and if I visit and nurse the sick, I might more quickly contract it myself and then bring it home to you.”

  She would not even let me leave the house. The sickness, she said, would permeate the air
and creep into our bodies through our mouths and noses and skin. “Remember, Freia,” and she repeated it twice, “I will store our special formula in the little black jar under the bottom step up to our bed. If I become ill, and you know the symptoms to watch for, then you must give me half this bottle to drink, and immediately take the rest yourself.”

  “I could help you with collecting herbs out on the hills, and then with the nursing,” I said. I didn’t want to sit inside all day. It made me miserable, lonely and scared. “You could teach me doctoring.”

  My mother’s hair was darker than mine, very long and thick with a russet tinge like a fox’s brush. When she shook her head, her hair fell around her face like the vicious coils of her poisons. “No. And you will obey me, Freia. I demand it.”

  “But I have to see Jak.”

  “There is no point,” said my mother. I couldn’t see her expression behind the shadows of her hair, but her voice was very soft. “And you must not approach him. Young Jak Lydiard is already facing death.”

  Chapter Four

  As soon as my mother left the house and me alone within it, I hurried to change my clothes. I had always been allowed to run free, barefoot and unchaperoned but to gain access to the big house I could not risk looking like a thief or beggar. So I put away my Lindsay wool and wore my one respectable robe, dark red linen with fine white gauze at the neck. I still looked like an ignorant country child, but since that is what I was, I was content, for once, with my appearance. But the skirts of my best gown were longer than I was accustomed to and trailed into a short train at the back. Flustered and fumble-fingered in my hurry, I was afraid I might trip, especially since I wore my new buckled shoes to which I was also unused. So I pinned my skirts at the hip with my mother’s beloved pearl brooch, the only piece of jewellery I believe she had ever owned. This should keep my hems from the mud, and I hoped to return the brooch to its special pouch before she noticed its absence. I then placed the head of a little briar rose on her pillow as a message in case she came back home before me.