The Corn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

He wasn’t amused. Not yet. “Shame, not shy,” he said. “A diseased groin and a bed full of shit? Was that your first sight of me naked?”

  “I thought,” I said, and it was the truth, “in spite of everything, and the pain and the filth, and to be honest, the surprise because I’d never seen a man before, that you were quite, quite beautiful.”

  Then he laughed. “You will give me the ointment,” he said, “and tell me what to do, and in future, I’ll do it myself. And the servants can carry me to the privy if I can’t walk.”

  “I hardly think you’re strong enough for any of that yet,” I said, “but if you are going to be a prude, I can call one of the kitchen boys, or perhaps your groom. He seems a sensible young man.”

  “Why didn’t my father get in the wretched apothecary to help you at the beginning?” demanded Jak. “Or the barber? And where’s my boy Tom, who used to sleep on that pallet?”

  “Evidently the poor apothecary died two days ago,” I said, “because his medicines worked as little on himself as they did on everyone else. Your barber ran away, and as for little Tom, I believe he went home to tend both his sick parents and your father had to let him go. You have only me and had best get used to it.”

  His new awakened enthusiasm bubbled with energy, but in less than an hour, he was exhausted again, and weakness returned as the morning lengthened. But there was no terrible relapse. By midday, I was able to order gruel from the kitchens and feed it to him one steady spoonful at a time, and he swallowed almost half. Then I gave him two last sips of my mother’s dark medicine. On his orders his young groom was sent for, to wash him and tend the buboes while I sat like a ninny and looked modestly in the opposite direction. Finally, in the evening, he drank a little spiced wine and retched nothing back. Lord Lydiard came to see him at sunset, shuffling in, tired from his own depression. He kissed his son roundly on the forehead and told him he was a good boy and his father’s pride and joy, and left again quickly, fearful of the humours of the pestilence though flushed with pleasure at Jak’s return to health. After he had left, Jak said, “It’s the first time the old man has kissed me in twelve years at least, and I believe it possible I shall now fall ill again.”

  “Kiss me instead then,” I said, my own smile as unrelenting as his. I was curled on the big wooden coffer under the window, and the fading sun’s crimson was warm on my face.

  He still could not look into the light, but he squinted at me and laughed. “While my tongue is furred thicker than my cloak and my mouth tastes worse than the devil’s arse? My sweet beloved, one day, when I’m well again, and we’re free to marry, I shall kiss you so that we both remember it forever. Then that kiss will lead to even more beautiful discoveries.” He could speak now without the words slurring, and without running out of breath mid-sentence. “Until then, my beautiful girl, all I can do is dream of you. That, in itself, is a delight.”

  He was still too sick for me to tease him. “Hush then,” I told him, “and settle for sleep.”

  “And you sleep on that miserable straw?” He sighed. “I should be there, and you in the bed.”

  “Or both of us in the bed together,” I nodded. “My mother says you’re right Jak. She says it will happen one day.”

  “Of course it will, my love,” he said softly, “I swear it will.”

  “Then I shall wait for that,” I said.

  I had added a little boiled water to my mother’s medicine bottle, so every last sip of the potion could be drunk, and none wasted. Now time alone would heal. I could, and did, believe as I saw the rash fade even more to a pale mess of greenish bruises. Jak no longer bled from nose, gums, eyes or other places less mentionable. He did not vomit, nor relapse into nightmare once asleep, and the pains in his legs and joints eased. The fever had almost gone and so, he told me since I was no longer permitted to look, had the buboes. “Gone to pebbles,” he said, “horrid little bumps, hard puny things the colour of lentils.”

  “That’s the very, very best of news,” I said at once. “And so fast, too. My mother says the pestilence makes everything bleed inside, so the liver and the heart and every other little bit of you has to get better piece by piece. It may be a long time before you can walk. It may even be a long time before you can eat properly or do ordinary things again. But once the buboes disappear, then we can be sure everything else is on the mend.

  I passed three more days in Jak’s chamber while he recovered. We lived in a cavern of gloom rarely split by the sudden glimmer of passing light. Nothing outside the chamber affected us. I knew the sun rose, and I knew it hung high over our world, blinked, and arched downwards again. I knew it set and shrank, leaving the chill of night to creep in and turn shifting, whispering shadows into black pitch. But nothing else truly existed except ourselves and life outside was simply a dream.

  Lord Lydiard scuffled in each day’s end as the sunset and wished his son good rest. He did not catch the sickness himself and told me that no one else in his great house was ill, though few were now left. The pestilence had struck, breathed hot, and then died alongside its own victims.

  I would have stayed longer with Jak, adoring our closeness, but then something happened which punctured the bubble. The fault was largely mine, but I never regretted it for it brought the most beautiful moment of all.

  During the final day, after the sheeting had once again been changed and as the smaller moon shone its sliver of crescent through the window shutters, then while I was settling Jak for the night, he said, tentative and absurdly timid, “Will you stay here with me for tonight, Fray, in my bed? I am no longer so very sick but have no strength for seduction, so you’d be quite safe from me, I promise. You’d sleep more comfortably, and it would be the very greatest bliss to have the warmth of your body next to mine.”

  I was already leaning over him, my knees on the mattress and my face within inches of his. His eyes were all green glitter and the lashes half lowered. My breathing stopped as if I had forgotten how to do it. “Yes, Jak,” I whispered to him. “I’ll sleep with you, whatever way you want me to.”

  “What I want,” he whispered back, his voice husky and strained as if it was an effort to summon control, “is a great deal more than I should, and a lot more than I’m presently capable of. For now, I just need you close.” He sighed, his voice sinking, almost unheard. “I want the touch of you. The feel of your body and the beat of your heart. That would be the strongest medicine of all.”

  I sat there for a minute, looking down on him. Then I remembered about breathing and inhaled deeply. “Do you want me,” I said, “to take my clothes off?”

  He didn’t answer for a moment. “I don’t dare ask you that,” he whispered at last. “Don’t let me think of that. Just come here, as you are, and hold me.”

  So I did. I climbed in with him, all creased skirts and bare toes beneath. I had long since kicked off those uncomfortable buckled shoes, and my woollen stockings had frayed two days past and then fallen down. My dress was not as clean as it should have been for I had worn it through everything and it had become soiled with my own sweat and Jak’s too, but none of that seemed to matter one jot. I was as nervous and excited as if it was my wedding night.

  Slowly and gently, he pulled me close to him, one arm around my waist, the other brushing my cheek. At once, my body fused to his as though I had been waiting all my life to complete one simple need. He had no fever. That had passed. There was a new fever, as burning as that of the sickness, and all his nakedness was aflame with it. He entwined one leg across me and nuzzled my neck, his head tucked down to mine. “How I have dreamed of this,” he murmured, his mouth against my skin and the heat of his breath tickling my ear. “These past few days, having you beside me made all my dreaming bright and true. But so tantalising, my dearest, so very tantalising. I cannot have you here like this any longer, without at last bringing you into my arms.”

  For the very first time, I was free to curl my own arm around him. The rash of ulcerous bruises across his c
hest had healed even further and had now left only silver marks like the bases of little cups, drying under the unction I had spread. Now beneath my hand, I could feel all the beauty of him, the dry silk of his skin, the hard raised nipples, the smooth valley between each line of rib. He had lost muscle during the sickness, but I could touch all the hidden strength of him, potent beneath the impotence of the pestilence. “But you are naked, and I am fully clothed,” I whispered to his shoulder.

  “That gown is all that protects us both,” he whispered back. “As sick as I may still be, if I held you naked, I could not trust myself with your innocence.”

  “My innocence doesn’t interest me in the slightest,” I said with more asperity, “in fact, it’s a disadvantage and makes me clumsy. I would have been a far better doctor to you, Jak, if I’d been rather less innocent.”

  “But now,” and I felt his smile crease against my cheek, “you know me very well, and I keep few secrets from you. If you touched me again, the way you had to before when I was only half alive, I would surely – well, never mind what I’d do. All your own magical secrets must be kept far away from me, Fray, except in my dreams.”

  I could have said and in mine. Indeed, now I dreamt of the very same thing, though muddled and befuddled, retreating into wild imagination, having no idea how such matters were actually arranged. Instead I said, “I’m happy, just like this. It’s the first time you’ve allowed me so close.”

  He said, just a small, thoughtful mumble in the dark, “Have I been so frightened of you, for so long?” Then he levered up a little, leaning on one elbow although I knew it still hurt him to stretch. He pulled the curls back from my face and looked down deep into my eyes. “How have I stayed so stern? When all the time, I’ve wanted nothing else but to put my arms around you? You glow with health like a little blue candle behind glass and your eyes are the softest golden green, all forest in spring.”

  “You’ve certainly never been frightened of me,” I said.

  Very tentatively, he leaned down again and kissed my neck, in the little curve where it dipped between my collar bones. His kiss felt warm and soft and sweet. “You are wrong,” he murmured. “I have been terrified.”

  “You said you – loved me.”

  “That’s why. Terrified of hurting you, of disrespecting you – of losing control and being so tempted I couldn’t stop.”

  From my neck, his lips moved up to my chin, like a hind grazing the short grass in tree shadow, all breath on simmer and a growing ardency. His hand, now in the small of my back, pressed me even closer against him. I felt the pressure of each finger and the strength that, even while sick, could strangle or break, if he’d wanted. But now his wanting was a different kind. His mouth searched mine.

  I had not expected it. He had told me, even the day before, he would only kiss me once we were free to marry. But, all control weakened, he kissed me now. His lips no longer cracked to bleeding but were dry and hard against mine. He opened my mouth with his own, and I breathed his breath. All the heat and passion of him entered me and burned into my throat. I clung to him without any thought about causing him pain. He explored my mouth, and his tongue was sweet tasting wild-fire. Then, perhaps even without intention, his hand traced down my neck, smoothing and caressing the hollows of my own bare flesh, and slipped beneath the creased gauze to find my breast.

  His kiss finally snatched away in a breathless gasp, then ended in a deep sigh as if he had found, at last, what he had always been looking for. Then his fingers closed on the fullness of my breast beneath my gown. He stayed very still then, as if fearing to move, or perhaps savouring the dream. The edge of his hand caught the little raised circle of his own ring still tucked in my cleavage out of sight. Then he kissed me again. When he let me breathe, I whispered, “Please don’t stop.”

  His hand was still on my breast, fingering across and around the nipple and caressing so gently as though unable to believe the truth of what he was doing. I felt a whole river of sensations rush through my body from my head to my groin. He whispered back, “You are safe from me, beloved. I have to stop. I am still too weak.”

  I said, adoring but confused both by my own feelings and his, “I feel you moving Jak. Down there. Against the inside of my leg. Again, like that. Something is pushing at me. Is it painful? Am I hurting you?”

  He chuckled, his mouth against my cheek. “Indeed. You are driving me quite mad, my love, but the fault is all my own.” He moved back a little, and reluctantly untucked his hand from my gown. “I’m glad you wear my ring there.” He sighed. “One day I’ll show you what I mustn’t speak of now. For this night, if we sleep, perhaps we can both share the same dream while we share the same bed.”

  “You’ve made my heart beat very fast,” I accused. “How shall I sleep?”

  He settled my head back down on his shoulder and put his hand tight on my waist. Then he leaned over and lightly kissed both my eyelids. “I’m a fool, beloved, and as irresponsible as my father always tells me. Close your eyes and dream of other things, and in the morning, we’ll be doctor and patient again.”

  “I love you, Jak,” I whispered to his shoulder. “I always will.”

  His voice drifted from over my head, “Sweet Eden-witchery, I swear, one day I’ll show you the love I feel for you.” But exhaustion had overtaken him.

  Perhaps he was already asleep when I said, “Then let your gods bear witness, where your priest could not.”

  Having been brought up in the church, Jak would have been taught many things that he did not believe and did not practise. Celibacy! That had never been Jak’s choice. Ten-day visits to the chapel and prayers on your knees, with gifts to the priest to wipe away your sins. The Lydiard nobility was wealthy and no doubt he’d given whatever gifts his father told him to supply, but I knew he did not attend chapel as he should. Yet he spoke of our gods as though he believed in them, so I said one prayer now, on his behalf.

  “Gods of many names, Jak may have sinned many times, but he’s the kindest, best, cleverest and most beautiful young man in the world. You wouldn’t want to lose him. Honestly, you wouldn’t. So keep my Jak alive and well and give him true happiness.”

  I went to sleep, reliving his touch and his kisses.

  Chapter Seven

  Ever since I had taken over Jak’s nursing, Lord Lydiard came to visit his son as the sun set behind the mountains; the long golden streaks slanting through the window casements while the few remaining servants scurried to light the candles in the principal chambers.

  Yet the next day, Lord Lydiard bustled in just a little after dawn. Perhaps he was feeling more than usually hopeful and blessed. Or perhaps he had slept badly, and his dreams had troubled him. Maybe, excited by his son’s evident recovery, he was simply eager to corroborate the facts and could not wait to see him again. I do not know. But he discovered us entwined: his noble son with the wicked poisoner’s daughter. I woke with the old man’s fat fingers gripping my arm and wrenching me from the feather warmth. He could see I was fully dressed, but Jak’s naked arms were around me, and his flushed cheek had been on my breast. Lord Lydiard bellowed like a boar at bay. “Fucking whore. And in my own house and the boy just returned from the dead.”

  Jak was hurled immediately into a confusion of conscious nightmare. He flung up his arms, grasping for me, and the sudden shock and effort brought back a fit of retching. “You fool,” shouted Jak, struggling with breath. “It was Freia saved my life.”

  “And now intends to ruin it,” Lord Lydiard roared back.

  I stood shivering, still imprisoned by Lord Lydiards’ grip. “I love him,” I mumbled. “I’d never do anything to hurt him,” and it sounded lost and inane. It was also the most unwise statement I could have made, though I couldn’t know that at the time.

  “Then get out,” raged Jak’s father. “I’ll look after my boy now. You’re no longer needed. Get out, get away, go back to your hexes and your poisons.”

  “If you speak of poisons,” I
said, caught between anger and fear, “then -” But he interrupted me, as of course he had to. He slapped my face, so hard that I was silenced at once and stood there gasping.

  Jak was half out of bed. He grabbed the bedpost, heaving himself up, then fell naked across the rumpled quilt. “If you hurt her,” he wheezed, “I’ll kill you.”

  Lord Lydiard turned back to me, calming a little, though his voice was more spit than words. “See what trouble you cause,” he said. “But you’ve saved Jak’s life that’s true, and it seems he knows the place for gratitude and reminds me of my duty. Go home now, and I’ll send payment later. Don’t come back.”

  He released me. I stared at him and then at Jak. Jak was still gasping. He could not yet support himself, nor easily move his legs. I sat beside him, pulling up the covers and easing him gently back against the bolster. Lord Lydiard moved at once, but he saw his son’s face and hesitated.

  “It’s all right,” I told Jak softly. “I understand. You have to get well, Jak, that’s first. We’ll have plenty of time together after you’re quite better. I’ll go home now.”

  “I’ll talk to him,” whispered Jak, panting for breath. “I’ll make it good. Come back tomorrow, once the sun’s up.”

  I turned to face Lord Lydiard’s flushed fury again and spoke with all the confidence I could muster. “Jak needs regular food,” I told him, just as if I was a proper doctor. “Milky slops, curds on bread, and warmed hippocras with soft cheeses. There’s still some ointment left in the pot, and Jak’s groom knows what to do with that. Your son’s getting better. Much, much better. But he’s still weak, and he needs plenty of rest.” Then I put on my little shoes, smiled shyly at Jak and left the room, head high and conscious of dignity. Although my gown was creased and dirty, and my hair was tangled across my eyes, I felt grand and cool. I had sweet memories of the most beautiful night of my life, and I had my mother’s promise that there would be many more to come. So I went skipping all the way home, with my heart pounding and my face all pink with memory and anticipation. The world seemed so God-washed and beautiful that I couldn’t hold it all in my mind together.