The Corn

by Barbara Gaskell Denvil

  I had inherited none of my mother’s knowledge of foretelling, so, even with Lord Lydiard’s scowl at the back of my eyes, I was bouncing with happiness before I arrived at the cottage. But it was silent and empty, and leaves had gathered around the open doorway, while the door creaked on its hinges and two white ducks pecked mournfully at the bare ground.

  She always told me that life carried its own risks and death was a much safer option. It was the pestilence had killed my mother after all, though she had never caught the disease, and Lord Lydiard had known about it, and not told me. He had not instigated what happened, but he had allowed it, and probably even welcomed it. It meant the eradication of the principal witness against the wickedness of his own past. He had other reasons too, but I didn’t find those out until much, much later.

  They had come for her three days ago, the next morning after she had helped me nurse Jak. Her simple friend Ulga told me about it. Eventually, unable to find my mother and alarmed by the open door and the emptiness of abandon, I had gone to Ulga’s hut and found her there with her hair like a grey tousle of unravelling threads and her nose red from crying. Her words were never very clear, and I had often wondered why my mother had befriended such an old fog-witted goose-head, but after much patient time and pauses for sobbing, Ulga told me the story.

  The Great Death had left each home with its toll of tears. There had once been four thousand and three god-fearing souls alive in Lydiard, and fifty-nine families on surrounding farms and outlying cottages like mine. In just over two ten-days there remained only three thousand and sixty-six, and twenty farms without a single person left alive to claim the land, with a baker’s dozen of virgates the same, livestock wandering forlorn and crops left to ruin. Jak was one of only twenty-seven who had caught and then survived the Great Death. There had been one day when funerals had been held in our little cemetery at each half-hour from sunup until past whispering dusk, when the young chaplain himself had fallen, almost into the open grave at his feet, and had been carried away in convulsions.

  This poor man died quicker than many for he was already frail, shivering with fatigue and bent with depression. He had lived at the manor house and been cleric to Lord Lydiard. It was he who should have given the last administration of forgiveness to Jak on his deathbed. But Jak had not succumbed to death, and the chaplain had, and no one had been there to give him absolution. Jak’s pallet boy Tom had succumbed as well, with both his parents and baby sister too, but most of the manor servants had run away long since, as had Lord Lydiard’s squire, taking whatever silver he could find with him. Lady Lydiard, after the first days of growing terror, indeed, the morning after I had moved into Jak’s bedchamber myself, had hurried to her family in distant Balm Town and had Jak not already been ill, Lord Lydiard would have accompanied her.

  The townsfolk had set their dogs on any wandering journeymen who might be carrying the infection, but the sickness continued to spread. So being God-fearing and honest people, they reasoned, as did all the smaller surrounding townships during those fetid days, that it was Holy Judgement brought the pestilence to the land. As with myth and legend, only Lord-God punished the people where evil had been permitted to thrive. But as decent folk, a simple devout and upright congregation, they concluded some other wicked creature and surely not themselves had brought God’s wrath upon them. There were no money-lenders in our village to brand as scape-goats, no paederasts, no known thieves or murderers. There was only my mother. She was the wise woman, the herbalist who accompanied the local doctor, or came alone and administered to the sick, to women during their birthing pangs, and had been doctor, nurse, confidant and their only carer throughout all this time of horror. But she was not liked and was instead often feared. Rumours of poisons and curses and her own defiant superiority over the years had made her few friends except the befuddled Ulga. She and myself, her errant daughter, never attended church services and never confessed. This alone was confirmation of sin. And although my mother had visited those dying of the pestilence, she had cured only very few. Yet she had not caught the infection herself; a sign she was inviolate as the very source of the cursed wickedness.

  They took her out, ten stumbling but self-righteous men from the town who had lost wives and children to the Great Death, and they raised the party-pole on the little green grassed square, bound her to it, and stoned her to death. For such an act, they knew the gods would be pleased, now pardon them and rescind all punishment. I don’t know how long it took her to die, and that is something I cannot think on. I only know the good village folk then returned to what was left of their lives. Nothing was left of my mother’s.

  Ulga said, “I buried her, the poor dear, all broken and bloodless, and light enough for me to carry her body myself, draped all pale and chilled across my arms. Come with me, little love, and I shall show you her grave.” Not consecrated ground in the churchyard, but a lumpy hillock under the willows, and Ulga and I sat there together and cried on to each other’s shoulders.

  After I had found out everything, I went back and sat on my own cold floor beside the ducks and cried again for many, many hours. I wanted to kill all the town’s people and set fire to their thatches. I wanted to skewer the skinny butcher on his own steel and gouge out his eyes with his own false measuring weights. I wanted to stuff the fat baker in her own oven and feed the swineherd to his pigs.

  I could hear my mother’s soft voice in the back of my mind, and my crying did not drown it out, but somehow made it stronger so that her words echoed, as if she was calling to me across a great, empty expanse. “It is beautiful here, sweetling. I will be happy now, where I could never understand happiness before.”

  “I don’t care,” I howled. “You can’t leave me.”

  “Indeed,” echoed her voice, “I shall miss you too, since you have been almost my only love in life. There was only ever one other. But now in death, there is much more I have found to love. I will not return, Freia. Do not look for me in the clouds or amongst the stars. Look into yourself and discover your own strength.”

  I slept in our neat feather bed alone and for the last time that night, waking at times to call for her. Yet she did not answer. I could now only remember her words from the past.

  “They have a kinder system in the great Eden-City,” she had told me once. “Of course, a people so clever at their poisons, are bound to be more civilised. They isolate their sick during times of pestilence, and bar the city gates. No one enters, and no one leaves. The disease is therefore contained and so passes quicker. Nor do they blame their God for punishing them with disease. In the city, they live too near to their High-Priest to ever confuse religion with justice.”

  Instead in Lydiard, my mother was the people’s bribe to God. I did not forgive Him or them.

  When I woke again the next morning, all alone and gripped in misery, I began to do the things that I had done all my life but had never thought about before. Now everything had new meaning and demanded an effort that I was surprised I could support. I took a bucket down to the well and collected water. I washed my hands and face and feet, and then left the half empty bucket for the ducks. I fed them, scattering the seed outside where both ducks and hens could scrummage their own living from now on. I combed my hair and cleaned my teeth. I changed my clothes, though kept Jak’s ring around my neck, hung my mother’s talisman on the same chain and kept my mother’s pearl broach hidden in my purse. I wiped my eyes a hundred times. I locked the door of my mother’s home behind me and walked across the valley and up the little hill to the manor house.

  It was midday when I arrived. I went to the back by the kitchens for I did not expect to be welcomed at the front door. But I found the back closed and when I peeped through the small window, there was no one there. No one scrubbed or cleaned or cooked. No steam rose, no smells of soap, brewing ale or baking bread, no chattering servants. The huge room with its iron and copper and bright enamel was as empty as my own little cottage. I went around to the front
and knocked on the grand wooden door.

  The steward came at last, a long nosed man I had met before. He knew exactly who I was. “His lordship has instructed me to give you this,” said the steward.

  I didn’t look at what he was holding out to me. “I must come in,” I said. “The young lord is expecting me. I must go up to him at once.”

  “You may not.” The man looked down the length of his nose at me, as if he could see through his nostrils. “Neither of their lordships is at home.”

  I stared at him. “That’s impossible,” I said. “Jak’s too sick to go out.”

  “His lordship Lord Lydiard is mindful of the fact that you were faithful in your duty, and tended his young lordship’s illness,” said the steward, all prim in his blue and silver livery. “He has left you this purse in payment and gratitude.”

  “I don’t want it,” I said. “I want to see Jak Lydiard.”

  “I have told you,” repeated the man, prim but patient, “the household is no longer in residence. Lord Lydiard, accompanied by his son, left early this morning. They have gone away. I am not permitted to say where they have gone, but it is some considerable distance.”

  “He was far too weak to travel,” I stuttered.

  “Evidently not,” said the steward, still studiously polite, “I assure you, mistress, they have gone. They will not be returning in the near future. I am informed Lord Lydiard does not intend you to see his son again.”

  I swallowed bile. I felt sick. “Did he, did Jak Lydiard leave me a message?”

  The steward shook his head. He was finally getting tired of me. “The young lord was fast asleep when they left, and was carried out to the drawn litter,” he said. “Lord Godfrey left you only this purse, as I have already told you. Indeed, I shall be packing up and closing the entire household by the end of the ten-day. His lordship intends setting up residence – elsewhere.”

  There was no point arguing, for the steward had no authority to gainsay his master’s orders, and he stood immovable, holding out the little leather purse.

  In the end, I took it. His lordship had been generous. He had put a reasonable price on his son’s life. I lowered my head to hide the continuous tears, said my dismal thankyous, then turned on my heel and walked very slowly back down the hill and into the country lanes. There was the scent of honeysuckle on the air, like a fluff of nostalgia that followed me, breeze driven, until I reached the open fields. I watched my feet crush the little heads of scattered flowers as I trudged. Jak had told me my colour was as blue as the wild blossoms on a summer’s day. It was a fine summery day indeed, but now I felt grey, like storm clouds.

  At home, I counted Lord Lydiard’s money and divided it into three purses, which I tied around my waist under my skirts. I packed my two spare gowns, one still soiled from Jak’s agony, and made a package tied in a pillow slip which I could carry on my back. There was no food in the house, but I collected three hens’ eggs and two duck eggs and boiled them in the bucket over the fire. I shooed the hens out into the long grass with the ducks and emptied out the last seed for them to find.

  I pulled up the bottom step of the ladder to the bed and brought out the collection of salves and medicines my mother stored there. Then I went outside. Under the window close to the doorstep, I began to dig. The earth fell away in little blocks and beneath was the big black stone, flat topped and heavy. I sat down and scraped with my fingers until I managed to lift it. There I collected my mother’s precious legacy, all in its dusty narrow jars with their coded labels. I tucked those I could carry, very carefully wrapped in leaves and then linen, amongst the package of my clothes.

  They weighed heavy with their musty sinister secrets, but my mother had loved them all, and I was sorry to leave any. Each container was a wicked treasure, the art of slow death and beautiful in studied detail. I decided which to take, and which, those too heavy and too many, to leave. I brushed the pale earth from the three tall pewter bottles, well sealed to protect their viscous leaden mixture of antimony, mercury and salt. There were many tiny earthenware tubs, stoppered in blackened wood chips, containing hemlock, brews of herb, berry and fungi, and some of the wolfsbane from roots I had collected myself. There were small leather sacks too, and two tiny curls of deep green glass, holding my mother’s most expensive merchandise.

  I replaced the stone over those remaining and scraped back the earth, stamping it flat. I was still crying as I locked the door behind me and kissed the little battered handle. Then I hitched my parcel to my shoulder and began to walk down the hill.

  Along the first lane, I saw a shadow dart behind a tree, and nervously I stopped. Realising he’d been seen, the butcher stepped out into the sun streaked lane and faced me. “You’re leaving then,” he said.

  I stared at his silly face and loose mouth and little round eyes squeezed together over the bridge of his nose. I took a very deep breath. “You were one of them, weren’t you,” I accused.

  Half defensive, half apologetic, “No good holding grudges now, Mistress Freia. Sommint had to be done, and someone had to do it. Now look, the pestilence is passed. Not another innocent soul’s death since we done it.”

  I wanted to rip his horrid tight curls from his low furrowed forehead. “My mother was innocent too. She helped birthed your youngest boy. Feet first he came, but was born alive because of her. And your Lucy would have died during the delivery, but she’s alive because of my mother. You killed the woman who saved half your family.”

  He rubbed his nose on his sleeve and wouldn’t look into my eyes. “My Lucy ain’t saved. She’s dead of the Sickness, like my son Ned. There’s only the youngest boy left to me now, and he’s working up at the big house. What I did saved him, and that’s worth it, clear as day.”

  I was choking on my words, and there was no gain in standing talking to this creature. “You’re a vile and wicked murderer,” I gulped. “Think on the guilt of that for the rest of your miserable life.” I pushed past him and went on down the lane.

  He called after me. “Weren’t just me. T’was six of us, and all good men, what did the right thing. No guilt in that. And your ma – well – she did good sometimes it’s true, but she did wickedness too, with her hexes and her nasty potions. So don’t you go muttering curses now girl, nor blighting our crops. Reckon if Father Malcolm were still alive, he’d have told us we did good to kill the Curse-Giver. And we did it like the priest says. Lord Godfrey, he knew. “Do what you think best”, he said, and didn’t never interfere.” His voice finally wavered, floating behind me, so I stopped and turned and glared at him. “Soon as she were gone, so were the pestilence,” muttered the butcher, backing away from my obvious fury. “There’s the proof for you, clear as night follows day. No gainsaying it.”

  “If there is a Hell,” I shouted back at him, “I hope you burn in it. And Lord Godfrey too. And to Hell with your gods, and their preaching if they think it right to kill a good woman with rocks and stones.”

  “Blasphemy,” growled the stupid man, gaining confidence. “Get going, wench, afore we does you in too, and burns you for sacrilege and heresy.”

  If he said anything else, I didn’t hear it. I trudged away from all the horror of it and hurried under the forest canopy where I could cry again in peace. There were birds amongst the leaves over my head, my stinging eyes were soothed by the shade, and my thoughts softened with birdsong. Deeper in the shadows there lived the foxes I had saved in the past, partridge and little owls wings I had mended, and piglets snuffling to find acorns, alive because I had helped them live. I felt myself amongst friends again.

  The only other friend I had was long gone, off to a grand new home where I would surely never find him. He would gradually grow strong again, forget me and be married off to a noble’s daughter. He’d be called to war, pronounced a hero and be knighted, prosper and grow rich, have his own children to whom he would leave his riches, and thrive into a healthy old age. I wished him all the luck his God had denied my mother and me.<
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  Her foretelling had not always been my mother’s blessing, and sometimes, though rarely, it had been proved wrong. She had said I would live with Jak and be his wife in happiness. But I could no longer believe it. She had not even foreseen her own imminent death. For that, at least, I was glad.

  Lydiard was a hillside township, and the lord’s palace had been built almost on a cliff edge, facing out over the spreading plains, fields and outer cottages. Peering to the left, you could see the town, looking down like a god on the little twisting roads, the small houses and larger buildings of court, officials and church. It was lower and more restricted than other palaces because of this, and now I hoped Jak would have an even more luxurious life.

  Sometimes, in the higher mountains at our backs, the great Lacine wolf-cat could be seen. The rarest creature in Eden. Being so rare, any sight of one was supposed to bring good luck. Now desperate for the luck of some generosity, I thought I heard a rough growl. Only one creature growled, although I had never seen or heard one in my entire life. Immediately I turned. I saw only the dark fur of its hindquarters and one glimpse of its richly striped chest, belly and forelegs, as it loped away into the forest, and I once again burst into tears.

  Chapter Eight

  I walked for many days. I didn’t count them. It didn’t matter anyway. After quite a seemingly endless trudge, my cheap shoes cracked and lost their supposedly sturdy soles. I chucked them away onto the midden heap of a village I passed. Bare feet weren’t good for long walks, but I had no choice. Once I tried to plait some shoes with the reeds from a stream, but my workmanship was poor, and they fell apart. My feet toughened, but I was gentle with myself after they started to bleed. After all, I had no important task to achieve, I had no rush to arrive, I wasn’t even sure where I wanted to arrive at all.