“How do you know, brat?” demanded one woman.
Someone else said, “That page died in four days. The king has been sick for three days, and he’s not getting any better.”
“They say one of the gardeners died too. What if someone here gets it? I thought the worst was over two months back.”
“His majesty can’t die. Kings don’t die of common diseases.”
We were so far removed from the royal quarters, none of us felt connected to the tragedy building, but we knew of the panic and chaos in the kitchens, where everyone ran in circles, following sudden orders and attempting to fulfil the strange recipes written by the doctor. Many were terrified, both of the Plague’s return, and of the possibility of their king’s death. Pounding upstairs, running steps echoing over our heads, out into the herb garden and back down to the cellars, up to the royal chambers and around and around. Yelling, crying, shouting, whispering.
It was the steward who came to me. “You said you could make medicines. Is there anything for the Pestilence?” I had none of my mother’s medicine left since Jak, she and I had drunk every beautiful sip. So I shook my head. “The king is dying,” said the steward, looking down at me. “The only two remaining doctors are useless, and the one Principal is an unpleasant fool. I doubt you’ll prove any more useful, but this is his royal majesty I speak of. Everything, every single thing must be done to help, and at the very least to put the poor king out of his misery.”
“Hasten death?” I asked in horror.
The steward immediately slapped my face. “How dare you speak of such things,” he scowled. “I mean to alleviate all pain, and to bring a gentle sleep at the very least.”
“I can do that,” I said, my cheek stinging. I rubbed it and scowled back at my toes.
“Come with me,” the steward ordered. “and toss off that wet and filthy apron first.
I scurried after him, up the back stairs, and immediately into a part of the castle I had never seen before, and never expected to. The corridors were immediately bright and light, the windows and their colourful patterns blazed with coloured brilliance. The tiled floors were straight and wide, and past the first two large doorways, they were fully carpeted in spotless white, while the walls were again multi-coloured. Windows swelled as we travelled each corridor, and finally, I scampered after the steward and discovered a corridor which was magnificent in colour and brightness, light and carpeted, with only one grand doorway. The door was closed. The steward put his finger to his lips and opened the door, virtually pushing me inside. He expected me to be intimidated both by the king’s presence, and the danger of the disease. But neither frightened me in the least and I tiptoed to the bed.
The bed was almost a room by itself, large enough for ten people or more, exquisitely covered and swathed, curtained in silks and velvets, and heaped with feather pillows. But the brightness stopped here, and everything was dark and shadowed. Huge windows were shuttered, and the bed curtains were pulled. The little head was lost within the eiderdowns and bed covers but could be quickly identified by the rattle of snoring and the stench of the Plague.
I saw bowls of clean water and cloths and used them to cool the small man’s forehead, and whispered in his ear, “Your majesty, can you bear to wake just for a few minutes?”
It wasn’t the king who answered. A thin man in sweeping black robes stared at me from the other side of the bed, and in a low voice demanded, “Who are you, girl? How dare you come here?”
The steward, standing just inside the door, said, “This is Freia of Lydiard. She is employed here simply as a laundry girl, but she claims to have knowledge of medicines and the possible cures for the Pestilence. Since you, sir, have not helped his majesty in any manner whatsoever, I took it upon myself to try someone else. Anything at all is better than nothing at all. I cannot dismiss you, sir, but I have the right to introduce others.”
It wasn’t the sick king who intimidated me, but the doctor did. He had a very obtrusive nose which hooked over at the end as if looking to drink from the mouth beneath. He had no hair, and his scalp appeared almost polished. His eyes were squeezed into narrow ridges and seemed to have no lids.
I said, “I have medicines in my bag, which I keep beneath the straw of my pillow. I can fetch it now and can offer his majesty some gentle sleep while I try to mix a different drink to banish the disease.”
“This could be poison,” the doctor scowled. “If his majesty dies, I shall bring charges of murder and treason against both of you.”
I’d thought his majesty being so horribly ill was a dreadful thing, and without my mother’s skill, I doubted I could save him. This seemed terrible to me.
But the presence of a doctor who surely shared the skills I needed, seemed like wonderful luck, and I was ready to imagine a cure for the king. But now it turned out to be equally terrible since the doctor was an unskilled and unpleasant fool.
I looked first at the steward and then at the doctor. The doctor’s nose twitched, and the steward clenched both hands. I said in a hurry, “May I collect my medicines?”
“Certainly,” said the steward, and called a page from the corridor to guide me and bring me back.
The doctor called out, “Bring poison, wench, and I shall inform his majesty of your evil plans.” Since he had no idea that I came from a witches’ family and knew a great deal about poisons, I was mystified and extremely annoyed.
It took some time to collect my bag of medicines and ingredients since the laundry was the furthest away from the royal bedchamber as could be arranged.
And so it all began again. The sweating and the agony, the sympathy and the worry. Medicines that seemed to offer no help, and others which at least brought rest, sleep, and ease. It was that night, and I remained at the bedside when his majesty opened his eyes for the first time. They were blood-streaked, as Jak’s had been. In a gruff whisper, he said, “Kill me, wench. I have begged the doctor, but he refuses. The pain is too terrible. I have nothing to live for except agony.”
It was fairly obvious that this man was not as weak as Jak had been, since he could speak and make lucid demands. “I can’t,” I answered him, not quite sure how to address a king. “I’d be executed. And I want to help, not kill.” I leaned closer, “sire, do you have buboes?”
He stared back at me as if I was mad. “What are such things? Money? You want gifts?”
I almost laughed. “They are like black or purple boils,” I told him, “which are a part of this illness, and are signs of how far advanced the sickness has come. They are painful, and hide beneath your arms, at the side of your neck, or in the creases at the top of your legs.”
“I have no idea,” the king sighed. “That fool of a doctor never mentioned such a thing.”
I sat on the edge of the bed, unaware that this constituted a crime. “I have to know,” I said. “It makes a difference in many ways. Can you ask someone to look where I say? I don’t think I should do it myself.” I supposed the man was naked beneath his quilts. I could see his neck and the top of his shoulders were uncovered. I saw no buboes at the side of his neck, but that wasn’t enough.
“Call the page,” he told me, so I copied what the steward had done, poked my head around the door and shouted, “Page. Urgent. Come to the Royal Bedchamber.” A pattering of footsteps, half swallowed by soft rugs, came out of the shadows. I pulled the child into the room and pointed to the bed. “His majesty must be examined briefly by a boy,” I explained.
Since his majesty was an eager client, although secretly, at the Molly House, I didn’t think he’d mind being examined by the young boy.
The page was scared stiff and probably thought he’d catch the pestilence himself, but he obeyed whatever I demanded as I turned my back and called out my orders. The king groaned. The child said, “Little black spots between the leg and the sticky bits. One on each side. Nothing under the arms. Splodges all over the chest. Can I go now?”
I let him go and returned to sit on
the mattress. “Well,” I said, “with an attempt at reassurance. “You have the beginnings of the final stage of the Plague.” This was usually a diagnosis of imminent death in agony. “But it’s early, and I may be able to stop it getting any worse. I’m not sure. I’m sorry, but I’m not a wonderful doctor at all. I learned from my mother, and she was wonderful, but not me.”
“Call her then,” he mumbled, sounding worse.
“I can’t. She’s dead,” I said. “But I remember some of what she did when she cured the sickness. I’ll try.”
He slept while I used his spacious garderobe annexe to mix my medicines. There were bowls of water, a well-padded commode, a bathtub with a cushioned headrest, and a multitude of pegs each filled several times over with the most luxurious robes I could have imagined. I used to think Jak wore wonderful clothes. It would be natural, I supposed, for a king to wear even more glory with even his britches bejewelled, but I didn’t have time to look closely.
I made medicines as best I could. I remembered the ingredients, but I could not remember the quantities. There had been red mushrooms, the mould from the bread, the willow bark well boiled, and the poppy flowers. There were the seeds of the pomegranate and the parrotblossom, a well smashed gargoyle beetle, and algae from the river’s surface, well washed and stripped. I had a good supply of fungi, mould from wheat, grabbick and barley, and finally, there were the leaves of the slightly narcotic hemp itself, mixed with some oil of the huge golden magnolia stamen.
The rare gyst seeds she had used were impossible to repeat, but I thought I had everything else. I remembered the deep colour of my mother’s medicine and tried to copy it. I dipped in a finger for tasting, since I’d drunk half a bottle back home, and knew how it had seemed. I did my best, and it took seven hours.
I considered myself immune, but I wondered if half the royal servants might come down with it. Yet I was satisfied with my results, not positively assured, but confidently hopeful. That was when I fell asleep on the great couch with its velvet cushions, that stood in the room. I pulled it to block the door into the garderobe so that no one could steal what I’d cooked up for the king. I was probably the first female since his mother ever to sleep in his majesty’s bedroom
Exhausted and slightly intoxicated by all the herbs and moulds I had mixed and inhaled, I slept long and well.
I awoke with two grubby fingers creeping up beneath my skirt. For one crazed blink, I wondered if this was the king and how I would cope with such a thing. But it wasn’t the king, who slept on. It was Bembitt, the man I hated most after the chief doctor himself.
His Majesty's personal valet classed himself as a member of the senior household. His word must be obeyed, and his appearance given deference and respect. He did not eat in the kitchens with the women, the boys and the lowliest of the servants. He ate either by himself in his chamber, or in the evenings with the upper to mid-servants, a stratum ruled by the butler. He was therefore one of those who must always be approached with eyes lowered and addressed as Master Bembitt. I tried to follow the rules as Bembitt pottered around his majesty’s room, straightening, closing shutters and opening curtains, wiping down surfaces and ordering pages to clean the commode and build up the fire. He was twice as officious when his majesty slept and was too ill to hear or see. But after Master Bembitt had attempted six times to grope me, hands tugging at my skirts while pinning me trapped in the garderobe, I called him something else entirely.
Bembitt laughed. “You’ll learn, stupid trollop.”
“I certainly am learning,” I sniffed, keeping my voice low as it bounced dead and echoless from the damp stone.
“You’re learning the wrong things, slut. I could make life a lot easier for you.” Bembitt, elbow to the wall, blocked my escape. “I could introduce you to the king’s young nephew Toor. Show me you’re worth it, and I’ll tell him you’re as pretty as he already thinks you are, but in places he hasn’t seen yet. First, open your thighs for me, and then for him, and you’ll soon warrant a promotion.”
Work, full speed imperatives had already made me sweat, and now the sweat turned to ice down my back. “You’re a vile man, Master Bembitt. As for Toor, he’s never even seen me because I’ve never seen him.” I wondered if I could risk kicking Bembitt’s skinny ankles. He wore absurdly long piked shoes and would probably fall over if he tried to run after me. But there would always be a next time, trapped in some private place without escape from his revenge. So I just whispered, “Indeed, I believe the child can only be ten or eleven years old and probably still dreams of his nurse. You are quite, quite disgusting.”
“The boy’s twelve years old,” grinned Bembitt. The saliva coating his teeth gleamed greenish in the shadows. “What age do you think every normal boy starts playing with what’s between his legs? And he’s seen you all right, watching you from the nursery window when you get water from the well. So now he wants you to play with what he plays with himself. I’m also his father’s valet and intend teaching him the right games. He’s just the age to start.”
Jak’s heavy-lidded eyes and how I had first met him came into the forbidden corners of my memory. “You disgust me. I refuse to continue this conversation.”
“I didn’t know it was a conversation,” said Bembitt without removing the grin or the arm. “But look out for me, mistress pure. I won’t be giving up so easily. And letting young Toor swive you while I teach him what to do, will benefit both of us, I promise. Think about it, silly little goose. Anyone would think you were a virgin.”
He was short, bow-legged and horse-chinned, his stockings wrinkled in folds under the knees, and he curled his hair, so it crimped to his shoulders at both sides, lank and unwashed at the back. Even his breath was stale as if he had a stomach-full of bad manners to expel. Yet I had been loved by the most beautiful boy in the world, who could have courted princesses and instead had chosen me. Now some slimy lamprey dared to push his cold bony fingers down the front of my bodice and had once actually managed to pinch my breast before I struggled away.
Now I shoved Bembitt and he banged his head against the door. That was when the king woke. Befuddled and in pain, his majesty blinked those bloodshot eyes, muttering, “what? Who disgusts? Am I so sick?”
“Not at all, your majesty,” I said in a rush, grabbing up the medicine I had mixed, still warm in the vial and a small cup, usually kept for water. I brought everything to the bedside, and I emptied half the vial into the cup and held it to his lips. “Sip,” I ordered. “Sip slowly but swallow every drop of this that you can.”
Bembitt stared at me, half glare, half snigger. “My dearest lord,” he came to the king’s side, “this wench is a fraud and a slut. No one has a cure for the Pestilence, and she gives you either poison, or a child’s useless drink.”
I had one arm beneath the king’s small head, holding it up so he could drink, and the other on the cup. Otherwise, I would have slapped the vile idiot and risked whatever punishment came after. But all I could manage was to ignore Bembitt and continue talking to the king. “Your majesty, this is the best cure I can make and is my mother’s recipe. It may work well. If I’ve forgotten something, it may not work so well. But I think it will help a little at the very least. If you can take a cup of this now, and another this evening, I think it could really begin to make you better.”
Bembitt slid away when the official doctor stomped in from his afternoon nap. Doctor Errin had a darker scowl than Bembitt. He marched over and snatched the cup from my hand. The king coughed, half swallowing, half spitting the last sip. “How dare you, sir,” he stared at his doctor. “You gave me no cure. I’ll try out what this girl prescribes, and you’ll not interfere unless I die.”
Errin, sour faced, handed back the cup. It was empty anyway, but I held it tight and smiled at the king. “I swear this, my lord,” I said to my king. “I know a great deal of medicine, and if I cannot cure you of the Black Death, then at the least I will be able to lessen the pain.”
I
nearly asked him why the greatest man in the kingdom employed an entirely vile valet and a useless and vile doctor, but I couldn’t say it, and I more or less understood. There would be someone else who chose who to employ, and his majesty would simply assume the right man had been sent to him and would accept what he got.
“That,” he sighed, falling back against the pillows, “will be the best of all. To sleep, to sleep forever perhaps, since I hold life as without value.”
I nodded. His words already sounded clear. “Your majesty, I promise painless sleep but not eternal sleep. If the cure is successful, then life will become joyous again.”
He looked up at me. “It never was,” he said softly. “But I fear this much pain.”
The doctor leaned over, smelling the king’s breath. “The girl cheats, your majesty. She should be whipped.”
“Get out,” the king wheezed at him, finally angry. “I want you gone, not to return. Now.” He spoke the last word as loudly as he could manage, and the doctor ran.
I administered the second half of the recipe that evening, and the king smiled, perhaps half a smile, and whispered that the pain was ebbing.
I became quite fond of my sovereign that evening. He woke sufficiently to talk to me, guttural half words, but I understood. I told him something of myself, and he told me something of himself, which surprised me very much. “I know little of life,” I said, sitting on the edge of his mattress again. He didn’t seem to mind. “I grew up near Lydiard in the northern hills. Once I saw a lacine, and it was as beautiful as they say it is. But I fell in love with Lord Lydiard’s son, and my mother cured him of the Plague. I’ve made you her recipe. It worked before. But I was thrown from the house, and the lord took his son away. I’m just a village nobody, and they called my mother a witch.”
As each hour passed, King Ram was welcoming more peace and less pain. His voice became clear. Softly spoken, he still managed to speak at length and smiled at me. “A witch? Well, young lady, I believe you and your mother between you may well have found the most magical cure ever know. I feel more myself each moment.”
The Corn Page 10
