As Meat Loves Salt. Maria McCann

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СКАЧАТЬ time I saw it not. I took the nuts for their green shiny coats and was scratching at these the better to smell them when he called out, ‘Jacob,’ and the name leapt in my breast. I was already a big lad and very strong from the field work. When he came up to me he was no taller than myself, but I was sore afraid of him. He took the nuts from me and cast them on the ground along with the little knife I was carrying.

      ‘Now get down,’ said he. I had been raised to bear punishment meekly, and I knelt thinking he would beat me.

      ‘No, lie down. On your back.’ And I did indeed lie down, hoping he would not kick me. Instead of which he placed a foot on either side of my body and then hunkered down until he was sitting astride me. He took up the walnuts and the knife.

      ‘See this boy?’ He peeled one of the things before my face. ‘Here, eat it.’ And he pushed the unripe nut into my mouth and pressed my teeth into it. The burning made me scream and some of the nut got down my throat. In my agony I threw him off and ran home, spitting and wailing.

      ‘Green fruit, boy!’ he shouted after me.

      My tongue was black weeks after.

      I cannot say why this suddenly came to memory except the thirst, now growing outrageous. Still I went on up the Devizes road, having no idea how far I might be from Beaurepair. Soon I made up my mind for it that I would beg at the next door for water if Cornish himself lodged there, but it was another hour at least before I came upon a group of straggly dwellings, not even an alehouse, and the whole place strangely quiet. An elderly man stood in one of the cottage gardens and stared at me as I staggered up to him.

      ‘Save you, Friend,’ I wheezed, ‘and where might I find some water?’

      He looked me over and did not answer.

      ‘I faint from the road.’

      The man spoke almost without moving his lips. ‘You’ll be a quartermaster.’

      ‘What?’

      He gestured at my dirty wedding gear. ‘With the King’s forces.’

      ‘All I seek is water, for myself. Give it me and you’ll see me no more.’

      He dawdled still. I observed that his body was bent over on one side by injury and the hands had twisted black nails: the hardness of long oppression.

      ‘I wear another’s clothing for all my own was stolen,’ I cried. ‘Don’t you hear my voice crack with the thirst? Be a Christian, Friend.’

      The Christian moved away from the wall and pointed silently over his shoulder. I saw, and ran to, a well. The water tasted like sucking an iron spoon but I drank enough to split my sides, far beyond the prompting of need, for I had learnt what it was to thirst on the road.

      ‘Now get you gone,’ he said. ‘Those are your garments right enough; you’re big like all the rich. Tell them we’ve nothing to eat but the scurf off our heads.’

      He must be crazed with want, I thought, to fancy that a quartermaster would come with neither horse nor weapon. I started along the street and looked about me for saner company, and a house where I might beg a little bread. But my surly friend was right: wherever I looked I saw folk draw back from the windows. There were no cows, nor no grain neither, in the fields, the fruit trees in the gardens were all picked bare or even lopped and not a single hen picked a living from the clay and stones of the road. I walked on, and on, and on.

      We had suffered nothing of this at home: by some stroke of luck or stupidity they had never asked us for free quarter. I had heard of it, how the soldiers ate everything they could and stole or broke up the rest, nay, debauched the women too if the commander turned a blind eye. The King’s forces were the most dreaded for that their officers had precious little control over their men, but no army was welcome. Now I was seeing it for myself. At every house where I tried to beg I had the same answer in words angry or civil, and many seemed persuaded I was a spy, sent to ascertain what remained to be devoured. In the end I took to stealing by night, mostly the odd apple in a garden or griping crabs from the hedges. Breaking into the dairy at one place I found a cheese, and wept with joy. In this fashion I passed perhaps a week, and was lucky not to be put in the stocks.

      But at last there were no more houses, and the torment began in earnest. The Devil lashed me onwards with ugly pictures of Caro and Zeb; he rode me hard, driving in the spurs. I had pain all along my breastbone and I thought of the words broken heart. My pace had slowed; I knew that beggars could walk for days without food, but I could not do as they did, being used to good feeding. What victuals I had picked up no longer sustained me. My path began to zigzag, and from time to time a knee buckled or the heel of my shoe turned aside. I was like one that has had a beating, my body tender, swerving, weakening as I went, and my throat parched. There was none on the road, and I sat for a moment to ease my blisters. When I made to get up I could not, and sprawled on the grass. It was sweet to dissolve into blackness and the earth. When daylight came back, I was talking to someone who asked me, Is Isaiah in gaol? I answered, Patience and Cornish might name him. They are most hardened against Zeb and me. If they take him it will be with Caro and they must hang him in gold. On my asking how Patience could leave Zeb for Cornish, he answered me singing, that Zebedee was cruel to her and this makes maids devils, maids devils, maids devils.

      Aye, I said. And devils themselves grow crueller by the continual action of pain upon them. I opened my eyes and there was nobody with me.

      The sun grew stronger on my face. Noon. My head ached as from strong drink and I wished only to remain lying and speak to none. A woman passed me with a little child, walking by on the other side. Afterwards I tried to rise, but getting upon my feet my body pitched forwards and I was again stretched in the dust. I rolled onto my back. The walnut was in my throat, burning the flesh black, but I could lose it by falling asleep. The old man stood over me, dropping something onto my face. I said to him, They are in bed at the inn together, but he is dead of the fever; I made to sit upright but my head was nailed to the ground. He forced another nut between my teeth, a hard one. It let something cold into my mouth.

      ‘Keep your feet on him,’ a man said. I could feel no feet on my body; was someone standing on me? There was a smell of smoke and I heard our horses run into the wood.

      The sky was wet. I lay on my back and saw men move at the sides of my head before darkness closed over me again.

      ‘His eyes opened,’ said a gentle voice near me, and then, ‘drink.’ The hard thing was once more put between my lips and I turned my head away.

      ‘Leave him, Ferris.’

      ‘We cannot leave him like this.’ Warm fingers wiped my mouth and chin. I looked up to see a young man gazing perplexed into the distance, his profile lean and pensive, but full-lipped and long-nosed. He knelt at my side as if watching for someone, his hand still absently stroking my lips so that I breathed its scent of sweat and gunmetal.

      I coughed against his palm, and he turned on me a pair of eyes as grey as my own. Pale hair hung thick on his collar; I saw he had shaved some days before. As I met his eyes they darkened, the pupils opening out like drops of black ink fallen into the grey, then he looked away, and his fingers slid from my face.

      ‘Let me drink,’ I creaked out.

      ‘Get on your side.’ He tugged at my arm, gritting his teeth as he tried to roll me over. ‘Up. Up on your elbow.’ When he had pulled me into position, I reached out my hand for the water, and caught a wry look from СКАЧАТЬ