CHAPTER FIVE
Bizzie: Farfalla's wench; wife of Hof-Gof the ostler; mother of Sarazin's half-brother Benthorn (sired by the farrier Fox). She is big-built, red-faced and bustling, and has (this is not idle slander but incontrovertible fact) an unfortunate taste for strong drink.
While Farfalla feared disaster, luck favoured Plovey's inno- cent companion with an attack of diarrhoea, soon followed by nausea and vomiting. Giddy, pale and sweating, Sarazin was returned to his mother, who put him in Bizzie's care.
You have the river-fever, love,' said Bizzie, bustling him into a bed.
But Sarazin understood her not, for the first victim of his mounting delirium was his access to Churl. By dayfail, his body was fire, his sheets sodden with sweat, his world a babbling torment of gloating claws. In the torrids of fever, he oft spoke of Jaluba. When Farfalla joined Bizzie's bedside vigil late that night, Sarazin was troubling after his whore in speech rank with lust: coarse speech of the questing cock. Fortunately, the Rice Empire's Gel tic was entirely unknown to Farfalla.
'My son,' said she. Or meant to say. For her tongue stumbled, and what she said was: 'Fox.'
'Shall I fetch him?' said Bizzie. ' 'Twould be a sin to let the boy die unseen by his father.'
'No,' said Farfalla, lighting another taper to supplement the single bedside candle. 'Fox is banned from the boy's presence. He knows it, too.'
While Fox still worked in her palace as a farrier, she had banished him from her life, her thoughts, her dreams. So why did his name still haunt her tongue?
TVly lady,' ventured Bizzie, 'if someone is to be punished, may it not be me? For, to be sure, 'tis cruel to you and him alike to cut him away entirely.'
'Fox is banned as a matter of policy,' said Farfalla. 'Not as punishment. Flesh is what flesh is, and men are made as men are made. And women, too. It is his advice I must fear, and the boy also.' 'He means well,' said Bizzie.
'I know, I know,' said Farfalla. Then: 'It's too late at night to talk politics. It suffices to say the man is dangerous.'
Dangerous indeed, for his political passions were strong, to say the least. All too clearly he saw the wrongs of the world: and urged the world to action. Often in the past he had forced Farfalla to act. In the cause of justice, true. But by doing his will Farfalla had provoked the Regency into passing the unanimous vote necessary to take away most of her power..If she yielded to him again, she might lose her life.
– And his. And my sons' lives. He talks as if life was well lost for a cause. But can a cause laugh or cry, breathe or feel?
Sarazin moaned. For luck, Farfalla ran her hand through the flame of one of the candles, slowly enough to feel the heat yet too quickly for flesh to burn.
Then touched Sarazin's forehead. Felt the protest of his scorched flesh. Stooped, and kissed. Salt on her tongue. His skin hot, unyielding, tight against the skull. But the width of a blade separates life from bone. Unwashedfrom his journey, he still stank of sun and horses. And piss, shit and vomit. -Like a baby.
Child born in the years of her hope, the years of her love, when Fox had outshone the very sun. She had been young, strong, perfect. Alive in a world where all things were possible for her. And now?
T)on't cry, my lady,' said Bizzie, touching her by way of comfort. 'Don't cry. I spoke of death but I doubt hell die.'
Don't worry about me,' said Farfalla. Worry about him. I wish we had healers of worth in this city.'
'There was a pox doctor at your gates but recent,' said Bizzie. 'He was turned away by the guards, but I saw him well. A handsome young man, oh yes. The strangest green eyes! I thought the guard cruel to chase him away without hearing.' 'Perhaps,' said Farfalla indifferently.
She knew of no virtue in pox doctors, who were for the most part failed wizards or quacks more useless yet. As for her guards, they had orders to be ruthless, for all the world saw fit to beg at her gates yet her resources were but slender.
You sleep now,' said Bizzie. 'It's not good for you to be awake and worried when you've work to do on the morrow.'
'I've work to do before I sleep,' said Farfalla. 'Hunt out some help. We're going to wash this boy then sponge him down to cool the fever. Clean sheets would not go amiss, either.' Yes, my lady,' said Bizzie.
Then bobbed her head and exited, leaving Farfalla alone with her son Sarazin. Delicately, she reached out and pinched a mosquito which had settled on his cheek. Plump with blood, it broke to a smear beneath her fingers.
She was alone in the room. Very much alone. A hot summer night. Airless. Hot candles burning. Hames silent, shading from yellow to red. A puckering of purple, a thread of smoke ascending. And heat, yes, heat and weight, blood breaking. The white-hot stars shivering on the horizon as she gasped. -Fox. She knelt by the bed. And she wept.
Fever racked Sean Sarazin for five days and five nights. Then receded, leaving him weak, troubled by persistent diarrhoea and a painful wheeze, and by hack-cough attacks which saw him gobbing up lumps of green and yellow phlegm. He was dismayed by his jellyfish limbs, his smoke- fogged vision. But even more dismayed to find his sword missing. It was valuable in itself, but all the more precious because it was the gift of Lord Regan. A royal gift. 'My sword!' he cried. 'It's stolen!'
'Hush,' said the red-faced middle-aged woman at his bedside. Tour mother has your weapon in her keeping.' 'My mother? What wants she with a weapon of war?'
'I know not, young master, for I have not the keeping of her will.' 'Who are you then?' said Sarazin.
Tvly name is Bizzie. Once your mother's maid, but now yours.'
Sarazin turned away, feeling sick. Was this a joke? Bizzie was the mother of Benthorn, his half-brother. Why had Farfalla done this to him?
Tour mother has ventured a certain suggestion,' said Bizzie, laying her hand on Sarazin's brow.
'To hell with her suggestions!' said Sarazin. 'I want my sword! I want it now! Go and get it!'
But Farfalla kept the blade, not trusting him with anything so valuable. On revisiting his bedside she told him so explicitly:
'This city of sin owns many temptations. I'd not have you lose a great treasure to such.'
You treat me as a child,' said Sarazin, all resentment. TsAy father would not treat me thus.'
'Fox is not a party to this argument, and never will be. Fox is banned from your presence, and you from his.' 'You can't do that!' said Sarazin.
'I can,' said Farfalla. 'I do. I must. Fox almost lost his life through radical politics, and almost cost me mine. Because of the dangers of such politics you must never meet.'
As Celadon, Peguero and Jarnel accepted this ban, Farfalla did not believe Sarazin would do otherwise. Until now, Sarazin himself had never thought to seek out Fox, who was but a low-bred farrier. But, his curiosity piqued, he asked: 'What kind of man is he?'
'Fox? He's… his best is excellent. Strength, wisdom, humour. But then… he has his moods. Black moods of anger when he… he wrecks his own work.'
'Did he – did he take Bizzie in such a mood?' said Sarazin.
You a man and you ask me that?' said Farfalla. 'He took her because she was available and I eight months pregnant with you. Oh, I remember. I won't forget. One of your feet must have been jammed beneath my ribs, because its reminder never left me. You were born in winter, I remember, and…'
On and on she went, detailing Sarazin's genesis. This he found intensely embarrassing. He could have discussed sexual intercourse easily, even with his mother, for there a man found power and pleasure both. But birth? No! To have been born: it was, really, demeaning. He was scarcely pleased to be reminded that he had been small and helpless, yolk-wet and toothless, a writhing bundle of hunger- bawling incontinence.
'… but I loved you, not least because you were my first. You cried when they took you, oh, you were so little, only four years old and you cried and cried, it near broke my heart, I cried myself for days…'
