Jacob had no interest in mercy; neither in its dispensing nor its receiving. He was set against the sentimental world as any pure force must be, entertaining neither kindness nor cruelty in his dealings. He scorned the comfort of prayer, and the distractions of fancy; he mocked grief, he mocked hope. He mocked despair also. The only quality he revered was patience, bought with the knowledge that all things pass. The sun would drop out of sight soon enough, and the weakness in his limbs melt into strength. All he had to do was wait. From inside, the sound of motion. And then, Rosa's sighing voice: 'I've been remembering,' she said. 'You have not,' he told her. Sometimes the pains of this hour made her delirious.
'I have. I swear,' she said. 'An island comes to mind. Do you remember an island? With wide, white shores? No trees. I've looked for trees and there are none. Oh...' Her words became groans again, and the groans turned into sobs. 'Oh, I would die now, gladly.'
'No, you wouldn't.'
'Come and comfort me.'
'I have no wish-'
'You must, Jacob. Oh ... oh, Lord in heaven ... why do we suffer so?'
Much as he wanted to stay out of her range, her sobs were too poignant to be ignored. He turned his back on the dying day, and strode down the corridor to the Courtroom itself. Mrs McGee was lying on the ground in the midst of her veils. She had lit a host of candles around her, as though their light might ameliorate the cruelty of the hour.
'Lie with me,' she said, looking up at him.
'It will do us no good.'
'We may get a child.'
'And that will do us no good, either,' he replied, 'as well you know.'
'Then lie with me for the comfort of it,' she said, her gaze fond. 'It is such agony to be separated from you, Jacob.'
'I'm here,' he said, curbing his former harshness.
'Not close enough,' she said with a tiny smile.
He walked towards her. Stood at her feet.
'Still ... not close enough,' she said to him. 'I feel so weak, Jacob.'
'It will pass. You know it will.'
'At times like this I know nothing,' she said, 'except how much I need you.' She reached down and plucked at her skirt, watching his face all the while. 'With me,' she murmured. 'In me.'
He made no reply. 'Are you too weak, Jacob?' she said, still pulling up her skirt. 'Is the mystery too much for you?'
'It's no mystery,' he replied. 'Not after all these years.'
Now she smiled, and tugged the skirt to the middle of her thighs. She had fine legs; solid, meaty legs, her skin pearly in the candlelight. Sighing, she slipped her hand beneath her dress, and fingered herself, her hips rising to meet her touch.
'It's deep, love,' she said. 'And dark. And all wet for you.' She pulled her skirt up to her waist. 'Look,' she said. She had spread herself, to give him a look at her. 'Don't tell me that isn't a pretty thing. A perfect little cunny, that.' Her gaze went from his face to his groin. 'And you like the look of it, and don't you pretend you don't.'
She was right, of course. As soon as she'd started to raise her skirt his dunderheaded member had started to swell, demanding its due. As if his limbs weren't weak enough, without having to lose blood to its ambition.
'I'm tight, Mr Steep.'
'I'm sure you are.'
'Like a virgin on her wedding night I am. Look, I can barely fit my littlest finger in there. You'll have to do me some violence, I suspect.'
She knew what effect this kind of talk had upon him. A little shudder of anticipation passed through him, and he proceeded to take off his coat.
'Unbutton yourself,' Mrs McGee said, her voice bruised. 'Let me see what you have there.'
He cast his coat away and fumbled with the buttons of his mud-spattered trousers. She watched him, smiling, as he brought his member out.
'Oh now look at that,' she said, not unappreciatively. 'I think it wants a dip in my cunny.'
'It wants more than a dip.'
'Does it indeed?'
He knelt between her legs, and, reaching out, removed her hand from her sex, to give himself better sight of it. Then he stared.
'What are you thinking?' she said.
He fingered her for a moment, then ran his moistened digit down to her arse. 'I'm thinking ...' he said, '... that I'd rather have this today.'
'Oh would you?'
He pressed his finger in a little way. She squirmed. 'Let me put it here,' he said. 'Just the head.'
'There are no children to be had that way,' she said.
'I don't care,' he replied. 'It's what I want.'
'Well, I don't,' she replied.
He smiled at her. 'Rosa-' he said softly -you could not deny me.'
He slipped his hands beneath her knees and hoisted them up. 'We should give up all hope of children,' he said, staring at the dark bud between her buttocks. 'They have always come to nothing.' She made no reply. 'Are you listening, love?' He glanced up at her face. She wore a sorrowful expression.
'No more children?' she said.
He spat in his hand, and slickened his prick. Spat again, more copiously, and slickened her arse.
'No more children,' he said, drawing her closer to him. 'It's a waste of your affections, smothering love on a thing that hasn't even got the wit to love you back.'
This was the truth of the matter: that though they had together made children numbering in the many dozens, he had for her sake taken them from her in the moment of their delivery and put them out of their misery, if the cretins ever knew misery. He would dutifully come back when he'd disassembled them and disposed of the pieces, always with the same grim news. That though they were fine to look at, their skulls contained only bloody fluid. Not even a rough sketch of a brain; nothing.
He pushed his prick into her. 'It's better this way,' he said.
She let out a little sob. He couldn't tell whether it was out of sorrow or pleasure, and at that moment didn't really care. He pressed against the warmth of her muscle, his prick utterly enveloped. Oh, it was good.
'No ... children ... then.. .' Mrs McGee gasped.
'No children.'
'Not ever?'
'Not ever.'
She reached up and took hold of his shirt, pulling him down towards her.
'Kiss,' she said.
'Be careful what you ask for
'Kiss,' she said again, raising her face towards his.
He didn't deny her. He pressed his lips against hers, and let her tongue, which was nimble, dart between his aching teeth. His mouth was always drier than hers. His parched gums and throat drank deep, and murmuring his gratitude against her lips, he pressed hard into her, their hold on one another suddenly frantic. Her hands went to his throat, then to his face, then to his backside, pushing him deeper, while his fingers pulled at her buttons to gain access to her breasts.
'Who are you?' she said to him.
'Anyone,' he gasped.
'Who?'
'Pieter, Martin, Laurent, Paolo-'
'Laurent. I liked Laurent.'
'He's here.'
'Who else?'
'I forget all the names,' Jacob confessed.
Rosa brought her hands back up to his face, and caught tight hold of it. 'Remember for me,' she said to him.
'There was a carpenter called Bernard-'
'Oh yes. He was very rough with me.'
'And Darlington
-the draper. Very tender.' She laughed. 'Didn't one of them wrap me up in silk?'
'Did he?'