John Saturnall's Feast (10 page)

None but the Ladies of the Queen's Closet were permitted to enter there and, among these, only one in particular might sit at Her Majesty's side, might treat with Her Majesty as intimately as she pleased and be cherished by Her Majesty above all others, namely the Lady of the Footstool.

That was Lady Lucretia.

So, after morning service in the chapel, it was Lady Lucretia who took Her Majesty's soft hand and, ignoring the familiar griping of her stomach, led her swiftly away.

‘Come quickly,’ she urged Her Majesty as the two of them slipped through the crush of worshippers. Urging was permissible from the Lady of the Footstool. And haste was devoutly to be wished when the first groups of servants were flooding into the passage and lining up for their own procession to the chapel. The pair glided through the far doorway and descended the stairs. Lady Lucretia felt her heart thud in her chest. With happiness, she told herself, taking Her Majesty's arm to guide her down the steps. Guiding was certainly permitted.

They crossed the servants’ courtyard. Lady Lucretia's stomach clenched again. The mornings were always difficult, she reflected, passing the close-stools where Her Majesty and her Lady of the Footstool both wrinkled their noses at the stench. In the cobbled tunnel beyond, servants rushed about in the half-light and porters pushed handcarts. The kitchens belched their usual clatterings and smells. Lady Lucretia resisted the temptation to clutch her midriff and forced herself to think of the gallery, the hangings and carpets glowing with imagined colour, the succession of chambers through which they would pass. She glanced anxiously at Her Majesty but all was going to plan. Then, at the entrance to the kitchens, they encountered the boy.

Untidy brown hair flopped about an open face. His mouth appeared fixed in a permanent half-smile. He sat behind a large wicker basket half filled with feathers and held a half-plucked pheasant in his hand. A brief disdainful glance sufficed for Lady Lucretia. Grimy red livery identified him as a denizen of the smoky domain beyond the gaping entrance. In short, a kitchen boy.

Master Scovell's minions were beneath the notice of Her Majesty's companions, let alone Her Majesty. But the boy's eyes widened at the sight of Her Majesty. Dead birds lay in a heap on the bench beside him: ducks, two geese, a pheasant, little mounds of partridges and pigeons. Other feathery corpses lay in boxes beneath. Staring was insolence enough, in Lady Lucretia's opinion. But then, to her outrage, the boy winked.

‘I will have that boy whipped,’ she declared, glaring furiously. But Her Majesty raised a protest which could only be described as a wail. ‘No, Lucy! You must not!’

Her Majesty's good nature was too good, thought Lucretia, gliding forward again. The pliant Queen needed her ladies to protect her. She needed Lady Lucretia, who propelled her forward then kicked a brisk diagonal path through the overgrown weeds in the knot-garden courtyard. On the far side, she pushed open a door to disclose stone steps rising in a spiral. Lady Lucretia listened to her own beating heart. The lodger in her stomach was quiescent now. The pair climbed. Before a locked oak door banded with iron, Lady Lucretia reached within her skirts and produced a heavy key. Beyond the door, she assured Her Majesty, in the bedchamber at the end of the next sunlit gallery, her ladies awaited her.

The sprung lock grated. The door creaked open. The promised sunlight indeed .flooded in. The high ceiling soared. But there was no wood-panelled suite of rooms. The elm boards were bare, unadorned by carpets. No tapestries brightened the walls.

They would imagine the chambers, Lady Lucretia told herself. They had rehearsed it dozens of times. She patted her hair through her bonnet, plaited and wound in elaborate coils for the occasion. At the far end of the gallery stood the door of dark oak. Beyond it lay the bedchamber.

Her Majesty coughed in the parched stale air. Lady Lucretia hastened forward, lifting window-levers and hammering the long-stuck frames with her fists. One by one the stiff casements swung out. Sunlight flashed off the glass.

‘People will see,’ warned Her Majesty fearfully.

‘Let them!’ exclaimed Lady Lucretia gaily, throwing open the last and peering out.

Half the East Garden was a marvel of order. Lavender beds and little lawns were bordered by neatly clipped hedges and fruit trees pleached into fences. But part-way across the garden, that order was overthrown. A swathe of neglect extended. The lavender beds erupted in cow parsley and nettles. The hedges’ geometric blocks bulged out of shape while the lawns threw up clumps of weeds. A long glass-house which formed the boundary at the back sagged part-way along its length, the frames bird-fouled and broken. Lady Lucretia touched the locket around her neck.

‘Your Majesty might mention the poor husbandry of his gardens to Sir William,’ she remarked. ‘They do not befit a house befitting a queen.’

Her Majesty looked anxiously from the glinting windows to the closed door.

‘We should not be here,’ she said fearfully.

Lady Lucretia took her firmly by the arm. The Queen's anxieties were part of her privilege, the Lady of the Footstool told herself. Her timorous nature was to be expected. No one walked in that garden, she reassured Her Majesty. Not for years and years. Just as no one came here. The Solar Gallery had been closed in her first week of life.

She turned Her Majesty away from the rank beds and advanced over the dusty wooden floor. From behind a door disguised as a panel in the wall, the din from the kitchens sounded faintly, rising from the depths of the building. The insolent kitchen boy would be hauling the birds to his master, thought Lady Lucretia, listening to the dull clangour. No one climbed the steep steps behind the door now.

She heard Her Majesty's gait grow hesitant again. How fortunate that Lady Lucretia was there to propel her forward. The Lady of the Footstool sometimes administered mock-scoldings to Her Majesty, in which Her Majesty indulged her most beloved lady-in-waiting as a mother might indulge her child, submitting to playful hectorings and conferring by these allowances a signal of her love. Lucretia considered such a scolding now but decided instead to take the Queen by the wrist and pull her forward. This too, she decided, was permitted by the protocols.

Their dresses swished. Lady Lucretia wore her favourite green calico with a bright red hem. Heels clopped on the boards, raising small clouds of dust. Standing before the dark door at the end, Her Majesty questioned the propriety of a bedchamber before midday and remarked that this door, like the other, was locked.

Lady Lucretia smiled. She touched the tight coils of her hair. She felt her heart beat faster as she released Her Majesty's arm. The ache in her disobedient stomach was sharper now but no less familiar. Not a fist but a sharp-toothed mouth, gnawing inside her. Ignore it, she told herself. Deny it as she always did. Her hand reached inside her bodice and pulled out a bright green ribbon. On the end dangled a smaller key. The lock clicked. Lady Lucretia pushed open the door.

‘Your Majesty's bedchamber.’

Her Majesty peered inside the dark chamber at the curtained windows and black damask-draped walls.

‘Are our . . . companions here, Lady Lucretia?’

Lady Lucretia smiled. Her Majesty had remembered. For once.

‘They are, Your Majesty.’

It had taken much planning to procure the key, and much effort to introduce the companions. Now, propped up on chairs around the canopied bed, lolled the Ladies of the Queen's Closet: Lady Pipkin, Lady Whitelegs and Lady Silken-hair. Lady Pimpernel appeared to have fallen off her chair. She lay face down on the floor.

As Lady Lucretia skipped forward to lift her back, the Queen made mention of her own hunger pangs, unassuaged since breakfast when she had eaten a manchet roll with runny cheese and a bowl of broth. Could they not descend to the Hall?

The mention of sustenance had its usual effect. Lady Lucretia felt a faint nausea rise inside her and beneath it the usual insubordinate longing. That was her lodger. Her unwanted appetite. Her stomach clenched as the two impulses contended. Deny it, she told herself again. Starve it.

It was early, Lady Lucretia chided Her Majesty. Midday dinner would be served in a few short hours. But in that case there was no purpose in preparing for bed, protested Her Majesty. And the bed was extremely dusty.

‘Let fatigue overtake you, Your Majesty,’ Lady Lucretia urged, pushing the Queen down onto the bed and ignoring her playful struggles. She eased off Her Majesty's stockings and shoes, which disclosed a regrettable sin of omission.

‘Your Majesty, when did you last wash your feet?’

‘Last week!’ Her Majesty replied indignantly.

She wanted to scold her but it was too late. Beside the bed, a crib with a chain of tarnished silver bells had been pushed against the wall. Lucretia pulled off her bonnet and knelt. She bowed her head and closed her eyes. Let Her Majesty remember, she pleaded. She listened to her Queen's soft breathing. They had rehearsed this part so many times.

A soft hand came to rest upon her head and Lucretia felt the touch like a balm. Deep inside her, the craving abated.

The appetite was not hers. It was a lodger that squatted inside her. A chancre. But as Her Majesty began to stroke her hair, Lucretia felt the ache begin to fade. The fingers glided gently over the coils, letting the thick black plaits loosen and unwind. Lucretia knelt between the crib and the bed, her welling eyes shut tight. The hand stroked and stroked.

But then Her Majesty giggled.

‘I'm sorry, Lucy . . .’ she spluttered.

Lucretia Fremantle opened her eyes. On the floor lay the long woollen stockings which earlier that morning she had persuaded ‘Her Majesty’ to wear. Her feet had not smelt so badly then. Perhaps the boots were to blame. The leather clod-hoppers which Gardiner decreed they must wear. At the thought of the housekeeper, she snatched up the nearest boot and threw it into the chairs. The Ladies of the Queen's Closet tumbled down, loose-limbed and beady-eyed. A little stuffing leaked from poor Pimpernel. The other dolls flopped and lolled. The girl on the bed stifled a snort of laughter.

‘It isn't funny!’ Lucretia scolded. ‘You always spoil it, Gemma. And your feet stink too!’

The girl propped herself on her elbows, dark-haired like Lucretia but rounder in the face. Gradually her giggles subsided.

‘Why must we play this game, Lucy?’ she asked at last.

‘I like it,’ Lucretia answered shortly.

She placed a hand on the crib and rocked. The little bells tinkled.

‘Well I hate this room,’ Gemma complained, thumping the coverlet and sending up an explosion of dust. ‘No wonder it was locked.’ Lucretia glanced around at the black drapes, the silver crucifix hung above the fireplace, the tiny book left on the mantelpiece. She had found the keys at the back of Mister Pouncey's drawer. Creeping up the staircase and pushing open the door for the first time, she had eyed the stain which spread from beneath the bed like a dark tongue lapping at the floor. She had thrown herself down and pressed her face into the pillow, breathing in deeply, hoping for a faint residual scent.

Dust. Musty feathers.

‘Why is it so dark?’ Gemma demanded. ‘Why does no one ever come here?’

Lucretia thought of the face in the locket pressed against her breast-bone, the woman with dark hair and dark eyes, her hair dressed in plaits and coils. But as she contemplated her answer, a creak sounded from the gallery outside. Then another.

Someone was closing the casements. Gemma gave her a terror-stricken look. Footsteps approached.

‘Lucy!’

The gait was too heavy for Mrs Pole. And Mrs Gardiner announced her presence by the jangling of her vast ring of keys. Lucretia knew these footfalls. They drew nearer and stopped. A moment later, the door was flung open.

A black silhouette filled the doorway. A broad-shouldered man stood on the threshold. Beneath a heavy coat he wore a black shirt and breeches. His eyes swept around the black-draped walls, paused at the dolls then came to rest on the two girls. Gemma looked up, wide-eyed with fright. Lucretia stared back.

She did not fear him. It was common knowledge among the servants. The only living creature in the Vale of Buckland who dared defy Sir William was his daughter. She waited for the bellow the servants so feared. But her father eyed her in silence. He came here once a year, she knew, his heavy footsteps tramping down the gallery, waiting out the hours of night in a lonely vigil. Now his face looked about the chamber, the surfaces cluttered with combs, little bottles, pincushions, samplers, the little book on the mantelpiece, all covered in a layer of dust. His gaze came to rest again on Lucretia.

‘Gemma was commanded by me,’ Lucretia began. ‘She had no will in this matter . . .’

‘Be silent.’

Beside her, she felt Gemma quiver. She feared dismissal, she had confided to Lucretia. Where would she go? Lucretia's father's eyes roved about the room.

‘You would play games in here?’

It was no game, she wanted to explain. Gemma was no queen. Only her maid and companion. But when her hand descended and her soft fingers stroked, Lucretia slipped from the body she tenanted. She escaped its rebellious appetites and aches. And the deepest ache of all.

Lady Anne had bled for three days, Mrs Gardiner had told Lucretia. Neither the prayers ordered by Sir William nor the wisest midwife in the Vale had arrested her decline. She had died here, in this bed, and after that the whole Manor had been closed up, entombed as if Buckland Manor itself had died with her.

But Lucretia had lived. That was the appetite in the depths of her belly. The craving that she denied and starved. As if she had sucked the life from her mother's veins.

Her father stared down. A new curiosity seemed to surface in his features.
What game is that, Lucretia?
What if he should ask her that? What if he should address her by name? What then would she do? She would answer him, she thought. She would go to him. She would. His mouth opened.

‘What Providence was it that gave you breath?’