John Saturnall's Feast (22 page)

She had put her mother's letter from her thoughts, carefully folding it and replacing it in the book. Piers would escort her in the feast, she told herself. His shy tongue would unbind itself then. Lying in her bed, Lucretia pulled her sheets tight about her as if lambswool dresses and caps of flowers already clothed her. Cinching her waist with her hands, she imagined the belt with its amber studs.

On the night of the feast, Lucretia watched her father take the hand of Lady Caroline and escort her silently through the ranks of the Household to her place at the table on the dais. Hector Callock, for want of any other partner, followed with Mrs Pole. Piers Callock extended his hand.

‘Lady Lucretia.’

His fingers were cold. That was the chill in the Great Hall. The servants stood beneath the vaulted root Gemma grinning between Meg and Ginny as Piers led her to her place. The high table was crowded with unfamiliar silver plates and bowls, heavy cloth napkins, an ornate clock and a salt-cellar fashioned like a sailing ship. The Fremantle tapestry had been unearthed and hung on the far wall. Reaching her place, Piers Callock released her hand without a word. Still shy in such grand surroundings, decided Lucretia. As a shepherd would be, wandering in from the slopes. Seated, the youth dipped his hands in the finger bowl then wiped them on his velvet breeches.

His was an untutored spirit, she reflected. Piers's courtliness was learned at Nature's breast. As Father Yapp stood to say Grace, the boy chewed his tongue. Across the table, Lady Caroline offered a wan smile. She had suffered a disgrace, Gemma had said. One of Sir Hector's footmen had told one of the laundry maids. The woman's watery blue eyes drifted over the company.

Below the high table, the servants gabbled among themselves. Down the length of the hall, in the arched entranceway between the buttery and pantry, four serving men led by Mister Quiller struggled under the weight of a vast silver tureen. A heady smell of wine rose from the steaming vessel. Goblets were passed up and down the high table. Sir Hector toasted the King, then Sir William, then Saint Joseph, then held up his cup for more.

‘This is a fine liquor!’ the man exclaimed. ‘I will have my cook prepare it, if the rascal can stir himself to learn . . . ‘

Mister Pouncey leaned forward. ‘It is an old hippocras, Sir Hector.’ He pointed to the tapestry. ‘It is said the first Lord of Buckland warmed his holy wine on a fire he discovered in the wildwood here. When he found it miraculously spiced, he built a tower on the spot. Now his tomb looks out over the Vale . . .’

‘First Lord, eh?’ Sir Hector's voice had gained a new abrasive note. Lucretia saw Lady Caroline dart an anxious glance up the table. Mister Pouncey looked baffled. Sir Hector stabbed a finger across the table. ‘Every old story can be told another way, Master Steward. We Callocks have our own tale . . .’

But before he could begin whatever recitation he planned, Lucretia's father spoke.

‘We Fremantles have heard that tale before.’

The black-clad man drew himself up in his chair. Sir William's gravelly voice was neither loud nor sharp but the rebuke rang out as if he had bellowed it from the chapel tower. Along the table, conversations died. The servants hung back. Sir William's eyes sought out Sir Hector Callock and held him with a cold stare. As silence fell in the Great Hall, Lucretia watched the stony face she had defied so many times and wondered at her own daring. Hector Callock's jaw worked. His red face grew redder as if the Lord of Buckland had forced a choke-pear into his mouth.

‘We all cherish our old stories,’ Sir William pronounced. ‘But

now our stories may become one.’

He eyed Sir Hector who forced himself to nod.

‘Of course, Sir William,’ the man offered in a strained voice. Lucretia's father watched the man then nodded. Lucretia felt a current of relief run around the table as the black-clad man gestured to the empty cups. Sir Hector nodded gratefully as his goblet was filled.

‘We will drink a toast to our unity,’ Sir William ordered. ‘Let us taste this hippocras.’

Lucretia and Piers were served the same liquor with water. Lucretia sipped cautiously. It was love, she recalled, on which her shepherds grew drunk. But she felt her stomach grow warm all the same. She regarded Piers from behind her goblet. His hair had a certain shine, she decided. His chin was not so weak, concealed in shadow. Piers drank quickly and signalled for his cup to be refilled. Then Hector Callock's voice boomed again over the servants’ chatter.

‘It's a prettier devil than Buckingham who has the King's ear,’ the man declared. But now his voice had gained a wary note. He glanced to Sir William. ‘The Bourbon's at his side when he rises. She's with him when he sleeps. She's there when His Majesty takes the air and there at his table. Holds him when he makes water too, I shouldn't doubt. She has him like this.’

Mrs Pole looked alarmed but Sir Hector only raised a hand and tugged the fat red lobe of his ear. Lucretia directed a smile at Piers. But the boy seemed to find his cup more amusing. He gulped and waved again at the nearest serving man. Lucretia felt a twinge in her stomach. Not the usual ache. A sharper pinch. The aromas from the wine twisted up from the silver tureen, curling and coiling about the shadowy rafters. She sipped again.

‘A King has his passions as God has his reasons,’ Sir Hector declared to Sir William. ‘We can change neither. If the King should wed a Turk, I would attend her. But a Papist . . . The Bishops do not trust her. Nor the Lords. The Commons hear Masses sung in Whitehall Palace . . . ‘

With a shock, Lucretia realised that by ‘Papist’ and ‘the Bourbon’, Sir Hector meant the Queen. She leaned closer to hear more but at that moment Lady Caroline murmured something to her son. Piers leaned forward.

‘Lady Lucretia,’ he said in an odd drawl. ‘Let me offer my compliments upon your table.’

She stared back, baffled. ‘My table, Lord Piers?’

‘Yes, your table.’ The youth gestured to the silverware. Lady Caroline murmured again. ‘And upon your person,’ added Piers.

The drawl more resembled a slur. Perhaps he always spoke thus, she wondered. But his eyes appeared to wander. Reaching again for his cup, he fumbled, spilling the dark liquor over the white cloth.

So much for the table, thought Lucretia. Suddenly she felt a bubble of mirth gurgle up from her wine-warmed stomach. Once again she regarded Piers's sloping chin and high domed forehead. His narrow, long-nosed face and close-set eyes. Water parsnip, she thought again and this time the mutinous notion would not be dispelled. A hiccup of laughter escaped her lips. Across the table, Piers frowned.

‘Forgive me, Lord Piers,’ Lucretia managed. ‘I believe I have swallowed too quickly. It is but a passing indisposition.’

But another splutter followed.

‘Do you mock me?’ Piers's voice was thick. His eyes narrowed then drifted around the table. Lucretia watched Lady Caroline place his cup beyond reach.

‘It is myself I mock,’ she managed between eruptions. ‘I assure you.’

How foolish she had been. How silly to imagine that Piers Callock might accompany her into that world she had imagined in her childish games. That he might disguise himself as the shepherds did in her book. He was as he appeared. And the Vale of Buckland the same. Her mother had given her life for a boy. Not her.

The candlelight thickened, the glossy flames burning a deeper yellow. Across the table, Piers's water-parsnip face sagged and drooped. She was drunk, she realised. Down the table, Mrs Pole glared. A new fusillade of giggles escaped her mouth. But they were mirthless now. As Piers eyed her suspiciously, a commotion stirred at the far end of the hall. In the arched doorway at the end, the serving men were mustering.

They had been working like slaves in the kitchen, Gemma had complained. She had hardly set eyes on her kitchen boy. Now Mister Quiller led in a green-liveried line bearing heavy trays, each one loaded with platters of food.

The bank of heat advanced from the hearth and pushed out into the kitchen. Philip and John ran back and forth from the courtyard carrying armfuls of logs. Shouldering aside the leather curtain, they edged their way between benches and tables where plucked birds rose in heaps, joints of meat hung from hooks and jacks, pots and bowls stood filled with fine-ground sugar, chopped pot-herbs, lemons, curdled cream . . . A swollen river of smells swirled about John: roasting meat, bubbling soups and sauces, the tangs of vinegar and verjuice. The boys manoeuvred their loads around the chafing dishes and stacked them next to the firedogs. In the hearth's cavernous mouth rose the wheels, handles and poles of the spit. There Colin Church and Luke Hob-house were securing the plucked carcasses of capons, pheasants, geese, ducks and smaller birds that John could not identify.

‘You two'll be turnin,’ Underley told them, gripping the two-handled metal wheel. ‘Reckon you can do that?’

From the counters and benches behind rose a thudding, chopping, clattering and clanging that rolled beneath the vaulted ceiling until the air throbbed with the noise. To this din, the spit added its creak.

They counted rounds of twenty then paused in their labours for Colin or Luke to dress the sides of crackling flesh. The fat dripped onto skewers of smaller birds beneath then down into the bubbling juice pans below. Colin poured in half a jack of water then began to baste.

John and Philip strained at the wheel while Quiller and his green-liveried men jostled and elbowed on the stairs. On the other side of the hearth, Scovell stirred his cauldron, pulling out ladles of dark red liquor and pouring it back in long thin streams. So far, he had not glanced in their direction. Hands clamped to the crank of the spit, John smelt cloves, mace and honey under the wine. Pepper too. A familiar sensation tickled the back of John's throat; he knew this smell.

‘Pour it through the hippocras,’ commanded Scovell. The Master Cook beckoned to three men who manoeuvred a pot crane. Beneath it hung an enormous tureen. The cauldron was manhandled onto a bench and the gleaming pot set below it.

A large muslin bag was set within the tureen. The cauldron was tipped. The spiced wine gushed out in a steaming torrent, the rich fumes quelling every other scent in the room.

‘Strangers in!’ called Scovell.

The green-tunicked men rushed forward, grasped the tureen and staggered up the steps. The feast of Saint Joseph was under way. Master Scovell stood in the archway, pointing with the handle of his

ladle or dipping its bowl into the passing pots and pans. John and Philip began to sweat. Soon their palms grew sore. Beside them, Luke Hobhouse and Colin Church reached over and around each other for knives or whisks or spatulas. Roasted by the fire on one side and chilled by the draught on the other, the two boys worked the wheel. Philip grimaced. John grinned.

‘Here we are. Just like I promised.’

As the heat rose, the boys stripped to the waist and strained at the wheel, their hands slippery with sweat. John felt the blisters rise on his palms. Master Roos and Mister Underley barked flustered orders at the cooks and boys while Vanian harangued the men in Pastes, goading them on with his sharp tongue.

Only Scovell kept his cool. The Master Cook took up position by the archway, tasting dishes and calling out orders with a faint smile on his face as if the kitchen's frenzy were only an elaborate drama, a performance put on by actors. But out of the smoke and noise emerged platters of meat surrounded by jellies and garnishes, pies with glazed crusts, great silver fish decorated with slices of fruit. The birds from the spit were taken away for carving and returned arranged in an elaborate pyramid. The serving men swung the platters about and bore them away, glistening and steamin& up the winding stairs to the Great Hall above.

Bright red from the heat, arms aching, palms stinging John and Philip laboured before the fire. The feasters upstairs would eat for ever, John thought. Until Creation itself was exhausted. The trumpets would sound and he and Philip would still be here, roasted on one side and blasted by draughts on the other. But at last the final platter of sweets passed through the archway. Then Scovell's ladle rang out over the din and the Master Cook's voice reached out to the men and boys slumped at their stations who wiped the sweat from their eyes and blew on their hot hands, who pulled off their headscarves and mopped their faces, some already sinking to the muck-spattered floor.

‘Stand down!’

They slept like dead men. Rising bleary-eyed the next morning, John and Philip sat down to bowls of porridge in Firsts. Their blistered hands had hardly touched their spoons before Mister Bunce beckoned.

‘This way.’

John and Philip exchanged glances as they followed the Head of Firsts through the kitchen. John had not ventured deeper into the kitchens since his first day's flight. Now the doorways that had flashed past disclosed salting troughs or larders, smokeries or cellars. Through a haze of flour in the bakehouse, John glimpsed men slapping balls of pale dough and labouring over the kneading troughs. The mouths of the bread ovens pocked the far wall. In the paste room, men wielded rolling pins, jiggers and cutters. A complex wave of smells drifted from Master Roos's spice room. Reaching the final junction, John looked down the passage to the deserted kitchen. Planks had been nailed over the door of his refuge. But Mister Bunce turned the other way. At the far end of the passage, a doorway broke the wall. Mister Bunce knocked. After a long pause, the Master Cook's voice sounded.