John Saturnall's Feast (35 page)

‘Your Highness, I say we let the centre foot advance by file in the cover of the pikes, like this. Your lifeguards may make their charge from the left. Our own horse will follow close in a caracole. Thus.’

A dozen men stood about a table on which coloured wooden counters were arranged in ranks and files. Sir Hector waved his arm in an arc to indicate the caracole then moved a number of orange blocks. Across the field of battle, a red-faced man with a heavy grey moustache watched from a large chair.

‘Ja, that's bold, Sir Hector,’ said Prince Maurice in an accent that reminded John of Melichert Roos. ‘Recalls me another soldier, the victor against the Swedes at Breitenfeld.’ He slapped his chest. ‘Me.’

John hovered behind the men, ignored as Prince Maurice reached across with a wheeze and flicked over a block of blue wood among the forces on the other side of the table. ‘Only way to take a tercio. From the corner.’ He flicked over more blocks then reached for the goblet beside him, took a swig and turned to a thin-faced and stern-looking man beside him. ‘Ha, Zoet? Remember at Lech? That tercio. The horse?’

‘Fell upon the first rank as they began their counter-march,’ confirmed Zoet.

‘Dropped dead on their corner!’ Prince Maurice slapped the table. ‘That was enough. We were among ‘em. Ja.’

‘A good day,’ agreed Zoet.

‘A bold day,’ added Prince Maurice.

He and his men had sailed all the way from Bohemia to fight for the King, the troopers said. Gustavus Adolphus himself had learned his tactics from Prince Maurice. The men around the table watched him scratch his red nose. Holding the rabbit, John looked around for Sir William.

‘Then Lutzen,’ the Prince said, moving more orange blocks. ‘Remember Lutzen, Zoet? In we came from the left. The caracole again. But . . .’ He righted some blue blocks and knocked over the orange. ‘This time the Swedes were waiting. Demi-hearse formation in close order. A salvay at half a length. I lost two horses.’

‘And three regiments of men,’ Zoet added.

‘Ja.’

‘John!’ whispered a voice. Ben Martin stood at the outer door. ‘Master Palewick wants you in the commissary.’

The commissary was three benches arranged side by side in the stables. Henry Palewick stood ticking items in his ledger as if he had never moved from the outer yard at Buckland.

‘Sir William?’ the Cellarer answered John. ‘He is as far away from the Prince's courtiers as he can set himself The posts got through from Elminster. A gang of footpads from Zoyland paid the Manor a visit. Knocked every piece of glass out of the chapel then hauled out the altar rail on the end of a rope. Their colonel would have done the same to Father Yapp if he hadn't been stopped.’

‘He cut a man's hand off in Masham,’ said Phelps, entering behind John. ‘Rides with a baggage train of women and calls ‘em his family. They're as bad as the men. Still, they didn't figure on Lady Lucretia.’

John put down the tray. The last he had seen of Lucretia, she was standing on the steps of Buckland Manor as the column moved off, waving a handkerchief at Piers. John had watched her from among the servants until Philip had nudged him in the ribs.

‘What did she do?’ he asked casually.

‘She saw ‘em off,’ Phelps said emphatically.

No doubt she had, John thought. He was still smiling as he left the farmhouse. Suddenly a hand pushed him to one side.

‘Something funny, kitchen boy?’

Piers stood before him, sabre in hand. The young cavalrymen clustered to watch his latest demonstration of swordsmanship. A red-haired youth called Montagu nodded appreciatively as Piers's exaggerated thrust jabbed towards John.

‘Damn good, Callock,’ the youth declared. ‘Who's this?’

‘Oh, just a kitchen boy.’ A smile played about his lips. He jabbed again, closer. But before he could advance further, Pandar rounded the corner.

‘Now, now, now, Lord Piers. What duels are you fighting when there's Waller and Cromwell to chase?’

‘Cromwell?’ echoed Montagu. His broad freckled face took on a puzzled expression. ‘Where?’

‘Heard it from His Highness not a minute ago. Overheard, I should say. He seemed mightily impressed with the new intelligence, did the Prince.’

‘What new intelligence?’ demanded Piers.

‘You have not heard? Shame on the rascals that talk among themselves and keep such eager Hectors as yourselves kennelled up like hounds.’

‘Does he call us hounds?’ asked the redhead, looking even more puzzled.

‘It is just his way, Montagu,’ Piers answered. ‘Which is to go from the church to the chapel by way of the next village. I warn you, Pandar . . .’

‘Waller's army is marching on London,’ Pandar said.

‘London!’ Montagu exclaimed. ‘At last!’

‘But London is held by the trained bands,’ Piers said suspiciously.

‘Perhaps it was Banbury,’ Pandar conceded. ‘Or Oxford.’

‘The King is at Oxford,’ said Montagu. ‘God preserve him.’

‘Is this the truth, Pandar?’ Piers demanded. But at that moment the first horns sounded. The cries of the sergeants sounded among the men.

As John climbed the hill, he heard panting behind him. Pandar hurried up.

‘How do you bear him, Pandar?’

‘Piers? He is only a fool. Save your ire for our enemies.’

Below, the sergeants were moving through the camp. Inside the barn, Philip, Adam, Phineas, Alf and the others were dismantling the spit. The Buckland Kitchen was on the move again.

They marched with the baggage at the back of the column over roads churned to mud by those ahead. They tramped through hollow lanes bordered with high dense hedges, past water-meadows and pastures, along stony roads that climbed hillsides and dropped into steep-sided valleys. They jumped aside as squadrons of dragoons or cuirassiers thundered past. At each halt, John, Philip and the others unloaded pots and pans, spits and plate, skillets, trivets and roasting grates. Moving on they left nothing but a charred circle of ground, the latest of the Kitchen's sooty footprints.

Talk of skirmishes and battles swirled up from the camps like smoke from their cooking fires. But the great clashes and charges in which Piers and his fellows rejoiced were over when they unloaded their clanking wagon. Clutching pikes amidst the farriers and carters, John and Philip and the others were drilled by bored sergeants who bellowed at their untidy lines and wavering weapons.

‘Don't trouble yourselves,’ Pandar reassured them, dropping his pike. ‘They'd as soon arm the whores before they put us in the line.’

In place of cannon, the ears of the Buckland cooks resounded with the clang of pots and pans. Instead of planting musket rests, John and the others assembled the spit. Their ‘Twelve Apostles’ were not the bandoliers of arquebusiers but the sets of Sir William's spoons that they kept locked in a case. Wherever the army pitched camp, there the Buckland Kitchen sprang into being. Outside Harborough the slow-moving mass of animals and men drifted to a halt between two villages.

‘That one over there's called Sulby,’ Henry Palewick told them.

‘And what's that one?’ asked Philip.

‘Naseby.’

John and Philip sweated in the early summer heat and slept out under the stars. They were to relieve the King at Oxford, they heard. Or they were to march on London. Or they were to camp here until the King's enemies should give up and go home. John lay on the grass and looked up at the pinpricks of light.

Scovell would see the same stars, he thought, wherever he might be. And Almery. The friend who had proved a liar and a thief. Now John wished he had grasped Scovell's sleeve and demanded more answers. But he had thought only on the feast, he remembered. And Lucretia.

It had been a kind of madness, he had told himself. To think that Sir William's daughter might take a cook for her groom . . . But even as he cursed himself for his foolishness, she rose before him, the silver-blue dress wrapped about her limbs, or the green one with its bright red hem. He remembered the slight rip as it caught on the Rose Garden thorn. Her exasperated curse and his glimpse of her bare white ankle. Or he was in her chamber, bending over her, her hand touching his own . . .

‘Up and out everyone! Up and out!’

A rude shout broke in on his thoughts. Henry Palewick's voice bellowed over the meadow. John groaned, rolled over and opened his eyes. Beside him Philip did the same.

‘What's going on?’

‘Come on, you two!’ shouted Henry. ‘Fairfax's for'ard guard ain't ten miles away! The scouts spied him past Harborough. Up and out!’

‘Another alarm,’ muttered Jim Gingell. Adam Lockyer and Phineas Campin yawned and stretched. Colin and Luke grumbled. All around John, the Buckland cooks rose and pulled on their coats.

On the hill's flat top, men ran hither and thither in the moonlight, looking for their standards. As the sergeants called their troops to order, Philip spotted the tattered flag with its torch and axe. Sir William rode beside his standard-bearer, Master Jocelyn. In front of them Piers Callock wheeled his horse back and forth, flintlocks jiggling in their holsters, sabre rattling and breastplate gleaming. A torch flamed in his hand.

‘The word is God and Queen Mary!’ Piers exhorted the sleep-bleared men. Pikes and muskets waved in the night air. ‘Every able-bodied man is called to arms! For God and Queen Mary!’

A thin chorus answered his cry. Piers called again and this time more voices joined in. The youth persisted, leading the chant until the response spread and grew. John heard the rest of the Kitchen take it up, then the men beyond. Soon the words rang out over the hilltop.

‘God and Queen Mary! God and Queen Mary!’

Flushed at his success, Piers waved his torch in the air. All around John the battle cry grew louder. The sergeants blew their horns and shouted commands. Slowly, the troops shuffled into ranks and files. With a clatter of weapons, the King's army began to form up.

The sun rose over a copse of trees to fall upon Naseby Field. Drawn up in ranks and files, the King's army waited. Helmets and spear-points glinted. Muskets and breastplates shone. But across the shallow valley, a shadow spread. Along the ridge opposite, a dark line thickened as the morning wore on. John, Adam and Philip watched the ranks of their enemies multiply. Near the end of their own line, Henry Palewick held a pike and stared out grimly. Phelps and Ben Martin stood next to him.

The cooks formed the rearmost rank. Lines of footsoldiers were arrayed ahead, pike-points bristling and glinting. Behind them lay the baggage train.

‘John,’ said Philip. ‘I . . .’

But at that instant, John felt a nudge from Adam on the other side.

‘Look there, John. Old friend of yours.’

A faint cheer was rising from the men ahead. A troop of cuirassiers in full armour was advancing at a walk along the front line. At their head rode a figure dressed in black armour and mounted on a massive white stallion. When the rider halted and removed his helmet, a cheer went up. The King rode slowly along the line followed by his guards. As John watched, Philip spoke again.

‘John, it was me.’

‘What?’

‘It was me.’

‘What was you?’

‘It was me that told Pouncey. That you were taking her food. I said you'd sent me . . .’

John remembered the steward's confiding look on the stairs. He stared incredulously at Philip. ‘Why?’

‘You know why. If you had been caught . . .’

‘We almost were caught!’ he retorted, remembering the man's entrance the next day. Another minute and his lips would have touched Lucretia's. And in the one after that who knew what pleasures might have been theirs? Instead all his affections amounted to was a breathless night in a barn . . . ‘You said you were not like me,’ he told Philip. ‘God knows you spoke the truth that day.’

‘You should thank me,’ said Philip.

‘Thank you? I've a mind to punch you!’

‘What're you two jawing on?’ asked Luke Hobhouse further down the line.

‘Look,’ Colin Church added. ‘Up ahead.’

John pulled his angry gaze from Philip. Ahead pikes rose in a bristling palisade. From the other side of the valley, a faint fanfare sounded. Across the shallow dip, the first line of horses detached itself from the enemy ranks and began to advance. At the sight, John's anger dissolved.

‘Supper in Buckland,’ muttered Philip.

‘Supper in Buckland,’ John replied.

The mounted men crept slowly at first, as if they were performing an exhibition. It seemed to John that they took an age to descend. But they picked up speed over the valley floor and moved to a canter up the gentle incline. Then a gallop. Suddenly their hooves were thundering over the turf As they reached the line, the armoured beasts formed a wall of tossing heads and weapons.

‘God and Queen Mary!’ bellowed the pikemen.

‘God alone!’ came the cry of the Roundhead riders. In the next instant, the men and horses drove into the front line like cannon-fire pounding a wall.

The shock of the clash rolled back through the ranks. The din of musket-fire crackled all about John's ears. In an instant the air filled with smoke. From either side, the sergeants shouted to hold the line. John felt himself begin to shake and gripped his pike harder. Another volley of musket-fire sounded. At the end of the rank, John saw Henry Palewick shout something and look down the line. In the next instant the man's forehead seemed to burst from within. Blood and brains sprayed over Ben Martin who clutched his head as if he too had been shot. When he lowered his hands, his face was drenched in blood and flecked with slivers of white. John saw Ben open his mouth to cry out but then the next charge came.

The smoke thickened to a choking pall. John heard screams and shouts as men fell. The Buckland standard rose out of the smoke with Sir William beside it, rallying a troop of dragoons. Sir Hector Callock had hold of a horse next to his own and seemed to wrestle with its rider. Suddenly the other horseman broke free. Sir Hector lunged after the fugitive with his dagger but as he did so a Roundhead horseman rode in on his flank. John saw a sword flash then it was driven under Sir Hector's ribs. A single shriek burst from the man's lips and he fell.

Ahead of John, another charge came. The men staggered back, one stumbling and falling. A clangour of swords and pikes filled the air. John saw Phelps fall. Beside him, Luke Hobhouse fended off a slash from a passing horseman. The dragoons with Sir William cried ‘For God and Queen Mary!’ and started forward again. But John felt panic creep like a sickness through the ranks. He smelt it under their skin, cloying and metallic like blood.