John Saturnall's Feast (46 page)

From
The Book of john Saturnall:
A new-restored
Dish
for a new-restored
King
, being a
Progress
of
Meats
from the base-born to the most noble, called
Wild Boar à la Troyenne

or every Restoration a Dissolution must be suffered just as every Misfortune does bring a Happiness in its Wake. Eden's breach became the greater Earth's Gain, sending its Fruits far and wide, and, by the contrary Current, Adam's Ease became Sloth, as our tireless Churchmen later called it, and his Wife's Affections were Lust. In these Days the King's Return is a gilded Memory. But that Gold did not glitter so brightly for All.

As a base Beast may conceal a noble One so, contrariwise, the Innards of a surpassing Creature may prove noxious, as the Trojans discovered in that Horse left to them by the Greeks at Troy. So did Many divine when the late King's Son returned, Some being more deserving of their Woe than Others. But All carved the Dish, finding within their Deserts, just or not.

Take these Carcasses, as many as may be gathered and fitted together: a Boar, a Sheep, a Kid, a Lamb, a Goose, a Capon, a Duck, a Pheasant, a Partridge, a Quail, a Sparrow and a Fig-pecker.

Clean and bone the Beasts. Pluck and clean the Fowls, all save the Fig-pecker which should be plucked only. Sew them each inside the last and roast them over Coals or Billets whose Flames have abated. The Ancients lodged Sausages in the place of the Guts and concealed live Songbirds within a Cavity but our wiser Times eschew such Adornments. Turn the Boar all the Time to cook the Flesh through. Two Days and a Night is an apt Period. Then run the Meats through with a Sword and be certain the Juices run clear . . .

O
NE OF CLOUGH'S EYES
bulged like a toad. The other was closed by a dark purple bruise. Pressed in the midst of the crowd, John saw Ephraim's split and swollen lips work as he gabbled his prayer. Dressed in tatters with his scabbed scalp bare, the man stood on the scaffold in Carrboro market flanked by two heavy-jowled men, one of whom now reached over and tightened the coarse rope which encircled his neck.

‘Pull him up slow!’ someone nearer the front shouted to the executioners on the makeshift scaffold. ‘Show us his tongue!’

The marketplace had filled slowly that morning but now men and women jostled for space. This was the fifth hanging in as many weeks, a man had told John. He, Philip and Gemma had left the cart and its load at the inn with Adam. At Gemma's insistence, they had taken their places early. Now Philip touched her arm.

‘Come, Gemma. Enough.’

The young woman shook her head, her eyes fixed on the platform. A stained block with a manacle nailed to its centre was placed in front of Ephraim. As he finished his prayer the sight of it seemed to strike a new fear into him.

‘I never touched no one,’ he called out suddenly. But his plea was met by jeers. Below the scaffold, a third man began to sharpen an axe, the whetstone rasping over the noise of the crowd.

‘Gemma, come away,’ Philip spoke again.

‘No.’

At that moment, to cheers from the crowd, the two executioners began to heave on the rope. Slowly, Clough began to rise.

The news of the Lord High Protector's death had prompted celebrations to begin with. But His Majesty's landing at Dover had heralded a more vengeful mood. In Soughton, the Lord Lieutenant and his men had swiftly declared their new allegiance. Only Marpot's Militia had resisted the new order. Now, according to the pages of
Mercurius Bucklandicus,
Marpot's wives were on their way to Virginia while most of his men lay drowned in the rhines on the Levels. Marpot himself had been recognised trying to board a boat at Stollport. ‘They choked him to death,’ Calybute had told John when word reached the yard. ‘Cut his privates off and rammed ‘em down his throat with a broom.’ Of the Zoyland Militia only Clough remained.

The rope grew taut. Clough's body jerked, struggling against the bonds, his feet straining to touch the floor of the platform. But the men heaved and the noose tightened. Rising with each jerk, Ephraim Clough began to twist and buck. Soon his face turned a dark purple. His mouth opened and a fat tongue protruded.

‘There it is!’ shouted a woman somewhere in the crowd. ‘Now cut him down!’

Clough's struggles were growing more feeble. When they had almost ceased, the two men released the rope. Clough fell onto the planks with a thud. One of the executioners knelt to cut his hands free.

‘Lop him!’ screamed the woman. ‘Give him his master's physic!’

Suddenly Clough revived. He tried to rise only for one of the men to give him a heavy kick. The other grasped an arm and dragged Clough towards the block. They struggled for a moment. Then his hand was in the manacle. The crowd fell silent. This was it, thought John. This was what they had done to Philip. Suddenly he could taste the contents of his stomach. The axeman set himself and swung. The axe fell.

An inhuman scream was wrenched from Ephraim Clough.

‘Good God,’ murmured Philip.

‘Now we can go,’ said Gemma.

They shouldered their way out. A second cry reached their ears as they rounded the corner. They heard the crowd give a great cheer.

‘Pull his guts out!’ shouted voices in the crowd behind them. ‘String him up again!’

Clough was shrieking now, long high-pitched screams. They continued almost until the trio reached the inn.

‘How'd he go?’ Adam asked, tightening a trace.

‘Badly,’ said John.

‘No surprise there.’

Adam pulled at the tack, pronounced himself satisfied, then gestured to the back of the cart where a tarpaulin lay draped over a long rectangular box. John smelled new cedar wood and elm. But underneath these lay another smell, fainter but remembered from the back of a different cart. The wet winding-sheet smell.

‘We need to lash it down,’ Adam said, nodding to the coffin. ‘Can't have Sir William falling off the back.’

The body had been exhumed the day the King landed at Dover yet it had taken three weeks for the coffin to be brought to Carrboro. Now John mounted a bay mare. Philip took a grey, the reins coiled loosely about his good arm. He waited until the cart had rumbled a safe distance ahead. Then he turned to John.

‘They will all return,’ he told his friend. ‘What will you do?’

‘Do?’ John looked up, engrossed it seemed in contemplation of the dull grey sky. ‘Do when?’

‘You know well enough.’

John switched his attention from the sky to the verge whose grasses, it appeared, exerted a similar fascination. Ahead, the wheels of the cart bumped in and out of the ruts. Philip regarded him in blunt exasperation.

‘When Piers returns.’

‘Let us give thanks to God for his Providence that has brought Jericho to ruin. Let us pray he gives us strength to build a new Jerusalem from its fallen stones. We gather on this day to consign to the care of the Lord the soul of Sir William Fremantle, late Lord of the Vale of Buckland. We remember him in our prayers, who fought valiantly for his King and kept faith through the most severe tribulations. Though he be sundered from his daughter, Lucretia, and from his Household, let us take heart that he is reunited with his beloved wife Anne and his fallen comrades. They knew him to be a warrior for his King and his men alike. Now our new-restored King takes his rightful place on the throne and Sir William serves the greatest King of all . . .’

The Bishop of Carrboro's fingers were as thick as before, thought John. His Lordship's amethyst ring sparkled in the gloom of the black-hung chapel, his voice resounding from the newly built pulpit. In the centre, Sir William's coffin rested on its catafalque before the black-clad mourners.

Its arrival at the Manor had seemed to act as a general invitation. Now, behind Lucretia's black bonnet, veil and shawl, sat the Suffords of Mere, the Rowles of Brodenham, Lady Musselbrooke of Charnley, Lord Fell, Lord Firbrough and the Marquis of Hertford. Behind them, beneath the long black banners hanging from the rafters, Sir William's Household filled the wooden benches.

The Bishop signalled that they should pray. John knelt and bent his thoughts to the man, remembering Sir William's entrance into the kitchen on the day of his daughter's wedding. Now that day approached again.

Horses’ hooves sounded outside. A minute later the door to the chapel flew open. Five men marched down the aisle, their riding boots slapping on the flagstones, feathered hats flapping in their hands. The foremost, John saw, walked with an odd gait, placing one leg before the other with a strange little shake as if trying to rid his boot of dung. They strode to the front, knelt and crossed themselves before the altar. Then the first turned and bowed extravagantly to Lucretia, throwing back his riding cloak over his shoulder to expose the shiny silk of his tunic and the fine lace of his shirt.

‘Lady Lucretia,’ Piers announced with a lofty smile to the congregation. ‘Pray forgive our tardiness.’

His jowls were a little heavier, John thought. His belly more rounded and his hair dressed differently. But his mouth curled in the same faint sneer as the youth who had left him standing on Naseby Field. From the pews and benches, a murmur arose. But behind her veil. Lucretia offered only the faintest nod.

‘My lady,’ Piers declared, undeterred. ‘I come to claim your hand, as the late King gave leave.’ He looked up at the Bishop. ‘My lord, I ask that the banns of our union be published at Carrboro and I beg that you proclaim them here . . .’

‘Didn't waste any time then,’ Philip murmured beside John.

‘After filling his face in Paris these dozen or so years,’ added Adam on the other side.

John himself was silent.

Upstairs, returning neighbours and courtiers strutted up and down the passages demanding that Quiller's serving men pull off their caps every time they passed or that Motte's gardeners bow when they went strolling in the Rose Garden. Next thing they'd be asking the pigs to curtsy, Mister Fanshawe reported.

Once again, Quiller's serving men lined the length of the staircase, ferrying trays up and down. Once again breakfast shaded into dinner which was hardly over before supper. John welcomed the work, swinging the ladle against the great cauldron, raising the boys from their pallets and summoning the yawning cooks to their tasks. He buried himself in the work of the kitchen, hardly venturing into the servants’ yard, let alone the house. But Lucretia stalked his thoughts.

She would not receive Piers, Gemma reported to Philip. A resurgence of her grief was the given cause. She kept to her rooms and saw no one. Meanwhile Piers and his fellows sat up late in the summer parlour offering each other toasts. He had bought a new horse on the Manor's account, Mister Fanshawe reported. And tradesmen from Carrboro and Soughton had begun to arrive, all bearing unpaid bills, according to Ben Martin.

It was another week before John came face to face with his rival. A rare venture took him out to the yard. As John rounded the corner of the stables, a pair of Piers's companions were clapping him on the back.

‘Capital, Piers!’

‘You horseman!’ the other broke in.

‘Swordsman!’ squawked the first, and all three laughed. But at the sight of John, Piers's smile vanished.

His red nose had taken on a purplish hue, John noticed. The broken veins had spread over his cheeks. He wore a tunic embroidered with the Fremantle coat of arms: a burning torch and axe. For a moment his eyes shifted uneasily but then his demeanour changed.

‘Ah, John Saturnall!’ he declared jovially. ‘I trust you have kept the Household fed in my absence?’ Piers turned to the men behind him. ‘This fellow appears a mere cook. Yet he is a veteran as brave as myself. Acquitted himself well, let me say. Even did me a service. On Naseby Field, was it not, Master Saturnall?’

‘Service, your lordship?’ John replied acidly. He could smell last night's wine on Piers's breath. ‘Surely you required no service from me. Was not Naseby the scene of the great Callock's Leap?’