A Rose for the Crown (38 page)

“You cannot attend now, Jack.” Margaret was firm. “You will have to tell his grace that he must work his miracle without you.”

“Aye, wife. I cannot travel yet, you are right. But as soon as I can, I must go.”

“I will summon Tom so you may write a response to the king,” said Margaret.

It was all done within the hour, and the messenger was galloping away, his pouch filled with the letter for his master, and bread, cheese and cold pie for his pains.

*  *  *

“The Boar’s Head in hand bear I
Bedecked in bays and rosemary.
And I pray you my masters, be merry,
Quot estis in convivio.”

Jack Howard’s love of music manifested itself in his choice of personal musicians. Thomas’s expert playing, heightened by Nicholas Stapleton’s clear baritone, thrilled the company as the centerpiece of the Twelfth Night feast was borne into the hall. Apples and oranges encrusted with cloves were impaled on the animal’s curled tusks, a pomegranate sat in its mouth and a circlet of bay leaves adorned its brow. It had not long been out of the cooking pot, for it gave off an aromatic steam, and the great silver salver on which it was perched was mounted on a wooden board so as not to burn the bearers.

The rest of the household, raising the rafters—as well as the diners’ gooseflesh—lustily took up the refrain.

“Caput apri defero
Reddens laudes domine.”

Kate could not look the boar in the eye, having seen the poor beast dead in the forest, but she was game to try a morsel of its tender cheek when prodded by Martin, and she found it quite tasty.

Ightham’s Epiphany celebrations paled beside Tendring’s, as course after course appeared. Haunches of beef, mutton and venison followed bream, sturgeon and goldfish. Several lackeys staggered in with a decorated tub of water on which floated a roasted swan with all its plucked feathers replaced. Pies atop pies of larks’ tongues, finches, and blackbirds were followed by custards and tarts filled with egg and pork.

Jack, who had been carried down the stairs by two of his attendants, now sat in his place of honor at a table raised on a dais with a canopy showing his red and white coat of arms. His injured leg stuck out at an angle to the table and rested on a stool. “Ah! My favorite Colchester oysters,” he proclaimed from the dais, as a heaping platter was placed before him. “God bless the fisherman who brought these to the table!”

He cracked open a large gray shell with his knife and tipped his head back to swallow the salty morsel whole, smacking his lips loudly as he did so. Kate wondered what the hard, barnacle-covered shell was and had put her ration to the side of her trencher until she was certain it was edible. Martin deftly pried one open for her, and she gazed in trepidation at the slimy mollusk swimming in brine at its center.

“Have faith, Kate! Try it.” Martin grinned at her. “They have not killed Sir John after all these years. ’Tis doubtful one will kill you!”

Kate closed her eyes and mimicked Jack, and soon after decided that she might well try the other one, much to Philippa’s and Martin’s amusement.

The feasting was punctuated by a mummers’ play, more music in the form of carolers from nearby villages, tumblers and jugglers. Presiding over it all was the Lord of Misrule. Young Robert Cumberton had been chosen from among the gentlemen at Halloween, and he took his role seriously. Since Christmas, he had planned all sorts of sport for servants and gentry alike, and on this, his last night of misrule, he presented his pièce de résistance.

Robert cavorted through the hall in a rayed jacket of purple and yellow, a huge codpiece of crimson satin and hose patterned with green and yellow squares. His long, pointed shoes had bells on the tips, and on his head was a monstrous crown of ivy, tree branches and bird feathers. He carried a stout stick crowned with a boar’s head fashioned from cloth, which he would occasionally ride like a hobbyhorse. Jack roared with laughter when he saw Robert, but his eyebrows shot up when he spotted the stick. The noise level in the hall grew in proportion to the amount of wine, hippocras and ale that was consumed, and even Kate was beginning to feel an unaccustomed headiness. She laughed at everything anyone said to her, and when she could eat nothing more for fear of bursting her gown, she began throwing tidbits to the many dogs that roamed the hall. She even loudly chastised one of the gentlemen at the table for ignoring etiquette.

“Pick not thy teeth with thy knife, Master Bliant!” Kate admonished him and laughed merrily. John Bliant’s serious face turned a little pink, and he glared resentfully at her. Kate did not notice. She was busy feeding a bone to a drooling wolfhound.

The Lord of Misrule banged his stick on the table he was standing on until the company was quiet. He motioned to the musicians, who began a sprightly dance tune.

“Players! Are you prepared?” Robert called to the mummers behind a large screen at the back of the room. “Let the play begin!”

From behind the screen, three figures appeared. One of the mummers had an elaborate stag’s head for a hat and the two others were in the livery of huntsmen. To the dance music, the stag leapt around Jack’s chair while the hunters took aim with imaginary bows and arrows. After several minutes of the chase, the stag escaped, and the dejected hunters retired amid jeers from the audience.

The next figure drew a roar of approval from the benches: a mummer dressed as Jack, almost identical, down to the drooping mustache. He came striding forth, miming commands this way and that. All eyes were on Jack. He glowered at his double, and seeing the look, the mummer paused as if to turn and run, but the Lord of Misrule commanded him to continue, and continue he must. One hand on his hip and the other waving imperiously at the onlookers, he strode around Jack’s chair. While Jack was craning his neck to see what the fellow was doing behind him, Robert on his other side held the boar stick right in front of him, so that when Jack swung back, he was confronted by the toy. It was a hint of what was to come.

“Sweet Jesu, what is
this
?” cried a woman close to the screen, as a figure scampered into view on all fours, looking so real that others besides the woman began to scream and stand on the benches.

“’Tis a beast let loose!” a pageboy wailed. He clung to his neighbor as the porcine creature dashed hither and thither and came to a standstill a few feet from Jack’s chair. The boar lifted its hairy head fitted with exaggerated tusks, looked around the room with its black glass-bead eyes and gave a gruesome scream. Kate shuddered; it was a good imitation of the sound she had heard in the forest a few days earlier. Then the creature began to rush about again with lowered head. It ran at people foolish enough to have their legs on the wrong side of the bench, who scrambled to remove their vulnerable appendages from the boar’s attacks.

The Jack figure unsheathed his sword and swaggered around, idly swinging the wooden weapon and looking pleased with himself.

The crowd began to egg him on. “Go on, stick him! Stick him!”

Jack continued to glower from his chair. But Margaret was tittering in the background. As guests, the Hautes did not know whose lead to follow.

The two unsuccessful huntsmen came galloping up on hobbyhorses, shot at the beast and it fell. A roar went up from the spectators. Mummer Jack went over to plunge his sword into the fallen animal when it suddenly rose up and charged at him, knocking him flying. A gasp now went up. Would the mummers’ version end the way the real event had ended? Or would the boar win this time? Surely the young Lord of Misrule would not insult his lord by having him vanquished. What had he planned? It was Twelfth Night and all was done in the name of fun. Many that season had had a share of forfeits and badinage. It appeared that Jack was not exempt. The boar went over to his double, helped him up from the floor and then offered his chest for piercing with the sword. The audience laughed. Before mummer Jack could oblige, the tiny son of one of the mummers raced through the crowd, grabbed the sword and thrust it with gusto under the boar-mummer’s arm. The boy disappeared as fast as he had arrived. The Jack actor stood dumbfounded and then limped to the side, clutching his supposedly injured leg, and stared after him.

“Do you think this was rehearsed?” Kate whispered to Philippa, who lifted her shoulders, uncertain.

Hesitant laughter followed the lad off the stage—the crowd keeping one eye on the action and one on their lord. Mummer Jack, seizing the moment, decided to take the credit and bowed to all sides. More laughter and a few cheers. The mummers all approached Jack’s chair, bowing low, led by the Lord of Misrule, whose young face was a picture of anxiety. Sticking close to his father (“Jack”), the boy player attempted to be invisible. None dared lift their eyes to their master.

Still Jack glowered. Then he smiled. Then he grinned. Finally he threw back his head and roared his approval. The mummers and Robert looked relieved—and then delighted when they were rewarded with a purse Jack tossed them. The rest of the household followed his lead and cheered.

Later in the evening, after the younger family members were sent to bed, Margaret sat with Kate while Martin and Philippa led a country
dance. The two women discussed the play at length, and Kate was full of praise for Jack’s good humor.

“Aye, dear Kate, I feel fortunate in my third husband. Three times a charm, they say.”

“I shall remember that, my lady,” Kate replied, unconvinced. She did not want to spoil the evening by talking of George, and so, with courage fortified by many cups of hippocras, she boldly asked Margaret about her first husband, Nicholas Wyfold.

“I was but fourteen, and he was lord mayor of London and very old. I cried and cried when I was told I must wed the dotard. I prayed to the Virgin and to Saint Frileswide, another virgin, hoping they would save my maidenhead from this ancient man, but they did not heed me, and I was lost.” Margaret looked a little sad as she told her tale and was wondering why Kate’s mouth was open in astonishment. “Did I say something amiss, Kate?”

“Nay, dear Margaret, but here is a coincidence. I thought I was the only girl to have been forced to marry a grandfather.” Kate laughed a little too loudly and she was slurring her words just slightly. “I even feigned sickness the night of the wedding feast. But in truth, Thomas was good to me, and I grew up apace as mistress of Draper House. Was Master Wyfold kind?”

“Kind? Nay, he was not. He was puffed up with himself as mayor and only wanted me as mistress of his house and table for his honored guests. You see, I was quite pretty when I was young, and I was of gentler birth than he. I was useful to him, and my father needed the right connections in the city.”

“Why, you are still pretty, Margaret!” Kate exclaimed. “ ‘’Tis no wonder Sir John was smitten.” She had no need to flatter; she was speaking from her heart.

Margaret was touched. I must help this poor child, she thought. To Kate she said, “You must wear horseblinders, child. I am nigh on twenty-eight years and an old nag!”

The guests were beginning to leave. Margaret returned to her seat beside Jack to wish them God speed. Kate drank another glass of wine.

“God stay with you this night!” called those left to bed down in the hall to their lord as he was carried upstairs.

Kate crawled unsteadily into bed beside two other family members in Margaret’s private chamber, where Lettice and William were tucked into a truckle bed. The candles and torches were extinguished in the hall, and the rest of the company slept wrapped in their cloaks as the firelight flickered and the embers died.

I
N
THE
MIDDLE
OF
THE
NIGHT
, Kate awoke in a sweat. She had dreamed of Bywood Farm, of her family and of a terrible accident. She was watching someone drown in the river, and she was reaching out her hand when she became the person drowning, trying to grab the hand. Her stomach was full of water and churned uncomfortably, and her lungs were beginning to fill as she gasped for breath. Her own choking woke her from the nightmare. Thank you, Holy Mother! ’twas only a dream, she thought, though her stomach still churned and she needed to relieve herself. She slipped out of bed to take a piss and was surprised when the floor moved under her. She felt the bile rise in her throat, and she knew she had to vomit. She found the jake in the corner of the room and was glad no one had yet used it. As quietly as she could, so as not to wake the others in the room, she relinquished the wonderful feast into the earthenware vessel and, throwing wide the casement, emptied the contents onto the ground below.

The dream faded, and as she clambered back into the warm bed with the vile taste still in her mouth, all she could think was, what a waste of good food. God keep me this night, she prayed, as her head pounded and the bed continued to lurch under her. And then it dawned. Certes! It must have been those oysters!

PART
THREE
A vous me lie

(I bind myself to thee)

—
MOTTO
OF
K
ING
R
ICHARD
III