John Saturnall's Feast (11 page)

She looked back, silenced. The words dashed against her face. The man turned on his heel. Outside two familiar figures waited, one fat and one thin: Gardiner, the housekeeper, and Pole, Lucretia's governess. Both curtsied deeply to Sir William.

Lucretia rose and rounded the dusty bed. On the crowded mantelpiece, the book caught her eye. Before she knew it, she had plucked the volume from among the cloudy bottles and dust-furred combs. Gemma's mouth opened in a soundless exclamation but Lucretia merely clasped her hands and walked out, the leather-bound volume carried innocently before her.

‘Ingrate!, exclaimed Pole.

‘Why do you goad him?, demanded Gardiner.

‘I have angered my father?, Lucretia enquired innocently. ‘Then I will take up my fast again.’

‘What, child?, exclaimed Gardiner. Pole only shook her head.

Some tedious penance would follow, she knew. Needlework, or learning verses by heart, or sitting on the stool in her chamber. She did not care. Behind her, Lucretia heard the heavy door bang shut. Suddenly her game with Gemma appeared childish. A silly charade.

She strode ahead, looking neither to left nor right, hot palms pressed against the tooled leather boards. Pole and Gardiner marched behind with Gemma. As her boots clopped down the Solar Gallery, the gnawing ache returned. Lucretia imagined the hands that last held the volume. Her mother's hands, clasping her own.

“
But swim they did, those Salmons, Sturgeons, Carps and Trouts. And Eels called Lampreys . . .
”

From
The Book of John Saturnall
: A
Broth of Lampreys
and all the
Fishes
that swam in the
Days before Eden

ings raise their Statues and Churchmen build Cathedrals. A Cook leaves no Monument save Crumbs. His rarest Creations are scraped by Scullions. His greatest Dishes are destined for the Dung-heap. And as those Dishes care naught for their Origin, so None now, I aver, could name the Rivers that watered Saturnus's Gardens, nor number the Fishes that swam in those Quanats and Jubs. But swim they did, those Salmons, Sturgeons, Carps and Trouts. And Eels called Lampreys did nourish themselves upon those Fishes, which Beasts I learned to dress from an Heretical Friend.

Heat water in a Kettle so that you may endure to dip your Hand in but not to let it stay. Put in your Lampreys fresh from the River for the Time it takes to say an Ave Maria. Hold the Head in a Napkin lest it slip. With the Back of a Knife scrape off the Mud which rises in great Ruffs and Frills all along the Fish until the Skin will look clean and shining and blue. Open the Belly. Loosen the String found under the Gall (cast that out and the Entrails) and pull it away. It will stretch much. Pick out the black Substance under the String, cutting towards the Back as much as is needful. Dry the Fish in Napkins. Now the Lamprey is dressed.

For the cooking, throw the Eels boldly in a great Pan foaming with Butter or slip them at your Ease in a simmering Kettle for no longer (as my Acquaintance put it) than a hurried Miserere. Add a Bay Leaf. Let your Fishes swim till the Waters be cold.

For the Broth take Mace, crushed Cumin, Coriander seeds, Marjoram and Rue, and at last (if you may find it) add that Root, famous in Antiquity for its healing Properties and its peculiar Scent, being at once bituminous and having the sweetness of flowers . . .

T
HE SMELL OF ROAST
rabbit wafted up with the woodsmoke. A hazel-wood spit twisted over the fire. The three sat in silence, Josh leaning forward now and again to sink his knife into the haunch. The fire hissed as the blood dripped out. When the juices ran clear he lifted the spit and set to carving the meat. Ben's stomach growled in anticipation. The boy fell on his portion, blowing on his fingers when the hot juices scalded them.

‘You can't eat like that at the Manor,’ warned Josh. ‘You have to cut your food first. Even the kitchen boys have knives there.’ He turned to Ben. ‘I heard some of ‘em even have forks.’

The tuft-headed boy paid no attention, pecking at the meat like a ragged bird.

‘Have to give that coat a brush,’ Josh continued, looking him over.

‘And the rest of him,’ added Ben.

The three of them slept around the fire that night. In the morning, the broken walls glowed in the sun.

‘That's Soughton stone,’ Josh told Ben. ‘Romans dragged it all this way. Now here it is and they're all gone.’

‘Can't say I blame ‘em,’ declared Ben, looking gloomily around the woods. His belly gurgled. ‘I think that rabbit's still kicking.’

The packhorses tramped back through the wood. Past a chapel, the road split. They took the ox-path around the hamlet of Fainloe. Ahead, a cart piled high with firewood rocked from side to side as its wheels climbed in and out of the ruts.

‘From Upchard,’ called the driver when they overhauled his lumbering animals. ‘Bound for the Manor. You?’

‘Same.’

They passed a chapbook seller from Forham, a cooper's wagon with barrels from Appleby and another carrying sacks of charcoal. A man with bundles of withies on his back claimed to have walked through the marshes all the way from Zoyland. All were headed for Buckland Manor.

The mule limped on its left leg when descending, Ben noticed. It switched to the right for the climbs. His stomach churned as he strained to make conversation with the silent boy. Then, near the top of a rise, Ben clutched his midriff, hurried to the side of the road and scuttled down into the ditch.

Josh halted the piebald then glanced at the boy. By daylight his haircut didn't look so neat. More like he had been attacked. From the ditch, an effortful grunt reached his ears. The smell of Ben's success wafted up.

‘We'll reach the Manor tomorrow,’ Josh told the boy. ‘Old Holy paid your way that far. After that it's down to you. Pouncey's not what you'd call the soft-hearted kind.’ The boy seemed not to hear so Josh drew nearer. ‘I can't feed you, lad. If that's what you're thinking. It's hard enough feeding the horses.’

In the ditch, Ben grunted again. Josh followed the boy's gaze across the hedges and fields.

‘I know you can talk,’ the grey-haired man said. ‘You talk in your sleep.’

A flicker of expression passed across the boy's dark face.

‘Spiced wine you were jabbering about,’ Josh said. ‘When'd you ever drink that?’

The boy only pulled the grimy blue coat tighter. Josh shook his head. His stubbornness would land him in the Carrboro Poorhouse, he thought. Not that he cared. The world was full of rag-headed urchins. If he didn't want to talk, that was his lookout. The boy was nothing to him, he told himself. Nothing at all.

‘You keep your counsel then, John Sandall,’ Josh said finally. But as he bent to tighten the piebald's belly-strap, a voice sounded behind him.

‘John Sandall's not my name.’

Dry leaves and catkins rustled beneath their feet. The ancient trees wrapped John and his mother in shade. High above, a pigeon clattered. John looked up into the chestnuts’ crowns. The great trunks grew thicker the deeper they moved into Buccla's Wood then split into copses with younger trees surrounding massive gnarled trunks. As John walked among them he saw that they formed an avenue.

He looked up at his mother but she strode forward as if nothing were amiss. Clearings opened on either side. Familiar smells drifted in the air: fennel, skirrets and alexanders, then wild garlic, radishes and broom. John looked about while his mother tramped ahead. Then a new scent rose from the wild harvest, strong in John's nostrils. He had smelt it the night the villagers had driven them up the slope. Now, as his mother pushed through a screen of undergrowth, he saw its origin.

Ranks of fruit trees rose before him, their trunks shaggy with lichen, their branches decked with pink and white blossom. John and his mother walked forward into an orchard. Soon apple trees surrounded them, the sweet scent heavy in the air. Pears succeeded them, then cherries, then apples again. But surely the blossom was too late, John thought. Only the trees’ arrangement was familiar for the trunks were planted in diamonds, five to a side. He knew it from the book.

The heavy volume bumped against his mother's leg. He gave her a curious look but she seemed unsurprised by the orchards. As the scent of blossom faded, another teased his nostrils, remembered from the same night. Lilies and pitch. Looking ahead, John saw only a stand of chestnuts overwhelmed by ivy, the glossy leaves blurring the trunks and boughs into a screen. Then he looked up.

Above the tops of the trees, a narrow stone tower rose into the air. John gripped his mother by the arm.

‘Look, Ma.’

The top pointed up like a jagged finger. The tower's sides were riven with cracks. But his mother merely nodded and pulled aside the curtain of ivy. John looked through an archway of crumbling stone to an overgrown courtyard.

Heavy stone slabs reared from the floor. Rough blocks lay where they had fallen. Walls smothered by ivy and creepers enclosed the long rectangle of a roofless hall. The tower was a chimney, he realised. Below, the hearth grinned a toothless welcome. Suddenly John knew where he was. He had seen this place a dozen times, growing grander with every page. He turned to his mother.