John Saturnall's Feast (14 page)

‘Is that truly the King?’ asked Ben.

A very close likeness,’ confirmed Calybute. ‘On his progress to Hampton Court Palace. With his ladies, as I said.’

At the mention of the King, several porters and carters shuffled over. John peered at a sad-eyed man with a drooping moustache and a pointed beard who looked out from under an elaborate hat.

‘That really how he looks?’ asked one of the porters.

‘His hair's longer now,’ Calybute confided. ‘So my intelligencers tell me. That's the fashion at Court.’ His crooked mouth arranged itself in a grin, disclosing several irregular brown teeth. ‘Tuppence.’

‘Done,’ said Ben.

Calybute pocketed two of Ben's pennies then scurried towards another part of the crowded yard. Ben and the porters gazed down at the picture.

‘He don't look no happier than me,’ said Ben. Then the long-faced man gazed ahead to the official in green at the head of the line. ‘We're not getting closer,’ he declared to Josh. ‘I thought you knew this Pouncey fellow?’

‘Josh?’ queried one of the men. ‘Know the likes of Mister Pouncey?’

‘That ain't Mister Pouncey,’ Josh said quickly. ‘You won't see him down on the gate. That's his chief clerk, Mister Fanshawe. That fellow beside him's Mister Wichett, Head Clerk of the Kitchens. He's Scovell's man in the yard. Jocelyn's the bailiff. Deals with the Estate. Nothing gets into the Manor but one of them checks it first. Those other fellows are under-clerks and this lad here, he's one of Master Scovell's kitchen boys. Good day, young sir!’

A boy wearing red was striding down the line. A year or two older than John with a broad flat face and thick black eyebrows that met in the middle, he looked them over disdainfully.

‘Dole's already handed out,’ he told them. ‘No beggars in the line.’

‘Beggars!’ retorted Josh. ‘We have goods for Master Scovell and papers for Sir William! And this boy is here to join the Household . . .’

Two porters sitting on their baskets looked up at John, impressed. But the kitchen boy took in his stained shirt and breeches, his filthy coat and hair and gave a burst of incredulous laughter.

‘This little raghead? In the household . . . Ow!’

A short bald man in red kitchen livery had marched up behind the boy and slapped him on the side of the head. John tried and failed to suppress a grin.

‘Mister Underley's already thrown you out of the jointing room
,
Coake! Now you're in the yard. When you're told to count heads, count heads! Understand?’

The boy glared up resentfully then nodded and backed away. The bald man turned to Josh, a long chain of keys jangling from his belt. Josh eyed him evenly.

‘Good day, Master Josh.’

‘Good day, Master Henry.’

‘Good winter was it, Master Josh?’

‘Adequate, Master Henry.’

Suddenly the pair laughed and embraced.

‘This is Henry,’ Josh announced. Ben and John looked in bafflement from the tall grey man to the short bald one. ‘Henry Palewick. My brother. Henry's the cellarer here at Buckland Manor.’

Henry Palewick glanced around at the jostling horses, carts and pack-men. ‘World and his wife pitched up for the dole this morning, Josh. Had to knock a few heads when we gave it out.’ He sucked air through his teeth. ‘Not sure I can push you up the line today.’

‘Waiting's no problem,’ Josh said airily.

‘I'll have to choose the moment, see?’

‘Don't want to cause no vexation, Hal.’

‘Didn't say it'd be a vexation, did I now?’

‘We'll wait, Hal,’ Josh said firmly. ‘Don't vex me none at all.’

‘Did I utter any such word as vex?’ Henry sounded irritated now.

‘The only vexation here comes from your assuming. You follow me right now.’

With that, Henry Palewick took the bridle of the piebald and led the horses forward. Men and animals shifted aside in deference to the liveried man.

‘This is more like it,’ whispered Ben to John.

At the front, a man in the green of the Household scribbled in a large black ledger on a trestle table and barked answers to his clerks, who addressed him as Mister Fanshawe. He nodded to Henry Palewick.

‘Now who's for what and what's for who?’ Henry asked Josh.

‘My lot's for Master Scovell,’ replied Josh. ‘Ben here's got a package too . . .’

‘From a fellow in Soughton,’ Ben interrupted. ‘Master Scovell's been waiting for it since ages. So this fellow said.’

‘Did he indeed?’ Henry eyed Ben sternly.

The actual words spoken by the dark-faced man had been rather different, and delivered with a low chuckle.
He's been waiting/or this since Eden .
. .But Ben thought it prudent merely to nod.

‘Well, we can't have Master Scovell waiting,’ Henry continued testily.

Mister Fanshawe shuffled papers and directed his scurrying clerks. Beside him, Mister Wichett in red did the same. Neither acknowledged the presence of the other. A team of clerks was moving up and down Josh's horses, opening panniers and chests. As Ben Martin's oilcloth package was pulled out and passed up, John was shoved from behind.

‘Watch your step, Raghead,’ hissed a voice. John turned in time to see the black-haired kitchen boy glide away. Then Josh took out the letter.

‘Got a message,’ the driver declared. ‘It's for Sir William.’

At the words ‘Sir William’ a lull seemed to fall on the clerks. No one jumped or exclaimed. No one gasped. But the name seemed to thrum in the air. Mister Wichett looked up, as if evaluating the sunshine overhead. Mister Fanshawe rubbed the bridge of his nose. On ceasing these manoeuvres they exchanged the briefest of glances. The hint of a shrug from Mister Wichett was Mister Fanshawe's prompt.

‘Anything for Sir William is Household business,’ declared the Clerk of the Household. ‘He'll have to see Mister Pouncey.’

‘That's your friend, ain't it, Josh?’ Ben piped up. Josh coughed and looked away. Mister Fanshawe cast an eye over his scurrying clerks, searching for one unoccupied. But all now were busy among the waiting porters and carters.

‘Can I help, Master Fanshawe, sir?’

Coake stood eagerly at attention before the Clerk of the Household. A faint nod from Mister Wichett and a shrug from Henry Palewick served as consent to the kitchen boy's secondment. Josh handed over the papers, which were glanced at by Fanshawe then given to Coake. John watched the boy hurry off through the gate.

‘Your horses will be groomed and watered,’ Mister Wichett told Josh. ‘Clerk of the Yard'll settle your accounts. Move on through . . .’

Bright sunlight shone through the mullioned windows. A lattice of shadows slanted over the floor. Rocking his heels on the boards, a sparsely haired man tapped a bony white digit against the papers in his hand. Mister Nathaniel Pouncey, Steward of the Manor of the Vale of Buckland, stood before a walnut table piled high with sheaves of papers, the topmost bound with white cloth tape. Everything was ready, Mister Pouncey noted with quiet satisfaction. Everything was in its place.

The steward wore a dark green tunic with a wide white collar around which hung the chain of his office. Seated behind the sheaves, dressed as always in black, Sir William Fremantle regarded his most senior servant. Only the slow tap of his thumb on the arm of the chair signalled his impatience. Mister Pouncey eyed the thumb, then the papers tied with tape, then his order of business, then Sir William himself. His lordship's most senior servant was no longer required to avert his gaze but he still stood in the Lord of Buckland's presence.

‘The curacy of Middle Ock, my lord,’ he announced.

The vacancy was the first item in their weekly meeting, the thirteenth meeting of the year, the fourteenth year of such meetings.

The curacy lay in the gift of the Vicar of Callock Marwood, the steward explained, that benefice being an advowson from the Manor of Old Toue. Old Toue itself was, of course, no more than three ruined sheds in a field but the old demesne took in the village of Sarwick whose copy-rents were collected through ancient custom by a family [the Bells of Lower Chalming, as Mister Pouncey recalled] who were liable in part for the upkeep of the Poorhouse at Carrboro and who collected tallage in return from the village of Wickenden and also the corpse-tolls levied in the parish of Saint Brice's in Masholt. Unfortunately, few corpses passed through Masholt these days, Mister Pouncey reported, and the Wickenden tallage had never amounted to a large sum . . .

He saw Sir William's attention drift. He had been steward since before her ladyship's death. A clerk before that. He had counted carp ponds in Copham and granted grazing rights in Grayschott. He had ranged through every hamlet, farm and manse of the Fremantle Estate, north as far as Soughton, south to Stollport, east as far as the plain of distant Elminster and west to the edge of the Levels.At the centre stood the Manor where gardeners tended beds that no gentleman saw and ostlers awaited the horses of visitors who never came, where three times daily the great horde of maids, coopers, blacksmiths, clerks and serving men and every other man, woman and child who wore Sir William's livery would cluster around the boards that filled the Great Hall and cram their mouths at his lordship's table. For the world of the Manor must continue unchanged, Sir William decreed.

Yet beyond the closed gates a thousand quarrels flourished, Mister Pouncey knew. In the Vale of Buckland every yard of crumbling wall was someone's to build, another's to repair and another's again to dispute until the stones tumbled like the ancient halls of Old Toue. Ever since the first of the Fremantle line had hacked his way through the wildwood and founded the Manor, Buckland's troubles had been making their way to his lordship's door. Once again, Mister Pouncey eyed the bundle in its white tape.

The Bishop's Court could settle the curacy of Middle Ock, Mister Pouncey suggested. Sir William nodded. Repairs to the stables came next then a dismissal among the clerks. A new tally man would have to be taken on in the counting house next door, if his lordship would permit it. Next, Mister Pouncey moved to the perennial matter of the Forham rents.

‘Late again?’ queried Sir William. ‘Why this time?’

‘Sir Hector's claim to the Lordship of Boughton was revoked at the last Visitation,’ murmured Mister Pouncey. ‘An expensive mistake. And the Countess is not received at Court. Another indiscretion, I hear.’

The Callocks were distant and troublesome kinsmen. Their quarrels and claims against the Fremantles littered the Manor records. Did the flicker of a smile pass across Sir William's hawkish face? There was a time he and Sir William had conversed at their ease. They had even played chequers to pass the hours during Lady Anne's confinements. Now the chequerboard lay in a drawer in the side-table, the pieces arrayed just as they had been when Mrs Gardiner's anxious face had appeared around the door. Lady Anne had requested his presence. She was bleeding . . .

The steward moved on. The pigs of Wittering had rooted up hurdle-fences belonging to the villagers of Selle and no one could agree on the fine. One of the Manor plough-horses was fit only for pasture and the next horse fair at Carrboro was three weeks off. And the one-horse trap, the steward mentioned casually, required repairs. At that, Sir William's expression darkened.

The vehicle had been a rare frivolity on her ladyship's part. Quite impractical on Buckland's muddy tracks, Mister Pouncey had argued at the time. But no expense had been spared when it came to Lady Anne: the new plantings, the East Garden glass-house, the windows in the chapel . . . Sir William had even refurbished the tower, repainting the brickwork and plastering over its ancient mosaics. Heathen views of the Vale, according to the foreman. Now the trap sat in the coach house behind the stables, no more likely to move from its station than the chequerboard from its drawer or the weeds from the East Garden. The glass-house would continue its slow collapse and the chapel tower would stand empty. The Solar Gallery would remain locked and the chamber at the end would keep its perpetual darkness. Perpetual, the steward reflected, but for Miss Lucretia's incursion last summer.

‘Have it made good,’ Sir William muttered.

Mister Pouncey nodded. Now only the sheaf tied with white tape remained. Mister Pouncey took a deep breath. Sir William observed impassively as the steward undid the papers and broke the wax.

‘The Fremantle succession,’ Mister Pouncey announced. ‘As you know, my lord, I have pursued the task with which you charged me to the utmost of my diligence and abilities . . .’

He had pursued indeed. The evidence of Mister Pouncey's pursuit lay spread over the long table in his chambers: the rolls and folios of brittle vellum and parchment. In the drawers beneath rested sheaves of letters in Mister Pouncey's neat hand, the copies filed in order up to the letters from the Garter King of Arms himself who, as their correspondence multiplied, at last signed himself with weary familiarity, ‘Segar’.

But none of Mister Pouncey's correspondents had furnished a solution. His own researches had taken him into the depths of the Manor Rolls where his eyes had strained to decipher the hands of his predecessors as they listed the possessions and privileges, ancient rights and obligations of the Lords of Buckland. They had held Buckland since Caesar's time, so the family story ran. From Sir William himself a line of ancestors marched back through the centuries, the figures growing ever more shadowy, back to that first Fremantle thane who had sworn an oath to God then hacked his way down the Vale to light his torch in a miraculous fire. There he had raised the tower where he would be entombed. Now his effigy kept watch from Buckland's ancient chapel and that miraculous fire still blazed in the torch of the Fremantle arms.