John Saturnall's Feast (2 page)

No lights showed among the cottages. No smoke rose from the chimneys. Nothing moved on the slopes that climbed to the dark trees far above. No one knew what had happened, the Flitwick men had said the previous night at the inn. Not a soul had been up to Buckland all winter.

It was none of his business, he told himself. When the packhorses got down he would make his bargain with the driver. The mysterious parcel could share a ride with the wet rags on the mule. It could get to the Manor without him. To this ‘Master Scovell’, whoever he was. The village, the Vale, the Manor at the far end: all shared the name of Buckland. Like a common curse, Ben thought. His eyes scanned the soot-streaked church then rose to the wood. He nudged the hated pack with his foot.

The beasts passed a row of split-oak palings. The cold rain seeped up his boots to his breeches. Ben's thoughts turned to Soughton and the warm back room at the Dog at Night. Tonight he would be on his way back. Master Fessler would take him, he was sure. He would never set eyes on this place again.

Three long loping strides took the driver down the last steep bank. The piebald mare teetered after, the two pack-chests swaying on her back. Joshua Palewick, they had called the lean grey-haired man at the Flitwick inn. Next came the bay horse, laden the same. The two ponies were loaded with panniers and sacks. Last of all the mule which carried only a bundle of rags and limped. Ben drew himself up. The only thing a packhorse man drove harder than his horses was a bargain, he reminded himself. A penny a mile was fair for a limping mule. The animals splashed through the puddles and mud. He raised a hand in greeting. Then, on the mule's back, the bundle of rags stirred.

A gust of wind, Ben told himself. Or a freak of the failing light. But the next moment showed him it was not so. Out of the rags rose a head. Out of the head stared a pair of eyes. The rags contained a boy.

Sharp cheekbones jutted from his face. His hair was a mat of soaked black curls. A sodden blue coat was draped over the rest of him. Hunched awkwardly over the back of the mule, the young rider slipped and slid as if he were about to fall. But there was no danger of that, Ben saw as the mule drew closer. Thick cords encircled his wrists. The boy was tied to the saddle.

The driver stopped.

‘Ben Martin,’ Ben said in a casual tone. ‘Got a load going to Buckland Manor. For a man by the name of Scovell.’

‘I know Richard Scovell,’ Joshua Palewick said. His eyes narrowed. ‘And I know you. You were at the inn back in Flitwick.’

Ben nodded. Behind the driver∼ the boy watched from the mule, the rain dripping from his dark eyebrows and into his eyes. Unable to wipe the drops away, he grimaced and blinked. His gaze seemed to look through the two men.

‘Put it on with him,’ Ben suggested. ‘Penny a mile's fair. The road's not so bad . . .’

‘Ain't it now?’ Josh raised an eyebrow. ‘S'pose I must've imagined it. These last thirty years.’

Ben forced a grin. ‘Penny and a half,’ he offered.

Joshua Palewick shook his head. ‘The boy gets the ride to himself Agreed it with the priest.’

A sinking feeling grew in Ben's gut. ‘I'll pay more,’ he blurted out. But Josh's expression hardened.

‘Not to me,’ the driver said shortly. ‘I shook on it.’

He pulled on the rein and the horses set off. The boy's thin body jolted this way and that. Hooves clopped over the bridge as the beasts ambled away.

Ben's spirits tumbled. He would throw the parcel in the stream, he resolved. Say he'd never seen it. No one would know except Palewick. And the boy, whoever he was. And this Scovell, if Palewick told him. And the dark-faced man who had hired him back in Soughton. The Moor or Jew or whatever he was. Almery . . .

The Dog's warm back room was disappearing with Josh's horses. He should never have left Soughton. Never have found himself soaked, with blistered feet on a rainswept bridge at the head of the Vale of Buckland. Suddenly Ben snatched up the straps of the pack and slung its bulk over his shoulder.

‘Wait!’ he shouted through the rain. He stumbled over the planks. Joshua Palewick turned, his face closed.

‘I don't know the road,’ Ben confessed.

‘I figured.’

‘I never set foot here before.’

The older man looked Ben over. Then it was as if some baleful influence lifted. As if the dark village with its soot-streaked church were already distant and Buckland Manor were close. As if the length of the Vale were a mere stroll. The ghost of a smile flickered over the driver's face.

‘I saw you from up there in the village,’ Josh said. ‘Thought you was waiting for a ride in one of them Soughton chairs. You from up that way, ain't you?’

Ben admitted that he was.

‘We'll walk aways if you like,’ said the driver. ‘See if we can stand each other.’

Ben nodded eagerly then the older man glanced back to the boy. ‘That one's going to the Manor, same as that parcel of yours. You keep an eye on him for me. All right?’

Both men looked back. Balanced on the mule, the boy had twisted about. Ben Martin followed his gaze, past the village and up the overgrown slopes, all the way to the dark wall of trees at the top.

‘That's where they caught him,’ Josh said. ‘Buccla's Wood.’

They were running as hard as they could, out of the hut and across the dark meadow, John's heart thudding in his chest, fear churning his guts. Beside him, his mother's hand gripped the heavy bag in one hand and his wrist in the other, the long grass whipping their legs as they scrambled for the safety of the slopes. Behind them, the mob's chant grew more strident.

Honey from the Hive! Grapes from the Vine!

Come out our Witch! Come drink your Wine!

Oily-smelling tallow-smoke laced the warm night air. The banging of pots and pans mixed with the villagers’ shouts. John felt his mother's hand tighten, pulling him along. He heard the bag knock awkwardly against her legs, the breath rasp in her throat. His own heart pounded. Reaching the edge of the meadow they clawed their way up the first bank.

Terraces cut long shallow steps in the slope. They climbed then ran then climbed again. The noise of the mob pursued them in waves, rising and falling. With each step, John's fear abated a little. Soon ghostly banks of furze and scrub rose around them, the night air heavy with grassy scents. John looked up. The trees of Buccla's Wood loomed.

The villagers never came up here. Old Buccla had witched the whole Vale with her Feast, they said. Until Saint Clodock came and chopped up her chestnut-wood tables. Ever since, once a year, they served her a feast in return. To keep her off.

That was tonight.

His mother climbed on, striding confidently through the narrow gaps and breaks. John hurried behind. The bag clutched in her hand held the book she had snatched from the lintel over the fireplace in the moments before their flight. He slipped past the thorny fronds, edging through the thicket. Soon the path narrowed then came to an end, the bramble thickets forming an impenetrable barrier. Before an old wooden paling with a cross carved upon it, his mother halted.

He had never climbed this high before. Beyond the thicket of thorns loomed the trees of Buccla's Wood. He heard the heavy crowns of the chestnuts shifting, the leaves rustling in a thousand dry whispers. Far below, the mob's chant drifted up.

A Pigeon from the Perch and a Blackbird by,

Come out, our Witch! Come eat your Pie!

‘It's just the Ale,’ his mother said. She looked down into his worried face. ‘When they've drained the barrel they look for their sport.’

John remembered the other times: red yelling faces, half-drunk men and their barking dogs. Himself clinging to his mother's skirts. She had always faced them down before. But tonight the chant had gained a new harshness.

‘They came up from Marpot's house,’ he told his mother.

‘Did they?’

He stared at her. She knew it as well as he did. They had gathered to pray for little Mary Starling's soul. Then they had marched up to the meadow. Now they surrounded the hut and chanted.

Fish from the Canal! Eels from the Jub!

Come out, our Witch .
. .

Out of the sea of flame-red faces, a black-suited figure climbed onto the thatch. John heard his mother's breath catch in her throat as if her cough were about to return. A burning torch was clutched in the man's hand. He waved it and the crowd roared louder. John saw his mother's hands fly to her mouth.

‘No,’ she murmured. ‘They wouldn't dare.’

Every wave of the torch brought it nearer the thatch. Everything they owned was in the hut, John thought. The straw mattress, the chest, his mother's pots and bottles and jars . . . But then a shock of white hair appeared at the edge of the mob. John pulled at his mother's skirt.

‘Look, Ma! It's Old Holy.’

Relief flooded through him as the priest strode into the midst of the villagers. From high above, John watched the man's arms wave, his hands cuffing at the nearest heads. The torch-bearer jumped down off the roof. The chanters fell back. The torches began to drift away.

‘That'll teach ‘em,’ John declared.

‘Will it?’ his mother murmured.

She lowered the bag with the book to the ground. John felt her hand stroke his hair, her fingers untangling the thick black locks. He looked up at the dark line of trees and breathed in slowly, smelling wild garlic, mulched leaves, a fox den somewhere and a sweeter scent. Fruit blossom, he thought. Then that small mystery was eclipsed by a larger one. A stranger scent hid among the blossom, sweet and resinous at once. Lilies, John thought, drawing the scent deeper. Lilies mixed with pitch.

‘What're you sniffing at now?’ his mother asked with a smile.

He smiled back. He had a demon in his throat, she said. A demon who knew every smell in Creation. Breathing in the sharp saps and sweet blossoms, he felt them anchor themselves within him, their invisible trails fanning out around him. But here was a smell his demon had never met before. He looked up at the trees of Buccla's Wood.

‘I don't know,’ he confessed at last. His mother swept her long dark hair back from her face.

‘Don't tell them you came up here, John. Understand?’

He nodded. Of course he understood. Saint Clodock had sworn an oath to God, so the old story went. He had marched out of Zoyland and come up here to chop up the witch's tables. He had taken the fires from her hearths and torn up her gardens. He had taken back the Vale for God.

But Buccla was still up there, the villagers said. Her and her Witch's Feast. And she was still hungry . . .

It was just an old story, John believed. The villagers’ chanting was just their sport. Then Warden Marpot had come, waving torches and goading them on. Now Father Hole had seen them off. The thought of the old priest cuffing their heads made him grin. Below, the last torch-bearers were trudging away. When none remained, his mother turned to him.

‘We'll go to church every week,’ she said. ‘I'll wear a bonnet like the rest of the women.’ She attempted a smile. ‘You can play with the other children.’

John, John, the Witch's Son!

Duck him and prick him and make him run!

It was their sport after the Sunday lesson. The moment Old Holy's last ‘Amen’ sounded, John was out and through the door, scrambling over the wall of Saint Clodock's churchyard then running as fast as his legs would carry him.

John, John, the Blackamoor's Son!

Paint his Face and pull out his Tongue

Two summers had passed since the flight up the slope. He was taller and stronger than the child who had scrambled up the terraces to Buccla's Wood. But so were his pursuers.

Ephraim Clough led the pack as usual. Dando Candling and Tobit Drury followed close behind with Abel Starling and Seth Dare. The girls skipped along at the back and shrieked. John sprinted past the old well, over the bare patches of Saint Clod's Tears then around the pond, scattering ducks and setting the Fentons’ geese honking. The villagers drawing water glanced up then shook their heads in disapproval. Susan Sandall's boy was causing trouble again.