John Saturnall's Feast (42 page)

But a darker mood had descended on John. ‘You will marry him,’ he persisted.

‘Douse your anger, Master Saturnall.’

It seemed they might argue but before John could answer, from under the coverlet, a loud growl sounded. John laughed and Lucretia blushed.

‘You are my cook, Master Saturnall,’ Lucretia said, smiling. ‘Feed me.’

‘The first men and women drank spiced wine. They warmed it with honey and flavoured it with saffron, cinnamon and mace. They roasted dates and dissolved them . . .’

He knelt above her, his lips brushing the shallow valley formed beween her shoulder blades. The words of his mother's book rose easily in his memory as if Lucretia's hunger called them forth. Once again the heady fumes twisted up and the wine seemed to warm his belly. As he murmured the words, the imagined liquor soothed him as it had in the freezing wood. Now its balm worked upon them both. When he reached the nape of her neck, she twisted about.

‘I should like to taste your spiced wine,’ she demanded.

John rose and took the tall pitcher from the tray. He poured then watched Lucretia sip. Her throat bobbed as she swallowed. She gathered a droplet that ran down her chin on her finger and sucked. At last she turned to him with a doubtful expression.

‘I am bound to say, Master Saturnall, that I cannot taste the dates.’

‘Perhaps they were not sufficiently softened. Or perhaps some lazy cook neglected to roast the stones, or add the saffron, or the cloves and mace . . .’

‘I fear, Master Saturnall, that your spiced wine tastes more akin to cold water.’

John raised his eyebrows in mock-surprise.

‘Only the laziest cook blames his kitchen, your ladyship. But in this instance I must plead the paucity of our larders. Not to mention our cellars. And our storerooms. In point of fact, we have no wine.’

He saw her eyebrows rise in alarm. ‘Then how will you feed me?’

Night by night, he led her through Saturnus's gardens, describing the dishes that might come from each one.

‘Poached collops of venison,’ he whispered in her ear. ‘A quaking pudding with raisins, honey and saffron. Custards flavoured with conserve of roses and a paste of quinces. Beef wrapped about a mash of artichoke and pistachio, then hollowed manchet rolls filled with minced eggs, sweet herbs and cinnamon . . .’

He described the foaming forcemeat of fowls then set before her a dish. He watched her scoop up a little of the pale orange mash.

‘I confess that to this poor palate your forcemeats taste strongly of turnips.’

‘Ah, but I have not yet described the seasonings of cumin and saffron, the beaten egg whites and the folding of the forcemeats into the pipkin.’ He scooped more of the turnip mash and held out the spoon. ‘Taste again, your ladyship. Imagine the spices . . .’

He carried up the plain dishes and presented them to her with a joking flourish. She played along, looking up as if she still sat in her chamber with Pole and Fanshawe outside on the stair. Spoon poised over the dish, she looked up from the little table.

‘Perhaps, Master Saturnall,’ she asked, ‘you might sit with me?’

‘Sit, your ladyship?’

‘Like those first men and women.’

They ate together. Afterwards they lay together. Sated and drowsy, John put his lips to her ear.

‘Flaking florentine rounds,’ he whispered. ‘Peaches in snow-cream.’

‘No,’ she murmured. ‘No more.’

‘Meat pies. Mutton balls topped with spinach and walnuts and cumin ground fine . . .’

‘You have no cumin. Mister Fanshawe told me this morning.’

‘We have no mutton either,’ he said. ‘Nor walnuts until next autumn.’

The larders were less than half full, he knew. As Christmas drew near the stores sank lower. They would serve spiced cider in place of wine, John told the kitchen. Cold sallets of sorrel, tarragon and thyme would follow hot ones of skirrets, beets and onions. They would dress lettuce leaves with cider vinegar, salt and oil and dip the endives in oil, mustard and beaten yolks.

In the bakehouse, Tam Yallop and Simeon tried their hands at Vanian's darioles. Adam Lockyer pledged his dish of songbirds, boned, roasted and salted. Jed Scantlebury proposed himself for the sallets. Hesekey declared that he and Simeon should make honey cakes while Wendell Turpin and Alf assigned themselves baked apples. Philip and Mister Bunce took charge of the boar and supervised its transport across the yard, the massive carcass leaving a dark streak of blood in the snow.

‘Should see us through,’ remarked Philip two days later, surveying the carcass which hung from the beam in the jointing room. A basket heaped with apples stood beside it. John peered up at the roof.

‘We'll give them a Twelfth Night feast to remember.’

Adam and his under-cooks scalded off the beast's hair and cleaned the carcass. In Firsts, Mister Bunce cored and peeled apples. Diggory brought in a basket of feathered corpses which Simeon began to draw and pluck. Sacks of skirrets and rampions were carried down from clamps in the woods. Barrels of cider were consigned to the darkest corner of the cellar to cool. Outside, beyond the west wall of Motte's garden, two of Motte's gardeners dug a roasting pit.

Bent over the cauldron with Scovell's ladle in his hand and the spiced cider sending up its heady fumes, John heard the hum of activity rise, the clatter of pots and pans, the thud of cleavers on boards and the voices of the cooks. Slowly the kitchen stirred into life. At midday he was met by Philip who wore a baffled expression.

‘She wants us all up there.’

‘Who does?’

‘Lady Lucretia. Up there. In the Hall. She wants us to eat together.’ Philip shook his head as if the ways of the Mistress of Buckland were quite beyond the pale of normal comprehension. ‘The first men and women ate together, she told Gemma. Now we should too.’

As John turned away to hide a smile, a snow-dusted Adam Lockyer entered with Peter Pears.

‘The Heron Boy won't move,’ said Adam. ‘Six inches of ice on his ponds and he still won't come in.’ He handed back a bunch of keys to Philip. ‘And some of that sugar-loafs gone.’

The spiced cider was poured into a plain tureen. Philip marshalled the dishes and ordered the trays. Luke and Colin sweated over the chafing dishes. A grinning Simeon carried in the first tray of darioles and Alf began to pipe in a compote of apples and cherries. From the servants’ yard, John heard Mister Bunce directing his porters— ‘Left a little, Hesekey! Mind that cobble, Adam!'— then the leather curtain was thrown back. Borne shoulder-high on a litter of poles with Hesekey holding a drip-pan beneath, the boar entered the kitchen. The beast's back almost scraped the ceiling. His belly bulged with stuffing. From the wooden tusks attached to his snout hung two delicate cages woven from twigs. In each cage perched one of Diggory Wing's doves.

‘Scovell would have been proud of him,’ Philip told John, surveying the beast's glistening, golden-brown crackling. ‘Now, how are we going to get him up there?’

It took Quiller, all his serving men, Colin, Luke, John and Philip to manoeuvre the boar up the stairs. In the buttery corridor, the buzz of voices from the Hall seemed to John almost as loud as when the King had come. Mister Bunce carried a carving knife the length of a cutlass. John steadied the beast on its tray then Mister Fanshawe's tones rang out, as nasal and penetrating as Mister Pouncey's had ever been, announcing each member of the kitchen.

‘Mister Adam Lockyer of Buckland, Cook! Mister Hesekey Binyon of Buckland, Under-cook . . .’

At last John's name was called. He stepped out from behind the boar and stared.

Candlelight glinted off the polished platters, the little flames flickering throughout the Great Hall. A makeshift High Table ran the length of the room. Behind it stood Lucretia. John stared.

She wore the dress of silvery-blue silk, the cloth shimmering as the candlelight caught its folds. Beside her stood Mrs Gardiner. Next to her stood an empty chair. Lucretia beckoned.

‘So the Buckland Kitchen has consented to join us, Master Saturnall,’ the young woman declared. ‘We of the Household count ourselves fortunate.’

Her face was flushed. John made little bows to Pole and Gardiner then took his place between them. From the High Table, he saw Philip and the rest of the Kitchen looking over at him, nudging each other and grinning. Down the table, Gemma leaned out from beside a quiet Mister Pouncey.

‘A draught for Master Saturnall,’ Lucretia commanded from the other side of Mrs Gardiner. One of Quiller's men poured poached cider into a goblet. In front of him rested the salt caddy in the shape of a ship.

Waving his cutlass, Mister Bunce attacked the flank of the boar. Wielding a knife as long as his forearm, Mister Quiller carved slices from the rear. Plates of pork larded with mutton and apple were handed up. A platter of golden-skinned birds joined it. Soon John's knife and spoon added their noise to the clatter of cutlery in the Hall. Beside him, Mrs Gardiner slurped heartily from her goblet. At length she stifled a belch and leaned back. John raised his cup.

‘To your health, your ladyship.’

Lucretia acknowledged his salute.

Across the Hall, the serving men joined the Kitchen, Motte's gardeners, the Estate men and the maids, all of them busy lifting food off the platters. Down the table below, Philip was conducting an energetic conversation with Meg, watched by a frowning Gemma. Beside the maid, Ginny glanced up at John and smiled. Pandar leaned across the table, confiding something to a shocked-looking Hesekey and a laughing Simeon. Jed Scantlebury seemed to be choking but was still pushing hunks of pork into his mouth while Peter Pears slapped him on the back. As John watched the familiar faces, Lucretia spoke across a drowsy Mrs Gardiner.

‘Do you remember when last you sat here, Master Saturnall?’

‘I was the King's Sayer,’ he said.

As Mrs Gardiner's eyes closed he leaned over.

‘I would be alone with you now.’

She smiled. ‘And why would that be, Master Saturnall?’

‘I have a dish for you.’

‘Turnips again? More melted snow?’

‘A mystery,’ he whispered back.

She eyed him across Mrs Gardiner's slumbering form. Suddenly a red-faced Jed Scantlebury got to his feet.

‘Who says old Iron-arse banished Christmas!’ the young man shouted. He raised his cup. ‘To Christmas! To the King!’

The Great Hall raised their cups.

‘Tonight,’ whispered John under the din of the toast. ‘Come as soon as you can.’

‘Is this your mystery?’

She eyed the flat wooden box. But as she lifted the lid, a disbelieving smile spread over her face.

‘Jewellery?’

‘''A belt of straw and ivy buds,"’ said John.’ “With coral clasps and amber studs.”’

‘The verses . . .’

‘ ‘'And if these pleasures may thee move . . . Come live with me and be my love.” ‘

There was a long silence in which Lucretia did nothing but wipe one eye, then the other.

‘How did you make them?’ she asked at last.

John recalled the twinge of shame as he had smuggled out the broken brick of Madeira. He had ground the sugar in his chamber then refined it and spun out its threads, weaving them as they hardened in the air. Now Lucretia looked down at the belt made of golden hoops, a ring with its faceted jewel and a clasp woven from the finest gold wire. He shrugged.

‘It was no great labour.’

‘I fear they might be too sweet for my taste,’ Lucretia said.

‘They are not for your lips.’

She looked at him, puzzled.

‘Then whose?’

Some minutes later, a strange duet disturbed the peace of the chamber.

‘"Come live with me,"’ said John.
Crunch.

‘Ow!’ Lucretia exclaimed.

‘''And be my love.”’
Crunch.

‘Stop, John . . .’

‘''And we will all the pleasures prove.”’
Crunch, crack, crunch
. . .

Her yelps would wake the household, John chided her as he bent to bite another of the candy hoops. He had fastened the belt about her naked waist. But as he bent to nip again, hilarity overtook her.

‘Stop!’ gasped Lucretia. ‘Please stop, John.’

‘"That valleys, groves, hills and fields,"‘
crack,
’"woods,"’
snap,
’"or steepy mountain yields . . .”’

At last she escaped.

‘Now you wear it,’ she commanded.

‘Me? Where?’

She advanced upon him, dangling the chains.

‘No!’

‘Yes . . .’

Later, when the belt and clasps and studs had been crunched between their teeth, when their sticky lips had unpeeled themselves and they lay back panting among the disordered sheets, John felt Lucretia's hand creep into his own. Together they looked up at the ceiling where the light from the fire cast flickering shadows.

‘This is our garden,’ Lucretia said. ‘Here in this chamber.’

‘Garden?’

‘You said they served one another. The first men and women. They exchanged their affections and lived as equals.’ She turned to him. ‘This is our garden, John. This is our Feast.’

The last snow fell on Saint Agnes Eve. Weighing sunflower seeds in her palm, Lucretia prayed for their future then threw them over her shoulder. John heard them crackle and spit in the fire.

‘Pull back the curtain,’ Lucretia said.

John drew back the heavy fabric, dust cascading down the velvet. The light flooded in. Together they peered out of the window.

‘The snow's melting,’ said Lucretia, resting her chin on his shoulder.

‘Winter's over,’ said John.

The thaw uncovered the pastures. Tables of green began to rise through the slush. Soon the snow lay only in the deepest hollows and at last even the great white mound below the gatehouse disappeared. On Lady Day, the roads reopened. Then Marpot came.