John Saturnall's Feast (47 page)

There was a short silence.

‘I say, Piers. Is he mocking you?’ asked one of the companions.

‘Give him the flat of your sword,’ suggested the other.

‘It is but his manner of speaking,’ Piers said quickly. ‘Leave us while we . . . we recall our old battles.’

The pair retreated. Piers drew John aside.

‘We both have our recollections,’ he said.

‘We both know the truth,’ answered John. ‘As do Pandar, and Philip, and Adam . . .’

‘That was another life,’ Piers said. ‘We have all gained new masters since then.’ A sly smile stole over his face. ‘And you too, Master Cook.’

John stared. But now Piers's gaze did not waver.

‘Buckland has no master,’ John answered. ‘Only a mistress.’

‘Does it?’ As Piers gestured back towards the house, John felt a cold hand grip his guts. She could not, he thought. He had put the notion from him since the day the Callock Marwood villagers had staggered down the drive, waving their bottles. She would not. But behind his denial, this moment had been waiting. Waiting since their first embrace.

‘But have you not heard the happy news down there in your kitchen?’ Piers went on.

A dread feeling crept over John. He remembered the companions clapping Piers on the back. The talk of horsemen and swordsmen. Piers's smile broadened.

‘She has accepted me.’

Barrels of oysters wrapped in seaweed came by boat from Stollport. Fat bream and trout were carried in dripping wooden boxes lined with wet straw. A great conger eel arrived in a crate large enough to hold a cannon and appeared so fearsome Mister Bunce quelled the kitchen boys’ mock-screams only by bringing out Mister Stone to take his pick among the screechers. Sacks of raisins, currants, dried prunes and figs piled up in the dry larder. In the wet room, soused brawn, salted ling and gallipots of anchovies crowded the shelves and floor. In the butchery, Colin and Luke marshalled four undercooks, six men from the Estate armed with saws, a grumbling Barney Curle and his barrow to skin, draw and joint the hogs. Simeon, Tam Yallop and the other bakers lugged in sacks of meal from the Callock Marwood mill while a dray from the ale-house made journeys over the hill, past the gatehouse and into the yard until the buttery and cellar were filled with kegs and barrels. Rhenish wine arrived in a covered wagon, the dark oak tuns resting on a thick bed of bracken. Scents of cinnamon and saffron drifted out of the spice room.

In the kitchen, dressers were opened and vessels counted. Shredding knives and flesh-axes were sent to Mister Bunce for sharpening. Mortars and querns were inspected for cracks. Bread-graters were cleaned and skillets polished. Mister Stone and his scullions scoured frying pans and pots. John supervised.

They would serve dishes to signal the union of the two houses, John told Philip. A subtlety should be constructed from sugar depicting Piers's endeavours and achievements.

‘Then we should sew a bag from pig's ears,’ snorted Philip. ‘And fill it with a quaking pudding.’

‘Water and turnips,’ offered Adam. ‘That's what we ate while he was scoffing in Paris.’

‘And Paradise bread,’ added Philip. ‘Don't deny him that.’

Logs thudded in baskets. Fires roared in the hearths. Under the vaulted ceiling a wave of aromas rolled forward. John slept fitfully, lying on his cot and staring up at the ceiling, thinking only of the feast. A week before the day, there was a knock at his door. One of the new kitchen boys stood holding a rushlight. He looked up nervously.

‘There's a lady to see you, Master Saturnall.’

For a moment his heart leaped. But Lucretia would hardly announce her presence down here.

‘Escort her here,’ he told the boy. A few minutes later, a plump figure advanced down the passage. She entered the chamber with a nod to John and settled herself in the best chair by the fire.

‘We all keep our dark corners, Master Saturnall,’ said Mrs Gardiner. ‘Wouldn't you say?’

John nodded, puzzled.

‘Thought I should pay Susan Sandall's boy a visit,’ the woman said. ‘Now Master Scovell's gone.’

He eyed her in the firelight, trying to divine her purpose.

‘It wasn't Richard Scovell she loved,’ Mrs Gardiner said abruptly. ‘You guessed that, didn't you?’

He nodded, his mind whirling, remembering the conversation he had overheard within these walls. No, it was never Scovell.

‘Almery,’ he said. ‘Charles Almery.’

‘That magpie,’ Mrs Gardiner said. ‘He was a dark one. Even Master Scovell couldn't see into him, any more'n he could know your ma's heart or I could look through that wall.’

Her gaze drifted to the low door that linked his chamber to the one beyond.

‘But you said they fought, she and Almery . . .’

‘We all have our dark corners,’ Mrs Gardiner said. ‘Anyone who saw them would have said she hated him. I never guessed otherwise. I never saw into that dark corner. Not till you came.’ She looked at John. ‘To see you now, it's like looking at him.’

John stared back. ‘My father?’

The woman shrugged. ‘Almery was well made. And he could speak any tongue under the sun.’

‘Couldn't tell the truth in any of them,’ murmured John.

‘That's right,’ Mrs Gardiner agreed. ‘Your ma knew it too. But she carried a book with her, took it everywhere. Charles Almery could read it.’

John remembered his mother reciting the words.

‘Each had something the other one wanted and neither could resist. But the night Lady Anne died, she caught him down here. Then Scovell found them both . . .’

‘Scovell said Sir William threw her out.’

‘Oh no. Sir William would never do that. It was almost like he was wary of her. He'd had her fetched from way up the Vale.’

John frowned. ‘What would Sir William know of my mother?’

Mrs Gardiner shrugged. ‘That I don't know. But I understand this. Your ma got gripped by a passion. And someone's passion gripped her back. And none of them ended where they wanted. You see my meaning, John Sandall?’

She meant Lucretia, he realised. That was why she had come. Mrs Gardiner fixed John with a look.

‘I've known her since she was born,’ the housekeeper went on. ‘She'd go with you in a moment. If she could.’

The housekeeper left her last words hanging. Gripping the arms of the chair she pushed herself upright. ‘Now, Master Saturnall, be good enough to show this stranger out . . .’

A hundred questions awaited him in the kitchens the next day, and a hundred more the day after. Yet however many tasks whirled in his mind, he found his thoughts drawn back to Mrs Gardiner's words.

She'd go with you in a moment
. Was that encouragement or a warning?
If she could
. . .

‘The feast is three days away,’ Philip told John the next day. ‘You might at least pay attention.’

‘The forcemeats,’ John said crisply. ‘Tell me again.’

Philip shook his head. ‘What do you intend, John?’ he asked quietly.

‘I am her cook,’ John said. ‘I promised her a wedding feast.’

But that night, Gemma asked for him.

‘She has sent me,’ the young woman said quietly. ‘She would speak with you.’

From the house a muffled hubbub sounded, drifting up on the still evening air. Gemma's boots clopped softly on the path that led past the East Garden wall. John heard a burst of laughter erupt. Piers's companions, he thought. Or merely the end of supper. Ahead the chestnut trees rose. Out of them emerged the chapel, the tower rising like a great stone finger pointing to the sky. Suddenly John was reminded of a different wood.

‘She is waiting there,’ Gemma said. ‘She would not tell me why. She has barely spoken all week.’ The young woman hesitated. ‘She is not herself, John.’

The chapel door was unlocked. John's footsteps echoed over the floor. Across the nave, the door to the tower stood ajar.

Plaster littered the steps. Marpot's hammer, he remembered. The man had dragged Lucretia up here. Then his mysterious retreat. Above he saw a flickering light.

She'd go with you in a moment
. . .

Shattered plaster crunched underfoot. The thought of her waiting swelled in his mind. She could not accept Piers. Not the Lucretia he knew. At last his head rose into the cool night air.

Marpot had not stinted. Even here plaster littered the floor. The tomb resembled a throne. An ancient stone figure sat with its worn face looking out over the Vale. But John's gaze was drawn to the walls, lit by lamps placed on the floor. Mosaics had been set in panels. John glanced at the first in which woods and orchards rose. A familiar river wound its way among them.

It was the Vale. But seen from inside Bellicca's palace. John crouched, his finger tracing the slopes where he had learned his letters. But how was this image here? Who had looked out of the windows of Bellicca's palace? He looked around and caught sight of the worn stone face.

‘You know him too, John. You have always known him.’

Lucretia's voice startled him. The young woman stepped forward out of the shadows. Even in the dim light her face looked strange. She had powdered her cheeks, John realised. Her lips were darkened with rouge. A heady perfume wafted from her as she looked at the vista picked out on the wall. Then she spoke in a cold voice.

‘He was called Coldcloak. He came here when the Romans went home. He kept the Feast with Bellicca. With all of them. But he betrayed her.’

John stared at her, his mind working furiously. The tomb. The images on the walls. The first of the Fremantles looking out over the Vale.

‘Him?’ John managed, looking between the young woman and the ancient stone figure. ‘Your ancestor was Coldcloak?’

Instead of answering, Lucretia pointed to the next panel in which great terraces climbed in steps to neatly arranged orchards. Bellicca's gardens, realised John. In their midst rose a palace with a great hearth and high arched windows. Men and women thronged about the tables. But a fearsome figure towered over them. He carried an axe in one hand and a torch in the other. He was breaking the tables.

‘He swore an oath to God,’ Lucretia said. ‘Swore it before Jehovah's priests like you told me, John. He would take back the Vale for Christ. So he pulled up her garden and drove out her people. He broke her tables and stole the fires from her hearths.’

In the last panel, Coldcloak fled the scene of destruction. John saw the bitter tears pouring from his eyes. But under his arms he carried trees and bushes. And his hands still held the blazing torch and axe.

‘He brought them here,’ said Lucretia. ‘He stole them. There was no miraculous fire here at Buckland. Or spiced wine . . .’

The ancient stone figure sat before his table. So this was Coldcloak, thought John, staring into the sightless eyes. Then Callock. Then Fremantle. Just as Piers had claimed. As Lucretia stood silently beside her ancestor, he remembered telling her Bellicca's story, how the remote look had come over her.

‘You knew,’ John said slowly. ‘You always knew.’

‘Yes.’

‘But you kept silent.’

He waited for her to speak. To explain. There would be a reason for her silence. Some compulsion that had sealed her lips as they lay together in the chamber. He could forgive her, he told himself. But she stood in the shadows, as silent as her ancestor. Deep inside him John felt an old ember stir.

‘Why?’ he demanded.

She watched him through the mask of powder. In the face of her silence, he felt his anger flare.

‘You lied to me,’ John accused her. ‘You lied with your silence. All of you. You stole the Feast from us. You took the whole Vale . . .’

He stared at Lucretia's powdered face and rouged lips. He smelt the heavy sweet scent she wore. This was her true face, he thought bitterly. This powdered mask. But she would answer him, he decided. He would make her answer him. As he reached for her, Lucretia raised her hands. To ward him off, he supposed. But instead she grasped him, her hands cupping his face.

‘This is your answer,’ she hissed. ‘This is what you wanted, isn't it? Take it.’

The whorish scent filled his nostrils. He felt her heat through the thin dress. Her legs splayed. Before he could ask more or protest, her lips silenced him.