“Zizka!” I screamed. “Come here!”
After a long time he appeared, his black brows drawn down. “Alex, you’re not the only one who has to get ready. What’s the matter?”
“These wings,” I said angrily. “They stink.”
He sniffed, bellowed, “Tue-Boeuf!” Then, when Pax’s husband came, “Tell that imbecile cook Julian that this flesh has turned rank and maggoty. He’ll have to kill another swan. And at once!”
When Tue-Boeuf had trotted off, the jongleur examined me carefully, turning me all around. “Well, I must say that Pax has excelled herself. As pretty a morsel as will be served this night.”
“When will I have my audience?” I asked anxiously. “Have you arranged it yet?”
“Audience?” He laughed grimly. “Not I. That will depend on how much the king likes your performance.”
I looked up, both appalled and disbelieving. “My performance? What has that to do with my interview? I’m not auditioning to be the king’s troubadour; I have important business to discuss.”
“That’s your affair,” he drawled, “if he chooses to see you. So take care that you sing sweetly and true; watch your high tones which tend to go flat.”
“You promised in Paris. Fat Giselle said absolutely that she could get me an audience, that she was the only one, that …”
“Complain to Fat Giselle, then. I said I would bring you to Chinon and I have.”
“But your friend Ambroise?” I would have wept except that I was afraid of smearing the heliotrope.
“Of course, but Ambroise is a troubadour, not a sorcerer. He can hardly persuade the king to see you if you don’t impress him, can he? Perform as splendidly as you look and you’ll have no worries.”
“But I can’t,” I wailed. “You say yourself that I’m no singer. You promised!”
“I said I’d get you to the king and that I thought Ambroise could arrange an interview, but there’s nothing in your contract. Come on, let’s go for those wings ourselves.”
“I don’t believe you,” I insisted as he wrapped me in his cape. “Enoch said he would put everything in writing: he must have told you that I should have audience with the king and you cheated him.”
Zizka looked at me, bemused. “You overestimate my abilities and perhaps Enoch’s intentions. I remember distinctly what he said: ‘I will then be able to meet with the king,’ and that’s all. I supposed he was representing your interests. But come, you’ll do well and get your precious interview, and such talk now will only upset you.”
In that he was right, but he should have thought of it sooner. As I trotted beside him, I hardly knew whom to blame more, Enoch or myself. How could I have been so dim-witted? To have let him make the terms of the contract! And now, here I was, auditioning for my audience like a lowly jongleur—except that I had less talent than a croaking frog. ’Twas an ordeal of single combat which I’d entered with no arms. No wonder Zizka had rehearsed me so unmercifully—I’d needed it!
The kitchen looked like a battleground between men and beasts after the victorious army has departed. Everywhere were blood, innards, skins, horns, grease, eggshells, bones and feathers up to our knees, all o’erladen with flies and the sweet stench of blood. Cooks like inept surgeons screamed and waved dripping shanks at one another while a few silent boys carefully replaced feathers in the cooked pimply skin of fowls.
“Wait here,” Zizka ordered, “while I find Julian and see about your wings.”
Picking his way on high spots in the detritus, he crossed the kitchen and disappeared through an arch. Almost immediately he was back and held up fresh wings for me to see.
“They’re still bloody,” he said. “You might as well stay here while I have Pax clean them and attach them to your harness. Here, sit on this stool and keep the cape closed. We don’t want a bloodstained Cupid.”
Which unfortunately reminded me once again that I was soon to be a girl and I panicked. I cursed my fate, cursed the Scot, cursed Zizka for being so nasty, until I’d worked myself into such a state that I thought to make myself sick. I tried to observe what was going on around me to distract myself.
Under the surface chaos I could now discern an emerging order: on the far side of the kitchen the largest meat dishes were being decorated. The dead head of a stag was being sewn to his kneeling cooked body which was artfully painted with blood to match the real fur. The eyes had been replaced with carbuncles which wouldn’t attract flies. Less successful was a standing bear, for the cooked body looked flayed compared to the head, a problem the decorators were trying to solve by replacing the real fur pelt. Unfortunately the fur piece hadn’t had time to cure and the strong rancid odor of putrid bear-fat dominated the room.
Then my eyes fell on a pastry carving of King Richard and my liver was aflame again.
Quickly I turned to the fish courses for solace. Saffron-gold turbot, thornback and sturgeon floated on berry seas; at the other end of the table monsters of the deep wallowed in hoof-jelly water. A little man called Antoine identified them as dolphin, swordfish, seals and whales. They rivaled the bearskin for stench.
I liked the birds the best. Peacocks, swans and eagles had been brought back to life and sat on nests of partridges, sparrows, larks and sucking rabbits. Still, such game brought memories of Wanthwaite and more and more I felt I was being readied for a public execution.
Antoine had been called away, so now I studied his masterpieces lying before me, the dainties: pig-stomach stuffed with ginger and stuck with nuts, spices and almonds as spines; whale and dolphin livers smelling like violets; deer testicles floating in sweet and sour sauce; ling tails, eels in saffron sauce, salmon belly and baked herring in sugar. Carefully, so I wouldn’t drip or smear my make-up, I dipped a ling tail in alaying juice and ate it. Immediately I felt better.
’Twas almost an hour before Antoine returned and discovered his table bare.
“Some thief stole my dainties!” he howled. “’Twas Raoul I wager, that jealous rat! Julian, come here!”
Julian waddled across the kitchen at the call and gazed with disbelief at the empty trays, as did I.
“Boy,” said Antoine, “you’ve been here all the time. Did you see a small weasel of a man hovering near?”
“I believe I did,” I lied, trying not to belch. “What color was his hair?”
“A piled head with a fringe of gray.”
I was just nodding sagely when Zizka returned to rescue me.
“Sorry I took so long. Pax was in the middle of doing Dangereuses pigeon dress,” he said, holding up my wings. “Julian, can we take Alex to his ropes?”
Aye, take condemned Alex to the execution. “May I have something to drink first?” I asked.
Julian handed me a flagon of spiced wine which I gulped greedily.
“Take care, Alex, you have a long wait.” Zizka took it from me. “And you can’t leave your perch, once there.”
“Perch?” Eyes swimming, I followed him and Julian across the kitchen into the dining hall.
Marshals, squires, ushers, and sergeants-at-arms, all dressed in Plantagenet red and gold, lined the walls which themselves had gone through a marvelous transformation since last night. Garlands of flowers hung over the tapestries while carpets of blooms underfoot made the salle a bower of sweetness. Tiers of tables had been added, each richly set with plates of gold. Julian walked rapidly to the top tier where the king would sit in solitary greatness. At his place was a huge iron pan lined with a thick pastry; it had three handles tied with heavy ropes wound with flowers reaching upward. Beside the pan sat a skillful pastry rendition of the Holy City of Jerusalem complete with Calvary and Richard holding his cross on high.
“Why did they put it here so soon?” I asked Zizka. “I thought I was last on the menu. Shouldn’t I be brought in on a cart?”
He pointed to the ropes. “We’re going to fly you, from there.”
I looked upward a hundred feet or more to a pulley attached to the vaulted cei
ling.
“I won’t do it!” I cried. “That’s dangerous! Besides, you never told me.”
“Because I wasn’t sure in Paris that the machine was in good order, but Julian assures me it is.”
Julian nodded impatiently. “Only one accident in five years. Please get in, time’s flying.”
Time mayhap, not Alex. “It’s not in my contract!” I yelled.
“Of course it is. Shall I call Enoch?”
I stared speechless into his malicious eyes and allowed myself to be lifted to the center of the pie where Zizka attached my wings, put a wreath of fresh red roses on my hair and tied my mask in place, for of course Cupid is blind.
“Don’t worry so, boy. After all, you sing only a few lines and you look like a god, I assure you.”
“Put your head at this end or you’ll suffocate,” Julian instructed. “There’s a breathing hole in the tabernacle. Now stay perfectly still while we put the boiling sugar on the edge to make it stick, then the top.”
I laid my face on my hands, rump high, as my saffron eels swam from my stomach back to my mouth. Then the air became hot and my lid was on. Shortly my pan moved, swung free, began a slow squeaky ascent. Once in midair it moved til and fro in sickening arcs till I thought I must vomit and swallowed all those dainties twice again to keep them down, though they’d lost their savor second time round. Finally I was lodged next to my pulley, quiet at last, Deo grattas.
But so hot! No air, my nose stuffed with wheat flour; an iron bubble in my stomach near blew me away. At least I couldn’t be heard. I belched like a braying jackass but made air faster than I could discharge it. I couldn’t e’en think of my song: my griping stomach was my lord this day and I must find ways of appeasing it.
Then through my own belching I heard fanfare and the banquet had begun. I tried to imagine the king walking to his table, Marie and Isabelle. But no, a baked herring begged for attention and I let it return to be rechewed, then a whale liver now smelling more of cowpat than violets.
Either the banquet was taking months or they’d forgotten me. Tears of self-pity welled in my hot eyes as I thought of myself withering up here to a mere skeleton. Mayhap someone would find me hundreds of years from now and think me a saint, make my bones into holy relics to be displayed in some cathedral. Pilgrims would gaze on my fiendish smile and wonder how I’d flown so high with such small wings. Or mayhap something was askew with the ropes and I would suddenly plummet like a stone from a mangonel, killing myself and Richard in one blow. Wouldn’t Enoch bray with glee! No Alex and no English king to thwart his devilish schemes! I willed myself to survive just to cross him: I would descend, would sing, would get Wanthwaite.
And it worked! Slowly I felt that sickening swing and in stomach-lurching drops I began to descend. I tried to flex and unflex my muscles for they were cramped and I’d need them, tried to ignore my hanging pouch under my gauze. Now I could hear Zizka’s voice and knew I was level with the balcony.
“From Greece’s sea a goddess came
With beauty rarely wrought;
Aphrodite was her name
And love her only thought.”
The pan bumped onto the table; I lowered my elbows to prepare for my shove on cue. Shouts of approval at the pie and loud applause almost drowned out Zizka:
“O’er earth and water she did roam
Spreading love, yet all alone;
Weeping for her empty womb,
She languished for a son.”
I licked my lips, tasting the bitter turnsole. My heart bounded with panic: my moment had come!
“Black Mars thundered in a cloud
And struck with lightning’s fire;Shrieked
the goddess all aloud,
‘I have my heart’s desire!’”
Now! I took a deep breath and stood. Only I didn’t stand! My back hit the top with a dull thud, not making a dent. How odd, I must be weak from being in a cramped position so long. I bumped again and again, forgetting anything but getting out of here. The top would not budge! I banged as if it were a kettle but I might be buried six feet underground for all the difference I made.
Dimly I heard Zizka continue through the part where I was supposed to take bows.
“Born is Amor,
Beauteous boy!
Love is Amor,
Desire’s joy!”
Frantically I beat like a chicken in a stone egg. Perspiration coursed down my arms and thighs as I pushed and pushed and pushed. No one would ever believe that I was so weak that I couldn’t break through sugar!
“Now is Cupid here on wing,
Brought by England’s fame!
Filled with love for England’s king,
Richard is his name!”
Unless it wasn’t sugar at all! And my mind chilled. This was mortar I was fighting. The Scot’s macabre plot—to bury me alive in a pie! By the time they finally opened Jerusalem, I would have expired. Call that scabrous, filthy goat a devil? Enoch was old Clootie himself!
“NOW IS CUPID HERE ON WING …”
Zizka bellowed out the verse thinking I hadn’t heard. May Enoch burn in damnation! I drew myself taut as a catapult, then released myself with all my might. And I was out.
“Oh, look you! ’Tis Cupid himself!”
“Who would have thought!”
Delighted applause and calls surrounded me as I groggily dropped Jerusalem off my back and stood on weak legs. Blinded by my mask, I fumbled for my bow and arrow and tried to perch on one toe as Zizka had instructed me. The music thrummed, I sneezed out a few crumbs, remembering to smile:
“King of love and right, Valiant warrior true, Peer exceeding bright, How I love … Love you!”
And I let my little straw arrow fly toward his broad chest.
“Ahooooo!” a dog howled in pain.
Benedicite! I ripped off my mask, my back to the king, leaned forward to see if I’d killed the poor beast, saw a limp-eyed hound scratching its ear—
And suddenly let flee a fart from my backside that could be heard in Paris! “Rrrrrrgg!”
Stricken, I whirled to face the king.
One royal hand was at his nose, the other fanned the air.
“God’s feet!” he cried for all to hear. “Cupid’s shot me with Greek fire!”
The whole hall roared approval for his wit, as I died.
“I’m sorry, sorry, forgive me,” I whimpered. Wanthwaite lost! Zizka struck my chord again and I sang, facing King Richard this time though all I could see were halos of light from the torches surrounding him. But he could see me: desperately I looked at him with my father’s gray eyes, smiled with my mother’s dimples, evoking their doomed spirits to save us all.
“King of love and right,
Valiant warrior true,
Peer exceeding bright,
How I love … Love you!”
Then I repeated the words in my normal voice, hoping he heard through all the jangling, trying to reach his heart as Cupid would do.
Then I bowed deeply—this time holding my wind—and sank on a little stool by the king’s feet for the rest of the program. I couldn’t have borne my failure through the dreary hours ahead except for the hot bile that coursed through my veins at the thought of Enoch. How cunning he was, a Scottish viper with fangs of honeyed poison, always pretending to help me when all along he was plotting an ignominious end to my quest! Benedicite, signing a contract with no guarantee of a royal audience, sealing me in a confection, pulling me in a sickening crate to the sky, mayhap e’en planting those dainties to make me sick, for I’d oft told him my weakness for deer testicles. No point looking ahead now for I had no future, or back because I couldn’t bear it. I existed only because I wanted to murder Enoch.
After an interlude of troubadour songs, Brise-Tête came forward on the platform to do his ass act. He was the head of the donkey, a wight called Chebo the hind part. Atop Brise-Tête’s half sat a droll effigy of an old man controlled by strings in the mime’s hands. The substance of
the pantomime was simple but the execution cunning to the extreme. In essence the old man couldn’t get the ass to move, no matter how he tried. “Hin! Han! Hin! Han!” Chebo brayed from beneath his skin as the ass planted his feet firm. The old man insisted; from the balcony, a horn blasted in a good imitation of breaking wind and the audience howled. Now the old man beat the ass with faggots, whereupon the ass raised its tail and three turds fell as the kettle beat time. I listened gloomily to the hysterical audience and wished I’d been assigned Chebo’s part. That’s where my talent lay.
Again the music sounded and I became hypnotized by King Richard’s feet. They were big as eelboats and richly dressed in red velvet, their long stuffed pointed toes drooping over the edge of the platform. As I watched they jigged with the music. Then I felt a tapping on my skull: the king’s forefinger rapped the measure on my head. I sat still as a stone, enthralled by that steady tap. Was it a sign? Should I turn and smile? More songs followed, each with a different rhythm, and the king altered his beat. My neck grew stiff but I didn’t care: I wished my head would resound like a kettle for the king’s pleasure.
Then the clappers ran in circles making a terrible din to announce the final number and the piper sounded the dove theme. Dangereuse mounted the platform, her elbows bent to simulate wings, her feathery costume shining silver in torchlight. Two viols soared together as she dipped and swayed in her graceful dance and the audience fell silent, for Dangereuse is an impressive performer. Then she bent to the ground and leaped forward as if she would truly take wing, thus releasing a hundred white doves hidden in her dress.
Instantly all the falcons in the room climbed above the fluttering doves to make their dives. Soon the doves turned to thousands of drifting feathers and dripping blood as the talons took their prey! The entire audience was on its feet cheering the climax to our program: everyone but the king and me.
Alix of Wanthwaite 01 - Shield of Three Lions Page 17
