Sunday afforded a longer respite when breakfasts and suppers were taken on trenchers, the rounds of hard bread disappearing either into hungry mouths or the dole-box. Then the boys were drawn up in lines, caps were jammed on their heads and they were led out of the kitchens. Philip and John walked with the others in single file through the passage and out into the bright sunlight.
‘That's Roderick Tichborn,’ Philip pointed out. ‘He's in with Henry Palewick. And that's Morris Appleton. Same. Those two with the white hair, they're Jim and Jem Gingell. Don't do nothing but moan. The little'un with them, that's Wendell Turpin. He's out in the dovecote with Diggory Wing. Gervase next to him, he works in the dairy. Those two over there, they're Philpot and Dymion. Adam Lockyer and Alf you know. And Peter Pears and Phineas Cam pin. Look, that's Meg and Ginny up ahead. Ginny's waving at you . . . ,
John nodded. The other boys were his family now, he told himself. But lost among the welter of names and faces, he looked back past the drive and the flanking lawns. Beyond the neat grass, rough pasture led down to a wicket gate and the meadows beyond where sunlight glittered off a series of ponds set about a massive oak. There an odd figure stood.
A tall boy with hair like a hayrick and dressed in rags was picking his way around the largest pond, raising and lowering his feet with odd pauses between steps. As John watched, he stopped altogether and spread his arms, extending two long poles hung with sacks which he flapped like a pair of enormous tattered wings. An approaching pigeon veered away.
‘Who's that?’
‘The Heron Boy,’ Philip said behind him. ‘He doesn't talk.’ The figure lowered his wings again, John thought of his own silence as he was carried down the Vale. He stared at the ragged figure but at that moment the line of kitchen boys moved off. The Heron Boy resumed his circuit around the pond.
They walked past the steps to the Great Hall, beneath the portico with its carved stone torches then up the path. Beside the wall of the East Garden, John glanced up at the high windows of the Solar Gallery, glinting in the morning sunlight. The image of Lucretia hovered in his memory, then the raucous rumble of her belly . . .
‘What's funny?, Philip asked.
‘Funny?’
‘You're grinning.’
John shook his head. ‘Nothing.’
The shallow slope carried them up towards the edge of the chestnut woods where the chapel emerged like a ship from fog, its nave a hull of weathered grey stone and the tall tower a swollen mast built of ancient granite. At the top John glimpsed openings like high arched windows and remembered his first distant glimpse from high on the slope. He smelt the chestnut sap from the trees behind then a sweeter scent, drifting in the air. Fruit blossom, he realised. The same as in Buccla's Wood . . . How could that be? But before he could wonder more, the path grew crowded. Men in purple livery blocked the way. A voice from the chapel shouted, ‘All stand! All stand! Eyes down for Sir William!’
Around John, men and boys were pulling off headgear. The boys in front spilled back onto those behind. Within a few seconds, the orderly lines had become serums. John found himself pushed aside by the milling men and boys.
‘Out the way! Clear the way for his lordship! Eyes down!’
A flustered-looking Mister Fanshawe strode out of the chapel. Two household grooms followed. Suddenly the jostling bodies ceased jostling. Silence fell. Out of the door stepped Sir William.
John glimpsed a tall, broad-shouldered man with thick black hair and a hawkish face. Dressed in black from head to toe, he was accompanied by a smaller man who wore a chain about his neck. Sir William appeared unaware of the silent throng. As the mass of men began to bow, the two men proceeded down a corridor that opened before them. John bent his head like the others, barely glimpsing two women, one tall and thin, the other short and fat, both clutching small black books. Then he stared. Behind them walked a slighter figure. Lady Lucretia.
She wore an elaborate silk bonnet and the same dark green dress as before. John craned his neck to look at her face. The same sharp nose and dark eyes. But a moment later a hard hand rapped the side of John's head. Vanian's face loomed before his own.
‘Eyes down!’ the man hissed. A bony hand pushed John's head forward. The little party passed. The men and boys filed in. John and Philip knelt with the other kitchen boys beneath a row of faded banners at the back. A stained-glass window showed a knight kneeling before a fire. The flames glowed brightly among the darkened wood and stone.
‘Here's Father Yapp,’ whispered Philip.
A pink-cheeked young man wearing a white surplice climbed the stairs of the pulpit. Light from the window bathed his head in purple. John settled himself, ready for the inevitable sermon. But the priest had barely gabbled the Lord's Prayer and a homily before Philip was pulling John to his feet.
‘The liveries have to take it in turns,’ the boy told him as they turned to leave. ‘Not room for everyone.’
‘What about up there?’ John asked, pointing to a gallery with a heavy door set in its back wall.
Philip shook his head. ‘That was Lady Anne's place. That door behind goes to the tower. No one's allowed up there now. Except Sir William.’
A long line of men wearing green livery filed in. The Kitchen exchanged glares with the Household. Among the Household men, John spotted a familiar face.
‘Ben!’
Ben Martin looked almost pleased.
‘They took me on doing tallies,’ he told John. ‘Can't hardly count, most of this lot. You?’
‘In the scullery.’
The boys behind were pushing to get out. The clerks were pressing to get in. Ben stepped out of the line and leaned closer.
‘There was a fellow here from Buckland. Said the whole place went to the Devil.’
‘Who?’
‘Didn't catch his name. He was in the old orchards. Grafting fruit trees.’ Ben nodded towards the chestnut woods.
‘Orchards?’ queried John. ‘In there?’
‘Right ragged lot,’ Ben said. ‘All fruiting the wrong time of year. They don't give apples much bigger'n cherries. Root ‘em out, I said. Sir William won't have it. Been here as long as the Manor, the orchardman told me . . . ‘
Philip was quiet as they walked back to the kitchen. Entering the scullery, he turned to John.
‘That Ben Martin fellow said Buckland.’
‘So?’
‘I thought you said you were from Flitwick?’
‘Buckland's near enough Flitwick,’ John replied. He upended a pot resting on the bench and inspected it for grime.
‘What did he mean it went to the Devil?’ persisted Philip.
‘It just did,’ John answered.
Philip considered this. ‘You weren't riding with Josh Palewick, were you?’
John looked up. ‘What?’ Why should Philip care how he got here?
But the boy's normally cheerful face now wore a dark frown.
‘You lied to me,’ Philip said.
‘Lied?’
‘Who showed you the kitchens?’ Philip demanded.
‘I never asked you to show me,’ John retorted.
‘They might be taking me on. That's what you said. John Saturnall with his famous nose. That wasn't true either, was it?’
John felt his temper rise.
‘They chased us out, all right?’ he retorted. ‘They called my mother a witch. They burned our home. The priest paid Josh to take me. Satisfied?’
John felt his face flush. But Philip shook his head.
‘What's that? Another story?’
‘Believe what you like,’ John shot back. ‘I don't care.’
‘Of course you don't.’ Philip glared. ‘You don't need Philip Elsterstreet now, do you? You don't need anyone.’
John clenched his fists. Suddenly he no longer cared what Philip thought of him.
‘That's right,’ he threw back. ‘I don't.’
They scraped platters and scrubbed pots. They hauled porridge bowls from the trays
into the trough and out again. They ate at the same table and washed from the same bucket in the servants’ yard. They slept on the pallet among the other kitchen boys. But they did all this in a silence as heavy as the leather curtain hanging above the door to the kitchen. Since the afternoon of their quarrel, the two boys had not exchanged a word.
John swapped greetings with Alf and Adam Lockyer. He made pleasantries with Phineas Campin and Jed Scantlebury. He grunted morning greetings to the Gingell twins and Peter Pears. Coake and his minions sneered as they passed. But Philip remained as silent as the Heron Boy and when, on Sunday afternoons, they were confined together in the quiet scullery the seconds passed like clods of porridge dropping off Phelps's ladle. Philip sat on the floor. John leaned against the sink, tapping his fingers against the side and studying the ceiling. Through the window, he smelt the different scents from the Rose Garden. An obdurate and uncomfortable silence was broken only by the distant shouts of the other boys running in the fields below. But on the third dull Sabbath, the clip-clop of footsteps sounded on the paving- stones. Looking up through the window, John saw a pair of brown ladies’ boots. Above them appeared a brown skirt. A moment later the brown boots were joined by a pair of shinier black ones. A dark green skirt with a red embroidered hem topped the dainty footwear.
‘ . . . but he may be handsome,’ a girl's voice was saying. ‘He may be charming.’
That was Gemma, thought John. And the other one . . .
But it was all too clear who the other one was.
‘A cowherd may be handsome, Gemma,’ answered a haughty voice. ‘More likely he has dung on his boots and a straw in his mouth.’
‘Piers Callock is no cowherd,’ Gemma answered. ‘He is the son of an earl. Sir Hector of Forham and Artois. Ginny heard Mister Pouncey telling Mrs Pole. Piers will be of age next year. He has been to Court.’
‘To Court?’ A curious note entered Lucretia's voice.
‘And he rides very well,’ Gemma continued. ‘As well as any on his father's estate, Mister Pouncey said.’
‘Then one might almost say,’ Lucretia rocked back and forth on her heels, ‘that he is a man?’
At shoe level, John felt a bubble of laughter try to force its way up. He choked it back.
‘Almost,’ Gemma agreed. ‘It is only that . . .’
But the boys never heard Gemma's reservation for at that moment Lucretia rocked forwards more vigorously. John heard a sharp rip.
‘Oh, by the Cross!’
‘Lucy!’ admonished a scandalised Gemma.
In the scullery, John stifled a snort. Behind him, he heard Philip do the same. Above, Lucretia Fremantle's boots shuffled back and forth as she tried to free herself. At last Gemma knelt to unhook the snagged calico. Her face appeared, framed upside down in the window. At the sight of John and Philip she frowned. Abruptly Lucretia's hem came free. Her skirt jerked up. John found himself looking at the whitest ankle he had ever seen.
A moment later the red hem dropped. The black boots stomped off and the brown boots followed, leaving nothing but the scent of rose water. John looked down again at Philip.
‘I didn't mean to lie to you,’ he said.
Philip looked up. ‘About what?’
‘My ma,’ he said awkwardly. ‘About what happened. It wasn't like I said . . .’
‘And how was it?’
He told Philip everything: how his mother had served at the Manor then returned to the village with John in her belly, how she had gathered plants and given him lessons on the slopes, how Ephraim Clough and the others chased him. He described Cassie and Abel Starling. Once he began he could not stop. The words spilled from his lips as he told how the sickness spread, how Marpot's examinations began. Then their expulsion, Buccla's Wood and the ruined palace. Last of all he told the story he had heard in its broken walls. Of Saturnus's garden and Jehovah's priests. Of Bellicca and Coldcloak. Of the Feast.
‘I thought my ma had kept the Feast for me,’ John said. ‘She had taught it to me. When she said it was for everyone, I ran. And when I came back . . . ‘
John fell silent.
‘But she sent you here,’ Philip said. ‘It wasn't to wash dishes, was it?’
John shook his head. ‘She served here before,’ he said. ‘But something happened. Something made her leave.’ He remembered his mother's bitter voice telling him of the man who could speak any tongue. Warning of those who bent the Feast to their purpose. She had wanted to tell him more. But he had run from her . . .
‘Scovell knew her,’ John continued. ‘That's why he took me in, I reckon.’ He looked at Philip. ‘It wasn't for John Saturnall's famous nose.’
He chanced a smile but Philip dropped his gaze.
‘I'm not like you, John,’ he said in a low voice. ‘You find it easy. But I can't stick my nose in a pot and tell you everything in it. No one banged a ladle when Philip Elsterstreet joined the kitchens. My first winter here I was in the yard plucking birds. It took me half a year just to get into Firsts. These kitchens are all I've got. And now we're stuck in the scullery . . .’
His voice trailed off but the complaint sank into John's thoughts. Philip had helped him when no one else had. The boy had risked his place. And this was his reward. He looked at his friend.
‘I'm sorry,’ John said. ‘We'll get out of here. I promise.’
An awkward silence fell. Both boys looked at their feet. At last John glanced away, craning his neck to peer out of the scullery window where sunlight glowed off the deserted paths. The Rose Garden was empty. Gemma and Lucretia were gone. He looked this way and that to make sure.
‘I thought you weren't so fond of our Lady Lucy?’
Philip's half-smile had returned.
‘I'm not,’ John retorted.
‘You were staring at her.’
‘I was staring at her foot,’ John corrected him. ‘I hope I never see the rest of her as long as I live.’
Lucretia slid the fine linen drawers up her bare white legs, pulled them over her hips and tied the drawstring about her waist. Pointing a toe, she slipped the first stocking over her foot, smoothed the fine silk over her calf then reached for a garter and tied it below her knee. The other stocking and garter followed. Half-clothed, she contemplated herself in the pier glass.
Pale blue veins showed faintly through her white skin. Her hipbones jutted. Her mouth was too wide and her lips too thin while the hair falling over her shoulders better belonged in a horse's tail. The finer down on her arms had darkened that summer along with some sparse wisps at the base of her belly. Gemma had more, she knew. A dark smudge she glimpsed when they undressed together. And her maid had breasts. Small but plump, while her own remained fiat as a pair of plates. She stared in the glass. At the sight, verses from the book she had taken popped into her head.
Have ye beheld, with much delight,
A red rose peeping through a white?
Or else a cherry, double-graced,
Within a lily's centre placed?
Or ever marked the pretty beam
A strawberry shows half-drowned in cream?
No cherries ‘double-graced’ adorned Lucretia's chest. Her dark brown nipples more resembled bullets. She made a face at the girl in the mirror then glanced at the blanket chest where the volume lay concealed.
A prayer book, she had thought, marching back to her room. Or a manual of devotions. Mrs Gardiner never tired of telling her how devout her mother had been. In truth, she did not care what the little volume contained. Her mother's hands had held it. That was enough.
The spine had crackled as she opened the covers. The chamber's musty odour rose from the page. A commonplace book, she thought, seeing handwriting. Pole had one in which she copied out parts of Father Yapp's sermons after chapel, making a great show of her labours and comparing them with Mister Fanshawe's notes.
Sure enough, passages from the Bible filled the first leaves. Notes from homilies and sermons followed. Passages from Bishop Jewel. Her mother ha
d added her own comments. This way I too am convinced. Or, So the Virtuous also must guard against Temptation.
Her mother's words, thought Lucretia. But as the passages multiplied she began to skip. Then she turned a page and looked down at a different hand. These letters were bolder than her mother's rounded script.
Come live with me, and be my love,
And we will all the pleasures prove,
That valleys, groves, hills and fields,
Woods, or sleepy mountain yields . . .
Lucretia's brow furrowed. She was no innocent. She knew as well as the maids why the last tally man had been dismissed when he was caught with a woman from Callock Marwood. And only that spring she had crept into the stables with Gemma when the stallion brought over from Carrboro was put to the mares, staring wide-eyed from behind a bale of hay. Now she gazed again at the words before her. Such devotions as these, she knew, had no place in church. Eagerly she read on.
A belt if straw and ivy buds,
With coral clasps and amber studs:
And if these pleasures may thee move,
Come live with me and be my love.
Little hearts decorated the margins. Romantic curls and swags hung from the verses that followed. The shepherd would make his lover a bed of roses. He would clothe her in a cap of flowers, a mantle embroidered with leaves and a gown of lambswool. Lucretia imagined her own waist, cinched with woven straw and adorned with studs. Despite herself, she felt her cheeks begin to burn.
‘Gemma!’ she had called from her bed. ‘Come here!’
She hid the book in her blanket-chest, burying it among the folds of lavender-scented wool where Pimpernel, Lady Whitelegs and the others were consigned. Every night, when the last maid retired, the two girls wedged Lucretia's chair against the door and huddled together on the bed.
Let me .feed thee such Honey-sugared Creams
As cool the Quodling's ’scaping Steam
That thy hottest Tempers doth oft-times bake
Then let my cool Words thy Thirst to slake . . .
John Saturnall's Feast Page 14
