John Saturnall's Feast

by Lawrence Norfolk

  ‘That's just baked apples in sweet milk dressed up in fancy words,’ Gemma declared. ‘My ma used to feed us them when we were babes.’

  They read on. Her father had written out these lines, she knew. Her mother had read them and written more back. Lucretia knew what lay beyond the lovers’ breathless exhalations. But how could such lofty exchanges portend that act she had seen in the stables?

  Reign in my thoughts, fair hand, sweet eye, rare voice . . .

  She and Gemma examined their eyes for sweetness in the pier glass. They compared the fairness of their hands. They debated the rarity of their voices. They read until the candle guttered then yawned before Pole the next day. Sitting in the stuffy nursery schoolroom, they copied out passages dictated by the governess from The Offices of Christian Children. When Pole raised her hand in a furtive wave to Mister Fanshawe below, Lucretia thought of her shepherds and nymphs. The girls exchanged looks and stifled their sniggers. Pole rapped the desk with her rod.

  ‘Perhaps you wish to make a copy in Latin?’

  The shepherds were princes in disguise, Lucretia told herself. The lovers were knights. Lying on her lumpy mattress, she thought of beds of roses. Pulling on her dark green dress, she imagined gowns of fine wool. That winter, shadowy suitors stalked the dusk beyond her ice-rimed window. Alone in bed, she pressed her palms to her cheeks, pretending her hands belonged to another. When Gemma tugged her laces before supper, Lucretia fancied a belt with coral clasps and amber studs was being tightened about her waist.

  But the shadowy suitors remained shadows. When Gemma finished dressing her, she descended only to the winter parlour behind the Great Hall. There the usual tray awaited. No honeyed words, only Pole's frozen frown. No Ladies of the Queen's Closet, only Pimpernel, Whitelegs and the others. She had lain all night in the Solar Gallery, dreaming of passionate shepherds or princes in disguise, courtiers who would usher her away from Buckland . . .

  Instead a ragged boy had burst in.

  She recalled his tufted scalp and filthy blue coat, drawn about him to hide the foul state of his breeches. But he was well made beneath the dirt, she conceded. His dark eyes had watched her carefully. Strong cheekbones lent his face an almost noble cast. A prince in disguise might disguise himself thus, she had fancied for an instant. She might have excused his untutored manners, sprawled on the floor instead of standing before her. She might have overlooked his rudeness after she had condescended to conversation. But then her belly had asserted its dominion, trumpeting its hunger. And instead of pretending an unbroken silence or owning to the eruption himself, John Saturn all had laughed at her.

  The memory still brought a flush of anger to her cheeks. Half-dressed before the pier glass, she looked down at her traitorous belly and recalled the ruffian's succeeding smirk. Of course she had called out to the servants. She should have screamed the instant he sprawled before her on the floor . . .

  But now he was of no account. Gemma's revelation in the Rose Garden had banished him from her thoughts. Not a prince in disguise but a real earl's son was coming to Buckland. And a courtier! One who had actually been to Court.

  ‘Lucy?’ Gemma stood in the doorway, part-dressed as Lucretia was. ‘Hurry or we'll be late.’

  Lucretia picked at a strand of hair. She and Gemma were to show themselves to Mrs Gardiner in rehearsal for Lucretia's presentation to the Callocks. The two girls wriggled into cambric shifts then reached for their stays. Enclosed in the tight-sleeved tunic, Lucretia sucked in her stomach. Gemma slid the stiff plate of the husk into its pouch. She turned to be laced, giving a quick gasp as Gemma pulled on the strings. Their bodices went over the top. Next came skirts, Gemma wrapping the heavy cambric about her mistress's waist, fastening laces to eyelets.

  She would powder her face tomorrow, Lucretia decided. She would have Gemma dress her hair as the verses described. She would discipline her stomach with gruel until it submitted to silence. She imagined the youth dismounting his horse, herself in the doorway of the Great Hall, awaiting discovery . . .

  Now she was the one in disguise, sewn into her costume and pushed onto Buckland's drab stage to play the part Mrs Gardiner demanded. And behind the housekeeper, Mister Pouncey. And behind the steward, her father. But whatever his purpose, she glimpsed beyond it the glittering world the verses described, where grand ladies glided and maidens were courted. The world her mother had meant for Lucretia herself.

  That night she took up the book again, leafing idly through the pages. The boards were loose with handling now. The papers glued inside the stiff covers were coming away at the back. Then she noticed that they were padded somehow. Something lay beneath. A loose page, she saw as she picked at the paper. A letter folded in four. She pulled it open and stared.

  Her mother's words covered the sheet, the hand no longer neat but running on as if she could not confine her thoughts. Lucretia read in a greedy rush, picking out words and snatching up phrases: my Love, now our Joy is truly complete . . . in my Confinement know our Love will be unconfined . . . my Increase is an Increase of happiness for you and me . . .

  My increase. That was herself, Lucretia realised. Her mother was writing of her. She read on avidly, her eyes wide as her mother recorded her joy at the child swelling within her. Lucretia's breast swelled too and she wondered if, through her own pleasure, her mother's joy somehow grew again. Then her eyes reached the last lines.

  Let all Buckland rejoice, my lord, for my greatest Joy is to come. The Vale will be made secure again. In our great good Fortune shall the dead Hand of past Oaths be set aside. Let that ancient Covenant be replaced by mine. You shall have an Heir, my William. I .feel it within myself You shall have a Son.

  The words swam before her eyes. The paper fell from Lucretia's hands, tumbling end over end to lie on the floor.

  ‘The feast of Saint Joseph?’ queried Peter Pears. ‘I ain't never heard of it.’

  ‘Ain't none of your business to,’ Mister Bunce declared robustly from down the table. ‘If Sir William goes eleven years without receiving a single soul then wakes up one day and decides different, it ain't for us to question it. And if he chooses Hector Callock who he loathes like Satan so I heard and invites him over for a saint's day I ain't never heard of, then it ain't for the likes of us to wonder why, now is it?’

  A gang of Master Jocelyn's men ventured up the drive and levered off the timbers barring the gates. In the house, rumours took wing. The Earl was bringing the Bishop of Carrboro. Then it was the King's Master-at-Arms. Then the King himself.

  A new hum emanated from the kitchen, like the thundering of a distant cart drawing nearer. Baskets and sacks piled up in the passage. Splashing about in the filth of the scullery, John heard barrels being rolled over the cobbles and the jangle of Henry Palewick's keys. But four days before Saint Joseph's Day, Alf pushed his red hair back from his forehead.

  ‘I don't reckon no one's coming. I reckon it's Pouncey's way of getting at us.’

  ‘Maybe there ain't no Earl of Forham,’ offered Peter Pears.

  ‘Oh, there's an Earl of Forham, sure enough.’

  A greasy-haired man in a mustard-coloured coat leaned against the entrance to Firsts. ‘He's here,’ continued the man. ‘Sir Hector, Lady Caroline and their beloved son Piers. And the Household, obviously.’

  ‘What household?’ asked Alf, looking around.

  The shabby figure placed a stool in a corner by the entrance, sat down and grinned through a set of crooked yellow teeth.

  ‘Pandar Crockett at your service. His lordship's cook. There's me, a maid, and some fellows been scraped off the floor of an inn and kicked through Sir Hector's livery room. Footmen, he calls them.’

  Sides of meat were toted in on poles. Trays of loaves passed back and forth in the passageway. Vanian's ovens glowed. Great oak-sided butts were manhandled up from the cellar and cartloads of firewood piled up in the yard. Only Philip and John in the scullery remained untouched, scraping under the unblinking eye of Mister Stone. J
ohn cleared the drain in the floor and Philip scraped out the troughs. A sack of clean sand was the scullery's concession to Sir William's guests. On the morning of the feast a strange calm emanated from the kitchen as the kitchen boys gathered for breakfast. Then Scovell's ladle sounded from the kitchen.

  ‘Stations!’

  ‘Here we go,’ said Alf.

  John saw Colin and Luke tie back the leather curtain and open the double doors. The roar of the kitchen rushed into Firsts: the crackle of the fires, the clang of pans and clatter of pots, the thud of knives on blocks. Cooks called to the boys who advanced to their stations then were directed to their tasks, swerving around each other and whirling between the fires where great kettles of water boiled and the roasting spit creaked.

  ‘At least we're out of all that,’ Philip managed half-heartedly, rising from the table in Firsts.

  ‘Thank God,’ John agreed without conviction.

  ‘You thanking God?’ Coake smirked across the table. ‘Forgetting your mother already?’ The older kitchen boy had maintained a wary distance since their first encounter but now he was flanked by Barlow and Stubbs. As Barlow sniggered, John started forward. But an older voice sounded from the far side of the room.

  ‘Now, now, now!’ Pandar Crockett levered his head off the wall. ‘No sense pounding each other like so many collops of bacon. You need to save your efforts.’ He rested his head against the panelling again. ‘Like me.’

  Coake stalked out. Pandar's yellow teeth showed in a grin. ‘The ones you want gone, they never goes,’ the cook told John as he and Philip trudged across to the scullery. ‘It's the ones you don't as do.’

  In the doorway Mister Stone awaited them, spatulas in hand. But as John reached for the nearest, the big man shook his head.

  ‘You ain't scraping today.’

  ‘We're on the troughs?’ asked Philip.

  Mister Stone shook his head.

  ‘Polishing?’ queried John.

  ‘Not that neither.’

  A smile flickered on Mister Stone's face. He pointed to the room beyond where the noise had gained a deeper note, a low rumble, as if a great beast were stirring after long inactivity.

  ‘Ask Master Scovell,’ he told the boys. ‘You're in the kitchen now.’

  “ . . . with the Crackle of Fires and the Splash of Wine, with the Creak of the Spit and the Knacker of Knives . . .”

  From The Book of John Saturnall: A Feast for the Day of Saint Joseph

  Capon is fit for the Table when the Smoke waves like a Rag in a Gale. Pheasants, Geese and Ducks must wait until the Juices run clear. A Pig is cooked when its Eyes pop out. But when a Kitchen Boy is ready for the Kitchen is a Question for subtler Doctors than I.

  It is a rare Feast, I own, that celebrates the Day of Saint Joseph and yet that Festival was my Entrance when the Kitchen's Music greeted me with the Crackle of Fires and the Splash of Wine, with the Creak of the Spit and the Knacker of Knives, the Panting of the Bellows and the Cracking of Bones.

  The Feast is a Song of many Parts, I learned that Night. Below the Stairs, its Musicians grate and grind and hammer and rasp. Above sits the lusty Choir whose Choristers hymn one another with the guggling of Wine and the jawing of Forcemeats until the Sweets are sent up, the Trays returned Bare and the last Creations reduced to Crumbs.

  A Hall of Feasters will eat until the good Earth's Fruits are exhausted and drink until the Oceans run dry. But only when the last Trumpets sound may those below pause and quench their Thirsts, from the Master Cook down to the Boy who enters the Kitchen with eager Eyes and twitching Nose, thinking on Saint Joseph and his silver Cruets but is furnished instead with the Handle of a Spit. For howsoever we imagine our Feasts, and hope our Desires will be assuaged, yet our true Wants and Lacks remain . . .

  LUCRETIA HAD NOT EXPECTED a golden coach pulled by a team of six white horses. But perhaps a better pair than the tubby pony and gaunt roan gelding which appeared between the turrets of the gatehouse. And perhaps a grander carriage than the cart which rumbled down the drive, and smarter footmen than the small troop in grubby blue livery who broke into a run as the vehicle gathered speed. She stood beside her silent father on the steps, her face itching beneath its coat of powder. Her hair, dressed ‘more freely’ that morning at her insistence, had drawn a horrified gasp from Mrs Pole who advanced armed with combs and pins, scraping back her tresses and curling her fringe. Now annoying ringlets dangled in front of her eyes while beneath her bonnet the rest of her hair felt as if someone were pulling it out by the roots. She watched through the jiggling screen as the carriage veered to left then right, sweeping its tail of footmen from side to side. Somewhere behind Lucretia, one of the servants sniggered.

  ‘Be upstanding the Household!’ she heard Mister Fanshawe call out. ‘For the Earl of Forham. And Artois!’

  The wheels of the Callocks’ strange coach creaked to a halt. A panting mud-spattered footman took his position at the door.

  ‘The Earl,’ he announced between gulps. ‘And Lady. Of Forham. And Artois.’

  The door opened. A large man with a mottled complexion and dressed in a dark brown travelling cloak emerged, glared up at the coachman then reached back to someone inside. A tall woman climbed out, her face hidden beneath a delicate broad-brimmed hat. A pale powdered face peered out from underneath. Lady Caroline raised a limp gloved hand as Sir Hector and Sir William made a show of greeting one another.

  ‘Eleven years, Cousin William!’

  ‘Indeed, Cousin Hector.’

  But Lucretia's gaze was fixed on the youth who followed the Earl and Lady Forham. Piers Callock appeared two or three years older than herself, angular rather than tall. He picked his way up the steps dressed in a dark red coat slightly too small for him and matching breeches. Two flaps of fair hair framed a narrow face and high forehead.

  ‘Come here, boy!’ commanded the Earl. ‘Introduce yourself.’

  ‘Lord Piers Callock,’ the boy said, his mouth twitching slightly. ‘At your service.’

  ‘Lady Lucretia Fremantle,’ answered Lucretia. The boy's long pale face bore a very slight resemblance to a water parsnip. But as Piers made a low bow and offered his hand, Lucretia banished the mutinous thought.

  By day, the Earl closeted himself with her father and Mister Pouncey. Lady Forham kept to her room. The boy spent his time with a tutor whom Lucretia, watching from her window, first mistook for one of the footmen. The man conducted his charge on long walks around the lawns while reading from a small black book. At dinner Piers Callock faced her across the table in the summer parlour where he cultivated a brooding silence whenever Lucretia peered at him over the dishes, putting her in mind of her knights, struck dumb before their ladies. The Callocks were almost as penniless as shepherds, she knew. Even if they were her father's kinsmen. Only Sir Hector's rebukes broke the long silences. ‘Sit up, boy!’ or ‘Offer the jug!’ or ‘Don't wipe your mouth on your sleeves!’ Lucretia offered sympathetic glances across the table at which Piers's mouth twitched as it had on his arrival.

  She had put her mother's letter from her thoughts, carefully folding it and replacing it in the book. Piers would escort her in the feast, she told herself. His shy tongue would unbind itself then. Lying in her bed, Lucretia pulled her sheets tight about her as if lambswool dresses and caps of flowers already clothed her. Cinching her waist with her hands, she imagined the belt with its amber studs.

  On the night of the feast, Lucretia watched her father take the hand of Lady Caroline and escort her silently through the ranks of the Household to her place at the table on the dais. Hector Callock, for want of any other partner, followed with Mrs Pole. Piers Callock extended his hand.

  ‘Lady Lucretia.’

  His fingers were cold. That was the chill in the Great Hall. The servants stood beneath the vaulted root Gemma grinning between Meg and Ginny as Piers led her to her place. The high table was crowded with unfamiliar silver plates and bowls, heavy cloth napkins, an ornate clock and a salt-
cellar fashioned like a sailing ship. The Fremantle tapestry had been unearthed and hung on the far wall. Reaching her place, Piers Callock released her hand without a word. Still shy in such grand surroundings, decided Lucretia. As a shepherd would be, wandering in from the slopes. Seated, the youth dipped his hands in the finger bowl then wiped them on his velvet breeches.

  His was an untutored spirit, she reflected. Piers's courtliness was learned at Nature's breast. As Father Yapp stood to say Grace, the boy chewed his tongue. Across the table, Lady Caroline offered a wan smile. She had suffered a disgrace, Gemma had said. One of Sir Hector's footmen had told one of the laundry maids. The woman's watery blue eyes drifted over the company.

  Below the high table, the servants gabbled among themselves. Down the length of the hall, in the arched entranceway between the buttery and pantry, four serving men led by Mister Quiller struggled under the weight of a vast silver tureen. A heady smell of wine rose from the steaming vessel. Goblets were passed up and down the high table. Sir Hector toasted the King, then Sir William, then Saint Joseph, then held up his cup for more.

  ‘This is a fine liquor!’ the man exclaimed. ‘I will have my cook prepare it, if the rascal can stir himself to learn . . . ‘

  Mister Pouncey leaned forward. ‘It is an old hippocras, Sir Hector.’ He pointed to the tapestry. ‘It is said the first Lord of Buckland warmed his holy wine on a fire he discovered in the wildwood here. When he found it miraculously spiced, he built a tower on the spot. Now his tomb looks out over the Vale . . .’

  ‘First Lord, eh?’ Sir Hector's voice had gained a new abrasive note. Lucretia saw Lady Caroline dart an anxious glance up the table. Mister Pouncey looked baffled. Sir Hector stabbed a finger across the table. ‘Every old story can be told another way, Master Steward. We Callocks have our own tale . . .’

  But before he could begin whatever recitation he planned, Lucretia's father spoke.