John Saturnall's Feast

by Lawrence Norfolk

  Sir Philemon passed their settlement through the Committee, Lucretia told him. The compact would hold, Ben Martin averred, so long as the composition was paid. John looked along the table to Mister Pouncey. He spent his days playing chequers with Mrs Gardiner, Mister Fanshawe had confided. Beyond the housekeeper, Lucretia leaned in and out of view. John nodded to a serving man to refill his cup. Mrs Pole was stifling her laughter next to Mister Fanshawe. As the games and songs grew wilder, the ladies rose to leave. Lucretia paused behind him.

  ‘Come tonight,’ she whispered.

  It was late before he could slip away from the kitchen. He took the steep stairs two at a time. When he reached the gallery, the door to the chamber was open. Lucretia stood before the fire. She wore the silver-blue silk dress. As he stood in the doorway, she pulled the fabric tighter.

  ‘It almost fits.’

  ‘Perhaps the Queen will call you to Paris.’

  ‘I would not go.’

  ‘Perhaps the Court will return.’

  ‘Not tonight.’ She turned to him, smoothing the silk over her body. ‘Look, you have fed me up, John Saturnall. You can see the swell of my belly. Imagine if it were to swell in earnest . . .’

  He heard the silk rustle over her skin. The faint smell of spiced wine drifted on her breath. She turned her back to him and he saw that she was unlaced. As he reached for her in the candlelight, the dress slid from her shoulders and pooled on the floor.

  In the yard Calybute Pardew cried the news of Cromwell's Rump and the Bare bones Parliament, of Penruddock's rising and the fall of the Lieutenants. But in the Solar Gallery chamber, the heavy black curtains stayed drawn. Lucretia's belly swelled no more than it had that night. The seasons outside passed unseen, winter quickening into spring, spring bursting into summer, summer waning to autumn until the year turned and the next one began. John breathed in her smell and felt her warmth against him.

  ‘Is this how they were in your garden?’ she asked drowsily. ‘Did they feast like this?’

  John smiled. ‘They were hardly so fortunate as we.’

  Every year, on Old Saint Andrew's Day, he prepared a feast and served it from a tray. Every year she looked up.

  ‘If you wished, Master Saturnall, you might sit with me . . .’

  The dishes grew richer. Barrels and boxes that John had not seen since Lucretia's wedding day began to arrive. Breaking them open he found bitter oranges, Madeira sugar, saffron, long mace and pepper. Once again the kitchen filled with bitter-sweet fugs and clouds of steam, with rich scents and sharp tangs. The posts from Carrboro spoke of the Lord High Protector's absences from his accustomed haunts, then the death of his daughter and at last a sickness that was described by Mercurius Bucklandicus as a melancholy humour. Then, a week past Michaelmas, as autumn slipped into winter, a company of red-faced villagers from Callock Marwood advanced up the hill and passed through the Manor's gates. They sang and cheered as they advanced down the drive. They drank from leather flasks. Drawn by the noise, John and Philip hurried out to confront the rowdy crew. Crossing the inner yard, John saw Lucretia accompanied by Mister Fanshawe emerge from the Great Hall and stand at the top of the steps. A frown creased her forehead. At the sight of the Mistress of Buckland, their shouts redoubled. Their leader raised his flask in a mock-salute.

  ‘We're here to toast Lord Ironsides, your ladyship! Our High Protector! The Devil bless his soul!’

  John saw Lucretia frown deeper at the raucous behaviour.

  ‘And bless his iron arse too!’ shouted another. Then the others joined in.

  ‘Cromwell's dead!’ the men shouted. ‘Long live the King!’

  Around John, the men in the yard downed their tools or put down their burdens and turned to one another. On their faces bewilderment turned to delight.

  ‘It's over, John!’ exclaimed Philip as the leather flasks were handed around. The men jostled and shouted.

  John nodded and drank. But when he turned and looked back, Lucretia stood motionless on the steps, as silent as himself.

  ‘Our Eden is ended,’ he told her that night in the Solar Gallery chamber.

  ‘You would abandon our garden so easily?’ She mustered a smile. ‘It was never ours,’ he answered. ‘We only walked within its walls.’

  ‘So did Adam and Eve,’ she said.

  ‘They were expelled.’

  "Turn the Boar all the Time to cook the Flesh through. Two Days and a Night is an apt Period.”

  From The Book of john Saturnall: A new-restored Dish for a new-restored King, being a Progress of Meats from the base-born to the most noble, called Wild Boar à la Troyenne

  or every Restoration a Dissolution must be suffered just as every Misfortune does bring a Happiness in its Wake. Eden's breach became the greater Earth's Gain, sending its Fruits far and wide, and, by the contrary Current, Adam's Ease became Sloth, as our tireless Churchmen later called it, and his Wife's Affections were Lust. In these Days the King's Return is a gilded Memory. But that Gold did not glitter so brightly for All.

  As a base Beast may conceal a noble One so, contrariwise, the Innards of a surpassing Creature may prove noxious, as the Trojans discovered in that Horse left to them by the Greeks at Troy. So did Many divine when the late King's Son returned, Some being more deserving of their Woe than Others. But All carved the Dish, finding within their Deserts, just or not.

  Take these Carcasses, as many as may be gathered and fitted together: a Boar, a Sheep, a Kid, a Lamb, a Goose, a Capon, a Duck, a Pheasant, a Partridge, a Quail, a Sparrow and a Fig-pecker.

  Clean and bone the Beasts. Pluck and clean the Fowls, all save the Fig-pecker which should be plucked only. Sew them each inside the last and roast them over Coals or Billets whose Flames have abated. The Ancients lodged Sausages in the place of the Guts and concealed live Songbirds within a Cavity but our wiser Times eschew such Adornments. Turn the Boar all the Time to cook the Flesh through. Two Days and a Night is an apt Period. Then run the Meats through with a Sword and be certain the Juices run clear . . .

  ONE OF CLOUGH'S EYES bulged like a toad. The other was closed by a dark purple bruise. Pressed in the midst of the crowd, John saw Ephraim's split and swollen lips work as he gabbled his prayer. Dressed in tatters with his scabbed scalp bare, the man stood on the scaffold in Carrboro market flanked by two heavy-jowled men, one of whom now reached over and tightened the coarse rope which encircled his neck.

  ‘Pull him up slow!’ someone nearer the front shouted to the executioners on the makeshift scaffold. ‘Show us his tongue!’

  The marketplace had filled slowly that morning but now men and women jostled for space. This was the fifth hanging in as many weeks, a man had told John. He, Philip and Gemma had left the cart and its load at the inn with Adam. At Gemma's insistence, they had taken their places early. Now Philip touched her arm.

  ‘Come, Gemma. Enough.’

  The young woman shook her head, her eyes fixed on the platform. A stained block with a manacle nailed to its centre was placed in front of Ephraim. As he finished his prayer the sight of it seemed to strike a new fear into him.

  ‘I never touched no one,’ he called out suddenly. But his plea was met by jeers. Below the scaffold, a third man began to sharpen an axe, the whetstone rasping over the noise of the crowd.

  ‘Gemma, come away,’ Philip spoke again.

  ‘No.’

  At that moment, to cheers from the crowd, the two executioners began to heave on the rope. Slowly, Clough began to rise.

  The news of the Lord High Protector's death had prompted celebrations to begin with. But His Majesty's landing at Dover had heralded a more vengeful mood. In Soughton, the Lord Lieutenant and his men had swiftly declared their new allegiance. Only Marpot's Militia had resisted the new order. Now, according to the pages of Mercurius Bucklandicus, Marpot's wives were on their way to Virginia while most of his men lay drowned in the rhines on the Levels. Marpot himself had been recognised trying to board a boat at Stollport. ‘They ch
oked him to death,’ Calybute had told John when word reached the yard. ‘Cut his privates off and rammed ‘em down his throat with a broom.’ Of the Zoyland Militia only Clough remained.

  The rope grew taut. Clough's body jerked, struggling against the bonds, his feet straining to touch the floor of the platform. But the men heaved and the noose tightened. Rising with each jerk, Ephraim Clough began to twist and buck. Soon his face turned a dark purple. His mouth opened and a fat tongue protruded.

  ‘There it is!’ shouted a woman somewhere in the crowd. ‘Now cut him down!’

  Clough's struggles were growing more feeble. When they had almost ceased, the two men released the rope. Clough fell onto the planks with a thud. One of the executioners knelt to cut his hands free.

  ‘Lop him!’ screamed the woman. ‘Give him his master's physic!’

  Suddenly Clough revived. He tried to rise only for one of the men to give him a heavy kick. The other grasped an arm and dragged Clough towards the block. They struggled for a moment. Then his hand was in the manacle. The crowd fell silent. This was it, thought John. This was what they had done to Philip. Suddenly he could taste the contents of his stomach. The axeman set himself and swung. The axe fell.

  An inhuman scream was wrenched from Ephraim Clough.

  ‘Good God,’ murmured Philip.

  ‘Now we can go,’ said Gemma.

  They shouldered their way out. A second cry reached their ears as they rounded the corner. They heard the crowd give a great cheer.

  ‘Pull his guts out!’ shouted voices in the crowd behind them. ‘String him up again!’

  Clough was shrieking now, long high-pitched screams. They continued almost until the trio reached the inn.

  ‘How'd he go?’ Adam asked, tightening a trace.

  ‘Badly,’ said John.

  ‘No surprise there.’

  Adam pulled at the tack, pronounced himself satisfied, then gestured to the back of the cart where a tarpaulin lay draped over a long rectangular box. John smelled new cedar wood and elm. But underneath these lay another smell, fainter but remembered from the back of a different cart. The wet winding-sheet smell.

  ‘We need to lash it down,’ Adam said, nodding to the coffin. ‘Can't have Sir William falling off the back.’

  The body had been exhumed the day the King landed at Dover yet it had taken three weeks for the coffin to be brought to Carrboro. Now John mounted a bay mare. Philip took a grey, the reins coiled loosely about his good arm. He waited until the cart had rumbled a safe distance ahead. Then he turned to John.

  ‘They will all return,’ he told his friend. ‘What will you do?’

  ‘Do?’ John looked up, engrossed it seemed in contemplation of the dull grey sky. ‘Do when?’

  ‘You know well enough.’

  John switched his attention from the sky to the verge whose grasses, it appeared, exerted a similar fascination. Ahead, the wheels of the cart bumped in and out of the ruts. Philip regarded him in blunt exasperation.

  ‘When Piers returns.’

  ‘Let us give thanks to God for his Providence that has brought Jericho to ruin. Let us pray he gives us strength to build a new Jerusalem from its fallen stones. We gather on this day to consign to the care of the Lord the soul of Sir William Fremantle, late Lord of the Vale of Buckland. We remember him in our prayers, who fought valiantly for his King and kept faith through the most severe tribulations. Though he be sundered from his daughter, Lucretia, and from his Household, let us take heart that he is reunited with his beloved wife Anne and his fallen comrades. They knew him to be a warrior for his King and his men alike. Now our new-restored King takes his rightful place on the throne and Sir William serves the greatest King of all . . .’

  The Bishop of Carrboro's fingers were as thick as before, thought John. His Lordship's amethyst ring sparkled in the gloom of the black-hung chapel, his voice resounding from the newly built pulpit. In the centre, Sir William's coffin rested on its catafalque before the black-clad mourners.

  Its arrival at the Manor had seemed to act as a general invitation. Now, behind Lucretia's black bonnet, veil and shawl, sat the Suffords of Mere, the Rowles of Brodenham, Lady Musselbrooke of Charnley, Lord Fell, Lord Firbrough and the Marquis of Hertford. Behind them, beneath the long black banners hanging from the rafters, Sir William's Household filled the wooden benches.

  The Bishop signalled that they should pray. John knelt and bent his thoughts to the man, remembering Sir William's entrance into the kitchen on the day of his daughter's wedding. Now that day approached again.

  Horses’ hooves sounded outside. A minute later the door to the chapel flew open. Five men marched down the aisle, their riding boots slapping on the flagstones, feathered hats flapping in their hands. The foremost, John saw, walked with an odd gait, placing one leg before the other with a strange little shake as if trying to rid his boot of dung. They strode to the front, knelt and crossed themselves before the altar. Then the first turned and bowed extravagantly to Lucretia, throwing back his riding cloak over his shoulder to expose the shiny silk of his tunic and the fine lace of his shirt.

  ‘Lady Lucretia,’ Piers announced with a lofty smile to the congregation. ‘Pray forgive our tardiness.’

  His jowls were a little heavier, John thought. His belly more rounded and his hair dressed differently. But his mouth curled in the same faint sneer as the youth who had left him standing on Naseby Field. From the pews and benches, a murmur arose. But behind her veil. Lucretia offered only the faintest nod.

  ‘My lady,’ Piers declared, undeterred. ‘I come to claim your hand, as the late King gave leave.’ He looked up at the Bishop. ‘My lord, I ask that the banns of our union be published at Carrboro and I beg that you proclaim them here . . .’

  ‘Didn't waste any time then,’ Philip murmured beside John.

  ‘After filling his face in Paris these dozen or so years,’ added Adam on the other side.

  John himself was silent.

  Upstairs, returning neighbours and courtiers strutted up and down the passages demanding that Quiller's serving men pull off their caps every time they passed or that Motte's gardeners bow when they went strolling in the Rose Garden. Next thing they'd be asking the pigs to curtsy, Mister Fanshawe reported.

  Once again, Quiller's serving men lined the length of the staircase, ferrying trays up and down. Once again breakfast shaded into dinner which was hardly over before supper. John welcomed the work, swinging the ladle against the great cauldron, raising the boys from their pallets and summoning the yawning cooks to their tasks. He buried himself in the work of the kitchen, hardly venturing into the servants’ yard, let alone the house. But Lucretia stalked his thoughts.

  She would not receive Piers, Gemma reported to Philip. A resurgence of her grief was the given cause. She kept to her rooms and saw no one. Meanwhile Piers and his fellows sat up late in the summer parlour offering each other toasts. He had bought a new horse on the Manor's account, Mister Fanshawe reported. And tradesmen from Carrboro and Soughton had begun to arrive, all bearing unpaid bills, according to Ben Martin.

  It was another week before John came face to face with his rival. A rare venture took him out to the yard. As John rounded the corner of the stables, a pair of Piers's companions were clapping him on the back.

  ‘Capital, Piers!’

  ‘You horseman!’ the other broke in.

  ‘Swordsman!’ squawked the first, and all three laughed. But at the sight of John, Piers's smile vanished.

  His red nose had taken on a purplish hue, John noticed. The broken veins had spread over his cheeks. He wore a tunic embroidered with the Fremantle coat of arms: a burning torch and axe. For a moment his eyes shifted uneasily but then his demeanour changed.

  ‘Ah, John Saturnall!’ he declared jovially. ‘I trust you have kept the Household fed in my absence?’ Piers turned to the men behind him. ‘This fellow appears a mere cook. Yet he is a veteran as brave as myself. Acquitted himself well, let me say. Even
did me a service. On Naseby Field, was it not, Master Saturnall?’

  ‘Service, your lordship?’ John replied acidly. He could smell last night's wine on Piers's breath. ‘Surely you required no service from me. Was not Naseby the scene of the great Callock's Leap?’

  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.