Mayflowers for November

by Malyn Bromfield

  ‘There are very few women servants at court,’ Mother said, ‘only those who are strong enough for heavy work. You are small and thin. Work in the confectionary is lighter and will suit you well.’ Mother reached across to where I lay on my pallet and squeezed my hand. ‘It is what I have wished for since the day of your birth, to have my own daughter working with me, helping to make the King’s sweetmeats. And perhaps, in good time, your daughter too. It is settled. Tomorrow, the goodwife who makes King Henry’s puddings will travel from her home in London especially to begin your training in the confectionary.’

  I wanted to tell Mother that this conversation was a waste of time, that very soon, Queen Anne would send for me. Instead, I said that it was still summer, that I liked being outdoors in the garden. Please would she ask the pudding wife to wait until September.

  ‘It is all arranged. The goodwife expects you tomorrow.’

  Mother let go my hand. ‘Why has God seen fit to give me such an ungrateful daughter?’ she whispered into the silence.

  *

  ‘Prithee stop fussing, Mother, I can tie my coif myself. I’m not a child.’

  ‘Show me your hands. Mistress Pudding will have none at her braziers with black nails.’

  My fingers were dimpled and dry after a good soaking in slimy green soapwort sap, and my nails and cuticles were sore from scraping out garden soil with a twig.

  ‘Your hands will do well enough,’ Mother said, straightening my coif for the third time. ‘This will be a good opportunity for you, daughter, and you should try hard to please the goodwife so that she will ask you to help out often.’

  ‘Your mother is right, Avis. Work in the confectionary is highly coveted and you should be proud to attend your mother,’ Aunt Bess said. She had arrived at our lodging before dawn with my newly laundered kirtle, apron and coif.

  ‘There’s not a washerwoman along the Thames up or downstream who can provide a crisply laundered apron such as this, Bess. Avis is in your debt,’ Mother said, dutifully returning my aunt’s compliment. ‘I wonder the King hasn’t requested your services.’

  ‘T’would take hours to press all the ruffles on King Henry’s shirts and a quantity of overflowing piss pots, to bleach his shirts pure white as he wants. I’ll make my way with lowly poor folks and I like to think the good Lord knows I do well by ‘em,’ Aunt Bess said, with the same mixture of humility and vanity with which she greeted grateful fathers after a birthing.

  Very soon, I thought, if the Queen keeps her promise, I will live in the royal apartments and will not need these working clothes.

  ‘What colour has Queen Anne chosen for her servants’ liveries?’

  ‘Lord bless us, Avis, I don’t know,’ Bess said. ‘Violet is the colour of kings, perhaps she’ll choose violet to show she’s royal.’

  ‘The whore doesn’t have the royal blood so King Henry shouldn’t have gone and put a crown upon her head. Aye, and he shouldn’t have put a baby in her belly when he has a wife already,’ Mother whispered to me as we passed by the sergeant guarding the confectionary.

  ‘So, this is little Avis I’ve heard so much off.’

  Mistress Pudding was plump and pretty and, I guessed, a little younger than mother.

  ‘Show me your hands, dear.’

  She turned my hands over to inspect the palms. ‘Well-scrubbed, I see. Just as I would have expected from a daughter of yours, Joan.’ She lifted my fingers to her nose and giggled. ‘I can smell the soapwort. Goodness me, you don’t favour your father for your height, do you my dear. You’re going to have to stand on a stool to reach the jars of preserves on the shelves in the closet.’ She seemed to think this was very funny. ‘I never cease to wonder how children can be so unlike their parents.

  ‘Now then, Avis, your apron and coif, let me see.’ She held my shoulders and turned me around. ‘Good, good, good, not a hair escaping from under the coif. A servant in the confectionary should never let me know the colour of her hair. Your mother could be as bald as the King’s fool for all I know, for never has a hair been known to escape. We cannot have King Henry VIII finding a hair in his gingerbread; that would never do. We would all be out in the streets with our begging bowls.’

  She bent forward with her hands on her thighs chuckling. ‘Now for my own cap.’ She tucked away several strands of brown curls that had hung prettily about her cheeks. ‘I dare say your mother has told you that I am so vain about my hair.’

  ‘Not so, goodwife,’ I lied, chewing my cheeks because all this giggling was infectious. If I joined in it might be considered bad manners. Mother wasn’t tittering.

  ‘Your mother knows that I cannot face the morning without first arranging my locks in my little looking glass that King Henry gave me for my New Year gift some years past. He does so much enjoy the sugar deceits and sweetmeats I make for his banquets.’

  Mother and I put on serious faces and each gave a little nod and a short curtsey to show respect for someone whom the King so much admired.

  ‘Now, Avis, here you are at last with your mother, learning to cook for the King’s grace. No doubt you will find us smaller and quieter than the great kitchen.’

  ‘It’s cooler here and there’s no fireplace,’ I said. Instead of the sweet, nutty odour that I had anticipated, there was a porky, salty cloudiness.

  ‘I told you we have only brick built charcoal ranges and the portable chaffing dishes you see here,’ Mother said sharply. ‘I have spoken to her many times of my work here,’ she told the pudding wife. ‘My daughter knows well enough what to expect. She has worked hard in the herb garden and is eager to apply herself here.’

  ‘We are concerned with more costly ingredients than mint and bindweed,’ Mistress Pudding said. ‘Our gold leaf and sugar supplies are closeted away and guarded. Don’t you be thinking that you may take a little pinch of sugar, albeit good for your digestion, for even a grain will be missed.’

  ‘Of course not, goodwife.’

  ‘As for the little bits of shavings left over from the trimming of the gold leaf, don’t go throwing them out on to the compost like you do with the weeds from the garden.’

  The pudding wife was cackling again and bobbing her head like a woodpecker. I was beginning to think I might like working in the confectionary after all, with mother and this happy pudding wife.

  ‘You can start by learning how to make the gelatine.’

  She led me to the source of the piggy stench, one of the ranges where pigs’ trotters boiled in a copper pot.’

  ‘I’ve seen gelatine boiling in the great kitchen,’ I said, unable to disguise my disappointment. ‘I would rather learn something new. Perhaps the making of marchpane.’

  ‘List to the goodwife, hold your tongue and let your betters advise you,’ mother hissed into my ear.

  ‘Gelatine made in the great kitchen won’t come up to standards required for the King’s privy table,’ the pudding wife said. ‘Imagine the King or Queen finding bits of hair or skin inside their jellied deceits. ‘Tis enough to make Queen Anne Boleyn queasy in her dainty condition. We’re very particular how we do things here, as your mother will have explained to you.’ She turned to Mother.

  ‘Avis needs to learn how we toil here to please the King, whereas in the great kitchen the cooks have meaner persons to feed and a brewis of bread soaked in salt beef stock serves them well enough.’

  ‘I’m sure Avis meant no complaint,’ Mother said hastily, ‘only that she is eager to learn the secrets of our confections that I have long praised in her hearing.’

  ‘Of course, Joan, your daughter has much to learn but I’m afraid we will not be making marchpane fancies for a few days. The King goes abroad hunting red deer on the morrow and will look to his hosts to provide for his table. The Queen will bide at Windsor, I believe. I shall return to my house at Aldgate for a week. My fine house was a gift from King Henry in recognition of his delight in my confections. I suppose your mother has told you of my vanity about my house. I am so gre
atly favoured by His Majesty and I take such pleasure in my house,’ she said, between giggles, ‘it is ever an effort to drag myself back to court to cook the King’s confections.’

  ‘In a few weeks the Queen will be brought to bed,’ Mother said. ‘Maybe my daughter can be of use in the making of the sugar-paste sculptures we have planned for the christening banquet.’

  ‘A sugar swan, the size of those on the river yonder and inside its belly ... oh, this will be such a trick. Inside its belly ... Joan, tell your daughter what we thought to have inside its belly,’ said the pudding wife between spurts of laughter.’ We do so like to have our jest.’

  ‘Inside its belly,’ Mother explained seriously, ‘will be a vixen curled up in sleep, moulded from sugar of course. Inside the vixen’s belly will be four swan’s eggs. Inside each egg will be a Tudor rose and all will be gilded and painted.’

  ‘Alongside the swan,’ Mistress Pudding said, ‘will be our best creation ever: a grand imitation of Greenwich Palace, to celebrate the prince’s birth here, which will be marvellous for King Henry to behold. So you see, we have need of an extra pair of hands or two, and you will be a great help to your mother for the pounding of the sugar and almonds and kneading of the paste. If that is done to her liking you may be allowed, under your mother’s strict supervision, of course, to pound the gold to make leaves almost as fine as the king’s cambric shirts. I will return from Aldgate and you will watch your good mother and myself at our architecture and mayhap, if your hand be steady, you will be given a feather for the painting. Now, don’t you look so downhearted, dear, for upon St Bart’s eve there will be time to have some fun at the fair

  ‘I cannot even sew a shirt for father with neat enough stitches to please you,’ I told Mother after Mistress Pudding had departed to travel by water with the tide. ‘My hands will never be steady enough to paint confections for the King’s banqueting house. I would rather weed the King’s gardens and prepare herbs for the cooks in the kitchen.’

  ‘You will learn the skills you need, given time, as I did,’ Mother said. ‘First there is the gelatine to be strained through clouts many times. If that is not occupation enough for a day’s toil you will begin the pounding of the almonds. If the babe is born early the goodwife will mayhap call for other maids or boys to help us with the pounding, as is her practice.’

  ‘Where do you keep the almonds, sugar and gold?’ I asked, taking the opportunity to have a good look around the confectionary now that mother and I were alone. Spoons and beating utensils of divers sizes and shapes hung from racks. There were shelves stacked high with earthenware, pipkins and copper dishes. I could see none of the precious foodstuffs we would need to make King Henry’s puddings.

  ‘Through that door in the corner yonder there be coffers double locked,’ mother whispered, although there was no one else to hear. ‘Inside those coffers we keep the ingredients for the King’s banquets. When they are required, two of the King’s guards will bring the keys and what we take must be noted by the scribe and signed for by the clerk and a copy taken to my lord, the Comptroller of the King’s household.

  ‘Maybe the pudding wife will give you a few pence to spend at the fair,’ Mother said after I had strained the boiled trotters thrice and complained that my clothes stank of pig just as much as if I were in the great kitchen.

  *

  In the evening, when we went to bed we found that Father had already set out our pallets and on each was a roll of the King’s soft white manchet bread wrapped in a cloth.

  ‘A present from His Grace the King to celebrate his little confectioner’s first day’s work,’ Father said.

  ‘Gracious me, Peter. How did you get them?’ Mother said. ‘When did you find time to visit the King’s privy bakery? Did no one see you take it?’

  Father rolled his eyes towards the ceiling.

  ‘What do you take me for wife? We won’t see the King or Queen again at Greenwich ‘til Bart’s Fair comes to town. There’s loaves to spare. The King won’t want ‘em when they’ve gone stale. Now then, a little of something sweet to taste wouldn’t go amiss.’

  Mother reached for a pot of plum preserve from the storage shelves around the room. ‘This needs tasting to make sure it hasn’t putrefied over the winter.’

  ‘It looks fine to me,’ I said, ‘I can’t see any mould.’

  ‘Best all have a little taste to make sure,’ Mother said, giving Father a wink.

  Chapter 10

  23rd August 1533

  ‘Keep close, Avis, for if we’re parted amongst these crowds we’ll never find each other again.’

  Mother and I were in a muddy horse-trampled meadow in Smithfield where, for the second time that summer, I gazed upon Sir Stephen Peacock, lord mayor of the City of London, in all his stately splendour. Mounted on horseback and wearing his crimson gown and golden chain with a golden fleece about his neck, he made his procession towards the great gate of St Bartholomew’s church to proclaim the fair open. Before him went his sword-bearer in a marvellous, tall fur hat and, behind him, a dozen mounted aldermen attired in scarlet with chains of gold.

  Would Queen Anne visit the fair? Would the mayor and aldermen escort her as they had done on the Thames for her coronation? I supposed it was too close to the birth of her child for the Queen to go abroad amongst the people.

  ‘Maybe the whore will come to haggle for a sow,’ Mother said. ‘Tis well known that pregnant women crave pig meat from Bartle’s Fair and I don’t doubt she’d be in good company amongst such bawdy baskets and clapper-dudgeons as you see here.’

  ‘Clapper-dudgeons, Mother?’

  ‘Aye, vagrants who come a begging to get more than they deserve, like that beggar man yonder in the patched cloak with all those fake sores upon his face.’

  ‘If they were real sores perhaps the King could cure him by the laying on of hands. Perhaps Queen Anne will cure the sick now that she has been anointed by the archbishop.’

  ‘That whore!’ Mother spat on to the sludgy grass. ‘She doesn’t have the royal blood so she shouldn’t behave as if she does. King Henry should never have let her give out the blessed cramp rings. I’d suffer the Devil’s cramps every night before I’d take a ring from her.’

  ‘Mistress Pudding told me that the Queen has a great list for apples.’

  ‘It pleases me greatly daughter, that she sets such store by you and takes you into her confidence after such a little time,’ mother said.

  Mistress Pudding had given me three groats to spend at the fair. I had expected more from someone who lived in a fine house in London, shillings not pence. I had tried to look grateful, bobbed a curtsey and thanked her profusely. I was only a wench in training, mother said, not a worker, and I should be thankful to be able to watch and learn and should not expect gifts. I could buy a Bartholomew babe for the three of us with my groats. Didn’t I always look forward to a gingerbread doll at Bartles Fair?

  ‘Yes, when I was a child,’ I muttered so that Mother couldn’t hear.

  ‘Look to your purse, Avis. Is it safely tied?’

  ‘Pray, don’t fret Mother.’

  Mother held my wrist fast as a fetter and with my other hand I felt for the small bulge under my kirtle where the coins were safely tied inside the thick hide purse hanging from the iron guard at my waist.

  ‘Cutpurses and rogues will be abroad looking out for pickings,’ Mother said.

  Everyone surged forward and came to a standstill before the west facade of the church and I tried to hear the lord mayor’s proclamation above the braying, whinnying and grunting of animals, the whining of children and the drone of the crowd.

  ‘I do straightly charge and command, on behalf of our sovereign lord, the King, that all manner of persons of whatever estate, degree or condition ... keep the peace ...’

  ‘There will be constables abroad, Mother. The mayor has this minute spoken of stewards and the Court of Pie Powder.’

  ‘Pie Powder is for trying those who give bad meas
ure or sell unwholesome food, not for vagabonds and thieves.’

  ‘It is the court for travellers with dusty feet. I remember Tom telling me that when we were children.’

  ‘Your father thought that maybe Tom might visit the fair. He has asked me to look out for him.’

  ‘The fair lasts for three days, Tom may not visit today if he comes at all. We don’t know where he lives since he vanished, he may be far away from London.’

  ‘Would you care, Avis, if he was a great distance away?’

  Mother had hold of my wrist so tightly that I could not try to pull away.

  ‘Even if Tom is here today we might not see him amongst all these people. He isn’t tall like Anthony. In his old duds he would seem to be just another beggar.’

  ‘You don’t answer my question,’ Mother said. ‘If he is here today and we are alert and keep our watch mayhap he will chance upon us or we upon him. I don’t understand you, daughter. Tom was ever your good friend and yet you care little that he has vanished these last three months. Your carpenter boy is gone from Greenwich now that his master’s work is finished. Maybe now you will begin to remember old friends.’

  ‘Father was Tom’s friend also, perhaps he should be here to keep a look out for the rat catcher boy.’

  ‘There’s nothing here that your father would want to goggle at. What use has he for palfreys, pigs or trinkets.’ Mother pulled me through the crowds. ‘See how many booths there are,’ she said excitedly.’ Each year the fair spreads further and further into the churchyard and fields beyond. Come, make haste, it will take all day to look at everything.’

  The vendors cried their divers wares: ends of gold and silver, buy woollen cloth, buy new leather wares, fresh Wainfleet oysters. The visitors shouted above the hubbub, some using strange dialects that stallholders could barely understand. Buyers and sellers held up their fingers to name a price, shook their heads, nodded, frowned, smiled and shook hands when a price was agreed.