by Robin Jarvis
His words faltered, for the enchantment had dissolved from Brindle’s face. The merchant’s features had clouded and were set into a frightening grimness.
“Nay,” he whispered in a hushed tone not intended to be overheard yet nevertheless proclaimed by the torc. “I did not say it was the finest …”
The clear voice which spoke from the jewel broke his solemn reverie and Brindle looked up uneasily.
There was something furtive about that hasty glance. Adam had the disturbing feeling that he had caught an unguarded glimpse into a side of the Iribian which he was not meant to have seen. The notion unsettled him and he found himself struggling to know what to say.
It was Brindle who dispelled the awkward silence. Sampling the warm air with a shallow breath, he announced, “The child named Henry approaches.”
A moment later there came a rattling clatter and Henry Wattle bounded into the garden, a sack slung over one shoulder and a mischievous smirk stretched across his face.
“You still dawdling out here?” he called.
“We … we were just going to the kitchen,” Adam stammered.
Henry cackled and gave his sack a purposeful shake. “So am I,” he uttered in a tone brimming with impish intent. Then, addressing the Iribian, he said, “I always find the kitchen the best place for heavenly whiffs, but this morning, ’tis my turn to give Widow Dritchly the vapours.”
And, sniggering like a lesser demon, the boy strode determinedly towards the manor house.
CHAPTER 4
Rats and Ashes
The kitchen of Wutton Old Place was far too large for Lord Richard’s present needs and with only Anne Sowerby to help her, Mistress Dritchly found it a great deal of hard work to maintain.
She was alone when Brindle and the apprentices entered, her ample form stooping over the great wide table which dominated the room and her back turned to the huge fireplace.
“There you are, my angel,” she cried, glancing up from a mound of freshly chopped carrots. “I pray these two rogues aren’t tiring you on your first day out of bed.”
His nostrils closing sharply, Brindle shrank back from a wall of smoke he had wandered into as the hearth spat and sputtered.
“A curse on that Anne!” the woman grumbled. “Damp wood on the fire; is she completely addled or does she do it to plague me?”
An appreciative grin lit Henry’s face and she glared at him reproachfully. “You’re no better, Master Wattle!” her caustic tongue lashed. “I abide Anne because she’s a lack wit – you’re just plain knavery seeking to torment.”
Brindle looked around him. Wedges of sunlight beamed through large windows at one end of the kitchen, bathing the long table in the glare of the summer’s day. A host of earthenware jars and pots thronged the shelves, gleaming in their glazes, and bowls of dwindling size were stacked in precarious towers. From the ceiling beams an aromatic assortment of herbs was drying and, suspended over the table, an iron chandelier was home to many sprigs of elder which lured flies away from the dishes being prepared beneath.
Henry was quite right – this place housed many tempting smells. Beneath the stringent reek of the fire there was an attractive, tingling fragrance emanating from an oak cupboard where Lord Richard kept costly spices under lock and key, and many diverse odours flowed thickly from the shelves. The unctuous scent of black treacle was oozing from an imperfectly sealed jar, and a bowl of vinegar, to which crushed mint leaves had been added, brought goose pimples to Brindle’s pallid skin. Upon a trestle, next to the cooling brick oven, the yeasty fumes effusing from five warm loaves drew a smile on his thin lips and painted comforting shades across his spirit.
Yet nothing here could compare to the rapture he had known outside and even now he was anxious to return to the garden and relive that joy anew.
“Where is that idle Anne?” Mistress Dritchly demanded. “She’s using that black-headed wart to pardon her idleness again. A sharp knife and a nimble hand would soon cure her of that affliction – though the idleness would remain.”
The unmistakable grunting of Old Temperance heralded the kitchen maid’s return, for she had been bidden to the piggery to fetch the great sow. It was time for her to be gleaned and Brindle was intrigued to discover what this cryptic phrase signified.
Moving aside to give the large pig room to enter, he watched it lumber into the kitchen with Anne Sowerby slowly shuffling in behind. Suet darted out from Adam’s feet where he had been sitting and the two mechanicals exchanged snorting salutations.
“You took a dollop of time, my girl!” Mistress Dritchly berated.
Anne’s mouth twisted to one side, the way it always did when Mistress Dritchly admonished her, but her eyes were fixed upon Brindle’s tall frame and grew wider with every second that passed.
“Ooh, what a noribble face to cart round all the time,” she said with much sympathy. “Don’t that great nubbly nose give you pain? Like a big wormy tumour, that is.”
Her rude observations were quickly curtailed when an onion struck the side of her head. Yelping, she hurried to the far corner and pretended to be busy. Dropping a second onion back into its basket, Mistress Dritchly rubbed her hands together and turned to her patient.
“Wool for brains,” she explained, cocking her head towards the sulking Anne. “Anyone would think she’s a court beauty the way she goes on.”
Breezing around the table, the woman halted before Old Temperance and smartly struck the Wutton crest carved into the animal’s expansive side. At once the sow was stilled, the concertina snout slid to a stop and all movement ceased.
A faint whine of distress issued from Suet and the piglet pushed against his mother, trying to get her to move again. Adam saw him and knelt down, giving his small wooden body a reassuring pat. “You’ve seen this before,” he said. “Nothing to get upset about.”
Mistress Dritchly held out her arms and bent her knees, seizing the sow’s vast bulk and taking the strain.
“Nay, Mistress,” Brindle stopped her. “Permit me.”
The woman tried to prevent him but the Iribian would not hear of it and, before she could cluck in protest, his strong arms had lifted Old Temperance off the ground.
“Oh, you shouldn’t!” she fussed. “Not in your delicate state. You’ll undo all the good healing. Oh well, put the pig on here, there’s a dear angel.”
Brindle obeyed and in a trice the mechanical sow was standing incongruously upon the kitchen table.
“Quite a weight, isn’t she?” Mistress Dritchly remarked. “Well beyond time for a thorough gleaning.”
Deftly, her podgy fingers unclasped the fastenings that held a section of the mechanical’s side in place and took up a knife.
“Should have been attended to over a week ago,” she stated. “But a body’s only one pair of hands and they’re usually needed elsewhere with Anne to watch out for. I pray the proudflesh hasn’t gotten tough and chewy – Lord Richard hates that.”
To Brindle’s astonishment he saw that packed inside Old Temperance’s barrel-shaped casing was a thick layer of a cream-coloured, spongy substance which smelled musty and damp.
“Oh, couldn’t be more perfect!” Mistress Dritchly trilled, setting to with her blade and trimming the dense matter from the sow’s interior. “Just ripe and ready as the good Lord intended.”
Hearing the knife go slicing in, Suet trundled away from Adam and hid his face behind the flour sack which was propped against the wall.
“There!” the woman declared when the mechanical was thoroughly cleaned out and a great pile of the floppy proudflesh had been heaped upon the table. Brindle stared at it, bemused, looking to the apprentices for enlightenment.
“Pork, bacon and ham!” Henry said unhelpfully.
“It’s the proudflesh,” Adam put in, seeing the Iribian’s difficulty. “It forms within the mechanicals and in the hands of a skilled cook is delicious – tasty as the real thing.”
“Bat’s toenails!” Henry scoffed. “Y
ou wouldn’t know and nor would I. There’s nobody had real meat these past hundred and seventy-five years. Could be a world of difference and we’re none the wiser.”
“You’ll not be wanting any of this for your supper tonight then?” Mistress Dritchly remarked. “I’ll give you naught but the cold pottage of yester, Master Wattle, and you’d best be thankful or you’ll get nothing tomorrow neither.”
The boy grumbled to himself and retreated to the furthest corner out of her vision, carefully setting his sack upon the floor and crouching over it.
“Now for the offal,” Mistress Dritchly announced, reaching inside Old Temperance and detaching odd, pewter shapes from their pipes.
“Kidneys, liver, lungs, tripe and heart,” Adam explained as more proudflesh was popped out of these moulds.
“Folk like to see a shape they’re familiar with, on their trencher or in their pie,” the woman added. “Lord Richard does.”
With her consent, Brindle picked up one of the squashy kidneys and studied it with interest.
“A form of fungus,” he pronounced at length. “So that is why the devices need to eat – the decaying matter nourishes the spores within.”
“Better than any mushroom I ever cooked,” his nurse said, sliding a large jar from the shelf and wiping the inside of the heart mould with the dark brown liquid it contained.
“For flavour as it grows,” Adam told him. “The proudflesh takes on whatever taste you coat the insides with.”
Mistress Dritchly fitted the pewter shape back into the sow then took up another jar and began daubing the contents into the kidney patterns.
“But that’s venison!” Adam said, reading what was written on the glaze.
Mistress Dritchly wagged her head in distraction. “I know, I know,” she retorted. “But his lordship has run out of the kidney essence and, as he don’t own any deer no more, there was a tidy lot of this left. I’m not one for wasting – you know that, Cog Adam.”
“Lord Richard is not a wealthy man?” Brindle interrupted.
“Bless us, no,” she lamented. “He was once but not no more. Loyalty fills no pockets it seems, not even in this uplifted world.”
A slow smile spread across the Iribian’s injured face. A way to reward his host had surfaced in his mind, but now was not the time to mention it. He would have to investigate the interior of his night boat before he could tell them and raise their hopes.
When the pewter moulds had been returned to Old Temperance’s insides, Mistress Dritchly closed the great pig up again and Brindle gallantly lifted the mechanical back to the floor.
“There,” the woman grunted with satisfaction at the heap of proudflesh upon the table. “Another four months before she’ll be ready for another gleaning. Anne, take the bacon layers and slice them into rashers whilst I dress the hams for curing.”
Dragging her feet across the floor, the kitchen maid trudged over and collected the rubbery pieces on to a large dish.
“Remove the sow to the piggery,” Mistress Dritchly told Adam, “or it’ll be under my feet for the rest of the day.”
Whistling for Suet, the boy pressed Old Temperance’s crest and the bass voice started up as the sow jerked into motion, sprightly and alert. Suet let out a gleeful squeak and scampered from behind the sack to nuzzle against his mother once more.
“Come on,” Adam said, nudging Old Temperance with his knee. “Back to the sty for you.”
The mechanical wheeled vigorously about, but at that moment the kitchen exploded in chaos.
Anne Sowerby was traipsing back to her usual place, bearing the dish of proudflesh when, suddenly, she encountered one of the things Henry had released from his sack. Shrieking, the girl threw down the dish. It smashed upon the stone floor, and the gleaned cuts went bouncing under the table and across the room.
A dark shape shot across her feet, snatching up the smallest piece of proudflesh and darted off with it into the shadows.
Anne shrieked again and danced backwards, flapping her arms wildly. “’Orrible!” she bawled. “It were ’orrible!”
No one else had seen what had frightened her and they stared at the girl.
“Nasty, dirty thing!” she continued to wail. “Oh, what were it?”
Seizing hold of her flailing arms, Mistress Dritchly shook her sternly. “What ails you, girl?” she demanded. “You just pick all that up again before you get a hiding—”
The woman would have said more but then she too saw what had frightened the kitchen maid.
Running along one of the shelves was a tin rat.
It was hideously life-like, with a long, leathery tail that thrashed between the jars, slapping their sides, sweeping through the air and dangling over the edge. Woolly fur had been painstakingly gummed to the jointed body then slicked down for added effect while, from the sharply pointed head, long whiskers came spiking. Jagged metal teeth chattered under a trembling sprung nose but, most repulsive of all, were the two black beads which made the eyes. A consuming desire to pillage and terrorise glittered in them, and they swivelled from side to side, coveting everything they saw.
Mistress Dritchly roared in outrage and for a second she and the creature glared at one another until she hurled an onion at the loathsome thing.
The rat was too quick. With a crack of its tail, it dived from the shelf. The onion struck only the jar of treacle which toppled over and hit the ground with a tremendous crack, followed by the sticky squelching of the dark contents as they spread slowly across the floor.
Anne Sowerby screamed afresh, but her mistress grabbed an iron ladle from a pot by the fire and hunted for the creature, waving the weapon above her head.
Adam and Brindle watched in startled amusement. Then a second rat leapt on to the table, stole a slice of carrot and rushed off again.
“There’s a third!” Adam cried, pointing to where another of the metal vermin was ripping the flour sack apart with tin claws and causing a blizzard in the process.
Over the floor the first rat bolted and the ladle came clanging after, bashing a desperate rhythm on the stone flags. “Catch them!” Mistress Dritchly yelled as the creature snaked away.
Adam lunged at the one on the flour but the small mechanical jumped clear and the boy fell against the sack, splitting it completely and choking the kitchen with a swirling whiteness.
The three rats seemed everywhere. They swarmed into baskets, upset pots, spilled jugs, broke bottles and scattered grain. One of them bounded into a bowl of dried apricots and began to fling them at whoever came near, before dashing away again.
Whirling about her kitchen, Mistress Dritchly swung the ladle murderously, forcing everyone to duck and dodge out of her path.
Then Suet decided to enter the fray. When one of the ugly creations scooted past him, the piglet set off in pursuit, squealing loudly.
His face caked with flour, Adam could only watch as Suet scampered after the tin rat and, to his dismay, the boy realised that Old Temperance was about to join in too.
“Halt!” he yelled, lurching for the sow’s Wutton crest – but it was too late. With a maternal bellow, Old Temperance charged after her piglet who was galloping under the table, still chasing the rat. With a crunching splinter of timbers, the great sow thundered beneath the buckling table, dragging it across the room until the wood shattered and collapsed in three pieces.
Over the wreckage two rats went capering, the joints of their jaws squeaking in mockery, while the third doubled back on itself and joined them in a renewed assault upon the shelves.
Suet swerved aside but Old Temperance was not built for agility and her carved trotters skidded upon the scattered proudflesh. Blaring a woeful squeal, the sow skated forward, crashing into the trestle where all five loaves were catapulted through the air. One of them hit Anne Sowerby on the back of her head and, believing it to be a rat, the girl fled the kitchen, howling and tearing at her hair.
Protecting his nostrils from the billowing clouds of flour, Brindle s
tumbled after her and behind him the riot continued to rage.
Bent double, Henry Wattle crawled over the kitchen threshold, gagging on his laughter. He had been working on the rats in secret for several months but he had never dared to hope that they would prove so successful. Clutching his cramping stomach, he staggered over to the Iribian and threw himself upon the ground, spluttering with awful relish.
“I did it!” he crowed. “No kissing Anne’s abscess for me – hark at that din. Widow Hummy Hum’s nigh to having kittens in there. Oh, Wattle, you’re amazing.”
Brindle looked at him in bewilderment, then as more pots and dishes went crashing to the ground within the kitchen, he threw back his head and laughed.
A little after midday Henry Wattle was not so jubilant. Lord Richard had returned to the manor to find it in uproar. A full hour after their release, only one of the mechanical rats had been captured. The other two had escaped into the main part of the house and would prove to be a constant nuisance in Wutton Old Place for as long as the building remained standing.
When it was clear that there was nothing more to be done and the one cornered specimen had been well and truly flattened under the ladle, Mistress Dritchly took to her bed and lay there with her apron over her face for most of the afternoon. Anne Sowerby was burdened with the task of clearing up the kitchen and she stood gaping at the devastation, not knowing where to commence.
It was obvious who was to blame and, though he lamely tried to protest his innocence, Henry was marched to the village where his father gave him the soundest thrashing he had ever received. Now he stood in the workshop, unable to sit down, feeling sore and sorry for himself and with only the memory of his prank for company.
The stables were empty. The scaffold was completed at last and everyone had gone to the woodland to inspect Brindle’s night boat. As punishment, Henry had to remain behind and finish the repairs to the horse and ponies. Muttering mutiny to himself, the boy worked grudgingly, aware that if he did not get the task done, then he would be in for another beating. “They were brilliant rats though,” he breathed wistfully.
