John Saturnall's Feast (15 page)

But that tale contained too the seeds of Mister Pouncey's present woes. For the oath sworn by that thane had been carved before his tomb as a Covenant to bind all future generations.

As God's Ministers directed me, and .for the sake of his Son Jesus Christ, so I swear: that we and all our Descendants do keep these
Lands and Hearths and hold them for our Sovereign King. Let no Woman take Fire to the Hearth, nor tend the Vale's Fires, nor give Nourishment save she be bid, nor rule in the Vale, nor hold Rights to a Virgate of Land, nor keep Retainers or Servants lest these Lands be surrendered again to the Enemies of Our Lord .
. .

If Mister Pouncey closed his eyes he could see the ancient copy that rested among the Manor's records, every stain and mark on the vellum. Every faded letter.

Let no Woman .
. .
rule .
. .

There was the nub. In the rite of the Fremantle succession, Lady Lucretia ranked no higher or lower than the daughter of a Wittering pig farmer.

‘If it pleased God to take your lordship to his bosom today,’ Mister Pouncey began carefully, ‘I need hardly remind your lordship of the consequence. Lady Lucretia would be made a ward of court. That court's commissioners would hold the Estate, against whose chattels they might secure their debts as they did on the estate of the nephew of the Marchioness of Charnley. Or they might assign its rents to themselves as they did in the parish of Mere. Or they might seize it entire as they did at Old Toue . . .’

‘I know the kind of men who populate the Commission of Wards,’ Sir William retorted.

‘Even if Lady Lucretia were to attain her majority,’ Mister Pouncey continued implacably, ‘without a male heir, Buckland would escheat. It would revert to the Crown, which is to say the King's creditors . . .’

On he went. Sir William shifted in his seat. But Mister Pouncey had spent many long hours poring over papers at his master's behest. Now his lordship could listen to his conclusions. Only when the black-clad man began to grimace did the steward fall silent. The shouts from the yard sounded faintly in the room.

‘There must be another way,’ Sir William said heavily.

Of course there was, Mister Pouncey thought. Ever since the death of Lady Anne there had been a simple solution. The words danced on the tip of his tongue. Now, he urged himself, and heard his own voice speak.

‘My lord, there is a course of action.’

Sir William looked up.

‘If your lordship were to marry again. If a son . . .’

‘No!’

Sir William's voice boomed in the wood-panelled room. He glared at his steward. ‘I will not take another. Not for the Vale. Not for all England.’

Mister Pouncey studied the floorboards. Sir William pushed back the heavy chair and stamped to the window. Mister Pouncey saw the broad shoulders slump within the heavy black coat. He would be toying with the heavy gold ring on his finger, the steward knew. Working it around and around.

‘Find another way, Nathaniel,’ Sir William said more quietly.

The steward nodded, shuffling sheaves, ordering them for their filing among the Manor Records. Perhaps when his own bones were dust, Mister Pouncey wondered, some later steward would peer at the neatly filed papers from this day: the costings for the stable roof, the horse and the carriage. He would find everything in its place, the steward thought with satisfaction . . . Then he noticed the three creased pages which lay on the table. A panting kitchen boy had handed them to his clerk moments before his lordship had arrived. Mister Pouncey cleared his throat.

‘Forgive me, my lord. There is one other matter. A petition. It arrived at the gate this morning, my lord. From the parish of Buckland.’

The broad-shouldered man turned from the window. ‘Buckland?’

‘It lies at the head of the Vale. Above Flitwick.’

Sir William nodded, a curious look on his face. ‘I know of Buckland.’

Mister Pouncey pursed his lips. He knew no more of the place than its location, and the contents of the pages before him. Odd that the whole Vale could be named for somewhere so obscure. ‘The priest there styles himself the Reverend Christopher Hole. He asks your lordship a boon.’

‘What boon?’

‘A place, my lord. For a boy.’

Not for the first time, the steward shook his head at the fantastical ways of Sir William's petitioners. Since the closing of the Manor, the Household had little use for boys and Scovell in the kitchens made his own rrangements. He was about to drop the papers back on the pile when Sir William spoke.

‘Read it, Nathaniel.’

‘ . . .
therefore I beg this Boon of your lordship. This Boy goes by the Name of John Sandall. He was born of a Family long of this ‘Parish whose Mother made ‘Potions against those ‘Pangs which are the Legacy of Eve's ancient Foolishness. But this Summer we in the Village of Buckland .fell Victim to a more grievous Affliction than Birth-pangs or the monthly Gripings of Women. A new-fashioned Viper crawled into our Garden to set the foolish Souls of this ‘Parish against one another and against their ‘Priest. ‘Promising the Cures of our Children, this ‘Pretender led the biddable Souls of the ‘Parish against this Boy's Mother, condemning her as a Witch and driving her out to perish of the Cold.

‘But no Cure did this Hedge-priest effect. Instead, from Holy Rood Day till after ‘Plough Monday, we were subject to the Rule of a ‘Pharaoh. He calls himself Timothy Marpot and harks after that Zealot named Zoilus who long ago broke the Windows of our Church and the
Nose if the Bishop alike. But when this Marpot burned the ‘Pulpit in our Church, the ‘People q{Buckland rose against him at last and that ‘Pharaoh turned a false Moses, .fleeing with his Followers from our Anger .
. .

Mister Pouncey saw curiosity cloud his master's features. An uncharacteristic expression.

‘A witch at Buckland?’ Sir William asked.

‘Shall I send a man to enquire?’

‘No.’

A long silence fell. At last, Mister Pouncey rustled the grimy petition.

‘My lord?’

Sir William's head rose. ‘Yes?’

‘What is your decision, sire?’

‘Decision?’

‘The boy.’

Livestock pens, a stables and a row of open-sided sheds enclosed the inner yard. Men and boys unloaded carts filled with firewood, straw and timber. Heavy sacks and barrels were hauled or rolled under cover while purple-liveried ostlers led strings of horses whose hooves clacked on the cobbles. The smells of hay and horse-dung mixed with harness-leather and the horses themselves. Behind the stables, dogs barked. While Josh and Ben settled their business with the clerk, John dodged rolling barrels, side-stepped swaying towers of crates, ducked under planks carried shoulder-high and skipped over low stacks of pallets being dragged back to the empty carts. Every- where he stood, he seemed to be in someone's way. At last he wedged himself between a depot of barrels and a stall filled with straw.

The house loomed above, the walls of Soughton stone glowing in the morning sunlight. An elaborate stone staircase was sheltered by a portico, the torch and axe of the Fremantles rising from its corners. Beneath it, a pair of grand doors opened into a cavernous hall and behind the main house a long wing stretched back behind a high garden wall, its upper storey composed of high windows whose diamond-shaped panes glinted in the sunlight.

The flashes of light might have been sent from those, John thought. He sniffed the air as a smell floated down from a chimney, a smell at once familiar and strange which laced the fumes like a single dark strand in a head of fair hair. He had smelt it all the way down the Vale emanating from Ben's pack. John closed his eyes and tilted his head, tipping it back to breathe in deeply. The strange taste danced on his tongue. Silphium, his mother had called it . . .

When he opened his eyes he saw that he had been watched. Across the yard a boy with floppy brown hair dressed in red kitchen livery stood with his head tilted back and his eyes half closed. As John watched, the boy gave a loud exaggerated sniff.

John stared back stonily. Undeterred, the boy grinned then and beckoned. Keeping the scowl fixed on his face, John approached.

‘Coake was meant to help,’ the kitchen boy said, threading a thick wooden pole through the handles of a bulging basket beside him. ‘Now he's run off. Sucking up to Pouncey most likely. I'm meant to be plucking birds, not hauling onions about.’ The boy offered one end of the pole. ‘You going to help me lug this thing or stand there sniffing all day?’

The chimneys of Buckland Manor tunnelled up from the depths of the kitchens, through the dark tonnage of stone and brick above. Sliding between walls and driving through floors, the hot channels funnelled heat, smoke and smells as they twisted past receiving rooms and jinked around chambers, wriggled past corridors and galleries, leaving enigmatic traces in the fabric of the house. Purposeless buttresses bulged from walls. Smoke percolated through cracks in the plaster. Certain corners of the house were inexplicably hot and chambers adjoining both the East and West Wings were infiltrated by the smells of roasting meat, or baking bread, or soup . . .

The whiffs and stinks came and went. Hotspots drifted, as if the flues of whirling fire and fumes writhed within the massive stonework, splitting and rejoining, rearing and rising until the thick brick fingers broke into the root stores and apple lofts under the eaves, driving through the attics where the maids huddled in the depths of winter, pressing themselves to the hot walls and waking to the morning tocsin of ladle on cauldron which resounded up from the kitchens below.

Now that din resounded in the crowded passage where two boys shuffled, wincing and grunting under the weight of a basket of onions.

‘Philip,’ the panting brown-haired boy introduced himself.

‘Philip Elsterstreet.’

‘John,’ John gasped back. The pole dug into his bony shoulder.

‘Just John?’

‘John Saturnall.’

The passage led to a courtyard surrounded by high walls where liveried men rolled barrels, toted crates or trays or walked with braces of birds swinging from their hands. Others drew water from the well at the far end. Nearer, from a row of curtained stalls, rose the sharp reek of ordure.
A
sour-faced old man was scraping out the nearest bucket into a barrow. John set down the basket at Philip's signal. Beside a large basket of feathers lay a tray of part-plucked birds. The boy's faint smile appeared to be permanent. He eyed John's coat and filthy smock, his sunken cheeks and tufted scalp.

‘Where are you from, John Saturnall?’

‘Flitwick,’ John answered carefully. ‘Been riding with Josh Palewick.’

The boy's eyes widened. ‘He goes all over. His brother's the Cellarer here.’

John nodded. ‘I might be stopping here myself,’ he offered casually. ‘Joining the Household.’

Philip's eyebrows rose. ‘The Household?’

‘Josh can't keep me on for ever, can he? It's hard enough feeding the horses.’

The barrow and its stench approached. The scowling old man who pushed it was Barney Curle, Philip told John. But John was looking over his shoulder. A round-faced girl wearing a full grey skirt had slipped out from a doorway into the courtyard. She wafted a hand in front of her nose as she passed the old man and his barrow.

‘Gemma!’ called Philip as the girl approached. Two others followed in smocks and maid's caps.

‘Lucy's disappeared,’ Gemma told Philip, her brow furrowed. ‘Lady Lucretia, I mean. I've been out for hours. Meg and Ginny here too.’

The maid called Ginny peered at John. Copper-red curls escaped from under her bonnet.

‘Well, order her back,’ Philip told the girl, grinning. ‘You're her queen, ain't you?’

The red-haired girl giggled but Gemma glared.

‘It isn't funny! Pole and Gardiner are looking all over.’ She pointed down to the basket of feathers. ‘You stick to your plucking, Philip Elsterstreet.’

‘Just so long as she doesn't start another fast. Tell her the kitchen's had enough of cooking her gruel.’

Gemma ignored that, casting a curious look over John. ‘Who's your friend?’

‘Don't you recognise him?’ Philip raised his eyebrows in disbelief. ‘This is John Saturnall, come to call on Lady Lucy. He's a prince in disguise.’

The girl called Meg giggled. The other two looked John over who stood awkwardly before them, growing conscious of his roughly shorn scalp and the grime ingrained in his breeches and shirt. John drew his damp-smelling coat tighter. The red-haired one called Ginny smiled.

‘Prince of where, John Saturnall?’

‘Nowhere,’ mumbled John, feeling his cheeks flush. Ginny's gaze swept over him then Gemma tugged her sleeve and led her escorts away. John scowled at Philip.

‘That your idea of fun?’

‘It was only to make them laugh.’

‘At me?’

‘I'm sorry,’ Philip offered. He looked down at the basket. ‘Come on. I can't lug this lot on my own. I'll show you the kitchens. You'll need to know your way around, won't you? If you're coming here . . . ‘

John looked at him suspiciously then bent and gripped the pole again. Both boys grunted and staggered across the crowded courtyard into the passageway opposite. After a turn they came to a high arched entrance from which cooking smells drifted. Philip led the way, lugging the basket into a vaulted room. The boys dumped the basket next to a table where a stout man with a round face was slicing onions, his knife a blur on the wood.