John Saturnall's Feast (49 page)

When it was over, they dressed in silence. John glanced again at the ancient scenes. Marpot must have uncovered them, he realised. Broken the plaster off with his hammer and found his ancient witch-finder waiting for him. No wonder he had fled. Coldcloak had become Callock. Callock became Fremantle, all of them bound by their oath down the generations to Sir William. Of course the Lord of the Vale of Buckland had known where to send when his wife had sickened. And John's mother had come. She had delivered Lucretia. All this passed through his mind as the young woman watched him, inscrutable behind her mask of smeared powder and rouge. Then his baffled rage rose again. He turned away from her. Kicking open the door, he stumbled down the stairs.

Now Gemma's shoes clopped ahead of him once more, leading him through the dilapidated house. As John walked down the passage to Sir William's receiving room, he felt his heart beat faster. The housekeeper knocked and the door swung open.

Lucretia sat at the walnut table, piles of papers and ledgers rising around her. A few lines had appeared on her forehead. A plain dress was buttoned up to her neck. She still wore the mark of Marpot's blow, the line of her nose broken midway along its length. Behind it her dark eyes watched him.

‘You have returned, John Saturnall.’

He had thought of this moment a hundred times. But her imagined face had appeared as a mask, impenetrable as it had been that night.

‘I have, your ladyship.’ Behind him he sensed Gemma shift awkwardly. ‘I would ask that we conduct our conversation in private.’

‘I have no secrets from my housekeeper, Master Saturnall.’

Very well, thought John. He stood before her in his fine clothes and boots. And yet he felt as he had the first time, with Abel's filthy blue coat draped about his bony shoulders.

‘I made the acquaintance of Master William.’

He saw her hesitate.

‘He is your son,’ Lucretia said simply.

John stared. But Lucretia merely eyed him across the stacks of papers.

‘Piers knew?’ he asked at last.

‘We never spoke of it.’

The boy rose in his thoughts. Suddenly John wanted to be standing over him again, guiding the boy's arm.

‘He will inherit the Manor, your ladyship?’

‘What remains of it when Piers's creditors have been paid.’ She fixed John with a stony gaze. ‘Why have you returned?’

John remembered how his heart had jumped at the news of Piers's death. Then the weeks of indecision. Behind it lay her silence that distant night. Why had she not spoken? The question trembled now on the tip of his tongue. But he looked at the woman who sat stiffly behind the walnut table. Now was not the time. He mustered a smile.

‘I regret to say, your ladyship, that I must add another name to the list of your creditors. My own.’

She raised an eyebrow. ‘What did my late husband owe you, Master Saturnall? Besides a ride on a stolen horse.’

‘The debt is not his, your ladyship. It was incurred long before Lord Piers made himself Master of Buckland. Before there was a Manor, when Buckland was still Bellicca's land. Your ancestor took something from mine.’

Her eyes narrowed. ‘What is that? What debt do I owe you?’

He watched her across the crowded table.

‘Your ladyship owes me a feast.’

Gemma set up a cot in Mister Pouncey's old chambers. There were plenty of rooms, she explained, now the servants were so few. He ate in the kitchen with the cooks.

‘What Piers didn't drink he spent on carriages and clothes,’ Simeon told John as they scraped their spoons around the pewter plates. ‘Now the cellars are all but empty. I haven't seen a lemon since last summer.’

‘Just like old times,’ said John. ‘You'll be baking Paradise bread next.’

‘God forbid,’ Simeon said with a shudder. Down the table one of the kitchen boys nudged his companion. John heard a short whispered exchange. Then the boy spoke up.

‘Is it true you cooked for the old King, Master Saturnall?’

‘I did once,’ John answered. ‘I ate for him too.’

‘And did you serve the King of the Turks a feast?’

‘Not him. But once I roasted a sheep for a caliph. Very lean, those Barbary sheep. You have to baste the whole day through.’

‘And the King of France, Master Saturnall? Is that true?’

‘Cream and more cream,’ John answered. ‘Jellies so stiff they must be cut with Saracen swords. One time the carver became stuck mid-slice . . .’

He told tall tales to the kichen boys and talked with Philip, or Adam, or Mister Bunce or Ben Martin. As the weather grew colder, louring clouds began advancing over the Levels. John walked long circuits of the house, lingering about the old well, wondering if the boy whose elbow he had held might walk up to him again. But Will Callock seemed only ever to appear in the distance, speeding across a garden or racing up a hillside. Returning to the kitchen, John's eyes drifted to the passage that led past the bakehouse and the still room, back into the depths of the kitchens to the chambers where Scovell had lived and his mother had worked. Now, Gemma told him, Lucretia laboured there. If he wants his feast, her mistress had exclaimed after John's demand, then he shall have it. And on Old Saint Andrew's Day too.

‘She intends to prepare the dishes herself,’ Gemma told him. ‘I offered my help but she insisted. Master Simeon too but she refused. Not even a scullion would aid her, she said. She will do all with her own hands, she says. Though in truth . . .’ Gemma broke off.

‘In truth?’ John prompted.

‘In truth,’ Gemma said, ‘she doesn't know one end of a spoon from the other.’

The snows were due, Philip warned him. They would have his horse saddled and ready. Otherwise he would be immured in Buckland until spring. The days passed. On the morning, John washed in a bowl that one of the new maids brought and dressed carefully, tying laces and fastening buckles. Trying to pull a comb through his hair, he felt the ridge left by the musket ball. Philip appeared in the doorway.

‘Fit for a king,’ he said, looking John over and tugging at his collar. ‘Why the long face? Are you not slavering for Lady Lucy's dishes?’

He sat waiting, counting the seconds and minutes, rehearsing what he might say. Her stubborn silence that night. Taking Piers. He believed he understood now. At last the bell sounded for dinner. Then he rose and walked through the house. The serving men he passed touched their caps to him. The maids curtsied. Crossing the knot-garden courtyard he looked up at a gun-metal sky. As he climbed the stairs, his legs felt heavy.

The Solar Gallery was draped with hangings. Glancing out through the windows he saw the hedges of the East Garden. Then a movement caught his eye. A small figure appeared to materialise from inside one of the hedges, a scarf wrapped about his neck against the cold. John watched Will Callock leap the next hedge and run over the lawn. Suddenly an old man emerged. Mister Motte gave a shout and lumbered after the boy.

‘Run,’ murmured John.

The boy sped away, soon outpacing the aged figure. John smiled, looking after Will until he disappeared then scanning the East Garden. The glass-house still stood, he saw, its frames inviting repair. Pineapples and peaches would grow there, he thought. Fat grapes and persimmons. Above, the clouds appeared to settle more heavily. The outer yard would close the next day, Philip had told him. The stable hands would have his horse ready as promised. He looked along the gallery to the door at the end. Despite himself, he felt his heart begin to thud.

The room was as he remembered it, except the curtains had been drawn and tied back and every object had been dusted and cleaned. A fire burned in the grate and two chairs stood before it. But the little table had been set for one. As he glanced at the bed, he heard the latch to the kitchen stair click. What if he had not fallen through the doorway to sprawl before her in a heap? To look up and see her sharp face peering down . . . Footsteps sounded.

Lucretia entered carrying a tray. She wore her hair in plaits, he saw. But her dress was as plain as before. He made a little bow.

‘Good day, Lady Lucretia.’

‘Good day, Master Saturnall.’

A flowery scent hung about her. Rose water, he realised. She deposited the tray on the bed and began to arrange the dishes. Picking up a pitcher, she turned to him with a stony expression.

‘Sit.’

John sat.

‘The Feast began with spiced wine,’ she said. ‘If I recall it correctly.’

John nodded. ‘Flavoured with saffron and cinnamon and mace,’ he said. ‘And roasted dates, your ladyship.’

‘Your recollection is remarkable, Master Saturnall,’ she answered as she poured. ‘But my own memory differs, when you served this cup to me.’

He drank, and tasted water. Inwardly, he smiled.

‘The wine was followed by forcemeats, I believe,’ Lucretia continued. ‘Of a swan? Then a goose, then a duck . . .’

He remembered the words he had murmured in her ear. The elaborate descriptions for the plain fare he had mustered. Now he would be the one to listen and taste. She spooned out thick gobbets from a little pot. Mashed swedes, John realised. He looked up.

‘Eat,’ Lucretia commanded.

She served him boiled skirrets, steamed salt-fish, a kind of porridge and dried apple-rings soaked in verjus. He sat stiffly in the chair. He chewed and swallowed while Lucretia stood before him. At last, he put down his spoon.

‘Are the dishes not to your liking, Master Saturnall?’

John regarded the platters and salvers. He imagined her clumsy efforts amidst the pots and pans. Boiling and mashing and scrubbing and peeling. How had she imagined this encounter? Suddenly he could maintain his silence no longer.

‘You drove me out,’ he said. ‘That was your purpose.’

Looking up, he saw shock bloom in her face.

‘I did not understand it, not for a long time after. The first time I spoke of the Feast you already knew the story. You knew but you kept silent. Why? I asked you and you would not answer. But that silence was a lie, wasn't it? It was meant to deceive me. To provoke my anger. For there was a better question I might have asked you that night.’

She stood before him, silent, her face impassive. Only her dark eyes moved, taking him in.

‘Why did you confess? That was the question you feared. Why did you choose that night to tell me what you knew? Almost the eve of your wedding. You could rely on my anger, could you not? On that hot coal I carried inside me. I had told you of it after all. And sure enough my anger blinded me. As you knew it would.’ He looked up at her. ‘But little by little the mists of my anger cleared. I thought again on what you had told me. He was called Coldcloak, you said. He came here when the Romans went home. He swore an oath to God and he broke Bellicca's tables. He stole the fires from her hearths and fled down the Vale. He came here. That much you said. But there was more, was there not?’

Lucretia's nod was almost imperceptible.

‘He swore an oath to destroy her works,’ John said. ‘But he planted her orchards here. He kept Bellicca's fires burning in his hearths. He remembered the Feast as best he could. And he raised a tower that he might look out over the Vale. Why?’

‘To stand sentinel against her,’ Lucretia said. ‘Because he feared her enchantment . . .’

‘Why should he preserve her gardens?’ John interrupted. ‘Or the fires in her hearths? Why should he seek to keep her Feast? Or build a tower to watch for the glow of her hearth? You know the answer. You knew it that night. Why?’

Lucretia shook her head slowly. But her eyes would not meet his own.

‘He loved her,’ John said. ‘Despite his oath. Despite all he had done. And you always knew it. Because you too loved the one you could not have. Because the same oath bound you.’

Lucretia turned away towards the window. Outside, snowflakes were falling, tumbling down out of the sky. ‘I fear you will have to curtail your supper, Master Saturnall,’ she said, her face averted. ‘The roads are no better than they were before. The least fall will block them . . .’

‘You confessed that night to rid yourself of me,’ John interrupted. ‘You dressed like a whore to drain my desire and drive me away. You denied me. And you denied those sentiments which you declared for me. Just as your ancestor did to Bellicca. You lied to me and you lied to yourself . . .’

But at that she rounded on him, turning from the window, her hand knocking a bowl off the tray.

‘I did not lie!’ she burst out. ‘I could not bear it! Can you not understand? I could not bear to have you close and not to touch you. I could not suffer the sight of you at his beck and call.’ She glared down at him, her jaw set, her breath coming fast. ‘If I had guessed those humiliations he would devise for me perhaps I would have gone with you. But I did not guess. At first my promise held me here. Later my child did the same. Yours and mine. Yes, I drove you away. I employed a subterfuge and I own to my fault. I whored myself to drive you off. I own that too. Now you reappear after a dozen years and demand that I repay my debt. Now I have sweated in a kitchen, John Saturnall. I have cooked your feast.’ She pointed angrily to the half-eaten dish before him. ‘Now eat it and go!’

John stared up at her. He had prepared his speech in his head so many times. And he had imagined its end in as many ways. But none of them were this one. Under her angry gaze, he picked up his spoon and dipped it in the nearest dish.

‘Well?’ she demanded.

Turnip, he thought. Set off with verjus and butter. He swallowed and Lucretia gave a stern nod.

‘Does that satisfy you, Master Saturnall?’

‘It does, your ladyship.’

‘Then eat the remainder and go.’

John scooped another spoonful off the dish. Outside the snow was falling faster. A thin layer had already settled. He chewed slowly, as if savouring the dull mash.

‘You will have to hurry,’ Lucretia said, and this time John fancied he heard her voice soften. He looked up from the plate.

‘And not savour these dishes as they deserve?’

She gave him a sceptical look.

‘Do they merit savouring?’

‘They do, your ladyship. Most assuredly.’