The Christmas Wassail (3 page)

‘Oh, here you are at last, Roger,' my wife remarked on seeing me. ‘Supper's ready, and has been this half hour and more. As you see, you're too late to hang the kissing bush. Richard has done it for me.'

I swung round, almost fell over, and steadied myself by grasping at the nearest support. This turned out to be the stocky, red-haired bulk of Richard Manifold, Sheriff's Officer, sometime suitor of Adela before she wed her first husband, Owen Juett, and a permanent thorn in my side. He was still unmarried and consequently always in need of company, particularly, it seemed, my wife's. I won't go so far as to say that he haunted the Small Street house, but he was far too frequent a visitor for my peace of mind. The three older children regarded him with long-suffering tolerance born of familiarity, while I was never quite sure what Adela's feelings for him were. Only my half-nephew, eleven-month-old Luke, but recently fostered by us after the death of his mother, was as yet unconscious of Richard Manifold's (to my mind) disruptive presence in our lives.

Richard smirked at me, and I could have sworn that I caught the glimpse of a halo round his head.

‘You knew that I was going to do it. That I enjoy doing it,' I said aggressively, and not altogether truthfully, turning back to my wife. That third beaker of ale was beginning to talk. ‘Why did you ask him to do it?'

‘You weren't here,' Adela pointed out, keeping her tone reasonable, ‘and you know it should be hung up before nightfall on the eve of Christmas Eve. Don't you think it's pretty? Bess and I worked practically all day on it. You have a very talented daughter, my love. She cut out those paper figures using only my working scissors.'

‘Yes, I did,' Elizabeth confirmed, ‘and you haven't even said anything about them.' Her lower lip trembled. ‘I think you're horrid.'

I took a menacing step towards her and she retreated in alarm. ‘Don't you dare speak to me like that, my girl,' I threatened, then totally undermined my own authority by adding, ‘at least, not in front of strangers.'

Nicholas, flying as always to his stepsister's defence, said truculently, ‘Richard's not a stranger.'

‘Sergeant Manifold to you, my lad!' I shouted furiously. ‘And that goes for the rest of you!'

Hercules, who had just made his way in from the kitchen, hearing my angry tones and considering it his duty, as my four-legged protector, to come to my assistance, began barking ferociously on a high, insistent note. I yelled at him to be quiet; the baby, sat on the floor among the rushes and, unused to such a cacophony, started to scream, while Elizabeth burst into tears and fled upstairs.

So much for a peaceful Christmas! I had been home for less than ten minutes and the place was in uproar. And it was all my fault.

Or the fault of the ale I had consumed. I took a deep breath and apologized all round. My daughter was persuaded to come downstairs again and, between sniffs, reluctantly forgave me; Luke was picked up and pacified, bestowing on me a beaming smile when I ruffled his copper-coloured curls; Nicholas frowned at me reprovingly, while Adam gave me three or four sharp kicks on the ankles and considered honour satisfied. Richard and Adela continued as if nothing had happened, such behaviour being, they implied, beneath their notice and thus putting me, very properly, in my place. (It did cross my mind to wonder why I was never master in my own house, as other men were, but the answer eluded me.)

Adela held out her hand. ‘A kiss under the mistletoe,' she said.

I knew what was in her mind.

After the death of our four-day-old daughter, three years before, she had not conceived again, and it seemed possible that Adam would remain our only child. She was a natural mother, a woman who enjoyed motherhood in spite of all its attendant restraints and vexations, which was the chief reason, I felt sure, why she had agreed with such ease to foster Luke, who had no claim on her affection whatsoever. Adam was now five years old, growing up and away from her and leaving a void in her life that cried out to be filled.

‘I'm a man,' was our son's frequently voiced assertion, and indeed his sturdy independence had come, I think, as something of a surprise to both of us. It shouldn't have done. His birth had been greeted with resentment by his older half-brother and half-sister who, with a mere fortnight in age between them, had been fast friends from the moment that Adela and I were married. As a baby, they had tried to give Adam away to the mad wife of Baker Overbeck, so he had been very much his own man since he was small. The arrival of young Luke within the past few weeks had strengthened this sense of independence, making him no longer the youngest member of the household and bolstering his self-reliance. He had ceased to need his mother in the way he had done before.

Adela was therefore pining for another child of her own. Mistletoe was supposed to have aphrodisiac properties and kissing beneath it to aid fertility. I didn't think that I had been showing any lack of enthusiasm for my marital duties lately – in fact, it was too often Adela who pleaded tiredness – but if that was the way the wind was blowing, I was perfectly ready to comply. I embraced her warmly and gave her a lingering kiss. She reached up, broke a sprig of the plant from the kissing bush and stuck it in my hair just behind my left ear.

Harmony now being fully restored and Christmas, as it were, back on course, we all repaired to the kitchen to have supper, Richard Manifold included. I suppose it was foolish of me to have expected otherwise.

Tonight it was simply the same stew, reheated, that had provided dinner for Adela and the children, but all around me I could see that preparations were underway for the festive meals of the next few days. Assembled on a side table were the dried plums that would make the plum porridge; the eggs, spices and milk, together with a bowl of boiled wheat, which would turn into frumenty; the butcher's leftovers from the bigger joints of meat sold to the gentry which, with apples and dried raisins, would be encased in pastry to make the minced pies; and a rather small, somewhat withered-looking capon, carefully budgeted for over the past month, which would grace our board on the day of Christ's birth itself.

I could see Richard Manifold eyeing these signs of delights to come as he shared our pottage, and I wondered how long it would be before he made some remark. But it was not until the older children had left the table and Adela, with Luke on her lap, was spooning some of the broth into his ever open little mouth, that Richard could no longer refrain from comment.

‘You're well advanced in your preparations, I see, Adela. Are you – er – expecting guests?'

‘Only my cousin, Margaret Walker,' my wife replied tranquilly. ‘She is Elizabeth's grandmother, after all, and naturally wishes to see her only grandchild on Christmas Day. Do you have any plans, dear Richard?'

I could have screamed at her not to be such a fool. The man was obviously angling for an invitation.

I was wrong, however.

‘I shall be eating at the mayor's table,' he said gloomily. ‘The sheriff and his assistants have been invited. But I shall be surprised if the other sergeant, Tom Merryweather, and I get through the meal without interruption. The mummers arrive in Bristol tomorrow afternoon, ready to start their plays on Saint Stephen's Day, and that is invariably the signal for all the young idiots in the town to dress up in masks and go rioting through the streets, making a damn nuisance of themselves and frightening the old biddies half to death. Even Our Lord's birthday's not sacred to them. I don't know what the youth of today is coming to.'

Adela laughed. ‘Richard, you make yourself sound like some old greybeard. The young will be young – it's only to be expected. But I didn't know we were to have mummers this year, did you, Roger?'

I shook my head. ‘Where are they performing?'

‘In the outer ward of Bristol Castle, I believe.' The sergeant rubbed his nose. ‘I heard they're to be given accommodation there, as well. It's only a small troupe. Not more than five or six of them, I've been told.'

‘The children will be pleased,' Adela said, wiping Luke's mouth on a corner of her apron. She regarded it with dismay. ‘Oh dear! Look at that! Now I'll have to wash it again. He really is a messy eater.' She dropped a kiss on the top of the child's curly head. ‘You're looking very pensive, Roger. Is something bothering you?'

‘Not really.' I chewed my thumbnail. ‘It's just that I thought I saw someone in the Green Lattis whom I know. But I can't place him. Which reminds me. Something else rather odd happened. Burl and I—'

‘Oh, Burl Hodge, was it!' exclaimed my wife. ‘I might have known!'

I ignored this interruption. ‘Burl and I,' I continued, ‘saw a woman going into the Lattis just as we were leaving. You'll never guess who it was.'

‘Tell us, then,' my wife invited, setting Luke down among the floor rushes, where he sat happily subjecting his toes to close scrutiny.

‘I have to admit that I didn't actually see her face,' I confessed reluctantly. ‘She was wearing a cloak with the hood pulled well forward. But Burl swears it was Lady Marvell.'

There was a moment's silence before Richard Manifold threw back his head and gave a loud guffaw. ‘The fool was drunk,' he said. He didn't add, ‘like you', but I knew very well it was what he was thinking. In any case, he didn't need to. Adela said it for him.

‘You were both in your cups,' she accused me. ‘Patience Marvell wouldn't be out alone after dark, let alone entering a place like the Green Lattis.'

I sighed. ‘That's what I told Burl, but he would have it that he was right. Said he caught a glimpse of her face under the hood in the light from the lantern in All Saints' porch.'

Richard laughed again and got up. ‘I wouldn't believe anything that guzzler thought he saw when he's had a few beakers of ale. Adela, I must be off. Thank you for supper, and I'm glad I could be of use with the kissing bush. If I don't see you again before Our Blessed Lord's birthday, I wish you all the blessings and joy of the season.' He nodded at me. ‘Goodnight, Roger.'

Adela saw him to the door. When she returned, I asked irritably, ‘And when did Sergeant Manifold become “dear” Richard?'

‘Oh, for heaven's sake, Roger!' Her irritation was as palpable as mine. ‘It was simply an expression.'

‘Not one that I approve of,' I snapped.

She resumed her place at the table and gave me a wan smile. ‘Are we going to go on like this? Quarrelling with one another all Christmas?'

She looked weary and suddenly rather frail. I was immediately contrite.

‘No,' I said. ‘Of course not.'

But I was too sanguine. While she washed the supper dishes, I went into the parlour where a fire burned low on the hearth, sank into my armchair, with its embroidered seat and cushions (all done by Adela's clever fingers), and stretched my legs towards the warmth, expecting, after my busy day and three beakers of ale, to fall asleep immediately.

Chance would have been a fine thing.

I heard the parlour door creak open and the next moment Adam, ready for bed in his little nightshirt, had climbed on to my lap.

‘Story,' he demanded imperatively.

I sighed. ‘I don't know any more stories. I've told you all the ones I know.'

‘Tell again.' He settled himself into the crook of my arm. ‘Tell about Balder and Loki.'

I hesitated. ‘Sweetheart, you know your mother doesn't approve of my telling you these pagan legends.'

‘She won't know,' he answered simply. ‘I shan't tell her.' He wriggled a bit, swinging his legs and watching the shadows they made on the hearthstones. The tallow candle, placed near my chair, guttered and went out. My son and I were left in the dancing firelight. ‘Balder and Loki,' he repeated.

‘Oh, very well,' I said, giving in. ‘Balder, who was called the Beautiful—'

‘I'm beautiful,' Adam said. He was never one to hide his light under a bushel.

I gave him a kiss and a hug. ‘Yes, you are,' I agreed, ‘but don't interrupt. Balder the Beautiful was the second son of the god Odin – or Woden as he's sometimes called – and his wife Frigga, or Freya, the mother of the gods. Balder was the god of the sun, of light and peace, and all the other gods loved him.'

‘Except Loki,' Adam said with relish.

It was obvious who, to him, was the hero of this story. Perhaps it should have worried me, but I remembered myself at his age. Heroes had always been boring: villains were so much more entertaining.

‘I'm coming to that. I told you, don't interrupt. Well, Balder was so beautiful and so beloved that Odin—'

‘Or Woden.'

‘All right. Odin, or Woden, decreed that nothing which sprang from air, fire, water or earth should ever be able to harm him. So all the gods thought that Balder was quite safe from Loki, the god of earth and strife and darkness, who hated him.'

‘But Loki was too clever for them,' my son said, wriggling again in anticipation.

‘Much too clever. He fashioned an arrow made from a branch of mistletoe because mistletoe doesn't grow from the earth. It only grows on other trees.'

‘The oak and the apple.'

‘Yes. And if it grew on an oak, it was especially sacred to the druids, the priests of the old religion. It could only be cut with a knife of pure gold and had to be caught in an equally pure white cloth because it must never touch the ground.'

Adam wasn't interested in this. ‘Go on about Loki,' he commanded.

‘Where was I? Oh, I know. Well, Loki made an arrow from mistletoe, but he was much too wily to fire it himself. Instead, he gave it to the blind god of war, Hoder, and whispered to him in which direction to aim it …'

‘And Hoder shot the arrow and it killed Balder,' my son finished excitedly, bouncing up and down on my knee. ‘And that was the end of Balder.'