There’s quiet while I finish the Eating and say the closing words. Walking out the door, I see the Bull and the broad man have come outside. “Bet the cannons’re for the bloody Eucharistians in the North,” the broad man says softly to the Bull. “Northern folk believe the Queen and her ladies used witchcraft on Maris to murder her babes and take the throne. Fighting words, those are.”
The Bull nods. “Baron Seymaur was killed for that, wasn’t he?”
“Nah, he was killed for trying to get on the throne himself. Got the ax. Fortune and title both forfeit. Burned his golden wings outside the castle.” The broad man looks back inside the foundry door. “Was it the cannon mold that did for Sorrell?”
“Fell and crushed him like a press.” The Bull spits on the ground. “We’re too small for cannon.”
* * *
I walk back under a sky spotted with plump clouds like wool batting. I think about what Jane said on the way to the field this morning, that where she comes from folk don’t believe in Eve. I think on how the Instrument Maker doesn’t believe in sin eaters. The thoughts make me unsettled, like they had said the earth wasn’t firm or the sky could crack and fall. I’m like the untethered river wherry again, spinning in dark waters.
Up in my loft, I take off my new shawl and shoes. I unpin my brass collar. I turn the collar around, peering close at the thing that so recently bound me. It was to remain locked forever by the Maker’s will. But it’s unlocked now, and the earth hasn’t split, the sky hasn’t fallen. I don’t believe Jane and the Instrument Maker are right. But mayhap they’re not wrong, either.
You’re just a thing, I tell the collar, trying out the words.
It looks right back at me, hard. It wants to be as big as a Makerman. It wants to be as weighty as the Maker’s word. It wants to lock me up with no breadth for choices. But it can’t anymore.
You’re just a bit of metal now, I say. Then I add, a little tremble in my guts, a bit of metal that I own.
I listen, all nerves, fearing what it’ll say back. But it says nothing. It’s quiet.
So I go on. You’re like a smithy’s tongs or a washerwoman’s apron. Tomorrow I’ll wear you because I need you for my work. Then I place the collar in my box on the shelf, where it will sit until I need it again.
It feels good to do it. I’m still unsure about Jane and the Instrument Maker’s words, but I’m on firm ground again. Like I’m no longer an apprentice. As if in putting the collar where it belongs, I’ve become the master.
27. COCK BRAIN TART
THE MORNING OF the revels, the household wakes early again. I remove my collar from my box and pin it in place. Then I wrap my new shawl with care over it so it can’t be seen until I’m ready. I put on a head coif from one of the old sin eater boxes. It’s part of my disguise.
I promise I’ll return it, I swear to the box.
I pull on my new corked shoes. In my sleeve I place the tallow, hay, and chalk I bought at the market. Then I pick up my pail of two-day-old piss.
* * *
I stand in wonderment, taking in the sight of the field. It’s like a fairy kingdom. The tentpoles are all topped with crowned falcons, and along the eaves where the tent roof meets its walls, there’s a cloth of gold fringe.
But the true marvel is the paintings. A midsummer night with a sky of stars above blooming moonflowers and evening primroses frames the tent entrance so it looks like you could walk right into the painting. My chin drops with staring.
“Move it along!” shouts a man hauling a fountain with two others. They place the fountain just in front of the tent opening
“What’s this?” asks a folk behind me. “A water feature?” It’s Frederick’s voice. He and Paul are both gandering like me. The sight of Paul gives me a star-shaped flush of anger between my rib bones.
I’ll deal with him after, I tell the great tent. I’ve a killer to catch first.
“Fountain of wine,” the fountain carrier tells Frederick.
“Why, the festivities will be Roman in their decadence!” Frederick sings out.
“We got another one coming; can you move it along?” the fountain carrier says back.
I make my way to the side of the tents close on Frederick’s and Paul’s heels. We come upon Jane and the other painters still at work. Jane’s children run to Frederick when they see him. He gives them a nuzzle, then sends them back to Jane. The elder wants to stay. “Shall you be the tiniest mechanical and help us build the stage?” Frederick tells him. “Come round later to the tiring room, and Paul will dress you up as a bear.”
Frederick and Paul continue to one of the small tents attached to the bigger ones. There’s men already at work ferrying trunks and clothing racks into it.
“We were meant to start at dawn,” says a clean-shaven man with hair as long as a woman’s.
“I brought reinforcements,” Frederick answers.
“Is that Paul, now?” says a tall man with a trim, gray beard and booming voice. “Haven’t seen you in an age.” Paul embraces the tall man, then he and Frederick join in the work.
I keep going on to the very back of all the tents, where the field kitchen is. As I walk, I see the richly dressed man who was overseeing things yesterday. He’s got guards with him today.
The pit fires of the field kitchen are already smoking. The boys turning the spits have shed their shirts even though the morning’s still cool. A line of scullions runs between a wagon and a second small tent ferrying linen cloths, plates, and dishes inside. This small tent must be where they’ll plate and dress the food for the feast.
Beyond the field kitchen, I finally find the jakes. They’ve been dug far enough away that the sight and stink won’t bother any of the highborn folk. Far enough away, I hope, that a cry might not be heard in them, especially over the music of a play.
The outsides of the jakes have been hung with cloth to make them seem grander than the quick-made huts they are. Still, they’re large enough for a woman in a farthingale to get into and out of, which means there’ll be enough room for my plan.
Now I need to find a good spot to wait. To the side of the field is a small hill, not much more than a mound, really. It’s got a few large stones good for sitting and should afford a view onto not only the jakes, but the whole path from the tent entrance back to them. With luck I’ll be able to see anyfolk who goes for a piss. But it’s too open a place for me to sit now in full daylight. I’ll need to find somewhere to wait for sunset where none will question me.
Still carrying my pail of piss, I cross through a cloth flap into the main tent. It doesn’t take long to find Frederick, Paul, and the other actors atop the largest table I’ve ever seen. It must be their stage. The small tent with their trunks and clothing racks is just behind it.
Frederick is fitting the back of the stage with a long wooden groove. The clean-shaven, long-haired man is walking about singing a song. The tall man with the booming voice is jabbing his arm forward and back as if he’s fighting with a sword, but he’s alone and there’s nothing in his hand. It’s such an odd scene, folk won’t notice a common girl in among the others sitting quiet.
As I watch, the actors all gather together to place a tall archway over the top of the stage. Not long after, I see something I recognize. Two actors carry in Jane’s painting of a stranger house on the flat wooden panel. They slide it into the groove Frederick built. The painted panel stands up and makes the stage look like it’s the road in front of a stranger house. There’s a second wooden panel too. It’s painted to look like a deep, dark wood.
Paul, Frederick, and the others tie ropes to the top of the panels, attach them to the archway above, and then use the ropes to lift the panels up and down. It’s like when they were raising the tent roof. I don’t know how they can lift something so heavy with such ease. They must be strong as oxen.
My thoughts wander to the few plays I’ve seen. Not newspantos, but proper plays up on a stage with grown actors playing them. It was always summer
, and the company of actors would come to town dressed in festive robes and singing songs from the back of a wagon. As a child, you knew you weren’t supposed to talk to them, since actors are vagabonds. They don’t belong to any one place and have no kin ties. Gracie Manners said some of the actors whore themselves out in the towns they visit too.
Whoring: dried plum.
The play I most remember was a comedy about a master and his servant. The actors were strangers, with accents like the Instrument Maker has. In the play, the master didn’t want to marry a woman he had got with child, so he made his servant change places with him. There was lots of play with juggling and tumbling, but also lots of play with words. The servant made one joke about the apples on his master’s tree, which could mean either the bastard the master made or his bollocks. It made all the folk listening laugh.
The actors were all men, even the one playing the woman with child. That actor was clean-shaven and painted his face with white lead, like the Painted Pig. I remember she said the paint poisoned her skin. That’s what happened to Paul. If he started playing women when he was my age, he might have passed ten years wearing white lead on his face and hands. But the Painted Pig’s face wasn’t nearly so spoiled as Paul’s. Mayhap it’s different for different folk.
The afternoon wears on. The tent walls all get staked down, and rich fabrics are hung on their insides to cover the plain canvas. Tables are set for the feast with centerpieces on them, mostly green branches tied with violets or large feathers. In the center of the branches are little towers with the banners of Queen Bethany and the Norman prince. Other folk hang giant candle sconces that look like deer antlers from the tentpoles. It’s pretty and an awful lot of work.
Musicians arrive with lutes, viols, and even a trumpet. I wonder if they’re the musicians from the Domus Conversorum. I look for the Instrument Maker and his chest rumbler, but he’s not with them.
Frederick and the other actors greet the musicians. Then the actors walk around the stage and call out words to indicate when the musicians are meant to make music during the play. Paul, I notice, has gone. It must be getting toward evening.
Suddenly I hear a strong voice. It’s the richly dressed overseer with not just one, but a whole gaggle of clerks. The overseer barks something and the clerks spread out, looking over all the tables and chairs and centerpieces, straightening this and fixing that and making sure everything is in its place. I pick up my piss pail and go before they reach me.
I nip along the edge of the main tent to the back, where there’s a curtained doorway into the small tent for plating up food. It leads out-of-doors to the field kitchen and the jakes beyond.
Inside the little food tent, there’s a miniature castle made entirely of spun sugar with windows and gates and everything. I can’t help but take a moment to look it over. Another table is stacked with plate upon plate of stuffed fowl dressed in different fashions, one cooked swan even covered back up with its own snow-white feathers to make it look alive. There’s also a thick quarter of venison dripping with honey and roasted apples. It brings the taste of deer heart to my lips.
Tonight, my heart thumps. Tonight, I’m opening the jammed lock.
Oddly there aren’t any scullions or cooks about. The tent is empty of folk. As I wonder on it, I step out of the tent into the late-afternoon light. Direct into Black Fingers and his guards.
28. SACK POSSET
THE GUARDS HAVE rounded up all the kitchen folk. I’m at the very back of the gathering with the half-dressed turnspit boys. While Black Fingers looks on from the side, the guards are reviewing each and every folk to be sure they belong. Which I surely don’t.
I turn back toward the little tent. I’ll retrace my steps and slip out another way. But before I can duck inside, a guard spies me.
“No you don’t, girlie,” he says. “Back with the others you go.”
I’m stuck. Three or four guards seem to be doing all the checking. Black Fingers looks impatient, but he’s still watching the goings-on. My heart leaps into my throat. Even with my collar covered by my shawl and a coif covering my hair, Black Fingers might recognize my face. I can’t get caught.
I move to the side of the group farthest from Black Fingers. A lower cook ahead of me stamps with waiting. “I’ve got salmon to dress.”
Another lower cook blows out his cheeks and mutters, “They had me leave my wine sauce on the fire. Guess if it’s spoiled.”
My eyes keep going back to Black Fingers to see if he’s seen me. There’s three guards all checking folk at the same time, I tell myself. There’s plenty else to take his attention. But my arms are light and tingly. I recall Ruth the Sin Eater, her steady quiet, and try to settle my nerves.
The two lower cooks get waved up to the guards to be checked. It’s mostly scullions and spitboys left now. They seem not to mind the pause. The one direct in front of me digs in his ear with a little twig.
I belong, I chant. I belong. But my heart patters like a rabbit’s.
“Come on.” A guard waves me forward. He looks me square in the face. I’ve covered my collar, I remind myself. I still feel naked under his eyes. It amazes me that I was ever at ease with folk looking at me direct.
“What do you do here?” the guard asks looking me over.
Maker knows I can’t speak, not least because he’d see the S tattoo across my tongue. So I bow my head as if I’m shy and raise my pail of piss. The pail’s movement sends a waft of old piss stink right toward the guard.
“Maker above, that smells like a jakes,” he swears.
I nod, letting the pail rock back and forth.
“Lower the pail, girlie, and move off a bit,” he directs. “They won’t be soaking table linens until after the feast.”
I point toward the field kitchen, making sure to swing the pail widely as I do, so the smell comes stronger. It’s the key to my ruse. I smell so foul, he’ll want to move me along as quick as he can.
Then, from the side of my eye, I see Black Fingers look over to see what’s taking so long. “How now?” he calls.
The guard’s deciding what to say. I cannot be caught. Black Fingers will kill me. I rock to the side so my feet wobble in my raised, corked shoes. I let the wobble pass up my arm and tip the pail forward so a little wave of piss swells over the side and onto the grass just in front of the guard’s boots.
“Hey now!” cries the guard, stirred to decision. “Just a laundress,” he calls back to Black Fingers. The guard covers his nose and mouth. He waves me on. “Go on, then. Give your piss to the scullions or what have you. They’ll give you your penny.”
I take a peek toward Black Fingers. His eyes are following as I walk on to the field kitchen.
* * *
The smoke of the pit fires burns my eyes. The sun hasn’t quite set, but it’s low enough that I dare to sneak over to the little bluff I found earlier. I climb up. From its top, I can see all along the side of the tents. At one end is the main tent’s entrance where all the highborn folk will go in and out. At the other end is the small tent I just left for plating up food, the field kitchen, and the jakes.
I find a nice flat stone for sitting and place my piss pail a ways off. My disguise worked. Mayhap my plan will succeed, and by evening’s end, I’ll have made good on my vow to Ruth. A wish comes to me, a little wish that’s been creeping toward my heart for days like a vine coming in between the shingles of a roof.
If I catch the killer, mayhap the Maker will forgive me my other sins and I can go to the heavenly plains when I die, instead of suffering at Eve’s side.
The sky is wide tonight, filled with pink and gold clouds standing tall and thick, like great white bears. The bears float across the sky, away from the setting sun, toward the blue night. The bears seem like good luck. Like I might get my wish.
From my spot I can also see the little costume tent just behind the actors’ stage. The company has come out-of-doors. Some actors are standing in the grass making humming noises like singin
g, but without words. The clean-shaven, long-haired man is jabbering on to Frederick about something. Jane’s reappeared and is pinning a hat in the shape of a pigeon onto one actor’s head. Mayhap it’s meant to be a dove.
When the sun finally disappears and darkness comes, the actors go back inside. Linkboys light their lanterns, ready to guide folk coming and going. The Queen’s guests begin to arrive.
* * *
The lights inside the main tent throw shadows of the highborn folks within onto its walls. The shadows get larger and smaller when the wind moves the canvas. Music comes through the tent walls too. It’s odd that the wind and music are both things you can’t see, but one moves the cloth and the other doesn’t.
The music’s the same kind as I heard at the Domus Conversorum. Both sweet and sad. Even though I didn’t see him, I hear the Instrument Maker’s chest rumbler. He must be inside. I don’t know why, but the thought gives me courage.
All at once the music changes. There are trumpets like somefolk’s arriving. I look to the entrance and see a line of folk bowing. The Queen and the Norman emissary must be going in.
Not long after, the play begins. I know because the music changes again, and I hear Frederick’s strong voice even all the way up on the mound where I’m sitting.
I sit and wait. I wait so long that a cricket starts singing near my left foot. Hopefully Fair Hair is drinking lots of wine so she’ll have to piss all the sooner, and I can get off this stone. I shift my legs, and the cricket gets quiet.
Finally somefolk comes by. The crescent moon is bright, so I see the face of the highborn man as he walks alongside the tent. He’s well into his cups. He waves to a linkboy, ready with his lantern. The boy guides him on toward the jakes in my plain view.
As the man approaches the jakes he takes the lantern from the boy and goes on alone. Then, if you’d believe it, he doesn’t go inside. After all that way, he pisses right on the jakes’ wall as if it’s too much work to open the door. Folk are odd.
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