‘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.
‘Underneath the bench, Philip,’ sniffed the man. He frowned at John. ‘Who's the stranger?’
‘Joining the Household, Mister Bunce,’ explained Philip.
‘Who says?’
‘Sir William himself, I heard,’ Philip answered without a pause.
‘All right,’ Mister Bunce muttered. Then he lifted his head and called, ‘Stranger
in!’ With this salutation, Philip ushered John into the room.
The kitchen was not as large as John had imagined. A line of tables ran along one wall. At the end, three pots stood over a flickering fire tended by a ginger-haired boy. From a doorway opposite came the sound of water splashing and the banging of pots and pans. A man so expressionless he might have been any age looked out from that room.
‘That's Mister Stone,’ said Philip. ‘Head of the Scullery. And that boy over there's Alf.’
‘It's not so big,’ John ventured. ‘The kitchen,’ he added when Philip looked puzzled. How could all the men in red livery work in here?
Philip grinned. ‘Kitchen's not big enough,’ he said to Alf who looked puzzled too for a moment. Then he smiled as well.
Philip led John across the flagstone floor and pulled aside a thick leather curtain. A deep hum reached John's ears. A short passage led to some steps and a set of heavy double doors. As he followed Philip, the din got louder. Then the boy heaved on a handle and the door swung open.
‘This is the kitchen.’
A wave of noise broke over John, voices shouting, pots banging, pans clanging, knives and cleavers thudding on blocks. But he hardly heard the din. A great flood of aromas swamped the noise, thick as soup and foaming with flavours: powdery sugars and crystallised fruit, dank slabs of beef and boiling cabbage, sweating onions and steaming beets. Fronts of fresh-baked bread rolled for- ward then sweeter cakes. Behind the whiffs of roasting capons and braising bacon came the great smoke-blackened hams which hung in the hearth. Fish was poaching somewhere in a savoury liquor at once sweet and tart, its aromas braided in twirling spirals . . . The silphium, thought John. A moment later it was lost in the tangle of scents that rose from the other pots, pans and great steaming urns. The rich stew of smells and tastes reaching into his memory to haul up dishes and platters. For a moment he was back in the wood. His mother's voice was reciting the dishes and the spiced wine was settling like a balm in his stomach, banishing his cold and hunger, even his anger. He closed his eyes and breathed in the scents, drawing them deeper and deeper . . .
‘Are you all right?’
‘What?’ John opened his eyes with a start. Philip Elsterstreet was peering anxiously at his face.
‘You not going to be sick, are you?’
John managed a shake of his head.
‘Good.’ Philip pointed to a dark wooden board nailed above the door. ‘Being sick's against the rules.’
Thick pillars supported a vaulted ceiling. Half-moon windows were set high in one wall. Heavy tables filled the middle of the kitchen where men wearing aprons and headscarves chopped, hacked, jointed and tied. Boys lurched between them, staggering under trays and pans towards the wide arches and passage on the far side. At a table near the centre, a circle of men whirled white cloth bundles about their heads as if performing a strange dance.
‘Kitchen's older'n the house, Master Scovell says,’ Philip went on. ‘The fire's even older. If it goes out.’ The boy drew a finger across his throat. ‘That's it.’
At that moment the men whirling cloths all flung them down at once. Out tumbled a heap of bright green leaves. ‘Sallet board,’ Philip explained. ‘Nothing but leaves allowed on that.’
Behind the sallet board, a cook was hauling down trays the size of small cartwheels from a heavy rack mounted beside a tall dresser. As John watched, he began rolling them over the floor with a call of ‘Mind yer backs!’ Men and boys swayed aside as the rumbling discs teetered across the room to topple into a pair of waiting hands. A stack of pewter bowls clattered onto each tray which was carried to the far side of the kitchen. There an enormous hearth stretched the full width of the room. At one end, a long-moustached man drew slow figure-of-eights in a pot with a stirring lathe while his stockier companion wielded a ladle. Fist-sized gobbets of steaming grey porridge slopped stickily into the bowls.
‘End of breakfast service,’ said Philip. ‘For us, I mean. Them up there are still stuffing their faces.’
He gestured up at the ceiling with a dismissive look.
‘Up there?’
‘The Household. We don't have much to do with them down here. Except feeding them, of course.’
All around the kitchen, the cooks barked orders: ‘Water here!’ or ‘Sharpener!’ or ‘Dressed and in!’ Then an under-cook or a boy would run over to deliver something, or take it away, or lend a hand in another of the kitchen's inscrutable operations.
Beyond the tall dresser John glimpsed a passageway and the foot of a staircase. Across the kitchen, flanked by stacks of firewood, a great chimney breast rose above a gaping hearth. Then a new scent wafted past John's nostrils: sharp but rich. Nestled in straw in a wooden crate on the nearest bench lay a dozen or more fruits, bright yellow with waxy, finely mottled skins. He had seen them in the book. Now he stared.
‘Ain't you never seen a lemon before?’ Philip Elsterstreet asked.
‘Course I have,’ John muttered. ‘I just didn't know.’
‘Know what?’
John hesitated. ‘I didn't know they were yellow.’
Philip gave him another odd look. At the far end of the hearth near the arches and the passage, a great cloud of steam billowed up. The smell of fish soup wafted across the kitchen. John saw four men dressed in tunics and aprons step back from the scalding steam. One turned and caught sight of the boys.
‘You two!’ called the short bald man across the kitchen. ‘Come here!’
‘That's Master Henry,’ whispered Philip. ‘Josh's brother.’
‘I know,’ said John, trying to remember how exactly he was meant to address the man. Look at their faces, he thought. Or not look.
‘The other three are the Heads of the Kitchen. Mind your tongue. Especially around Vanian.’
‘Who's Vanian?’
‘In the middle. Looks like a rat.’
The hearth yawned wider as they approached. John stared up at the wheels and chains of an enormous spit. Above a low fire, an array of simmering pots rose in size to a cauldron large enough to boil a pig.
‘That's Master Scovell's copper,’ Philip told him in an undertone. An under-cook was applying gentle blasts from a bellows to the glowing embers beneath. John caught the strange smell again. Lilies and pitch, thinner than he remembered.
‘Where's Joshua?’ Henry Palewick demanded as they approached. ‘And that other fellow. Face like a horse.’
‘Ben Martin,’ said John. After a long pause he remembered to add, ‘Master Henry.
Henry Palewick began questioning Philip on what they were doing in the kitchen where, as Philip and everyone else knew, no one but kitchen staff were permitted unless by invitation. Not even Mister Pouncey could enter unbidden, as Philip well knew. Not even Sir William himself . . .
The rat-like Vanian flicked shrewd black eyes over John then returned to his discussion with the other two, which centred on a kettle suspended in the cauldron. The whiff of Ben's parcel hovered under the delicious aroma offish. Suddenly John felt hungry. The men, he saw, were sipping from a ladle which they passed between them. The tallest of the three slurped and smiled.
‘Whether or not Miss Lucretia consumes it, the kitchen has discharged its duty,’ he declared cheerfully. He towered a whole head over the others. ‘A simple broth is most apt for a young stomach, especially a stomach which chooses privation over nourishment. Lampreys. Crab shells ground fine. Stockfish and . . .’ He sniffed then frowned.
‘Simple, Mister Underley?, jibed Vanian in a nasal voice. ‘If it is simple, then how is it spiced?,
‘Came in a parcel this morning,, Henry Palewick offered. ‘Down from Soughton. Master Scovell had it out in a moment. Smelled like flowers to me. Whatever it was.’
‘Which flowers?, demanded the fourth man of the quartet, in a foreign accent. He pointed a large-nostrilled nose at Henry. ‘Saffron, agrimony and comfrey bound the cool-humoured plants; meadowsweet, celandine and wormwood the hot. Which did this smell resemble?,
‘What does it matter, Melichert?, answered Henry with a weary sigh. ‘It is a broth of fish and lampreys.’
‘Hardly a full description,’ Vanian snapped disdainfully. ‘One might as well ask a laundry maid how to weave a sheet. One may as well ask this boy!’ he concluded contemptuously.
Heads turned. The other cooks peered down. John realised belatedly that Vanian was indicating himself. Before he could retreat, the rat-faced man had beckoned John forward and lifted the lid of the pot.
‘Approach, boy,’ he ordered, then turned to the others. ‘Let us discover how well the untrained palate performs.’ Vanian smirked. ‘Or fails to perform.’
Beads of yellow oil trembled on the surface. A deep orange liquid shimmered beneath. A puff of pungent steam wafted up, carrying a rich salty smell. Lilies hung behind it, and the pitch. But they were blanched, or blended somehow. John sniffed and the aroma began to uncurl, the flavours separating on his palate, a strange sensation rasping the back of his throat. For the first time since Buckland, John's demon brought out his spoon.
‘Observe,’ began Vanian in a lofty tone, ‘how the broth subsumes its parts into a single liquor, each one transformed. Let us begin with the spices.’ He looked expectantly at John for a theatrical moment. ‘No? Then allow me . . .’
‘Mace,’ said John.
Underley's head turned. Roos raised his eyebrows. Henry Palewick stared.
‘Crushed cumin,’ John continued. ‘Coriander seeds, marjoram, rue. Vinegar. Some honey and . . . ‘ His voice trailed off. All four Head Cooks were staring at him. Vanian's black eyes narrowed.
‘And?’
He could smell the plant from the wood. But something in Vanian's look made him hold his tongue. Before the cook could ask again, a commotion sounded across the kitchen.
From the door, Mister Fanshawe and Mister Wichett approached like complementary red and green islands, surrounded by their clerks. At the rear trailed a stony-faced Josh Palewick. At the front, leading the little mob, was the black-haired kitchen boy.
John Saturnall's Feast Page 11