John Saturnall's Feast

by Lawrence Norfolk

  ‘No one's had a penny since last Michaelmas,’ added Fanshawe. ‘Mister Pouncey knew what was due. Wages, rents, levies. Every hide of land from Flitwick all the way down to Stollport. It was all in his head. Now he don't know what day it is.’

  Through the gateway to the yard, the barracks built for the King's visit leaned drunkenly. In the stables, two palfreys snorted beside an elderly draught horse. In Motte's kitchen garden weeds flourished and bean frames sagged. Beyond its wall the choked drain-culvert led down to water-meadows rank with weeds. Across the river, Home Farm appeared to have cultivated no more than half a field of kale and the same of rye. Standing on the bank, John eyed the jetty and the glossy green waters. Now the planking was split. The banks were choked with crack willow and alder. Upstream, the blades of the millwheel scooped skeins of riverweed from the sluggish water.

  Walking back up the meadows, the carp ponds alone appeared as they always had, cleared of weed and birds by the Heron Boy. John raised an arm and the ragged figure flapped his wings in greeting.

  ‘Still talking in your sleep?’

  The Heron Boy threw his head back in a silent laugh.

  John and Mister Fanshawe continued up past the Rose Garden wall and the steps to the Great Hall. Beyond the East Garden wall, the chapel was locked.

  ‘Marpot's pastor took the key,’ Fanshawe told John with a grimace.

  ‘Pastor?’

  ‘Didn't her ladyship tell you?’ Fanshawe said. ‘Marpot left him behind. Pastor Ephraim Clough.’ The clerk looked curiously at John. ‘Master Saturnall? You look like you've seen a ghost.’

  ‘You wrap these around your knees,’ Mister Bunce told John that Sunday, handing him a pair of rags. ‘Tie them like this and hide ‘em under your breeches. That way our pastor reckons we're all in agonies, kneeling on that floor. Best to let folks believe what they will, I reckon.’ The stout man grinned.

  ‘And don't do nothing but kneel,’ Tam Yallop warned. ‘They beat one of the hands for fastening his button. Working on the Sabbath, Pastor Clough said.’

  At Ephraim's name, John's dull foreboding returned. It had been growing all week. All around him, the others were binding up their knees and covering up the bandages. Soon a familiar ringing sounded. A hand-bell, John realised. Harsh shouts echoed in the servants’ yard then the nearest cooks shuffled aside. A man garbed in black breeches, a plain black smock, black jacket and short black cloak entered. In one hand he carried a Bible. The other held the bell. The heavy-browed face looked about at the men of the Kitchen.

  ‘So our congregation grows,’ Ephraim Clough declared. Then his gaze found John. A flash of surprise showed in his face. Then a slow smile creased his heavy features.

  ‘Let us give thanks to the Lord,’ he declared. ‘He has sent us another errant soul. Let us pray together for his correction.’

  All that remained of the altar was a rectangular scar on the floor. The glass had been smashed from the windows and the bare walls whitewashed. The pulpit, the altar rail and the pews had gone along with Lady Anne's balcony. Its disappearance uncovered a rough wall broken by a small heavy-timbered door. Buckland's new pastor cast his eyes over the Household, threw his arms wide and sent his short cloak flapping like the wings of a monstrous crow.

  ‘Kneel,’ Ephraim ordered. ‘We shall hearken unto the words of the Lord.’

  All around John, the Household sank to the hard stone floor. At the front, flanked by Gardiner and Pole, John picked out the plain dress and bonnet worn by Lucretia. Gemma, Ginny and Meg knelt alongside her. Behind the congregation, lining the back wall of the chapel, a dozen Militiamen set down their muskets and swords. Two score of them were garrisoned in Callock Marwood, Mister Bunce had told John.

  ‘The Lord spake unto Moses,’ Ephraim recited. ‘And Moses spake unto the people saying, Arm yourselves unto war and go against the Midianites. So there were delivered out of Israel a thousand of every tribe and Moses sent them to war and they slew all the males. And they slew the kings of Midian, namely Zur and Hur . . .’

  Even through the rags, the stone floor seemed to harden as Clough droned on. Along the row, John saw Philip then Alf, Adam, Colin and Luke. Jed Scantlebury was at the end. Clough paused and looked around the sea of heads.

  ‘The Lord told Moses all that,’ Ephraim declared to the silent faces. ‘And Moses told the Children of Israel. The Midianites deserved no mercy. Eschew pity therefore . . .’

  John remembered Father Hole's stories about date palms and fruits and deluges of rain. They seemed to belong to another world to this one. Ephraim's voice bored into his brain, describing God's vengeances and violences.

  ‘Only for the Chosen does God reserve the fruits of his garden. The grapes from his vines and the honey from his hives. For them he loads the tables with sweetmeats and dainties. For those who follow the true path, he serves feasts as he did in Eden . . .’

  It seemed an age before the droning voice fell silent.

  ‘All rise!’ the Captain commanded at last. Slowly, pulling each other up, the Household rose. Ephraim waited by the door, a self-satisfied smile upon his face. As John approached, he held up his hand.

  ‘One moment, Master Saturnall.’

  Philip paused beside him but a Militiaman pushed him forward. John eyed his former antagonist.

  ‘Perhaps you imagine I seek revenge,’ Ephraim said. ‘Or that I harbour ill-will towards you for your offences against me. For your malice and violence. But I do not. I serve a higher Authority. Colonel Marpot purged me of such thoughts as keep me from God. Thus do I purge this household of its luxuries and vanities. The low and high alike.’

  Ephraim glanced back. Alone in the chapel, Lucretia still knelt on the floor. A smirk creased Clough's features.

  ‘Now we both serve Lady Lucretia. You in the kitchen. And I here, in God's house.’

  With that, Paster Clough stepped back into the chapel and swung the door shut.

  ‘What do they do?’ John asked Philip.

  ‘Gemma says they pray,’ Philip told him.

  ‘Is that all?’

  ‘What else would they do?’

  In the week she kept to the house. Without sight of the young woman, John could no more penetrate the sanctum of Lucretia's thoughts than his eyes could see through the thick oak planks of the chapel door. He buried himself in the kitchen where, at Mister Bunce's insistence, he swung the ladle each morning.

  ‘Scovell left it for you, John,’ the Head of Firsts told him as the others nodded their approval across the table in Firsts. ‘Left you the whole kitchen, I reckon.’

  Under John's instruction, the men and boys once again took up their proper stations for the preparation of breakfast while Quiller's serving men stood in line on the stair. Colin and Luke rolled the trays as they always had and Philip supervised from the hearth. Finding shovels in Motte's shed, John set a reluctant Jim and Jem Gingell to clearing the foul-smelling culvert below the Rose Garden. The stagnant pond around the kitchen drain disappeared leaving nothing but a scum-line on the flagstone floor. Simeon joined Tam Yallop in the bakehouse and once again the smell of baking bread drifted through the passages below Buckland Manor. Colin and Luke scoured the storerooms and larders, the beet lofts and old root clamps for scraps to enliven the evening pottage. Immersed in the kitchen's work, John kept his thoughts from the young woman above. Then Sunday came again.

  ‘And the Children of Israel took all the women of Midian captive,’ Clough intoned. ‘They took their little ones, and took the spoil of all their cattle, and all their flocks, and all their goods. And they burnt all their cities, and all their goodly castles. And they took all the spoil and all the prey. And Moses said unto them, Have ye saved all the women alive? Behold, these caused the children of Israel to commit trespass. Now therefore kill every male among the little ones and kill every woman that hath known a man by lying with him. But all the women that have not known men, keep alive for yourselves . . .’

  The words echoed in the
bare interior. Kneeling on the bare stone floor, the Buckland Household wrapped rags around their knees and concealed them beneath their breeches. John knelt with the others under the eyes of the Militia while Clough's voice buzzed and whined like a wasp trapped in his ear. At the end of the service, Lucretia again remained behind. Once again Clough closed the door of the chapel.

  John's blisters healed. He rose earlier than the other cooks and was the last to take to his bed, yawning and rubbing his eyes as he stumbled among the men and boys snoring in the kitchen and Firsts. Every Sunday, he wrapped his knees in rags like the others and knelt in the chapel. At the end of each tedious lesson, after the Household had shuffled out, the door closed on Ephraim and Lucretia.

  John took to walking in the High Meadow, tramping through the long grass and looking down on the ancient nave. No lights showed within. No sound issued from the gloom beyond the glassless windows. But Lucretia's words resounded in his head, their meaning just out of reach. Like Tantalus in his pool.

  We only exchange our desires . . .

  What had she meant to tell him? He twisted and turned on the question's hook but he could not get free. He snapped at the boys in the kitchen and fell into long silences until Philip roused him. As winter approached, a cold wind blew in from Elminster Plain. The pottage thinned. The bread grew harder.

  ‘Remember Phineas's loaves?’ Philip reminded John as the latest batch was carried out like so many dark bricks.

  ‘Even Phineas couldn't have got a loaf out of ground beans and rye,’ John replied. ‘We might as well sweep the dust out of the stables.’

  ‘Some of the men are talking of leaving,’ Philip said. He broke off a chunk of bread and chewed gloomily. ‘Lady Lucy's fast. That's what they're calling it.’

  ‘Who is?’ John demanded. ‘Where would they go? Zoyland?’

  ‘Ben's ledger doesn't lie. We'll be eating our boots by Plough Monday.’ Philip looked down at his own worn pair. ‘If we still have boots.’

  ‘Adam and Eve hid in the garden,’ Ephraim Clough announced to the puzzled Household the next Sunday. For some reason he had stationed himself outside the chapel. He stood before the door, his eyes bulging strangely. ‘But the Lord spied them in their finery. Now I learn their fallen descendants repeat that ancient error, wrapping their limbs for their comfort and ease.’

  ‘What's he talking about?’ Philip murmured to John. ‘What are those doing here?’

  Barrows were drawn up beside the chapel wall, each one filled with pebbles and stones. John shook his head.

  ‘But the Lord's servants are not deceived.’ Ephraim wagged an accusing finger as if the men and women of the Household were disobedient children. ‘Bind the fig leaf about you and the Lord will strip it away. Paint your faces if you will. The Lord will scrub them clean. Mock God and He will mock you back.’ His features twisted themselves into a grin. ‘And his mockery is harsh.’

  Ephraim pointed to Mrs Pole. Two of the Militiamen grasped the governess's angular frame. As the woman shrieked, a third soldier pulled up her skirts to expose the clouts bound about her knees.

  ‘Strip them off!’ cried Ephraim.

  The Militiaman ripped the cloths free. A low mutter of protest rose from the Household but the other soldiers raised their muskets. Ephraim surveyed the men, women and boys.

  ‘Who will be next?’

  ‘Someone told him,’ muttered Philip. ‘Must've done.’

  ‘But who?’ asked John. Then a movement caught his eye. Lucretia strode forward, her face set.

  ‘I will command my Household, Pastor Clough.’

  As she pulled up her skirts to expose coarse woollen stockings, John saw a fascinated look pass across Ephraim's face. All around the assembly men and women were stripping off bandages and pads of rags. At a sign from Ephraim, a gang of Motte's gardeners were pushed forward by the Militiamen. Wheeling the barrows into the chapel, they began shovelling their contents onto the floor. Pebbles and stones skittered over the flagstones.

  ‘The Lord shall smite thee in the knees and in the legs,’ Ephraim declared. ‘Now enter the Lord's house as you deserve. On your knees.’

  They were forced inside. John felt the stones and pebbles bite into his knees. At the front he saw Lucretia's bonnet. The young woman knelt before her Household, motionless and unbending.

  ‘How many Militiamen are there?’ Adam Lockyer asked that night, still rubbing his knees. ‘Two dozen? There's two score of us. Able-bodied, that is.’

  ‘And one traitor,’ Philip said, looking about him darkly. ‘How did Clough know?’

  ‘We could drive ‘em all off,’ Adam persisted. But Mister Bunce shook his head.

  ‘They'd be back with Marpot and the rest of them. Lady Lucretia saw him off once.’

  ‘So what if he comes?’ Adam said defiantly. ‘We'll throw him out too . . .’

  But Bunce shook his head. ‘Not them. When Marpot found the Bishop had got away he slit the noses of his men. Even the boys.’

  ‘He cut a man's hands off at Masholt,’ added Stone.

  ‘Then what do we do?’ demanded Adam. ‘Nothing?’

  At the other end of the table, John remembered Ephraim's heavy-browed face lying temptingly beneath his poised fist. But then he recalled Lucretia's pact with Marpot, whatever it had been. Her hours in the chapel with Clough. She had saved Yapp. Saved Buckland . . .

  ‘We can do nothing,’ he said.

  The same ritual was repeated the next Sunday and the one after that. Ephraim Clough seemed to take a particular pleasure in his new regime, talking until the grunts and groans from the floor threatened to drown him out. He seemed to direct much of his harangue at Lucretia, John noticed. As he limped out with the others, he endured Ephraim's lofty smile. Released from the cold bare chamber, he walked off the aches in his legs and knees, making long circuits of the house. But always he found himself tramping the rank grass in the High Meadow above the chapel. On Old Saint Andrew's Day, a cold wind blew but John did not feel it. He looked down on the chapel trying to imagine whatever might be taking place within its walls.

  The windows remained dark. The chapel remained silent. Slowly the wind abated and the great tower loomed out of a darkening sky. A grey blanket of cloud thickened above. As John looked up, the first flakes of snow drifted down. Then he heard a cry.

  This was not her face, Lucretia had thought, staring at herself in the pier glass on the night before her wedding. Not her arms and legs. Not her breasts or sex . .. She shuddered at the thought of what tomorrow would bring. The walk into the chapel with Piers's clammy hand draped over her own. All around her the Household hummed, from the maids’ garret above to the kitchens far below where the cooks were working.

  He was down there. Preparing the feast to celebrate her union. Tomorrow his dishes would practise a different deception. As would she. She had only to speak the words, she reminded her self. Gemma fussed about her, combing and curling her hair. Then heavy footfalls sounded, advancing down the passage. Her father's gait.

  The broad-shouldered man stood in her doorway as he had in the Solar Gallery, a dark silhouette blotting out the light. At a gesture from Sir William, Gemma scurried out. Lucretia watched him turn the heavy gold ring on his finger. He had come to gloat, she thought. To affirm his victory over her. Then her father spoke.

  ‘You have never feared me, have you? Even when I harangued you. You never flinched or bowed your head. When I demanded your obedience, you defied me. My daughter.’

  She stared at him, too surprised to speak. He had never addressed her in such a manner before. Let alone called her ‘my daughter’.

  ‘I have paid you those respects which are your due, Father,’ she managed. Her father nodded.

  ‘This Vale of Buckland has always been our legacy,’ he went on. ‘Won for us by the first Fremantle. That is our Covenant, carved at the foot of his tomb. That we should keep the Vale, generation upon generation. But as the Lord gives, so he takes too, as the first of us learn
ed. Up there in his tower, he still looks back whence he came.’

  The ring turned on his finger, around and around.

  ‘I too dared to look back. When I first set eyes on Lady Anne it was as if the Lord had gifted me that happiness which all mankind enjoyed in the first days. Adam and Eve were no more joyful than we.’ He glanced down at the table where her sampler lay, the legend ‘Piers’ surmounting a lopsided image of a man. ‘Now, on the eve of your nuptials, perhaps you too may gauge that happiness?’

  He looked at her. But Lucretia's desires had fled the clumsy cross-stitched figure. Piers's whey-faced image sank to be replaced by a darker face, his red livery mottled with ancient stains. He had fed her. She had wrapped herself in the dress for him, imagining his hands drawing the silk tight about her.

  ‘Yes,’ her father said. ‘I see the same happiness in your eyes.’

  She bowed her head demurely.

  ‘The Lord took back my joy,’ he said. ‘The same Providence that gave Lady Anne and me such pleasures offered such sorrow that I would have followed my love despite the Lord's prohibition on that act. Only a promise stayed my hand. A promise I made to your mother. She brought you forth out of love for me and to keep safe the Vale. I promised her that I would care for you.’

  As he spoke, Lucretia saw his face take on an expression she remembered from the Solar Gallery. It was puzzlement, she saw now. As if he could not comprehend his fate. He approached her now, his heavy limbs seeming to fill the room. He took a seat before her. Then her surprise became amazement. Her father reached forward and took her hands in his own.

  ‘I broke that promise,’ the man said. ‘I neglected you, Lucretia.’ He paused. ‘Forgive me.’

  His hands pressed her own as if he were trying to draw strength from her. Lucretia remembered the moment in her mother's bed-chamber when she had thought to go to him. ‘If you ask it, then I forgive you,’ she said awkwardly.