by Clio Gray
Over the bridge they came, the participants in Prince Rupert’s Christmas Gift Box, over the moat whose ice was broken three times daily so the swans could swim and the carp could rise or hide from the carriages as they clattered across the new-tarred, snow-swept planks. The tower rose above them five storeys high, criss-crossed by hidden servant-running corridors and stairways, cold and damp, shafted through by light or shadow from the recessed windows, their sills bevelled by five-hundred-year-old grooves carved out for the buckets of brimstone and burning oil that now held only oats and barley for the horses stabled far below in their byres. The guests alighted from their carriages, straightening complex dresses, unfurling coats, greeted by the prince’s men-of-state one by one, name by name, sorted by title, rank and wealth. As darkness fell, and the Great Hall filled, musicians struck up their tunes, yule-logs spitting in their fire-places, the guests beginning to wander the circumference of the enormous table to find their names gilded onto marzipan swans to mark their places, sitting themselves down. In the centre was a sugar-spun castle on a hill of crystallised grapes, and there was Rupert, opulent in a throne-like chair, looking lean in comparison with Frau Fettleheim who sat beside him on a custom-built couch, a visible symbol of the enormity of his gift and the spectacle that his invited guests were about to witness.
It was the finest night of Frau Fettleheim’s life, and she was chattering away like a lark to the princes and barons on either side of her, to bishops and merchants and their jewel-bedrenched wives. The rest of the Fair’s folk waited in the under-crofts and kitchens, getting ready for their set-pieces, practising lines, checking they looked their best. Outside, across the courtyard, beyond the bridge-straddled moat, out in the deep dark forest the wild boar hid and stamped their feet, polished their swords, primed their muskets, waiting patiently – just like everyone else that night – until their turn was called.
Rupert clapped his hands and called a start, making sure everyone’s glasses were filled and everyone comfortable, and then in came the jugglers and dancers to enliven the mood as the guests began their five-hour, fifteen-course repast. Next came the man who spoke his twenty-six-or-seven languages, having apparently learned another one on his way here, reciting poems with lines alternately in Danish, Friesian, German, Polish, English, Swedish and – who would know it? – Mandarin. The woman with the long tresses had been separated from her cart and was walked in like a bride, brown hair twined with ribbons carried by twenty servants, ten on each side, everyone stroking and admiring her shining mane. Next came Lita and her Bowman – no Huffelump as she couldn’t take the stairs – but Lorenzini played and Lita danced and sang and pirouetted and stood on Lorenzini’s shoulders, her tiny arms held high and thin as crane-flies. Then came the soothsayer – in normal circumstances this role would have fallen to Kwert, but the trials of prison and escape had worn him badly, and the farther north they’d travelled, and the colder it had become, the more he’d folded into illness like a piece of paper too often used, just as Brother Langer had predicted. Drafted into his place was one Herr Himbeere, to whom Philbert was now assistant. Himbeere’s oiled head shone like a buttered apple, its pike-tattoo seeming to move and ripple across his scalp as he turned in the lamplight: flexing its jaws, flicking its long tail. The calculated air of mystery and ancient rite was highlighted by the hall itself: the thick tapestries hanging upon the gently rounded walls living out their own secret stories, the multiple fireplaces banked on every side by stacks of wood, resin popping and oozing from the heat of roaring flames, great garlands of holly and ivy hanging from roof-hooks and, all around, the skirling of the wind as it tore about the tower.
Himbeere’s talent lay in reading fortunes from livers, Rupert having previously selected the Christmas Lamb of God – which a few minutes earlier had been slaughtered in the courtyard below. Philbert came in with its still warm liver, gall bladder dangling, both seeming to pulse in the flickering light; he hoved the offering above his enormous head, Himbeere taking it from Philbert on its silver platter, studying it, slicing it and telling its signs, delivering the glorious predictions his famous patron wished to hear – all strength to the Atheling Rupert being the gist – and then their turn was done and down they went through the draught-ridden stairways, passing the next act who were on their way up.
‘Make sure you throw that liver away, Philbert,’ said Herr Himbeere the moment they got back down to the warmth of the kitchens. ‘That gall bladder was twice the size it should’ve been and the liver’s got flukes – not that it would have done to point it out in such illustrious company.’
The kitchen was jumping like a hornet’s nest, every maid and cook shouting out to do this or that: grab plates, hoik trays from ovens, de-pot pies, rub mash through sieves, rib meat into slices, hack ice to rime glasses, check the junket, grate the cheese, chop the vegetables. The place was pandemonium and Himbeere only just managed to squeeze himself into a seat by the fire so he could get at one of the kettles to soothe the soreness of his feet.
‘What did you really see?’ Philbert asked as he tossed the liver down the rubbish chute, where it would land in the midden heap below for pigs to rootle at in the morning if the foxes and wolves left anything behind. He no longer believed anything these soothsayers had to say, especially not a man who contested he could divine the future in the liver of a lamb, but he was curious.
‘That really is the question, isn’t it?’ said Himbeere, the pike-tattoo on his head moving slowly as he scratched the side of his nose. ‘In a better man than the weakling Rupert,’ he said, using the pejorative that was common in these parts for said Atheling, ‘it might have meant the coming of battle. I detected a distinct hiatus in the Palace Gates, which is usually an indicator of courage. But our Rupert has smaller balls than bladderwort drying on a rack, and less spine than a dandelion. In his case I suspect it means a time of testing, and for him that probably means disaster, since it takes very little to bring a weak man to his knees.’ Himbeere wriggled his toes in the pail Philbert had filled for him, watching the water slop lazily up the sides and over his bunions and corns. ‘But then again,’ he added vaguely, ‘perhaps it just means a bad case of indigestion. Who knows?’
He was tired out and wanted drink, meat and dreams in that order. He dragged his feet from the pail, dried them on the drugget-rug before Philbert helped him on with his boots. At this point the strong-boy, Oort, burst into the kitchen having just finished lifting barons above his head and juggling ladies and beer-barrels, muscles still gleaming with the minor exertions his act had caused.
‘Coming to watch the rest?’ he asked Philbert, grabbing several ox-and-oyster pies from a passing tray. A rolling-pin came down towards his hand but he laughed and flicked it away with his fingers, sending it clattering to the floor. He was not called a strong-boy for nothing, and Philbert was eager as he was to escape the din and steamy clamour of the kitchen.
‘Let’s go,’ Philbert said, Oort quickly pulling him through a side-door towards a thin rise of stone steps. They spiralled up their own little tower and levelled out by a half-planked gangway leading onto the old minstrels’ gallery that clung like ivy to the walls of the Great Hall. It was a bit rickety, but they got a grand bird’s eye view of the proceedings down below where Rupert’s Gift Box was busily being unwrapped, each layer outdoing the one that had gone before. The musicians scraped their way through tune after tune as the rest of the turns came on: a man who threaded wires through his skin and hammered nails up his nose, a woman who played the harp with her feet, a set of sextuplets dancing a merry dance, a man girt only in a loin cloth whose skin was a kaleidoscope of multi-coloured tattoos, a parade of monkeys who chittered and jangled in their chains but who apparently gave wise witchdoctor-tips to whomsoever asked; and then came Madame La Chucha Lanuga, the bearded lady from Peru, looking magnificent in green silk, her dress dotted with mirrors, just like the hat she had given to Philbert a while before in trib
ute to his stand against the annoying Magendie. Her beard was combed and plaited with beads, and she swayed voluptuously as she sang and the musicians lulled and the room hushed as she keened of faraway places and the guests eased buckles and belts and wished they hadn’t worn their corsets quite so tight. She sat serenely once she finished her song as her husband Alarico, the White Jester, took over, the blackness of his garb making his albino skin seem like candle- wax in the dim light. Philbert and Oort had heard all his humorous tales before, so back they went along the gallery, stepping gingerly across the rotting planks.
‘Let’s try and get up to the roof,’ Philbert suggested and Oort agreed, Philbert being his new best friend, Philbert – a little absently – returning the favour. They pushed aside the heavy mildewed curtain that separated the gallery from the landing and saw the stairwell continuing up, passageways tunnelling off into the gloom hiding doors and rooms and other runways that riddled the tower like maggots running through rotten meat. They nodded their common agreement and up they went, the way at first lit by a few firebrands set into iron bracelets, feeble flames dimming every colour that might have been to mouse-back grey. They shivered as they passed the last lit corner, feet stumbling on the stairs, pushing each other on, laughing, a little scared and then excited, racing like fleas for the top, bursting out through the trapdoor like jack-in-the-boxes into the clean air and wind of the night. Breathing hard they ran along the gangways between the parapets, throwing snowballs out in wide arcs from the castellated walls, watching them disappear into the darkness as they fell.
‘Look, there’s the camp!’ Oort called and pointed, and they could just about make out their tents, could see Oort’s donkey loosely tethered, his head in his beet-bag apparently asleep, and Kroonk next door with her offspring snug inside their wattled shed, Lita and Lorenzini’s cart nearby, glinting brightly in the gleam of a fire.
‘But look at the lake,’ Philbert called out to Oort as he moved around the tower, leaning his elbows into the snow for a better view. They gazed down at the scatter of booths that were huddled on the ice beneath the thick horse-hair blankets and moth-eaten tapestries that served for their roofs. They were lit here and there by fires in bowls jammed on poles whose thin wooden legs were lodged into the ice, people wandering from one place to another, taking slow, steady paces as they headed for their beds, knowing that the spectacle at the castle was the last unwrapping of Rupert’s Christmas Box, all trading to cease at midnight, and the following morning all to clear the place and be off far and away.
Philbert turned his head towards the clatter of horses’ hooves coming down the lane from the tree-line, iced-over puddles cracking and splintering beneath their weight. Together he and Oort ran around the parapet and leaned dangerously over the edge to watch the latecomers arriving from the track and straight into knee-deep snow, the wind having blown it into drifts now the stable-boys had ceased their labours to sweep it away, believing all the guests to be already inside and everyone staying for the entire night of revelry that would last well towards dawn. These latest arrivals had no choice but to dismount, lead their horses back to the trees where they tied them up before making their way with difficulty back along the snow-bound trail, wrapping their cloaks tight against the wind, finally reaching the moat and over the planks into the courtyard.
By now both Philbert and Oort were shivering with the cold so they headed for the little booth they could see stranded on the wide flat field of the roof, startled when the flagsmen popped their heads out like turtles, having been detailed to stay here the whole night through to make sure the flag was still flying good and true come morning, no matter what the weather flung at it.
‘What the . . . ? Who the . . . ?’ they said at first, but seeing the two laughing boys they ushered them in, not often having company.
‘Escapees from the fairground, I’m guessing,’ said the skinnier one, introducing himself as Albert and his companion as Artus, his cousin. They poured the two lads some warm beer into pots and forked up hot sausages from the small brazier that stood at the centre of the small room.
‘Unusual for us to get visitors,’ commented Artus, offering the boys his pipe, Oort accepting politely, his face turning grey as the hot briar-smoke struck his lungs, handing it back quick as he could, the two men laughing at his attempted bravado. But they were kind enough, showed the two boys card tricks and how to make the red lady disappear, how to grease a corner so she would slip through the pack unnoticed until she needed picking out again. They could just about make out the noises that were drifting up from the Great Hall down below and Albert asked the lads how the show was going, and who they had on display.
‘I can do this!’ offered Oort, lifting up the table with one hand, swivelling it on his fingers.
‘Aagh!’ yelled Artus, ‘mind the beer,’ just managing to catch the jug before it fell.
‘So we’re not missing much then,’ commented Albert, taking the beer jug from his cousin, refilling all their mugs. Both men looked up as the wind grew suddenly fiercer, forcing the flag into standing and the pole to hum, making the icicles cut and shift from the mast and shimmy to the ground with the sound of a lonely black-backed diver calling from the lake. The noise from down below had crescendoed and all wondered what new gift the Christmas Box had brought, Philbert being the first to figure out that the greatest of the acts had already gone and that something else must be afoot, and that something was very wrong. And then they all heard the steady thumping of heavy boots on the bare stone steps leading up to the roof and Albert looked at Artus, and Artus looked at Albert, and then both looked at their guests.
‘Get under the flags, boys,’ Albert whispered. ‘There’s a whole heap of them back there behind the table. Burrow yourselves in and don’t come out until we say.’
Philbert was in mind to stay and stand whatever was coming, fists already clenched, but Artus pushed him roughly back and strong-boy Oort grabbed Philbert’s arm and held him down, pulling a load of old and rotting flags and banners over their heads. Oort didn’t see the trembling of Philbert’s hands, which had already beaten another person to death with just a rock, nor his anger, but Oort was the stronger of the two by far and held his friend pinioned beneath his body as if to shield him, holding up one corner of the flagging heap so they could see Artus and Albert carefully pick up caps and capes and tread steadily out of the booth, leaving the door open, trouser-legs held from the snow by bands of string. Philbert and Oort couldn’t see much but could hear distinctly the clanking of iron-tipped boots on stone and the trapdoor being lifted, angry shouts as heavy bodies heaved themselves up and out onto the snow-covered roof.
‘There it is, lads! Well don’t just gaup at it. Get the bloody thing down!’
They next heard Albert and Artus edging their way across the roof, the crunch of their clogs as they hit fresh snow.
‘What’s this?’ said Albert, and then came the soft sound of whip against wet-hide and Albert’s startled cry and a man’s voice, deep and loud from a rain-barrel chest.
‘So here’s who put it up. Don’t you know that flag’s an insult? Get it down! Get it down now!’
The man who’d emerged with the others from the trapdoor pushed Albert forward, making him stumble in the snow, his own men leaving off struggling with the ropes they didn’t know how to work. Artus hurried forward between them, pushing at the men messing with his precious flag.
‘Don’t pull on the guy-leader, you’ll just tangle it . . . ooomph!’
One of the men hit him square across the face with a leather-gloved fist, a wet crump as Artus’s nose-bone broke, his blood spraying in an impressive arc across the snow.
‘Let them be,’ growled the barrel-chested man, ‘but get that bastard flag down, here and now.’
Albert started grappling at the ropes, unwinding the leader from the double-armed hook and Artus, despite his broken nose, getting up from his k
nees to help, their cold fingers stiff and slipping on Artus’s blood which kept pouring from his nose. But it was a task they’d done a thousand times and soon the enormous flag was down, though still the wind tugged at it and tried to wrap it around the pole. Several of the interlopers grabbed at the cloth, held it fast, one of them spitting on the field of Prussian blue. The barrel-man took a tinderbox from beneath his cloak, struck it to the flag, though it was too damp to burn.
‘You!’ he pushed Albert, ‘go and get your lamp and whatever fuel you’ve got and bring it here.’
Albert didn’t need asking twice and went running as best he could through the tracks he and his cousin had already made, back to the booth. Once inside, he spoke quietly to Philbert and Oort, whose heads were poking out of the heap.
‘Be quiet, lads. Don’t make a sound, you hear me? Not a sound. And don’t come out, whatever, you hear me. Don’t come out.’
They could see his hands shaking as he lifted the lamp and dragged out a small barrel of oil, started back outside. Philbert moved in defiance but Oort held him fast and Philbert soon subsided, understanding this was a battle they could not win, no matter how strong Oort might be and how many men Philbert had already murdered. As Albert moved to leave the booth one of the interlopers came in to take the barrel of oil from him. His nose twitched, and he looked curiously at the table that had been set a little skew by Oort’s strongman show.
‘Sausages,’ he murmured, ‘I smell sausages,’ but before he’d a chance to investigate his leader shouted out for him.
‘I’ll give you devil-damned sausages if you don’t get a move on! We’ve work to do, you slug-head. And no work, no pay!’