In the Garden of Iden (Company)

by Kage Baker

  Joseph and Nef just laughed, such a hollow sound that I wanted to run from the room. Joseph flung his hat up to the near bedpost, where it caught neatly and swung. “You think this is bad? You should have seen the stuff the English stood for under Henry the Eighth. Screw the monkeys anyway. Can’t either of you come up with some jolly Yuletide high jinks for the old man?”

  “Why don’t you adapt something from Dickens?” Nef suggested. “Who’s to know, anyway?”

  I reached for my cloak. “I think I’ll go out for a while.”

  The snow packed us in and insulated us from any news by word of mouth; so the mortals got busy with their Christmas in the merriest of moods, and tacked up big swags of holly in the great hall, all blissful ignorance.

  I had expected that we, as Spaniards, would be asked to stay in the background through most of the festivities. I got a big surprise: far from being an embarrassment, we were suddenly considered social assets. Sir Walter planned Spanish dances and Spanish refreshments and was confidently expecting some theatrical extravaganza from Joseph. Every time he asked about it, Joseph smiled wider and with increasing desperation. Nef and I gave him all sorts of helpful ideas, the best of which, as I recall, had the Man of La Mancha meeting the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present, and Future, but Joseph finally came up with something on his own that required large amounts of pasteboard and secrecy.

  He had lots of time, at least. In the sixteenth century, Christmas was celebrated from Christmas Day to January 6. In future times, of course, it would shift forward until it began in November and ended abruptly on Christmas Eve, which was how it was calendared at Company bases. I observed the Solstice by climbing from bed to watch the red sun rise out of black cloud, and marked his flaming early death that evening through black leafless branches. So the mystery passed, and the mortals hadn’t even begun their celebration yet.

  The first thing I saw on Christmas Day was, appropriately enough, the New Testament. Nicholas had it open on his chest and was reading in silence from the first chapter of the Gospel of Saint Luke. I yawned and stretched, and leaned up on my elbow to peer at the staggering black letters. It was a beautiful little story he was reading, and a perfectly simple one. How all those bishops and grand inquisitors drew what they did from it is beyond me.

  I lay back and watched Nicholas’s profile as he read. He was always pale when he first awoke, as though it took a little time for the blood to rise into his face. So at this hour he looked severe and autocratic, carved from ivory, and his light eyes flickered restlessly over the Word of God, or their pupils dilated in the crystal when a particular verse moved him.

  He closed the book and blinked back tears. What was it like to believe in something that much?

  The rooms smelled of spice, smoke, cut green branches, and mortals. They began arriving before noon, in wagons drawn by great stamping horses that had Nef running to the windows with cries of delight. Little mortal males in furred robes, the older ones clean-shaven, the younger ones with styled and pointed beards. Little mortal females in the latest fashions. I realized with a pang that my green gown, which I had planned to wear that day, was now hopelessly out of style. I spent a frantic hour sewing glass aglets on my peach outfit to cover the moth holes.

  But my fussing was minimal compared to the scenes that were going on in the kitchen, and as for the great hall—caramba. A cartload of consort drove up, unloading musicians and their instruments, and for a desperate half hour no one could figure out how to let them into the minstrels’ gallery, which hadn’t been opened in thirty years. A makeshift bandstand was being hammered together in a corner when somebody finally located the key, in a tin box at the back of a shelf. Most of this business Nicholas had to supervise, as well as a host of minor things forgotten until the last minute. Sir Walter was too far gone in hand-kissing and back-slapping among his guests to be reminded he had not made a final decision on whether he wanted the consort playing before, during, or after the feast. So they started about ten o’clock and just tootled away, growing ever louder as the level in their ale barrel dropped.

  The entrance of the Evil Spaniards was delayed, thanks to me.

  “I can’t wear this!” I wailed. “I stuck on every shiny doodad I own, and there’s three big moth holes I didn’t even see on the sleeve!”

  “So take the sleeves off.” Joseph examined his beard in the reflective surface of the credenza.

  “Are you nuts? Every single one of those ladies downstairs has an outfit with matching sleeves,” I said. “I can’t look like a frump in front of Englishwomen!”

  “So start a new fashion.”

  “If you’d put in the requisition for field dress like I’d asked you to—”

  “Oh, here.” Nef dove into her wardrobe and found a big pink ribbon, which she tied hastily around my arm. “Look, they’ll never know.”

  “The color doesn’t match,” I fretted.

  “Think of it as an accent.”

  “And it’s cutting off my circulation.”

  “You want to see some circulation cut off?” Joseph started across the room menacingly. “It’s going to be hard enough making an entrance in front of all those monkeys without being late, too.”

  “Will you both please shut up?” Nef demanded. Easy for her to say: she had a gorgeous plum-colored gown that was practically new. She grabbed my hand, hooked one arm through Joseph’s, and dragged us out into the corridor. “Anybody would think you’d never been to a mortal party before,” she scolded Joseph.

  “Artist’s nerves. I never wrote an entertainment before,” Joseph muttered. We started unobtrusively down the stairs. People were milling all about.

  “Well, you didn’t really write this one, did you?” said Nef. “You copied it from—”

  “Good gentles all, give greeting to the most renowned Doctor Ruy of Ansolebar, most learned physician to the Court of the Most Gracious, Serene, and Catholic Emperor Charles!” yelled Master Ffrawney, popping out unexpectedly from the foot of the stairs. We froze in midstep. All those mortal folk turned to look at us.

  Only Nef’s grip on my arm kept me from backing rapidly up the stairs. A great suffocating wave of smell came up to me. It was mortal fear, and a good quantity of mortal hatred, too. Riper than the holiday food. More pungent than the evergreen boughs. So bright in their Christmas finery, the little mortals regarded us out of animal eyes. Then, unnervingly, they all smiled. The males bowed; the females curtseyed.

  “Oh, Master Ffrawney, you flatter me,” said Joseph, with no trace of a Spanish accent at all. “To be sure, good people, I am only Sir Walter’s old friend. Why, were we not boys together?”

  “Certes, so we were.” Sir Walter picked up his cue (for all I know, he believed it by this time) and emerged from the throng. “Come, Doctor Ruy, there is excellent muscadel here, none better may be had at the Emperor’s table. And we shall have a Spanish viand later,” he announced to his guests.

  This did not help the smell. Yet we edged our way down with tiny frightened steps, and the mortal guests drew away from us as though Joseph had a cloven hoof.

  “How festive it all looks,” he remarked gamely.

  And here came Nicholas in his severe Protestant black, towering head and shoulders above the guests. He met my eyes. People stared at him now, and the fear smell sharpened to anticipation. They were expecting a clash, but he took both my hands and kissed them.

  “Well met here, Lady Rose. Doctor Ruy, I will be so bold as to carry your daughter away for a cup of hippocras.” And he pulled me after him. The crowd registered astonishment. The tension broke.

  “Ha ha ha,” rattled Joseph. “Yes, go on. These young folk will be kissing in corners,” he explained to the crowd.

  It was all right now. Mortals love lovers, especially young ones. Everyone made way for Nicholas and me as we went in search of a punch bowl. “Thy hands are ice-cold,” said Nicholas under his breath.

  “And so should thine be, facing so many English,” I re
plied. “If gazes were cannonballs, they’d have blasted us off the stairs.”

  “Oh, fear not.” He located a steaming flagon of wine and filled a goblet for me. “These folk are the best small gentry of Kent! They’d no more harm thy father than wear a doublet that was out of fashion, which is to say they durst do neither.”

  “Good.” I gulped at the wine. He watched me drink.

  “Aye, sup that down. Thy face is pale as milk.”

  “If you think of anything else to build up my confidence, please tell me,” I snapped in Greek.

  He considered. “I like the aglets,” he offered.

  The operative words for this phase of the merriment seemed to be drink and mingle, as the scullery boys set up the long trestle tables in the hall. All we lacked was a cocktail waitress with a tray of little sandwiches. I took Nicholas’s arm, and we moved cautiously around the edges, looking for a quiet place to talk. This soon proved impossible, however, because no less than four mortals came up to wave their crucifixes at me and tell me how their parents had been gardeners, or ladies-in-waiting, or household-account keepers to poor old Queen Katherine.

  “God’s my life, is it Nicholas Harpole?”

  Nicholas turned abruptly, carrying me with him. We beheld a stout young male with a full beard, very steel-and-leather military in his bearing. Nicholas regarded him with narrowed eyes. “And he knoweth me not,” added the speaker. “But I’d have known thee, Nick. Jesu, man, it’s Tom!”

  And he put out his hand, but Nicholas drew back as though he were a snake, and radiated such anger I was nearly knocked down. The other only laughed.

  “What, art afeared still? I can tell thee, I’ve well washed away the stink of our tutor’s blasphemies. I see thou hast done the same.”

  “Why are you here?” asked Nicholas, very quietly.

  “I am a wooer.” Tom jerked his thumb at a crowd of girls around Sir Walter. “Sweet Anne yonder. Not any goddess Venus, as you see, but I’ll warm myself with her dower lands. Time to turn one’s thoughts to such things, eh? I wot well we are not boys anymore.” His eyes glinted wickedly. “How does it go? ‘When I was a child, I spoke as a child’—”

  Oh, Nicholas was going to hit him. There went the arm muscles contracting! I braced myself, but his back molars clashed together like boulders, and he said:

  “In Christ’s name, be silent.”

  “Tush, man, no one will mark me. And who’ll mark thee? Thou hast found thyself the warmest bed in the house, and a Spanish bed to boot.” He swept my knuckles to his lips. “Lady, buenos días. Nicholas, thou wast ever a lad of excellent common sense. With any luck, wilt wear a cardinal’s hat before thou’rt forty.”

  That really did it. Nicholas grabbed the front of Tom’s doublet and yanked him up to eye level. I said, “Nicholas!” and Tom said, “Peace, man, remember!” and one or two people turned to stare. Nicholas put him down.

  “If I insulted thy lady, Nick, I’m sorry on’t.” Tom shrugged his doublet back together. “And Christ be my witness, I meant no harm. But what I said in jest, my heart meant.” With a sincerity that was worse than his bantering he put a hand on Nicholas’s arm. “Thou wert ever the best scholar among us. There’s new men at Court, Nick, the old papists die and make room for young ones. There’s benefices, Nick, there’s gold, there’s Dame Fortune with her knees wide apart! Get thee to Court and try her, Nick, and shalt rise higher than poor Tom with his plain wife and two farms in Kent.”

  He looked across the room at his girlfriend and sighed. “God grants each man his gifts. I have only a prick; thou hast both a prick and a brain. Get thee to Court, I say.” And with a final melancholy smack on Nicholas’s arm he wandered away, and so just missed having his head ripped off. My turn then to drag Nicholas to a sideboard and pour him a drink. Some Christmas so far, eh?

  By this time the tables were all set up and ready, so we were seated in order of our status, and the first of the dishes were brought in with great ceremony.

  “A dish of small birds!” announced Master Ffrawney from his post by the hall door. In came the small birds, pigeons probably, all roasted and set on end with little pasteboard heads and wings. “A dish of pike in gallantine!” cried Master Ffrawney next, and in it came: phew, week-old fish in a sauce that smelled of cinnamon candy. “A dish of pie Caneline!” ushered in one of the aforementioned industrial-strength pies, borne by a gasping server who just barely made it to the table.

  And after that we were brought a dish of olives of veal, and a dish of boar Porpentine, and the very boar’s head itself: splendid as on a Gordon’s gin bottle, with big bulging eyes of half lemons stuck in its blind sockets. I’d have given a lot for a gin and tonic as the sweet cavalcade of indigestion rolled on.

  They brought in the peacock: the whole skin had been flayed off, then tucked back, feathers and all, on the roasted bird to make it look lifelike. Only, they hadn’t been able to unclench the little sphincter or whatever kept the tail folded up, and the plumes moreover had become sadly draggled on the ride from the poulterer’s, so they had taken the tail apart and stuck the remaining feathers on a big pasteboard fan, and painted in the missing ones.

  Ducks by the dozen, chickens by the tens, packed like sardines into dreadnought pies or propped up in little mounds of golden dead bodies. Peculiar combinations of fish and flowers. Clods of roast beef colored blue with heliotrope juice to make them look like venison. Wonderful eggy pancakes, dusted with cinnamon and sugar. Cinnamon and sugar were in nearly everything, actually.

  They brought in a trumpet to fanfare the arrival of the Spanish viand, a nice digestible recipe they’d coaxed out of Joseph, and when it hit the table, everyone really stared: it looked great, a sort of sweet rice pilaf, a big mound of rice and nuts and raisins, but all around the edge of the dish were perched big insects sculpted out of almond paste. “Rice after the fashion of Saint John the Baptist!” screamed Master Ffrawney triumphantly. “A pudding of Biscay!” There was polite silence as everyone tried to figure out what the bugs were there for.

  “I do not recall that I specified such a curious subtlety as this,” said Joseph at last.

  “Please you, signior, but you said that we must have syrup of locusts to pour about the top, signior, and we had it not, wherefore Mistress Alison made locusts out of marchpane,” explained the serving boy. “It were the best we could do, signior.”

  “The locust I meant is an evergreen tree bearing sweet beans,” Joseph informed him.

  “Oh,” said the boy.

  It was a great success anyway. The guests had drunk so much hippocras by this time that they thought the bugs were funny, and walked them up and down the table until their little toothpick legs fell off, or set them on ladies’ headdresses or bosoms.

  Nicholas was not amused by anything. He sat beside me looking dangerous, with the corners of his mouth pulled down from bad temper and a bright flush on his cheekbones from wine. I smiled at him timidly, but he sat staring unblinking into the fire.

  When the first lull fell in the eating and drinking, Sir Walter lurched to his feet, rubbing his hands together. “Now, my neighbors, my friends, we shall have some diversion, shall we not?”

  There were shouts of “Aye!” and general jolly laughter, and Sir Walter peered down the table at Nicholas. “Nicholas, my boy, what have we?”

  “A cockfight, sir.” Nicholas stood and signaled to men who waited at the door. Then he sat down beside me and folded his arms. In came two men, each bearing a gallant little bird with a bright cockade tail. They were held up for the guests to view, and what howls, what wagers, what quantities of coins were flung down on the banquet table!

  I looked at Joseph. He was gazing into space with a vague smile, but his eyes were utterly blank. Nef was staring fixedly into her goblet and would not lift her head. The men put the cockerels down and backed away fast. The shouting in the hall grew deafening, and what happened next was as bad as you can imagine. Blood spattered everywhere, feathers flew. The
little birds cut each other to ribbons, and one was blinded before the fight was done.

  I leaned back shaking and found Nicholas’s arm about me. “Take heart, Rose, and play the Spaniard. Whatever shalt thou do at a bull baiting?” he muttered. I burst into tears, but it least it got him out of his rage; he was contrite and kissed me, while the hall rang with bloodthirsty laughter.

  A lamprey pie and maumany were served up next, as the blood was hastily mopped away. Then we were treated to an exhibition of fencing by two Frenchmen, very exciting, especially since they had no buttons on their foils. At least they didn’t blind each other.

  Then we had hasletts and troycream and date justles, just in case we hadn’t had enough sweets to suit us, and the Four Tumbling Brothers of Billingsgate came in and vaulted all over one another for a while. People applauded greatly and threw them pennies. I saw a few spoons disappearing into the brothers’ sleeves and hats as well.

  By this time the tables were long highways of gnawed bones and fragments of piecrust, so Master Ffrawney entreated us all to decamp to the other corner of the great hall. There, arrangements had been made for card games in various nooks and crannies for those inclined to sit sensibly quiet after such a meal. For those not so inclined, the consort began to play dance tunes. At last!

  But nobody began. People stood milling about as a good old-fashioned morisque opened; heads were lifted uncertainly, but not a foot moved, not a hip swayed.

  I couldn’t bear it. I seized Nicholas’s arm. “Is this the way you dance in England?” I cried.

  He looked around. “It is the custom for the master of the house to dance first,” he explained, as his eye lit upon Sir Walter just sitting down to a nice game of primero with Nef and some other lady. “Sir Walter! Would you dance, sir?”

  “What?” The little knight glanced around and became conscious of the gaffe. “Oh.” He looked longingly at the cards in his hand but then brightened. “Nicholas, thou shalt lead for me. Hark ye, gentles, this tall fellow shall be lord for a little while in my place! Do you all take your steps from him!”