Christmas dinner was served late in the afternoon, and Lady Morgan was once again overwhelmed by the bounty of her daughter’s kitchens. The variety of seafood so far from the sea itself was a luxury in which she happily indulged herself. The men feasted delightedly upon oysters, which were brought in oaken tubs filled with ice. Noisily they cracked the shells open, swallowing the cold creatures within whole, all the while making suggestive remarks to the ladies about the benefits of such fare.
Great platters of thin, sliced pink salmon dressed with watercress were brought, as well as platters of boiled carp, and prawns in white wine, lobster, pike, lampreys stewed in red wine with chervil, sole in a sauce of cream and Marsala wine. There was trout from their own streams broiled and served with carved lemons. Blaze’s sisters were fascinated by the fruits, for they had never seen any before, and they commented on the oddity of such a pretty fruit tasting so sour.
A plum porridge was also amongst the first course. Made of a beef broth and thickened with bread crumbs, it was filled with the dried plums from which it took its name, as well as chunks of sugar loaf, currants, raisins, rare spices such as cinnamon, ginger, and nutmeg, and sweet wines. This traditional Christmas fare was greeted with delight by all the guests.
The next course offered fresh roe deer brought in by the hunters only two days before, as well as venison, a side of beef that had been packed in a blanket of rock salt and roasted, several finely cured hams, and a half-dozen legs of baby lamb roasted with garlic and rosemary. There was swan, and a pheasant, and a peacock that had been completely reconstructed with its feathers to sit upon a platter of shining gold. There were capons in lemon-ginger sauce, pies of pigeon, lark, and rabbit, and a dozen succulent geese as well as ducks that had been turned upon their spits to a crisp golden brown and set three upon a platter with a sauce of dried plums and cherries. There were bowls of lettuce cooked in white wine, and small leeks with peas, as well as loaves of fine white bread and crocks of sweet butter for all.
The highlight of the Christmas feast was the bringing in of the boar’s head. By tradition the honor of carrying the beast was given to the youngest son of the house, but as there were currently no Langford heirs, Edmund had delegated this task to his brother-in-law, Gavin Morgan. Young Gavin, being but three months short of six years of age, was yet too small to bear the heavy weight of the boar’s head, which had been set upon a gold platter, an apple in its mouth, garlanded and crowned with rosemary and laurel leaves. The huge salver had instead been placed upon a specially gilded and garlanded cart, which the little lad proudly pulled into the hall as all the guests rose from their places singing the traditional carol that greeted the entrance of the boar’s head:
Caput apri defero,
Reddens laudes domino.
The boar’s head in hand bring I,
Bedecked with bays and rosemary;
I pray you all sing merrily,
Quot estis in convivio.
“This is the best Christmas that I can ever remember,” Blaze said softly to her husband.
“It is the happiest Christmas I have ever had because you are now my wife,” he answered her, his dark eyes brimming with his love.
The servants cleared away the plates and platters from the main part of the meal, and the last course of sweets was brought into the hall. There was sweet Malmsey wine served along with dainty wafer-thin sugar biscuits. There were candied rosebuds, violets, and celerylike angelica, as well as tarts made from dried apples, cherries, and plums and served with thick clotted cream; rich cakes that had been soaked in honey-sweetened wines; and silken custards offered with a conserve of stewed cherries. The younger members of the family particularly enjoyed the marzipan, which had been molded into various shapes—flowers, fruits, beasts, and stars—and dusted with colored sugars.
A troupe of mummers arrived. Made up of men from the earl’s two nearest villages of Michaelschurch and Wyeton, they apologized profusely to their master, for it was custom that they come on Christmas Eve. To their embarrassment and shame, they had enjoyed too much their own success and the potent cider offered them the evening before in their own villages. Before they had realized it, it was midnight and time for the Mass.
Before Edmund Wyndham might reassure the mummers, however, his wife spoke up. “Good sirs, you need feel no regrets. Your coming into our hall this blessed Christmas Day both brightens and brings honor to our feast. Perform your play, I pray you, and God bless you for it!”
Immediately the blackened faces of the mummers were wreathed in smiles. “God bless yer ladyship, and bring her a fine son by Christmas next!” they cried with one voice. Their faces were blackened, for it was believed their secret identity brought both their performance and their hosts good luck. Even those who recognized the players pretended that they did not.
Then the mummers performed their traditional Christmas play, which involved Saint George, England’s patron saint, and a Turkish knight and a dragon, both of whom Saint George was called upon to vanquish. The mummers did not wear elaborate costumes, and so their acting skills were called most heavily upon to make their performance real. This particular troupe of village men was quite skilled and very believable. When Saint George, having vanquished first the dragon, was apparently mortally wounded by the wicked Turk, the fourth major character in the play, the quack doctor, made his way forward to attempt a cure upon the fallen hero. With the audience shouting its encouragement now, the quack tried first this remedy, and then that, until at last to the cheers of all he found a magic elixir which instantly restored the brave saint.
The Turk gnashed his teeth and stamped his feet as the miracle became apparent. Fiercely he menaced the loudly cheering children, who squealed, half-fearful, half-delighted, but his reign of terror was quickly over, for the newly cured hero dashed forward and overcame the Turkish knight, to the rousing cheers of the audience. All agreed that it was the best mummers performance that they had ever seen. The successful troupe was loudly praised and profusely thanked before being rewarded with a bag of silver and sent off to the kitchens for cakes and ale.
The day after Christmas they celebrated the Mass of Saint Stephen, the first Christian martyr. Afterward, as it was also Boxing Day, the special alms box in the parish church was opened by Father Martin, and the monies collected within distributed to the poor of the area. Then one of the earl’s finest horses was ceremoniously “bled” to ensure the good health of all the estate’s horses in the coming year.
The festivities continued throughout the whole Twelve Days of Christmas at RiversEdge. New Year’s Eve saw bonfires spring up on all the surrounding hills as the bells tolled in the new year of Our Lord, 1522. On New Year’s Morning the family exchanged gifts with one another. Edmund delighted Blaze with an elegant cape of rich brown velvet that was lined in rabbit’s fur. The clasp that held the cape together was fashioned of gold with a large golden topaz for a button. Blaze surprised her husband with a magnificent gray stallion that had been bred by one of his neighbors and that she knew he coveted for breeding purposes.
“How on earth . . . ?” he began, and she laughed.
“Doro helped me arrange it,” she replied in answer to his unspoken question.
The other gifts that they had arranged for together for their combined families were equally lavish, but it was Blythe Morgan’s New Year’s gift to her future mother-in-law that won the day. Lady Mary Kingsley was a devout and pious lady who, since her husband’s death many years before, had devoted herself to her God. With the church’s permission she had founded a small religious order, the Community of Saint Frideswide, named after the eighth-century Anglo-Saxon saint who was the patron of the city of Oxford. As Mother Superior of her small order she oversaw close to four dozen nuns whose chief duty was to minister to the poor and sick. Having learned of Lady Mary’s piety, Blythe had spent the few weeks since her betrothal sewing upon an exquisite altar cloth which she presented to Nicholas’s mother on New Year’s Day.
> “Dear child!” Lady Mary’s sweet and gentle face beamed with pleasure from within its wimple. “You could not have given me a more wonderful gift! Although my son has taken overlong in finding himself a wife, God has rewarded my prayers by sending you to him. Bless you, dear Blythe!”
“Did I not tell you?” whispered Lord Robert to his wife. “Who could not love Blythe?”
Rosemary Morgan nodded in agreement with her husband’s words, but then said, “It is equally well that Lord FitzHugh does not have a close relation to approve or disapprove of Bliss. Love has not lessened the sting of her tongue. I hope she will not drive her betrothed away before the marriage ceremony.”
Robert Morgan chuckled. His wife was perfectly right in her observations, but watching his daughter with the Earl of Marwood had convinced him that only death would drive Owen FitzHugh from the beautiful girl’s side. The young man was completely besotted by her, and Bliss was more than well aware of his hapless state. Lord Morgan was well satisfied with this particular match. Bliss would do very well at court once she learned its unspoken rules. She would be totally in her element, as would be her twin sister, Blythe, living the life of a quiet country wife.
He looked to Blaze. Never had he seen her so radiantly content. It was obvious that she had fallen in love with her husband, and he was relieved to note it. He had worried himself that Edmund Wyndham’s deep involvement with his first wife might make Blaze naught but a means to an heir. The match had been too good to refuse, particularly in his woeful financial state, but his conscience had pricked him sorely even as he had sent his daughter off to a husband she had never even met. Everything was working out exactly as he had hoped it would. Blaze was happy, and his next two daughters would be wed in the spring after Eastertide to men of good families. At this moment in time Robert Morgan felt expansively content, and taking his wife’s hand in his, he smiled at her.
The Twelve Days of Christmas ended with Twelfth Night on the fifth day of January. A final feast was held that evening with all declaring afterward that they would not be able to eat again until Candlemas. This last night of the Christmas season seemed to bring out particularly riotous behavior amongst all. Anthony Wyndham, in his last hours as the Lord of Misrule, called for a game of Hot Cockles. Nicholas Kingsley was chosen to be It first. Carefully Blythe tied the blindfold about his eyes and when asked, Lord Kingsley swore that he could see nothing. He was spun about, and then holding out his hands, palms upward, he cried, “Hot cockles! Hot!” There was much giggling and scuffling to his ears, and then his hands were slapped hard.
“Guess! Guess!” cried the other players as they danced about him.
“Owen, ’tis you!” said Lord Kingsley.
“Damn! How could you tell?” grumbled Owen FitzHugh as he removed his friend’s blindfold.
“Your signet ring, man. I could feel it on your right hand when you slapped me,” was the reply.
Owen FitzHugh was blindfolded, spun about, and then called out in his turn, “Hot cockles! Hot!” Almost immediately he was slapped upon his upturned palms. “Bliss!” he chortled, for the hands had been dainty and feminine to his touch.
“Nay, my lord, ’twas not I.” Bliss laughed. “Once I have slapped you, you will never doubt who it is if I slap again!”
“Then Blaze!”
“Nay, my lord,” came her voice. “Not I!”
“Three wrong guesses, and you must pay a forfeit,” came Tony’s voice.
The hands had been definitely female. He considered who had been playing the game. All the sisters were. No help there. He did not think it would be Blythe, for that would be too easy. “Delight!” he said. It had to be Delight.
There came a chorus of “nays,” and the blindfold was removed.
“Well?” he demanded. “Who was it then?”
“ ’Twas us, my lord Owen,” chorused Larke and Linnette, giggling mischievously at him. “We each slapped a hand.”
“Forfeit! Forfeit! He must pay a forfeit!” cried the other players.
Anthony Wyndham nodded his agreement, and then his face grew sober as he appeared to consider the matter. Slowly a devilish grin replaced his serious demeanor and he said, “His forfeit is that I shall kiss Mistress Bliss!”
“Nay!” shouted the Earl of Marwood furiously, his handsome face red with its outrage. “ ’Twas not fair to be tagged by two!”
“Pay the forfeit! Pay the forfeit!” the other players cried.
“Have I no say in this?” demanded Bliss, who was looking particularly beautiful this evening in an apple-green gown.
“And what say you, Mistress Bliss?” demanded the Lord of Misrule.
“I say I am willing to pay my lord’s forfeit, for he tells me often enough that his kisses are the finest in the world. How am I to know whether he speaks true if I have naught with which to compare them?” Her sapphire-blue eyes were twinkling with mischief.
Before Owen FitzHugh might protest further, Anthony Wyndham caught the obviously willing Bliss Morgan to him and kissed her most thoroughly. When he released her she was blushing rosily. “Now,” laughed Tony, “you have the means of comparison, mistress, but I am too much the gentleman to ask you which one of us pleases you best!”
“Why, my lord Owen, of course,” replied Bliss promptly. “You did not make my toes curl as he does, sir!”
With a pleased grin, the Earl of Marwood put a proprietary arm about his betrothed wife’s waist. “If you are a good fellow, Tony, I shall one day tell you the secret of making a lass’s toes curl,” he teased his friend smugly.
The game continued with much merriment, to be followed by dancing, and then a game of Hunt the Slipper. The feasting had begun in early afternoon, and now as the sunset hour approached, the Earl and Countess of Langford escorted their guests outdoors and into the orchards, where the fruit-tree wassailing was about to take place. A huge bowl of apple-cider wassail was brought forth, and amid the bright bonfires that had been lit by the earl’s farmers, a toast was drunk to the trees, and then that which remained within the great bowl was sprinkled upon the fruit trees to ensure their fertility in the coming growing season.
Here’s to thee, old apple tree!
Whence thou mayst bud,
Whence thou mayst blow,
And whence thou mayst bear apples enow!
Hats full!
Caps full!
And my pocket full too!
Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!
sang the assembled throng.
The sun had now set, and the western sky was as vibrant as only a winter sky can be. Across the horizon a narrow bank of deep-purple clouds lay, their tops lit red-orange, their bottoms lit gold. The evening star was crystal blue in the evening sky as they returned to the house to finish their celebration.
A simple supper was now served, and there was more dancing as the musicians in the minstrel’s gallery plied their instruments. The younger guests played hide-and-seek and blindman’s buff, but the young lovers were strangely absent. Delight, to her great pleasure, managed to get Anthony to dance with her twice, but to her equally deep disappointment he did not seem to take her seriously, and she simply didn’t know what to do. How could she tell him of her womanly status without seeming bold?—and she was certain that he would not like a bold woman. Could he not see the change? Even Bliss admitted that Delight was finally gaining a bosom. Finally Old Ada came, and the little children were taken to their beds. Shortly afterward the other guests began drifting to their own bedchambers, for they would be leaving RiversEdge on the morrow for their own homes.
In their hidden alcove, Bliss Morgan pouted her well-kissed lips at her betrothed husband. “I do not see why you must return to court now, Owen,” she complained at him prettily.
“Anthony will need a proper introduction, Bliss, if he is to be successful at court. To be successful at court one must find favor with the king as I have, but to find favor with the king requires gaining his attention, which only someone who has already
found favor with the king can help to do.” He laughed. “It is really not as complicated as it sounds.”
“I find your explanation long-winded, but not incomprehensible,” Bliss replied tartly. “Why must you go now? Cannot Anthony wait? He has done well enough all these years without going to court.”
“Bliss, be patient. Once Lent begins all the festivities normally associated with the court come to a halt until after Easter is celebrated. Would you have Tony lose the next several months while I dance attendance upon you? We will be wed shortly after Easter in April. Is that not soon enough for us to be together, my love? Of course if you would wed with me now without all the fuss of a large celebration, we might go to court together.”
Bliss stamped her little foot. “Nay, sir! You will not do me out of my wedding as Edmund did Blaze!”
“Your sister’s lack of a large wedding does not seem to have spoilt her happiness in any way,” noted Owen FitzHugh dryly.
“Oh, go to your precious court!” snapped Bliss. “But sow your wild oats well and quickly, my lord, for once you are wed to me I shall scratch the eyes of any female who dares to set cow eyes upon you!”
Owen FitzHugh laughed. “Why, bless me, sweetheart, you are jealous.”
“Go to the devil!” she hissed at him.
“Only if you’ll promise to come with me.” He laughed, kissing the tip of her adorable nose.
Bliss stuck out her tongue at him, and then she laughed too. “We are surely two of a kind, my lord,” she admitted with surprising candor.
He nodded. “I think you are correct, my beautiful Bliss. We will do very well together. Of that I am quite certain. Now, my quick-tempered betrothed wife, seek your bed, for I am not of a mind to play kiss and cuddle with you this night.”
Bliss’s blue eyes widened in genuine surprise. “What, sir, does our arguing stir your blood to passion then?”
Owen FitzHugh pulled the girl hard against him, and looked down into her face. “You have much to learn, Bliss, and I will enjoy teaching you as much as I suspect you will enjoy learning from me. Aye, sweetheart! Arguing with you does rouse my passions, and that has never happened to me before with any woman. Right now I want you very much, but I will deny myself the pleasures of passion with you until you are formally wed with me.”
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