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The Lammas Feast

Severn House Publishers Limited

'If I hear those four words again,' my wife said, the severity of her tone belied by the smile in her eyes, 'I shall very probably scream, and that will be bad for the baby.'

As she spoke, she glanced down at the dark head nestling against her breast, and at the little rosebud mouth sucking at the nipple as though his life depended upon it. At three weeks old, our son, Adam, showed every sign of being as big a guzzler and as keen a trencherman as his father; a fact that Adela was not slow to point out to me.

'He's going to be greedy, like you, Roger,' she would tease affectionately, ruffling my hair, which she knew I liked.

'Well, at least we shall have something in common,' was my invariable answer.

There was no doubt that in looks, Adam – small-boned with dark hair and eyes – most nearly resembled his half-brother, Nicholas, Adela's son by her first husband, and was nothing like myself or his half-sister Elizabeth, my daughter by my first wife. We two were both big, fair-haired and blue-eyed.

Strangers to Bristol who knew nothing of our family history were frankly puzzled by the relationship between the two elder children. My stepson had abandoned his dead father's surname for mine, but as he was older than Elizabeth by less than four weeks, and was so plainly not her twin, there was always curiosity concerning them until matters were explained.

It had been a great relief, and the source of much pleasure, to Adela and myself that our two offspring had taken so well to one another and become such good friends. And, in this July of the year 1478, a few months short of their fourth birthdays, they were still as thick as thieves. The dark and fair heads were frequently to be seen close together, hatching mischief. But it seemed to me that the alliance had grown even stronger since the arrival, on the last day of June, of their little half-brother.

There had been a certain amount of interest in him for a day or two, while he was still a novelty, but after that, I was convinced that resentment had begun to set in. I had said as much just now, but Adela had told me that I was imagining things, appealing to Margaret for support. (Margaret Walker was not merely my former mother-in-law, but also Adela's cousin, Elizabeth's grandmother, and surrogate grandmother first to Nicholas and now to Adam, who was named after her long-dead husband.) Margaret, who was entertaining Adela and the children at her cottage in Redcliffe for the morning, and who had bidden me call in around ten o'clock for my dinner, had backed up her cousin wholeheartedly. She had pointed to two cherubic and innocent little children, lovingly patting their small brother's head and making it appear only accidental that they occasionally got their fingers entangled in his hair, making him yell.

I knew that when my womenfolk joined forces against me, there was nothing to do but confess my male ignorance in such matters. I addressed myself to my dinner, but before I had finished eating, Margaret's neighbour, Nick Brimble, had appeared; and inevitably the conversation – as, sooner or later, it always seemed to do nowadays – came round to the mysterious circumstances of the Duke of Clarence's execution in February.

The previous summer, after years of being a thorn in his brother's side, after twice betraying the King and then being restored to favour, after accusing the Queen's family of witchcraft and raising armed rebellion, George, Duke of Clarence, had suddenly found himself arrested and clapped in the Tower of London by a sovereign and brother whose patience had finally run out. Even then, neither he nor anyone else had really believed that King Edward intended anything more than to give brother George the fright of his life. But in January Clarence had been brought to trial on a charge of high treason and condemned to death. Again, no one had thought that the sentence would be carried out: a reprieve would surely be granted. But in February rumours spread throughout the kingdom that George of Clarence had indeed been executed.

By now, this fact seemed indisputable, but a question mark hung over the manner of his death. The only rumour to escape the walls of the Tower was that he had been drowned in a butt of malmsey wine, a death so bizarre as to provide a topic of endless speculation in every alehouse up and down the land, and which was still being discussed six months later.

After Nick Brimble quit the cottage, Adela began feeding Adam, and it was then that she made the remark that opened this history.

'What four words, my love?' I asked with wide-eyed innocence.

'You know very well what four words,' she answered tartly. '"Butt of malmsey wine." The subject is becoming tedious, Roger. I know that you feel a personal involvement, but George of Clarence is dead. How he died doesn't matter.'

Margaret ladled more rabbit stew on to my plate, pursing her lips as she did so. I knew what was coming.

'If I'd realized that you were pregnant, Adela, my girl, I'd never have agreed to look after the children while you and that husband of yours gallivanted off to London. But I blame you most, Roger! You knew she was expecting! Not only did you let her bully you into jaunting around the countryside in the middle of winter, but when you got to London, you tamely allowed yourself to be inveigled into another risky undertaking for the Duke of Gloucester. And to cap it all, you sent her home, all the way to Bristol, with only Jack Nym for company, while you stayed behind to dance attendance on His Grace.' She pursed her lips in high displeasure. 'I'll "His Grace" him if ever I get the chance. I'd like to give Prince Richard a piece of my mind.'

I shuddered at the thought. I had already had a piece of Margaret's mind; a very long piece that had stretched, on and off, from last February until the present day. I looked in mute appeal at Adela.

My wife gently lifted our son from one breast and put him to the other. (I may say that he was not an edifying sight, slobbering, with milk running down his chin. He reminded me of someone, and I surreptitiously wiped my mouth clean of gravy.) She took a few moments to settle him comfortably, leaving me at the mercy of Margaret's acid tongue for a while longer, before taking pity on me and changing the subject.

'Margaret, in less than a fortnight it will be Lammastide. Do you need any help baking your bread?'

It was a generous gesture, knowing as she did that such an offer would divert Margaret's anger towards herself.

'And how,' demanded my former mother-in-law scathingly, 'do you propose helping me, with three children to see to and your own bread to bake? It's much more likely that I shall have to give you a hand.'

'I've decided Adela will go to Master Overbecks and have him bake our bread this year,' I said, to my own astonishment, as well as that of my wife.

The idea had only just occurred to me, but I had a little money put by, and could afford the extravagance. As well as having had a fairly lucrative summer so far, hawking my wares around Bristol and the surrounding countryside, I had also received, by royal messenger, a gift of two gold pieces from the Duke of Gloucester for all my efforts on his behalf the previous January. I had said nothing to anyone about this, hiding the money away in the secret place under our cottage floor. Just knowing that the coins were there gave me a sense of security; a bulwark against any bad times that fate might have in store for us. And their possession, as now, gave me the freedom to spring the occasional surprise.

Adela's astonishment gave way to delight, and she beamed at me, blowing a kiss. Margaret was too dumbfounded to speak for at least half a minute. When she did find her tongue, however, she let it be known that she would rather bake all our Lammas bread herself than permit us to have it made, even by a master baker such as John Overbecks.

'You'll have plenty enough of that shop-bought stuff at the feast,' she scoffed, 'without eating it at home. Since Master Overbecks was chosen in preference to Jasper Fairbrother to provide the bread sculptures for the main tables, I hear he's working all the hours God gives him to produce the most elaborate creations the mayor and aldermen have ever seen. Castles, three-decked warships ... Someone – I think it was Goody Watkins – told me the centrepiece is to be a depiction of the Garden of Eden.' She sniffed. 'Let's hope he can shape a decent fig leaf, that's all I have to say!'

Adela and I avoided one another's eyes. I finished my draught of ale and rose to my feet, stretching.

'It's very kind of you, mother-in-law,' I said – I still addressed her in this way because I knew she liked it – 'but we wouldn't dream of putting you to so much trouble, would we, Adela, my love? Besides,' I lied, 'I've already arranged matters with Master Overbecks. And now I must get back to work.'

Adela, sensing a sudden chill in the atmosphere, begged, 'Wait for me, Roger, if you would. You can walk part of the way home with us. We really must go now, Margaret, my dear. I – er – I promised to call on Mistress Marshall sometime this morning to give her my recipe for mulberry wine. Elizabeth! Nicholas! Pick up your toys and kiss Grandmother goodbye.'

She lifted Adam and laid him across her shoulder, ignoring his scream of indignation at being so rudely parted from his food, and rubbed his back until he quietened. He also belched very loudly, once more giving me an unpleasant reminder of myself.

'Running away?' Margaret jeered, and Adela suppressed another smile.

'No, no, my dear, of course not. You haven't forgotten that Saturday is the first day of Saint James's Fair? You'll take your dinner with us before you brave the crowds?'

'Oh, very well,' Margaret agreed, her manner growing less frosty. 'And thank you. There won't be any getting near the stalls selling victuals, I know that. People will be coming in from miles around. They always do. Will you be worshipping at the priory in the morning?'

'Of course,' I said. 'We're its tenants. We could hardly choose another church on Saint James's feast day. I can make up for lost time by taking my pack around the fair with me in the afternoon.'

Margaret frowned. 'Don't give me that nonsense, Roger. You're not that short in the pocket if you can afford to have your Lammas bread baked by Master Overbecks.'

I decided that it was time to be on our way before this sore subject was opened up again between us. Adela was evidently of the same mind, for she was already laying Adam in the box on wheels that I had made for him. I was very proud of this contraption, entirely of my own devising – or, at any rate, as far as I knew. I had certainly never seen another. As I said, it was a wooden box with a solid wooden wheel at each corner and a long, stout handle topped by a substantial crossbar that Adela could grip with comfort whilst trundling the cart behind her. In it we had placed a goose-feather pillow for Adam to lie on, and he seemed to find it perfectly comfortable.

'You'll addle his brains,' Margaret remarked glumly, watching our preparations, 'rattling the poor child over the cobbles in that thing.'

'He likes it,' I retorted, nettled by her criticism of my masterpiece. 'Look! He's already closing his eyes.'

'He's sated,' was the crisp rejoinder. 'He's as —'

'As big a glutton as I am! Yes, I know! So Adela informs me.'

My wife laughed and kissed her cousin's cheek. 'We'll see you before Saturday, my dear. The children won't last a week without wanting to visit Grandmama again.'

'You're a witch,' I said, when the five of us were finally in the street and Margaret's cottage door firmly shut behind us. I put an arm about Adela's shoulders and squeezed them. 'You know just how to get round her. Unlike me. I'm afraid I rub her up the wrong way.'

'Never mind the flattery,' Adela smiled, as we began walking along Saint Thomas's Street towards Bristol Bridge. 'What was this tale about asking Master Overbecks to bake our Lammas bread?'

'Sudden inspiration,' I admitted. 'It occurred to me that you've enough to do at the moment without the extra baking for Lammastide. But I'm glad you've reminded me.' I ignored her stare of amazement at such unlooked-for consideration on my part. 'I must call at Overbecks's shop and make good the lie I told Margaret.'

We crossed the bridge, with its row of houses and shops on either side, and its central chapel of Saint Mary the Virgin, and emerged on to Saint Nicholas Backs, where, as always, a number of ships, both English and foreign, were tied up at the wharves. One had obviously only just arrived on the morning tide, for the sailors were still making the vessel secure and lowering the gangplank. They were calling to one another in a language that contained echoes of the Welsh and Cornish tongues, and which I recognized as Breton. (I had once, some years back, undertaken a mission to Brittany for Duke Richard, and had picked up a few words of the vernacular.)

As we paused to watch, a man descended the gangplank to the harbour wall and began walking towards us. There was nothing very remarkable about him – in his mid-twenties, I judged, brown hair, stockily built – but for some reason, he caught my eye, even though, as usual, the quayside was teeming with people. He was plainly dressed in hose, tunic and cloak made of that coarse brown cloth known, when I was young, as burel. The fact that he was wearing a cloak at all on this warm July day, as well as the pack he carried on his back, suggested that he had come ashore for longer than a few hours, and would not be returning to the ship that night. He passed us and started up High Street, soon lost to view among the crowds.

A small black and white mongrel scampered out of one of the houses opposite the bridge; and immediately, as I had known they would, Elizabeth and Nicholas set up a whine about wanting a dog. Again, it seemed to me that a previously vague wish had only become an urgent necessity since Adam's birth. But I was only a man. What did I know?

'I want that dog,' said Nicholas.

'Well, you can't have him,' I answered tersely. 'He lives in that house over there.'

'How do you know he lives there?' demanded my daughter belligerently. 'He might just be visiting his cousins.'

There was no answer to this, so I wisely kept quiet, which was just as well, as things turned out. Adela, choking back her laughter, said, 'As a matter of fact, the dog doesn't live in that house, Roger. I happen to know he belongs to Master Overbecks. He bought the animal recently as a present for his wife.'

'Then he's a fool!' I exclaimed impatiently, as we began trudging up High Street. 'Why doesn't he give her a child? It's what she really wants.' I grabbed the handle of the cradle-cart from Adela and began dragging it instead.

My wife rubbed her aching arms and marshalled the two older children to walk in front of her, where she could keep an eye on them.

'Don't talk nonsense, Roger,' she reproved me. 'It would be foolish in the extreme for Jane to have a child, and Master Overbecks knows it. To begin with, he must be over fifty. He was soldiering in France for years before he came home and took up baking. Secondly, he's at least thirty years older than she is. Not that either of those things really matters. What's important is that Jane Overbecks is simple, and totally unfitted to look after a baby. She can't even look after herself properly. Margaret insists that she's got steadily worse during the five years since she and her sister arrived in Bristol.'

Once more, I decided that silence was golden. After all, what I knew of Jane Overbecks was mainly hearsay, gleaned from listening to the gossip of Margaret Walker and her friends. I knew that the Baldock sisters, Marion and Jane, who was the younger by some ten years, had arrived in Bristol from Devon in 1473, not long before I myself made my second visit to the city.

Jane must then have been about fifteen years of age, but with less sense than a child of ten. Moreover, she spoke so seldom that many people thought her dumb. No one seemed to know anything for certain of the sisters' history because Marion, taciturn and wary, kept her own counsel, deftly fending off all questions from her neighbours. She set about renting a room over Master Overbecks's bakery, and became one of his hucksters.

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Excerpted from The Lammas Feast by Kate Sedley. Copyright © 2002 Kate Sedley. Excerpted by permission of Severn House Publishers Limited.
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