The Christmas Wassail

TWO

Anything and everything, of course!

Adela and Elizabeth had, between them, made a magnificent kissing bush. The bay and alder branches, the holly and mistletoe had been most skilfully woven in and out of the basket-shaped willow frame which was carefully preserved from year to year, to be brought out every Christmas. In amongst the greenery, red ribbons had been knotted — I had noticed only that morning that my supply of red ribbon was inexplicably low — together with some small bags of nuts and sugared rose petals. Little apples from Adela’s winter hoard were spiked on the end of twigs, and tiny figures, cut from stiffened cloth and rag paper, had been threaded on strings and looped around the whole. Some of the latter were even recognizable; a star, what was possibly a manger and certainly a sheep. The only trouble was that the kissing bush had already been hoisted into place, not in the parlour as I had planned, but dangling from a hook driven into the central beam of our small entrance hall.

‘Oh, here you are at last, Roger,’ my wife remarked on seeing me. ‘Supper’s ready, and has been this half hour and more. As you see, you’re too late to hang the kissing bush. Richard has done it for me.’

I swung round, almost fell over, and steadied myself by grasping at the nearest support. This turned out to be the stocky, red-haired bulk of Richard Manifold, Sheriff’s Officer, sometime suitor of Adela before she wed her first husband, Owen Juett, and a permanent thorn in my side. He was still unmarried and consequently always in need of company, particularly, it seemed, my wife’s. I won’t go so far as to say that he haunted the Small Street house, but he was far too frequent a visitor for my peace of mind. The three older children regarded him with long-suffering tolerance born of familiarity, while I was never quite sure what Adela’s feelings for him were. Only my half-nephew, eleven-month-old Luke, but recently fostered by us after the death of his mother, was as yet unconscious of Richard Manifold’s (to my mind) disruptive presence in our lives.

Richard smirked at me, and I could have sworn that I caught the glimpse of a halo round his head.

‘You knew that I was going to do it. That I enjoy doing it,’ I said aggressively, and not altogether truthfully, turning back to my wife. That third beaker of ale was beginning to talk. ‘Why did you ask him to do it?’

‘You weren’t here,’ Adela pointed out, keeping her tone reasonable, ‘and you know it should be hung up before nightfall on the eve of Christmas Eve. Don’t you think it’s pretty? Bess and I worked practically all day on it. You have a very talented daughter, my love. She cut out those paper figures using only my working scissors.’

‘Yes, I did,’ Elizabeth confirmed, ‘and you haven’t even said anything about them.’ Her lower lip trembled. ‘I think you’re horrid.’

I took a menacing step towards her and she retreated in alarm. ‘Don’t you dare speak to me like that, my girl,’ I threatened, then totally undermined my own authority by adding, ‘at least, not in front of strangers.’

Nicholas, flying as always to his stepsister’s defence, said truculently, ‘Richard’s not a stranger.’

‘Sergeant Manifold to you, my lad!’ I shouted furiously. ‘And that goes for the rest of you!’

Hercules, who had just made his way in from the kitchen, hearing my angry tones and considering it his duty, as my four-legged protector, to come to my assistance, began barking ferociously on a high, insistent note. I yelled at him to be quiet; the baby, sat on the floor among the rushes and, unused to such a cacophony, started to scream, while Elizabeth burst into tears and fled upstairs.

So much for a peaceful Christmas! I had been home for less than ten minutes and the place was in uproar. And it was all my fault.

Or the fault of the ale I had consumed. I took a deep breath and apologized all round. My daughter was persuaded to come downstairs again and, between sniffs, reluctantly forgave me; Luke was picked up and pacified, bestowing on me a beaming smile when I ruffled his copper-coloured curls; Nicholas frowned at me reprovingly, while Adam gave me three or four sharp kicks on the ankles and considered honour satisfied. Richard and Adela continued as if nothing had happened, such behaviour being, they implied, beneath their notice and thus putting me, very properly, in my place. (It did cross my mind to wonder why I was never master in my own house, as other men were, but the answer eluded me.)

Adela held out her hand. ‘A kiss under the mistletoe,’ she said.

I knew what was in her mind.

After the death of our four-day-old daughter, three years before, she had not conceived again, and it seemed possible that Adam would remain our only child. She was a natural mother, a woman who enjoyed motherhood in spite of all its attendant restraints and vexations, which was the chief reason, I felt sure, why she had agreed with such ease to foster Luke, who had no claim on her affection whatsoever. Adam was now five years old, growing up and away from her and leaving a void in her life that cried out to be filled.

‘I’m a man,’ was our son’s frequently voiced assertion, and indeed his sturdy independence had come, I think, as something of a surprise to both of us. It shouldn’t have done. His birth had been greeted with resentment by his older half-brother and half-sister who, with a mere fortnight in age between them, had been fast friends from the moment that Adela and I were married. As a baby, they had tried to give Adam away to the mad wife of Baker Overbeck, so he had been very much his own man since he was small. The arrival of young Luke within the past few weeks had strengthened this sense of independence, making him no longer the youngest member of the household and bolstering his self-reliance. He had ceased to need his mother in the way he had done before.

Adela was therefore pining for another child of her own. Mistletoe was supposed to have aphrodisiac properties and kissing beneath it to aid fertility. I didn’t think that I had been showing any lack of enthusiasm for my marital duties lately — in fact, it was too often Adela who pleaded tiredness — but if that was the way the wind was blowing, I was perfectly ready to comply. I embraced her warmly and gave her a lingering kiss. She reached up, broke a sprig of the plant from the kissing bush and stuck it in my hair just behind my left ear.

Harmony now being fully restored and Christmas, as it were, back on course, we all repaired to the kitchen to have supper, Richard Manifold included. I suppose it was foolish of me to have expected otherwise.

Tonight it was simply the same stew, reheated, that had provided dinner for Adela and the children, but all around me I could see that preparations were underway for the festive meals of the next few days. Assembled on a side table were the dried plums that would make the plum porridge; the eggs, spices and milk, together with a bowl of boiled wheat, which would turn into frumenty; the butcher’s leftovers from the bigger joints of meat sold to the gentry which, with apples and dried raisins, would be encased in pastry to make the minced pies; and a rather small, somewhat withered-looking capon, carefully budgeted for over the past month, which would grace our board on the day of Christ’s birth itself.

I could see Richard Manifold eyeing these signs of delights to come as he shared our pottage, and I wondered how long it would be before he made some remark. But it was not until the older children had left the table and Adela, with Luke on her lap, was spooning some of the broth into his ever open little mouth, that Richard could no longer refrain from comment.

‘You’re well advanced in your preparations, I see, Adela. Are you — er — expecting guests?’

‘Only my cousin, Margaret Walker,’ my wife replied tranquilly. ‘She is Elizabeth’s grandmother, after all, and naturally wishes to see her only grandchild on Christmas Day. Do you have any plans, dear Richard?’

I could have screamed at her not to be such a fool. The man was obviously angling for an invitation.

I was wrong, however.

‘I shall be eating at the mayor’s table,’ he said gloomily. ‘The sheriff and his assistants have been invited. But I shall be surprised if the other sergeant, Tom Merryweather, and I get through the meal without interruption. The mummers arrive in Bristol tomorrow afternoon, ready to start their plays on Saint Stephen’s Day, and that is invariably the signal for all the young idiots in the town to dress up in masks and go rioting through the streets, making a damn nuisance of themselves and frightening the old biddies half to death. Even Our Lord’s birthday’s not sacred to them. I don’t know what the youth of today is coming to.’

Adela laughed. ‘Richard, you make yourself sound like some old greybeard. The young will be young — it’s only to be expected. But I didn’t know we were to have mummers this year, did you, Roger?’

I shook my head. ‘Where are they performing?’

‘In the outer ward of Bristol Castle, I believe.’ The sergeant rubbed his nose. ‘I heard they’re to be given accommodation there, as well. It’s only a small troupe. Not more than five or six of them, I’ve been told.’

‘The children will be pleased,’ Adela said, wiping Luke’s mouth on a corner of her apron. She regarded it with dismay. ‘Oh dear! Look at that! Now I’ll have to wash it again. He really is a messy eater.’ She dropped a kiss on the top of the child’s curly head. ‘You’re looking very pensive, Roger. Is something bothering you?’

‘Not really.’ I chewed my thumbnail. ‘It’s just that I thought I saw someone in the Green Lattis whom I know. But I can’t place him. Which reminds me. Something else rather odd happened. Burl and I-’

‘Oh, Burl Hodge, was it!’ exclaimed my wife. ‘I might have known!’

I ignored this interruption. ‘Burl and I,’ I continued, ‘saw a woman going into the Lattis just as we were leaving. You’ll never guess who it was.’

‘Tell us, then,’ my wife invited, setting Luke down among the floor rushes, where he sat happily subjecting his toes to close scrutiny.

‘I have to admit that I didn’t actually see her face,’ I confessed reluctantly. ‘She was wearing a cloak with the hood pulled well forward. But Burl swears it was Lady Marvell.’

There was a moment’s silence before Richard Manifold threw back his head and gave a loud guffaw. ‘The fool was drunk,’ he said. He didn’t add, ‘like you’, but I knew very well it was what he was thinking. In any case, he didn’t need to. Adela said it for him.

‘You were both in your cups,’ she accused me. ‘Patience Marvell wouldn’t be out alone after dark, let alone entering a place like the Green Lattis.’

I sighed. ‘That’s what I told Burl, but he would have it that he was right. Said he caught a glimpse of her face under the hood in the light from the lantern in All Saints’ porch.’

Richard laughed again and got up. ‘I wouldn’t believe anything that guzzler thought he saw when he’s had a few beakers of ale. Adela, I must be off. Thank you for supper, and I’m glad I could be of use with the kissing bush. If I don’t see you again before Our Blessed Lord’s birthday, I wish you all the blessings and joy of the season.’ He nodded at me. ‘Goodnight, Roger.’

Adela saw him to the door. When she returned, I asked irritably, ‘And when did Sergeant Manifold become “dear” Richard?’

‘Oh, for heaven’s sake, Roger!’ Her irritation was as palpable as mine. ‘It was simply an expression.’

‘Not one that I approve of,’ I snapped.

She resumed her place at the table and gave me a wan smile. ‘Are we going to go on like this? Quarrelling with one another all Christmas?’

She looked weary and suddenly rather frail. I was immediately contrite.

‘No,’ I said. ‘Of course not.’

But I was too sanguine. While she washed the supper dishes, I went into the parlour where a fire burned low on the hearth, sank into my armchair, with its embroidered seat and cushions (all done by Adela’s clever fingers), and stretched my legs towards the warmth, expecting, after my busy day and three beakers of ale, to fall asleep immediately.

Chance would have been a fine thing.

I heard the parlour door creak open and the next moment Adam, ready for bed in his little nightshirt, had climbed on to my lap.

‘Story,’ he demanded imperatively.

I sighed. ‘I don’t know any more stories. I’ve told you all the ones I know.’

‘Tell again.’ He settled himself into the crook of my arm. ‘Tell about Balder and Loki.’

I hesitated. ‘Sweetheart, you know your mother doesn’t approve of my telling you these pagan legends.’

‘She won’t know,’ he answered simply. ‘I shan’t tell her.’ He wriggled a bit, swinging his legs and watching the shadows they made on the hearthstones. The tallow candle, placed near my chair, guttered and went out. My son and I were left in the dancing firelight. ‘Balder and Loki,’ he repeated.

‘Oh, very well,’ I said, giving in. ‘Balder, who was called the Beautiful-’

‘I’m beautiful,’ Adam said. He was never one to hide his light under a bushel.

I gave him a kiss and a hug. ‘Yes, you are,’ I agreed, ‘but don’t interrupt. Balder the Beautiful was the second son of the god Odin — or Woden as he’s sometimes called — and his wife Frigga, or Freya, the mother of the gods. Balder was the god of the sun, of light and peace, and all the other gods loved him.’

‘Except Loki,’ Adam said with relish.

It was obvious who, to him, was the hero of this story. Perhaps it should have worried me, but I remembered myself at his age. Heroes had always been boring: villains were so much more entertaining.

‘I’m coming to that. I told you, don’t interrupt. Well, Balder was so beautiful and so beloved that Odin-’

‘Or Woden.’

‘All right. Odin, or Woden, decreed that nothing which sprang from air, fire, water or earth should ever be able to harm him. So all the gods thought that Balder was quite safe from Loki, the god of earth and strife and darkness, who hated him.’

‘But Loki was too clever for them,’ my son said, wriggling again in anticipation.

‘Much too clever. He fashioned an arrow made from a branch of mistletoe because mistletoe doesn’t grow from the earth. It only grows on other trees.’

‘The oak and the apple.’

‘Yes. And if it grew on an oak, it was especially sacred to the druids, the priests of the old religion. It could only be cut with a knife of pure gold and had to be caught in an equally pure white cloth because it must never touch the ground.’

Adam wasn’t interested in this. ‘Go on about Loki,’ he commanded.

‘Where was I? Oh, I know. Well, Loki made an arrow from mistletoe, but he was much too wily to fire it himself. Instead, he gave it to the blind god of war, Hoder, and whispered to him in which direction to aim it …’

‘And Hoder shot the arrow and it killed Balder,’ my son finished excitedly, bouncing up and down on my knee. ‘And that was the end of Balder.’

‘We-ell, not quite,’ I said. ‘You know the ending to this story as well as I do. You’ve heard it before. The other gods and goddesses all missed Balder so much that they begged Odin to bring him back to life. So he did.’

Adam nodded, then said thoughtfully, ‘Like Our Lord, Jesus Christ.’

I don’t know how long Adela had been standing in the parlour doorway, left open by Adam, or just how much she had heard, but our son’s unconscious blasphemy set the seal on her wrath. He was seized from my lap and, to his utter astonishment, given a resounding slap where it hurt the most before his mother turned on me.

‘Don’t ever,’ she raged, ‘let me hear you telling him, or any of the children, stories like that again. I won’t have you corrupting their minds with such evil, irreligious nonsense.’ She turned back to Adam and shook him hard. ‘And don’t let me hear you repeating it, either. You’re to put such wickedness out of your mind. Do you understand me, Adam? Men only made up those stories when they didn’t know any better. But we do! There is only One God and Our Lord Jesus Christ is His Son. I don’t ever want to hear those pagan names on your lips again.’

I was by now in as much of a temper as she was. ‘That’s just plain stupid,’ I rasped. ‘If he can’t mention Tue, Woden, Thor and Frig, how is he going to pronounce the days of the week? You perhaps don’t realize it, my dear’ — there is nothing like a ‘my dear’ to emphasize how angry you are when arguing with your wife — ‘but we talk about them all the time.’

Adela stared at me for a moment or two, her breast heaving, then she quite suddenly burst into tears. ‘I hate you!’ she sobbed and rushed from the room.

Adam and I stared at one another in consternation.

Of course, she didn’t really hate me.

I put Adam to bed in the little room he shared with Nicholas, then went in search of Adela in our own bedchamber, where she always took refuge when upset. It took all my well-known tact and charm to win her round — plus a solemn promise never again to tell the children ‘pagan legends’ as she called them — and in the end we decided to go to bed ourselves and make up in the usual way. It was pitch dark outside and a fine snow was still falling. As my wife pointed out, it would save candles and more logs for the parlour fire; but as I couldn’t help reflecting, rather sadly, there had been a time, not that far distant, when such a mundane consideration would not even have entered our heads.

I woke after some hours with a raging thirst, the result of three beakers of ale and two bowlfuls of rabbit stew, and went downstairs to the water barrel in the kitchen to slake it. The snow had stopped now, as a peep out of the back door into our little yard confirmed. In the distance, I could hear the rattle of the night-soilers’ carts as they went about their filthy, stinking business, cleaning out the public latrines and cesspits as well as the private privies of anyone who was willing to pay for their services. Occasionally, I did so myself and decided that if I continued to earn good money at my peddling, I might do so permanently. It was a happy thought and I smiled. Then I went back inside, shutting and bolting the door after me.

I was still thirsty, so I fetched another cup of water and perched on the edge of the kitchen table, swinging one leg. It had not been the best possible start to Christmas, but that had been largely my own fault. I shouldn’t have stayed in the Green Lattis, drinking, and I shouldn’t have lost my temper when I discovered that Richard Manifold had usurped my right to tie the kissing bush to the ceiling hook. Or should I? I wasn’t quite sure.

Thinking about the Green Lattis brought back the memory of the face I had seen across the ale-room. I was still unable to put a name to it, but I was possessed of the strong conviction that it had been in the wrong place. It hadn’t been in its familiar surroundings. Had it been, I felt certain I should have known who the man was.

‘You’ll recollect, given time,’ I told myself. ‘Let it alone and it’ll come to you. It always does.’

But I couldn’t stop worrying at the problem, like probing an aching tooth with one’s tongue, so I deliberately diverted my thoughts to a different worry, and one that I could do nothing about. It was a month or so now since rumours began circulating that King Richard — a man I loved and deeply admired and who had, on several occasions, claimed me as a friend — had had his two nephews murdered. These stories had started during the late rebellion, and I thought I knew who was their author: one of the king’s most implacable enemies, John Morton, Bishop of Ely. But once the rebellion had been put down, skilfully and with very little loss of life or retribution, I had confidently expected the king to deny the calumny publicly and to produce the two boys, alive and well, for all the world to see. It hadn’t happened, and although I kept telling myself that my belief in King Richard’s humanity and probity was as strong as ever, now and again I felt that belief to be a little shaken …

It was useless to think like that. I stood up abruptly, swallowed the remaining water, replaced the cup on the shelf and went back to bed. In spite of my cluttered mind, within five minutes I was asleep and snoring. Or, at least, so Adela informed me in the morning.

It was at breakfast that Adela, looking a little heavy-eyed as though she had slept badly, informed Nicholas and myself that our first task on this Eve of Christmas would be to go down to Redcliffe Wharf where, so she had been informed, the Yule logs were being distributed.

‘Now you know what to look for, Roger,’ she instructed me. ‘A log that’s not too wet, so that it won’t burn at all, but not too dry, either. A bit green and damp so that it will burn throughout the whole twelve days until Twelfth Night. If it stops burning, that’s bad luck for the coming year.’

‘I wanted to go and watch the mummers arrive,’ my stepson protested indignantly, but his mother was adamant.

‘That’s not until this afternoon,’ she said. ‘There will be plenty of time for that afterwards.’

‘How do you know it’s this afternoon?’ Nick, though normally a quiet and amenable child, could be awkward when he chose.

‘Sergeant Manifold said so.’

‘I didn’t hear him.’

‘That’ll do, Nicholas!’ Adela so rarely called her son by his full name that he looked startled. ‘You’ll do as I tell you.’

Not another Christmas disagreement, please Lord, I prayed silently. Out loud I said, ‘I should appreciate your company, Nick. Then, if I choose the wrong log, I’ll have someone to share the blame with.’

That made him grin and restored his good humour. ‘Can we take Hercules?’

‘Yes, if you like. Although I warn you, he’s bound to be more of a hindrance than a help.’

So as soon as breakfast was finished, I set out with the two of them for Redcliffe Wharf. Before leaving, I gave Adela a smacking kiss and the purseful of money I had made the preceding day. Pleasurably surprised by the amount, she not only returned my embrace with interest, but actually conceded that perhaps, after all, I had earned those extra two beakers of ale in the Green Lattis.

Early as it was, the streets were already crowded as people began their last-minute preparations for the holy day on the morrow. As we made our way across the bridge and along Redcliffe Street the crowds grew thicker, and several times Hercules was obliged to growl menacingly at strangers who jostled us too closely. Like ourselves, many of those on foot were making their way towards the quayside where the Yule logs were being handed out. My hopes of getting one exactly suited to my wife’s requirements faded.

We had just turned into one of the narrow alleyways which run between Redcliffe Street and the Backs, when a great shout went up from some of the people ahead of us. ‘A mill! A mill!’

Every man loves a good fight, and immediately all those behind us began surging forward. I hauled Hercules up into my arms, told Nicholas to hang on to my cloak and on no account to let go, then used my height and bulk and strength to heave aside my neighbours and push us clear of the alley.

A circle of spectators, about eight deep, had already formed about the two contestants, but I edged my stepson to where a pile of Yule logs, a little apart from the rest and so far unnoticed by others, formed a platform from which the fight could easily be viewed in comfort.

To my astonishment, this was no bout of fisticuffs between a couple of crane workers or dock-hands — which was not an unusual sight along the Backs — but a set-to between two young men who, judging by their clothes, were of some wealth and standing. The savagery of the blows which they were inflicting on one another argued an enmity deeply felt and of long duration, but they had, at least, chosen to fight with their fists rather than their daggers or swords which, together with their cloaks and hats, were piled at the feet of an onlooker.

It was not easy to distinguish between them. They were of a similar age — somewhere, I guessed, around nineteen or twenty. Both were of slender build and both had brown curly hair. Indeed, except for the fact that one wore a blue tunic and the other a green it would have been almost impossible to tell them apart.

After a few minutes watching them, it became apparent that ‘blue tunic’ was getting the worst of it. He had been knocked to the ground twice in the last few seconds and was obviously tiring. His opponent, on the other hand, still seemed fresh and ready to continue handing out punishment indefinitely. And perhaps he would have done had there not, at that moment, been an interruption.

Some of the spectators were suddenly and violently scattered by a horse and rider plunging between them. A whip flashed, catching ‘green tunic’ across the shoulders, and a stentorian voice shouted, ‘Stop this! Stop it at once!’

It was Sir George Marvell.