‘Not tonight, Sir Baldwin,’ the imperturbable Edgar remarked.
‘What is that supposed to mean?’ Baldwin demanded, sinking into a seat.
Jeanne was frigid as ice. ‘Perhaps you have forgotten that today we feast with Vincent le Berwe. He wishes us to share his evening meal before going with him and his family to attend the Mass in the Cathedral.’
‘Wonderful,’ said Baldwin with such hollow sarcasm that his wife rose and rested her hand on his shoulder.
‘It’s only a few more days, husband.’
‘It will feel like an eternity – except that with you at my side the time will fly past,’ he said gallantly.
But even as she smiled down at him in return, she saw his eyes lose their focus as his mind returned to the dead Secondary.
The Christmas Eve feast was an important event at Vincent’s house. There were eleven messes, Baldwin saw as he walked into the hall, so there were places for at least forty people, allowing four to each mess.
A twinge of guilt snagged at his consciousness as he sat down. He ought to be at his manor. It was his duty to provide seasonal hospitality for his villeins. They would bring their own faggots and he would provide the cooks, the food and the ale. Many lords, he knew, would expect the villeins to bring their own food and drink as well as the wood, but Baldwin felt strongly that his men had provided the food that would fill his belly for the year, so it was only right that he should feed them, just as he did at Michaelmas and Candlemas.
It was always a pleasant affair, Christmas at Furnshill. Baldwin would provide a loaf of heavy bread for his shepherd’s best dogs, and a variety of foods for all the men and women of the vill. There was usually a good strong chicken soup, bacon with beef and mustard, cheese and as much ale as the villeins could drink in the day. Usually the devils took that on as a challenge and there was little left remaining when Baldwin’s steward went over the accounts at the end of the day.
Today would be very different, of course, because it was a fast day. Although Friday was an official fast day during an ordinary week, the fact that tomorrow was Friday twenty-fifth December meant that it would have to be a Feast Day, which logically meant that today, Thursday, Christmas Eve, would be one without red meats.
On the sideboard, glistening under the yellow candle-flames, Baldwin could see herrings, eels, codlings and a variety of jellies. Pies were piled high on platters, and from the look of them they were probably Norwegian pasties, filled with cod’s liver and fish flesh; there were fried rissoles made from chestnuts, hardboiled eggs and cheese next to fresh codfish, trout and a salmon. And on one side were the fish that disgusted Baldwin: lampreys.
He loathed and detested lampreys. Any man who had ever seen a villein stumbling home from collecting these weird-looking fish, his sack over his back, and blood dribbling down his tunic where the foul fish had squirmed and sunk their fangs into him would also hate them. Baldwin had seen his cook prepare them once, splitting the mouth from the chin upwards, then tugging the tongue out and bleeding the horrible creatures into a dish so that their blood could thicken the gravy. The thought still made him shudder now.
But he would enjoy the other dishes. For once, the food was not overspiced and unrecognisable. Many of the dishes could be discerned – or, at least, their main constituents could be.
Vincent had placed Baldwin and Jeanne at his own right hand, a position which gave Baldwin some amusement. He scarcely knew Vincent and was sure he didn’t merit so privileged a position, but clearly Vincent wanted to ally himself with the knight in the eyes of his other guests. That thought made him glance along the tables.
When he and Jeanne had come to the hall the day before, only one table had been set up; now Vincent had a further four long trestle tables installed. Trestles were so much easier to rent and put up; they only needed long sections of cloth spread carefully over them to make them decent. The guests had benches.
Vincent had spent a small fortune on this feast, Baldwin thought. There were four large silver salts, one in the shape of an eagle, rather well executed, which remained before Vincent himself, while the others were simple lidded bowls for the guests. As soon as Vincent had washed his hands the bottler signalled to a waiting valet. The valet disappeared and while the bottler was pouring wine for his lord, the valet returned leading a train of servants, all with white napkins draped over their shoulders and with which they held the dishes.
Those on the main table were first to receive their trenchers. Vincent’s carver arrived before the main table with a small retinue of assistants. He took a round, heavy brown loaf of maybe eight inches diameter, and faster than Baldwin would have thought possible, he removed the crusts and converted the bread into four perfect square trenchers. On top of each he placed three hunks of good, white pieces of bread for eating, handling all only with his knife or napkin, before moving away to begin serving the other guests.
The initial courses were arriving now, and Baldwin was pleased to see that the dishes were simple and relatively plain.
From his own seat a little further along the table – since he wasn’t a knight, he could hardly expect the place of honour at Vincent’s side – Simon munched happily. He was fortunate in that his palate tolerated any and every mixture of dishes. He was some distance from Baldwin and Jeanne, but had struck up a conversation with the woman at his side, a pleasant lady called Juliana, whose husband, Simon discovered, had been raised not very far from his own birthplace near Crediton.
‘But you aren’t from Crediton yourself, surely?’ he said, trying not to spit crumbs from his tasty fish pasty.
She was chubby and happy, clearly enjoying her food and drink. Roguish dark eyes glinted with amusement, as if she was better born than anyone in the room and found a certain satisfaction and pleasure in observing the quaint, old-fashioned ways of people so far from civilisation. ‘No, I came from east of here. My husband and I met when he was visiting Winchester Market.’
He glanced at her man, who was talking loudly to his other neighbour. He was a large fellow, with broad hands and stumpy fingers, a thick, heavy body, jowled, with small eyes but a cavernous mouth when he roared with laughter. Simon felt sure that Juliana could not be happy in her marriage. ‘So you have travelled a long way?’ he said pleasantly.
She should have annoyed him, with her up-country attitudes, but he felt a degree of sympathy for her, and she seemed happier with his company than she would have been with any other man in the room. He found the fixed concentration of her green eyes very flattering.
‘Yes, a very long way. I miss my home.’ A shadow passed over her brow, but it was only there a moment and she said brightly, ‘But it is good to see new areas. You know, my mother never saw more than the lands maybe two leagues from her home.’
‘Really?’ Simon considered, slurping a mouthful of wine to wash down the fish. ‘Exeter’s a good city to live in, too, isn’t it?’
‘Well, it is pleasant. But Winchester is rather better.’
Deciding to change the subject, he emptied his mazer and held it aloft for the bottler to refill. Then he selected a piece of salted fish. ‘Here – try some of this,’ he said politely. ‘It’s excellent.’
She took a morsel, touching his finger for longer than was really necessary, and to his faint disquiet, she held his gaze while she slowly placed it in her mouth.
‘I think I should be careful,’ Simon told himself. ‘This woman could eat me up and spit out the remains.’
Hawisia rested her hand lightly on her husband’s. She could see that he was still worried, no matter how he attempted to conceal it, his eyes blinking quickly in that nervous manner she recognised so well, the little nerve twitching in his left cheek where the candlelight caught it. Patting his forearm reassuringly, she gave him a smile and was warmed to see him return it – slowly, to be sure, but with genuine affection.