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fistion - pub date is fall 2012. Illustrations by Roberto de Vicq de Cumptich
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ad card Title pg
B Y T H E S A M E A U T H O R
Lemprière’s Dictionary
The Pope’s Rhinoceros
In the Shape of a Boar
Lawrence Norfolk
G R O V E P R E S S | N E W Y O R K
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� From The Book of
John Saturnall, with
the Particulars of that
famous Cook’s most
Privy Arts, including the
Receipts for his notorious
Feast. Printed in the
Year of Our Lord Sixteen
hundred and eighty-one �
new right
PT page
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EXT/Headnote
From The Book of John Saturnall, with the Particulars of that
famous Cook’s most Privy Arts, including the Receipts for his
notorious Feast. Printed in the Year of Our Lord Sixteen hundred
and eighty-one.
ow Saturnus created the first Garden and when,
this humble Cook does not pretend to know. Nor
the Name writ over its Gates, be it Paradise or
Eden. But every green Thing grew in that ancient
Plantation.Palm-trees gave Dates and Honey flowed from the
Hives. Grapes swelled on the Vine and and every Creature thrived.
There the first Men and Women sat together in Amity and no Man
was Master or Slave. For at Saturnus’s Table did every Adam serve
his Eve and in his Garden they did exchange their Affections. For
there they kept the Saturnall Feast. ¶ Now Saturnus’s Gardens
are overgrown. Our brokeback Age has forgotten the Dishes that
graced the old God’s chestnut-wood Tables. In these new-restored
Times, Inkhorn Cooks prate of their Inventions and Alchemical
Cooks turn Cod-Roes into Peas. My own rude Dishes stumble
after such Dainties like the Mule that limps behind the Pack-horse
Train, braying at his Betters. Yet as one who marched through
the late Wars falls exhausted into the succeeding Peace, I set my
last Table here. ¶ For this late-born Adam would plant a new
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2The pack-horses crept down the valley. Swept by waves of fine
grey rain, the distant beasts lurched under pack-chests and sacks. At
their head, a tall figure leaned into the drizzle as if pulling them away
from the dark village above. Standing beside the wooden bridge at the
bottom, a long-faced young man peered out from under his hat’s dripping
brim and forced his face into a grin.
Water seeped through the seams in Benjamin Martin’s boots.
Rain soaked his cloak. In the pack at his feet sat the load which he had
contracted to deliver to the Manor. He had been on the road for almost
a week. This morning the whole Vale had still lain ahead of his blistered
feet. But then he had spied the pack-horse train.
Ben’s grin broadened, stretching his face like the yawn of a surly
horse. He flexed his aching shoulders and stared up at the pack-horse
train.
Behind the driver came a piebald, then a bay, then two dark brown
ponies. But Ben’s gaze was fixed on the rear. A mule trailed behind the
others. A mule that appeared to carry nothing more than a pile of rain-
soaked rags. But even an unladen beast had to eat, Ben told himself. The
driver would be glad of his business. He glanced up the slope again to
Garden in these Pages and serve up Words for Fruits. Here would
he offer Receipts for his Dishes so that the old God’s boards might
groan again. Then Men and Women might sit down together
as they did long ago. Once again they might keep the Saturnall
Feast. To Prepare that ancient Hippocras which is vulgarly known
as Spiced Wine. ¶ From the first Garden’s Fruits was this ancient
Cup prepared: from Dates and Honey and Grapes and more, as I
shall tell. In a great Cauldron pour a Quart of White Wine and set
it over a low fire until the Wine shivers. Add to it eight Quarts
of Virgin Honey, not pressed from the Comb but sieved. If the
Decoction boils, settle it with cold Wine. Leave to cool then heat
again and skim. This will be done a Second Time and a Third
until the King’s Face on a Penny Coin may be seen plain on the
Bottom. ¶ Shuck the Flesh of Dates and soften them to a Paste
with Wine. Roast the Stones before a Fire and give them to the
Mixture. Add to it the Sweet Leaf called Folium, Ground Pepper as
much as a Woman at Prayer might hold between her Palms and a
Pinch of Saffron from the Crocus-flowers. Pour on these just above
two Gallons of Wine or until the Liquor’s Thickness will bear an
Egg that you might see its Shell swimming above to the size of a
Hazel-nut Shell. Next tie up Cloves and Mace in a Lawn-bag or a
Hippocras Sack, as more learned Cooks do term it. Let it steep in the
Liquor....
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the village.No lights showed among the cottages. No smoke rose from
the chimneys. No-one knew what had happened, the Flitwick men had
said the previous night at the inn. Not a soul had been up to Buckland
all winter.
Ben’s eyes scanned the soot-streaked church. It was none of his
business, he told himself. The village, the Vale, the Manor at the far
end: all shared the name of Buckland. Like a common curse, he thought.
When the packhorses got down he would make his bargain with the
driver. The mysterious parcel could share a ride with the wet rags on
the mule. It could get to the Manor without him. To this ‘Master Scovell’
whoever he was. Ben nudged the hated pack with his foot.
The beasts passed a row of split-oak palings. The cold rain seeped
up his boots to his breeches. Ben’s thoughts turned to Soughton and the
warm back room at the Dog at Night. Tonight he would be on his way
back. Master Fessler would take him back, he was sure. He would never
set eyes on this place again.
Three long loping strides took the driver down the last steep bank.
The piebald mare teetered after, the two pack-chests swaying on her
back. Joshua Palewick they had called the lean grey-haired man at the
Flitwick inn. Next came the bay horse, laden the same. The two ponies
were loaded with panniers and sacks. Last of all the mule which carried
only a bundle of rags and limped. The only thing a pack-horse man drove
harder than his horses was a bargain, Ben reminded himself. A penny
a mile was fair for a limping mule. The animals splashed through the
puddles and mud. He raised a hand in greeting. On the mule’s back, the
bundle of rags stirred.
A gust of wind, Ben told himself. Or a freak of the failing light. But
the next moment showed him it was not so. Out of the rags rose a head.
Out of the head stared a pair of eyes. The rags contained a boy.
Sharp cheek-bones jutted from his face. His hair was a mat of soaked
black curls. A sodden blue coat was draped over the rest of him. Hunched
awkwardly over the back of the mule, the young rider slipped and slid as
if he were about to fall. But there was no danger of that, Ben saw as the
mule drew closer. Thick cords encircled his wrists. The boy was tied to
the saddle.
The driver stopped.
Both men looked. Balanced on the mule, the boy had twisted about
to look back. Ben Martin followed his gaze, past the village and up the
overgrown slopes, all the way to the dark wall of trees at the top.
‘That’s where they caught him,’ Josh said. ‘Buccla’s Wood.’
m
they were running as hard as they could, out of the hut and across
the dark meadow, John’s heart thudding in his chest, fear churning his
guts. Beside him, his mother’s hand gripped the heavy sack in one hand
and John’s wrist in the other, the long grass whipping their legs as they
scrambled for the safety of the slopes. Behind them, the mob’s chant
grew more strident.
Honey from the Hive! Grapes from the Vine!Come out our Witch! Come drink your Wine!
Oily-smelling tallow-smoke laced the warm night air. The banging
of pots and pans mixed with the villagers’ shouts. John felt his mother’s
hand tighten, pulling him along. He heard the bag knock awkwardly
against her legs, the breath rasp in her throat. His own heart pounded.
Reaching the edge of the meadow they clawed their way up the first bank.
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Joh n S at u r n a l l’ s F e a s t
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PT page
stood with Abel and aimed missiles across Two-acre field.... Now he
basked in the memory while his mother strode ahead. The dew soaked
their legs, their bodies casting long shadows in the early morning sun.
His mother carried the book in her arms. A different lesson was about
to begin.
‘This was a garden once,’ John’s mother told him at the first bank. ‘A
long time ago. Everything a body could need grew here.’
‘Whose garden?’ John asked, looking up the slopes to the wood.
‘Buccla’s?’
His mother shook her head. ‘There was no Buccla.’
‘But the witch....’
‘There was no witch.’
‘But people say....’
‘People say lots of things. I knew a man once, he could say what he
wanted in every tongue under the sun. None of them were true. Now
come on.’
They climbed until the trees in Joan Chaffinge’s orchard looked like
sprigs of clover. Beside the stocks, the animal-pound seemed hardly big
enough for an ant. Tiny cottages and houses fringed the wedge of the
green where the old well stood like a thimble. Around it the bare patches
of Saint Clodock’s Tears pocked the grass. Across from Old Holy’s house,
people waited by the new well with their buckets and churns. Behind
them, a row of beech trees screened Marpot’s house and the Huxtable
barn at the back. His mother opened the book.
‘Look here.’ Her finger circled an intricate drawing then pointed to
a stalk of purple bell-flowers. ‘Foxglove. That’s for the heart. And here’s
lady’s bedstraw. That’s for cuts. Here’s tansy, and juniper, and rue.
There’s meadow saffron. That’s for gout. Self-heal flowers are for burns.
Loose-strife calms oxen. You drape it on their horns, people say. Do you
believe that, John?’
� From The Book
of John Saturnall:
A Feast for the Day
of Saint Joseph �
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EXT/Headnote
From The Book of John Saturnall: A Feast for the Day of Saint
Joseph
Capon is fit for the Table when the Smoke waves like
a Rag in a Gale. Pheasants, Geese and Ducks must
wait until the Juices run clear. A Pig is cooked when
its Eyes pop out. But when a Kitchen-boy is ready
for the Kitchen is a Question for subtler Doctors than I. ¶ It is a
rare Feast, I own, that celebrates the day of Saint Joseph and yet
that Festival was my Entrance to the Kitchen whose Music greeted
me with the Crackle of Fires and the Splash of Wine, followed
with the Creak of the Spit and the Knacker of Knives and grew
noisy with the Panting of the Bellows and the Cracking of Bones.
The Feast is a Song of many Parts, I learned that night. Below
the Stairs, its Musicians grate and grind and hammer and rasp.
Above, sits the lusty Choir whose Choristers hymn one another
with the guggling of Wine and the jawing of Forcemeats until the
Sweets are sent up, the Trays returned Bare and the last Creations
reduced to Crumbs. ¶ A Hall of Feasters will eat until the good
Earth’s Fruits are exhausted and drink until the Oceans run dry
but only when the last Trumpets sound may those below pause
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the Depths of Winter, they may sit in Amity together and even
share their Affections as they once before were wont to do.
So I offer the Dishes that I have set down in these Pages,
that all Men and Women might sit together. For a Cook is not
apart, as I once was told. And the Feast is not his alone, as I once
believed. Now my own Affections advise me better. For each
new-restored Adam may serve his dark-eyed Eve and, if her Love
suffices to sweat above a Pot, she may serve him too and together
they may keep the Saturnall Feast
John Saturnall. Written in the Year of our Lord, Sixteen Hundred and
Eighty.
Ac k now l ed gm en t s
To come lorem ipsum dolor sit amet, consectetur adipiscing elit.
Aliquam ut felis in lectus lobortis eleifend vel a dolor. Donec ac enim
nisl. Proin elit nunc, mattis ut rutrum eget, suscipit non massa. In hac
habitasse platea dictumst. Morbi in eros id nisl sollicitudin faucibus
vitae nec mauris. Nullam neque est, elementum at interdum quis,
bibendum ut justo. Nam auctor aliquam ante, non eleifend velit faucibus
vel. Suspendisse at neque nec lorem laoreet gravida a nec neque. Nunc
vitae diam enim, eget fermentum nisi. Nulla non fringilla dui. Morbi
ultrices arcu at justo fermentum imperdiet. Maecenas et volutpat ligula.
Praesent felis nisi, porta id malesuada id, aliquam vitae risus. Aliquam
at accumsan leo. Donec et ligula in lorem volutpat facilisis et id est.
Curabitur bibendum lacus quis nulla varius at rhoncus dui tempus.
Quisque at lorem at nunc vulputate tincidunt. Nullam felis eros,
semper eget vulputate et, dignissim vel urna. Sed et sagittis odio. Sed
nec odio est. Quisque dignissim fringilla varius. Vestibulum luctus
tempus sem, non malesuada magna tristique et. Pellentesque sed nulla
eu elit accumsan placerat pretium ut magna. Proin feugiat augue at nulla
fringilla ullamcorper. Integer enim justo, elementum ut imperdiet nec,
dictum sit amet tellus. Etiam lobortis arcu nec nunc tincidunt nec.
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