Kate Sedley - The Christmas Wassail

Alderman Trefusis shrugged. ‘It’s the Christmas mummers. None of my doing, George,’ he replied with equal clarity. He glanced contemptuously at the second cart and the old pair seated on the box. ‘We were too late to hire a decent troupe and this rubbish was all we could find.’ He laughed loudly. ‘As you can see for yourself — the old, the halt and the blind. Well, semi-blind, at least. Not worth their board and food for my money.’

There was an uncomfortable murmuring amongst the crowd but, to their credit, the old couple showed no reaction of any sort. They merely stared at the two men as if they weren’t there, as if they were looking right through them. Then the woman removed the straw from her mouth in order to spit over the side of the cart and the man picked his teeth with a grubby fingernail before the horse, responding to a flick of the reins, moved forward and entered the inner ward.

The gate closed behind them and the crowd once more began to move.

‘What’ve we done to deserve that he should come and live amongst us, eh?’ demanded the same voice as before, and I turned to find Jack Nym beside me. He continued without waiting for an answer, ‘That Sir George got a lovely gert house up in Clifton what he’s abandoned. All empty it is now. Weeds growing everywhere. Wood beginning to rot. Why he don’t make it over to his son and daughter-in-law and their boy is more’n anyone can tell. But he’s one o’them controlling sort. He holds the purse strings and doles out the money.’

I grinned. ‘You’ve been talking to Burl Hodge.’

Jack frowned. ‘No, I ain’t. What d’you mean?’

‘Burl doesn’t like Sir George, either.’

‘Does anyone?’ was the explosive answer. ‘Do you?’

‘Not much,’ I admitted. ‘Although I believe he’s a brave man. Fought in the French wars with great credit.’

‘Huh!’ Jack dismissed this with a wave of his hand. ‘I’ll tell you one who hates his very guts, and that’s his sister.’

‘Why?’ asked Adela as we struggled across the bridge, hemmed in on all sides.

Jack shook his head. ‘Too long a story an’ I’ve got a load of sea coal to deliver before today’s out. You ask Mistress Walker or one of her cronies. They’ll know.’ He began ruthlessly elbowing his way through the people ahead of us. ‘God grant you a merry Christmas,’ he called back over his shoulder.

The next moment he was lost to view.

We did not see Margaret Walker until the following day, when she came to take her Christmas dinner with us.

We were all tired after the excitement of the mummers’ arrival, and Adela decreed we must go to bed as soon as supper was finished, especially the children, if we were to be up at midnight for the first of the day’s three Masses. This, the Angel’s Mass, we always celebrated at St Giles’s Church, in Bell Lane, as it was the shortest distance from our house and entailed the minimum of walking at an hour when none of us was at our best. Strangely, the children always seemed fresher than either Adela or myself, and enjoyed the novelty of being abroad at an hour when they were normally tucked up securely in their beds. This year, the newest addition to our family, eleven-month-old Luke, he of the curly hair and ready smile, protested a little at being roused from his first deep sleep, but, as I have already indicated, he was of too sunny a disposition to be disturbed by anything for long, and the sight of all the other people and the flickering candlelight in the church soon restored him to his normal good humour.

St Giles, as I have explained elsewhere in these chronicles, is built on the foundations of the Jewish Synagogue which stood upon the site for a hundred years and more until the first Edward expelled the Jews two centuries ago, and for me, that knowledge has always added something extra to the sanctity of the place — although that was not a sentiment I dared communicate even to Adela, Or, perhaps, especially not to Adela. We managed to push our way to the front of the crowd thronging the nave, so that even Adam could see everything without being picked up, while my wife and I shared the burden of our foster son between us. The figures of the saint — the mentor, so it is claimed, of Charlemagne — and the deer he rescued from King Flavius’s huntsmen had both been newly painted and glowed in the light from the altar candles and wall cressets. Luke was enchanted, clapping his little hands and dribbling with enthusiasm as he tried to express his joy. Walking the short distance back to our house, he bounced up and down in my arms with sheer exuberance.

Adela groaned. ‘He’s never going to settle, and we must be up again at dawn for the Shepherds’ Mass.’ She added, ‘I thought we’d walk up to All Saints.’

The three older children jibbed a bit at that but, like myself, they knew better than to take issue with the decision. There were times, and this was one of them, when once Adela had made up her mind on some matter, it was useless to argue with her. She could be as stubborn as a mule and invariably carried her point. Consequently, after a few hours sleep, we were all to be found trudging wearily up Small Street and crossing Corn Street to All Saints’ Church.

Yet again, the building was full and we were not so lucky this time in our attempts to reach the front of the nave. This, after all, was not our church and the regular worshippers quite rightly resented our efforts to take precedence over them. As a result, we were some way back, not far from the door, so that my attention was distracted by the arrival of every latecomer (and also of every early departure, if it came to that). To my astonishment, among the former was Lady Marvell, who hurried in about ten minutes after the Mass had started, alone except for a young girl who I guessed to be her maid.

The Marvell family naturally attended the great church of St Mary in Redcliffe — or St Mary Redcliffe as it was commonly referred to, as though the saint had a second name — and I was amazed to see Patience appear on this side of the river, at All Saints. That she was by herself was obvious when, after ten minutes or so had gone by, no other member of the family had joined her. Watching her closely, I thought she seemed anxious not to draw attention to herself, lingering at the back of the congregation and keeping her eyes cast down in an attempt to avoid people’s gaze. She was wearing the same fur-trimmed brown velvet cloak as the day before, and kept the hood drawn close about her face. Her whole demeanour seemed to me to be slightly furtive, and I was not entirely surprised to see her slip unobtrusively out of the church before the Mass was finished. The maid had plainly been told to stay where she was and made no move to follow.

Fortunately, Adela had only recently relieved me of Luke, so I was able go in pursuit without my absence being noticed, for a while at least. I was just in time to catch a glimpse of Patience Marvell’s cloak as she turned into Corn Street and caught her up with very little trouble, keeping a dozen or so paces behind her. She appeared to be heading for the Frome quayside, but then suddenly stopped short a few yards before reaching the entrance to Marsh Street. Here, she cast a quick, furtive glance around, withdrawing into the shadow of an adjacent doorway, huddling even further inside the protection of her cloak and looking extremely ill-at-ease. Almost immediately, a man joined her; a man who must have been loitering in the vicinity awaiting her arrival.

I sucked in my breath. Marsh Street! Otherwise known as ‘Little Ireland’! And even though the light was still poor, the winter sun not yet having climbed above the rooftops, I recognized Patience Marvell’s companion and knew whose face it was that I had seen two nights before in the Green Lattis. It belonged to someone with whom I had had dealings once or twice in the past. His name was Briant of Dungarvon and he was an Irish slave trader.