Pat McIntosh - The Nicholas Feast

‘I know Henry’s lines.’ William was by the door, supercilious under a gold brocade turban.

‘You can’t take three parts, William. And we’re doing the first version of your fight, is that clear?’ Nick pursued, ignoring the red-haired boy’s expression. ‘The first version, not the one with the long speeches.’

‘It’s a paltry little play anyway,’ William objected in his fluent Latin, the disdainful expression ever more marked. ‘It would be an act of destruction to omit the best speeches.’

‘I will not argue,’ Nick said in the same language. ‘I am in charge of the play. You heard my instructions, William. Right, are we ready? Let’s go, before the bejants start a riot.’

Gil paused to snuff the candles by the mirror, and followed the company out into the courtyard and along the west range, past the tunnel that led to the yett and into the Lang Schule. The lecture-room had been transformed since the Faculty meeting, and was now hung with painted cloths. Cushioned settles had been placed for the older members and long benches arranged round a stage set off by a suit of worn verdure tapestries which Gil recollected from the Principal’s house in his day. The Masters and senior students were all deep in conversation, as befitted their dignity, but on the side benches the younger bachelors and the bejants, the first-year students, were becoming restless. Slipping in at the side, Gil found himself a seat beside Maister Coventry, who nodded at him.

‘I see you survived the feast.’

‘I avoided most of it,’ Gil confessed. ‘I’ve been helping at the play.’

‘Probably safer. And what is Nick giving us? Some kind of allegory, as usual?’

Nick Kennedy, in a grey wig and gold cloak, stepped on to the stage from among the tapestries, bowed to the Dean and Principal and the rest of the audience, and in the usual deprecatory Latin announced that this rough play and its limping metre would depict an allegory of the student’s life. The regents and Masters applauded, the students groaned, Nick bowed again and left the stage, and there was a long pause, and some hissing whispers behind the tapestry. Then Richie emerged, stumbling slightly as if pushed, and launched abruptly into a halting account of how as a Scholar he had been nurtured at a grammar school on the milk of Latin and rhetoric but was now of an age to wish for stronger food. He followed the words with his finger in his bundle of papers, and spoke in the curious accent affected by Lanarkshire youth on a stage.

To him entered the gangling William, wearing the gold cloak and turban and introducing himself as Fortune, and in a long speech invited the Scholar to accompany him through the world, promising to lead him to a banquet of the richest food an enquiring mind could wish for. Their journey round the stage was marred by a tendency for the students on the side benches to tramp with their feet in time with the scholarly steps, until the Dean’s chilly stare took effect.

‘There are only eight bejants,’ said Patrick Coventry, ‘and two are in the play. How can six boys of fourteen be so wild to handle?’

‘Because they’re boys of fourteen?’ Gil suggested.

Maister Coventry’s reply was drowned by whistling and stamping. The Scholar and Fortune had encountered a bevy of veiled ladies, at least one of whom had not obeyed Maister Kennedy’s directions about the padding. The Dean deployed his stare again, and in the relative silence Fortune declared that these were Dame Collegia and her daughters, among whom were Learning, Wisdom and Knowledge. Learning and Wisdom looked under their eyebrows at their friends, but Knowledge struck a provocative pose and grinned, displaying several missing teeth, as Fortune informed the Scholar that if he were wedded to one of these damsels he would become one of the Dame’s children himself, and would never lack for the finest fare.

The Dame and her daughters sang a motet in praise of the scholarly life, the beat given by Bernard Stewart from the edge of the stage. Gil recognized the music; he hoped that nobody else was familiar with the original words, but Patrick Coventry beside him muttered, ‘Dear me.’

The Scholar appeared about to succumb to one or all of these beauties, but William, who had left the stage, re-entered in a linen headdress, dragging two startled boys with him and declaring himself to be Dame Frivolity with her servants Gambling and Drunkenness. Collegia and her daughters, with shocked gestures, left.

‘They were going to cut this,’ Gil said, as startled as Frivolity’s henchmen.

‘A last-minute change?’

‘The cut was a last-minute change itself.’

Overcoming the Scholar’s reluctance, Frivolity enticed him into a game of dice while the goblet went round, then departed. The side benches, who appeared to know what was coming, began whistling again. The Scholar, pushing his hair out of his eyes, read out that he had lost all his money, and just as he seemed about to fall into a drunken stupor, a fearsome dragon rushed onstage. The bejants cheered.

‘When did we get the costume?’ Gil asked, as the monster rampaged about, threatening the front rows of the audience and making an attempt on the Dean’s silk gown.

‘In ’89, I think,’ said Maister Coventry. ‘It was a gift from a student’s family. We have to make use of it, of course. It barely fits William, as tall as he is. Have you noticed the weather?’

Gil looked up at the tall window. The dark clouds were much closer, and a shutter was banging on an upper floor of the house immediately opposite.

‘Any of the bejants admit to being afraid of thunder?’ he asked. The regent shook his head.

The dragon was now making a lengthy speech in which it identified itself as Idleness and threatened to consume the Scholar utterly. The Scholar made futile efforts to escape, clutching his script, while Gambling and Drunkenness refused to help, but nothing availed until a sturdy knight with a wooden sword and well-polished shield tramped on. Pausing only to announce himself as Diligence, the enemy of Idleness and the support and defence of scholars everywhere, he attacked the dragon, which fought back furiously. Dame Collegia and her daughters returned to cheer the knight on. From time to time one or the other combatant broke off to address the audience at length, until the noise from the side benches became too much and the dragon attacked them instead.

‘That was a mistake,’ said Maister Coventry. Leaning forward he laid firm hands on the two students nearest him, but those beyond had already leapt to their feet and begun baiting the dragon with enthusiasm. The boys from the other side bench rushed across the room and joined in, tugging at the dragon’s tail, and as the canvas tore Dean Elphinstone rose to his feet.

‘ Tacete! ’ he said, in a voice like the crack of a whip.

All movement was suspended. The Dean held the moment; that icy stare swept the room, and returned to Diligence, who swallowed hard and brought sword to shield in a salute. Finally the Dean bowed.

‘Pray continue, Sir Diligence,’ he said politely, and seated himself again.

The students slunk back to their seats; the dragon gathered up its damaged tail and regained the stage. Diligence, overcoming it with a perfunctory sweep of his sword, turned to raise the Scholar to his feet. As Dame Collegia and her daughters came forward to discuss the Scholar’s marriage, William removed the dragon’s head and stalked off behind the tapestries, and Gil heard the first rumble of thunder.

The Scholar’s marriage arrangements were much more quickly dealt with than Gil felt to be realistic. All present attempted a motet, praising diligence and condemning idleness, and as soon as it was finished the chaplain slipped out of the hall with an anxious expression, presumably to prepare for his lecture to the theologians. Nick reappeared to say that the play was over and the players hoped it had given pleasure. The place where he had cut the line hoping it had not given offence was barely noticeable. Gil, eyeing his friend, felt that this was a man who needed to be plied with strong drink.