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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

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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.

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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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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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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