As Meat Loves Salt. Maria McCann

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СКАЧАТЬ for I dreaded giving a report of the boy’s wounds and seeing the horrified faces of my fellows.

      ‘Who knows?’ Izzy scratched with his fingernail at a crust of candlewax on Sir Bastard’s coat. ‘Look at this – stained all over and he throws it at me, expects it spotless tomorrow.’

      ‘Why doesn’t he buy new? He has money enough,’ I said, lifting down the tray of sand.

      ‘Drinks it away, like father like son,’ said Peter. ‘He is awash already.’

      ‘Even his father doesn’t go whoring.’ I laid the first plate in the sand and began rubbing at it with my palm until there came a bright patch in the grey, then moved on so that the brightness spread. Usually I liked scouring pewter, but it would take more than a pleasant task to lift my mood with the weight that lay on me. And now Mervyn was in the house.

      ‘As the pamphlet said, scum rises to the top,’ I went on. It galled me to be a servant to such as he, lecherous, intemperate, devoid of wit or kindness, forever asking the impossible and, the impossible being done, finding fault with the work.

      ‘Sshh! No word of pamphlets,’ said Izzy.

      At that instant Godfrey came into the room. ‘I have talked with both Master and Mistress,’ he announced.

      ‘And?’ asked Izzy.

      ‘They have promised to speak to him. Peter, it were better you did not serve at table. Jacob and I will be there.’

      ‘What’s this?’ I did not understand what was meant.

      ‘O, you don’t know,’ said Izzy. ‘Sir – ah – our young Master hit Peter in the face this morning.’

      Peter turned the other side of his head to me. The eye was swollen.

      ‘I will not ask what for, since to ask supposes some reason,’ I said, and went on scouring.

      ‘Humility is a jewel in a servant,’ said Godfrey. ‘It is not for us to cavil at our betters.’

      ‘Or our beaters,’ the lad muttered.

      ‘To hear you talk,’ I said to Godfrey, ‘a perfect man were a carpet, soiled by others and then beaten for it.’

      ‘And hearing you,’ he returned, ‘it is clear you have had some unwholesome reading lately. Take care the Master does not catch you

      ‘How should that happen unless I left it lying in a wine jug?’

      ‘Jacob,’ said Izzy. ‘Get on with your work.’

      

      Such impudent abuses as these Roches put on us, grew out of that slavery known as The Norman Yoke. That is to say, the forefathers of these worthless men, being murderers, ravishers, pirates and suchlike, were rewarded by William the Bastard for helping him mount and ride the English people, and they have stayed in the saddle ever after. The life of the English was at first liberty, until these pillaging Barons brought in My Lord This and My Lady That, shackling the native people and setting them to work the fields which were their own sweet birthright. Now, not content with their castles and parks, the oppressors were lately begun to enclose the open land, snatching even that away from the rest of us. Roche, this family were called, and is that not a Frenchy name?

      Though Caro thought our Mistress not bad, I had noted how little My Lady, as well as her menfolk, had trusted us since the war began. When they thought we were listening their talk was all of wickedness and its punishment. The King has Divine Right on his side, one would say, and another, New Model, forsooth. New noddle, more like, and there would be loud laughter. Then Sir Bastard might put in his groatsworth, how the rebels were half fed (for they thought it no shame to rejoice in such hunger), half drilled, half witted, so that the victory could go only one way.

      But we heard things from time to time, for all that the Roches kept mum or even spoke in French before our faces – indeed, so stupid was Mervyn that he had been known to do so before Mounseer Daskin, the cook, who could speak better French than any Roche had spoken since 1066 – and we took heart. Servants came to visit along with their masters, and whatever their sympathies they brought news from other parts of the country. We were on our guard, however, in speaking with these, for there were those who made report of their fellows.

      ‘It is said Tom Cornish is an intelligencer,’ Izzy told me one day. This Cornish had once been a servingman, and was now risen in the world – too high for any honest means. He farmed land on the far side of Champains, and his name was a byword throughout the country for a dedication to the Royalist cause bordering on that religious madness called enthusiasm, and commonly supposed only to afflict those on the Parliamentary side.

      ‘You recall the servants who were whipped?’ Izzy went on.

      I nodded. Not a year before, two men from Champains had been tried for being in possession of pamphlets against the King.

      ‘Well,’ Izzy went on, ‘it was Cornish brought them to the pillory.’

      ‘Impossible,’ I answered. ‘Say rather Mister Biggin.’

      Biggin was the master of the accused men, and had made no move to defend them.

      ‘Him also. But the one they cried out against was Cornish,’ Izzy insisted. ‘Gentle Christians both. More shame to Biggin, that he let them suffer.’

      ‘You forget they had a serious fault,’ said I.

      ‘Fault?’

      ‘Choosing their own reading. But Izzy, Cornish does not live at Champains. How would he know of it?’

      ‘’Tis said, he fees servants. Most likely, some who come here.’

      It was not like Izzy to suspect a man without cause. I noted his words carefully, and I guess he spoke to the rest, for we were all of us exceedingly discreet.

      Our masters were less so. Sir John, when in his cups, left his private letters lying about, and his son was alike careless. Mercurius Aulicus, the Royalist newsletter, appeared in the house from time to time; lately, we had noted with growing excitement, it was finding less and less cause to exult. Naseby-Fight, in June, had been followed by Langport, not a month later, and the half drilled half fed had triumphed in both. ‘The Divine Right,’ jeered Zeb, ‘seems sadly lacking in Divine Might.’

      Izzy pointed out that the soldiers on both sides were much of a muchness, for though the Cavaliers prided themselves on their fighting spirit and high mettle, they had the same peasants and masterless men to drill as their opposites.

      ‘Besides, Sir Thomas Fairfax is a gentleman,’ he added, ‘and this Cromwell a coming fellow.’

      

      Not that we were reduced solely to Mercurius Aulicus. Godfrey was right, I had found me some reading and was very much taken therewith, considering it not at all unwholesome.

      It was begun a few months before, by chance. Peter went to visit his aunt who worked at Champains, and there met Mister Pratt, one of the servants, and had some talk with him.

      ‘Eight o’clock behind the stables,’ Peter whispered СКАЧАТЬ