John Saturnall's Feast Read Online Free PDF Page B

Hole. Nor work so selflessly for his parish. For Marpot would preach the sermon whenever Father Hole was indisposed, continuing long after the sands in the glass had run down, according to the reports of Gideon Stevens. He even led lessons in his cottage for the men and women of the parish, just as the Bishop had encouraged. No, Timothy Marpot's arrival in the parish was a boon. A godsend, he had told his new warden at their Audit Dinner. As he carved slices from the cheeks of the calf's head, a beatific smile had spread over the man's face as if some long-deferred prayer had been answered.
    A loud cough from Gideon recalled him. Father Hole glanced at his chosen verse, turned his mottled face to his congregation and upended his hourglass.
    ‘The wicked spring up like grass,’ he announced to the parishioners of Saint Clodock's. ‘But the virtuous man stands like a palm tree.’
    The text was one of his favourites. Wickednesses were many, Father Hole explained. Happily the single trunk of virtue rose above, starving them of sunlight and rain. That was the palm tree. Evil withered, he remembered telling himself, hunched over the table in his parlour while the Zoyland zealots bellowed in his church. Untended, the grass of wickedness shrivelled and died. The chanting had stopped. It was over, he had told himself. Then the crash of the glass battered his ears. So he had sat with the long brown bottle, alone like the palm tree, waiting . . .
    And he had been right. By the time the Constable and his men had been fetched from Carrboro, Brother Zoilus and his black-cloaked men had moved on. To the hamlets up on the Spines. Or out onto the marshes of the Levels. To the dank chapels of Zoyland. Brother Zoilus had made his last appearance bursting from the crowd after Mass in Carrboro Abbey. Bible raised in righteous anger, he had used it to break the Bishop's nose. In return, his lordship had cut off the man's hand.
    ‘Thus the wicked decrease,’ Father Hole told his congregation as the last grains of sand in his hourglass trickled down. ‘They are turned to chaff. God blows them away. Such is the fate of the wicked.’
    He led the prayers for the Kin, then Sir William at the Manor. He watched the men and women rise from their pews. His thoughts turned to the parlour and the bottle in the cupboard. He would wait until sunset, he resolved. This was the Lord's Day after all. A chorus of coughs, sniffs, mutterings and scrapings was rising in the nave.
    At the door he offered blessings and examined his charges. The bruise on Ginny Lambe's face prompted a warning look to John Lambe. The bulge in Maddy Oddbone's belly provoked a glare and a shake of the head. Tom Hob was treated to a rap from his own wooden tankard, dangling from a string around his waist. The smell of stale cider from Elijah Huxtable prompted Father Hole to lay a hand on the man's arm.
    ‘The new well's near two years old, Elijah. Have you tried its waters?’
    ‘Well-water's for children and horses, Father,’ the man muttered. Father Hole exchanged glances with Elijah's brother Leo as the others shuffled past. The older man shrugged.
    He was their shepherd, thought Father Hole. They were his sheep. Like sheep, they mostly wandered where they wanted. At last only the children were left. Father Hole led them in and had them sit cross-legged on the floor. He held up a lump of chalk.
    ‘Who will draw a palm tree?’
    They looked at him open-mouthed: Tobit Drury and Seth Dare, Dando Candling whose hair was whiter than his own, Cassie and Abel Starlin, the Chaffinge children, Peggy Rawley who always clutched a doll, the Fenton girls and all the others. He smiled down at them. He liked to ask them odd questions. Even startle them. God could disappear, he told them once. He could vanish like ice in a puddle. Like glass in a window.
    ‘Come now,’ he cajoled. ‘Who will draw?’
    Father Hole waved the chalk before the stolid faces. In his mind's eye, he saw the trunk