Seven

      They celebrated the Christmas feast with a series of great dinners at the castle which started on the first day of Christmas and went on till the early winter darkness fell on the twelfth day. They had singers and dancers and a troupe of dark-skinned tumblers who could walk on their hands as well as their feet and whirled around the hall going from hands to feet so fast that they looked like some strange man-beast – an abomination. They had a man with a horse which could dance on its hind legs and tell fortunes by pawing out ‘yes’ or ‘no’ on the ground.

      On the second day they brought in a bear and forced wine on her and made her dance around the great hall while the young men leaped and cavorted around her – always making sure to keep clear of those huge flailing paws. When they were sick of the dance they took off her mask and baited her with dogs until three hounds were killed. Then Hugo called a halt. Alys saw he was distressed by the loss of one dog, a pale brown deer-hound. The bear was still snarling and angry and her keeper fed her with a dish of cheat-bread soaked with honey and some powerful mead. She went all sleepy and foolish in minutes and he was able to put her mask back on and take her from the hall.

      There were some who would have liked to kill her for the sport of it when she was dozy and weak. Hugo, who had been excited by the danger of her and the speed of her sudden charges, would have allowed it but the old lord shook his head. Alys was standing behind his chair.

      ‘Do you pity her? The great bear?’ she asked.

      He gave his sharp laugh. ‘Hardly,’ he said. ‘But the keeper sells her play very dearly. If we had wanted to kill her it would have cost us pieces of gold!’ He glanced back at Alys with his knowing smile. ‘Always check a man’s purse before you scan his heart, little Alys. That is where most decisions are made!’

      The next day the young men went out hunting and Hugo brought back a deer still alive, with its thin legs bound, so that they could release it in the hall. It leaped in terror on to the great trestle-tables, sliding on the polished surface, frantically glaring around the hall for escape, and people ran screaming with laughter out of its way. Alys watched its shiny black eyes bulging with fear as they drove it from one corner to another. She saw the slather of white sweat darken the russet coat until they hustled it forwards and up to the dais so that the old lord could plunge his hunting dagger into its heart. The women all around her screamed with pleasure as the brilliant red blood pumped out. Alys watched the deer fall, its dainty black hooves scrabbling for a foothold even as it died.

      On the morning of the twelfth day they held a little joust. David had ordered the castle carpenters to build a temporary tilt-yard in the fields of the castle farm, and a pretty tent of striped material for the old lord to sit at his ease and watch the riders. Catherine sat beside him, wearing a new festive gown of yellow, bright in the hard winter sunlight. Alys sat in her dark blue gown on a stool at his left hand to keep the score of hits for each rider.

      Hugo was monstrous and exciting in his armour. His left shoulder was hugely enlarged by a great sheet of metal forged into shape and studded with brass nails which terminated in a gross gauntlet. His right shoulder and arm were scaled like a woodlouse with overlapping plates of jointed metal so he could move freely and hold the lance. His chest and belly were covered by a smooth polished breastplate, shaped to deflect any blow, and his legs were encased in jointed metal. He walked stiffly and awkwardly to his horse, the big roan warhorse, which was also plated from head to tail, only its bright, excited, white-ringed eyes showing through the headpiece.

      ‘Is it dangerous?’ Alys asked Lord Hugh.

      He nodded, smiling. ‘It can be,’ he said.

      Hugo’s challenger was waiting at the other end of the lists. Catherine leaned forward, her eyes gleaming with excitement, and dropped her yellow handkerchief. At once the horses sprang forward and the two charged one another. As they came closer the lances came down, and Alys shut her eyes, dreading the sound of lance against body. All she could hear was the thunder of hooves, and then the horses were still. Lord Hugh nudged her.

      ‘No score,’ he said. ‘Pair of boys.’

      In the second run Hugo struck his opponent on the body, on the third he took a blow to his shoulder, and on the fourth his lance hit his challenger smack in his metalled belly and threw him from the horse.

      There was a great yell of approval from the watching crowd and the townspeople, who were crowded in at the gate end of the ground, threw their caps in the air and shouted ‘Hugo!’

      Hugo pulled his horse up and trotted back down the lists. They were bending over the challenger and taking his helmet off.

      ‘Are you all right, Stewart?’ Hugo called. ‘Just winded?’

      The man raised his hand. ‘A little tap,’ he said. ‘But I’ll let someone else unseat you!’

      Hugo laughed and trotted back to his place. Alys sensed his complacent smile hidden beneath the helmet.

      They jousted until the early afternoon and then only went in for a late dinner as the light began to fail. Hugo stripped off his armour at the ground floor of the tower and ran up the spiral stairs in his shirt and hose shouting for a bath. He was washed and dressed in his red doublet in time for dinner and sat at his father’s right hand and drank deep. As the lords ate, the mummers sang and danced, and when Lord Hugo called for the bowl and washed his hands and was served with hippocras wine the Lords of Misrule marched in from the kitchen with the lowliest server at their head.

      Lord Hugh laughed and vacated his seat at the high table and took a chair at the fireside with Catherine standing behind him. They seated him comfortably and then brought a dirty apron for Hugo and ordered him to serve them all with wine. The women in the body of the hall shrieked with laughter and sent the young lord racing around the hall with one order after another. The serving-lad sat in the lord’s chair and handed down commands and judgements. A number of men were outrageously accused of girls’ play, and ordered to be tied one on another’s back in a long laughing line, to see how they liked a surfeit of it. Several of the serving-wenches were accused of venery and taking the man’s part in the act of lust. They had to publicly strip to their shifts and wear breeches for the rest of the feast. A couple of soldiers were accused of theft while raiding in Scotland with Hugo, a couple of the cooking staff were named for dirtiness. A wife was accused of infidelity, a girl who worked in the confectioner’s department of the kitchen was accused of scolding and had to wear a scarf tied across her mouth.

      The serving-lad giggled and pointed to one servant after another who shrieked against the accusation and could plead guilty or not guilty and was judged by the roar of the crowd.

      Then he turned his attention to the gentry. Two of the young noble servers were accused of idleness and ordered to stand on their stools and sing a carol as punishment. One of Lord Hugh’s