The Murders of Richard III - Elizabeth Peters [51]
The second course came in with a frumenty of venison. The meat, cut in strips, floated in a stewy soup made of wheat boiled in milk, egg yolks, sugar, and salt. Thomas started to describe the ingredients to Frank, but was stopped by a long, agonized expletive.
“I can’t stand this,” Frank muttered. “I’d sell my soul for a chunk of rare beef.”
“They used spices a lot,” said Thomas, who was getting his second wind, gastronomically speaking. “This next dish is ground meat—pork, probably—mixed with about a dozen spices and then baked in a pastry shell—called a coffin, if that interests you.”
Frank groaned.
Thomas added, “I hope Weldon doesn’t go berserk and offer us a cockatrice. They cooked a capon and a suckling pig and cut them in half; then they sewed the front part of the chicken onto the back part of the pig and the front part of the—”
“Good God,” said Frank.
The entertainment—jugglers, dancers, music—which ordinarily accompanied a banquet did not appear. Apparently Weldon had anticipated that his guests would be too fascinated by the exotic food to concentrate on anything else, except possibly Ricardian gossip. Thomas found plenty of entertainment in watching his colleagues’ reactions to the food.
The doctor, on Thomas’s left, was having fits. He dined mainly on bread, and kept up a running commentary about what the food was doing to the collective stomachs of the group. Thomas had to admit he had a point. Everything was spiced and seasoned and sauced, and the heavy sweet wine—malmsey, by any chance?—made digestion even more perilous. He barely touched his junket of rosewater and cream and sighed with relief when the subtlety signalizing the end of the second course was borne in. The spun-sugar replica of Middleham Castle wobbled dangerously on the sturdy shoulders of the serving men. Thomas deduced that the kitchen staff had been indulging in malmsey too.
He waited apprehensively for a possible third course, but Weldon had the proper respect for effete modern appetites. The servitors passed around with basins of scented rosewater and napkins. Then the guests all settled back expectantly as Weldon rose.
Somewhere between the soup and the last subtlety, Mrs. Ponsonby-Jones had taken her place beside Weldon. No one less resembled the pale, consumptive Queen Anne; the woman’s square face was ruddy with gratified pride and her bulk overflowed the chair. Apparently her crise de nerves had passed. Looking at Percy, Thomas agreed that there was no cause for concern—except for the dangers of gluttony. Percy shone like a greased pink pig from his hair to his third chin.
For security reasons, Weldon explained, he had decided to dispense with hired entertainment. The villagers who had assisted with the serving all were known to Weldon and the servants. Unfortunately none of them were adept in the skills of music and dance—with the exception of Tom Belden and his son, young Tom, whose performances on the trumpet had added so much to the spirit of the evening.
Therefore, Weldon continued, he had decided it would be safer, and more ultimate, if they entertained themselves. He regretted the necessity of a phonograph for certain parts of the evening, but they would just have to pretend the music came from a group of live minstrels in the musicians’ gallery. So, let the joy begin! They would start—he glanced at Lady Isobel, who was holding a sheaf of papers like a club—with the literary treat postponed from an earlier session.
Lady Isobel rose. Her expression was one of intense piety. Under the shield of the long damask tablecloth Thomas slid his feet out of his shoes and prepared, if possible, to sleep with his eyes open. It was clever of Weldon to bring on Lady Isobel now; their critical sense drugged with food and wine, the listeners would not suffer quite so intensely.
“The sun shone bright, the sky was fair,
The birds did sweetly sing,
Across the green of Bosworth Field,
There rode the brave young king.”
The verses would have been barely endurable if they had come from a sentimental