To Lie with Lions - Dorothy Dunnett [135]
The procession down from the Castle was a triumphant one therefore, despite a shower of rain; and the comfort of the royal stand, when they reached it, drew exclamations from the eminent visitors. They gazed at the face of the Abbey before them, hung with arras and garlands. They studied the silks of the awnings, the veiled and silent box of the stage in the centre below them. They were offered mulled wine and talked, while the benches were filled, and lamps and braziers glimmered, warming the air. From the well of the Abbey arena there arose the buzz of a beehive: the expectant murmur of two thousand curious souls. Then a fanfare of trumpets rang out, and the curtains raced back from the four walls of the stage, light as smoke. Behind them was Paradise, furled in sweet-scented clouds, beyond which glinted the slow-moving wheel of God’s angels and the celestial throne, bright as the sun, with, kneeling beside it, a mighty-winged Gabriel. Then, from a core of dizzying radiance, the voice of God rolled, sending his herald to earth.
It had begun.
Many who were not present would later describe all that happened thereafter, for the report of it, borne on the wind, carried far. A man digging peats was petrified where he stood by the sudden silence as the curtains were drawn, and then by the gasp, and then the snatches of a single voice speaking, so terrifying and rolling and deep that he crossed himself. The voice stopped. Then the breeze slammed forth the peal of an organ, followed by a susurration like a wheatfield under rain, that swelled and swelled until it burgeoned into the voice of a full choir in song. The man leaned on his turf-spade and listened.
Dr Andreas cried, ‘But you must be glad! Shout for joy! One glorious effort, and all your labours will be at an end! See, give the woman your hand. Praise God and shout!’
A play could take all day or a few hours. Your Nativities, with six or seven scenes, were sometimes over by noon, but not this one. It was the music. Not just the ‘Ave Maria’ and the ‘Angelus ad Virginem’ for the Annunciation, and a bit of something for the Salutation of Elizabeth, but a lot of singing no one had ever heard of before. And then when it came to the Shepherds …! Everyone afterwards said it must have been during the Play of the Shepherds that the dance music came in, and between it the gusts of laughter, which you wouldn’t expect.
Later, it came out that the shepherds were speaking in Scots, and making jokes that you wouldn’t believe. Not that all the rest was in Latin, they said. A right mix-up of tongues, as if the story of Mary and Joseph belonged to everyone, as you could say that it did. The fun of the shepherds, they said, was what broke your heart when it came to the Manger, and the holy music was mixed with the lullaby. Lully lullay, hail my bairn, hail my King, hail my darling. You could hear that as well, from the hills.
Noon came and went. It rained a little, and ceased, and rained again. The peat-cutter worked slowly, cutting in rhythm. Across the marshes and plains, others listened. At the Abbey of Holyroodhouse, the scenes unfolded one by one. The Star burned. Glittering Herod sent out his messengers and ripped the leaves from the books of his lawyers, the fires of hell licking his throne. Kaspar, Melchior, Balthasar spread their jewelled robes and knelt, and myrrh and frankincense scented the wind. Over Paradise, palace and stable the cloud banks lingered and passed, tinged with sound; flushed with close-woven plainsong; opulent with polyphony; pierced