When the crowd below had entered and settled in a pecking order that was checked and adjusted by the Keeper’s men, who paraded up and down the lines of tables, a fanfare of trumpets from a gallery above heralded the approach of the queen. Everyone stood as the notables entered from within the palace entrance behind the dais. The chief guests came in, many splendidly dressed, and found their places around the top table, before Hubert Walter courteously escorted Eleanor to the large chair in the centre of the table, looking down the huge hall.
Still more elegant than most women half her age, she wore a gown of blue silk with heavy embroidery around the neck and a light mantle of silver brocade. Her white silk cover-chief was secured with a narrow gold crown and the dangling cuffs of her long sleeves were ornamented with gold tassels, as was the cord around her waist.
There was a roar of spontaneous cheering until the Justiciar held up his hands for silence, when William Postard, Abbot of Westminster, gave a long Latin grace and blessing to the assembly, who stood with bowed heads.
Then with a rumble of benches on the hard earthen floor, they all sat and the eating began. Immediately, a legion of servants appeared from the side doors, bearing trays of dishes and jugs of wine, ale and cider which were rapidly placed on the tables. The trenchers were already in place, though on the top tables, silver and pewter plates lay before the diners, as well as glass and pewter goblets. Two ladies stood behind Eleanor to attend to her every want, but the doughty old lady had little need of them, being well able to fend for herself. As a courtesy — and Eleanor of Aquitaine was the queen and main inventor of courtly behaviour in Europe — Hubert and William Marshal went through the motions of helping her to the choicest morsels of the extravagant food placed before them and pouring her wine.
Compared with the usual fare in the Lesser Hall, de Wolfe decided that this was indeed a memorable feast. The top table had a surfeit of delicacies, from a roast swan which had been re-dressed in its original feathers, to several suckling pigs swimming in platters of wine-rich gravy. There were whole salmon, joints of beef and pork, numerous types of poultry and a range of puddings and sweets to follow, all washed down with the best wine that could be imported into England.
The rest of the hall also did well, if not on such a lavish scale, but no one went away unless sated with many kinds of meat, fish and sweetmeats. There were rivers of ale, cider, mead and wine, more than sufficient to send many diners reeling out of the hall at the end — or even being carried out unconscious by their friends.
John was placed a little way down one of the long trestles, as even the court’s coroner had no chance of getting on to a top table filled with members of the Curia, bishops, earls and barons. He noticed, however, that Renaud de Seigneur and Hawise were seated not far from the queen, perhaps as the lady from Blois was almost the only woman present, apart from Eleanor and her ladies-in-waiting. Even amid the heady company she was with, Hawise still managed to send John a few burning glances, as he had deliberately avoided going to the Lesser Hall for the past few evenings. John saw Archdeacon Bernard a little further down the table and the two under-marshals Ranulf and William were on the next row. Thomas, as coroner’s clerk, managed to slip on to a bench at the extreme bottom of the other limb of tables, but Gwyn was quite happy on a table hidden behind a pillar, together with some of his soldier friends. As long as there was ample food and drink, he did not care a toss for pomp and ceremony.
Five musicians on various instruments had been playing away manfully in the gallery. It appeared a thankless task, as no one seemed to be listening to them, even when they could be heard above the hubbub of voices. After a great deal of food had been consumed, with many a gallon of ale and wine, they were interrupted by another discordant blast of trumpets, as Hubert Walter rose to his feet and waited until more trumpeting and rapping of dagger-hilts on tables managed to bring relative silence.
The archbishop made a short, but eloquent speech of welcome to Queen Eleanor expressing delight at her return to England. When he had finished, there was more boisterous banging on tables and stamping of feet, with thunderous shouts of appreciation from the lower hall. This was a sign for more trumpets and with a radiant smile and wave at the assembled company, the Lionheart’s mother allowed herself to be handed from her chair by Hubert Walter. With her ladies fussing about her, she retired through the door behind, escorted by the Justiciar, the Marshal and a number of the senior bishops and barons, no doubt to take more wine privately in the royal apartments. John noticed that Hawise and her maid also slipped away through another door, leaving Renaud de Seigneur to enjoy the rest of the evening with the men. There was still plenty of food to pick at and the drink flowed endlessly from the jugs and pitchers ferried in by the servants, so the festive evening continued until late, though it was still light when even the most hardy drinkers staggered out of the Great Hall.
John joined the people who were milling around the tables and went over to talk for a while to Ranulf and William Aubrey, then went down to see how Gwyn and Thomas were faring. His clerk, who was no great tippler, was about to slip away to his bed in the abbey dorter, but professed that it had been a good meal and a privilege to be in the presence of the famous queen and the elite of English government, even at a distance. Suddenly weary, John wondered whether age was catching up with him, and together with Gwyn, who was like a shadow to him since the attack in St Stephen’s crypt, they went out into the summer dusk and made their way back to Long Ditch Lane.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A court on the march was an impressive sight, even when the king himself was absent. A column a quarter of a mile long snaked through the countryside of Wiltshire, having left Newbury Castle that morning, aiming to reach Marlborough by evening, a distance of twenty miles.
A vanguard of mounted soldiers were drawn from the palace guard, augmented by troops supplied by several of the major barons who were members of the Royal Council. These provided both outriders along the length of the cavalcade and a strong rearguard at the tail. Behind the spearhead of men-at-arms came the most important people — Queen Eleanor herself, still riding stiffly erect on her white mare, with Hubert Walter, William Marshal, and the Treasurer, Richard fitz Nigel, in close attendance, her three ladies riding decorously behind. Following these was the whole column of riders of all ranks, flanked by people on foot. Colourful banners and pennants fluttered from poles and lances and when they passed a village the trumpets brayed a signal that nobility was on the march.
Unlike the journey from Portsmouth, this was a slow, trundling affair, the horses going only at walking pace, for towards the end of the procession, a baggage train of a dozen ox-carts laboured along, piled with luggage, beds, provisions and hundreds of different items needed to keep the court viable during the next few weeks. All the lower-class staff were walking alongside, though some washerwomen and scullery maids had hitched rides on the tailboards of the carts. There were several primitive coaches, little more than curtained litters on wheels, for those ladies of the queen’s entourage who preferred the bumpy ride of unsprung carriages being dragged along the rutted track.
As roads went this one was better than most, being the main highway out of London to the West Country, but it was still a rough track of pounded earth and stones, with occasional bridges of crude logs thrown across the streams. The weather had been good, so the usual quagmires of sticky mud had largely dried up, but the best the oxen could manage was about three miles an hour and often less when there was a gradient. Stops were frequent, to rest man and beast and to water and feed the horses and oxen. At midday, the whole column came to a halt for dinner and the servants hurried to the important travellers with meat and drink prepared at Newbury, whilst the rest had to cluster around the provision wagons to collect what they could.