11 - The Lammas Feast Read Free Page A

the street, always remembering that John Overbecks had once been a soldier.
    At the moment, his chief companion was a young ruffian called Walter Godsmark, who, when not otherwise occupied, helped Jasper in the bakery. He was lounging now against the bakery wall, just outside the entrance, picking his teeth and watching the world go by. He was a big lad, nearly as big as me, with brown hair that stuck up in tufts all over his head, blue eyes and a broken nose that gave him a slightly sinister appearance. He was still wearing his white apron over his clothes, and his round white baker’s hat, suggesting to me that he had been unceremoniously turned out of doors while his master conducted some business inside; nefarious business, most likely, to which Walter was not privy.
    We stared at one another across the width of the street for a moment, before young Godsmark made me a lewd gesture. Hastily, I shepherded my flock of wife and innocent little darlings into Master Overbecks’s bakery, using the side door around the corner.

Two
    J ohn Overbecks was there, with his apprentice, as I had guessed he would be at this time of the morning, baking his second batch of bread, ready for the hucksters when they arrived to refill their baskets. As in London, so in Bristol – although in no other town that I knew of – loaves could only be bought from these women, and this had been the city law for the past five years. Bakers could sell all other confectionery from their shops or market stalls, but not the main item of their trade. While it ensured a living for the hucksters, to me it was a pointless ordinance; as a staple item of our diet, bread was constantly in demand and I doubt if the hucksters would have suffered had the bakers sold it as well. (But then, I have always believed that those in authority feel obliged to make things as difficult as possible for the rest of us, just to prove to themselves that they
are
in charge.)
    The apprentice, Dick Hodge, was sieving flour through a finely woven cloth, while Master Overbecks was removing loaves from the biggest of the wall ovens with one of those long-handled wooden spatulas that is called a pele. He put the hot bread on the trestle table behind him, spinning round lightly on his toes with all the graceful ease of a much younger and lighter man. His was a heavy, stocky build, and beneath the white baker’s cap, the wings of brown hair were streaked with grey. But the hazel eyes glowed with enthusiasm for life and his trade.
    ‘Roger! Mistress Chapman!’ he exclaimed as soon as he saw us, and beamed with pleasure. ‘And how are the little ones?’ He put down the pele and stooped to give the two elder children a floury hug.
    Elizabeth and Nicholas returned his embrace readily enough, but their eyes were fixed on another trestle table close to the smaller oven, where cakes and buns had been placed to cool, ready for sale in the shop when it opened. John Overbecks chuckled.
    ‘I know what you’d like,’ he said, and fetched them each a piece of gingerbread, decorated with cloves and box leaves. Next, he bent and tickled a somnolent Adam under the chin – our younger son opened one eye a slit, belched, then went back to sleep – before turning his attention to Adela and me.
    ‘Let me guess what you’ve come for,’ he said, wiping his hands on his apron. ‘You want me to bake your Lammastide bread.’
    ‘Not just bake it,’ I explained. ‘
Make
it – if you would.’ I glanced uncertainly around me. ‘Though I can tell that you’re busy.’
    I could see scraps of torn parchment covered in drawings; plans, no doubt, of the sculptured centrepieces for the Lammas feast. I remembered Margaret’s words and asked Master Overbecks about the Garden of Eden and the three-tiered ship.
    He admitted that this year he had been chosen as chief baker for the feasts of the various guilds. He was pink with pleasure at the honour thus conferred on him.
    ‘So you see,’ he continued,