It was three days later, in the morning, that his captress said to the
Magister Udal:
'Husband, it is time that I gave thee the bridal gift.'
The magister, happy with a bellyful of carp, bread and breakfast ale,
muttered 'Anan?' from above his copy of Lucretius. He sat in the
window-seat of the great stone kitchen. Upon one long iron spit before
the fire fourteen trussed capons turned in unison; the wooden shoes of
the basting-maid clattered industriously; and from the chimney came
the clank of the invisible smoke-vanes and the be-sooted chains. The
magister, who loved above all things warmth, a full stomach, a
comfortable woman and a good book, had all these things; he was well
minded to stay in Paris town for fourteen days, when they were to slay
a brown pig from the Ardennes, against whose death he had written an
elegy in Sapphics.
'For,' said his better half, standing before him with a great loaf
clasped to her bosom, 'if you turn a horse from the stable between
full and half full, like as not he will return of fair will to the
crib.'
'Oh Venus and Hebe in one body,' the magister said, 'I am minded to
end here my scholarly days.'
'I am minded that ye shall travel far erstwhile,' she answered.
He laid down his book upon a clean chopping-board.
'I know a good harbourage,' he said.
She sat down beside him in the window and fingered the fur on his long
gown, saying that, in this light, it showed ill-favouredly worm-eaten;
and he answered that he never had wishes nor money for gowning
himself, who cultivated the muses upon short commons. She turned
rightway to the front the medal upon his chest, and folded her arms.
'Whilst ye have no better house to harbour us,' she said, 'this shall
serve. Let us talk of the to-come.'
He groaned a little.
'Let us love to-day that's here,' he said. 'I will read thee a verse
from Lucretius, and you shall tell me the history of that fourth
capon'--he pointed to a browned carcase that, upon the spit, whirled
its elbows a full third longer than any of the line.
'That is the master roasting-piece,' she said, 'so he browns there not
too far, nor too close, for the envoy's own eating.'
He considered the chicken with his head to one side.
'It is the place of a wife to be subject to her lord,' he said.
'It is the place of a husband that he fendeth for 's wife,' she
answered him. She tapped her fingers determinedly upon her elbows.
'So it is,' she continued. 'To-morrow you shall set out for London
city to make road towards becoming Sir Chancellor.' Whilst he groaned
she laid down for him her law. He was to go to England, he was to
strive for great posts: if he gained, she would come share them; if he
failed, he might at odd moments come back to her fireside. 'Have done
with groaning now,' she said, stilling his lamentations.' 'Keep them
even for the next wench that you shall sue to--of me you have had all
you asked.'
He considered for five seconds, his elbow upon his crossed knees and
his wrist supporting his lean brown face.
'It is in the essence of it a good bargain,' he said. 'You put against
the chance of being, you a chancellor's madam, mine of having for
certain a capon in Paris town.'
He tapped his long nose. 'Nevertheless, for your stake you have cast
down a very little: three nights of bed and board against the chaining
me up.'
'Husband,' she answered. 'More than that you shall have.'
He wriggled a little beneath his furs.
'Husband is an ill name,'he commented. 'It smarts.'
'But it fills the belly.'
'Aye,'he said. 'Therefore I am minded to bide here and take with the
sourness the sweet of it.'
She laughed a little, and, with a great knife, cut a large manchet
from the loaf between them.
'Nay,' she said, 'to-morrow my army with their spits and forks shall
drive thee from the door.'
He grinned with his lips. She was fair and fat beneath her hood, but
she was resolute. 'I have it in me greatly to advance you,' she said.
A boy brought her a trencher filled with chopped things, and a man in
a blue jerkin came to her side bearing a middling pig, seared to a
pale clear pinkness. The boy held the slit stomach carefully apart,
and she lined it with slices of bread, dropping into the hollow
chives, nutmegs, lumps of salt, the buds of bergamot, and marigold
seeds with their acrid perfume, and balls of honied suet. She bound
round it a fair linen cloth that she stitched with a great bone
needle.
'Oh ingenuous countenance,' the magister mused above the pig's mild
face. 'Is it not even the spit of the Cleves envoy's? And the Cleves
envoy shall eat this adorable monster. Oh, cruel anthropophagist!'
She resigned her burden to the spit and gave the loaf to the boy,
wiped her fingers upon her apron, and said:
'That pig shall help thee far upon thy road.'
'Goes it into my wallet?' he asked joyfully.