Avalon (40 page)

As the short winter days moved swiftly on, arrangements steamed ahead; everyone became caught up in the fizzing spirit of the occasion, and a harried conviviality set in. The night before the party, James went to bed exhausted, and with a mountain of chores left to do, but feeling that if this
was
to be the last royal Hogmanay ever to be celebrated, at least it would be one to remember.

On December 31, Jenny and her cousins, Roslyn and Cara, arrived in the morning to help with the final preparations. The Rotheses appeared just after lunch; Caroline and Isobel came bearing gifts, and Donald a briefcase full of unfinished business. “An MP’s work is never done,” he explained. “But I promised the ladies I would not keep my nose buried the whole time we’re here.”

Introductions were made all around, and Jenny, Caroline, and Isobel settled down to making one another’s acquaintance. Meanwhile, Calum and James were discussing the Prime Minister’s recent visit with Donald, who was keenly intent on getting them to reveal all that had taken place.

“I saw it on the telly, of course,” he said enthusiastically. “The arrival and departure, I mean. Beyond that, Downing Street is strangely silent. They normally leak information like a rusty bucket, but for some reason everybody over there is incommunicado. But I can tell you the Christmas interview is still the talk of the town. There isn’t a soul in all Whitehall who wouldn’t kill to have been a fly on the wall of Number Ten. Are you really going through with it?”

“With what — the campaign? Yes.”

“You’re serious about that?”

“Entirely,” James replied.

“He’s already got us organizing the venues,” Cal put in. “It’s going to be a genuine roadshow.”

“Jolly good,” enthused Donald, and professed himself delighted by the prospect. He leaned forward and seemed about to impart something important.

Caroline saw her husband in a posture of intrigue, and raised a mild protest. “Donald, darling,” she called from across the room, “you promised to wait until Embries gave you the all clear. Or am I mistaken?”

Donald puffed his cheeks. “Oh, very well. I did say something like that.” He smiled apologetically. “I suppose it’ll have to wait.”

“We’ve got all night ahead of us.”

“Speaking of which…” Cal said, glancing at his watch. “You’ll have to excuse me — I’ve a few last-minute chores.” He grinned suddenly and confided, “Actually, I was thinking of maybe getting Isobel to help me raid the Duke’s cellar. How about it, Your Highness? Fancy a posh tipple for tonight’s revel?”

“I expect nothing less,” James replied with regal aplomb. “Those bottles have been gathering dust long enough. Bring ’em out, I say. High time they did some good for King and Country.”

The two left, and Donald and James joined Caroline and Jenny. “Donald has got me all curious about this secret of his,” James told Caroline. “Can’t he give us a hint?”

“It isn’t anything to do with me,” she protested. “This is something Donald has cooked up all on his own.”

“You flatter me, my dear,” said Donald suavely. “I am merely the happy second fiddle, content to play his small part in the great symphony of our eventful times.”

“Pull the other one,” Caroline told him. “He’s been behaving like a spy for the last two days or so. People coming and going at all hours of the day and night, strange cars parked outside, murmured phone calls, obscure messages, notes passed under doors. All very hush-hush. Honestly, I expect a police raid any moment.”

“We have had to be rather discreet, darling,” Donald reminded her gently. “It wouldn’t do in the present political climate to tip one’s hand too early.”

“Now
I’m
intrigued,” said Jenny.

“I’m afraid I seem to have promised not to say anything until I’ve spoken to Embries.”

Talk turned to other things then; tea arrived, the afternoon fled, and before long it was time to get dressed for the party. Jenny, aided by her cousins, arrayed herself in a long, low-cut, blue satin gown with long blue gloves; with a length of Ferguson tartan over one shoulder, and her long dark hair tied in a blue velvet bow, she looked every inch a Celtic queen. James dressed in his best kilt and jacket — complete with the Duke’s old belt with an enormous silver buckle, and his father’s
sgian dubh
tucked into the top of one wool sock.

As the clock struck seven, James took his place in the castle foyer to greet his guests. Besides Jenny’s immediate family and relations, numerous local friends had been invited: drinking buddy Douglas; the Reverend and Mrs. Orr and their daughter Janet; Malcolm Hobbs, James’ long-suffering solicitor, and his wife and children; Calum’s parents; Shona’s boyfriend; Gavin’s girlfriend; along with the rest of the castle staff and their families. It must have amounted to nearly half the town and surrounding countryside. They all came dressed in their finest: the men in kilts, for the most part; the women in ball gowns, many with gloves, and most with traditional tartan shawls secured at their shoulders with jeweled brooches.

James stood for over an hour greeting them all, and watching the foyer and corridors fill up. He had given instructions that the great hall was to be locked and no one allowed in until the dinner bell had been rung. The delay served to heighten the anticipation; unable to help themselves, the children took turns trying the door handles every few minutes to make sure the doors were still locked.

When the last guest had arrived, James signaled Rhys to sound the bell, whereupon the King announced that it was his very great pleasure to extend the hospitality of Castle Morven to all his friends. “Embries,” he called across the crowd, “open the doors and let the festivities begin!”

The two huge doors were opened to reveal a room fragrant with the scent of peat and pine, and glowing with candlelight and hearth fire.

Artificial light had been banished. Massive iron candle-trees — rousted out of the stables and reblacked — were stationed in every corner, each bearing a score of candles; there were candles all along the center line of the tables and also in the high, deep window wells all around; huge cathedral candles and slender tapers. A log and peat fire burned lustily in the enormous fireplace, taking the chill off the vast, high-roofed room.

The old oaken floor had been washed and waxed, and the two long medieval banqueting tables as well; every surface gleamed with a dull, ruddy luster. Every knife, fork, and spoon, every salt-cellar and sugar caster had been polished; every plate, goblet, cruet, and bowl gleamed in the soft lustrous light. Ivy trailed in long garlands from the stag heads and ancestral portraits on the walls. Boughs of spruce were piled heavily over the mantel. A low stage had been set up at the far end of the room, and this was all but covered in ivy and spruce.

To step across the threshold was to step back in time. Simple, elegant, and inviting, the hall looked very much as it would have looked during the High Middle Ages.

The old Duke’s armor-wearing ancestors
, my
ancestors, would have seen the hall just this way
, James thought.

A trivial thing, perhaps — the modest festive decoration of an old room — yet James did feel that in some way he was connected with his ancestry and lineage; he felt rooted. No longer a usurper playing laird o’ the manor, he
was
the laird. He was the King and, for the first time since assuming the throne, he actually felt regal.

This realization produced in him a peculiarly intense longing; the
fiosachd
tingled, and he glimpsed, like the ghosts of Christmas past, the images of all those lords who had preceded him. They filled the hall, welcoming him with satisfaction and approval, raising their bowls to drink his health. The phantom image faded as quickly as it had arisen, but the effect lingered long, lending the festivities a mellow, golden glow.

Calum and Isobel had masterfully plundered the old Duke’s wine cellar, and the resulting treasures were lined up like soldiers the length of the two great tables; reinforcements stood at the ready on improvised sideboards around the room. There were other choices as well, from heather ale to sparkling apple juice, and as they entered each guest was offered a glass of whatever they fancied. Cal and Izzy drafted Gavin and his girlfriend, Emma, to help with the drinks, and all four worked the crowd with bottles in both hands, priming the celebration pump.

Children flitted around the room like fairies. Dazzled by the candlelight and medieval ambience, they darted among the tall folk, their eyes wide with delight. The girls in their satin and tartan dresses and velvet hair bows and the boys in their diminutive kilts and high socks looked like miniature, less-restrained versions of their elders, racing from one end of the hall to the other, hooting and giggling.

When everyone was assembled, the bell sounded again and the guests were invited to find their places at the table. Shona and Cal had worked hard on the seating arrangement, and their ingenuity took some capricious turns. Embries, for example, was paired with Malcolm Hobbs’ nine-year-old daughter, and Mr. Baxter was placed between Caroline Rothes and Gavin’s girlfriend. James could not help notice that although he had not been allowed to sit with Jenny, Shona had managed to save a place for herself next to Rhys, and Cal was pleased to find himself next to Isobel.

No sooner had the last guest taken his seat than the first course appeared: Priddy’s champion oak-grilled salmon with peppercorns and cream. A smallish sample only, James was resisting the temptation to lick the plate when someone at the end of the table set his crystal goblet ringing with a spoon.

The guests looked up to see Sergeant-Major Evans-Jones standing at his place. “There is an old custom in the valleys where I was born,” he announced, “that on gala occasions such as this, the chaps help out with the serving so the dear ladies are not left with all the chores.” He paused, and added with a wink, “It’s a long, long night, after all.”

Looking up and down the room, he called, “Are ye wi’ me, lads? Say aye!”

There came a chorused Aye!, and the Sergeant-Major cried in his best parade-ground bellow, “On yer feet, men! Let’s show ’em how it’s done!”

The menfolk rose and began clearing the first course plates and carrying them to the kitchen, where a very surprised Priddy protested that she didn’t want a lot of clumsy men tromping through her kitchen — but Owen wouldn’t hear of it. In no time, the two of them had the next course dished up and served: haunch of venison, roasted with fennel and herbs.

Among the castle’s tableware, Priddy had found a half dozen silver platters large enough to hold an entire haunch, and these were carried out, with great ceremony, three to each table. Bowls of steaming vegetables followed: potatoes roasted in dripping, braised carrots and parsnips with coriander, and apples baked with cloves, brown sugar, and rum — all filling the hall with a magnificent aroma.

Six stout and trustworthy men were given the task of carving the haunches. The bowls were taken place to place, and plates were filled. The next hour was presided over by the clink of cutlery and the happy murmuring hubbub of conversation punctuated by bursts of laughter and much passing of bottles. Could the Duke of Morven’s worthy claret ever have been put to such a noble purpose, James wondered, or enjoyed half so much?

Cal and Izzy had plucked the best vintages from the cellar, and made sure the glasses were generously and regularly supplied. Once during the meal, Isobel appeared at James’ side with a bottle in her hand. “
This
,” she promised reverently, “is going to be
magic
.”

Gathering the attention of all the nearby guests, she proceeded to uncork the bottle. “Now, you’ll have to drink this right away,” she said, pouring a small amount into each glass. “It won’t last long, but it will be amazing.”

As soon as she finished pouring, she raised her glass. “
Slainte
!” She tossed it back in a single gulp, rolled the wine around in her mouth, and swallowed. “Oh, that is good.” Her smile was dizzy with rapture.

All followed her example, and drank it down.

“Well? What do you think?” she asked.

“It is” — James searched for the right word, the flavor still alive on his tongue — “utterly divine.” Others volunteered other words: rhapsodic, ethereal, bottled light, glorious, sublime.

“What is it?” someone demanded.

Lifting the bottle, she presented the label. “It’s a Château Lafite-Rothschild” — she paused, drawing out the suspense —”of the year 1878.” There were gasps of astonishment all around. “When I found this, I knew we had to have it tonight. Isn’t it spectacular?”

There was half a swallow left in James’ glass, and he took it. But the flavor enjoyed only seconds ago was gone. It was as if the liquid in his glass had turned to ashes — flat, muddy, dank ashes. He swallowed with difficulty. “Extraordinary,” he remarked. “It’s gone. Vanished.”

“I know.” Izzy sighed in commiseration. “Wine that old only survives a few seconds once the air touches it. But isn’t it a miracle while it lasts?”

Isobel moved on to delight some more guests. The glow of that rare magic remained, however, and those who had tasted it were warmed to their very souls. James exulted in the revelry. Everyone was happy and talking, life’s cares and burdens forgotten for a while. This was, he reflected, how a holiday was supposed to be celebrated but rarely was: friends and loved ones gathered around the table for a little foretaste of heaven.

A loud pop, followed by gasps of amazement, drew the attention of nearly everyone to the middle of the table where Embries was now perched on the back of his chair amidst a ring of smoke and glittering confetti. It floated down around him to the astonishment of gobsmacked children. A little further on, James saw Dougie lean over and steal a kiss from Roslyn and, still further down the line, Mr. Baxter was glowing with quiet pride as Caroline praised his good wife’s culinary skill, while, across the table, Donald and the Reverend Orr were head-to-head discussing trout fishing on the Dee.

And then it was time for pudding. As soon as the men cleared away the main course plates, a cry arose demanding that the cook make her appearance with the pudding. Priddy had prepared the old Duke’s favorite festive dessert of spiced figs in rum sauce and carried the first bowl in herself. This was presented to James, and seven more bowls followed. There were also five salvers of apple flan, a sumptuous rhubarb fool served up in a great silver bowl, and minted fruit salad in a crystal krater.