Read John Saturnall's Feast for Free Online

rise, the great branches curving down like scythe-blades. Then, from the back, came a voice he could not recall hearing rise above a murmur before.
    ‘I will.’
    John rose to his feet, his heart thudding in his chest. He had barely heard a word of the sermon. He had fidgeted through the prayers. All week, Cassie's challenge had loomed in his thoughts. You wait for me after church. Now he edged past the other children. The cloying odour of decay hung in the air. One of the Huxtables had been buried the month before last in one of the lairstalls under the floor. The same smell had risen out of the old well, thought John. The wet winding-sheet smell. But why should a well smell of bodies? He took the chalk from Father Hole and drew the arc of the palm tree's trunk. He willed his hand not to shake as long-leaved branches sprayed out of the top and dropped to the ground.
    ‘Yes,’ Father Hole said when he had finished. ‘That is how God fashioned the palm tree.’
    John picked his way back through the cross-legged children. Ephraim was whispering to Tobit. Seth kept giving John looks. He glanced over at Cassie. He had been watching the white-bonneted girl all through the service, her words echoing in his head. You want to know? You wait . . . Father Hole was telling them how the palm tree's shade at once shielded the weak as well as starving the grass of sunlight. John waited for the lesson's end, part of him urging it on, another part hoping the priest would talk for ever.
    At last they were dismissed. The children surged out, John at their head as always. But this time, at the gate, he stopped. At the sight of him, the little ones stared. Cassie emerged with Tobit, Seth and Abel. A scowling Ephraim followed with Dando. John stood his ground. Then he saw Tobit's heavy brow crease. Dando's eyes narrowed. He had been wrong, John thought suddenly. Cassie's challenge was a trick. He was a fool. They would fall upon him. But the boys looked at one another. Tobit stepped forward.
    ‘We thought you were dead,’ Tobit blurted out.
    ‘There was blood all over,’ added Seth.
    ‘Cassie said you stopped breathin,’ Dando told him. ‘But she prayed and you came back.’
    John stared, not trusting himself to glance at the girl. But as the children turned between himself and Cassie, a sceptical voice sounded.
    ‘That so, Cassie?’ Ephraim asked. ‘You prayed him to life?’
    Cassie turned a guileless gaze on the older boy. ‘You doubting me, Ephraim?’
    ‘You prayed for the son of a witch?’
    Ephraim looked about at the other children, seeking their support.
    ‘For Witch-boy?’ He appealed.
    But no one moved. No one raised a hand against John. A scowl darkened Ephraim's heavy-browed face.
    ‘You take me for a fool,’ he spat. ‘But Ephraim Clough's no fool. Warden Marpot knows that.’
    Cassie favoured Ephraim with her most radiant smile.
    ‘God chooses his messenger,’ she said. ‘That's what Brother Timothy told me.’
    The dark-suited boy shook his head but the little ones were already edging forward, crowding around John as if a fierce animal had wandered down from the hillside and begun tamely nibbling the grass on the green.
    ‘Is it true your ma charms snakes?’ Peggy Rawley asked, clutching her doll.
    ‘Was your pa really a pirate?’ demanded the youngest Riverett.
    ‘Or a blackamoor?’ added an undaunted Bah Fenton in her whiny voice.
    Then they were all around him, jabbering and questioning. John stood in their midst, nodding or shaking his head, a bubble of happiness swelling inside him, growing and growing until he feared it might burst.
    ‘So who turned the water in the old well sour?’ asked one of the Suton girls.
    ‘That was Marpot, moving in next door to it,’ said Seth.
    Cassie shook her head disapprovingly and Ephraim's scowl returned but the other children laughed. Then Seth took out his cap, threw it high in the air and looked across their heads.
    ‘You playing then?’
    It took a moment