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BITTERSWEET
He knew the kisses of a hundred willing lips that night: those that rouged in secret and those all the sweeter for their unpainted innocence. Fair hands passed the loving cup tied with ribbons into stronger hands; then the tickle of thin moustaches and the taste of the gentlemen who had sneaked a taste of something more potent.
They sang in his honor:
Wassail! wassail! all o'er the town,
Our toast it is white and our ale it is brown.
And they carried bits of him away to burn in their bellies. Their echoes drifted back to him, there in the loving cup, and he reveled in the secret desires of their hearts, shared their small joys and mourned the smothered loneliness that was inevitable with this season.
There was other drink to be had, other treats to tempt the partygoers. The Wassail tasted secondhand the thin golden sunlight of cordial water. Sugar-paste walnuts. Medlar cheese. But still he reigned as a jovial host until a pair of sweethearts bore him from the parlor and into the dimly lit hallway.
"Someone will notice I am gone," said she of the virginal lips and petit four icing.
"One minute more," said the man that tasted of pipe-tobacco and promises. "Now that we are properly engaged, I can be forgiven a kiss or two."
The Wassail's brown-ale depths smiled with indulgence until he realized he sat, unguarded and forgotten as they returned to the party. His spiced depths cooled rapidly and he shivered in the chill air.
"Quiet! Someone will hear you, and Mama said—"
"Mama said you were too young to stay up to supper as well." A startled noise. "Someone's left the wassail cup here."
"Don't you touch that."
A pause as the nightgown-clad ghosts considered him. But the ribbon-bedecked cup proved too great a temptation.
"Mama won't ever know. I just want a taste." Smallish hands lifted it down and bare feet pattered along the carpeted hallway. "Hoo, it smells like Uncle Wellington!" the voice said before partaking of his sugar-and-spiced reek.
"Give it here, let me taste!"
The children tasted of oranges and peppermint, but the Wassail fretted as they bore him away from the whirl of music, away from the glittering spectacle that was the gala of Twelfth Night. This was not the parlor, nor the ballroom but a dark corner near another room he barely remembered . . . ah, yes! The kitchen.
His dark depths remembered his birth with a mixing of ale and sugar. There had been the bite of ginger upon his red cheeks, the gentle croon of cinnamon and nutmeg over his copper-pot cradle with all the songs of the Indies. Then a gentle hand drew up a soft blanket of toast atop him before the punchbowl had been proudly carried to the table.
There were only ghosts here now: the swim of pink salmon on a bed of aspic. A haunch of brown mutton picked a delicate path through rivers of oyster gravy. Chewitts and mince pies bleated and clucked and sang their swansong.
"What are the likes of you doing here?" demanded another voice, a louder voice. Twin shrieks, and the children sat the Wassail down with a thump upon the scarred surface of the table. He trembled, a gentle sloshing of his depths, as the Cook considered him.
"That's not quite finished yet," she said finally. "Here's me alone, and none of the girls able to fetch it back to the parlor. I'll take it out myself, once I get the tortell from the oven."
A moment later, a lovely lady cake sat cooling next to his cup. She was a haughty thing, with lovely brown skin and a marzipan filling. The Wassail could hardly speak for longing. The Tortell turned up her egg-washed nose at him, sure in the knowledge of her hidden bean-and-porcelain-figurine.
"It's a lovely night," the Wassail finally ventured.
A curt nod. "I am for the morrow."
The Wassail swallowed hard, tasting himself all the way down to the dregs. "They are very lucky, to have you grace their table."
A glazed-fruit blush spread over her skin. "You mustn't say such things."
"Why are you not center-stage upon the banquet table?"
"There are ever so many desserts that must come before me," the Tortell said.
"I'm quite sure none could be lovelier than you," the Wassail flattered.
The asparagus-molded ices stood on end, quite offended. "We are both vanilla and pistachio, if you please!"
The Nesselrode glared with disapproving chestnut eyes that had melted about the edges. "And I am studded with cherries!"
"Ah," said the Wassail, "but will either of you crown the King and Queen?"
The rest of the desserts fell into a smarting silence as the cook returned. She muttered to herself as she prepared the almond-flavoured pottage and every dish winced in sympathy as she heated the fire-shovel red hot and seared its surface brown.
"Pomegranate seeds and pistachio nuts," the cook chortled, "and the Hedgehog Soup is done! Eliza! Mary! Take this in at once!"
"They're taking down the Christmas tree," one of the maids reported, and the Wassail remembered her tasting lips, with all the starch of her cap and apron. "Eating all the fruits and nuts hanging on the boughs as though there weren't three dozen dishes or more on the sideboard."
"It's not your place to criticize them!" the cook said, scandalized. She shooed them from the kitchen, flapping her apron all the while.
He was cooler still, but the Wassail yearned for the Tortell with all the fervor of the lovers that he could yet hear, whispering to each other in some unseen, dimly light corner of the house.
My love, he sighed along with them just as the cook reached over the Nesselrode and jostled his cup with her arm.
Crash! went the loving cup.
Splash! as the Wassail spread across the tabletop in a sweet, brown pool so that just as the clock struck midnight, he kissed the Tortell chastely on the cheek and it was an . . .
Epiphany.
When not scribbling, Lisa Mantchev can be found on the beach, up a tree, making jam or repairing things with her trusty glue gun. Her stories have appeared in Strange Horizons, Weird Tales, Fantasy Magazine, Aeon, and Abyss & Apex. More will be appearing soon in Spicy Slipstream Stories, Japanese Dreams, and Electric Velocipede.
She is currently at work on the third novel in the Théâtre Illuminata trilogy. You can Taste the Bad Candy at her website.
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