Fool School (21 page)

The girl-boy rises from Perille's side and comes to
sit beside me.

"Hello," I say with unexpected nervousness.

A finger, soft, rises to my cheek, and pokes.

"You're very flush," she says, and I'm not certain it
isn't a he. I'm not.

"Still warm out," I say meaninglessly.

"Mm." He folds his arms (is it a he?) and looks at me
with a secret smile. "I know," she whispers, and rises before I can
ask his name.

Acrobatics is a breeze today. Ab'ly has us walk in a
circle as we throw, and now there are four juggling rocks to catch,
and though Malcolm drops one and gets smacked with the cane, I
perform perfectly. I am perfect. I have touched the Godhead and am
a part of the earth and sky. The Trinity is before me, a triangle
of moving parts fit together like the hilt, blade and sheath of a
sword, and there is no limit to Its power. It has bestowed on me
something unusual, something powerful, and I cannot wait to
reactivate my power.

In drums I keep time.

In literacy I fill pages with well-crafted letters,
and I notice Hamlin has sped up, trying to trip me up, and I cannot
be tripped.

"Tom, Perille, both of you have pieces to practice
for the fair." Nuncle's voice breaks through my haze, and Perille
and I--we have assembled our recorders--we disassemble them, and my
cork slips off the recorder's second segment, and Nuncle notices. I
scramble to slip the rotting cork back on, but he stops me.

"No, don't damage the wood. Stan, do you mind taking
Tom to see the luther? I'd send Ab'ly, but I think he'd not know
good cork from bad."

"Yeah, sure," says Stan, and he nods me out. I leave
the mangled circle of twenty-year-old cork on the table and take my
recorder in its case.

Autumn. Naturally I've never seen autumn in England,
but I'm not pleased by it at all. My hose is not thick enough to
withstand these temperatures, and I'm no doughty praise-singer of
clouds, either. But clouds there are, big and thick in several
dismal grays, and I mention to Stan that it might rain on the
recorder, and he unties a fur from the collar of his wind-buffeted
greatcoat and tells me to wrap the case in it, the fur will absorb
water. Stan may not be a masterful musician, but he's a sensible
man, and kind enough. I clutch my recorder case and feel grateful
my hands are warm now, buried within the fur.

The mound where the priest and wolfman are buried
together is deserted now, a bump in the road, and I pray silently
that the priest was not devoured alive. The brilliance of my
euphoria is gone, especially as I hear the rain. It's begun farther
afield, and the cobbles reflect a dome of water with each raindrop.
Rain on roofs roofed with pitched split shingle provide a tattered
thud to walk against. It's not one of the great legendary rains,
merely an aspirer. I prefer to hold Stan's fur a quarter-ell over
the case, so the liquid doesn't seep through. Perhaps today wasn't
the right day to repair it. I say so.

"Not that far a walk," says Stan, and I trust his
judgment on worldly things. He's a worldly guy.

The luther's shop is far from the cathedral, up a
cobbled hill that's a slippery muddy mess. Stan's curly shoes--by
far the most incongruous part of his outfit--seem to have some
padding on the sole that keeps him from sliding, but I'm not so
fortunate. In a rivulet of water I'm swept off my feet, rise again,
and Stan says: "Pretty pathetic, those things on your feet. Can't
attend the fair with shoes like that. Let's put in an order."

Thus we detour to the cobbler's, which is blessedly
downhill. At a corner of meeting streets--this market is not the
big market, it's merely got a farrier's, packing up hurriedly for
weather, and a straggly-looking women selling her husband's butched
meat, the other booths are shut down today--there is a storefront
recessed under the floors above, and a man. Leather shoes in
abundance fill the room behind him, as well as fresh cured leather
and the odd roll of expensive cloth, a half-dozen spindles along
one wall. The room--blocked in by a shopkeeper's bar--smells
lovely, decadent even, against the rain.

The man is burly for a cobbler, a redbeard, and he
slides a cordwain's last over to the bar, so he can work while he
deals with us.

"New or repairs?" he asks.

"Mmboth," says Stan, looking at me. "Tom, show the
man what you've got."

In the dry frontspace before the cobbler's room, I
slip off my shoes and stand in hose on the flagstones.

"Don't put mud on the bar!" the cobbler says quickly.
"Just hold them up."

"Need a dye job," says Stan, "and all the repairs.
You might add a good sole and a new leather form. They're losing
the curl."

"Fools?" the man says, maybe hoping for a free
jest.

"Yeah. Don't even say it," Stan replies wearily.
"Look, have you got, I don't know, a loaner while you work on them,
or am I going to have to buy him new shoes?"

"You want me to
loan
you a pair of shoes?" the
cobbler asks. "Just set them on the floor there, I'll pick them up
when they dry out," he says to me obliquely.

"Look, I don't know." Stan scratches his head. "Have
you got a cheap pair for him to walk around in?"

"
Sell
you a cheap pair," the man says
gruffly.

They're about as cheap as you can find. I think Stan
offended the cobbler somehow, because these are awful. Maybe I'm
spoiled on French footwear, but these aren't fit to feed to a goat.
They haven't even got arches to shape the foot, they're just two
identical lumps of brown leather that a foot might squeeze into.
Stan peevedly hands over a penny ha', which isn't a small amount of
money for two bad shoes, and the cobbler tells us to come back in a
week, which is a long time to dye and cobble. In France the work
would be done in an hour, while you wait.

I have blisters scraped raw by the time we ascend to
the luthery. The rain has passed, and a glow breaks through the
clouds and there, just at the edge of hearing, I hear the sound of
angels.

The luther and his wife have the most wonderful shop,
it dazzles me. Laid out in custom-made velvet--real velvet, I don't
know how they afford it--are instruments so fine they could be sold
anywhere in any palace in Europe. The glow from the firelight
reflects off the boule-shaped bowls of pandora lyres, Italian
zithers, the clay handles of concertinas, rows of shawms, clarions,
recorders, two table-sized keyboard instruments I don't know the
name of, there's a sideboard draped with magenta velvet and covered
with tiny drums, but what catches my eye is a single silver flute,
longer than my arm to the fingertip and with a complete set of
mechanisms. I desire this flute. My eye won't leave it.

The luther's wife steps forward and greets me
thus:

"Hello, and well met under God. Stan, who do we have
here?"

"Ethryth, this is Tom. New at the school. We need a
recorking--"

"Stan, do you teach the flute?" I blurt.

Tired eyes turn to look at me. "Yeah, but I'm not
very good. There are people we can bring in to teach you, if you're
serious."

My heart is racing now, I feel passion for this
silver instrument. "Miss?" I say, facing Ethryth. "How much is the
silver flute?"

"A pound of silver," she says, looking from me to
Stan. "Do you have a pound?" Her tone is that of a nice lady
humoring a child. I'm not a child.

"I'll get a pound," I say.

"Tom, if we're going to get back in time for your
Classics lesson, we need to skip the window shopping."

I nod, but this flute fills my vision. I will have
it. I desire to steal it, but I couldn't live with the guilt. I
will find a pound.

Stan is speaking with the luther, showing him the
sections of my recorder, and if I were in my head I'd stand over
them to ensure they are kind to it, but instead I circle the flute,
stalking it, a cat and a silver mouse. Stan calls out that it's
time to go, and I cannot pull away, I'm drawn on a line. Stan leads
me away in these terrible scuffing shoes that are too big for my
feet and the flute bides its time, waiting for me to earn it.

The lesson in Greek rhetoric flies through my ears
without alighting in between, you know how it is. I am called upon
to distribute quills, and part of this, I learn, is paring them. My
mind is elsewhere but Weatherford is as shaky and combustible as
ever and my hand requires steadying by my other hand, I have to tie
myself in knots to create notch reservoirs five times, but
Weatherford allows me the time needed to complete the task, it's my
first time anyway.

The flute consumes me.

Perille re-pares his quill, but says nothing snotty
to me. He's sympathetic. I'm grateful for his sympathy. Dag isn't
here.

The girl-boy is called upon to read, and it occurs to
me I've rarely heard him speak. The scroll is fitted, we are
seated, and the room fills with--

It's a she. There can be no mistake. Her voice is
melodious, very pretty, and, though deep, thoroughly feminine. If
she meant to pretend she was a boy, she's failed. But as she reads
the
Tristram
, I find myself attending to the meaning of the
romance, thinking of love in a way I hadn't in a long time. Malcolm
is a fine reader, but somehow a girl's voice makes a love story
much sharper for me. My pen is more adept today, not by much, but I
scratch through the paper a little less. Practice, practice,
practice.

At the end of an uneventful class, I find myself
beside the girl-boy on the stairs.

"Excuse me, you read very well," I say. "I felt a
great deal of passion in the story I hadn't noticed before."

Sly pupils catch the corners of her eyes. "You're
complimenting my
reading
," she says snidely, crossing her
arms.

"May I have your name?" I ask.

"You know about me, don't you?" she hisses. I nod.
"Well, I know some things about you and Malcolm."

"You were listening at the door," I say.

"I think that gives me a lot of power over you," she
says over her small nose. "Don't you?"

"We both have a secret," I say. "I won't tell if you
won't."

"That's not good enough. Nuncle already knows
my
secret, and he's the only one who can expel us. But you."
She closes in on me. "He knows nothing about you. He might be
shocked by some of the things I can tell him." Her legs straddle
one of mine heatly; she's no shorter than I am.

"He won't expel me," I say with some confidence. "He
knows I'm good for tuition money."

"I could humiliate you," she says. "If Dag and his
twins found out, do you think they'd ever let you forget? I could
make your life
hell
."

"My life is hell," I say stupidly.

Weatherford passes us, and we separate and go quiet.
He gives us a look, then shakes his head and scampers down the
stairs in black robes.

"Look," I say, and the girl is once again face to
face with me, "what do you want?"

Blue eyes flick down. "For just once in my life, I'd
like to have power," she says. "Control. My parents--" She scowls
and looks away. "I'll make you so miserable," she tells me,
catching my eye again, "unless you let me in." She touches my
forehead. "In there. And let me move things around. If I want."

"How?" I ask.

Eyes scan every periphery, as if she were looking for
how. "For now," she says, "every time you and Malcolm
do that
thing
," and I nod quickly, "make one little scratch outside
your door, on the wood. I'll find you a good sharp stone, and I
want you to keep that stone in a safe place, because it's mine. You
don't get to choose what to do with it, I do. Understand?"

My lips are dry, and I say, "Okay." And I say:
"What's your name?"

"I'm called Wolfweir, here," she says. "Call me Wolf.
Think of my teeth." She shows me hers, which are still good. "And
don't tell your buddy about this. Or else."

And she's gone.

Part Three

Malcolm's asleep, and I miss having his arms around
me. I lie in bed and think. Of course she's a girl, it was obvious.
She would have had the first fibers of a beard at her age, if she
were a boy. And I've decided to do what she tells me, it isn't
much, and it's sort of thrilling somehow. My mind drifts to the
luthery, my recorder, the silver flute. I wonder how I'll get
enough money to buy it. How do we earn money, if the door is always
locked? Public music is not permitted on Sundays, so that's
impossible. And I'm certain the fairs will not be remotely
sufficient to provide us with four marks each, let alone four marks
plus a pound. A pound is another mark, shilling and six by itself.
So there must be something else. Perhaps I'll ask Perille, who
seems to have warmed to me, though I don't know why he has.

At breakfast, I slide over to Perille, who's sitting
with Dag and Wolf--her pair of blue eyes rises to mine across their
table, but I am not entranced--I say, "Perille, a question."

Buffoonish circular lips and those disarming buck
teeth shine my way.

"Well. I was wondering when you'd come over and move
up in the world. I always knew you'd try to rise, you seem the
ascendant type."

I think that was a compliment? Malcolm gives me a
look across the room.

"No, see, how do we earn our tuition?" I ask.

Big hair bounces as Perille nods repeatedly, biting
his lips. "It's like this," he says. "When Nuncle thinks we're
ready, we go to the big fairs, like dis Brystow Fair, to perform?
And there are barons and dukes, rich merchants, bartenders, they
all want a fool. They know the way of things, they ask Ab'ly and
Ab'ly sets you up to play for them for a week, or perhaps a month.
Do you think you're ready?"

"I can play two dozen songs on recorder, and recite a
fourth of the Ilium story," I say uncertainly.