Fool School (28 page)

Having seniority, Perille has claimed the cafeteria,
which resonates pleasantly, and Stan is amusing himself in the
music room by teaching Hero the shawm one on one. Dag is still in
his room, recuperating, and Ab'ly has permitted Wolfweir the
acrobatics room, where, before the door closes, I see that she's
planning to play the recorder while turning cartwheels. The music
isn't good, but it's remarkable to watch anyways.

Malcolm and I have no great place to practice. A pair
of chairs would be pleasant, but there aren't any chairs anywhere.
On a whim, I begin opening dormitory doors one by one, up one side,
down the other, my assembled recorder swinging not quite casually
from a free hand. I skip the rooms I know are occupied. Beside me
is my saint, my reeve. A cyclone of Perille's shawm notes comes
from the cafeteria; this is how you know you're practicing in the
wrong place, when you can hear someone else clearly. Pity the
cafeteria has no door.

As we come to the door nearest the staircase, Wensley
emerges from the kitchen and leans against a wall. Instinctually I
defend myself with my recorder. Not by swinging it--by lifting it
to my lips and playing it, pretending that I am where I'm meant to
be, ignoring him.

"Aye there, Gally and Pict." Wensley desires a
fistfight, but we saints are sick of fighting. One of these days
we'll lose a fight, even two-to-one, and then it'll be us with
yellow skin and blue lips.

I play "Rybbesdale" on my recorder, shyly. Watching
Wensley coldly, Malcolm taps an ineffectual beat.

"You think you have it settled," the cook hisses,
"but I'll have the last, just wait."

"We'll take you and your brother and the whole muckle
school on, afore I'll cede the last to ye," Malcolm says over his
tumping.

"Oh, aye, aye," moans Wensley, mocking Malcolm's
accent, grabbing his hair into pigtails. "You'll do ennatheng to
preserve the honor of your little French gairlfriend here."

Malcolm's mallet presses against my chest, as if I
were likely to try to surge forward and start a fight. I'm not. But
I am thinking of what Wensley's plans may be, and they worry
me.

"Permit me to clarify something," I say, taking the
recorder from my lips. "If you sabotage any of my belongings, I'll
take a knife to you where you sleep."

"If that's the only threat you have to offer me, I
think I'll sleep soundly," says Wensley, and slinks away.

If my acacia recorder becomes damaged by an act of
Wensley or Maliface, I will kill them both. I tell no one that I've
decided this. I'll buy a knife at the fair. I've overcome my fear
of them--

No, I've made quite a different choice. I think of
Wolf's sharp stone. I will
make
a knife.

After Wensley's gone, I spin to the nearest door,
open it, I must hide for a moment so I don't create a violent
madness in myself, and--

This door, it looks like just another of the plain
cell doors, it's the one at the end--but it opens not to a cell but
to a stairway down.

Footsteps above.

Malcolm pushes me in and the door shuts behind
us.

For several moments we wait for the footsteps to
retreat, and once they do, we are in a faint green-skylight-lit
darkness, our feet braced on different steps.

"Es et a secret passage?" Malcolm says.

I nod, and descend the hidden stairway.

The light gives out at the first landing. There is a
second landing before the bottom.

As our eyes adjust, we find out what's hiding at the
bottom of the steps.

"Et must have been for the wairst of the prisoners,"
says Malcolm.

Cages of thick lead bars seem to call out for wolves
or bears. Inside one is a colossal chest of quality wood. "Full of
coins, I bet," I say, pointing. It's mostly glints and shadows down
here, although I detect no filth or spider hives, my nose is that
good. This place has been kept clean.

"D'ye ken, I think thes es Nuncle's room, where he
sleeps," Malcolm says, pointing to a cot along one wall. Chains
droop down from the ceiling in several places. I brush them aside.
What sort of man sleeps in a torture chamber?

"We shouldn't be here," I say, and a panic takes us
at the same time and we gallop back up the stairs. I press my
recorder to my belly so it doesn't get scratched. I'll wipe some
resin over it anyway, so I can have peace of mind.

Carefully we ease the door open. The hall is
deserted, but I feel like someone's watching me. A sudden rush of
terror; if Wolfweir finds out we know where Nuncle's secret room
is, she'll have much more power, real power over us. Nuncle would
kill us if she told him we knew where his hiding place is. I
imagine it must usually be kept locked, and is open in error. But
as we shut the door and return to our room, we both breathe easier.
We have a new secret, and nobody can destroy us.

In our own room together we play "Rybbesdale" freely,
majestically, as though there could be nothing that ever goes wrong
again. We tell no one about Nuncle's secret room.

And I'll say right here, nothing gives a fool more
power than secrets. It's the depths of the human soul that we jest
about, and the deeper the soul, the deeper the jest. If I were to
speak my mind truthfully, I would say that the Devil is the
greatest fool of all. He is, in some ways, the patron saint of
fools. For without the temptation of sin, there would be no need of
us.

* * *

Two weeks before the fair, Nuncle comes to us and
asks what we have to wear. Malcolm has nothing, and Ab'ly is sent
for and takes him to Brystow to buy a jester's suit. "The boy is
growing," Ab'ly remarks as they leave, and Nuncle gives him a scowl
and tells him to buy only something cheap, because he'll need to
buy another in a year or two. I ask why Stan doesn't accompany him,
the way he accompanied me to the cobbler's, but Nuncle doesn't
answer. I detect a mystery.

Here we are, the headmaster and I in my room,
squatting beside my trunks. I lift the lid and reveal the morose
bundle of diamonds.

Nuncle touches the cloth.

"Who are you?" he asks suddenly, his blue eyes
reflecting green light and candlelight. His eyes are very wet, like
puddles.

"My grandfather was a kingsfool," I said. "Not a big
one, but he tumbled for--"

"His name," Nuncle says, intent.

"Philip de la Motley," I say.

"Second fool at the court of Duncan of Strathclyde,
1024-1034," the headmaster says automatically. "Yes, I know the
name. I know of your family, Tom, they are well-thought-of." He
pauses. "I know your father, Jean."

"He tends to pronounce it
John
, in the English
style," I say automatically. Then: "You know Papa?"

"Yes," says Nuncle. "Look. Lend me these patches,
Tom, and I will have them mended. In the meantime, I will lend you
a suit in return. Don't tell any other students where it came from.
I prefer to keep my affairs private."

"Yessir. Thank you, sir."

A look passes between us, and I feel, for a moment, a
feeling of estimation grow in my belly. The headmaster is lending
me his suit. I have his trust. I don't know why. Nuncle knows my
family. We're well-thought-of.

Nuncle leaves, and I am crouched over my trunk,
feeling too much.

The suit he gives me is a little baggy--I'm slight, I
feel threatened by my daily pottages--and Nuncle walks around me in
the deserted music room, thrusting curved pins into the red fabric.
It's a devil outfit, bright red, with real spiral ram's horns stuck
to the hat. I feel devilish wearing it. There's no masque, but the
apple-red cloth, clinging to my body, is turning me into a
provocateur. I dislike displaying my nethers, but it's part of
being a fool, at least a low fool. The fool is a sexual creature,
always.

Nuncle pulls the fabric taut, here, there. I undress,
and Nuncle takes the cloth to hem. I pull on hose and a tunic.
Nuncle is indifferent to the human body, he has other
preoccupations.

When next I am summoned to wear the suit, it's a day
before our trip to the fair. This time, the motley is tailored,
it's perfect, it fits snugly in every corner. Satisfied, Nuncle
leaves it with me and instructs me not to sully it before the
fair--we will wear hose and tunic as far as the outskirts of Bath,
and then change into motley for a grand entrance, a Parade of
Fools.

Malcolm has a very inadequate suit, it's just a
particolor tunic with legs sewn to it. Nuncle's taken it in, but it
still looks just a poorly made tunic, rather than motley. I can
detect the disappointment in Malcolm; he's built for finery, and
this is very cheap. The neck is broad--you step into it from the
top, and these cheap fabrics have no give--so his freckles down his
shoulders glare like pink stars in the night sky. In the privacy of
the room, we stand together and I rest a hand on his freckles. I
find them becoming.

The door opens and Wolfweir comes in with her hands
behind her.

"I learned this trick from Perille," she tells us.
"In a crowd of women, the fool with the firmest manhood makes the
most money."

In each of her hands she holds a small braided circle
of birch switches. "I made these for you and you
will
wear
them. Don't argue. The sooner you make four marks, the more you'll
have left over for the tax I will levy on you." She presents us
with the circles. "The tax for a slave is five pence," she says.
"And the tax for a vassal is eight pence. Put them on."

"On where?" I say, looking at the hard, inflexible
circle in my hand.

Wolfweir points at my crotch.

Very, very gently I pull my hose down and tug it
on.

Yes, right away I wake up and stand.

It feels quite . . . unsettling.

"I don't know if I can play music and wear it at the
same time," I say, feeling heightened. "It's . . .
distracting."

"Practice," says Wolf, smiling and shrugging. She
struts away.

Part
Four

The walk to the fair begins on Monday. We've all
confessed and have clear consciences. The swamp of outer Bath gives
way to heath and fields. There are no castles here, no great
sights, only morning sky and the sound of Perille's shawm, he's
chosen to entertain us as we go. While I might be preoccupied with
my own worries, the noise is a welcome filling-of-the-head.
Sometimes life is best when you can drown out the sound of your own
mind. I feel like much of human nature springs from a desire to
stop being human for a moment or two. We desire to be raw low
animals, or bright glowing angels, but nothing in-between. What
bliss to be mindless, choiceless. No wonder we give ourselves
kings.

We're all here. I'm surprised Hero has been brought;
his music isn't at a strong level yet, and I wonder what he'll
perform. Flips? How much money does a fool make from acrobatics,
anyways? It seems more like seasoning than a meal.

In my hand is my recorder in the repaired case. A bag
of cheap colorless wool is slung over my shoulder. In it, the red
devil suit's horns dig into my shoulder, and Malcolm's tunic-suit
is folded beside a tambrel. Malcolm is beside me. Wolf walks ahead,
looking much more devilish and much more alive than I will in
Nuncle's suit.

The road trends up, and at a dusty crest I see
Brystow. It wasn't so far of a walk, I realize. Morning to late
afternoon from the edge of Bath, no more.

Brystow is not a city, it's a kingdom. Stone towers
and row houses. The city proper is empty, everyone's at the fair.
The cobbles are well-made, there's hardly space between the stones,
it's polished smooth. I am much smaller in Brystow than I am in
Bath, I'm shrunken beneath the great cathedral, under the laundry,
below roofs that are not yet dripping from snow. Winter is next
door, the monks of the cathedral have already taken out their thick
woolen albs to wear and they rub their hands together, blow on
them, press their hoods over their ears.

Nuncle leads us to a low overlook where the road
touches the crust of the bay. At a gathering of shrub trees, we
stop to change. As I untie my hose bracers and pull off my itchy
tunic, I catch a glimpse of Wolfweir's bound bosoms, my mouth goes
dry and I feel funny. They are threatening, the bosoms. They
confront me. I avoid them. I become a ram's-horn devil. The fresh
stitches in the fabric are scratchy, Nuncle didn't bother to use
fine thread, but at least it fits.

Oh! I never discoursed on how I fixed my shoes. I
didn't. I found a very poor spare pair of jester's curly red shoes
in my second trunk. I'm wearing this spare pair now. I'll buy some
plain leather here, if I have spare money after Nuncle and the evil
lady-wolf have bled me, and build new shoes altogether.

A mile beyond Brystow the stream of humanity
thickens. Cartwheels turn, animals lift their tails on the road,
people with coin purses walk--actually it's mostly carts, if you
look back down the road. Carts loaded with processed foods and
bales for winter oxen. Women have bucket-yokes full of autumn
fruit, there are barrows full of wax-sealed clay jars, probably
honey and boiled berry preserves. I laugh at a man who's got a
spinning-wheel of honey taffy, he's dyed it bright purple with
grape juice, his hand-cart reads ROYAL TAFFIES, he turns the wheel
and laughs in reply as we pass.

The density increases until we reach a
funnelling-point. There's an earl's bailiff checking the guilds and
charters of each comer. It takes awhile to get through, if you're
not the sneaking type. We stand in the billowing dust and
shiver.

Wolfweir says: "
Put it on"
in my ear and in
Malcolm's. Awkwardly we shuffle away from the crowd. There's a
boulder lodged in the ground, we hide behind it and put the wooden
circles around ourselves and find ourselves quite overcome. A
visible shape arises in our motley, anybody could recognize it.