A Fool of Sorts

by Taylor O'Connell

  “A blessed day be upon the both of you,” Tanao said to the pair of steel caps standing guard at the compound entrance. “Salvatori, in the wagon, if you would.”

  Tanao untied the reins of his mules from the hitching post. The beasts were fat and well groomed, but the wagon must have been half a century old. Sal would have needed search long and hard to find its like still in use. The wagon’s seat was a flat wooden plank. Sal expected it was bound to grow quite uncomfortable as they bounced along on the cobblestone streets.

  Tanao flicked the reins, which put the mules into motion. Despite everything that was yet to come, Sal felt a smile creeping up the corners of his mouth at the thought of leaving the Magistrate’s Compound alive.

  The crow-cages were six-foot iron cages that hung from gibbeting along the Street of Rags. Six in all, but only two occupied criminals.

  One of Sal’s worst fears was to be stuck in a crow-cage, a fate he had narrowly avoided, only to wind up rolling the bones once more.

  As they passed the cages, Tanao shook his head. “A truly barbaric practice,” the monk said mournfully.

  Sal couldn’t help but agree. He looked at the cages, forcing himself to see the men behind the bars as they begged, fingers poking through the iron grates. Sal realized he knew one of the men. Not well, but he’d seen the man in his uncle’s company a time or two. He was a made man, one of Don Svoboda’s enforcers. The made man’s eyes met Sal’s, and Sal looked away, unable to match the Svoboda man’s stare.

  A pregnant silence fell over them after they’d passed the crow-cages. The wagon bounced as it trundled along the cobblestones, jostling Sal in a most uncomfortable fashion. It wasn’t until they had crossed Beggar’s Lane that Tanao spoke.

  “The pompous prat. I cared not for the cut of his cloth.”

  “Pardon?” Sal asked, bemused by the outburst.

  “The simpering clerk of the magistrate. I’d have liked to wring my hands about his scrawny neck. Though, I had needs content myself with curt words and obnoxious piety,” the monk said with a vulpine smile that seemed queer on his innocent, round face.

  “Simon Fuller, was he really so detestable?”

  “A simpering jackanapes, one could see it in the way the magistrate’s men looked upon him. Light’s name, I’ll eat my robes if a single word I spoke pushed through the wax of his ears and took seed within that shriveled raisin he calls a brain.”

  Sal laughed, more out of propriety than joviality. As the mules clopped on at a steady pace, he looked around, watching people go about their business of the day. Urchins weaved through the crowds as they worked in pairs, teasing and picking any targets they could mark. When the wagon neared Town Square, Sal could hear vendors pushing their wares.

  He began to wonder why he’d ridden so far along with the monk. This was his chance to run. All he needed to do was jump from the plodding wagon and escape into the crowd. He wasn’t shackled, nothing was keeping him on the wagon but his own hesitation.

  “Wondering why you haven’t run?” Tanao asked.

  The question startled Sal from his thoughts.

  “A good question,” Tanao said, as though answering his own inquiry. “I surmise you are not a pious man, neither bound by morals nor God. Fear, perhaps? But no, you did not seem frightened when you were told you’d be coming with me. If I am not mistaken, your look was one of relief. Are you relieved to be going back with me, Salvatori Lorenzo?”

  Sal shrugged. “I’m not certain.”

  “So, you are a man of chance? You would gamble on your luck with a court of the Vespian Order rather than the servants of the ducal court, is this the way of it?”

  Sal shrugged again, frowning. “Didn’t think I had a choice in the matter. Besides, could be I’m only biding my time. Maybe I’d rather escape at a more convenient location.”

  Tanao’s round visage took on a cherubic expression. “I’m thinking that if you’d meant to escape you’d have done it long before now. My guess is, you’ve decided riding with me to Knöldrus Abbey would be preferred to wasting away in one of those crow-cages on the Street of Justice. Would that be somewhere near the mark?”

  “And what if I murdered that monk?” Sal asked. “What if I was the one who’d done murder. Would you truly not fear for your life?”

  “Why should a servant of the Light fear for his mortal flesh? I have faith, in my God and my fellow man. Even his lost sheep will return to the flock once they’ve done their time in wandering.” Tanao ruffled Sal’s hair. “You are no murderer, Salvatori Lorenzo,” The monk said confidently.

  Sal wondered if Tanao made a distinction between killing and murder.

  Tanao looked to his left, then his right, and to his left again. Sal realized the monk had a hand inside his robes. Apparently satisfied with what he saw, Brother Tanao withdrew his hand to reveal a clear stoppered bottle filled with an amber liquid. “Can’t be too careful,” Tanao said, pulling the stopper. He took a healthy swig, shivering slightly as he swallowed. Then hastily hid the open bottle behind the billowy sleeve of his robe as a pair of hooded acolytes, belonging to the Keepers of the Flame, walked past the wagon.

  “Like a drink, my friend?” Tanao asked once the acolytes were out of earshot.

  Sal shrugged and accepted the bottle. He leaned back and took a pull, no easy task in a moving, bouncing wagon. A warm, burning sensation surged down his throat. He shivered and heaved a sputtering cough. Tanao laughed and hastily snatched the bottle that Sal nearly dropped as he coughed.

  “A fine batch this one. Apple brandy, all the way from Kirkundy, given to me by a brother from Athulmere Priory. We only brew ale at Knöldrus Abbey, you see, and a man of the times has a thirst for something stronger.” Tanao took another swig of the bottle.

  They continued to talk and drink, the wagon plodding along for a time, until something came to mind that had been troubling Sal. “Brother Tanao, how is it you knew I was in that cell?”

  “Ah, well, the abbot sent me.”

  “The abbot? How did he—hold on, the abbot’s dead, isn’t he?”

  “Yes, that’s true, Abbot Tarquin did pass from this world, but I was sent by the new abbot.”

  “The new abbot? But how could he have known I was in the Magistrate’s Compound? Lady’s sake, I was only in there for a night and half a day.”

  It was Tanao’s turn to shrug. “You’d do as well to ask me how the grass grows, or the tide ebbs and flows. I do not pretend to understand how the workings of this world, only that if I see something, I know it is truth.”

  Something else occurred to Sal, perhaps the most puzzling quandary of all. “Tanao, who is the new abbot of Knöldrus Abbey?”

  “Why, I am proud to say, Brother Jacques holds that honor,” Tanao said, hardly able to contain his excitement at the announcement. “When Brother Henry and Brother Martin both dropped from the race, Jacques was hard-pressed to put forth his name. Naturally, Leobald was furious about the results. He swore up and down about how he deserved a recount of the stones.”

  Sal smiled at the thought of Leobald throwing a fit when Jacques had assumed the position of abbot. As they neared Town Square, the noise of the market place grew steadily louder, until it was nearly impossible to hear his own thoughts. They rolled past the great bronze statue of Uthrid Stormbreaker, a hero monk of old, whose statue stood in the heart of the center fountain. When Tanao caught sight of the great bronze statue, he began chanting a hymn that drew stares as they clattered along.

  “Shatter the storm with earth and Light!

  Shatter the storm with Solus’ might!

  Arise his men, arise.

  Here we stand, and here we fight.

  Arise his men, arise.

  The storm has come, turn to the Light.”

  Sal stopped listening to the words as he grew unsettled by the attention Tanao was attracting. When a pair of steel caps looked at their wagon, Sal did his best to hide his face behind his hands without being too obvious before he real
ized, for once, he had no reason to hide.

  “Only blood may pay for blood,

  and death may pay for life,

  but to rid us of the darkness,

  there is only sa-cri-fiiiiice!”

  Tanao brought his hymn to a close as they clattered across the Singing Bridge and entered the Cathedral District.

  They passed through the abbey gates without halting to provide an explanation, but as they drove along, the tonsured heads of the monk’s turned and stared at Sal as he passed. The expressions on their faces ranging from surprise to anger. When they reached the stables, Tanao handed the reigns to a young acolyte.

  “An extra bit of oats for Lefty tonight, I think,” Tanao said to the taller of the two boys, and the acolytes began to unhitch the mules from the wagon.

  “Come along. The abbot will be wanting a word as soon as he returns. Though, it could be some time before then. So, for now, you’ll come with me. There is always work to be done about the mill and brewhouse.”

  Sal moved to obey when a voice sounded behind him. “There was a rumor the skeever had returned to us,” said a man with a shrill voice. Sal turned to see Leobald crossing the yard, headed in his direction. “I see the rumors prove true. Come to confess to your crime, have you, murderer?”

  “Be off, Brother Leobald, you’ve no business with my guest,” said Tanao, hustling to position himself between Sal and Leobald.

  “I dare say I do have business. I am prior of Knöldrus Abbey, or have you forgotten, Master Brewer?”

  “I have not,” said Tanao, arms crossed. “Nor have I forgotten, Brother Jacques is abbot, not you, Master Prior.”

  “No matter, I’ll soon see you flayed, boy,” Leobald said. “When your pelt has been cut from your flesh, we will hang it above the gates as a warning to those who would think my brothers easy victims. And once your skin has been shorn from your flesh, I’ll let you free to flop about in the mud, a bloody pink fish.”

  “Come, Salvatori, we’ve no use for such sickly-sweet words. They sustain neither the mind nor the belly, rather they stick to teeth to rot and fester,” said Tanao.

  They crossed the yard, in the direction of the mill. As they neared their destination, the brewhouse came into sight. The rushing current of the Tamber worked the great water wheel that turned the mill. Not only did the Tamber serve as the power source, but the monks used the river’s water to brew their ale. The brewhouse was little more than a timber shack, packed floor to ceiling with oak barrels, and smelled of a strong odor that Sal could not put his finger on.

  Though, he must have wrinkled his nose, because Tanao began to explain. “Fermentation,” the monk said with a chuckle. “I tell you, some of the smells that come out of this brewhouse—though, I come to love each and every one in its own right. Good ale requires special attention, and I give attention to each batch as though they were my own children.”

  A laugh burst from above. Seated upon a stack of barrels, guzzling from a tankard, was a buck-toothed, rather mousy monk. Philip, Sal thought his name was.

  “Your Grace!” Philip shouted, holding the tankard in mock salute before downing the rest of its contents. “Tell me, Tanao, what sort of father makes children and consumes them in the night?”

  “I must apologize for the tactless behavior of my drinking companion,” said Tanao, frowning. “Salvatori, might you care for a horn. This is an ale of my own make.”

  “Children, he calls them, and yet, now he offers his child like a common whore,” said Philip, sliding down from the barrels. “Still, does he not offer a bite of the cheese? We have a wheel of white from our brothers at North Hernshire. Just arrived this morning.”

  “You truly never tasted a finer cheese,” said Tanao. “A soft white, marbled by veins of blackberry wine.”

  After a few horns of ale and three helpings of what truly was one of the finest cheeses he had ever eaten, Sal actually began to appreciate the odor of the fermenting ale. He noticed underlying scents, notes of piney hops and whiffs of earthy barley.

  “And do you work in the brewhouse as well, Brother Phillip?”

  “Bah.” Tanao scoffed. “Philip hasn’t the patience for brewing ale. Though, when it comes to drinking it, he is prodigious in his consumption and thankful before the Lord that is Light for his generosity.”

  “Alas, I am a scribe and a mere apprentice at that. I illuminate the works of scripture in the library.”

  “Illumination?” Sal asked, thinking of the vellum pages he used to look at in his uncle’s solar. His uncle had a handful of illuminated works in his collection. Sal wondered just how many books there were in the monastic library, hundreds, maybe even tens of hundreds. “Your work must be challenging. Do you enjoy it?”

  “I find that I much prefer the perks of the brewhouse to those of the library. Unfortunately, we don’t choose where we serve. It is for the Lord that is Light to show us the Way and for the brothers of my order to walk upon it.”

  Tanao held his mug aloft. “For the Lord that is Light shall guide us. We will lead the charge for men. We shall be the hardened tip of the first spear’s thrust into the heart of darkness.”

  Sal drank along with the monks as they downed their horns following Tanao’s pronouncement. He felt dizzy. Mayhap, he’d had too much drink and too little food. The cheese had been the only thing he’d had to eat in nearly two days. He stood unsteadily and leaned against a cask to regain his balance. As his head spun with drunken bliss, he considered that a mere hour before, he had been in shackles—fit to rot in the under-cells, starved and neglected until he was finally judged guilty of theft and stuffed inside a crow-cage to be slowly consumed by carrion.

  “Tell me, Salvatori, what think you of my brew?” Tanao asked.

  “I’ve never drunk its equal,” Sal said, holding up his horn. “An ale beyond compare.”

  Tanao smiled, his cherubic face a shade of red so deep, it was nearly purple. “Ah, but it would seem we have made another brother today.”

  Sal gave him a quizzical look, his vision blurring double.

  “Not a brother of the cloth, but a brother of the cup. Salvatori Lorenzo, I name you friend!” Tanao boomed jovially as he refilled the horns.

  Sal couldn’t help but smile. Things were not going quite the way he had expected. The rumors of the Vespian Order’s cruelty toward criminals was beginning to sound more fiction than fact.

  “To Salvatori Lorenzo,” said Philip, raising his horn. “Friend of the Vespian Order and a better man than I.”

  Sal drank with the other two. He could only guess what he had done to earn such praise. It had been a long time since he had felt worthy of anything more than a kick in the teeth. Yet, that was a funny thing about alcohol. It had the power to turn otherwise harmless men into monsters and complete strangers into the best of friends, all in the span of a night.

  His insides felt warm and fuzzy, his head light, and for the first time in a while, he felt—happy. He must have been more drunk than he’d realized.

  “You’re simply too humble,” Sal said honestly. “I could not have asked for a greater blessing. This day has turned full upon its face, and it is only thanks to you and Abbot Jacques. Still, I don’t understand how it is that the abbot could have known I had been arrested.”

  “Abbot Jacques is a well-liked man in Dijvois, a man with friends. It would seem to me one of his many friends put a word in his ear about a certain man that had been arrested, a man who very much resembled another man that the Vespian Order had been asking about. When news reached the abbot, he summoned me and sent me to the duke with his letter and his seal of office.” Tanao held up his left hand proudly to show a silver ring encrusted with rubies, the golden sun of the Vespian Order at the ring’s center, emblazoned with an orange garnet.

  “And the abbot, where from is he returning?” Sal asked.

  “The abbot had business abroad,” said Tanao. “The Lord that is Light will guide his Holiness where he is needed. It is not for
lesser men such as we to worry over the workings of God but to act when called upon in a manner which is pleasing to the Lord.”

  “You don’t know, do you?” Philip scoffed.

  “And you do?” Tanao said defensively.

  “I most certainly do not,” Philip said. “but whenever you hide behind your piety, it is due to your ignorance, not your devotion, and don’t you deny it.”

  Tanao huffed. “If it pleases you, I do not know where the Abbot has gone and whence he shall return. Though by his order, we await his pleasure. When he returns, we shall be among the first to know.”

  Sal was not certain he liked the sound of that. Thus far, things had been more than agreeable, but there was no telling what turn his fate could take at the abbot’s return. Though Jacques had been kind to him before, his duties as abbot could require he act in a very different manner than he had when he was the Master Infirmarer.

  Sal’s heartrate quickened. He considered running, but what would be the point? Unless he was willing to leave the city, it would only be a matter of time before he was spotted and would find himself in a worse situation. Still, where would he go? Where could he go? He’d never left Dijvois. It was the only home he knew, the only place in the world Sal knew how to survive. Even were he to leave the city, there was no guarantee of his safety. Deep in his cups as he was, how far would he even get before sober men restrained him and returned him to the abbey?

  His best option was to stay where he was and wait for the bones to roll. Should they roll in his favor, all the better. Still, the words that Leobald had spoken to him earlier. His talk of flaying Sal and hanging his pelt above the gate, was it all bluster? The man was, after all, the prior of Knöldrus Abbey, second only to the abbot. There was no telling what sway Leobald’s influence held.