With a Jester of Kindness

by K. C. Herbel

  For the second time that night, John felt as if a burden had been lifted. However, this time he wasn’t completely convinced that his troubles with the ring were over. The thought haunted him, and he quickly opened the door of the stove and peered inside. He looked into the flames until his eyes verified that the ring lay just where he’d left it.

  “I’ll not be tricked by ya twice!” he said. He watched for a moment more and then, satisfied, closed the stove and continued to prepare milk for his infant son.

  * * *

  When John had finished feeding his son, he began tending to the breakfast needs of his guests, who would be rising very soon. Some eggs, a slab of bacon, dried fruit from the cellar, ale and water, and of course his valley-renowned breakfast biscuits. He hurried through most of it, spending a majority of his time to ensure the perfection of his biscuits. He had all but forgotten the night’s occurrences by the time he was setting the banquet table in the commons room.

  As he went to set a goblet at the last place on the table, he felt a small stab of pain in his chest. It intensified, instantly becoming a searing pain over his heart. He smelled his flesh burning. It was as if someone were branding him. Dropping the goblet, his hand went to his chest, and it too was burned. Instinct took over, and John tore open his tunic, bearing his chest. He heard a tinkling sound on the floor and looked down. To his astonishment he saw the ring, spinning there like a top. It seemed to be laughing at him, and then it rattled to a stop at his feet. John stepped back from the ring. He couldn’t believe his eyes. His senses were numb. Even the pain in his chest stopped, and he shuffled, like an automaton, over to the copper mirror on the far side of the hall. He examined his reflection in the mirror, as if he were a ghost looking at his former self. Surely this sort of thing didn’t happen in the real world! Was he dreaming? Was the ring haunting his sleep again? Had the whole night’s activities been nothing but shadows in his mind? And what of now? Was he still in the world of dreams?

  Dazed, John let his eyes wonder from his face. He looked at his bared chest and saw a small circle there. Instantly he felt the pain return. Realizing that he was not sleeping, he took a closer look at his chest. Over his heart, a small circular shape blistered up, split by the scar Sir Sedgemore’s sword had given him a year before.

  “My oath,” he muttered and walked back to where the ring lay on the floor. “So,” he said flatly, “we are to be bound together in this.” With that John stooped over and picked up the ring between his fingers. It felt warm to his touch, but it no longer burned him. “Very well, if it’s for his good, I accept!”

  John slipped the ring onto the thong where he kept the inn’s master key and tucked it into his tattered shirt. The ring felt surprisingly good to John, hanging around his neck. He smiled and went about his business a new man.

  Chapter V

  Growing Time

  “William, drink your milk!” John intoned.

  It was a familiar statement, and one that had been made many times in the past ten years. Usually the boy complied without any argument, but today he looked earnestly at his father and asked, “Why?”

  John, not noticing the look, answered traditionally, “Because, it’ll help ya grow up, good and strong.”

  “Oh, I’m never gonna grow up!” spouted the youth angrily.

  John, now aware that this was serious, looked at his son. “What is it?” he asked.

  “Nathan said that when he grows up he’s gonna go to the king’s court, in Nyraval, and be knighted . . . Well, I said that I wanted to be a knight too, just like the ones you tell me stories about, at bedtime. He just laughed, and all the others laughed too. He said that I was a runt, and they don’t let runts become knights. And they all laughed again.”

  John was next to William now, and he put his arms around him. The boy turned a tearful face to his father’s chest and sobbed.

  “I’m not like them, Father. Somehow . . . I don’t belong here.”

  “Everyone grows up in his own time, Billy. You’re just takin’ your time in doin’ it. ’sides, the measure of a good knight isn’t in how large his armor is, but how large the heart is that beats within it. I’m sure our good King William knows that, and if someday ya go to his court, he will see what a good boy you are and know that you are worthy to be one of his noble knights.”

  “Just like Sir Sedgemore, Father?”

  “Yes, like him . . .” John pondered over his decision to tell Billy about Sir Sedgemore. Perhaps that would not be such a good name to know, if the wrong ears happened to be listening.

  There was a great deal of disturbing talk these days. The rumormongers insinuated that King William had lost his mind after the death of his queen, and now his health was failing. As the king had no children, there was no obvious heir to the throne. War was a palpable likelihood. Forces outside and within the kingdom shifted and stirred. And as if this wasn’t enough, crops, which had always been plentiful in Lyonesse, were on a steady decline, while visits from tax collectors had become more frequent.

  There were whispers of yet another war with Gwyddea, of secret meetings in the forest, of goblins and boggles staring in the bedroom windows of children, and of the Night Queen—a mysterious lady in dark armor, who haunted the crossroads by night. People had become distrustful of strangers, believing the countryside to be filled with spies and malicious faeries. This once restful kingdom had changed.

  A sudden panic erupted in John’s stomach, like he hadn’t felt in many years. His eyes became hazy as he focused on that earlier time. He wondered if there might still be enemies lurking about, waiting to take away his boy. He felt ashamed that he had been so careless.

  “What is it, Father?” said Billy, noticing his father stiffen.

  “Oh, it’s nothin’. I . . . just remembered somethin’ . . . that I had forgotten to do.”

  “What is it, Father? Can I help?”

  “No, Son. Have you finished with your chores?”

  “Yes, Father.”

  “Then perhaps you should practice your readin’.”

  “But . . .” Billy started as he picked up the wooden sword he had set down under the table.

  “But nothin’! A knight must know readin’ as well as swordplay, Sir William. You don’t want to grow up to be as ignorant as your old father, now do ya?”

  “No, sir!” spouted the youth.

  John looked at the boy with his pretend “dark look,” and Billy eyed him back. They stared at each other like two drunken sailors and wrinkled up their noses.

  “Soooo,” said John in his best pirate voice, “ye callin’ yer old man ignorant now, aer ye?”

  “Welll,” said Billy, imitating his father, “I . . . What ye gonna do about it?”

  “I ought t’ skewer ya alive, ye old sea dog.”

  “Go ahead and try it, ye old sea dog.”

  At this, John picked up a rolling pin from the table and playfully thrust it at Billy. “Prepare to meet yer doo-oo-oom, Cap’n Billy.”

  “Prepare to meet yer doo-oo-oom . . .” answered his son.

  And the battle was on. The two laughed as they fenced their way through the kitchen and out into the yard. Finally, as was the usual outcome of such skirmishes, the younger stood triumphant over his father, foot atop chest, sword pointed downward towards his cowering foe.

  John went into another of Billy’s favorite spiels. “Oh please, brave and noble knight, spare me and I’ll promise to be a good dragon from now on.”

  “Do ya promise to never burn down another village?”

  “I do, I do!”

  “Do ya promise to never eat any more children?”

  “I do, I do!”

  “An’ no more princesses!”

  “Well . . . no.”

  “Then I slay you dragon, in the name of King William!”

  With this, Sir William thrust at the dragon, who died a suitably melodramatic death, complete with stiff limbs and death rattle. However, unlike most fairy tales, the dragon
got back up and requested that the noble knight go practice his reading skills. The knight heaved a sigh of disappointment and left the battlefield for his studies.

  John watched his son walk into their inn through the kitchen door. A quiet evening breeze came up from behind him. He quickly looked over his shoulder towards the thickly wooded hollow and fingered the ring under his shirt. It was a warm summer night, but a strange chill went through him as he scanned the trees. Were there any eyes hidden amongst the peaceful yews? What of the guests who stayed at his inn? How many of them might be spies? Assassins?

  John scurried back to the kitchen as the sun started its final act of the day. The curtain of night would soon fall upon the Valley of the Yew and while most of the simple folk found comfort after a long day’s toil, John endured the return of his familiar disquiet. The lengthening shadows played nasty games with his imagination, turning even the familiar into dark, skulking fiends.

  Chapter VI

  A Jester Borne

  Crash!

  The rafters of The Valley’s Finest Inn resounded with laughter as the many guests looked up from their evening meal to behold their newly adopted mascot and waiter facedown in a pile of victuals and dirty dishes.

  Billy, his face smeared with gravy, looked up at the unusually well-dressed mob of patrons. They pointed and jeered at him. Some of them spewed or sprayed food from their mouths uncontrollably. Still others covered their mouths to whisper with neighbors between laughs. Billy didn’t have to guess at what they were saying to one another. He had been the butt of an endless stream of practical jokes since their arrival, and this latest tripping was only another prank. Billy, dazzled by all the fancy clothing and talk, took this behavior as just another eccentricity of court life and etiquette.

  The Earl of Wyneddham’s contingent of guests had been in residence at the inn for three days. They arrived in the late afternoon and demanded each and every room, vacant or not. Their intention was to “just stay the night,” or so they said. This being the return trip from a Mayday festival in Penwyth, they quickly became involved in their usual courtly excesses. Their capacities for food and drink were bottomless, and their vices innumerable. They were up at all hours playing various “parlor games,” placating the earl and countess, gossiping about fellow courtiers, boasting, gambling, joking, lying, swearing, and scheming. Then, of course, there were the “three Ws” without which no court is complete: Wooing Wanton Wenches.

  At any rate, Billy again found himself the focus of their fancy, and as usual he was facedown on the floor. As he picked himself up, the rabble started to applaud. Billy didn’t know what to do. He stood uncomfortably with gravy dripping off his face, too stunned to move. Without knowing why, he bowed to the mob. They applauded louder still. Billy oddly enjoyed their perverse adoration, and to show his appreciation he made his bow deep and theatrical. But alas when he reached the bottom of his ridiculously low bow, he slipped in the gravy and wound up on the floor again. The nobles laughed until many had tears. Billy hid behind his tray and scurried off to the kitchen amid the complete chaos, which had exploded in the dining hall.

  John was at the kitchen table, busily preparing pies, when Billy burst in. Billy’s eyes and gravy-smeared face were red. He ran to the washbasin and fell over it with his tray. John watched him carefully. He couldn’t see Billy’s face, but he could see by his wincing shoulders that he was crying. It was the way he cried when he wanted to be left alone, after the other children had teased him. But it had been many years since children had teased him. In fact, even though he was small for his age, it had been a long time since anyone from the valley had mistaken him for a child.

  Billy was now a young man; at least he was old enough to be one. Most often he showed the wisdom of his years and was even, from time to time, quite insightful. Just the same, there was something juvenile about him. His temperament and good humor seldom led anyone to believe that he had any worries, and he always seemed able to see things from a somewhat childlike point of view. Some claimed this was due to his diminutive height, while others said that “living alone, all those years, with that father of his” was the cause of his youthful nature. Amid all this speculation, none could deny that he was the most helpful and likable of fellows.

  However, it’s hard for a fellow not to take it personally when someone he’s just met doesn’t like him. Such was often the case with Billy. It seemed as if there was always some guest or another who would look down on Billy, simply because they could look down on him.

  This latest string of practical jokes from the earl’s party was no different. It was just that there seemed to be no end to them. Usually pranksters grew tired of the jokes after a short while, but these grand lords and ladies had equally grand appetites for cruelty.

  John started to say something but bit back his angry tongue. He knew Billy’s moods and knew that he could say nothing that would bring ease to his son’s troubled mind. And so they worked in silence—Billy on his dirty dishes and John on his pies.

  Suddenly Billy blurted out, “I thought lords and ladies were supposed to be . . .” He couldn’t finish.

  John just nodded in silent agreement.

  “How long do you think they’ll stay, Father?”

  “I don’t know, William. Perhaps when the ale runs dry. I thought they would have left days ago.”

  “We do need the business.”

  “Not as much as all that. In fact I could use a rest from all this . . . but they seem to have found something about the inn which makes them want to stay.”

  “It is a fine inn, Father.”

  “Aye, but there are finer inns, as I’ve told you, nearer ya go to the cities.”

  John and Billy stood in the kitchen, both secretly wishing that their invaders would find the heart to move on, both wondering what could possibly be making them stay.

  “Perhaps it’s your cookin’, Father.”

  “Perhaps you’ve got two new lumps on your head,” replied John with a smile, knowing that his cooking was little more than passable for these fine lords and ladies. But then suddenly he was struck with a devilishly delicious idea.

  Billy, still working with the dishes, heard a peculiar sound from behind him. He wasn’t sure, but it sounded like a muffled laugh—a snigger to be precise. He heard it again and slowly turned to see what could be causing his father’s mirth. With the face of the devil himself, John half danced to the cupboard and retrieved a small jar.

  Billy watched curiously as his father liberally sprinkled the pies with the contents of the jar. Billy wondered what could have caused his father to take on such a jocular disposition so suddenly. John circled the kitchen table in a sort of dance, which reminded Billy of the spring festival dances in the village. He turned and skipped and sprinkled some more on the pies, making sure not to miss a single pie, all the time humming a simple tune that Billy couldn’t quite place.

  “Shall we serve the pies, now?” asked John, filled with exaggerated pomp. He then picked up one of the trays and proceeded to take it into the dining hall. Billy, still stunned by his father’s performance, picked up the other pie tray, put on a brave face, and followed his father into the commons room.

  The rabble had mostly quieted down from their last outburst, and so when John announced, to the lords and ladies, that the dessert was “served,” an audible “ah” was all that was heard.

  “What delicacy do you serve us this night, innkeeper?” asked the earl.

  “It’s an old family recipe, milord.”

  “What is it, man?”

  “It’s called strawberry surprise pie, milord.”

  That’s strange, thought Billy, I don’t remember any “old family recipe” for “strawberry surprise pie.” In fact, he couldn’t ever remember his father baking any kind of strawberry pie before.

  The earl interrupted his thought. “Well, serve it, lad!”

  Billy began to serve the pies to the guests, giving each their generous helping and even
managing to smile as they took it. John was busy doing the same; only Billy had never seen him serve food with such vigor. John really seemed to be enjoying himself as he served them and asked each to “eat up in good health.”

  Finally Billy came to the man who had previously tripped him. He stared the large man in the face as he took his pie and grunted his approval. The man never said anything, but Billy watched him and his long feet. The woman next to the man saw Billy’s precautions and smiled. Billy saw her smile and returned it gladly. He offered her some pie, which she politely declined, but as he passed, she leaned out and whispered in his ear.

  “Don’t mind him,” she said. “He’s just drunk . . . again.”

  Billy looked at her smooth fair face and saw that she spoke earnestly. Of course Billy had seen her face before, but he hadn’t noticed how kind her eyes were.

  “Yes, milady,” he said with a grin.

  Billy finished serving his pies with a newfound hope. At last he had met someone of this court whom he thought was worthy of being called a lady—the kind of fine lady his father had told him tales about.

  When Billy got back to the kitchen, he found his father bubbling over with good humor. He hummed while cleaning the kitchen, occasionally taking a few dance steps. For a man of his advanced years, he showed surprising energy.

  While Billy didn’t consider his father aged by any means, he did find this sudden outburst of energy out of character. It had been some time since he saw John act in such a manner. The last time was on the occasion of a surprise birthday celebration for Billy. Billy’s curiosity was growing, but rather than ask, he thought that it was best to let his father enjoy himself and wait until he said something.

  Billy and John worked together in the kitchen for a long while: Billy quiet and somber, John humming and jaunty, neither saying anything to the other. Occasionally some of John’s mirth rubbed off on Billy, and he joined in, but then he would stop and wonder why he had been humming.