by Alan Gordon
“All right,” said Amleth.
Gerald reached down and handed him a sack.
“This is Yorick’s collection of bundles,” he said. “Keep them hidden away. He may turn up to claim them after all. If not, you might find them useful. Keep playing the fool at home, and keep practicing your skills. Oh, and he told me that you like these.”
He handed him the piece of wood he had been whittling. It was carved into a stake.
“Thank you,” said Amleth, taking it and getting up to leave.
“Amleth,” said Gerald.
“Yes?”
“Stultorum numerus…”
“Infinitus est,” returned the boy.
He trudged back to the island, hiding the bundle in the rafters of a stable on the way. Then he walked back to his stockade and added the stake Gerald had given him to it.
Lother came running through, chasing a chicken. He stopped when he saw Amleth.
“Hello, Amleth,” he said.
“Hello, Lother,” said Amleth dispiritedly.
“What’s wrong?” asked Lother.
“Nothing,” said the older boy. He looked at the little one, then pulled out three silks from his pouch. “Lother, would you like to see me do a trick?”
Lother nodded, and Amleth started juggling the silks. The little boy’s eyes grew wide.
“Can I try?” he asked, holding out his hands.
Amleth nodded.
“Here,” he said, handing Lother the silks. “I’ll teach you.”
Sixteen
“Cannot you tell that? Every fool can tell that.”
—Hamlet, Act V, Scene I
“"Father Gerald?” called Thomas.
The priest turned toward him, frowning.
“What is it, my son?” he said.
“How do you know these things?” asked the hoy. “I know you said that you pieced the story together from different sources, but how can you know them all?”
“Some of it came from refugees fleeing Rügen,” said the priest. “The Danes overran the island. The Wends fought well, but were badly outnumbered. Many were enslaved, huddling in chains as their idols were chopped into kindling in front of them. Two sisters who served food at the meeting of Fengi and the Lord of Arkona provided me with details of the words exchanged. An aging mercenary years later gave me some of what transpired in Slesvig. And my best source of all, of course, was Amleth.”
“But you still can’t know everything that you’ve told us,” insisted Thomas.
“I admit that some of this story is conjecture,” said the priest. “Do you know what conjecture is, Thomas?”
“It means you’re making it up,” said the boy.
“Well, yes, in a way, but only based upon confirmed facts and details,” said Gerald. “But, pray, let me continue. I spent some time searching for any trace of Terence, but found none. He had disappeared off the face of the earth. As I said, Amleth became my best source of information on Slesvig. He kept up his facade of moody silences and bookish brooding so well that soon no one paid much attention to him. He would wander on his own through the town, a walking ghost, always with a manuscript in his hand for quick perusal should anyone stick their head out a window under which he was listening. The Danish soldiers who had been loyal to his father made him their mascot, teaching him fighting techniques and the use of bows. Often he would wander the docks, meeting traveling merchants and foreign sailors and learning their tongues, in the process collecting much useful gossip. Nobody would even wonder when, on the occasional Wednesday, he would sit down with one particular sailor who, oddly enough, hadn’t been seen arriving by boat. I grew to look forward to these meetings…”
* * *
Slesvig—Paris, 1171 A.D.
“Is that actually a hair sprouting from your chin, young man?” asked Gerald as Amleth joined him. “How old are you now?”
“It is seven hairs and sixteen,” said Amleth. “And I wanted to talk to you about something.”
“What is it?”
“You said that I could pull out of this anytime I wanted,” said Amleth.
“I said it, and I meant it,” said Gerald. “Do you want to stop now?”
“Not so much stop,” said Amleth. “I still think that I want to join the Guild someday. But I want to go to Paris first. I want to go to the cathedral school and get a proper education.”
“You can get a better education with the Fools’ Guild than at any school,” said Gerald. “Paris is an interesting city, of course, well worth the visit.”
“Rolf and Gudmund are going, and they don’t even care about it,” said Amleth. “They just want to be away from their parents for a while so they can go drinking and whoring untrammeled.”
“But wine and women do not interest you,” said Gerald. “Maybe you have gone mad.”
“Do they interest you?” asked Amleth.
“Not anymore,” said Gerald.
“Would I have to give them up to be a fool?”
“No,” said Gerald. “But you may choose to once you’ve had your fill of them.”
“How can I have had my fill of something I haven’t had yet?” wondered Amleth.
“Maybe you will learn that in Paris,” said Gerald.
* * *
The following Sunday, Amleth fell into step besides Gerutha as they returned from mass. Fengi had already left to visit the southern earthenworks, and Gorm was hurriedly shoving Alfhild and Lother into a closed carriage before the girl could get a better look at the young men in the congregation.
“How is it with you today, mother?” asked Amleth.
“Mother,” she repeated thoughtfully. “You haven’t called me that in a long time, you must want something.”
“I do,” he said.
“Good,” she said. “I feel better when you show signs of actual desire. It makes me think that you may be outgrowing these fits of madness.”
“I find, madam, that they ease when I am out in the world,” he said. “I think that the distraction does me good. It is the life on the island that I find oppressive.”
“I understand completely,” she said. “I so long for that castle to be built in town, but the funds keep running out. The more my husband raises the taxes, the less money there seems to be coming in. I suspect that the people are concealing their wealth, but it takes everything we collect just to maintain the army.”
“I want to go to Paris,” said Amleth.
She turned to him in amazement, then noticed for the first time that she was looking up into his eyes. There were dark circles under them, and a sadness in their depths that she recognized all too well. She thought she saw her own face in his, with few of the disturbing features of Ørvendil to haunt her. He was lean but wiry, lacking the bearish build of his father’s family. He’s my son, she thought suddenly. No one else’s.
“The Holy Mother be praised,” she said, taking his hands in hers. “I have dreamt and prayed that you would go there and learn to become an educated gentleman.”
“Educated, I hope,” he said. “A gentleman? It will take more than schooling to make me fit for proper society. But I feel that if I can instill the wisdom of the great in my mind, then I may be able at last to wrest control of it from the demons that have afflicted me.”
“Oh, but you have greatness in you,” she cried. “I have known this from the beginning, You are my only child, and you shall surpass all that came before you, I vow it.”
She seized his head between her hands and kissed his brow fervently. “Will you speak to …” he hesitated, almost choking. “Will you speak to father about it?”
“I will,” she said, tears running down her face.
* * *
Amleth sat inside his stockade, knees drawn up so that he could fit comfortably. He worked at carving another stake, and so absorbed was he in the task that he did not notice his uncle approaching him until the latter’s shadow fell across his face. Then he looked up.
“Paris,” said
Fengi. “You expect me to send a madman to Paris.”
“They may not notice it so much there,” said Amleth. “They get so many foreigners, they’ll just attribute my behavior to my Jutland upbringing.
“What’s wrong, boy? Have you read every book there is to be found in Slesvig?”
“I believe that I have,” said Amleth thoughtfully. “But that’s not saying much in a town this size. I crave more. I think that getting away from here would do me much good.”
“What happens when you return?” asked Fengi. “Will you be back to your pile of mud and sticks, or will you be up to taking your proper place here?”
“I hope and pray that my affliction will abate,” said Amleth. “It is in God’s hands.”
“You know, these are the most words I have heard out of your mouth in years,” said Fengi. “I hadn’t even noticed that your voice had changed. You’re almost a man, now.”
“Time passes,” said Amleth. “Things grow. Things change. Things heal.”
“And things die,” finished Fengi. “Very well. You go to Paris. If I hear any report of you embarrassing our family, I will have you hauled back here.”
“I won’t embarrass you, father,” said Amleth smoothly.
The word brought an unexpected smile to Fengi’s lips.
“Thank you for that,” he said, his voice softening. He squatted to look his nephew in the eye. “Things have been rough between us. I know it, I understand it, and I cannot blame you for it. But I would like them to be better, if only for your mother’s sake. I know that it would please her for you to see her favorite place in the world.”
“For my mother, then,” said Amleth.
* * *
“Do you think he’s up to something?” Fengi asked Gorm as they looked over the idled construction site. The vaults had been completed, but the brickyard had closed down when the money to pay the laborers had run out. Of the Tuscans, only Reynaldo remained, but his value to the two men had nothing to do with brickmaking.
“Amleth? Given his lack of reason, I doubt it,” said Gorm.
“He’s never lacked reason,” said Fengi. “He’s lacked control. He’s spent all of these years thinking. People who think can also plan.”
“Do you fear the planning of a lunatic child, milord?” scoffed Gorm. “He has no friends, no wealth or power of his own. Let him plan what he likes. He has been harmless for years, and he will be even more harmless in Paris. It would be good for him to go, and for my part, I would be happy to see the back of him.”
“Why?” asked Fengi.
“Because my daughter is twelve, and soon will be thirteen,” said Gorm. “And grows prettier by the day,” mused Fengi. “She does not know enough of men’s ways to ware Amleth. I see why you fear him. I am convinced. It makes my wife happy, it protects Alfhild, it eases your mind, and it gets a constant irritant out of my sight. Maybe Gerutha will finally …”
He sighed rather than completing the thought.
“Speak to Rolf and Gudmund for me,” he directed. “Suggest to them that it would be to their benefit to keep an eye on Amleth in Paris.”
“Very good, milord,” said Gorm.
* * *
“You’re leaving,” said Alfhild in disbelief.
“Paris,” said Amleth. “You know, better than anyone, how much I want to go there.”
“I never thought they would let you,” she said. “I thought you would be trapped here forever. Like me.”
“You won’t be trapped here,” said Amleth.
“You’ll rescue me?” she asked, a sad smile on her lips. “Will you spirit me out of my high tower and carry me away on a white horse?”
“You live on the bottom floor,” he pointed out.
“Father is going to have a tower built for me, I expect,” she sighed.
“Then I will spirit you out of there and carry you away on a white horse,” he promised, laughing. “Will you wait for me?”
“That’s all I can do,” she said. She seized his hand suddenly. “Come with me,” she whispered. She pulled him through the door into her room.
“Where’s your father?” he asked, nervously looking around.
“Hush,” she said. She reached behind her neck and unclasped a silver chain with a cross on it. “Will you wear this for me in Paris? As a favor?”
“As a pledge to my lady,” he promised solemnly, taking it and putting it on.
“Write to me,” she begged him. “I know that they will be months in travel, but you are all I have of the world outside.”
“There’s your brother,” he said, but she grimaced.
“He’s annoying,” she said.
“He’s nine,” he replied. “All boys are annoying at nine, “You weren’t,” she said.
* * *
The day before his departure, he crept into the stables and retrieved Terence’s collection of bundles from their hiding place. He sorted through them, smiling at the memories that some of the items brought back, wondering over what use the fool had made of some of the others. Then he stuffed them into a large sack that he had brought with him and went back to the island.
His mother had bought him a large trunk, with twice as much space as would be taken up by all of his belongings. He shoved the sack under the blankets she had packed, along with the sword his father had given him. The fearsome blade of his childhood was now barely even a short sword on his frame, and its edge had been dulled by the years of carving stakes.
He had one last task before he was ready to leave. He picked up another bag and poked his head into the kitchen. There, huddled in a corner by a heap of onions, Lother sat reading a book.
“Which one is that?” whispered Amleth.
“Aristophanes,” said Lother, looking up.
Amleth winced in sympathy. There was a livid purple splotch on the left side of the boy’s jaw.
“Gorm?” said Amleth, gently touching it.
Lother nodded, expressionless.
“What did you do?” asked Amleth. “Or, more to the point, what did he say you did?”
“I said something that made some of the soldiers laugh,” said Lother.
“I don’t even remember what I said. Father said that I could not disrupt…”
“Military discipline,” finished Amleth, sighing. “Come with me, Lother. Let’s go disrupt something somewhere else.”
The boy was on his feet in a trice.
Lother, unlike his sister, was allowed off the island by his father, and the drost reluctantly countenanced his companionship with Amleth, wanting to curry favor with Gerutha. The two of them loped along the shoreline to the Viking tower, Lother easily keeping up with the older boy’s pace.
“You are going to be faster than me someday,” observed Amleth, and the younger boy beamed with pride. Amleth pulled out two sets of juggling clubs and handed one to Lother. They each warmed up with some simple three-club routines, then began passing them back and forth with ease. Amleth added a seventh club to the pattern, then an eighth. Lother didn’t miss a single pass, his eyes narrowed in concentration.
“I think it’s about time we tried nine, don’t you?” said Amleth. Lother’s eyes grew wide, but he nodded. The two of them caught the clubs in the air so that each held four.
“I’ll start with five,” said Amleth. “When you’ve matched my breathing, nod and I’ll count it out.”
They started their individual patterns, Lother watching the older boy, trying to match his four to the other’s five. He started making his right-hand catches at the same pace as Amleth’s, then synchronized his breathing. He nodded.
“On three,” said Amleth. “One. Two. Three.”
Nine clubs cleaved the air above and between the two boys for three circuits.
“Let’s stop before we’ve pushed our luck too far,” said Amleth, grinning.
They snatched the clubs from the air, Amleth ducking his head and taking his last on the back of his neck.
“We did it!” shouted
Lother.
“A new combined record,” said Amleth. “Congratulations.”
Lother dashed forward and hugged the older boy tightly.
“Don’t go away,” he said, suddenly sobbing. “It will be miserable here without you.”
“Then you will have to make things bright again,” said Amleth, gently prying Lother’s arms away. “Just don’t make people laugh when your father’s around. When you are with him, toe the line and play the obedient son.”
“I hate that,” said Lother.
“Just until you are a man,” said Amleth. “It is hard living with grownups like these. I know that all too well. But study hard, and when you’re old enough, you’ll come to Paris and go to school with me.”
“Can I?” asked the younger boy.
“Of course,” said Amleth. “But you have to promise me something.”
“Anything,” said Lother.
“Take care of your sister for me,” said Amleth. “Bring her tokens from the world outside. Flowers, frogs, books, something different every day. Make her laugh. You know how to do that. And protect her. That’s your job as her brother.”
“Will you come back to visit?” asked Lother.
“I’ll be home in the summer,” promised Amleth. “And keep juggling. You are much better at it than I was at your age. When I return, we’ll go for ten. Here, take these.”
He took half of the clubs and gave them to Lother.
“I can keep them?” said Lother gleefully.
“Yes,” said Amleth. “Hide them well. Will you swear to me that you will keep your sister happy?”
“I swear,” said Lother.
* * *
“Wake up, wake up, young masters,” shouted a man, banging on the carriage door. “Welcome to your new home.”
The carriage door swung open, and Amleth stepped down, looking around at his new surroundings.
“How do you do?” he said in langue d’oil.
“Very good, young sir, and thanks for asking,” replied the man. “I am Michel, the nuntius. I will be showing you around before you begin your schooling. Any more of you in there?”
