Fool School

by James Comins

  "Nae, ye've not," says Malcolm through a mouthful of beans.

  "Didn't your mama teach you not to talk with food in your mouth?" a man across the table says with sarcasm, pretend-scolding.

  "Me mama was eight foot at t'shoulder and belched gaseous clouds upon us at the breaking of fast, ye professor of iniquity," Malcolm shouts at the man, getting much sniggering in response.

  "The White Stag?" I say.

  "Don't listen to Simon, his head's full of yoo-nee-corns," another says to us.

  "Nay, listen, if you would," says the bearded man called Simon. "You know of the White Stag, do-you-not? Found thither," he throws a hand at the bay. "In the forests of Dean, never in the same spot twice. For 'tis said there's only one White Stag, and it steps out from the land of Never-Grows-Old when there's need for it. Its hide draws a man's sight away, so that it cannot be seen unless it chooses, and when the hide is worn, the one wearing it cannot be seen. Its hooves make no print, and it leaves no trail. When it's caught, it can call on the good small men to free it, but if you've laid no scratch on it they'll pay you wishes for bargain. And I." The man plushes his beard, tousling it from under the chin, then strokes it smooth. "I. I saw the one. I saw it meself. For one moment, it was there, standing atop a bit o' land in sight of me very eyes. I would have chased it but I had a woman on the knee, and in my weak mind, that came first." He chuckles heavily and pours beer into his mouth through a leonine mustache. "And yet." His eyes unfocus, he stares out into the morning fields. "Yet I wonder to meself, day to day, how life should have been if I'd heeded the White Stag? What did it mean for me to see? Was I meant to be a man of forests, of mountains--mountains!--and not a poorman? Some days I wake and there, before me, past the sunrise, I believe I see a different land, a land where the sun never sets, where our eyes never need close, a land where one may live and never die. And I shut my eyes, and I can see it so clearly. So, so clearly. I see trees with leaves as wide as this--" He spreads his hands. "--and water that falls not from clouds but from a great hand that passes over the sky, pouring from a fine silver ewer. And there's mists, just beyond sight, such that once you've seen the Goodlands, you can never leave, for you cannot find the way. And you heel to the good, as a dog to its master, and never more do wrong in the world. And all this the White Stag gave me. A visionary creature, it is. Spectral. Should you ever chance to see it--" His brown eyes roll to me. "Follow it," he whispers through cracked lips.

  Some men are silent, and others become loud in their mockery. Malcolm has his food at his lips, but is enchanted. I poke him. He shivers.

  "Ded you--? Es et?" he says.

  The man Simon waves us away and laughs, but I see distance and an unknowable sadness behind his eyes. We rise and wave to the crowd, they beg us for another song, but I have a place in my heart I need to examine.

  A quarter mile from that scullery we sit on a rise and observe the bay. Washer-women scrub and weep, scrub and weep, uncommitted, fighting their hands in an endless losing fight. The gulls comment, they can smell the nasty lye and keep up, looking for open mussels or gullible children carrying bread.

  Malcolm points his mallet across the bay at distant Glamorgan. "Think-you that he's out there, doon the valleys of Brython-Wales, stepping in and out of the land of Never-Grow-Old?" he asks.

  I feel cold, and I don't have special words to contribute.

  "Think-you?" Malcolm says again.

  "I think the French have no magic in our souls," I say, and Malcolm puts a hand on my knee, and I feel like crying.

  * * *

  Now it's evening, and we've collected perhaps a shilling six more. Papa never had so much money at once as we have now, but then, we have nothing we need to spend it on, no responsibilities.

  Nothing except . . .

  I put the flute out of my mind. I push it far away. I cannot afford to spend a year's good pay on a silver flute. Silver is brittle, it bends and dents and then there is no more sound. This I tell myself. My obsession is unhealthy. I think instead of saving the money for . . . for what? What new joys might life hold for a boy with a pound coin? Could I buy a house, a horse--a good horse--a suit of purple motley? What else is there but work? What does Nuncle spend our money on? What sort of finery does he have hidden away? Courtesans? Does he pay women for love because he has a deformed nose? Has he never married? What is money for?

  That beautiful flute . . . I have, what, eight shillings or so? And several more from this Robert of Jork. Half is Malcolm's by rights, but he knows my intermittent passions, he will permit me my vanity . . .

  "Malcolm," I say suddenly as we drift without notice through the tapering remnants of the fair.

  "Aye?"

  "We can't let Nuncle have the money," I say.

  "D'ye need it?" he says idly.

  "Have I not spoken of the silver flute?"

  He adjusts his gypsy cage and shakes his head. His mind is elsewhere, I know.

  "At the luthery," I say. "It's the most perfect instrument in the world. It makes my recorder seem a pennywhistle."

  "You'd put it aplace," he says, "lose it. Ye've no mind for such, Tom. Your mind's up the sky."

  I check my hand for the recorder case. The recorder is in it. The leather roll is flopping across my shoulder. Malcolm has our changes of clothes and the muddle of heavy shilling coins, with a spare shilling in his shoe. Our men are held captive by Wolf's cages. We have everything we are supposed to have.

  "We've got to keep the money," I repeat. "And give the leather to Perille. I've got it all worked out."

  "And how many shillings es thes God-pairfect flute?"

  "Twenty," I mumble.

  "Tom. Yer a good man, Tom, but you're not of a mind to put a pound in one place. Hardknot'd keep such money in a pit, prepare for hard times, wouldn't he?"

  "You didn't see it," I say.

  "How'd you find a taste for fine thengs, coming from Touraine's public hice so?"

  "My family are kingsfools, Malcolm," I say.

  "You mean--" he starts. "Is that, is that a word of the trade?"

  I forget Malcolm was not always a fool.

  "A kingsfool is the highest rank a fool may attain. A kingsfool is the king of fools, a man fit for a king's court. To tumble there for an evening is a high honor, but a kingsfool is appointed until his death or until he falls from the king's favor, just as a king is king until his death or he loses the people's favor."

  "A king doesn't lose his crown ef the people don't like him," says Malcolm. "Only a war will do et."

  "That's right," I say. "Only God removes the king. It's the same with the kingsfool. All the people of the court can hate a kingsfool, but until the king removes him, he's the kingsfool. The king answers only to God, and the kingsfool answers only to the king and God."

  "Thaird man in the kengdom, es et?" says Malcolm. "Tom, this theng'll kill me."

  I pull him close, touch the gypsy cage. Nobody is looking, so I kiss his neck, and he goes funny all over, I see his neck go shivery. "You need to stay angry," I whisper, "so that we may insult people and make our master laugh. And think of love, so that we might invent new stories of Arthur, as he likes."

  "Wish we had more of them memorized," he says. "I can lose my mind and let my mouth keep going, but to thenk? I've nothing on my mind, it's gone now." And I feel his lips on the back of my neck, on my hair, his particular smell, the other, sourer smell of ale breath, which is the only part I don't admire, and I tell him that someone's coming, and we separate, and Malcolm gets very angry and approaches a thin tree with its leaves fallen and begins beating it with knobby knuckles until I'm wincing at the pain I imagine he feels, but he's sturdy and doesn't notice. Stalking in a circle, we both find that snow has just started, it was so warm we were sweating a day ago, and now winter has begun in autumn, a changing of the year.

  After double-checking the binding of my recorder case (I don't want water to get in) I say: "Let's go to Pucklechurch," and Malcolm gives me a resigned
"aye," and he says, "Let's give the leather to Perille," and we go looking for the flag on the triangle of poles.

  From a distance, we spy Nuncle and Ab'ly lounging. No one else is back yet. I imagine they're enjoying the succulent pleasures of the fair. Dicily, warily, we peel away and search various alehouses. I say: "Should we visit Goodbarry's?" and Malcolm gives me a look.

  "What?" I say.

  "Know-you-not what she was?" he says.

  "What?"

  He leans over into my ear. "Courtesan," he hisses, and my eyes go wide. "She wanted you far thes," he says, grasping my gypsy cage.

  And it pops off in his hand.

  "Malcolm!" I exclaim and scurry behind a bush to survey the damage.

  "Sorry," he says quickly. And: "Sorry!" again.

  I get my hands into the suit and find that it's dangling loose, my eggs have retreated, I squeeze my body and they pop back into captive place. I tug the skin carefully, rearrange, I don't want to disturb the colored flower-threads, and it's back in place, safe. I'm safe. I'm Wolfweir's.

  "It's okay," I say, and I feel tenuous, as if I'm held aloft by a thread. This is not a good place to be. I don't like the idea that I could fall loose in the night. I need this to stay in place. I'll need to think.

  For now I go to Malcolm and say we need to find Perille, and Malcolm's still apologizing, and I tell him to stop. We're both frightened of what will happen if Wolf finds us loose.

  Perille's not at the first four aletents. Neither is anyone else I know, except for the nice barmaid who held onto my recorder. I give her a wave.

  "D'you think--" says Malcolm. "Goodbarry's, could he be?"

  "If it has women, that's probably it," I say.

  After a few hesitant queries, we learn that it's in Brystow town. Sighing, we both begin the long, difficult walk. The days are shorter, and the shadows are lengthening; the bundles of spider-spun trees cast jagged shadow-limbs across the beaten ground. I gather the sleeves of Nuncle's red devil suit over my hands as gloves as the sun's heat fades and the sullen cool grows. We follow the bay, its hedgerows leading us south to town, we see dull welcoming houses and the smell of snow. There's only a baker's dust of snow yet, but I'm sure that will change. Carts push on into the evening, the men speak little, they let the success of their striving pass through them, they have thrilled themselves and are worn out. I see legs too tired to walk continue their march anyway. I pass women leaning on staves and canes, old women with tied hair and blue-throated wimples, young women rubbing life into their freezing faces. The threat of the church looms in my mind. I fear the acolytes, they will inquire into my station at the Fool School. I don't understand how bad people are chosen to reveal God's presence, it makes no sense. My feet feel cold, and I'm grateful that I have this spare pair of comfortable shoes undamaged by ingrate cobblers. The sun is gone. The day is finished. Perille stumbles drunk down a bare street toward us.

  "Perille!" I exclaim.

  "Hey, is it my Anjou baby?" he slurs.

  In some disbelief I go to him. "We've been chosen to fool for a man in Northumbria," I say. "Would you carry my leather roll back to school for me?"

  "There's dis crazy girl," Perille slurs. "Ahhh, she do me up right. Say, you both need doing up, baby-o baby-o. Lemme--no--I got to--lemme show you dis girl, her titties so big, man, she do you up, nonononono, c'mere, I'm show you whaa she do to you, nonono, lemme, c'mere."

  "We need to get to Pucklechurch to meet Robert of Jork--"

  "Heyyyy, you need to keep away from Roburburp, Robert, he's no good, man, he's do you up wrong, he mess you all ways, he's--"

  We wait as Perille throws up in the bushes. He stumbles, and we lead him to a knoll and he falls onto his butt and his hair bounces. Big feet stick out, the curly toes of his shoes wiggling, and he rolls his head back and looks up at the emerging stars.

  "No girl ever stays," he murmurs sadly.

  In his eyes I see a desire for real godly love, his eyes are full of flaming stars, kind white spots reflected in drunk tears. "Dey all go away, Anjou baby, you can't count on them. Count on dis." He points to his own heart. "Manheart's strong, baby, we put up wit' so much from them, man always survives." A bubble of true tears breaks through his drunk tears. "Dey just hurt you so much." He's woolgathering, he hardly notices us. "Dere's some girls who want to tear a hole in your heart." Me and Malcolm look at each other; we've spoken of holes in hearts before. "And dey don't stop. They always asking, asking for your love, but they always turn, manbaby, they turn." He picks up snow and looks at it, puts it in his mouth. "Gets so hot between two people, you got to cool it down." Through his romantic drunkenness he becomes aware of we two fools. "You ain't got someone to love, do you?"

  We look at each other and say nothing.

  "Mebbe--mebbe it's better not to love. Why give yourself to another? We all oughtta be priests, dey always got Christ to love, but Christ's never been enough for me, y'know, Anjou baby?"

  I suddenly want to know something. I feel it very strongly.

  I say: "Perille?"

  "Ayyyy?"

  "When the cooks were going to beat me? After Dag came back from the surgeons?"

  Perille remembers and nods with his whole body.

  "You were going to defend me." I let the words hang there. "But you were Dag's friend, not mine." This might be the only chance to find out what Perille was thinking. "Why did you rise to defend me?"

  "Dag is an ass," Perille tells me. "But who else, you understand? Who else? Professors don' like me, they think I'm a nuisance. Wedderford hates me for laughing, Nuncle--" Perille puffs his beet-red cheeks out. "And I'm a better shawmer than Stan, and he wants to be top dawg, man, and he just isn't. Y'know?" I nod. I know. "And Shitbreath, he's a little pest, a bad rat, man, just gets into everything."

  "And Wolfweir?" says Malcolm.

  Perille gives him a look. "Don' you say that name around me. You didn't know, so I give you a pass. But next time?" Perille swings a big fat fist.

  Another mystery.

  The three of us begin to walk back. Perille needs stabilizing, and from time to time we form a shoulder-chain around him, just three friends staggering back from the whorehouse.

  Toward the campsite, I disengage from Perille's shoulder, hand him the leather and say, "We need to head on to Pucklechurch in time to meet Robert."

  "No no no," Perille says. "I'm telling you, you're gonna wish you hadn't signed up wid him."

  "We weren't really the ones who made the decision," I say.

  "Ohhh, you really got yourselves in the creek. But you're gonna find out for yourselves. But lissen to this, Anjou baby: don' let Robert find you a girl. Don' let him do it."

  Nuncle is in sight, distantly, and we can't get Perille to keep his voice down or tell us any more, so we break away and begin the walk east. I have my recorder; Malcolm has the bag and our absurd fortune in shilling coins. We've pressed the leather on Perille, and he stumbles to the campsite, and we drift silent as water on a still day to the outskirts of the fair, which is rapidly shrinking as the last day ends. There's always the few who stay an extra day, trying to find a bargain, trying to talk people into parting with the last soggy remnants of their harvest. But the booths are few. Finally we pass the last of the fair and stand looking over the last piece of Somerset before it breaks into the wide-open wilderlands of who-knows-where. Malcolm's adjusting his gypsy cage, looking exhausted, and we have no fire. Over my shoulder I see a patchwork of old men and farmer's wives stumbling through a disassembling maze.

  "We need a campsite and a fresh meal," says Malcolm.

  "No," I say, seeing steeples rise ahead and hearing the voices of angels speaking from the pointed tips. "No, we need to press on."

  And Malcolm takes my arm and we stumble down the wasted track toward Pucklechurch.

  The angels follow.

  Acknowlogies and Apoledgements

  Hi. I'm the author. I'm half Jewish and half Catholic, but for a long time I ignored my Cathol
ic half. This book is my attempt to figure out what it means to be a Catholic. I'm still not sure I know, but I'm definitely closer to knowing now that I've written about it.

  I should right away acknowledge Terry Pratchett for the germination of the book. His suggestion in Weird Sisters that a school for jesters would be a place of misery and hopelessness set in motion all the ideas that underlaid the book. Joseph Delaney's Last Apprentice books went a long way toward inspiring the name of the protagonist and the scenes of the woman in the pit. The 90s cartoon Gargoyles featured the same Malcolm character as I have in a couple of episodes, although that Malcolm is different from mine in a lot of ways, too.

  Unlike characters from some of my other books, the personalities of Tom and Malcolm aren't drawn from any clear source. Tom is a bit like me, but not as much as you'd think. Malcolm is maybe inspired by Steerpike, the rebellious nihilist from Mervyn Peake's Gormenghast, but again, less than you'd think. I'm really not sure where he came from. Malcolm and Edward are both famous historical figures; history sleuths will probably figure out who they are before it's revealed in an (unwritten) upcoming book.

  There wasn't actually a Fool School in Bath, England in 1040CE, the year the book is set; there were such schools in both Provence and Venice. England is easier to write, so I moved the school there. The Roman Baths are very real and still standing. You can go and visit them.

  Many places in France and England saw their names change several times between 500CE, when the Romans left, and 1066CE, when the Normans arrived. The town of Trowbridge, for example, was named Straburgh around the year 900, but was named Treowbridge by 1300 after a bridge made from a tree. I call it Treeburgh, halfway between the two. Likewise, the city of Salisbury is reliably named Salisbury by 1300, but is called Sarum by the Romans in 500. I call it Sarsbury, which is not a name it was ever known by, but which hints, in the way fiction does, at the transition between Roman, Saxon and finally Norman naming conventions. Bristol, however, was know as Brystow throughout the Middle Ages. Jork is, of course, the Danish name for York.