The Jester Read online

  DANIEL GUI BOLTED into the planning room.

  “My lord, your jester’s army has been sighted. It lies half a day from the city, at the edge of the forest.”

  “You mean the rabble.” Baldwin sniffed. His advisers, the bailiff and chamberlain, seemed delighted with the news.

  “You must attack, then,” the bailiff wheezed. “I know these peasants. Their courage will crumble at the first sign of a fight. Their resolve is only as strong as their last ale.”

  “It appears their resolve has stiffened,” Daniel observed. “This jester has given them hope. They outnumber us three to one.”

  “But we have horses and crossbows,” Baldwin said. “They have only tools and wooden shields.”

  “If we go after them in the woods,” Daniel said, “all our horses and crossbows would be reduced to nothing. Your men would be slaughtered just like Stephen’s. The jester has this lance. It emboldens them.”

  “The chatelain is right, my lord,” said the chamberlain. “Even if you won, you would turn each carcass into a hero’s grave. You must hear their demands. Consider them, even disingenuously. Promise them the slightest gain if they return to their fields.”

  “You are wise, chamberlain.” Baldwin grinned. “These peasants have no means for a long siege. They will grow bored and tired as soon as their bellies start to ache.”

  [316] The bailiff and the chamberlain puffed back their agreement.

  “Do not forget, my lord,” Daniel cut in, “the jester has this lance. They believe it makes them right.”

  “This lance will rest in Treille before the negotiation is done,” said Baldwin. “They will give it up for a bag of wheat. And they will give him up too. I will have the fool’s head upon his precious lance and place it before my bath.”

  “I merely meant,” Daniel pressed on, “that you take a risk by inviting this siege.”

  Baldwin slowly rose. He walked around the table and put his arm across Daniel’s shoulders. “Come,” Baldwin motioned him toward the fire. “A word with you, by the light.”

  A lump grew in Daniel’s throat. Had he gone too far? Had he angered his liege, whom he was pledged to serve?

  The duke wrapped his arm around Daniel tighter, drew him close to the flames, then smiled. “Do you for a moment think I have any intention of handing over even a cup of grain to this traitorous puke? I would be the laughingstock of France. I have contacted my cousin. He sends a thousand troops.

  “Let the idiots begin their siege. We will eat meat while they boil roots. When the reinforcements arrive, we will open the gates and crush them. You and I, Daniel, we will make sure not a single gray-haired grandfather among this rabble leaves Treille alive.”

  Baldwin brought Daniel’s hand so close to the flames that he had to restrain himself from crying out.

  “No one threatens my rule, least of all these miserable spawn. So how does that plan sound, chatelain?”

  Daniel’s heart pounded furiously. His mouth was dry as dust. He looked into his liege’s eyes and saw nothing but dark holes. “Most wise, my lord.”

  Chapter 107

  THE FOLLOWING NIGHT, outside the gates of Treille, a Hebrew merchant, carrying his sack of wares across his back, approached the gates as they began to close.

  He wore the dark wool robe and the fringed shawl of the Sephardim, a skullcap upon his head, and held a rusted staff. With him was his young wife, dressed in modest clothes, her hair pinned under a black scarf.

  “Move it along, Jews,” growled the guard. The checkpoint was manned by a team of pail-helmeted soldiers, hurrying the travelers along like oxen into a pen. The guard stopped the merchant when he reached the gate. “Where do you come from?”

  “From the south.” I peeked from under my hood. “Roussillon.”

  “And what is in the sack?” He poked at it.

  “Wares for the kitchen. Olive oil, pans, a new utensil called a fork. You stab your meat with it. Want to see?”

  “What if we stab you with it, you little pests? You say you came from Roussillon? What have you seen? We’ve heard the forests are teeming with rebels.”

  “In the east, perhaps, but in the south there are only squirrels. And Italians. Anyway, it’s no concern to us.”

  “No, nothing’s a concern to your lot, except a fee. C’mon.” He pushed us roughly. “Get your tick-bitten asses in.”

  Emilie and I hurried through the gates. Inside the thick [318] limestone walls heavy beams were braced against the ground to bolster the gates against assault. I glanced around. The towers and ramparts were manned by dozens of troops. They were heavily armed with crossbows and lances, gazing eastward.

  From under my hood, I flashed Emilie a wink. “Come.”

  We climbed the hill leading to the center of town and Baldwin’s castle. Soldiers on horseback shot about, clattering over the rough stone. Carts dragged rocks and shields down to the outer walls. The defenses were being readied. The air was sharp with the sulfurous smell from vats of burning pitch.

  “Here… this way,” I said. It was the market street. Stalls of bakers and butchers were still open for business, and swarming with flies. Others, which sold tin and tools and cloth, were closed for the night.

  Emilie and I hurried through a neighborhood that seemed to be home to these merchants. There were not only huts, but stone houses, some with iron gates guarding small courtyards. The smell of burning lard was everywhere.

  I stopped before a two-story dwelling with a tin scroll-like ornament hammered next to the doorway. “Emilie, we’re here.”

  I knocked on the door. A voice called out from inside, some shuffling, then the door cracked open. A familiar face looked out from under a skullcap.

  “We’ve traveled a long way,” I said. “We were told we would find friends here.”

  “If you are in need, we are friends,” the man replied. “But who told you this?”

  “Two men in the forest,” I said.

  The man arched his brow, confused.

  “One named Shorty. I asked him what position makes the ugliest children. When he could not say, I told him: ‘Ask your mother!’ ”

  The man’s eyes grew wide, then his beard parted into a smile.

  “So, Geoffrey.” I grinned, removing my hood. “Can it be you do not remember your jester?”

  Chapter 108

  THE MERCHANT WHOSE LIFE I had saved on the road to Treille broke into a hearty smile. He held me by the shoulders, then hugged me, and hustled Emilie and me through the door. I took off my skullcap and shook out my red hair.

  Geoffrey laughed. “I said to myself, you look like no Jew I had ever seen before.”

  “We are pork-eating Jews.” I grinned.

  We hugged each other again, like old friends. I laid down my staff and unfastened my robe. “This is Emilie. She’s a close friend. This is Geoffrey, who once helped save my life.”

  “And I was only able to,” Geoffrey said, “because Hugh had once saved mine. Ours …”

  Isabel and Thomas came in from another room. “As I live and breathe,” she exclaimed, “it is the jester with the lives of a cat.”

  We were led to a sitting room lined with weavings and old scrolls and tracts. Geoffrey offered us his bench.

  “What is the mood of the city?” I asked.

  He frowned. “Foul. What used to be a thriving city is now just a pigpen that feeds the duke. And it will only get worse. There is talk of an uprising somewhere, an army of peasants in the forest who took up arms, headed here. Farmers, shepherds, woodsmen, led by a fool with some kind of relic gotten from the Crusade… A lance with their Savior’s blood on it.”

  [320] “You mean this?” I took out my staff and let his eyes travel over it. I smiled. “I have heard of such an uprising.”

  The merchant’s eyes grew wide. “This is you… You are the jester… Hugh.”

  I nodded. Then I told Geoffrey my plan.

  Chapter 109

  THE FOLLOWING MORNING, my work wa
s done and it was time to head back to the forest.

  Emilie agreed to stay behind in town. It was safer for her there, with the terrible battle that was to come. She fought me gamely, but this time I would not back down. When it was time to leave, I hugged her close and promised I would see her in a couple of days.

  I lifted her face and smiled at her. “My beautiful Emilie, when we first met I was afraid to even talk to you. Now I am afraid to let you go. Remember how you laughed at me and said, ‘That may be, but it will not always be’?”

  “In a day or two, I guess we will find out,” she said, trying to look brave.

  She leaned up and kissed me. “God bless you, Hugh.” Tears welled in her eyes. “In all the world, I hope to see you again.”

  I hoisted my sack and headed down the lane, waving a final farewell at the end of the street. I buried my head in my hood and hunched under my shawl, avoiding any eyes in uniform. As I wound back down the hill, I turned, watching the town recede. Pain tore at my heart. All that I now loved remained in this place. A tremor of panic ripped through me that I might never see Emilie again.

  [322] When I got back to the forest, I found the men waiting and ready for a fight. We marched at the break of dawn.

  Farmers, woodsmen, tanners, and smiths, in every form of clothing imaginable, carrying homemade bows and wooden shields, stretched out as far as I could see.

  At the head of the procession, I felt my blood surge with pride. Whatever the outcome, these men had stood tall. They were people of courage and character. To me, they were all highborn.

  Every settlement we came to, a crowd formed, cheering us on. “Look, it is the jester,” they would exclaim. They would bring out their children too. “See, child, you will always say you saw the lance.”

  Word spread like a brushfire. More joined us all the time.

  All the while, Treille grew closer, the color of an amber sunset. Its formidable towers reached high into the sky. The nearer we got, the more the mood stiffened; the ranks grew worried and quiet.

  The sun was high when we reached the outskirts of town. No force had charged out to confront us yet.

  Instead, downtrodden townspeople stood aside, exhorting us on. “It is the jester. See, he exists! He is real!”

  The massive limestone walls of the outer city rose above us with their crenellated battlements. At each opening, I could see teams of soldiers, their helmets gleaming.

  They did not attack, though. They let us come. They allowed us to march within a hundred yards of the outer walls.

  Just out of arrow-shot, I signaled the column to a halt.

  I ordered the ranks to fan out around the perimeter, forming a massing ring twenty men deep. No one knew what to do, to shout or charge.

  “Go on, Hugh,” Georges said with a smile. “Go on and tell ’em why we’re here.”

  I stepped out, trying to calm the thumping in my chest. I shouted to the defenders above the gate.

  “We are from Veille du Père, and Morrisaey, and St. Felix, and every town in the duchy. We have business before Lord Baldwin.”

  Chapter 110

  FOR A MOMENT there was no answer. I thought, What do I do now? Say the same words again?

  Then a brightly clad figure whom I recognized from my stay here as Baldwin’s chamberlain leaned out. “The lord is napping,” he yelled back. “He knows no business before him today. Go back to your wives and farms.”

  Curses and taunts began to rise from the crowd. “The pig is napping?” someone growled. “Let us be careful not to wake him up, friends.”

  A thunderous jeer rose. Weapons rattled, shouts rang out.

  Someone rushed forward and pulled down his leggings. “Come on, Baldwin. Here’s my ass. Try and fuck me now.”

  A few rash ones charged up to the walls, spitting curses and insults. “Stay back,” I yelled. But it was too late.

  From the ramparts came the blood-chilling whine of arrows in reply. One man gagged, an arrow piercing his neck. Another clutched his head. A young boy sprinted up and hurled a stone, which fell halfway up the wall.

  A wave of burning black pitch rained down on him. The boy fell, rolling on the ground, his skin sizzling with flame.

  “Go home, you stinking filth,” spat a soldier from the top.

  Now everyone moved forward in a rush. Some of us shot [324] off fire arrows, which streaked across the sky and died harmlessly against the massive walls.

  Volleys of arrows whooshed down on us in return, so heavy and strong they tore through flimsy shields and pierced men in two. The volley sounded like a thunderstorm.

  Images from the Crusade burned in my brain.

  I waved frantically for everyone to move back. Some were angry and wanted to charge. They had followed me for days with little food. All they had thought of was striking their picks and hammers against the walls of Treille, tearing it down chunk by chunk. Others, seeing blood and death for the first time swarmed back, afraid.

  This is what Baldwin wanted. To show that our makeshift weapons were useless. Anger was setting in, and we hadn’t even begun the siege. My blood was racing. I had brought a thousand men here. We had the town surrounded. We had the will to fight but not the weapons to break through. All Baldwin had to do was open the gates and I knew all but the most hardened fighters would turn and flee.

  But the gates did not open. No warhorses thundered out. He was probably amused at our spineless lack of resolve.

  The commitment of this entire army hung in the balance. All eyes looked toward me.

  A farmer carrying a broken hoe came up to me. “You have brought us here, jester. How will we take this castle? With this?” He threw the hoe down as if it were a useless twig.

  “No.” I tapped my chest where my heart was. “We will take their castle with this.

  “Get the raiding party together,” I told Odo. My spine stiffened with resolve. “We go tonight.”

  Chapter 111

  THAT NIGHT, as most of our ranks dozed, I got together the twenty brave men who would sneak into the castle.

  There was Odo and Alphonse from our town, Alois and four of his best from Morrisaey. For the rest, we chose strong-hearted men we could trust, who would not back down from killing with their bare hands.

  One by one, they arrived before my fire, wondering, why were they here?

  “How do you intend to take this castle with us,” Alois asked, “when you can’t make a dent in it with a thousand men?”

  “We’ll have to take it without a dent,” I said. “I know a way inside. Come with me now or go back to sleep.”

  We armed ourselves with swords and knives. Father Leo blessed us with a prayer. I handed him the lance. “On the chance that I don’t return.”

  “Are you ready, then?” I looked around at the men. I clasped each of their hands. “Say good-bye to your friends. Pray we see them on the other side.”

  “Are we talking about Heaven?” Odo asked.

  “I was speaking of the wall,” I said, and faked a laugh.

  Under the cover of night, we crept away from the campsites and out behind the hutted settlements and narrow streets that clung to the city walls. Torches lit up the defenses above us, [326] lookouts peering for signs of life. We crouched in the shadow of the wall.

  Odo tapped my shoulder. “So, Hugh, this ever been done before?”

  “What?”

  “People like us, bondmen, rising against their liege.”

  “A group of farmers rose against the duke of Bourges,” I said.

  The smith seemed satisfied. We crept a little farther. He tapped me again. “So, how’d it turn out for them?”

  I pressed my back against the wall. “I think they were slaughtered to a man.”

  “Oh.” The big smith grunted. His face turned white.

  I mussed his shaggy hair. “They were discovered talking under the walls. Now shush!”

  We continued, creeping along the east edge of town. In the crook of a ravine, we came across
a shallow moat. It reeked, stagnant with putrid water and sewage. It was more of a large ditch; we could cross it with a jump.

  At each point, I scanned the base of the wall for a sign of the tunnel once shown to me by Palimpost. None… As we moved along, the terrain grew tougher to traverse and the walls rose high above us, too tall for any kind of assault. That was good; no lookouts would be manning the walls here.

  But where was the blasted passageway?

  I began to get worried. Soon it would be light. Another day. There was the chance Baldwin would unleash his warriors to break our will.

  “You’re sure you know what you’re doing, Hugh?” Odo muttered.

  “Hell of a time to ask,” I snapped.

  Then I spotted it: a formation of piled rocks concealed behind some brush on the bank of the moat. I sighed with relief. “There!”

  [327] We scurried down the embankment and straddled the moat. Then I pulled my way up the other side. I ripped through the dense brush and began to tear apart the pile of rocks.

  The declining pile revealed the entrance to a tunnel.

  “Never doubted you for an instant.” Odo laughed.

  Chapter 112

  THE CRAWL SPACE WAS AS I REMEMBERED-dark, narrow, barely enough room for a man to pass. And shin-deep with murky, foul-smelling water trickling down to the moat.

  There were no torches to light our way. I had to trust my instincts against the dark, feeling along the cold, rocky walls. I knew each one in my party had his heart in his throat too. It was like crawling into Hell-cold, pitch-black, odiferous. Floating shit and other refuse lapped against our feet. Moments stretched along like hours. With every step, I grew less sure of the way. After countless prayers, I came upon a fork in the tunnel. One path continued up, the other went left. I decided to follow the path upward, since the castle stood at the top of the hill.

  “We are all right,” I whispered. But I wasn’t really sure. The word rippled down the line. We climbed higher and higher, cutting through the mount on which Baldwin’s castle was built. Above us, Treille slept.