Basha sank in his seat, as Fato laughed and Oaka tried to contain his shock. “Ladies and gentlemen, I ask him, is this young woman sitting next to him now,” The bard indicated Monika, “the young woman that he loved then?” Paracleus asked, turning on Basha.
“Uh...no,” Basha said, blushing as he tried to speak in as low a voice as possible.
“What was that?” Paracleus asked, strumming his guitar. “I can’t hear you!” He and almost every other voice in that hall cried then.
“I said no!” Basha cried as Monika thumped her head down in embarrassment.
“That’s it!” Paracleus cried, and danced off, strumming his guitar. “‘Too-loo, Too-ra, Too-ray,” He sang, spinning about, “‘I dance in the hall of the lords today,’ mm-hmm,” He sang to the ladies watching him. “‘Too-loo, Too-ra, Too-ray, I sing of the rain on the sunny plains.’” He mimed as he skipped along. “‘Where will I be tomorrow? Oh, I care not a wig, not a fig,’ uh-huh,” He sang as he turned around, “‘Though I have great stress,’” He jumped up backwards so that his bottom landed on top of a table, and groaned as he crossed his legs. “‘Though I am under duress,’” He griped as he pulled out a fork from underneath his bottom, which caused everyone else to laugh, “‘Still I am glad to say that I am a bard!’” He cried, finishing off his song as he flung himself backwards to lie spread-eagle on top of the table, his hands and back scattering plates, bowls, and cups everywhere.
Almost everybody clapped and laughed in astonishment after a moment’s silence, everybody, that is, except for Basha, Oaka, and Monika, who were lowering their heads slightly so as not to be recognized in the crowd. Fato didn’t help them, though, as he was one of the loudest guffawers who was even attracting attention. The bard got up, and bowed to the assembled crowd, apologizing for the meals he had destroyed. But Basha thought that he had noticed something, as the bard was jumping off of the table…something red, and flicking out from the bard’s bottom just before the man pulled up his tights slightly. Basha forgot all about Nisa as he wondered if he was seeing things.
“Paracleus!” Basha called as he stood up, and went after the bard.
“Oh, what is it, what do you want?” Paracleus said, as he turned around and faced Basha in the corridor outside of the dining hall. “Is it to complain about my tomfoolery? Well, I’m sorry, but if you want to avoid becoming the butt of any joke for a desperate bard who is looking to generate some laughs with his audience, then don’t mope!” He cried.
“I just wanted to ask you…who is Jobe?” Basha managed to say. Actually, he was going to ask about that flash of red he had seen underneath the bard’s tights, but then he had recalled that Paracleus was the one who had called him a ‘dreary, nasally Jobe’, same as the name of Jona’s son.
Paracleus sighed and shook his head. “Jobe is a poor bard’s son who doesn’t know what it means to be a bard, just like his father, and that is why he was the butt of my joke about you.” Paracleus patted Basha on the shoulder. “Now go back in there and eat, be with your girl! I am going to leave here early tomorrow morning anyway, and so you don’t have to worry about seeing me ever again! People will soon forget about what I have just said, and you can rest assured, the joking will soon turn around against them one of these days.”
Basha frowned. “Monika is not my girl, she is just my friend! I still love the girl back in Coe Baba, the one you heard about, and I intend to marry her as soon as I complete my quest.”
“A quest, is it? Oh, how noble of you, how magnanimous!” Paracleus snorted. “Oh, that certainly does sound fabulous, what a remarkable thing you are doing! Maybe you will become famous, eh, and the minstrels will sing all about you and your exploits! The minstrels certainly do like to boast about that sort of thing all of the time, they cannot get enough of heroes and heroics. Makes a great big wind for them to blow about, and they certainly do blow hard. Maybe that girl in Coe Baba will finally look up to you, eh?” Paracleus smiled.
“I don’t know what you are talking about.” Basha said, glaring down at the ground.
“Of course you don’t, poor pretty boy.” Paracleus simpered.
“In any case, I wanted to clarify that with you, and tell you that I think I met Jobe’s mother Jona in Coe Anji. She said that I reminded her of her son.” Basha said.
Paracleus snorted again and said, “Yes, I met both Jobe and his mother Jona in Coe Anji, and I wouldn’t boast about being compared with Jobe. Just get back to the feast, boy.”
Basha glared at the bard, wishing that he could think of a witty repartee to lash back at him, but then he turned around, and decided to follow Paracleus’s suggestion, as he couldn’t think of anything better to do at the moment. He may have been slightly drunk by this point.
Paracleus shook his head and laughed as he returned to his quarters, getting ready to leave. Wherever he went, he was always leaving, never able to settle down for very long. It had always been that way, ever since he had lost his home a long time ago.
“I cannot believe that the captain of the guards would want to borrow a scribe like me in the first place,” Hava grumbled to himself as he picked at his food while Marlo the steward sat across from him, drinking wine. “That man doesn’t need a secretary--his duties do not require a lot of paperwork. I think he just needs someone to yell at on a regular basis, and take notes whenever he feels like complaining. And he does complain. That man has an enormous ego the size of--he’s not here right behind me, is he?” Hava asked, looking around behind him nervously.
“No, Goga is too far away to hear what you are saying, relax.” Marlo said, shaking his head. “I understand your frustration, I do, working with a disagreeable man. When I was 18, I still had high hopes of leaving Coe Aela. It was worse in those days. I thought that if I refined and dedicated myself to working hard, I could be transferred--as a butler--to a higher household. However, I am satisfied now with the honorable post of Coe Aela’s steward. Fobata is not so bad, compared to his father.” He remarked.
“I came here to serve a Duke.” Hava insisted. “I did not come here to serve Goga.” He sighed, and laid back in his seat. “Hopefully, His Grace will tell Captain Goga that he has no right to borrow me, and he will put me back in with the rest of the scribes.”
“Don’t hold your breath.” Marlo muttered. “If Captain Goga had been a regular captain of the guards, Fobata wouldn’t have allowed it. However, Captain Goga is not a regular captain of the guards, and Fobata has to be wary of keeping good relations with the man.”
“What do you mean?” Hava asked.
“It is nothing,” Marlo said dismissively. “Besides, our lord doesn’t have the luxury of noticing little things like yourself. Right now, he’s distracted over worry about the group that arrived today. They’re all young, yet they’re all supposed to be…troublesome.” Marlo muttered the last to himself.
“Troublesome in what way?” Hava asked.
“I’m not allowed to tell you that.” Marlo snapped.
“I just want to know!” Hava cried defensively.
“You ask too many questions.” Marlo said, and sighed. “I mean, it’s just two boys, a girl, and a falcon. I even questioned the girl Gnat after she brought them to this hall from their rooms, and she told me that they were all harmless. Yet none of us, especially Fobata, can take that for granted. Fobata wants to know more about them, and so I’m supposed to be spying on them.” Marlo grunted. “Yet I cannot because I have too much work to do. How am I supposed to be spying on them if I must take care of the whole household? I must have someone else do it, but there are so few people I can trust.”
Hava nodded and reached for his glass of wine, but then he spotted…“Janus!” He cried to a brown-haired man in his mid-twenties, and turned to the steward. “Marlo, I want you to meet a friend of mine, Janus, a good fellow.”
As Janus approached from the far end of the table where he had been clearing off silverware and plates, Marlo frowned, wondering how long the man had be
en working down there. Still, if Hava trusted him, perhaps it did not matter that the man might have overheard their conversation. They did not really talk about much.
Janus stopped just beside Marlo and bobbed his head at the steward, smiling as he waited for his superior to speak. “So, your name is Janus…it is a unique name, is it not?” Marlo asked, appraising the other man.
“Yes, but I cannot help it.” Janus shrugged. “It was given to me, and so I shall use it as necessary. However, I thought you knew every servant in the castle.” His eyes gleamed.
Marlo frowned and cleared his throat. “It is difficult to keep names and faces straight in my memory. I do recall, however, that you are fairly new around here.” Janus seemed to act unabashedly honest, frank, and humble, yet he could be a disingenuous man whose smile was more of a smirk. Marlo had to be a good judge of character when it came to his work, and he did not recall hiring Janus. It must have been one of the lower butlers who had hired this man, for Marlo never would have.
“So am I, Marlo, but that did not stop you from befriending me.” Hava remarked, pointing at Janus. “This man has treated me likewise. He works well enough without protest, and he deserves kindness. Perhaps if you give him that assignment that has been troubling you, he will not fail you.” Hava winked.
Marlo studied Janus again. “Will you work for me without question, and do what I ask of you?” He asked, deciding to take a chance. Perhaps Hava was right, and he was being too harsh on Janus. However, if Hava was wrong...perhaps it might be worth the risk to find out the truth about Janus.
Janus smiled. “I swear it upon my name.” He said.
Marlo gave Janus his assignment, as a young woman dressed in servant’s clothes stood beside the masonry columns of the arcade, watching them. Meanwhile, the entertainment had finished and everyone was dismissed from the grand banquet hall as Basha and his group got up, and wearily followed another servant back to their rooms. Basha fell asleep that night, dreaming of squid eyes and dancing pigs splattered with blood.
This time, Iibala rode a horse into town, as she had learned her lesson from this morning. It was late at night, not quite midnight but close, and it had been a long day for her. She had spent most of it taking care of her father, who was incoherent when awake, but still it seemed as if he had recovered and would continue to recover from the wolves’ attack, probably Black Wolves if her notion was correct. Now that he was asleep for good, she had decided to seek out some information from the one or two people who had been aware of everything that had been going on with Basha from the start.
She dismounted her horse and tied it to a post outside one of the buildings in town, and then set off down the path into the forest towards the Old Man’s hut. She did not know quite what she might find there, as it had been years since she had gone down this path and seen the Old Man face-to-face, and that had been for story-time at the fireside outside of his hut. She had never gone inside of his hut, had never even gotten right up close to it, as no one else did. But now she was considering going right up to knock on his door, or to sneak around, and check if he was awake or asleep. She had no real plan in mind, just to confront him with what she knew and what had just happened with her father. She wanted to ask him what his deal was, following Basha around, what sort of secrets he had kept from them for all these years, and what kind of danger Basha was in now. That was the gist of it, and she hoped that she might get some answers out of the Old Man, doubtful though it might be that he would be so obliging.
She slowed down as she got closer to the hut, and edged towards the shadows beneath the trees, as she did not want to alert the Old Man to her presence just yet. She wanted to startle the Old Man before he startled her, let him be discomfited and stunned for once in his long life.
The shutters of the window by the door were cracked open, and Iibala peered in through the crack at the dark interior, and spotted what she thought was the Old Man’s sleeping form on his cot across the room. She decided to try going in through the window, another chance to frighten him a lot. Nervously, she pried open the shutters as best she could so that they wouldn’t squeak much, and then had to lift herself up onto the windowsill, and squeeze through the opening. She nearly fell over his table, located next to the window, when she jumped down inside, but she managed to miss the table and land on the floor instead.
Iibala grinned, proud of herself for being so bold and cunning, and started to creep towards the Old Man, hoping to wake him up with a frightful scream or a violent shake, when the shutters banged shut. Iibala spun round, wondering if the wind would do her job for her, when suddenly the pages of a book left on the desk started to curl at the corners, and then flip over on their own. What a wind, she thought, to be so strong, and yet she did not feel the breeze passing through the room, just the shivering of her spine. A glow seemed to fill the room then like a star bursting open, and even though the lighting was wrong, too bright and too pure and too large, she spun round then, almost hoping that it was the Old Man lighting a candle to confront the trespasser in his hut.
Instead, a shimmering hole was before her now, and as she looked, a figure strode through the hole, and entered the hut before the light faded to a dim flicker. Iibala, who had been blinded by the light, now was able to see a little bit more clearly, and the woman with ash-blond hair frayed at the tips and clinging to her scalp swung about to face her, thin lips pursed in a determined frown with straight, rounded nostrils flaring.
And the woman was completely see-through to Iibala, who could sense nothing but death now in this room.
“Who are you?” Iibala asked the woman, stumbling back, “What are you?”
“I am a ghost, a spirit.” The female spirit said to Iibala, striding towards her, or at least seeming to. “My name was Kala, and you are trespassing…”
“Kala? Basha’s mother?” Iibala gasped.
“How do you know my son?” Kala stopped.
“I sort of dated him for awhile a few years ago.” Iibala said, her head still reeling from the prospect of talking to…
“Iibala...” Kala said, circling around her, peering at the young woman. “Yes, I remember now that you have dated him. The Old Man did mention you to me when he was concerned about Basha’s well-being then, but I told him that you seemed safe enough. I knew that you would not be able to keep Basha long. He would leave you, once you had betrayed him.”
Iibala frowned, and shook her head. “That was a mistake.” She said. “I’m sorry I betrayed him, I thought he was just a boy.”
“What are you doing here?” Both Iibala and Kala asked each other at the same time. They stopped, and stared at each other.
“I am here now because the Old Man summons me on occasion.” Kala said. “I step across now much easier than I did the first time that I tried, the night after I had died. I can now step across without any help from anyone.”
“That is…” Iibala started to say, finding it strange now to be talking to a dead person crossing over between the worlds of the living and the dead. No one was supposed to be able to do that! “You mean you’ve been crossing over since just after Basha’s birth?” Iibala asked, scrunching up her eyes to stare at Kala. “Then that means…why do you do that?” She asked. “Is this because of…is this why the Old Man watches out for Basha?”
“It is.” Kala said, staring at Iibala. “I watch over the Old Man now that he is watching out for Basha, and what are you doing here?” Kala asked again.
“I am here to ask the Old Man some questions,” Iibala said, “Specifically related as to why the Old Man is keeping such a close eye on Basha. I believe I might know, or at least my father Sir Nickleby suspected that…tell me, is it true that Basha is the tiger?”
Kala recoiled, appalled by Iibala’s words. “Why? Why here, why now?”
“Because my father nearly died! He was attacked by--I believe Black Wolves. He’s safe now, back home, but I want to know why, and if it is all worth it!” Iibala cried.
&
nbsp; “It is, Iibala. Never doubt that.” Kala said, still staring at Iibala. “I will tell you the truth. The truth that you want to hear, and the truth that you don’t want to hear, what you cannot imagine. This is my story.”
Kala floated down, and spoke to Iibala for well over an hour. As Iibala listened, eyes widening, the Old Man pretended to sleep, having been disturbed by Iibala’s and Kala’s arrivals. He knew that it all had to be said. Iibala needed to know so that she could stop trying to cause trouble with them, and Kala needed to speak, to let loose some of her secrets to another person so that she could return to her rest undisturbed. Iibala would keep the secret. The Old Man hoped that, with Nisa gone, perhaps Iibala might take her place. With what he still had to do to make certain things turned out all right, he hoped that Iibala would be able to help.
Iibala returned home, both satisfied with what Kala had to say, and bewildered enough not to ask any more questions for now. When Sisila came to visit Iibala the next day, and Mirari arrived to take care of Sir Nickleby, Iibala finally decided it was time, and sat down with Sisila in the parlor. Tea service and cakes were laid out before them on the table as Iibala told Sisila what she knew or guessed of Basha’s fate. Mirari had shut the door to Sir Nickleby’s room, and so didn’t hear.
Sisila listened anxiously, and then was silent for a moment before she laid down her tea cup and plate on the table, got up, and went outside. Iibala watched her go, a little worried, and then when she heard a scream of pain and agony, she ran outside to comfort Sisila. She should have been more careful, and not so careless with Sisila’s feelings. She hoped things would turn out all right.
Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2) Page 18