by James Comins
" 'Of--um--' " I say. We're stuck, and we're exhausted, and--
" 'A bastion of hope upon Earth, that through knightly prowess and chivalric virtue, the Holy Word may be maintained for all time.' "
I didn't say that. Neither did Malcolm.
Nuncle. He's finished our speech.
But we haven't finished our story, and I feel strongly that we should do so.
"Duncan declared that he understood the blue knight's meaning, that the base attack on a defenseless knight must be met in combat. Taking his tree-trunk lance, he mounted Cadoc's horse and struck at the blue knight. Once again the knight became mist each time the lance met his shield. Duncan Donalvane found there was no value in charging, so he placed himself between the blue knight and the three canons and maintained his defense until at last the blue knight had no choice but to charge in his turn, and coursed across the courtyard. And though he had no shield, nor a proper lance, nor any of the fine things a knight is expected to have, still Duncan held his ground and defended the canons to the best of his meager skill. Cadoc's horse, a well-trained destrier, dug his hooves into the courtyard floor, and as the blue knight and the Scottish squire met, a great sound was heard, a sound that shook the very fathoms of the sea below them, and Duncan felt himself as he were a cloud, and through the cold mists of Scotland, he descended to land by way of the Raining Stair, and in his hand was the Key to Heaven."
I feel like it's finished, but Malcolm has more. It's getting late.
"By candlelight Duncan rode through the streets of Atholl, coming at last to where his girl's father's house was. Bearing the Key, he knocked upon the door, once, twice. Her father answered and came out and swore ruth to see the boy, returned in no more than a year and a day, wearing iron armor and mantled as befit a knight's squire. Duncan asked was his girl Sybil at home," I realize we never named her, "and Sybil's father looked down and swore again, and said that Sybil hadna waited, but had married the blacksmith of Atholl. And Duncan knelt and said that it was in his heart to cry wroth, but that as a squire sworn to King Arthur, he could not curse a woman for her betrayal, for it's in a knight's vows to respect the will of a woman. By and by Duncan rode with the canons--"
Malcolm hands it over to me, and I am near yawning, I feel erased, and I want to finish the story quickly and in grand fashion, but I'm too tired to do true justice or think up anything brilliant. I say: "And the canons discoursed together and asked would Duncan lay aside his love for women altogether and join with them and swear an oath to God to remain chaste and take Cadoc's place as a virgin knight. But Mal--I mean Duncan--was in his belly a romantic and believed that his love, being pure and unselfish, would be met with like, and found Sybil in the blacksmith's house, and declared his love." I feel like I'm evaporating, like strong ale left out. I have next to nothing inside of me. "And he knelt where he stood, and prayed to God for his love for Sybil not to be betrayed so." I look to Malcolm, who thinks, but isn't sure how to end it. The audience is restless; we haven't provided closure.
Nuncle speaks: "And an angel spoke Duncan's name, and pointed to the Key to Heaven, and said it was a key that could unlock any door. The angel provided a door to Duncan that would grant him a world where Sybil would be his wife, be it that he swore himself to the defense of Britannia. And Duncan swore suchly, raised the key, and turned the lock, and he and Sybil stood in the hall of Camelodenum amid much celebration. Cadoc stood bravely beside them in attendance of their wedding and of the union of Scotland and England by way of marriage, and Duncan was crowned king of Scotland, and swore fealty to Britannia and to its protection. And on this Christmas day, King Duncan Donalvane and Queen Sybil were welcome in King Arthur's court, and returned home to Scotland, and ruled well and happily for many years."
I say a big prayer very quietly, thanking God that Nuncle was there to save our butts.
Gladly the crowd gives us money, not merely quartered-farthings and pence but thruppence and even sixpence, we have chosen a fair crowd. The crowd is not faceless: I see unique people, singular shapes of faces, in the way that those with good lives gain more character in the face. A lord in blue wears a long hat that might have looked fairer on a woman; a lady's tight striped wimple gives her neck the look of a foreign bird's.
A feminine whisper in my ear: "The Goodbarry alehouse." I don't know what that means, but I remember I need to pay the kind woman at the aletent thruppence when I can.
A man with a full belly, not as developed as Hamlin's, but girthy, approaches us in a red suit like King Wenceslaus might have worn. "Have you many such stories?" he asks us.
My eyes flicker to Malcolm, then to Nuncle, who is near. Nuncle emphasizes a yes with a subtle nod. I say yes, and Malcolm says yes, too.
"I was quite enchanted," he says. "How long does it take to memorize something like that?"
"Just days," I say, and Malcolm shakes furiously and I add: "Weeks. Many, many weeks. Aren't we very impressive?"
The man is pleased by my foolishness and says: "I'd like you to entertain me. What's your, ah, rate, then?"
I expect Nuncle to swoop forward, but he does not. Instead, Professor Ab'ly steps forward, seemingly from nowhere, and proposes a rate of three shillings per week, which the man obsequiously agrees to.
"Are you their master?" the red lord asks earnestly.
Ab'ly bows. "You're out of town?" he says diplomatically in his Mediterranean accent.
"Robert of Jork," he says, introducing himself. Coins and lords continue to fly around us. "I think I would like these two to entertain me for a few weeks. Would this be acceptable?"
"We have hardly any training, nor knowledge of--" I say, but Ably's skinny, nearly-bare feet stretch out and kick me, tap, and I shut up.
"Of course," says Ab'ly. "Would they travel with you right-right from the fair, or better to have them visit?"
"Ah, it will be a bitch of a winter," says Lord Robert. "Better they come and go before we're all frozen in, think-you-not?"
"Of course," Ab'ly says, bowing from the waist.
"Then they may accompany me?" Lord Robert asks.
"Of course, of course," Ab'ly insists.
"Then have them meet me at Pucklechurch this Sunday, and I shall be pleased to have jests as I travel."
"Just so, just so," says Ab'ly, and Lord Robert smiles and gives each of us a polite bob and departs.
As I leave the area with fistfuls of coins, I hear lordly voices discussing the story I have originated. They discuss the idea of King Duncan, knight of the Round Table; the death and rebirth of Cadoc; the love and betrayal of Sybil; the union of Scotland and England. It's got a great many people talking. I feel rather proud. No, I feel immensely proud, although I feel unsettled by Nuncle's mention of the voice of angels. I preferred having angels as my own secret knowledge. Now I have to share the idea. Perhaps Nuncle also speaks to them. I will have to think on this.
At the campsite, I realize I'll have to think up reasons to be permitted to keep all these coins, so Nuncle doesn't find out I'm a thief. Also I need to buy leather, and maybe find a pound for the silver flute. Nuncle has us pile the coins together immediately.
"Tom," he says. "You owe two shillings more for next year's tuition." He selects two sixpence coins and four thruppence. "And Malcolm, after sixty-one shillings less forty-two, you owe nineteen shillings."
"I have et," says Malcolm, giving me a significant look. We need thirteen shillings to pay back Rabin.
"Nevertheless." Nuncle begins shuffling coins together, not unlike the Jew, and he quickly counts sixteen shillings nine. I feel suddenly peeved that he should have been in the crowd during our recitation; if he had not been, we'd have taken care of our affairs much more easily, without this interception.
"Nuncle," I say, kneeling on the hard crushed-dirt ground, looking down at these dusty coins I need so badly. "I have a few--I mean, we didn't save anything, even though Perille suggested we do--it seemed dishonest--only a few pennies for ale and pottage--"
>
The headmaster, lounging in the dirt across the coins from us, gives me a look, shrugs and separates a shilling's worth of pennies, which is no small price, but I'll need thirteen such piles, and they're right here, and I'm despairing . . .
Malcolm has the courage to say it isn't enough for what we have in mind.
"I understand you've both come to the town of Bath from places of luxury," hisses Nuncle in some displeasure and, I think, scorn. I want to protest, but he goes on: "I'm sure that where you two come from, sixteen shillings is a tip for an alehouse-man. But out here, in the real world?"
I start to say that I don't think this, and I'm about to reveal my humiliating crime, but he cuts me off with a sweep of his hand.
"In the real world that is a hell of a lot of money some lords don't have that much don't you dare interrupt me Tom. What you see here in front of you? What you have, through your admitted brilliance of performance, is a fortune to normal people. Most people here I said don't interrupt me have never paid for anything with coins, they trade Godforsaken eggs and bacon rashers for the few meager things they need. It's not that we don't earn the money, Tom, it's that we need to appreciate how rare a thing we do this is, and to apply our wealth not for personal trifles goddamn it I don't care what you needed the money for and for you to spend more than a shilling at the fair is absolutely out of the question. Take this and speak no more."
In the darkness of the fires and lamps and candlelight, Malcolm and I take our pennies, give three to the aletent woman, she gives us an enormous encompassing hug each, and then, egged on by Malcolm, I find a leather dealer and buy a good roll of leather, I'll ask Perille to carry it home for me, since we'll be travelling directly to Jork from the fair. That was a penny and ha', and now I have seven pence ha', which, after some discussion, we decide to take to Rabin. I desire avoidance. I want to stay safe and far away, but instead I drag myself step by step to the tent with the yellow star. I halfway hope it's been taken down, rolled up and that the Jew and his Danish swordwoman have departed for parts unknown, but it's still there, a beige circle on a frame of poles.
I knock on the canvas, which goes paf paf paf.
"Yes, yes, come in," pipes Rabin.
Now is the time when I have to open the tentflap and say I'm sorry.
I stare at the tent.
Malcolm is beside me. His fingertip pushes aside the flap enough for me to glimpse the desk and beard inside.
I give Malcolm a little shove. He slips inside and presses his back to the tent wall. I reluctantly slip in after him.
The Jew sets down a quill and a cup of wine. The swordwoman gives me a facial expression.
"Yes?" the Jew says.
I come forward to the desk and open my hand and let eight coins fall onto the desk. One rolls off the edge, but the Jew's hands are quick and he scoops it up.
"The headmaster has the pound coin," I whisper. "He won't give us enough to pay you back the rest."
I can't meet his eyes.
"Have you explained to him that it doesn't belong to you?" Rabin asks.
"Our headmaster's not a man you say such thengs to," mumbles Malcolm.
"Let's go meet him."
The Jew rises. The swordwoman stays behind.
We find Nuncle resting beneath a tree, a liripipe draped over his eyes. I say, "Sir?" and he sleepily lifts the cloth from one eye.
His eyes and Rabin's meet. They know each other.
"Haven't seen you in town before," says Rabin, and his tone is full of undertones, grown-up stuff.
"Thought it had blown over," Nuncle says. He's tensed, a bowstring.
"I don't think it's any of my business--" Rabin begins, but Nuncle cuts him off:
"It isn't."
Rabin shrugs. I don't know what they're talking about.
"Anyway, I sort of hate to do this, but the boys owe me twelve shillings."
Nuncle's flat affect and blue eyes make him look like a shark with mouthfuls of teeth about to cut us. I just know we're in for it now.
"Do they," Nuncle says with distaste on his breath. He pulls a coin purse from under his shirt and counts out large coins. Then he changes his mind and locates the gold pound coin and flicks it up into a spun rainbow. It lands smartly in Rabin's open hand.
"You know I can't accept all of this," he tells Nuncle.
"Call it a down payment," and Nuncle lets the liripipe back down over his eyes.
The headmaster doesn't request that we two stay for a whipping. He's sleeping. Rabin, however, tells us to come back with him. My feet feel like ice, and I'm ready to get back to my pebble bed, but that's not for me right now. Maybe Robert of Jork will have a featherbed for us. I doubt it.
"Sit down."
There are three-legged stools stacked to one side of his desk. The swordwoman watches us. We take down stools and sit and Malcolm takes my hand. There is a woody scent, and the smell of candlewicks. The light is low and irregular. The floor is still grass in some places, packed by feet elsewhere.
"Well," says the Jew. "Richard of Brystow is your headmaster. That's really something."
I'm silent. Malcolm is shaking.
"Since you're not going to receive any moral lessons from him, let me ask you a few things.
Why take a pound coin?"
I look very carefully at the carven leg of the desk in front of me.
"There's a flute I wanted to buy," I say very quietly. "It cost a pound."
"You had a pound. I changed it for you." He's snippier today, peevy, but this is understandable.
"Nuncle takes all our money," I say.
"What's it mean to be a Jew?" bursts unexpectedly from Malcolm. This means he's been dwelling on the question and has just worked up his courage to ask. He's a dweller.
"Ah," Rabin says. "That's a good question. What do you think it means?"
"King David was a Jew," mumbles Malcolm. "Jesus eke."
"And you?" Rabin asks me. "What is a Jew to you?"
"Slimy," I say, looking hard at the carven desk leg.
Flakes of grass are squashed, and the dirt has bubbled up into structures from the dew, or perchance from the rain.
Rabin sniffs. "Did Jesus not say to love thy neighbor as thyself?" he asks.
"Did he?" I ask. This seems an extraordinary thing for anyone to say.
"You should ask Hamlin for the Gospels," Malcolm tells me. I nod.
"What is the Trinity to you?" Rabin asks.
"The Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit," I say.
"And the trois are one," Malcolm adds.
"But when you say you worship God, whom do you pray to?" Rabin asks.
"Christ," says Malcolm.
"And Christ is . . .?" asks Rabin.
"The Son?" I say.
"Jews pray to God the Father," says Rabin. "Christians pray to God the Son. Same God."
The same God?
"D'ye thenk," Malcolm muses, squeezing his fingers with the other hand, "the Saracens--do they worship God in the Holy Spirit?"
Rabin shrugs uncomfortably. "I wouldn't know," he says.
"Ef--" Malcolm begins, "ef you worship the same Laird as us, why--why should we differ so?"
Rabin sips his wine. "I really don't think we differ so much at all. Do we differ more than the French from the Scots differ? More than the Welsh from the Danes? Are we not all neighbors?"
"I'm sorry I took the coin from you," I manage.
"And I for my poor speech," says Malcolm.
Rabin thinks, searches his boxes and produces seven shillings ten and ha'.
"I'm not going to accept Richard's money," says Rabin. "I appreciate your apologies, and since I am made whole, this money is yours. Shall we leave as friends?"
We both take a breath, a deeper breath, and I feel shame-tears breaking through.
"Aye," whimpers Malcolm, and produces a hand, which Rabin shakes. I shake too, although I am crying.
A shadow crosses me, and the swordwoman kisses the top of my head.
And we are gone from there.
We find a dark secluded spot and just recover. Breath comes haltingly, and I'm still crying, but we now have room to confront our sins.
"Wouldye confess with me?" asks Malcolm. I nod. With our bag and my recorder, we walk in the torchlight toward the city of Brystow, past the guild checkpoint, to the dark road. In our way, we don't speak, we allow the cold air to chill us, we press together as we walk, we feel the road through our shoes, we live, a pair of lifes walking.
"Will we go t' the Goodbarry alehouse eke?" Malcolm asks.
"Do you know where it is?" I ask.
"Not a blessed idea, but I'd say a spread pair of legs is waiting for us there. Remember what Perille said of the fair? Women love the fools, he said."
"Do you--do you want to--?" I ask.
"It's sleep I'm wanting," says Malcolm. "And Wolfweir's blessing." I nod. It makes one angry, having to hold everything in, but it's what is meant for us.
Brystow Cathedral. In a late haze we stumble through the doors and across the floor and between wooden pillars and we call out and there is no light but firelight and my back and legs feel hollow and we wake a pair of acolytes and they mumble obscenities and rise to take our confession.
The familiarity of being alone in a box. I speak about the Jew, not even keeping track of my words, they pour forth and the priest's boy listens and Malcolm is not beside me, they've taken him to a second room, and I mouth words but now the acolyte is peeking in through the cell door and has lifted me by my underarms and guides me to a trestle bed, and the last thing I remember is the comfort of straw and a frame of dark wood and a bat flitting against the ceiling.
Day. My ram's horns have scraped my ear as I slept, and my ear is bleeding. Crusts of brown and red-black blood turn to powder as I rub my head. I push myself risen, pull myself over the edge of this coffin-shaped bed. I feel a dead man. I feel my ghost has left me. As I sit with my butt bisected by the thin frame of the bed, I think, do each of us have a ghost that accompanies our soul? Perhaps that's what turns bad when we lose control. Not a goblin but a ghost, a perky cloud scuttling through our arms and legs, and when we die, we give up the ghost. Perhaps it's the Holy Spirit, infesting us all. Perhaps I'm crazy.