Leporello on the Lam

by William Stafford

  ”I did not realise, Milady, that I would be working for a fallen woman.” I stooped to help her up but she swatted me away with that fan of hers. Eventually she realised she could not manage the task alone and held out her arm for me to take.

  When she was righted, her clothing restored to good order, and her composure regained, she swatted at me once more with the fan.

  ”I do not appreciate humour,” she snapped. “I imagine your previous master encouraged such a trait within you but let me make myself clear. I am not appointing you my court jester. You are to be my general factotum, Leporello, but your general factoting will not require you to make jokes. In fact, I prohibit it.”

  I nodded as seriously as I could. Fortunately for me, the fading light meant she didn’t catch the smirk that was tickling the corners of my mouth. You and I both know that “factoting” isn’t even a bloody word but these nobles think they can do what they like. Rules don’t apply to them.

  ”Shall I lead on, Milady?” I even bowed low with a sweep of an arm. She was too flustered to realise I was taking the piss.

  ”Um, yes, I mean, that is to say, No.” She was conflicted.

  ”I could take up the rear,” I offered. A scandalised expression swept across her face like a dark cloud in a red sky, and I wasn’t even trying, on that occasion, to be impertinent. After several moments of dithering and changing her mind, Lady Flavia concluded that I should walk in front and also behind her, skipping back and forth but never, repeat never, actually walking alongside her. That would never do, apparently.

  And so, the rest of our journey was completed with me skipping to her and from her like a hyperactive puppy. It was altogether ridiculous and bloody knackering to an already knackered man. And her house was on the top of a bloody hill. But then, such houses always are, aren’t they? All the better to look down on the rest of us.

  Donna Flavia’s residence had seen better days but even seen in silhouette with the sun going down behind it, you could tell it must have been a grand old place. She handed me a key and instructed me through improvised sign language to unlock a side entrance. She waited imperiously until the door was open and I could usher her in.

  Bloody ridiculous.

  I found myself in the kitchen, a large room with all the usual features: copper pans suspended from the ceiling, a long and battered table, a capacious stone basin... but the room was chilly. Cold, even. The huge fireplace was dark. The grate was empty. There was no firewood on the hearth. I’ve been in a few kitchens in large houses in my time. My master’s kitchen was always overpoweringly hot – infernally so... Oh, my master!

  ”If I might rouse you from your reverie,” Lady Flavia was sneering at me. She’d probably said this at least once already and a few more things besides, I wouldn’t know. “There should be some cheese in the pantry over there,” she indicated a door with her fan. “You may sleep under the table. Tomorrow I will provide more comfortable accommodation. I will expect warm milk at seven. Goodnight.”

  She swept from the room and I was left to shift for myself. I turned around on the spot a few times, and then stamped my feet a few times as the cold of the flagstones seeped through the thin soles of my shoes – Why hadn’t I brought my walking boots with me? Because I left my master’s in a bloody hurry, that’s why!

  My stomach growled and yelped. I let it lead me towards the pantry door, which creaked as I pulled it open.

  It appeared at first glance that My Lady Flavia existed on a diet of cobwebs and mouse droppings but there, as advertised, was a covered dish. I took this to the worn but dusty tabletop and lifted the lid. I discovered a lump of something that might have been cheese at some point back in the distant past. With all the fur sprouting from it, you could be forgiven for mistaking it for the corpse of a mouse. I took out my penknife and stabbed the thing. Mouse or cheese, the thing was dead. I flipped it over. There was no fur on the bottom but it’s so difficult with some cheeses, isn’t it? Some of them are meant to have mould on them and in them. It is difficult to tell what is supposed to be there and what is not. I decided against the cheese and replaced the lid of its sarcophagus. My belly did a back flip but this time it was from gratitude.

  I stretched out on the table, using my bundle of belongings as a pillow. Yes, I know my new boss had told me to sleep under the table but, well, even I have standards.

  Sleep crept into my mind turning my thoughts into dreams. The night sounds of this unfamiliar house kept snapping me back to watchfulness, and between being asleep and being awake, I imagined the creaks and cracks of the furniture in rooms I had yet to see, could well be the splitting of the flagstones beneath me. Only my shivering and shaking kept me from believing I was soon to face the fires of damnation.

  ***

  I gave up all notion of repose in the arms of Morpheus (My master always laughed at that phrase and said it should be the name of an inn) just at that part of the night when it is coldest, just before the sun decides to show its face. My master’s laughter tickled the edges of my mind again, like a dog licking my face, as I recalled something else that amused him. He always referred to this time of day as “Being up at Dawn’s crack” and he would snigger like a schoolboy. He never really grew up, my master – that’s probably why we got on so well. Of course he only ever saw Dawn’s crack if we’d been out all night; him doing what he did best and most often with some girl or other, and me lurking outside, keeping lookout and holding his coat.

  It was no good lying on that wretched table, feeling sorry for myself and for my poor master who would most certainly have chid me for my slovenliness. Donna Flavia had requested warm milk and therefore warm milk she would have. As light pierced the gaps in the shutters, like gleaming blades through flesh, I put thoughts of my late master to one side and began to puzzle over how I would make warm milk happen.

  My joints protested as I sat up and swung my legs to the floor. Getting old. Hah! I dismissed that idea at once. It’s just the cold night on the hard wood; I explained each creak and pop away as I shuffled across the floor towards the pantry.

  It seems my hope increased with the growing amount of light in the room and, like the pantry shelves, my hope consisted of nothing more than thin air. The cobwebs were still there. There were probably a few more overnight constructions; I didn’t take a survey. There was a clear spot in the dust and debris where the cheese dish had been. I gagged involuntarily at the memory of the furry thing. Even the maggots appeared to have shunned it.

  My shin struck against something in that sharp, painful way that only seems to happen in the dark. Cursing Our Lord’s mother, I hopped on one foot rubbing my injured leg. I saw what had attacked me: a wooden pail with a busted handle. Good boy, shin! I gave my lower leg an appreciative pat as one might do with a retriever when birding. This find brought me a step closer to delivering Donna Flavia her warm milk.

  I took the pail, which appeared to be sturdy in construction and unlikely to leak, across to the stone basin. It would need a good clean before I could even think about milk. I wrenched a shutter aside. It groaned in complaint but eventually yielded, surrendering a considerable cloud of dust as it did. Coughing, I scanned the basin and its environs for a store of water, not expecting to find any and of course, I didn’t. It was as though this kitchen had not seen a drop of water or years. How did she live, this Donna Flavia? She looked clean and hydrated enough. Perhaps there was another kitchen in the house. Perhaps this one was only intended to house me for the night.

  Whatever. All I was concerned about at that moment was being a good servant and fulfilling her first request. I needed the work and not merely so I could live. We have to keep busy, do we not? Keeping busy would help me keep my darker thoughts at bay.

  Through the window I could see the yard, an enclosed space between the main house and some ramshackle outbuildings, overgrown with weeds and colonised by clumps of m
oss between the cobblestones. What a dump! I couldn’t help sneering, I the lowliest of the low, turning my nose up at the scene before me! Oh, I go on and on about those with privilege and those (the larger number) without, but it irks me even more to see such neglect. Privilege, position and wealth are wasted on you if you don’t look after what you’ve got. It’s obscene.

  But there, in the centre of the courtyard, sporting a skirt of ivy and other climbing plants was a well. I would be able to draw water, clean the pail, rendering several spiders and beetles homeless in the process no doubt, and then continue my quest for the milk. It must be an achievable quest, I considered. Donna Flavia wouldn’t have set me some impossible task like spinning straw into gold, would she? Not on my first day.

  I took the pail out into the yard. The freshness and chilliness of the early morning air refreshed and restored me somewhat. I stretched my arms out wide and rolled my head until my neck cracked itself aright. Ah, it’s best time of the day: bright and invigorating before the heat can set in. My master never thought so. We would usually be skulking back home, him getting dressed as we hurried, taking shortcuts through gardens, back alleys. Cemeteries...

  I peered over the rim of the well. It was too dark, too much in shadow, for me to see anything. I may even have called ‘Hello’ or ‘Coo-ee’ into it like a bloody fool, I’m not saying.

  There was a bucket on a chain suspended above the shaft. This bucket was comparatively less trustworthy than my sturdy but filthy pail, but it was attached to the chain by an iron clasp that was rusted o’er and would take a team of men stronger than I to shift it. Oh well, I decided to audition the bucket and began to turn the handle. The chain, creaking and whining like an arthritic hound, lowered the bucket into the shaft. After an interval that had threatened to be interminable, I was able to discern a distant splash. I couldn’t begin to guess how deep the water table lay.

  Then began the process of retrieving the haul. I turned the handle in the opposite direction. This work was not so easy. A bucketful of water on a length of chain many feet below is pretty bloody heavy, I can tell you. I was working up quite a sweat and considered dousing myself with that water when it at last arrived at the surface. Don’t be a fool, Leporello. You would only have to repeat the process again and grow sweaty again. You could be here all day, caught in a loop of well-drawing behaviour, like the world’s oddest moth at a candle.

  I allowed myself to cup handfuls of the precious, icy cold liquid once I had secured its container on the ground, and splashed it across my face. I ran my hands back over my hair. That would have to constitute my morning toilet for today, Milady. Sorry about that.

  I then set about cleaning the pail with the bucket of water. It would not do to carry milk in such a thing in the state in which I found it and presently, after some hearty scrubbing, the old pail began to look halfway to presentable. I was wary of the sun climbing up the sky. At what hour would my new mistress rise? I couldn’t imagine she’d be a slug-a-bed. She didn’t seem the sort, by which I mean she was nothing like my master. And it wasn’t like she’d been up carousing half the night. My guess was she would be up and about very soon and I had better have the milk ready.

  I curtailed my labours with the pail. The inside was cleaner than the outside but that would do. Now, if only there were some kind of well from which I could draw the milk, preferably at the required temperature. Perhaps somewhere near here a cow had wondered into a cave and had found herself underground near a hot spring... I shook my head to clear this nonsense. Sometimes I fail to apply my imagination to productive endeavour. I could have been a writer and given Cervantes a run for his money.

  Perching my bum on the wall of the well, I cast my gaze around for inspiration. There was the rear of the big house, almost obliterated by climbing plants. In this early morning light it looked quaint and rusticated – perhaps the effect was deliberate. Perhaps this is how Donna Flavia wished it to appear. The general unkemptness and decay of the rest of the property cast doubt on this idea. The old place, like the lady herself, obviously needed someone to look after her. To my right were the stables. The silence emanating from them and the memory of our walk home last night prompted me to think I’d find a complete and utter absence of horse within. Not that I was planning to milk a horse, you understand! To my left was a row of sheds, leaning against each other for mutual support. I supposed these were home to tools and agricultural equipment with which Donna Flavia’s servants would tend the estate, but like the horses, I also supposed the servants, whomever and how many they might have been, were long since gone.

  ”Hmmm,” I mused, scratching my bristly chin. It was almost at the stage where I could be said to be cultivating a beard proper, that scruffy, raspy stage. Within a couple of days I would no longer look like my master. He’d always insisted I wear hair on my face to match his: moustaches and just a little point on the chin. This was so that I could substitute for him when he got into a scrape. People would believe I was he and he could bugger off out of it while I took the blame and invariably the punishment. Well, with my beard filling out, he wouldn’t be able to pull that trick again, would he?

  The memory hit me like a slap in the face – and believe me, I’ve suffered many of those.

  My master wouldn’t be pulling any more tricks at all.

  A commotion not far off mercifully roused me from this realisation. The lowing sound of cattle accompanied by the dull clunk of their cowbells seemed to me a heavenly orchestra and I sprang from my seat and darted across the yard, remembering only halfway across to dash back and snatch up the pail. Where there’s cows, there’s milk, I reasoned. You see, all that book learning was not wasted on me.

  In the lane, a fellow in a grubby smock and a wide-brimmed straw hat was leading a troupe of cows – there wasn’t enough of them to constitute a herd – towards a pasture for their morning graze. He walked with a stick that was taller than he was and very rarely had to employ it to tap one of his charges back into order. They seemed docile creatures, keen to reach the grass before the dew was totally evaporated. They moved at a steady but not dawdling pace and I had to shift myself to catch up.

  ”I say, you! My good fellow!” How does one address a cowman? I am not accustomed to dealing with people who actually toil. “Sirrah! If I might have a moment.”

  They had reached the gate by this point. While the cowman opened it and ushered his livestock through, I was able to catch up with him.

  ”Good day, sir!”

  ”Maarnin’” he rumbled, without looking at me. I could see that beneath the brim of the hat, his face was plump and weather-beaten. He’d probably been doing this his entire life. I felt pity for him. I’d had it easy, I reflected, spending most of my time indoors among the nobility.

  ”I saw you and your lady friends coming up the lane and I – “

  ”My lady friends!” he scoffed. “Oh, I likes that! You think because I’m a lowly farmer I must have nothing better to do than fuck my cattle, is that the way of it?”

  My jaw fell open but I could force no words out. That had not been my implication at all. I was scandalised that he could think I would think so.

  He turned to me then, removed his hat and wiped at his forehead with a ragged handkerchief. He wasn’t exactly laughing but his eyes were twinkling and crinkling around the edges, indicating he was greatly amused at my expense.

  ”Come now, Leporello, what can I do for ye?”

  I was taken aback.

  ”You know me, sirrah?”

  ”Of course, I knows ye. Most everybody round here knows about you and yer maaaster, that devil, forgive me for saying so. We won’t be seeing his like again, I don’t think.”

  ”Um, no, I suppose not.” The fellow was making me uncomfortable. He had me at a disadvantage. I had no idea who he might be. Word had obviously reached him of my master’s demise. I sniffed haughtily,
hoping this signified I was not willing to gossip about it.

  ”Nice bucket,” he observed with a wry smile, exposing a mouth that was more gap than tooth. “Although I bet that’s what your maaaster, God rot him, would say to all the girls.” He roared at his own smutty joke and I considered clonking the bucket around his bonce.

  ”Milady Flavia would like some milk,” I said in clipped tones my new patron would be proud of. “Oblige us.” I held out the pail and he peered at it as one might appraise a stranger’s baby. Then he shook his head.

  ”Too late, my man, too late. These girls have had their maarnin’s mikin’ already.”

  ”All the better. The milk is ready for purchase. There is coin in it for you.”

  The perfectly vile little cowman was practically convulsing with laughter at this point.

  ”So you’re Donna Flavia’s man now, are ye? Best o’ luck to ye. Something you should know about Milady Flavia.” He glanced from side to side in case any of the cows was within earshot, and then beckoned me closer. I leaned towards him. Any information I could glean about my new mistress would be helpful at this juncture.

  ”Milday Flavia won’t thank ye for cow milk. She has an aversion to it. As intolerant as a Cath’lic is to a ‘eretic when it comes to cow milk. She won’t thank you for cow milk. She’ll most likely give ye the order o’ the boot if’n you brings her cow milk. Oh no, she don’t like no cow milk –”

  ”Then what,” I interrupted his monologue with mounting impatience, “in the bloody blue blazes do you suggest I do?”

  ”There’s coin, you say?”

  ”What?”

  ”You mentioned a coin.”

  ”What of it?”