Leporello on the Lam

by William Stafford

  ”The word of the day today is Hypocrite,” I said in near-perfect imitation of our old governess. My master laughed his cruel laugh.

  ”Let’s draw on his face!” he was jumping with excitement. “Fellow can’t grow a proper beard; let us draw him one.”

  ”By us you mean me, of course,” I pointed out. “And no, I won’t.”

  ”Write rude words on his brow! A phallus pointing to his mouth! Do you know, Leporello, since you’ve become all noble in dress, you’re just about as boring as he is.”

  I called the innkeeper over instead and asked for his assistance in carrying Don Ottavio to bed.

  ”Oh no, signore!” the innkeeper protested. “That’s not for the likes of you to be a-doing of.” He summoned the boy who carried bags, stoked the fire and performed other sundry tasks around the place, and together they got Don Ottavio to his feet, his arms across their shoulders. The difference in their height made this an ungainly operation but they were well practised in dealing with inebriates and Don Ottavio was borne away with the minimum of fuss.

  ”Well, well,” said Don Giovanni. “The dirty bastard.”

  ”We should help him,” I decided. My master glared at me.

  ”You’re drunk,” he said. “I’m not helping that milksop.”

  ”Please yourself. I intend to help him.”

  ”You’re a bloody fool. That streak of piss vowed to kill me, or have you forgotten?”

  ”You’re already dead, why should you care?”

  ”Well, that’s nice, I must say!”

  ”You keep saying I should be more decisive and take charge of my life. And here I am, doing exactly that and you don’t like it.”

  ”Well, it’s your choice of action I object to.”

  ”Well, that’s tough for you.”

  ”Fine.”

  ”Fine!”

  I stormed off to my room, aware that this little spat had attracted the attention of some of the other drinkers. They rolled their eyes and tsked at each other and no doubt spoke unkindly about me behind my back.

  My master joined me in my room a little while later despite my having locked the door – but then he was renowned for getting in wherever he wanted when he was alive, so why should a little thing like being dead get in his way?

  ”Oho, Leporello!” he laughed in a singsong voice. “Don’t be cross. Tell me. Tell me your plan to help the great Don Ottavio and I will see if I can help.”

  I eyed him with distrust and suspicion.

  ”Oh, don’t look at me like that,” he pouted. “I genuinely want to assist.” He sat beside me on the bed and gave my side a nudge. “What’s your plan?”

  ”Well, I don’t know exactly,” I shrugged, nudging him in return,” But I’m going to make his wedding happen.”

  Don Giovanni was momentarily taken aback.

  ”Good luck with that,” he said.

  ***

  The next morning, Don Ottavio was in no fit state to argue – in no fit state for anything, come to that. He came down, in the same clothes of the night before, his wig askew, his hat precarious on top of that. Away from the comforts of his home, it was clear the oaf couldn’t dress himself. He joined me at a table, squinting in the sunlight pouring in through the window. He screwed his nose up at the platter of cold meats and the beer a steward brought over, and made an alarming face as if he was going to vomit across the table. I lifted my own platter out of harm’s way.

  ”Morning, Ottavio,” I spoke a little too loudly just to see him wince. He murmured the kind of greeting a disgruntled pig might utter. “You really should eat if we are to break the back of our journey before siesta.”

  He grumbled something that might have been “Journey?” or a swear-word. The baffled expression on his grey face suggested he had no clue what I was talking about, which served my purposes perfectly. I hadn’t mentioned any of this to him before – it hadn’t even occurred to me until well after bedtime – and I was taking advantage of his disoriented condition to put my plan into effect. I tucked into my breakfast, and filled him in on the finer details, my mouth full. I knew Don Ottavio would be too polite to ask me to repeat myself or to enunciate more clearly. The poor sod found himself agreeing to an undertaking without knowing exactly what it entailed.

  Throughout this, my master stood a little way off, shaking his head in disapproval. He reminded me of myself.

  ***

  Within the hour we were saddled up and on our way. Another button had bought me a horse but I had never ridden one in my entire life. My master laughed helplessly as I tried to climb on the beast while trying to maintain an air of being perfectly at ease in the eyes of Don Ottavio. Even hung-over, Ottavio retained his outward grace when presenting himself to the lower orders. The stable boys must have believed I was the one the worse for drink. None of them rushed forward to assist me, preferring to hang back and enjoy the impromptu display of clowning I was providing free of charge.

  Between my legs, my steed must have sensed he was dealing with a complete novice and took this as carte blanche to do what he pleased. He ambled along, several yards behind the gleaming white mare that was bearing her master with pride.

  ”Giddy up,” I urged the creature and made a clicking sound. There was no perceptible acceleration in our progress. My master appeared behind me on the saddle, his arms around my waist and his chin on my shoulder.

  ”He’s enjoying the view too much,” he laughed in my ear, causing me to shudder. “In horse terms, that’s quite an ass.”

  He laughed again, loudly and heartily. Right down my ear.

  ”Do you mind?” I snapped. “Keep quiet or pop off or whatever it is you do when you’re not around.”

  ”Oh, don’t be so prudish, man. It’s Nature! It’s the way of the world. Even dumb brutes know that much. Even Don Ottavio, rot him, knows that. Don’t be like him, a prude and a hypocrite.”

  ”I remember when I used to lecture you,” I reminded him. “Not that you took any notice.”

  ”Quite so. A master being instructed in matters of conduct by his servant! That’s not on, not on at all.”

  We fell into silence. My master didn’t “pop off” – I wondered if he was lonely when he went wherever it was he went whenever I wasn’t thinking of him. Perhaps he was sticking around in order to have more fun at my expense. Or perhaps he genuinely wanted to help. No! Couldn’t be that, could it?

  While my horse plodded contentedly on, I found my balance at last and was able to enjoy the passing scenery without having to focus all my attention on hanging on for dear life. Ispagna is a beautiful country. Our road traversed scrubland, scorched by the siesta sun, through rugged hills crowned with beech trees and stone pines (my master pointed these out, sounding altogether bored, I would say to death, but you know...) The hardiness of the undergrowth must symbolise the resilience of the people. Or something. I’m trying to romanticise the landscape and am failing badly.

  We stopped at a village – little more than a settlement, really – to water the horses, mainly and to empty our bladders. Don Ottavio had perked up considerably and was almost back to his fully annoying self.

  ”Every league we travel brings me closer to my beloved,” he beamed. “We must press on.”

  The height and strength of the sun made me readjust my plan.

  ”It is too far, Don Ottavio,” I announced, pointing skywards. “We don’t want to be caught out in the open come siesta.”

  ”Twaddle, my dear Alfonso. Absolute and utter twaddle. What’s a little sun?”

  My master spat on the ground. “Man’s an arse!”

  ”Think of your mount, sire – I mean, Don Ottavio!” Oops.

  ”My thoughts are all for my beloved.”

  ”Yes, well, that’s all very well, but you won’t see your belove
d if your horse drops dead from heat exhaustion leagues from home and you meet the same fate not long afterwards.”

  ”Ohh.” Don Ottavio was visibly taken aback. It was clear he’d never been spoken to like this before. It was as though I’d slapped his face, only less satisfying. Then his lower lip protruded given him the air of a spoilt brat denied his favourite pastry. “But I so wanted to see my beloved today! I should never have left her side.”

  The poor cow, I couldn’t help thinking. I hoped she was enjoying the respite.

  ”Now, now, none of that,” I told him. “Our delayed arrival will suit us better.”

  ”It will? I don’t see how. Every moment separated from my beloved –”

  ”Oh, for f-”My master made as though to throttle Don Ottavio. He, of course, could not comprehend a man’s devotion to one woman alone. I could, although I reckoned Don Ottavio was going over the top with these sick-making pronouncements. Couples should keep the lovey-dovey stuff to themselves, in my view – by which I mean they should keep it out of my view. As a bachelor, I don’t want to see that shit.

  ”Forgive my impatience, Don Alfonso. Now I think on it, I believe what you say to be correct. Our arrival after nightfall is advantageous to our ends.”

  ”Ha!” laughed Don Giovanni. I sent him a look. “He said ‘ends’.”

  Honestly, noblemen are all like children. I suppose, sheltered as they are from the struggles of life, it is inevitable they should lack maturity in their outlook and behaviour.

  We looked around for a place in which to spend the siesta. There was little choice: a few cottages that had seen better days, a barn, and a farmhouse on a hill. We plumped for the barn although Don Ottavio was all for commandeering the farmhouse and demanding the inhabitants provide us with victuals – for which they would be paid handsomely, of course. I pressed for the barn, claiming that care of our horses was more important when, in truth, I was running out of buttons.

  Joining us in the shade the barn afforded was a couple of farmhands. One bedded himself down in a corner and went to sleep immediately. The other insisted on making small talk while we settled the horses. A wiry fellow shaped and browned by his outdoor occupation, he was deferential enough but altogether too nosey for my liking and comfort.

  He began with commentary on the weather, which in this part of the world, hardly ever varies and so that part of our interview was quickly dealt with. Don Ottavio kept his distance and found a place to sit back and rest. He placed his hat over his face and was soon snoring away too.

  My interlocutor took this as his cue to edge closer to me. It was disconcerting to say the least.

  ”Now then, my master,” he grinned, treating me to a display of his black and broken teeth. “What’s the story?”

  I begged his pardon. He leaned closer. “You’re not the same as him.” He jerked his head in the direction of the dormant Don Ottavio although the gesture could quite easily have been indicating the horse.

  ”What mean you, sirrah?” I found I could not look him in the eye. I realised this made me appear all the more suspicious but I was gripped by a sudden and terrible fear that he would read everything in my face. He would know I was an escaped convict, a condemned man on the lam.

  ”Heh, heh, heh,” emerged from his mouth. I suppose it was his laugh. Blasts of stale breath met my nose. I covered my nose with my handkerchief.

  ”Nice bit o’ silk, that,” the little brown man observed.

  ”Take it!” I gasped and threw it at him. It fell to the floor where it lay on strands of straw and was forgotten.

  ”I’d much rather have a couple o’ them buttons.”

  ”You shall not!” I stood up and stepped away. He crept up behind me, heh-ing and breathing. A shiver ran through me

  ”Beat the fellow soundly!” my master cried, outraged. “What are you waiting for?”

  I know that is what he would do without so much as blinking. I know from first-hand experience, let me tell you! And then, suddenly I was stricken with a sense of loss. All the bruises given me by my master were now all faded and gone. There would be no more.

  What a peculiar thing to feel sorrow for!

  Don Giovanni found a horse-whip and suggested – no, insisted! – I use it on the fellow without further ado. He declared he would have put the blackguard in a hospice by now.

  I found I could not bring myself to injure the man. In my guise as a nobleman I was well within my rights to trounce him to within an inch of his life but, my real servant-class self told me this was wrong and no way to behave. Why should our betters be our beaters? And, more controversially, what makes them our betters at all? Access to golden buttons, I suppose.

  ”I see right through you,” Brownie continued. “You’re not who you pretend to be.”

  ”Nonsense!” I declared, but there was a catch in my voice. I stepped away. The air in the barn was getting ripe with heat. I wanted to dash out into the brunt of the afternoon sun, would rather burn to a crisp than have to deal with this inquisition that was unsettling me more than my experience with Cardinal Ignatius.

  ”It’s written all over you. I can’t read but even I can see the signs. Them clothes don’t fit you for start-off.” It was true. Once my master and I had been of a size but my incarceration had diminished my frame considerably. “The buttons you got missing – you’d’ve had ‘em replaced if’n you could afford it. And, most tellin’, you ain’t thrashed the skin off me bones for ‘avin’ the impertinence to address you.”

  ”Well, I ...”

  My mind raced to find explanations for each of these observations but, treacherous brain, it packed up on me. I stammered and stuttered for a while and then gave up all attempts at speech.

  ”You’re him, ain’t you?” he had come around to face me, a hooked, gnarled finger poking towards my face. Here it comes, I thought. I am discovered. Back to the stake I go.

  ”I knew it soon as looked at you. You’re him, you’re him!”

  I closed my eyes and nodded.

  ”You’re that bastard Martello.”

  ***

  You could have picked up any strand of straw from the floor of that barn and knocked me over with it. I was at once affronted that I could be mistaken for that scoundrel and tickled pink that the villain was known in these parts. It appeared I would soon be on the dastard’s trail.

  ”My dear fellow,” I told the little brown man in my haughtiest tone, “let me assure you, I am not.”

  ”Well, I says you are!”

  ”And I says I’m not!” I drew myself up to my full height but that cut no ice. The squabble continued for a few minutes until my opponent in this uninspired game of verbal tennis tried another line of attack.

  ”If’n you don’t give us our money back, I’ll have you hung like a pheasant. A pheasant what’s committed heinous crimes.” The man was clearly batty with anger. I protested I had neither his money nor had I the misfortune of having visited this place before, a place where it looked like even Our Lord wouldn’t deign to come.

  ”If the village ain’t lookin’ its best, it’s down to you and your cozening ways.”

  ”Oh, come off it man, I’m no more Martello than you are.” He gaped at the accusation as if I’d called him the devil’s boyfriend. “See, you don’t like it, do you?”

  ”It’s the others, you see, they’m out for my blood ‘cause it was I what brought Martello to the village, and it was me that had the dealings with him and handed over the money.”

  My master, perched high in the rafters like a barn owl, threw something at my head. “Get with it, man!” he called. “He wants you as a scapegoat – he parades you in front of his muchachos, they dole out punishment and he’s off the hook.”

  ”The bastard!”

  ”Beggin’ your pardon?”

  ”Not
you – well, yes! You! You bastard! I know what you’re up to.”

  The little brown man seemed to deflate just as if I’d punctured him with the nearby pitchfork – and don’t think it hadn’t occurred to me to do so; I’m a desperate man on the run, remember.

  Just before all the air could escape him, he let out one last sigh then gulped in most of the air in the barn and told me his tale.

  Martello was wont to stop in the village. He would purchase refreshments and pass the siesta at one house or the next, but he would never appear the same twice. That is to say his appearance was always altered in some way: his hair, his beard, his attire – no two villagers could agree on a description of their guest but all agreed he was a personable fellow and Martello soon established trust and, if not friendships as such, he was well thought of as a pleasant and sociable acquaintance. Then, on the occasion he came to prevail on the little brown man, whose name it turns out was Paolo, they had taken refuge from the siesta sun in this very barn.

  ”You see, Paolo, my good man,” Martello had told him, “This little village is nice enough and you couldn’t find a kinder, more hospitable host of, um, hosts, but what it needs is some kind of symbol, something to display to all who come here, of the pride you all so rightly hold.”

  I must have pulled a face at this point because little brown Paolo broke off from his account and reminded me I wasn’t seeing the village at its best, as it was in its pre-Martello days.

  Martello was some kind of art dealer. He said he was in touch with the finest artists and sculptors in all Ispagna and quite a few in Italia too. He said, if we could raise enough hard cash for a deposit he would commission, on our behalf, a monument for the village square and we would be allowed to approve the design. They had a village meeting, at which Martello wasn’t present (because, of course, they would all see what he looked like) and all sorts of designs, each more elaborate than the last were presented. After much internecine wrangling and fallings-out, an equestrian statue was agreed on, as a sign to travellers that they were welcome and because, well, everyone likes a nice gee-gee, don’t they?