An Antic Disposition (26 page)

Amleth on his arrival heard of Alfhild’s predicament, and dashed off. Upon his return, he retreated to his stockade and would speak only to Horace. He would let me sit with him, but I could never get more than the occasional monosyllable out of him. I had placed so much hope in his return that this quite devastated me.

One morning I dragged myself out of bed and walked down to the promontory to do my daily exercises. To my surprise, I found Horace there, sitting on a rock, watching the fishing boats in the distance.

“Good morning, young warrior,” he said. “I hope that I am not disturbing you.”

“I was going to…” I began, then stopped, suddenly shy.

“Going to juggle,” he said. “I know. Amleth has told me about you for years. He says you are a better juggler than he was at your age, which would be astonishing if true.”

“Did he really say that?” I said, pleased beyond all imagining.

“I always speak the truth,” he said with a solemn expression that made me laugh for some reason. “Show me what you can do.”

I started with the basics, then added a fourth club, then a fifth. Then Horace reached into a bag and pulled out some clubs of his own.

“You juggle?” I exclaimed.

“I dabble,” he said, immediately giving that statement the lie with his obvious skill. “Amleth says the two of you could get up to nine clubs passing between you. Let’s see.”

We practiced together for a while, and he nodded, satisfied.

“Very impressive,” said Horace. “I am told, Lother, that you will be joining us in Paris this term.”

“Yes, sir,” I replied. “I was hoping to live with Amleth there.”

“You speak langue d’oi’l well enough?” he asked.

“Fluently,” I said. “Plus Latin, Greek, Tuscan, German, Slavic—“

“And what will you do with your education when you are done?” he interrupted me. “Be a spy for Gorm? A soldier in Fengi’s revolt?”

“His what?” I exclaimed.

“Didn’t you know?” he asked. “Fengi and Gorm have raised an army to seize the crown of Denmark. I would have thought an observant lad like yourself would have known about that by now.”

“What army?” I said. “There are guards at the earthenworks and here, but they aren’t enough for an army.”

“Stow your gear and come with me,” he said.

We walked south, a direction I rarely traveled, preferring the busier human entertainment in the town. Horace was no longer the convivial dilettante of the dinner table, but an alert prowler on the hunt, his hand never straying far from his sword hilt. When we reached a stand of trees near a road I had never been down, he turned to me.

“From now on, not a sound,” he whispered. “Not a gasp, not a cough, not a broken twig nor a rustling of leaves. If you see me stop, you stop. If you see me drop, you drop. And if you see me run, then you better damn well keep up with me if you want to live to see the sun set tonight.”

We crept through the woods for another mile until they began to thin. Horace suddenly hit the ground, and I immediately dropped beside him. A second later a patrol passed by the edge of the tree line, speaking Slavic. When they had passed out of sight, Horace tapped me on the shoulder and pointed to an oak that overlooked the area in front of us. Without a word, I climbed it just as I had climbed so many rooftops at the behest of my father. I soon was forty feet up, looking through a space in the leaves.

There was an army there, drilling in the field before me. Beyond them was an encampment, with emblems from different lands. There were hundreds of soldiers there, and I had never seen any of them before.

I climbed down, and nodded to Horace. Then the two of us made our way back to the road.

“I hereby proclaim that the ban on noise is lifted,” said Horace, back in his jovial persona. “You did well back there. What do you make of it?”

“It looks like treason on a grand scale,” I said. “And Fengi is behind it.”

“So, what do you intend to do?” he asked.

“Me?” I said. “What can I do?”

“What would you be willing to do?” he asked.

“Who are you?” I asked.

“The best question yet,” he said. “But answer mine first. What wouldyou be willing to do to stop a war? Would you risk your life?”

“Yes,” I said without hesitation.

“Would you kill someone?”

I didn’t answer.

“Good,” he said. “If you had answered in the affirmative right away, you would have failed the test. No one should take killing lightly.”

“How many tests have there been this morning?” I asked.

“Many, and you have passed all of them,” he said. “Would you be willing to give up the life that you lead if it meant saving others?”

“This life?” I said. “There is nothing for me here except for my sister.”

“What if we could get her to safety?”

“Who is ‘we’?” I asked.
“You
still haven’t told me who you are.”

“Ym might call me a recruiter,” he said. “An advance scout seeking a very peculiar combination of talents.”

“A spy,” I said.

“Sometimes,” he said.

“A killer?”

“When necessary.”

“For which king? Or do you work for the Church?”

“No king, and Heaven forbid,” he said, crossing himself impishly. “Then for whom?”

He shook his head.

“Yxi haven’t passed that test yet,” he said.

“What must I do?” I asked.

“Betray your lord,” he said. “And your father.”

We walked on for a while in silence while I considered everything that I had seen and heard that day.

“My father is a traitor to Denmark,” I said.

“Traitor is a strong word,” he said. “He supports a rival claimant to the throne. If that makes him a traitor, then Valdemar was a traitor before him.”

“If Fengi succeeds, then many will die,” I said.

“Yes, both in the heat of battle and the cold darkness of dungeons,” he said. “And if Fengi fails, Valdemar will descend upon Slesvig and lay waste to this treacherous countryside. The best solution is to stop him before he makes the attempt.”

“And I can stop him?”

“^tou can try. Along with the rest of us.”

“And then we get my sister out.”

He smiled. “That is part of the plan.”

I
did not learn
the details of whatever plan he and Amleth had concocted. It didn’t matter, as things changed when Fengi and my father used Alfhild as bait for their trap. It was Horace who informed me of what had happened when he returned, and a cold rage possessed me and sent me charging at my father before anyone could stop me.

It was then that I realized that I could beat him. I was finally big enough to take him on. I was tall, even at thirteen, and my frame was beginning to fill out. The daily regimen that Amleth had imparted to me, which was a fool’s routine unbeknownst to me, had given me a strength and speed that I had finally mastered.

And so I was sent to Paris, fuming all the way there. Fortunately, my journey was with Horace, who was riding Amleth’s old horse. He spent the entire time chattering to distract me. I gradually realized that every one of his stories contained a subtle lesson, one that I was eager to learn. He also taught me a number of bawdy drinking songs, which would endear him to any thirteen year old.

I also noticed that every large town that we passed through had a jester in it, and every one of them seemed to know Horace. He had a long, whispered conversation with one in Bremen whose expression became serious underneath his whiteface.

When we came to the outskirts of Paris, we paused to look at the city.

“That’s the biggest place yet,” I said excitedly. “I cannot wait until…” Then I stopped. “I’m not going to the cathedral school.”

He looked at me, expressionless.

“And I?”

He shrugged and we rode on.

“There’s something I want you to do, now,” he said as we came to his quarters.

“What?”

“This is a personal favor,” he said. “Since you are a stranger here, I propose using you for a little scheme of my own.”

“What kind of a scheme?” I asked.

“Well, this will seem petty,” he said, laughing ruefully. “There is a poor excuse for a fool who juggles in the market at les Halles. He is a miserable juggler, and when I took the time and trouble to point that out to him, he became quite rude.”

“Imagine that,” I said.

“I thought it would be amusing if he were to be humiliated a little more,” continued Horace. “I want you to go heckle him for me.”

“But I have no quarrel with this stranger.”

“Whose side are you on?” he asked indignantly. “Here I am, prepared to risk life and limb to save your sister, and you won’t do me this little favor?”

“All right, I surrender,” I said hastily. “One question.”

“Yes?”

“Where is les Halles?”

When I got there, the market was bustling. I think there were more people in it on that morning than in all of Slesvig. I wandered around, keeping an eye out for pickpockets. Then I saw Horace’s target.

He was clearly drunk, even though it was only midmorning, and he lurched about, bellowing some old song while heaving three clubs into the air in an ungainly manner. He watched each one with trepidation as it spun over him, and snatched it almost desperately from the air. The sparse audience watching him was more interested in when he was going to miss one, and when he finally did, there were cheers. He gave an ironic bow, and went to pick it up. I took a deep breath.

“What’s wrong, old man?” I called. “Are they too heavy for you?”

There were raucous laughs from some young clerks standing nearby, and the fool turned toward me with an appraising air.

“Well, my fine young cock,” he said. “I suppose you think this is easy.”

“I do, as it happens,” I replied.

“As it happens,” he echoed me, looking up at the heavens in supplication. “Here I am, eking out my meager living by bringing a moment of joy to these good, hardworking people, and I am harassed by a pipsqueak who thinks he knows something about juggling. Well, young cock, let’s see how you do with those two scrawny wings of yours.”

He tossed me the clubs. I caught them and weighed them in my hands for a moment.

“Two wings for three clubs,” I said. “Too easy.”

I held all three clubs in my right hand, put my left behind my back, and began a one-handed routine. There were respectful cheers from the crowd, and the fool raised an eyebrow in mock irritation.

“He has bested you, La Vache!” cried a merchant from one of the stalls.

“Not in the least,” declared the fool. “He has skill, no question. But I am still La Vache, the greatest fool in Paris.”

“Not from what I’ve seen,” I said, tossing him back his clubs.

“Brave words, little boy,” said the fool. “Do they bespeak a brave heart, or are you just a large bladder full of wind?”

“Try me,” I said as boldly as one whose voice had broken only a few months before could.

“Very well,” said the fool. He picked up a sack from the ground and raised his voice. “Ladies and gentlemen! I shall now perform the trick that brought me fame and fortune. The one that I performed before crowned heads and mitered, and at the very Hippodrome of Constantinople in front of one hundred thousand astonished spectators.”

He reached into the sack and pulled out two short logs. Each was about a foot in length, and as wide around as a blacksmith’s forearm.

“Log juggling?” I said. “Is that the trick?”

He smiled at me. It was an evil smile, and I felt a pang of fear in my breast.

“In this trick, the log will not move,” he said. “I need a volunteer to hold it for me. Will you be so kind, my young master?”

I nodded. He walked up to me, handed me the log, and positioned my hands so that it was directly in front of my chest.

“Hold it tight, strong, and steady,” he said.

“Why?” I asked as he walked back to his sack. “Is this trick dangerous?”

“Not at all,” he said. “At least for me. For you, quite a lot.”

Then he reached into his sack and pulled out an ax.

“You must be wondering if this is a sharp instrument or not,” he said, holding it before the crowd and turning it so that it gleamed. “Behold!”

With a swift, strong motion, he split the second log neatly in two. “Looks sharp enough to me,” he said as the crowd chattered and grew. “Now, what I propose to do is to throw this ax from where I stand into the center of the log that my new assistant is now holding thirty paces away. If I err by the slightest amount, or if he moves the least distance, then he will suffer the same grisly fate as my last assistant, and I will once again be carted off to prison to repent of my foolish ways. Are you ready to face your destiny, young one?”

“How much did you have to drink this morning?” I asked, trying not to shake.

“Almost enough,” he said. He lifted the ax over his head with his right hand, then licked his left thumb and held it in front of him, squinting at me in concentration. Then, to my vast relief, he lowered the ax.

“No,” he said. “Not like this.” He paused as the crowd groaned in disappointment, then leered maliciously at me. “Too easy.”

He took a large kerchief from his belt with a flourish and tied it around his face, then again held the ax aloft.

“Boy?” he cried. “Are you still there?”

“Yes,” I replied, my voice definitely breaking at this point.

“Do you still hold the log in the same position? Straight and strong?”

“I do.”

“Then pray!” he shouted, and there was a blur of steel and a thud as the ax buried itself in the exact center of the log, the blade stopping just short of coming out the other side. I held on for a moment as women screamed on all sides, then the two halves gave way in my hands and the ax clattered to the ground. The crowd roared and coins flew through the air toward the old fool, who caught most of them, his hands no longer the clumsy helpers from the earlier part of his act.

I picked up the ax and the pieces of the log and walked up to him.

“Yours, I believe,” I said.

“Well?” said Horace from behind me. “Does he pass?”

La Vache flipped me a coin and looked me over.

“I have a riddle for you, boy,” he said. “What do you call someone who will willingly let an insane old drunk throw an ax at him?”