“No!” he cried. “For you and your wounded dignity, I must perish at once. Go to, foul varlet! Meet thy doom!” With a strangled cry, none too loud but bone-chilling, he flung himself from the pedestal, somersaulted across the path, and lay still at Una’s feet. His left arm twitched.
Una gaped.
The stranger raised an eyelid. “Satisfied, m’lady?”
Una, much to her surprise, laughed.
His name, he told her, was Leonard, and he was an out-of-work jester.
“A jester?” Una said.
“Yes.” He, still lying on the ground, waved a hand in a grand, sweeping gesture. “Singer, storyteller, acrobat, and clown. Also known as,” he coughed modestly, “a Fool.”
Una shook her head, smiling with a wrinkled brow. “You may get up if you wish, Fool.”
“Thank you, m’lady.” Leonard sprang up and began brushing gravel and dirt from his already much-soiled costume, ringing a dozen silver bells as he did so.
Una looked him over. Her heart still raced from her scare, but it was difficult to remain fearful of such a funny-looking creature. “What possessed you to jump on me from the wall?”
He grimaced. “Yes, about that . . . I’m sorry?”
“Is that a question?”
“I suppose so. I’m trying it on for size. Usually I find that ‘sorry’ isn’t enough, so I don’t often bother with it anymore. You seem like the forgiving sort, however, and I thought I might risk it.”
Una covered her mouth to hide a giggle. “Why were you climbing the garden wall?”
“They wouldn’t let me through the gate,” he said.
“They don’t let just everyone through, you know,” Una said. “Not through Southgate. You can come through Westgate every third and fifth day of the week if you seek an audience with the king. They wouldn’t toss you out then.”
“Ah, but I’m not some commoner coming with a petition. I have special papers on me, a letter of recommendation from King Grosveneur of Beauclair himself.”
“You’re come from Beauclair?”
“Indeed, m’lady, directly from Amaury Palace, whereat I did most brilliantly entertain the monarch of said kingdom!”
He twirled his hand elegantly as he spoke, but Una did not notice, for she was studying the buckles of her shoes. “Did you see anything of the prince while you were there?”
“Prince Gervais? No, I believe he is not currently, uh, welcome at Amaury, though I am not privy to the details.”
“Oh. Certainly.” Una shrugged, still looking down at her shoes, but the jester went on speaking.
“I have ventured here from the court of Beauclair to seek employment with the king of Parumvir,” Leonard said, “if he will hire me.”
“Hire you to clown?”
“That and sing and spin stories and perform acrobatic feats of wonder; though my singing I would wish on few, my storytelling has put many a mighty lord to sleep, and my acrobatic skills are feeble at best. But my clowning . . . Ah! Do not so soon dismiss the talent that lies therein, O ye maiden of doubt! There, in the masterful arts of tomfoolery, lurks the full measure of my genius.”
He swept her a bow, catching the strange, bell-covered hat from his head so that his dark hair stood on all ends about his face and nearly touched the ground as he bent double. When he straightened again, he caught up something. “Is this yours, m’lady?” He held out her journal.
“Oh yes,” she said, taking it. “Thank you.”
“A book of sonnets perhaps?” he asked, smiling winningly. “Stories of romance and adventure?”
“Oh no,” she said. “It’s just, well . . .” She smiled back, surprised at how easy she found it to talk to this strange character. “Actually, it’s my own work. I . . . I write verses now and then.”
“Do you indeed? Excellent!” he cried. “I’ve written a song myself; it’s not a very useful piece for my line of work, however. Jesters aren’t supposed to sing melancholy bits.”
“I like melancholy songs,” Una said.
“Do you? Then you would adore this piece. Composed in the immortal spirit of the great Eanrin himself, it is bound to bring tears to your eyes! A pity I am a jester. If I were other than I am, I would sing it for you.”
Una narrowed her eyes. “Well, aren’t you presently out of work?”
“Yes.”
“Then you aren’t a jester. You are an unemployed gentleman and therefore free to sing melancholy songs, yes?”
The jester nodded and rubbed his chin. “How deftly the lady wields the double-edged sword of logic!” He slapped his knee. “For that, fair one, I give you this most melancholy of melancholy carols ever caroled in these parts.” He struck a pose. “ ‘The Sorry Fate of the Geestly Knout.’ ”
Una giggled, but he raised a hand to shush her and, his face drawn as though in great pain, he sang:
“With dicacity pawky, the Geestly Knout
Would foiter his noggle and try
To becket the Bywoner with his snout
And louche the filiferous fly.
“But to his dismay, the impeccant Glair
Would kibely watch from the Lythcoop.
Our poor little Knout felt her pickerel stare,
And allowed his own delectus eye droop.
“Ah, sad Geestly Knout! How he’d foiter and bice,
But his noggle wouldn’t nannander right,
And that impeccant Glair, like bacciferous ice,