Lionheart paused in the task of taming his hair, pressing his fingers into his scalp. He’d like to push that thought right out of his head. How could he hope to discover that secret? Trapped here, no better than a kenneled hound himself, working day in and day out just to feed himself. Already months had flown by, faster than he would have thought possible, and he had traveled no farther than Capaneus.
The Duchy of Shippening was separated from Southlands by the Chiara Bay and a thin isthmus. Lionheart had walked that isthmus, escaping the barriers of the Dragon’s prison, and entered freedom. At least, the sort of freedom that is to be found in a city like Capaneus. The freedom to be mugged within moments of foolishly showing one’s purse. The freedom to be beaten and left in a gutter. The freedom to crawl from the gutter again and beg for work wherever one could find it, thanking the Lights Above for the menial position of kennel boy for the duke.
Lionheart found himself more captive than ever: captive to his duty, equally captive to his inability to fulfill it.
Tell me what you want.
He didn’t know what he wanted, but it wasn’t this.
“Look out now, chappies.” One of the kennel boys who shared the tiny room with Leo sprawled on his pallet bunk, lazily chewing a straw. He rolled over suddenly, spat out the straw, and pointed out the door. Leo turned to look where he indicated. “The duke’s Fool has got out. Look at ’im! Strangest joke of a fellow you ever did see.”
Lionheart had to agree. One rarely saw the poor Fool outside the duke’s house. But there he was, wandering around the side of the stables and approaching the kennel, taking hesitant steps. His neck was long for his body, and it craned about as he looked here and there.
“Think he’s gone and lost hisself?” asked one of the other kennel boys, just returned from running a pack and reeking of sweat and slobber. He wiped a dirty hand down his face, shaking his head. “He ain’t supposed to leave the house, is he?”
“Well, go fetch him back, then,” said the first boy.
“I ain’t goin’ near him! He’s madder than a sack of starved ship rats.”
“All the more reason to not let him near the dogs.”
“You go catch him!”
Lionheart put up both hands. “It’s all right, fellows. I’ll get him.”
He stepped from their shack of a room out into the yard. “Loons of a feather,” one kennel boy said, and the other nodded and tapped his forehead.
Lionheart eyed the duke’s Fool. Having rounded that side of the stables, the poor man had caught sight of the dog kennels, and these apparently frightened him. In any case, he’d pressed his back against the stable wall and closed his eyes, and his lips moved soundlessly. He certainly appeared mad, but Lionheart didn’t, in that moment, fear him. Perhaps he should have. But since he’d stared down the Dragon’s burning throat, one simple madman held little terror for him.
This Fool was a strange person, though. He was abnormally thin, too thin, really, to continue living. His jester’s garb of brilliant colors sagged on his frame; yet his wrists, though tiny and more delicate than a woman’s, were not emaciated and bony. He was an albino, whiter than snow, and rather beautiful in a way.
It was a wonder to see the man so near. Years ago, when Lionheart was a boy, the Duke of Shippening had sent this very same Fool to the Eldest’s House to perform. What a marvel he’d been then, so merry in his brilliant colors, so strange with his white face and white hair. One would never have thought that he could be sad or frightened . . . though, in retrospect, Lionheart realized that he’d been quite mad. As a child, Lionheart had seen only the fun, heard only the laughter, and marveled at the feats and skills the madman had demonstrated.
Lionheart’s fingers itched with remembrance of his own juggling days. Once upon a time, he’d thought to become a jester himself. He’d planned to run away from home, from the crown, from Southlands, and take up the merry life of a performer.
Well, he’d certainly run away now. But things never turned out like one envisioned as a child.
The Fool appeared unaware of Lionheart’s approach. He continued murmuring to himself, and Lionheart realized as he neared that the Fool was speaking words, although not in a language Lionheart knew. Upon the few occasions he’d served at the duke’s table, Lionheart had seen the Fool perform. But then his voice had been animated, and his eyes bright and lively as he bounded about the room. Now the voice was low, soft, and full of heartache.
“Els jine aesda-o soran!”
It wasn’t gibberish. Lionheart thought that, with different ears, he might understand what the Fool said, even without knowledge of the language. It was more like music than language anyway. Like a wood thrush’s song.
“Aaade-o Ilmaan!”
Lionheart licked his lips. The poor Fool, his face turned a little away, looked so distressed in his madness. Lionheart wondered what he could say to comfort him. This must be how his insanity took him sometimes, these wild words, this incomprehensible fear.