The clown yelped and started shouting in the common dialect of the city. “I say, old see you tomorrow in the corn cake! Let loose my monkey’s eye! I love you! I love you!”
The peasants doubled over with laughter, though apparently the clown meant every word he said. The guard growled a curse. “What is your name, madman?” he demanded.
“What?” said the clown.
“Your name!”
“My name?” The clown smiled as understanding swept across his face. “My name is Leonard of the Tongue of Lightning. What is your name?”
“My name doesn’t matter. You’re coming with me.” The guard yanked him through the crowd, but the clown wasn’t ready to come quietly.
“I love you!” he shouted again, furiously this time.
“I don’t care who you love; you’re coming to the palace. By order of his Imperial Majesty, Emperor Khemkhaeng-Niran Klahan, Glorious Light of the—”
“Upward fly the lizard, same as everyone!” the clown shouted again, struggling to get free. “I have a cake!”
He was certainly passionate in his lunacy. And if the peasants found him amusing, perhaps his Illuminated Magnificence would as well. “Stop your insane babble and come with me.”
So it was that Lionheart, a good three years after coming to Lunthea Maly, found himself suddenly propelled from the status of street performer to that of imperial clown in one afternoon.
Coronation ceremonies are always a matter of pomp. In Noorhitam, pomp rose to an extreme unheard of in a country such as Southlands. Lionheart watched with open mouth as priests from all the temples in Lunthea Maly (the city sported no fewer than two hundred) chanted while dancers performed the sacred dances. A procession the size of an entire Southlands barony filed up the hill and through the gates, across the great open court of the Aromatic Palace. Incense, as pungent to Lionheart’s nostrils as the expensive perfumes carted in Captain Sunan’s merchant ship, hung in the air, heavy as the priests’ chanting.
And over all this presided the boy emperor, his face as solemn as a statue.
Lionheart caught a glimpse of him now and then from his tucked-away corner with the other assembled clowns. Young Emperor Klahan looked so small upon the red and mother-of-pearl inlaid throne, the silken robes of his forefathers wrapped about his shoulders, the great pearl-studded crown upon his head. Everything was much too large for him, yet he bore it all with surprising poise for his age.
Lionheart’s heart went out to the boy. He knew what it felt like to be born to a position of authority and never feel quite adequate, to hide behind the mask, letting them think you’re prepared to manage the hundreds upon thousands of lives entrusted to your keeping. There was no room for boyhood in the face of such a task.
Though, a part of Lionheart whispered deep inside, there remained a marked difference between him and this boy. He had run away to play jester; young Klahan sat on his father’s throne.
But he couldn’t think that way. He was on a mission: He must discover how to kill the Dragon. The oracle of Ay-Ibunda must hold the secret . . . if anyone could see the oracle. Three years had slipped by, and though Lionheart had nearly killed himself studying the dialects of the city and befriending more than a handful of shady but knowledgeable characters, no one could give him a breath of word as to the temple’s location.
“Only the emperor knows,” they said.
Lionheart gazed up again at the child ruler of the Noorhitam Empire. Somehow, he doubted the little fellow had a clue.
It didn’t matter. Lionheart adjusted the jester’s hat on his head and smiled. Tonight, by the grace of the Lights Above, he’d have an opportunity to fulfill his childhood dream. He would perform buffoonery for an emperor.
You’ll have your dream, my sweet, my Fool.
Trumpets sounded, gongs rang. Vows were taken and given, chants were sent dancing with incense to the heavens. And suddenly Lionheart found himself prodded between the shoulders, propelled out from his safe cubby into the very center of the open court. All the eyes of the lords and ladies of Noorhitam, as otherworldly to Lionheart as Faeries, looked down upon him. But Lionheart turned to the emperor, saw that solemn mouth set in a firm line, and decided that, while he may fail at everything else he turned his hand to in his life, tonight, he would make the emperor laugh.
Twirling his jester’s hat, he swept a flourishing bow. But he was a clown, so of course he overbalanced and fell flat on his face, legs kicking the air.
Silence.