Fool's Hope

For Marcus Wynne


It was the doors that constantly reminded him. The windows, they were so few and never to be opened anyway, and what was there to see? Walls of rock all the way ’round and nothing growing on them and so high that the sun struggled to show itself above them. Nothing else, and be ever so grateful the Ultimate Fire had left that much.       But doors, everywhere. All sizes, and every size too large. Some smooth-sided and others with panels carved enough to keep a blind man’s fingers dancing for a week; some left unpainted or even unvarnished and others heavy with the weight of jewels up and down and across, but all – every single one – with knob too high for him to ever reach. Thus he was reminded of his place compared to those around him, and of the singular fact that told all who he was: Barley the Fool, Court Jester to House Scalpa and Lord Ahdose ruling it, may He remain in favor with the gods.                                                             It was not the way he, Barley, thought of himself of course.  No, he was Barley Oakfist, whose father in spite of many things claimed and denied was Kedge Oakfist, Sea Lord of the Western Deep, Captain-General of the Last Fleet and of the great harbor Portmadoc. There were landholds for farming; thick forests of trees still green standing in serried ranks up the sides of fjords to the north; lakes turned white with the thrashing of fish … all this his and his father’s.                                But he worked no land, did not harvest crops, never stood in the shade of trees, had no hope of taking fish on his hook – none of this, never being able to say: I hold this, as father before and son after, I hold this, I.                                                                                                   What noble would say him equal? Whose high-born daughter would gladly take him to bed and dream not of another joining her body to what little there was of his?                                                                             Father vanished and Fleet scattered as gulls before the white squalls, and Portmadoc enjoyed only by those who refused light to fall upon their pleasures. So Barley Oakfist he was only in his thoughts, and if anyone was waiting for him to behave otherwise, they would wait no longer than he, and if that was unfair, at least it made a kind of sense.                                                                                           Barley the Fool the Court Jester turned his attention to the work due that night, the clothes to be worn and the words to be said, and where to look and not to look, what to hear and not hear … all the matters that could earn him favor, the only kind of armor he was allowed to wear.                                                                                                                    Lord Ahdose would insist on a story, one with a lesson that could be employed to instruct his men in matters of loyalty and devotion to one’s master. Lady Ahdose would feign interest in her husband’s choice and then ask – in a tone of voice resembling that of a captain giving orders to a shield-wall – for something lighter: a comedic fable of the sort told by the wandering balladeers of Meda, or, perhaps, a parody of the members of the court.                                                               Barley shuddered. Performing for the Lady Ahdose was not unlike walking the plank across a bear-pit: one slip, one small misstep and your found yourself in the embrace of something dark, terrifying and extremely unpleasant. If Lord Ahdose did not immediately grasp the point of a story, at least he made some effort to reach forth and find it. The Lady would look as if she had been asked to submit her slender, perfect fingers to Yagdeef tattoo-picks, and then, if the offender was lucky, order banishment to the Nukaisa Moor. Usually though … assignment to the scrub-gang in the execution yard, rice husks and water only, and altogether much too soon burial in the vast shitpit outside the castle.                                                                           It is the beginning of winter, Barley reminded himself. Wear the yellow— no the red, the red wool jerkin – wearing the yellow might invite Lady Ahdose to inquire into such delicate matters as the level of one’s personal courage, for instance. Striped trousers tucking into sheepskin boots, and a hat of … gold velvet? No, that had been given to him last spring by the Dalmatesse princeling who had loved the pirate stories. Lady Ahdose did not love, did not like, did not wish to even acknowledge pirate stories – so much for the gold velvet hat. Instead, the traditional fool’s cap, the idiot creation with the tinny tin bells dangling from the brim. Humiliating, but safe.                                        Barley dressed slowly, carefully attending to every detail. He tried to think only of the coming performance. Windows did not matter, nor doors – not even the message received in the morning that his son, his tall, long-limbed handsome son who could barely bring himself to acknowledge his misshapen  father, would be in the troop of Scalpa cavalry arriving at the castle on the morrow. Gossip from grooms and breakers at the stables had it that the cavalry was returning from the Headland Cliffs, three years service and most of their comrades left burnt  on burial racks high above the ground. Peersun the Master of Horse had taught his son to write before the lad had actually volunteered for service, and had somehow received letters from his heir. Vivid accounting of brilliant sword-strokes and pistol-shots and timely dispatch of enemies by the young man, and only perfunctory mention that some had fallen. Sometimes the dead and maimed had been named, and as time passed and the butcher’s bill grew ever longer, Peersun no longer encountered volunteers, and respect for the King had turned sullen and reluctant.                                    In his mind’s eye Barley saw his son ride onto the grounds of the castle, safe and whole. Oh gods let him smile at me with pride just once—                                                                                                                            The clang! of the Royal Secretary’s staff striking the polished bellstones in the Great Hall rolled and echoed through rooms and along corridors,and although the sound was muffled by the time it reached Barley’s ears, it made him twitch as if he had been struck by bolts from a Barrier eel. Time to go. Time to make his bows and smile and laugh and dance - and never ever a hint that his soul knew anger and grief.                                                                                                                        Barley the Fool the Court Jester walked to the door of his room and dropped to his hands and knees and crawled through the dog-door in the panel of un-sanded wood. By the time he reached the Hall his flesh would be scraped and stinging, but that the dog-doors were there at all - that he was there at all - was considered accomodation enough, and reminded him that when he reached, he could be sure only of grasping his memories and dreams …


Fall, 1983                                                                                                                   Revised 2015                                                                                                      

TrampTerran Freighter

In the neverending night that is both night and day, the ship makes another voyage. Her passage goes unnoticed. Logs are not consulted. No former masters reminisce about times aboard so long ago. Keel pitted and scarred, hull slashed in a thousand places from as many accidents not worthy of mention. No wounds - rust her spilled blood. Her holds are bent from the weight of vanished cargoes, flaked with pieces of manifests signed five owners back. Controls a jumble of cryptic switches links synapses to captains no longer interested in changing course, to pilots unable to read the charts - numb swallowers of pills passed as food passed as sleep passed as knowledge. She slides through the dust of countless stars, never crossing another wake. Slow. Tired. Waiting for death on rocks never there, on reefs only photographs in a museum forgotten before she had been launched...

The Trench Dog

France
Somme
1916

Seventeenth birthday and he celebrated by eating two pieces of stale hard candy instead of one hidden in an oilskin pocket of his rucksack. Thank you God for letting me see this day even though you must be busy as f----. § In the infantry supposedly formed by one of the Royals for almost two years now. Beat the odds so far. Don’t bear to think about how the dice are being rolled. Rolled them himself way back when he run off the farm, nothing but dumb sheep and dumber chickens along with someone calling herself his mother who had whipped him like she did the plough horse – poor old Steady – and see what the tumble got you: stupid officers and stupider orders and no better off than you had been before. § But he obeyed the orders, managed not to run when he received the terrible fire, sent some back – who knows where just pull the godd--- trigger – and hurled only twice when he saw the first dead body, torn into quarters and the lowest piece hanging from branch stubs  of a ruined tree alongside a few rotting peaches. None of that fruit for him ever after. Lots of tin food: beans and peas, stews that would make a starving mule flinch, beans and soups, beans. Dried salt beef (maybe the mule) and hardtack. The rare pudding – where the hell had that come from? Lime juice to keep the remaining teeth in his head and tea, always tea, enough tea to put bees in his ears and make his hands shake. § In between, taught only what the officers want him to know. Nothing complicated, nothing smart – soon enough he would be dead, and education was useless to a corpse. What he learned was to march and salute, just so; instant obedience to orders and never mind why or what; no talking; how to clean and shoot and shoot and shoot the rifle issued, and how to dig holes for sleeping and for his scat and piss and for the dead. § He had been punished for mistakes, sometimes his, more often, not. He had been beaten because it pleased the man beating him. He never heard a word of praise. He bent his back and bowed his head, and stayed ever on the watch for the enemy. That meant the ones from the other country. But as the fighting continued he took to thinking it was anyone who threatened him and never mind which uniform which flag, it was whoever said the words called ‘orders’ and wouldn’t explain why, it was whoever kept treating him like a dog to be used any which way. Dogs bite, he thought as he worked the bolt and fired again and again, dogs bite and go for the throat—