Fool Askew

By James Comins

In the second book of Tom Motley and his beau Malcolm, the journey to Jork in North England ends with new King Arthur stories, false accusations, and an attempted murder. Tom finds a spiritual journey ahead of him, his father's shadow looms over the jesting school, and his love affair with Malcolm III Canmore, heir to the Scottish throne, gets tangled up with a very peculiar third student with a mystery gender.

• Language: English
• Publisher: James Comins
• Release date: Feb 4, 2023
• ISBN: 9798215264027

James Comins

James Comins is the author of Fool School and Fool Askew, formerly available from Wayward Ink, "Notes Found Inside the Body of the Convict Clarence Skaggs," published in CrimeSpree Magazine #48, and other stories. He currently lives in New Orleans.

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Copyright 2023 James Comins

This eBook may not be excerpted or used for commercial or noncommercial purposes without written permission of the author.

This book is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to persons living or dead, places, events or locales is purely coincidental.

Table of Contents

Chapter 1 Robert of Jork

Chapter 2 Thieves

Chapter 3 Daydreaming At Night

Chapter 4 Affairs of State

Chapter 5 They'd Hang Ye

Chapter 6 Inge

Chapter 7 Murdered

Chapter 8 Stan's Knife

Chapter 9 My Shadow and I

Chapter 10 Hilda

Chapter 11 Somerset Afon

Chapter 12 Hundreds Council

FOOL ASKEW

Book 2 in the Fool Series

by James Comins

What Came Before

Having arrived together at the Fool School in Bath, England, teenage jester-in-training Tom Motley and his new friend and partner, Malcolm of Atholl, have attended classes for about a month. They've set about learning the old stories, the instruments of waitry, principles of acrobatics, and more than a few lessons about obedience to authority figures. Such little kings include Nuncle, the vicious headmaster, and Wolfweir, a girl disguised as a boy, who has declared that both boys belong to her. Under her wicked rule, they must refrain from any sort of lovemaking, enforced by pinchy wicker cages she has woven for them.

After a bravura recitation of an Arthurian story of their own invention, Tom and Malcolm become indentured to a wealthy lord for a fortnight of fooling. The lord lives not in Bath but in Jork, one of Viking England's northern reaches. A winter journey is ahead.

They are underway.

Part I

I'm not sure, but I think Lord Robert of Jork might be the worst man I've ever known.

And it's not an obvious thing. He's not insane. He's not even wilfully cruel, at least I think he isn't. No, it's a different sort of worst.

Let me tell you what he looks like. His face is broad, puffy, like an overripe pear. His skin is pale and his whiskers are the color of bad apples. His belly is coarsely large, and he wears a hat made of ermine, not unlike Malcolm's own ermine hat. They're very similar hats, almost as if Lord Robert copied Malcolm. He seems to delight in this coincidence, and remarks on it incessantly.

And this, in its quiet way, is the core of why he's such a bad man. In his eagerness to have admirers, he obsequiously touches all special and private and important things and tries to make them his own. He copies you, and requires that you copy him. He asks for your favorite food and splatters it repeatedly about your face, metaphorically speaking. He doesn't recognize that anything in the world isn't his. In his mind, he's the king of you. He's the king of me. He has no idea that some things don't belong to him.

Lord Robert convinces you that he's your friend, then he invades and robs you of all your joy, leaving slugtrails of slime inside your head, accompanied by an absence of love or privacy. He is both spy and saboteur of love, yet he delights in your presence and makes you feel attached to him like a cancer on a certain headmaster's nose.

It's sickening.

Let me show you.

Here is where we are: After a paining slog from Brystow Fair, Malcolm and I reach Pucklechurch. I have plain straight hair. In the cold I've draped my green and blue particolor tunic over the red devil costume that the headmaster, Nuncle, loaned me. Beside me is Malcolm. He's the love of my life. Red hair curtains his tall forehead, a fire over snow. His nose is sharp, his smile both warm and secretive, his eyes pale green like sunlight through spring leaves. He's dressed in a poorly constructed jester's outfit of gray and green, and his shoes are pointed and red. Mine are curly, the mark of a proper Fool.

At Pucklechurch we push open the door to the inn and stumble toward the fire, hoping for a great sleep before our journey to Jork begins.

I'm glad you could make it, Lord Robert says, rising. He ruffles our hair with plum-veined fingers and then touches both our cheeks at the same time: Malcolm's, mine. What are your names?

Tom, sir, and this is Malcolm.

We're led to benches before a fire. The fire is dying, and it's far too late for anyone to be tending it. I have no idea why Lord Robert is still awake.

Your full names, says Lord Robert with a simpering smile.

Thomas Barliwine de la Motley.

Malcolm of Atholl.

Malcolm. Of Atholl, repeats Lord Robert suspiciously, still bearing his self-satisfied smile. Who was your father, Malcolm?

Malcolm goes funny, his big forehead tilting in the fading firelight as he tries to come up with a way not to answer, I don't know why.

John of Atholl, sir, and I can tell that Malcolm's lying. For all his skill shouting jests and true insults at important people, he's just not good at telling lies. After so many years watching my father lie to creditors and barmen and barmaids and courtesans and me, I'm much better at this skill. There are many elements to a good lie, I'll tell you about them later.

And what does your father do? Lord Robert says.

Wairks the black, says Malcolm reluctantly, glancing at the fire.

Oh, I know all about Scottish iron, the lord says brightly. I have a Scottish blacksmith on retainer. Came out of the civil war. I'll introduce you to him, perhaps he knows your father. In fact, and Robert shakes a finger as he thinks, I'd like you to spend afternoons apprenticing. He needs an apprentice.

Malcolm: Sir, I--

Not at all, that settles it. You can fool on either side of your blacksmith practice.

And Lord Robert smiles toothily, pleased he could accommodate all these elements together.

Do you see what he did? He took Malcolm's secret pride and passion, blacksmithing, a talent that Malcolm wanted to develop in private and had only let drop from his lips because he needed to lie about his father, and Lord Robert turned it into a loud bland requirement, peeling away all of Malcolm's secret fire in a burst of inanity. Now my Malcolm's love of blacksmithing is probably poisoned, something he had hardly told anyone about, and I can see him stewing about it and kicking himself and hating Lord Robert immediately. I'm sharp, I notice all this.

And you? Lord Robert asks me. Your father; what does he do?

Also a blacksmith, I say, lying smoothly, because I am quicker than my red-haired reeve. Fooling is a common profession for blacksmith's sons who aren't strong in the arm. I'm trying to steal blacksmithing back for Malcolm.

Oh, how interesting. Lord Robert thinks he's hijacking us, I imagine him trying to. You'll have to join--what was it?--young Mal here at Étgar's forge from time to time.

This wantwit means to separate us, to corner us, so he can prise us open like oysters and drink our juices.

It's going to be a very long two weeks.

#

Morning. The carriage is a sphere of red velvet braced with gold tassels. It looks like a bad hat with horses attached. If you don't know, owning a carriage is a declaration of weakness in most places. It means your legs aren't strong enough for a good walk and your derrière is too delicate to ride a horse like a normal person. They're also hideously expensive, so only showy fops with no desire to prove their manliness own them. On the other hoof, it also means Lord Robert is easily rich enough to pay six shillings to hire two incompetent young fools for a fortnight. I bet he hires someone to buy his meat and fish for him. Then I think: Malcolm will like having good food. I take comfort in that.

We step up into the velvet-lain clapboards of the carriage and sit opposite Lord Robert. Nobody else enters with us. The lord has a dozen men, but they mount and ride alongside. He unpins the scarlet curtains and lets them shut, pouring thick darkness in. It smells of old fabric and moths. With a lurch, the carriage takes off.

It's very strange in here. A room, being dragged through the light snow toward the other coast of England. What's stranger than anything else, though, is that, sitting as I am in this red womb, in a place of sickness and stress and exhaustion, looking up at this fat manipulative man, I discover I have no imagination. It's gone. The lord has killed it, or stolen it. I don't conceive of anything happening. I can't imagine escaping. We're going to have to attend to Lord Robert's humor needs all day, flying blind without escape. I'm suddenly ill in the stomach, but all I do is belch and feel a wash of bile drain up into my throat and then retreat, burning as it goes. My crotch is pinching from Wolfweir's cage of switches, but under Lord Robert's gaze, I'm not comfortable adjusting this Lace of Flowers. He'd ask what I was doing, and he'd winnow out the secrets about Wolf--

So. Do you two have young girls? he asks. It seems an unmanneredly strange way to phrase the question to me. Malcolm crosses his legs and grimaces.

I have a plan. Right away. I am so quick, I soar out of the land into the sky.

Yes, I say at once. Yes, she's a Dane. Her name is . . . Fnordsgardr. Unusual name. I call her Gary.

Malcolm laughs. Lord Robert does not.

I wasn't asking you for a jest, he says coldly, his eyes beady above his beard.

"Messire, that is why we were hired, after all, I say. Are we not meant to entertain you?"

Beside me I see Malcolm shiver violently. I think the cage is getting to him, or else he's as freaked out about Lord Robert as I am.

I will instruct you on how I like my jests.

Yessir, I say, shrinking. We're jolting over the uneven Roman roads, and it reminds me constantly that even in a carriage we have an astonishingly long journey ahead of us with this man. We must delight him.

Now. His fingers fold together like an old flower. Do you have young ladies?

Malcolm and I look at each other. I tried lying to the lord, and I got it wrong, and he'll now be watchful for more lies.

No, messire, Malcolm says quietly.

Well, we must remedy that, Lord Robert says with another self-satisfied grin. I pride myself in my knack for matchmaking. In my court, every young lad gets paired up with the right girl. I make quite sure of that.

Perille warned us about this, about Lord Robert choosing a girlfriend for us.

Sir, that's very kind, I say, b--

Now. Thick hands clap. Tell me a story about Guinevere. That's what I wish to hear.

I slide closer to Malcolm, and he puts his arm against mine. We can't let Lord Robert find out about us, about our love. Leaning to his ear, I whisper, On Launcelot and fidelity?

Malcolm blinks several times, nods and begins. His voice has become different since Wolf caged our men, he's more languorous and distracted. We haven't really slept, either, only a few fitful hours. I know I woke up more than once last night with discomfort in my breeches. We both, I think, wish Lord Robert would recognize our exhaustion and let us rest, but he doesn't.

Et was midsummer's eve, Malcolm begins, when the prophecy came doon.

I pick it up right away: The wycch-woman carried a . . . a dried goat's leg as a cane, and in her mess of hair were peacock's feathers, I say. They whispered that she came from the West, although none could say just where, or whether she had been seen before. She rode a strange bird, one with long legs, and on her back was a pack woven from horsehair.

Malcolm: At the foot of the castle of Camelodenum she arrived and unloaded her hexing equipment and released the bird, knowing et would return when called. Beneath the shadow of Guinevere's tower, the tallest tower of the castle, the Egypsy woman laid out a wool rug on the grass and began to set up her shop. Et was a collection of miniature cauldrons weth no end of herbs and powders drawn from plants and from the blood and sinew of animals. I let Malcolm go on, he's got this dazed look, I know you can't see it but he's got his eyes closed and he's got himself on a good cartrut of story. Here's lion's blood. There is oil of trefoil. Where is powdered leopard skin? I smile nervously, because Malcolm's throwing in our secrets in ways Lord Robert can't steal. 'Ah,' the Egypsy said, 'here et is under my hat.' With her goods at last arranged, she sat and waited for King Arthur to come inquiring of her.

Looking up, I see that Lord Robert is very interested in us. He's watching us very closely as we take turns speaking. It seems he's full of questions but has refrained from asking them just yet.

"For a day and a night, the wycch-woman's place in the shadow of the tower was kept secret. But a shepherd came by and spotted the green and purple smoke wafting from her brewings, and called upon the captain of the guard, and the guard told Arthur, and Arthur took a small group with him to see about the woman. With the king were Launcelot, first among his knights; Gawain, the chaste; and Arthur's queen, Guinevere, and her ladies-in-waiting. 'Well-met, and God keep you,' Arthur said fairly to the wycch-woman.

'Mayhap he will, and mayhap he won't. Kneel on the grass, my king and queen, and listen to what I might tell you,' the wycch-woman said.

Malcolm: Launcelot was wroth that one should speak so to the keng.

Let me stop you there, says Lord Robert.

Like a detonation in a well-travelled road, we're brought short. One can almost see the carriage-horses of our minds skidding to a stop.

Now, Robert says, I pride myself on my knowledge of the great Romances. It's one of my hobbies, the collection of Arthur stories. And I confess I've never heard an Arthur story that begins with this wycch-woman. Who is she?

Malcolm catches my eye.

I don't know, I mutter. We're just telling stories.

Lord Robert looks delighted. "You're . . . inventing Arthur stories?" he says.

Aye, Malcolm sighs, adjusting his crotch, keeping his weary eyes most of the way closed.

"How splendid! I shall need to make copies of each, so that they aren't lost. Would it--might I consider these my stories?"

There's only one way to answer an authority figure asking for a favor.

Yes, messire, I say.

Ah, splendid. I'll need to fetch a clerk . . . yes. I think that will be just right. I'll arrange it all. Please continue.

Together we heave a sigh and try to remember where we were. Wycch-woman, Guinevere, they had come down from the castle, she told them to kneel on the grass, Launcelot got mad. . . . God in heaven I'm exhausted. . . .

Launcelot cried wroth that the wycch-woman should speak so to the king and queen, I say, and demanded she apologize for her rough speech, but with a flick of her fingers she sent a single drop of cordial through the air and when it landed on him, Launcelot himself apologized to her for his own words. The king and queen saw that she was a woman of estimation, with unusual puissance, and they called for a blanket to be lain across the grass, and they knelt as the Egypsy woman had directed them.

Gawain, Malcolm says, asked was she not in league weth the devil, but she laughed aloud and declared the devil wouldn't come near her for fear of her. She spake that she was neither of God nor of the enemies of God, but that she merely was, being neutral in disposition. And she declared she'd read the future for the keng and queen ef they would grant her land to till and a horse to till weth, for she needed new-grown herbs for her spells.

The queen said she'd arrange a plot of land and a horse, for this was a small price indeed for a vision of the future. And the wycch-woman smiled, and chose her powders, and poured scented oils over them, and stirred.

I take a breath and try to construct a good vision with many possibilities. Clawed hands brushed the smoke above the bubbling cauldron. 'Yes, yes, I can see it all clearly,' spake she. 'A single stone sits in a field. It rises like a stone of Stonehenge, a pillar like those of the Greeks, a hand as it were reaching toward God. And in the center of the stone, inside the noble rock itself, lives a spider. It cannot be said how the spider came to be encased in rock, but that it had been there for many lives of men.'

The rock, picks up Malcolm, es hight the Heart of Men. Et can be found in the field of Aberbrân, and should the spider be plucked out by a knight of purest heart, and geven to the queen straightway, there should be naught in the world but that the king and queen might not accomplish together, not least that a son be born of them who will be king forever-after.

'I see that one here among us will surely withdraw the spider from the Heart of Men,' the wycch-woman sayeth to Arthur and his retinue, I continue.

May I-- interrupts Lord Robert. I nod assent. What is the wycch's name? Is she named, in your story? I must know.

We look at each other, Malcolm and I. Neither of us has a quick answer, and we both would have been content to leave the wycch unnamed.

'How are you hight?' spake Launcelot to the wycch-woman, Malcolm tries. He lets it sit there unexamined and winces unstoically.

What is it? asks Lord Robert.

Kinna think of a good name, Malcolm says, surreptitiously adjusting his crotch. Ach. . . .

Lord Robert is about to find out about Wolfweir's cages. I can feel it. Instead I lunge forward and invent.

'I have no Christian name,' the wycch-woman said. 'If you must have a name for me, call me--' and now I'm stuck. Lord Robert faces me. We need an answer to deflect him. I must be quick, I must be cunning--

'Say that I am Cunning, I say, for no other word in Saxon English is more to the root and bole of my nature.' The wycch-woman spoke nothing of the future she saw of Guinevere and Launcelot's tryst, for it was not in her intention to change the future, and if she spoke of this iniquity-- and Lord Robert is rapt, and Malcolm has a chance to adjust himself without those cold eyes on him--then Arthur would draw his brand and strike Launcelot through, and perhaps shed his good blood on her philters and disrupt her affairs.

She saw the future but didn't speak of it, mouths Lord Robert in wonder.

I give Malcolm a chance to pick it up.

Right. Eh. Cunning the wycch, ehm, Tom, would you . . . ?

It comes back to me. Time for the next part of the story.

Launcelot and Gawain both swore upon their swords that they would hie them to Aberbrân and find a method by which the Heart of Men might be broken and the spider retrieved, but the wycch-woman spake and said that should the spider die before it be given to the queen, the king would at once grow sick and should not soon recover. And Gawain said would it not be better to leave the stone standing, than to risk a pox befalling the king? But Launcelot said there were much reward and worship to be gained, and would not be stayed from the quest. So Arthur said he would take Guinevere to the Heart of Men and make camp there until the stone should be broken, but Guinevere said she would rather go alone, so that Arthur might rule in Camelodenum, and Launcelot said that if the quest went, um, what's the word--

"Frog," Malcolm says.

I don't know that word. I say so.

Launcelot said that ef the quest went frog, and the king were eisleanach, et were better for Arthur to be in a castle, where surgeons and such might be to hand. After somewhat of discussion, Arthur relented, saying he placed the care of his dear wife into the hands of the two knights, and bade Guinevere travel weth them in safety and surety. Malcolm takes a breath, composes himself and goes on. What the keng didn't know was that inside Launcelot's mind was a plan by which he'd take the queen to bed for his own. And inside the queen's own mind ran thoughts not far from et, for Launcelot was known for his great prowess in war, and would that not demonstrate fine prowess en other thengs? And between the sins of the two, much heartbreak was to follow.

I haven't heard such a thing before, breathes Lord Robert. Predicting the future inside the story--masterful.

It would be prideful to thank him for his praise, so I don't, tamping down the crown of that sin's snake's head.

For much of the rest of the day we tell the story, speaking of the preparations that Arthur and the knights went through, and developing the technique of speaking of the future and of the thoughts of the characters. Lord Robert is charitable and interrupts less and less, but he doesn't once observe our fatigue.

It's eternity to our stopping point for the night. At the inn in Gloucestershire Lord Robert tells us to sleep together in his room, all three of us in one bed, but there is no question he would notice our gypsy cages. Right away both of us say we're accustomed to sleeping on harder surfaces and couldn't fall asleep in a feather bed. He protests, but we say we'll tell better stories after a familiar night on the floor. This convinces him.

The night, on the floor of the inn (which is by no means what we're used to sleeping on) is interminable. Of course Lord Robert snores. Of course the cages wake us up. Of course we have to sit to pee at the outhouse, no chamber pot in sight, and the woven switches make us splash everywhere. The rugs we pile up on the floor are filthy, whereas the bed looks decadent. I feel jealous of a version of myself who doesn't say stupid things all the time, or who comes up with better excuses and asks for a second bed.

With no more than four hours of sleep behind me, I see Lord Robert rise; he urges us straight toward the carriage. We'll stop for luncheon, he says, but I'm famished. He wants to get back to the manor quickly; the trip can be made in five days if we're quick. And he wants our stories.

His thirst for our words is insatiable. Insatiable. It would take hundreds of feet of scroll to record all our stories about Launcelot's failings and Guinevere's divided heart. The short version is this:

Launcelot, Gawain and Guinevere travel to the stone. While Gawain is out searching for a mason, Launcelot seduces Guinevere. Of course. The mason teaches the knights to split stone with great chisels of a terrible ancient metal. At last they have a way to break the stone, but Launcelot is too eager to impress the queen and hammers too hard and kills the spider, which is bejeweled and very venomous. The spider obviously represents Launcelot's betrayal. Now the king is sick,