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“Please go fetch the Jester from the tavern.”
The Leper felt like a ring, yanked from the bottom of a deep, still pool. Spots danced in his eyes when he looked up from Inferno into the round face of the Vestal.
“Certainly,” he said. “Though I don’t think I’d be very successful in retrieving him. Is Audrey otherwise indisposed?”
“She’s there with him,” said the Vestal. “I want him to be sober tomorrow. You should, too, if you’d like to get out of the Warrens alive.”
He cared not whether he lived or died, but it was sinful to allow his disdain for life to harm his fellow mercenaries, so off to the tavern he went. He passed few people on the street; when the sun set, the sounds from the Weald grew weird and eerie, and the villagers were leery of being out of doors too long after dark. The tavern was the only sign of life in the dark town—light from the windows cast a glow on the freshly fallen snow, and music and laughter leaked through the walls. What a precious thing, to have joy protected from the wickedness outside by the might of a few stones and some mortar.
The Leper was not often welcome there—this part of the world was singularly superstitious, and his bandages and mask did him no favors—so he peered through the window to better spot his quarry. It was no use; as soon as he wiped away the frost, the blacksmith’s giant frame blocked his view. There was nothing else to do but enter.
He pushed open the door and slipped inside. It smelled of ale, smoke, and spiced fruit, and the heat from the crackling fire stung his cold skin. Half the hamlet was there, and they had all fixed their eyes upon the Jester, who stood atop a table with a pint of ale in one hand and his lute in the other. He was leading them through the melody of something that the Leper recognized immediately as an especially bawdy Sicilian drinking song, which the Jester, cackling with glee, had apparently told them was about delight in the brotherhood of man.
The Leper cleared his throat.
“Sarmenti.”
The Jester locked eyes with him and then turned back to the crowd, singing louder than before.
“Sarmenti.”
The tavern fell quiet. A long time ago, he'd led thousands of men into Hell on Earth with little but his courage and his voice; now, he could not coax an inebriated fool down from a tabletop without great difficulty. The eyes of everyone in the tavern were upon them both as the Jester jingled miserably to his side, and they were upon them still as the Leper guided him out and gently shut the door.
The Jester patted his own maskless face and reported in a barely understandable way that it was a good thing he couldn’t feel the cold just then, since he’d forgotten his coat. He tried to get the Leper to sing his bar song with him; when the Leper refused, he collapsed into a snowbank and moaned like he was going to die.
The Leper managed to get him up with one arm. “That’s quite enough, Sarmenti. We must be well-rested if we are to have any chance at victory tomorrow. Can you make the journey back to the inn?”
The Jester listed to one side. The Leper stood him upright, only for him to list to the other side and giggle uncontrollably.
“We are to venture into the Warrens,” said the Leper, taking him firmly by the shoulders. “You must be sober by sunrise, or we will face ruin. Shame on you, to drink away the safety of your comrades.”
“You don’t give a fuck about whether you die or not and neither do I,” said the Jester, suddenly articulate. “That’s two out of four. The likelihood that a piggy offs all of us is…actually, quite high.”
The Leper patted him on the head. “Good lad,” he said. “Think upon that on our walk.”
They trudged through the snow. It was slow going—the inn was up a hill from the tavern, and the cobblestones were slick with cinders and ice. The Leper kept one eye on the path and the other on the Jester, who had a tendency to bolt in whatever direction he fancied. Thrice the Leper had caught him by the collar, and once he’d tripped him and sent him sprawling into the slush. His cheek and frock were now covered with muck, and still he skipped happily along, singing a different vulgar tune at the top of his lungs.
Halfway through the song, he came to a sudden stop and grabbed the Leper by the shoulder.
“I don’t feel good.”
“We are not stopping. Come n—”
The Jester pushed the Leper away and threw up.
Though this time he had excellent reason to, he did not collapse into the snowbank. Hands on his knees, he took a few deep breaths and whined quietly. It was the pose of a man who was afraid that, if he moved his head, it would shatter.
When the Leper went to stand him up, the Jester twisted in his arms and planted a sloppy kiss on his jaw.
“I was aiming for your mouth,” he said.
“Be glad you are no great marksman.”
They began their climb up the hill anew, the Jester trailing sullenly behind. He began to pant as the hill steepened, and their pace slowed to a crawl.
When at last they came to the inn-yard, the Jester regained his spirits and darted away. The Leper was puzzled, until he remembered that there was a well not far from the stables, and took off after him. If the Jester thought a late-night swim in the middle of winter would be great fun, then he was sorely mistaken: any effect the cold would have on him would be immediately reversed by the Leper tanning his hide severely.
The Jester’s drunken state had slowed him down. What great Providence, thought the Leper, for he was quick as a wink when his faculties were intact.
“What on Earth are you doing?”
“I’m thirsty.”
“You ought not drink directly from the spring,” said the Leper, while the Jester lurched toward the well. “And I would advise against eating the snow.”
“But I’m thirsty.”
He threw himself against the the lip of the well and flung the bucket over the side. It took an absurd amount of effort for him to start pulling on the rope to bring it back up.
“Leave the tether alone. Once you are in your room, I shall bring you some tea,” said the Leper. “Sarmenti—leave the tether alone. Do you have your key?”
The Jester let go of the rope and let the bucket drop into the well. It took an awfully long time to fish his key out of his pocket. He held it up like a prize when he proved successful.
“Give it to me, please.”
The key slipped from the Jester’s hand and into the well. It clattered against the stones once…twice…and then there was a long, long stretch of quiet before it reached the bottom with a soft splash.
“Oops,” he said.
The Leper did not say anything for one long, disbelieving moment. He was angry enough to drag the idiot clown across the yard, break a window and toss him into his room, innkeeper be damned. But it was sinful to let his unrighteous anger harm his neighbors, and so he took a deep breath and counted to five.
“That was very careless of you,” he said. “Have you no concern for your fellow man? Must you always chase your own pleasure above all else? You drown yourself in gin on the eve of an expedition and put your crew in peril. Now the poor innkeeper has no key for your room. Aren’t you ashamed of yourself?”
The Jester shrank into himself, and lowered his head. The Leper's words, it seemed, had at last penetrated the fool’s heart and made him contrite.
“I—I am very sorry,” said the Jester. “I shall sleep elsewhere tonight. And once we come back from the Warrens—and we will come back—I will dredge the well for the key on my own."
The Leper sighed. “This is an unnatural land. There is no reason to abandon yourself to treachery, too. You will spend the night in my rooms, and at daybreak we will make haste to the Warrens."
The Jester perked up immediately. Some lessons, it seemed, had to be learned more than once.
*~*~*
When the Leper unlocked his door, the Jester pushed past him and inspected every beam and floorboard thoroughly.
“I have never been in your rooms,” he said. “What shall I find in here?”
“A good night’s sleep and my very thin patience,” said the Leper. “Be a help and start the fire.”
The Jester did. The Leper settled himself into a chair and found his place in Inferno. When the fire was hot and bright and the room had warmed up a little, the Jester took his mandolin and began to tune it.
“It is far too late in the evening for that,” said the Leper, pulling it out of his hands. “People are sleeping.”
“Then what am I supposed to do?”
“You may sit quietly and not make yourself a nuisance,” he said.
The Jester stood very still and hovered over the Leper. When he did not pay the Jester’s agitation any mind, he huffed, and threw himself into the other chair. He made shadow puppets on the wall while the Leper tried to remember the translation for disideroso. Finally, he turned to the Leper to make conversation.
“Your parents shoulda called you…Chad.”
“Why Chad?”
“I don’t know.”
The Leper didn’t think that needed a response, and went back to his book.
No more than a tenth of an hour passed before the Jester tried again to make conversation. In the interim, he poked at the fire, looked out the window, hummed a Christian tune to himself, and leaned over the Leper’s shoulder to see what he was reading.
“Met that guy,” he mumbled. “Self-righteous bastard.”
The Leper looked up.
“Beg pardon?”
“Him. Dante.” He pointed to the book. “Spent a summer with him when I was a kid. Bitched the entire time about how salty the bread was. Wouldn’t shut up about the Pope. No offense.”
“The Pope is appointed by God, though he might be but a man,” said Baldwin. “A duty so sacred and vital to Christendom requires not only our devotion, but his vigilance.”
“Mmmf.”
He leaned further into the Leper’s shoulder to read the page.
“See, Inferno’s just a who’s who of all the people who personally wronged him,” said the Jester. “It’s ridiculous—you’ve got to know about Florentine gossip from forty years ago to really get it. Lord knows why it’s so popular. But it’s better than the other two. Why are you reading that dreck, anyway?”
The Leper had heard from the Crusader that the Jester had taken a shine to the Highwayman. Dreck this, and chutzpah that. The Crusader thought it supremely unsettling and unnatural, but the Leper had suspicions that he was jealous of the Highwayman’s company.
“I glean a little more meaning from Signor Alighieri’s work than that,” said the Leper. “He was a man unmoored from the city he held dear. He ventured to places unfamiliar and inhospitable. And yet, in spite of his exile, or perhaps because of it, he had a revelation about the human condition and the path of his own life and put it to verse. It is a remarkable feat, even if it is self-indulgent.”
“Remarkable, maybe, but still very, very stupid.”
“An insightful observation from the fellow who taught everyone at the tavern tonight a song about fellating one’s brothers-in-arms.”
“My purpose is to make merry. Not to say anything meaningful about the human condition. The human condition is miserable.”
He moved away from the Leper and flopped down on the floor.
“Poetizing all the people who hurt you into Hell doesn’t make them stop hurting you,” he added, quietly.
The fire popped. For a little while there was nothing but the sound of the logs jostling against each other, burning until they fell to the hearth and became coals among the ashes. The Leper read, but he could not find the concentration he’d had earlier in the evening—the pool was deep, still, but now he was a leaf, and not a ring. There lay in the corner of his eye the Jester, who held a mandolin made of air and plucked at strings made of vapor.
“I believe Dante had another thing to say, when he was writing his Comedy,” said the Leper, at last.
The Jester sat up.
“He begins in a dark forest and ends enraptured by God. His journey is one we all must take, and the way is not easy. But even in dire straits, there is hope for redemption. One may escape Hell unharmed if he has a guide.”
“Sounds like you’re trying to tell me a morality tale,” the Jester muttered.
“All good tales have morals, even if they are not what we’d like them to be,” said the Leper. “Now, come: Italian is not my strongest language, and this passage is vexing me quite terribly. Will you help me translate it?”
He patted the armrest on his chair. The Jester came willingly, and carefully perched himself beside him. As they crawled alongside Dante and Virgil, the Jester slipped further and further into the Leper’s lap.
“E ’l buon maestro: ‘Prima che più entre, sappi che se’ nel secondo girone,’ mi cominciò a dire,” murmured the Jester. “‘E sarai mentre che tu verrai ne l’orribil sabbione. Però riguarda ben; sì vederai cose che torrien fede al mio sermone.’”
The coals grew cold, the stars moved across the sky, and the book fell out of the Leper’s hands. At dawn, he was woken by the Jester peeling himself off his chest and dribbling cold water down his back. As he shook out his joints and changed his bandages, he felt irritated, but beneath the irritation he felt something that lain long dormant—something deep, strong, and wonderful.
In another lifetime he might have called it fondness.