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Everyone had their own routine that they would fall into when returning from an expedition out of the hamlet. Their own ways to try to shake off some of the horrors they had seen. But most would find themselves pulled towards the tavern even if they weren’t one to indulge in drink, the thrill of dice, or to seek pleasures of the flesh. It was the closest thing to the heart of the town that the hamlet possesses besides the statue of its former caretaker. Where everyone would meet and just chat. This is where the leper finds himself, as he stays mostly to himself as he typically does, merely listening to people chat and talk amongst themselves. He enjoyed listening to the presence of people. Hearing their chatter, hearing their laughter. It’s soothing to him, a pleasant reminder of life abandoned. A life left behind by a man who was already dead.
Lost in both his thoughts and the sounds of living people, the leper doesn’t notice the door swing open, nor the quietly ringing bells that accompany it. The jester has been a common visitor to the establishment, his presence being far from out of place. But tonight the fool’s voice raised when he asks the bartender for his typical order, and he’s given an answer he isn’t typically.
“The fuck do you mean, all you have is one bottle of wine!? You’ve got to be pulling my leg here!”
Sarmenti’s sharp voice pulled the leper out of his thoughts, his focus yanked to the two men at the bar, finding himself watching the encounter. The aging barkeep shrugs slightly at the jester’s words as he polishes the inside of a glass, staying true to what he had said, seeming at least somewhat used to disgruntled customers.
“Sorry. I hate to tell you since you're one of our best patrons, but that’s all we have.” He tells honestly, eyes drifting back down to the glass he is still cleaning. "There was quite the celebration while you were gone and everyone drank us dry. Be at least a week before we can restock."
With a jingle of bells, Sarmenti slams an elbow onto the bar, his face held in a gloved palm, muttering something that couldn’t be understood from where Baldwin is, at the back of the bar as he was.
“Now that ain’t very polite.” The barkeep replies back almost bitterly, finally having gotten the glass clean to his liking.
Sarmenti groans far back in his throat, both of his gnat hands pressing against his thin face, the tails of his cap even being pulled in what seems to be frustration.
“Fine! Whatever! Just give me the fucking thing. Cheap as dirt as it is, wine is wine, I guess.” The jester snaps in an exacerbated manner, throwing his hands in the air to admit defeat on this.
With the choice made, the barkeep reaches down below the bar and pulls out a single bottle of wine, setting it down on the bar. Even for where he was and with how poor his eyesight is, the leper can tell that it can’t be worth much.
"One gold coin"
"This can't cost more than a handful of copper pieces!" Sarmenti complains loudly, not caring that he is drawing attention to himself. That is if he is even aware of how loud his voice is getting, sometimes not realizing the volume of his own voice even in casual conversation.
"Two gold coins"
" You have to be fucking joking. "
"Four gold now."
Seeing the game that is being played here, the fool makes a gruff sound in his throat, clearly forcing his tongue to stay silent so he doesn’t cause another increase in the price for a wine that would likely make most men gag at the thought of drinking. Sarmenti fishes the four gold coins from a coin purse on his hip, placing them down on the bar and sliding them towards the aged man. Without the barkeep adding to the price again, the exchange is finally made, Sarmenti grabbing the bottle and leaving in a huff, his agitation obvious. The door slams shut behind him, only the sound of the jester’s bells signifying he was ever even there at all. But even with the jester’s presence gone from the tavern, still, the fool lingers in the leper’s mind. Sarmenti alone was able to do that to people he supposes, making himself linger in people’s minds long after he had left their presence. Baldwin knows more than well that the jester can handle his own, but with the huff the other man left in, he can’t help but worry. A troubling feeling, most of all when it comes to Sarmenti. It was a feeling the man often stirred up in all he interacted with. Be it in how he laughs at his own misfortunes, his own pain, or how he barely values his own life. Or in all the many other things that he does, that would worry most people, even those that care nothing about him. And while it’s clear that Sarmenti cares less than nothing about the leper, Baldwin still can’t help but worry about him.
The leper eventually lets out a long sigh, not knowing he had been holding one until he let it out. While he knows that Sarmenti won’t much appreciate his concern, he would rather the jester not be alone while in clearly such a poor state of mind. And while he knows that the jester would be anything but happy for his company, he can at least keep an eye on the man to keep him from doing anything that might put his life more on the line than it typically is.
Standing slowly from where he had been sitting, he leaves a few gold pieces on the table, as a way to give thanks to the bartender for even letting him stay there even if didn’t buy a single thing. Them tolerating his presence is service enough.
When he exits the bar, the jester is nowhere to be found in the square of the hamlet, which doesn’t surprise the leper in the least. From Baldwin’s understanding, the man often preferred to be alone when he drank, which was often, with Sarmenti doing quite little to deny that he might have a problem when it comes to his drinking. But the habit was paid for with the fool’s own money, so the heir lacked a leg to stand on when it came to sending the tippler to the sanitarium to at least lessen his habit.
It takes some asking around to get an idea where Sarmenti might have gone, but with the huff the jester left the bar in, enough people took note of where the man stormed off to. And all point in a worrying direction. Not to the Abbey where he could climb high into the rafters, nor the graveyard which the jester was sometimes found sleeping in, sprawled out in the forlorn arms of a carved angel. No. Everyone said that the jester went away from the hamlet, towards the weald. The knowledge puts an uneasy feeling in Baldwin’s stomach. As if he hadn’t already been worried about Sarmenti. If he hadn’t been sure about his plan about making certain the other man was alright and more or less stable, he was quite sure now. He has an obligation to at least try to usher the harlequin somewhere safer to drink. Where he wouldn’t be putting his life in danger. Taking a breath to steel himself, he heads off in the direction that all said the fool had gone in.
The closer he gets to the weald, the tighter the feeling in his chest gets. The Weald is a dangerous place, something that no one should wander close to unless they were aware of what they were getting into. So to know that is the direction Sarmenti went when his plans were clearly to drink was of great concern. The sun is starting to set, casting shadows long and dramatic along the ground. And he starts to hear music. Baldwin almost has to wonder if he really is hearing it at first, but… As he gets further from the hamlet, the music he hears gets all the louder, clearer.
In a way, the music becomes his guide, leading him by the ear to where the jester is, where he is hiding. And while beautiful, still it stirs worry in the leper’s belly. If he could use it to find the fool, then any brigand or wild beast that heard it could as well. A fact that drove the leper forward, concern growing the further from the hamlet the music led him. The trees become more plentiful, and the jester finally comes into view.
Sarmenti has his back facing Baldwin, the jester sitting upon a rotten stump as he plays, making music that is one of the sweetest things the leper has ever heard him play. The jester likely does not know the leper is near, only pausing in his playing of the singing strings to grab the cheap wine he had bought, swirling it in the bottle for a moment, before swallowing down some of what remained in the bottle. The man was clearly drinking just for the relief it gave him, not for any kind of pleasure. Or at least not for any sort of pleasure that Baldwin knows of. But that is not the thing that catches the former king’s attention most strongly. It’s that the jester’s hair is unlike anything the leper has ever seen before.
It’s long and it cascades off of the jester’s shoulders and flows down his back, seeming so very soft. It’s dark in color, though he can’t tell if it is truly black or brown in the dwindling light, with pale streaks of white mixed throughout it. Oh, how the leper would like to run the tips of his ruined fingers through it, to try vainly to feel its softness.
A branch cracks underfoot, the sound cutting through the music that filled the air.
Sarmenti flinches at the sound, instinctively twisting about to take a look at whatever was behind him, a glint of fear obvious in dark eyes. Fear that so quickly turned to hate. Just like his long hair, his face was patterned, the skin on parts of his face much lighter than the rest. The things those pale patches of skin silently tell, why the jester would prefer to die than to let anyone see his bare face. A face that has just how much he despises the man before him written all over it. He doesn't bother asking why the leper, the royal , is here, skipping straight to the threats he must have wanted to utter since the first time he laid eyes on him, dirk already in hand.
"If you don't keep your damn fucking mouth shut about this, I swear to the fucking light I will gut you worse than a pig!" The hand that so tightly clutches his blade trembles, either from the force of his grip or overwhelming emotion, Baldwin being unsure of which.
It takes the leper a moment to find his voice again, trying to pull his mind away from the face that stared back at him with such malice.
"I wasn't trying-" He barely manages to get out a few words before he's interrupted, the jester’s words cutting through his own like a well-sharpened blade.
"Don't give me that crap!" The fool snarls, practically spitting out the words. “You Were trying, and guess fucking what!? You succeed! You’ve seen the fool’s face! And now he’s barely keeping himself from slitting your throat! Tell me! Was it worth it?!”
Sarmenti’s voice is shaking though Baldwin can’t be sure if it’s from anger or some other emotion. And what that other emotion could be is lost on him.
No. It wasn’t worth it. Not worth violating the paper-thin trust the fool before him had felt towards him before this point. A trust that will likely never be regained. And the leper can’t muster up feelings of anger towards the jester. This was his own fault. And his own alone. He had come here to do a good deed, and had just ended up making a bad situation worse. Baldwin shakes his head.
Sarmenti scoffs from deep in his throat, and though Baldwin is too far away to see it, he can only assume that the jester is rolling his eyes.
“You're a piss poor liar and a damn Idiot if you think I’m a fool enough to believe that.” He practically growls, the contempt he feels nearly dripping from his words. “You fucking royals always try to fucking stick your noses in other people’s business where it doesn’t belong and isn’t at all wanted.”
The words are spit out as if they are poison on his tongue, Baldwin suddenly noticing how Sarmenti hasn’t moved his eyes from him. His chest seems to heave as well, as if struggling to stay calm.
“I promise that I’m not going to tell anyone.” A loud snort leaves the jester at that, still glaring down Baldwin.
“Get out of here before I change my mind and free your neck from the weight of your head .” The malice is obvious, a final warning being given to him.
So Baldwin turns and quickly leaves, not wanting the jester to think that he was trying to spite him by lingering longer than he has to. As he quickly returns back to the hamlet, the music never starts again.
----
The next morning, the jester is nowhere to be seen. Nor the next day, or the day after that. The man at arms quickly starts to worry himself sick over the man seeming to have just vanished. As he asked around, nearly begging for information about fool, and who last saw him, Baldwin admitted that he had likely been the last to see him. While there was shame in the admittance, there was greater shame in that he couldn’t tell the man that he was the reason the jester had run away, that he might be the reason he will never come back. That he had seen the fool's face.