James Patterson - The Jester

But just as quickly, he pulled off of her, grunting back a laugh, leaving her trembling. He pushed his wet mouth close to her face.

“Do not misunderstand me, wife,” he hissed in her ear. “I did not mean I desire your cunt… I meant the relic .”

THE HULKING MAN in the sheepskin overvest pounded in the fence post with well-timed strokes of his heavy mallet.

I crept from the woods, still in the torn remnants of my jester’s garb, carrying Emilie’s cloak. I had clung to the forest for a week now. Hungry, avoiding pursuit. I had nothing. Not a denier or a possession.

“You’ll never mend a fence by lazing away like a fat cow,” I said boldly.

The burly man put down his mallet and arched his thick, bushy eyebrows. He stepped forward to the challenge. “Look what’s crawled out of the woods… some scrawny squirrel in a fairy’s costume. You look like you wouldn’t know a day’s work if it jumped up and strummed your dick.”

“I could say the same for you, Odo, if it wasn’t always in your hand.”

The big smith eyed me closely. “Do I know you, malt-worm?”

“Aye,” I answered. “Unless, since I’ve seen you last, your brains have grown as soft as your gut.”

“Hugh…?” the smith exclaimed.

We embraced, Odo lifting me high off the ground. He shook his head in astonishment.

[240] “We heard you were dead, Hugh. Then in Treille, wearing the costume of a fool. Then word that you were in Borée. That you killed that prick Norcross. Which of these are true ?”

“All true, Odo. Except for rumors of my demise.”

“Look at me, old friend. You killed the duke’s chatelain?”

I took a breath and smiled, like a little brother embarrassed by praise. “I did.”

“Ha, I knew you’d outfox them.” The smith laughed.

“I have much to tell, Odo. And much to regret, I feel.”

“We too, Hugh. Come, sit down. All I can offer you is this rickety fence. Not as fine as Baldwin ’s cushions…” We leaned against it. Odo shook his head. “Last we saw you, you ran into the woods like a devil, chasing the ghost of your wife.”

“She was no ghost, Odo. I knew that she lived, and she did.”

Odo’s eyes widened. “Sophie lives?”

“I found her. In a cell in Borée.”

“Sonofabitch!” the smith grunted. His eyes lit up, delighted. Then he searched mine, serious. “Yet I see you’ve crawled back out of the woods alone.”

I bowed my head. “I found her, Odo, but only long enough for her to die in my arms. They held her as a hostage, thinking that we had something of theirs, something of great value. I’ve come back to tell her brother, Matthew, of her fate.”

Odo shook his head. “I’m sorry, Hugh. That won’t be possible.”

“Why? What’s happened, Odo?”

“ Baldwin ’s men were here again. For you… They said you were a murderer and a coward. They said you ran from the Crusade and killed the lord’s chatelain. Then they ransacked the village. They said any who harbored you would be tried on pain of death. A few of us stood up…”

A grim, ugly stench sent a panic through my stomach. “What is that stench, Odo?”

“Matthew was one who stood up for you,” the smith went on. “He said you had been wronged. That the chatelain had [241] burned your house and child, and taken your wife, and if Norcross was dead, it was justly deserved for what he had done. He showed them the inn, which he was starting to rebuild. These men were horrible, Hugh. They hung Matthew up. Then they stretched him. His neck in a noose and his legs tied to their mounts. They whipped the horses… until his body split in two.”

“No!” A pain shot through my chest. Another weight seemed to crush my heart. Poor Matthew. Why him? Now another was dead… because of me. This nightmare had to end!

I raised my head. A terrible fear pulsed up in my gut. “You did not answer me… What is that smell?”

Odo shook his head. “They burned the town, Hugh.”

I WALKED WITH ODO into the desolate village, the place that only two years before I had called my home.

All around, fields, cottages, and grain holds were no more than mounds of cinder and stone. Dwellings were either caved in and reduced to rubble, or in some beginning stage of being rebuilt. We passed the mill, once the finest structure in town, it’s majestic wheel now a heap of ruin in the stream.

People put down their hammers, stopped chopping wood.

A group of children shouted and pointed. “Look, it’s Hugh. He’s come back. It’s Hugh!”

Everyone looked up in disbelief. People rushed up to me. “Is it you, Hugh? Have you truly come back?”

A kind of procession picked up around me. What a sight I must have been, in my ragged checkered tunic, my torn green hose. I marched through the cluttered street directly to the square. My last time here, I had been in such a haze, having found out what had happened to my wife and son. Now everything was new, unreal, and so very sad.

A clamor built up, some crying, “Glory to God, it’s Hugh. He’s back,” while others spat in my path. “Go away, Hugh. You’re the devil. Look what you’ve done.”

By the time I reached the square, maybe seventy people, most everyone in town, had formed a ring around me.

[243] I gazed at our inn. Two new walls of rough logs had been erected, supported by columns of stone. Matthew had been rebuilding it, better and sturdier than it was before. A flood of anger rushed through me. God damn them! I was the one who killed Norcross. I was the one who infiltrated the court. What right did they have to take vengeance out on this town?

A rush of tears welled in my eyes. They streamed down my cheeks. I began to weep, weep in a way I hadn’t done since I was a small child.

God damn you , Baldwin. And God damn me , for my stupid pride.

I fell to my knees. My wife, my son… Matthew… Everything was ruined. So many had died.

The ring of townspeople stood there and let me weep. Then I felt a hand on my shoulder. I choked back sobs and looked up. It was Father Leo. I had never paid much heed to him, with his little domed head, his sermons. Now I prayed he would not remove his hand, for it was all that kept me from keeling over in a ball of shame and grief.

The priest lovingly squeezed my shoulder. “This is Baldwin ’s doing, Hugh, not yours.”

“Aye, it is Baldwin ’s work,” someone shouted from the crowd. “Hugh meant us no harm. It is not his fault.”

“We pay our shares, and this is how the bastard repays us,” a woman wailed.

“Hugh must go,” another said. “He killed Norcross. He will cause us all to burn.”

“Yes, he did kill Norcross,” echoed another. “God’s praise to him! Who among us has stood up like that?”

Voices rose. The shouting built into a clamor-some for me, some against. A few, including Odo and the priest, begged for reason while others started throwing pebbles and stones at me.

“Have pity on us, Hugh,” someone wailed. “Please, go, before the knights return!”

[244] In the midst of the clamor, a woman’s voice shouted above the din. Everyone turned and grew quiet.

It was Marie, the miller’s wife. I remembered her kind face. She and Sophie were best friends; they had been to the well together the day her son was drowned.

“We’ve lost more than any of you.” She scanned the crowd. “Two sons. One to Baldwin. One to the war. Plus our mill… But Hugh has suffered more than we have! You point your scorn at him because we are all too frightened to point it toward the one who deserves it. It is Baldwin who deserves our rage, not Hugh.”