Free In a Dark Wood by Michael Cadnum Page A

on sheep or the disease that made the barley grow in patches like mange.
    Hugh unbuckled Geoffrey’s sword belt. All of this experience, this closeness to a man like Geoffrey, was a priceless education. Hugh knew it and no doubt believed that God had picked him out for this special honor. Geoffrey hated to chide Hugh, but it was his responsibility. “Sometimes, Hugh, you let an expression of pride show on your face.” Hugh’s face was swollen, his eyes downcast.
    What showed in Hugh’s manner today was not pride, after all. I am a mortal man, Hugh, Geoffrey nearly said aloud. A mortal, sinful man.
    Why, Geoffrey demanded of himself, did I take Hugh with me yesterday? Why did I allow the young man to guess at my own wayward nature? Don’t think ill of me, Hugh, Geoffrey wanted to say. “Are you feeling well, Hugh?”
    â€œQuite well, my lord.”
    â€œYou’re sure?”
    If there was going to be a period of shame between them, of averted gazes, it would announce itself now. Hugh met his eyes and said, “Just a little weary this morning, my lord.” Geoffrey considered this: Hugh was showing a grown man’s care with words.
    Geoffrey consoled himself with work.
    This was his place. Sitting in a corner of the great hall, wedge of cheese in his hand, listening to a report on the pavage for the city streets, a tax collected to allow the public way to be cobbled. The clerk spoke in numbers, numbers that described the income of the city and its power. Geoffrey listened, feeling that even as they spoke, cobblestones in distant riverbeds began to glow, began to work fitfully to one side or another. Just as the hairs on the head are numbered.

14
    It was raining out. The dim pricks of light from three windows glistened on the black paving stones. Everywhere else was black, inside-of-skull black, the black of the deepest point of a scabbard.
    His wife crooked a finger, and he entered her bedchamber. She wore a sleeping cap of light gray, a sash across her forehead and a flower at the side, a bright pink too unsubtle to be one of nature’s. She ruffled the fur of a dog.
    â€œI’ve been waiting for you to say something,” she said.
    â€œAbout what?”
    â€œNo doubt they will discuss me with the king. Oh, Geoffrey is doing well, Your Highness, but his wife is a tiresome hag who burdens him with a tedious Fool only she thinks is funny, and he can’t stand to sit at the table with her.”
    â€œNobody else thinks he’s funny?”
    â€œThe problem, my dear Geoffrey, is you. You think your own thoughts, have your own opinions, your own worries, and you don’t care whether someone right beside you is flayed alive with shame.”
    Geoffrey began to compose a speech. An apology, blended with a warning that he had many responsibilities.
    â€œYou may go,” she said.
    What could he say? He left her and wandered the corridor aimlessly. He could strangle the dog. He could strangle her. Both pointless activities, which would probably give him very little pleasure.
    A familiar figure stood, one arm against a wall, staring down into the black courtyard. Perhaps to be a Fool was to be cursed. Perhaps it was to accept a form of self-denial—to parody the essentially matter-of-fact, to mimic the tedious. But if he destroyed the Fool, he would hurt his wife in a way she would never expect.
    The Fool wore a peasant cap, pulled over his head, so that his head resembled a gourd. His tunic was pied, red and black, and his stockings were black and white, a motley that was almost elegant. He had dark eyebrows and bright eyes and seemed to have applied some art to his lips. They were as red as slapped flesh.
    â€œMy father loved to laugh,” Geoffrey was surprised to hear himself say. “It’s strange. In every way I have surpassed my father’s accomplishments, and yet he surpasses me in the pleasure he drew from life.” The Fool’s eyes