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“Was that rhyme intentional? I cannot tell.”
He’d been staring at me, his features anchored. But then, his mouth twitched. “To say the least, I’m not in a rhyming mood.”
“I don’t believe that for a second,” I stated. “But I do believe your threats are born of love. Likewise, you’ll have to believe I’m not a wretch. I agree to your terms, jester. Let us consider this a verbal pledge.”
My reply unlocked his jaw. So it began.
Poet leaned forward, arms bracketed on his thighs. He told me how his parents had abandoned him at a midnight festival and about Old Jinny, the woman who stitched my leg. How she’d found Poet in a bassinet behind a pavilion tent, raised him in this cottage, and then helped to bring up Nicu after the child’s mother had left him on their doorstep.
Poet clarified Nicu’s condition. Not in detail but enough to grasp the situation.
A memory cramped Poet’s face. “When Nicu was two, I took him to a midnight festival for the first time. I’ll never forget his look of wonder, so beautiful on him.” The jester’s eyes glazed over, remote and haunted. “But I glanced away for a mere second. When I turned back, he’d disappeared.”
Poet withdrew further, deeper into that scene, as if he wasn’t in the room any longer. “I can still see it, the empty spot where my son should have been standing—this patch of grass shadowed by someone tipping back a tankard. And I loathe how long it took my goddamn legs to move, and then I was racing, running, raging. The festival stole him from me and wouldn’t give him back, and everywhere I looked, he wasn’t there. I killed my voice shouting his name, and I hated the sound of it, but I hated more the sound of him not answering.”
His mouth curled as though he’d swallowed something putrid. “Fests are magnificent and deplorable. It’s where I discovered my passion and my wrath, this place where artists thrived and others suffered. I made sure not to show Nicu the horrible parts, but as I searched for him, I saw what I’d seen many times. The people this world calls ‘born fools’ were being treated like abominations. They were forced to fight, with spectators betting on them and cheering as the opponents bashed in one another’s skulls, because the prisoners’ only choices were to either use their fists or lose them on the chopping block.
“An elderly man, who ranted to himself whilst onlookers baited him into further confusion, until he got so agitated and nervous that he pissed himself. And a woman in the stocks being hit with rotten food by children who wanted to win a prize.”
My chest hurt. I saw these horrific visions in my mind, each one playing out.
Poet swallowed. “I didn’t fully comprehend my son’s condition at the time, but I had an inkling. I imagined that fate befalling Nicu. And minutes later, I found him climbing onto an unsuspecting fortune-teller’s lap. Furious doesn’t begin to express my reaction.” He ground his teeth. “I yelled at my son, scared him. He recoiled because he didn’t understand, because I was a prick of a father, and I didn’t have a clue what the fuck I was doing.”
He shook his head. “Nicu wouldn’t speak for the rest of the day, afraid to make me angry again. I confess, I’ve been pushed near to my limits, but I’ve not raised my voice to him since.”
The jester craned his head at me. “He’s my heartbeat. He’s my greatest achievement.” He narrowed his eyes, slitting them like blades, and his voice sliced through the room. “He’smine.”
His words grew fangs, the implication hard to miss.
Nicu was his. Not the Crown’s.
The jester spoke with low, deadly calm. “I couldn’t mean this more, Your Highness. I won’t let anyone take my son from me. Let no one say he’s damaged, inferior, or unworthy because his mind bends in a different way. He doesn’t deserve to be owned or ridiculed.
“The cardinal question is this: What are fools? Are they madmen who mutilate their own flesh? Those who see what isn’t there? Those whose minds drift in a fog? Some of the mad are indeed violent and must be separated so they can’t hurt others or themselves. But dungeons are hardly a humane solution. Likewise, those whom our world calls ‘half-wits’ and ‘simpletons’ don’t deserve what they get—no born soul does. Unfortunately, we lump everyone together as property because anything unnatural is unnatural, as the Seasons say.
“My opinion? A fool is a man who believes glory can be found at the tip of a sword instead of on the tip of his tongue. ’Tis a person who judges with their eyes closed. ’Tis people who invent aberrations from speculation and rumors. ’Tis bred from ignorance. That is life’s cruel trick.
“Being close to my sovereigns is a blessing and curse, you see. For I have influence there. If the Crown adores me, I’ll convince them to change their law. I have no qualms with the Royals except for this one thing, and therefore, I have a thousand qualms with them. They want my stories, but not my son’s.”
His features hardened into cement. “But someday I will force-feed it to them. Someday that’s how this shall end, for I’m the puppet who holds the strings.”
I stared at him. His performance at the feast had captivated me, but it did not compare to this reality.
Questions abounded. Thehows,whys, andwhatsof his upbringing.
“The puppet who holds the strings,” I repeated. “You have power but no freedom.”
“You live a half-lie, speak half-truths,” he agreed.
“And though they want you to be honest, you cannot speak your mind. They don’t want the real you. They want a leader who thinks as they do.”
“You play a role.”
“Because if not, they’ll punish you.”
Our gazes stayed pinned, nailed to one another. Rain smacked the window, and thunder cracked through the sky. A significant amount of time passed, tempting me to say more, because it had felt liberating not to hold back.
I returned to the topic at hand. “Does Nicu know about his condition?”
