Servants and Followers (The Legends of Arria, Volume 2) (26 page)

Fato yelped when a passing clown swiped at
his tail feathers playfully. “That is an insult!” He cried, turning
around towards the clown.

“
Let it go, Fato.” Basha
insisted as a gong sounded, startling them all before they hurried
to take their seats with the rest of the guests.

“
Ladies and gentlemen, let
the feasting begin!” Lord Fobata shouted after a few minutes,
arising from his seat at the far end of the hall and bowing his
head before the servants stepped forward from the arcade and spread
throughout the hall, dispensing the first course already in their
hands. The jugglers came first, followed by the musicians, and then
the acrobats walked about the hall on stilt pants before jumping
down, leaping and tumbling on the floor. They built themselves up
into a pyramid as course after course was served.

“
I’m full,” Basha
whispered, patting his stomach in contentment.

“
Well, you should not have
tried the quiche, then,” Fato muttered, chomping down on swan
meat.

“
For such a small bird, you
sure have a large stomach.” Oaka remarked on the other
side.

“
What is that supposed to
mean?” Fato asked, glaring up at Oaka.

Basha glanced up as well, and noticed a
woman walking through the arcade. He gulped. “I thought I saw…” He
said, turning his head as he tried to follow her passage through
the passageway.

“
What?” Monika asked,
looking up at him as well.

“
That woman was Nisa.” He
said, standing up. “She was a woman who was slightly older than me
in town, not really extraordinary, though I have thought I saw
her…” The night the rats had chased him through Mila Forest, he
wanted to say.

“
Helllooo!” said a voice
Basha did not recognize, though as he turned to face the
white-haired man, with traces of red and black in his hair,
standing before him, a bard holding a guitar, he recognized him. “I
have seen you somewhere before, have I not?” The bard
asked.

“
Have I seen you somewhere
before?” Fato parroted back, causing the bard to laugh.

“‘
The wise fool, best
among men,
He walked along the road and
sang,
Til-dee-um-bum...’” Basha heard the
song playing in his head. “Paracleus?” Basha asked.

“
Paracleus, what a
strange name.” Fato said, shaking his head.

“
That’s it!”
Paracleus cried, turning around to strum his guitar and face the
crowd. “Ladies and gentlemen, I stand before you all here today to
introduce to you a sweet young man I first met several months ago
in the sleepy village of Coe Baba. He sat before me, all forlorn
and lonesome, ‘woe is me’-ing over a pretty young girl (one
assumes) who had not come to see him on his birthday, which should
have been a most joyful occasion.” The bard said, as every eyeball
in the hall turned on Basha and started laughing.

Basha sank in his
seat, as Fato laughed and Oaka tried to contain his shock. “Ladies
and gentlemen, I ask him
,
is this young woman sitting next
to him now,” The bard indicated Monika, “the young woman that he
loved then?” Paracleus asked, turning on Basha.

“
Uh...no,” Basha
said, blushing as he tried to speak in as low a voice as
possible.

“
What was that?”
Paracleus asked, strumming his guitar. “I can’t hear you!” He and
almost every other voice in that hall cried then.

“
I said no!” Basha
cried as Monika thumped her head down in embarrassment.

“
That’s it!”
Paracleus cried, and danced off, strumming his guitar. “‘Too-loo,
Too-ra, Too-ray,” He sang, spinning about, “‘I dance in the hall of
the lords today,’ mm-hmm,” He sang to the ladies watching him.
“‘Too-loo, Too-ra, Too-ray, I sing of the rain on the sunny
plains.’” He mimed as he skipped along. “‘Where will I be tomorrow?
Oh, I care not a wig, not a fig,’ uh-huh,” He sang as he turned
around, “‘Though I have great stress,’” He jumped up backwards so
that his bottom landed on top of a table, and groaned as he crossed
his legs. “‘Though I am under duress,’” He griped as he pulled out
a fork from underneath his bottom, which caused everyone else to
laugh, “‘Still I am glad to say that I am a bard!’” He cried,
finishing off his song as he flung himself backwards to lie
spread-eagle on top of the table, his hands and back scattering
plates, bowls, and cups everywhere.

Almost
e
verybody clapped
and laughed
in astonishment
after a moment’s silence, everybody, that is, except for
Basha,
Oaka, and
Monika,
who were lowering their heads
slightly so as not to be recognized in the crowd.
Fato didn’t help them, though, as he
was one of the loudest guffawers who was even attracting
attention.
The bard got up, and bowed to
the assembled crowd, apologizing for the meals he had destroyed.
But Basha thought that he had noticed something, as the bard was
jumping off of the table
…
something red, and flicking out
from the bard’s bottom just before the man pulled up his tights
slightly. Basha forgot all about Nisa as he wondered if he was
seeing things.

“
Paracleus!”
Basha
called as he stood up, and went after the bard.

“
Oh, what is it, what do you
want?” Paracleus said, as he turned around and faced Basha in the
corridor outside of the dining hall. “Is it to complain about my
tomfoolery? Well, I’m sorry, but if you want to avoid becoming the
butt of any joke for a desperate bard who is looking to generate
some laughs with his audience, then don’t mope!” He
cried.

“
I just wanted to ask you…who is
Jobe?” Basha managed to say. Actually, he was going to ask about
that flash of red he had seen underneath the bard’s tights, but
then he had recalled that Paracleus was the one who had called him
a ‘dreary, nasally Jobe’, same as the name of Jona’s
son.

Paracleus sighed and
shook his head. “Jobe is a poor bard’s son who doesn’t know what it
means to be a bard, just like his father, and that is why he was
the butt of my joke about you.” Paracleus patted Basha on the
shoulder. “Now go back in there and eat, be with your girl! I am
going to leave here early tomorrow morning anyway, and so you don’t
have to worry about seeing me ever again! People will soon forget
about what I have just said, and you can rest assured, the joking
will soon turn around against them one of these days.”

Basha
frowned. “Monika is not my girl, she is just my friend!
I still love the girl back in Coe
Baba, the one you heard about, and I intend to marry her as soon as
I complete my quest.”

“
A
quest
, is it? Oh, how noble
of you, how magnanimous!” Paracleus snorted. “Oh, that certainly
does sound fabulous, what a remarkable thing you are doing! Maybe
you will become famous, eh, and the minstrels will sing all about
you and your exploits! The minstrels certainly do like to boast
about that sort of thing all of the time, they cannot get enough of
heroes and heroics. Makes a great big wind for them to blow about,
and they certainly do blow hard. Maybe that girl in Coe Baba will
finally look up to you, eh?” Paracleus smiled.

“
I don’t
know what you are talking about.”
Basha said, glaring down at the ground.

“
Of
course you don’t, poor pretty boy.” Paracleus simpered.

“
In any
case, I wanted to clarify that with you, and tell you that I think
I met Jobe’s mother Jona in Coe Anji. She said that I reminded her
of her son.” Basha said.

Paracleus snorted
again and said, “Yes, I met both Jobe and his mother Jona in Coe
Anji, and I wouldn’t boast about being compared with Jobe. Just get
back to the feast, boy.”

Basha
glared at the bard, wishing that he could think of a witty repartee
to lash back at him, but then he turned around,
and decided to follow Paracleus’s suggestion, as
he couldn’t think of anything better to do at the moment. He may
have been slightly drunk by this point.

Paracleus shook his head and laughed as he returned to his
quarters,
getting ready to
leave. Wherever he went, he was always leaving, never able to
settle down for very long. It had always been that way, ever since
he had lost his home a long time ago.

“
I cannot believe
that the captain of the guards would want to borrow a scribe like
me in the first place,” Hava grumbled to himself as he picked at
his food while Marlo the steward sat across from him, drinking
wine. “That man doesn’t need a secretary--his duties do not require
a lot of paperwork. I think he just needs someone to yell at on a
regular basis, and take notes whenever he feels like complaining.
And he does complain. That man has an enormous ego the size
of--he’s not here right behind me, is he?” Hava asked, looking
around behind him nervously.

“
No, Goga is too far
away to hear what you are saying, relax.” Marlo said, shaking his
head. “I understand your frustration, I do, working with a
disagreeable man. When I was 18, I still had high hopes of leaving
Coe Aela. It was worse in those days. I thought that if I refined
and dedicated myself to working hard, I could be transferred--as a
butler--to a higher household. However, I am satisfied now with the
honorable post of Coe Aela’s steward. Fobata is not so bad,
compared to his father.” He remarked.

“
I came here to serve
a Duke.” Hava insisted. “I did not come here to serve Goga.” He
sighed, and laid back in his seat. “Hopefully, His Grace will tell
Captain Goga that he has no right to borrow me, and he will put me
back in with the rest of the scribes.”

“
Don’t hold your
breath.” Marlo muttered. “If Captain Goga had been a regular
captain of the guards, Fobata wouldn’t have allowed it.
However
,
Captain Goga is not a regular captain of the guards, and
Fobata has to be wary of keeping good relations with the
man.”

“
What do you mean?”
Hava asked.

“
It is nothing,”
Marlo said dismissively. “Besides, our lord doesn’t have the luxury
of noticing little things like yourself. Right now, he’s distracted
over worry about the group that arrived today. They’re all young,
yet they’re all supposed to be…troublesome.” Marlo muttered the
last to himself.

“
Troublesome in what
way?” Hava asked.

“
I’m not allowed to
tell you that.” Marlo snapped.

“
I just want to
know!” Hava cried defensively.

“
You ask too many
questions.” Marlo said, and sighed. “I mean, it’s just two boys, a
girl, and a falcon. I even questioned the girl Gnat after she
brought them to this hall from their rooms, and she told me that
they were all harmless. Yet none of us
,
especially
Fobata
,
can take that for granted. Fobata wants to know more about
them, and so I’m supposed to be spying on them.” Marlo grunted.
“Yet I cannot because I have too much work to do. How am I supposed
to be spying on them if I must take care of the whole household? I
must have someone else do it, but there are so few people I can
trust.”

Hava nodded and
reached for his glass of wine, but then he
spotted
…
“Janus!” He cried to a brown-haired man in his mid-twenties,
and turned to the steward. “Marlo, I want you to meet a friend of
mine
,
Janus, a good fellow.”

As Janus approached from the far end of
the table where he had been clearing off silverware and plates,
Marlo frowned, wondering how long the man had been working down
there. Still, if Hava trusted him, perhaps it did not matter that
the man might have overheard their conversation. They did not
really talk about much.

Janus stopped just beside Marlo and
bobbed his head at the steward, smiling as he waited for his
superior to speak. “So, your name is Janus…it is a unique name, is
it not?” Marlo asked, appraising the other man.

“
Yes, but I cannot
help it.” Janus shrugged. “It was given to me, and so I shall use
it as necessary. However, I thought you knew every servant in the
castle.” His eyes gleamed.

Marlo frowned and cleared his throat.
“It is difficult to keep names and faces straight in my memory. I
do recall, however, that you are fairly new around here.” Janus
seemed to act unabashedly honest, frank, and humble, yet he could
be a disingenuous man whose smile was more of a smirk. Marlo had to
be a good judge of character when it came to his work, and he did
not recall hiring Janus. It must have been one of the lower butlers
who had hired this man, for Marlo never would have.

“
So am I, Marlo, but
that did not stop you from befriending me.” Hava remarked, pointing
at Janus. “This man has treated me likewise. He works well enough
without protest, and he deserves kindness. Perhaps if you give him
that
assignment that has been troubling
you, he will not fail you.” Hava winked.

Marlo studied Janus again. “Will you
work for me without question, and do what I ask of you?” He asked,
deciding to take a chance. Perhaps Hava was right, and he was being
too harsh on Janus. However, if Hava was wrong...perhaps it might
be worth the risk to find out the truth about Janus.