Tales of the Zodiac - The Goat's Tale (4 page)

I have only stood on the red rug of this royal reception room twice. And both times have been as a winner. The atmosphere this time, though, is markedly different to the first. I can’t imagine why.

The first time I was invited for an audience with the king, it was as a winner of The Prince Libran Scholarship. This scholarship is, as the name suggests, the right to study at the Prince Libran School. This establishment is where the sons of all the most important people in the land are educated, indoctrinated and prepared, at the very least, for the life of a landholder. The scholarship, meanwhile, provides this same opportunity to twelve children who are
not
the sons of the most important people in the kingdom. The desire to educate children from all walks of life is also demonstrated in the school’s motto: “Serving the best so that the best shall serve.” 

Initially, the scholarships and the social conscience that they imply won the king much support from the peasants. However, this same support is not to be found inside the iron gates of the school. There, elitism pervades and the lucky scholars soon find themselves surrounded by people - masters
and
students - who have been raised to fear the poor, who treat them with a mixture of disgust and disdain, at best to be avoided and at worst to be exterminated. Few within the school actually live by the school’s motto, bullying is rife and, as a result, the scholarship winners’ numbers slowly dwindle. Only the most stubborn remain, alienated from old friends and ostracised by the new.

Five years ago when we twelve lucky peasants were invited to see the king, this same room seemed smaller than it is now, bustling with proud parents, busy attendants and schoolmasters. The long, dark oak table that now stands barren was, that day, so full of beige food as to be almost grotesque. It seemed a sickening waste. Some amongst us, especially the ones who’d been raised solely on goat produce, had not even contemplated food of this ilk before: breads and cakes and pies stacked higher and decorated more elaborately than could ever be necessary. 

Accompanying the food was more music and mirth than a boy such as I could ever be completely comfortable with. Jugglers, jesters, troubadours all lined up one after another to display rare skills that seemed to be of even rarer usefulness. Singers and poets were there to sing praise to the king, and I was even introduced to the strange custom of throat singing. Throat singing hadn’t been the only odd, highborn custom that I’d come across that day; the air was stained with the smoky perfume of burning flowers whilst the legendary knight, Ser Torryan, The Bull, demonstrated quite a skill for weightlifting. It was, all in all, an afternoon of colour and noise and excitement. Very different to today.

On
that
day, even the fat king did not appear entirely uninterested, managing to say something that was vaguely encouraging and to produce a few smiles that were not obviously fake. Meanwhile, our new headmaster squirted some congratulatory words out of the side of his face and the high priest, somewhat predictably, suggested that we should thank God for something. However, amongst this general insipidness, there was one much more telling speech – the cold, hard one barked out by the king’s advisor, Vesta. It would be the one that would turn out to most accurately describe the experience that awaited us naïve young peasants.

“You are here because you have the potential to one day be of use to our kingdom. You would not be here otherwise. The road ahead of you will be hard. Very hard. But there is nothing easy about public service. Many of your predecessors have left the school before their graduation. Be in no doubt that these people are failures. If you feel that the learning is too hard, or that the prejudices of others are too upsetting, then I ask you to consider only one thing – the alternative. For the majority of you, that alternative is a lifetime of drudgery. If you take but one thing from today then let it be this – that school is not there so that you can be happy, it is there so that you can be ready.”

It is doubtful that any of us actually believed the seemingly hostile words of this most severe, most unusual woman. I, personally, had felt that she was simply trying to intimidate us, to make us uncomfortable. It took me several years to understand that everything she had said was actually true. It was, nevertheless, only in the awe-shocked aftermath of that speech that the room felt anything like as empty and cavernous as it does today. 

The white walls, made from the distinctive white stone of Tallakarn, only add to this impression of size and emptiness. Dark, iron weapons hang on the walls to the back and sides of me. They appear tiny and pointless against the vastness of the room. In fact, there are only a few items that are large enough not to seem out of place here: the plush red rug on which I stand, the long table in front of me, and the king’s coat of arms on the wall behind him – a golden pair of imbalanced scales on a turquoise background.

This time the atmosphere in the room is not quite so jovial. My headmaster, gnarled and gaunt, sits near the door looking somewhat broken. His unkempt hair and general lanky inelegance seem magnified in this context. Here, despite his black cap and gown, he’s no one’s master. In fact, he cuts rather a pathetic figure, a sorrowful sergeant hauled in to explain the behaviour of his soldier. The fleeting moment of eye contact I receive from him contains more pity than anger.

The king oozes on a throne behind the long table directly ahead of me. He is so fat and shapeless that one could be excused for thinking he was in the process of melting. The royal attire is an ill-fitting, ill-conceived concoction of purple and silver that would have been a little too tight ten years ago and certainly is now. For this reason alone, I will endeavour to keep my eyes averted. There is something about him, perhaps his hairlessness, perhaps his piggy little eyes, that makes me think of him as an overgrown baby. An exceptionally ugly one. He wears an expression that would be called a smile were it genuine.

To his right sits his advisor, orator of that most memorable speech, Vesta. Vesta is a slender, neatly presented woman of indeterminate age dressed in slender, neatly presented clothes of negligible value. She is so still and expressionless that she could be made of stone. Where the king stinks of excess, this woman looks like she has never known, or sought, pleasure.

“Well, well! Here he is! The man himself! The boy who beat the prince!” The king’s voice booms off the walls in a manner that would be expected for a man of his frame. I remain silent.

“You are quite the athlete, boy.” He inflects his statement as though it is a question.

“It’s what a life on hillsides teaches you, Your Majesty,” I mumble, avoiding his eyes in the way that the youth of the kingdom are taught to do.

“Ah yes, you’re a sheep boy, aren’t you?”

“Goats, Your Majesty. My father is a goatherd.”

“I always used to want to be a sheep when I was younger. I used to crawl around with my father’s woollen carpet upon my back! I used to eat grass! Would you believe it?”

His laugh is unnaturally loud and enthusiastic. His belly, vibrating with good humour, threatens to erupt from his shirt. Curiously, neither the headmaster nor Vesta join the laughter. I just about force a smile but it no doubt looks awkward. He continues laughing.

“Oh, it’s a sign of the times when a prince gets beaten by a sheep boy, isn’t it, Vesta?!”

“Your Majesty.” Vesta’s clipped reply is scarcely an acknowledgement.

“I’d have never been beaten by a sheep boy. You know, Gruff… It is Gruff, isn’t it? If I had my way, then we’d never have had sheep boys in the class with real boys at all, you know.”

Silence.

“No, no, not at all. It wouldn’t be right, I said. Fish people are there to fish, farm people are there to farm, sheep people are there to…”

“Tend goats,” intercepts Vesta helpfully.

“But this woman,” – he gestures to Vesta – “told me different. ‘Give the people a chance,’ she said. ‘You’ll find remarkable people in all walks of life,’ she said. And do you know what?”

Silence.

“I said, do you know what?” he prompts.

“What, Your Majesty?”

“She was right. She’s always farking right, this girl. She’s so right about things that I think there’s something wrong with her. I’ve given up thinking or having opinions. Don’t need them any more. Useless.”

The king ruffles Vesta’s short grey hair rather aggressively. Vesta’s pale face remains inscrutable.

“Thank you, Your Majesty,” she replies, showing only a formal interest in the king’s compliment.

“Did you ever hear how she got the job as my advisor?”

“No, Your Majesty.”

“She kidnapped my son when he was a baby. You remember my son, don’t you? That fat useless bastard that you just beat to the trophy.”

“Yes, I know your son, Your Majesty.”

“Well, this bloody virgin kidnapped him when he was a baby!”

The king rolls out another one of his deep belly laughs. I don’t know how to respond. Despite
his
obvious amusement, I am reluctant to laugh at child abduction.

“Should have held on to the useless bastard, I say. Swapped him for a sheep boy or something! Ha ha ha!” Once more, no one laughs or responds.

“So, aren’t you going to ask?”

“Ask what, Your Majesty?” I attempt to remain as indifferent as possible. I find his tone to be
excessively
jovial, almost as though he is toying with me.

“What?! They told me you were sharp, boy. How she got the job as my advisor, of course, instead of getting hung at dawn! I just told you she kidnapped my son when he was a baby!” 

He produces an expression that is somewhere between a smile and a threat. My upbringing has been very much one of not questioning one’s elders and, despite my natural curiosity, silence lingers. I refuse to play the game.

“If you wish to tell it me, Your Majesty.”

“He’s not very talkative, this sheep boy, is he, Vesta?” For the first time in the conversation, the king appears angry. He smacks a cup of beer to his face and knocks it back in great thirst.

“No, Your Majesty.”

“I’d hoped for more from you, Gruff. I heard you were a tyrant. I heard you’d crippled a boy!” As he says this, he begins laughing again, deriving humour from a vicious attack in the way that only a powerful man could. My eyes move uneasily to his stomach, parts of which are beginning to surface from beneath his outfit.

“I didn’t intend to cripple him,” I snap, looking the king in the eye. It’s true and it is important to me that people know it. Importantly though, I omit the apology. It is true that Tomos has paid perhaps too high a price for his meddling on the misty hillside that day but, nevertheless, I shan’t be apologising for it.

“He was the son of my treasurer, that boy you crippled. What’s my treasurer’s name, Vesta?”

“Rhys Ap-Rhys, Your Majesty.”

“Yes. The son of my treasurer, Rhys Ap-Rhys, that boy you crippled. They want you hanged!” Another laugh rumbles out across the room. I don’t answer.

“But that won’t happen. Not least because the man’s a gwnt. The prince informs me that his son’s a gwnt too. Maybe losing a leg will help him know his place a little better.”

Although I have trouble imagining the ever-diplomatic Prince Libran describing Tomos to the king in quite that way, I am nonetheless thankful.

“Thank you, your Majesty. That’s very just.”

“Just what?!” He growls.

“He means ‘just’. As in you have been fair, Your Majesty,” Vesta explains. She seems very attuned to the king’s various failings.

“I am not here to be fair, boy. Look at my sign. Does that look fair?” I glance upward at the large turquoise flag behind him. Upon it are the golden, imbalanced scales of his line.

“They represent your family’s bloodline, Your Majesty. They are there to show that your family were traders. So, no, they do not represent fairness. They represent profit and industry.” The words roll off my tongue as though they have been learnt by rote. This is, of course, because they have.

“Bloody right. I’m here to do what’s right. Not what’s fair.” He pauses for effect, giving my knowledge no praise. “And what
is
right, boy?”

“Whatever you say is right, Your Majesty.”

“My, my. Maybe he is sharp after all. They told me you were sharp, boy.”

“Thank you, Your Majesty.” Although my confidence is growing, I still try to keep my eyes down in the way that I’ve been taught.

“That’s why we’ve got a quest for you,” he adds. His eyes harden. Finally he’s got to the point of the matter. He means to punish me in some more cunning way than pain.

“It’s a dangerous quest, boy. But I’m sure someone of your calibre can handle it.” Delivered by someone who was less of a buffoon, this may have sounded disingenuous. The headmaster, who I had almost forgotten was in the room, squirms uncomfortably in his small chair near the door. Vesta sits impassive beside the throne.

“Anyway, the crown has many crucial matters to attend to so I must insist you all leave. You,” gesturing to the headmaster, “I shall talk with you again tomorrow. Meanwhile, Vesta, if you would be so good as to continue the briefing in your own chambers. You know how I have no ear for detail.”