[Fools' Guild 08] - The Parisian Prodigal Read Online Free Page B

count looked dolefully at his marriage bed, which had been made up since its last use.
    “Best to dive right back in,” I advised, strumming my lute in fanfare.
    He flopped onto the bed, kicking his boots off. “Play me something,” he said.
    “Anything in particular?”
    “A song in langue d’oi’l for a change,” he said. “Something tells me you know a few in that tongue.”
    I summoned up a trouvère song that poked fun at the vanity of the Parisians. He chuckled at the punch lines.
    “Your langue d’oïl d’oïl must be quite good,” I said. “They say a man is truly fluent in another language when he gets the jokes.”
    “The biggest joke I’ve heard today is that false sibling of mine,” he said. “Idiot doesn’t even speak our language.”
    “What are you going to do with him?” I asked.
    “Let him out, I suppose,” he said. “Bernard and Peire Roger were right. I can’t panic over every little ambitious fraud who struts into my court.”
    “Good,” I said.
    “It will take six weeks to send a rider to Paris and back,” he calculated. “Especially if he has to make inquiries. I don’t suppose you know someone in Paris who would be close to the best gossip, do you?”
    “In truth, Dominus, I have not been to Paris in many years.”
    “But there must be another jester there you could contact.”
    “Why a jester, Dominus?” I asked.
    “Because jesters always know what’s really going on, don’t they?” he said.
    “Quite the contrary, Dominus,” I said. “They call us fools for good reason. Perhaps you should contact one of those forgers, although they generally don’t write letters. Too much like work for them. And you never know whose hand it truly is.”
    He stared at the canopy overhead, a damask drape with gold threads running through it, embroidered with a brace of saints looking down from Heaven. No wonder he was having troubles in bed. I would be certainly intimidated with them watching me.
    “I remember about thirty or so years ago, there was a great assembly of crowned heads and lords at Limoges,” he said. “My father went to render homage to Henry the Second. He took me with him, introduced me around, pointed out who was likely to help us, who would betray us, and who would out and out attack us the moment Henry died.”
    “Quite the lesson in diplomacy,” I said, stopping my playing to tune my low string, which had developed an annoying tendency to go flat on me.
    “We took a large contingent with us, of course,” he said. “Including our fool, Balthazar.”
    I played a chord. The string was back in line with its fellows.
    “One day, I was walking down a hallway, and I saw him duck into a room,” continued the count. “I don’t know what impulse made me do it, but I waited outside the door, listening. All I could hear was murmuring. My curiosity got the better of me, and I peeked in.”
    “What did you discover?” I asked, picking up the melody where I had left off.
    “There was Balthazar, along with Henry’s fool, the fool to King Louis, and two dozen others. They looked at me for a moment in silence, then Balthazar jumped up and said, ‘Behold! The lost prince, come from an arduous journey through untold perils to bring us his tale. Young Raimon, divert us with your adventures.’ I must have looked like a complete simpleton, standing there with my mouth hanging open. He came to my rescue and regaled them with an improvised account of my fantastical pilgrimage that had us all laughing within seconds.”
    “He was a funny man,” I said. “I remember that from my visit here.”
    “You weren’t in Limoges, were you?” he asked abruptly.
    “Thirty years ago, I was waiting for my voice to break and discovering some wonderful new uses for my hands,” I said. “I take it you saw no such children in that fool-filled room.”
    “No,” he said. “But it made me curious about fools. They all seemed to know each other. And to get together secretly