Thirteenth Night (25 page)

“Ahhh—HUH!” he cried as I squeezed.

“You see, Milord, the air is propelled from your lungs when you breathe from down here. You'll be heard at every corner of the square if you do that.”

“Will I? Thank you,” he exclaimed. “How did you know about that?”

“A very harsh singing instructor during my youth,” I said. Which was true, as it happened. “I take it you are planning to assume the role of Our Lord?”

“I'm going to try. Mother doesn't want me to go out, but I am feeling well enough.”

“A boy should listen to his mother, Milord.”

“But I am the Duke,” he said, drawing himself up. “And it is important that the town see that I am there.”

I looked at him. There was strength there, an iron will that would prove formidable with that intellect. I bowed. “As you wish, Milord.”

He sagged suddenly. “I don't know if I can do it,” he whispered.

“The role?”

“The role. And the role. Being Duke. I can't even bring myself to sit in the chair. It was his, not mine.”

I glanced at the chair seated on the platform. “Allow me, Milord,” I said. He stared in shock as I calmly walked up to the chair and sprawled languidly across it. “Fetch me some food, Mark,” I commanded him.

He was seized by rage. “Get off of there immediately!” he shouted.

I leapt down and knelt before him. “Of course, Milord.”

His anger melted as suddenly as it had emerged. “Why did you do that?” he asked.

“When I sat in that chair and commanded you to get me food, did you do it?”

“Of course not.”

“Yet when you commanded me to get down, did I not immediately comply?”

“You did,” he said slowly, realization creeping across his face.

I patted him on the shoulder. “The power isn't in the chair, Milord. It's in the Duke. The chair is merely a prop.”

He looked at me, then the chair, then walked up to it and sat down.

“How do I look?” he asked.

“Like a duke,” I replied. “Like your father before you.”

He smiled, and I took my leave.

I sought out Bobo's room. He sat up when I entered and was about to speak when I heard footsteps approaching. I glanced into the hallway and saw Viola bearing down on us.

“A word with you, Feste,” she snapped.

“I will speak with you on the morrow,” I said to Bobo. He shrugged, and I accompanied the Duchess to her anteroom, where she turned and folded her arms.

“I have been informed by my son that he is going to perform in the play,” she said icily. “And he told me that it was at your behest.”

“Not exactly,” I said. “I counseled him on asserting himself as befits his position.”

“When I need your counsel on raising my child, I will ask for it,” she said. “It's too dangerous for him to be out there unprotected.”

“He won't be unprotected,” I said. “I'll be there. Nothing will happen to him.”

As a prophet, I turned out to be an excellent fool.

F
IFTEEN

We enjoin you, my brother, to exterminate from your churches the custom or rather the abuse and disorder of these spectacles and these disgraceful games so that their impurity does not sully the honor of the Church.

POPE INNOCENT III,
CUM DECORUM

 

“Be glad! Oh, be glad, for the Lord is risen!” cried the Bishop, and the congregation shouted, “Alleluia!” He raised his hands and beckoned to the rear of the church. The doors were flung open, and a boy clad in a white tunic and hose was led in, riding on the back of an ass bedecked in red robes.

“Orientis partibus, Adventavit asinus, Pulcher et fortissiumus, Sarcinis aptissimus, Hez, Sir Asne, hez!”
the choir sang raucously. The congregants reached in to stroke the flanks of the beast and passed the touch on to their neighbors for luck.

The ass was led to the altar, as all asses inevitably are, and the boy got off and stood and faced the assemblage. He took an enormous breath and sang out,
“Kyrie eleison,”
in the purest of sopranos, holding each syllable for an eternity and embellishing it with such elaborate melismata that Jubal, Father of Music himself, would have wept in awe upon hearing it. The deacons responded with a trope of further praise, and the Bishop stood behind the boy and held his arms out from his sides as if in supplication.
“Christe eleison,”
sang the boy, and the choir sang it back to him as two subdeacons appeared on either side of the Bishop and carefully removed his vestments.
“Kyrie eleison,”
the boy sang again as they transferred the vestments to him, a midget bishop in oversized clothes. The Bishop himself removed his miter from his head and held it over the boy.
“Christe eleison,”
the two sang in unison, and on the last note, the Bishop placed his miter on the boy's head, covering it entirely.

As he did, cymbals clashed, horns blared, and the choir launched into a supremely discordant hymn. The Feast of Fools had begun.

A rabble of satyrs burst through the doors, blowing on ram's horns, beating on goatskin drums, squeezing bagpipes, playing every possible instrument that could be made from a goat or sheep. Men in donkey's heads, bull's heads, all manner of horns. I spotted Alexander wearing an elephant's mask, appropriately enough. They hurled ordure into the congregation, which screamed with laughter and dismay. Women groaned as they were spattered, but their gowns were obviously not the good ones worn at Christmas Mass. A grotesque parody of a priest staggered in, wearing an enormous carbunkled nose and drinking from a jug. He whirled the censor like a sling, and whatever was burning in it gave off a foul stench. An old boot, I guessed. I saw the Bishop himself, rudely transformed with charcoal rubbed into his face, playing dice near the altar. Men danced in women's clothes, women danced ring dances, leapt on the pews, and undulated suggestively. A football was introduced from somewhere and was booted from one end of the church to the other.

I was having a wonderful time until I remembered that I had to stay in character. I then scowled disapprovingly at everything. But it was marvelous, I must say, and from a critical standpoint, it was only missing one thing.

Me. Feste, Lord of Misrule.

Black puddings made especially for the day were produced from a hundred pouches and handed around. I broke down and accepted one. The Mass was celebrated by the boy Bishop, his speech muffled by the miter. The deacons were portrayed in uproarious manner by the subdeacons, the subdeacons by the boys in the choir, and quite a few bawdy references were made to local townspeople. Some of the jokes were old enough to have been started by me and probably were. The crowd laughed at them anyway. All part of the tradition.

Throughout, I kept my eyes peeled for the Duke, but Mark was nowhere to be seen. Neither was Viola nor her substitute. I decided to go outside and look for them.

The scenery for the play had been finished just in time. Paradise hung on the steps of the new cathedral, the sheet flapping noisily in the wind. The mouth of Hell was truly impressive, the features fearsome, the gaping maw hung with damask. All of the townspeople as well as those from the surrounding farmlands had assembled in the square, the ones in back standing on wagons. Younger children perched on shoulders, the older and more daring clambered onto the roofs of the shops and offices. Those who could not cram into the church gathered as close to the scenes as they could, awaiting the beginning of the play.

The saturnalian band spilled back out onto the streets, scattering the crowd before them. The choir quickly assembled on the cathedral steps near Paradise, and the revelers gradually quieted as a single ram's horn was blown repeatedly in the center of the square.

I sought out Viola and found her at the side of the old church, fussing over Mark, who was clad in a beautifully tailored gold dalmatic. “Are you sure you aren't too cold?” she asked.

“Mother, please,” he protested futilely, as all boys have done to their mothers from time immemorial. She tucked a scarf around his neck, which he deftly discarded the moment her back was turned.

I maneuvered my way back to the square to find a good vantage point and ended up on one of the lower steps to the cathedral. A voice at my shoulder whispered, “What do you think, pilgrim?” I turned and nearly jumped out of my skin. A man was smiling at me, the smile framed by a black mustache and triangular beard.

The Bishop laughed. “My apologies for startling you, but you've been looking so serious. This is a joyous day. Partake of the joy, and you will share in the holiness.”

“I'm sorry, Holy Father. Your traditions are different than ours, and with that beard you look quite Satanic. Where did you get it?”

“An anonymous gift, left outside my doorway. The note wished me well and asked that I wear it for the Feast. Rather becoming, don't you think?”

I bowed and excused myself. I was quite flustered by the experience. My invisible enemy was playing tricks again. I wondered how close he was.

I noticed Sir Andrew standing on a step nearby, watching the proceedings intently. I walked over to him.

“I'm looking forward to your triumph, Sir Andrew,” I said.

He started upon being addressed, then relaxed. “You are too kind, Herr Octavius,” he replied. “I decided that Lucius was fully capable of handling the job. I really wanted to see it for myself, rather than hide behind Hell and hear about it afterwards.”

“And who will tell Lucius?”

“He is young. When he has apprenticed long enough, he may stand here and feast his eyes. I love this day. Don't you?”

“We do not have such spectacles where I come from.”

“Then you really should. The one this year is so important, coming after Orsino's death. I must say Sebastian has surprised me. He's kept his vow, stayed sober, and speaks his part beautifully. And he helped organize everything after Fabian … Well, I'm sorry Fabian couldn't see this. But it will be quite a day for Sebastian, mark my words.”

“And for the Duke, I hear.”

“Really? How so?”

“He will be assuming his place in the role of Our Savior after all. So Sebastian will miss the performance. But I agree he certainly is due credit for everything else.”

“Mark's playing Jesus?” exclaimed Sir Andrew. “I had no idea. I've been so wrapped up in my preparations, I haven't been outside my laboratorium for days. How utterly splendid. But I hope he's not outside prematurely. I fear for his health in this cold.”

“He seemed hale enough when I saw him.”

“Well, I wish someone had told me,” he said, frowning slightly. “We cut the fuses specifically to time the flash with the last word of Sebastian's speech. If Mark doesn't follow the same cadences, it won't work as well.”

“I'm sure Mark knows that. He's a bright lad.”

“Of course. Look, it's starting.”

An Angel of the Lord ascended slowly into the air, two burly farmers carefully turning the windlass. The whining boy of a few days past had been transfigured into a thing of glory. The winds that were whipping up the square caught his wings and sent him spinning around, to the amusement of the crowd. The farmers caught his feet and twisted him until he was facing forwards. He gulped, took a breath, and screamed, “All harken to me now!” The ensuing silence astonished him. Emboldened by the realization that he commanded the square, he continued in full, jubilant voice. “An estrif will I tell you of Jesus and Satan. Of when Jesus was to Hell to bring thence His own and lead them to Paradise. The Devil having such puissance…”

People gasped and parted as the Cross was wheeled in with Mark splayed pitifully upon it. In brief dumbshow he was taken down and placed in the sepulchre. He lay still until his mourners left, then stood and rolled aside the rock. The choir sang of Resurrection. When they finished, he strode confidently to the mouth of Hell. He turned to face his audience, his hands out to bless them as the Prologue ended.

“Hard ways have I gone,” he declaimed forcefully and clearly. “Many sorrows have I suffered.” And the sight of this noble boy who had so recently lost his father brought tears to the cheeks of many. Mothers wept who had lost husbands and sons, sons wept who had lost their fathers, Sir Andrew wept beside me.

“Listen to him,” he whispered proudly. “Was there ever such a boy?”

As Mark finished his speech, Satan leapt on top of the Gates, his red cloak swirling around him.

“Who is this that I see here?” he cackled. “I bid Him speak no more! For all that He may do He shall come to us, too! How we play here He shall learn, and find how fierce our fire burns!”

“Who is that?” I asked.

“Stephen, first son of a wealthy merchant,” replied Sir Andrew. “A natural choice to play the Devil, some say.”

“He certainly is enjoying the role.”

The demons trooped out. What was an inept band of amateurs a few days ago was now an expert comedy team. They had maintained the ice patch in front of the Devil's mouth and used it to full advantage. One in particular, a skinny, trembling fellow, drew the most laughs, and several people pointed knowingly in Sir Andrew's direction. He seemed oblivious to them, concentrating on the dialogue.

The Keeper of the Gates appeared, a demon with an oversized key. The choir sang, and Sir Andrew nudged me.

“The powder is in those two bags on top of the Gates,” he explained. “There will be two flashes. The first is when Jesus enters the Gates. That's the one on the right.”

“The three bags, you mean,” I said.

“What?”

“There are three bags up there.”

He looked where I was pointing.

“That's odd,” he muttered. “There should only be two. I put them there myself. Why…” His eyes widened, then abruptly he leapt down the steps, shoving people out of his path with surprising force. “Let me through!” he shouted. The onlookers laughed at the ridiculous knight. Many, seeing an opportunity for mischief, crowded into the poor man who bounced from one to another with increasing panic. With sudden foreboding, I ran after him. I incurred my own pummeling but managed to keep my balance and spin through until I reached Sir Andrew. Together we formed a two-man wedge and pushed through almost to the front of the crowd, some thirty feet from the performance.