Two Foxes

The Wicked King

 “Harry, you’ve seen too little suffering to write about it,” Harry’s minsterel master had told him when he left his apprenticeship. And it was true, Harry had led a good life, and all he could write were happy songs.

Unfortunately, people didn’t want happy songs about happy people. They wanted to have their hearts torn out over an ill fated romance, a spurned lover, a war.

“You can’t make people see things you haven’t seen yourself, Harry,” his master had said. And that was why Harry was so excited when he stomped up one night near the end of winter, to one of the darkest castles he had yet seen. In fact, it most certainly was the darkest. He wondered if it was the castle of a wicked king—Harry had never met a truly wicked king. Many greedy ones, yes, but they had bright, glittering castles, and as far as he knew, were a different thing altogether.

Knocking on the small door beside the main gate, he shuffled his feet, trying to keep them warm and adjusted the position of his second-hand cedar wood harp on his shoulder. Harry’s breath came visible and he rubbed his hands together. His harp would be badly out of tune when he took it up next; the cold did that.

A tiny window on the small gatehouse door opened and a snaggle-toothed guard peered out.

“Songster, eh? Wait here, I’ll see if you’re wanted.”

“But…”

The little window slammed shut. Harry had never been treated with such disrespect. Minstrels were the joy and pride of any castle, and never waited in the cold. This must be a wicked king indeed. Harry’s heart leapt.

After an unreasonably long wait, the door opened.

“Ye can go over to the main hall there,” the guard said, pointing. Harry nodded and slipped past him.

The iron-clad doors of the hall loomed from across the courtyard as Harry hurried over the icy flagstones. Again, the doors were not opened for him, but he was getting used to the unusual and was learning quickly to appreciate it. Pushing open one of the doors just enough to squeeze through, he heard the laughter of what were likely cruel henchmen. He slid through the opening, and assessed the room.

A semicircle of tables laden with glorious food flanked a cleared area of the floor where women clad in little more than wisps of silk danced like they were from a land that Harry intended to visit one day but would probably never reach.

Men jeered and catcalled the women, laughing loudly and drinking heavily. At the center of the head table, sat the wicked king in midnight blue robes and a jewelled crown, lifting a wine goblet to his lips. Harry had caught his eye, and the king waved him forward.

Harry tried to skirt the women, but one tugged playfully at his shirttails as he passed. They drew away as he approached the king, and Harry bowed deeply.

The king regarded him for a moment with narrow eyes as the room slowly quieted. “Minstrel,” he said, “Do you know anything about Naiads?”

Harry stopped midway up from his bow, mouth open. “Naiads?”

“Yes.”

“No.”

The king waved him away, not so much as interested in Harry’s name. “Go play me a song then.”

Harry knew he had given the wrong answer. Ah, well, he thought; at least he hadn’t been sent away yet. “What kind of song would you like, my lord?”

“Whatever you specialize in,” said the king, already distracted by one of the dancers.

Harry backed to the middle of the floor, retuning his harp. Then he plucked and sang a bawdy drinking tune he thought appropriate for the atmosphere. He was wise in his selection, and the man laughed and joined in the chorus. When he finished, he made to sit down at the end of one of the tables, but the king shouted at him.

“Back on the floor, minstrel! You haven’t earned your keep yet!”

Harry jumped up as the men laughed at him. The dancers crowded him to the middle of the floor again. “A song for every bite, and another for the use of a plate and knife!” the king added. The men roared with laughter. Shrugging his shoulders, Harry resolved to endure, but thought perhaps he’d better not stay too long, or he would owe the king more silver than he earned.

All the while Harry played, the king stared across the room to the corner. There stood a young man with flaming red hair, in the garb of a slave. At the man’s side sat a small animal looking animal with russet brown fur. Bigger than a cat—a dog perhaps? Hard to see from where he sat.

It was not a kind look that the king cast the young man. At one point in the evening, Harry thought he saw the king laugh at him.

The men had him playing all night, and by the time he was allowed to eat, he was starving; which was just as well, since he had to mash as much food as possible in his mouth at once, to make good the deal of a song for every bite.

At the end of the night, Harry was too tired to complain about the hospitality, when the young red haired man approached him and beckoned for him to follow. “We sleep in stables.”

Harry followed him out to the stables, where the young man showed him where he could sleep on a bed of soft timothy hay. Well, it was better than the road, on a night like this. Harry wrapped his cloak about him, and lay down as the young man carried his pet—not a dog after all, but a fox—up the ladder with him to the loft.

Flopping down on fresh hay, Harry was glad that at least animals were treated well in this place. He wished as he waited for sleep for the times when the bards and storytellers could sing satire so powerful they could drive a king from his throne.

Ah, if only Harry could write such a satire. Harry sighed. Being able to write anything good would have made him happy.