Barnaby the Wanderer

Chapter 7: Val the Bard, Knight of the Cup

I am a practical person set upon impractical quest. Exactly as it should be. Realists are the souls best suited for impractical challenges. To seek the grail is a thing of dream. And it is only those awake who understand dreams.

And so, Holy Bridget's bust but that Barnaby made my hair stand on end. You'd think I'd laugh to meet someone so gormless wandering the road. I didn't. I shivered same as coming upon some ghost from childhood. Knew him for what he was, soon as spying him.

The Holy Fool: striding blind through perils whilst luck and a good heart guides through the fire, past the tiger and around the storm. Hero of a thousand fireside stories. All those third sons, dreamy ash-lads and cinder-girls taken for idiots... my storybook friends when I was young and stupid, whining how cruel was life.

Fired by such tales, at thirteen I fled to St. Demetia, enrolling in the absurd St. Bridget's School for Female Bards. And there I learned, not fairy tales, but the world's truth.

The instructors of St. Bridget's knew that those who sing of heroic deeds had best learn the facts of most heroes, and most deeds. On the shelves of St. Bridget waited books that told me what the world was, not what I wished it were. Stories where life did not favor cheerful fools. It devoured them. Spitting the bones out with a laugh.

True histories, fascinating as fiction and much more bloody. Instead of widow's sons rewarded with a princess's kiss for acts of kindness, I read the history of King Thrastus the Glorious, a sailor turned brigand who turned a band of hill-robbers into an army of conquest. Still robbing and raping; but beneath a golden flag. I devoured tales of the brilliant artificer Artaphrax, inventor of ways to fly in the clouds, swim in the sea, and endless devices to kill, maim, poison and enchain.

In bard school I read the truth of my ancestor Kurgus I, celebrated for establishing the St. Martia Yearly Fair. Fascinating to read in footnotes how he exterminated the entire previous nobility. Selling the dead lords and ladies to the necromancers of Plutarch; their children to the Fae folk of Silvanus.

Point being: with enough hairs between my legs I learned that the truth of the world lies in history books, not the pages of children's tales. Walk a real road, and every dead dog in a ditch, every solemn war memorial passed, any quiet cemetery where flowers bloom, and every last flag waving bravely in the wind are all reminders: this world is a devouring thing. And nothing is more quickly devoured than the innocent fool.

Yet, meeting Barnaby on the road, returning his cheerful cloud-free smile... Bridget's tits and Taliesin's shits, I confess it. For one idiot moment I found myself looking about for dragons who'd play at riddles, for princesses calling for rescue from a tower. Maybe a kindly forest robber who'd invite me to feast with his merry band.

Perhaps I should have dived into the dream, joined the boy's quest, become the companion encouraging him to keep chin up, heart clean and smile bright.

Screw that. I told the idiot son of a miller the sad bad truth. Clearly his 'family' sent him to his death. His 'friar' taught him to be a fool. No doubt his stepmother and brother coveted the mill.

I watched the boy's eyes as he gazed into the sky. And I saw something that threw me. He already knew. Knew the folk of his home meant him ill, his path led towards dark ending.

Knew; and yet kept silent, watching a butterfly battle the breeze. Perhaps even within his own head he did not put it to words. Why? Maybe he could not bear to think ill of his home. Or maybe he could not comprehend such malice, was reduced to staring blankly at innocent things: clouds, hearths, butterflies.

The children's tales never say what keeps the Ash Lads and Cinder Lasses gazing into the hearth, poking at dreams and embers. Surely it is the shadows of a cold home that fixes their gaze on firelight? Until at last they rise up, go down the road to find what they cannot face at home.

Logical; but... bah. I don't believe it. Barnaby the miller's son hid no tangled drama behind his eyes. He was a happy idiot delighting in the summer day, smiling at the pleasant road before him.

And yet, and yet...he knew. So why go on an adventure meant for his death? Why laugh with the breeze, greet birds and mankind with a smile? I can't comprehend it. Holy foolishness, I suppose.

One thing else. I swear by the patroness of bards, Blessed Saint Euterpe herself. When Barnaby bowed in greeting to the font, the damned stone face winked. It did. Returning greeting with greeting. Old Herm knew a proper fool on the road.

While I stood blinking, turning from old saint to young fool. And I shivered to know I was no longer comparing reality with the pages of old tales. No; I'd wandered into the child's tale itself. Sure as if I'd stepped into the woodcut illustration.

A terrifying thought to a bard. And so I declared my warnings, made my farewells, spurring tits and tail from sly saint and gormless boy alike. Quick as I did from my home in St. Martia, or the headmistress of St. Bridget's School for Female Bards upon the back of her stolen horse.