The Red Fool

CHAPTER ONE Audace

Extended cold winter air. Shutters gusting in the wind. Noctuid pacing the low ceiling of the thatched house. Black and red. Red and black. He had killed a man.

The boy looked down at his hands bathed in the warm, viscous liquid of the Other. He had killed two. That Other was in front of the little house, sprawled out in the deep snow. He got up with a shudder and moved away from the battered body, wiping a drop of blood from his inferior lip. The corpse was a mature man, around fifty years old. He had an unshaven salt-and-pepper beard and a few strands of hair on a flattened skull. Yellow orioles stained his top. The boy had had him by the waist. From one blade flowed little burgundy rivulets. They sank into the folds and bulges of the inert thing to form terrible thorns.He dragged the dead man behind the little house, dug a hole and threw him in. He then went and fetched the Other, the first dead man, from the doorway. His drunken face revealed a horrible smile of jagged teeth and the tiredness of a recent struggle. An amber puddle was spreading in fragrant furrows around him. The man had been so scared that he had urinated before giving in. The boy grabbed his collar in disgust and led him to the hole, dropping him on top of the first corpse.

After throwing a few generous handfuls of dirt onto the twitching faces of the two Others, he returned to the thatched cottage and picked up a moth-eaten red shawl. The young man wrapped it around his thin shoulders before leaving. He set off along a track covered in dirty snow. He was going into town, following the path down into the Valley.

Soon the chimneys rose out of the icy hills and small wooden buildings stood on either side of the track, now a black cobbled road. Some greeted the young shepherd; a woman with cheeks as pink as her belly was big smiled at him and called him "Adret", while another, as tall and thin as a birch, shouted "Aurige". He answered to both of them, although absently. They then came and gave him a purse full of greasy coins. He examined the content with satisfaction. The cheese was good, they told him, and the wool was white and not yellow like that of the Big Shepherd. He thanked the two women, joked with them and then resumed his wanderings towards the bowels of the city. Further on, the boy entered an old inn called The Cart. 

As he opened the door, a rush of heat filled his senses and burnt his frozen skin. A faint aroma of grilled meat, warm bread and gathered men enveloped the entrance. The place was full tonight. People were dancing and singing around a large fireplace, with a huge stewpot hanging over it. A bard was playing a well-known tune on the lute. Her wild hair fluttered around her shoulders and cascaded down to her back. The boy moved away from the hubbub and sat down at a table at the back of the room. Soon the tavern-keeper, a large man with calloused hands and a commercial mind, approached him, dropping some glasses here and there as he went. He swept the few crumbs left on the table with his hand before addressing the young man.

-  Well, Adret!We haven't seen you for a long time. Chaleur says you like sheep more than women. Trefle thinks you prefer goats. thundered the man, sitting down heavily on the opposite chair .

-  Chaudiere isn't wrong. Ewes suit me," smiled the boy.

-  You're as pale as an owl, boy. Winter's hard? asked the tavern-keeper in a deep voice.

The boy hesitated for a moment, looked around superstitiously and then leaned over the old man.

-  Oh Thaos!" he began. I killed two Others just now, right here! No-names! They were hanging around the stall, one of them stole some grain and slaughtered a lamb. The mother bawled and I went outside. They grabbed me by the throat, I got away, was able to take the dagger that one of them had around his waist and... and..." finally stammered the young boy, his voice trembling and his eyes cloudy.