The initial encounter with the fool happened when I had first seen him laying on the cold stone floor, counting shadows like money.
The castle of Greyrock was positioned on a hill where there was no resting of the wind. Its walls were old, and were of the colour of dry bones, and the windows looked down the valley like weary eyes.
The interior smelled of boiled soup, iron and wax. Servants moved fast. Guards moved slowly. And in the middle of them all went to the fool.
His name was Milo.
Milo was dressed in a coat of numerous fades. He had bells in his cap, though they were not noisome. He was not shake tongued as other idiots. He did not tumble or sing. He was sitting close to doorways and observing people.
“Why do you sit there?” On the first day I was in the castle I asked him.
I was a little record keeper at the time and had been dispatched to the town to assist the old clerk which was scarcely able to see. I had ink on my fingers, and something afraid in my chest.
Milo smiled up at me. “Because doors talk,” he said.
I laughed, since that was what one did to a fool.
“Doors don’t talk.”
“They do,” he said softly. They give you leave-taking and are afraid.
I shook my head, and turned my back.
Everyone called Milo a fool. The cooks mocked him. The guards pushed him aside.
They were even a jest with the king, Lord Halloween.
“Dance, fool,” the king would say.
And Milo would leap slow and queer round, as a leaf, uninformed about the direction of the wind. People laughed. Cups shook. Bells rang.
But I noticed things.
Milo was a listener and not a talker. He remembered names. He was aware of which of the servants was limping, and which cried down at night.
He was aware when the queen would no longer smile. He was aware when the voice of the king became sharp as an underclothes blade.
One evening, I was in the records room alone, where I was copying old land papers. My candle burned low. Milo appeared at the door.
“You should leave now,” he said.
“I still have work,” I replied.
It is a heavy castle tonight, he said. “Heavy places swallow light.”
I frowned. “You speak in riddles.”
Milo went in and got hold of the wall.
“Something is changing.”
I wanted to send him away, but there was something in his eyes that would not allow me to do it.
“What do you know?” I asked.
“Nothing,” he said. “I am a fool.”
Days later, the trouble came.
The king announced a new tax. The lords were angry. The servants whispered. The outside-town became silent in an unnatural manner. There were closed-door meetings. Doors that Milo watched.
One night I came upon him, sitting close by the great hall, and counting shadows once more.
“Why do they call you a fool?” I asked.
He smiled. “Because it is safer.”
“Safer for who?”
To them, he said, and pointed in the direction of the hall.
I did not understand then.
The evening of the feast was here. Music and food were abundant at the hall. The king drank too much. The lords smiled too wide. I was close to the wall, holding scrolls of which no one would read.
Milo danced.
But this was when his bells were clanging.
The music pierced the auditorium. People turned. The music slowed.
Milo ceased dancing and motioned at a door on the side.
That door is open too often tonight, said he.
Laughter burst out.
“Pity the fool,” one lord said.
The king waved his hand. “Enough. Let him speak.”
Milo bowed. I had seen men pass through that door. They did not return. They had smiles upon them, but their feet were hastening.
The hall grew quiet.
One guard shifted. Another looked away.
The king’s face hardened. “What are you saying, fool?”
Plans, I am saying, said Milo, are rats. They run through dark paths. But they leave marks.”
A lord stood up.
“This is nonsense.”
Milo looked at him. You have stamped on ink in the records room.
Everyone stared at the boots of the lord. The edges were marked with black stains.
The king rose slowly.
The reality developed without screaming. No swords were drawn. No blood spilled. The lords who intended to take off with the treasury were halted.
Those guards who assisted them were deported.
By the time it was over the hall was empty, as a room that had had rain.
The king sat back down.
“You are no fool,” he said to Milo.
Milo bowed low. “Then I would be in danger.”
On the the following morning, Milo disappeared.
His coat was lying in a heap by the gate. The bells were silent.
I asked the guards. No one knew where he went.
Days passed. The castle reverted to its sound and practices. But something was different. There was better guarding at the doors. Words were chosen with care.
In some cases, even in the morning, as I pass by the halls, I can see shadows moving around the doorways.
And I recall the half-wit who was a door-watcher, and I wonder now who is on watch.
