Chapter 8: Neville – The Clown

Neville’s father thrashed about, raving with fever. There were screams at midnight, the smell of sweat, cotton sheets and blood.

‘He’ll never walk again,’ said Neville.

‘But he will rise.’

‘He can’t fight.’

‘You forget who your father is. He taught me everything about bushido. A man like him will not stay down.’

The mother was absolutely certain of Neville’s father’s recovery. Neville, however, wondered how anyone could recover completely when they weren’t complete anymore?

That same afternoon, the captain of Baynard woke up. Maëlle and Neville, laughing and crying, moved him to a plush chair near the window, and made food, and offered him Eslarian liquor. The legless captain didn’t look at his wife or his son; he didn’t look at anything. He kept on facing the window, not seeing what was outside, nor what was inside, but silently asking a dejected Why...?

Three weeks later, Rimbaud’s Caravan came to the capital of Baynard. The captain had promised his son that they’d walk together the streets of Debur, that they’d visit the caravan together this year. Neville had not been happy with the prospect. He was fourteen years old and the last thing he wanted was his father in his and his friends’ way. Now Neville hoped that the possibility of visiting the fair together would pull his father out of that silence of voice and soul.

‘Don’t worry, son, your father will honor the promise he made to you,’ said Maëlle before she left for work.

Maëlle owned the only library and bookstore of Debur, maybe of Baynard. She had many books about Sátiron, the Empire, and Yukari Nakamura. Bushido was a word brought by Nakamura from the other world, where she had come from. Bushido was honor, stronger than legs, wishes and fears. A warrior never broke a promise, never reshaped his loyalty. A warrior’s word was the slash of a sword. There was no turning back.

Neville’s father had read all books about Nakamura and her philosophy. He wasn’t interested in the Empresses, nor in Sátiron itself. The captain wasn’t interested in any other mystery, only Nakamura.

Neville also read some of those books, but he got confused when an Anjarian book praised the warrior woman as a social leader, while a Gorgathian book described the warrior woman as essential but also as an outcast; some kind of necessary evil; a disease that Sátiron spread to the rest of the world; someone you wouldn’t invite to your children’s party.

‘They’re interpretations,’ said Fulion. ‘None of these books were written by Yukari Nakamura.’

Fulion was Maëlle’s business partner. She was the one who got the books for Debur’s library. Sometimes Fulion disappeared for months, then came back with a trunk full of books, many in foreign languages, some in Franish. She then disappeared again with the foreign books and came back with handwritten notebooks.

‘Translations,’ she’d say.

‘Who made them?’ Maëlle would ask.

Fulion shut her mouth. Her skin was carved by the wind, her curly hair highlighted by the sun. Clear eyes, like crystals, small pupils, knees turned out, shaped by horseback. The only creature capable of softening the furrows on Fulion’s face was her black and white horse. It’s name was Stain, and it bit anyone who wasn’t Fulion.

Whenever Fulion was in Debur, Neville would rather bring his questions to her instead of his mother, who became someone else when Nakamura was mentioned. Maëlle worshiped Nakamura and believed she knew her better than anyone.

‘You’ve never met her,’ said Fulion.

‘But someday I might,’ said Maëlle. ‘Then we’ll have a lot to talk about.’

Neville had never met a mystery, or even a mage, nor did he know anyone who had. Sometimes he doubted that the books were about the same world he lived in, though there were traces of a time in which entire cities were moved by sorcery. Even the Emerald still had scars from when it was adapted to torches and candles, at the time magic electricity disappeared.

‘If they are interpretations.’ Neville put the Anjarian book side by side with the Gorgathian one. ‘How do I know the truth?’

Fulion said you couldn’t know it because neither book had been written by Nakamura herself. Neville lost interest in books about bushido and began to read only books from authors who expressed their own opinions, not that of others.

On the day Rimbaud’s Caravan came to Debur, Neville sat beside the captain and told him how many wagons came with the caravan this year, their colors, what they smelled of. He brought the captain’s favorite book, one that was also about Nakamura but didn’t mention bushido. Instead, the text explored the interactions between that strange family: the mystery Nakamura and the two children she adopted when she came to this world. The girl became the First Empress of Sátiron. The boy invented sorcery. Together, the three of them put an end to the Age of Darkness.

The captain liked this book very much.

‘There is no duty, just action,’ he told Neville once, in a whisper, as though sharing a great secret.

Neville put the book on the window sill and left it there while he described the caravan. The captain’s lips moved, and Neville thought he read the word duty, but the captain’s eyes remained dead as glass, forever asking Why...?

The son waited for another reaction, but in vain. He didn’t want to go out without his father, because that meant the father was breaking a promise. If Neville stayed home, the captain’s word would remain intact, but Neville couldn’t stand another day inside, stuck with that legless question. He left the father with the book and went out to the streets.

Normally, he would seek his friends, Thaila and Robert. Thaila would still be helping her father at the bakery, and Robert would be with her so she could finish faster and go to the fair. Neville usually helped as well. Maëlle didn’t need help at the library and bookstore. Even with visitors from the caravan, there wasn’t enough business.

Neville didn’t go to Thaila’s father’s bakery. She and Robert would look at him with pity, would try to cheer him up. Neville wasn’t in the mood to be cheered up. If he was sad, sad he would remain.

Rimbaud’s Caravan filled Debur with life and color. Awnings, stands, silk and satin, leathers and wools of every color lined the worn-out pavements of the Baynardian capital.

‘Poems from Gorgath,’ said a tall, black woman, ‘songs of joy, songs of woe, songs for the wise, songs for the young, songs for those who want to love.’

A merchant from Eslarina displayed silk in thirty-three shades of red. The stand next to him clinked with glass prisms, polished silver, purple quartz. Across the street, a woman in leather pants and thick, leather gloves had peacocks, parakeets, hawks. A singing trio came from around the corner. One of the singers tripped on a pile of lilac wool but managed to stay in tune. A taciturn old man sat among excited parakeets. There were liquors from distant places, strange foods, heady perfumes.

Neville almost bumped against a clown who turned the corner followed by a green dragon. It wasn’t a real dragon, but two people in a glittering costume: one person holding the enormous dragon face with bulging eyes, turquoise eyelashes, a mouth that opened and closed, with gums the colour of wine; the other person holding the first person’s waist, covered in shining green sequins, dark spines falling down to the tip of the tail, like a saw. The clown, short and stumpy, wore a fake blue beard, a blue wig, and a purple hat with a daisy on top.

A crowd of children followed clown and dragon. They flooded the square, squeaking and giggling. The clown ran in circles, going round and round and round. The dragon followed faster and faster, until the clown jumped out of the loop of legs and scales, and the dragon pounced, bit its own tail, jumped up in pain, and ran away through Debur.

The clown made a pirouette, bowed until his forehead touched his legs, and shouted, ‘Come see us at the Tent of Performers!’ Then he followed the dragon.

Neville went after the clown. Not because he had made Neville smile after five weeks of legless fever, but because the clown had no arms.

‘Wait!’ cried Neville.

The clown turned, bowed, and repeated, ‘Come see us at the Tent of Performers.’

‘Wait!’ shouted Neville.

This time the clown stopped. The urgency in that shout was more than a mere wish to laugh.

‘What is it, young man?’

‘You have no arms.’

The clown looked to his right shoulder, then to his left shoulder, gave a little clumsy hop, landed one bent leg after the other, then shouted:

‘By the wolves of Sátiron, where have I left them?’

But the boy didn’t find it funny.

‘All right, young man, I have no arms. Why does that interest you?’

Neville’s face scrunched up in a way that would have been funny if not for the tears salting the mulatto’s face. Violent hiccups shook Neville’s shoulders, pulled at his neck. He stood there for several minutes, standing in front of the clown, burning in salty shame, wishing to run and hide, thinking of the despise his parents would feel if they saw him crying like that in public.

The clown was used to life without arms, but there were moments in which he wished to see them sprout again from the stumps that had remained. How nice it would have been to put his hands on this boy’s shoulders, say that it’s okay. The clown didn’t have the hands to make the gesture or the truth to imbibe the words with.

‘What’s your name?’ he asked as soon as Neville’s hiccups subsided. His own name was Lecoeurge. He had been a soldier in Patire. ‘I slept on duty after forty-eight hours on the wall,’ he said, ‘and King Fulbert vush, cut my arm off.’ The left one. The right arm, Lecoeurge had lost in battle against Baynard. ‘At the Mouth of War,’ he spoke in a low voice, as if the mere mention of the battlefield could bring the war to downtown Debur.

Useless as a soldier, Lecoeurge ran away from Patire.

‘You abandoned your king?’ asked Neville.

‘It’s very common all over Franária,’ said Lecoeurge. ‘Soldiers migrate from Patire to Deran, from Deran to Baynard, from Baynard to Deran. But the truth is there’s no hiding from death. She doesn’t care for borders.’

Neville didn’t like Lecoeurge’s joking tone.

‘You broke your pledge to your king,’ said the boy.

‘That’s right, I ran away. If not, King Fulbert would vush.’ He stretched out his neck under the fake blue beard in a gesture that very convincingly looked like a man about to be beheaded.

‘That’s not fair,’ said Neville. ‘It was Fulbert who cut off your left arm.’

‘Fair? The King of Patire?’ Lecoeurge’s whole body shook with laughter.

‘Henrique of Baynard would never do such a thing,’ Neville said, with conviction. ‘Our king is just.’ Neville’s father would never serve a king that was not loyal, just, great.

‘If you say so.’

Rimbaud of the caravan found Lecoeurge dying by the road.

‘You are so tragic that you can be funny,’ said the master of the caravan. ‘Come with us.’

‘Are you going to help me?’ asked the soldier. ‘I’m useless, I have no arms.’

‘Then use your legs. You can change the world, defeat dragons. All of that without shedding a drop of blood. Shed laughter instead.’

The clown told his story as they walked to one of the small squares where the caravan parked the wagons. Neville watched as the armless clown hopped up into a yellow tarp-covered wagon, washed his feet with soap and water from a jug, then, with his feet, remove the purple hat, the wig, the fake blue beard. Beneath the colorful clown there was a balding man with a regular face and dark circles around his eyes.

‘Impressive, isn’t it,’ said Lecoeurge, ‘how a little bit of color can change a man.’

Neville was much more impressed with the clown’s skillfulness: Lecoeurge lit a stove, prepared tea, arranged two cups, honey, spoons, and peppermint. He was so skillful with his feet that Neville felt his hands were awkward.

‘How do you do all that?’ he asked the clown.

‘The only way I can.’

Lecoeurge served tea, and Neville finally realized that he was inside one of the caravan’s wagons, something he had wondered about his whole life. How did those people live? What did they eat? Where did they sleep? Curiosity climbed up to the top of his mind, pushing his silent, legless father to his nape. The fact that Lecoeurge had broken his word to the King of Patire was forgotten.

Neville had expected chaos, very little space, clutter from all over the continent; cupboards with unhinged doors, chests filled with dust and moths, the smell of moss. Lecoeurge’s wagon was clean, with open shelves containing colorful tins filled with tea, a folded cot in the corner, the smell of dried berries.

‘You have a guitar.’ Neville pointed to the instrument on one of the shelves.

‘You may look with your hands if you like.’

Neville reached for the guitar. It was made of dark wood, adorned with flowers made of mother-of-pearl.

‘What do you have a guitar for?’ asked Neville.

‘It was a present from a Gorgathian. They had lost the mistress of the house in a terrible accident and neither he nor his children could laugh anymore. Rimbaud sent me to their palace. Do what you can, he told me. I did. The girls laughed, like you did today on the street. The nobleman gave me the guitar out of gratefulness.’

‘What a silly present for an armless man.’

‘The accident that killed his wife also took his sight.’

Neville lowered his eyes to the guitar, strummed the strings, then delicately pulled one at a time.

‘Can you play?’ asked Lecoeurge.

‘Thaila’s father has one, though not as beautiful as this one. He taught me a few notes.’

‘Take it.’

Neville immediately put the guitar back on the shelf. It was too good for him, Lecoeurge should sell it.

‘It is beautiful because it is a gift,’ said the clown, pouring more tea in his cup. ‘And now it is yours.’

Neville was not used to generosity.

‘You don’t have to give it to me.’

‘Of course I don’t! Otherwise it wouldn’t be a present.’

They drank in silence. The tea was so sweet it burned the throat. The cups were made of colored glass; kaleidoscopes of peppermint and honey. Neville pointed to the picture of a dragon on another shelf.

‘Who made that?’ he asked.

‘I did,’ said Lecoeurge. He took up a piece of paper and a pencil, then quickly sketched an eagle in flight. ‘Before it was broken in three, Franária used to be represented by an eagle. I wonder if one day this civil war won’t end and the eagle shall take flight once more.’

Let the wolves of Sátiron chew up the eagle. If Lecoeurge could do all that with his feet, imagine what Neville’s father could do with his hands.

‘I’d like to say I learned to get by without my hands out of need,’ said Lecoeurge. ‘It isn’t true. I would have died alone. I would have let myself die, but Rimbaud gave me a chance.’

Why...?

Neville dashed into the house, guitar in one hand, a brown paper package in the other. He opened the package and put the contents on the window sill: a block of paper tied together with a string of blue velvet and a small box with five sharpened pencils.

‘Father, you can still change the world. Yield a pencil instead of a sword.’

Neville went back to the fair. Everything would be fine, Father was saved. Neville had shown him the way.

Chapter 9