LITMIR.BIZ

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flung a sneer from thrust-out lips, emphasizing it with thrust-out hands.

      “A pretty trade!” he cried, derisively. The girl answered him as calmly and proudly as if she were the very divinity of justice rebuking some obscene brawler.

      “I have no horror of my father’s trade. This sword is but the red weapon of law, as law is the red weapon of life.”

      “I have heard of you,” the man retorted, yelping at her serenity. “The wild, shy country people believe the blood that sword has shed flushes in your hair, and that the life it has taken rekindles in your eyes.”

      Perpetua shook her head.

      “This sword has shed no blood since I was born. King Robert the Good had no need of it.”

      The deformed clasped his lean fingers across his knees and rocked to and fro in an ecstasy of pleasure.

      “King Robert the Bad will have great need of it. Your father’s arms shall ache with swinging. Why, my own head would drop to-morrow like a wind-fallen apple if I had not taken fool’s leave to the heights and the hollows.”

      The girl drew back a little, still clinging to the sword.

      “Are you blood-guilty?” she asked, sternly.

      The fool laughed shrilly to see the executioner’s daughter shrink from blood-guiltiness.

      “Not I. I am but Diogenes, the Court Fool. I have been Prince Robert’s plaything over yonder in Naples since the dawn of his evil spring. When his father’s death brought him over-seas to Sicily, I must needs come too, for my wry wit diverts him and my wry body sets off his comeliness. I plumed myself on my favor, but I was bottle-brave last night, and I blundered. In my cups I aped the King’s airs and graces to a covey of court strumpets till their sleek sides creaked with laughter. ‘Thus does King Robert carry himself,’ jigged I, ‘and thus does he kiss a lady’s hand—fa, la, la!’ Oh, it was rare.”

      Even as he spoke Diogenes renewed his antics, skipping on the grass to mimic how the King skipped on the palace floor, and with his lean claws he blew kisses. Perpetua thought him more repulsive in his mirth than in his rage. But suddenly his mirth dropped and his voice fell to a whisper.

      “And then the King caught me at my capers and his heart swelled like a wet sponge. He swore a great oath that my fool’s head should be the first to fall under his tyranny.”

      The girl crossed herself in horror as she questioned.

      “Surely, he would not kill a fool for his folly?”

      The fool shrugged his shoulders; fear and malignity tugged at the muscles of his cheeks and made them twitch.

      “The King’s soul is as red as hell; sin scarlet through and through; warp and woof, there is no white thread of heaven in him. Shall I number you the beads in his chaplet of vices? The seven deadly devils wanton in his heart; his spirit is of an incredible lewdness; he is prouder than the Pope, more cruel than a mousing cat—all which I complacently forgave him till he touched at my top-knot, but now I hate him.”

      Again the girl crossed herself swiftly, while she looked at the puckered face with curiosity, with pity.

      “Can you hate in God’s sunshine?” she asked, and as she spoke she looked about her at the trees and the mountains and the sea and the grass and the flowers, ennobled and ennobling in the sunlight, and her heart ached at the new thoughts that had thrust themselves into her life. But the fool sneered at her surprise and did not heed her pity.

      “My hate is a cold snake, and the sun will not thaw me.” He struck himself fiercely on the breast and stared at her. “Look at me, humped and hideous. How could this rugged hull prove an argosy of ineffabilities?”

      The pity deepened on the girl’s face, scattering the curiosity, and she spoke gently, hopefully:

      “I have sometimes picked a wrinkled, twisted pear and found it honey-sweet at the heart.”

      Even the callous fool felt the tenderness in Perpetua’s voice, the tender pity of the strong spirit for the weak, the evil, the unhappy. He shook his head less angrily than before.

      “I am no such bird-of-paradise,” he sighed. “My mind is a crooked knife in a crooked sheath. When I was a child in my Italian village, trimly built, children laughed at me for my ugliness, for my hump, for my peaked chin and my limp, and I learned to curse other children as I learned to speak. Every hand, every tongue was against the hunchback, yet my shame saved me. For my gibbosities tickled the taste of a travelling mountebank. He bought me of my parents, who were willing enough to part with their monster; he trained me to his trade, taught me to sing foul songs and to dance foul dances. I have grinned and whistled through evil days and ways. My wit was gray with iniquities when Hildebrand, the King’s minion, saw me one day at a fair in Naples and picked me out for jester to Prince Robert.”

      The head of Diogenes drooped upon his breast. He had not talked, he had not thought, of the past for long enough, and the memory vexed him. Perpetua propped the sword against the wall of her dwelling and stood with linked hands for a little while in silence, looking out over the sea. Then she turned again to where the fool crouched, and spoke to him softly.

      “Are all court folk like you?”

      Diogenes lifted his head, and the old malignity glittered in his eyes.

      “Ay, in the souls; but for the most part they have smooth bodies.”

      He watched the girl closely while her eyes again sought the sea and came back and met the fool’s gaze.

      “Is the King like you?” she questioned.

      The fool unhuddled himself and leaped to his feet, snapping his fingers in fantastic imprecation.

      “My soul is as the soul of a sucking babe by his wicked soul; but, as for his body, the imperious gods who mock us have given him a most exquisite outside, the case of an angel masking a devil.”

      He raged into silence, but his mouth still worked hideously, as if his hate were fumbling for words it could not find. The girl gave a great sigh.

      “I did not know there were such men in the world,” she said. The fool stared at her in amaze.

      “Then you must have seen few men,” he grunted.

      “I have seen few men,” the girl answered, sadly—“my father, who is old, and the timid country folk, and the holy brothers of the church. Of men from the valley, from the city, I have seen but two—you and one other.” She paused for a moment, thoughtfully, and then went on with a swell of exultation in her voice—“and that other was not like you.”

      The fool drew nearer to her, eagerly, apish curiosity goading him. “Who was my fellow?” he asked of the girl, who, with averted head, seemed as one who dreams waking. Dreamily she answered:

      “One dewy morning a week ago I met a hunter in these happy woods.” She closed her eyes for a moment as if the memory was sweet to her and she wished to shut it away from the staring fool.

      “Humph!” said Diogenes. “In the days of Robert the Good men might not hunt in these forests.”

      Perpetua looked at Diogenes again with bright eyes of scorn.

      “King Robert was gentle with beast as with man. But this hunter did not seem cruel. Like you, he was tired; like you, he was thirsty. I showed him where a spring of sweet water bubbled.”

      “What was his outer seeming?” Diogenes asked. Somewhat of a warmer color touched the girl’s cheeks.

      “My father has told me tales of the ancient heroes. I think he was blessed with all the comeliness and goodliness of the Golden Age.”

      Diogenes jeered at her enthusiasm with his voice, with his eyes, with every curve and angle of his misshapen frame—protesting against praise of beauty.

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