“I cannot,” I admitted.

“Then this, perhaps…” He winked at me with a bulging eye. “The lady said you were sprightly.”

In a motion that defied my eyes, this squat, curved man spun into a complete forward somersault, then backward again, landing precisely where he had started.

“What about jokes, then? The lady said you could make me laugh. You must know some fabulous jokes.”

“I know a few,” I said.

Norbert folded his arms. “So, go ahead, boy. Bowl me over. Make me laugh until I piss myself.”

Now I was eager to take the dare, eager to show the jester up. This I could surely do. I thought through my best inventory. “There’s the one about the peasant who is so lazy that as he watches a gold coin drop from the money bag of a knight riding by…”

“Knowit,” Norbert interrupted. “He says to his friend, ‘If he comes back the same way, this just might be our lucky day.’ ”

“Then there’s the one about the traveler and the whorehouse,” I began. “A traveler is walking down the road…”

“Knowit,”the jester snapped again. “The sign says, ‘Congratulations, you’ve just been screwed.’ ”

I went through two other tales that never failed to stir a laugh. “Knowit,”he said to both. He seemed to know them all. Emilie held back a laugh.

“So that’s it? That’s your entire repertoire?” The jester shook his head. “Can you at least rhyme? A dour king cannot ignore, refusedly, a spicy tale about his wife if it is told amusedly.

“This stuff is easy, right? Hump your back, hop around like an ape, everyone rolls over in stitches. C’mon, Red, you must have something decent. You want a pretext? Well, I want to be a mentor. I want to be a mentor.”He pranced around and whined like a spoiled child. “You know, maybe on second thought, you [111] would have an easier time storming Baldwin ’s castle than making them laugh.”

In a fit of vexation, I searched the room. This was no sport to me. No stupid audition. This was about the fate of my wife. Then, in the corner of the jester’s cell, I spotted a ball and chain.

“That.” I pointed.

“What? Wanna play catch?” Norbert asked haughtily.

“No, jester. Fetch me the chain.” I remembered something I had seen on the Crusade. A captured Saracen did a trick to amuse his captors; it worked so well they kept him alive.

“Bind me with it,” I said. “Wrap it all the way around, tight as you can. I will extricate myself.”

This brought a worried look from Emilie. The chain was heavy. Wound too tight, it could squeeze the air out of a man.

“Your poison.” Norbert shrugged.

He went over and dragged the heavy chain back to me. I took several deep breaths, as I had seen the Saracen do when he performed the trick. Then the jester began to wrap. Slowly, heavily, the chain squeezed me. I lifted my arms and he wrapped it around my shoulders. And for good luck, between my legs.

“Your rubicund friend has a knack to kill himself.” Norbert chuckled.

“Please be careful,” Emilie said.

I pushed out my chest as expansively as I could as the jester circled it with the chain. I had to enlarge myself. I had to hold my breath. I had seen this done. I had questioned the Turk about it myself. I only hoped I could re-create the effect now.

“Time’s a wasting,” Norbert said after the chain was secure. He stood back.

The links felt heavy on my shoulders. Slowly, I released the captured air from my lungs. The slightest wiggle room developed around my chest. It was only a finger’s breadth or two.

Then I was able to shift my shoulders back and forth. Then gradually my arms. Every grueling minute advanced like an [112] hour. The weight of the chains pressed me to the floor. My hands were pinned behind my back, but finally I pulled one free. I twisted it like a snake through an opening up around my shoulders.

Emilie gasped. The jester looked on, finally interested in me.

It took all of my strength to get an arm free. My stomach and leg still ached from the boar’s attack. Each exertion was grueling, but gradually, with the arm free, I was able to unwrap the chain. From between my legs, from under my arms, from around my chest. Layer after layer came off. Then I freed my other arm.

As I kicked off the final loop, Emilie screeched a happy cry.

I doubled over, drenched in sweat. I looked up at my mentor.

Norbert drummed his fingers along the side of his face. He smiled at Emilie. “I think we can work with that.”

I STUDIED WITH NORBERT for nearly a fortnight, until my wounds finally healed completely. My days were spent juggling, tumbling, and watching him perform in front of the court, and my nights with the telling and retelling of jokes and rhymes.

Step by step, I learned the jester’s trade.

Much of it came easily to me. I had been a jongleur and was used to entertaining. And I had always been agile. We practiced forward flips and handstands; in return, I taught him the trick with the chain. A hundred times, Norbert held out his arm, like a bar, at waist height, while I strained to flip my body over it. At first, I hit my head on the straw mat again and again, and groaned in pain. “You find new ways to injure yourself, Red,” my mentor would say, shaking his head.

Then slowly, surely, my confidence began to grow. I began to clear Norbert’s arm, though sometimes falling to my seat. On my last day, I made it over, my feet landing in the precise spot from where I had sprung. I met his eyes. Norbert’s face lit up in a monumental smile.

“You’ll do all right.” He nodded.

At last, my education was complete. There was an urgency to things; the image of Sophie was never far from my thoughts. If I had any hope of finding her alive, I had to go now.

[114] At the end of our final session, Norbert dragged over a heavy wooden trunk. “Open it, Hugh. It’s a gift from me.”

I lifted the top and pulled out a set of folded clothes. Green leggings and red tunic. A floppy pointed cap. A colorful patchwork skirt.

“Emilie made it,” the jester said proudly, “but to my design.”

I looked at the jester’s costume warily.

Norbert grinned. “Afraid to play the fool, eh? Your pride’s your enemy, then, not Baldwin.”

I hesitated. I knew I had to play the role, for Sophie, but it was hard to see myself wearing this outfit. I held the tunic up to me, sizing it against my chest.

“Put it on, then,” Norbert insisted, smacking me on the shoulder. “You’ll be a chip off the old block.”

I removed a set of bells from the trunk.

“For the cap,” said Norbert. “No liege wants to be snuck up on by his fool.”

The uniform I suppose I had to wear, but there was no way I could see myself tinkling about. “These, I must leave with you.”

“No bells …?” the jester exclaimed. “No clubfoot, no hunch of the spine?” Again, he slapped my shoulders. “You are indeed the new breed.”

I put aside my own tunic and leggings and slipped into the jester’s outfit. Piece by piece, I felt a new confidence take over my body. I had worn the robes of a young goliard, the garb of a soldier in the Crusade. Now this…

I looked at myself up and down and broke into a wide smile. I felt a new man! I was ready.

“Brings tears to my eyes.” Norbert feigned growing misty. “The lack of limp bothers me some-a jester needs a good strut. Oh, but you will appeal to the ladies!”

I sprang into a forward flip, stuck it, and bowed with pride.

“You are done, then, Hugh,” the jester said. He tugged at my tunic and skirt to adjust the fit. “Just one thing more… It is [115] not enough, boy, to simply make them laugh. Any fool can make a man laugh. Just fall on your face. The mark of a true jester is to gain the trust of the court. You may speak in rhyme, or in gibberish for all I care, but somehow you must touch something true. It is not enough to win your lord’s laughter, lad. You must also win his ear.”