A Portrait of Silas Fox - Part II
Last week, we traveled back to the 17th century to meet Silas Fox. His father sold him for 30 pounds to become a court jester for Lord Ashby at Oakmont Hall. A lifelong reader, Silas becomes known around the court for the stories he tells.
Life at Oakmont Hall moved swiftly. Fall turned to winter, and we watched fat snowflakes come down in flurries from safely behind enormous glass window panes. Sebastian and I became close, with him spinning political commentary and doing acrobatic tricks while I told stories about fantastical realms. My stories grew more and more elaborate, each building off the former to create a kind of unending tale, and Lord Ashby hired a scribe to write them down. Scrolls collected in the library, their title: A TALE BY COURT DWARF SILAS FOX.
The following summer, Lord Ashby wed. Lady Ashby was a Danish woman and the daughter of a baron. She arrived on a sweltering June day with a plethora of staff carting in elephantine leather trunks that contained mounds of silk clothing, valuable jewelry, and pearl-crusted hand mirrors. Once she had settled in, the atmosphere of the Hall shifted. Lord Ashby was noticeably happier, and he took up whistling as he strolled the grounds, but the Lady was more or less a mystery to us. She had thin wheat-blonde hair that fell in wisped tufts, not dissimilar to that of an infant. Her skin was pale as a cloud, and she was ethereal as one, too. It seemed as though she might slip away into thin air; she appeared perpetually ill.
The first words I exchanged with Lady Ashby were one night at dinner, when she appeared whiter than the newly lye-laundered tablecloth, and I feared she might faint.
“Forgive me, my Lady,” I said to her. “Are you feeling well?”
She looked around conspiratorially. Sebastian was walking on his hands by the fireplace, and the chamberlain and steward were engaging with the Lord in drunken banter about relations between Spain and England.
“See, dwarfie,” she said. She turned her head away from me and lifted up her blonde hair. Behind her ears sat a pair of brown speckled leeches, their round heads sucking away happily at her tight porcelain skin.
“They help my complexion,” she said gleefully. “I have a jar of them in the dresser.”
Though I had no real opinion of Lady Ashby, the gossip around the Hall was rampant. I heard from the cooks that she had caused a scandal in her home region: she allegedly attempted to wed and elope with a groundskeeper from her father’s estate. From one of the stewards, I heard they were caught by guards sneaking through the fields, and clutched in her pale fist were diamonds, gold, and a ring belonging to her mother, the late Baroness. The Baron had sent her away to England to marry Lord Ashby, a footman told me as he smoked from his wooden pipe one night in the servant’s quarters. It was a political move; she needed to be placed somewhere she couldn’t make any more trouble.
Sebastian was morally revolted by the rumors, yet he was eager to engage and spread them. His claims would range from the salacious (“Her lover was an arborist; they would meet each night under the apple trees”) to the nonsensical (“She has witch blood, I’d bet my life on it”).
I thought it mattered not to us even if Lord Ashby married a flying pig or his own reflection, but Sebastian was convinced that our Lord had made a grave error, and, according to his most intense tirades, the marriage had the potential to threaten our very livelihoods. He claimed Lord Ashby was being scorned by other nobility, that his image was tarnished, and that all would be affected: trade, income, the invisible politics of this place.
“I fail to see why it matters to you,” I told him one day as we practiced a routine. He stood on his hands, and I balanced atop the soles of his feet. Once we gained balance, we walked a few steps, each trying to keep in unison with the others’ movements. At first, the act had resulted in my clattering to the floor and earning a plum-colored bruise, but we were getting better, and we could now walk around the room with intention.
His voice was tense from focus. “Silas, just because very little matters to you does not mean that few things are of importance.”
“Many things matter to me,” I said, offended.
“Like what?”
I thought about it as I followed his feet through the air. “Things that are material comforts, or things that bring me knowledge. Things that benefit me, or will benefit me within a reasonable time.”
“Down now.” He walked over to the side of the bed, and I jumped off my perch and onto the sheets. Then he lowered himself to a seated position. “You care for yourself, but not the world at large. Are you not interested in the political, the economic?”
“Why should I care for the world at large?” I asked him.
“Because it is the world we live in. Our very existence here in this castle relies on the fabric of the English society being cared for and maintained. People like our Lady Ashby threaten this.”
“Allow me to rephrase my question,” I said. “Why should I care for the world, when the world has done all but care about me?”
He paused and considered me closely. “At times, I forget that you are a dwarf and not a man,” he said at last. “Your caring for mankind would be a gift to us, and a burden to you.”
“Perhaps so. Or perhaps I am a man, and it is simply that I have not been treated as such that has made me bitter.”
He laughed. “Be it as it may, if we debate what makes a man a man, we will be awake all night. We must return to the point of this conversation. One thing is clear to me, as I think it is clear to us all: the Lady has to go. The steward told me he went down to the market, and our Lord’s new marriage was the talk of the townspeople. What minimal favor he has garnered will slip away from him soon.”
“Can one really control favor?” I asked.
“Of course. Though few are any good at it, and most meet their downfall on the path to chasing it.”
I considered this. “Perhaps you are right. Still, if the Lady is gone, will we not have another scandal on our hands?”
Sebastian shrugged. “There are many ways for a union to dissolve without the public knowing. She could be sent away to an abbey, or a madhouse. Or perhaps she could be sent to Barbados–I hear they need high ranking nobles there.”
“You speak as someone who knows a great deal about this,” I said.
“At Cambridge, my Tripos was in Law and Moral Sciences. I feel I am well versed in the ways that men can abscond logic the moment that emotions rear their heads, especially when involving a woman. I am torn between biting my tongue and saying nothing, and seeing it as the duty of my role as the noble jester to speak on the issue.”
From my vantage point of the bed, Sebastian’s lanky body was folded like a knotted bread. He was deep in thought, believing the foolish problems of men to be those of his own. Though I had to admit, there was something to his idea about rumor being a conduit to falling in or out of favor. I was used to being seen and spoken about, but this had usually been negative, the gaze regarding my miscreation and strangeness. It is because of Sebastian that I first considered the real ways my status as a curiosity might be used to my advantage.
I rubbed the webbing between my thumb and index finger. “Friend, if this matters so to you, then I will speak to her.”
“You?” he asked, bewildered. “Speak to the Lady?”
“I have established myself as a storyteller here,” I said. “I spend time alone with Lord Ashby telling my stories.”
“You mean your long tale of fairies and dwarves that the scribe is writing down?”
“Yes. Often my tales provide some moral or advice that I believe he finds useful.”
“Ah,” he said, his eyes glittering with excitement, jealousy, or both. “So you are becoming a favorite of the Lord?”
“I suppose. Perhaps, if he will allow me, I could speak to Lady Ashby in this way and make headway on this matter for you.”
He rose from the floor and let out a sound of jubilation. Even though I sat several feet higher on the bed, he towered above me.
“My little friend, you are my finest counsel.”
*****
After dinner the next evening, Sebastian walked on his hands throughout the Great Hall while Lord and Lady Ashby laughed and drank from sharp, clear glasses of wine. There were a few nobles visiting from Kent, and the cooks had crafted a three-course meal of potage, wild boar that Scregg had caught the same morning, and slices of gingerbread. The food had left everyone groggy and jolly; they slouched in their chairs, made lewd jokes to one another, and drank wine until their lips were stained red.
Throughout the dinner I had observed Lady Ashby. While the other nobles did not openly show any disdain or contempt for her, they seemed to avoid including her in conversation, often behaving as though she were not there. They acknowledged her only when Lord Ashby spoke of her, and when he did so (the Lady has a talent for embroidery, you know), he leaned slightly and placed his hand upon her pale wrist. If she was perturbed by the icy way the others treated her, she did not openly reveal it, though I noted that at various moments, her pale complexion was marred by the rosy cheeks of embarrassment.
I made my way to the fireplace, my usual place of residence where I told my stories or, if my Lord desired table conversation, simply stood still and appeared pleasant. Lord Ashby noticed me and drew the attention of his peers.
“All, look,” he said, pointing at me. “It is my court dwarf.”
A lady in a green velvet robe breathed excitedly. “Oh, you are so lucky to have a dwarf. They are rare, and not easily procured.”
“Does he sing and dance?” the man beside her asked. “Lord Harrington of Lancashire has one that dances.”
“No, this dwarf is a storyteller. He comes from faraway lands and has had many travels, and of those travels he tells tales of the exotic, bizarre, and fantastical.”
There was a chorus of marveling vocalization.
“Go on, Silas.” Lord Ashby nodded to me.
“My Lord,” I said, lowering myself in a bow. This impressed them; I did not have to see their faces to know it. “Given that it is a special occasion with guests, I offer up a different service than my usual storytelling tonight.”
He raised his eyebrows. “Pray tell.”
“Your Ladies and Lordship, I am trained in the ancient and magical art of palmistry. I have the ability to foresee one’s fortune from the very lines on the palm of their hand. Though I must admit, I am not as skilled at this as those who taught me, I will be able to read a rudimentary sketch of the future for each of you.”
The nobles were instantly eager, clamoring over one another to be first in line to receive a divination. The reception was more willing than I had anticipated, though in retrospect I should have known that powerful people are always seeking to be in control of the only variable they never will be: fate.
Lord Ashby placed me in the parlor room outside the dining area, where I stood before a leather armchair. “I shall send them out to you one by one,” he said.
The room was dimly lit, the grayish sun having gone down over the distant hills. Outside, I could see the fowl roaming, the swarms of glowworms illuminated yellow, darting between short cropped grasses. Clouds loomed over the sunset, threatening a humid summer rain. In that moment, I could picture myself living at Oakmont forever: the wheel of seasons cycling through, year after year of eating gamey meats and telling elaborate stories, performing any magic that my mind allowed me to, growing silver and old. I thought, Sebastian was right: the longevity of a life like this depended on the politics of the place.
I gave each noble a reading. It was simple enough, because they were all very similar people. Each of them wore the same postured lionhearted valiance, which masked the same aimless insecurity. They wanted to be told they were destined for greatness, that they possessed unique and quantifiable skills, because it would render null the truth that gnawed at their guts: their life of privilege and nobility came not because they deserved it, but because they’d been born into it, married into it, or stumbled into it by luck. I traced the thicker lines on their hands and told them what they wanted to hear: they would amass a great fortune by the time of their death, they would overcome grief and be made anew for it, they would find happiness in an unlikely place within themselves. When they asked specific questions, I closed my eyes, looked up at the ceiling, and said, “Time will tell.”
This is something I still respect about Lord Ashby, despite all that happened. Unlike the others, he won his title after fighting in battle. It was ironic that they were skeptical of his status merely because his Lordship was new and unestablished–he was the only one who had truly earned it. He was the only one who did not come to receive a palm reading. Perhaps a man who has seen death knows the pitfalls of gazing into their future.
Lady Ashby entered the parlor last. She was stumbling drunk, a ring of red wine around her lips, pale cheeks flushed, breathing hard out of her mouth.
“Tell me, dwarf,” she said, collapsing into the chair in front of me. “Where did you learn palmistry?”
“In the East, my Lady,” I told her, bowing. She did not ask where. In her inebriated and haphazard seated position, she suddenly seemed to me a child. “May I?”
Her hands were small even for a woman, dry and flaky, as though she washed them often. I ran my finger along the line that arched like a crescent moon down the lower half of her palm.
“You will live a long life, free of untimely disease and ailment,” I told her.
She exhaled.
I touched the line at the top of her hand, which was so thin it was almost invisible. “You are someone whose judgment is often clouded,” I said. “You see honor in everyone, even those who do not deserve it.”
“I do!” she said, her eyes round as marbles.
I squinted my eyes and studied the line that ran from her thumb through the center of her palm, interwoven with the first line, then broke off and stopped in the middle.
“Oh, My Lady,” I began, scratching my head.
“What is it?” she asked, lifting her palm in front of her face.
“I…do not mean to be presumptuous.”
“What do you see, dwarf? Spit it out.”
A pause. One more. Then, I said: “Are you in love, my Lady? I do not necessarily mean a marriage. I mean true, unbridled love. The kind not all experience in a lifetime.”
A tempest rolled across her pale face, entering slowly as the corners of her lips twitched and her eyes grew big and watery as a bovine. Then it crumbled in on itself. Tears rolled down her cheeks unabashedly, dropping onto her white collar. They made ravines in her powdered face, revealing bare skin beneath. It was as if a dam had collapsed within her, and a river now came flooding in.
I had expected a reaction when I mentioned love, but I had not predicted her distress. Looking at her then, as she stifled sobs with a silk handkerchief, I realized she must have been not much older than I was. Young, alone, sent away to a foreign land for making a mistake, for being different.
“Leave me,” she choked, raising a flopping hand and shielding her eyes. I bowed, averting my eyes from her–the sight of her made me feel uneasy–and slipped back into the dining hall, where Sebastian stood on his hands, waiting for me to balance upon his feet.
*****
At dinner the following night, we were told that Lady Ashby was feverish and had taken soup and tea in her bedchambers. Sebastian winked at me. All throughout the meal, I was fixated on the thin white slices of manchet bread, which accompanied the lean and gamey stewed rabbit. When I look back on this dinner–and I look back on it often, in the dark of nights when I cannot sleep–it is the taste of the rabbit I remember most.
After Sebastian and I performed our acrobatic balancing routine with perfection, after three glasses of wine were doled out, the stewards began to clean and I was summoned into the office of Lord Ashby. As soon as we were alone, his demeanor changed. He was harsh, troubled. He sat on his red chair while I stood with my hands clasped behind my back.
“Dwarf,” Lord Ashby said, “I have heard that your kind cannot tell a lie.”
“It is true, sir,” I said automatically.
“Then I must know something.” He glanced over his shoulder, as though afraid a passing maid might hear. “Who is it that spoke to my wife of…the Danish affair?”
I wrinkled my eyebrows, feigning confusion to buy myself a moment. “Sir?”
“She wouldn’t stop blabbering on about it, and today she’s nearly catatonic,” he said. “I wonder if you may have garnered something last night from your fortune telling or observations.”
The moment and my thoughts in it went by quickly, though I want to say it was long. I want to tell you that I thought deeply about it, that I parsed my options and considered telling the truth, revealing my cards. Alas, I did no such thing. The moment was over in the same amount of time as all others, and I acted on instinct, in self-preservation, an animal.
I bowed my head. “It was Sebastian, sir.”
“The jester.” He looked out of the window, where the same pastoral scene as always lay. His expression was unreadable.
“Forgive him, my Lord,” I said. “It was simply a jest gone too far. He means well.”
*****
One day later, at the very same time of post-meal cleanup and clarity, we were all dismissed to our chambers for the evening, save for Sebastian. He caught my eye as he was summoned and as I walked out of the Great Hall. I widened my expression and gave a slight shrug, trying to reveal as little as possible. I could see his toes curling in his pointed shoes, his chest deflating raggedly.
I returned to our room and collapsed into my bed, thinking that I would stay awake and wait for him to return so I could speak with him. I assured myself that if the worst were to happen, he would be able to find employment elsewhere easily, for he was a charming and educated man. Were I in his place, the same could not be said of me.
The fairy queen of sleep had other plans for me: she came for me as quickly as I lay my head upon the pillow, and I receded into a long and wakeless night of heavy slumber. I was so deep in the conflict-empty world of dreams that I would not have arisen at a kettle whistling, nor a musket, nor a farewell.
*****
At the following morning light, Sebastian was gone. The chamberlain told me he’d departed at dawn, and he did not know where he had been sent. His bed was cold, the sheets strewn and twisted. He had left nothing of his, not even a note. I did not speak of him again, nor did any of the staff nor nobles bring his name into conversation, and for this I was grateful. My heart was already cleaved in two.
A mere three weeks later, Lord Ashby announced that he was selling me to the Marchioness of Florence. He was receiving more in this deal than he had paid Marlowe for, and far more than Marlowe had paid my father. I thanked him for the time I spent at Oakmont and packed what little things I had back into the same leather sack I’d left my hometown with. The scrolls that had been transcribed of my magical tales belonged to Lord Ashby and his library, and I was saddened yet somewhat relieved to be leaving those stories behind. They had never belonged to me, anyhow–they were of a world that had beauty and valiance and honor, and that was not at all like the one I lived in.
Thus, for the second time in my life, I found myself being sold.
I feel you may at least partially understand, for although you are a painter, you have had periods of indentured servitude yourself–yes, I heard about your time in Madrid. Being treated as property does something to the soul, something damaging and irreversible, and I felt a soft core deep within myself growing rigid, a hot liquid coal hardening. To be a jester is to come daringly close to being someone worthy of respect and status, and then to be given a stark reminder that we are merely expendable entertainment.
As I traveled throughout my later years, I shared Sebastian’s name in the various courts I performed in, but to my knowledge, he did not darken any noble door after our time together at Oakmont. I think of Sebastian often, for he was the first man that showed me what truly makes a man: character, conviction, and kindness. There are very few good men today, and I will maintain that he was one of the last of them.
Incidentally, the only person from my time at Oakmont whom I ever encountered again was Scregg. It turned out that he came to work at a Scottish castle I visited while on loan a few years ago. The Marquee there had an avid interest in botany, and Scregg’s official title was the estate’s horticulturist. When I saw him, he was on his knees outside a beautiful glass greenhouse, delicately placing bulbs in the soil. Twisting vines and fresh fruits surrounded him, and the sun shone on his face and illuminated it in a way I had never seen before. When he saw me, he squinted his eyes, smiled faintly, and lifted one great hand. It seemed less of a wave than a pardon.
To be continued…
Kaylie Saidin grew up in California and now lives in North Carolina. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from UNC Wilmington, where she served as fiction coeditor of Ecotone Magazine. Her writing has appeared in Oxford American, Prairie Schooner, New Orleans Review, Los Angeles Review, Nashville Review, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere.
Follow her on Instagram, Twitter, and check out more of her work here.