The Fool's Girl by Celia Rees Read Free Book Online Page A

get you? We have little here, but I can offer you small beer and some bread with cheese, or bacon.’
    Will refused politely. He was a courteous man and did not want to offend this good woman, but he was here on other business and would not be deflected.
    His eyes fixed on Feste, who had sidled into the room. ‘First,’ he laid the rolled scroll on the table, ‘I have a proposition for you. I want to know if you can con this and con it quickly.’ He took the Fool card from his pocket and set it on the table next to the script. ‘I find I’m in need of a clown.’
    ‘I don’t know, master. We will have to take a look at it, won’t we?’ Feste came forward talking not to Will but to Little Feste, whose small, twisted face had suddenly popped up in the crook of his arm. ‘We will have to see.’
    ‘Ooh, yes. We’ll have to see.’ He answered himself in a cracked little voice. The puppet’s head turned round, craning down at the unfurling roll of pages. ‘Looks hard to me.’ He peered up at his master. ‘Can we do it? Can we? We will certainly have to see.’
    ‘Enough fooling, Feste.’ Violetta stared at him in warning.
    ‘Fooling? Who’s fooling?’ Little Feste’s head whipped round to look up at Violetta. ‘Not us, it can’t be.’
    ‘I said, stop it!’ Violetta’s voice was sterner now.
    ‘Very well.’
    ‘We will help you,’ Violetta said, ‘if you will help us.’
    Will looked at her, perplexed. ‘I would help you, if it is in my power to do so. But tell me, for it puzzles me mightily, why all this?’ He picked up the card again. ‘Why can’t you ask me plain?’
    ‘Because I thought you might refuse us, just go on your way.’
    ‘I’m here, am I not? While Feste cons the part, you can tell me – what do you want from me?’
    Feste took the scroll and sat down cross-legged on the floor, leaning against Violetta. Maria sat opposite her, hands in her lap. She thought back, tracing her way through the crooked lanes of memory and longing to the gilded time when she was young and Illyria was the best place in the world. She looked up at Violetta. Maria would start and they would pass the story between them, backwards and forwards, as women wind wool.

.
    7
    ‘After the last enchantment’
    MARIA
    It was a golden time. Beginning with the weddings. A double celebration. The city had never seen such a thing. People poured in from everywhere. The streets were lined from well before dawn as folk took their places to see the grand procession.
    The day chosen was known to be auspicious. From early the bands and companies paraded through the streets to the main square. Each guild and family represented, splendid in their livery, waving and hurling banners high into the air. Young girls came dancing after them, strewing flowers, so the couples would walk over a thick, soft carpet and sweet scents would waft up with every step they took on their way to the cathedral.
    Orsin and Sebastian were crowned with flowers, their white satin suits all embroidered with gold and silver and worked with precious stones so that they glittered in the sunlight like princes from fairyland. Their brides walked beside them, arm in arm, one dark, one fair. Viola in the palest rose; my lady in the soft grey-green of oleander leaves. Their bodices were all embroidered with tiny seed pearls that I’d selected and sewn myself. Their veils were so fine that they were worked with needles as thin as hairs and single threads of silk. The delicate lawn floated before their faces like breath on a frosty day.
    The cathedral was packed with guests from every neighbouring state and further, from Venice and Sicily, Tunis and Tripoli, from the Sultan’s court at Constantinople, all there to celebrate this blessed day. The couples came in to fanfares of trumpets. Choirs sang as they approached the High Altar to make their vows of love and obedience before our most holy relic.
    Afterwards they stood on the steps of the cathedral,