To Play the Fool by Laurie R. King Read Free Book Online Page B

shit?
    Erasmus had turned his attention to the things he was juggling,
looking at them with a clown's amazement at the cleverness of
inanimate objects. He allowed each of them, one after another, to come
to a rest in his right hand, paused, holding them for a moment, and
then began to toss them back into the air with that right hand,
reversing the circle. When he spoke again, his voice was neither hoarse
with suffering nor fierce with condemnation, but gentle, thoughtful.
    "After this he went out, and saw a tax collector, named Levi,
sitting at the tax office, and he said to him, "Follow me."
And he left everything, and rose and followed him. And Levi made him a
great feast, in his house, and there was a large company of tax
collectors and others sitting at the table with them. And when the
Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, "Why does your
teacher eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?" And Jesus
answered them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician,
but those who are sick.""
    There were seven objects in the air now, different sizes and weights
but perfectly, effortlessly maintaining their places in the rising and
falling arcs of the circle. Again, Erasmus studied them with the
openmouthed admiration of a child, and then suddenly the objects
leaving his right hand did not land in the left but flew wildly through
the air to be caught by onlookers. The small red book with a wide green
rubber band holding it closed was caught by the young woman who had
cried, the silver plate by the older man who had spoken to the dean, a
palm-sized plastic zip bag by a scruffy young man with lank blond hair.
A gray plastic film container hit a tall black woman on the shoulder,
and then the last thing left his hand, something shiny that flashed at
Kate and she automatically put out a hand to catch it: a child's
toy police badge, the silver paint chipped. She jerked her head up and
looked into Erasmus's dark and smiling eyes.
    "I think that God had exhibited us apostles as last of all,
like men sentenced to death, because we have become a spectacle to the
world, to angels and to men. We are fools, for Christ's sake, but
you--you are wise in Christ," he said slyly. "We are
weak, but you are strong. You are held in honor, but we in disrepute.
To the present hour we hunger and thirst, we are ill-clad and buffeted
and homeless, and we labor, working with our own hands." Leaving
the staff upright in the grass, he held out his rough hands before him
and moved slowly forward, toward the dean and Kate at his side.
"When reviled we bless, when persecuted we endure. We are the
refuse of the world, the offscouring of all things. I urge you, be
imitators of me. The kingdom of God does not consist in talk but in
power." He was very close now, and he was facing not the dean,
but Kate. "What do you wish?" he said, and stretched out
his hands to her, cupped together, his elbows in and his wrists
touching: the position for receiving handcuffs.

SIX

    The whole point of St. Francis of Assisi is that he certainly was ascetical and he certainly was not gloomy.
    Kate stared for several seconds at the thin pale wrists with their
fringe of black and gray hairs before the automatic cop reflex of
never react
kicked in. She calmly took the toy star, reached up to pin it onto the
chest of the black cassock, and patted it. The beard split in a grin of
white teeth.
    "Our feelings we with difficulty smother, when constabulary
duty's to be done," he commented, then turned to the dean.
"Blessed are you poor, for yours is the kingdom of God," he
said, cocking his head expectantly. The dean frowned for a moment, then
his face cleared and he laughed.
    "I agree, I'm feeling particularly blessed myself. Omelette or Chinese?"
    "O Jerusalem, Jerusalem, killing the prophets and stoning
those who are sent to you," Erasmus said inexplicably. He then
looked pointedly first at Kate, then back at the dean, who in response
turned to extend his hand to her.
    "I'm