Chapter I
A field outside Castlemuir walls ~ 25 December 1202
THE ROUGH board walls of the caravan closed around them and his squire lit the lantern against the encroaching darkness. Fallon’s master sat on the stool, removing the greasepaint from his face with a towel. His jester crown had been hung on a peg and his pointed shoes returned to the bench where he stored his costume. Fallon had never seen him out of the bright green and red tunic; he always undressed after the light was extinguished.
They’d had a long frosty walk in the snow to the caravan after the Jester’s performance at Castlemuir. Lord Broderick had returned with Lady Tess and in a hastily arranged ceremony that put the priest in a temper, they were married. The infant sons were shown around to the assembly and all declared that Lord Broderick had never looked happier.
But the celebration had delayed Jester’s performance to after midnight. His lordship expressed his gratitude with a gold sovereign but the jester could not be persuaded to bed down at Castlemuir for the night. He insisted on returning to the caravan with his young servant.
“I heard the advice you offered his lordship, master,” Fallon murmured. “Did you believe all that about love and giving the Lady Tess what she needs to win her?”
Dumas didn’t answer right away. “I believe in giving his lordship what he needs to hear to keep the peace and we are a gold sovereign richer for it. I believe in gold, Fallon.” He craned his misshapen form to examine his squire. “You almost gave the game away tonight. What were you thinking crying out like that?”
“I was frightened for you. Lord Broderick has a terrible temper.”
“I am a better judge of Broderick’s temper than you are; I was in no danger. Do not let it happen again.”
“Yes, sir.”
Fallon moved to the corner and set about arranging a bed of sacks to lie on.
“What are you doing?”
“I am preparing for sleep, master.” Fallon did not meet his eyes. Surely, he did not expect a show at this late hour.
“You are forgetting something,” he said after a brief silence.
“It is Christmas, master. I fancy you are too tired after your performance to desire anything but sleep.”
Snow was falling outside the caravan but they were warm inside the snug wooden home.
“I am not tired. Begin.”
Fallon turned away to watch the snow fall from the tiny window. “I do not wish to perform tonight, master. Your speech to Lord Broderick affected me deeply. It was noble and courageous to speak so boldly to his lordship. Think of it! It is because of you that his son will live and Lady Tess is restored to Castlemuir.”
“What is that to you or me? Fallon, I have kept my end of our bargain; you must keep yours. You are warm are you not? And you have food in your belly; as my squire, you move unmolested through the streets. In return, you promised me to do me one service. I can always hand you over to Lord Broderick to sweeten the offer of ransom he is sending to King John. I shall be well rid of you. Your lip may tremble but I will not be moved. Fallon—I am waiting!”
Her keeper turned on his stool, planted his hands on his knees and gazed at the ragged urchin before him.
Fallon the boy squire was in reality an eighteen-year-old maiden, rescued from the streets of London by Dumas, the Jester. She had never known her parents. Abandoned at birth and raised in an orphanage, the girl had lived on the streets from the age of ten, surviving on hand-outs and kitchen scraps until Dumas found her four months ago. The clown had struck a bargain with his protégée that Fallon had not objected to until a few hours ago.
“Why do you hate me so?” she asked, trying hard not to cry.
The scene at Castlemuir had affected her deeply. It wounded her that her master could speak eloquently about love between a man and woman and fail to acknowledge the woman who shared his troubles and his joys for the past four months. She wanted what Dumas had spoken of—honour, courage and love. Fallon wanted to be loved.
Above all, she wanted the jester to love her.
Fallon raised her chin and fixed her eyes on her master’s deformity with a determined stare. Dumas took care to conceal the grotesque malformation on his back from her sight but he needn’t have bothered—it did not repulse Fallon. What had twisted his back had twisted his mind. The jester kept his distance until the night hours when he demanded payment for the roof over her head and the food in her belly. To think she had been grateful to the clown when she first came to serve him. Night after night of pleasuring her master had gradually drained her of all feeling.
“You are obstinate tonight. Why do you stand there gawping? You have seen my ugly visage many times before this. The first night, as I recall, you were titillated by my demand.”
“I thought because you were kind to me that meant you loved me.”
“I was not kind to you. I rescued you from a hoard of rapists for my own use. We have a bargain; please do not talk of love again. Begin.”
The girl set her mouth and her breathing constricted. The bargain they had struck had begun to change her too; Fallon did not realize how much until tonight. At first, it had been strangely exciting, then it became degrading and now she pitied her master for his perversity.
“Lady Tess was forced to cut her hair too. Did you notice? We are of the same age. She donned a boy’s disguise for the same reasons that I did. Lady Tess found love even with her shorn head. Do you think I will be loved one day, master?”
“Lady Tess was a noblewoman. It was her nobility that attracted Lord Broderick, not her hair. You are not gentry, nor even a peasant woman. I’m not trying to be cruel; it is unlikely you’ll attract a husband.”
“You are not trying to be cruel, but I believe you are cruel.”
“Good. There’ll be fewer delays in future if we understand each other. Begin. I will not ask you again.”
When Fallon looked at the jester, she did not see his deformity or hear his evil tongue and yet the man was both evil and twisted. The fine qualities buried within his soul were invisible to everyone but her for she saw him as she saw no other man. He intrigued her, and tormented her too.
God had blessed the hunchback with a beautifully formed face. Perhaps it was a curse to be so lovely and yet physically repulsive. Dumas’s eyes were an arresting shade of blue and grey, adorned with dark lashes, brows and a noble forehead. His mouth was sensual and appealing when he smiled, which was rare. Dumas’s head of thick nut-brown hair was covered by his jester’s crown during performance. Fallon was the only one who had seen him out of make-up. When they were in town, Dumas did not leave the caravan. It was one of Fallon’s duties to purchase their bread, cheese and wine. With her cropped hair and boy’s disguise, she was known as the jester’s squire and no one was the wiser.
“How old are you, master?” Fallon opened the vestment she wore as the jester’s squire.
“Thirty-eight. Why is my age significant?”
“I am eighteen. I shall outlive you, I think. And when you are dead, I shall take your crown and this caravan and I shall become the jester. That will be my revenge for this degradation.”
She removed the vestment and then the tunic. The order of her disrobing never varied: vestment, tunic, linen shirt, followed by hose. When she was standing before him wearing only the binding that secured her breasts and a short slip, Dumas motioned her near.
“There has been no degradation between us. A bargain was struck, Fallon. In this life, a bargain is a great thing; it means people like us can get what we want.”
Dumas’s legs were clad in diamond-patterned black and white hosiery. Fallon stood between them, recalling their first night together and how she had trembled with erotic sensations, though she was also frightened and repulsed. On that night, with shaking hands, Fallon had slowly unravelled the binding under her tunic and her breasts sprang free. The deformed half-man had made a sound in his throat and said he had not seen a girl as fine as she, and still a virg
in, naked. Dumas had only known prostitutes until he found Fallon.
“What do you mean people like us, master? What is wrong with us that we cannot have what other people have? Why should we not be happy? We work hard, we do not lie, we do not cheat—why should we not find love too?”
“Because the world does not love deformed men or fatherless girls,” he said impatiently. “Now stop talking. You ask too many questions. Remove your binding and slip.”
Dumas’s words troubled Fallon. His eyes had darkened and he ran his tongue over his dry lips as she stripped naked for him as she had done every night for four months.
“Then I am never to be loved because I have no father,” she said miserably.
“You have me. I will have to suffice.” He brought his face close to her mound and inhaled the musky scent between her legs. “Turn and bend over.”
Fallon obeyed without thinking as she always had, but with each pose and order given, she became more stimulated and troubled by the hunchback. Dumas never touched her and would not permit her to touch him. This display was all he wanted; to be free to gaze at her naked body from every position.
This was the bargain Fallon had struck with the hunchback four months ago, one she now chafed under and longed to understand. There had to be more between a man and woman than this. Dumas had shown her there was more in his speech to Lord Broderick.
“Lie down on my bed and stroke your breasts as your lover would.”
Fallon did as he asked, but this time she was filled with sadness. The performance usually consisted of her disrobing and then touching herself while he watched. This is what Dumas liked best. Fallon had learned the skill of controlling her body to match his demand. She did not look—but she was aware he fondled himself. The noises her master made in the dark corner of the caravan had confused her at first and then she was aroused.
“I do not have a lover. I don’t know how one would touch me.” Fallon turned to him. “You could kiss me if you like, master,” she suggested softly. “I would not object.”
“You should object for I am twice your age.” Dumas groaned. His hot eyes watched as Fallon stroked her full, high breasts. “And I am deformed.”
“What is that to us?” she retorted. She was deliberately provoking him; she had become irritated with this silly game. “We can do as we please in the caravan. To the world, I am a dirty boy and you are a clown. In here, you are a knight coming to my rescue and I am your lady love. Please. Lie with me. I’m lonely and you must be lonely too or you would not require this dumb show night after night. Why do you push me away? Dumas, I cannot act out this pantomime of love with you anymore! I am a woman—not a puppet. My heart is as tender as any woman’s.”
“Enough!” The jester’s voice cracked. “Do not threaten me, girl.”
“Or else what?” Fallon sat up and spat at his feet. “Have you never loved anyone in your miserable life? Have you never been kissed? I am eighteen and all I know of men is what I have learned from you—that men care for their cocks and naught else.”
“It is a good lesson. I congratulate myself on keeping your expectations low.”
Fallon refused to be baited this time. “But you spoke so passionately,” she continued, “so bravely to Lord Broderick! Thus, I know you have been lying to me all this time, pretending to be full of hate when there is no hate inside you. You are a good man.” Her heart was in her throat. “I want us to be as Lord Broderick is with his lady. Castlemuir was beautiful—transformed by their happiness. We could have that too.” She looked down at her hands. “Whatever you decide, I cannot go back to being your plaything, Dumas. You must tell me how you feel about me. Don’t you love me at all?”
The jester scowled. “Who gave you permission to stop the performance? Stroke your mound. Slide your fingers between your legs and show me how you pleasure yourself.”
“No,” Fallon said mutinously. “You do it. Fondle your plaything yourself.”
The jester blanched and could not meet her eye. “I want to watch. Do as I say.”
Fallon rose to her feet and stood between his legs. She was naked and suddenly possessed by a strange determination. The hunchback would love her tonight or he would release her from this bargain. Violating his rule of no contact, she took up his hand and pressed it between her legs.
Dumas emitted a guttural choking noise from deep within his chest and tried to pull away.
“Nay, do not refuse, Dumas. Touch me, you coward. Do to me what you have ordered me to do to myself these past four months.”
Her pupils had dilated, her sex quivered with lust and grew wet and warm as his fingers moved tentatively between the fold of her flesh. Dumas lifted his face to her, his mouth opened in ecstasy and his eyes closed as he fingered her.
Fallon’s response was immediate. The hunchback stroked her to sensations that dizzied and weakened her. His cock was thick and hard under his checked hose. Fallon motioned to it.
“Release it. I want to see. It is not deformed, I take it. You are a man, are you not?”
Dumas reached under the band at his waist and exposed his erection to her eyes. The jester was a man like no other. Fallon had a moment’s regret when she saw his size. She could not stretch so wide for a cock so huge. And yet she wanted to. She wanted to very much.
“Is falling in love the same feeling as making love, Dumas?”
“It can be,” he said in a choked voice. “It is supposed to be, but don’t look for it.” He turned away with a look of agony on his incongruously handsome face. “I have changed my mind. You do not have to finish the performance tonight. You may make your bed now. Go! Did you not hear me?”