Prologue

Galloway, Scotland, December 1367

Minstrels had been playing music in the minstrel gallery from the time the first guests of the new laird had entered the ancient castle hall to take dinner with him. Since then, a juggler had juggled, dancers had danced, and now a harpist was plucking merry tunes from his wee harp.

As the harpist performed in a cleared space below the dais, men swiftly set up trestles behind him and laid stout planks across them, an indication that the best of the entertainment was about to begin.

The harpist took his bows, and a man and woman stepped to the edge of the clearing. As he plucked out a tune on his lute, she began to sing:

From the East the Ass has come,

Beautiful in truth and strong as a gale,

So leap to the boards now, Sir Ass,

And bray for us your tale!

Drumming of tabors from the minstrel gallery and applause from the guests accompanied a long-limbed fool in a belled and ass-eared cap, whiteface, and the colorful patchwork garb called motley that all fools wore, as he turned flips and tumbled his way to the stout trestle stage. He leapt wildly onto it, only to sprawl in a heap on its boards. When laughter erupted, he looked around in confusion, then slowly raised himself to a handstand and flipped to his feet. Narrowing his eyes, he shifted his gaze to the high table and began to recite in a sing-song voice:

There once was a wee bit buffoon,

Who dwelt in a gey grand hall…

What followed was at first clever, even humorous. But it soon developed into a strange farce about a ruthless invader with an army of foreigners determined to subjugate a defiant land and its freedom-loving people. As the speaker neared the end of his tale, he made a sweeping gesture from the audience to the dais, saying,

Such is that wee bit buffoon,

That laird in his gey grand hall.

That he hath declared the king's peace on the land,

A Grim peace for one and all!

The crowded hall remained silent when his recitation ended, leaving only the sound of the tinkling bells on the fool's ass-eared cap as he made his bow.

The tinkling continued through the silence as he straightened. He looked bewildered, absurdly so, thanks to exaggerated features on the chalky whiteface that he, like most of his sort, wore. Apparently, he had expected applause if not laughter.

Instead, eyes throughout the hall shifted focus from his white face to the dark-faced, dark-haired man in the central chair at the high table.

"By God," his lordship growled. "What I've heard be true, then. Though you call yourself a wit and a poet, fool, you have composed only claptrap mocking my character and his grace's royal command that I impose peace on Galloway. Having prated that claptrap to the delight of mine enemies, you now dare to prattle it to me. Worse, you do nowt to make me laugh. Send him on his way, lads!"

Three men-at-arms stepped forward to carry out the order.

"My lord, ha' mercy!" the fool cried. " 'Twas all done in jest, and it be blowing a blizzard outside. Sakes, but I do claim hospitality!"

"Faugh, that be a Highland notion and none of mine," his lordship snarled. "Afore ye speak ill of men with the power of pit and gallows, you should learn to cloak your words in at least a thin coat of wit. I am showing you mercy. We'll see if God thinks you deserve more from Him. Get him out of my sight, lads!"

Two of the three men-at-arms grabbed the fool, one by each arm. They hustled him the length of the hall, down a step, and across a landing of the stairway spiraling in the thickness of the wall. Pulling open the great door, they forced him outside, where thickly blowing snow covered the outer stairs and the courtyard.

As they marched him diagonally across the yard to the main gate, his feet crunched on gravel beneath that snowy blanket.

The third man-at-arms motioned to the gatekeeper, and the gate swung slowly open, scraping ruts in the snow as it did. The fool's escort dragged him outside to a wooden walkway that he vaguely recalled led ahead to a river wharf and east toward a nearby town. Just outside the gateway, they gave him a heave.

Stumbling, slipping, he crashed onto the walk, where they left him.

He heard the gate swing shut, but the snow swirled so heavily around him that he could not see the castle wall or the edges of the walkway.

He could see nothing, anywhere, but thickly swirling snow.

Fear crept in then and grabbed him by the throat.