The Kings Personal Joker (boyxboy)

Chapter Five

[A/N] Just before anyone misinterprets this story as a fairy tale I'd like you all to know that the King is not a nice kind man, he was brought up a king, treated like a god, and he's been fighting frontline in a war for years. He's accustomed to seeing everyone as an enemy trying to get away and being constantly suspicious of their intentions. He doesn't ask, he orders and if he wants something he takes it, he requires subservience.

So there will be no Prince Charming in this story.

My friends and I gathered for a meal after the show, what could be named dinner I suppose, it was not yet dark but the sun was red in the sky and we were hungry as slaves.

We each pitched in to make the meal one that would resemble the festivity we enjoyed. Jars of plums and pickles were given by one of the older stall owners who appreciated our show, cake from the mistress of Henoch which was honey and ginger and the tastiest thing I think I've ever had the pleasure of enjoying.

Among the best of it all we had brimstone lager, crab-apple jam, butter and a loaf of bread dowsed with pumpkin seeds from the guard barber who offered it as pay for our entertainment.

Habel donated three loafs of bread, they weren't too large or fresh but he didn't eat much either way, my friend was stitching up a hole I'd noticed in the costume after the show. I'd noticed with some surprise that despite his bulky frame he showed a keen interest in the tailors work and did a good job of it too.

I wasn't very sure what I was to do now at night, all I could do was return to my own shabby clothes and fold my precious garment for it to be safely tucked away in my bags.

We were perhaps an odd looking troop sitting there on the stage we had yet to pull apart with our costumes removed but our faces and, in some cases, hands still painted the due colour.

Alas we were happy and that was all that mattered, it was a relief to be with such an elated variety of company as I ate, it made the food taste all that much better.

Perhaps I was feeling lonely, perhaps it was my desperation to find a job sneaking up on me that I was trying to defend myself from but I was very much in need of that company.

We had to deconstruct the stage once we were done with our meal, several of the troop complained of a stitch or a stomach ache, anything to get out of the manual labour after a heavy meal and the darkness claiming the sky.

It felt like such a shame to construct a stage and then take it down the following night. Habel assured me it was not how things normally worked. They would normally go on a trail through each town in Euphranor where they would set up the stage and play there for a period of nine days before deconstructing and moving on.

Unfortunately, and according to Homer, the Mitter was not a safe place to set up for more then a period of three or four days because the residents, and there were many as it is a very dense section of Euphranor.

They would either vandalise the structure because they wanted the space to set up their stalls, or the crooks would take the nails or the wood for fire, the drunks were pretty nasty too from what I'd heard they were prone to either sleeping under the structure or pissing or defecating on it. It wasn't that they didn't face these irritations in other areas but here more so than others.

I thought it bad manners to take any of the food, that and for all I know they might have thought I was stealing it so I didn't really have much left but my hidden treasure, my bag of dried fruit.

Considering how well the show went I thought I might go into the centre and try the gig again, this time as a real joker, I thought to ask Homer to let me borrow his lyre to play the music to my song but we hadn't known each other long and I doubted he would allow it.