Chapter Text
Dinners and weekday services were long over and it was time for the Heiress to get down to planning the next expedition. Sarmenti couldn’t be bothered, however. He enjoyed a long sleep and a long lingering in the bed after it. If they really needed him, it wasn’t like they wouldn’t know where to look.
Usually, he would just follow his nature’s call to bask in his humble bed for an hour or two before getting up. Sometimes, he would even strum his lute leisurely, producing gentler tunes and chanting more poetic verses, just to remind himself that he still remembers not only triumphant hymns and drunken limericks. Sarmenti still held out hope that he might come of need of such compositions. And while he still remembered the words of the serenades, he decided that there was still hope for him. The book of his love affairs by no means lacked characters though but for no good reason. He wooed other men with ease, to no surprise for him, really, for even dressed like a clown he was truly spectacular and captivating. “On the job’s description,” he joked to himself and others. Gods also didn’t stint on a very elegant kind of beauty in his features, securely hidden beneath the mask most of the time. Years of torture and toil dulled its shine, but it still was there.
He wasn’t in the mood for love songs that morning. His sleep had been fitful and uneasy. It had been a couple of weeks since that paladin showed up and he already gained pretty good ground in the Heiress’ eyes and among other heroes. His vast knowledge of martial arts, weapons and tactics was very handy, of course, especially on the frontline during battle. His leucoma made his blows less accurate, but his shoulder was always there if need rose, literally. His size and speed, or lack thereof, made it next to impossible to dodge, so he just shouldered most of the blows, even such aimed at other adventurers. All of it earned him much respect. Baldwin didn’t bother to get much use out of it, however, preferring the solitude of prayer and reading in his free time.
And Sarmenti hated him for all these things. How this walking castle ruin haughtily refused invitations to the pub. How he subserviently went along with any of the Heiress’ orders. How vacant his expression was all the time with this ridiculous mask of his. How posh his manners were. Sarmenti hated him for just… everything. Taking him in a drunken brawl, sneaking up on him in the sanctum, and slitting his throat in his sleep were his truest desires and he gave in to the urge of imagining these scenarios.
“I was a king once,” Sarmenti reiterated mockingly. “…Pfft, I was a kingslayer once… maybe I still am one,” he thought to himself, crumpling the corner of his blanket. These feelings and thoughts made him physically nauseous.
Paracelsus’ voice brought him back to reality. “Sarmenti!” she yelled from behind the door. “Get the hell out of your den.”
“Five more minutes, dear,” he yawned audibly, messing with her.
“Heiress has been looking for you the whole morning!”
“Paracelsus,” he gasped with feigned astonishment. “You act with too much arrogance to run around like a terrier, heading Her every order.”
“GET!" A ferocious bang on the door. “UP!"
“Fiiiiiineee,” groaned Sarmenti, smirking to himself and sliding down the bed.
“I can hear you grinning from here, cease this nonsense!”
“You are no fun,” Sarmenti whined, beginning to dress up. Having pulled on his dunce suit he sat at the desk. “By the way,” he inquired, applying makeup on his eyes – just a dash of black near his eyes so that his skin wouldn’t be visible when he put the mask on. “Who else is going? I hope she’s sending Tardif...”
“I can’t keep up with your crushes, I swear,” the Doctor grunted. “Boudica and Baldwin are going.”
Sarmenti slammed both his hands on the table. “WHAT?” he yelled, fixing his jester attire hastily and rushing towards the door.
“C’mon, Sarmenti,” Paracelsus sneered, “Boudica isn’t that bad, even if she’s a bit rough ‘round the edges.”
Sarmenti stormed out of his room, fastening on his mask. “OH, NOW YOU GET A SENSE OF HUMOUR.” He stood before the Doctor in the doorway. “VERY FUNNY INDEED, PUTTING ME IN THE SAME f*ckING TROOP AS THIS STUPID f*ckING…” Sarmenti stammered, struggling with finding the right pejorative, “kingy..?”
“Kinglet,” Paracelsus corrected, smirking sardonically.
“Right. Thank you, Dr. Know-it-all.” The Jester’s tantrum started to wind down. “I’m not going anywhere, na-huh,” he said, waving his pointing finger in front of her face.
The Doctor didn’t say anything. Instead, she tries to catch him by the wrist. Sarmenti was faster and quickly drew the hand to his chest.
“HEY,” Sarmenti squealed, “don't do that!”
“You know I can do worse,” she threatened throatily, going down the corridor.
“Okay, okay, I can go on my own,” Sarmenti moaned as hestumbled behind Paracelsus. “Are we having breakfast at least?"
“We already had it,” she scowled. “You slept in, as usual." In a moment, she added, “I saved you a portion, you’ll eat in the coach."
***~*~***
“Junia, you shouldn’t have,” Paracelsus said to the Nun helping her with the luggage. “These are heavy."
“My armour is heavier,” Junia chuckled, handing over satchels with medical supplies and bandages. “You’ve been such a good roommate, I must thank you.”
“Para and Junia sitting on a tree! 'K' -” Sarmenti started to sing loudly but was interrupted by an elbow in his gut, causing him to bend over and drop the torches he was holding.
“'K' yourself, jerk,” Paracelsus growled at him.
“Now-now, lasses,” interfered Boudica, holding a small barrel of liquor under her arm. “There’s no need to fight… I’m joking, let’s hang him by the ankles on a tree instead, haha!” she laughed heartily and looked at the man next to her. It was Baldwin, who was holding fa*ggots of firewood. He didn’t react to Boudica’s proposal.
“Look who graced us with their presence,” the Jester hissed, collecting the torches. As he was loading the coach, he gave the man beside Boudica a fiery glance from beneath the mask, but the man didn’t seem to either notice or care.
“Hello would ‘ave been alright, Sarmenti,” Boudica chuckled, flexing her shoulders. “Here, let me help you.” She bent to the very ground and picked up the rest of the torches and put them in the coach. After some hesitation, she parted with the barrel as well.
Baldwin, meanwhile, took the place of the coachman. “Is everyone ready?” he asked, taking the reins.
“Safe travels,” Junia wished angelically, “I’ll be praying for your soon return.”
“We are going to be fine, don’t worry”, the Doctor reassured her. Paracelsus was getting in the coach last, letting Boudica and Sarmenti enter first. “I’m tough, Boudica's dense and Sarmenti already can’t get any worse.”
“HEY,” both her crew members yelled in unison.
Junia giggled, waving her hand at the departing coach.
***~*~***
“YER f*ckING HOORE,” Boudica yelped in pain. “f*ckING BASTARD AAAARGH.” She rushed towards the enemies, piercing three skeletons on her halberd, like beads on a line. The bolt in her shoulder made it tortuously painful to move her arm in any direction or to even pull out the glaive from the undead.
“Boudica! Back down!” Paracelsus warned her before throwing a gas bomb into the last foe standing – an undead arbalest. She missed and instead hit the Hellion. “sh*te." The weight of the slayed undead and the dizzying effect of the Doctor’s grenade made her fall to the ground. The undead prepared another bolt.
“My act, ladies”, the Jester said, swaying to the very front, playing the interlude for his song. As the skeleton charged the crossbow, his melody intensified, eventually morphing into an abysmal spell – Sarmenti prepared for the grand finale, maybe a little rushed, but a finale nonetheless. He picked the strings of his lute like a bird picks its feathers before starting its song. With each accord his power grew, with each strum, his heartbeat slowed and time became more and more irrelevant. This gothic melody always sent him into some sort of delirium. People meditate for decades and smoke Light knows what to experience it, but Sarmenti could do it using his passion and talent only. He now was but an instrument to his own lute – it played him, not the other way round. But he felt so much more powerful like this.
Now, for the final accord –
“Sarmenti, wait!” Baldwin toppled him over, causing the Jester to fall onto the ground into a blood-and-dirt slush. The bolt hit the Leper's breastplate right at the heart.
***~*~***
“Sorry, Boudica,” apologised Paracelsus, putting stitches on the Hellion's ruined shoulder.
“Tis nothing.” The Hellion smiled at the Doctor, gulping down the rest of the liquor from the barrel. “You are literally fixing me up right now.” In a second she added, trying to smile at her amiably, “Your stitches are all so good to look at.”
“Prevention is the best medicine,” Paracelsus said absent-mindedly, continuing to patch her up. “You are quite lucky – the bolt didn't go into the bone.”
“It went straight to my heart.” She slammed a fist dramatically against her chest.
“Nonsense, it was Baldwin who took an arrow in his chest.” The Doctor seemed to be too occupied with Boudica's shoulder to notice the implication. “Are you sure you are alright, Baldwin?” she inquired the Leper, who was sitting on the other side of the fire.
“I quite am, thank you,” he replied, bandaging his forearm.
“Oh, are you though?” Sarmenti asked spitefully, stopping going back and forth in anger. “Who in their right mind interrupts SUCH a performance?!”
“Yer makin’ a scene right now, little man, hehe,” chuckled Boudica, pointing at him with a finger.
The Jester got all worked up. “OH, AM I,” he started to scream and throw gestures around his scrawny frame. “AREN'T I JUST A HUGE POLE IN YOUR ASSES.”
“Sarmenti, sit -” the Doctor tried to calm the Jester down.
“He may speak,” Baldwin interrupted her with a spark of royalty in his voice. This spark set Sarmenti on fire.
“OH, THANK YOU, YOUR MAJESTY,” he yelled and threw the upper half of his body downwards, imitating prostration.
The Leper stopped rearranging his wrappings and looked at him with intention. “I’m listening.”
“YOU act as some kind of a Second Coming,” Sarmenti argued, pointing his finger at the man sitting before him. “And I do not CARE for such holier-than-thou antics.”
“Ooh, if I ‘ere him, I'd think twice,” Boudica whispered to the woman next to her but everyone could hear her words. “He's twice his size.”
“Bah!” the Jester exclaimed, “I bet these abs aren't even there beneath this iron!”
The jape summoned a low and quiet “Oooh” from the Hellion and a click of the Doctor’s tongue. He prepared to get a stern talking back from the Leper, but the ex-king remained still and silent – not a muscle moved, not a word uttered.
“I didn’t ask you to jump in front of me and catch the f*cking bullet,” Sarmenti spoke in a more controlled voice now. “It’s terribly rude to ruin my performance, my, pardon my French, contribution to the team. IT SUCKS to be a… a literal clown and to not even be taken seriously.”
“Or a fool, hehe,” Boudica tittered to herself.
“AAARGH! DON’T CALL ME THAT, YOU… BONEHEAD!”
“If we didn’t take you seriously, Sarmenti, you wouldn’t be here,” Baldwin pointed out, getting back the Jester's attention. “I’m sorry for preventing you from fulfilling your purpose, but the trajectory of the bolt…”
“Pfft, purpose!” Sarmenti sneered, folding his arms on his chest. “Purpose is what made Reynauld leave his wife and kid behind.”
“Doesn’t mean you shouldn’t have some kind of motivation, there must be something you are looking for”, the Leper continued.
“YOU have no idea what I want,” the Jester raised his voice again. “If you did, you wouldn’t have jumped between me and the arbalest.”
Baldwin looked at him with what seemed to be sympathy.
“YOU will never understand what I went through,” Sarmenti hissed through gritted teeth, “...none of you will.” His voice started shaking, a lump growing in his throat. “But you….” He shook his head at the man before him.
“For whatever it is they did to you,” the Leper enunciated evenly, “I am sorry.”
Sarmenti’s eyes flew wide open under the mask and his whole body tensed in rage. How could this prick ask his forgiveness? He didn't know even a tiny bit of what had happened and what Sarmenti felt and even if he did, what would he have done? So many knew and none lifted a finger… Hetook off his glove and threw it violently on the rocky dungeon floor. “THAT'S WHAT THEY f*ckING DID TO ME,” he yelled, waving the back of his hand to the Leper. “MY KING CUT OFF MY FINGER, FED IT TO ME AND… AND…” He gulped, taking hold of himself for a moment, “And then I killed him.”
“Sounds rough, buddy,” Boudica burbled, earning a look from Paracelsus.
Without a word, Baldwin unwrapped his hand and raised it for Sarmenti to see. It lacked half a pinky finger as well but on the opposite hand. Leprosy must have taken it.
Sarmenti turned away his gaze. He couldn’t let himself sympathise with the man before him, for he had already made up his mind to hate him.
“Enough heart-to-heart for today,” Paracelsus intervened, packing her lancets and gauze rags. “We are running out of firewood.”
***~*~***
With a vicious scowl, a brigand bloodletter flicked his whip in the air, promising to obliterate the adventurers. Another move of his hand and the ends of the whip flew towards their flesh, seeking blood and torture.
“Keep moving, keep moving, keep moving!”
Sarmenti couldn't let it happen, not the whip! He looked at it and the sight – not of the mountainous foe, but of the malicious instrument – made the skin on his back crawl. He sprang away, dodging the hit, and one of the ends of the whip touched not his shoulder, but the ground below him.
“Dance, you fool, dance!”
With a flick of his cap and a swirl, he regained his position and looked boldly at the rogue. Bold of them to assume he would be so easy to reap!
“How the heck are ye even doin’ it?!” Boudica grunted, straightening her back which now had a couple more fresh wounds.
“You saw me, now you go first,” Sarmenti said, preparing his lute.
“Take the reins of power and seize them
Draw the battle lines
Armageddon's just a matter of time
Tear down the voice of reason
Let the arrows fly
Your freedom's just a state of mind.”
The Hellion cracked her neck and took a better hold of her glaive. “Alright, witness me!”
“That’s the spirit!”
“Faster! Faster!”
A bullet grazed his shoulder, making him cry out in pain. Involuntarily, he grasped the damaged part of his body and bent over. Still, better than the whip.
“For every act – a consequence!” Baldwin yelled, slicing off the assaulting forearm of the bloodletter, who roared in pain and groped the remains of his limb. And to say Sarmenti’s eyebrows didn’t spring up in fascination would be to say nothing – never before had he witnessed such obliterating strength from one of his comrades, at least.
“HIYAAAAA,” the Hellion screeched, charging at the intimidating foe. Her glaive went right under the thug’s ribcage, causing massive bleeding. She pulled her halberd out, spilling his blood all over and dragging his intestines outside. He fell and kicked his feet before being pinned to the ground by Baldwin’s sword.
“Hither, fool.”
The last cut-throat lept forward, performing an uppercut on Sarmenti. He almost sprang away but wasn’t fast enough and the bandit hit the tip of his chin. It saved the Jester from any serious damage but cost him his balance and his mask. On contact, it detached and, so much like its master, rolled and tumbled away. The Jester mewled, falling to the ground.
“Sarmenti!” Paracelsus yelled to him, searching for something in her bag. “Hang in there!” She rushed towards him, reaching her arms to his elbows to help him up.
“Tired already?”
“S-sod off!” Sarmenti hissed, stumbling away. “I don’t need a nurse!”
“Aaaargh!” the Doctor growled in irritation. “Tend to your wounds yourself, I don’t have time for this!” She threw a folded bandage at him and sprang back on her feet now with a flask in her hand. The next moment it was cast into the cut-throat and its content spilt all over his face, leaving irreparable burns.
In a blind rage, he pointed his shaking hand at Boudica and pulled the trigger. He couldn’t see it, but the bullet hit not the Hellion’s modest fur armour but a metal breastplate of the paladin next to her.
“Strike now with no fear, Boudica,” Baldwin instructed, taking a step sideways.
“Ho!” she breathed sharply, swaying towards the rogue. With a slash of her halberd, his stomach was cut open.
The Leper delivered the finishing blow, cutting his head right off his shoulders much to the Helion’s cheer.
“Look at ye, pop!” she rasped, her breath still uneven after the battle. “Never thought ye could behead people like that.” Boudica spat at the fallen foe, showing her disregard.
“I’m flattered,” the Leper replied politely.
“Doc, have you seen me thralling this giant bastard’s guts out?” Boudica continued, overjoyed with her performance. “Very, very inspiring the Jester’s tune was! Hey, where’s he by the way? Sarmenti!”
But Sarmenti couldn’t care less for their blabbering. He lost the most vital organ of his — his Jester’s mask. He felt less of a Jester and more of an ill-starred fool without it. Being a Jester meant being at least a tiny cut above your local half-witted git. It meant being laughed at is, actually, a sign of acclaim. Hence, his dislike of being seen without it. Now he crawled on the floor in search of the mask, still slightly dizzy from the hit, the mouldy air and the haunting reek of blood.
“Sarmenti,” Baldwin addressed him, revealing his presence, “here.” He bowed low, handing the mask over to the man on the floor.
It would be a lie to say that it didn’t surprise Sarmenti. He had to stifle the urge to lift his head and to look the man in the eyes and ask, “What the f*ck? "Instead, he snatched his second skin from the hand of the paladin, as if he could be refused the offer anytime. Sarmenti fastened it to his headgear and stood up, now ready to look the Leper in the face. What was it behind the other man’s mask? Baldwin’s expression didn’t convey anything or, at least, conveyed it in a language he hadn’t learned yet.
“It rolled my way,” the Leper explained. “Reckon you might have need of it.”
“Why go to the trouble?” Sarmenti inquired, trying to sound as nonchalantly as possible.
“I understand the value of privacy.”
Boudica finished looting the body and stood up. “Honestly, you folk with the funny masks of yours…”
