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He remembered the hands, first, whenever he thought back to that day. At the time, he was fairly certain he’d been more focused on trying to ensure his voice and lute could be heard above the growling of his stomach, and that the coins being held out to him might buy him a rest to sate it with some bread. Perhaps even some cheese, if he was feeling particularly bold.
But still, even then, even through the hunger and desperation, he noticed the hands. Long, slender fingers, of the type he still sometimes wished for when attempting a difficult key change, but unweathered by sun or calluses. A gentleman’s hands, if the gold weren’t evidence enough.
And if he stared too much longer, his benefactor might change his mind. He brought the song to a close and accepted the proffered payment, daring a glance up as he did so.
If he’d been hoping that fate had not seen to gift one so already touched by fortune with an equally fair countenance, he would have been disappointed. Instead, he took in the dark hair, deep gray eyes, and dazzling smile of the young man before him (not much younger than him, if he was any judge) before willing himself to stop gawking. “Any requests, sir?”
“What’s your name?” For heaven’s sake, even the man’s speaking voice was of the finest quality: a resonant tenor Feste would eagerly have traded for his own, which always trembled on the verge of reedy even in its most controlled moments.
Right. He’d been asked a question. Not a question he’d been expecting, or entirely understood, but at least easy enough to answer. “Feste, sir.”
“Where did you learn to play?”
He briefly considered inventing a connection to some imaginary master tutor, or insinuating having fallen from a comfortable enough status to afford music school, but with his luck, this far too curious stranger would catch him out. “I wouldn’t say ‘learned’ so much as noodled about until it sounded right, and then kept noodling.”
“Remarkable,” the stranger said. He seemed to mean it. “Are you employed?”
Feste resisted the temptation to gesture to his threadbare ensemble by way of reply. “Not at present.”
“Then come with me.”
Feste blinked. “Sir?”
“Please?” said the stranger hopefully, as though the only thing keeping Feste from agreeing was a prior lack of courtesy. “My home is not far from here.”
Feste studied the man’s smile more carefully. The fact he didn’t seem aware of what his offer might be implying only made Feste all the more suspicious such apparent innocence only hid a cunning operator who knew exactly how to use his charm and monetary influence to get what he wanted. On the other hand, Feste had committed graver sins in exchange for far more unpleasant beds in his time. “Lead on.”
The stranger was telling the truth about it not being a far walk to his residence. Calling the sprawling estate that loomed before them a mere “home,” though, struck Feste as a lie of omission. As they made their way through the grand entrance hall, he was forced to alternate between gawping at his surroundings and keeping an eye on his host lest he be lost forever.
They were three-quarters of the way down another long hallway lined with distinguished portraits that came to an end at the foot of a massive staircase, when a tiny blur of long, dark hair and voluminous marigold skirts came flying around the corner and wrapped itself around Feste’s leg in a bear-trap of an embrace. “Alexander! Alexander! You’ve been gone all day! Did you bring me anything from town? What have you been doing, to make yourself smell so—?”
As the young mistress of the household wrinkled her nose, she finally looked up. For a moment, she blinked up at Feste with the mirror image of his host (Alexander)’s gray eyes, right down to the lashes, before unfreezing herself and jumping back directly into a graceful curtsey that conveniently allowed her to avoid further eye contact while not quite hiding the crimson in her cheeks. “A thousand pardons, sir!”
Alexander chuckled. “Feste, may I present to you my little sister, Olivia.”
“Lady Olivia,” the Lady Olivia in question corrected peevishly, breaking the curtsey in order to stomp her golden-slippered foot. “If you’re going to present someone, you need to do it properly.”
“The honor is mine, Lady Olivia,” said Feste, sweeping a bow to hide his increasing panic. He was already having enough difficulty dealing with the wealth surrounding him. If, as it seemed, his new friend was nobility, he was clearly in well over his head.
He was also beginning to think he’d misread Alexander’s intentions. Not that he could claim any understanding of nobles beyond what he’d picked up from songs and plays and stories, but he didn’t think they went about introducing their little sisters to prospective catamites. But then, what was he doing here?
Olivia giggled. “Perhaps you could learn some manners from him, Alexander.” Her eyes widened as she gasped with an understanding Feste couldn’t begin to follow. “Is he here to be the new Jacques?”
“That’s up to Father,” said Alexander, with an equally mysterious smile. “Where is he?”
“Here,” said a deep, and decidedly unfriendly voice. As one, Feste, Alexander, and Olivia turned to face the tall, richly-attired, gray-bearded man who had arrived silently on the scene. Only Olivia appeared unperturbed at his presence.
Alas, this bravery was rewarded with a firm frown. “Time you were in bed, little miss.”
“But—” The frown deepened, and so Olivia gathered up her skirts. “A pleasure meeting you!” she told Feste, with a more perfunctory curtsey than before, and was gone.
Alexander cleared his throat. “Feste, may I present my father, Count—”
“So,” the Count interrupted, glowering at his son. If not for Alexander’s attempted introduction or their shared storm-gray stares, Feste would not have guessed him to be the man responsible for raising such warm and welcoming children, so proud and stern was his stance. “It is not enough you bring home wounded birds and stray dogs. Now it seems you must follow your uncle’s example, and make free of our household to any traveler or tavern companion you deem sufficiently interesting.” His eyes raked up and down—or perhaps more accurately, through—Feste. “Although at least Toby typically limits himself to hedge knights at worst. This appears to be a common beggar.”
“Feste is anything but common, I promise you, Father,” Alexander prattled, gesturing frantically to a suddenly fumble-fingered Feste to bring his lute out from behind his back. “Such skilled playing I have never heard, nor imagine I will hear again. And with Jacques having departed your employ to ply his talents elsewhere, I thought perhaps you might welcome…”
“I am in no mood for music.”
Feste hastily bundled his lute back to its original position as quickly as he had withdrawn it, and would have made for the door had Alexander not put out an arm to restrain him.
Clearly spotting this gesture, the Count’s shoulders eased ever so slightly, and he heaved a sigh. “But I am also no monster. Give him a meal, and a cot for the night. In the morning, back he goes to whatever ditch you dug him out of.”
“Begging my lord’s pardon,” someone said. By the time Feste realized, to his horror, that it was him, and that Alexander was no longer in a position to interpose between himself and the Count, the rest of the sentence had already escaped his mouth. “But how can I be the commoner if someone else is doing the digging?”
If Feste had thought the Count resembled an iron statue before, it was nothing to the way he pulled himself up this time. Yet there was a strange twinkle in his eye, and an almost performative drawl to his voice as he replied. “And yet you seem quite proficient at it.”
Every ounce of self-preservation he possessed willed him not to answer. He clung instead to the curiosity to see where that twinkle might lead. “Not at all, sir. If I had any skill or sense, I’d be through the floor and on my way to the Antipodes.”
Once more, the Count took his measure, only actually studying him this time. “For a fool of little sense, you’ve a reasonably quick wit.”
Fool now, was he? It wasn’t a type of entertainment Feste had considered pursuing until this moment, much less gained any formal training or practice in. But if it earned him a bit of breakfast and some extra coin… “Unreasonable, I should think, or I doubt we’d be having this conversation.”
Wrong move, he realized immediately. The Count was beginning to appear bored again. So if not self-deprecation, then there was nothing for it but to circle back to where he’d begun. “Then again, I’m not sure a Count’s qualified to judge either.”
Even Alexander looked alarmed at this gambit, but the Count raised an eyebrow. “And why is that?”
Feste steeled himself, and met the Count’s gaze. “Why, because what man would dare provide an honest assessment of your sense or skills but a fool?”
Silence hung heavy over the scene as both Feste and Alexander held their breaths. Then, the Count laughed. Not a particularly long or loud laugh, but hearty enough to leave no doubt it was genuine, as was the slap on the back he gave Feste.
“Never mind the cot,” he told Alexander. “When you see Maria, tell her to prepare Jacques’s old room.” Without waiting for a reaction from either Feste or his son, he strode down the hall, then turned back briefly as he reached the staircase. “Perhaps I shall be in the mood for music tomorrow, after all.”
As the Count at last vanished from sight, and Alexander gave his hand a squeeze that might have been friendly reassurance or something more, Feste felt a strange, warm sensation he’d sung of many times before but never experienced for himself: perhaps this was what it was like to be home.