Tales of the Zodiac - The Goat's Tale (2 page)

The first ‘Prince Libran Cup’ was held sixteen years ago when the king, deliriously happy at the birth of his first son, went on a renaming spree of almost bizarre proportions. He renamed so many roads in honour of his son’s birth that the poor citizens of the surrounding villages quite literally did not know if they were coming or going. He renamed temples, bathing houses, statues, inns, brothels, squares, greens and even an entire town (Dref Libran - the town in which the prince was conceived) in honour of his infant son. Showing some degree of misguided foresight, he also named the school that his son would attend after him and, whilst doing so, introduced the idea of The Prince Libran Cup.

The winner of The Prince Libran Cup should, in a normal year, be the greatest athlete of the year group. It is a series of physical challenges staged over the final year of a boy’s time in school. The individual legs each involve one discipline that is essential to the life of the knight: sword-fighting, archery, falconry, swimming, hand to hand combat, horse riding and physical endurance. The final leg, today, is the long-distance foot race and will decide the winner.

Undoubtedly, when the deliriously happy king conceived the idea, he could imagine only one thing: his brave, all-action son, with a chin of granite and abdominal muscles carved from steel, strolling over the finish line sixteen years later. What he did not account for was that his sixteen-year-old son, soft in both form and nature, would not look a lot different from how he did at the age of eleven. The boy has turned out generous and thoughtful, a priest rather than a leader, a scholar rather than a fighter, more likely to win a pie-eating contest than a foot race.

However, as it stands before the final leg, the affable prince finds himself top of the tournament leader’s list. Quite how he has come to do so is more or less an open secret amongst the boys.

The first lesson of the school year consisted of a briefing on The Prince Libran Cup and what was to be expected of us. Of course, we were given the logistical information: the dates, the times, the scoring system, the requirements of each event. In essence, we were given all the normal information that has probably been given to every sixteen-year-old to have ever sat in the class and competed in the tournament.

However, what I imagine was different about this particular session is that it marked the beginning of a campaign of attrition against all the boys in the tournament. We were told, tacitly at first, that the prince
would
win this tournament. The first session of the year was merely the first of many such sessions to come. I can still remember the gnarled old face of the headmaster as he paced back and forth like a military sergeant, hissing orders out of the side of his mouth in his typical, curious fashion.

“It’ssh not a secret, boyssh, that the king wants his sshon to win the tournament. Whilssht I would not openly encourage you not to try your bessht, I would advisshe you that there are timessh in life when a boy mussht know his place. Thissh issh perhapssh one of them.”

The effect of this little talk was negligible on someone such as myself. As the son of a goatherd invited to study in the classrooms of the most esteemed school in the kingdom, I have learned little of the concept of ‘knowing my place’. In fact, I have become obstinate in the act of
not
‘knowing my place’. My peasant heritage is a daily subject of mockery from the boys around me, and if I were ever to allow the concept of ‘my place’ to carry any weight then I would have given up my education long ago and joined my father with the goats. This stubbornness, in combination with the fact that I had not considered quite the determination that the king felt, meant that I would effectively forget the headmaster’s words before he’d even finished them.

Then there is Llewellyn, a royal aide with more than a passing resemblance to a toad, whom I have met several times. My encounters with this man have been perhaps a little more disturbing, and not only because of the way that he looks. There is, as there is with most men who look like toads, something rather unseemly about him. This instinct, formed simply upon seeing him, is quite clearly correct. It is obvious that he has a brief to intimidate or bribe every single one of us into submission. 

My first encounter with him was shortly before the first leg, the sea swim. He blindsided me on the track just outside school, emerging from behind a bush with the kind of grace that marked him as a natural lurker.

“Gruff, do you mind if I have a quick word?”  

“Yes.”

“Ha ha! I heard you were a prickly character! Well, maybe I can walk with you?”

“No.”

“Allow me to introduce myself. I’m Llewellyn. I work for the king. I just thought I’d come to see the boys before the race tomorrow.”

“And?”

“I can see you’re not in the mood for conversation, Gruff, but I just wanted you to know that all the boys in your class stand to be involved in a very special part of history. If Prince Libran wins that cup, then he will undoubtedly bestow great honours on all his competitors. God knows, the kingdom needs something to get excited about.”

“And when he doesn’t win?”

“Ha ha ha… ‘when’. Well, Gruff, I’m very sure that you, like me, wouldn’t want to have to worry about something like that.”

I do not often feel unsure but, that evening, I had felt sufficiently unsettled to feel as though I needed to consult my father. There is something about
willingly
surrendering to anyone that seems to strike at the very core of my being.

“A goat is worth ten sheep, Gruff. And do you know why? Sheep cannot survive alone; they wander through life scared of their own shadow, at the command of the dog, simply waiting to be butchered. Goats are fierce, independent, at the beck of no man. Everyone, even the king, respects the goat.”

My father’s tendency to reduce all conversation to laboured goat metaphors has proved over the years to be a source of frustration to me. On this occasion, however, he was telling me something that I wanted to hear and I was able to overlook his limited horizons. In fact, I was hardened further. Nothing would make me yield the competition.

And so it was that I won the first three legs of the Prince Libran Cup: the sea swim, the sword-fighting and the archery.  I do not flatter myself that I did so in a fair contest. This is because the prince, who swims, fights and shoots like a dairy cow, managed to finish a creditable second in all of these legs. Seemingly, the attempts of Llewellyn and the headmaster had not been quite so lost on the other boys.

The night before the fourth leg, the falconry tournament, Llewellyn approached me again. This time, he offered my father and me a landed estate, the island of Nolton, in exchange for my acquiescence. My response was simply to grunt and wonder how my father would cope with sleeping indoors on a feather bed. Llewellyn, however, need not have worried, for my performance in the falconry tournament was poor. This was not entirely my fault - my competitiveness was severely hampered when my falcon was shot out of the sky by an unknown marksman.

My bad luck with animals continued into the horse-riding round when my horse, which I already suspected to be blind in one eye, started and threw me off close to the end of the course. I had to complete the race on foot and, as a result, finished last. The smell of sabotage was beginning to linger strongly over me and, following these dubious events, the prince moved comfortably to the top of the leader board.

However, fate was to hand the advantage back to me thanks to the rawness of the hand-to-hand competition - my own particular speciality. The prince, a soft boy with flesh the consistency of dough, had no stomach for this particular tournament. Even with the draw stacked in his favour, he did not get past the first round. Both he and his first opponent, his cousin Howell, were in floods of tears at the thought of having to hurt someone. As they circled, making small thrusts towards one another that even the most timid of ladies would find embarrassing, the other boys drowned them with catcalls of derision and laughter.

The fight lit up, however, when the prince took a step towards his cousin. Howell, as instinctively as a prize knuckle fighter, flashed out a fist that connected sweetly with the prince’s left temple, knocking him out cold. Perhaps the meekest boy in the entire kingdom, Howell could not have intended this action as it happened – it seemed more like a nervous twitch than a punch – but it still had the same effect. The prince, his mousy cousin draped across him and sobbing his heart out, could not be revived until several hours later.

I, meanwhile, had to navigate through the half of the tournament that was undoubtedly designed specifically for me, full of grinning bullies who couldn’t wait to get their hands on the peasant who was usurping their education from them. However, sixteen years on the hillside has made me fitter, leaner and sharper than any of them. Undoubtedly there are scores of peasant boys who could get, and indeed had got, the better of me over the years
but not these boys
. Fat from their fancy food, softened by their servants, slowed by their domestication, lacking any instinct whatsoever for survival, they all fell.

And so it is that I leave the old history master’s class ready for a foot race at the end of which I could win the Prince Libran Cup. I simply have to finish ahead of the prince. Despite all the dubious events, the boy himself has been wonderfully gracious about the whole competition and, in contrast to almost everybody else, seems to genuinely want the best man to win. In fact, he has been at great pains throughout the year to stress that he would not be satisfied winning a tournament that he has not won fairly. It is this knowledge that makes my resolve harden; I must try my best. There will come a time when the prince sees that the truest servant is the one who did not bend.

The school changing rooms are cavernous, made of the same dark grey stone as the rest of the school, but are higher and emptier than anywhere else. I am the last to arrive and all the other boys are eagerly changing from their long trousers to their short ones. Their eagerness confuses me. Why they should be so excited about a race that they intend to meekly surrender is beyond me. It seems that, for some people, merely being involved on a day sixteen years in the making is enough. This is not the case for a boy like me.

I set myself alone on a damp wooden seat near the entrance and open my goat-hide satchel. It is lighter than it should be. It takes me an instant to realise that my satchel is empty. My running kit is gone. Someone has stolen it from me. The understanding hits me like a punch to the gut.

At once, I see how it is. I already know that the sports master will be of no more help to me than he was when my falcon was shot from the sky or when I was given a half-blind horse to ride. I smile; my first of the day. Pure stubbornness flows through me. I will strip to my flesh if I must, I will run with my feet bare and bloody, and I shall only stop when I have finished. Some people just don’t understand.

I sit in my underclothes whilst the room buzzes around me. I consider the course, my pacing, how I must adjust for the lack of protection on my feet. Everything except for the room in which I now sit. Out of the corner of my eye, I see the prince approaching: pink cheeks and blond hair, his running costume immaculate, his running shoes fitted leather.

“Oh, Gruff, what’s happened? Did you forget your kit?!”

“Looks like it,” I snarl.

“Have you asked the sir for some?” he replies gently.

“You know as well as I do there won’t be any.”

“Oh, Gruff, I’m so sorry. You do know that none of this has anything to do with me, don’t you?”

“I know,” I grunt. Generously, I even manage a half smile to reassure him of this.

“Will you have some of my kit? I have a spare,” he squeaks hopefully.

“No. I will be fine. Thank you.”

Pride forces my refusal. I shall run this race in the manner that these antagonist forces want me to and I shall
still
win.

“But you’ll freeze to death. Have you seen the weather outside?”

He has a point. There has been nothing but grey drizzle in the air for several weeks now.

“I’ll be all right.”

“And your feet will be ripped to shreds!!”

“I have hooves, apparently.”

“Well, you’re certainly as stubborn as a goat. I can only hope you don’t run like one!”

The prince, affable and easy in his nature, is about as likeable as my fellow humans come. In a different world, he and I might be friends. His warmth towards me, rare in our present company, makes me glad that it is him and no one else who will one day be king.

“Goats aren’t fast. They just get where they’re going.”

“Well, let’s hope it’s not before me!” he squeaks. I know that his banter is good natured and well intended, I know that beneath it lies none of the veiled threats that one might imagine his father’s cronies to make but, nevertheless, I cannot smile. To me, winning is too important to joke about. The obstacles that have been put in my way for his sake cannot be ignored. I grunt.

“I’m joking, Gruff! You know that all I want is for righteousness to prevail!” He offers his soft, feminine hand to mine as though to seal the truth of this statement. He doesn’t need to. I look him in the eye but cannot summon the energy that a boy such as I requires to smile. Not again. The tear growing in the corner of his eye betrays that this is not a boy who likes to see people unhappy. It is unfortunate for him that, for a leader, there could probably be no greater handicap.

“Then let us hope it shall.”

We share a lingering look, of which I cannot determine the meaning. He can’t hold my eye for long though and is soon trotting, disconsolate, back to his cousins in the corner. My eyes linger on him as Cai, the larger and haughtier of his two cousins, straps a reassuring arm around him.

The changing rooms have the air of a dungeon. It is probably deliberate. They are cold, dim and damp, lit only by a few torches and with walls taller than most of the rest of the school. They reek of sweat and mud and teenage boys. In the dimness, I am temporarily safe from the mockery that my underclothes will surely expose me to.

In a flash of wood on stone, the door to the field bursts open. The light from outside, though dull, seems bright in contrast to the dimness. The sports master enters as a demonic shadow in the doorway.

“Rahight, you gwnts. Get outside,” he spits, drooling with contempt.

The sports master is a law unto himself. A fervent belief in corporal punishment, a compulsive need to swear, and a pathological hatred of anyone under the age of eighteen have all combined within this man to make him a nemesis for every single child in the entire school. If a boy is good at sport then, in this man’s eyes, he is too cocksure and deserves a beating. If a boy is not good at sport then he is weak, and deserves a beating. He sees confidence as arrogance and shyness as weakness. Every virtue a boy could have is a sin to be beaten out.

Today will be different though and we will be spared from the worst of his temper by the great race that has come upon us. The boys flurry out past the sports master into the field beyond. He stands at the door giving each boy a death stare and looking for an excuse, any excuse, to give us a whack of his fist. As I approach the door, he stares through me as though not realising that I am wearing only my underclothes. The stare lasts only an instant before he realises.

“What’s this, Goat?” he spits. The sports master takes great pride in calling almost every boy in the school by some derogatory nickname or other. In fact, he is even responsible for inventing some of them. However, the fact that he is so horribly, relentlessly fair in his brutality makes him rather less offensive than he would be were he a more discerning bully. Indeed, as I’ve grown older, I no longer see him as the demon he once was, more as a vaguely unpleasant feature of the school environment. Like the cold stone walls or damp wooden doors.

“Forgotten my kit, sir,” I mumble, head down, wishing I could shout it at him. He knows as well, if not better, than I do where my kit has gone, and knowing this makes my own sheepishness stick in my throat. However, to say anything else or to say it any differently would be futile. Any claim that my kit had been stolen would fall on ears as deaf as mine were when I was told to let the prince win. This is nothing more than the price I pay for refusing to listen. I would contest that it is worth it. The honourable path is never the easy one.

“Forgot your kit?! Well, that was frutting stupid of you,” he seethes.

The man is a peasant like my father. And me. Not an ounce of him is given to fat, just lean brown muscle and flint hard eyes. This common identity, even when surrounded by sons and scholars from the pale classes, has never meant anything to the man. I’ve no doubt that he resents the king, the nobility, academia, just as much as he appears to resent the children he teaches. I’ve also no doubt that the identity of the winner of The Prince Libran Cup means as little to him as it does to the wild animals that stalk the hillside. Yet I still expect no help or sympathy from him. The man is a monster. Watching a sixteen-year-old boy run barefoot through a rainstorm is probably his idea of an evening’s entertainment.

“Sorry, sir,” I grunt.

“Aren’t you going to ask me for some kit?” He is one of those authority figures whose idea of a good time is saying ‘no’ to people.

“I don’t feel I deserve kit, sir,” I lie, denying him the opportunity.

“Don’t come the frutting sob story with me, boy. Ask me for some kit.” His hard, black eyes hit me. I am no more afraid of this man than of any other but I will not argue today. I understand the fragile thread by which my future at the school hangs and will not sacrifice it to the whims of a sadist.

“I will be fine, sir.”

“Then you won’t be frutting running, boy. I don’t have my boys running around like that. They’ll hang me for a frutting perv.”

Now I see it even clearer: layers upon layers, traps upon traps, the system will not let me win. In anger, my eyes flash to his and, for an instant, I feel I’ll fight him.

“So be it,” I grunt, controlling the urge. They may strip me bare, use every trick under the stars to prevent me running, and I shall accept it with stoicism. However, what I shall not do is show them how I feel. Even on the rare occasions that my emotions move beyond indifference, I still am able to feign it masterfully. He will not know the pain I feel at having my competitive edge blunted. I turn my back on him.

It is in this moment, as close in my life as I shall ever get to blind fury, that I am saved by a squeak.

“If he is not allowed to run then I shall not be running either,”

The prince, all of a sudden, sounds a man. A man with undescended testicles, it is granted, but with the command of a monarch. The sports master does not reply immediately; his primitive peasant brain seems unable to respond to such an unexpected problem.

“I’m
serious. I’m sick of it. It’s not fair. This all stops. I don’t care a jig for what my father has to say or what Vesta has to say or what the head has to say or what you have to say. We will both run today.”

If what he were saying weren’t so important, so selfless, then this flurry of petulant squeaking and effeminate hand gestures might look slightly comical. As it is, however, I look the little prince in the eye and almost cry. There is nothing as emotional as competition.

As the other boys are already out on the field, the audience consists only of myself, the sports master, and the prince’s two cousins, Howell and Cai. In a sense, this is fortunate. It is difficult to imagine how the sports master would have taken to being so spectacularly undermined in front of a whole class. Even now, he bears the snarl of a starving wolf caught between hunger and self-preservation. After all, however angry the man is, the prince must always have what he wants. That much is understood even by wild men such as this.

“So be it,” he growls, prowling out onto the running field, no doubt imagining a more brutal end to the exchange that has just passed. The prince, his cheeks as flushed as ever, offers me a gracious smile. He no doubt expects my thanks. The indignity of it all means that my smile arrives stillborn. Why should I have to thank him for simply negotiating something for me that every other boy in the class has been given as a right?

“Thanks,” I grumble, my eye contact fleeting.

“Is that all you have to say, Goat?” snaps Cai, the prince’s much larger, much haughtier cousin. “You do realise whom you’re talking to, don’t you? The prince has just done you a favour that a peasant doesn’t deserve. Have the grace to thank him properly.”

Cai steps forward as though to confront me. I am unintimidated.

“Leave the boy alone, Cai. None of this is his fault any more than it’s yours. I can quite understand why he’s not too fond of me at the moment. Let’s go outside.”

The prince half chuckles as he says this; the situation certainly appears a lot lighter to him than it does to me. Cai stares at me a fraction longer than he should before following his cousins out of the door. I stand alone in the cavernous changing room. A small sigh escapes.

The weather outside is as wet and wild as I have ever seen it. Grey drizzle blankets everything. The school looms behind, and green grass is all that can be seen anywhere else. On a good day, the sea would be visible on the other side of the field, as would the ragged, undulating coastline around which we are due to run. The sports master, too, appears to be lost amongst the rain, perhaps licking his wounds, perhaps engaging in some fresh conspiracy against me. Small groups of boys stand around – their sports kits already wet and clinging to them – stretching, getting ready for a race that they have no intention of winning. As ever, I prepare alone.

“Right, you set of gwnts, gather in,” barks the sports master, seeming to merge from out of the shadows. We do as requested.

“Right, you know the drill. It’s once around the island. It’s a filthy, shitty day so I’ve been told to ask you to be careful. I, however, couldn’t give a solitary frutt what happens to any of you. Go over there. The race starts when I whistle.”

It all seems awfully understated. On a better day, the mothers and possibly even fathers would have turned out to watch. I wonder if, somewhere beneath the murk, the king is watching. I wonder if, somewhere near a slippery cliff top, a king’s agent is waiting for me to pass by. These are all risks that an honest boy must take.

The thirty boys jostle over to the start line as if to give the impression that twenty-eight of them aren’t just prepared to roll over for the prince to win. I make a point of staying back, away from the herd, keeping my eyes sharp for the sneaky ankle kicks that are undoubtedly to come. For a moment, there is silence.

The whistle cuts through the drizzle and everyone starts to trot. The prince is allowed to move to the front and everyone seems afraid to run any faster than him. I sprint through the crowd. By my estimation, getting ahead and staying ahead is my only hope. The ankle kicks start as I attempt to move through the crowd but, with the nickname ‘Goat’ ringing loud in my ears, I keep my footing and surge to the front. However, I am not sprinting alone. I turn my head around to realise that I am being followed, or more aptly chased, by Tomos.