STONES
AND FEATHERS
by Richard Thompson
by Richard Thompson
"A circus!" the Sun Queen declared. "We will have a circus!"
The Sun King agreed.
"With elephants!" he said.
"Yes!"
"Clowns!"
"Yes!"
"Acrobats!"
"Of course!"
"Monkeys, giants, pythons, parrots, polar bears, flamingos, lions, rings of fire, high divers, trumpets, drums, zebras, camels..."
"And a juggler!" declared the Sun Queen. "What is a circus without a juggler!"
The ladies-in-waiting, men-at-arms, courtiers and minions looked far and near and returned to the Sun Queen's court with monkeys, giants, pythons, parrots, polar bears, flamingos, lions, rings of fire, high divers, trumpets, drums, zebras, camels, chameleons, a calliope, tight-rope walkers and sword swallowers, but...
"No juggler?" said the Sun Queen.
"We did look, Your Radiance, but..."
"Nonsense!" declared the Sun Queen. "Look again!"
So the mo nkeys moped and the lions slept, the camels humphed and the clowns wept while the ladies-in-waiting, men-at-arms, courtiers and minions looked again.
In a high valley amongst the hunched shoulders of the White Face Mountains, they found a juggler.
"He is very large," observed the Sun Queen.
"Yes, Your Brilliance, and immensely strong. Each of those boulders weighs as much as a small horse."
The giant stood before the Sun Queen's throne with a massive stone balanced on each hand and a third at this feet.
"Let him show what he can do," declared the Sun Queen.
The giant nodded gravely to the queen, bent his knees, flexed his right arm and sent the boulder sailing from his right hand up toward the painted sky of the Great Hall. In almost the same instant, he reached down and scooped up the stone that sat at his feet. As the first boulder arced passed the clouds, the giant threw the boulder from his left hand. All the court shrunk back in fright as the first boulder plummeted down, but the g iant caught it in his empty hand. The floor trembled, and the third boulder flew up. The boulders sailed past each other like jousting comets, and a great wind roared through the court.
"Excellent! Excellent!" declared the Sun Queen. "We have seen enough! You can stop now, juggler!"
The giant dropped his arms to his sides and stepped back. With a deafening crack, and another and a third, the boulders shattered against the marble floor of the Great Hall. The king and the queen were tossed from their thrones. The ladies-in-waiting, men-at-arms, courtiers and minions were tumbled in fine and fancy heaps. Pillars cracked, and the painted clouds on the painted ceiling turned black and ominous.
Slowly the dust settled, and the court untangled itself. Men–at–arms rushed to right the Sun Queen's throne, and minions brushed debris from the Sun King's coat. As the Sun Queen settled shakily onto her throne, the doors of the Great Hall swung open, and a young woman stood framed in the dust dancing light .
"I have come to join your circus, Your Radiance," the young woman said. "I am a juggler."
"I do not need a juggler," declared the Sun Queen. "I already have a juggler who can juggle boulders as big as horses."
"Yes," said the young woman, "but can he juggle these?"
She opened her left hand to show a nest of feathers lying there. She lifted one delicately in her right hand and threw it with subtle force toward the giant.
"Catch!"
The feather fluttered near the giant's nose. He swiped at it with a huge hand. The feather feinted on the sudden breeze, and the giant's hand closed on nothing. The feather drifted close again, and the giant snatched at it. And again it darted away.
"Your strength is impressive," said the young woman, "but still you cannot capture a feather."
Her hand darted hummingbird quick and plucked the feather from the air.
"Watch..."
She threw the handful of feathers up, and as they fell, she plucked one here and one here from the flock and told them how to d ance. Her hands traced arabesques in the air, and the feathers swirled and fell and tumbled in the patterns that she drew. They moved in intricate circles - circles within circles - driven by the fine breath of intention, faster and faster. Then the pattern broke into a formless cloud that shrunk into a pile of feathers in the palm of the woman's outstretched hand. And her hand closed.
The Great Hall rang with thunderous applause, and the Sun King's voice rang louder. "We will have two jugglers then!" he shouted. "Let the circus begin!"
"No!" declared the Sun Queen and silence fell in the Great Hall. "The juggler who will perform in my circus must have the strength of the giant from the White Face Mountains and the skill that this woman has shown us. Find me such a juggler!"
So the fires smouldered and the polar bears scratched, the trumpets were mute and flamingo eggs hatched while the ladies–in–waiting, men-at-arms, courtiers and minions went in searc h of the Sun Queen's juggler.
Early each morning while the circus still slept, one boy was awake bringing hay to the elephants and water to the tigers. Some mornings as he did his work, his still-fresh dreams followed him about and spoke to him in dream whispers, so he wasn't surprised to see a dream player walking among the tents - a curious figure that seemed at first to be a soldier dressed in the uniform of the Sun Queen's guard, and in the next instant a young girl and in the next again a jolly red-faced man with a huge black beard. But the figure, seeming now to be a roguish pirate in a fine red coat, winked at the boy and beckoned to him.
"Are you real?" asked the boy.
"Are you?" the pirate asked in turn.
"Yes..." the boy replied, "I think so..."
"Are you hungry?" said the pirate.
"Yes," said the boy. "Are you?"
"Oh, yes," said the pirate. "Have you a bit of bread to spare?"
The boy ran to the kitchen tent and came back with a knob of bread, a few scraps of cheese and a wrinkled apple.
"It's all that I could find," said the boy showing his poor gifts to the pirate.
"A feast!" laughed the pirate.
He turned a water bucket upside down and spread his handkerchief over it to use as a table. A second and a third bucket he set as stools for himself and the boy. He laid the bread and the cheese and the wrinkled apple on the makeshift table and sat himself on one of the stools.
"Let us eat!"
And with those words the pirate became an Eastern Prince in flowing robes and spread before him was a feast of fruit and pastries, savory eggs and spicy meats. The boy shyly took his place in an ornate chair that a moment before had been a wooden bucket. As he ate, the boy wondered that a dream could taste so fine and that mere thoughts could make a person feel so full.
"Delicious!" pronounced the Prince. "And now it is time for me to pay the bill!"
He stood up abruptly, and the table and the feast were gone. The strange visitor was dressed now in the patchwork co stume of a court jester.
"I have no coin to pay," he said to the boy, "so I will pay this way..."
He cartwheeled across the trampled grass to where the blacksmith's anvil stood on a stump by the blacksmith's wagon.
He grinned at the boy, wiggled his fingers and proceeded to pull a bright silk scarf from his ear. The boy laughed delightedly, and the jester laughed to hear him laugh.
Then: "Shhh!" The jester put a finger to his lips. He held out his right hand with the silk scarf draped over it. With his left hand he slowly raised the scarf until the boy could see a perfect, speckled egg lying there on the jester's palm.
The boy reached to touch the egg, but before he could, the jester threw it into the air. The boy gasped, and in the space of that sudden breath the jester lifted the anvil and threw that. The boy watched amazed as the anvil, the scrap of silk and the speckled egg danced clockwork in the air. The egg became a bird, and the bird became a small yellow sun, and the sun became a n apple which became a piece of the night full of stars which became a song - all of them taking a turn in the dance.
And then the show was over. The boy could never say how it happened, but one moment his vision was full of the dance and the next a poor farmer was standing before him - a bit of straw held in his teeth and his hands in his pockets. The anvil sat as still as iron on the stump by the blacksmith's wagon.
"Are you a juggler?" the boy asked the farmer.
"When the need arises," the farmer replied.
"Would you come and juggle for the Sun Queen?" asked the boy excitedly. "If you will be the Sun Queen's juggler, the circus can begin at last."
"If it is your pleasure, lad," said the farmer, "it is my pleasure."
"The giant from the White Face Mountains can juggle boulders as big as horses," declared the Sun Queen. She indicated several large stones that huddled together near her throne. "The girl can juggle with feathers."
A minion ran forward and thrust his hand into the face of the crooked, little man who stood before the Sun Queen. The minion opened his hand and a flurry of feathers swirled to the floor.
The little man cupped a twisted hand behind one ear and wheezed: "Beg pardon, Your Radiance. Could you repeat... repeat what you just said?"
The Sun Queen frowned but opened her mouth to speak. What came out, though, was the raucous cackling of a barnyard hen. The Sun Queen closed her mouth in astonishment as a speckled egg rolled out from under her skirts. All of the court roared with laughter! The crooked man stooped and picked up the egg and a single feather. And when he lifted a stone into the air and sent them all - stone and feather and egg - spinning, spinning - the laughter turned to awful silence.
When the dance was finished a minstrel in a star stitched coat stood in the crooked man's place. No one spoke. Ladies-in-waiting, men-at-arms, courtiers and minions all stood mute in wonder, until finally the Sun King spoke: "Let the circus begin!"
"No!" declared the Sun Queen. "I have a question. I saw the stone,
and I saw the feather. But what was the third thing? It seemed to be an egg, and then it was a star, and then a butterfly..."
A soft murmur ran through the court - so the others, too, had seen what each had thought that he had only dreamed!
"Ah," said the minstrel. "Some call it Magic. Some call it Spirit. Some call it Love. Some call it the Will of God. And others - like myself - are content that it be nameless."
The Sun Queen fixed the minstrel with a long and steady look, and time seemed to stop there in the Great Hall. And then the Sun Queen smiled.
"Let the circus begin!" she declared.
RICHARD THOMPSON
THE STORY VINE
THE STORY VINE