The Harlequin

"Order, order, in the Court of Kard!" called the high judge, hidden behind a white mask and donned in his dark robes.He rose the mallet within his pale bone hand and smirked. Those who stood in place of jury had identical masks on with cruel grins stretched ear to ear and piercing eyes darting this and that beyond the holes of the eye-mask. "Now, let us bring out the Harlequin. Guard, rouse the fool!"

Presented before the judge stood a rather dreary character with ratted hair down her back and a painted smile now a dark smear across her cheeks. Her eyes were hidden, of course, and her nose as well in a beaked mask, the beak of a raven dark and clean. Her dress had been torn at the hem, and unfinished diamonds remained. Her feet were undressed and her ankles revealed with an inked piece of work needled permanently into her of a feather in blue ink, suggesting her poverty.

The torn creature had the nerve to curtsy. "Why, good day, your Honor! And, on this fine eve, why don't you tell me my sentence? Another hundred years locked away? We all see how I fared," she said with joy in her tone, sarcasm nonetheless. Laughter erupted from the jury. The judge remained in his stone-faced smirk.

"Fool, you have a knack for your trade to make many a May laugh and banter, but in a world where all must be gay and all must smile, you dare furrow?" the judge accused.

"I furrow for the treatment I am served in return for my gift, oh High One." Her lips thinned. "My hundred years of punishment had been for a frown, a frown in front of the King, and for his refusal to laugh at my acts in vengeance for my refusal of his company one night. I am not a married woman, nor shall I marry for my trade is my companion. And as so I do not give myself out."

The creature smiled. The judge eyed the girl. "You admit you refused an order from He, our Lord and Master?"

"I admit this; I have done no wrong to justify a hanging, and a higher lord will have your throats when the skin falls off your bones if you hang me for trying to preserve my purity. I did refuse a direct order from the King, and I did frown in his presence for his childish acts in following. I did frown, I shall frown once more if I am persecuted unjustly."

The Harlequin disappeared in that instant into a cloud of smoke in colors none could repeat. Gasps followed in unison from the jury and the audience. Heads turned in all directions, but none could spot the Harlequin. They did not wish to say where the Harlequin hid, nay, they wished to not reveal her to the judge who, despite his smile, seemed to be impatient with her antics.

"Where has she gone, the sly fox, the Harlequin so bold?" the judge questioned.

"Find her, find her!" called the main guard.

"Perhaps we should call the hunting hounds to charge?" shouted a man in a black mask from the audience. His visible attire differed for the rest of the audience, being that he wore a magnificent vest of black and gold, but with rolled sleeves of a black shirt and a feathered cap of black with a white feather in contrast.

Bellows of laughter filled the room. He eyed the judge with no discreetness and smirked. Red and boiling the judge's face became, and as so with a smile. "Guards, this man is in the Harlequin's party, so fetch him!" He paused as the laughter grew. "Question him! Question him!"

Laughter grew just as the judge noticed his head felt a chill. He turned around to meet the green-eyed beauty nose to mask-beak, fair tresses of wig descending from the fabricated scalp. Her smile grew. Her crouch on the back of his seat thus reminded him of her raven-like ways he'd heard of. She stood straight on her perch and clapped her hands together once. The wild laughter stopped, quicker than his mallet would have done to say in the least.

He noticed her clothes had changed from rags to a perfectly patterned suit with the diamonds checkered with red and black and white. Her gloved hands clasped the wig and removed it from her head. Her long hair rolled down her back softly in cascading waves of black. She dropped the wig onto his head with such precision not even he could repeat.

"Sorcery!" he accused.

"I am no sorcerer. I am but a fool," she said with a bow. Her thin, shapeless frame bound from the perch to the desk before him. "Did I startle you? I waited so long for you to notice me, but you kept staring at my faithful servant who only came to see me for the first time in a century." She turned to the man with a guard at each arm and blew a kiss. "Oswald, heart, how good it is to see you once more! I didn't see you amongst those white-masks. How are you, dear friend? Have you washed behind your ears at least once this year?"

The servant was freed of the grip on him and took a deep bow. "I would have hoped, but I fear you haven't bathed since the day you were locked away, Lady Harlequin."

"I just bathed, so I am refreshed. Maybe you can convince this judge to release me under the charges that are minor compared to those of today, being that murder is suddenly a new rage!" the Harlequin called.

The crowd giggled at this scene. The servant stepped forward. "Please, sir, release this fool so that I can labor through the day over tedious things," he begged, and the giggles burst into an array of laughter louder than any other.

"Take her, take her! There is no order when a fool stands in court!" the judge cried. The Harlequin jumped from her spot on the desk and landed in her servant's arms. He smiled brighter than ever.

"Oswald, what is it you plan?" asked the Harlequin.

He lifted the beak to reveal her pale face. The crowd gasped at this indecency. He lifted his own mask and drew her close. "I've been waiting one hundred years to do this, Fay," he muttered. The jury stood up in awe. Her eyes whirled with a sudden flush to her cheeks.

And he kissed her.