A Portrait of Silas Fox - Part I
It is always a pleasure to read a Kaylie Saidin original, but as a writer who has always captured the uncanniness in coming-of-age, the magic in yearning, and the beauty in wandering, this story steps away from all her previous work to arrive at something equally as captivating while completely new. In this excellently crafted piece of historical fiction, we follow Silas Fox, the son of a middle-class Whittawer and also a man of only a little over four feet in stature, as he navigates the complex political, economic, and ethical sphere of 17th century European nobles. As he works to survive in a world that does not see him as he sees himself, he considers what defines humanity and what it truly means to have power.
-Emily
Many ask me how I came to be at Nightwick Keep, and often I make the joke that I was born here as a fully grown man and I’ve been aging backward ever since. Or I say, it’s more a question of how Nightwick Keep came to have me, for I am far too distinguished for this place. At this, they laugh and tilt their drink into their gaping mouth so the glass shines just so under the light. Then I lean in, and say in a conspiratorial tone, it’s true, you know. I am a traveler from far, far away. Where, they ask, suddenly intrigued. Then I make a point to gaze dramatically and longingly at the stars, and I say, a world most men cannot dream of. Most of the time this leads to more raucous laughter, but sometimes a person will take a long look at me, as if really seeing something otherworldly, and they’ll say, oh. But of course. And I’ll wonder which of us is really the fool.
*****
I am going to tell you how I got here, how I came to be the being sitting before you, but not because I trust you. No, I learned long ago not to trust any man–and I hold no blame or anger for this, for no man can help that their hearts will always be loyal to themselves first. I am going to tell you everything because you are painting my portrait, and it is of utmost importance to me that I am portrayed as I really am, with all laid bare.
I’ve seen the portraits hanging in other keeps and halls and abbeys where others like myself reside: monarchical paintings where the Lord or Duke stands tall in red or green puffed velvet, his court dwarf by his side. Perhaps his hand is placed upon the dwarf’s head, so as to make him appear taller than he really is, and perhaps the dwarf is holding a ball of orange paint strokes meant to represent a fluffy cat, or a black-and-white coated dog standing equally as tall as the dwarf, as though the animals and the dwarf alike are both household pets. The dwarf in these paintings is always painted to appear as a child, with round cheeks and thick curls, though I know several of them personally and they are well into their middle age, looking just as any other man.
No, when I am painted by you, that shall not be me. Though I stand at just under four feet, I am not subject to the ridicule my contemporaries face. This is the result of my own hard work, not the compassion of Earl Barrow, though he has shown a great deal of kindness to me throughout the last decade, providing me with my own chambers, maids, and freedom, as well as my continued education.
I suppose I partially owe my success to the ever shifting wind of luck. When I lived in Florence with the Marchioness, my third place of habitation, I was regarded as a valuable object, spending most of my days sitting on a pillow beside gold cups and jewelry, made to sing while she brushed her hair. At times I was loaned out to her noble relatives, who, whenever they had too much to drink, would pick me up and toss me back and forth across the hall, increasing distance each time until they missed and I fell upon the floor, my face bruised and blood rushing through my head loudly enough that I could not hear their vile words.
The Marchioness eventually grew bored of me and traded me for some paintings to Lord Barrow, and I have been with him at Nightwick Keep ever since. Though at first it was hoped I’d be an amusing companion at dinner entertainment, I quickly elevated my status to a jester and noble advisor. Of course, I prefer to think of myself as the court philosopher, and Lord Barrow sometimes regards me this way as well.
I’ve raced ahead of the story. I want you to see me clearly, understand me the way I understand myself. I realize this is a lofty task, and it is not one that has ever been achieved by those who know me, although no one has really tried. To do this I’ll have to start at the very beginning, so you can live my life as though watching it through my eyes. This will give the portrait some verisimilitude, which I know you are keen on incorporating. You are an artist I admire, with a process I respect. It was I who recommended Lord Barrow hire you for the job, you know.
*****
I was born in a small English town in the countryside. I will not say where, but know that it looked like this: verdant green, thatched-roof cottages, a thicket of woods in the distance from which a canine would occasionally slip out and murder a flock of chickens. Ancient stone walls created a crumbling labyrinth, which the people of the town wandered through and lived out their lives within.
My father was John Fox, a Whittawer, and we lived above the shop, which omitted a permanent scent of leather and alum that wafted upward to our living quarters. My earliest memory is looking up at a slant of moonlight coming through my nursery, and seeing a long eared owl perched upon the windowsill. It stared at me briefly with its large and unreachable eyes, then turned and flew away, disappearing into a low and gentle fog.
It took some time for my parents to accept that my body was growing differently than the average person. At two I looked like any other child. My hair was black as ink, and my square jawline drew interest from women, who claimed I’d grow up to be handsome. I did grow up, but I did not physically grow much: by seven, my limbs had become bulky in the places meant to be stretched, and I was no taller than I’d been at six. My limbs were sturdy, like a tree that takes on water and grows bloated and outward rather than upward.
My parents tried hard to pretend, but eventually they had to admit to what was before their eyes. “A changeling,” my mother said. “A malevolent spirit came in through the unclosed window, (the one my mother left open one full-mooned night), and a dwarf has now taken the place of our healthy, brilliant Silas. He is not how we remember (but mother, I am the same boy, I said, to no avail), his eyes are black and his behavior strange, and he can do magic in secret, we are sure of it.”
My mother spun this tale throughout the town, and she became oddly popular for it. I stayed inside the house for a month until one day she tied a rope to my waist and told me to come with her to the market. I felt the eyes of every villager on me, their leering stares, and a few approached my mother and gave her their condolences. She left that day with free apples. It was then that I first saw the etches of my value in society, the way that people would attempt to use me for gain. I was unsure of how to feel but was pleased to be useful.
My father was a decent man. I believe he was good in his center, a true sanguine, though he was a man of few words, and his actions throughout his life were merely decent. He did not believe I was a changeling, though he allowed my mother her fantasies.
It was assumed I could not go to petty school, on account of the fact that I was now a magical being. But my father saw to it that I did attend, and though he did not say it outright, I suspect he paid the schoolmaster double the usual fees, and donated even more to the clergy that ran the school. This was something I would not understand or be grateful for until I was older. Now I recall those days spent in that long narrow chapel room, surrounded by children who were growing taller than me each day, as the most formative of my life. It was there I learned to read and write, and without those fundamentals, I would not be sitting here before you.
I was a voracious reader. I became enamored with The Duchess of Malfi and the tragic genre, as tragedies seemed the truest to life. The Anatomy of Melancholy was of particular interest, for though I found myself identifying with the choleric humor the most, and I learned from the book much about the disposition I suspected my mother had. I was sixteen and deep into Don Quixote around the time my father told me I had to leave school.
“Why?” I asked him. I had my satchel slung about me, the straps of which I’d cut in half so it hung at my midsection. The satchel was still enormous on me, and the other children would make fun of the way it made my body look even smaller. One day I told them it contained the entire universe inside of it, and I could pull out anything I wanted on a whim. After that they shut up.
“There’s been an offer,” my father said. He looked dimly pensive, perhaps a bit sorrowful, but mostly he looked tired.
“An offer?”
“A traveling salesman,” he said. “Come on home, lad. It’s best you start packing.”
At home, the aura of the house had shifted into something tense and sticky. My mother had her back to me for most of the afternoon as she fussed about the house, gathering anything that was mine and placing these objects in a leather sack. She did not say anything to me directly, but she placed a small piece of bread in the bag that I only found later that night, when I was sitting on the back of a horse, watching the moon rise over the fields of the countryside. Along with the tea cakes was a note she had written, hastily with an inky quill: GODSPEED.
There was a knock at the door. I went downstairs, opened it, and in the frame stood a tall man in sturdy leather boots, a plain shirt, and a sharp-pointed cap. He introduced himself as George Marlowe, though I got the impression this was a false name, as his voice had a strange and stilted accent. He knelt on one knee before me and stared at me intensely. His beard was ragged, his face dry and flaking.
Then he took out a measuring cord from his pocket and held it to my body. He measured my height, and then, without asking, he picked me up and lifted me a few times. I had been picked up by other children at school before, and occasionally by townsfolk at the market or square. The event never ceased to irritate me, and in fact only became more enraging each time.
“Quite good,” Marlowe told my father. “Just as you told me.”
The two men swept into the office, leaving me standing there, sweating and holding my leather sack. I could hear them negotiating, but it was muffled, and I could make out no words. I glanced around at the display of gloves, belts, and knife sheaths, at the slabs of white and tanned leather laying over the workbenches, the threads and needles hanging precariously from where they were pinned to the walls. I suddenly had the acute sense I would not see this place again. My intuition proved correct.
Marlowe and my father returned. The three of us stepped out of the shop and into the road. They shook hands, exchanged currency.
And then my father sold me.
He sold me for thirty pounds. This was equivalent to a year of wages for him, and I knew this, for he’d taught me arithmetic as I helped balance the shop books. I was worth one year of his work. I did not know what to think of this, so I chose not to think of it at all.
Marlowe took my hand and ushered me to where his horse was tied, saddled my bag to the creature’s side, picked me up, and placed me upon the rear.
My father gave me a stiff nod, then turned to walk back to the shop. And when Marlowe and I began to trot away, he did not look back. At least that is what I tell myself, for the truth is that I did not look back either. I willed myself not to. It would have broken my heart. I do not know if my father turned to gaze at my back receding into the golden twilight of our village, which would vanish into my memory as quickly as I left it, destined for a strange life of servitude masked as companionship.
It was the last time I saw my father. I received no letters or correspondence from him for the rest of his life, and I suppose this is only fair, because I did not write to him either.
I do, however, make myself aware of news from my hometown by having the local papers delivered to Nightwick. Not too long ago, I read that my father followed my mother into an early grave. She died of scarlet fever, and he hanged himself by the rafters of the kitchen not long after. There is no shame in his death, for he had no one else to live for, and he was not a man with a strong sense of self. After all these years, I no longer hold any hatred for my father, for it was he who showed me that deep in our hearts lie self-serving intentions, and no matter our goodness, when the moment is necessary, we will always unearth them. I can see in my mind’s eye the deep brown soil of my mother and father’s twin graves, now hardened. And whether he looked back or thought of me at all after he sold me, I can never know.
*****
Life was not turning out the way I had imagined, though in retrospect, my travels were inevitable. My condition made me a curiosity, and while I was not aware of it at the time, people of my stature were of high interest to nobles and were being sold and carted across many lands. After two weeks on horseback, I was delivered to Oakmont Hall, where I became a jester in the court of Baron Ashby.
Lord Ashby had only recently been granted the title of Baron, and as such, he was unaccustomed to his power. He had served the Crown in the fight against the Spanish, and he must have done so valiantly, for the King had given him his title, a parcel of land, and a royal blessing. Lord Ashby was trying to build up Oakmont Hall, turn it into a place that nobility wanted to visit and talk about visiting, and thus he spent most of his wealth that year on amassing a court. He had a chaplain, a steward, a chamberlain, a marshall, and an array of servants. I arrived just three days after Sebastian Sommers, another jester who was initially displeased at my presence.
Sebastian and I shared a small cramped room in the basement of the estate, just beyond the scullery kitchen. From it, we could hear the wash rags against the scrubbing boards, the roar of the sinks, the thwack of knives. On my first night at Oakmont, he picked me up and held me by my chest against the wall.
“Listen here, dwarf,” he said. “I worked too hard for too long to come to this noble court just to be outshined by a storybook creature. You may think you belong here, but if your only talent is your tininess, you have a rough wind coming to shake you.”
I tried to say my name is Silas Fox, but the words did not come out in any meaningful way.
He loosened his grip. “What’s that?”
I dropped down to the floor, gasping to catch my breath.
“My name is Silas Fox,” I said finally. “I have many talents. My father was a glover and leather worker. I am from a merchant family, and I am educated.”
He was surprised, but kept steadfast. “I am educated as well. I can joke in Latin and Greek as well as the Queen’s English. I am here on account of my quick wit, which was renowned during my schooling days.”
I could tell that Sebastian was the type of person who could be molded by flattery. “Of your wit I have no doubts,” I told him. “You exude cleverness. Were you at a different court before this one?”
He hesitated a moment before speaking. “No. This is my first appointment as a noble jester.”
“Mine as well,” I said, though it seemed obvious.
“I am sorry, dwarf. I fear I misjudged you.” And then he did something I will not ever forget: he held his hand out to shake mine. It was the first time anyone had done so. His hand was warm and jovial, and it enveloped mine. I held it firmly and gave it a shake.
“Thank you, Sebastian,” I said. “And you may call me Silas.”
*****
Sebastian and I settled into being chamber companions quickly. For the first week of our tenure, His Lordship was away on business, and we were put to work by the chamberlain helping dust and organize the library. It was not entirely clear to me exactly what the duties of a court jester entailed. Sebastian explained that it was important to have a balance of physical talents as well as intellectual: for example, he was able to walk on his hands and bend his body as though it were made of clay. He encouraged me to take up juggling or dancing. In the intellectual realm, he was of no help.
“You’re meant to entertain, particularly during meals,” he told me. “You’ve got to have tricks up your sleeve.” He would not elucidate on what he meant by tricks, and more and more I suspected he did not know.
I came to learn that Sebastian had attended school at Cambridge and participated heavily in theatrical performances on campus, including several renowned morality plays. He was highly educated and from a well-to-do family, but he seemed entirely uninterested in continuing his pursuit of knowledge. While I pilfered books from the library back to our quarters to read by candlelight, he preferred to smoke tobacco and play cards with the butlers. Real intellect, he claimed, came from social experiences rather than scholarship.
When word around the Hall stated that Lord Ashby had returned, I was nervous. I had not succeeded in learning to juggle, nor do any acrobatic tricks. Animal training was another potential pursuit, but when I’d asked to try my hand with the horses, the stable boys merely laughed at me. There was a falcon and a hound on the hunting grounds, but they already had a keeper, a terrifyingly large and silent man who went by the mononym Scregg. He would emerge from the woods with a live mouse dangling from one hand, a fist of blooming mushrooms in the other, and one of the steel-gray peregrines perched upon his shoulder, blinking beady eyes.
Lord Ashby returned mid-afternoon, and a few hours later, Sebastian and I were summoned to the Great Hall for dinner. We had not yet met His Lordship. When he entered the room, we both bowed, placing our heads to the floor.
“Rise,” he said. His voice was higher-pitched than I’d expected.
I looked up cautiously. Baron Ashby was a tall, thin man dressed in a crisp doublet of black velvet and a glittering chain of office around his neck. He had the look of someone who appeared confident, but was inwardly failing: it was his chin that trembled ever so slightly, the way his eyes darted back and forth between the two of us.
“Where have you come from, my Lord?” Sebastian asked.
I glanced at my friend, incredulous that he had addressed Lord Ashby without being spoken to first. To my surprise, His Lordship simply scoffed.
“France,” he said. “I enjoyed my time there, but it’s something of a rotten place.”
“The cheese, or the people?”
Lord Ashby let out a guffaw, and Sebastian grinned heartily and spread his palms out as if to say welcome, and it was then that I saw what was happening: he was a jester, and this was the art of his jesting. I was overwhelmed, for I had not yet spoken, and I had no idea what my presence tonight ought to be.
“Meet me in the dining hall in an hour,” Lord Ashby said.
Until then we had been eating in the servants’ kitchen, and it had been a long week of hardened bread and an onion-based stew with a stench that lingered on our clothing. The food served in the dining hall was better than anything I’d ever eaten: venison, somewhat tender and freshly butchered, stewed mushrooms and potatoes covered in rosemary. I did not know how to cook, and I found the cooks vulgar in their behavior, as they often jokingly asked me how a person of my size was endowed in the nether region. But my heart and stomach swelled with newfound respect for them when I ate dinner that first night. The raspberry blancmange was almost too delicious to eat. I could–and I would–get used to this.
There were mugs of ale and bottles of wine, but I did not drink any, afraid to cloud my head. Sebastian and Lord Ashby bantered with the chaplain and the steward about how managing the Hall had gone in our Lord’s absence.
After several mugs of ale, Lord Ashby finally turned to me. He was picking a particularly stringy piece of venison that had lodged itself beside his canine tooth.
“Say, dwarf,” he said. “What can you do?”
“I can do many things, sir,” I said, keeping my voice even.
“Stand up. Over there by the fire place.”
I hopped down from my chair and made my way to the fireplace, where embers roared. I could feel them all watching me walk, staring at me. I was used to being stared at, but something about this setting felt more intense. The flame of the fire made the fabric of my clothes grow hot.
“Dance,” Lord Ashby ordered.
Sebastian began to whistle a tune (his tone was like a flute; I made a mental note to ask him how he did it), and I moved my legs up and down in what was, though I had never seen it done, my best approximation of an Irish jig.
Lord Ashby was displeased. “So you are not a dancing dwarf,” he said, frowning.
I had not realized there were dwarves that specialized in dancing specifically, nor had I thought my dance was so terrible.
“I could train animals,” I offered. “Perhaps a peacock.”
He shook his head in dismissal. “I’ve no use for a peacock.”
“Ay, sir, you’ve got enough feathers of your own,” Sebastian interjected.
Lord Ashby chortled. “Dwarf, tell me a story,” he said. “Given as you are magic folk, I am sure you come by at least this honestly.”
I opened my mouth and began to speak. “Lo I the dwarf, whose Muse did once speak to…” and then I was off. I spun a dramatic tale of an ancient noble battle, a knight on a quest who encounters both giant men and little folk alike. I let myself meander while discussing the dwarves of my story, allowing myself to become lost in the narrative, for I knew this was where my authenticity was desired. I described an entire community of dwarves hidden in a cut-out kingdom on a mountainside, digging tunnels for ore and playing tricks on anyone who attempted to cross the mountain. Within the mountain, I claimed, was a long-lost treasure that they were guardians of, and none could outsmart them to get it. These dwarves were a loyal, hardworking society: it almost made me emotional as I described it, because in the dark reality of my life, I had never even encountered another person who looked like me, and I knew I would not get to experience what it would be like to exist in a society in which I appeared normal.
I am somewhat ashamed of it, but not too proud to admit to you that much of my tale was stolen from The Faerie Queen, which I’d read about a year prior. However, Lord Ashby seemed not to notice. He was mesmerized, captivated by the story.
At last, the Lord rose and said, “I must retire to bed. Dwarf, we shall continue this tale in the morning.”
“At your request sir.”
We stood and bowed, and then the chamberlain and Lord Ashby exited the Great Hall. The staff emerged to clean and clear the table, as if they had been waiting in the walls with bated breath to pounce the very moment the Lord left.
Sebastian and I made the descension back to our chambers. I did not realize until I left the room that I was trembling slightly.
“That went better than I had anticipated,” I said, once we were out of earshot.
Sebastian put his hand on the top of my head. This was something I detested when others did it, but when he mussed my hair, there was something honest and kindhearted in his touch that made me allow it.
“Silas,” he said, “You are brilliant.”
To be continued…
Kaylie Saidin grew up in California and now lives in North Carolina. She received her MFA in Creative Writing from UNC Wilmington, where she served as fiction coeditor of Ecotone Magazine. Her writing has appeared in Oxford American, Prairie Schooner, New Orleans Review, Los Angeles Review, Nashville Review, Fourteen Hills, and elsewhere.
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