Chapter 4: The Yankee and the King

On the morning of the fourth day, when the sun was coming up, I decided to drill the king.

“Sir,” I said, “you are too like a soldier, a lord. This is not good. You must try to look poor and miserable.”

The king tried to walk like a poor peasant but he was not convincing. He had too much spirit. I said to him: “What will you say when we ask for hospitality in a house?”

“Varlet, give me what you have!” answered the king.

“No, you cannot say “varlet”, you are not a lord!” I answered. “You must say “brother”.”

The king tried his best. “Give me the sack,” he said. “I must try to stoop under weights that are not honourable.”

He tried, but it was very difficult for him to stoop. I thought about work. I thought about the people who believe that a day of intellectual work is hard. They don’t understand that work is physical. It is silly to pay higher wages to intellectuals than to people who work with their bodies.

We saw a very small, poor house in the distance. We arrived in the middle of the afternoon. There was no sign of life. Everything looked ruined and there was no living thing. We pushed the door open and saw some forms in the dark. One sat up.

“Have mercy!” cried a woman. “They have taken everything. There is nothing here.”

“I do not want anything, poor woman,” I said.

“Then you are not a priest or a lord?” she asked.

“No, I am a stranger,” I replied. “Let me come in and help you. You are sick and in trouble,” I said.

“Go away,” she said. “We are in trouble with the lord and the church and we have the smallpox. You must go away.”

I told the king to go away, but he refused.

“The king does not know fear, and has no trouble with the church. I must stay and help, it is the duty of a knight,” he said.

We gave the woman water.

“Please, go up that ladder and tell me what you see,” said the woman. The king went up the ladder, which led to another part of the little hut. On his way, he noticed a man.

“Is that your husband sleeping?” he asked.

“No, he died three hours ago. Now he is at peace,” said the woman.

The king climbed the ladder and came back with a poor girl of fifteen. She was dying. He said there was another girl, who was already dead. He lay the girl next to the woman who sat with her until she died. I brought the other child to lie next to her.

The woman told us her story. They were persecuted by the lord and the church who made them work and took all their property. They had nothing to eat, and their three sons were unjustly in prison for a theft they had not committed. Then they got smallpox.

At midnight, they were all dead.

We continued our journey and came to a small house. We asked for hospitality and the couple who lived there was kind. I spoke to the man and discovered that he did not like the injustice of the country’s laws. I liked him.

We stayed for some days with the man whose name was Marco, and his wife Phyllis. I said the king was a farmer and I was his assistant. One day I decided to have a special lunch at Marco’s house. I invited a lot of people, all the craftsmen of the town. Marco was terrified by the cost, which was too much for him. I paid for everything. Everyone thought I was very rich.

At the lunch, I tried to explain economics to the men. I told them that in my part of the country, people earned less but everything cost less. So in my part of the country people were better off. They couldn’t understand.

“But we earn double what you earn. This is better!” insisted one man.

“But we pay less than half of what you pay. Therefore we have more money and can buy more things,” I replied.

They could not understand the idea, which was new to them, and I could not explain it to them. I was very disappointed. So I tried another subject. I talked about crime and punishment, and I said they were committing crimes by earning more than was allowed by their lord. This was a mistake. I thought we could laugh about it but they were terrified. They didn’t know me and they were worried that I wanted to report them.

The king started talking about farming, but he knew nothing about it. The men started to say that he was mad.

“One wants to betray us and the other is mad!” they shouted.

A fight started and the king was delighted, but I made him escape. We were in danger! We ran to the woods and hid in a tree, but the people found us and wanted to kill us.

Luckily, a noble arrived and saved us. He took us with him to a nearby town where he had business. Then we had another terrible surprise. He took us to the market and sold us as slaves. He sold the king for seven dollars and me for nine. I was offended. I was worth at least fifteen and the king twelve.

We were chained to the slaves by the master who was hard and cruel. We got lost in the snow and five people died. Then a woman arrived screaming and tried to find protection with us. The people in her village said she was a witch and wanted to burn her. Our slave master helped them. We could not help her. Our master was angry about the dead slaves and revenged himself on this poor woman.

Then we saw a procession. A young girl of eighteen was sitting on a coffin in a cart. She had a baby. With her was a priest who told her story.

She was a young wife and mother. Then the army took her husband away to be a soldier. She had no work and was starving with her baby. So she stole a small piece of linen. The judge decided to hang her. The owner of the linen felt so bad he committed suicide. She cried and held her baby, but the priest, who was very kind to her, made a speech against the laws and the sentence, and promised to look after the baby.

There was gratitude in her face when she died.