Read Online Damiano by R. A. MacAvoy - Free Book Online

revealing the scene Damiano’s craft had shown him before. Three men, a smoky hearth, and a tin lamp set on a table strewn with food. Damiano blinked against the beauty of the sight.
    â€œEnter then and be welcome,” said the fellow who had opened the door. He was moonfaced, plump, and balding, despite his youth. The two others regarded Damiano from their places at table. One was dark and square, the other towheaded with a long face. This last mentioned student held a greasy spiced sausage in his lap in a manner most proprietary.
    â€œMy name is Damiano Delstrego,” Damiano said, bowing. “This lady is my dog Macchiata. We thank you for your courtesy on this icy evening.”
    The dark youth rose, smiling slightly. The bow of the fellow at the door was a marvel involving three separate movements of the foot. “Signor Dottore Delstrego. Let me present our small company. This one standing, with the shoulders of Hercules—he is Paul Breton, and he is a poet. The blond without manners is called Till Eulenspiegel. We are golliards, the impossible children of Pierre Abelard himself.”
    â€œTill Eulenspiegel!” Damiano burst out, involuntarily.
    Slyly the blond looked up. “What’s wrong with that?” He spoke an egregious Italian.
    The first student stepped between them. “You see, Dottore, we believe that a name chosen oneself or by those who know one is more meaningful than the one chosen at birth. It is the custom of golliards to forego allegiance to country, town, and family for the highest fidelity to learning itself. Therefore Jan Karl is Till Eulenspiegel, and world watch out.
    â€œI myself,” he concluded, “have the honor to carry the name of Pierre Paris, because that is the place I like best.”
    A chair was sought for Damiano, to no avail. He who called himself Pierre Paris offered his own, but Damiano chose to sit on the table. From his pack he took the remainder of his bread and cheese, pulled off portions of both for Macchiata, and put the rest on the table. The dog wolfed what she was given and retired to the space beneath Eulenspiegel’s chair, where she lay consuming the aroma of sausage.
    â€œDelstrego,” drawled the Dutchman. “Doesn’t that mean ‘of the witch’?”
    â€œYes it does,” admitted Damiano. He had become impatient waiting for someone to invite him to eat and so had begun unasked.
    â€œIs it also”—the blond ran out of Italian and switched to French —”a title self-chosen?”
    Damiano shook his head forcefully. “Definitely not. It was my father’s name and his father’s before him for I don’t know how long.” He continued in Latin, for he was quite at home in it, having the advantage of being Italian. “If I took a name to myself it would be Damiano Alchemicus.”
    â€œNot Damiano Musicus?” asked Pierre Paris, as with lightning speed he whipped the long sausage from Eulenspiegel’s grasp and cut a section for their guest. The blade of his dagger he wiped on the hem of his black overshirt. “I was hoping we would hear that lute you have cradled so carefully in the corner.”
    Damiano followed his glance to where the lute rested, wrapped in the white fur of his mantle. “Perhaps later, Signor Clericale, once it’s warm. But I’m not very good.” Half the thick slice of sausage disappeared into a wet mouth waiting under the table. The other half Damiano held between his fingers, nibbling.
    â€œGood students,” he said, “for such I see you are—though I had thought that war and pestilence had ended the golliard’s jolly times —I am a student also, both of science and spirit. Why do you travel weaponless through a land devastated by war?”
    Paris stared owlishly at Breton, who in turn looked toward Eulenspiegel, who kept his eyes fixed on Damiano. “Who would devastate the barren