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All was quiet
the Lord and Lady retired,
courtiers all gone to bed,
the Great Hall silent.
Hounds slumberingly snored
next to the dying embers
of a cooling Inglenook,
occasional crackles popping
as the heat catches wood resin,
it splatters and dies.
A lute lays idle
amongst the mess of banquet
as a lonely secretive figure
detaches from the shadows,
prowling through the detritus.
Slim fingers pick up the lute
and gently strums a chord,
the Minstrel exits stage left,
to compose and construct
new songs and ribald stories
from this nights celebrations.
Retiring to his chamber
his eyes stare balefully
at an uneaten bowl of stew,
the gruel of his station,
a metaphor for the content
of a nearby journal,
closed but waiting,
for a quill rich in ink
to fill its void
with the musings of a Fool.
© Pagan Paul (26/06/19)
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