Clever Jan
War, according to Jan Prochazka, was entirely a matter of luck, whether you were a soldier or a simple peddler. Luck must be sought, snatched from the jaws of misfortune with cunning and mettle. Jan sought his own fortune by going North. He did it against the counsel of his own Mother— which bothered him a bit, since the woman was seldom wrong, but people need peddlers, even amdist a war.
He had come upon the village when the shadows were already long, expecting the customary dirty stares, as if he were capable of hiding troops of black reiters inside his satchels of wares. What he found instead were unguarded smiles, bonfires, long tables filled with noisy revelers. Jan was soon surrounded by buyers, from girls fancying a colored ribbon to plump matrons wishing for spice or perfume. Jan Prochazka was a foreigner, but knew the language well. He tried to glean from the villagers what they were holding a festival for, whether a marriage or Patron Saint, but to no avail. The farmers just told him to eat his fill, to drink and make merry.
“Nobody knows what tomorrow might bring!” had added the innkeeper.
“Stay! Your road will still be there when we are long gone,” said a farmhand.
When the sun finally set, he had sold every single ell of fancy cloth, every ribbon, every trinket, but not a single knife, pot or honest tool. The festival had begun for good, he decided, but still he loitered on its outskirts, all the while thinking about the road. Then a slim girl slipped her hand into his, and dragged him to dance. All those smiles… Weren’t they a bit too much? Wasn’t it strange how they offered him food and drink so generously? Each time he tried to sit, another young woman accosted him to dance, or a man asked him to sing with him. All his life, farmers had offered him scarcely more than swift kicks. His Mother’s wise tales came back to mind, and thus he started to seek out for signs of the Devil. He watched the bonfire-shadows to make out if horns or tails were hiding there. He smelt the air for sulfur, but he found nary a whiff. Unconvinced, he surreptitiously examined the feet of the crowd, and there he glimpsed the sallow, bare feet that could only belong to an emaciated old woman, flashing for mere instants where the dance was wildest. And the dancers were leading him there, slowly but cunningly.
“This is no time to be dismayed!” he thought.
He doubled and tripled his enthusiasm, but now he knew, and he led the dance with abandon, he, Jan Prochazka, not these foolish farmers. And lo! He knew how to dance. By the looks and grins, by how many of the villagers peeled off the dancing crowd, panting, Jan knew when he had become the king of this festival, the king of the be-deviled. He rejoiced at his own craftiness, for he had vanquished the Devil at his own game, and dawn finally approached. He could indeed run at any moment, now, but curiosity gnawed at him.
All throughout the night he had cleverly danced around the evil presence, never stepping too close. But he didn’t feel bewitched in any guise, at this point, and he could risk a peep before scarpering off. He spun around the glass-eyed farmers, sweaty and exhausted as they were, to see the hellish wonder that had be-deviled this village, coaxing it into a frenzied nightly celebration. And when he finally saw the Witch hidden amongst the crowd, he understood that his Mother’s tales were the wrong ones, and that the Devil hadn’t come to visit extravagant revelry from dusk till dawn unto these poor farmers, and that this was no Sabbath. The horror slithering amongst them was Pestilence, and the Witch smiled at him humorously, twisting her bloated lips to reveal livid gums and rotting teeth. She had slid smoothly amongst them all night, touching the young and the old alike. Everybody here knew, everybody but Jan Prochaska, that is, that the revels had been so crazy because for this village they would be the last.
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