David Barringer
The Judge
Gat and Tor traveled to town. Gat’s payment was a sewn sack filled with loose tea. Tor’s payment was a worn pocked teapot with a pine handle. The court officer transferred these considerations to the judge. The judge approved them. The court officer locked them in a brass-hinged trunk. The judge sat on a large wooden structure built by the military escorts. Hanging from the structure was a tapestry with the emblem of the cock and turtle. The judge peered down from above the tapestry and heard disputes. Gat and Tor stood before the tapestry. Flies made the tapestry itch with movement. Gat and Tor watched the sun rise on the judge’s face and set behind his head. The judge ruled for Gat.
The judge waved away the last disputants. The military escorts guided the judge to his tent, which they had erected upon their arrival the prior evening. The tent was never to be erected near the barber’s, the butcher’s, or the whorehouse. Beggars and dogs were already huddled around the tent. The military escorts chased at them with poles. The court officer wheeled the brass-hinged trunk into the judge’s tent. Tavern servants arrived with turkey hearts stuffed with mushrooms and salt, sausage bread with corn butter, and sweet knotberry wine. The judge wrote a letter to his sister. His sister’s husband had been killed in the spring by the brother of a servant girl. The brother had made use of an ornament from a birdbath. The judge noted, in the letter, the ominous summer heat that christened the first days of his annual commitment, but he made a point not to complain to her about it. He invented a quote from the Bible, which his uneducated sister would likely repeat to the staff. The judge smiled and snuffed the candle. Beggars and dogs returned to sleep outside his tent.
The military escorts awoke with weak legs. They had spent the night in the tavern house with the daughters of tradesmen. The judge complained about the odor and the noise around his tent. The military escorts prodded the lumps of hair and flesh until the beggars and dogs were lured away by the butcher’s dawn scraps. The judge traveled a sixteen-town circuit every summer. They spent one day in the smaller towns, two to three in the larger ones. Villagers arrived on foot or horseback to have their disputes resolved. The military escorts packed the court and the judge’s tent into the caravan, and they all followed the river to the next town.
Gat and Tor lagged behind the caravan. The brothers’ mule was packed with jerky, hardbread, and corn, tools for cooking and defense, and items of consideration. They cooperated in leading the mule and preparing meals. In the next town, Gat’s payment was a laced-up journal bound with pigskin. Tor’s payment was a writing instrument with a cherrywood handle and an inkpot. The court officer transferred these considerations to the judge. The judge approved them. The court officer locked them in the brass-hinged trunk. The judge presided from the large wooden structure and heard disputes rising up to him from below the cock and turtle. Gat and Tor shuffled in the dust. Flies made the tapestry burn with life. Gat and Tor watched the setting sun rim the judge’s wig in orange and purple. The judge ruled for Gat.
The judge waved away the last disputants. The military escorts guided the judge to his tent. The judge had instructed the military escorts to dig a trench around the three sides of his tent, each side being ten feet in length. The trench was two-feet deep, three-feet wide, and thirty-feet long. The court officer wheeled the brass-hinged trunk into the judge’s tent. Tavern servants arrived with foxmeat pie, sunflower muffins in blackberry jam, and tart mint wine. The judge wrote a letter to the manager of his estate. The manager took liberties every year when the judge was away, but the estate never suffered for it. This confused the judge. The judge, however, was a man of consequence, and if the means were suspect, at least the end was his reward. He measured his threats against his praise and reminded the manager to do the same when rousing the workers to do their best. The judge invented a quote from the Bible, which his resentful manager would likely mimic to the kitchen staff. The judge smiled and snuffed the candle. Upon seeing the trench, simple villagers mistook its purpose and defecated into it.
The military escorts awoke with feeble legs. They had spent the night in the tavern house with the daughters of men who fished in the river or trapped animals along the banks. The judge castigated the men about the stink in his tent. The military escorts staggered toward their shovels and buried over the trenches. The court officer assisted as well as he could. He was unused to the labor but unhappy to see the military escorts struggle. He did not accompany them on their nights with the tavern girls. Instead, he would stray to a widow’s home or a moonlit meadow. The military escorts never cursed or mocked him, though they might have. The court officer was a solitary man and did not count even the judge as a benefactor. In the morning, the judge’s caravan followed the apple orchards to the next town.
Gat and Tor trailed them. They stopped to pick green apples when the military escorts stopped to light the judge’s oven and the court officer roasted quail and root vegetables. They bathed in creekbeds when the judge bathed in the lakes of hospitable landowners. In the next town, Gat’s payment was a tin canister of cured tobacco. Tor’s payment was a pipe with an ivory bowl and a storage case made of pearwood. The court officer transferred these considerations to the judge. The judge approved them. The court officer locked them in the brass-hinged trunk. Despite the sun, the judge looked pale atop the large wooden structure. He wore a white cloth hat with a wide level brim. The judge coughed into the yellow fabric puckered in his fist. Gat and Tor expelled the gas wrenching their insides because of the green apples. Flies made the tapestry frantic with business. The judge did not wonder why these two brothers were following him. It was not unusual for disputants to disguise themselves and try again. These two, however, distinguished themselves with their civility, their honesty, and their unique and valuable considerations. Out of curiosity and respect, the judge, this time, ruled for Tor.
The judge waved away the last disputants. The military escorts guided the judge to his tent. The judge had instructed the military escorts to sharpen points onto the ends of cut branches and secure these branches into the ground in tight double rows around the three walls of his tent. The spear-like branches were to be menaced outward at strict forty-five-degree angles. The court officer wheeled the brass-hinged trunk into the judge’s tent. Two tavern servants arrived with spitted lamb, cakebread in nutmeg applesauce, and strong red wine. The judge wrote a letter to his lover. He was ill and tired and could not straighten his feelings into the hard prose he preferred. He tore the letter and wrote the next in a simple style, personifying his approach with the examples of Gat and Tor. The judge resorted to no quote, invented or otherwise, from the Bible. The judge moaned and washed his face in the basin and snuffed the candle.
The military escorts were carousing in the tavern house with the daughters of apple growers. The court officer made off on a horse with a brown orchard boy and select contents from the brass-hinged trunk. On Sunday morning, the military escorts had tottery legs and stumbled into church. Gat and Tor were surprised to find themselves disillusioned by justice. They fought over who would lead the mule and who would prepare meals. They resolved to continue to follow the judge because that was a sure way to make it back home by the end of summer. The judge slept late. His fever, after a week, would convince him to cancel the remainder of the circuit and return to his estate. Children pitched tomatoes at the cut branches staked around the judge’s tent. Hard tomatoes stuck on white points or rolled under tent flaps. Ripe ones burst or were torn into hanging pulp. One girl threw rats.
Bio:
David Barringer is a writer, designer and photographer. He has published three collections of fiction and been twice nominated for a Pushcart Prize. His fiction has appeared in Epoch, Nerve, Wisconsin Review, Del Sol Review, Quick Fiction, Hobart, Monkeybicycle, Drunken Boat, Failbetter, Tatlin's Tower, and many others. His first novel will be published next spring by Word Riot Press. Check out the notorious Dead Bug Funeral Kit at www.davidbarringer.com.