The first thing I truly noticed was the smell. It was a potent cocktail of unwashed bodies, damp straw, and something vaguely metallic that my 21st-century nose, accustomed to the gentle assault of artisanal coffee shops and air-conditioned Ubers, immediately identified as “impending doom.” The second thing I noticed was the disconcerting weight of a floppy hat adorned with what felt like tiny, mocking bells.
Just moments ago – or a lifetime, depending on your perspective on the whole reincarnation shebang – I was Bartholomew “Barty” Higgins, a comedian of moderate renown, about to deliver the punchline that would have, I was certain, elevated my career from “opening act for a guy who was on a reality show once” to at least “that guy from the viral cat video.” The punchline, however, was tragically preempted by a faulty microphone, a surge of electricity, and the distinct sensation of my soul being unceremoniously evicted from its mortal coil.
Now, I was… here. Wherever “here” was. A quick, and frankly terrifying, glance around confirmed my worst fears. The room was vast, stone-walled, and lit by torches that cast flickering, ominous shadows. People in what I could only describe as “extra-puffy” attire milled about, their voices a low hum of what sounded suspiciously like Old English. My own attire, I discovered with a sinking heart, was a garish explosion of purple and yellow, complete with tights that left absolutely nothing to the imagination. The bells on my hat jingled with every horrified tremor that ran through my body. I was a court jester. Not just any court jester, either. A quick, and frankly, ill-advised, bit of eavesdropping on two gossiping ladies-in-waiting confirmed my location: the court of King Henry VIII.
Oh, you have got to be kidding me, I thought, the words echoing in the vast, empty space where my witty retort about the afterlife should have been. Of all the historical periods to be violently reincarnated into, it had to be the one where the head of state had a penchant for collecting wives and divorcing them from their heads. My knowledge of Tudor history was admittedly spotty, cobbled together from late-night documentary binges and that one musical everyone was obsessed with. But I knew the basics: six wives, a break with the Catholic Church, and a temper that could curdle milk from three counties away.
A portly man with a chain of office that looked heavy enough to anchor a small ship clapped me on the back, nearly sending me sprawling into a pile of what I sincerely hoped was just mud. “Well, don’t just stand there gawking, you fool! The King requires some mirth!” he boomed, his breath a testament to a recent and intimate encounter with a leg of mutton.
My mind raced. Mirth? I was a comedian, sure, but my humor was more of the “observational, slightly neurotic, and heavily reliant on pop culture references” variety. I doubted a joke about the existential dread of swiping left on a dating app would land well with a man who could have me executed for treason before the punchline even registered.
Before I could formulate a witty excuse – or, more likely, faint – I was being shoved towards a raised dais where a man sat on a throne. He was every bit as imposing as the portraits suggested: broad-shouldered, with a neatly trimmed red beard, and eyes that seemed to pierce right through my ridiculous costume and into the very core of my terrified, 21st-century soul. This was him. Henry VIII. And he did not look amused.
“Well, jester?” the King’s voice rumbled, a low, dangerous sound that vibrated through the stone floor. “Are you here to entertain us, or simply to stand there like a half-wit in a clown’s tunic?”
My heart hammered against my ribs like a trapped bird. My palms were slick with a sweat that had nothing to do with the scratchy wool of my costume. This was it. My first, and quite possibly last, performance in the Tudor court. I had to say something. Something funny. Something that wouldn’t get me sent to the Tower of London.
I took a deep breath, the smell of roasted meat and unwashed nobility filling my lungs. I opened my mouth, and the only thing that came out was a line from the only historical drama I’d ever truly paid attention to.
“So,” I began, my voice a squeak that I hoped sounded more jester-like than terrified-time-traveler-like, “what’s the deal with all the beheadings? Is it a ‘six strikes and you’re out’ kind of deal, or…?”
The court fell silent. The kind of silence that precedes either a standing ovation or a public execution. I had a sinking feeling I knew which one I was in for. Henry’s eyes narrowed. For a terrifyingly long moment, the only sound was the frantic jingling of the bells on my hat, a cheerful, mocking soundtrack to my impending demise. Then, to my utter astonishment, a slow, rumbling chuckle started deep in the King’s chest, growing into a hearty, booming laugh that echoed through the great hall.
I had survived. For now. But as the court tentatively joined in the King’s laughter, a cold, hard truth settled in my gut. I was going to have to be the funniest man of my life. Because in the court of Henry VIII, the punchline was always just a swing of the executioner’s axe away.
As the King’s laughter subsided, a woman seated next to him, her dark hair pulled back from an elegant, intelligent face, gave me a small, conspiratorial smile. I recognized her instantly from the portraits: Anne Boleyn. Her eyes, dark and knowing, seemed to see right through my feigned confidence to the terrified comedian beneath.
Beside her, a man with a severe expression and the calculating eyes of a man who counts his enemies before he counts his friends, watched me with an unnerving stillness. Thomas Cromwell. The King’s right-hand man. He didn’t laugh, but a flicker of something – curiosity? amusement? – crossed his face.
The King, wiping a tear of mirth from his eye, pointed a sausage-like finger at me. “I like this one,” he declared. “He has a certain… gallows humor.”
And just like that, I was in. Barty the Jester, the newest, and most likely to be executed, member of the Tudor court. As the evening wore on, I managed a few more jokes that, to my relief, landed somewhere in the realm of “amusing” rather than “treasonous.” I juggled some oranges, badly. I sang a bawdy song I vaguely remembered from a Renaissance fair, which was a huge hit.
But all the while, I was acutely aware of the precariousness of my situation. I was a man with a 21st-century brain in a 16th-century world. I knew things. Things that could get me killed. I knew about the fall of Anne Boleyn, the rise of Jane Seymour, the dissolution of the monasteries. I knew about the King’s desperate, all-consuming desire for a male heir.
This knowledge was a double-edged sword. It could be my salvation, a way to navigate the treacherous currents of the court. Or it could be the thing that ultimately sent me to the block. As I retired for the night to a small, hay-filled room that was probably considered luxurious by this era’s standards, I made a solemn vow to myself. I would survive. I would be the wittiest, most sarcastic, most anachronistically funny jester this court had ever seen. And I would not, under any circumstances, lose my head.