Fool (23 page)

“But he’s a prince.”

“He looks to be a drowned puppy, lass. You’ll be lucky if he lives the week out.”

From one end of the village to the other she was laughed at and scorned. One woman, who must have been the girl’s mother, simply turned away and hid her face in shame.

I floated overhead as the girl ran to the edge of town, across the bridge where she’d been raped, and up to a compound of stone buildings, one with a great soaring steeple. A church. She made her way to the wide double door, and there, she lay her baby on the steps. I recognized those doors, I’d seen them a thousand times. This was the entrance to the abbey at Dog Snogging. The girl ran away and I watched, as a few minutes later, the doors opened and a broad-shouldered nun bent and picked up the tiny, squalling baby. Mother Basil had found him.

Suddenly I was at the river again, and the girl, that pretty little thing, stood on the wide stone rail of the bridge, crossed herself, and leapt in. She did not swim. The green water settled over her.

My mother.

When I awoke the witches were gathered around me like I was a sumptuous pie just out of the oven and they were ravenous pie whores.

“So, you’re a bastard then,” said Parsley.

“And an orphan,” said Sage.

“Both at once,” said Rosemary.

“Surprised, then?” said Parsley.

“Lear not quite the kind old codger you thought him, eh?”

“A royal bastard, you are.”

I gagged a bit, in response to the crones’ collective breath, and sat up. “Would you back off you disgusting old cadavers!”

“Well, strictly speakin’, only Rosemary’s a cadaver,” said the tall witch, Parsley.

“You drugged me, put that nightmare vision in my head.”

“Aye, we did drug you. But you was just looking through a window to the past. There was no vision except what happened.”

“Got to see your dear mum, didn’t you?” said Rosemary. “How lovely for you.”

“I had to watch her raped and driven to suicide, you mad hag.”

“You needed to know, little Pocket, before you went on to Dover.”

“Dover? I’m not going to Dover. I have no desire to see Lear.” Even as I said it I felt fear run down my spine like the tip of a spike. Without Lear, I was no longer a fool. I had no purpose. I had no home. Still, after what he had done, I would have to find some other means to make my way. “I can rent out Drool for plowing fields and hoisting bales of wool and such. We’ll make our way.”

“Maybe he wants to go on to Dover.”

I looked over to Drool, who I thought to still be asleep by the fire, but he was sitting there, staring at me wide-eyed, as if someone had frightened him and he’d forgotten how to talk.

“You didn’t give him the same potion you gave me, did you?”

“It was in the wine,” said Sage.

I went to the Natural and put my arm around his shoulder, or, as far around as I could reach, anyway. “Drool, lad, you’re fine, lad.” I knew how horrified I had been, with my superior mind and understanding of the world. Poor Drool must have been terrified. “What did you wicked hags show him?”

“He had a window on the past just like you.”

The great oaf looked up at me then. “I was raised by wolfs,” said he.

“Nothing can be done now, lad. Don’t be sad. We’ve all things in our past we were better not remembering.” I glared at the witches.

“I ain’t sad,” Drool said, standing up. He had to stoop to avoid hitting his head on the roof beams. “My brother nipped at me ’cause I didn’t have no fur, but he didn’t have no hands, so I throwed him against a tree and he didn’t get up.”

“You’re but a pathetic dimwit,” said I. “You can’t be blamed.”

“My mum only had eight teats, but after that there was only seven of us, so I got two. It were lovely.”

He didn’t really seem that bothered by the whole experience. “Tell me, Drool, have you always known you were raised by wolves?”

“Aye. I want to go outside and have a wee on a tree, now, Pocket. You want to come?”

“No, you go, love, I’m going to stay here and shout at the old ladies.” Once the Natural was gone I turned on them again. “I’m finished doing your bidding. Whatever politics you want to engineer I’ll have no more part of it.”

The crones laughed at me in chorus, then coughed until finally Rosemary, the greenish witch, calmed her breath with a sip of wine. “No, lad, nothing so sordid as politics, we’re about vengeance pure and simple. We don’t give a weasel’s twat about politics and succession.”

“But you’re evil incarnate and in triplicate, aren’t you?” said I, respectfully. One must give due.

“Aye, evil is our trade, but not so deep a darkness as politics. Better business to dash a suckling babe’s brains upon the bricks than to boil in that tawdry cauldron.”

“Aye,” said Sage. “Breakfast, anyone?” She was stirring something in the cauldron, I assumed it was the leftover hallucination wine from the night before.

“Well, revenge, then. I’ve no taste left for it.”

“Not even for revenge on the bastard Edmund?”

Edmund? What a storm of suffering that blackguard had loosed upon the world, but still, if I never had to see him again, couldn’t I forget about his damage?

“Edmund will find his just reward,” said I, not believing it for a second.

“And Lear?”

I was angry with the old man, but what revenge would I have on him now? He had lost all. And I had always known him to be cruel, but so long as his cruelty didn’t extend to me, I was blind to it. “No, not even Lear.”

“Fine, then, where will you go?” asked Sage. She pulled a ladle of steaming liquid from the pot and blew on it.

“I’ll take the Natural into Wales. We can call at castles until someone takes us in.”

“Then you’ll miss the Queen of France at Dover?”

“Cordelia? I thought bloody fucking froggy King Jeff was at Dover. Cordelia is with him?”

The hags cackled. “Oh no, King Jeff is in Burgundy. Queen Cordelia commands the French forces at Dover.”

“Oh bugger,” said I.

“You’ll want to take them poisons we fixed for you,” said Rosemary. “Keep them on you at all times. A need for them will present itself.”

TWENTY-ONE – AT THE WHITE

CLIFFS YEARS AGO-

Pocket,” said Cordelia, “have you ever heard of this warrior queen named Boudicca?” Cordelia was about fifteen at the time, and she had sent for me because she wished to discuss politics. She lay on her bed with a large leather volume open before her.

“No, lamb, who was she queen of?”

“Why, of the pagan Britons. Of us.” Lear had recently shifted back to the pagan beliefs, thus opening a whole new world of learning for Cordelia.

“Ah, that explains it. Educated in a nunnery, love, I’ve a very shallow knowledge of pagan ways, although I have to say, their festivals are smashing. Rampant drunken shagging while wearing flower wreaths seems far superior to midnight mass and self-flagellation, but then, I’m a fool.”

“Well, it says here that she kicked nine colors of shit out of the Roman legions when they invaded.”

“Really, that’s what it says,
nine colors of shit
?”

“I’m paraphrasing. Why do you think we’ve no warrior queens anymore?”

“Well, lamb, war requires swift and resolute action.”

“And you’re saying that a woman can’t move with swift resolve?”

“I’m saying no such thing. She may move with swiftness and resolve, but only after choosing the correct outfit and shoes, and therein lies the undoing of any potential warrior queen, I suspect.”

“Oh bollocks!”

“I’ll wager your Boudicca lived before they invented clothing. Easy days then for a warrior queen. Just hitch up your tits and start taking heads, it was. Now, well, I daresay erosion would take down a country before most women could pick out their invading kit.”

“Most women. But not me?”

“Of course not you, lamb. Them. I meant only weak-willed tarts like your sisters.”

“Pocket, I think I shall be a warrior queen.”

“Of what, the royal petting zoo at Boffingshire?”

“You’ll see, Pocket. The whole of the sky will darken with the smoke from my army’s fires, the ground will tremble under their horses’ hooves, and kings will kneel outside their city walls, crowns in hand, begging to surrender rather than feel the wrath of Queen Cordelia fall upon their people. But I shall be merciful.”

“Goes without saying, doesn’t it?”

“And you, fool, will no longer be able to behave like the right shit that you are.”

“Fear and trembling, love, that’s all you’ll get from me. Fear and bloody trembling.”

“As long as we understand each other.”

“So, it sounds as if you’re thinking of conquering more than just the petting zoo?”

“Europe,” said the princess, as if stating the unadorned truth.

“Europe?” said I.

“To start,” said Cordelia.

“Well, then you had better get moving, hadn’t you?”

“Yes, I suppose,” said Cordelia, with a great silly grin. “Dear Pocket, would you help me pick an outfit?”

“She’s already taken Normandy, Brittany, and the Aquitaine,” said Edgar, “and Belgium soils itself at the mention of her name.”

“Cordelia can be a bundle of rumpus when she sets her mind to something,” said I. I smiled at the thought of her barking orders to the troops, all fury and fire from her lips, but those crystal-blue eyes hinting laughter at every turn. I missed her.

“Oh, I did betray her love and flay her sweet heart with stubborn pride,” said Lear, looking madder and weaker than when I’d seen him last.

“Where is Kent?” I asked Edgar, ignoring the old king. Drool and I had found them above a cliff at Dover. They all sat with their backs to a great chalk boulder: Gloucester, Edgar, and Lear. Gloucester snored softly, his head on Edgar’s shoulder. We could see smoke from the French camp not two miles away in the distance.

“He’s gone to Cordelia, to ask her to accept her father into her camp.”

“Why didn’t you go yourself?” I asked Lear.

“I am afraid,” said the old man. He hid his head under his arm, like a bird trying to escape the daylight beneath its wing.

It was wrong. I wanted him strong, I wanted him stubborn, I wanted him full of arrogance and cruelty. I wanted to see those parts of him I knew were thriving when he’d thrown my mother on the stones so many years ago. I wanted to scream at him, humiliate him, hurt him in eleven places and watch him crawl in his own shit, dragging his bloody pride and guts behind him in the dirt. There was no revenge to be satisfied on this trembling shell of Lear.

I wanted no part of it.

“I’m going to go nap behind those rocks,” said I. “Drool, keep watch. Wake me when Kent returns.”

“Aye, Pocket.” The Natural went to the far side of Edgar’s boulder, sat, and stared out over the sea. If we were attacked by a ship, he’d be Johnny-on-the-spot.

I lay down and slept perhaps an hour before there was shouting behind me and I looked over my boulders to see Edgar holding his father’s head, steadying him as the old man stood on a rock, perhaps a foot above the ground.

“Are we at the edge?”

“Aye, there are fishermen on the beach below that look like mice. The dogs look like ants.”

“What do the horses look like?” asked Gloucester.

“There aren’t any horses. Just fishermen and dogs. Don’t you hear the sea crashing below?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. Farewell, Edgar, my son. I am sorry. Gods, do your will!” With that the old man leaped off the rock, expecting to plummet hundreds of feet to his death, I reckon, so he was somewhat surprised when he met the ground in an instant.

“Oh my lord! Oh my lord!” said Edgar, trying to use a different voice and failing completely. “Sir, you have duly fallen from the cliffs above.”

“I have?” said Gloucester.

“Aye, sir, can you not see?”

“Well, no, you git, my eyes are bandaged and bloody. Can
you
not see?”

“Sorry. What I saw was you fall from a great height and land as softly as if you were a feather floating down.”

“I am dead, then,” said Gloucester. He sank to his knees and seemed to lose his breath. “I am dead, yet I still suffer, my grief is manifest, my eyes ache even though they are not there.”

“That’s because he’s fucking with you,” said I.

“What?” said Gloucester.

“Shhhh,” said Edgar. “’Tis a mad beggar, pay him no heed, good sir.”

“Fine, you’re dead. Enjoy,” said I. I lay back on the ground, out of the wind, and pulled my coxcomb over my eyes.

“Come, come sit with me,” said Lear. I sat up and watched Lear lead the blind man to his nest beneath the great boulders. “Let the cruelties of the world slide off our bent backs, friend.” Lear put his arm around Gloucester and held him while he spoke to the sky.

“My king,” said Gloucester. “I am safe in your mercy. My king.”

“Aye, king. But I have no soldiers, no lands, no subject quakes before me, no servants wait, and even your bastard son hath treated you better than my own daughters.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said I. But I could see that the old blind man was smiling, and for all his suffering, he found comfort in his friend the king, no doubt having been blinded to his scoundrel nature long before Cornwall and Regan took his eyes. Blinded by loyalty. Blinded by title. Blinded by shoddy patriotism and false righteousness. He loved his mad, murdering king. I lay back down to listen.

“Let me kiss your hand,” said Gloucester.

“Let me wipe it first,” said Lear. “It smells of mortality.”

“I smell nothing, and see nothing evermore. I am not worthy.”

“Art thou mad? See with your ears, Gloucester. Have you never seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar, and thus chase him off? Is that dog the voice of authority? Is he better than the many for denying the man’s hunger? Is a sheriff righteous who whips the whore, when it is for his own lust he punishes her? See, Gloucester. See who is worthy? Now we are stripped of finery, see. Small vices show through tattered clothes, when all is hidden beneath fur and fine robes. Plate sin with gold and the strong lance of justice breaks on decoration. Blessed are you, that you cannot see-for you cannot see me for what I am: wretched.”

“No,” said Edgar. “Your impertinence comes from madness. Do not weep, good king.”

“Do not weep? We weep when we first smell the air. When we are born, we cry, that we come to this great stage of fools.”

“No, all shall be well again, and-”

And there was a thump, followed by another, and a yowl.

“Die, thou blind mole!” came a familiar voice.

I sat up in time to see Oswald standing over Gloucester, a bloodied stone in one hand, his sword driven down through the old earl’s chest. “You’ll not poison my lady’s cause further.” He twisted the blade, and blood bubbled up out of the old man, but no sound did he make. He was quite dead. Oswald yanked his blade free and kicked Gloucester’s body across Lear’s lap, as the king cowered against the boulder. Edgar lay unconscious at Oswald’s feet. The vermin drew back as if to drive his sword into Edgar’s spine.

“Oswald!” I shouted. I stood behind my boulders as I drew a throwing knife from the sheath at my back. The worm turned to me, and pulled his blade up. He dropped the bloody stone he’d used to brain Edgar. “We have an arrangement,” said I. “And further slaughter of my cohorts will cause me to doubt your sincerity.”

“Sod off, fool. We’ve no arrangement. You’re a lying cur.”

“Moi?”
said I, in perfect fucking French. “I can give you your lady’s heart, and not in the unpleasant, eviscerated, no-shagging-except-the-corpse way.”

“You have no such power. You’ve not bewitched Regan’s heart, neither. ’Tis she who sent me here to kill this blind traitor who turns minds against our forces. And to deliver this.” He pulled a sealed letter from his jerkin.

“A letter of mark, giving you permission in the name of the Duchess of Cornwall to be a total twatgoblin?”

“Your wit is dull, fool. It is a love letter to Edmund of Gloucester. He set out for here with a scouting party to assess the French forces.”

“My wit is dull? My wit is dull?”

“Yes. Dull,” said Oswald. “Now,
en garde,”
said he in barely passable fucking French.

“Yes,” said I, with an exaggerated nod. “Yes.”

And with that, Oswald found himself seized by the throat and dashed several times against the boulders, which relieved him of his sword, his dagger, the love letter, and his coin purse. Drool then held the steward up and squeezed his throat, slowly but sternly, causing wet gurgling noises to bubble from his foul gullet.

I said,

“While unscathed by my rapier wit

You’re choked to death by a giant git

By this gentle jester, is argument won

I’ll leave you two to have your fun.”

Oswald seemed somewhat surprised by the turn of events, so much so, that both his eyes and tongue protruded from his face in a wholly unhealthy way. He then began to surrender his various fluids and Drool had to hold him away to keep from being fouled by them.

“Drop him,” said Lear, who still cowered by the boulders.

Drool looked to me and I shook my head, ever so slightly.

“Die, thou badger-shagging spunk monkey,” said I.

When Oswald stopped kicking and simply hung limp and dripping, I nodded to my apprentice, who tossed the steward’s body over the cliff as easily as if it were an apple core.

Drool went down on one knee over Gloucester’s body. “I were going to teach him to be a fool.”

“Aye, lad, I know you were.” I stood by my boulders, resisting the urge to comfort the great murderous git with a pat on the shoulder. There was a rustling from over the top of the hill and I thought I heard the sound of metal on metal through the wind.

“Now he’s blind
and
dead,” said the Natural.