Fool (25 page)

“Impossible.” Regan nibbled at some dried fruit Bubble had laid out on the tray.

“Lear’s brother Canus raped my mother on a bridge in Yorkshire while Lear held her down. I am the issue of that unpleasant union. Your cousin.” I bowed.
At your bloody service
.

“A bastard. I might have known.”

“Oh, but bastards are vessels of promise, are they not? Or didn’t I watch you slay your lord the duke, to run to the arms of a bastard-who is, I believe, now the Earl of Gloucester. By the way, how goes the romance? Torrid and unsavory, I trust.”

She sat down then and ran her fingernails through her jet hair as if raking thoughts out of her scalp. “Oh, I fancy him fine-although he’s been a bit disappointing since that first time. But the intrigue is bloody exhausting, what with Goneril trying to bed Edmund, and he not being able to show me deference for fear of losing Albany’s support, and bloody France invading in the midst of it all. If I’d known all that my husband had to tend to I’d have waited a while before killing him.”

“There, there, kitten.” I moved around behind her and rubbed her shoulders. “Your complexion is rosy and your appetite good, and you are, as always, a veritable feast of shagability. Once you’re queen you can have everyone beheaded and take a long nap.”

“That’s just it. It’s not like I can just put on the crown and go sovereigning merrily along-God, St. George, and the whole rotting mess into history. I have to defeat the fucking French, then I’ve got to kill Albany, Goneril, and I suppose I’ll have to find Father and have something heavy fall on him or the people will never accept me.”

“Good news on that, love. Lear’s in the dungeon. Mad as a hatter, but alive.”

“He is?”

“Aye. Edmund just returned from Dover with him. You didn’t know?”

“Edmund is back?”

“Not three hours ago. I followed him back.”

“Bastard! He hasn’t even sent word that he’s returned. I sent a letter to him in Dover.”

“This letter?” I took the letter that Oswald had dropped. I’d broken the seal, of course, but she recognized it and snatched it out of my hand.

“How did you get that? I sent that with Goneril’s man, Oswald, to give to Edmund personally.”

“Yes, well, I sent Oswald to vermin Valhalla before delivery was secured.”

“You killed him?”

“I told you, kitten, I’m nobility now-a murderous little cunt like the rest of you. Just as well, too, that letter’s a flitty bit o’ butterfly toss, innit? Don’t you have any advisers to help you with that sort of thing? A chancellor or a chamberlain, a bloody bishop or someone?”

“I’ve no one. Everyone is at the castle in Cornwall.”

“Oh, love, let your cousin Pocket help.”

“Would you?”

“Of course. First, let’s see to sister.” I took two of the vials from the purse at my belt. “This red one is deadly poison. But the blue one is only
like
a poison, giving the same signs as if one is dead, but they will but sleep one day for each drop they drink. You could put two drops of this in your sister’s wine-say, when you are ready to attack the French-and for two days she would sleep the sleep of the dead while you and Edmund did your will, and without losing the support of Albany in the war.”

“And the poison?”

“Well, kitten, the poison may not be needed. You could defeat France, take Edmund for your own, and come to an agreement with your sister and Albany.”

“I have an agreement with them now. The kingdom is divided as father decreed.”

“I’m only saying that you may fight the French, have Edmund, and not have to slay your sister.”

“And what if we don’t defeat France?”

“Well, then, you have the poison, don’t you?”

“Well, that’s bollocks counseling,” said Regan.

“Wait, cousin, I haven’t told you the part where you make me Duke of Buckingham yet. I’d like that dodgy old palace, Hyde Park. St. James’s Park, and a monkey.”

“You’re daft!”

“Named Jeff.”

“Get out!”

I palmed the love letter from the table as I exited.

Quickly through the corridors, across the courtyard, and back to the kitchen where I traded my codpiece for a pair of waiter’s breeches. It was one thing to leave Jones and my coxcomb with the ferryman, another to secret my blades away with Bubble, but giving up my codpiece was like losing my spirit.

“I was nearly undone by its enormity,” said I to Squeak, to whom I handed the portable den of my manly inequity.

“Aye, a family of squirrels could nest in the extra space,” Squeak observed, dropping a handful of the walnuts she’d been shelling into the empty prick pouch.

“Wonder you didn’t rattle like a dried gourd when you walked,” said Bubble.

“Fine. Cast aspersions on my manhood if you will, but I’ll not protect you when the French arrive. They’re unnaturally fond of public snogging and they smell of snails and cheese. I will laugh-ha!-as you both are mercilessly cheese-snogged by froggy marauders.”

“Don’t really sound that bad to me,” said Squeak.

“Pocket, you’d better be off, lad,” said Bubble. “Goneril’s supper is going up now.”

“Adieu,”
said I, a preview of the Frenchy future of my former friends and soon to be frog-snogged traitorous tarts. “
Adieu.”
I bowed. I feigned fainting with a great wrist-to-brow flourish, and I left.

(I admit it, one does like to lubricate his recurrent entrances and exits with a bit of melodrama. Performance is all to the fool.)

Goneril’s quarters were less spacious than Regan’s, but luxurious, and there was a fire going. I hadn’t set foot here since she’d left the castle to marry Albany, but upon returning I found I was simultaneously aroused and filled with dread-memories simmering under the lid of consciousness, I suppose. She wore cobalt with gold trim, daringly cut. She must have known Edmund was back. “Pumpkin!”

“Pocket? What are you doing here?” She waved the other servers and a young lady who had been braiding her hair out of the room. “And why are you dressed in that absurd outfit?”

“I know,” said I. “Poncy breeches. Without my codpiece I feel defenseless.”

“I think they make you look taller,” she said.

A dilemma. Taller in breeches or stunningly virile in a cod? Both illusions. Each with its advantage. “Which do you think makes a better impression on the fairer sex, love, tall or hung?”

“Isn’t your apprentice both?”

“But he’s-oh-”

“Yes.” She bit into a winter plum.

“I see,” said I. “So, what is it with Edmund? All the black kit?” What it was, was she was bewitched, was what it was.

“Edmund.” She sighed. “I don’t think Edmund loves me.”

And I sat down, with all of Goneril’s luncheon repast set before me, and considered cooling my forehead in the tureen of broth. Love? Sodding, bloody, tossing, bloody, sodding, bloody love? Irrelevant, superfluous, bloody, ruddy, rotten, sodding love? What ho? Wherefore? What the fuck? Love?

“Love?” said I.

“No one has ever loved me,” said Goneril.

“What about your mother? Surely your mother?”

“I don’t remember her. Lear had her executed when we were little.”

“I didn’t know.”

“It was not to be spoken of.”

“Jesus, then? Comfort in Christ?”

“What comfort? I’m a duchess, Pocket, a princess, perhaps a queen. You can’t rule in Christ. Are you daft? You have to ask Christ to leave the room. Your very first war or execution and you’re right fucked for forgiveness, aren’t you? There’s Jesusy disapproval and scowling at least and you have to act like you don’t see it.”

“He’s infinite in his forgiveness,” said I. “It says so somewhere.”

“As should we all be, it also says. But I don’t believe it. I’ve never forgiven our father for killing our mother and I never shall. I don’t believe, Pocket. There’s no comfort or love there. I don’t believe.”

“Me, either, lady. So, sod Jesus. Surely Edmund will fall in love with you when you become closer and he’s had a chance to murder your husband. Love needs room to grow, like a rose.” Or a tumor.

“He’s passionate enough, although never so enthusiastic as that first night in the tower.”

“Have you introduced him to your-well-special tastes?”

“Those will not win his heart.”

“Nonsense, love, a black-hearted prince like Edmund verily starves to have his bum smacked by a fair damsel like yourself. Probably what he’s craving, just too shy to ask.”

“I think another has caught his eye. I think he fancies my sister.”

No, that’s his father’s eye she caught, well, speared, really,
I thought, but then I thought better. “Perhaps I can help you resolve the conflict, pumpkin.” And at that, I produced the red and blue vials from my purse. I explained how one was for death-like sleep, and the other afforded more permanent rest. And as I did so, I cradled the silk purse that still held the last puffball the witches had given me.

What if I were to use it on Goneril? Bewitch her to love her own husband? Surely Albany would forgive her. He was a noble chap, despite being a noble. And with that, Regan could have that villain Edmund for herself, the conflict between the sisters would be settled, Edmund would be satisfied with his new role as Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Gloucester, and all would be well. Of course there were the issues of France attacking, Lear in the dungeon, and a wise and comely fool whose fate was uncertain…

“Pumpkin,” said I, “perhaps if you and Regan came to an understanding. Perhaps if she were put to sleep until her army had done its duty against France. Perhaps mercy-”

And that was as far as I got, as the bastard Edmund came through the door at that moment.

“What is this?” demanded the bastard.

“Don’t you fucking knock?” said I. “Bloody common bastard!” You’d have thought, now that I, too, was a half-noble bastard, that my disdain for Edmund might have diminished. Strangely, no.

“Guard. Take this worm to the dungeon until I have time to deal with him.”

Four guards, not of the old Tower force, came in and chased me around the solar several times before I was tripped up by the constrained step of my waiter breeches. The lad they’d been made for must have been smaller even than I. They pinned my arms behind me and dragged me out of the room. As I went backward through the door, I called, “Goneril!”

She held up her hand and they stopped there and held me.

“You have been loved,” said I.

“Oh, take him out and beat him,” said Goneril.

“She jests,” said I. “The lady jests.”

TWENTY-THREE – DEEP IN THE

DUNGEON

My fool,” said Lear, as the guards dragged me into the dungeon. “Bring him here, and unhand him.” The old man looked stronger, more alert, aware. Barking orders again. But with the command he commenced a coughing fit that ended with a spot of blood on his white beard. Drool held a water skin for the old man while he drank.

“We’ve a beating to deliver, first,” said one of the guards. “Then you’ll have your fool, well striped as well as checkered.”

“Not if you want any of these buns and ale,” said Bubble. She’d come down another stairway and was carrying a basket covered with cloth and steaming the most delectable aroma of freshly baked bread. A flask of ale was slung over her shoulder and a bundle of clothes tucked under her free arm.

“Or we’ll beat the fool and take your buns as well,” said the younger of the two guards, one of Edmund’s men and obviously not aware of the pecking order at the White Tower. Bugger God, St. George, and the white-bearded king if you must, but woe unto you if you crossed the cantankerous cook called Bubble, for there’d be grit and grubs baked into all you’d ever eat until the poison finally took you.

“You’ll not want to press that bargain, mate,” said I.

“The fool’s wearing the kit of one of my servers,” said Bubble, “and the boy’s shivering naked in my kitchen.” Bubble threw a bundle of black clothing through the bars into the cell with Drool and Lear. “Here’s the fool’s motley. Now strip, you rascal, and let me get back to my business.”

The guards were laughing now. “Well, go on, little one, get your kit off,” said the older guard. “We’ve hot buns and ale waiting.”

I undressed in front of the lot of them, old Lear protesting from time to time, like anyone gave a hot bootful of piss what he had to say anymore. When I was radiant naked, the guards unlocked the door and I crept over to the bundle. Yes! My knives where there, secreted in with the rest. With a bit of sleight o’ hand and a distraction from Bubble handing out buns and ale, I was able to secure them inside my jerkin when I dressed.

Two other guards joined the two outside of our cell and shared the bread and ale. Bubble waddled back up the stairs, shooting me a wink as she went.

“The king are melancholy, Pocket,” said Drool. “We should sing him a song and cheer him up.”

“Sod the sodding king,” said I, looking directly into Lear’s hawk eye.

“Watch yourself, boy,” said Lear.

“Or what? You’ll hold my mother down while she’s raped, then throw her in the river? Have my father killed later, then? Oh, wait. Those threats are no longer valid, are they, uncle? You’ve carried them out already.”

“What are you on about, boy?” The old man looked fearsome, as if he’d forgotten he’d been treated like so much chattel and thrown in a cage full of clowns, but instead faced a fresh affront.

“You. Lear. Do you remember? A stone bridge in Yorkshire, some twenty-seven years ago? You called a farm girl up from the riverbank, a pretty little thing, and held her down while you commanded your brother to rape her. Do you remember, Lear, or have you done so much evil that it all blends into a great black swath in your memory?”

His eyes went wide then, I could tell he remembered.

“Canus-”

“Aye, your poxy brother sired me then, Lear. And when no one would believe my mother that her son was the bastard of a prince, she drowned herself in that same river where you threw her that day. All this time I have called you nuncle-who would have thought it true?”

“It is not true,” he said, his voice quivering.

“It is true! And you know it, you decrepit old poke of bones. A warp of villainy and a woof of greed are all that hold you together, thou desiccated dragon.”

The four guards had gathered at the bars and peered in as if they were the ones who were imprisoned.

“Blimey,” said one of the guards.

“Cheeky little tosser,” said another.

“No song, then?” asked Drool.

Lear shook his finger at me then, so angry was he that I could see blood moving in the veins of his forehead. “You shall not speak to me in this way. You are less than nothing. I plucked you from the gutter, and your blood will run in the gutter on my word before sundown.”

“Will it, nuncle? My blood may run but it will not be on your word. On your word your brother may have died. On your word your father may have died. On your word your queens may have died. But not this princely bastard, Lear. Your word is but wind to me.”

“My daughters will-”

“Your daughters are upstairs, fighting over the bones of your kingdom. They are your captors, you ancient nutter.”

“No, they-”

“You sealed this cell when you killed their mother. They’ve both just told me as much.”

“You’ve seen them?” He seemed strangely hopeful, as if I might have forgotten to bring the good news from his traitorous daughters.

“Seen them? I’ve shagged them.” Silly, really, that it should matter, after all his dark deeds, all his slights and cruelties, that a fool should shag his daughters, but it did matter, and it was a way to unleash a little of the fury I felt toward him.

“You have not,” said Lear.

“You have?” asked one of the guards.

I stood then, and strutted a bit for my audience, plus it was a better position for grinding my heel into Lear’s soul. All I could see was the water closing over my mother’s head, all I could hear was her screams as Lear held her. “I shagged them both, repeatedly, and with relish. Until they screamed, and begged and whimpered. I shagged them on the parapets overlooking the Thames, in the towers, under the table in the great hall, and once, I shagged Regan on a platter of pork in front of Muslims. I shagged Goneril in your own bed, in the chapel, and on your throne-which was her idea, by the way. I shagged them while servants watched and in case you were wondering, because they asked, and as any princess should be shagged, for the pure sweet nasty of it. And they-they did it because they hate you.”

Lear had been wailing while I ranted, trying to drown me out. Now he growled, “They do not. They love me all. They have said.”

“You murdered their mother, you decrepit loony! They’ve put you in a cell in your own dungeon. What do you need, a written decree? I tried to shag the hate out of them, nuncle, but some cures lie beyond a jester’s talents.”

“I wanted a son. Their mother would give me none.”

“I’m sure if they had known that they wouldn’t have despised you so deeply and done me so well.”

“My daughters wouldn’t have you. You didn’t have them.”

“Oh, I did, on my black heart’s blood, I did. And when it first started, each of them would shout
Father
when she came. I wonder why. Oh yes, nuncle, I did indeed. And they wanted you to know-that’s why they accused me before you. Oh yes, I bonked them both.”

“No,” wailed Lear.

“Me, too,” said Drool, with a great juicy grin. “Beggin’ your pardon,” he quickly added.

“But not today?” asked one of the guards. “Right?”

“No, not today, you bloody nitwit. Today I killed them.”

The French marched overland from the southeast and sailed ships up the Thames from the east. The lords of Surrey on the south showed no resistance and since Dover lay in the County of Kent, the forces of the banished earl not only offered no resistance, but joined the French in the assault on London. They’d marched and sailed across England without firing a single bolt or losing a single man. From the White Tower the guards could see the fires of the French drawing a great orange crescent in the night that illuminated the sky to the east and south.

When the captain made the call to arms at the castle, one of Lear’s old knights or squires, under the command of Captain Curan, put a blade to the throat of any of Edmund’s or Regan’s men, demanding they yield or die. The personal guard forces within the castle had all been drugged by the kitchen staff with some mysterious non-lethal poison that mimicked the symptoms of death.

Captain Curan sent a message to the Duke of Albany from the French queen that if he stood down, in fact, stood with her, that he could return to Albany with his forces, his lands, and his title intact. Goneril’s forces from Cornwall, and Edmund’s from Gloucester, camped on the west side of the Tower, found they were flanked on the south and east by the French, and on the north by Albany. Archers and crossbowmen were dispatched to the Tower walls above the Cornwall army and a herald fought his way through the panicked forces to a commander, carrying the message that the forces of Cornwall were to lay down their weapons on the spot or death would rain down upon them such as they could not imagine.

No one was willing to die for the cause of Edmund, bastard of Gloucester, or the dead Duke of Cornwall. They laid down their weapons and marched three leagues to the west as instructed.

In two hours it was all over. Out of nearly thirty thousand men who took the field at the White Tower, barely a dozen were killed-all of those, Edmund’s castle guards who refused to yield.

The four guards lay spread about the dungeon in various awkward positions, looking quite dead.

“Dodgy sodding poison,” said I. “Drool, see if you can reach the one with the keys.”

The Natural stretched through the bars, but the guard was too far away.

“I hope Curan knows we’re down here.”

Lear looked around wild-eyed again, as if his madness had returned. “What is this? Captain Curan is here? My knights?”

“Of course Curan is here. From the sound of the trumpets I’d say he’s taken the castle, as was the plan.”

“All your theater was misdirection, then?” said the king. “You’re not angry?”

“Burning, you old twat, but I was growing weary with keeping the tirade up while the bloody poison took hold. You’re no less a turd in the milk of human kindness than I have said.”

“No,” said the old man, as if my anger actually mattered to him. He began coughing again and caught a handful of blood for his effort. Drool propped him up and wiped his face. “I am king. I will not be judged by you, fool.”

“Not just a fool, nuncle. Your brother’s son. Did you have Kent murder him? The only decent bloke in your service and you turned him into an assassin, eh?”

“No, not Kent. It was another, not even a knight. A cutpurse who had come before the magistrate. It was he who Kent killed. I sent Kent after the assassin.”

“He is vexed by it still, Lear. Did you have a cutpurse kill your father as well?”

“My father was a leper and necromancer. I could not bear his misshapen form ruling Britain.”

“In your place, you mean?”

“Yes, in my place. Yes. But I did not send an assassin. He was in a cell at the temple at Bath. Out of the way, where no one might ever see him. But I could not take the throne until his death. I did not kill him, though. The priests there simply walled him up. Was time that killed my father.”

“You walled him up? Alive?” I was shaking now, I thought I might have forgiven the old man, seeing him suffer, but now I could hear my blood in my ears.

The sound of boots on stone echoed in the dungeon and I looked up to see the bastard Edmund walk into the torchlight.

He kicked one of the unconscious guards and looked at them like he’d just discovered monkey come in his Weetabix. “Well, that’s a spot of bother, isn’t it?” he said. “I suppose I’ll have to kill you myself, then.” He stooped and took a crossbow from one of the guards’ back, fit his foot in the stirrup, and cocked the string.

INTERMISSION

(Backstage with the Players)

“Pocket, you rascal, you’ve trapped me in a comedy.”

“Well, for some, it is, yes.”

“When I saw the ghost I thought tragedy was assured.”

“Aye, there’s always a bloody ghost in a tragedy.”

“But the mistaken identity, the vulgarity, the lightness of theme and paucity of ideas, surely it’s a comedy. I’m not dressed for comedy, I’m all in black.”

“As am I, yet here we are.”

“So it is a comedy.”

“A black comedy-”

“I knew it.”

“For me, anyway.”