Fool

TEN ALL YOUR DREAD PLEASURES

The sky threatened a dismal dawn as we reached Castle Albany. The drawbridge was up.

“Who goes there?” shouted the sentry.

“’Tis Lear’s fool, Pocket, and his man at arms, Caius.” Caius is the name the witches gave Kent to use to bind his disguise. They’d cast a glamour on him: his beard and hair were now jet black, as if by nature, not soot, his face lean and weathered, only his eyes, as brown and gentle as a moo cow’s, showed the real Kent. I advised him to pull down the wide brim of his hat should we encounter old acquaintances.

“Where in bloody hell have you been?” asked the sentry. He signaled and the bridge ground down. “The old king’s nearly torn the county apart looking for you. Accused our lady of tying a rock to you and casting you in the North Sea, he did.”

“Seems a spot o’ bother. I must have grown in her esteem. Just last night she was only going to hang me.”

“Last night? You drunken sot, we’ve been looking for you for a month.”

I looked at Kent and he at me, then we at the sentry. “A month?”

“Bloody witches,” said Kent under his breath.

“If you turn up we’re to take you to our lady immediately,” said the sentry.

“Oh, please do, gentle guard, your lady does so love seeing me at first light.”

The sentry scratched his beard and seemed to be thinking. “Well spoken, fool. Perhaps you lot could do with some breakfast and a wash-up before I take you to my lady.”

The drawbridge thumped into place. I led Kent across, and the sentry met us by the inner gate.

“Beggin’ your pardon, sir,” the sentry said, directing his speech to Kent. “You wouldn’t mind waiting until eight bells to reveal the fool’s return, would you?”

“That when you’re off watch, lad?”

“Aye, sir. I’m not sure I want to be the bearer of the joyous news of the wayward fool’s arrival. The king’s knights have been raising rabble round the castle for a fortnight and I’ve heard our lady cursing the Black Fool as part of the cause.”

“Blamed even in my absence?” said I. “I told you, Caius, she adores me.”

Kent patted the sentry on the shoulder. “We’ll escort ourselves, lad, and tell your lady we came through the gate with the merchants in the morning. Now, back to your post.”

“Thank you, good sir. But for your rough clothes, I’d take you for a gentleman.”

“But for my clothes, I’d be one,” said Kent, his grin a dazzle amid his newly-black beard.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, would you two just have a gobble on each other’s knob and be done with it,” said I.

The two soldiers leapt back as if each was on fire.

“Sorry, just having you on,” said I, as I breezed by them and into the castle. “You poofters are such a sensitive lot.”

“I’m not a poofter,” said Kent as we approached Goneril’s chambers.

Midmorning. The time in between allowed us to eat, wash, do some writing, and ascertain that we had, indeed, been gone for over a month, despite it seeming only overnight to us. Perhaps that was the hags’ payment? To extract a month from our lives in exchange for the spells, potions, and prognostication—it seemed a fair price, but bloody complicated to explain.

Oswald sat at a scribe’s desk outside the duchess’s chambers. I laughed and wagged Jones under his nose.

“Still guarding the door like a common footman, then, Oswald? Oh, the years have been good to you.”

Oswald wore only a dagger at his belt, no sword, but his hand fell to it as he stood.

Kent dropped his hand to his sword and shook his head gravely. Oswald sat back down on his stool.

“I’ll have you know that I’m both steward and chamberlain, as well as trusted adviser to the duchess.”

“A veritable quiver of titles she’s given you to sling. Tell me, do you still answer to toady and catch-fart, or are those titles only honorary now?”

“All better than common fool,” Oswald spat.

“True, I am a fool, and also true, I am common, but I am no common fool, catch-fart. I am the Black Fool, I have been sent for, and I shall be given entry to your lady’s chambers, while you, fool, sit by the door. Announce me.”

I believe Oswald growled then. A new trick he’d learned since the old days. He’d always tried to cast my title as an insult, and boiled that I took it as a tribute. Would he ever understand that he found favor with Goneril not because of his groveling or devotion, but because he was so easily humiliated? Good, I suppose, that he’d learned to growl, beaten down dog that he was.

He stormed through the heavy door, then returned a minute later. He would not look me in the eye. “My lady will see you now,” he said. “But only you. This ruffian can wait in the kitchen.”

“Wait here, ruffian,” said I to Kent. “And make some effort not to bugger poor Oswald here, no matter how he should beg for it.”

“I’m not a poofter,” said Kent.

“Not with this villain, you’re not,” said I. “His bum is property of the princess.”

“I’ll see you hanged, fool,” said Oswald.

“Aroused by the thought, are you, Oswald? No matter, you’ll not have my ruffian. Adieu.”

Then I was through the doors, and into Goneril’s chambers. Goneril sat to the back of a great, round room. Her quarters were housed in a full tower of the castle. Three floors: this hall for meeting and business, another floor above it would have rooms for her ladies, her wardrobe, bathing and dressing, the top would be where she slept and played, if she still played.

“Do you still play, pumpkin?” I asked. I danced a tight-stepped jig and bowed.

Goneril waved her ladies away.

“Pocket, I’ll have you—”

“Oh, I know, hanged at dawn, head on a pike, guts for garters, drawn and quartered, impaled, disemboweled, beaten, and made into bangers and mash—all your dread pleasures visited on me with glorious cruelty—all stipulated, lady—duly noted and taken as truth. Now, how may a humble fool serve before his hour of doom descends?”

She twisted up her lip as if to snarl, then burst out laughing and quickly looked around to make sure that no one saw her. “I will, you know—you horrible, wicked little man.”

“Wicked? Moi?” said I in perfect fucking French.

“Tell no one,” she said.

It had always been that way with Goneril. Her “tell no one,” however, applied only to me, not to her, I had found out.

“Pocket,” she once said, brushing her red-gold hair near a window, where it caught the sun and seemed to shine as if from within. She was perhaps seventeen then, and had gotten in the habit of calling me to her chambers several times a week and questioning me mercilessly.

“Pocket, I am to be married soon, and I am mystified by man bits. I’ve heard them described, but that’s not helping.”

“Ask your nurse. Isn’t she supposed to teach you about such things?”

“Auntie’s a nun, and married to Jesus. A virgin.”

“You don’t say? She went to the wrong bloody convent, then.”

“I need to talk to a man, but not a proper man. You are like one of those fellows that Saracens have look over their harems.”

“A eunuch?”

“See, you are worldly and know of things. I need to see your willie.”

“Pardon? What? Why?”

“Because I’ve never seen one, and I don’t want to seem naïve on my wedding night when the depraved brute ravages me.”

“How do you know he’s a depraved brute?”

“Auntie told me. All men are. Now, out with your willie, fool.”

“Why my willie? There’s willies aplenty you can look at. What about Oswald? He may even have one, or knows where you can get hold of one, I’ll wager.” (Oswald was her footman then.)

“I know, but this is my first, and yours will be small and not so frightening. It’s like when I was learning to ride, and first father gave me a pony, but then, as I got older…”

“All right, then, shut up. Here.”

“Oh, would you look at that.”

“What?”

“That’s it, then?”

“Yes. What?”

“Nothing really to be afraid of then, was there? I don’t know what all the fuss is about. It’s rather pitiful if you ask me.”

“It is not.”

“Are they all this small?”

“Most are smaller, in fact.”

“May I touch it?”

“If you feel you must.”

“Well, would you look at that.”

“See, now you’ve angered it.”

“Where in God’s name have you been?” she said. “Father’s been a madman looking for you. He and his captain have gone out on patrol every day and well into the evening, leaving the rest of his knights to wreak havoc on the castle. My lord has sent soldiers as far as Edinburgh asking after you. I should have you drowned for all the worry you’ve caused.”

“You did miss me, didn’t you?” I cradled the silk purse at my belt, wondering when best to spring the spell. And once she was bewitched, how exactly would I use the power?

“He was supposed to be in Regan’s care, but by the time he moves his bloody hundred knights all the way to Cornwall it will be my turn again. I can’t abide the rabble in my palace.”

“What does Lord Albany say?”

“He says what I tell him to say. It’s all intolerable.”

“Gloucester,” said I, offering the very model of a non sequitur wrapped in an enigma.

“Gloucester?” asked the duchess.

“The king’s good friend is there. It’s mid-way between here and Cornwall, and the Earl of Gloucester daren’t deny the request of the dukes of both Albany and Cornwall. You wouldn’t be leaving the king without care, yet you wouldn’t have him underfoot, either.” With the witches’ warning about Drool in danger there, I was determined for all the drama to descend on Gloucester. I sat down on the floor near her feet, held Jones across my knees, and waited, both I and the puppet wearing jolly grins.

“Gloucester…” said Goneril, letting a bit of a smile seep out. She really could be lovely when she forgot she was cruel.

“Gloucester,” said Jones, “the dog’s bollocks of western bloody Blighty.”

“Do you think he’ll agree to it? It’s not how he laid out his legacy.”

“He won’t agree to Gloucester, but he’ll agree to go to Regan’s by way of Gloucester. The rest will be up to your sister.” Should I have felt myself a traitor? No, the old man brought this on himself.

“But if he doesn’t agree, and he has all these men?” She looked me in the eye now. “It’s too much power in the hands of the feeble.”

“And yet, he had all the power of the kingdom not two months ago.”

“You’ve not seen him, Pocket. The legacy and banishment of Cordelia and Kent was just the beginning. Since you went away he’s gotten worse. He searches for you, he hunts, he rails about his days as a soldier of Christ one minute, then calls to the gods of Nature the next. With a fighting force of that size—if he should feel that we’ve betrayed him—”

“Take them,” said I.

“What? I couldn’t.”

“You have seen my apprentice, Drool? He eats with his hands or with a spoon, we dare not let him have a knife or fork, lest the points imperil all.”

“Don’t be obtuse, Pocket. What of Father’s knights?”

“You pay them? Take them. For his own good. Lear with his train of knights is like a child running with a sword. Are you cruel to relieve him of deadly force, when he is neither strong enough, nor wise enough to wield it? Tell Lear he must dismiss fifty of his knights and their attendants and keep them here. Tell him they will be at his beck and call when he is in residence.”

“Fifty? Just fifty?”

“You must leave some for your sister. Send Oswald to Cornwall with your plan. Have Regan and Cornwall make haste to Gloucester so they are there upon Lear’s arrival. Perhaps they can bring Gloucester into the fold. With Lear’s knights dismissed, the two whitebeards can reminisce about their glory days and crawl together to the grave in peaceful nostalgia.”

“Yes!” Goneril was becoming breathless now, excited. I’d seen it before. It wasn’t always a good sign.

“Quickly,” said I, “send Oswald to Regan while the sun is high.”

“No!” Goneril sat forward quickly, her bosom nearly spilling out of her gown, which captured my attention more than her fingernails digging into my arm.

“What?” said I, the bells of my coxcomb but a finger’s breath from jingling her décolletage.[30]

“There is no peace for Lear in Gloucester. Haven’t you heard? The earl’s son Edgar is a traitor.”

Had I heard? Had I heard? Of course, the bastard’s plan was afoot. “Of course, lady, where do you think I’ve been?”

“You’ve been all the way to Gloucester?” She was panting now.

“Aye. And back. I’ve brought you something.”

“A present?” She showed the delighted, wide grey-green eyes she’d had when she was a girl. “Perhaps I won’t hang you, but punishment is due you, Pocket.”

Then the lady grabbed me and pulled me across her lap, face-down. Jones rolled to the floor beside me. “Lady, perhaps—”

Smack! “There, fool, I’ve hit it. Hit it. Hit it. Hit it. So give it. Give it. Give it.” A smack with every iamb.[31]

“Bloody hell, you insane tart!” I squirmed. My ass burned with her handprint.

Smack! “Oh good God!” said Goneril. “Yes!” She wiggled under me now.

Smack!

“Ouch! It’s a letter! A letter,” said I.

“I’ll see your little bum as red as a rose!”

Smack!

I squirmed in her lap, turned, grabbed her bosoms and pulled myself upright until I was sitting in her lap. “Here.” I pulled the sealed parchment out of my jerkin and held it out.

“Not yet!” said she, trying to roll me over and get back to smacking my bum.

She honked my codpiece.

“You honked my codpiece.”

“Aye, give it up, fool.” She tried to get a hand under my codpiece.

I reached into the silk purse and retrieved one of the puffballs as I tried to keep my manhood out of her grasp. I heard a door open.

“Surrender the willie!” said the duchess.

She had it then, there was nothing I could do. I squoze the puffball under her nose.

“It’s from Edmund of Gloucester,” said I.

“Milady?” said Oswald, who was standing in the doorway.

“Let us down, pumpkin,” said I. “The catch-fart needs his task set.”

It all smacked of history.

The game had progressed further that first day, when Oswald first interrupted us, all those years ago, but it had begun, as always, with one of Goneril’s query sessions.

“Pocket,” said she, “since you were raised in an abbey, I should think you know much about punishment.”

“Aye, lady. I had my share, and it didn’t end there. I still endure an inquisition almost daily in these very chambers.”

“Gentle Pocket, surely you jest?”

“That is part of the job, mum.”

She stood then, and dismissed the ladies from her solar with a minor tantrum. When they were gone she said, “I’ve never been punished.”

“Aye, lady, well, you’re Christian, there’s always time.” I’d left the Church with a curse after they walled up my anchoress and I was leaning heavily pagan at the time.

“No one is allowed to strike me, so there’s always been a girl to take my punishment for me. My spankings.”

“Aye, mum, as it should be. Spare the royal withers and all.”

“And I feel funny about it. Just last week I mentioned during mass that Regan might be a bit of a cunt, and my whipping girl was soundly spanked for it.”

“Might as well have whipped her for your calling the sky blue, eh? A beating for talking truth, of course you felt funny about it.”

“Not that kind of funny, Pocket. Funny like when you taught me about the little man in the boat.”

It had been a verbal lesson only, shortly after she’d insisted I teach her about manly bits. But it had kept her amused, on and off, for a fortnight. “Oh, of course,” said I. “Funny.”

“I need to be spanked,” said Goneril.

“A constant, I’d agree, lady, but again we’re declaring the sky blue, aren’t we?”

“I want to be spanked.”

“Oh,” said I, eloquent and quick-witted rascal that I am. “That’s different.”

“By you,” said the Princess.

“Fuckstockings,” I thus declared my doom.

Well, by the time Oswald came into the room that first time, both the princess and I were as red-bottomed as Barbary monkeys, quite naked (except for my hat, which Goneril had donned) and administering rhythmically to each other’s front sides. Oswald was somewhat less than discreet about it all.

“Alarm! Alarm! My lady is ravaged by a fool! Alarm!” said Oswald, fleeing from the room, to raise the alarm through the castle.

I caught up to Oswald as he entered the great hall, where Lear was sitting on his throne, Regan sitting at his feet to one side, doing needlepoint, Cordelia at the other, playing with a doll.

“The fool has violated the princess!” Oswald announced.

“Pocket!” said Cordelia, dropping her doll and running to my side, sporting a great, goofy grin. She was perhaps eight then.

Oswald stepped in front of me. “I found the fool rutting the princess Goneril like a rapacious goat, sire.”

“’Tis not true, nuncle,” said I. “I was called to the lady’s solar this morning only to jest her out of a morning funk, which can be smelt upon her breath if you have doubts.”

At that point Goneril came running into the room, trying to arrange her skirts as she moved. She stopped beside me and curtsied before her father. She was breathless, barefoot, and one breast peeked Cyclopean out the bodice of her gown. I snatched my coxcomb off her head with a jingle and concealed it behind my back.

“There, fresh as a flower,” said I.

“Hello, sister,” said Cordelia.

“Morning, lamb,” said Goneril, blindfolding the pink-eyed Cyclops with a quick tuck.

Lear scratched his beard and glared at his eldest daughter.

“What ho, daughter,” said he. “Hast thou shagged a fool?”

“Methinks any wench who shags a man hath shagged a fool, Father.”

“That was a distinct no,” said I.

“What is shagged?” asked Cordelia.

“I saw it,” said Oswald.

“Shag a man and shag a fool, one is the same as another,” said Goneril. “But this morning I have your Fool shagged, righteous and rowdy. I bonked him until he cried out for gods and horses to pull me off.”

What was this? Was she hoping for more punishment?

“That is so,” said Oswald. “I heard the call.”

“Shagged, shagged, shagged!” said Goneril. “Oh, what is this I feel? Tiny bastard fools stirring in my womb. I can hear their tiny bells.”

“You lying tart,” said I. “A fool is no more born with bells than a princess with fangs, both must be earned.”

Lear said, “If that were true, Pocket, I’d have a halberd run up your bum.”

“You can’t kill Pocket,” said Cordelia. “I’ll need him to cheer me when I’m visited by the red curse, and a horrible melancholy comes over me,” said Cordelia.

“What are you on about, child?” said I.

“All women get it,” said Cordelia. “They must be punished for Eve’s treachery in the garden of evil. Nurse says it makes you ever so miserable.”

I patted the child’s head. “For fuck’s sake, sire, you’ve got to get the girls some teachers who aren’t nuns.”

“I should be punished!” said Goneril.

“I’ve had my curse for simply months,” said Regan, not even bothering to look up from her needlepoint. “I find that if I go to the dungeon and have some prisoners tortured I feel better.”

“No, I want my Pocket,” said Cordelia, starting to whine now.

“You can’t have him,” said Goneril. “He’s to be punished, too. After what he’s done.”

Oswald bowed for no particular reason. “May I suggest his head on a pike on the London Bridge, sire, to discourage any more debauchery?”

“Silence!” said Lear, standing. He came down the steps, walked past Oswald, who fell to his knees, and stood before me. He put his hand on Cordelia’s head.

The old king locked his hawk’s gaze upon me. “She didn’t speak for three years before you came,” he said.

“Aye, sire,” said I, looking down.

He turned to Goneril. “Go to your quarters. Have your nurse tend to your illusions. She will see that there is no issue from it.”

“But, Father, the fool and I—”

“Nonsense, you’re a maid,” said Lear. “We have agreed to deliver you thus to the Duke of Albany and so it is true.”

“Sire, the lady has been violated,” said Oswald, desperate now.

“Guards! Take Oswald to the bailey and flog him twenty lashes for lying.”

“But, sire!” Oswald squirmed as two guards seized his arms.

“Twenty lashes to show my mercy! Another word of this, ever, and your head will decorate London Bridge.”

We watched, stunned, as the guards dragged Oswald away, the unctuous footman weeping and red-faced from trying to hold his tongue.

“May I go watch?” Goneril asked.

“Go,” Lear said. “Then to your nurse.”

Regan was on her feet now and had skipped to her father’s side. She looked at him hopefully, up on her toes, clapping her hands lightly in anticipation.

“Yes, go,” said the king. “But you may only watch.”

Regan streamed out of the hall after her older sister, her raven hair flying behind her like a dark comet.

“You’re my fool, Pocket,” said Cordelia, taking my hand. “Come, help me. I’m teaching Dolly to speak French.” The little princess led me away. The old king watched us go without another word, one white eyebrow raised and his hawk eye burning under it like a distant frozen star.

ELEVEN A SWEET AND BITTER FOOL

Goneril dumped me on the floor as if she’d suddenly found a bag of drowned kittens in her lap. She snapped open the letter and began reading without even bothering to tuck her bosoms back into her gown.

“Milady,” said Oswald again. He’d learned from that first whipping. He acted as if he didn’t even see me. “Your father is in the great hall, asking after his fool.”

Goneril looked up, irritated. “Well, then, take him. Take him, take him, take him.” She waved us away like flies.

“Very well, milady.” Oswald turned on his heel and marched away. “Come, fool.”

I stood and rubbed my bum as I followed Oswald out of the solar. Yes, my backside was bruised, but there was pain in my heart as well. What a bitter bitch to cast me out while my bum still burned with the blows of her passion. The bells on my coxcomb drooped in despair.

Kent fell in beside me in the hall. “So, is she smitten with you?”

“With Edmund of Gloucester,” said I.

“Edmund? She’s smitten with the bastard?”

“Aye, the fickle whore,” said I.

Kent looked startled and folded back the brim of his hat to better see me. “But you bewitched her to do so, didn’t you?”

“Oh, yes, I suppose I did,” said I. So, she was only immune to my charms by means of dark and powerful magic. Ha! I felt better. “She reads the letter I forged in his hand even now.”

“Your fool,” Oswald announced as we entered the hall.

The old king was there, with Captain Curan and a dozen other knights who looked like they’d just returned from the hunt—for me, no doubt.

“My boy!” Lear called, throwing his arms wide.

I walked into his embrace, but did not return it. I found no tenderness in my heart at the sight of him, but my anger boiled still.

“Oh joy,” said Oswald, his disdain dripping like venom in his voice. “The prodigal git returns.”

“See here,” said Lear. “My men have yet to be paid. Tell my daughter I will see her.”

Oswald did not acknowledge the old man, but kept walking.

“You, sir!” roared the king. “Did you hear me?”

Oswald turned slowly, as if he’d heard his name carried in faintly on the wind. “Aye, I heard you.”

“Do you know who I am?”

Oswald picked a front tooth with the nail of his small finger. “Aye, my lady’s father.”

He smirked. The rascal had cheek, that I will give him, that or a burning desire to be catapulted cod over cap into the afterlife.

“Your lady’s father!” Lear pulled off his heavy leather hunting gauntlet and backhanded it across Oswald’s face. “You knave! You whoreson dog! You slave! You cur!”

The metal studs on Lear’s glove were beginning to draw blood where they struck Oswald. “I am none of these things. I will not be struck by you.” Oswald was backing toward the great double doors as Lear worried at him with the glove, but when the steward turned to run Kent threw out a leg and swept him off his feet.

“Or tripped, neither, you tosser!” said Kent.

Oswald rolled into a heap at the foot of one of Goneril’s guards, then scrambled to his feet and ran out. The guards pretended they’d seen nothing.

“Well done, friend,” said Lear to Kent. “Are you the one who brought my fool home?”

“Aye, he is, nuncle,” said I. “Rescued me from the darkest heart of the forest, fought off brigands, pygmies, and a brace of tigers to bring me here. But don’t let him talk his Welsh at you, one tiger was vanquished in a sluice of phlegm and mortally beaten with consonants.”

Lear looked closely now at his old friend, then shivered—guilt’s chill claws scuttling across his spine, no doubt. “Welcome, then, sir. I thank thee.” Lear handed Kent a small purse of coin. “Earnest payment for your service.”

“My thanks and my sword,” said Kent, bowing.

“What is your name?” asked Lear.

“Caius,” said Kent.

“And whence do you hail?”

“From Bonking, sire.”

“Well, yes, lad, as do we all,” said Lear, “but from what town?”

“Bonking Ewe on Worms Head,” I offered with a shrug. “Wales—”

“Fine, then, join my train,” said Lear. “You’re hired.”

“Oh, and allow me to hire you as well,” said I, removing my hat and handing it to Kent with a jingle.

“What’s this?” asked Kent.

“Who but a fool would work for a fool?”

“Watch your tongue, boy,” said Lear.

“You’ll have to get your own hat, fool,” said I to the king. “Mine is already promised.”

Captain Curan turned to conceal a smile.

“You call me a fool?”

“Oh, should I not call you fool? All your other titles you have given away, along with your land.”

“I’ll have you whipped.”

I rubbed my burning bottom. “That is the only legacy you have left, nuncle.”

“You’ve become a bitter fool in your absence,” said the king.

“And you the sweet one,” said I. “The fool who makes a jest of his own fate.”

“The boy is not altogether fool,” said Kent.

Lear turned on the old knight, but not in anger. “Perhaps,” said he, weakly, his eye drifting to the stones of the floor as if searching for an answer there. “Perhaps.”

“The lady, Goneril, Duchess of Albany!” announced one of the guards.

“Craven hose-beast!” I added, relatively certain the guard would forget that part.

Goneril breezed into the room, no notice of me, she went right to her father. The old man opened his arms but she stopped short, a sword-length away.

“Did you strike my man for chiding your fool?” Now she scowled at me.

I rubbed my bum and blew her a kiss.

Oswald peeked through the doors to the hall, as if waiting for the answer.

“I struck the knave for being impudent. I but asked him to fetch you. My fool has only just returned from being lost. This is not a time for frowns, daughter.”

“There’re no smiles for you, sire,” said I. “Not now that you’ve nothing to offer. The lady has only bile for fools and those with no title at all.”

“Quiet, boy,” said the king.

“You see,” said Goneril. “Not just your all-licensed fool, but your whole train treats my palace like a tavern and a brothel. They fight and eat all day, drink and carouse all night, and you care for nothing but your precious fool.”

“As it should be,” said Jones, albeit softly—when royal ire is raging, even the spittle sprayed from their lips can rain down death on the common puppet or person.

“I care for much, and my men are the best in the land. And they have not been paid since we left London. Perhaps if you—”

“They will not be paid!” said Goneril, and suddenly all the knights in the hall came to attention.

“When I gave you all, ’twas on the condition of you maintaining my retinue, daughter.”

“Aye, Father, and they shall be maintained, but not in your charge, and not in their full number.”

Lear was growing red-faced now, and shaking with anger as with palsy. “Speak clearly, daughter, these old ears deceive.”

Now Goneril went to her father and took his hand. “Yes, Father, you are old. Very old. Really, really, extraordinarily, mind-bogglingly—” She turned to me for a cue.

“Dog-fuckingly,” I suggested.

“—dog-fuckingly old,” said the duchess. “You are feebly, incontinently, desiccatedly, smelling-of-boiled-cabaggely old. You are brain-rottingly, balls-draggingly—”

“I’m fucking old!” said Lear.

“We’ll stipulate that,” said I.

“And,” continued Goneril, “while you, in your dotage, should be revered for your wisdom and grace, you piss on your legacy and reputation by keeping this train of ruffians. They are too much for you.”

“They are my loyal men and you have agreed to maintain them.”

“And I shall. I shall pay your men, but half will stay here at Albany, under my charge, under my orders, in soldiers’ quarters, not running about the bailey like marauders.”

“Darkness and devils,” cursed Lear. “It shall not be! Curan, saddle my horses, call my train together. I have another daughter.”

“Go to her, then,” said Goneril. “You strike my servants and your rabble makes servants of their betters. Be gone, then, but half your train shall remain.”

“Prepare my horses!” said Lear. Curan hurried out of the hall, followed by the other knights, passing the Lord Albany as he entered, the duke looking more than somewhat confused.

“Why does the king’s captain exit with such urgency?” asked the duke.

“Do you know of this harpy’s intent to strip me of my train?” asked Lear.

“This is the first I’ve heard of it,” said Albany. “Pray, be patient, sire. My lady?” Albany looked to Goneril.

“We do not strip him of his knights. I have offered to maintain them here, with our own force, while Father goes on to my sister’s castle. We shall treat his men as our own, with discipline, as soldiers, not as guests and revelers. They are out of the old man’s control.”

Albany turned back to Lear and shrugged.

“She lies!” said Lear, now wagging a finger under Goneril’s nose. “Thou detested viper. Thou ungrateful fiend. Thou hideous—uh—”

“Slag!”[32] I offered. “Thou piteous prick-pull. Thou vainglorious virago. Thou skunk-breathed licker of dog scrotums. Do jump in, Albany, I can’t go on forever, no matter how inspired. Surely you’ve years of suppressed resentment to vent. Thou leprous spunk-catch. Thou worm-eaten—”

“Shut up, fool,” said Lear.

“Sorry, sirrah, I thought you were losing your momentum.”

“How could I have given preference to this villainess over my sweet Cordelia?” asked Lear.

“Doubtless that question was lost worse in the wood than I, seeing as it has only caught up with you now, sire. Shall we take cover against the impact of the revelation that you’ve awarded your kingdom to the best liars of your loins?” Who would have thought it, but I’d felt more charity toward the old man before he realized his folly. Now—

He turned his eyes skyward and began to invoke the gods:

With that the old man spat at Goneril’s feet and stormed out of the hall.

“I think he took that as well as could reasonably be expected,” said I. I was ignored, despite my positive tone and sunny smile.

“Oswald!” called Goneril. The smarmy steward slithered forth. “Quickly, take the letter to my sister and Cornwall. Take two of the fastest horses and alternate them. Do not rest until it is in her hand. And then take you to Gloucester and deliver that other message as well.”

“You have given me no other message, lady,” said the worm.

“Yes, right, come with me. We shall draft a letter.” She led Oswald out of the great hall leaving the Duke of Albany looking to me for some sort of explanation.

I shrugged. “She can be a whirlwind of tits and terror when she puts her mind to a purpose, can’t she, sir?”

Albany didn’t seem to notice my comment, somewhat forlorn, he looked. His beard seemed to be greying with worry as he stood there. “I don’t approve of her treatment of the king. The old man has earned more respect. And what of these messages, to Cornwall and Gloucester?”

I started to speak, thinking it a perfect opportunity to mention her newfound affection for Edmund of Gloucester, my recent session of bawdy discipline with the duchess, and a half-dozen metaphors for illicit shagging that had come to mind while the duke mused, when Jones said:

“What?” said I. Whenever Jones has spoken before it has been in my own voice—smaller and muted sometimes, from the art of throwing it, but my voice alone, unless Drool is mimicking the puppet. And it is I who works the little ring and string that move Jones’s mouth. But this was not my voice, and I had not moved the puppet. It was the voice of the girl ghost from the White Tower.

“Don’t be tedious, Pocket,” said Albany. “I’ve no patience for puppets and rhymes.”

Jones said:

And like a shooting star cutting brilliant across the ignorant night of my mind, I saw the ghost’s meaning.

I said: “I know not what the lady sends to Cornwall, good Albany, but while I was this last month in Gloucester, I heard soldiers talk of Cornwall and Regan gathering forces by the sea.”

“Gathering an army? Whatever for? With gentle Cordelia and Jeff now on the throne in France, it would be folly to cross the channel. We’ve a safe ally there.”

“Oh, they aren’t gathering forces against France, they are gathering forces against you, my lord. Regan would be queen of all of Britain. Or so I heard said.”

“You heard this from soldiers? Under whose flag, these soldiers?”

“Mercenaries, lord. No flag but fortune for them, and the word was there is coin aplenty for a free lance fighter in Cornwall. I have to be off. The king will need someone to whip for your lady’s rude announcements.”

“That doesn’t seem fair,” said Albany. He had a spark of decency in him, really, and somehow Goneril had not yet been able to smother it. Plus, he seemed to have forgotten about accidentally hanging me.

“Don’t worry for me, good duke. You have worries of your own. Someone must take a hit for your lady, let it be this humble fool. Pray, tell her I said that someone must always hit it. Fare thee well, duke.”

And merrily I was off, bottom stinging, to let slip the dogs of war. Hi ho!

Lear sat on his horse outside Castle Albany, howling at the sky like a complete lunatic.

“May Nature’s nymphs bring great lobster-sized vermin to infest the rotted nest of her woman bits, and may serpents fix their fangs in her nipples and wave there until her poisoned dugs[33] go black and drop to the ground like overripe figs!”

I looked at Kent. “Built up a spot of steam, hasn’t he?” said I.

“May Thor hammer at her bowels and produce flaming flatulence that wilts the forest and launches her off the battlements into a reeking dung heap!”

“Not really adhering to any particular pantheon, is he?” said Kent.

“Oh, Poseidon, send your one-eyed son to stare into her bituminous heart and ignite it with flames of most hideous suffering.”

“You know,” said I, “the king seems to be leaning rather heavily on curses, for someone with his unsavory history with witches.”

“Aye,” said Kent. “Seems to have steered his wrath toward the eldest daughter, if I’m not mistaken.”

“Oh, you don’t say?” said I. “Sure, sure, that could be it, I suppose.”

We heard horses galloping and I pulled Kent back from the drawbridge as two riders, leading a train of six horses, thundered across.

“Oswald,” said Kent.

“With extra horses,” said I. “He’s gone to Cornwall.”

Lear broke with his cursing and watched the riders take out across the moor. “What business has that rascal in Cornwall?”

“He carries a message, nuncle,” said I. “I heard Goneril order him to report her mind to her sister, and for Regan and her lord to go to Gloucester and not to be in Cornwall when you arrive.”

“Goneril, thou foul monstress!” said the king, clouting himself on the forehead.

“Indeed,” said I.

“Oh, evil monstress!”

“To be sure,” said Kent.

“Oh, pernicious monstress, perfect in her perfidy!”

Kent and I looked at each other, knowing not what to say.

“I said,” said Lear, “most pernicious monstress, perfect in her perfidy!”

Kent mimed a set of generous bosoms on himself and raised an eyebrow as if to ask, “Boobs?”

I shrugged as if to say, “Aye, boobs sounds right.”

“Aye, most pernicious perfidy indeed, sire,” said I.

“Aye, most bouncy and jiggling perfidy,”[34] said Kent.

Then, as if coming out of a trance, Lear snapped to attention in his saddle. “You, Caius, have Curan saddle a fast horse for you. You must go to Gloucester, tell my friend the earl that we are coming.”

“Aye, my lord,” said Kent.

“And Caius, see that my apprentice Drool comes to no harm,” said I.

Kent nodded and went back across the drawbridge. The old king looked down to me.

“Oh, my pretty Black Fool, where from fatherly duty did I stray that such ingratitude should rise in Goneril like mad fever?”

“I am only a fool, my lord, but making a guess, I’d say the lady may have in her delicate youth required more discipline to shape her character.”

“Speak plain, Pocket, I’ll not hold harm against you.”

“You needed to smack the bitch up when she was tender, my lord. Instead, now you hand your daughters the rod and pull down your own breeches.”

“I’ll have you flogged, fool.”

“His word is like the dew,” said the puppet Jones, “good only until put under light of day.”

I laughed, simple fool that I am, no thought at all that Lear was becoming as inconstant as a butterfly. “I need to speak to Curan and find a horse for the journey, sirrah,” said I. “I’ll bring your cloak.”

Lear sagged in the saddle now, spent now from his ranting. “Go, good Pocket. Have my knights prepare.”

“So I shall,” said I. “So I shall.” I left the old man there alone outside the castle.

TWELVE A KING’S ROAD

Having set the course of events in motion, I wonder now if my training to be a nun, and my polished skills at telling jokes, juggling, and singing songs fully qualify me to start a war. I have so often been the instrument of the whims of others, not even a pawn at court, merely an accoutrement to the king or his daughters. An amusing ornament. A tiny reminder of conscience and humanity, tempered with enough humor so it can be dismissed, laughed off, ignored. Perhaps there is a reason that there is no fool piece on the chessboard. What action, a fool? What strategy, a fool? What use, a fool? Ah, but a fool resides in a deck of cards, a joker, sometimes two. Of no worth, of course. No real purpose. The appearance of a trump, but none of the power. Simply an instrument of chance. Only a dealer may give value to the joker. Make him wild, make him trump. Is the dealer Fate? God? The king? A ghost? Witches?

The anchoress spoke of the cards in the tarot, forbidden and pagan as they were. We had no cards, but she would describe them for me, and I drew their images on the stones of the antechamber in charcoal. “The fool’s number is zero,” she said, “but that’s because he represents the infinite possibility of all things. He may become anything. See, he carries all of his possessions in a bundle on his back. He is ready for anything, to go anywhere, to become whatever he needs to be. Don’t count out the fool, Pocket, simply because his number is zero.”

Did she know where I was heading, or do her words only have meaning to me now, as I, the zero, the nothing, seek to move nations? War? I couldn’t see the appeal.

Drunk, and dire of mood one night, Lear mused of war when I suggested that what he needed to cast off his dark aspect was a good wenching. “Oh, Pocket, I am too old, and the joy of a fuck withers with my limbs. Only a good killing can still boil lust in my blood. And one will not do, either. Kill me a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand on my command—rivers of blood running through the fields—that’s what pumps fire into a man’s lance.”

“Oh,” said I. “I was going to fetch Shanker Mary for you from the laundry, but ten thousand dead and rivers of blood might be a bit beyond her talents, majesty.”

“No, thank you, good Pocket, I shall sit and slide slowly and sadly into oblivion.”

“Or,” said I, “I could put a bucket on Drool’s head and beat him with a sack of beets until the floor is splattered crimson while Shanker Mary gives you a proper tug to accentuate the gore.”

“No, fool, there is no pretending to war.”

“What’s Wales doing, majesty? We could invade the Welsh, perpetrate enough slaughter to raise your spirits, and have you back for tea and toast.”

“Wales is ours now, lad.”

“Oh bugger. What’s your feeling on attacking North Kensington, then?”

“Kensington’s not a mile away. Practically in our own bailey.”

“Aye, nuncle, that’s the beauty of it, they’d never see it coming. Like a hot blade through butter, we’d be. We could hear the widows and orphans wailing from the castle walls—like a horny lullaby for you.”

“I should think not. I’m not attacking neighborhoods of London to amuse myself, Pocket. What kind of tyrant do you think me?”

“Oh, above average, sire. Well above bloody average.”

“I’ll have you speak no more of war, fool. You’ve too sweet a nature for such dastardly pursuits.”

Too sweet? Moi? Methinks the art of war was made for fools, and fools for war. Kensington trembled that night.

On the road to Gloucester I let my anger wane and tried to comfort the old king as best I could by lending him a sympathetic ear and a gentle word when he needed it.

“You simple, sniveling old toss-beast! What did you expect to happen when you put the care of your half-rotted carcass in the talons of that carrion bird of a daughter?” (I may have had some residual anger.)

“But I gave her half my kingdom.”

“And she gave you half the truth in return, when she told you she loved you all.”

The old man hung his head and his white hair fell in his face. We sat on stones by the fire. A tent was set in the wood nearby for the king’s comfort, as there was no manor house in this northern county for him to take refuge. The rest of us would sleep outside in the cold.

“Wait, fool, until we are under the roof of my second daughter,” said Lear. “Regan was always the sweet one, she will not be so shabby in her gratitude.”

I had no heart to chide the old man any more. Expecting kindness from Regan was hope sung in the key of madness. Always the sweet one? Regan? I think not.

My second week in the castle I found young Regan and Goneril in one of the king’s solars, teasing little Cordelia, passing a kitten the little one had taken a fancy to over her head, taunting her.

“Oh, come get the kitty,” said Regan. “Be careful, lest it fly out the window.” Regan pretended she might throw the terrified little cat out the window, and as Cordelia ran, arms stretched out to grab the kitten, Regan reeled and tossed the kitten to Goneril, who swung the kitten toward another window.

“Oh, look, Cordy, she’ll be drowned in the moat, just like your traitor mother,” said Goneril.

“Nooooooo!” wailed Cordelia. She was nearly breathless from running sister to sister after the kitten.

I stood in the doorway, stunned at their cruelty. The chamberlain had told me that Cordelia’s mother, Lear’s third queen, had been accused of treason and banished three years before. No one knew exactly the circumstances of the crime, but there were rumors that she had been practicing the old religion, others that she had committed adultery. All the chamberlain knew for sure was that the queen had been taken from the tower in the dead of night, and from that time until my arrival at the castle, Cordelia had not uttered a coherent syllable.

“Drowned as a witch, she was,” said Regan, snatching the kitten out of the air. But this time the little kitten’s claws found royal flesh. “Ow! You little shit!” Regan tossed the kitten out the window. Cordelia loosed an ear-shattering scream.

Without thinking I dived through the window after the cat and caught the braided cord with my feet as I flew through. I caught the kitten about five feet below the window as the cord burned between my ankles. Not having thought the move completely through, I hadn’t counted on how to catch myself, kitten in hand, when the cord slammed me into the tower wall. The cord tightened around my right ankle. I took the impact on that shoulder and bounced while I watched my coxcomb flutter like a wounded bird to the moat below.

I tucked the kitten into my doublet, then climbed back up the cord and in through the window. “Lovely day for a constitutional, don’t you think, ladies?”

The three of them all stood with their mouths hanging open, the older sisters had backed against the walls of the solar. “You lot look like you could use some air,” said I.

I took the kitten from my doublet and held it out to Cordelia. “Kitty’s had quite an adventure. Perhaps you should take her to her mum for a nap.” Cordelia took the kitten from me and ran out of the room.

“We can have you beheaded, fool,” said Regan, shaking off her shock.

“Anytime we want,” said Goneril, with less conviction than her sister.

“Shall I send in a maid to tie back the tapestry, mum?” I asked, with a grand wave to the tapestry I’d loosed from the wall when I leapt.

“Uh, yes, do that,” commanded Regan. “This instant!”

“This instant,” barked Goneril.

“Right away, mum.” And with a grin and a bow, I was gone from the room.

I made my way down the spiral stairs clinging to the wall, lest my heart give out and send me tumbling. Cordelia stood at the bottom of the stairs, cradling the kitten, looking up at me as if I were Jesus, Zeus, and St. George all back from a smashing day of dragon slaying. Her eyes were unnaturally wide and she appeared to have stopped breathing. Bloody awe, I suppose.

“Stop staring like that, lamb, it’s disturbing. People will think you’ve a chicken bone caught in your throat.”

“Thank you,” she said, with a great, shoulder-shaking sob.

I patted her head. “You’re welcome, love. Now run along, Pocket has to fish his hat from the moat and then go to the kitchen and drink until his hands stop shaking or he drowns in his own sick, whichever comes first.”

She backed away to let me pass, never taking her eyes from mine. It had been thus since the night I arrived at the tower—when her mind first crept out from whatever dark place it had been living before my arrival—those wide, crystal-blue eyes looking at me with unblinking wonder. The child could be right creepy.

“Do not make yourself a maid to surprise, nuncle,” said I. I held the reins of my and the king’s horse as they drank from an ice-laced stream some hundred miles north of Gloucester. “Regan is a treasure to be sure, but she may have the same mind as her sister. Although they will deny it, it’s often been the case.”

“I cannot think it so,” said the king. “Regan will receive us with open arms.” There was a racket behind us and the king turned. “Ah, what is this?”

A gaily painted wagon was coming out of the wood toward us. Several of the knights reached for swords or lances. Captain Curan waved for them to stand at ease.

“Mummers, sire,” said the Captain.

“Aye,” said Lear, “I forgot, the Yule is nearly on us. They’ll be going to Gloucester as well, I’ll wager, to play for the Yule feast. Pocket, go tell them that we grant them safe passage and they may follow our train under our protection.”

The wagon creaked to a stop. Happening upon a train of fifty knights and attendants in the countryside would put any performer on guard. The man driving the wagon stood at the reins and waved. He wore a grand purple hat with a white plume in it.

I leapt the narrow stream, and made my way up the road. When the driver saw my motley he smiled. I, too, smiled, in relief—this was not the cruel master from my own days as a mummer.

“Hail, fool, what finds you so far from court and castle?”

“I carry my court with me and my castle lies ahead, sirrah.”

“Carry your court? Then that white-haired old man is—”

“Aye, King Lear himself.”

“Then you are the famous Black Fool.”

“At your bloody service,” said I, with a bow.

“You’re smaller than in the stories,” said the big-hatted weasel.

“Aye, and your hat is an ocean in which your wit wanders like a lost plague ship.”

The mummer laughed. “You give me more than my due, sirrah. We trade not in wit like you, wily fool. We are thespians!”

With that, three young men and a girl stepped out from behind the wagon and bowed gracefully and with far too much flourish than was called for.

“Thesbians,” said they, in chorus.

I tipped my coxcomb. “Well, I enjoy a lick of the lily from time to time myself,” said I, “but it’s hardly something you want to paint on the side of a wagon.”

“Not lesbians,” said the girl, “thesbians. We are actors.”

“Oh,” said I. “That’s different.”

“Aye,” said big hat. “We’ve no need of wit—the play’s the thing, you see. Not a word passes our lips that hasn’t been chewed thrice and spat out by a scribe.”

“Unburdened by originality are we,” said an actor in a red waistcoat.

The girl said, “Although we do bear the cross of fabulously shiny hair—”

“Blank slates, we are,” said another of the actors.

“We are mere appendages of the pen, so to speak,” said big hat.

“Yeah, you’re a bloody appendage, all right,” I said under my breath. “Well, actors then. Smashing. The king has bade me tell you that he grants you safe passage to Gloucester and offers his protection.”

“Oh my,” said big hat. “We are only going as far as Birmingham, but I suppose we could double back from Gloucester if his majesty wishes us to perform.”

“No,” said I. “Please, do pass through and on to Birmingham. The king would never impede the progress of artists.”

“You’re certain?” said big hat. “We’ve been rehearsing a classic from antiquity, Green Eggs and Hamlet, the story of a young prince of Denmark who goes mad, drowns his girlfriend, and in his remorse, forces spoiled breakfast on all whom he meets. It was pieced together from fragments of an ancient Merican manuscript.”

“No,” said I. “I think it will be too esoteric for the king. He is old and nods off during long performances.”

“Shame,” said big hat. “A moving piece. Let me do a selection for you. ‘Green eggs, or not green eggs? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to eat them in a box, with a fox—’”

“Stop!” said I. “Go now, and quickly. War has come to the land and rumor has it that as soon as they’ve finished with the lawyers, they’re going to kill all the actors.”

“Really?”

“Aye,” I nodded most sincerely. “Quick, on to Birmingham, before you are slaughtered.”

“Everyone jump on,” said big hat, and the actors did as directed. “Fare thee well, fool!” Then he snapped the reins and drove off, the wagon’s wheels bouncing in the ruts of the road.

Lear’s train parted and watched as the team pulled the wagon by at a gallop.

“What was that?” asked Lear when I returned.

“Wagonload of knobs,” said I.

“Why do they hurry, so?”

“We commanded it so, nuncle. Half their troupe is ill with fever. We want them nowhere near your men.”

“Oh, good show, then, lad. I thought you might be missing the life and were going to join their troupe.”

I shuddered at the thought. It had been a cold December day like this when I’d first come to the White Tower with my mummer troupe. We were decidedly not thespians, but singers, jugglers, and acrobats, and I a special asset because I could do all three. Our master was a crooked Belgian named Belette, who bought me from Mother Basil for ten shillings and the promise to feed me. He spoke Dutch, French, and a very broken English, so I don’t know how he managed to secure the White Tower for a performance that Christmas, but I was told later that the troupe that was supposed to have performed had suddenly taken ill with stomach cramps and I suspect that Belette poisoned them.

I had been with Belette for months, and except for the beatings and cold nights sleeping under a wagon, I had received little but my daily bread, the occasional cup of wine, and the skills of knife-throwing and sleight of hand as it could be applied to purse cutting.

We were led into the great hall at the tower, which was filled with nobles reveling and feasting on platters of food such as I had never seen. King Lear sat at the center of the main table, flanked by two beautiful girls about my age, who I would later find out were Regan and Goneril. Beside Regan sat Gloucester, his wife, and their son Edgar. The intrepid Kent sat on the other side next to Goneril. Under that table, at Lear’s feet, a little girl was curled up, watching the celebration—wide-eyed, like a frightened animal, clinging to a rag doll. I must confess, I thought the child might be deaf or even simpleminded.

We performed for perhaps two hours, singing songs of the saints during dinner, then moving on to bawdier fare as the wine flowed and the guests loosened their hold on propriety. By late in the evening everyone was laughing, the guests were dancing with the performers, and even the commoners who lived in the castle had joined the party, but the little girl remained under the table, making not a sound. Not a smile, not an eyebrow raised in delight. There was light there behind those crystal-blue eyes—this was not a simpleton—but she seemed to be staring out of them from afar.

I crawled under the table and sat next to her. She barely acknowledged my presence. I leaned in close and nodded toward Belette, who stood by a column near the center of the hall, leering lecherously at the young girls who frolicked about him. I could see the little girl spied the scoundrel, too. Ever so softly, I sang a little song the anchoress had taught me, with the lyrics changed a bit to adapt to the situation.

And the little girl pulled back and looked at me, as if to see if I had really sung such a thing. And I sang on:

And the little girl cackled—a broken, little-girl yodel of a laugh that rang of innocence and joy and delight.

I sang on, and ever so softly, she sang with me,

And we were no longer alone under the table. There was another pair of crystal-blue eyes, and behind them a white-haired king. The old king smiled and squeezed my biceps. And before the other guests noticed that the king was under the table, he sat back up on his throne, but he reached down and lay a hand across the little girl’s shoulder and the other upon mine. It was a hand reached across a vast chasm of reality—from the highest position of ruler of the realm, to a lowborn orphan boy who slept in the mud under a wagon. I thought it must have been how a knight felt when the king’s sword touched his shoulder, elevating him to nobility.

“Was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,” we sang.

When the party died down and noble guests hung drunk over the tables, the servants piled onto the floor before the fire, Belette began to move among the revelers and tap each of his performers, calling them to gather by the door. I had fallen asleep under the table, and the little girl against my arm. He pulled me up by my hair. “You did nothing all night. I watched.” I knew there was a beating in store for when we got back to the wagon, and I was prepared for it. At least I had eaten some supper at the feast.

But as Belette turned to drag me away he stopped, abruptly. I looked up to see the master frozen in space, a sword-point pressed into his cheek just below his eye. He let go of my hair.

“Good thought,” said Kent, the old bull, pulling his sword back, but holding it steadily aimed, a hand’s breadth from Belette’s eye.

There was a sound of coin on the table and Belette couldn’t help but look down, even at the peril of his life. A doeskin purse as big as a man’s fist lay before him.

The chamberlain, a tall, severe chap who looked perpetually down his nose, stood beside Kent. He said, “Your payment, plus ten pounds, which you shall accept as payment for this boy.”

“But—” said Belette.

“You are a word from your mortality, sirrah,” said Lear. “Do go on.” He sat straight and regal on his throne, one hand pressed to the cheek of the little girl, who had awakened and was clinging to his leg.

Belette took the purse, bowed deeply, and backed across the hall. The other mummers of my troupe bowed and followed him out.

“What is your name, boy?” asked Lear.

“Pocket, your majesty.”

“Well, then, Pocket, do you see this child?”

“Yes, majesty.”

“Her name is Cordelia. She is our youngest daughter, and henceforth shall be your mistress. You have one duty above all, Pocket. That is to make her happy.”

“Yes, majesty.”

“Take him to Bubble,” said the king. “Have her feed and bathe him, then find him new clothes.”

Back on the road to Gloucester, Lear said, “So, what is your will, Pocket? Would you be a traveling mummer again—trade the comfort of the castle for the adventure of the road?”

“Apparently, I have, nuncle,” said I.

We camped at the stream, which froze over during the night. The old man sat shivering by the fire with his rich fur cloak wrapped around him; the garment so full and the man so slight that it appeared he was being consumed by a slow but well-groomed beast. Only his white beard and the hawk nose were visible outside the cloak—two stars of fire shone back in the cape creature, his eyes.

Snow fell around us in great wet orgies of flakes, and my own woolen cloak, which I’d pulled over my head, was sodden.

“Have I been so unfit as a father that my daughters would turn on me so?” asked Lear.

Why, now, did he choose to stare into the dark barrel of his soul, when he’d been content all these years to simply scoop out his desires and let the consequences wash over whomever they may? Bloody inopportune time for introspection, after you’ve given away the roof over your head. But I did not say so.

“What would I know of proper fathering, sire? I had no father nor mother. I was reared by the Church, and I’d not give a hot squirt of piss for the lot of them.”

“Poor boy,” said the king. “As long as I live, you shall have father and family.”

I would have pointed out that he had himself declared his crawl to the grave commenced, and that given his performance with his daughters, I might do better to go forth an orphan, but the old man had rescued me from the life of a slave and wanderer, and given me a home in the palace, with friends and, I suppose, family of a sort. So I said, “Thank you, majesty.”

The old man sighed heavily and said, “None of my three queens ever loved me.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lear, I’m a jester, not a bloody wizard. If you’re going to keep diving into the muck of your regrets then I’ll just hold your sword for you and you can see if you can get your ancient ass moving enough to fall on the pointy part so we can both get some bloody peace.”

Lear laughed then—twisted old oak that he was—and patted my shoulder. “I could ask nothing more of a son than he give me laughter in my despair. I’m off to bed. Sleep in my tent, tonight, Pocket, out of the cold.”

“Aye, sire.” I was touched by the old man’s kindness, I cannot deny it.

The old man tottered over to his tent. One of the pages had been carrying hot stones into the tent for an hour and I felt the heat rush out as the king ducked inside.

“I’ll be in after I’ve had a wee,” said I. I walked to the edge of the fire’s light and beside a great bare elm was relieving myself when a blue light shimmered in the forest before me.

“Well, that’s a woolly tuft of lamb wank,” said a woman’s voice, just as the girl ghost stepped out from behind the tree upon which I was weeing.

“God’s balls, wisp, I’ve almost peed on you!”

“Careful, fool,” said the ghost, looking frighteningly solid now—just a tad translucent—snowflakes were passing through her. But I was not frightened.

“That’s it?” I asked. “Rhymes and riddles? Still?”

“All you need for now,” said the ghost.

“I saw the witches,” said I. “They seemed to know you.”

“Aye,” said the ghost. “There’s dark deeds afoot at Gloucester, fool. Don’t lose sight.”

“Sight of what?”

But she was gone, and I was standing in the woods, my willie in my hand, talking to a tree. On to Gloucester in the morning, and I’d see what I was not to lose sight of. Or some such nonsense.

Cornwall’s and Regan’s flags flew over the battlements alongside Gloucester’s, showing they had already arrived. Castle Gloucester was a bundle of towers surrounded by a lake on three sides and by a wide moat at the front—no outer curtain wall like the White Tower or Albany, no bailey, just a small front courtyard and a gatehouse that protected the entrance. The city wall, on the land side of the castle, provided the outer defenses for stables and barracks.

As we approached, a trumpet sounded from the wall announcing us. Drool came running across the drawbridge, his arms held high. “Pocket, Pocket, where have you been? My friend! My friend!”

I was greatly relieved to see him alive, but the great, simple bear pulled me from my horse and hugged me until I could barely breathe, dancing me in a circle, my feet flying in the air as if I was a doll.

“Stop licking, Drool, you lout, you’ll wear my hair off.”

I clouted the oaf on the back with Jones and he yowled. “Ouch. Don’t hit, Pocket.” He dropped me and crouched, hugging himself as if he were his own comforting mother, which he may have been, for all I know. I saw red-brown stains on his shirt back, and so lifted it to see the cause.

“Oh, lad, what has happened to you?” My voice broke, tears tried to push out of my eyes, and I gasped. The muscular slab of Drool’s back was nearly devoid of skin—his hide had been torn and scabbed over and torn again by a vicious lash.

“I’ve missed you most awful,” said Drool.

“Aye, me too, but how happened these stripes?”

“Lord Edmund says I am an insult to nature and must be punished.”

Edmund. Bastard.

THIRTEEN A NEST OF VILLAINS

Edmund. Edmund would have to be dealt with, forces turned on him, and I fought the urge to find the black-hearted fiend and thread one of my throwing daggers between his ribs, but a plan was already in place, or one of sorts, and I still held the purse with the two remaining puffballs the witches had given me. I swallowed my anger and led Drool into the castle.

“’Lo, Pocket! Is that you, lad?” A Welsh accent. “Is the king with you?”

I saw the top of a man’s head sticking through the stocks set in the middle of the courtyard. His hair was dark and long and hung in his face. I approached and bent down to see who it was.

“Kent? You’ve found yourself a cruel collar.”

“Call me Caius,” said the old knight. “Is the king with you?”

The poor fellow couldn’t even look up.

“Aye. On his way. The men are stabling their horses in the town. How came you to be in the stocks?”

“I tangled with that whoreson Oswald, Goneril’s steward. Cornwall judged me the offender and had me thrown in the stocks. I’ve been here since last evening.”

“Drool, fetch some water for this good knight,” said I. The giant loped off to find a bucket. I walked around behind Kent, patted him lightly on his bottom.

“You know, Kent, er—Caius, you are a very attractive man.”

“You rascal, Pocket, I’ll not be buggered by you.”

I smacked his bottom again, dust rose from his trousers. “No, no, no, not me. Not my cup of tea. But Drool, now he’d shag the night if he wasn’t afraid of the dark. And hung like an ox, that one is. I suspect you’ll extrude stools untapered for a fortnight once Drool’s laid the bugger to ya. Supper’ll dump through you like a cherry pit out a church bell.”

Drool was returning now carrying a wooden bucket and a dipper across the courtyard.

“No! Stop!” shouted Kent. “Villainy! Violation! Stop these fiends!”

Guards were looking down from the walls. I scooped a dipper of water from the bucket and threw it in Kent’s face to calm him. He sputtered and struggled against the stocks.

“Easy, good Kent, I was just having you on. We’ll get you out of there as soon as the king arrives.” I held the dipper for the knight and he drank deeply.

When he finished he gasped, “Christ’s codpiece, Pocket, why’d you go on like that?”

“Pure evil incarnate, I reckon.”

“Well, stop it. It doesn’t suit you.”

“I’m working on the fit,” said I.

Lear came through the gatehouse seconds later, flanked by Captain Curan and another older knight. “What’s this?” asked the king. “My messenger in stocks! How came this to be? Who put you here, man?”

“Your daughter and son-in-law, sire,” said Kent.

“No. By Jupiter’s beard, I say, no,” said Lear.

“Aye, by St. Cardomon’s scaly feet[35] I say, aye,” said Kent.

“By the flapping foreskin of Freya, I say, bugger all!” said Jones.

And they looked at the puppet, confident on his stick.

“Thought we was swearing by whatever we could come up with,” said the puppet. “Do go on.”

“I say no,” continued Lear. “’Tis worse than murder, to treat a messenger of the king so. Where is my daughter?”

The old king stormed through the inner gate, followed by Captain Curan and a dozen other knights from his train who had come into the castle.

Drool sat down in the dirt, splay-legged, his face even with Kent’s, and said, “So, how’ve you been?”

“I’m in the stocks,” said Kent. “Locked like this overnight.”

Drool nodded, starting a string of his namesake down his chin. “So, not so good, then?”

“Nay, lad,” said Kent.

“Better now that Pocket is here to save us, innit?”

“Aye, I’m a rescue in progress. Didn’t see any keys in there when you were getting the water?”

“No. No keys,” said Drool. “They’ve a laundress with smashing knockers works by the well sometimes, but she won’t have a laugh with you. I asked her. Five times.”

“Drool, you mustn’t just go asking that sort of thing without some prelude,” said I.

“I said [please],” said Drool.

“Well done, then, glad you’ve kept your manners in the face of so much villainy.”

“Thank you, kind sir,” said Drool in Edmund the bastard’s voice, pitch-perfect, dripping with evil.

“That’s un-bloody-settling,” said Kent. “Pocket, think you could see about liberating me? I lost feeling in my hands a good hour ago and it won’t go well for holding a sword if they have to be cut off from gangrene.”

“Aye, I’ll see to it,” said I. “Let Regan vent some venom on her father, then I’ll go see her for the key. She quite fancies me, you know?”

“You’ve weed on yourself, ain’t ya?” said Drool, back in his own voice, but with a bit of a Welsh accent, no doubt to comfort the disguised Kent.

“Hours ago, and twice since,” said Kent.

“I does that sometime in the night, when it’s cold or it’s too far to the privy.”

“I’m just old and my bladder’s shrunk to the size of a walnut.”

“I’ve started a war,” said I, since we seemed to be sharing privacies.

Kent struggled in the stocks to look at me. “What’s this? From key—to wee—to, ‘I’ve started a bloody war,’ without so much as a by-your-leave? I’m bewildered, Pocket.”

“Aye, which concerns me, as you lot are my army.”

“Smashing!” said Drool.

The Earl of Gloucester came himself to release Kent. “I’m sorry, good man. You know I would not have allowed this, but once Cornwall has set his mind…”

“I heard you try,” said Kent. The two had been friends in a former life, but now, Kent, lean and dark-haired, looked younger and more than a measure dangerous, while the weeks had weighed like years on Gloucester. He was near feeble, and struggled with the heavy key to the stocks. I took it from him gently and worked the lock.

“And you, fool, I’ll not have you chiding Edmund for his bastardy.”

“He’s no longer a bastard, then? You married his mother. Congratulations, good earl.”

“No, his mother is long dead. His legitimacy comes from the treachery of my other son, Edgar, who betrayed me.”

“How so?” I asked, knowing full well how.

“He planned to take my lands from me and hasten me to the grave.”

This was not what I had written in the letter. Certainly, the lands would be forfeit, but there had been no mention of murder of the old man. This was Edmund’s doing.

“What have you done to anger our father?” said Drool, pitch-perfect in Edmund’s voice.

We all turned and stared at the great oaf, the wrong-sized voice coming from his cavernous mouth.

“I have done nothing,” said Drool in another voice.

“Edgar?” said Gloucester.

Indeed, it was Edgar’s voice. I tensed at what might come next.

“Arm yourself and hide,” the bastard’s voice said. “Father has it in his mind that you have committed some offense, and he has ordered guards to seize you.”

“What?” said Gloucester. “What dodgy magic is this?”

Then the bastard’s voice again: “I have consulted the constellations, and they foretell of our father going mad and hunting you—”

At that point I clamped my hand over Drool’s mouth.

“It’s nothing, my lord,” said I. “The Natural is not right in his mind. Fever, methinks. He mimics voices but not intent. His thoughts are a jumble.”

“But those were the very voices of my sons,” said Gloucester.

“Aye, but only in sound. Only in sound. Like a jabbering bird is the great fool. If you have quarters where I might take him—”

“And the king’s most favored fool, and abused servant,” added Kent, rubbing at the rash on his wrists left from the stocks.

Gloucester considered a moment. “You, good fellow, have been wrongly punished. Goneril’s steward Oswald is less than honorable. And while I find it a mystery, Lear does love his Black Fool. There’s an unused solar in the north tower. It leaks, but it will be out of the wind and close to your master, who will have quarters in the same wing.”

“Aye, thank you, good lord,” said I. “The Natural needs tending. We’ll wrap him in blankets then I’ll run down to the chemist for a leech.”

We hustled Drool into the tower and Kent closed the heavy door and bolted it. There was one cathedral window with cracked shutters and two arrow loops, all set in alcoves, with tapestries pulled aside and tied to allow in the little light. We could see our breath in the winter air.

“Drop those tapestries,” said Kent.

“Well, go grab some candles first,” said I. “It’ll be dark as Nyx’s[36] bunghole once we pull the tapestries.”

Kent left the solar and returned a few minutes later with a heavy iron candelabra with three lit candles. “A chambermaid is bringing us a brazier of charcoal and some bread and ale,” said the knight. “Old Gloucester’s a good sod.”

“And survivor enough not to speak his mind to the king about his daughters,” said I.

“I’ve learned some,” said Kent.

“Aye.” I turned to the Natural, who was playing with the wax dripping off the thick candles. “Drool, what was it you were saying? That bit with Edmund and Edgar plotting.”

“I don’t know, Pocket. I just says it, I don’t know what’s said. But Lord Edmund beats me when I talk in his voice. I’m an insult to nature and should be punished, says he.”

Kent shook his head like a great hound clearing his ears of water. “What sort of convoluted wickedness have you set in motion, Pocket?”

“Me? This isn’t my doing, this villainy is authored by that blackguard Edmund. But it will work for our plan. The conversations between Edgar and Edmund lie on the shelves of Drool’s mind like forgotten volumes in a library, we need only prompt the git to open them. Now, to it. Drool, say the words of Edgar when Edmund advises him to hide.”

And so we pried events out of Drool’s memory using cues like a cat’s paw,[37] and by the time we had warmed ourselves over the brazier and eaten our bread, we saw the pieces of Edmund’s treachery played out as in the voices of the original players.

“So Edmund wounded himself and claimed that Edgar did it,” said Kent. “Why didn’t he simply slay his brother?”

“He needs to assure his inheritance first, and a knife to the back would have been suspect,” said I. “Besides, Edgar is a formidable fighter—I don’t think Edmund would face him.”

“A traitor and a coward,” said Kent.

“And those are his assets,” said I. “Or we shall use them thus.” I patted Drool’s shoulder softly. “Good lad, excellent fool-craft. Now, I need you to see if you can say what I say in the voice of the bastard.”

“Aye, Pocket, I’ll give it a go.”

I said, “Oh, my sweet lady Regan, thou art more fair than moonlight, more radiant than the sun, more glorious than all the stars. I must have you or I shall surely die.”

In a wink Drool repeated my words back to me in the voice of Edmund of Gloucester, the intonation and desperation in the perfect key to unlock Regan’s affections, or so I’d wager.

“Howzat?” asked the git.

“Excellent,” said I.

“Uncanny,” said Kent. “How is it that Edmund let the Natural live? He must know he bears witness to his treachery.”

“That is an excellent question. Let’s go ask him, shall we?”

It occurred to me, as we made our way to Edmund’s quarters, that since I had seen the bastard, the power of my protection, being King Lear, had waned somewhat, while Edmund’s influence, and therefore immunity, had expanded when he became heir to Gloucester. In short, the deterrents to keep the bastard from murdering me had all but evaporated. I had only Kent’s sword and Edmund’s fear of ghostly retribution to protect me. The witches’ pouch of puffballs weighed heavily as a weapon, however.

A squire showed me to an antechamber off Castle Gloucester’s great hall.

“His lordship will receive only you, fool,” said the squire.

Kent looked ready to bully the boy but I held up a hand to stay him. “I’ll see that the door is left unlatched, good Caius. If I should call, please enter and dispatch the bastard with lethal vigor.”

I grinned at the spot-faced squire. “Unlikely,” said I. “Edmund holds me in very high esteem and I him. There will be little time between compliments to discuss business.” I breezed by the young knight and into the chamber where Edmund was alone, sitting at a writing desk.

I said, “Thou scaly scalawag of a corpse-gorged carrion worm, cease your feast on the bodies of your betters and receive the Black Fool before vengeful spirits come to wrench the twisted soul from your body and drag it into the darkest depths of hell for your treachery.”

“Oh, well spoken, fool,” said Edmund.

“You think so?”

“Oh yes, I’m cut to the quick. I may never recover.”

“Completely impromptu,” said I. “With time and polish—well, I could go out and return with a keener edge on it.”

“Perish the thought,” said the bastard. “Take a moment to catch your breath and revel in your rhetorical mastery and achievement.” He gestured toward a high-backed chair across from him.

“Thank you, I will.”

“Still tiny, though, I see,” said the bastard.

“Well, yes, Nature being the recalcitrant twat that she is—”

“And still weak, I presume?”

“Not of will.”

“Of course not, I referred simply to your willowy limbs.”

“Oh yes, in that case, I’m a bit of a soggy kitten.”

“Splendid. Here to be murdered then, are you?”

“Not immediately. Uh, Edmund, if you don’t mind my saying, you’re being off-puttingly pleasant today.”

“Thank you. I’ve adopted a strategy of pleasantness. It turns out that one can perpetrate all manner of heinous villainy under a cloak of courtesy and good cheer.” Edmund leaned over the desk now, as if to take me into his most intimate confidence. “It seems a man will forfeit all sensible self-interest if he finds you affable enough to share your company over a flagon of ale.”

“So you’re being pleasant?”

“Yes.”

“It’s unseemly.”

“Of course.”

“So, you’ve received the dispatch from Goneril?”

“Oswald gave it to me two days ago.”

“And?” I asked.

“Evidently the lady fancies me.”

“And how do you feel about that?”

“Well, who could blame her, really? Especially now that I’m both pleasant and handsome.”

“I should have cut your throat when I had the chance,” said I.

“Ah, well, water under the bridge, isn’t it? Excellent plan, with the letter to discredit my brother Edgar, by the way. Went smashingly. Of course I embellished somewhat. Improvised, if you will.”

“I know,” said I. “Implied patricide and the odd self-inflicted wound.” I nodded toward his bandaged sword arm.

“Oh yes, the Natural talks to you, doesn’t he?”

“Curious, then. Why is that bloody great oaf still drawing breath, knowing what he does about your plans. Fear of ghosts, is it?”

For the first time Edmund let his pleasant and insincere grin falter. “Well, there is that, but also, I quite enjoy beating him. And when I’m not beating him, having him around makes me feel more clever.”

“You simple bastard, Drool makes anvils feel more clever. How bloody common of you.”

That did it. Pretense of pleasantness fell when it came to questions of class, evidently. Edmund’s hand dropped below the table and came up with a long fighting dagger. But alas, I was already in the process of swinging down hard with Jones’s stick end and struck the bastard on his bandaged forearm. The blade went spinning in such a way that I was able to kick the hilt as it hit the floor and flip it up into my own waiting weapon hand. (To be fair, that is right or left, whether it was the juggling or the pickpocket training of Belette, I am agile with either hand.)

I flipped the blade and held it ready for a throw. “Sit! You’re exactly a half-turn from hell, Edmund. Do twitch. Please do.” He’d seen me perform with my knives at court and knew my skill.

The bastard sat, cradling his hurt arm as he did so. Blood was seeping through the bandage.

He spat at me, and missed. “I’ll have you—”

“Ah, ah, ah,” said I, brandishing the blade. “Pleasant.”

Edmund growled, but stopped as Kent stormed into the room, knocking the door back on its hinges. His sword was drawn and two young squires were drawing theirs as they followed him. Kent turned and smashed the lead squire in the forehead with the hilt of his own weapon, knocking the boy backward off his feet, quite unconscious. Then Kent spun and swept the feet out from under the other with the flat of his sword and the lad landed on his back with an explosion of breath. The old knight drew back to thrust through the squire’s heart.

“Hold!” said I. “Don’t kill him!”

Kent held and looked up, assessing the situation for the first time.

“I heard a blade clang. I thought the villain was murdering you.”

“No. He gave me this lovely dragon-hilted dagger as a peace offering.”

“That is not true,” said the bastard.

“So,” said Kent, paying particular attention to my readied weapon, “you’re murdering the bastard, then?”

“Merely testing the weapon’s balance, good knight.”

“Oh, sorry.”

“No worries. Thank you. I’ll call you if I need you. Take that unconscious one with you, would you?” I looked at the other, who trembled on the floor. “Edmund, do instruct your knights to be pleasant toward my ruffian. He is a favorite of the king.”

“Let him alone,” grumbled Edmund.

Kent and the conscious squire dragged the other one out of the chamber and closed the door.

“You’re right, this being pleasant is the dog’s bollocks, Edmund.” I flipped the dagger and caught it by the hilt. When Edmund made as if to move, I flipped it again and caught it by the blade. I raised a suspicious eyebrow at him. “So, you were saying about how well my plan had worked.”

“Edgar is branded a traitor. Even now my father’s knights hunt him. I will be lord of Gloucester.”

“But, really, Edmund, is that enough?”

“Exactly,” said the bastard.

“Uh, exactly what?” Had he already set his sights on Albany’s lands, not even having spoken with Goneril? Now I was doubly unsure of what to do. My own plan to pair the bastard with Goneril and undermine the kingdom was the only thing keeping me from sending the dagger to his throat, and when I thought of the lash marks on poor Drool’s back my hand quivered, wanting to loose the knife to its mark. But what had he set his sights on?

“The spoils of war can be as great as a kingdom,” said Edmund.

“War?” How knew he of war? My war.

“Aye, fool. War.”

“Fuckstockings,” said I. I let the knife fly and ran out of the room, bells jingling.

As I approached our tower, I heard what sounded like someone torturing an elk in a tempest. I thought that Edmund might have sent an assassin for Drool after all, so I came through the door low, with one of my daggers at the ready.

Drool lay on his back on a blanket, a golden-haired woman with a white gown spread around her hips was riding him as if competing in the nitwit steeplechase. I’d seen her before, but never so solid. The two were wailing in ecstasy.

“Drool, what are you doing?”

“Pretty,” said Drool, a great joyous, goofy grin on him.

“Aye, she’s a vision, lad, but you’re knobbing a ghost.”

“No.” The dim giant paused in his upward thrusting, lifted her by her waist and looked closely at her as if he’d found a flea in his bed.

“Ghost?”

She nodded.

Drool tossed her aside and with a long shuddering scream ran to the window and dove through, shattering the shutters as he went. The scream trailed off and ended with a splash.

The ghost pulled her gown down, tossed her hair out of her face, and grinned. “Water in the moat,” she said. “He’ll be fine. Guess I’ll be going away half-cocked, though.”

“Well, yes, but jolly good of you to take time from chain rattling and delivering portents of bloody doom to shag the beef-brained boy.”

“Not up for a spirity tumble yourself, then?” She made as if to lift her gown above her hips again.

“Piss off, wisp, I’ve got to go fish the git out of the moat. He can’t swim.”

“Not keen on flight, neither, evidently?”

No time for this. I sheathed my dagger, wheeled on my heel and started out the door.

“Not your war, fool,” said the ghost.

I stopped. Drool was slow at most things, perhaps he would be so at drowning. “The bastard has his own war?”

“Aye.” The ghost nodded, fading back to mist as she moved.

“Thou loquacious fog, thou nattering mist, thou serpent-tongued steam, for the love of truth, speak straight, and no sodding rhyme.”

But in that moment she was gone.

“Who are you?” I shouted to the empty tower.

FOURTEEN ON TENDER HORNS

“I shagged a ghost,” said Drool, wet, naked, and forlorn, sitting in the laundry cauldron under Castle Gloucester.

“There’s always a bloody ghost,” said the laundress, who was scrubbing the lout’s clothes, which had been most befouled in the moat. It had taken four of Lear’s men, along with me, to pull the great git from the stinking soup.

“No excuse for it, really,” said I. “You’ve the lake on three sides of the castle, you could open the moat to the lake and the offal and stink would be carried away with the current. I’ll wager that one day they find that stagnant water leads to disease. Breeds hostile water sprites, I’ll wager.”

“Blimey, you’re long-winded for such a wee fellow,” said the laundress.

“Gifted,” I explained, gesturing grandly with Jones. I, too, was naked, but for my hat and puppet stick, my own apparel having taken a glazing of oozy moat mess during the rescue as well.

“Sound the alarm!” Kent came storming down the steps into the laundry, sword unsheathed and followed closely by the two young squires he’d trounced not an hour before. “Bolt the door! To arms, fool!”

“Hello,” said I.

“You’re naked,” said Kent, once again feeling the need to voice the obvious.

“Aye,” said I.

“Find the fool’s kit, lads, and get him into it. Wolves are loosed on the fold and we must defend.”

“Stop!” said I. The squires stopped thrashing wildly around the laundry and stood at attention. “Excellent. Now, Caius, what are you on about?”

“I shagged a ghost,” said Drool to the young squires. They pretended they couldn’t hear him.

Kent shuffled forward, held back some by the alabaster grandeur of my nakedness. “Edmund was found with a dagger through his ear, pinned to a high-backed chair.”

“Bloody careless eater he is, then.”

“’Twas you who put him there, Pocket. And you know it.”

“Moi? Look at me? I am small, weak, and common, I could never—”

“He’s called for your head. He hunts the castle for you even now,” said Kent. “I swear I saw steam coming out his nostrils.”

“Not going to spoil the Yule celebration, is he?”

“Yule! Yule! Yule!” chanted Drool. “Pocket, can we go see Phyllis? Can we?”

“Aye, lad, if there’s a pawnbroker in Gloucester, I’ll take you soon as your kit is dry.”

Kent raised a startled porcupine of an eyebrow. “What is he on about?”

“Every Yule I take Drool down to Phyllis Stein’s Pawnshop in London and let him sing ‘Happy Birthday’ to Jesus, then blow the candles out on the menorah.”

“But the Yule’s a pagan holiday,” said one of the squires.

“Shut up, you twat. Do you want to ruin the twit’s fun? Why are you here, anyway? Aren’t you Edmund’s men? Shouldn’t you be trying to put my head on a pike or something?”

“They’ve changed allegiance to me,” said Kent. “After the thrashing I gave them.”

“Aye,” said squire one. “We’ve more to learn from this good knight.”

“Aye,” said squire two. “And we were Edgar’s men, anyway. Lord Edmund is a scoundrel, if you don’t mind me saying, sir.”

“And, dear Caius,” said I. “Do they know that you are a penniless commoner and can’t really maintain a fighting force as if you were, say—oh, I don’t know—the Earl of Kent?”

“Excellent point, Pocket,” said Kent. “Good sirs, I must release you from your service.”

“So we won’t be paid, then?”

“My regrets, no.”

“Oh, then we’ll take our leave.”

“Fare thee well, keep your guard up, lads,” said Kent. “Fighting’s done with the whole body, not only the sword.”

The two squires left the laundry with a bow.

“Will they tell Edmund where we’re hiding?” I asked.

“I think not, but you better get your kit on just the same.”

“Laundress, how progresses my motley?”

“Steamin’ by the fire, sir. Dry enough to wear indoors, I reckon. Did I hear it right that you put a dagger through Lord Edmund’s ear?”

“What, a mere fool? No, silly girl. I’m harmless. A jab from the wit, a poke to the pride are the only injuries a fool inflicts.”

“Shame,” said the laundress. “He deserves that and worse for how he treats your dim friend—” She looked away. “—and others.”

“Why didn’t you just kill the scoundrel outright, Pocket?” asked Kent, kicking subtlety senseless and rolling it up in a rug.

“Well, just shout it out, will you, you great lummox.”

“Aye, like you’d never do such a thing, ‘Top of the morning; grim weather we’re having; I’ve started a bloody war!’”

“Edmund has his own war.”

“See, you did it again.”

“I was coming to tell you when I found the girl ghost having a go at Drool. Then the lout leapt out the window and the rescue was on. The ghost implied that the bastard might be rescued by France. Maybe he’s allied with bloody King Jeff to invade.”

“Ghosts are notoriously unreliable,” said Kent. “Did you ever consider that you might be mad and hallucinating the whole thing? Drool, did you see this ghost?”

“Aye, I had a half a laugh wif her before I got frightened,” said Drool, sadly, contemplating his tackle through the steamy water. “I fink I gots deaf on me willie.”

“Laundress, help the lad wash the death off his willie, would you?”

“Not bloody likely,” said she.

I held the tip of my coxcomb to stay any jingling and bowed my head to show my sincerity. “Really, love, ask yourself, What would Jesus do?”

“If he had smashing knockers,” added Drool.

“Don’t help.”

“Sor-ry.”

“War? Murder? Treachery?” reminded Kent. “Our plan?”

“Aye, right,” said I. “If Edmund has his own war it will completely bollocks up our plans for civil war between Albany and Cornwall.”

“All well and good, but you didn’t answer my question. Why didn’t you just slay the bastard?”

“He moved.”

“So you meant to kill him?”

“Well, I hadn’t thought it through completely, but when I sent his dagger at his eye socket I believed that there might be a fatal outcome. And I must say, although I didn’t stay to revel in the moment, it was very satisfying. Lear says that killing takes the place of bonking in the ancient. You’ve killed a multitude of chaps, Kent. Do you find that to be the case?”

“No, that’s a disgusting thought.”

“And yet, with Lear lies your loyalty.”

“I’m beginning to wonder,” said Kent, sitting down now on an overturned wooden tub. “Who do I serve? Why am I here?”

“You are here, because, in the expanding ethical ambiguity of our situation, you are steadfast in your righteousness. It is to you, my banished friend, that we all turn—a light amid the dark dealings of family and politics. You are the moral backbone on which the rest of us hang our bloody bits. Without you we are merely wiggly masses of desire writhing in our own devious bile.”

“Really?” asked the old knight.

“Aye,” said I.

“I’m not sure I want to keep company with you lot, then.”

“Not like anyone else will have you, is it? I need to see Regan before my bastard ear piercing poisons our cause. Will you take her a message, Kent—er, Caius?”

“Will you put on your trousers, or at least your codpiece?”

“Oh, I suppose. That had always been part of the plan.”

“Then I will bear your message to the duchess.”

“Tell her—no, ask her—if she still holds the candle she promised for Pocket. Then ask her if I may meet her somewhere private.”

“I’m off, then. But try to manage not to get murdered while I’m gone, fool.”

“Kitten!” said I.

“You poxy little vermin,” said Regan, in glorious red. “What do you want?”

Kent had led me to a chamber far in the bowels of the castle. I couldn’t believe that Gloucester would house royal guests in an abandoned dungeon. Regan must have somehow found her own way here. She had an affinity for such places.

“You received the letter from Goneril, then?” I asked.

“Yes. What is it to you, fool?”

“The lady confided in me,” said I, bouncing my eyebrows and displaying a charming grin. “What is your thought?”

“Why would I want to dismiss father’s knights, let alone take them into my service? We have a small army at Cornwall.”

“Well, you’re not at Cornwall, are you, love?”

“What are you saying, fool?”

“I’m saying that your sister bade you come to Gloucester to intercept Lear and his retinue, and thus stop him from going to Cornwall.”

“And my lord and I came with great haste.”

“And with a very small force, correct?”

“Yes, the message said it was urgent. We needed to move quickly.”

“So, when Goneril and Albany arrive, you will be away from your castle and nearly defenseless.”

“She wouldn’t dare.”

“Let me ask you, lady, where do you think the Earl of Gloucester’s allegiance lies?”

“He is our ally. He has opened his castle to us.”

“Gloucester, who was nearly usurped by his eldest son—you think he sides with you?”

“Well, with Father, then, which is the same thing.”

“Unless Lear is aligned with Goneril against you.”

“But she relieved him of his knights. He ranted about it for an hour after his arrival, called Goneril every foul name under the sun, and praised me for my sweetness and loyalty, even overlooking my throwing his messenger into the stocks.”

I said nothing. I removed my coxcomb, scratched my head, and sat on some dusty instrument of torture to observe the lady by torchlight and watch her eyes as the rust ground off the twisted gears of her mind. She was simply lovely. I thought about what the anchoress had said about a wise man only expecting so much perfection in something as its nature allows. I thought that I might, indeed, be witnessing the perfect machine. Her eyes went wide when the realization hit.

“That bitch!”

“Aye,” said I.

“They’ll have it all, she and Father?”

“Aye,” said I. I could tell her anger didn’t arise from the betrayal, but from not having thought of it first. “You need an ally, lady, and one with more influence than this humble fool can provide. Tell me, what do you think of Edmund the bastard?”

“He’s fit enough, I suppose.” She chewed a fingernail and concentrated. “I’d shag him if my lord wouldn’t murder him—or come to think of it, maybe because he would.”

“Perfect!” said I.

Oh Regan, patron saint of Priapus,[38] the most slippery of the sisters: in disposition preciously oily, in discourse, deliciously dry. My venomous virago, my sensuous charmer of serpents—thou art truly perfection.

Did I love her? Of course. For even though I have been accused of being an egregious horn-beast, my horns are tender, like the snail’s—and never have I hoisted the horns of lust without I’ve taken a prod from Cupid’s barb as well. I have loved them all, with all my heart, and have learned many of their names.

Regan. Perfect. Regan.

Oh yes, I loved her.

She was a beauty to be sure—there was none in the kingdom more fair; a face that could inspire poetry and a body that inspired lust, longing, larceny, treachery, perhaps even war. (I am not without hope.) Men had murdered each other in competition for her favors—it was a hobby with her husband, Cornwall. And to her credit, while she could smile as a bloke bled to death with her name on his lips, she was not tight-fisted with her charms. It only added to the tension around her that someone was going to be shagged silly in the near future, and how much more thrilling if his life hung by a thread as he did the deed. In fact, the promise of violent death might be to the princess Regan like the nectar of Aphrodite herself, now that I think of it.

Why else would she have called for my death all those years ago, when I had so diligently served her, after Goneril had left the White Tower to wed Albany. It had begun, it seems, with a bit of jealousy.

“Pocket,” said Regan. She was perhaps eighteen or nineteen at the time, but unlike Goneril, had been exploring her womanly powers for years on various lads about the castle. “I find it offensive that you gave personal counsel to my sister, yet when I call you to my chambers I get nothing but tumbling and singing.”

“Aye, but a song and a tumble seem all that’s needed to lift the lady’s spirits, if I may say so.”

“You may not. Am I not fair?”

“Extremely so, lady. Shall I compose a rhyme to your beauty? A ravishing tart from Nantucket—”

“Am I not as fair as Goneril?”

“Next to you, she is less than invisible, just a shimmering envious vacuum, is she.”

“But do you, Pocket, find me attractive—in a carnal way—the way you did my sister? Do you want me?”

“Ah, of course, lady, from the morning I wake, I have but one thought, one vision: of your deliciousness, under this humble and unworthy fool, writhing naked and making monkey noises.”

“Really, that’s all you think about?”

“Aye, and occasionally breakfast, but it’s only seconds before I’m back to Regan, writhing, and monkey noises. Wouldn’t you like to have a monkey? We should have one around the castle, don’t you think?”

“So all you think of is this?” And with that, she shrugged off her gown, red as always, and there she stood, raven-haired and violet-eyed, snowy fair and finely fit, as if carved by the gods from a solid block of desire. She stepped out of the pool of bloodred velvet and said, “Drop your puppet stick, fool, and come here.”

And I, ever the obedient fool, did.

And oh it led to many months of clandestine monkey noises: howling, grunting, screeching, yipping, squishing, slapping, laughing, and no little bit of barking. (But there was no flinging of poo, as monkeys are wont to do. Only the most decent, forthright monkey sounds as are made from proper bonking.) I put my heart into it, too; but the romance was soon crushed beneath her cruel and delicate heel. I suppose I shall never learn. It seems a fool is not so often taken as a medicine for melancholy, as for ennui, incurable and recurring among the privileged.

“You’ve been spending a lot of time with Cordelia of late,” said Regan, basking glorious in the gentle glow of the afterbonk (your narrator in a sweaty puddle on the bedside floor, having been summarily ejected after rendering noble service). “I am jealous.”

“She’s a little girl,” said I.

“But when she has you, I cannot. She’s my junior. It’s not acceptable.”

“But, lady, it’s my duty to keep the little princess smiling, your father has commanded it. Besides, if I am otherwise engaged you can have that sturdy fellow you fancy from the stable, or that young yeoman with the pointy beard, or that Spanish duke or whatever he is that’s been about the castle for a month. Does that bloke speak a word of English? I think he may be lost.”

“They are not the same.”

I felt my heart warm at her words. Could it be real affection?

“Well, yes, what we share is—”

“They rut like goats—there’s no art to it, and I weary of shouting instructions to them, especially the Spaniard—I don’t think he speaks a word of English.”

“I’m sorry, milady,” said I. “But that said, I must away.” I stood and gathered my jerkin from under the wardrobe, my leggings from the hearth, my codpiece from the chandelier. “I’ve promised to teach Cordelia about griffins and elves over tea with her dolls.”

“You’ll not,” said Regan.

“I must,” said I.

“I want you to stay.”

“Alas, parting is such sweet sorrow,” said I. And I kissed the downy dimple at the small of her back.

“Guard!” called Regan.

“Pardon?” I inquired.

“Guard!” The door to her solar opened and an alarmed yeoman looked in. “Seize this scoundrel. He hath ravaged your princess.” She had conjured tears, in that short span of time. A bit of a wonder, she was.

“Fuckstockings,” said I, as two stout yeomen took me by the arms and dragged me down to the great hall in Regan’s wake, her dressing gown open and flowing out behind her as she wailed.

It seemed a familiar motif, yet I did not feel the confidence that comes with rehearsal. Perhaps it was that Lear was actually holding court before the people when we entered the great hall. A line of peasants, merchants, and minor noblemen waited as the king heard their cases and made judgments. Still in his Christian phase, he had been reading about the wisdom of Solomon, and had been experimenting with the rule of law, thinking it quaint.

“Father, I insist you hang this fool immediately!”

Lear was taken aback, not only by the shrillness of his daughter’s demand, but by the fact that she stood frontally bare to all the petitioners and made no effort to close her red gown. (Tales would be told of that day, of how many a plaintiff, having seen the snowy-skinned princess in all her glory, did hold his grievance pitiful, indeed, his life worthless, and went home to beat his wife or drown himself in the mill pond.)

“Father, your fool hath violated me.”

“That’s a fluttering bottle of bat wank, sire,” said I. “Begging your pardon.”

“You speak rashly, daughter, and you appear frothing-dog mad. Calm yourself and state your grievance. How hath my fool offended?”

“He hath shagged me roughly, against my will, and finished too soon.”

“By force? Pocket? He isn’t eight stone on a feast day—he couldn’t shag a cat by force.”

“That’s not true, sire,” said I. “If the cat is distracted with a trout, then—well, uh, nevermind—”

“He violated my virtue and spoiled my virginity,” said Regan. “I insist you hang him—hang him twice, the second time before he’s finished choking from the first—that’ll be fitting justice.”

I said: “What has put vengeance in your blood, princess? I was just going to tea with Cordelia.” Since the little one wasn’t present, I hoped invoking her name might awaken the king to my cause, but it only seemed to incense Regan.

“Forced me down and used me like a common tart,” said Regan, adding rather more pantomime than the petitioners in the hall could bear. Several began to beat their fists to their heads, others grabbed at their groins and sank to their knees.

“No!” said I. “I’ve had many a wench by stealth, a few by guile, a number by charm, a brace by mistake, the odd harlot for coin, and, when all else has failed, I’ve made do by begging, but by God’s blood, none by force!”

“Enough!” said Lear. “I’ll hear no more. Regan, close your robe. As I have decreed, we are a kingdom of laws. There shall be a trial, and if the rascal is found guilty, then I’ll see him hanged twice myself. Make way for a trial.”

“Now?” asked the scribe.

“Yes, now,” said Lear. “What do we need? A couple of chaps to do the prosecuting and defending, grab a few of those peasants for witnesses, and with due process, habeas corpus, fair weather and whatnot, we’ll have the fool dangling black-tongued before tea. Will that suit you, daughter?”

Regan closed her robe and turned away coyly. “I suppose.”

“And you, fool?” Lear winked at me, none too subtly.

“Aye, majesty. A jury, perhaps, chosen from that same group as the witnesses.” Well, one has to make an effort. From their reaction I would be acquitted, on a “who could blame” him basis: justifiable shaggicide, they’d call it. But no.

“No,” said the king. “Bailiff read the charges.”

The bailiff obviously hadn’t written up charges, so he unrolled a scroll on which was written something entirely unconnected to my case, and faked it: “The Crown states that on this day, October fourteenth, year of Our Lord, one thousand, two hundred, and eighty-eight, the fool known as Pocket, did with forethought and malice, shag the virgin princess Regan.”

There was cheering from the gallery, a little scoffing from the court.

“There was no malice,” said I.

“Without malice, then,” said the bailiff.

At this point, the magistrate, who normally functioned as a castle steward, whispered to the bailiff, who normally was the chamberlain. “The magistrate wishes to know how was that?”

“’Twas sweet, yet nasty, your honor.”

“Note that the accused hath stated that it was [sweet and nasty], thereby admitting his guilt.”

More cheering.

“Wait, I wasn’t ready.”

“Smell him,” said Regan. “He reeks of sex, like fish and mushroom and sweat, doesn’t he?”

One of the peasant witnesses ran forth and sniffed my bits mercilessly, then looked to the king, nodding.

“Aye, your honor,” said I. “I’m sure I have an odor about me. I must confess, I was sans trou today in the kitchen, while awaiting my laundry, and Bubble had left a casserole out on the floor to cool, and it did trip me and I fell prick-deep in gravy and goo—but I was on my way to chapel at the time.”

“You put your dick in my lunch?” said Lear. Then to the bailiff, “The fool put his dick in my lunch?”

“No, in your beloved daughter,” said Regan.

“Quiet, girl!” barked the king. “Captain Curan, send a guard to watch the bread and cheese before the fool has his way with it.”

It went on like that, with things looking rather grim for me as the evidence mounted against me, peasants taking the opportunity to describe the most lecherous acts they could imagine a wicked fool might perpetrate on an unsuspecting princess. I thought testimony of the sturdy stable boy particularly damning at first, but eventually it led to my acquittal.

“Read that back, so the king may hear the true heinous nature of the crime,” said my prosecutor, who I believe butchered cattle for the castle as his normal vocation.

The scribe read the stable boy’s words: “Yes, yes, yes, ride me, you crashing tree-cocked stallion.”

“That’s not what she said,” said I.

“Yes, it is. It’s what she always says,” said the scribe.

“Aye,” said the steward.

“Aye, it is,” said the priest.

“Sí,” said the Spaniard.

“Well, she never says that to me,” said I.

“Oh,” said the stable boy. “Then it’s ‘Prance, you twig-dicked little pony,’ is it?”

“Possibly,” said I.

“She never says that to me,” said the yeoman with the pointy beard.

Then there was a moment of silence, while all who had spoken looked around at one another, then furiously avoided eye contact and found spots on the floor of great interest.

“Well,” said Regan, chewing a fingernail as she spoke, “there is a chance that, uh, I was having a dream.”

“Then the fool did not take your virtue?” asked Lear.

“Sorry,” said Regan sheepishly. “It was but a dream. No more wine at lunch for me.”

“Release the fool!” said Lear.

The crowd booed.

I walked out of the hall side by side with Regan.

“He might have hung me,” I whispered.

“I’d have shed a tear,” said she with a smile. “Really.”

“Woe to you, lady, should you leave that rosebud asterisk of a bum-hole unguarded on our next meeting. When a fool’s surprise comes unbuttered, a Pocket’s pleasure will a princess punish.”

“Oooo, do tease, fool, shall I put a candle in it so you can find your way.”

“Harpy!”

“Rascal!”

“Pocket, where have you been?” said Cordelia, who was coming down the corridor. “Your tea has gone cold.”

“Defending big sister’s honor, sweetness,” said I.

“Oh bollocks,” said Regan.

“Pocket dresses the fool, but he is ever our hero, isn’t he, Regan?” said Cordelia.

“I think I’m going to be ill,” said the elder princess.

“So, love,” said I, rising from my perch on the torture machine and reaching into my jerkin. “I’m pleased you feel that way about Lord Edmund, for he has sent me with this letter.”

I handed her the letter. The seal was dodgy, but she wasn’t looking at the stationery.

“He’s smitten with you, Regan. In fact, so smitten he tried to cut off his own ear to deliver with this missive, to show you the depth of his affection.”

“Really? His ear.”

“Say nothing at the Yule feast, tonight, lady, but you’ll see the bandage. Mark it as a tribute of his love.”

“You saw him cut his ear?”

“Yes, and stopped him before the deed was done.”

“Was it painful, do you think?”

“Oh yes, lady. He has already suffered more than have others in months of knowing you.”

“That’s so sweet. Do you know what the letter says?”

“I was sworn not to look upon pain of death, but come close—”

She leaned close to me and I squeezed the witch’s puffball under her nose. “I believe it speaks of a midnight rendezvous with Edmund of Gloucester.”

FIFTEEN IN A LOVER’S EYE

A warm wind blew in from the west, completely cocking up the Yule. Druids like snow round Stonehenge during the festival, and burning down the forest is all the more satisfying if there’s a chill in the air. As it was, it looked like we’d have rain for the feast. The clouds rolling over the horizon looked like they’d been born of a summer storm.

“Them look like summer storm clouds,” said Kent. We were hiding in the barbican above the gate, looking out over the walled village of Gloucester and the hills beyond. I’d been hiding since my encounter with Edmund. Evidently the bastard was somewhat put out with me.

We could see Goneril and her train entering the outer gates. She rode with a dozen soldiers and attendants, but noticeably, the Duke of Albany was not with her.

A sentry on the wall called out the approach of the Duchess of Albany. Gloucester and Edmund appeared in the courtyard, followed by Regan and Cornwall. Regan was working to keep her eyes off of Edmund’s bandaged ear.

“This should be interesting,” said I. “They swarm like vultures over a corpse.”

“Britain’s the corpse,” said Kent. “And we baited her to be torn apart.”

“Nonsense, Kent. Lear’s the corpse. But ambitious scavengers do not wait for his death to begin their dining.”

“You’ve a deeply wicked side, Pocket.”

“Truth has a deeply wicked side, Kent.”

“There’s the king,” said Kent. “No one attends him. I should go to him.”

Lear shuffled into the courtyard wearing his heavy fur cape.

“Like looking down on a lubricious chess set, isn’t it? The king moves in tiny steps, with no direction, like a drunkard trying to avoid the archer’s bolt. The others work their strategies and wait for the old man to fall. He has no power, yet all power moves in his orbit and to his mad whim. Do you know that there’s no fool piece on the chessboard, Kent?”

“Methinks the fool is the player, the mind above the moves.”

“Well, that’s a scratchy spot of cat wank.” I turned to the old knight. “But bloody well said. Go to Lear, then. Edmund won’t dare molest you, and Cornwall must pretend some contrition for throwing you into the stocks. The princesses will be burning bright for Edmund’s eye, and Gloucester—well, Gloucester proffers hospitality before jackals, he is well occupied.”

“What will you do?”

“I seem to have rendered myself undesirable, as impossible as that sounds. I need to find us a spy—someone more stealthy, devious, and underhanded than my own sweet nature allows.”

“Good luck with that,” said Kent.

“I loathe you, I despise you, I curse your existence and the foul demons that spawned you. You sicken me with anger and bilious hatred.”

“Oswald,” said I. “You’re looking well.” Drool and I had intercepted him in a corridor.

There is an unwritten edict, that when negotiating with an enemy, one does not reveal his knowledge of that enemy’s agenda, even unto death. It’s a point of honor, of sorts, but I see it as petty play-acting, and I had no intention of indulging in it with Oswald. Yet, I had need of his spidery talents, so some finesse was required.

“I would give an arm to see you hang, fool,” said Oswald.

“Oh, an excellent starting point,” said I. “Don’t you think, Drool?”

“Aye, Pocket,” said Drool, who loomed between Oswald and me, a thick table leg unsuccessfully concealed behind his back. Oswald might make as to draw his sword, but Drool would have beaten his brains into bloody marmalade before the blade cleared its scabbard. Unspoken, but understood. “Smashing good start,” said the giant.

“So, Oswald, let us go from there. Say you get what you want. Say you lose an arm, and I am hanged, how then is life better for your fine self? Your quarters more comfortable? Wine taste better, will it?”

“It’s unlikely, but let’s explore the possibilities, shall we?”

“Very well,” said I. “You first. Sever an arm and Drool here will hang me. You have my word.”

“You have my word,” said Drool, in my voice.

“Stop wasting my time, fool. My lady is arriving and I need to go to her.”

“Ah, there’s the rub, Oswald. What you want. What do you really want.”

“You could never know.”

“Your lady’s approval?”

“I have that.”

“Ah, that’s right, your lady’s love.”

Oswald became still then, as if I had taken the breath from the corridor in which we stood. To prove such was not the case, I pressed on.

“You want your lady’s love, her respect, her power, her submission, her bottom in the air before you, her begging for satisfaction and mercy—that about it?”

“I am not so base as you, fool.”

“And yet the very reason you hate me is that I have been to that place.”

“You have not. She has not loved you, nor respected you, nor given you power. You were an amusement at best.”

“Yet I know the way there, my coal-hearted friend. I know the way a servant might find such favor.”

“She could never. I am of common blood.”

“Oh, I’m not saying I could make you duke, only that you would be her lord in body, heart, and mind. You know her weakness for scoundrels, Oswald. Did you yourself not pimp your lady to Edmund?”

“I did not. I only delivered a message. And Edmund is heir to an earldom.”

“Just this bloody week he is. And don’t act as if you don’t know what was in that message. I have the power, Oswald, given me by three witches in the Great Birnam Wood, to put a spell upon your lady so she will adore and desire you.”

Oswald laughed, not something he did often. His face was not fit for it and he looked like he had something caught in his back teeth. “What kind of fool do you think me? Out of the way.”

“And all you have to do is what your lady would have you do anyway, serve her desires,” said I. I needed to make my case quickly. “She is bewitched already, you know? You were there.”

Oswald had been backing away from Drool, off to find another route to the courtyard and Goneril, when he stopped.

“You were there, Oswald. At Albany. Goneril was having a grab at my tackle and you came in. You’d just come through the door, I heard it. I had this purse in my hand.” I held up the silk pouch the witches had given me. “Remember?”

“I was there.”

“And I handed your lady a letter and said it was from Edmund of Gloucester. Remember?”

“Aye. And she dumped you on your arse.”

“Right you are. And sent you here, to deliver a message to Edmund. Had she ever made a note of the bastard before, Oswald? You are with her nearly every waking moment. Had she noted him before?”

“No. Not once. She gave some notice to Edgar, but not the bastard.”

“Exactly. She is bewitched to love Edmund, and I can do the same for you. You’ll die a frustrated toady any other way, Oswald. I’ve one more spell left.”

Oswald took careful steps back to me, like he was walking a wire rather than the stone floor of a castle corridor. “Why wouldn’t you use it for yourself?”

“Well, for one, you would know, and I presume you would not be slow to inform Lord Albany, who would quickly have me hanged. And second, I had three such spells, and I have used one for myself already.”

“Not the Duchess of Cornwall?” I could tell Oswald was aghast at the idea, yet there was an excitement in his eye.

I showed him a sly grin and flicked the bells of my hat with Jones. “I’ve a rendezvous with her this very night after the Yule feast—midnight, in the abandoned North Tower.”

“You dastardly little monster!”

“Oh sod off, Oswald. Would you have a princess of your own or not?”

“What do I have to do?”

“Almost nothing,” said I. “But it will take some strength of character for you to see this through. First, you must counsel your lady to keep peace with her sister, and convince her to relieve Lear of the remainder of his force. Then, you must have your lady rendezvous with Edmund at the second bell of the watch.”

“Two in the bloody morning?”

“Watch how she leaps at the chance. She’s bewitched, remember. It is critical that she ally herself with the house of Gloucester, even if it is in secret. I know that will be difficult for you, but you must endure it. If you are going to have the lady and her power, someone will have to dispatch the Duke of Albany—someone who will be of no loss when hanged. The bastard Edmund is perfect for the part, is he not?”

Oswald nodded, his eyes getting larger with my every word. His whole life he had carried messages and run errands for Goneril, but at last he could see reward in sight for being intrigue’s pawn. Fortunately, the possibility blinded him to reason. “When will the lady be mine?”

“When all is in place, catch-fart, when all is in place. What do you know of a military force coming from France?”

“Why, nothing.”

“Then skulk and eavesdrop. Edmund knows of such a force, or he has constructed a rumor. Find out what you can. Find out, but do not speak to Edmund of his rendezvous with your lady, he thinks it a secret.”

Oswald stood to his full height (he’d been bending over to talk face-to-face with me). “What do you gain from this, fool?”

I had hoped he wouldn’t ask. “Like you, even with love, there are those who would stand in the way of my happiness. I need you and those affected by your deeds to help them out of my way.”

“You would kill the Duke of Cornwall?”

“He is one, but no matter who loves me, I am bound to Lear—I am his slave.”

“So you would kill the king, too? No worries, fool, I can do that. You have a deal.”

“Fuckstockings!” said I.

“Jolly good show, Pocket,” said Kent. “Go looking for a messenger and end up setting a bloody assassin loose on the king. A born diplomat, you are.”

“Sarcasm is very unattractive in the elderly, Kent. I couldn’t very well call him off, my sincerity would have been questioned.”

“You weren’t being sincere.”

“Well, conviction then. Just stay by Lear during the Yule feast and don’t let him eat anything unless you’ve eaten it first. If I know Oswald, he’ll try to slay the king using the most cowardly means.”

“Or not at all.”

“What?”

“What makes you think Oswald was telling you the truth any more than you were telling it to him?”

“I’m counting on his lying to a degree.”

“But to what degree?”

I paced in a circle around our little tower room. “What a wimpled wagon of nun wank this is. I’d rather juggle fire blindfolded. I’m not built for these dark dealings—I’m better suited for laughter, children’s birthdays, baby animals, and friendly bonking. The sodding witches got it wrong.”

“And yet, you’ve set a civil war in motion and sent an assassin after the king,” said Kent. “Grand ambition for a children’s birthday clown, don’t you think?”

“You’ve become bitter in your dotage, you know?”

“Well, perhaps my duties as food taster will end my bitterness.”

“Just keep the old man alive, Kent. Since the Yule feast is still on, I take it dear Regan didn’t tell Lear that she was taking his knights yet.”

“The lady tried to make peace between Goneril and her father. She only served to calm the old man enough that he agreed to come to the feast.”

“Good. No doubt she’ll make her move on the morrow.” I grinned. “If she’s well enough.”

“Wicked,” said Kent.

“Justice,” said I.

Regan came up the spiral stairs alone. The single candle she carried in a storm lantern cast her shadow tall up the stone wall like the very specter of a shaggable death. I stood outside the solar door, candelabra in one hand, the door latch in the other.

“Happy Christmas, kitten,” said I.

“Well, that feast was complete crap, wasn’t it? Bloody Gloucester, pagan twat, calling it the feast of St. Stephen instead of Christmas. There’s no presents on the feast of bloody Stephen. Without presents I’d rather celebrate Yule for the winter solstice; at least then you get to sacrifice a pig and build a cracking huge fire.”

“Gloucester was being deferential to your Christian beliefs as it was, love. The holiday is Saturnalia[39] for him and Edmund, proper orgy it is. So perhaps there’s a present for you yet to be unwrapped.”

She smiled then. “Perhaps. Edmund was so coy at the feast—barely looking my way. Fear of Cornwall, I suppose. But you were right, his ear was bandaged.”

“Aye, lady, and I’m to tell you that he’s a bit modest about it. He may not wish to be fully seen.”

“But I saw him at the feast.”

“Aye, but he’s hinted that there may have been other self-punishment performed in your honor and he’s shy.”

A joyous child at Christmas she suddenly was—visions of a bloke lashing himself dancing in her head.

“Oh, Pocket, do let me in.”

And so I did. I opened the door, and slipped the storm lantern from her grasp as she passed. “Ah, ah, ah, love. No more light than that one candle. He’s ever so shy.”

I heard Edmund’s voice say from behind the tapestry, “Oh, my sweet lady, Regan, thou art more fair than moonlight, more radiant than the sun, more glorious than all the stars. I must have you or I shall surely die.”

I slowly closed and latched the door.

“No, my goddess, undress there,” said Edmund’s voice. “Let me watch you.”

I’d been all evening coaching Drool on what to say and exactly how to say it. Next he would comment on her loveliness, then ask her to blow out the single candle on the table and join him behind the tapestry, at which point he was to unceremoniously snog her soggy and shag her silly.

It sounded rather like what I’d guess would be the auditory effect of a bull elk trying to balance a wildcat on a red-hot poker. There was no little bit of yowling, growling, squealing, and screeching going on by the time I saw the second light coming up the stairs. I could see by the shadow that the lantern bearer was leading with a drawn sword. Oswald had been true to his treacherous nature, just as I had calculated.

“Put down that blade, you git, you’ll put someone’s eye out.”

The Duke of Cornwall rounded the stairs with blade lowered, a bewildered look on his face. “Fool?”

“What if a child was running down the stairs?” I said. “Awkward explaining to Gloucester why his beloved toddler grandson was wearing a yard of Sheffield steel through his gizzard.”

“Gloucester doesn’t have a grandson,” said Cornwall, surprised, I think, that he was engaged in this discussion.

“That doesn’t diminish the need for basic weapons safety.”

“But I’m here to slay you.”

“Moi?” said I, in perfect fucking French. “Whatever for?”

“Because you are shagging my lady.”

There was a great bellow from the tower room, followed by a female feral screech. “Was that pain or pleasure, would you say?” I asked.

“Who is in there?” Cornwall raised his sword again.

“Well, it is your lady, and she is most certainly being shagged, by the bastard Edmund of Gloucester, but prudence would have you stay your blade.” I laid Jones across the duke’s wrist and pushed his sword hand down. “Unless you care nothing for being King of Britain.”

“What are you on about, fool?” The duke very much wanted to do some killing, but his ambition was trumping his bloodlust.

“Oh ride me, you great, tree-cocked rhinoceros!” screamed Regan from the next room.

“She still says that?” I asked.

“Well, usually it’s ‘tree-cocked stallion,’” said Cornwall.

“She does get good wear out of a metaphor.” I put my hand on his shoulder for comfort. “Aye, a sad surprise, for you, I’ll wager. At least when a man, after looking into his soul, finally stoops to fuck a snake, he hopes at least not to see pairs of boots already lined up outside her burrow.”

He shook me off. “I’ll kill him!”

“Cornwall, you are about to be attacked. Even now Albany prepares to take all of Britain for his own. You’ll need Edmund and the forces of Gloucester to prevail against him, and when you do, you’ll be king. If you go in that room now, you will kill a horn-beast, but you will lose a kingdom.”

“God’s blood,” said Cornwall. “Is this true?”

“Win the war, good sirrah. Then kill the bastard at your leisure, when you can take your time and do it right. Regan’s honor is, well, malleable, is it not?”

“You’re sure about this war?”

“Aye. It’s why you need to take Lear’s remaining knights and squires, just as Goneril and Albany took the others. And you mustn’t let Goneril know you know. Even now your lady is assuring Gloucester’s allegiance to your side.”

“Really? That’s why she’s shagging Edmund?”

It hadn’t occurred to me until I’d said it, but it really did work quite nicely. “Oh yes, my lord, her enthusiasm is inspired by her fierce loyalty to you.”

“Of course,” said Cornwall, sheathing his sword. “I should have seen it.”

“That doesn’t mean you can’t kill Edmund when it’s over,” said I.

“Absolutely,” said the duke.

When Cornwall was gone and some time after the first bell had rung for the watch, I knocked on the door and peeked my head in.

“Lord Edmund,” said I. “There’s a stirring in the duke’s tower. Perhaps you should say your farewells.”

I held Regan’s storm lantern at the crack of the door so she could find her way out, and a few moments later she stumbled out of the solar with her gown on backward, her hair in knots, and a slick of drool running in a river between and over her breasts. Overall, in fact, she looked quite slippery.

She was dazed and limping in a way that seemed she couldn’t quite figure which side to favor, and she was dragging one shoe by its strap around her ankle.

“Lady, shall I get your other shoe?”

“Sod it,” she said, waving drunkenly, or what seemed like drunkenly, almost falling down the stairs. I steadied her, helped her get her gown turned around, swabbed her down a bit with her skirt, then took her arm and helped her down the stairs.

“He’s quite a bit larger close up than he appears across the room.”

“That so?”

“I shan’t sit down for a fortnight.”

“Ah, sweet romance. Can you make it to your quarters, kitten?”

“I think so. You’re clever, Pocket—start thinking of excuses for Edmund if I’m not able to get out of bed tomorrow.”

“My pleasure, kitten. Sleep well.”

I made my way back upstairs where Drool was standing trouserless by the candle, still sporting enough of an erection to bludgeon a calf senseless.

“Sorry, I came out, Pocket, it were dark.”

“No worries, lad. Good show.”

“She were fit.”

“Aye. Quite.”

“What’s a rhinoceros?”

“It’s like a unicorn with armored bollocks. It’s a good thing. Chew these mint leaves and let’s get you wiped down. Practice your Edmund lines while I look for a towel.”

When the watch rang the second bell, the scene was set. Another storm lantern illuminated the stairs and cast a buxom shadow up the wall.

“Pumpkin!”

“What are you doing here, worm?”

“Just keeping watch. Go in, but leave your lantern with me. Edmund is shy about the injury he has inflicted on himself in your honor.”

Goneril grinned at the prospect of the bastard’s pain and went in.

A few minutes passed before Oswald crept up the stairs.

“Fool? You’re still alive?”

“Aye.” I held my hand up to my ear. “But listen to the children of the night—what music they make.”

“Sounds like a moose trying to shit a family of hedgehogs,” said the scoundrel.

“Oh, that’s good. I was thinking more of moo cow being beaten with a flaming goose, but you may have it. Ah, who’s to say? We should leave, good Oswald, and give the lovers their privacy.”

“Did you not meet with Princess Regan?”

“Oh, we changed the rendezvous to the fourth bell of the watch, why?”

SIXTEEN A STORM RISING

The storm blew in during the night. I was eating my breakfast in the kitchen when a row erupted in the courtyard. I heard Lear bellow and left to attend him, leaving my porridge with Drool. Kent intercepted me in the corridor.

“So the old man lived through the night?” said I.

“I slept at his door,” said Kent. “Where were you?”

“Trying to see two princesses ruthlessly shagged and starting a civil war, thank you, and with no proper supper, neither.”

“Fine feast,” said Kent. “Ate till I nearly burst just to see the king went unpoisoned. Who is bloody St. Stephen, anyway?”

Then I saw Oswald coming down the corridor.

“Good Kent, go see that the daughters don’t kill the king, and that Cornwall doesn’t kill Edmund, and that the sisters don’t kill each other, and if you can help it, don’t kill anyone. It’s too early for killing.”

Kent hurried off as Oswald reached me.

“So,” said Oswald, “you lived through the night?”

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?” I asked.

“Well, because I told Cornwall of your rendezvous with Regan and I expected him to slay you.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Oswald, show a little guile, would you? The state of villainy in this castle is rubbish, what with Edmund being pleasant and you being straightforward. What’s next, Cornwall starts feeding orphans while bloody bluebirds fly out of his bum? Now, let’s try it again, see if you can at least keep up a pretense of evil. Go.”

“So, you lived through the night?” said Oswald.

“Of course, why wouldn’t I?” I asked.

“Oh, no reason, I was worried about you.”

I clouted Oswald on the ear with Jones. “No, you nitwit, I’d never believe you’re concerned for my welfare—you’re a right weasel, aren’t you?”

He made to reach for his sword and I hit his wrist a vicious blow with Jones’s stick end. The villain leapt back and rubbed his bruised wrist.

“Despite your incompetence, our agreement stands. I need you to consult with Edmund. Give him this letter from Regan.” I handed him the letter I’d written at first light. Regan’s hand was easy to duplicate. She dotted her i’s with hearts. “Don’t break the seal, it professes her devotion for him, but instructs him to show no outward affection for her. You must also caution him against showing any deference to your lady Goneril in front of Regan. And because I know the intrigue confuses you, let me map out your interest here. Edmund will dispatch your Lord Albany, thus releasing your lady to other affections, only then will we reveal to Cornwall that Edmund has cuckolded him with Regan, and the duke will dispatch the bastard, at which time, I will cast the love spell on Goneril, sending her into your own ferrety arms.”

“You could be lying. I tried to have you killed. Why would you help me?”

“Excellent question. First, I, unlike you, am not a villain, therefore I can be expected to proceed with a modicum of integrity. And, second, I wish to visit revenge on Goneril for how she has treated me, her younger sister, Cordelia, and King Lear. I can think of no better punishment for her than pairing her with the man-shaped tower of excrement that is yourself.”

“Oh, that’s reasonable,” said Oswald.

“Off you go, then. See that Edmund doesn’t show deference.”

“I might slay him myself, for violating my lady.”

“No, you won’t, you’re a coward. Or had you forgotten?”

Oswald started to quiver then with anger, but he did not try to reach for his sword.

“Run along, mate, Pocket’s got a bumload of foolin’ yet to do.”

A randy hand of wind groped the courtyard, sending the sisters’ skirts tossing and snapping their hair in their faces. Kent crouched and clung to his great broad-brimmed hat to keep it from being carried away. The old king held his fur cape tight around him and squinted against the dust, while the Duke of Cornwall and Earl of Gloucester stood by the great gate for shelter—the duke content, it seemed, to let his duchess do the talking. I was relieved to see that Edmund was not in attendance, so I danced into the courtyard, bells a-jingle, song in heart.

“Hi ho!” said I. “Everyone get a proper bonking for the Saturnalia, did they?”

The two sisters looked at me blankly, as if I might have been speaking Chinese or dog, and they had not, overnight, each received rousing repeated bonkings from an enormous donkey-donged nitwit. Gloucester looked down, embarrassed, I suppose, over abandoning his own pantheon for St. Stephen, and a wholly bollocks holy holiday feast. Cornwall sneered.

“Ah,” said I. “Then a crispy biscuit baby Jesus cornu-bloody-copia of Christmas cheer, was it? Silent night, camels and wise men—frankenstein, gold, and myrrh all around then?”

“Sodding Christian harpies want to take away my knights,” said Lear. “I’ve already lost half my train to you, Goneril, I’ll not lose the rest.”

“Oh, yes, sire,” said I. “Christianity is their fault. I forgot that the wind blew out of a pagan sky for you today.”

Regan stepped forward then, and yes, she was walking a bit bow-legged. “Why do you need to keep fifty men, Father? We’ve plenty of servants to tend to you.”

“And,” said Goneril, “they will be under our charge, so there will be no discord within the walls of our homes.”

“I’m of my sister’s mind on this,” said Regan.

“You’re always of your sister’s mind,” said Lear. “An original thought would crack your feeble skull like a thunderbolt, you craven vulture.”

“That’s the spirit, sire,” said I. “Treat them like bins of used nappies and watch them come around. A wonder they’ve turned out so delightful with fathering of that quality.”

“Take them, then, you flesh-tearing harpies! Would that I could drag your mother from her tomb and accuse her of most grievous adultery, for you cannot be issue from my loins and treat me so.”

I nodded and lay my head on Goneril’s shoulder. “Evidently the adultery comes from Mum’s side of the family, pumpkin—the bitterness and stunning bosoms are from Papa.”

She pushed me aside, despite my wisdom.

Lear was losing all control now, trembling as he shouted impotently at his daughters, looking weaker and more slight with every word. “Hear me, gods! If it be you that stir these daughters’ hearts against their father, then touch me with noble anger, and stain not my man’s cheeks with women’s weapons, the water drops.”

“Those aren’t tears on your cheeks, nuncle,” said I. “It’s raining.”

Gloucester and Cornwall looked away, embarrassed for the old man. Kent had his hands on the king’s shoulders and was trying to lead him gently out of the rain. Lear shrugged him off and stormed up to his daughters.

“You unnatural hags! I will have such revenges on you both that the world—er, I will do such things that I don’t even know yet, but they will be horrible—the very terrors of the earth! But I’ll not weep! I’ll not. Even if my heart shall break into a hundred thousand shards, I shall not weep. O fool, I shall go mad!”

“Aye, nuncle, smashing good start you’re off to.” I tried to put an arm around Lear’s shoulders, but he elbowed me away.

“Rescind your orders, harpies, or I shall leave this house.” He made for the great gate.

“It is for your own good, Father,” said Goneril. “Now, cease this ranting and come inside.”

“I gave you all!” screeched Lear, waving a palsied claw at Regan.

“And you took your bloody time giving it, too, you senile old fuck,” said Regan.

“She came up with that one all on her own, nuncle,” said I, looking on the bright side.

“I will go,” threatened Lear, another step toward the gate. “I’m not having you on. I’ll head right out that door.”

“Pity,” said Goneril.

“Shame, really,” said Regan.

“Here I go. Right out that gate. Never to return. All alone.”

“Ta,” said Goneril.

“Au revoir,” said Regan, in nearly perfect fucking French.

“I mean it.” The old man was actually through the gate now.

“Close it,” said Regan.

“But, lady, it’s not fit for man nor beast out there,” said Gloucester.

“Fucking close it!” said Goneril. She ran forward and pushed the great iron lever by the gatehouse with all her might. The heavy, iron-clad portcullis slammed down, the points just missing the old king as they set in the ports a foot deep in the stone.

“I’ll go,” said Lear, through the grate. “Don’t think I won’t.”

The sisters left the courtyard for the shelter of the castle. Cornwall followed them and called for Gloucester to come along.

“But this storm,” said Gloucester, watching his old friend through the bars. “No one should be out in this storm.”

“He brought it on himself,” said Cornwall. “Now, come along, good Gloucester.”

Gloucester pulled himself away from the grate and followed Cornwall into the castle, leaving just Kent and me standing in the rain in only our woolen cloaks. Kent looked tortured over the old man’s fate.

“He’s alone, Pocket. It’s not even noon and the sky is as dark as midnight. Lear is outside and alone.”

“Oh buggering bugger,” said I. I looked at the chains leading up to the top of the gatehouse, the beams that protruded from the walls, the crenellations at the top to protect the archers. Damn the anchoress and Belette for my monkey-training as an acrobat. “I’ll go with him. But you have to hide Drool from Edmund. Talk to the laundress with the smashing knockers, she’ll help. She fancies the lad, no matter what she says.”

“I’ll go get help to crank up the gate,” said Kent.

“Not to worry. You look after the Natural, and watch your back for Edmund and Oswald. I’ll return with the old man when I can.” And with that I shoved Jones down the back of my jerkin, ran and leapt onto the massive chain, spidered up it hand over hand, swung up onto one of the beams that protruded from the stone above, then hopped from beam to beam until I could find a handhold in the stone—and scurried up another story to the top of the wall. “Sorry sodding fortress,” I shouted to Kent with a wave. In a wink I was over the wall and down the drawbridge chains on the other side to the ground below.

The old man was already at the gates of the walled village, nearly disappearing amid the rain, tottering out onto the heath in his fur cape, looking like an ancient sodden rat.