Fool

SEVENTEEN REIGNING FOOLS, HAILING NUTTERS

“Blow, wind, crack your cheeks! Rage! Blow!” thundered Lear.

The old man had perched himself on the top of a hill outside Gloucester and was shouting into the wind like a bloody lunatic, even as lightning raked the sky with white-hot claws and thunder shook me to my ribs.

“Come in from there, you bloody decrepit old looney!” said I, huddled under a holly bush nearby; drenched and cold and at the end of my patience with the old man. “Come back to Gloucester and ask shelter from your daughters.”

“Oh, ye heartless gods! Send your oak-cleaving thunderbolts down on me!

Burn me with your sulfurous and life-ending fires!

Singe my white head and reduce me to a pillar of ash!

Strike me dead! Let your wrath take fiery form and smite me!

Take me, spare no violence!

I do not blame thee, thou art not my daughters!

I’ve given you nothing and expect no quarter!

Do your horrible pleasure direct,

To a poor, infirm, despised old man!

Crack the sky! Strike me dead!”

The old man paused as a thunderbolt split a tree on the heath with blinding fire and a noise that would send statues to shitting themselves. I ran out from under my bush to the king’s side.

“Come in, nuncle. Take some shelter under a shrub, if only to take the sting out of the rain.”

“I need no shelter. Let nature take her naked revenge.”

“Fine, then,” said I. “Then you won’t be needing this.” I took the old man’s heavy fur cape, tossed him my sodden woolen cloak, and retreated to my shrubbery and the relative shelter of the heavy animal skin.

“Hey?” said Lear, bewildered.

“Go on,” said I. “Crack the sky, fry your old head, mash your balls, et cetera, et cetera. I’ll prompt you if you lose your place.”

And off he went again:

“Mighty Thor, send your thunderbolts to cease this weary heart!

Neptune’s waves, beat these limbs from their joints!

Hecate’s claws, tear my liver and sup upon my soul!

Baal, blast my bowels from their unhealthy home!

Jupiter, strew the land with my shredded muscle!”

The old man stopped his tirade for a moment and the madness went out of his eyes. He looked to me. “It’s really fucking cold out here.”

“Like being struck by a bolt of the bloody obvious on the road to Damascus, innit, nuncle?” I held open the great fur cloak and nodded for the old man to join me in it under my shrubbery. He crept down the hill, careful not to slip in the rivulets of mud and water that cascaded by, and ducked under the cover with me.”

The old man shuddered and put his skeletal arm around my shoulders. “Rather closer than we’re accustomed to, eh, boy?”

“Aye, nuncle, did I ever tell you that you are a very attractive man?” said Jones, poking his puppety head out of the cloak.

And the old man began to laugh, and he laughed until his shoulders shook and the laughter broke into a jarring cough, and that continued until I thought he might expectorate vital organs. I caught some freezing rain in my cupped hand and held it for him to sip.

“Don’t make me laugh, boy. I’m mad with grief and rage and I’ve no stomach for jests. You should stand clear, lest a thunderbolt scorch you when the gods heed my challenge.”

“Nuncle, begging pardon, but, you arrogant old tosser! The gods aren’t going to strike you down with a thunderbolt simply because you asked them. Why would they accommodate you with a thunderbolt? More likely a carbuncle, festered and gone fatal, or perhaps a thankless child or two, being how the gods love their irony.”

“The cheek!” said Lear.

“Oh yes, cheeky gods they are,” said I. “And you named off a bushel of them, too. Now if you are struck down we won’t even know who to blame unless lightning brands a signature in your old hide. You should have dared one, then waited an hour perhaps before calling fire down from the whole lot at a go.”

The king wiped rain out of his eyes. “I’ve set a thousand monks and nuns to pray for my forgiveness and the pagans slaughter goats by the herd for my salvation, but I fear it is not enough. Not once did I act in the interest of my people, not once did I act in the interest of my wives or my daughters’ mothers—I have served myself as god and I find I am little forgiving. Be kind, Pocket, lest you one day face the darkness as I do. Or, in absence of kindness, be drunk.”

“But, nuncle,” said I. “I do not need to be cautious for the day when I become frail. I am frail now. And on the bright side, there may be no God at all, and the evil deeds you’ve done will be their own reward.”

“Perhaps I don’t even rate a righteous slaughtering,” sobbed Lear. “The gods have sent these daughters to suck out my life blood. It is punishment for how I treated my own father. Do you know how I became king?”

“Pulled a sword out of a stone and slayed a dragon with it, didn’t you?”

“No, that never happened.”

“Sodding convent education. Buggered if I know then, nuncle. How did Lear become king?”

“My own father, I murdered him. I do not deserve a noble death.”

I was speechless. I had been in service of the king over a decade and never had I heard of this. The story went that old King Bladud had handed the kingdom over to Lear and went to Athens, where he learned to be a necromancer, then returned to Britain and died from the plague in service of the goddess Minerva at the temple at Bath. But before I could gather my wits for a reply, lightning cracked the sky, illuminating a hulking creature that was making its way across the hillside toward us.

“What’s that?” I asked.

“A demon,” said the old man. “The gods have sent a monster to take their revenge on me.”

The thing was covered in slime, and walking as if it had just been constructed from the very earth over which it slogged. I felt for the daggers at the small of my back and pulled one from its sheath. There’d be no knife throwing in this downpour—I wasn’t even sure I could hold the blade steady for a thrust.

“Your sword, Lear,” said I. “Draw and defend.” I stood and stepped out of the shelter of the shrubbery. I spun Jones so his stick end was at the ready, and drew a flourish in the air with my dagger.

“Come hither, demon! Pocket’s got a coach ride back to the underworld for thee.”

I crouched, thinking to leap aside as the thing lunged. Although it described the shape of a man, I could see long slimy tendrils dragging from it, and mud oozing off of it. Once it stumbled I’d leap on its back and see if I could cause it to fall and slide down the hillside, away from the old king.

“No, let it take me,” said Lear. Suddenly the old man shrugged off his fur cloak and charged at the monster, his arms wide, as if offering his very heart to the beast. “Slay me, ye merciless god—rend this black heart from Britain’s chest!”

I could not stop him and the old man fell into the beast’s arms. But to my surprise, there was no tearing of limbs or bashing of brains. The thing caught the old man and lowered him gently to the ground.

I lowered my blade and inched forward. “Leave him, beast.”

The thing was kneeling over Lear, whose eyes were rolled back in his head even as he twitched as if in a fit. The beast looked at me and I saw streaks of pink through the mud, the whites of its eyes.

“Help me,” it said. “Help me get him to shelter.”

I stepped forth and wiped the mud away from the thing’s face. It was a man, covered with mud so thick it even ran out of his mouth and coated his teeth, but a man just the same, vines or rags, I couldn’t tell which, trailed off his arms. “Help poor Tom bring him out of the cold,” said he.

I sheathed my dagger, retrieved the old man’s cape, and helped the muddy, naked bloke carry King Lear into the wood.

It was a tiny cabin, barely enough room to stand in, but the fire was warm and the old woman stirred a pot that smelled of boiling meat and onions, like breath of the Muses it was, on this dank night. Lear stirred, now hours since we brought him in from the rain. The king reclined on a pallet of straw and skins. His fur cloak still steamed by the fire.

“Am I dead?” asked the old man.

“Nay, nuncle, but ye were close enough to lick death’s salty taint,” said I.

“Back, foul fiend!” said the naked fellow, waving at the very air before his eyes. I had helped him wash away much of the mud, so now he was merely filthy and mad, but no longer misshapen.

“Oh, poor Tom is cold! So cold.”

“Aye, we can tell that,” said I. “Unless you’re just a crashingly large bloke what was born with a willie the size of a raisin.”

“The fiend makes Tom eat the swimming frog, the tadpole, lizards, and ditch-water—I eat cow dung for salads and swallow rats and bits of dead dogs. I drink pond scum, and in every village I am beaten and thrown into stocks. Away, fiend! Leave poor, cold Tom alone!”

“Blimey,” said I. “The loonies are in full bloom tonight.”

“I offered him some stewed mutton,” said the old woman by the fire, without turning, “but no, he had to have his frogs and cow pies. Right fussy eater for a naked nutter.”

“Pocket,” said Lear, clawing at my arm. “Who is that large, naked chap?”

“He calls himself Tom, nuncle. Says he’s pursued by the devil.”

“He must have daughters. See here, Tom, did you give all to your daughters? Is that what drove you mad and poor even until you are naked?”

Tom crawled across the floor until he was at Lear’s side.

“I was a vain and selfish servant,” said the nutter. “I slept with my mistress every night and woke thinking of putting it to her again in the morning. I drank and caroused and made merry, even while my half brother fought a crusade for a Church for which he held no faith. I took all without thought for those who had nothing. Now I have nothing—not a stitch, not a crumb, not a coin, and the devil dogs me to the ends of the earth for my selfishness.”

“You see,” said Lear, “only a man’s cruel daughters could drive him to such a state.”

“He didn’t say that, you daft geezer. He said he was a selfish libertine and the devil took his kit.”

The old woman turned now. “Aye, the fool’s right. The younger nutter has no daughters, ’tis his own unkindness that curses him.” She crossed the cabin with two steaming bowls of stew and set them before us on the floor. “And it’s your own evil hounds you, Lear, not your daughters.”

The old woman, I’d seen her before. She was one of the crones from the Great Birnam Wood. Different togs and somewhat less green, but this was surely Rosemary, the cat-toed witch.

Lear slid to the floor and grabbed poor Tom’s hand. “I have been selfish. I have thought nothing of the weight of my deeds. My own father I imprisoned in the temple at Bath because he was a leper, and later had him killed. My own brother I did murder when I suspected him of bedding my queen. No trial, not even the honor of a challenge. I had him murdered in his sleep without proof. And my queen is dead, too, for my jealousy. My kingdom is the fruit of treachery, and treachery have I reaped. I do not deserve to even wear clothes on my back. You are true, Tom, that you have nothing. I, too, shall have nothing, as is my just reward!”

The old man began to tear off his clothes, ripping at the collar of his shirt, tearing more of his parchment-like skin than the linen. I stayed his hand, held his wrists and tried to catch his eye with my own, to pull him back from madness.

“Oh, I have wronged my sweet Cordelia!” the old man wailed. “The only one who loved me and I have wronged her! My one true daughter! Gods, tear these clothes from my back, tear the meat from my bones!”

Then I felt claws clamp on my own wrists and I was pulled away from Lear as if I had been drawn by heavy iron shackles. “Let him suffer,” hissed the witch in my ear.

“But I have made this pain,” said I.

“Lear’s pain is of his own making, fool,” she said. With that I felt the room spinning and I heard the voice of the girl ghost telling me to sleep. “Sleep, sweet Pocket.”

“Who’s the muddy naked bloke snogging the king’s noggin?” asked Kent.

I awoke to see the old knight standing in the doorway with the Earl of Gloucester. The storm still raged outside, but by firelight I could see the naked nutter Tom O’Bedlam had wrapped himself around Lear and was kissing the king’s bald head as if blessing a newborn babe.

“Oh majesty,” said Gloucester, “can’t you find better company than this? Who is this rough beast?”

“He is a philosopher,” said Lear. “I will talk with him.”

“Poor Tom O’Bedlam, is he,” said Tom. “Eater of tadpoles, cursed and damned by demons.”

Kent looked to me and I shrugged. “Both mad as cat herds,” said I. I looked around for the old woman as a witness, but she was gone.

“Well, snap to, majesty, I bring news from France,” said Kent.

“Hollandaise sauce, excellent on eggs?” I inquired.

“No,” said Kent. “More urgent.”

“Wine and cheese complement one another nicely?” I further queried.

“No, you rasp-tongued rascal, France has landed an army at Dover, and there’s rumor they’ve forces hidden in other cities around the British coast, ready to strike.”

“Oh, well, that does trump the wine and cheese news, then, doesn’t it?”

Gloucester was trying to pry Tom off King Lear, but having a hard time doing so while keeping mud off his cloak. “I’ve sent word to the French camp at Dover that Lear is here,” said Gloucester. “I’ve made the case to the king’s daughters to let me bring him in from the storm, but they will not relent. Even in my own home my power has been usurped by the Duke of Cornwall. Regan and Cornwall have taken command of Lear’s knights, and with them, my castle.”

“We come to bring you to a hovel at the city wall,” said Kent. “When the storm breaks, Gloucester will send a cart to take Lear to the French camp at Dover.”

“No,” said Lear. “Let me talk to my philosopher friend in private.” He pawed at mad Tom. “He knows much of how life should be lived. Tell me, friend, why is there thunder?”

Kent turned to Gloucester and shrugged. “He’s not in his right mind.”

“Who can blame him?” said Gloucester. “After what his daughters have done—his very flesh rising up against him. I had a beloved son who conspired to murder me, and just the thought of that nearly drove me mad.”

“Do you nobles have any reaction to hardship besides going bloody barking and running off to eat dirt?” said I. “Hitch up your bollocks and get on with it, would you? Caius, what of Drool?”

“I left him hidden in the laundry, but Edmund will find him when his mind turns full to the task. Right now he is distracted by trying to avoid the sisters and conspiring with Cornwall.”

“My son, Edmund, he is still true,” said Gloucester.

“Yes, right, milord,” said I. “And mind you don’t trip on the honeysuckle sprouting from his bum when you next see him. Do you have means to get me into the castle without Edmund knowing I’m there?”

“I suppose. But I take no commands from you, fool. You are but a slave, and an impudent one at that.”

“You’re still angry over my jesting about your dead wife, aren’t you?”

“Do the fool’s will!” boomed Lear. “His word is as mine.”

A slight breeze then would have knocked me off my feet, so shocked was I. Oh, there was still madness glowing in the old man’s eyes, but so was the fire of his authority. A feeble, babbling wretch one moment, the next a dragon deep inside the old man barked fire.

“Yes, your majesty,” said Gloucester.

“He’s a good lad,” said Kent, by way of easing the bite of Lear’s command.

“Nuncle, bring your naked madman and let us go with Gloucester, to this hovel by the city wall. I’ll retrieve my nitwit apprentice from the castle and off we’ll be to meet up with the bloody frog King Jeff at Dover.”

Kent rubbed my shoulder. “A sword in support then?”

“No, thank you,” said I. “You stay with the old man, get him to Dover.” I pulled Kent over by the fire and bade him bend down so I could whisper in his ear. “Did you know that Lear murdered his brother?”

The old knight’s eyes went wide, then narrowed as if he were in pain. “He gave the order.”

“Oh, Kent. Thou loyal old fool.”

EIGHTEEN KITTEN’S CLAWS

We entered Castle Gloucester in stealth, which does not suit me, as you might guess. I am better suited to entering a room with a series of somersaults, a clack-stick, rude noise, and a “top o’ the mornin’ to ye, tossers!” I’m fitted out in bells and puppets, for fuck’s sake. All this sneaking and subterfuge was wearing on me. I followed the Earl of Gloucester through a secret hatch in the stable and into a tunnel that passed under the moat. We waded through a foot of cold water in the dark, making for a slosh in my step as well as a jingle. I’d never fit Drool through the narrow passage, even if I could chase the dark with a torch. The tunnel opened through another hatch in the floor of the dungeon. The earl took his leave in the very torture chamber where I had met Regan.

“I’m off to arrange the passage for your master to Dover, fool. I still have a few servants who are true to me.”

I felt indebted to the old man for helping me into the castle, especially given his former bitterness toward me. “Steer clear of the bastard, your grace. I know he is your favored son, but not rightly so. He’s a villain.”

“Don’t disparage Edmund, fool. I know your conniving ways. Only last evening he stood with me in protest against Cornwall’s treatment of the king.”

I could tell Gloucester about the letter I’d forged in Edgar’s hand, about the bastard’s plan to usurp his brother, but what could he do? Likely he’d storm into Edmund’s quarters and the bastard would murder him on the spot.

“Right, then,” said I. “Be careful, my lord. Cornwall and Regan are a four-fanged viper, and if they should turn their venom on Edmund, you must let him go. Do not come to his aid, lest you, too, are scratched with poisonous pricks.”

“My last true son. Shame on you, fool,” said the earl. He scoffed and hurried out of the dungeon and up the stairs.

I thought to prevail upon one god or another to protect the old man, but if the gods were working in my favor, they would continue unbidden, and if they opposed, there was no need to alert them to my cause. It pained me, but I took off my shoes and hat and tucked them into my jerkin to still the bells. Jones had remained back at the hovel with Lear.

The laundry lay in the lower levels of the castle, so I made my way there first. The laundress with the aforementioned knockers of the smashing persuasion was hanging a basketload of shirts by the fire when I entered.

“Where’s Drool, love?” I asked.

“Hidden,” she said.

“I know he’s bloody hidden, otherwise asking would have been superfluous, wouldn’t it?”

“Just want me to give him up, then? How do I know you’re not out to kill him? That old knight who brought him here said not to let anyone know where he was.”

“But I’m here to get him out of the castle. Rescue him, as it were.”

“Aye, you say that, but—”

“Listen, you bloody tart, give up the git!”

“Emma,” said the laundress.

I sat down on the hearth and rested my head in my hands. “Love, I’ve spent the night in a storm with a witch and two raving nutters. I’ve a brace of wars to see to, as well as the summary violation of two princesses and consequent cuckolding of a pair of dukes. I’m heartbroken, aggrieved for the loss of a friend, and the great drooling lummox that is my apprentice is evidently wandering the castle in search of a mortal chest wound. Pity a fool, love—another non sequitur may dash my brittle sanity to splinters.”

“My name is Emma,” said the laundress.

“I’m right here, Pocket,” said Drool, standing up in the great cauldron. A pile of laundry on his head had been concealing his great empty melon as he lurked in the water. “Knockers hided me. She’s a love.”

“You see,” said Emma. “He keeps calling me Knockers.”

“It’s a compliment, love.”

“It’s disrespectful,” she said. “My name’s Emma.”

I will never understand women. The laundress, it would seem, dressed in a manner that accentuated, indeed, celebrated her bosoms—a tightly cinched waist pushing bits up until they bloomed out of a swooping neckline—yet a chap notices and the lady takes offense. I will never understand it.

“You know he’s a complete nitwit, don’t you, Emma?”

“Just the same.”

“Fine. Drool, apologize to Emma for saying how smashing her knockers are.”

“Sorry about your knockers,” said Drool, bowing his head so his laundry hat dropped back into the drink.

“Satisfied, Emma?” I asked.

“I suppose.”

“Good. Now, do you know where Captain Curan, the commander of King Lear’s knights might be?”

“Oh yes,” said Emma. “Lord Edmund and the duke consulted me this morning on all the military matters, as they are wont to do—me being a laundress and having access to all the best bloody tactics and strategies and the lot.”

“Sarcasm will make your tits fall off,” said I.

“Will not,” said she, her arm going to a support position.

“It’s a known fact,” I said, nodding earnestly, then looking to Drool, who also nodded earnestly and said, “It’s a known fact,” note for note in my voice.

“That’s bloody spooky.” Emma shuddered. “You lot can get out of my laundry.”

“Very well, then,” said I. I motioned for Drool to climb out of the cauldron. “I thank you for looking after the Natural, Emma. I wish there were something I could—”

“Kill Edmund,” she said.

“Pardon?”

“The son of a guild builder were going to marry me before I came to work here. A respected man. Edmund took me against my will and bragged about it in the village. My lad wouldn’t have me then. No one worth his salt will have me, except the bastard, and him whenever he wants. ’Tis Edmund who commanded that I wear this low frock. Says he’ll set me out with the pigs if I don’t give him service. Kill him for me.”

“But lass, I’m just a fool. A clown. A small one at that.”

“There’s more to you than that, you black-hatted rascal. I’ve seen them wicked daggers at your back, and I can see who’s pulling the strings round this castle, and it ain’t the duke or the old king. Kill the bastard.”

“Edmund beated me,” said Drool. “And she do have smashing knockers.”

“Drool!”

“Well, she do.”

“All right, then,” said I, taking the laundress’s hand. “But in time. We’ve things to accomplish first.” I bowed over her hand, kissed it, then turned on my heel and padded barefoot out of the laundry to set history.

“Heinous fuckery,” Drool whispered to the laundress with a wink.

I hid Drool in the gatehouse among the heavy chains that I had used for my escape when I pursued Lear into the storm. Getting the lummox up on the wall and to the gatehouse undetected was no small task, and he left a dripping trail on the stones until we gained the castle exterior, but the guard was light in the tempest, so most of the way we went across the top of the walls unseen. My feet felt as if they’d been set in ice by the time I came back in to a fire, but there was no other way. Drool in the tight space of the secret tunnel, with his fear of the dark was not something I would wish on an enemy. I found a woolen blanket and wrapped the lout in it to await my return.

“Guard my shoes and my satchel, Drool.”

I made my way, dodging from nook to cranny, through the kitchen, to the servants’ entrance into the great hall, hoping I might get a moment with Regan there. The hall’s massive fireplace would be an enticement for the princess on such a frigid day, for as much as she took to the activities of a dungeon, she was drawn to heat like a cat.

Because Castle Gloucester had no curtain wall, even the great hall was fitted with arrow loops, so the edifice might be defended at all levels from an attack by water. The arrow loops, while shuttered, were notoriously drafty, so arrases[40] were hung over the alcoves against the wind—the perfect place for a fool to watch, warm himself, and find his moment.

I slipped into the room behind a brace of serving girls and into the alcove nearest the fireplace. She was there, by the fire, in a heavy, hooded, black fur robe, only her face revealed to the world.

I pulled the tapestry aside and was about to call to her when the latch was thrown on the hall’s main doors and the Duke of Cornwall entered, wearing his usual finery with the red lion crest on his chest, but more pointedly, Lear’s crown—the one the old man had thrown on the table that fateful night at the White Tower. Even Regan seemed startled to see it on the head of her husband.

“My lord, is it prudent to wear the crown of Britain when our sister is still in the castle?”

“Right, right, we must keep up appearances as if we don’t know that Albany raises an army against us.” Cornwall took the crown off and hid it under a cushion by the hearth. “I am to meet Edmund here and lay a plan for the duke’s undoing. One hopes that your sister can be kept out of harm’s way.”

Regan shrugged. “If she throws herself under destiny’s hooves, who are we to save her brains from being pulped?”

Cornwall took her in his arms and kissed her passionately.

Oh lady, thought I, push him away lest you debase your lovely lips with villainy. Then it occurred to me, and perhaps rather later than it should have, that she would no more taste villainy than a garlic eater will taste the stinking rose on another. The lady had evil on her breath already.

Even as the duke held her tight and professed his adoration of her, she wiped her mouth on her sleeve behind his back. She pushed the duke away when the bastard Edmund entered the hall.

“My lord,” said Edmund, only nodding to Regan. “Our plans for Albany must be delayed. Look at this letter.”

The duke took the parchment from Edmund.

“What?” said Regan. “What, what, what?”

“France has landed forces. He knows of unrest between ourselves and Albany and has hidden forces in coastal cities all over Britain.”

Regan snatched the parchment out of Cornwall’s hand and read it for herself. “This is addressed to Gloucester.”

Edmund bowed in false contrition. “Aye, milady, I found it in his closet and brought it here as soon as I saw its contents.”

“Guard!” called Cornwall. The great doors opened and a soldier looked in. “Bring me the Earl of Gloucester. Give no deference to his title, he is a traitor.”

I looked for a way back to the kitchen, to perhaps find Gloucester and warn him of the bastard’s treachery, but Edmund faced the alcove where I was hiding and there was no getting out undiscovered. I opened the shutter to the arrow loop. Even if I could manage to wiggle through it, the wall was a sheer drop to the lake below. I palmed the shutter closed and latched it.

The latch on the main doors clanked again and I returned to the gap between the wall and the tapestry, from which I saw Goneril enter, trailed by two soldiers who held Gloucester by the arms. The old man looked as if he had given up already and hung between the soldiers like a drowned man.

“Hang him,” said Regan, turning to warm her hands by the fire.

“What is this?” said Goneril.

Cornwall handed her the letter and stood looking over her shoulder while she read.

“Pluck out his eyes,” she said, making an effort not to look at Gloucester.

Cornwall took the letter gently from her hand and put his hand on her shoulder in brotherly support. “Leave him to our displeasure, sister. Edmund, keep our sister company and see her safely home. Lady, tell your duke we must unite against this foreign force. We’ll send dispatches quickly between us. Go now, Earl of Gloucester, you do not want to see the dealings with this traitor.”

Edmund couldn’t conceal a smile upon being addressed by the title he had lusted after for so many years. “I will,” said Edmund. He offered his arm to Goneril, who took it. They started out of the hall.

“No!” said Regan.

Everyone stopped. Cornwall stepped between Regan and her sister. “Lady, now is the time when we must all be united against the foreign power.”

Regan gritted her teeth and turned back to the fire, waving them away. “Go.”

Edmund and Goneril left the hall.

“Bind him to that chair, then leave us,” Cornwall commanded his soldiers.

They tied the old earl to a heavy chair and stood back.

“You are my guests,” said Gloucester. “Do me no foul play.”

“Filthy traitor,” said Regan. She took the letter from her husband and threw it in the old man’s face. She grabbed a pinch of Gloucester’s beard and yanked it out. The earl yowled.

“So white, and such a traitor,” she said.

“I am no traitor. I am loyal to my king.”

She pulled another pinch from his beard. “What letters do you have late from France? What is their plan?”

Gloucester looked at the parchment on the floor. “I have only that.”

Cornwall charged up to Gloucester and pulled the old man’s head back by the back of his hair. “Speak now, to whose hands have you sent the lunatic king? We know you’ve sent him aid.”

“To Dover. I sent him to Dover. Only a few hours ago.”

“Why Dover?” said Regan.

“Because I would not see your cruel nails pluck out his old eyes or your sister tear his flesh with her boarish fangs. Because there are those who would care for him there. Not put him out in the storm.”

“He lies,” said Regan. “There’s a smashing torture chamber in the dungeon, shall we?”

But Cornwall would not wait. In a second he was sitting astraddle the old man and was digging his thumb into Gloucester’s eye socket. Gloucester screamed until his voice broke and there was a sickening pop.

I reached for one of my throwing daggers.

The main door to the hall cracked and heads popped up in the stairwell from the kitchen.

“Why Dover?” said Regan.

“Thou carrion bird!” said Gloucester with a cough. “Thou she-devil, I’ll not say.”

“Then you’ll not see light again,” said Cornwall, and he was on the old man again.

I would not have it. I drew back my dagger to cast it, but before I could, a band like ice encircled my wrist and I looked to see the girl ghost right beside me, staying my throw, in fact, paralyzing me. I could move only my eyes to look back on the horror playing out in the great hall.

Suddenly a boy brandishing a long butcher knife ran out of the kitchen stairwell and leapt on the duke. Cornwall stood and tried to draw his sword, but could not get it clear of the scabbard before the boy was on him, plunging the knife into his side. As the lad pulled back to stab again Regan drew a dagger from the sleeve of her robe and plunged it into the boy’s neck, then stepped back from the spray of blood. The boy clawed at his neck and fell.

“Away!” Regan shrieked, waving the dagger at the servants in the kitchen stairwell and the main door and they all disappeared like frightened mice.

Cornwall climbed unsteadily to his feet and plunged his sword into the boy’s heart. Then he sheathed his sword and felt his side. His hand came away bloody.

“Serves you right, you scurvy vermin,” said Gloucester.

With that Cornwall was on him again. “Out, foul jelly!” he shouted, digging his thumb into the earl’s good eye, but in that instant Regan’s dagger snapped down and took the eye. “Don’t trouble yourself, my lord.”

Gloucester passed out then from the pain and hung limp in his bonds. Cornwall stood and kicked the old man’s chest, knocking him over backward. The duke looked on Regan with adoring eyes, filled with the warmth and affection that can only come from watching your wife dirk another man’s eye out on your behalf, evidently.

“Your wound?” said Regan.

Cornwall held his arm out to his wife and she walked into his embrace. “It glanced across my ribs. I’ll bleed some and it pains me, but if bound, it’ll not be mortal.”

“Pity,” said Regan, and she plunged her dagger under his sternum and held it as his heart’s blood poured over her snowy-white hand.

The duke seemed somewhat surprised.

“Bugger,” he said, then he fell. Regan wiped her dagger and her hands on his tunic. She sheathed the blade in her sleeve, then went to the cushion where Cornwall had hidden her father’s crown, pulled back her hood, and fitted it on her head.

“Well, Pocket,” said the Duchess, without turning to the alcove where I was hidden. “How does it fit?”

I was somewhat surprised (although somewhat less so than the duke).

The ghost released me then, and I stood behind the tapestry, my knife still poised for the throw.

“You’ll grow into it, kitten,” said I.

She looked to my alcove and grinned. “Yes, I will, won’t I? Did you want something?”

“Let the old man go,” I said. “King Jeff of France has landed his army at Dover, that’s why Gloucester sent Lear there. You’d be wise to set a camp farther south. Rally your forces, with Edmund’s and Albany’s at the White Tower, perhaps.”

The great doors creaked and a head peeked in, a helmeted soldier.

“Send for a physician,” Regan called, trying to sound distressed. “My lord has been wounded. Throw his attacker on the dung heap and cast this traitor out the front gate. He can smell his way to Dover and his decrepit king.”

In a moment the chamber was filled with soldiers and servants and Regan walked out, casting one last look and a sly smile to my hiding place. I have no idea why she left me alive. I suspect it’s because she still fancied me.

I slipped out through the kitchen and made my way back to the gatehouse.

The ghost stood over Drool, who was cowering under his blanket in the corner. “Come on, you lovely brute, give us a proper snog.”

“Leave him be, wisp!” said I, although she was nearly as solid as a mortal woman.

“Balls up[41] your jaunty murdering for the day, did I, fool?”

“I might have saved the old man’s second eye.”

“You wouldn’t have.”

“I might have sent Regan to join her duke in whatever hell he inhabits.”

“No, you wouldn’t have.” Then she held up a ghostly finger, cleared her throat, and rhymed:

“You’ve said that one, already.”

“I know. Bit prematurely, too. Sorry. I think you’ll find it much more relevant now. Even a slow git like yourself can solve the riddle now, I reckon.”

“Or you could just fucking tell me what it means,” said I.

“Sorry, can’t do it. Ghostly mystery and whatnot. Ta.” And with that she faded away through the stone wall.

“I dinna shag the ghost, Pocket,” wailed Drool. “I dinna shag her.”

“I know, lad. She’s gone. Get up now, we’ve got to monkey down the drawbridge chains and find the blind earl.”

NINETEEN SHALL A MADMAN RISE

Gloucester was wandering around outside the castle, just beyond the drawbridge, coming dangerously close to tumbling into the moat. The storm was still raging and bloody rain streamed down the earl’s face from his empty eye sockets.

Drool caught the old man by the back of his cloak and lifted him like he was a kitten. Gloucester struggled and waved about in horror, as if he’d been snatched up by some great bird of prey instead of an enormous nitwit.

“There, there,” said Drool, trying to calm the old man the way one might try to settle a frightened horse. “I gots you.”

“Bring him away from the edge and set him down, Drool,” said I. “Lord Gloucester, this is Pocket, Lear’s fool. We’re going to take you to shelter and bandage your wounds. King Lear will be there, too. Just take Drool’s hand.”

“Get away,” said the earl. “Your comforts are in vain. I am lost. My sons are scoundrels, my estate is forfeit. Let me fall in the moat and drown.”

Drool set the old man down and pointed him toward the moat. “Go on, then, milord.”

“Grab him, Drool, you wooden-headed ninny!”

“But he told me to let him drown, and he’s an earl with a castle and the lot, and you’re only a fool, Pocket, so I got to do what he says.”

I strode forth, grabbed Gloucester and led him away from the edge. “He’s not an earl anymore, lad. He has nothing but his cloak to protect him from the rain, like us.”

“He’s got nothing?” said Drool. “Can I teach him to juggle so he can be a fool?”

“Let’s get him to shelter and see that he doesn’t bleed to death first, then you can give him fool lessons.”

“We’re going to make a fool of ye,” said Drool, clapping the old man on the back. “That’ll be the dog’s bollocks, won’t it, milord?”

“Drown me,” said Gloucester.

“Being a fool is ever so much better than being an earl,” said Drool, far too cheery for a cold-dismal day of post-maiming. “You don’t get a castle but you make people laugh and they give you apples and sometimes one of the wenches or the sheeps will have a laugh with you. It’s the mutt’s nuts,[42] it is.”

I stopped and looked at my apprentice. “You’ve been having a laugh with sheep?”

Drool rolled his eyes toward the slate sky. “No, I—we have pie sometimes, too, when Bubble makes it. You’ll like Bubble. She’s smashing.”

Gloucester seemed to lose all his will then, and let me lead him through the walled town, taking weak, halting steps. As we passed a long, half-timbered building I took to be barracks I heard someone call my name. I looked to see Curan, Lear’s captain, standing under an awning. He waved us over and we stood with our backs hard to the wall to try to escape the rain.

“Is that the Earl of Gloucester?” asked Curan.

“Aye,” said I. I told Curan what had transpired inside the castle and out on the heath since I’d last seen him.

“God’s blood, two wars. Cornwall dead. Who is master of our force, now?”

“Mistress,” said I. “Stay with Regan. The plan is as before.”

“No, it’s not. We don’t even know who her enemy is, Albany or France.”

“Aye, but your action should be the same.”

“I’d give a month’s wages to be behind the blade that slays that bastard Edmund.”

At the mention of his son, Gloucester started wailing again. “Drown me! I will suffer no more! Give me your sword that I may run upon it and end my shame and misery!”

“Sorry,” I said to Curan. “He’s been a bit of a weepy little Nancy to be around since they ripped his eyes out.”

“Well, you might bandage him up. Bring him in. Hunter’s still with us. He’s right handy with a cauterizing iron.”

“Let me end this suffering,” wailed Gloucester. “I can no longer endure the slings and arrows—”

“My lord Gloucester, would you please, by the fire-charred balls of St. George, shut the fuck up!”

“Bit harsh, innit?” said Curan.

“What, I said ‘please.’”

“Still.”

“Sorry, Gloucester, old chap. Most excellent hat.”

“He’s not wearing a hat,” said Curan.

“Well, he’s blind, isn’t he? If you hadn’t said anything he might have enjoyed his bloody hat, mightn’t he?”

The earl started wailing again. “My sons are villains and I have no hat.” He made to go on, but Drool clamped his great paw over the old man’s mouth.

“Thanks, lad. Curan, do you have any food?”

“Aye, Pocket, we can spare as much bread and cheese as you can carry, and one of the men can scare up a flask of wine, too, I’ll wager. His lordship has been most generous in providing us with fare,” Curan said for the benefit of Gloucester. The old man began struggling against Drool’s grip.

“Oh, Curan, you’ve set him off again. Hurry, if you please. We’ve got to find Lear and head to Dover.”

“Dover it is, then? You’ll join with France?”

“Aye, bloody King Jeff, great froggy, monkey-named, woman-stealing ponce that he is.”

“You’re fond of him, then?”

“Oh do piss off, captain. Just see to it that whatever force Regan might send after us doesn’t catch us. Don’t mutiny, just make your way to Dover east, then south. I’ll take Lear south, then east.”

“Let me come with you, Pocket. The king needs more protection than two fools and a blind man.”

“The old knight Caius is with the king. You will serve the king best by serving his plan here.” Not strictly true, but would he have done his duty if he thought his commander a fool? I think not.

“Aye, then, I’ll get your food,” said Curan.

When we arrived at the hovel, Tom O’Bedlam stood outside, naked in the rain, barking.

“That barking bloke is naked,” said Drool, for once not singing praise to St. Obvious, as we were actually traveling with a blind fellow.

“Aye, but the question is, is he naked because he’s barking, or is he barking because he’s naked?” I asked.

“I’m hungry,” said Drool, his mind overchallenged.

“Poor Tom is cold and cursed,” said Tom between barking fits, and for the first time seeing him in daylight and mostly clean, I was taken aback. Without the coat of mud, Tom looked familiar. Very familiar. Tom O’Bedlam was, in fact, Edgar of Gloucester, the earl’s legitimate son.

“Tom, why are you out here?”

“Poor Tom, that old knight Caius said he had to stand in the rain until he was clean and didn’t stink anymore.”

“And did he tell you to bark and talk about yourself in the third person?”

“No, I thought up that bit on my own.”

“Come inside, Tom. Help Drool with this old fellow.”

Tom looked at Gloucester for the first time and his eyes went wide and he sank to his knees. “By the cruelty of the gods,” said he. “He’s blind.”

I put my hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Be steadfast, Edgar, your father needs your help.” In that moment a light came into his eye like a spark of sanity returning and he nodded and stood up, taking the earl’s arm. Shall a madman rise to lead the blind.

“Come, good sir,” said Edgar. “Tom is mad, but he is not beyond aiding a stranger in distress.”

“Just let me die!” said Gloucester, trying to push Edgar away. “Give me a rope so I may stretch my neck until my breath is gone.”

“He does that a lot,” I said.

I opened the door, expecting to see Lear and Kent inside, but the hovel was empty, and the fire had died down to embers. “Tom, where is the king?”

“He and his knight set out for Dover.”

“Without me?”

“The king was mad to be back in the storm. ’Twas the old knight said to tell you they were headed for Dover.”

“Here, here, bring the earl inside.” I stood aside and let Edgar coax his father into the cabin. “Drool, throw some wood on the fire. We can stay only long enough to eat and dry out. We must be after the king.”

Drool ducked through the door and spotted Jones sitting on a bench by the fire where I had left him. “Jones! My friend,” said the dolt. He picked up the puppet stick and hugged it. Drool is somewhat unclear on the art of ventriloquism, and although I have explained to him that Jones speaks only through me, he has developed an attachment to the puppet.

“Hello, Drool, you great sawdust-brained buffoon. Put me down and stoke the fire,” said Jones.

Drool tucked the puppet stick in his belt and began breaking up kindling with a hatchet by the hearth while I portioned out the bread and cheese that Curan had given us. Edgar did his best to bandage Gloucester’s eyes and the old man settled down enough to eat some cheese and drink a little wine. Unfortunately, the wine and the blood loss, no doubt, took the earl from inconsolable wailing grief to a soul-smothering, sable-colored melancholy.

“My wife died thinking me a whoremonger, my father thought me damned for not following his faith, and my sons are both villains. I thought for a turn that Edmund might have redeemed his bastardy by being good and true, by fighting infidels in the Crusade, but he is more of a traitor than his legitimate brother.”

“Edgar is no traitor,” I said to the old man. Even as I said it Edgar held a finger to his lips and signaled for me to speak no further. I nodded to show I knew his will and would not give his identity away. He could be Tom as long as he wished, or for as long as he needed, for all I cared, as long as he put on some bloody trousers. “Edgar was always true to you, my lord. His treachery was all devised for your eyes by the bastard Edmund. It was two sons’ worth of evil done by one. Edgar may not be the sharpest arrow in the quiver, but he is no traitor.”

Edgar raised an eyebrow to me in question. “You’ll make no case for your intelligence sitting there naked and shivering when there’s a fire and blankets you can fashion into warm robes, good Tom,” said I.

He rose from his father’s side and went over to the fire.

“Then it is I who have betrayed Edgar,” said Gloucester. “Oh, the gods have seen fit to rain misery down on me for my unsteady heart. I have sent a good son into exile with hounds at his heels and left only the worms as heirs to my only estate: this withered blind body. Oh, we are but soft and squishy bags of mortality rolling in a bin of sharp circumstance, leaking life until we collapse, flaccid, into our own despair.” The old man began to wave his arms and beat at his brow, whipping himself into a frenzy, causing his bandages to unravel. Drool came over to the old man and wrapped his arms around him to hold him steady.

“It’s all right, milord,” said Drool. “You ain’t leakin’ hardly at all.”

“Let me send this broken house to ruin and rot in death’s eternal cold. Let me shuffle off this mortal coil—my sons betrayed, my king usurped, my estates seized—let me end this torture!”

He really was making a very good argument.

Then the earl grabbed Jones and tore him out of Drool’s belt. “Give me your sword, good knight!”

Edgar made to stop his father and I threw out an arm to hold him back—a toss of my head stopped Drool from interceding.

The old man stood, put the stick end of Jones under his rib cage, then fell forward onto the dirt floor. The breath shot from his body and he wheezed in pain. My cup of wine had been warming by the fire and I threw it on Gloucester’s chest.

“I am slain,” croaked the earl, fighting for breath. “The lifeblood runs from me even now. Bury my body on the hill looking down upon Castle Gloucester. And beg forgiveness of my son Edgar. I have wronged him.”

Edgar again tried to go to his father and I held him back. Drool was covering his mouth, trying not to laugh.

“I grow cold, cold, but at least I take my wrong-doings to my grave.”

“You know, milord,” I said. “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones, or so I’ve heard.”

“Edgar, my boy, wherever you are, forgive me, forgive me!” The old man rolled on the floor, and seemed somewhat surprised when the sword on which he thought himself impaled fell away. “Lear, forgive me that I did not serve you better!”

“Look at that,” said I. “You can see his black soul rising from his body.”

“Where?” said Drool.

A frantic finger to my lips silenced the Natural. “Oh, great carrion birds are rending poor Gloucester’s soul to tatters! Oh, Fate’s revenge is upon him, he suffers!”

“I suffer!” said Gloucester.

“He is bound to the darkest depths of Hades! Never to rise again.”

“Down the abyss I go. Forever a stranger to light and warmth.”

“Oh, cold and lonely death has taken him,” said I. “And a right shit he was in life, likely he’ll be buggered by a billion barb-dicked devils now.”

“Cold and lonely Death has me,” said the earl.

“No, it hasn’t,” said I.

“What?”

“You’re not dead.”

“Soon, then. I’ve fallen on this cruel blade and my life runs wet and sticky between my fingers.”

“You’ve fallen on a puppet,” said I.

“No, I haven’t. It’s a sword. I took it from that soldier.”

“You took my puppet stick from my apprentice. You’ve thrown yourself on a puppet.”

“You knave, Pocket, you’re not trustworthy and would jest at a man even as his life drains. Where is that naked madman who was helping me?”

“You threw yourself on a puppet,” said Edgar.

“So I’m not dead?”

“Correct,” said I.

“I threw myself on a puppet?”

“That is what I’ve been saying.”

“You are a wicked little man, Pocket.”

“So, milord, how do you feel, now that you’ve returned from the dead.”

The old man stood up and tasted the wine on his fingers. “Better,” said he.

“Good. Then let me present Edgar of Gloucester, the erstwhile naked nutter, who shall see you to Dover and your king.”

“Hello, Father,” said Edgar.

They embraced. There was crying and begging for forgiveness and filial snogging and overall the whole business was somewhat nauseating. A moment of quiet sobbing by the two men passed before the earl resumed his wailing.

“Oh, Edgar, I have wronged thee and no forgiveness from you can undo my wretchedness.”

“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said I. “Come, Drool, let us go find Lear and on to Dover and the sanctuary of the bloody fucking French.”

“But the storm still rages,” said Edgar.

“I’ve been wandering in this storm for days. I’m as wet and cold as I know how to get, and no doubt a fever will descend any hour now and crush my delicate form with heavy heat, but by the rug-munching balls of Sappho, I’ll not spend another hour listening to a blind old nutter wail on about his wrong-doings when there’s a stack of wrongs yet to be done. Carpe diem, Edgar. Carpe diem.”

“Fish of the day?” said the rightful heir to the earldom of Gloucester.

“Yes, that’s it. I’m invoking the fish of the bloody day, you git. I liked you better when you were eating frogs and seeing demons and the lot. Drool, leave them half the food and wrap yourself as warm as you can. We’re off to find the king. We’ll see you lot in Dover.”