Christopher Moore - Fool

“Jones,” said Taster, pointing to my jester’s scepter, Jones, who is, indeed, a smaller version of my own handsome countenance, fixed atop a sturdy handle of polished hickory. Jones speaks for me when even my tongue needs to exceed safe license with knights and nobles, his head pre-piked for the wrath of the dull and humorless. My finest art is oft lost in the eye of the subject.

“Yes, that would be right hilarious, Bubble—ironic imagery—like the lovely Squeak turning you on a spit over a fire, an apple up both your ends for color—although I daresay the whole castle might conflagrate in the resulting grease fire, but until then we’d laugh and laugh.”

I dodged a well-flung trout then, and paid Bubble a grin for not throwing her knife instead. Fine woman, she, despite being large and quick to anger. “Well, I’ve a great drooling dolt to find if we are to prepare an entertainment for the evening.”

Cordelia’s chambers lay in the North Tower; the quickest way there was atop the outer wall. As I crossed over the great main gatehouse, a young spot-faced yeoman called, “Hail, Earl of Gloucester!” Below, the greybeard Gloucester and his retinue were crossing the drawbridge.

“Hail, Edmund, you bloody bastard!” I called over the wall.

The yeoman tapped me on the shoulder. “Beggin’ your pardon, sirrah, [4] Sirrah—form of address, “dude.” but I’m told that Edmund is sensitive about his bastardy.”

“Aye, yeoman,” said I. “No need for prodding and jibe to divine that prick’s tender spot, he wears it on his sleeve.” I jumped on the wall and waved Jones at the bastard, who was trying to wrench a bow and quiver from a knight who rode beside him. “You whoreson scalawag!” said I. “You flesh-turd dropped stinking from the poxy arsehole of a hare-lipped harlot!”

The Earl of Gloucester glowered up at me as he passed under the portcullis. [5] Portcullis—a heavy vertical grate, usually spiked on the bottom and made of or clad in iron to resist fire. Typically the inner gate of a fortress, an open grate so attackers could be hit with arrows or spears if they broke through the outer gates.

“Shot to the heart, that one,” said the yeoman.

“Too harsh, then, you reckon?”

“A bit.”

“Sorry. Excellent hat, though, bastard,” I called, by way of making amends. Edgar and two knights were trying to restrain the bastard Edmund below. I jumped down from the wall. “Haven’t seen Drool, have you?”

“In the great hall this morning,” said the yeoman. “Not since.”

A call came around the top of the wall, passing from yeoman to yeoman until we heard, “The Duke of Cornwall and Princess Regan approach from the south.”

“Fuckstockings!” Cornwall: polished greed and pure born villainy; he’d dirk [6] Dirk—a knife, especially a dagger, or the act of using a dagger on someone. a nun for a farthing, [7] Farthing—the smallest denomination of English coinage, equal to one quarter of a penny. and short the coin, for the fun.

“Don’t worry, little one, the king’ll keep your hide whole.”

“Aye, yeoman, he will, and if you call me little one in company, the king’ll have you walking watch on the frozen moat all winter.”

“Sorry, Sir Jester, sir,” said the yeoman. He slouched then as not to seem so irritatingly tall. “Heard that tasty Princess Regan’s a right bunny cunny, eh?” He leaned down to elbow me in the ribs, now that we were best mates and all.

“You’re new, aren’t you?”

“Just two months in service.”

“Advice, then, young yeoman: When referring to the king’s middle daughter, state that she is fair, speculate that she is pious, but unless you’d like to spend your watch looking for the box where your head is kept, resist the urge to wax ignorant on her naughty bits.”

“I don’t know what that means, sir.”

“Speak not of Regan’s shaggacity, son. Cornwall has taken the eyes of men who have but looked upon the princess with but the spark of lust.”

“The fiend! I didn’t know, sir. I’ll say nothing.”

“And neither shall I, good yeoman. Neither shall I.”

And thus are alliances made, loyalties cemented. Pocket makes a friend.

The boy was right about Regan, of course. And why I hadn’t thought to call her bunny cunny myself, when I of all people should know—well, as an artist, I must admit, I was envious of the invention.

Cordelia’s private solar [8] Solar—a sitting room or parlor in the top story of a tower. The tower unblocked by outer walls receives a lot of sun, thus the name. lay at the top of a narrow spiral staircase lit only with the crosses of arrow loops. I could hear giggling as I topped the stairs.

“So I am of no worth if not on the arm and in the bed of some buffoon in a codpiece?” I heard Cordelia say.

“You called,” said I, stepping into the room, codpiece in hand.

The ladies-in-waiting giggled. Young Lady Jane, who is but thirteen, shrieked at my presence—disturbed, no doubt, by my overt manliness, or perhaps by the gentle clouting on the bottom she received from Jones.

“Pocket!” Cordelia sat at the center of the circle of girls—holding court, as such—her hair down, blond curls to her waist, a simple gown of lavender linen, loosely laced. She stood and approached me. “You honor us, Fool. Did you hear rumors of small animals to hurt, or were you hoping to accidentally surprise me in my bath again?”

I tipped my hat, a slight, contrite jingle there. “I was lost, milady.”

“A dozen times?”

“Finding my way is not my strong suit. If you want a navigator I’ll send for him, but hold me blameless should your melancholy triumph and you drown yourself in the brook, your gentle ladies weeping damply around your pale and lovely corpse. Let them say, ‘She was not lost in the map, confident as she was in her navigator, but lost in heart for want of a fool.’”

The ladies gasped as if I’d cued them. I’d have blessed them if I were still on speaking terms with God.

“Out, out, out, ladies,” Cordelia said. “Give me peace with my fool so that I might devise some punishment for him.”

The ladies scurried out of the room.

“Punishment?” I asked. “For what?”

“I don’t know yet,” she said, “but by the time I’ve thought of the punishment, I’m sure there’ll be an offense.”

“I blush at your confidence.”

“And I at your humility,” said the princess. She grinned, a crescent too devious for a maid of her tender years. Cordelia is not ten years my junior (I’m not sure, exactly, of my own age), seventeen summers has she seen, and as the youngest of the king’s daughters, she’s always been treated as if fragile as spun glass. But, sweet thing that she is, her bark could frighten a mad badger.

“Shall I disrobe for my punishment?” I offered. “Flagellation? Fellation? Whatever. I am your willing penitent, lady.”

“No more of that, Pocket. I need your counsel, or at least your commiseration. My sisters are coming to the castle.”

“Unfortunately, they have arrived.”

“Oh, that’s right, Albany and Cornwall want to kill you. Bad luck, that. Anyway, they are coming to the castle, as are Gloucester and his sons. Goodness, they want to kill you as well.”

“Rough critics,” said I.

“Sorry. And a dozen other nobles as well as the Earl of Kent are here. Kent doesn’t want to kill you, does he?”

“Not that I know of. But it is only lunchtime.”

“Right. And do you know why they are all coming?”

“To corner me like a rat in a barrel?”

“Barrels do not have corners, Pocket.”