Christopher Moore - Fool

And with but two steps my strategy revealed its flaw.

“You’re jingling like a coin purse possessed of fits,” said Kent. “You couldn’t creep up on the deaf nor dead. Silence your bloody bells, Pocket.”

I placed my coxcomb on the ground. “I can leave my hat, but I’ll not take off my shoes—we’ll surrender all stealth if I’m screaming from trodding tender-footed across lizards, thorns, hedgehogs, and the lot.”

“Here, then,” said Kent, pulling the remains of the pork shoulder from his satchel. “Dampen your bells with the fat.”

I raised an eyebrow quizzically—an unappreciated and overly subtle gesture in the dark—then shrugged and began working the suet into the bells at my toes and ankles.

“There!” I shook a leg to the satisfying sound of nothing at all. “Forward!”

Creep we did, until we were just outside the halo of firelight. Three bent-backed hags were walking a slow circle around a large cauldron, dropping in twisted bits of this and that as they chanted.

“Witches,” whispered Kent, paying tribute to the god of all things bloody fucking obvious.

“Aye,” said I, in lieu of clouting him. (Jones stayed behind to guard my hat.)

They double-bubbled the chorus and we were readying ourselves for another verse of the recipe when I felt something brush against my leg. It was all I could do not to cry out. I felt Kent’s hand on my shoulder.

“Steady, lad, it’s just a cat.”

Another brush, and a meow. Two of them now, licking my bells, and purring. (It sounds more pleasant than it was.) “It’s the bloody pork fat,” I whispered.

A third feline joined the gang. I stood on one foot, trying to hold the other above their heads, but while I am an accomplished acrobat, the art of levitation still eludes me; thus my ground-bound foot became my Achilles’ heel, as it were. One of the fiends sank its fangs into my ankle.

“Fuckstockings!” said I, somewhat emphatically. I hopped, I whirled, I made disparaging remarks toward all creatures of the feline aspect. Hissing and yowling ensued. When at last the cats retreated, I was sitting splayed-legged by the fire, Kent stood next to me with his sword drawn and ready, and the three hags stood in ranks across the cauldron from us.

“Back, witches!” said Kent. “You may curse me into a toad, but they’ll be the last words out of your mouths while your heads are attached.”

“Witches?” said the first witch, who was greenest of the three. “What witches? We are but humble washerwomen, making our way in the wood.”

“Rendering laundry service, humble and good,” said witch two, the tallest.

“All it be, is as it should,” said witch three, who had a wicked wart over her right eye.

“By Hecate’s [27] Hecate—Greek goddess of witchcraft, sorcery, and ghosts. night-tarred nipples, stop rhyming!” said I. “If you’re not witches, what was that curse you were bubbling about?”

“Stew,” said Warty.

“Stew, stew most true,” said Tall.

“Stew most blue,” said Green.

“It’s not blue,” said Kent, looking in the cauldron. “More of a brown.”

“I know,” said Green, “but brown doesn’t rhyme, does it, love?”

“I’m looking for witches,” said I.

“Really?” said Tall.

“I was sent by a ghost.”

The hags looked at one another, then back at me. “Ghost told you to bring your laundry here, did it?” said Warty.

“You’re not washerwomen! You’re bloody witches! And that’s not stew, and the bloody ghost of the bloody White Tower said to seek you here for answers, so can we get about it, ye gnarled knots of erect vomitus?”

“Ah, we’re toads for sure now,” sighed Kent.

“Always a bloody ghost, innit?” said Tall.

“What did she look like?” asked Green.

“Who? The ghost? I didn’t say it was a she—”

“What did she look like, fool?” snarled Warty.

“I suppose I shall pass my days eating bugs and hiding under leaves until some crone drops me in a cauldron,” mused Kent, leaning on his sword now, watching moths dart into the fire.

“She was ghostly pale,” said I, “all in white—vaporous, with fair hair and—”

“She was fit, [28] Fit—British slang, attractive, sexy. though?” asked Tall. “Lovely, you might even say?”

“Bit more transparent than I care for in my wenches, but aye, she was fit.”

“Aye,” said Warty, looking to the others, who huddled with her.

When they came up, Green said, “State your business, then, fool. Why did the ghost send you here?”

“She said you could help me. I am fool to the court of King Lear of Britain. He has sent away his youngest daughter, Cordelia, of whom I am somewhat fond; he’s given my apprentice fool, Drool, to that blackguard bastard Edmund of Gloucester, and my friend Taster has been poisoned and is quite dead.”

“And don’t forget that they’re going to hang you at dawn,” added Kent.

“Don’t concern yourselves with that, ladies,” said I. “About to be hanged is my status quo, not a condition that requires your repair.”

The hags huddled again. There was much whispering and a bit of hissing. They broke their conference and Warty, who was the apparent coven leader, said, “That Lear’s a nasty piece of work.”

“Last time he went Christian a score of witches were drowned,” said Tall.

Kent nodded, and looked at his shoes. “The Petite Inquisition—not a high point.”

“Aye, we were a decade spelling them all back to life for the revenge,” said Warty. “Rosemary here still seeps pond-water from the ears on damp days,” said Tall.

“Aye, and carps ate my small toes while I was pond-bottom,” said Green.

“Her toes thus gefilted, [29] Gefilte fish—a poached ground fish patty, usually made of carp. we had to seek an enchanted lynx and take two of his for replacement.”

Rosemary (who was Green) nodded gravely.

“Goes through shoes in a fortnight, but there’s no better witch to chase a squirrel up a tree,” said Tall.

“That’s true,” said Rosemary.

“Beats the burnings, though,” said Warty.

“Aye, that’s true,” said Tall. “No amount of cat toes’ll fix you if you’ve all your bits burnt off. Lear had him some burnings as well.”

“I’m not here on behalf of Lear,” said I. “I’m here to correct the madness he’s done.”

“Well, why didn’t you say so?” said Rosemary.

“We’re always keen on sending a bit of the mayhem Lear’s way,” said Warty. “Shall we curse him with leprosy?”

“By your leave, ladies, I don’t wish the old man’s undoing, only the undoing of his deeds.”

“A simple curse would be easier,” said Tall. “A bit o’ bat spittle in the cauldron and we can have him walking on duck feet before breakfast. Make him quack, too, if you’ve a shilling or a freshly-strangled infant for the service.”

“I just want my friends and my home back,” said I.

“Well, if you can’t be persuaded, let us have a consult,” said Rosemary. “Parsley, Sage, a moment?” She waved the other witches over to an old oak where they whispered.

“Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary?” said Kent. “What, no Thyme?”

Rosemary wheeled on him. “Oh, we’ve the time if you’ve the inclination, handsome.”