Christopher Moore - Fool

“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?”