Christopher Moore - Fool

“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.

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] “By St. Cardomon’s scaly feet”—the legend goes that St. Cardomon was a monk from Italy to whom the Archangel Raziel appeared, asking for a drink of water. While looking for water, Cardomon accidentally wandered into a cave that led into hell. There he was lost for forty days and forty nights, and while his feet burned when he first arrived, he soon developed the green and scaly feet of a lizard, and was protected from the fires of hell. When he returned to the angel with a flagon of ice-water (which no one had seen before), he was granted the gift of scaly feet for all time and it is often said that a woman with feet so rough that they will tear the bedsheets are “blessed by St. Cardomon.” Cardomon is the patron saint of combination skin, cold beverages, and necrophilia. 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?”