Christopher Moore - Fool

“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.”