Christopher Moore - Fool

— King Lear, Act IV, Scene 1, Gloucester

Drool and I slogged through the cold rain for a day, across hill and dale, over unpaved heath and roads that were little more than muddy wheel ruts. Drool affected a jaunty aspect, remarkable considering the dark doings he had just escaped, but a light spirit is the blessing of the idiot. He took to singing and splashing gaily through puddles as we traveled. I was deeply burdened by wit and awareness, so I found sulking and grumbling better suited my mood. I regretted that I hadn’t stolen horses, acquired oilskin cloaks, found a fire-making kit, and murdered Edmund before we left. The latter, among many reasons, because I could not ride upon Drool’s shoulders, as his back was still raw from Edmund’s beatings. Bastard.

I should say here, that after some days in the elements, the first I’d spent there since my time with Belette and the traveling mummer troupe many years ago, I determined that I am an indoor fool. My lean form does not fend off cold well, and it seems no better at shedding water. I fear I am too absorbent to be an outdoor fool. My singing voice turns raspy in the cold, my japes and jokes lose their subtlety when cast against the wind, and when my muscles are slowed by an unkind chill, even my juggling is shit. I am untempered for the tempest, unsuited for a storm—better fit for fireplace and featherbed. Oh, warm wine, warm heart, warm tart, where art thou? Poor, cold Pocket, a drowned and wretched rat is he.

We traveled in the dark for miles before we smelled meat-smoke on the wind and spotted the orange light of an oil-skinned window in the distance.

“Look, Pocket, a house,” said Drool. “We can sit by the fire and maybe have a warm supper.”

“We’ve no money, lad, and nothing to trade them.”

“We trade ’em a jest for our supper, like we done before.”

“I can think of nothing amusing to do, Drool. Tumbling is out of the question, my fingers are too stiff to work Jones’s talk string, and I’m too weary even for the simple telling of a tale.”

“We could just ask them. They might be kind.”

“That’s a blustery bag of tempest toss, innit?”

“They might,” insisted the oaf. “Bubble once give me a pie without I ever jested a thing. Just give it to me, out of the kindness of her heart.”

“Fine. Fine. We shall prevail upon their kindness, but should that fail, prepare yourself to bash in their brains and take their supper by force.”

“What if there’s a lot of ’em? Ain’t you going to help?”

I shrugged and gestured to my fair form: “Small and weary, lad. Small and weary. If I’m too weak to perform a puppet show, I think the brain-bashing duties will, by necessity, fall upon you. Find a sturdy stick of firewood. There, there’s a woodpile over there.”

“I don’t want to bash no brains,” said the stubborn nitwit.

“Fine, here, take one of my daggers.” I handed him a knife. “Give a good dirking to anyone who requires it.”

At that point the door opened and a wizened form stepped into the doorway and raised a storm lantern. “Who goes there?”

“Beggin’ pardon, sirrah,” said Drool. “We was wondering if you required a good dirking this evening?”

“Give that to me.” I snatched the dagger away from the git and fitted it into the sheath at my back.

“Sorry, sir, the Natural jests out of turn. We are looking for some shelter from the storm and perhaps a hot meal. We’ve only bread and a little cheese, but we will share it for the shelter.”

“We are fools,” said Drool.

“Shut up, Drool, he can see that by my kit and your empty gaze.”

“Come in, Pocket of Dog Snogging,” said the bent figure. “Mind your head on the doorjamb, Drool.”

“We’re buggered,” said I, pushing Drool through the door ahead of me.

Witches three. Parsley, Sage, and Rosemary. Oh no, not in the Great Birnam Wood where they are generally kept, where one might fairly expect to encounter them, but here in a warm cabin off the road between the Gloucestershire villages of Tossing Sod and Bongwater Crash? A flying house, perhaps? It’s rumored that witches are afraid of such structures.

“I thought you was an old man but you is an old woman,” said Drool to the hag who had let us in. “Sorry.”

“No proof, please,” said I, afraid that one of the hags might confirm her gender by lifting her skirts. “The lad’s suffered enough of late.”

“Some stew,” said the crone Sage, the warty one. A small pot hung over the fire.

“I’ve seen what you put in your stew.”

“Stew, stew, true and blue,” said the tall witch, Parsley.

“Yes, please,” said Drool.

“It’s not stew,” said I. “They call it stew because it rhymes with bloody blue, but it’s not stew.”

“No, it’s stew,” said Rosemary. “Beef and carrots and the lot.”

“Afraid it is,” said Sage.

“Not bits of bat wing, eye of lecher, sweetbreads of newt, and the lot, then?”

“A few onions,” said Parsley.

“That’s it? No magical powers? No apparitions? No curse? You appear out here in the middle of nowhere—nay, on the very fringe of the tick’s knickers that sucks the ass of nowhere—and you’ve no agenda except to feed the Natural and me and give us a chance to chase the chill?”

“Aye, that’s about it,” said Rosemary.

“Why?”

“Couldn’t think of nothin’ that rhymes with onions,” said Sage.

“Aye, we were right fucked for spell casting once the onions went in,” said Parsley.

“Truth be told, beef put us against the wall, didn’t it?” said Rosemary.

“Yeah, fief, I suppose,” mused Sage, rolling her good eye toward the ceiling. “And teef, although strictly speaking, that ain’t a proper rhyme.”

“Right,” said Parsley. “No telling what kind of dodgy apparition you’ll conjure you cock up the rhyme like that. Fief. Teeth. Pathetic, really.”

“Stew, please,” said Drool.

I let the crones feed us. The stew was hot and rich and mercifully devoid of amphibian and corpse bits. We broke out the last of the bread Curan had given us and shared it with the witches, who produced a jug of fortified wine and poured it for all. I warmed both inside and out, and for the first time in what seemed days, my clothes and shoes were dry.

“So, it’s going well, then?” asked Sage, after we’d each had a couple of cups of wine.

I counted out calamities on my digits: “Lear stripped of his knights, civil war between his daughters, France has invaded, Duke of Cornwall murdered, Earl of Gloucester blinded, but reunited with his son, who is a raving loony, the sisters enchanted and in love with the bastard Edmund—”

“I shagged ’em proper,” added Drool.

“Yes, Drool boffed them until both walked unsteady, and, let’s see, Lear wanders across the moors to find sanctuary with the French at Dover.” Handfuls of happenings.

“Lear suffers, then?” asked Parsley.

“Greatly,” said I. “He’s nothing left. A great height from which to fall, being king of the realm reduced to a wandering beggar, gnawed from the inside by regret for deeds he did long ago.”

“You feel for him, then, Pocket?” asked Rosemary, the greenish, cat-toed witch.

“He rescued me from a cruel master and brought me to live in his castle. It’s hard to hold hatred with a full stomach and a warm hearth.”

“Just so,” said Rosemary. “Have some more wine.”

She poured some dark liquid into my cup. I sipped it. It tasted stronger, warmer than before.

“We’ve a gift for you, Pocket.” Rosemary brought out a small leather box from behind her back and opened it. Inside were four tiny stone vials, two red and two black. “You’ll be needing these.”