Christopher Moore - Fool

“Are we at the edge?”

“Aye, there are fishermen on the beach below that look like mice. The dogs look like ants.”

“What do the horses look like?” asked Gloucester.

“There aren’t any horses. Just fishermen and dogs. Don’t you hear the sea crashing below?”

“Yes. Yes, I do. Farewell, Edgar, my son. I am sorry. Gods, do your will!” With that the old man leaped off the rock, expecting to plummet hundreds of feet to his death, I reckon, so he was somewhat surprised when he met the ground in an instant.

“Oh my lord! Oh my lord!” said Edgar, trying to use a different voice and failing completely. “Sir, you have duly fallen from the cliffs above.”

“I have?” said Gloucester.

“Aye, sir, can you not see?”

“Well, no, you git, my eyes are bandaged and bloody. Can you not see?”

“Sorry. What I saw was you fall from a great height and land as softly as if you were a feather floating down.”

“I am dead, then,” said Gloucester. He sank to his knees and seemed to lose his breath. “I am dead, yet I still suffer, my grief is manifest, my eyes ache even though they are not there.”

“That’s because he’s fucking with you,” said I.

“What?” said Gloucester.

“Shhhh,” said Edgar. “’Tis a mad beggar, pay him no heed, good sir.”

“Fine, you’re dead. Enjoy,” said I. I lay back on the ground, out of the wind, and pulled my coxcomb over my eyes.

“Come, come sit with me,” said Lear. I sat up and watched Lear lead the blind man to his nest beneath the great boulders. “Let the cruelties of the world slide off our bent backs, friend.” Lear put his arm around Gloucester and held him while he spoke to the sky.

“My king,” said Gloucester. “I am safe in your mercy. My king.”

“Aye, king. But I have no soldiers, no lands, no subject quakes before me, no servants wait, and even your bastard son hath treated you better than my own daughters.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said I. But I could see that the old blind man was smiling, and for all his suffering, he found comfort in his friend the king, no doubt having been blinded to his scoundrel nature long before Cornwall and Regan took his eyes. Blinded by loyalty. Blinded by title. Blinded by shoddy patriotism and false righteousness. He loved his mad, murdering king. I lay back down to listen.

“Let me kiss your hand,” said Gloucester.

“Let me wipe it first,” said Lear. “It smells of mortality.”

“I smell nothing, and see nothing evermore. I am not worthy.”

“Art thou mad? See with your ears, Gloucester. Have you never seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar, and thus chase him off? Is that dog the voice of authority? Is he better than the many for denying the man’s hunger? Is a sheriff righteous who whips the whore, when it is for his own lust he punishes her? See, Gloucester. See who is worthy? Now we are stripped of finery, see. Small vices show through tattered clothes, when all is hidden beneath fur and fine robes. Plate sin with gold and the strong lance of justice breaks on decoration. Blessed are you, that you cannot see—for you cannot see me for what I am: wretched.”

“No,” said Edgar. “Your impertinence comes from madness. Do not weep, good king.”

“Do not weep? We weep when we first smell the air. When we are born, we cry, that we come to this great stage of fools.”

“No, all shall be well again, and—”

And there was a thump, followed by another, and a yowl.

“Die, thou blind mole!” came a familiar voice.

I sat up in time to see Oswald standing over Gloucester, a bloodied stone in one hand, his sword driven down through the old earl’s chest. “You’ll not poison my lady’s cause further.” He twisted the blade, and blood bubbled up out of the old man, but no sound did he make. He was quite dead. Oswald yanked his blade free and kicked Gloucester’s body across Lear’s lap, as the king cowered against the boulder. Edgar lay unconscious at Oswald’s feet. The vermin drew back as if to drive his sword into Edgar’s spine.

“Oswald!” I shouted. I stood behind my boulders as I drew a throwing knife from the sheath at my back. The worm turned to me, and pulled his blade up. He dropped the bloody stone he’d used to brain Edgar. “We have an arrangement,” said I. “And further slaughter of my cohorts will cause me to doubt your sincerity.”

“Sod off, fool. We’ve no arrangement. You’re a lying cur.”

“Moi?” said I, in perfect fucking French. “I can give you your lady’s heart, and not in the unpleasant, eviscerated, no-shagging-except-the-corpse way.”

“You have no such power. You’ve not bewitched Regan’s heart, neither. ’Tis she who sent me here to kill this blind traitor who turns minds against our forces. And to deliver this.” He pulled a sealed letter from his jerkin.

“A letter of mark, giving you permission in the name of the Duchess of Cornwall to be a total twatgoblin?”

“Your wit is dull, fool. It is a love letter to Edmund of Gloucester. He set out for here with a scouting party to assess the French forces.”

“My wit is dull? My wit is dull?”

“Yes. Dull,” said Oswald. “Now, en garde,” said he in barely passable fucking French.

“Yes,” said I, with an exaggerated nod. “Yes.”

And with that, Oswald found himself seized by the throat and dashed several times against the boulders, which relieved him of his sword, his dagger, the love letter, and his coin purse. Drool then held the steward up and squeezed his throat, slowly but sternly, causing wet gurgling noises to bubble from his foul gullet.

I said,

Oswald seemed somewhat surprised by the turn of events, so much so, that both his eyes and tongue protruded from his face in a wholly unhealthy way. He then began to surrender his various fluids and Drool had to hold him away to keep from being fouled by them.

“Drop him,” said Lear, who still cowered by the boulders.

Drool looked to me and I shook my head, ever so slightly.

“Die, thou badger-shagging spunk monkey,” said I.

When Oswald stopped kicking and simply hung limp and dripping, I nodded to my apprentice, who tossed the steward’s body over the cliff as easily as if it were an apple core.

Drool went down on one knee over Gloucester’s body. “I were going to teach him to be a fool.”

“Aye, lad, I know you were.” I stood by my boulders, resisting the urge to comfort the great murderous git with a pat on the shoulder. There was a rustling from over the top of the hill and I thought I heard the sound of metal on metal through the wind.

“Now he’s blind and dead,” said the Natural.

“Bugger,” said I, under my breath. Then to Drool, “Hide, and don’t fight, and don’t call for me.”

I fell flat to the ground as the first soldier topped the hill. Bugger! Bugger! Bugger! Bloody bollocksing buggering bugger! I reflected serenely.

Then I heard the voice of the bastard Edmund. “Look, my fool. And what’s this? The king? What good fortune! You’ll make a fine hostage to stay the hand of the Queen of France and her forces.”

“Have you no heart?” said Lear, petting the head of his dead friend Gloucester.

I peeked out between my rocks. Edmund was looking at his dead father with the expression of someone who has just encountered rat scat in his toast for tea. “Yes, well, tragic I suppose, but with succession of his title determined and his sight gone, a timely exit was only polite. Who’s this other deader?” Edmund kicked his unconscious half brother in the shoulder.