Christopher Moore - Fool

“I’m sorry.”

“You’re a love, Pocket. Good-bye.” She reached through the bars and touched my cheek, like the slightest brush of silk it was. “Care for her.”

“What?”

She started to float toward the far wall where the body of Edmund lay.

She said:

“Nooooooo,” wailed Drool. “My old da is dead.”

“No he isn’t,” said Thalia. “Lear wasn’t your father. I was having you on.”

She faded away and I started to laugh and she was gone.

“Don’t laugh, Pocket,” said Drool. “I are an orphan.”

“And she didn’t even hand us the bloody keys,” said I.

Heavy footsteps fell on the stairs and Captain Curan appeared in the passage with two knights. “Pocket! We’ve been looking for you. The day is ours and Queen Cordelia approaches from the south. What of the king?”

“Dead,” said I. “The king is dead.”

All my years as an orphan, only to find that I had a mother, but she killed herself over cruelty from the king, the only father I had ever known…

To find I had a father, but he, too, was murdered by order of the king…

To find the best friend I’d ever known was the mother of the woman I adored, and she was murdered, horribly, by order of the king, because of what I had done…

To go from being an orphan clown to a bastard prince to a cutthroat avenger for ghosts and witches in less than a week, and from upstart crow to strategist general in a matter of months…

To go from telling bawdy stories for the pleasure of an imprisoned holy woman to planning the overthrow of a kingdom…

It was bloody disorienting, and not a little tiring. And I’d built quite an appetite. A snack was in order—perhaps even a full meal, with wine.

I watched from the arrow loops in my old apartment in the barbican as Cordelia entered the castle. She rode a great white warhorse, and both she and the horse were fitted with full plate armor, fashioned in black with gold trim. The golden lion of England was emblazoned on her shield, a golden fleur-de-lis of France on her breastplate. Two columns of knights rode behind her, carrying lances with the banners of Wales, Scotland, Ireland, Normandy, France, Belgium, and Spain. Spain? She’d conquered bloody Spain in her spare time? She was rubbish at chess before she left. Real war must be easier.

She reined up her horse in the middle of the drawbridge, stood in the stirrups, pulled off her helmet and shook out her long golden hair. Then she smiled up at the gatehouse. I ducked out of sight—I’m not sure why.

“Mine!” she barked, then she laughed and led the column into the castle.

Yes, I know, love, but bad form, isn’t it, to march about with your own bloody army laying claim to random property, innit? Unladylike.

She was bloody glorious.

Yes, a snack would do nicely. I laughed a bit myself and danced my way to the great hall, indulging in the odd somersault along the way.

Perhaps going to the great hall in search of food wasn’t the best idea, and perhaps it wasn’t my real intention, which was just as well, since instead of a repast, the bodies of Lear and his two daughters were laid out on three high tables, Lear on the dais where his throne sat, Regan and Goneril below, on either side, on the main floor.

Cordelia stood over her father, still in her armor, her helmet tucked under her arm. Her long hair hung in her face, so I couldn’t tell if she was crying.

“He’s a good deal more pleasant now,” said I. “Quieter. Although he moves about the same speed.”

She looked up and smiled, a great dazzling smile, then seemed to remember she was grieving and bowed her head again. “Thank you for your condolences, Pocket. I see you have managed to fend off pleasantness in my absence.”

“Only by keeping you constantly in my thoughts, child.”

“I’ve missed you, Pocket.”

“And I you, lamb.”

She stroked her father’s hair. He wore the heavy crown that he’d thrown on the table before Cornwall and Albany what seemed so long ago.

“Did he suffer?” Cordelia asked.

I considered my answer, which I almost never do. I could have vented my ire, cursed the old man, made testament to his life of cruelty and wickedness, but that would serve Cordelia not a bit, and me very little. Still, I needed to temper my tale with some truth.

“Yes. At the end, he suffered greatly in his heart. At the hands of your sisters, and under the weight of regret for doing wrong to you. He suffered, but not in his body. The pain was in his soul, child.”

She nodded and turned from the old man. “You shouldn’t call me child, Pocket. I’m a queen now.”

“I see that. Smashing armor, by the way, very St. George. Come with a dragon, did it?”

“No, an army, as it turns out.”

“And an empire, evidently.”

“No, I had to take that myself.”

“I told you your disagreeable nature would serve you in France.”

“That you did. Right after you told me that princesses were only good for—what was it—‘dragon food and ransom markers’?”

There it was, that smile again, sunshine on my frozen heart, it felt. And like a frostbitten limb, there were pins and needles as the feeling returned. Suddenly I felt the small purse with the witch’s puffball heavy on my belt.

“Yes, well, one can’t be right all the time, it would undermine one’s credibility as a fool.”

“Your credibility is already in question in that regard. Kent tells me that the kingdom fell before me so easily because of your doing.”

“I didn’t know it was you, I thought it was bloody Jeff. Where is Jeff, anyway?”

“In Burgundy with the duke—well, the Queen of Burgundy. They both insist on being referred to as the Queen of Burgundy. Turns out you were right about them, which again counts against your standing as a fool. I caught them together at the palace in Paris. They confessed that they’d fancied each other since they were boys. Jeff and I came to an arrangement.”

“Aye, there’s usually an arrangement in those situations—the arrangement of the queen’s head and body at different addresses.”

“Nothing like that, Pocket. Jeff is a decent chap. I didn’t love him, but he was a good fellow. Saved me when Father threw me out, didn’t he? And by the time this happened I’d won the guard and most of the court to my sympathies—if anyone was going to lose his head, it wasn’t me. France took some territories, Toulouse, Provence, and some bits of the Pyrenees with him, but considering the territories I’ve taken, overall it’s more than fair. The boys have a crashingly large palace in Burgundy that they perpetually redecorate. They’re quite happy.”

“The boys? Bloody Burgundy buggering froggy France? By the dangling ovaries of Odin, there’s a song in there somewhere!”

She grinned. “I’ve purchased a divorce from the Pope. Bloody dear [46] Dear—British colloquialism, expensive, costly. it was, too. If I’d known Jeff was going to insist on sanction of the Church I’d have pushed to reinstate the old Discount Pope.”

The sound of the great doors opening echoed through the hall and Cordelia turned, fierce fire in her eyes. “I said I was to be left alone!”

But then Drool, who had lumbered through, pulled up as if he’d seen a ghost, and started to back away. “Sorry. Beggin’ your pardons. Pocket, I got Jones and your hat.” He held up the puppet stick and my coxcomb, forgot for a second that he’d been shouted at, then resumed backing out the doors.