Fool (13 page)

“No,” said I. “I think it will be too esoteric for the king. He is old and nods off during long performances.”

“Shame,” said big hat. “A moving piece. Let me do a selection for you.
‘Green eggs, or not green eggs? That is the question. Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to eat them in a box, with a fox-’”

“Stop!” said I. “Go now, and quickly. War has come to the land and rumor has it that as soon as they’ve finished with the lawyers, they’re going to kill all the actors.”

“Really?”

“Aye,” I nodded most sincerely. “Quick, on to Birmingham, before you are slaughtered.”

“Everyone jump on,” said big hat, and the actors did as directed. “Fare thee well, fool!” Then he snapped the reins and drove off, the wagon’s wheels bouncing in the ruts of the road.

Lear’s train parted and watched as the team pulled the wagon by at a gallop.

“What was that?” asked Lear when I returned.

“Wagonload of knobs,” said I.

“Why do they hurry, so?”

“We commanded it so, nuncle. Half their troupe is ill with fever. We want them nowhere near your men.”

“Oh, good show, then, lad. I thought you might be missing the life and were going to join their troupe.”

I shuddered at the thought. It had been a cold December day like this when I’d first come to the White Tower with my mummer troupe. We were decidedly not thespians, but singers, jugglers, and acrobats, and I a special asset because I could do all three. Our master was a crooked Belgian named Belette, who bought me from Mother Basil for ten shillings and the promise to feed me. He spoke Dutch, French, and a very broken English, so I don’t know how he managed to secure the White Tower for a performance that Christmas, but I was told later that the troupe that was supposed to have performed had suddenly taken ill with stomach cramps and I suspect that Belette poisoned them.

I had been with Belette for months, and except for the beatings and cold nights sleeping under a wagon, I had received little but my daily bread, the occasional cup of wine, and the skills of knife-throwing and sleight of hand as it could be applied to purse cutting.

We were led into the great hall at the tower, which was filled with nobles reveling and feasting on platters of food such as I had never seen. King Lear sat at the center of the main table, flanked by two beautiful girls about my age, who I would later find out were Regan and Goneril. Beside Regan sat Gloucester, his wife, and their son Edgar. The intrepid Kent sat on the other side next to Goneril. Under that table, at Lear’s feet, a little girl was curled up, watching the celebration-wide-eyed, like a frightened animal, clinging to a rag doll. I must confess, I thought the child might be deaf or even simpleminded.

We performed for perhaps two hours, singing songs of the saints during dinner, then moving on to bawdier fare as the wine flowed and the guests loosened their hold on propriety. By late in the evening everyone was laughing, the guests were dancing with the performers, and even the commoners who lived in the castle had joined the party, but the little girl remained under the table, making not a sound. Not a smile, not an eyebrow raised in delight. There was light there behind those crystal-blue eyes-this was not a simpleton-but she seemed to be staring out of them from afar.

I crawled under the table and sat next to her. She barely acknowledged my presence. I leaned in close and nodded toward Belette, who stood by a column near the center of the hall, leering lecherously at the young girls who frolicked about him. I could see the little girl spied the scoundrel, too. Ever so softly, I sang a little song the anchoress had taught me, with the lyrics changed a bit to adapt to the situation.

“Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat who ate his tail.”

And the little girl pulled back and looked at me, as if to see if I had really sung such a thing. And I sang on:

“Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat, who drowned in a pail.”

And the little girl cackled-a broken, little-girl yodel of a laugh that rang of innocence and joy and delight.

I sang on, and ever so softly, she sang with me,

“Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat-”

And we were no longer alone under the table. There was another pair of crystal-blue eyes, and behind them a white-haired king. The old king smiled and squeezed my biceps. And before the other guests noticed that the king was under the table, he sat back up on his throne, but he reached down and lay a hand across the little girl’s shoulder and the other upon mine. It was a hand reached across a vast chasm of reality-from the highest position of ruler of the realm, to a lowborn orphan boy who slept in the mud under a wagon. I thought it must have been how a knight felt when the king’s sword touched his shoulder, elevating him to nobility.

“Was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,”
we sang.

When the party died down and noble guests hung drunk over the tables, the servants piled onto the floor before the fire, Belette began to move among the revelers and tap each of his performers, calling them to gather by the door. I had fallen asleep under the table, and the little girl against my arm. He pulled me up by my hair. “You did nothing all night. I watched.” I knew there was a beating in store for when we got back to the wagon, and I was prepared for it. At least I had eaten some supper at the feast.

But as Belette turned to drag me away he stopped, abruptly. I looked up to see the master frozen in space, a sword-point pressed into his cheek just below his eye. He let go of my hair.

“Good thought,” said Kent, the old bull, pulling his sword back, but holding it steadily aimed, a hand’s breadth from Belette’s eye.

There was a sound of coin on the table and Belette couldn’t help but look down, even at the peril of his life. A doeskin purse as big as a man’s fist lay before him.

The chamberlain, a tall, severe chap who looked perpetually down his nose, stood beside Kent. He said, “Your payment, plus ten pounds, which you shall accept as payment for this boy.”

“But-” said Belette.

“You are a word from your mortality, sirrah,” said Lear. “Do go on.” He sat straight and regal on his throne, one hand pressed to the cheek of the little girl, who had awakened and was clinging to his leg.

Belette took the purse, bowed deeply, and backed across the hall. The other mummers of my troupe bowed and followed him out.

“What is your name, boy?” asked Lear.

“Pocket, your majesty.”

“Well, then, Pocket, do you see this child?”

“Yes, majesty.”

“Her name is Cordelia. She is our youngest daughter, and henceforth shall be your mistress. You have one duty above all, Pocket. That is to make her happy.”

“Yes, majesty.”

“Take him to Bubble,” said the king. “Have her feed and bathe him, then find him new clothes.”

Back on the road to Gloucester, Lear said, “So, what is your will, Pocket? Would you be a traveling mummer again-trade the comfort of the castle for the adventure of the road?”

“Apparently, I have, nuncle,” said I.

We camped at the stream, which froze over during the night. The old man sat shivering by the fire with his rich fur cloak wrapped around him; the garment so full and the man so slight that it appeared he was being consumed by a slow but well-groomed beast. Only his white beard and the hawk nose were visible outside the cloak-two stars of fire shone back in the cape creature, his eyes.

Snow fell around us in great wet orgies of flakes, and my own woolen cloak, which I’d pulled over my head, was sodden.

“Have I been so unfit as a father that my daughters would turn on me so?” asked Lear.

Why, now, did he choose to stare into the dark barrel of his soul, when he’d been content all these years to simply scoop out his desires and let the consequences wash over whomever they may? Bloody inopportune time for introspection, after you’ve given away the roof over your head. But I did not say so.

“What would I know of proper fathering, sire? I had no father nor mother. I was reared by the Church, and I’d not give a hot squirt of piss for the lot of them.”

“Poor boy,” said the king. “As long as I live, you shall have father and family.”

I would have pointed out that he had himself declared his crawl to the grave commenced, and that given his performance with his daughters, I might do better to go forth an orphan, but the old man had rescued me from the life of a slave and wanderer, and given me a home in the palace, with friends and, I suppose, family of a sort. So I said, “Thank you, majesty.”

The old man sighed heavily and said, “None of my three queens ever loved me.”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Lear, I’m a jester, not a bloody wizard. If you’re going to keep diving into the muck of your regrets then I’ll just hold your sword for you and you can see if you can get your ancient ass moving enough to fall on the pointy part so we can both get some bloody peace.”

Lear laughed then-twisted old oak that he was-and patted my shoulder. “I could ask nothing more of a son than he give me laughter in my despair. I’m off to bed. Sleep in my tent, tonight, Pocket, out of the cold.”

“Aye, sire.” I was touched by the old man’s kindness, I cannot deny it.

The old man tottered over to his tent. One of the pages had been carrying hot stones into the tent for an hour and I felt the heat rush out as the king ducked inside.

“I’ll be in after I’ve had a wee,” said I. I walked to the edge of the fire’s light and beside a great bare elm was relieving myself when a blue light shimmered in the forest before me.

“Well, that’s a woolly tuft of lamb wank,” said a woman’s voice, just as the girl ghost stepped out from behind the tree upon which I was weeing.

“God’s balls, wisp, I’ve almost peed on you!”

“Careful, fool,” said the ghost, looking frighteningly solid now-just a tad translucent-snowflakes were passing through her. But I was not frightened.

“Warm thy grateful heart,

In the king’s family,

But for his royal crimes,

You’d not an orphan be.”

“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.