Fool Chapter 1

THE STAGEThe stage is a more or less mythical thirteenth-century Britain, with vestiges of British culture reaching give the axeorse to pre-Roman terms still loitering ab step to the fore. Britain encompasses what is now modern Great Britain, including England, Wales, Ireland, and Scotland, of which Lear is king. Gener all in ally, if not otherwise explained, conditions may be considered damp.ACT IWhen we are natural, we cry that we are let To this capacious stage of fools. King Lear, Act IV, Scene 5ONEALWAYS A BLOODY GHOSTTosser cried the seize.Theres al routes a blinking(a) raven.Foolish teachin him to talk, if you ask me, verbalise the sentry.Im duty-bound foolish, yeoman, say I. I am, you know? A fool. Fool to the court of Lear of Britain. And you are a tosser,1 I said.Piss mangle said the raven.The yeoman took a swipe at the bird with his spear and the great black bird swooped strike the wall and went cawing come on over the Thames. A ferryman looked up from his bo at, saw us on the tower, and waved. I jumped onto the wall and bowed at your fucking service, thank you. The yeoman grumbled and spat after the raven.There engender always been ravens at the White Tower. A thousand years ago, before George II, idiot king of Merica, destroyed the world, there were ravens here. The legend says that as long as there are ravens at the Tower, England will stand strong. Still, it may have been a mistake to teach one to talk.The Earl of Gloucester approaches cried a sentry on the westward wall. With his son Edgar and the bastard EdmundThe yeoman by me grinned. Gloucester, eh? Be original you do that bit where you play a goat and Drool plays the earl mistaking you for his wife.That would be unkind, said I. The earl is newly widowed.You did it the last time he was here and she was still ready in the grave.Well, yes. A service that trying to shock the poor wretch out of his grief, wasnt it?Good show, too. The way you was bleatin I thought ol Drool was g ivin it to you right proper up the bung.I made a note to shove the guard off the wall when opportunity presented.Heard he was going to have you assassinated, exactly he couldnt make a case to the king.Gloucesters a noble, he doesnt need a case for murder, just a whim and a blade.Not bloody uniformly, the yeoman said, everyone knows the kings got a wing oer you.That was true. I enjoy a certain(prenominal) license.Have you seen Drool? With Gloucester here, therell be a command performance. My apprentice, Drool a beef-witted bloke the size of a draught horse.He was in the kitchen before the watch, said the yeoman.The kitchen buzzed the staff preparing for a feast.Have you seen Drool? I asked Taster, who sit at the table staring sadly at a bread trencher2 laid out with bleak pork, the kings dinner. He was a thin, sickly lad, chosen, no doubt, for his weakness of constitution, and a predisposition toward dropping dead at the slightest provocation. I liked to tell him my troubles, s ure that they would not travel far.Does this look poisoned to you?Its pork, lad. Lovely. Eat up. Half the men in England would give a testicle to feast thus, and it only mid-day. Im tempted myself. I tossed my percentage point gave him a grin and a bit of a jingle on the ol hat bells to cheer him. I pantomimed stealing a bit of his pork. After you, of course.A wound thumped into the table by my hand.Back, Fool, said babble out, the head cook. Thats the kings lunch and Ill have your balls before Ill let you at it.My balls are yours for the asking, milady, said I. Would you have them on a trencher, or shall I serve them in a bowl of cream, like peaches?Bubble harrumphed, yanked her knife from the table and went back to gutting a trout at the exceptcher block, her great loafer rolling like thunderclouds under her skirt as she moved.Youre a wicked little man, Pocket, said Squeak, waves of freckles riding oer her shy smile. She was second to the cook, a sturdy, ginger-haired littl e girl with a high giggle and a generous spirit in the dark. Taster and I often passed pleasant afternoons at the table watching her rack the necks of chickens.Pocket is my name, by the way. Given to me by the abbess who found me on the nunnery doorstep when I was a tiny babe. True, I am not a monstrous fellow. Some might even say I am diminutive, but I am quick as a cat and reputation has compensated me with other gifts. But wicked?I think Drool was headed to the princesss chambers, Squeak said.Aye, said Taster, glumly. The lady sent for a cure for melancholy.And the git went? drollery on his own? The boy wasnt ready. What if he blundered, tripped, fell on the princess like a millstone on a butterfly? Are you sure?Bubble dropped a gutless trout into a bushel of slippery cofishes.3 Chanting, Off to do ma duty, he was. We told him youd be looking for him when we divulged Princess Goneril and the Duke of Albany was approach shot.Albanys coming?Aint he sworn to string your entrai ls from the chandelier? asked Taster.No, corrected Squeak. That was Duke of Cornwall. Albany was going to have his head on a pike, I believe. Pike, wasnt it, Bubble?Aye, have his head on a pike. Funny thing, thinkin about it, youd look like a bigger version of your puppet-stick there.Jones, said Taster, pointing to my jesters scepter, Jones, who is, indeed, a smaller version of my own fine-looking countenance, fixed atop a sturdy handle of polished hickory. Jones speaks for me when even my tongue needs to exceed safe license with knights and nobles, his head pre-piked for the wrath of the cloy and humorless. My finest art is oft lost in the eye of the subject.Yes, that would be right hilarious, Bubble ironic imagery like the lovely Squeak turning you on a spit over a fire, an apple up both your ends for color although I daresay the whole castle might conflagrate in the resulting dirty word fire, but until then wed laugh and laugh.I dodged a well-flung trout then, and paid Bubb le a grin for not throwing her knife instead. Fine woman, she, despite being large and quick to anger. Well, Ive a great drooling dolt to find if we are to prepare an entertainment for the evening.Cordelias chambers lay in the North Tower the quickest way there was atop the outer wall. As I crossed over the great main gatehouse, a young spot-faced yeoman called, Hail, Earl of Gloucester Below, the greybeard Gloucester and his retinue were crossing the drawbridge.Hail, Edmund, you bloody bastard I called over the wall.The yeoman tapped me on the shoulder. Beggin your pardon, sirrah,4 but Im told that Edmund is sensitive about his bastardy.Aye, yeoman, said I. No need for prodding and jibe to godlike that pricks tender spot, he wears it on his sleeve. I jumped on the wall and waved Jones at the bastard, who was trying to wrench a bow and quiver from a knight who rode beside him. You prick scalawag said I. You flesh-turd dropped stinking from the poxy arsehole of a hare-lipped harlo tThe Earl of Gloucester glowered up at me as he passed under the portcullis.5Shot to the heart, that one, said the yeoman.Too harsh, then, you prognosticate?A bit.Sorry. Excellent hat, though, bastard, I called, by way of making amends. Edgar and two knights were trying to restrain the bastard Edmund below. I jumped down from the wall. Havent seen Drool, have you?In the great hall this morning, said the yeoman. Not since.A call came around the top of the wall, passing from yeoman to yeoman until we heard, The Duke of Cornwall and Princess Regan approach from the south.Fuckstockings Cornwall polished greed and pure born villainy hed dirk6 a nun for a farthing,7 and short the coin, for the fun.Dont worry, little one, the kingll keep your hide whole.Aye, yeoman, he will, and if you call me little one in company, the kingll have you travel watch on the frozen moat all winter.Sorry, Sir Jester, sir, said the yeoman. He slouched then as not to seem so irritatingly tall. Heard that tasty Princess Regans a right bunny cunny, eh? He leaned down to elbow me in the ribs, now that we were best mates and all.Youre new, arent you?Just two months in service.Advice, then, young yeoman When referring to the kings midway daughter, state that she is fair, speculate that she is pious, but unless youd like to spend your watch looking for the box where your head is kept, resist the urge to wax ignorant on her red-hot bits.I dont know what that means, sir.Speak not of Regans shaggacity, son. Cornwall has taken the eyes of men who have but looked upon the princess with but the spark of lust. The fiend I didnt know, sir. Ill say nothing.And neither shall I, good yeoman. Neither shall I.And thus are alliances made, loyalties cemented. Pocket makes a friend.The boy was right about Regan, of course. And why I hadnt thought to call her bunny cunny myself, when I of all people should know well, as an artist, I must admit, I was envious of the invention.Cordelias private solar8 lay at the top of a narrow spiral staircase lit only with the crosses of arrow loops. I could hear giggling as I topped the stairs.So I am of no worth if not on the arm and in the bed of some buffoon in a codpiece? I heard Cordelia say.You called, said I, stepping into the room, codpiece in hand.The ladies-in-waiting giggled. Young Lady Jane, who is but thirteen, shrieked at my presence disturbed, no doubt, by my overt manliness, or perhaps by the gentle clouting on the bottom she received from Jones.Pocket Cordelia sat at the center of the circle of girls holding court, as such her hair down, blond curls to her waist, a simple gown of lavender linen, loosely laced. She stood and approached me. You honor us, Fool. Did you hear rumors of small animals to hurt, or were you hoping to accidentally surprise me in my bath again?I tipped my hat, a slight, contrite jingle there. I was lost, milady.A xii times?Finding my way is not my strong suit. If you extremity a navigator Ill send for him , but hold me blameless should your melancholy triumph and you cover yourself in the brook, your gentle ladies weeping damply around your pale and lovely corpse. Let them say, She was not lost in the map, confident as she was in her navigator, but lost in heart for want of a fool.The ladies gasped as if Id cued them. Id have blessed them if I were still on speaking terms with God.Out, out, out, ladies, Cordelia said. Give me heartsease with my fool so that I might devise some punishment for him.The ladies scurried out of the room.Punishment? I asked. For what?I dont know yet, she said, but by the time Ive thought of the punishment, Im sure therell be an offense.I blush at your confidence.And I at your humility, said the princess. She grinned, a crescent too devious for a maid of her tender years. Cordelia is not ten years my junior (Im not sure, exactly, of my own age), seventeen summers has she seen, and as the youngest of the kings daughters, shes always been treated as if fragi le as spun glass. But, concoction thing that she is, her bark could frighten a mad badger.Shall I disrobe for my punishment? I offered. Flagellation? Fellation? Whatever. I am your willing penitent, lady.No more of that, Pocket. I need your counsel, or at least your commiseration. My sisters are coming to the castle.Unfortunately, they have arrived.Oh, thats right, Albany and Cornwall want to kill you. Bad luck, that. Anyway, they are coming to the castle, as are Gloucester and his sons. Goodness, they want to kill you as well.Rough critics, said I.Sorry. And a dozen other nobles as well as the Earl of Kent are here. Kent doesnt want to kill you, does he?Not that I know of. But it is only lunchtime.Right. And do you know why they are all coming?To corner me like a rat in a barrel?Barrels do not have corners, Pocket.Does seem like a lot of bother for kill one small, if tremendously handsome fool.Its not about you, you dolt Its about me.Well, even less effort to kill you. How many c an it take to fool your scrawny neck? I worry that Drool will do it by accident someday. You havent seen him, have you?He stinks. I sent him away this morning. She waved a hand furiously to return to her point. Father is marrying me offNonsense. Who would have you?The lady darkened a bit, then, blue eyes gone cold. Badgers across Blighty9 shuddered. Edgar of Gloucester has always treasured me and the Prince of France and Duke of Burgundy are already here to pay me quandary.Troth about what?TrothAbout what?Troth, troth, you fool, not truth. The princes are here to marry me.Those two? Edgar? No. I was shaken. Cordelia? Married? Would one of them take her away? It was unjust Unfair Wrong Why, she had never even seen me naked.Why would they want to troth you? I mean, for the night, to be sure, who wouldnt troth you cross-eyed? But permanently, I think not.Im a bloody princess, Pocket.Precisely. What good are princesses? Dragon food and ransom markers spoiled brats to be bartered for real estate.Oh no, unspoiled fool, you forget that sometimes a princess becomes a queen.Ha, princesses. What worth are you if your father has to tack a dozen counties to your bum to get those French poofters to look at you?Oh, and what worth a fool? Nay, what worth a fools second, for you merely carry the drool cup for the Natural.10 Whats the ransom for a jester, Pocket? A bucket of warm spittle.I grabbed my chest. Pierced to the core, I am, I gasped. I staggered to a chair. I bleed, I suffer, I die on the forked lance of your words.She came to me. You do not.No, preventive back. Blood stains will never come out of linen they are stubborned with your cruelty and guiltPocket, stop it now.You have kilt me, lady, most dead. I gasped, I spasmed, I coughed. Let it always be said that this humble fool brought joy to all whom he met.No one will say that.Shhhh, child. I advance weak. No breath. I looked at the imaginary blood on my hands, horrified. I slid off a chair, to the floor. B ut I want you to know that despite your brutal nature and your freakishly large feet, I have always And then I died. Bloody fucking brilliantly, Id say, too, hint of a shudder at the end as deaths chilly hand grabbed my knob.What? What? You have always what?I said nothing, being dead, and not a little exhausted from all the bleeding and gasping. loyalty be told, under the jest I felt like Id taken a bolt to the heart.Youre absolutely no help at all, said Cordelia.The raven landed on the wall as I made my way back to the common house in search of Drool. No little vexed was I by the news of Cordelias looming nuptials.Ghost said the raven.I didnt teach you that.Bollocks replied the raven.Thats the spiritGhostPiss off, bird, said I.Then a cold wind bit at my bum and at the top of the stairs, in the turret ahead, I saw a shimmering in the shadows, like silk in fair weather not quite in the shape of a woman.And the ghost saidWith grave offense to daughters three,Alas, the king a foo l shall be.Rhymes? I inquired. Youre looming about all diaphanous in the middle of the day, puking cryptic rhymes? Low craft and tawdry art, ghosting about at noon a parsons fart heralds darker doom, thou babble wisp.Ghost cried the raven, and with that the ghost was gone.Theres always a bloody ghost.