Fool(26)

 

“I thought it would have a little hat, with bells.”

 

“Ah, yes. Well, given a private place to change, I’m sure that can be arranged. Under your skirt, perhaps. Roll to the side, love, we’ll be less obvious if we keep the cuddle on a lateral plane.” I popped her bosoms out of her frock, then, freed the roly-poly pink-nosed puppies to the firelight and the friendly ministries of this master juggler, and thought to burble my cheeks softly between them, when the ghost appeared.

 

The spirit was more substantial now, features describing what must have been a most comely creature before she was shuffled off to the undiscovered country, no doubt by a close relative weary of her irritating nature. She floated above the sleeping form of the cook Bubble, rising and falling on the draft of her snores.

 

“Sorry to haunt you while you’re rogering the help,” said the ghost.

 

“The rogering has not commenced, wisp, I have barely bridled the horse for a moist and bawdy ride. Now, go away.”

 

“Right, then. Sorry to have interrupted your attempted rogering.”

 

“Are you calling me a horse?” asked Possibly Fiona.

 

“Not at all, love, you pet the little jester and I’ll attend to the haunting.”

 

“There’s always a bloody ghost about, ain’t there?” commented Possibly, a squeeze on my knob for emphasis.

 

“When you live in a keep where blood runs blue and murder is the favored sport, yes,” said the ghost.

 

“Oh do fuck off,” said I. “Thou visible stench, thou steaming aggravation, thou vaporous nag! I’m wretched, sad, and lonely, and trying to raise a modicum of comfort and forgetting here in the arms of, uh—”

 

“Kate,” said Possibly Fiona.

 

“Really?”

 

She nodded.

 

“Not Fiona?”

 

“Kate since the day me da tied me belly cord to a tree.”

 

“Well, bugger. Sorry. Pocket here, called the Black Fool, charmed I’m sure. Shall I kiss your hand?”

 

“Double-jointed, then, are ye?” said Kate, a tickle to my tackle making her point.

 

“Bloody hell, would you two shut up?” said the ghost. “I’m haunting over here.”

 

“Go on,” said we.

 

The ghost boosted her bosom and cleared her throat, expecto-rating a tiny ghost frog that evaporated in the firelight with a hiss, then said:

 

“When a second sibling’s base derision,

 

Proffers lies that cloud the vision,

 

And severs ties that families bind,

 

Shall a madman rise to lead the blind.”

 

 

 

 

 

“What?” said the former Fiona.

 

“What?” said I.

 

“Prophecy of doom, innit?” said the ghost. “Spot o’ the old riddly foreshadowing from beyond, don’t you know?”

 

“Can’t kill her again, can we?” asked faux Fiona.

 

“Gentle spook,” said I. “If it is a warning you bring, state it true. If action you require, ask outright. If music you must make, play on. But by the wine-stained balls of Bacchus, speak your bloody business, quick and clear, then be gone, before time’s iron tongue licks away my mercy bonk with second thoughts.”

 

“You are the haunted one, fool. It’s your business I do. What do you want?”

 

“I want you to go away, I want Fiona to come along quietly, and I want Cordelia, Drool, and Taster back—now, can you tell me how to make those things come about? Can you, you yammering flurry of fumes?”

 

“It can be done,” said the ghost. “Your answer lies with the witches of Great Birnam Wood.”

 

“Or you could just fucking tell me,” said I.

 

“Nooooo,” sang the ghost, all ghosty and ethereal, and with that she faded away.

 

“Leaves a chill when she goes, don’t she?” said formerly Fiona. “Appears to have softened your resolve, if you don’t mind my sayin’.”

 

“The ghost saved my life last evening,” said I, trying to will life back into the wan and withered.

 

“Kilt the little one, though, didn’t she? Back to your bed, fool, the king’s leaving on the morrow and there’s a wicked lot of work to do in the morning to prepare for his trip.”

 

Sadly, I tucked away my tackle and sulked back to the portislodge to pack my kit for my final journey from the White Tower.

 

 

 

Well, I won’t miss the bloody trumpets at dawn, I can tell you that. And sod the bloody drawbridge chains rattling in my apartment before the cock crows. We might have been going to war for all the racket and goings-on at first light. Through the arrow loop I could see Cordelia riding out with France and Burgundy, standing in the stirrups like a man, like she was off to the hunt, rather than leaving her ancestral home forever. To her credit, she did not look back, and I did not wave to her, even after she crossed the river and rode out of sight.