Fool(30)

 

“M’lady has instructed me to instruct you that her father’s knights are not welcome in the castle.”

 

“That so? She’s actually talking to you, then?”

 

“I’ll not have an exchange with an impudent fool.”

 

“He’s not impudent,” said Jones. “With proper inspiration, the lad sports a woody as stout as a mooring pin. Ask your lady.”

 

I nodded in agreement with the puppet, for he is most wise for having a brain of sawdust.

 

“Impudent! Impudent! Not impotent!” Oswald frothing a bit now.

 

“Oh, well, why didn’t you say so,” said Jones. “Yes, he’s that.”

 

“To be sure,” said I.

 

“Aye,” said Jones.

 

“Aye,” said I.

 

“The king’s rabble shall not be permitted in the castle.”

 

“Aye. That so, Oswald?” I reached up and patted his cheek. “You should have ordered trumpets and rose petals scattered on our path.” I turned and waved the advance to the train, Curan spurred his horse and the column galloped forward. “Now get off the bridge or be trampled, you rat-faced little twat.”

 

I strode past Oswald into the castle, pumping Jones in the air as if I was leading cadence for war drummers. I think I should have been a diplomat.

 

As Lear rode by he clouted Oswald on the head with his sheathed sword, knocking the unctuous steward into the moat. I felt my anger for the old man slip a notch.

 

Kent, his disguise now completed by nearly three weeks of hunger and living in the outdoors, fell in behind the train as I had instructed. He looked lean and leathery now, more like an older version of Hunter than the old, overfed knight he had been at the White Tower. I stood to the side of the gate as the column entered and nodded to him as he passed.

 

“I’m hungry, Pocket. All I had to eat yesterday was an owl.”

 

“Perfect fare for witch finding, methinks. You’re with me to Great Birnam Wood tonight, then?”

 

“After supper.”

 

“Aye. If Goneril doesn’t poison the lot of us.”

 

 

 

Ah, Goneril, Goneril, Goneril—like a distant love chant is her name. Not that it doesn’t summon memories of burning urination and putrid discharge, but what romance worth the memory is devoid of the bittersweet?

 

When I first met her, Goneril was but seventeen, and although betrothed to Albany from the age of twelve, she had never seen him. A curious, round-bottomed girl, she had spent her entire life in and around the White Tower, and she’d developed a colossal appetite for knowledge of the outside world, which somehow she thought she could sate by grilling a humble fool. It started on odd afternoons, when she would call me to her chambers, and with her ladies-in-waiting in attendance, ask me all manner of questions her tutors had refused to answer.

 

“Lady,” said I, “I am but a fool. Shouldn’t you ask someone with position?”

 

“Mother is dead and Father treats us like porcelain dolls. Everyone else is afraid to speak. You are my fool, it is your duty to speak truth to power.”

 

“Impeccable logic, lady, but truth be told, I’m here as fool to the little princess.” I was new to the castle, and did not want to be held accountable for telling Goneril something that the king didn’t wish her to know.

 

“Well, Cordelia is having her nap, so until she wakes you are my fool. I so decree it.”

 

The ladies clapped at the royal decree.

 

“Again, irrefutable logic,” said I to the thick but comely princess. “Proceed.”

 

“Pocket, you have traveled the land, tell me, what is it like to be a peasant?”

 

“Well, milady, I’ve never been a peasant, strictly speaking, but for the most part, I’m told it’s wake early, work hard, suffer hunger, catch the plague, and die. Then get up the next morning and do it all again.”

 

“Every day?”

 

“Well, if you’re a Christian—on Sunday you get up early, go to church, suffer hunger until you have a big meal of barley and swill, then catch the plague and die.”

 

“Hunger? Is that why they seem so wretched and unhappy?”

 

“That would be one of the reasons. But there’s much to be said for hard work, disease, run-of-the-mill suffering, and the odd witch burning or virgin sacrifice, depending on your faith.”

 

“If they are hungry, why don’t they just eat something?”

 

“That is an excellent idea, milady. Someone should suggest that.”

 

“Oh, I shall make a most excellent duchess, I think. The people will praise me for my wisdom.”