Fool(45)

 

I shrugged as if to say, “Aye, boobs sounds right.”

 

“Aye, most pernicious perfidy indeed, sire,” said I.

 

“Aye, most bouncy and jiggling perfidy,”[34] said Kent.

 

Then, as if coming out of a trance, Lear snapped to attention in his saddle. “You, Caius, have Curan saddle a fast horse for you. You must go to Gloucester, tell my friend the earl that we are coming.”

 

“Aye, my lord,” said Kent.

 

“And Caius, see that my apprentice Drool comes to no harm,” said I.

 

Kent nodded and went back across the drawbridge. The old king looked down to me.

 

“Oh, my pretty Black Fool, where from fatherly duty did I stray that such ingratitude should rise in Goneril like mad fever?”

 

“I am only a fool, my lord, but making a guess, I’d say the lady may have in her delicate youth required more discipline to shape her character.”

 

“Speak plain, Pocket, I’ll not hold harm against you.”

 

“You needed to smack the bitch up when she was tender, my lord. Instead, now you hand your daughters the rod and pull down your own breeches.”

 

“I’ll have you flogged, fool.”

 

“His word is like the dew,” said the puppet Jones, “good only until put under light of day.”

 

I laughed, simple fool that I am, no thought at all that Lear was becoming as inconstant as a butterfly. “I need to speak to Curan and find a horse for the journey, sirrah,” said I. “I’ll bring your cloak.”

 

Lear sagged in the saddle now, spent now from his ranting. “Go, good Pocket. Have my knights prepare.”

 

“So I shall,” said I. “So I shall.” I left the old man there alone outside the castle.

 

 

 

 

 

TWELVE

 

 

A KING’S ROAD

 

 

 

 

Having set the course of events in motion, I wonder now if my training to be a nun, and my polished skills at telling jokes, juggling, and singing songs fully qualify me to start a war. I have so often been the instrument of the whims of others, not even a pawn at court, merely an accoutrement to the king or his daughters. An amusing ornament. A tiny reminder of conscience and humanity, tempered with enough humor so it can be dismissed, laughed off, ignored. Perhaps there is a reason that there is no fool piece on the chessboard. What action, a fool? What strategy, a fool? What use, a fool? Ah, but a fool resides in a deck of cards, a joker, sometimes two. Of no worth, of course. No real purpose. The appearance of a trump, but none of the power. Simply an instrument of chance. Only a dealer may give value to the joker. Make him wild, make him trump. Is the dealer Fate? God? The king? A ghost? Witches?

 

The anchoress spoke of the cards in the tarot, forbidden and pagan as they were. We had no cards, but she would describe them for me, and I drew their images on the stones of the antechamber in charcoal. “The fool’s number is zero,” she said, “but that’s because he represents the infinite possibility of all things. He may become anything. See, he carries all of his possessions in a bundle on his back. He is ready for anything, to go anywhere, to become whatever he needs to be. Don’t count out the fool, Pocket, simply because his number is zero.”

 

Did she know where I was heading, or do her words only have meaning to me now, as I, the zero, the nothing, seek to move nations? War? I couldn’t see the appeal.

 

Drunk, and dire of mood one night, Lear mused of war when I suggested that what he needed to cast off his dark aspect was a good wenching. “Oh, Pocket, I am too old, and the joy of a fuck withers with my limbs. Only a good killing can still boil lust in my blood. And one will not do, either. Kill me a hundred, a thousand, ten thousand on my command—rivers of blood running through the fields—that’s what pumps fire into a man’s lance.”

 

“Oh,” said I. “I was going to fetch Shanker Mary for you from the laundry, but ten thousand dead and rivers of blood might be a bit beyond her talents, majesty.”

 

“No, thank you, good Pocket, I shall sit and slide slowly and sadly into oblivion.”

 

“Or,” said I, “I could put a bucket on Drool’s head and beat him with a sack of beets until the floor is splattered crimson while Shanker Mary gives you a proper tug to accentuate the gore.”

 

“No, fool, there is no pretending to war.”

 

“What’s Wales doing, majesty? We could invade the Welsh, perpetrate enough slaughter to raise your spirits, and have you back for tea and toast.”

 

“Wales is ours now, lad.”