Fool(47)

 

“Anytime we want,” said Goneril, with less conviction than her sister.

 

“Shall I send in a maid to tie back the tapestry, mum?” I asked, with a grand wave to the tapestry I’d loosed from the wall when I leapt.

 

“Uh, yes, do that,” commanded Regan. “This instant!”

 

“This instant,” barked Goneril.

 

“Right away, mum.” And with a grin and a bow, I was gone from the room.

 

I made my way down the spiral stairs clinging to the wall, lest my heart give out and send me tumbling. Cordelia stood at the bottom of the stairs, cradling the kitten, looking up at me as if I were Jesus, Zeus, and St. George all back from a smashing day of dragon slaying. Her eyes were unnaturally wide and she appeared to have stopped breathing. Bloody awe, I suppose.

 

“Stop staring like that, lamb, it’s disturbing. People will think you’ve a chicken bone caught in your throat.”

 

“Thank you,” she said, with a great, shoulder-shaking sob.

 

I patted her head. “You’re welcome, love. Now run along, Pocket has to fish his hat from the moat and then go to the kitchen and drink until his hands stop shaking or he drowns in his own sick, whichever comes first.”

 

She backed away to let me pass, never taking her eyes from mine. It had been thus since the night I arrived at the tower—when her mind first crept out from whatever dark place it had been living before my arrival—those wide, crystal-blue eyes looking at me with unblinking wonder. The child could be right creepy.

 

 

 

“Do not make yourself a maid to surprise, nuncle,” said I. I held the reins of my and the king’s horse as they drank from an ice-laced stream some hundred miles north of Gloucester. “Regan is a treasure to be sure, but she may have the same mind as her sister. Although they will deny it, it’s often been the case.”

 

“I cannot think it so,” said the king. “Regan will receive us with open arms.” There was a racket behind us and the king turned. “Ah, what is this?”

 

A gaily painted wagon was coming out of the wood toward us. Several of the knights reached for swords or lances. Captain Curan waved for them to stand at ease.

 

“Mummers, sire,” said the Captain.

 

“Aye,” said Lear, “I forgot, the Yule is nearly on us. They’ll be going to Gloucester as well, I’ll wager, to play for the Yule feast. Pocket, go tell them that we grant them safe passage and they may follow our train under our protection.”

 

The wagon creaked to a stop. Happening upon a train of fifty knights and attendants in the countryside would put any performer on guard. The man driving the wagon stood at the reins and waved. He wore a grand purple hat with a white plume in it.

 

I leapt the narrow stream, and made my way up the road. When the driver saw my motley he smiled. I, too, smiled, in relief—this was not the cruel master from my own days as a mummer.

 

“Hail, fool, what finds you so far from court and castle?”

 

“I carry my court with me and my castle lies ahead, sirrah.”

 

“Carry your court? Then that white-haired old man is—”

 

“Aye, King Lear himself.”

 

“Then you are the famous Black Fool.”

 

“At your bloody service,” said I, with a bow.

 

“You’re smaller than in the stories,” said the big-hatted weasel.

 

“Aye, and your hat is an ocean in which your wit wanders like a lost plague ship.”

 

The mummer laughed. “You give me more than my due, sirrah. We trade not in wit like you, wily fool. We are thespians!”

 

With that, three young men and a girl stepped out from behind the wagon and bowed gracefully and with far too much flourish than was called for.

 

“Thesbians,” said they, in chorus.

 

I tipped my coxcomb. “Well, I enjoy a lick of the lily from time to time myself,” said I, “but it’s hardly something you want to paint on the side of a wagon.”

 

“Not lesbians,” said the girl, “thesbians. We are actors.”

 

“Oh,” said I. “That’s different.”

 

“Aye,” said big hat. “We’ve no need of wit—the play’s the thing, you see. Not a word passes our lips that hasn’t been chewed thrice and spat out by a scribe.”

 

“Unburdened by originality are we,” said an actor in a red waistcoat.

 

The girl said, “Although we do bear the cross of fabulously shiny hair—”

 

“Blank slates, we are,” said another of the actors.