“That is not true,” said the bastard.
“So,” said Kent, paying particular attention to my readied weapon, “you’re murdering the bastard, then?”
“Merely testing the weapon’s balance, good knight.”
“Oh, sorry.”
“No worries. Thank you. I’ll call you if I need you. Take that unconscious one with you, would you?” I looked at the other, who trembled on the floor. “Edmund, do instruct your knights to be pleasant toward my ruffian. He is a favorite of the king.”
“Let him alone,” grumbled Edmund.
Kent and the conscious squire dragged the other one out of the chamber and closed the door.
“You’re right, this being pleasant is the dog’s bollocks, Edmund.” I flipped the dagger and caught it by the hilt. When Edmund made as if to move, I flipped it again and caught it by the blade. I raised a suspicious eyebrow at him. “So, you were saying about how well my plan had worked.”
“Edgar is branded a traitor. Even now my father’s knights hunt him. I will be lord of Gloucester.”
“But, really, Edmund, is that enough?”
“Exactly,” said the bastard.
“Uh, exactly what?” Had he already set his sights on Albany’s lands, not even having spoken with Goneril? Now I was doubly unsure of what to do. My own plan to pair the bastard with Goneril and undermine the kingdom was the only thing keeping me from sending the dagger to his throat, and when I thought of the lash marks on poor Drool’s back my hand quivered, wanting to loose the knife to its mark. But what had he set his sights on?
“The spoils of war can be as great as a kingdom,” said Edmund.
“War?” How knew he of war? My war.
“Aye, fool. War.”
“Fuckstockings,” said I. I let the knife fly and ran out of the room, bells jingling.
As I approached our tower, I heard what sounded like someone torturing an elk in a tempest. I thought that Edmund might have sent an assassin for Drool after all, so I came through the door low, with one of my daggers at the ready.
Drool lay on his back on a blanket, a golden-haired woman with a white gown spread around her hips was riding him as if competing in the nitwit steeplechase. I’d seen her before, but never so solid. The two were wailing in ecstasy.
“Drool, what are you doing?”
“Pretty,” said Drool, a great joyous, goofy grin on him.
“Aye, she’s a vision, lad, but you’re knobbing a ghost.”
“No.” The dim giant paused in his upward thrusting, lifted her by her waist and looked closely at her as if he’d found a flea in his bed.
“Ghost?”
She nodded.
Drool tossed her aside and with a long shuddering scream ran to the window and dove through, shattering the shutters as he went. The scream trailed off and ended with a splash.
The ghost pulled her gown down, tossed her hair out of her face, and grinned. “Water in the moat,” she said. “He’ll be fine. Guess I’ll be going away half-cocked, though.”
“Well, yes, but jolly good of you to take time from chain rattling and delivering portents of bloody doom to shag the beef-brained boy.”
“Not up for a spirity tumble yourself, then?” She made as if to lift her gown above her hips again.
“Piss off, wisp, I’ve got to go fish the git out of the moat. He can’t swim.”
“Not keen on flight, neither, evidently?”
No time for this. I sheathed my dagger, wheeled on my heel and started out the door.
“Not your war, fool,” said the ghost.
I stopped. Drool was slow at most things, perhaps he would be so at drowning. “The bastard has his own war?”
“Aye.” The ghost nodded, fading back to mist as she moved.
“A fool’s best plan
Plays out to chance,
But a bastard’s hope,
Arrives from France.”
“Thou loquacious fog, thou nattering mist, thou serpent-tongued steam, for the love of truth, speak straight, and no sodding rhyme.”
But in that moment she was gone.
“Who are you?” I shouted to the empty tower.
FOURTEEN
ON TENDER HORNS
“I shagged a ghost,” said Drool, wet, naked, and forlorn, sitting in the laundry cauldron under Castle Gloucester.
“There’s always a bloody ghost,” said the laundress, who was scrubbing the lout’s clothes, which had been most befouled in the moat. It had taken four of Lear’s men, along with me, to pull the great git from the stinking soup.