“You weren’t being sincere.”
“Well, conviction then. Just stay by Lear during the Yule feast and don’t let him eat anything unless you’ve eaten it first. If I know Oswald, he’ll try to slay the king using the most cowardly means.”
“Or not at all.”
“What?”
“What makes you think Oswald was telling you the truth any more than you were telling it to him?”
“I’m counting on his lying to a degree.”
“But to what degree?”
I paced in a circle around our little tower room. “What a wimpled wagon of nun wank this is. I’d rather juggle fire blindfolded. I’m not built for these dark dealings—I’m better suited for laughter, children’s birthdays, baby animals, and friendly bonking. The sodding witches got it wrong.”
“And yet, you’ve set a civil war in motion and sent an assassin after the king,” said Kent. “Grand ambition for a children’s birthday clown, don’t you think?”
“You’ve become bitter in your dotage, you know?”
“Well, perhaps my duties as food taster will end my bitterness.”
“Just keep the old man alive, Kent. Since the Yule feast is still on, I take it dear Regan didn’t tell Lear that she was taking his knights yet.”
“The lady tried to make peace between Goneril and her father. She only served to calm the old man enough that he agreed to come to the feast.”
“Good. No doubt she’ll make her move on the morrow.” I grinned. “If she’s well enough.”
“Wicked,” said Kent.
“Justice,” said I.
Regan came up the spiral stairs alone. The single candle she carried in a storm lantern cast her shadow tall up the stone wall like the very specter of a shaggable death. I stood outside the solar door, candelabra in one hand, the door latch in the other.
“Happy Christmas, kitten,” said I.
“Well, that feast was complete crap, wasn’t it? Bloody Gloucester, pagan twat, calling it the feast of St. Stephen instead of Christmas. There’s no presents on the feast of bloody Stephen. Without presents I’d rather celebrate Yule for the winter solstice; at least then you get to sacrifice a pig and build a cracking huge fire.”
“Gloucester was being deferential to your Christian beliefs as it was, love. The holiday is Saturnalia[39] for him and Edmund, proper orgy it is. So perhaps there’s a present for you yet to be unwrapped.”
She smiled then. “Perhaps. Edmund was so coy at the feast—barely looking my way. Fear of Cornwall, I suppose. But you were right, his ear was bandaged.”
“Aye, lady, and I’m to tell you that he’s a bit modest about it. He may not wish to be fully seen.”
“But I saw him at the feast.”
“Aye, but he’s hinted that there may have been other self-punishment performed in your honor and he’s shy.”
A joyous child at Christmas she suddenly was—visions of a bloke lashing himself dancing in her head.
“Oh, Pocket, do let me in.”
And so I did. I opened the door, and slipped the storm lantern from her grasp as she passed. “Ah, ah, ah, love. No more light than that one candle. He’s ever so shy.”
I heard Edmund’s voice say from behind the tapestry, “Oh, my sweet lady, Regan, thou art more fair than moonlight, more radiant than the sun, more glorious than all the stars. I must have you or I shall surely die.”
I slowly closed and latched the door.
“No, my goddess, undress there,” said Edmund’s voice. “Let me watch you.”
I’d been all evening coaching Drool on what to say and exactly how to say it. Next he would comment on her loveliness, then ask her to blow out the single candle on the table and join him behind the tapestry, at which point he was to unceremoniously snog her soggy and shag her silly.
It sounded rather like what I’d guess would be the auditory effect of a bull elk trying to balance a wildcat on a red-hot poker. There was no little bit of yowling, growling, squealing, and screeching going on by the time I saw the second light coming up the stairs. I could see by the shadow that the lantern bearer was leading with a drawn sword. Oswald had been true to his treacherous nature, just as I had calculated.
“Put down that blade, you git, you’ll put someone’s eye out.”
The Duke of Cornwall rounded the stairs with blade lowered, a bewildered look on his face. “Fool?”