Do your horrible pleasure direct,
To a poor, infirm, despised old man!
Crack the sky! Strike me dead!”
The old man paused as a thunderbolt split a tree on the heath with blinding fire and a noise that would send statues to shitting themselves. I ran out from under my bush to the king’s side.
“Come in, nuncle. Take some shelter under a shrub, if only to take the sting out of the rain.”
“I need no shelter. Let nature take her naked revenge.”
“Fine, then,” said I. “Then you won’t be needing this.” I took the old man’s heavy fur cape, tossed him my sodden woolen cloak, and retreated to my shrubbery and the relative shelter of the heavy animal skin.
“Hey?” said Lear, bewildered.
“Go on,” said I. “Crack the sky, fry your old head, mash your balls, et cetera, et cetera. I’ll prompt you if you lose your place.”
And off he went again:
“Mighty Thor, send your thunderbolts to cease this weary heart!
Neptune’s waves, beat these limbs from their joints!
Hecate’s claws, tear my liver and sup upon my soul!
Baal, blast my bowels from their unhealthy home!
Jupiter, strew the land with my shredded muscle!”
The old man stopped his tirade for a moment and the madness went out of his eyes. He looked to me. “It’s really fucking cold out here.”
“Like being struck by a bolt of the bloody obvious on the road to Damascus, innit, nuncle?” I held open the great fur cloak and nodded for the old man to join me in it under my shrubbery. He crept down the hill, careful not to slip in the rivulets of mud and water that cascaded by, and ducked under the cover with me.”
The old man shuddered and put his skeletal arm around my shoulders. “Rather closer than we’re accustomed to, eh, boy?”
“Aye, nuncle, did I ever tell you that you are a very attractive man?” said Jones, poking his puppety head out of the cloak.
And the old man began to laugh, and he laughed until his shoulders shook and the laughter broke into a jarring cough, and that continued until I thought he might expectorate vital organs. I caught some freezing rain in my cupped hand and held it for him to sip.
“Don’t make me laugh, boy. I’m mad with grief and rage and I’ve no stomach for jests. You should stand clear, lest a thunderbolt scorch you when the gods heed my challenge.”
“Nuncle, begging pardon, but, you arrogant old tosser! The gods aren’t going to strike you down with a thunderbolt simply because you asked them. Why would they accommodate you with a thunderbolt? More likely a carbuncle, festered and gone fatal, or perhaps a thankless child or two, being how the gods love their irony.”
“The cheek!” said Lear.
“Oh yes, cheeky gods they are,” said I. “And you named off a bushel of them, too. Now if you are struck down we won’t even know who to blame unless lightning brands a signature in your old hide. You should have dared one, then waited an hour perhaps before calling fire down from the whole lot at a go.”
The king wiped rain out of his eyes. “I’ve set a thousand monks and nuns to pray for my forgiveness and the pagans slaughter goats by the herd for my salvation, but I fear it is not enough. Not once did I act in the interest of my people, not once did I act in the interest of my wives or my daughters’ mothers—I have served myself as god and I find I am little forgiving. Be kind, Pocket, lest you one day face the darkness as I do. Or, in absence of kindness, be drunk.”
“But, nuncle,” said I. “I do not need to be cautious for the day when I become frail. I am frail now. And on the bright side, there may be no God at all, and the evil deeds you’ve done will be their own reward.”
“Perhaps I don’t even rate a righteous slaughtering,” sobbed Lear. “The gods have sent these daughters to suck out my life blood. It is punishment for how I treated my own father. Do you know how I became king?”
“Pulled a sword out of a stone and slayed a dragon with it, didn’t you?”
“No, that never happened.”
“Sodding convent education. Buggered if I know then, nuncle. How did Lear become king?”
“My own father, I murdered him. I do not deserve a noble death.”
I was speechless. I had been in service of the king over a decade and never had I heard of this. The story went that old King Bladud had handed the kingdom over to Lear and went to Athens, where he learned to be a necromancer, then returned to Britain and died from the plague in service of the goddess Minerva at the temple at Bath. But before I could gather my wits for a reply, lightning cracked the sky, illuminating a hulking creature that was making its way across the hillside toward us.