Fool(71)

 

“He didn’t say that, you daft geezer. He said he was a selfish libertine and the devil took his kit.”

 

The old woman turned now. “Aye, the fool’s right. The younger nutter has no daughters, ’tis his own unkindness that curses him.” She crossed the cabin with two steaming bowls of stew and set them before us on the floor. “And it’s your own evil hounds you, Lear, not your daughters.”

 

The old woman, I’d seen her before. She was one of the crones from the Great Birnam Wood. Different togs and somewhat less green, but this was surely Rosemary, the cat-toed witch.

 

Lear slid to the floor and grabbed poor Tom’s hand. “I have been selfish. I have thought nothing of the weight of my deeds. My own father I imprisoned in the temple at Bath because he was a leper, and later had him killed. My own brother I did murder when I suspected him of bedding my queen. No trial, not even the honor of a challenge. I had him murdered in his sleep without proof. And my queen is dead, too, for my jealousy. My kingdom is the fruit of treachery, and treachery have I reaped. I do not deserve to even wear clothes on my back. You are true, Tom, that you have nothing. I, too, shall have nothing, as is my just reward!”

 

The old man began to tear off his clothes, ripping at the collar of his shirt, tearing more of his parchment-like skin than the linen. I stayed his hand, held his wrists and tried to catch his eye with my own, to pull him back from madness.

 

“Oh, I have wronged my sweet Cordelia!” the old man wailed. “The only one who loved me and I have wronged her! My one true daughter! Gods, tear these clothes from my back, tear the meat from my bones!”

 

Then I felt claws clamp on my own wrists and I was pulled away from Lear as if I had been drawn by heavy iron shackles. “Let him suffer,” hissed the witch in my ear.

 

“But I have made this pain,” said I.

 

“Lear’s pain is of his own making, fool,” she said. With that I felt the room spinning and I heard the voice of the girl ghost telling me to sleep. “Sleep, sweet Pocket.”

 

 

 

“Who’s the muddy naked bloke snogging the king’s noggin?” asked Kent.

 

I awoke to see the old knight standing in the doorway with the Earl of Gloucester. The storm still raged outside, but by firelight I could see the naked nutter Tom O’Bedlam had wrapped himself around Lear and was kissing the king’s bald head as if blessing a newborn babe.

 

“Oh majesty,” said Gloucester, “can’t you find better company than this? Who is this rough beast?”

 

“He is a philosopher,” said Lear. “I will talk with him.”

 

“Poor Tom O’Bedlam, is he,” said Tom. “Eater of tadpoles, cursed and damned by demons.”

 

Kent looked to me and I shrugged. “Both mad as cat herds,” said I. I looked around for the old woman as a witness, but she was gone.

 

“Well, snap to, majesty, I bring news from France,” said Kent.

 

“Hollandaise sauce, excellent on eggs?” I inquired.

 

“No,” said Kent. “More urgent.”

 

“Wine and cheese complement one another nicely?” I further queried.

 

“No, you rasp-tongued rascal, France has landed an army at Dover, and there’s rumor they’ve forces hidden in other cities around the British coast, ready to strike.”

 

“Oh, well, that does trump the wine and cheese news, then, doesn’t it?”

 

Gloucester was trying to pry Tom off King Lear, but having a hard time doing so while keeping mud off his cloak. “I’ve sent word to the French camp at Dover that Lear is here,” said Gloucester. “I’ve made the case to the king’s daughters to let me bring him in from the storm, but they will not relent. Even in my own home my power has been usurped by the Duke of Cornwall. Regan and Cornwall have taken command of Lear’s knights, and with them, my castle.”

 

“We come to bring you to a hovel at the city wall,” said Kent. “When the storm breaks, Gloucester will send a cart to take Lear to the French camp at Dover.”

 

“No,” said Lear. “Let me talk to my philosopher friend in private.” He pawed at mad Tom. “He knows much of how life should be lived. Tell me, friend, why is there thunder?”

 

Kent turned to Gloucester and shrugged. “He’s not in his right mind.”

 

“Who can blame him?” said Gloucester. “After what his daughters have done—his very flesh rising up against him. I had a beloved son who conspired to murder me, and just the thought of that nearly drove me mad.”