Fool(78)

 

“I’m hungry,” said Drool, his mind overchallenged.

 

“Poor Tom is cold and cursed,” said Tom between barking fits, and for the first time seeing him in daylight and mostly clean, I was taken aback. Without the coat of mud, Tom looked familiar. Very familiar. Tom O’Bedlam was, in fact, Edgar of Gloucester, the earl’s legitimate son.

 

“Tom, why are you out here?”

 

“Poor Tom, that old knight Caius said he had to stand in the rain until he was clean and didn’t stink anymore.”

 

“And did he tell you to bark and talk about yourself in the third person?”

 

“No, I thought up that bit on my own.”

 

“Come inside, Tom. Help Drool with this old fellow.”

 

Tom looked at Gloucester for the first time and his eyes went wide and he sank to his knees. “By the cruelty of the gods,” said he. “He’s blind.”

 

I put my hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Be steadfast, Edgar, your father needs your help.” In that moment a light came into his eye like a spark of sanity returning and he nodded and stood up, taking the earl’s arm. Shall a madman rise to lead the blind.

 

“Come, good sir,” said Edgar. “Tom is mad, but he is not beyond aiding a stranger in distress.”

 

“Just let me die!” said Gloucester, trying to push Edgar away. “Give me a rope so I may stretch my neck until my breath is gone.”

 

“He does that a lot,” I said.

 

I opened the door, expecting to see Lear and Kent inside, but the hovel was empty, and the fire had died down to embers. “Tom, where is the king?”

 

“He and his knight set out for Dover.”

 

“Without me?”

 

“The king was mad to be back in the storm. ’Twas the old knight said to tell you they were headed for Dover.”

 

“Here, here, bring the earl inside.” I stood aside and let Edgar coax his father into the cabin. “Drool, throw some wood on the fire. We can stay only long enough to eat and dry out. We must be after the king.”

 

Drool ducked through the door and spotted Jones sitting on a bench by the fire where I had left him. “Jones! My friend,” said the dolt. He picked up the puppet stick and hugged it. Drool is somewhat unclear on the art of ventriloquism, and although I have explained to him that Jones speaks only through me, he has developed an attachment to the puppet.

 

“Hello, Drool, you great sawdust-brained buffoon. Put me down and stoke the fire,” said Jones.

 

Drool tucked the puppet stick in his belt and began breaking up kindling with a hatchet by the hearth while I portioned out the bread and cheese that Curan had given us. Edgar did his best to bandage Gloucester’s eyes and the old man settled down enough to eat some cheese and drink a little wine. Unfortunately, the wine and the blood loss, no doubt, took the earl from inconsolable wailing grief to a soul-smothering, sable-colored melancholy.

 

“My wife died thinking me a whoremonger, my father thought me damned for not following his faith, and my sons are both villains. I thought for a turn that Edmund might have redeemed his bastardy by being good and true, by fighting infidels in the Crusade, but he is more of a traitor than his legitimate brother.”

 

“Edgar is no traitor,” I said to the old man. Even as I said it Edgar held a finger to his lips and signaled for me to speak no further. I nodded to show I knew his will and would not give his identity away. He could be Tom as long as he wished, or for as long as he needed, for all I cared, as long as he put on some bloody trousers. “Edgar was always true to you, my lord. His treachery was all devised for your eyes by the bastard Edmund. It was two sons’ worth of evil done by one. Edgar may not be the sharpest arrow in the quiver, but he is no traitor.”

 

Edgar raised an eyebrow to me in question. “You’ll make no case for your intelligence sitting there naked and shivering when there’s a fire and blankets you can fashion into warm robes, good Tom,” said I.

 

He rose from his father’s side and went over to the fire.

 

“Then it is I who have betrayed Edgar,” said Gloucester. “Oh, the gods have seen fit to rain misery down on me for my unsteady heart. I have sent a good son into exile with hounds at his heels and left only the worms as heirs to my only estate: this withered blind body. Oh, we are but soft and squishy bags of mortality rolling in a bin of sharp circumstance, leaking life until we collapse, flaccid, into our own despair.” The old man began to wave his arms and beat at his brow, whipping himself into a frenzy, causing his bandages to unravel. Drool came over to the old man and wrapped his arms around him to hold him steady.