Fool(79)
“It’s all right, milord,” said Drool. “You ain’t leakin’ hardly at all.”
“Let me send this broken house to ruin and rot in death’s eternal cold. Let me shuffle off this mortal coil—my sons betrayed, my king usurped, my estates seized—let me end this torture!”
He really was making a very good argument.
Then the earl grabbed Jones and tore him out of Drool’s belt. “Give me your sword, good knight!”
Edgar made to stop his father and I threw out an arm to hold him back—a toss of my head stopped Drool from interceding.
The old man stood, put the stick end of Jones under his rib cage, then fell forward onto the dirt floor. The breath shot from his body and he wheezed in pain. My cup of wine had been warming by the fire and I threw it on Gloucester’s chest.
“I am slain,” croaked the earl, fighting for breath. “The lifeblood runs from me even now. Bury my body on the hill looking down upon Castle Gloucester. And beg forgiveness of my son Edgar. I have wronged him.”
Edgar again tried to go to his father and I held him back. Drool was covering his mouth, trying not to laugh.
“I grow cold, cold, but at least I take my wrong-doings to my grave.”
“You know, milord,” I said. “The evil that men do lives after them, the good is oft interred with their bones, or so I’ve heard.”
“Edgar, my boy, wherever you are, forgive me, forgive me!” The old man rolled on the floor, and seemed somewhat surprised when the sword on which he thought himself impaled fell away. “Lear, forgive me that I did not serve you better!”
“Look at that,” said I. “You can see his black soul rising from his body.”
“Where?” said Drool.
A frantic finger to my lips silenced the Natural. “Oh, great carrion birds are rending poor Gloucester’s soul to tatters! Oh, Fate’s revenge is upon him, he suffers!”
“I suffer!” said Gloucester.
“He is bound to the darkest depths of Hades! Never to rise again.”
“Down the abyss I go. Forever a stranger to light and warmth.”
“Oh, cold and lonely death has taken him,” said I. “And a right shit he was in life, likely he’ll be buggered by a billion barb-dicked devils now.”
“Cold and lonely Death has me,” said the earl.
“No, it hasn’t,” said I.
“What?”
“You’re not dead.”
“Soon, then. I’ve fallen on this cruel blade and my life runs wet and sticky between my fingers.”
“You’ve fallen on a puppet,” said I.
“No, I haven’t. It’s a sword. I took it from that soldier.”
“You took my puppet stick from my apprentice. You’ve thrown yourself on a puppet.”
“You knave, Pocket, you’re not trustworthy and would jest at a man even as his life drains. Where is that naked madman who was helping me?”
“You threw yourself on a puppet,” said Edgar.
“So I’m not dead?”
“Correct,” said I.
“I threw myself on a puppet?”
“That is what I’ve been saying.”
“You are a wicked little man, Pocket.”
“So, milord, how do you feel, now that you’ve returned from the dead.”
The old man stood up and tasted the wine on his fingers. “Better,” said he.
“Good. Then let me present Edgar of Gloucester, the erstwhile naked nutter, who shall see you to Dover and your king.”
“Hello, Father,” said Edgar.
They embraced. There was crying and begging for forgiveness and filial snogging and overall the whole business was somewhat nauseating. A moment of quiet sobbing by the two men passed before the earl resumed his wailing.
“Oh, Edgar, I have wronged thee and no forgiveness from you can undo my wretchedness.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake,” said I. “Come, Drool, let us go find Lear and on to Dover and the sanctuary of the bloody fucking French.”
“But the storm still rages,” said Edgar.
“I’ve been wandering in this storm for days. I’m as wet and cold as I know how to get, and no doubt a fever will descend any hour now and crush my delicate form with heavy heat, but by the rug-munching balls of Sappho, I’ll not spend another hour listening to a blind old nutter wail on about his wrong-doings when there’s a stack of wrongs yet to be done. Carpe diem, Edgar. Carpe diem.”