“Oh, I did betray her love and flay her sweet heart with stubborn pride,” said Lear, looking madder and weaker than when I’d seen him last.
“Where is Kent?” I asked Edgar, ignoring the old king. Drool and I had found them above a cliff at Dover. They all sat with their backs to a great chalk boulder: Gloucester, Edgar, and Lear. Gloucester snored softly, his head on Edgar’s shoulder. We could see smoke from the French camp not two miles away in the distance.
“He’s gone to Cordelia, to ask her to accept her father into her camp.”
“Why didn’t you go yourself?” I asked Lear.
“I am afraid,” said the old man. He hid his head under his arm, like a bird trying to escape the daylight beneath its wing.
It was wrong. I wanted him strong, I wanted him stubborn, I wanted him full of arrogance and cruelty. I wanted to see those parts of him I knew were thriving when he’d thrown my mother on the stones so many years ago. I wanted to scream at him, humiliate him, hurt him in eleven places and watch him crawl in his own shit, dragging his bloody pride and guts behind him in the dirt. There was no revenge to be satisfied on this trembling shell of Lear.
I wanted no part of it.
“I’m going to go nap behind those rocks,” said I. “Drool, keep watch. Wake me when Kent returns.”
“Aye, Pocket.” The Natural went to the far side of Edgar’s boulder, sat, and stared out over the sea. If we were attacked by a ship, he’d be Johnny-on-the-spot.
I lay down and slept perhaps an hour before there was shouting behind me and I looked over my boulders to see Edgar holding his father’s head, steadying him as the old man stood on a rock, perhaps a foot above the ground.
“Are we at the edge?”
“Aye, there are fishermen on the beach below that look like mice. The dogs look like ants.”
“What do the horses look like?” asked Gloucester.
“There aren’t any horses. Just fishermen and dogs. Don’t you hear the sea crashing below?”
“Yes. Yes, I do. Farewell, Edgar, my son. I am sorry. Gods, do your will!” With that the old man leaped off the rock, expecting to plummet hundreds of feet to his death, I reckon, so he was somewhat surprised when he met the ground in an instant.
“Oh my lord! Oh my lord!” said Edgar, trying to use a different voice and failing completely. “Sir, you have duly fallen from the cliffs above.”
“I have?” said Gloucester.
“Aye, sir, can you not see?”
“Well, no, you git, my eyes are bandaged and bloody. Can you not see?”
“Sorry. What I saw was you fall from a great height and land as softly as if you were a feather floating down.”
“I am dead, then,” said Gloucester. He sank to his knees and seemed to lose his breath. “I am dead, yet I still suffer, my grief is manifest, my eyes ache even though they are not there.”
“That’s because he’s fucking with you,” said I.
“What?” said Gloucester.
“Shhhh,” said Edgar. “’Tis a mad beggar, pay him no heed, good sir.”
“Fine, you’re dead. Enjoy,” said I. I lay back on the ground, out of the wind, and pulled my coxcomb over my eyes.
“Come, come sit with me,” said Lear. I sat up and watched Lear lead the blind man to his nest beneath the great boulders. “Let the cruelties of the world slide off our bent backs, friend.” Lear put his arm around Gloucester and held him while he spoke to the sky.
“My king,” said Gloucester. “I am safe in your mercy. My king.”
“Aye, king. But I have no soldiers, no lands, no subject quakes before me, no servants wait, and even your bastard son hath treated you better than my own daughters.”
“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said I. But I could see that the old blind man was smiling, and for all his suffering, he found comfort in his friend the king, no doubt having been blinded to his scoundrel nature long before Cornwall and Regan took his eyes. Blinded by loyalty. Blinded by title. Blinded by shoddy patriotism and false righteousness. He loved his mad, murdering king. I lay back down to listen.
“Let me kiss your hand,” said Gloucester.
“Let me wipe it first,” said Lear. “It smells of mortality.”
“I smell nothing, and see nothing evermore. I am not worthy.”
“Art thou mad? See with your ears, Gloucester. Have you never seen a farmer’s dog bark at a beggar, and thus chase him off? Is that dog the voice of authority? Is he better than the many for denying the man’s hunger? Is a sheriff righteous who whips the whore, when it is for his own lust he punishes her? See, Gloucester. See who is worthy? Now we are stripped of finery, see. Small vices show through tattered clothes, when all is hidden beneath fur and fine robes. Plate sin with gold and the strong lance of justice breaks on decoration. Blessed are you, that you cannot see—for you cannot see me for what I am: wretched.”