Fool(91)

 

“And the poison?”

 

“Well, kitten, the poison may not be needed. You could defeat France, take Edmund for your own, and come to an agreement with your sister and Albany.”

 

“I have an agreement with them now. The kingdom is divided as father decreed.”

 

“I’m only saying that you may fight the French, have Edmund, and not have to slay your sister.”

 

“And what if we don’t defeat France?”

 

“Well, then, you have the poison, don’t you?”

 

“Well, that’s bollocks counseling,” said Regan.

 

“Wait, cousin, I haven’t told you the part where you make me Duke of Buckingham yet. I’d like that dodgy old palace, Hyde Park. St. James’s Park, and a monkey.”

 

“You’re daft!”

 

“Named Jeff.”

 

“Get out!”

 

I palmed the love letter from the table as I exited.

 

 

 

Quickly through the corridors, across the courtyard, and back to the kitchen where I traded my codpiece for a pair of waiter’s breeches. It was one thing to leave Jones and my coxcomb with the ferryman, another to secret my blades away with Bubble, but giving up my codpiece was like losing my spirit.

 

“I was nearly undone by its enormity,” said I to Squeak, to whom I handed the portable den of my manly inequity.

 

“Aye, a family of squirrels could nest in the extra space,” Squeak observed, dropping a handful of the walnuts she’d been shelling into the empty prick pouch.

 

“Wonder you didn’t rattle like a dried gourd when you walked,” said Bubble.

 

“Fine. Cast aspersions on my manhood if you will, but I’ll not protect you when the French arrive. They’re unnaturally fond of public snogging and they smell of snails and cheese. I will laugh—ha! — as you both are mercilessly cheese-snogged by froggy marauders.”

 

“Don’t really sound that bad to me,” said Squeak.

 

“Pocket, you’d better be off, lad,” said Bubble. “Goneril’s supper is going up now.”

 

“Adieu,” said I, a preview of the Frenchy future of my former friends and soon to be frog-snogged traitorous tarts. “Adieu.” I bowed. I feigned fainting with a great wrist-to-brow flourish, and I left.

 

(I admit it, one does like to lubricate his recurrent entrances and exits with a bit of melodrama. Performance is all to the fool.)

 

 

 

Goneril’s quarters were less spacious than Regan’s, but luxurious, and there was a fire going. I hadn’t set foot here since she’d left the castle to marry Albany, but upon returning I found I was simultaneously aroused and filled with dread—memories simmering under the lid of consciousness, I suppose. She wore cobalt with gold trim, daringly cut. She must have known Edmund was back. “Pumpkin!”

 

“Pocket? What are you doing here?” She waved the other servers and a young lady who had been braiding her hair out of the room. “And why are you dressed in that absurd outfit?”

 

“I know,” said I. “Poncy breeches. Without my codpiece I feel defenseless.”

 

“I think they make you look taller,” she said.

 

A dilemma. Taller in breeches or stunningly virile in a cod? Both illusions. Each with its advantage. “Which do you think makes a better impression on the fairer sex, love, tall or hung?”

 

“Isn’t your apprentice both?”

 

“But he’s—oh—”

 

“Yes.” She bit into a winter plum.

 

“I see,” said I. “So, what is it with Edmund? All the black kit?” What it was, was she was bewitched, was what it was.

 

“Edmund.” She sighed. “I don’t think Edmund loves me.”

 

And I sat down, with all of Goneril’s luncheon repast set before me, and considered cooling my forehead in the tureen of broth. Love? Sodding, bloody, tossing, bloody, sodding, bloody love? Irrelevant, superfluous, bloody, ruddy, rotten, sodding love? What ho? Wherefore? What the fuck? Love?

 

“Love?” said I.

 

“No one has ever loved me,” said Goneril.

 

“What about your mother? Surely your mother?”

 

“I don’t remember her. Lear had her executed when we were little.”

 

“I didn’t know.”

 

“It was not to be spoken of.”

 

“Jesus, then? Comfort in Christ?”

 

“What comfort? I’m a duchess, Pocket, a princess, perhaps a queen. You can’t rule in Christ. Are you daft? You have to ask Christ to leave the room. Your very first war or execution and you’re right fucked for forgiveness, aren’t you? There’s Jesusy disapproval and scowling at least and you have to act like you don’t see it.”