“Oswald!” I shouted. I stood behind my boulders as I drew a throwing knife from the sheath at my back. The worm turned to me, and pulled his blade up. He dropped the bloody stone he’d used to brain Edgar. “We have an arrangement,” said I. “And further slaughter of my cohorts will cause me to doubt your sincerity.”
“Sod off, fool. We’ve no arrangement. You’re a lying cur.”
“Moi?” said I, in perfect fucking French. “I can give you your lady’s heart, and not in the unpleasant, eviscerated, no-shagging-except-the-corpse way.”
“You have no such power. You’ve not bewitched Regan’s heart, neither. ’Tis she who sent me here to kill this blind traitor who turns minds against our forces. And to deliver this.” He pulled a sealed letter from his jerkin.
“A letter of mark, giving you permission in the name of the Duchess of Cornwall to be a total twatgoblin?”
“Your wit is dull, fool. It is a love letter to Edmund of Gloucester. He set out for here with a scouting party to assess the French forces.”
“My wit is dull? My wit is dull?”
“Yes. Dull,” said Oswald. “Now, en garde,” said he in barely passable fucking French.
“Yes,” said I, with an exaggerated nod. “Yes.”
And with that, Oswald found himself seized by the throat and dashed several times against the boulders, which relieved him of his sword, his dagger, the love letter, and his coin purse. Drool then held the steward up and squeezed his throat, slowly but sternly, causing wet gurgling noises to bubble from his foul gullet.
I said,
Oswald seemed somewhat surprised by the turn of events, so much so, that both his eyes and tongue protruded from his face in a wholly unhealthy way. He then began to surrender his various fluids and Drool had to hold him away to keep from being fouled by them.
“Drop him,” said Lear, who still cowered by the boulders.
Drool looked to me and I shook my head, ever so slightly.
“Die, thou badger-shagging spunk monkey,” said I.
When Oswald stopped kicking and simply hung limp and dripping, I nodded to my apprentice, who tossed the steward’s body over the cliff as easily as if it were an apple core.
Drool went down on one knee over Gloucester’s body. “I were going to teach him to be a fool.”
“Aye, lad, I know you were.” I stood by my boulders, resisting the urge to comfort the great murderous git with a pat on the shoulder. There was a rustling from over the top of the hill and I thought I heard the sound of metal on metal through the wind.
“Now he’s blind and dead,” said the Natural.
“Bugger,” said I, under my breath. Then to Drool, “Hide, and don’t fight, and don’t call for me.”
I fell flat to the ground as the first soldier topped the hill. Bugger! Bugger! Bugger! Bloody bollocksing buggering bugger! I reflected serenely.
Then I heard the voice of the bastard Edmund. “Look, my fool. And what’s this? The king? What good fortune! You’ll make a fine hostage to stay the hand of the Queen of France and her forces.”
“Have you no heart?” said Lear, petting the head of his dead friend Gloucester.
I peeked out between my rocks. Edmund was looking at his dead father with the expression of someone who has just encountered rat scat in his toast for tea. “Yes, well, tragic I suppose, but with succession of his title determined and his sight gone, a timely exit was only polite. Who’s this other deader?” Edmund kicked his unconscious half brother in the shoulder.
“A beggar,” said Drool. “He were trying to protect the old man.”
“This is not the sword of a beggar. Neither is this purse.” Edmund picked up Oswald’s purse. “These belong to Goneril’s man, Oswald.”
“Aye, milord,” said Drool.
“Well, where is he?”
“On the beach.”
“On the beach? He climbed down and left his purse and sword here?”
“He was a tosser,” said Drool. “So I tossed him over. He kilt your old da.”
“Oh, quite right. Well done, then.” Edmund threw the purse to Drool. “Use it to bribe your jailer for a bread crust. Take them.” The bastard motioned for his men to seize Drool and Lear. When the old man had trouble standing, Drool lifted him to his feet and steadied him.
“What about the bodies?” asked Edmund’s captain.
“Let the French bury them. Quickly, to the White Tower. I’ve seen enough.”
Lear coughed then, a dry, feeble cough like the creaking of Death’s door hinges, until I thought he might collapse into a pile of blue. One of Edmund’s men gave the old man a sip of water, which seemed to quell the coughing, but he couldn’t stand or support his weight. Drool hoisted him up on one shoulder and carried him up the hill—the old man’s bony bottom bouncing on the great git’s shoulder as if it was the cushion of a sedan chair.
When they were gone I scrambled out of my hiding place and over to Edgar’s prostrate body. The wound on his scalp wasn’t deep, but it had bled copiously, as scalp wounds are wont to do. The resulting puddle of gore had probably saved Edgar’s life. I got him propped against the boulder and brought him around with some gentle smacking and a stout splashing from his water skin.
“What?” Edgar looked around, and shook his head to clear his vision, a motion he clearly regretted immediately. Then he spotted his father’s corpse and wailed.
“I’m sorry, Edgar,” said I. “’Twas Goneril’s steward, Oswald, knocked you out and killed him. Drool strangled the scurvy dog and tossed him over the cliff.”
“Where is Drool? And the king?”
“Taken, by your bastard brother’s men. Listen, Edgar, I need to follow them. You go to the French camp. Take them a message.”
Edgar’s eyes rolled and I thought he might pass out again, so I threw some more water in his face. “Look at me. Edgar, you must go to the French camp. Tell Cordelia that she should attack the White Tower directly. Tell her to send ships up the Thames and bring a force through London over land as well. Kent will know the plan. Have her sound the trumpet three times before they attack the keep. Do you understand?”
“Three times, the White Tower?”
I tore the back off of the dead earl’s shirt, wadded it up, and gave it to Edgar. “Here, hold this on your noggin to staunch the blood.”
“And tell Cordelia not to hold for fear for her father’s life. I’ll see to it that it’s not an issue.”
“Aye,” said Edgar. “She’ll not save the king by holding the attack.”
TWENTY-TWO
AT THE WHITE TOWER
“Tosser!” cried the raven.
No help was he in my stealthy entry to the White Tower. I’d packed my bells with clay, and darkened my face with the same, but no amount of camouflage would help if the raven raised an alarm. I should have had a guard bring him down with a crossbow bolt long before I left the Tower.
I lay in a shallow, flat-bottomed skiff I’d borrowed from a ferryman, covered with rags and branches so I might appear just another mass of jetsam floating in the Thames. I paddled with my right hand, and the cold water felt like needles until my arm went numb. Sheets of ice drifted in the water around me. Another good cold night and I might have walked into the Traitor’s Gate, rather than paddled. The river fed the moat, and the moat led under a low arch and through the gate where English nobility had been bringing their family members for hundreds of years on the way to the chopping block.
Two iron-clad gates fit together at the center of the arch, chained in the middle below the waterline, and they moved ever-so-slightly in the current. There was a gap there, at the top, where the gates met. Not so wide that a soldier with weapons could fit through, but a cat, a rat, or a spry and nimble fool on the slim side might easily pass over. And so I did.