She crawled across the rug until she was close then. “You are a dreadful liar.”
“What was your name?”
She clouted me on the head with Jones and kissed me—quickly, but with feeling. That was the only time.
“I’d have your power and your kingdom, fool.”
“Give me back my puppet, thou nameless tart.”
Regan’s solar was bigger than I remembered it. A fairly grand, round room, with a fireplace and a dining table. Six of us brought in her supper and set it out on the table. She was all in red, as usual, snowy shoulders and raven hair warmed to the eye by orange firelight.
“Wouldn’t you rather lurk behind the tapestry, Pocket?”
She waved the others out of the room and closed the door.
“I kept my head down. How did you know it was me?”
“You didn’t cry when I shouted at you.”
“Blast, I should have known.”
“And you were the only serving boy wearing a codpiece.”
“Can’t hide one’s light under a bushel, can one?” She was infuriating. Did nothing surprise her? She spoke as if I’d been sent for and she’d been expecting me at any moment. Rather took the joy out of all the stealth and disguise. I was tempted to tell her she’d been duped and Drool-shagged just to see her reaction, but alas, there were still guards who were loyal to her, and I wasn’t sure she wouldn’t have me killed as it was. (I’d left my knives with Bubble in the kitchen, not that they’d help against a platoon of yeomen.) “So, lady, how goes the mourning?”
“Surprisingly well. Grief suits me, I think. Grief or war, I’m not sure which. But I’ve had good appetite and my complexion’s been rosy.” She picked up a hand mirror and regarded herself, then caught my reflection and turned. “But, Pocket, what are you doing here?”
“Oh, loyalty to the cause and all. With the French at our bloody doors, thought I’d come back to help defend home and hearth.” It was probably best we not pursue the reasons why I was there, so I pressed on. “How goes the war, then?”
“Complicated. Affairs of state are complicated, Pocket. I wouldn’t expect a fool to understand.”
“But I’m a royal, now, kitten. Didn’t you know?”
She put down her mirror and looked as if she might burst out laughing. “Silly fool. If you could catch nobility by touch you’d have been a knight years ago, wouldn’t you? But alas, you’re still common as cat shit.”
“Ha! Yes, once. But now, cousin, blue blood runs in my veins. In fact, I’ve a mind to start a war and shag some relatives, which I believe are the prime pastimes of royalty.”
“Nonsense. And don’t call me cousin.”
“Shag the country and kill some relatives, then? I’ve been noble less than a week, I don’t have all the protocol memorized yet. Oh, and we are cousins, kitten. Our fathers were brothers.”
“Impossible.” Regan nibbled at some dried fruit Bubble had laid out on the tray.
“Lear’s brother Canus raped my mother on a bridge in Yorkshire while Lear held her down. I am the issue of that unpleasant union. Your cousin.” I bowed. At your bloody service.
“A bastard. I might have known.”
“Oh, but bastards are vessels of promise, are they not? Or didn’t I watch you slay your lord the duke, to run to the arms of a bastard—who is, I believe, now the Earl of Gloucester. By the way, how goes the romance? Torrid and unsavory, I trust.”
She sat down then and ran her fingernails through her jet hair as if raking thoughts out of her scalp. “Oh, I fancy him fine—although he’s been a bit disappointing since that first time. But the intrigue is bloody exhausting, what with Goneril trying to bed Edmund, and he not being able to show me deference for fear of losing Albany’s support, and bloody France invading in the midst of it all. If I’d known all that my husband had to tend to I’d have waited a while before killing him.”
“There, there, kitten.” I moved around behind her and rubbed her shoulders. “Your complexion is rosy and your appetite good, and you are, as always, a veritable feast of shagability. Once you’re queen you can have everyone beheaded and take a long nap.”
“That’s just it. It’s not like I can just put on the crown and go sovereigning merrily along—God, St. George, and the whole rotting mess into history. I have to defeat the fucking French, then I’ve got to kill Albany, Goneril, and I suppose I’ll have to find Father and have something heavy fall on him or the people will never accept me.”
“Good news on that, love. Lear’s in the dungeon. Mad as a hatter, but alive.”
“He is?”
“Aye. Edmund just returned from Dover with him. You didn’t know?”
“Edmund is back?”
“Not three hours ago. I followed him back.”
“Bastard! He hasn’t even sent word that he’s returned. I sent a letter to him in Dover.”
“This letter?” I took the letter that Oswald had dropped. I’d broken the seal, of course, but she recognized it and snatched it out of my hand.
“How did you get that? I sent that with Goneril’s man, Oswald, to give to Edmund personally.”
“Yes, well, I sent Oswald to vermin Valhalla before delivery was secured.”
“You killed him?”
“I told you, kitten, I’m nobility now—a murderous little cunt like the rest of you. Just as well, too, that letter’s a flitty bit o’ butterfly toss, innit? Don’t you have any advisers to help you with that sort of thing? A chancellor or a chamberlain, a bloody bishop or someone?”
“I’ve no one. Everyone is at the castle in Cornwall.”
“Oh, love, let your cousin Pocket help.”
“Would you?”
“Of course. First, let’s see to sister.” I took two of the vials from the purse at my belt. “This red one is deadly poison. But the blue one is only like a poison, giving the same signs as if one is dead, but they will but sleep one day for each drop they drink. You could put two drops of this in your sister’s wine—say, when you are ready to attack the French—and for two days she would sleep the sleep of the dead while you and Edmund did your will, and without losing the support of Albany in the war.”
“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.