“The king are melancholy, Pocket,” said Drool. “We should sing him a song and cheer him up.”
“Sod the sodding king,” said I, looking directly into Lear’s hawk eye.
“Watch yourself, boy,” said Lear.
“Or what? You’ll hold my mother down while she’s raped, then throw her in the river? Have my father killed later, then? Oh, wait. Those threats are no longer valid, are they, uncle? You’ve carried them out already.”
“What are you on about, boy?” The old man looked fearsome, as if he’d forgotten he’d been treated like so much chattel and thrown in a cage full of clowns, but instead faced a fresh affront.
“You. Lear. Do you remember? A stone bridge in Yorkshire, some twenty-seven years ago? You called a farm girl up from the riverbank, a pretty little thing, and held her down while you commanded your brother to rape her. Do you remember, Lear, or have you done so much evil that it all blends into a great black swath in your memory?”
His eyes went wide then, I could tell he remembered.
“Canus—”
“Aye, your poxy brother sired me then, Lear. And when no one would believe my mother that her son was the bastard of a prince, she drowned herself in that same river where you threw her that day. All this time I have called you nuncle—who would have thought it true?”
“It is not true,” he said, his voice quivering.
“It is true! And you know it, you decrepit old poke[44] of bones. A warp of villainy and a woof of greed are all that hold you together, thou desiccated dragon.”
The four guards had gathered at the bars and peered in as if they were the ones who were imprisoned.
“Blimey,” said one of the guards.
“Cheeky little tosser,” said another.
“No song, then?” asked Drool.
Lear shook his finger at me then, so angry was he that I could see blood moving in the veins of his forehead. “You shall not speak to me in this way. You are less than nothing. I plucked you from the gutter, and your blood will run in the gutter on my word before sundown.”
“Will it, nuncle? My blood may run but it will not be on your word. On your word your brother may have died. On your word your father may have died. On your word your queens may have died. But not this princely bastard, Lear. Your word is but wind to me.”
“My daughters will—”
“Your daughters are upstairs, fighting over the bones of your kingdom. They are your captors, you ancient nutter.”
“No, they—”
“You sealed this cell when you killed their mother. They’ve both just told me as much.”
“You’ve seen them?” He seemed strangely hopeful, as if I might have forgotten to bring the good news from his traitorous daughters.
“Seen them? I’ve shagged them.” Silly, really, that it should matter, after all his dark deeds, all his slights and cruelties, that a fool should shag his daughters, but it did matter, and it was a way to unleash a little of the fury I felt toward him.
“You have not,” said Lear.
“You have?” asked one of the guards.
I stood then, and strutted a bit for my audience, plus it was a better position for grinding my heel into Lear’s soul. All I could see was the water closing over my mother’s head, all I could hear was her screams as Lear held her. “I shagged them both, repeatedly, and with relish. Until they screamed, and begged and whimpered. I shagged them on the parapets overlooking the Thames, in the towers, under the table in the great hall, and once, I shagged Regan on a platter of pork in front of Muslims. I shagged Goneril in your own bed, in the chapel, and on your throne—which was her idea, by the way. I shagged them while servants watched and in case you were wondering, because they asked, and as any princess should be shagged, for the pure sweet nasty of it. And they—they did it because they hate you.”
Lear had been wailing while I ranted, trying to drown me out. Now he growled, “They do not. They love me all. They have said.”
“You murdered their mother, you decrepit loony! They’ve put you in a cell in your own dungeon. What do you need, a written decree? I tried to shag the hate out of them, nuncle, but some cures lie beyond a jester’s talents.”
“I wanted a son. Their mother would give me none.”
“I’m sure if they had known that they wouldn’t have despised you so deeply and done me so well.”
“My daughters wouldn’t have you. You didn’t have them.”
“Oh, I did, on my black heart’s blood, I did. And when it first started, each of them would shout Father when she came. I wonder why. Oh yes, nuncle, I did indeed. And they wanted you to know—that’s why they accused me before you. Oh yes, I bonked them both.”
“No,” wailed Lear.
“Me, too,” said Drool, with a great juicy grin. “Beggin’ your pardon,” he quickly added.
“But not today?” asked one of the guards. “Right?”
“No, not today, you bloody nitwit. Today I killed them.”
The French marched overland from the southeast and sailed ships up the Thames from the east. The lords of Surrey on the south showed no resistance and since Dover lay in the County of Kent, the forces of the banished earl not only offered no resistance, but joined the French in the assault on London. They’d marched and sailed across England without firing a single bolt or losing a single man. From the White Tower the guards could see the fires of the French drawing a great orange crescent in the night that illuminated the sky to the east and south.
When the captain made the call to arms at the castle, one of Lear’s old knights or squires, under the command of Captain Curan, put a blade to the throat of any of Edmund’s or Regan’s men, demanding they yield or die. The personal guard forces within the castle had all been drugged by the kitchen staff with some mysterious non-lethal poison that mimicked the symptoms of death.
Captain Curan sent a message to the Duke of Albany from the French queen that if he stood down, in fact, stood with her, that he could return to Albany with his forces, his lands, and his title intact. Goneril’s forces from Cornwall, and Edmund’s from Gloucester, camped on the west side of the Tower, found they were flanked on the south and east by the French, and on the north by Albany. Archers and crossbowmen were dispatched to the Tower walls above the Cornwall army and a herald fought his way through the panicked forces to a commander, carrying the message that the forces of Cornwall were to lay down their weapons on the spot or death would rain down upon them such as they could not imagine.
No one was willing to die for the cause of Edmund, bastard of Gloucester, or the dead Duke of Cornwall. They laid down their weapons and marched three leagues to the west as instructed.
In two hours it was all over. Out of nearly thirty thousand men who took the field at the White Tower, barely a dozen were killed—all of those, Edmund’s castle guards who refused to yield.
The four guards lay spread about the dungeon in various awkward positions, looking quite dead.
“Dodgy sodding poison,” said I. “Drool, see if you can reach the one with the keys.”
The Natural stretched through the bars, but the guard was too far away.
“I hope Curan knows we’re down here.”
Lear looked around wild-eyed again, as if his madness had returned. “What is this? Captain Curan is here? My knights?”
“Of course Curan is here. From the sound of the trumpets I’d say he’s taken the castle, as was the plan.”
“All your theater was misdirection, then?” said the king. “You’re not angry?”
“Burning, you old twat, but I was growing weary with keeping the tirade up while the bloody poison took hold. You’re no less a turd in the milk of human kindness than I have said.”
“No,” said the old man, as if my anger actually mattered to him. He began coughing again and caught a handful of blood for his effort. Drool propped him up and wiped his face. “I am king. I will not be judged by you, fool.”
44
Poke—a sack, bag; a pig in a poke was usually a cat, which is why you don’t buy one, being as cats are not good eating.