“Aye, there’s usually an arrangement in those situations—the arrangement of the queen’s head and body at different addresses.”
“Nothing like that, Pocket. Jeff is a decent chap. I didn’t love him, but he was a good fellow. Saved me when Father threw me out, didn’t he? And by the time this happened I’d won the guard and most of the court to my sympathies—if anyone was going to lose his head, it wasn’t me. France took some territories, Toulouse, Provence, and some bits of the Pyrenees with him, but considering the territories I’ve taken, overall it’s more than fair. The boys have a crashingly large palace in Burgundy that they perpetually redecorate. They’re quite happy.”
“The boys? Bloody Burgundy buggering froggy France? By the dangling ovaries of Odin, there’s a song in there somewhere!”
She grinned. “I’ve purchased a divorce from the Pope. Bloody dear[46] it was, too. If I’d known Jeff was going to insist on sanction of the Church I’d have pushed to reinstate the old Discount Pope.”
The sound of the great doors opening echoed through the hall and Cordelia turned, fierce fire in her eyes. “I said I was to be left alone!”
But then Drool, who had lumbered through, pulled up as if he’d seen a ghost, and started to back away. “Sorry. Beggin’ your pardons. Pocket, I got Jones and your hat.” He held up the puppet stick and my coxcomb, forgot for a second that he’d been shouted at, then resumed backing out the doors.
“No, come, Drool,” said Cordelia. She waved him in and the guards closed the door behind him. I wondered what the knights and other nobles might think that the warrior queen would admit no one to the hall except two fools. Probably that she was merely another in a long line of family nutters.
Drool paused as he passed Regan’s body and lost his sense of purpose. He lay Jones and my hat on the table next to her, then pinched the hem of her gown and began to raise it for a peek.
“Drool!” I barked.
“Sorry,” said the Natural. Then he spotted Goneril’s body and moved to her side. He stood there, looking down. In a moment his shoulders began to shake and soon he broke into great, rib-wrenching sobs and proceeded to drip tears upon Goneril’s bosom.
Cordelia looked at me with pleading in her eyes, and I, at her, with something that must have seemed similar. We were shits, together, we were, that we didn’t grieve for these people, this family.
“They was fit,” said Drool. Soon he was petting Goneril’s cheek, then her shoulder, then both her shoulders, then her breasts, then he climbed on the table on top of her and commenced a rhythmic and unseemly sobbing that approximated in timbre and volume a bear being shaken in a wine cask.
I retrieved Jones from Regan’s side and clouted the oaf about the head and shoulders until he climbed off the erstwhile Duchess of Albany and slipped through the drape and hid under the table.
“I loved them,” Drool said.
Cordelia stayed my hand and bent down and lifted the drapery. “Drool, mate,” she said. “Pocket doesn’t mean to be cruel, he doesn’t understand how you feel. Still, we have to keep it to ourselves. It’s not proper to dry-hump the deceased, love.”
“It ain’t?”
“No. The duke will be here soon and he’d be offended.”
“What ’bout the other one. Her duke is dead.”
“Just the same, it’s not proper.”
“Sorry.” He hid his head under the drape.
She stood and looked at me, turning away from Drool and rolling her eyes and smiling.
There was so much to tell her, that I’d shagged her mother, and we, technically, were cousins, and, well, things might get awkward. It was my instinct, as a performer, to keep the moment light, so I said, “I killed your sisters, more or less.”
She stopped smiling. “Captain Curan said they poisoned each other.”
“Aye. I gave them the poison.”
“Did they know it was poison?”
“They did.”
“Couldn’t be helped, then, could it? They were right vicious bitches anyway. Tortured me through my childhood. You saved me the effort.”
“They just wanted someone to love them,” I said.
“Don’t make the case with me, fool. You’re the one that killed them. I was just going to take their lands and property. Maybe humiliate them in public.”
“But you just said—”
“I loved them,” said Drool.
“Shut up!” I chorused with Cordelia.
The doors cracked open then and Captain Curan peeked his head through. “Lady, the Duke of Albany has arrived,” said he.
“Give me a moment, then send him in,” said Cordelia.
“Very well.” Curan closed the doors.
Cordelia stepped up to me then, she was only a little taller than me, but in armor, somewhat more intimidating than I’d remembered her—but no less beautiful.
“Pocket, I’ve taken quarters in my old solar. I’d like you to visit after supper tonight.”
I bowed. “Does my lady require a story and a jest before bedtime to clear her head of the day’s tribulations?”
“No, fool, Queen Cordelia of France, Britain, Belgium, and Spain is going to shag the bloody bells off you.”
“Pardon?” said I, somewhat nonplussed. But then she kissed me. The second time. With great feeling, and she pushed me away.
“I invaded a country for you, you nitwit. I’ve loved you since I was a little girl. I came back for you, well, and for revenge on my sisters, but mostly for you. I knew you would be waiting for me.”
“How? How did you know?”
“A ghost came to me at the palace in Paris months ago. Scared the béarnaise out of Jeff. She’s been advising the strategy since.”
Enough talk of ghosts, I thought. Let her rest. I bowed again. “At your bloody beckoning service, love. A humble fool, at your service.”
ACT V
How I would make him fawn and beg and seek
And wait the season and observe the times
And spend his prodigal wits in bootless rhymes
And shape his service wholly to my hests
And make him proud to make me proud that jests!
So perttaunt-like would I o’ersway his state
That he should be my fool and I his fate.
— Love’s Labour’s Lost, Act V, Scene 2, Rosaline
TWENTY-FIVE
THE KING SHALL BE A FOOL
Alas, your humble fool is the King of France. Actually, France, Britain, Normandy, Belgium, Brittany, and Spain. Perhaps more, I haven’t seen Cordelia since breakfast. She can be a terror when left to her own devices, but she keeps the empire in working order and I adore her, of course. (As has always been the case.)
Good Kent had his lands and title restored, and was also given the title Duke of Cornwall, and the attendant lands and properties. He’s retained the black beard and glamour given him by the witches, and seems to have convinced himself that he is younger and more vibrant than the multitude of years he carries on his back.
Albany retained his title and lands and signed an oath of fealty to Cordelia and me, and I trust he will be true to it. He’s a decent, if dull chap, and without Goneril in his ear, his will be the way of virtue.
We’ve given Curan the title of Duke of Buckingham, and he acts as regent of Britain when we are not on the islands. Edgar took his title as Earl of Gloucester and returned to his home where he buried his father in the walls of the castle temple built to his many gods. He’s started his own family and will no doubt have many sons who will grow up to betray him or simply be dolts in the image of their father.
Cordelia and I live in a number of palaces around the empire, traveling with an embarrassingly large entourage that includes Bubble and Squeak, as well as Shanker Mary and other loyal staff from the White Tower. I have a crashingly large throne, on which I hold court with Drool on one side (who has been given the title of Royal Minister of Wank), and my monkey, Jeff, on the other. We hear cases of the local farmers and merchants, and I pronounce judgments, damages, and sentences. For a while I allowed monkey Jeff to pronounce sentences while I was off having lunch with the queen, giving him a little plaque with various penalties to which he could point, but that had to stop when I returned one afternoon from a protracted Cordelia bonking to find that the cheeky little bloke had hanged the entire village of Beauvois for cheese violations. (Awkward, that, but the French understand. They are very serious about their cheese.) Most of the time justice can be satisfied with a bit of verbal humiliation, name-calling, and pointed sarcasm, at which, it turns out, I excel, so I am viewed as a fair and just king and much beloved by my people, even the fucking French.