Fool Chapter 21

TWENTY-ONEAT THE WHITE CLIFFSYEARS AGO Pocket, give tongue to Cordelia, wee you invariably heard of this warrior queen named Boudicca? Cordelia was about fifteen at the time, and she had sent for me because she wished to discuss politics. She ready on her stratum with a large leather volume open before her.No, lamb, who was she queen of?Why, of the pagan Britons. Of us. Lear had recently shifted put up to the pagan beliefs, thus opening a self-coloured new world of learning for Cordelia.Ah, that explains it. Educated in a nunnery, do, Ive a very shallow knowledge of pagan ways, although I have to say, their festivals are smashing. rampant(ip) drunken shagging while wearing flower wreaths go by dint ofms far superior to midnight mass and self-flagellation, just now then, Im a fool.Well, it says here(predicate) that she kicked nine colors of shit out of the Ro man legions when they invaded.Really, thats what it says, nine colors of shit?Im paraphrasing. Why do you think wev e no warrior queens anymore?Well, lamb, war requires swift and resolute action.And youre saying that a cleaning woman ceaset move with swift resolve?Im saying no such thing. She may move with swiftness and resolve, precisely only after choosing the correct outfit and shoes, and at that placein lies the undoing of any potential warrior queen, I suspect.Oh vauntIll wager your Boudicca lived before they invented clothing. Easy days then for a warrior queen. Just hitch up your tits and abrasion taking encephalons, it was. Now, well, I daresay erosion would take d throw a country before most wo workforce could put together out their invading kit.Most women. tho not me?Of course not you, lamb. Them. I meant only weak-willed tarts exchangeable your sisters.Pocket, I think I shall be a warrior queen.Of what, the royal petting zoo at B collide withingshire?Youll see, Pocket. The whole of the sky will darken with the smoke from my armys fires, the ground will tremble under their hor ses hooves, and kings will kneeling outside their city walls, cr makes in hand, begging to surrender rather than feel the wrath of Queen Cordelia excrete upon their people. But I shall be merciful.Goes without saying, doesnt it?And you, fool, will no longer be able to behave homogeneous the right shit that you are.Fear and trembling, love, thats all youll get from me. Fear and bloody trembling.As long as we understand each other.So, it sounds as if youre thinking of conquering more than just the petting zoo?Europe, utter the princess, as if stating the unadorned truth.Europe? state I.To start, express Cordelia.Well, then you had better get moving, hadnt you?Yes, I suppose, give tongue to Cordelia, with a great silly grin. Dear Pocket, would you help me pick an outfit?Shes already taken Normandy, Brittany, and the Aquitaine, verbalize Edgar, and Belgium soils itself at the mention of her name.Cordelia can be a bundle of rumpus when she sets her mind to something, tell I. I smi led at the panorama of her barking orders to the troops, all fury and fire from her lips, but those crystal-blue eyes hinting laughter at every turn. I missed her.Oh, I did betray her love and flay her sweet heart with stubborn pride, express Lear, presenting madder and weaker than when Id seen him last.Where is Kent? I asked Edgar, ignoring the old king. bosh and I had found them above a drop-off at D over. They all sit conquer with their spurs to a great chalk bowlder Gloucester, Edgar, and Lear. Gloucester snored softly, his result on Edgars shoulder. We could see smoke from the French camp not two miles away in the distance.Hes gone to Cordelia, to ask her to take to her father into her camp.Why didnt you go yourself? I asked Lear.I am afraid, said the old man. He hid his head under his arm, like a bird trying to escape the daylight beneath its wing.It was wrong. I cherished him truehearted, I wanted him stubborn, I wanted him full of arrogance and cruelty. I wanted to see those move of him I knew were thriving when hed thrown my mother on the stones so many years ago. I wanted to scream at him, humiliate him, hurt him in eleven places and watch him crawl in his own shit, dragging his bloody pride and guts behind him in the dirt. There was no revenge to be satisfied on this trembling shell of Lear.I wanted no part of it.Im going to go nap behind those rocks, said I. fraud, keep watch. Wake me when Kent returns.Aye, Pocket. The Natural went to the far side of Edgars boulder, sat, and stared out over the sea. If we were advanceed by a ship, hed be Johnny-on-the-spot.I lay down and slept perhaps an hour before thither was shouting behind me and I looked over my boulders to see Edgar driveing his fathers head, steadying him as the old man stood on a rock, perhaps a foot above the ground.Are we at the edge?Aye, there are fishermen on the beach below that look like mice. The dogs look like ants.What do the horses look like? asked Gloucester.Ther e arent any horses. Just fishermen and dogs. Dont you hear the sea crashing below?Yes. Yes, I do. Farewell, Edgar, my son. I am sorry. Gods, do your will With that the old man leaped off the rock, expecting to plummet hundreds of feet to his death, I reckon, so he was close to surprised when he met the ground in an instant.Oh my lord Oh my lord said Edgar, trying to use a different voice and failing completely. Sir, you have duly fallen from the cliffs above.I have? said Gloucester.Aye, sir, can you not see?Well, no, you git, my eyes are bandaged and bloody. Can you not see?Sorry. What I precept was you fall from a great height and kingdom as softly as if you were a conjoin floating down.I am assassinated, then, said Gloucester. He sank to his knees and seemed to lose his breath. I am deathly, yet I still suffer, my grief is manifest, my eyes ache even though they are not there.Thats because hes be intimate with you, said I.What? said Gloucester.Shhhh, said Edgar. Tis a mad b eggar, pay him no heed, good sir.Fine, youre dead. Enjoy, said I. I lay back on the ground, out of the wind, and pulled my coxcomb over my eyes.Come, come sit with me, said Lear. I sat up and watched Lear lead the wile man to his nest beneath the great boulders. Let the cruelties of the world fall away off our bent backs, friend. Lear put his arm around Gloucester and held him while he spoke to the sky.My king, said Gloucester. I am safe in your mercy. My king. Aye, king. But I have no soldiers, no lands, no discipline quakes before me, no servants wait, and even your darn son hath treated you better than my own daughters.Oh, for fucks sake, said I. But I could see that the old blind man was smiling, and for all his suffering, he found comfort in his friend the king, no doubt having been blinded to his scoundrel nature long before Cornwall and Regan took his eyes. Blinded by loyalty. Blinded by gloss. Blinded by shoddy patriotism and false righteousness. He loved his mad, murder ing king. I lay back down to listen.Let me kiss your hand, said Gloucester.Let me wipe it prototypic, said Lear. It feels of mortality.I smell nothing, and see nothing evermore. I am not worthy.Art thou mad? soak up with your ears, Gloucester. Have you never seen a farmers dog bark at a beggar, and thus chase him off? Is that dog the voice of authority? Is he better than the many for denying the mans hunger? Is a sheriff righteous who whips the whore, when it is for his own lust he punishes her? See, Gloucester. See who is worthy? Now we are stripped of finery, see. Small vices show through tattered clothes, when all is hidden beneath fur and fine robes. Plate sin with gold and the strong lance of justice breaks on decoration. Blessed are you, that you cannot see for you cannot see me for what I am wretched.No, said Edgar. Your impertinence comes from madness. Do not weep, good king.Do not weep? We weep when we first smell the air. When we are born, we cry, that we come to this great stage of fools.No, all shall be well again, and And there was a thump, followed by another, and a yowl.Die, thou blind mole came a familiar voice.I sat up in time to see Oswald standing over Gloucester, a bloodied stone in one hand, his sword dictated down through the old earls chest. Youll not poison my ladys cause further. He twisted the blade, and blood bletherd up out of the old man, but no sound did he make. He was quite dead. Oswald yanked his blade alleviate and kicked Gloucesters body across Lears lap, as the king cowered against the boulder. Edgar lay unconscious at Oswalds feet. The vermin drew back as if to drive his sword into Edgars spine.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 hed use 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. Weve n o arrangement. Youre a lying cur.Moi? said I, in perfect fucking French. I can give you your ladys heart, and not in the unpleasant, eviscerated, no-shagging-except-the-corpse way.You have no such power. Youve not bewitched Regans 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 allowance in the name of the Duchess of Cornwall to be a total twatgoblin?Your wit is impenetrable, 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 t hen held the steward up and squeezed his throat, slowly but sternly, causing wet gurgling noises to bubble from his foul gullet.I said, While unscathed by my rapier witYoure choked to death by a giant gitBy this gentle jester, is argument wonIll leave you two to have your fun. Oswald seemed somewhat surprised by the turn of events, so much so, that both his eyes and tongue protruded from his front 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 just hung limp and dripping, I nodded to my apprentice, who tossed the stewards body over the cliff as easily as if it were an apple core.Drool went down on one knee over Gloucesters 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 hes blind and dead, said the Natural.Bugger, said I, under my breath. Then to Drool, Hide, and dont fight, and dont 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 whats this? The king? What good fortune Youll make a fine warranter 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 mortal 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. Whos this other deader? Edmund kicked his unconscious half comrade 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 Oswalds purse. These belong to Gonerils 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. amaze 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 calm him.What about the bodies? asked Edmunds captain.Let the French bury them. Quickly, to the White rise. Ive seen enough.Lear coughed then, a dry, feeble cough like the noise of Deaths door hinges, until I thought he might collapse into a pile of blue. One of Edmunds men gave the old man a sip of water supply, which seemed to quell the coughing, but he couldnt stand or post his weight. Drool hoisted him up on one shoulder and carried him up the hill the old mans bony bottomland bouncing on the great gits 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 Edgars prostrate body. The wound on his scalp wasnt deep, but it had bled copiously, as scalp wounds are wont to do. The resulting puddle of gore had probably saved Edgars 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 fathers corpse and wailed.Im sorry, Edgar, said I. Twas Gonerils 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 brothers men. Listen, Edgar, I need to follow them. You go to the French camp. Take them a message.Edgars 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 earls 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 fathers life. Ill see to it that its not an issue.Aye, said Edgar. Shell not save the king by holding the attack.