“Oh, that is up to you, good fool, for he was turned by the Puck, and only the Puck may turn him back, or someone with his powers.”
“Come then,” I said to Bottom, who had begun to weep in great honking sobs.
Chapter 10
Fancy a Frolic?
The fairies led us on a path wide enough that moonlight could find the forest floor and it was easy going. Moth and Peaseblossom were in the front, each holding one of Bottom’s hands, leading him as he wept and whined all along the way. Cobweb and I brought up the rear, some twenty paces behind the others.
“Well you got a set of bollocks on you, I’ll say that,” said Cobweb. “Just told her, ‘if you didn’t live up a fucking tree,’ like she was some common wood wench. I thought you were done for.”
“Gentle fairy, when I was young I was jester to a feeble old man who called himself the Dragon of Britain. He raged day and night about the fury of his wrath, the sum of which was bluster and betrayal. Since then, I have seen a real sodding dragon—a more fearsome creature than has ever walked upright on two legs—and yet I survived. For most of my life in service, my pillow has been the headman’s block, the axe always a royal whim away, and yet I learned to sleep, and now, with the loves of my life in the tomb or gone on a pirate wind, I simply do not care. I am not afraid. It affords me some license.”
“Good on you, then. Don’t know when I’ve seen her so rattled.”
“I am somewhat disturbed that she didn’t try to shag me as you predicted.”
“That’s because I saved you—threw Mustardseed to her as a sacrifice, didn’t I?” She winked, did a little skip of a dance step.
“Heartless way to treat a mate, especially one who is a bit simple.”
“I have seen how you treat your mate, who is a bit simple, if ‘a bit’ is a bull-sized barrel of bloody simple.”
“Drool is not my mate, he is my apprentice,” said I. “And I do try to do my best by the great ninny.”
“As I did for Mustardseed. He’ll get to shag the queen, do you think he’s not willing? If he survives he’ll never stop talking about it.”
“You may have saved Bottom as well. She was quite cross with him, and if she’s dangerous—”
“She is dangerous enough,” said Cobweb. “But she doesn’t kill her lovers. Although they do disappear from time to time. I think they might be hiding.”
“She has a lot of lovers?”
“Like a cup at the public well she is—well used and always ready for the next thirsty bloke. It was forbidden, for a long, long time—shag a goddess, burst into flame and all that—but when she went mad, it was game on.”
“And the shadow king does not object?”
“Has his own appetites, I hear. Haven’t seen much of him for a while.”
“What about Puck? He said he’d shagged two queens in one day.”
“She used to meet with the Puck all the time. Made like it was some affair of court. Secret and all. Wouldn’t let any of us follow. Or watch.”
I counted on my fingers as we walked. “So, Puck was shagging Hippolyta, and Titania, but also working for Theseus, and he’s jester to Oberon. And he was taking a love potion to Theseus, for Titania. Which only he could fetch. What did Titania get out of it?”
“Roll in the hay with Long Ears, there.” Cobweb pointed ahead at Bottom. “That’s the Puck’s trickery if I ever seen it, and I seen it.”
“And she said so,” said I.
“Aye, and you can bet Puck gave her a sample of that love potion. Should have seen her doting on Bottom while you was getting scrubbed up. Like he hung the moon for her, two ticks later she wouldn’t piss on him if he was afire.”
“She had herself enchanted to love Bottom? For the night? Why?”
“Love-sweetened bonk, methinks,” said Cobweb. “It gentles her bitterness over Oberon.”
We’d entered a bit of the forest where the canopy obscured the moon and walked a bit in silence, just the soft padding of our feet, and once, the distant hoot of an owl, at which the fairies jumped. Poor primitives, probably some omen of doom for them. I, on the other hand, had spent years among the ravens that dwelt above my quarters in the barbican at the White Tower, and I had befriended Hunter, the falconer at the castle, and sometimes passed afternoons watching his raptors rend rats into tasty strips, so birds held no menace for me. I felt, as we moved along, part of the forest. Perhaps I was not an indoor fool after all, but a more rugged creature, suited for these great green environs.
I was about to mention my leafy epiphany to Cobweb when I caught the toe of my boot upon something in the dark, a root I suppose, and I tumbled bum over eyebrows into a patch of nettles.
“Pocket,” said Cobweb, who came to my aid and began testing my limbs for breaks. “What happened?”
“Well it’s dark as the devil’s dirty dick hole out here, isn’t it?”
“Are you all right?”
“Trees! Bloody buggering branchy bastards! The Druids had the right idea: burn the whole lot to the ground and have a celebratory bonk by the light of the fire.”
Bottom and the other fairies had heard my call and tracked back to join us.
“He all right?” asked Moth.
“Took a tumble,” said Cobweb. “Nest up, shall we? Before the mayflies surrender their ghosts due to bloody darkness.”
“Mayflies?” inquired Bottom.
“What we call mortals,” said Moth.
“On account of you lot dying at the touch of a slight breeze,” said Peaseblossom.
“Hardly worth learning your names, really,” said Moth.
“Mates!” called Cobweb. “You’ll want to make a nest for Long Ears if you fancy a frolic before dawn.”
In a blink Moth and Peaseblossom were in the branches of a small oak, weaving together the platform for a nest.
“Come on then,” said Cobweb, offering a hand up. “We’ve a nest to build.”
I let her pull me to my feet and dust me off while I surveyed the branches above. “What’s a suitable tree?” I asked.
“Methinks a nice nest safe on the ground is best for you. I’ll build it. If you still have your flint and steel we could use a fire.”
ENTER RUMOUR, PAINTED FULL OF TONGUES
“And so, the clumsy and awkward fool, alive only by the grace and kindness of the dimwitted fairies, was no closer to solving the mystery of the Puck’s murder, even as his apprentice languished in the dungeon, the executioner’s blade poised above his brutish neck.”
“Oh do fuck off,” said I. Rumour had just appeared, it seemed, on the trail, an uncanny and annoying light shone around him.
“Whosat?” asked Moth, looking down from her prospective nest tree.
“And who you calling dimwitted?” said Cobweb. “I’ll have your nuts in a knot, tosser.”
“Though she be but little, she is fierce,” quoted the puppet Jones. I had drawn the puppet from down my back as a misdirection. I was not so nonplussed as I had been upon my first encounter with the unctuous chorus, and despite his blazing speed, I thought to gain an advantage, perhaps compel him to tell me his secrets, or at least visit a soupçon of humility on him by way of a calming wallop to the noggin.
“This loony’s got tongues all over his frock,” said Peaseblossom. She’d dropped out of her tree and was twiddling the tongues on Rumour’s cloak.
“So he does,” said Moth, who dropped to the other side of the narrator and began twiddling the tongues on that side. “On his hat, too. Bend down, love, let us have a wee squeeze.”
“Fancy a frolic?” said Peaseblossom, snuggling against Rumour’s leg, at which point Cobweb giggled in a tone much more high and girlish than her nine hundred years would have suggested.
“Stop that,” said Rumour.
Moth grasped one of the tongues and held it tight between her fingers. “Say something now. See if you can.”
Rumour snatched his cloak away from the fairies and in an instant was three yards down
the path, leaving Moth and Peaseblossom grasping at empty air. “Enough!”
“I believe I’m stuck up here,” said Bottom, wedged between branches of the nest tree.
Startled, Rumour looked up and squeaked a girlish scream himself. “A horse!”
“Ass-man, we call him,” said I. “I thought you were seer of schemes, teller of tales, planner—what was it?”
“Planner of plots,” said Rumour. “But that fellow has the head of a donkey.”
“A future you didn’t see coming, I’ll wager,” said I. It appeared that I was relieved of the need to conk Rumour in the head to bring him down a notch. “Why are you here?”
“To correct your path, to point out your errors before you completely cock up the narrative.” Rumour swiped at the fairies, who had resumed twiddling his tongues. “Stop it.”
“Well get on with it,” said I. “We’re knackered and the ladies need to finish their nest building so they can frolic the bloody daylights out of old Bottom here.”
“Thank you, good sir,” said Moth with a curtsy.
“Pocket is a fucking gent, he is,” said Peaseblossom.
“Why are you glowing?” asked Cobweb, approaching Rumour now. “Are you having a self-frolic under that frock?”
“Does it have tongues on the inside, too?” asked Moth excitedly.
“May I wear it?” asked Peaseblossom.
Moth pulled open Rumour’s robe to reveal nothing at all—not even legs or feet, just empty space. She pulled his robe shut as quickly as if slamming the door in the face of a menacing dragon. “Well that’s bloody disturbing,” she said.
“This geezer’s magical,” said Cobweb.
“Magically dried up my nethers like salt on a slug,” said Peaseblossom, unhanding Rumour’s tongues.
“Stop talking about me as if I’m not here,” said Rumour.
“They do that,” said Bottom.
“It is our way,” said Moth.
“We are simple,” said Peaseblossom.
“Just her,” said Cobweb. “She’s the simple one.”
“That’s right,” said Peaseblossom. “Sorry, I forgot. I’m—”
“We know!” said I. “Rumour, state your purpose, or do fuck off.”
“The key to the mystery is the lovers,” said Rumour.
“You said that before, and I’ve seen the lovers, and they’re useless and silly.”
“At the same time,” said Cobweb, nodding gravely. “They didn’t kill the Puck. I asked them myself.”
“Well you’ve missed the clue they bore. Examine them again. And there are three simple words that will reveal the Puck’s purpose, and thereby his killer. Three simple words.”
“The Puck would say that, about the three words,” said Cobweb, “when the night queen was displeased with him. ‘I could fix this in three words,’ he’d say.”
“What are the words?” I asked.
“That you must discover for yourself or your apprentice shall perish,” said Rumour.
“I have already discovered the Puck’s message and what he was carrying to Theseus. And there is no shortage of credible rascals I could blame for his murder.”
“And what of the potion he was to deliver? Was that not part of your task?”
I looked to Cobweb, she to me. “Fuckstockings,” said I.
“And so, the doomed, dull-witted drudge, the soon-to-be-dead Pocket, realized his own futility, and—”
“Wait, you’re the one who said you taught Puck to circle the globe in forty minutes. You could fetch the flower for me,” said I. “You could save Drool.”
“I am for drama, I am for intrigue, I am for misdirection and mystery. I serve only the story. Why would I do that?”
“To get your hat back,” said Moth. With that the towheaded fairy leapt to nearly twice her height, spritely even for a sprite, and snatched the hat of tongues off Rumour’s head, then landed as soft as a cat and rolled, coming to her feet with the hat held high. “Ha!”
The rest of us stood, mouths agape, for what we thought would be Rumour’s head was, indeed, nothing at all. Where his forehead ended was just nothing down to his neck in the back, so it appeared that his ears were simply escorting a long-nosed tragedy mask through the air, and tragedy was his expression, even as he let loose with a long, high-pitched, horrified scream. With a whoosh, in a streak of light, he was gone, taking his annoying glow with him, leaving the call of “The passion of the Puck lies with the prince,” hanging in the air behind him.
“Ha,” said Moth. “New hat.” She fitted it on her head and commenced to nest building without further comment, the tongues on the hat wagging as she went.
“Told you he was magic,” said Cobweb. “He’s right about you getting back to Theseus without the flower.”
“Not to worry, lamb,” said I. “I, the all-licensed fool, shall fetch the flower before I return to Theseus.”
“You know that I know that you don’t have Puck’s magical powers, don’t you?”
“I’ll make a fire,” said I, choosing to overlook Cobweb’s stubbornness. “Peradventure, the shadow king will help us.”
“Probably not,” said the fairy.
“I know,” said I.
* * *
When the nests were built, and our bellies were full of nuts, berries, and the last of the bread I’d bought in Athens, I curled into the nest Cobweb had built on the ground and laid my head on my coxcomb folded over, facing the fire’s embers. Cobweb crawled in behind me and ruthlessly spooned me, snaking a delicate hand under my jerkin to rub my shoulders.
“How’s the bump on your noggin?” she asked.
“Sore, but only to the touch.”
“In the morning it will be just you and Bottom. Stay on the path north. This far into the forest, the path is used by both the fairies and the goblins, even the occasional mortal, so it’s well worn and will be easy to follow.”
“You’ll return to Titania?”
“Not to worry, we’ll find you at dusk. You just keep on the trail. We’ll be to the Night Palace by tomorrow midnight.”
“Shouldn’t we keep going tonight, then? I’ll only have two days to save Drool.”
“We need to rest. You need to rest. You won’t want to go before Oberon without your wits at their sharpest and you the full and right rascal you can be.”
“I am not a rascal.”
“It was a compliment.”
“How far from the Night Palace to Athens?”
“Less than a night’s march. We have time.”
“Good night then, good Cobweb.”
“Fancy a cuddle then?”
“No, lamb, I’m sad and knackered.”
She slid over on me and kissed my ear. “I don’t think you are. You say you are, but since you came back from Athens, you haven’t been sad at all. You were right jolly when sparring with the night queen and that Rumour bloke.”
“No. I am heartbroken.”
“I am also sad,” said Nick Bottom, from the nest perhaps ten feet above us. “And Mrs. Bottom frowns upon me frolicking with strangers.”
“Well we ain’t strangers and no one was going to frolic with you, anyway,” said Peaseblossom. “Was just having a bit of a cuddle. And now I seen that thing awake, I don’t want nothing to do with it.”
“Huge, innit?” said Moth.
“I am sad and my knob is huge,” cried Bottom, with an asinine whimper.
“Blossom, you should have a sit on this hat of tongues,” said Moth. “Oh my, this is lovely.”
“Give it,” said Peaseblossom.
“Sad and huge,” said Bottom.
“Bottom, do stop whinging about your enormous dong,” said I. “We are trying to sleep.”
“I miss Titania,” said Bottom.
“Last you saw her you were terrified of her,” I said.
“Absence makes the fond grow harder,” whispered Cobweb.
“Shhhh,” I shushed. It appeared that among the fairies, or at least
this small cohort, I had at last found my lost tribe, and they were a herd of tiny hopeless horn-beasts. And so, with equine nickers susurrating into snores on the breeze and the hushed yips of a pair of fairies sharing a hat of many tongues, with the dying fire warm on my face, and with gentle Cobweb kneading the cares of the day from my shoulders and back, I slipped softly into slumber.
When I awoke she was on me, urgent, naked, and wet—an irresistible force—sliding into my shirt with me, her face against mine, her lips on mine, her breath on my cheek, her voice in my ear saying something in a language I did not know. No jape or objection rose in my throat, no thought of repelling an ancient forest sprite or quick-witted girl, nothing feeling so far away as another being at all; I was for her, as she was for me, and that was that. I don’t know how long, but when I finally looked away from her, the fire was out, and when I looked back I could see her pulling her frock on and a dark star reflecting in her eye. I heard her smile more than I could see it. She put her hand on my cheek and kissed me on the eyebrow. “Sleep, fool.” Then one quick kiss on the lips. “I’ll find you on the morrow.”
I heard her pad off into the forest and a few seconds later, two more sets of footsteps followed her.
Time passed, I dozed, then above me I heard a rustling, and before I could get my wits about me to look out from under the willow canopy Cobweb had built over the nest, Nick Bottom crashed through it, flying in the manner of all non-winged equines, reducing the lot to a brush pile with a charming fool at its core.
“Bottom, thou flea-brained numpty, get off of me.”
“So sorry, maestro. I spotted a glowing in the distance and I stretched out of the nest to see better.”
I crawled out of the compost and pulled my kit out piece by piece. The moon was straight overhead so I was able to see a bit better than when we’d struck camp. And while Bottom’s plunge had done dire damage to the nest, he seemed to have missed my person, if only by a handbreadth.
Bottom crawled out of the pile and tested his limbs, apparently finding them in working order. “That way, maestro. You can just see the glow.” I followed his gaze, and indeed there was a bluish glow off in the forest, unfortunately not the way of the path.
Shakespeare for Squirrels Page 11