“That’s the way Moth and Peaseblossom went. You can see it better from above.”
“I’ll take your word for it,” said I as I pulled on my leggings.
“We should go see,” said Bottom, dashing off into the dark forest like some horse-headed loony.
“Wait,” I called, but off he went, probably to his death, and as soon as I’d pulled on my boots and tucked my leggings in them, I gathered up the rest of my kit and took off after him, probably to my death, because sod all, I’d found my tribe of tiny tarts and I was duty-bound to do something mind-bogglingly stupid on their behalf. Evidently.
When I caught up to Bottom he was crouched behind a great fallen tree at the edge of a clearing from which the bright blue glow was emanating. He pulled me down beside him and bade me be quiet by putting a finger to his lips and blowing a damp raspberry of donkey spit over me.
“Fuck’s sake, Bottom,” said I, wiping the spray out of my face.
“Shhhh,” said Bottom, “look.” He gestured for me to peek over the fallen tree trunk.
I did, and there in the clearing, a space as wide as a country church nave, danced Cobweb, Moth, and Peaseblossom, their bodies glowing blue in the mist, their skin sparkling as if containing the dust of stars. In my time as a pirate we once captured a treasure from a merchant ship in the Black Sea that contained stones called opals, which shone in many colors, as if they had whole worlds of moonlight trapped within them, and now, the fairies put me in mind of those stones, but with their light emanating from within. The dance was free of form, like butterflies flitting on invisible breezes, the fairies moving light in leaps, with spins, even somersaults, but without the weight of whatever stuff we mortals carry.
“Frolicking,” whispered Bottom.
“But I thought—”
“So did I,” said the ass-man, “but what you were doing with Cobweb is not a frolic. Peaseblossom so explained to me, swearing me to secrecy.”
Even as we watched, the fairies lifted in the air until their feet were only brushing the tips of the ferns and they were, indeed, floating. The ferns and other low plants took on spectral highlights around them, as if embers of glowing ice were floating out from the circle the fairies formed.
“How do you know what I did with Cobweb?” I said. From what I could tell, it had been a private and quiet thing, and I was aggrieved that anyone had even a bit of it beyond us two. Also, Cobweb had placed a delicate hand upon my mouth and gently bade me to shut the fuck up when passion rose to voice.
“Not to worry,” said Bottom. “Yours were not the rutting wails of the bawdy house, more like the sound of suckling puppies. Sweet and lovely, really.”
“It was lovely,” said I, rather more defensively than was called for. Had I suddenly become shy in my dotage?
As I watched Cobweb and the others dance I felt something brush my knee and I nearly leapt out of my boots. Bottom steadied me and reprised his horse-spittle shush, spraying me once again. He pointed to the ferns around our feet, which were unfurling new fronds as we watched, even small blossoms of white and violet pushed their way out of the forest floor below.
“Remember what Titania said about how only with the dance of the fairies do the grains ripen, the fruit trees blossom? This!”
“Well bang on keeping the secret,” said I.
“I thought Cobweb would have told you.”
The dance went on, I know not how long, for I was mesmerized with the light and life of it, the grace of it, and even as I felt myself a low and loathsome thing by contrast, there, too, was a joy, a delight in it. These were magical creatures, divine creatures. In all my life I had never seen nor felt anything like it, except perhaps for moments that very night making love with Cobweb.
Then, as I was carried on the seeming dream of it, I heard the call of a songbird, then another, signaling the coming dawn. The blue light in the clearing began to fade, then recede to the center, where the three fairies floated, hand in hand, to the ground, even as the light emanating from them faded and once again they appeared to be flesh, three naked nymphs standing in the forest (I had not even noticed that they were not wearing their rough linen frocks). In the next second, as the first light of dawn broke through the trees, the three receded, shrank, in place, until they were squirrels. Yes, three squirrels: Cobweb the red squirrel, Moth the color of an eggshell, Peaseblossom light brown. They scampered away into the trees.
I stood, stunned. I dragged my coxcomb from my head in reverence, or perhaps bewilderment.
“You aren’t alone, silly fool,” Rumour had told me, pointing out the red squirrel above. Had he known? Of course he had known. I was glad the fairies had stolen his hat.
I was pulled from my reverie by the hee-hawing guffaws of Nick Bottom, who was nearly bent over in laughter, pointing at me.
“Haw, haw, maestro, it seems you have shagged a squirrel.”
“I have not, thou rabbit-eared toss-toad, this is magic of the first order.”
“Squirrel shagger, squirrel shagger, squirrel shagger.”
“Did you not make the beast with two backs with Titania, also a fairy, just last night?”
Bottom smoothed back his ears. “I was an unwilling servant. Used and enchanted, and besides, I didn’t know they turned into squirrels at dawn.”
“I thought Peaseblossom told you.”
“Only about the frolicking, not about the squirrel bit. Did she have a tail?”
“No she didn’t have a bloody tail. You’ve seen them all naked, you nitwit.”
“Oh, right.”
“And you have a tail. And a long snout. And nostrils like teacups. You, sir, are an ass.”
Bottom felt around to the rear of his trousers. “Oh,” he said, and his lips described what approximated, for a donkey, a pout. He sat down on the spot, as if he’d suddenly been overtaken by fatigue, and cradled his great ears in his hands. “How shall I play Pyramus in the duke’s play? The lads will be lost without me. You must help me, maestro.”
“Really? That is your concern? The play?”
“The play’s the thing, maestro.”
“Bottom, you cannot do the play. You’re an ass.”
“But I must do the play, so people will look at me. So people will see me.”
“But you’re an ass.”
“And they will see me!” He looked up, hope sparkling in his eye. “I could play it in a mask. So though I am an ass, I could play a proper man.”
“It has been done before,” said I, nodding as if giving the premise consideration. My anger at the ass-man was fading with the dew. With the Puck the author of the spell that transformed Bottom, the poor weaver might live out his years as an ass. Who was I, a wanton squirrel shagger, to shatter his dream of the stage? “Yes, a mask,” I said.
“No, it won’t work.” Bottom began to weep again, in great hee-hawing sobs. “I am an ass.”
“No, mate, I shall direct you. Your performance will be as honed as a barber’s blade.”
“No, I am hopeless. I have these great stupid ears and this ridiculous snout.”
“And moods that swing like a bell clapper, but you do have a cracking huge knob.” I grinned and did a dance step to cheer him.
“I am hopeless and my knob is huge.”
“Bottom. Lad. Be of good cheer. We will go to the shadow king, who was the Puck’s master, and he will reverse the spell.”
“Oh, maestro, do you think so?”
“We shall see, good Bottom. We shall see. Now gather up the ladies’ frocks and that hat of many tongues and let us be on our way to Oberon’s castle.” As I fitted on my own hat, I noticed that the knot on my forehead was gone, not even a scab where the gash had been. I examined my arms and legs. The scrapes and cuts from my tossing in the waves had healed, the rope burns on my wrist, from being carried on the pole to Theseus’s dungeon, gone, even the rash from my run-in with the nettles had disappeared. Fucking fairies and their fucking frolicking. I could smell her on my arms, wildfl
ower and moss, and stood there watching Bottom gather up the fairies’ fallen frocks and Cobweb’s little bowman’s hat, grinning like a bloody loony.
“Bottom,” I called cheerily. “If Oberon can’t fix you, you can always play the lion. You couldn’t possibly do worse than Snug the joiner. The show shall go on!”
Bottom snatched up Rumour’s hat of many tongues and fitted it over his ears, a sight that gave me a slight spasm of the willies up my spine, as the tongues waggled with joy at finding a new home.
“I liked you better when you were sad,” said Bottom.
Chapter 11
What Fools These Mortals Be
“How bloody far is it to Oberon’s castle?” I inquired of Bottom, several weeks into our hike since dawn. “We’ve been on this trail for days. I think we’re going in circles. This looks suspiciously like the trail near Athens. Are we headed back to Athens?”
“It hasn’t been that long,” said Bottom. “It’s not even lunchtime.”
“How do you know? How can you even tell? There are no bells to ring the watch, no sundials. This forest is bloody barbaric. Why didn’t the fucking fairies give us horses? They have what passes for a civilization, if you don’t mind sleeping in a pile of sticks, why don’t they have horses?”
“Hard getting them in and out of the trees, I reckon,” said Bottom.
“Ha,” said I, with withering sarcasm. “Ha,” I repeated, with no little scorn. “Ha,” I reprised, dripping with venomous irony.
We trod on in silence for a bit, which allowed Bottom’s malignant, amateur jest to dry up and die.
Then: “What do you suppose they were?” asked Bottom.
“What what were?” I replied.
“The three words that Puck would have us remember, according to that Rumour chap.”
“Doesn’t matter,” said I. “They will not help in finding the Puck’s killer.”
“They might.”
“Not unless they are ‘BOTTOM KILLED ME’ or some similar nonsense, which they aren’t, because he said them before he was killed and so didn’t know.”
“Also, I did not kill him,” said Bottom.
“Well reasoned, good Bottom,” said I. I gentled my response to the once-weaver, for in the light of day, I could see that Bottom was becoming more donkey and less man as the hours passed. Dark, wiry hair had covered his hands and forearms already, and he had twice stopped along the path to graze, then had been quite stubborn about getting on with the journey afterward.
“So, who do you think killed the Puck?” asked Bottom.
“I’ve no idea. Every mortal in Athens is armed, it appears, but now we know it wasn’t a fairy.”
“Of course we do,” said Bottom, snatching up a handful of grass from the side of the trail, on which he began munching. “How do we know that?”
“Because I was nearby when the Puck was murdered,” I said, slapping the grass out of Bottom’s hand, “and although it was early, it was broad daylight when Puck stopped the arrow. And I think we can say that a squirrel is very unlikely to have shot a crossbow, no matter how small the weapon.”
“And you heard the horn then?”
“What horn?”
“This morning, just before dawn, there sounded a horn, like a hunter’s horn, right before the fairies changed.”
“I heard no such horn,” said I. Although I remembered the horn sounding on that first day, on the beach where Cobweb had rescued Drool and me.
Bottom pulled off the hat of many tongues and pointed to his long ears. “Not just for show, these fellows.” Then the weaver stopped, held a finger in the air. “Listen . . .”
I listened: wind through the trees, the occasional birdcall, an odd rustling of leaves, probably a hedgehog having a wank or snakes sneaking up on us, but nothing of note.
“A group of mortals. Men and women. Young,” said Bottom. “Up ahead. I can hear them arguing. One is called Helena?”
“Oh fuckstockings,” said I. “Perhaps we should go around, or stop for a wee rest.”
“They need help,” said Bottom. He began to gallop forward.
“I told you we were headed back to Athens,” I called as I fell into a trot after him, surprised after a hundred yards or so that I was neither fatigued nor out of breath. Two years before the mast and being starved and shipwrecked hadn’t taken the toll on my condition I’d expected. Even at a full run, as I caught up to Bottom, I found I still had the breath to complain.
“Why are you running? I know these Athenians and they’re wildly annoying. The last time you came upon them you frightened them off, and how far ahead are they, anyway?”
We rounded a bend in the trail, the two of us pounding out steps like a chariot team, and ahead stood three of the Athenians, Helena, Hermia, and the dark-bearded Lysander, kneeling over the prostrate form of the piss-haired lad, Demetrius, an arrow protruding from the back of his neck just at the base of his skull.
“Did you see the killer?” said I, before I even reached the quartet.
Hermia shook her head.
“Which way?”
They all looked blank faced at me.
“From which direction did the bolt come?”
Hermia pointed off the trail into a thicket of berry bushes of some sort. I could see nothing but foliage. At that point their gazes all turned to Bottom and their eyes went wide. Helena stood, as if to run, but then began to whimper and wave her hands before her as if taken with a palsy.
“Fear not,” said Bottom, “for it is I, Nick Bottom, the weaver, of Athens, here to assist you in your time of distress, except for that fellow on the ground, who may need help beyond my skills as weaver and actor.” He bowed deeply, which helped not at all, for it gave them all a good look at his hat of many tongues, which were disturbingly agitated.
Helena’s whimpers grew to panicked screams that escalated in frequency and volume until they sounded as if someone were pumping a bellows filled with owls. I grabbed the tall girl by the shoulders and shook her roughly, which served only to bat her bosoms into my face and calmed her not at all.
I stepped back. “Hit her,” I instructed the petite Hermia.
“Beg pardon?” She was still enthralled by Bottom.
“Hit her!” I commanded. “To calm her. I am a gentleman and will not hit a lady, even an annoyingly tall one.”
Without further consideration Hermia swung her fist in a wide and rapid arc, which landed smartly upon her friend’s jaw, snapping the tall girl’s head back and sending her folding to the forest floor, quite unconscious.
“Blimey,” said Lysander.
“I meant slap,” said I.
“Well you should have said ‘slap,’” said Hermia.
“She has stopped screaming,” said Bottom, ever the spirit of equine optimism, at which point the two remaining lovers turned to him and proceeded to stare in gape-jawed terror, or perhaps wonder, it is hard to say.
“This is Nick Bottom, a crude tradesman, as common as cat shit,” said I. “Enchanted by the Puck to appear thus, and nothing to be afraid of.” To Bottom, I said, “Sort this, I’m after the killer.”
And off I ran in the direction in which Hermia had pointed, leaping over the berry bushes as if they were painted flat on the ground and drawing a dagger from the small of my back as I ran. If Theseus wanted a murderer, I would bring him one, spitted like a roast pig, if it would help Drool’s case. Running through the forest, off the path, required a rather indirect and serpentine movement, which is just as well, for as I made to jump over a cow-sized boulder, I decided at the last instant to zag around it, lest there be a snake or other unpleasantness waiting on the other side, and in that blink of movement, a crossbow bolt thunked into a tree behind the space my head had just occupied. I dove behind the boulder to pause and reflect upon my situation. Yes, now it appeared that dashing into an unfamiliar wood after a murderer with a ranged weapon was perhaps not the wisest path I had ever chosen. Then I remembered, while at the White Tower, upon a
dare by the captain of the guard, I had devised a method to measure the time it took for a crossbowman to reload and fire—one that soldiers might use in the field when out of voice range of an officer. As it turned out, the time it took was precisely two stanzas of the romantic ballad “Milady Hath a Most Becoming Bottom.”
And so I sang.
“Milady hath a most becoming bottom—”
I was around the boulder and dashing downfield with no thought of evading aim.
“She gave me crabs and I was glad I caught ’em.”
As I ran I looked for any movement, any sign of where the murderer might be.
“The lads all say to leave her, I say rot ’em.”
Was that a glint off the weapon in the sunlight ahead?
“Milady hath a most becoming bottom.”
There was time; if the murderer was running, he wasn’t reloading—
“Oh, milady hath the most ebullient bosoms—”
A bowstring twanged and my coxcomb was ripped off my head by the bolt passing through it.
“I still had the line about the Muslims and the bloody refrain before you were supposed to fire!” I shouted as I trod back after my poor punctured hat, which lay on the ground like a dead bird. “Shoddy bloody warcraft, that, not keeping time with the shooting song, ya bellend!”
I was singing the song in my head as I shouted, so as not to be surprised by the next bolt, when the niggling notion occurred to me that at the White Tower we had decided to table “Milady’s Bottom” for a song less romantic and more suited to marching into war to kill and burn, and had settled upon the Irish hymn “When the Badgers Ate St. Bridget.” I had been timing the bolts with entirely the wrong song. I was lucky not to be dead a third time in as many days. I quickly ducked behind a tree. “Sorry,” I called.
As I waited for the next shot, and tried to remember the words to the hymn, there came a woman’s scream from whence I had come. Had the killer circled back? Or worse, perhaps there were two of them? I shuffled straight back from my shielding tree for perhaps ten yards, then turned and dashed back the way I had come, zigging and zagging as I went, lest the killer still had me in his sights.
Shakespeare for Squirrels Page 12