I reached into the small of my back and drew the bolt that killed the Puck. “The Puck is dead. Killed by this.” I tossed the bolt onto the stage and it rattled at his feet.
“I am invisible,” said Oberon. The shadow king whipped his cape into the air as if trying to form wings, and while it did send an impressive wave of silk across the stage, he remained quite visible.
Cobweb sneaked a peek from under her arm, first at Oberon, then at me. “He’s not invisible,” she said.
“No,” said I. “He’s not.
“Your Grace, I am Pocket of Dog Snogging, freelance fool. Queen Titania has sent me with a message, in addition to that bolt, which is from a goblin weapon, so the Puck’s killer can be found. She bids you do me a favor as recompense for bringing you this message.”
“I am invisible,” repeated Oberon, but this time he didn’t do the grand wave of his cape.
Gritch now looked at me under his arm, then dared to raise an eye toward the stage, where he spotted the shadow king being decidedly visible. Gaudily so, truth be told.
“I am now visible,” said Oberon, with the cape wave.
“Much to my relief,” said I. “For surely, when you disappeared, we thought you might have been slain by the same fiend who murdered the Puck.”
“The Puck is slain, you say?” said Oberon, a quaver in his voice, as genuine in his grief as he had been in his invisibility. “He was my fool. My slave. My property. How happened this? Who would do such a thing?”
“Well,” said I, walking to the edge of the stage until I stood directly above the goblin with the silver armlet. “Offhand I would say it was that crossbow what killed him, fired by this tosser.”
Here and there around the hall, goblins were tearing their gaze away from the moon to see what manner of cheeky monkey was speaking to the shadow king in such a way.
Oberon picked up the bolt and leapt off the upper stage, trailing a wave of shimmering night cape behind him. He moved as if mountains might be humbled and slide away at his will. I stepped aside and reached to the small of my back, ready to draw a dagger, lest the shadow king decide it was his royal privilege to stab me in the head with the arrow. Bloody sloppy protocol, anyway, to let a complete stranger in jester togs trailing three fairies and a donkey-headed bloke within stabbing distance of your king. The guards with the halberds were as helpless with awe as the rest of the goblins. Irresponsible, it was.
“This tosser?” asked Oberon, pointing with a silver talon to the armleted tosser, who cowered under his king’s attention.
“Aye,” said I. Up close Oberon was as hard edged and dark as had Titania been pale and soft.
“Draw and cock your crossbow and give it me,” said Oberon, crouching over the goblin soldier. “Do not load a bolt.” Silver Armlet did as he was told and held the cocked crossbow over his head with both hands, his eyes averted to the ground, as if making an offering to a god, which I suppose, in his mind, he was. Oberon took the weapon, inspected it, and grinned down at me (yes, he was two heads taller than I, four with the ridiculous crown), his grin a cold crescent moon where lived no mirth. “This bolt killed my beloved Puck?” he said.
“Aye,” said I. I fought the urge to take the piss, add a colorful sobriquet—“grandiose wankpuffin” came to mind. I had seen mad kings before,
The shadow king fitted the bolt into the arrow groove of the crossbow and inspected it, nodded to me. “Yes, it appears to be from a weapon exactly like this.” He held the crossbow so I could see that the black finish on the stock was the same as on the bolt.
I nodded.
Oberon lowered the crossbow and fired it into Silver Armlet’s chest. The bolt easily pierced the goblin’s chest plate with a thunk and buried itself to the fletching. The goblin reeled and fell on his side, a look of surprise and betrayal in his yellow eyes, green goo oozed out of the wound. The goblins about the courtyard had all stopped looking at the moon as a thousand yellow eyes turned to their king.
“There,” said Oberon, holding the crossbow out to me. “Puck avenged.” The shadow king giggled, a high, mad giggle, then turned and leapt back up the six feet onto the upper stage with a single bound. As if calling to the sky itself, he shouted, “Take back the moon!”
The ground shook, the great gears began to grind, and the ceiling began to close. “Away!” Oberon gestured to the crowd and they swarmed to the exits as if running before a flood.
Oberon looked down on me. “I must go grieve. Tell Titania that justice is done. Tell her I will have the Indian boy now, and only then may her fairies dance again. This is the will of Oberon, ruler of all of the night, king of shadows, master of the moon and tides, giver of the planets and stars.” Oberon turned, wound his long cape around his arm and cast it out behind him, then strode away toward the exit.
“Oi, king of the night!” said Cobweb. She snatched up the shadow king’s cape and gave a good yank, causing Oberon to slip and barely catch himself before falling on his arse. The black crown tumbled off his head to the stones. As it turned out, one could get the attention of Oberon’s guards, it simply required yanking the king back by his cape like a fast dog finding the end of a short leash. Four spearmen, two from either side of the lower stage, came up the stairs looking quite determined to ventilate Cobweb. She jumped up, caught the edge of the upper stage, and swung up to her feet above the guards. Oberon was kneeling, having retrieved his crown, he rubbed his throat as one does after being suddenly and violently choked. Four more spearmen came out of the door at the back of the stage. I quickly measured the damage I might do with my two daggers and a volley of cutting insults against a platoon of leather-skinned spearmen, and I determined that it might be time to take a hostage.
I leapt to the upper stage with a single bound. (There was more than trifling magic in a fucking frolic, and I felt it boiling in my limbs.) I made to draw one of my daggers, thinking the point to the shadow king’s throat might persuade his guards to hold. Then, like a shooting star across a night sky of my mind, an idea . . .
“I have silver!” said I, pulling Bottom’s silver button from my belt and holding it aloft.
And the guards stopped in place, every yellow eye trained on the button. I looked over at the still-kneeling Oberon. “Really?”
“That is mine,” Gritch called.
I flipped the button in the air, caught it, showed it to them all, then made it appear to disappear. If they’d had lips, the goblins would have pouted. I made the button reappear from behind Cobweb’s ear. The goblins’ saw-toothed gobs fell open in wonder.
“You missed the part about him being a fool,” Cobweb said to Oberon, but the shadow king was following my antics with the button, as rapt as his guards.
“Oi! Shadow king,” said Cobweb, shouting in Oberon’s face. “He’s a bloody jester. Like the Puck. LIKE. THE. PUCK. He knows the Puck’s three words.”
Oberon’s attention seemed to return to the scene at hand, even as I was popping the button from foot to foot to elbow to forehead.
He stood. “Enough!” Oberon waved off the guards. I caught the button and tucked it into my belt.
The shadow king was furious but seemed to have no idea how to vent his wrath. He did not know who I was, but he suspected what I was, and I could see there was doubt, if not fear, in his eyes.
“There ye be,” said Cobweb.
Oberon appeared to see the fairy for the first time, standing in front of him, defiant and not a little angry herself.
“You have sticks and leaves in your hair,” he said.
“Your queen has sticks and leaves in her hair,” said Cobweb. “You live in this shining palace made of shards of midnight while your queen lives up a fucking tree in the forest. So pardon the bloody sticks in my hair, but that is the royal way, where we live.”
“Aye,” said Moth, running to the edge of the upper stage, then backing up so she could see Cobweb.
“Aye,” said Peaseblossom, who ran to the edge of the upper stage and stayed b
elow sight, no doubt wondering where everyone had gone.
Oberon looked to me, as if I might provide some guidance in how to deal with this situation. “She’s got you there, mate, the bitch does, indeed, live up a tree.”
“And she has to shag the donkey-donged chap while you have a harem of one hundred fairies,” added Cobweb, bringing Bottom reluctantly into the scene.
That seemed to yank Oberon’s attention back to the fore. He looked over the courtyard. Some of the goblins had stopped running for the towers and were watching, drifting back toward the stage. “Take the fairies to the harem. Have them washed and deloused.”
The guards moved toward Cobweb and she ran and threw herself into my arms. “Oh, save me, good Pocket!” She buried her face in my neck and whispered frantically, “Play him. Then lose him. Bring the dead goblin to the harem before dawn. Do not tell Oberon the three words.”
“I don’t know the three words,” I whispered back.
“Well don’t let him know that, you git,” she said as two of the guards pulled her away.
The guards dragged her off. Moth and Peaseblossom climbed up on the stage and followed along behind, chatting and cheerily negotiating with the guards, as they went, how much silver they would give to have their dicks sucked.
“Bottom,” I called. “With me.” I pulled the ass-man up on the stage and introduced him. “This is Nick Bottom, Majesty. He was a weaver, a mortal, before a magical misadventure with the Puck. Now he is my valet and he wears the head of an ass.”
“Enchanté,” said Bottom with a bow.
“Go keep an eye on our fairies,” I told Bottom, once I was sure Oberon had gotten a good look at him. Let the shadow king stew in jealousy’s emerald bile at the thought of his queen taking her time with the long-eared weaver. Bottom hurried out the door after Cobweb and her co-squirrels.
* * *
“You may watch me dine,” said Oberon, sitting at the head of a long table that could have seated a hundred yet had only two chairs, one at each end, high-backed, thronelike rascals, upholstered in blood-red velvet, one of the few nonblack things I’d seen at the Night Palace. “Stand there,” said the shadow king, pointing a silver-tipped finger at a spot beside him from where goblins were serving some sort of roasted bird.
I set the puppet Jones on the table to mark my place, then made my way to the chair at the far end of the table and proceeded to drag it along behind me to Oberon’s end. The chair was heavy and squeaked horribly as I dragged it, filling the hall with a sound akin to that of a tortured baby elephant. Each time I would pause to get a grip on the chair, Oberon would begin to speak, and I would resume the dragging and drowning him out, until, by the time I pushed the chair under the table at his right hand, he was quite annoyed.
“There,” said I, climbing into the chair. “That’s better. A long journey in the forest wears on one.”
“You put your dirty puppet next to my supper,” said the king.
“You’re a dirty puppet!” said the puppet Jones (with my help). From the look on Oberon’s face, he had never encountered ventriloquism before either.
My chair was so low that my shoulders were just above the table. The petite Titania must have sat on cushions or stood to dine here. I tore a leg from the roasted bird, a duck methinks, and had a taste of the greasy flesh, sans plate, settings, or goblet.
“Oh, scrumptious. Well done,” said I. “Do you have any wine?”
The shadow king nodded to a serving goblin, who scooted off to fetch a goblet, as there was already a pitcher of wine on the table. “And a cushion or two as well, love,” I called after. To Oberon, I said, “I can barely get my elbows on the table—must be a bother to Titania. Delicious little fuckbubble, by the way. Well done, there. Mad as a barrel of rats, though. Pity. Did you notice her tits go pink when she’s lying? Oh, of course you did. I’ll wager they look smashing against all this broody black and silver. Never mind. Sorry, I do go on. What did you wish to speak about?”
Oberon drained his pewter goblet, then slammed it down on the table. “I could send you to the most distant freezing shores of Neptune. Have you torn apart by dragons. You dare—”
“Aye, do that then,” said I. “Send me to Neptune, Your Darkness. Banish me to night’s plutonian shore, if you must.” I paused, waited, bounced my eyebrows in anticipation. “No? It’s customary to threaten a fool with hanging, beheading, and dismemberment.”
Oberon stood. “I shall—”
“Hot poker up the bum? Torture and kill my family? Sorry, orphan—everyone is quite dead. Among the more genteel, my company is considered torture, although when I was king, it was agreed throughout the land that I was a fucking delight. Are those turnips?” I drew one of my daggers and speared a roast turnip. A server goblin started at the sight of my knife, which would have been completely unnecessary if they’d brought me a place setting. He ran off to fetch a guard or soldier. “Mate, bring back a serviette, s’il vous plaît,” I called in perfect fucking French. “I’m in duck fat up to my elbows.” Back to Oberon: “Sorry, do go on.”
“I am—”
“Being the king of the night, does that mean that you just fuck off during the day? Turn into a squirrel and run about demanding everyone’s nuts?”
ENTER RUMOUR, PAINTED FULL OF TONGUES
“Oh fuckstockings,” said I. There he was, his coat of many tongues wagging.
“Majesty, this rogue, this wretch, this scoundrel, this blackguard, this villain, this canker blossom, this twisted, disgusting, perverted little worm of a creature, writhing in his own bilious moral filth, seeks nothing but his own destruction, he craves your wrath to relieve him of his own fetid company.”
“Bit harsh,” said I, around a bite of turnip, which had been roasted in the pan with the duck and so had picked up some delightful flavor from the drippings.
“You took my hat, vile hedge wag.”
“I did not,” said I. “I did not take his hat,” I explained to Oberon, who was still standing and seemed quite taken aback by the appearance of the narrator.
“He doesn’t even have a head,” said the shadow king. “He’s just a floaty face.”
“One of the many elementals under my command,” said I. “This one an unruly sprite, conjured for finding a lost hat. Pardon his shit manners.”
“I am the narrator, the teller of tales, the shaper of plots. I command the elements of substance and style.”
“Back, sprite!” I commanded. “I forbid thee to harm the noble shadow king. Away, I say!”
“I will have my hat of many tongues or this story will turn on you.”
“A fairy took your hat, sprite. I will inquire where she put it after I confer with the king and he finishes torturing me and sending me to Nepenthe.”
“Neptune,” Oberon corrected.
“Right, Neptune. Now, away, sprite, or I shall start trimming the tips from the tongues on your cloak and it shall become a cloak of many lisps. Bloody humiliating, really.”
I feigned an exaggerated lunge at Rumour with my dagger and in an instant he was at the door of the chamber, standing behind two of the servants. “You do not command me, hateful scalawag, I will have my hat and I shall recapture this narrative, and you, in it, shall not fare well, fool.”
I vaulted over the table toward Rumour and took but three running steps at him before he was gone with a whoosh, calling, “Three words, fool!” behind him.
“Beg pardon, Your Grace,” I said to Oberon as I returned to my seat.
Oberon sat. “You command many sprites like that?”
“Sprites, demons, pixies, spirits, a firkin full of fucking ghosts. There’s always a bloody ghost. But, yes.”
Oberon sipped his wine, as if he was not trying to steady his hand. “With the Puck gone, I am in need of a fool.”
“Oh?” said I, thinking I should give thanks to Rumour, for I could not have laid down a better testament to my magical powers if I had actually had them. “I am in the service of a
nother at present, but when I finish my current task, I would consider it. I am no slave, though, good king, I will require payment, and favors in advance as my retainer.”
“What payment?”
“There is a flower, I know not where it grows, but the liquor from it, when dropped into the eyes, will cause a sleeper to fall in love with the next thing he sees. I will require such a flower.”
“I know of such a flower. For this you would serve me?”
“That, and my valet, Bottom, has been transformed by the Puck into a donkey, and I would have him changed back. This spell is not among my powers.”
“I thought you did that when he displeased you,” said the shadow king.
“The Puck did it on my request. Professional courtesy, innit?”
Oberon removed his great crown and set it upon the table, then rubbed his temples so I thought he might gouge out his own eyes with the sharp silver fingertips he wore.
“Alas, these things are not in my power. ’Twas the Puck who fetched the purple flower that enchants a lover, and I never thought I would have need to find it myself. It is the same with the spell on your valet. What other price would you ask for your services, for even by these requests you see I am in need of a jester? Silver, gold, the sweetest perfumes. I command the moon and the tides, the goblins and fairies do my bidding and could as well do yours. Name your price, fool, and I shall list the tasks I require of you.”
“A night in your harem,” said I. “Unattended and unrestrained, to do as I wish.”
Oberon grinned like a child at the prospect of a spoonful of honey. “Done,” he said.
“And when I leave, I bring with me the retainers who accompanied me. The fairies. I require them for my work.”
“They are nothing, take them. But when you finish your task, you will bring me the Indian boy from Titania’s camp. Deliver him, and she should not know where he has gone.”
I scratched my chin as if I were considering it. “This I can do.”
“And I would have you spy on her, in the manner of the Puck, so she knows not that she is observed. I would know if Titania has taken a mortal lover.”
Shakespeare for Squirrels Page 15