“No, let it take me,” said Lear. Suddenly the old man shrugged off his fur cloak and charged at the monster, his arms wide, as if offering his very heart to the beast. “Slay me, ye merciless god—rend this black heart from Britain’s chest!”
I could not stop him and the old man fell into the beast’s arms. But to my surprise, there was no tearing of limbs or bashing of brains. The thing caught the old man and lowered him gently to the ground.
I lowered my blade and inched forward. “Leave him, beast.”
The thing was kneeling over Lear, whose eyes were rolled back in his head even as he twitched as if in a fit. The beast looked at me and I saw streaks of pink through the mud, the whites of its eyes.
“Help me,” it said. “Help me get him to shelter.”
I stepped forth and wiped the mud away from the thing’s face. It was a man, covered with mud so thick it even ran out of his mouth and coated his teeth, but a man just the same, vines or rags, I couldn’t tell which, trailed off his arms. “Help poor Tom bring him out of the cold,” said he.
I sheathed my dagger, retrieved the old man’s cape, and helped the muddy, naked bloke carry King Lear into the wood.
It was a tiny cabin, barely enough room to stand in, but the fire was warm and the old woman stirred a pot that smelled of boiling meat and onions, like breath of the Muses it was, on this dank night. Lear stirred, now hours since we brought him in from the rain. The king reclined on a pallet of straw and skins. His fur cloak still steamed by the fire.
“Am I dead?” asked the old man.
“Nay, nuncle, but ye were close enough to lick death’s salty taint,” said I.
“Back, foul fiend!” said the naked fellow, waving at the very air before his eyes. I had helped him wash away much of the mud, so now he was merely filthy and mad, but no longer misshapen.
“Oh, poor Tom is cold! So cold.”
“Aye, we can tell that,” said I. “Unless you’re just a crashingly large bloke what was born with a willie the size of a raisin.”
“The fiend makes Tom eat the swimming frog, the tadpole, lizards, and ditch-water—I eat cow dung for salads and swallow rats and bits of dead dogs. I drink pond scum, and in every village I am beaten and thrown into stocks. Away, fiend! Leave poor, cold Tom alone!”
“Blimey,” said I. “The loonies are in full bloom tonight.”
“I offered him some stewed mutton,” said the old woman by the fire, without turning, “but no, he had to have his frogs and cow pies. Right fussy eater for a naked nutter.”
“Pocket,” said Lear, clawing at my arm. “Who is that large, naked chap?”
“He calls himself Tom, nuncle. Says he’s pursued by the devil.”
“He must have daughters. See here, Tom, did you give all to your daughters? Is that what drove you mad and poor even until you are naked?”
Tom crawled across the floor until he was at Lear’s side.
“I was a vain and selfish servant,” said the nutter. “I slept with my mistress every night and woke thinking of putting it to her again in the morning. I drank and caroused and made merry, even while my half brother fought a crusade for a Church for which he held no faith. I took all without thought for those who had nothing. Now I have nothing—not a stitch, not a crumb, not a coin, and the devil dogs me to the ends of the earth for my selfishness.”
“You see,” said Lear, “only a man’s cruel daughters could drive him to such a state.”
“He didn’t say that, you daft geezer. He said he was a selfish libertine and the devil took his kit.”
The old woman turned now. “Aye, the fool’s right. The younger nutter has no daughters, ’tis his own unkindness that curses him.” She crossed the cabin with two steaming bowls of stew and set them before us on the floor. “And it’s your own evil hounds you, Lear, not your daughters.”
The old woman, I’d seen her before. She was one of the crones from the Great Birnam Wood. Different togs and somewhat less green, but this was surely Rosemary, the cat-toed witch.
Lear slid to the floor and grabbed poor Tom’s hand. “I have been selfish. I have thought nothing of the weight of my deeds. My own father I imprisoned in the temple at Bath because he was a leper, and later had him killed. My own brother I did murder when I suspected him of bedding my queen. No trial, not even the honor of a challenge. I had him murdered in his sleep without proof. And my queen is dead, too, for my jealousy. My kingdom is the fruit of treachery, and treachery have I reaped. I do not deserve to even wear clothes on my back. You are true, Tom, that you have nothing. I, too, shall have nothing, as is my just reward!”
The old man began to tear off his clothes, ripping at the collar of his shirt, tearing more of his parchment-like skin than the linen. I stayed his hand, held his wrists and tried to catch his eye with my own, to pull him back from madness.
“Oh, I have wronged my sweet Cordelia!” the old man wailed. “The only one who loved me and I have wronged her! My one true daughter! Gods, tear these clothes from my back, tear the meat from my bones!”
Then I felt claws clamp on my own wrists and I was pulled away from Lear as if I had been drawn by heavy iron shackles. “Let him suffer,” hissed the witch in my ear.
“But I have made this pain,” said I.
“Lear’s pain is of his own making, fool,” she said. With that I felt the room spinning and I heard the voice of the girl ghost telling me to sleep. “Sleep, sweet Pocket.”
“Who’s the muddy naked bloke snogging the king’s noggin?” asked Kent.
I awoke to see the old knight standing in the doorway with the Earl of Gloucester. The storm still raged outside, but by firelight I could see the naked nutter Tom O’Bedlam had wrapped himself around Lear and was kissing the king’s bald head as if blessing a newborn babe.
“Oh majesty,” said Gloucester, “can’t you find better company than this? Who is this rough beast?”
“He is a philosopher,” said Lear. “I will talk with him.”
“Poor Tom O’Bedlam, is he,” said Tom. “Eater of tadpoles, cursed and damned by demons.”
Kent looked to me and I shrugged. “Both mad as cat herds,” said I. I looked around for the old woman as a witness, but she was gone.
“Well, snap to, majesty, I bring news from France,” said Kent.
“Hollandaise sauce, excellent on eggs?” I inquired.
“No,” said Kent. “More urgent.”
“Wine and cheese complement one another nicely?” I further queried.
“No, you rasp-tongued rascal, France has landed an army at Dover, and there’s rumor they’ve forces hidden in other cities around the British coast, ready to strike.”
“Oh, well, that does trump the wine and cheese news, then, doesn’t it?”
Gloucester was trying to pry Tom off King Lear, but having a hard time doing so while keeping mud off his cloak. “I’ve sent word to the French camp at Dover that Lear is here,” said Gloucester. “I’ve made the case to the king’s daughters to let me bring him in from the storm, but they will not relent. Even in my own home my power has been usurped by the Duke of Cornwall. Regan and Cornwall have taken command of Lear’s knights, and with them, my castle.”
“We come to bring you to a hovel at the city wall,” said Kent. “When the storm breaks, Gloucester will send a cart to take Lear to the French camp at Dover.”
“No,” said Lear. “Let me talk to my philosopher friend in private.” He pawed at mad Tom. “He knows much of how life should be lived. Tell me, friend, why is there thunder?”
Kent turned to Gloucester and shrugged. “He’s not in his right mind.”
“Who can blame him?” said Gloucester. “After what his daughters have done—his very flesh rising up against him. I had a beloved son who conspired to murder me, and just the thought of that nearly drove me mad.”