“Is that the Earl of Gloucester?” asked Curan.
“Aye,” said I. I told Curan what had transpired inside the castle and out on the heath since I’d last seen him.
“God’s blood, two wars. Cornwall dead. Who is master of our force, now?”
“Mistress,” said I. “Stay with Regan. The plan is as before.”
“No, it’s not. We don’t even know who her enemy is, Albany or France.”
“Aye, but your action should be the same.”
“I’d give a month’s wages to be behind the blade that slays that bastard Edmund.”
At the mention of his son, Gloucester started wailing again. “Drown me! I will suffer no more! Give me your sword that I may run upon it and end my shame and misery!”
“Sorry,” I said to Curan. “He’s been a bit of a weepy little Nancy to be around since they ripped his eyes out.”
“Well, you might bandage him up. Bring him in. Hunter’s still with us. He’s right handy with a cauterizing iron.”
“Let me end this suffering,” wailed Gloucester. “I can no longer endure the slings and arrows—”
“My lord Gloucester, would you please, by the fire-charred balls of St. George, shut the fuck up!”
“Bit harsh, innit?” said Curan.
“What, I said ‘please.’”
“Still.”
“Sorry, Gloucester, old chap. Most excellent hat.”
“He’s not wearing a hat,” said Curan.
“Well, he’s blind, isn’t he? If you hadn’t said anything he might have enjoyed his bloody hat, mightn’t he?”
The earl started wailing again. “My sons are villains and I have no hat.” He made to go on, but Drool clamped his great paw over the old man’s mouth.
“Thanks, lad. Curan, do you have any food?”
“Aye, Pocket, we can spare as much bread and cheese as you can carry, and one of the men can scare up a flask of wine, too, I’ll wager. His lordship has been most generous in providing us with fare,” Curan said for the benefit of Gloucester. The old man began struggling against Drool’s grip.
“Oh, Curan, you’ve set him off again. Hurry, if you please. We’ve got to find Lear and head to Dover.”
“Dover it is, then? You’ll join with France?”
“Aye, bloody King Jeff, great froggy, monkey-named, woman-stealing ponce that he is.”
“You’re fond of him, then?”
“Oh do piss off, captain. Just see to it that whatever force Regan might send after us doesn’t catch us. Don’t mutiny, just make your way to Dover east, then south. I’ll take Lear south, then east.”
“Let me come with you, Pocket. The king needs more protection than two fools and a blind man.”
“The old knight Caius is with the king. You will serve the king best by serving his plan here.” Not strictly true, but would he have done his duty if he thought his commander a fool? I think not.
“Aye, then, I’ll get your food,” said Curan.
When we arrived at the hovel, Tom O’Bedlam stood outside, naked in the rain, barking.
“That barking bloke is naked,” said Drool, for once not singing praise to St. Obvious, as we were actually traveling with a blind fellow.
“Aye, but the question is, is he naked because he’s barking, or is he barking because he’s naked?” I asked.
“I’m hungry,” said Drool, his mind overchallenged.
“Poor Tom is cold and cursed,” said Tom between barking fits, and for the first time seeing him in daylight and mostly clean, I was taken aback. Without the coat of mud, Tom looked familiar. Very familiar. Tom O’Bedlam was, in fact, Edgar of Gloucester, the earl’s legitimate son.
“Tom, why are you out here?”
“Poor Tom, that old knight Caius said he had to stand in the rain until he was clean and didn’t stink anymore.”
“And did he tell you to bark and talk about yourself in the third person?”
“No, I thought up that bit on my own.”
“Come inside, Tom. Help Drool with this old fellow.”
Tom looked at Gloucester for the first time and his eyes went wide and he sank to his knees. “By the cruelty of the gods,” said he. “He’s blind.”
I put my hand on his shoulder and whispered, “Be steadfast, Edgar, your father needs your help.” In that moment a light came into his eye like a spark of sanity returning and he nodded and stood up, taking the earl’s arm. Shall a madman rise to lead the blind.
“Come, good sir,” said Edgar. “Tom is mad, but he is not beyond aiding a stranger in distress.”
“Just let me die!” said Gloucester, trying to push Edgar away. “Give me a rope so I may stretch my neck until my breath is gone.”
“He does that a lot,” I said.
I opened the door, expecting to see Lear and Kent inside, but the hovel was empty, and the fire had died down to embers. “Tom, where is the king?”
“He and his knight set out for Dover.”
“Without me?”
“The king was mad to be back in the storm. ’Twas the old knight said to tell you they were headed for Dover.”
“Here, here, bring the earl inside.” I stood aside and let Edgar coax his father into the cabin. “Drool, throw some wood on the fire. We can stay only long enough to eat and dry out. We must be after the king.”
Drool ducked through the door and spotted Jones sitting on a bench by the fire where I had left him. “Jones! My friend,” said the dolt. He picked up the puppet stick and hugged it. Drool is somewhat unclear on the art of ventriloquism, and although I have explained to him that Jones speaks only through me, he has developed an attachment to the puppet.
“Hello, Drool, you great sawdust-brained buffoon. Put me down and stoke the fire,” said Jones.
Drool tucked the puppet stick in his belt and began breaking up kindling with a hatchet by the hearth while I portioned out the bread and cheese that Curan had given us. Edgar did his best to bandage Gloucester’s eyes and the old man settled down enough to eat some cheese and drink a little wine. Unfortunately, the wine and the blood loss, no doubt, took the earl from inconsolable wailing grief to a soul-smothering, sable-colored melancholy.
“My wife died thinking me a whoremonger, my father thought me damned for not following his faith, and my sons are both villains. I thought for a turn that Edmund might have redeemed his bastardy by being good and true, by fighting infidels in the Crusade, but he is more of a traitor than his legitimate brother.”
“Edgar is no traitor,” I said to the old man. Even as I said it Edgar held a finger to his lips and signaled for me to speak no further. I nodded to show I knew his will and would not give his identity away. He could be Tom as long as he wished, or for as long as he needed, for all I cared, as long as he put on some bloody trousers. “Edgar was always true to you, my lord. His treachery was all devised for your eyes by the bastard Edmund. It was two sons’ worth of evil done by one. Edgar may not be the sharpest arrow in the quiver, but he is no traitor.”
Edgar raised an eyebrow to me in question. “You’ll make no case for your intelligence sitting there naked and shivering when there’s a fire and blankets you can fashion into warm robes, good Tom,” said I.
He rose from his father’s side and went over to the fire.
“Then it is I who have betrayed Edgar,” said Gloucester. “Oh, the gods have seen fit to rain misery down on me for my unsteady heart. I have sent a good son into exile with hounds at his heels and left only the worms as heirs to my only estate: this withered blind body. Oh, we are but soft and squishy bags of mortality rolling in a bin of sharp circumstance, leaking life until we collapse, flaccid, into our own despair.” The old man began to wave his arms and beat at his brow, whipping himself into a frenzy, causing his bandages to unravel. Drool came over to the old man and wrapped his arms around him to hold him steady.
“It’s all right, milord,” said Drool. “You ain’t leakin’ hardly at all.”
“Let me send this broken house to ruin and rot in death’s eternal cold. Let me shuffle off this mortal coil—my sons betrayed, my king usurped, my estates seized—let me end this torture!”