Fool - By Christopher Moore Page 0,2

princess with but the spark of lust."

"The fiend! I didn't know, sir. I'll say nothing."

"And neither shall I, good yeoman. Neither shall I."

And thus are alliances made, loyalties cemented. Pocket makes a friend.

The boy was right about Regan, of course. And why I hadn't thought to call her bunny cunny myself, when I of all people should know - well, as an artist, I must admit, I was envious of the invention.

Cordelia's private solar[8] lay at the top of a narrow spiral staircase lit only with the crosses of arrow loops. I could hear giggling as I topped the stairs.

"So I am of no worth if not on the arm and in the bed of some buffoon in a codpiece?" I heard Cordelia say.

"You called," said I, stepping into the room, codpiece in hand.

The ladies-in-waiting giggled. Young Lady Jane, who is but thirteen, shrieked at my presence - disturbed, no doubt, by my overt manliness, or perhaps by the gentle clouting on the bottom she received from Jones.

"Pocket!" Cordelia sat at the center of the circle of girls - holding court, as such - her hair down, blond curls to her waist, a simple gown of lavender linen, loosely laced. She stood and approached me. "You honor us, Fool. Did you hear rumors of small animals to hurt, or were you hoping to accidentally surprise me in my bath again?"

I tipped my hat, a slight, contrite jingle there. "I was lost, milady."

"A dozen times?"

"Finding my way is not my strong suit. If you want a navigator I'll send for him, but hold me blameless should your melancholy triumph and you drown yourself in the brook, your gentle ladies weeping damply around your pale and lovely corpse. Let them say, 'She was not lost in the map, confident as she was in her navigator, but lost in heart for want of a fool.'"

The ladies gasped as if I'd cued them. I'd have blessed them if I were still on speaking terms with God.

"Out, out, out, ladies," Cordelia said. "Give me peace with my fool so that I might devise some punishment for him."

The ladies scurried out of the room.

"Punishment?" I asked. "For what?"

"I don't know yet," she said, "but by the time I've thought of the punishment, I'm sure there'll be an offense."

"I blush at your confidence."

"And I at your humility," said the princess. She grinned, a crescent too devious for a maid of her tender years. Cordelia is not ten years my junior (I'm not sure, exactly, of my own age), seventeen summers has she seen, and as the youngest of the king's daughters, she's always been treated as if fragile as spun glass. But, sweet thing that she is, her bark could frighten a mad badger.

"Shall I disrobe for my punishment?" I offered. "Flagellation? Fellation? Whatever. I am your willing penitent, lady."

"No more of that, Pocket. I need your counsel, or at least your commiseration. My sisters are coming to the castle."

"Unfortunately, they have arrived."

"Oh, that's right, Albany and Cornwall want to kill you. Bad luck, that. Anyway, they are coming to the castle, as are Gloucester and his sons. Goodness, they want to kill you as well."

"Rough critics," said I.

"Sorry. And a dozen other nobles as well as the Earl of Kent are here. Kent doesn't want to kill you, does he?"

"Not that I know of. But it is only lunchtime."

"Right. And do you know why they are all coming?"

"To corner me like a rat in a barrel?"

"Barrels do not have corners, Pocket."

"Does seem like a lot of bother for killing one small, if tremendously handsome fool."

"It's not about you, you dolt! It's about me."

"Well, even less effort to kill you. How many can it take to snap your scrawny neck? I worry that Drool will do it by accident someday. You haven't seen him, have you?"

"He stinks. I sent him away this morning." She waved a hand furiously to return to her point. "Father is marrying me off!"

"Nonsense. Who would have you?"

The lady darkened a bit, then, blue eyes gone cold. Badgers across Blighty[9] shuddered. "Edgar of Gloucester has always wanted me and the Prince of France and Duke of Burgundy are already here to pay me troth."

"Troth about what?"

"Troth!"

"About what?"

"Troth, troth, you fool, not truth. The princes are here to marry me."

"Those two? Edgar? No." I was shaken. Cordelia? Married? Would one of them take her away? It was unjust! Unfair! Wrong! Why, she had never even seen me naked.

"Why would they want to troth you?