Fool - By Christopher Moore Page 0,48

had never seen. King Lear sat at the center of the main table, flanked by two beautiful girls about my age, who I would later find out were Regan and Goneril. Beside Regan sat Gloucester, his wife, and their son Edgar. The intrepid Kent sat on the other side next to Goneril. Under that table, at Lear's feet, a little girl was curled up, watching the celebration - wide-eyed, like a frightened animal, clinging to a rag doll. I must confess, I thought the child might be deaf or even simpleminded.

We performed for perhaps two hours, singing songs of the saints during dinner, then moving on to bawdier fare as the wine flowed and the guests loosened their hold on propriety. By late in the evening everyone was laughing, the guests were dancing with the performers, and even the commoners who lived in the castle had joined the party, but the little girl remained under the table, making not a sound. Not a smile, not an eyebrow raised in delight. There was light there behind those crystal-blue eyes - this was not a simpleton - but she seemed to be staring out of them from afar.

I crawled under the table and sat next to her. She barely acknowledged my presence. I leaned in close and nodded toward Belette, who stood by a column near the center of the hall, leering lecherously at the young girls who frolicked about him. I could see the little girl spied the scoundrel, too. Ever so softly, I sang a little song the anchoress had taught me, with the lyrics changed a bit to adapt to the situation.

"Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat who ate his tail."

And the little girl pulled back and looked at me, as if to see if I had really sung such a thing. And I sang on:

"Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat, who drowned in a pail."

And the little girl cackled - a broken, little-girl yodel of a laugh that rang of innocence and joy and delight.

I sang on, and ever so softly, she sang with me,

"Belette was a rat, was a rat, was a rat,

Belette was a rat - "

And we were no longer alone under the table. There was another pair of crystal-blue eyes, and behind them a white-haired king. The old king smiled and squeezed my biceps. And before the other guests noticed that the king was under the table, he sat back up on his throne, but he reached down and lay a hand across the little girl's shoulder and the other upon mine. It was a hand reached across a vast chasm of reality - from the highest position of ruler of the realm, to a lowborn orphan boy who slept in the mud under a wagon. I thought it must have been how a knight felt when the king's sword touched his shoulder, elevating him to nobility.

"Was a rat, was a rat, was a rat," we sang.

When the party died down and noble guests hung drunk over the tables, the servants piled onto the floor before the fire, Belette began to move among the revelers and tap each of his performers, calling them to gather by the door. I had fallen asleep under the table, and the little girl against my arm. He pulled me up by my hair. "You did nothing all night. I watched." I knew there was a beating in store for when we got back to the wagon, and I was prepared for it. At least I had eaten some supper at the feast.

But as Belette turned to drag me away he stopped, abruptly. I looked up to see the master frozen in space, a sword-point pressed into his cheek just below his eye. He let go of my hair.

"Good thought," said Kent, the old bull, pulling his sword back, but holding it steadily aimed, a hand's breadth from Belette's eye.

There was a sound of coin on the table and Belette couldn't help but look down, even at the peril of his life. A doeskin purse as big as a man's fist lay before him.

The chamberlain, a tall, severe chap who looked perpetually down his nose, stood beside Kent. He said, "Your payment, plus ten pounds, which you shall accept as payment