Fool (english)

Edmund and the men at arms beside him, who had hands on hilts. “I don’t know, Pocket-”
    “Give me your bloody knife!” I whirled, pulled the knife from the captain’s belt, and before the men at arms could draw I’d cut the rope around Drool’s neck and pushed Edmund’s spear aside.
    “You don’t need the spear, bastard.” I handed the captain his knife and motioned for Drool to bend down so we were eye-to-eye. “I want you to go with Edmund and don’t give him any trouble, you understand?”
    “Aye. You ain’t comin’?”
    “I’ll be along, I’ll be along. I’ve business at the White Tower first.”
    “Shagging to be done?” Drool nodded so enthusiastically you could nearly hear his tiny brain rattling around his gourd. “I’ll be helping, right?”
    “No, lad, but you’ll have your own castle. You’ll be the proper fool, won’t you? There’ll be all kinds of hiding and listening, Drool, do you understand what I’m saying, lad?” I winked, hoping against hope that the git would get my meaning.
    “Will there be heinous fuckery, Pocket?”
    “Aye, I think you can count on it.”
    “Smashing!” Drool clapped his hands and danced a little jig then, chanting, “Heinous fuckery most foul, heinous fuckery most foul-”
    I looked to Edmund. “You’ve my word, bastard. But you’ve also my word that if any harm comes to the Natural, I’ll see to it that ghosts ride you into your grave.”
    A flash of fear showed in Edmund’s eye then, but he fought it down and affected his usual swaggering smirk. “His life is on your word, little man.”
    The bastard turned and strutted down the corridor. Drool looked back, a big tear welling in his eye as he realized what was happening. I waved him on.
    “I’d have taken the other two if you’d dirked him,” said Curan. The other guard nodded in agreement. “Evil bastard was asking for it.”
    “Well, now you fucking tell me,” said I.
    Another guard hurried out of the hall then, and seeing it was only the fool with his captain, reported, “Captain, the king’s food taster. He’s dead, sir.”
    Three friends had I.

SIX – FRIENDSHIP AND THE ODD
    BONK
    L ife is loneliness, broken only by the gods taunting us with friendship and the odd bonk. I admit it, I grieved. Perhaps I am a fool to have expected Cordelia to stay. (Well, yes, I am a fool-don’t be overly clever, eh? It’s annoying.) But for most of my manly years she had been the lash on my back, the bait to my loins, and the balm of my imagination-my torment, my tonic, my fever, my curse. I ache for her.
    There is no comfort in the castle. Drool gone, Taster gone, Lear gone mad. At best, Drool was little more company than Jones, and decidedly less portable, but I worry for him, great child that he is, stumbling about in the circle of so many villains and so much sharp metal. I miss his gape-toothed smile, filled as it was with forgiveness, acceptance, and often, cheddar. And Taster, what did I know of him, really? Just a wan lad from Hog Nostril on Thames. Yet when I needed a sympathetic ear, he provided, even if he was oft distracted from my woes by his own selfish dietary concerns.

    I lay on my bed in the portislodge staring out the cruciform arrow loops at the grey bones of London, stewing in my misery, yearning for my friends.
    For my first friend.
    For Thalia.
    The anchoress.
    On a chill autumn day at Dog Snogging, the third time I was allowed to bring food to the anchoress, we became fast friends. I was still in awe of her, and merely being in her presence made me feel base, unworthy, and profane, but in a good way. I passed the plate of rough brown bread and cheese through the cross in the wall with prayers and a plea for her forgiveness.
    “This fare will do, Pocket. It will do. I’ll forgive you for a song.”
    “You must be a most pious lady and have great love for the Lord.”
    “The Lord is a tosser.”
    “I thought the Lord was a shepherd?”
    “Well, that, too. But a bloke needs hobbies. Do you know ‘Greensleeves’?”
    “I know ‘Dona Nobis Pacem. ’”
    “Do you know any pirate songs?”
    “I could sing ‘Dona Nobis Pacem’ like a pirate.”
    “It means give us peace, in Latin, doesn’t it?”
    “Aye, mistress.”
    “Bit of a stretch then, innit, a pirate singing give us bloody peace?”
    “I suppose. I could sing you a psalm, then, mistress.”
    “All right, then, Pocket, a psalm it is-one with pirates and loads of bloodshed, if you