Fool (english)

appearance as well as disposition, Oswald lurks even when in the open, lurking being his natural state of locomotion. A fine black fuzz he wears for a beard, the same is on his head, when his blue tartan tam is humbled at his heart, which it was not that day. He neither removed his hat nor bowed as Lear approached.
    The old king was not pleased. He stopped the train an arrow-shot from the castle and waved me forward.
    “Pocket, go see what he wants,” said Lear. “And ask why there is no fanfare for my arrival.”
    “But nuncle,” said I. “Shouldn’t the captain of the guard be the one-”
    “Go on, fool! A point is to be made about respect. I send a fool to meet this rascal and put him in his place. Spare no manners, remind the dog that he is a dog.”

    “Aye, majesty.” I rolled my eyes at Captain Curan, who almost laughed, then stopped himself, seeing that the king’s anger was real.
    I pulled Jones from my satchel and sallied forth, my jaw set, as determined as the prow of a warship.
    “Hail, Castle Albany,” I called. “Hail, Albany. Hail, Goneril.”
    Oswald said nothing, did not so much as remove his hat. He looked past me to the king, even when I was standing an arm’s length from him.
    I said: “King of bloody Britain here, Oswald. I’d suggest you pay proper respect.”
    “I’ll not lower myself to speak with a fool.”
    “Primping little whoreson wanker, innit he?” said the puppet Jones.
    “Aye,” said I. Then I spotted a guard in the barbican, looking down on us. “Hail, Cap’n, seems someone’s emptied a privy on your drawbridge and the steaming pile blocks our way.”
    The guard laughed. Oswald fumed.
    “M’lady has instructed me to instruct you that her father’s knights are not welcome in the castle.”
    “That so? She’s actually talking to you, then?”
    “I’ll not have an exchange with an impudent fool.”
    “He’s not impudent,” said Jones. “With proper inspiration, the lad sports a woody as stout as a mooring pin. Ask your lady.”
    I nodded in agreement with the puppet, for he is most wise for having a brain of sawdust.
    “Impudent! Impudent! Not impotent!” Oswald frothing a bit now.
    “Oh, well, why didn’t you say so,” said Jones. “Yes, he’s that.”
    “To be sure,” said I.
    “Aye,” said Jones.
    “Aye,” said I.
    “The king’s rabble shall not be permitted in the castle.”
    “Aye. That so, Oswald?” I reached up and patted his cheek. “You should have ordered trumpets and rose petals scattered on our path.” I turned and waved the advance to the train, Curan spurred his horse and the column galloped forward. “Now get off the bridge or be trampled, you rat-faced little twat.”
    I strode past Oswald into the castle, pumping Jones in the air as if I was leading cadence for war drummers. I think I should have been a diplomat.
    As Lear rode by he clouted Oswald on the head with his sheathed sword, knocking the unctuous steward into the moat. I felt my anger for the old man slip a notch.
    Kent, his disguise now completed by nearly three weeks of hunger and living in the outdoors, fell in behind the train as I had instructed. He looked lean and leathery now, more like an older version of Hunter than the old, overfed knight he had been at the White Tower. I stood to the side of the gate as the column entered and nodded to him as he passed.
    “I’m hungry, Pocket. All I had to eat yesterday was an owl.”
    “Perfect fare for witch finding, methinks. You’re with me to Great Birnam Wood tonight, then?”
    “After supper.”
    “Aye. If Goneril doesn’t poison the lot of us.”
    Ah, Goneril, Goneril, Goneril-like a distant love chant is her name. Not that it doesn’t summon memories of burning urination and putrid discharge, but what romance worth the memory is devoid of the bittersweet?
    When I first met her, Goneril was but seventeen, and although betrothed to Albany from the age of twelve, she had never seen him. A curious, round-bottomed girl, she had spent her entire life in and around the White Tower, and she’d developed a colossal appetite for knowledge of the outside world, which somehow she thought she could sate by grilling a humble fool. It started on odd afternoons, when she would call me to her chambers, and with her ladies-in-waiting in attendance, ask me all manner of questions her tutors had refused to answer.
    “Lady,” said I, “I am but a fool. Shouldn’t you ask someone with position?”
    “Mother is