Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(17)

“Begging your pardon, Your Municipal,” continued Blacktooth, “but we—not the royal ‘we’ as in your we, but the ‘we’ as in ‘us,’ meaning Burke and I and the men, being the ‘we’ collective, but not the ‘we’ as in the wee that me and the men have been known to take—”

“Oh for fuck’s sake!” said I. “Spit it out, you addlepated ninny.”

“Ahoy!” called Drool through the little portal in his cell door at the mention of a ninny.

“Yes, do go on, captain,” she said.

“Aye, Your Radiance. The following day, that being today, while searching for the Puck at the behest of the duke, may the gods smile upon your union and the fruit of your looms, we came upon this scoundrel dragging the fresh corpse of the previously apportioned Robin Goodfellow, who was freshly expired by an arrow to the antiquated chest.”

“Anterior chest,” corrected Burke.

She looked to me. I smiled, removed my coxcomb, and bowed. “Your Grace,” said I.

She did not return the smile. “I would see the body,” she said.

Blacktooth led her to the next cell, where they had carried the Puck’s body. The watchmen shuffled in their ranks, none with the slightest idea what he should be doing. I had the distinct impression they were not accustomed to a royal presence in their cellar. In two ticks she stormed out of the cellar, a bloody crossbow bolt in hand.

“So this scrawny rascal is the killer?” She pointed to me with the bolt.

I stood as tall as my form permitted and thrust my codpiece forward so it arched through the bars and she might see my hidden potential. Scrawny, indeed?

“We heard the Puck scream, ma’am,” said Blacktooth. “And not three shakes of a lamb’s pail later, we came out of the wood to find him over the body. This fiend is most certainly the percolator.”

“Perpetrator,” corrected Burke.

“And where is his crossbow?”

“We did not find it,” said Blacktooth. “Only a brace of daggers strapped to his back. We had a third which he’d left in Burke’s nethers.”

“Your Grace,” I ventured, with a bit of a bow, “perhaps a more obvious killer presents . . .” I pointed through the bars to the crossbow slung across Burke’s back.

Burke’s eyes went wide and he swung the weapon around. “No, ma’am. The bolt’s too short. Would sail off the rail or hit the bow itself.” He drew one of his own bolts from a quiver at his hip and held it next to the bolt that had killed the Puck. Burke’s was nearly twice as long. “That one came from a smaller bow, ma’am. Carried by a smaller bloke, no doubt.” The scoundrel nodded furiously my way.

She flung the bolt against the wall and stepped before my cell. “Did you kill the Puck?”

“I did not, Your Grace. I am but a simple fool, set adrift by pirates to crash upon your shores but two days ago with my apprentice, Drool.”

“Oi,” said the dim giant through his window grate. “It were sad. We almost eated Jeff.”

“We’ve barely had time for a proper meal, let alone to make enemies—other than these scrofulous merkins.” I gestured in the general direction of Blacktooth and Burke.

“Tell me the truth, fool, or the watchmen will hold you while I cut a hole in you with your own dagger and slowly walk a trail of your entrails around the room while you watch.”

“Oh, you wicked little vixen,” I said with a grin. “This is not your first dungeon, is it?”

If she was going to kill me, better it not be dragged out, so to speak. If she wasn’t, and was indeed as fierce as her aspect and the reaction of the watch implied, she might be amused. This was not my first dungeon either.

She laughed. “All of you, out. Leave me to talk to this fool alone.”

The watchmen scrambled through the arch leading to the outside, weapons and armor rattling like pans on a tinker’s wagon. Blacktooth and Burke stood in the archway, arms folded, looking not defiant but embarrassed.

“Well?” she said. “Out! Out! Out!”

“We can’t, ma’am,” said Blacktooth.

“Weapons, ma’am,” said Burke. He nodded to a rack of spears and halberds against a wall.

“Your people are not permitted weapons, ma’am,” said Blacktooth, staring now at his shoes. “Even Your Most Superfluous Radiance.”

“I see,” she said. “And yet I am a queen and will be duchess of all of Athens in but three days?”

“’Tis so, ma’am.”

“And, good captain, if I commanded thee to kill all your men and then yourself, would you do it?”

“I would be duty-bound to do so, yes, Your Magnetized.”

“Majesty,” corrected Burke.

“So you see the burden of the crown. My only way to speak to this prisoner in private is to command you to put everyone to death, then fall on your sword. Does that seem about right?”

“Spot-on there, Your Municipal. Spot-on. I would be duty-bound to do it.”

“Or,” she said, “I could spare you and your men and instead command you to fuck off for a few minutes, and then call you back and you could go on with your miserable lives. Unless you think I can smuggle a halberd or a spear out under this gown?” She took a step so her bare leg emerged from her gown up to her hip.