Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(41)

And so I sang.

“Milady hath a most becoming bottom—”

I was around the boulder and dashing downfield with no thought of evading aim.

“She gave me crabs and I was glad I caught ’em.”

As I ran I looked for any movement, any sign of where the murderer might be.

“The lads all say to leave her, I say rot ’em.”

Was that a glint off the weapon in the sunlight ahead?

“Milady hath a most becoming bottom.”

There was time; if the murderer was running, he wasn’t reloading—

“Oh, milady hath the most ebullient bosoms—”

A bowstring twanged and my coxcomb was ripped off my head by the bolt passing through it.

“I still had the line about the Muslims and the bloody refrain before you were supposed to fire!” I shouted as I trod back after my poor punctured hat, which lay on the ground like a dead bird. “Shoddy bloody warcraft, that, not keeping time with the shooting song, ya bellend!”

I was singing the song in my head as I shouted, so as not to be surprised by the next bolt, when the niggling notion occurred to me that at the White Tower we had decided to table “Milady’s Bottom” for a song less romantic and more suited to marching into war to kill and burn, and had settled upon the Irish hymn “When the Badgers Ate St. Bridget.” I had been timing the bolts with entirely the wrong song. I was lucky not to be dead a third time in as many days. I quickly ducked behind a tree. “Sorry,” I called.

As I waited for the next shot, and tried to remember the words to the hymn, there came a woman’s scream from whence I had come. Had the killer circled back? Or worse, perhaps there were two of them? I shuffled straight back from my shielding tree for perhaps ten yards, then turned and dashed back the way I had come, zigging and zagging as I went, lest the killer still had me in his sights.

I came upon the trail to find Bottom standing over three bodies, Lysander on his knees holding the downed Hermia’s hand.

“Oh for fuck’s sake, Bottom, have you gotten another one killed?” I inquired.

The ass-man shook his great head. “No, no, she’s just fainted. ’Twas Rumour appeared, trying to retrieve his hat.”

“Bloke’s face was just floating in air, like a mask,” said Lysander. “Hermia saw him and over she went. Poor thing is at her wit’s end. Exhausted and hungry.”

“What did Rumour say?” I inquired of Bottom.

“Mostly he wanted his hat back, which I wouldn’t give him, as it is Moth’s, and he said something about the three words again, then he called me a tosser and was gone.”

Helena began to make moaning noises and Bottom knelt beside her with his waterskin to attend her. I pushed him back and took his place. “Perhaps stand at a distance, mate, until she becomes accustomed to your handsome countenance.” I took the waterskin from him. “There’s a love,” I said to Helena, helping her sit up. There was already a blue bruise blooming on her jaw where Hermia had smote her. “Have a little sip.”

Helena pushed the waterskin away and looked first at Demetrius, then to Hermia.

“Oh good, the little bitch is dead,” said Helena, having recovered from her grief rather quickly, I thought. “I suppose I shall have you, then, Lysander.”

“She’s not dead,” said Lysander. “She’s just fainted. There was a man, a thing, a strange thing here.”

“I know, I saw it, a horrible man-donkey creature,” said Helena.

Bottom, looking crestfallen, stepped behind the trunk of a large oak before Helena could turn to see him.

“No, worse than that,” said Lysander. “A horrible thing, its face floating in the air like a mask. Moving like a ghost.”

“There is nothing more horrible than that thing I saw, tongues all over its head,” said Helena.

“That’s just a hat!” brayed Bottom, from behind his tree. “Not even my hat.”

Helena looked around, frightened. I offered her a drink. “Perhaps gentle your discourse, milady, Master Bottom is an actor and therefore is often fragile in his confidence. Apologies if his costume frightened you. He prepares for a play for the duke’s wedding, and his method dictates he wear the aspect of his character to give an honest performance.”

“Oh,” said Helena as my balderdash took root in her mind. “Sorry,” she called meekly to Bottom. “Do forgive me, but I had just seen my dear Demetrius slain.” Then she was off, throwing herself upon the dead fellow and wailing. “Oh, curse the gods, Demetrius is slain. My beloved Demetrius is slain!”

As I handed the waterskin to Lysander so he might minister to Hermia, I said, “She didn’t even like him the last time I saw her, and he didn’t like her the time before that.”

“The course of true love never did run smooth,” said Lysander.

“Aye, blithe idiot, such is the path of all love stories: love is but tragedy’s happy feint before a bolt to the heart. Or in this case, the back of the neck.” I sighed. “But why would anyone want to kill Demetrius other than he was a massive bellend? That arrow was meant for you, was it not?”

“It was,” said Helena, pushing up from her newly becorpsed lover. “They were arguing over Hermia. Again. Lysander was standing there, and Demetrius was on one knee pleading with Hermia to take him back, as if she had ever taken him in the first place. And Lysander called him a name.”