Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(48)

There were a few cries of distress around the arena, as if I’d interrupted someone’s especially somber moon wank, but most of the goblins were drooling at the moon like starved men at an apple.

Oberon floated, or seemed to float, to the edge of the stage and looked down on us. Gritch’s feet began to make frantic scratching motions, like a dog having his belly rubbed, his heavy talons scoring the stone. If he’d been on soft earth he’d have dug his way under it and I realized that was exactly what his body was trying to do. Cobweb, Moth, and Peaseblossom were curled into tight balls, hoping not to be noticed, I guessed. I could see Cobweb trembling and I bent and patted her back before approaching Oberon, who seemed somewhat nonplussed that I was not overwhelmed with his sparkly fucking grandeur.

I reached into the small of my back and drew the bolt that killed the Puck. “The Puck is dead. Killed by this.” I tossed the bolt onto the stage and it rattled at his feet.

“I am invisible,” said Oberon. The shadow king whipped his cape into the air as if trying to form wings, and while it did send an impressive wave of silk across the stage, he remained quite visible.

Cobweb sneaked a peek from under her arm, first at Oberon, then at me. “He’s not invisible,” she said.

“No,” said I. “He’s not.

“Your Grace, I am Pocket of Dog Snogging, freelance fool. Queen Titania has sent me with a message, in addition to that bolt, which is from a goblin weapon, so the Puck’s killer can be found. She bids you do me a favor as recompense for bringing you this message.”

“I am invisible,” repeated Oberon, but this time he didn’t do the grand wave of his cape.

Gritch now looked at me under his arm, then dared to raise an eye toward the stage, where he spotted the shadow king being decidedly visible. Gaudily so, truth be told.

“I am now visible,” said Oberon, with the cape wave.

“Much to my relief,” said I. “For surely, when you disappeared, we thought you might have been slain by the same fiend who murdered the Puck.”

“The Puck is slain, you say?” said Oberon, a quaver in his voice, as genuine in his grief as he had been in his invisibility. “He was my fool. My slave. My property. How happened this? Who would do such a thing?”

“Well,” said I, walking to the edge of the stage until I stood directly above the goblin with the silver armlet. “Offhand I would say it was that crossbow what killed him, fired by this tosser.”

Here and there around the hall, goblins were tearing their gaze away from the moon to see what manner of cheeky monkey was speaking to the shadow king in such a way.

Oberon picked up the bolt and leapt off the upper stage, trailing a wave of shimmering night cape behind him. He moved as if mountains might be humbled and slide away at his will. I stepped aside and reached to the small of my back, ready to draw a dagger, lest the shadow king decide it was his royal privilege to stab me in the head with the arrow. Bloody sloppy protocol, anyway, to let a complete stranger in jester togs trailing three fairies and a donkey-headed bloke within stabbing distance of your king. The guards with the halberds were as helpless with awe as the rest of the goblins. Irresponsible, it was.

“This tosser?” asked Oberon, pointing with a silver talon to the armleted tosser, who cowered under his king’s attention.

“Aye,” said I. Up close Oberon was as hard edged and dark as had Titania been pale and soft.

“Draw and cock your crossbow and give it me,” said Oberon, crouching over the goblin soldier. “Do not load a bolt.” Silver Armlet did as he was told and held the cocked crossbow over his head with both hands, his eyes averted to the ground, as if making an offering to a god, which I suppose, in his mind, he was. Oberon took the weapon, inspected it, and grinned down at me (yes, he was two heads taller than I, four with the ridiculous crown), his grin a cold crescent moon where lived no mirth. “This bolt killed my beloved Puck?” he said.

“Aye,” said I. I fought the urge to take the piss, add a colorful sobriquet—“grandiose wankpuffin” came to mind. I had seen mad kings before,

The shadow king fitted the bolt into the arrow groove of the crossbow and inspected it, nodded to me. “Yes, it appears to be from a weapon exactly like this.” He held the crossbow so I could see that the black finish on the stock was the same as on the bolt.

I nodded.

Oberon lowered the crossbow and fired it into Silver Armlet’s chest. The bolt easily pierced the goblin’s chest plate with a thunk and buried itself to the fletching. The goblin reeled and fell on his side, a look of surprise and betrayal in his yellow eyes, green goo oozed out of the wound. The goblins about the courtyard had all stopped looking at the moon as a thousand yellow eyes turned to their king.

“There,” said Oberon, holding the crossbow out to me. “Puck avenged.” The shadow king giggled, a high, mad giggle, then turned and leapt back up the six feet onto the upper stage with a single bound. As if calling to the sky itself, he shouted, “Take back the moon!”

The ground shook, the great gears began to grind, and the ceiling began to close. “Away!” Oberon gestured to the crowd and they swarmed to the exits as if running before a flood.

Oberon looked down on me. “I must go grieve. Tell Titania that justice is done. Tell her I will have the Indian boy now, and only then may her fairies dance again. This is the will of Oberon, ruler of all of the night, king of shadows, master of the moon and tides, giver of the planets and stars.” Oberon turned, wound his long cape around his arm and cast it out behind him, then strode away toward the exit.