Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(54)

The resurrected goblin looked around again at all the fairies staring down at him with a mix of dread and scorn. “I don’t want it,” said the goblin. He took the armlet off and held it out, beckoning for someone to take it from him. “The Puck were a shit, but he were good to me. Silver.” He began to weep.

“Did you kill the young Athenian in the forest yesterday?” I asked.

“No.” He shook his head. “No Athenian. Take the silver.”

Cobweb pulled me aside, whispered in my ear, “He won’t last long. Maybe an hour. Maybe less. He was really quite dead.”

“Give it to your friend,” I said. “Give it to Gritch.”

Gritch took the heavy silver armlet but didn’t put it on, only held it in his talon, as gently as if it were a baby bird. I called to him and gestured for him to come away from his friend for a moment. He did. “We need to go, mate. I need to get the fairies out of the castle, off this mountain, before the sun comes up. Will you help?”

He looked back at his friend, who looked the very picture of the goblin forlorn.

“Cobweb says he won’t stay alive long,” I said. “You should say goodbye.”

Gritch nodded. “I will help.”

“Gritch,” I said, grabbing the silver ring in his ear and tugging at it gently with each word. “All the sodding fairies.”

“They are the shadow king’s fairies,” said the goblin.

I held up the crossbow bolt still dripping with his friend’s blood. “All the sodding fairies, Gritch.”

“Talos, my friend, comes too?”

“Of course,” said I.

“All the sodding fairies,” said Gritch.





Act III




Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those

that are fools, let them use their talents.

—Feste, Twelfth Night, 1:5





Chapter 15

Of Perspective and Squirrels




“There’s the horn,” said Cobweb. We sat at the edge of the forest watching Gritch watch his friend Talos die for a second time that night.

“I don’t hear it,” said I. “Do you hear it?” I asked Bottom.

“I do,” said the weaver, listlessly waving to his long ears. He was pouting, and rightly so, for Oberon had not transformed him back to a man before we left the castle, and I hadn’t the heart to tell him that it would not happen. Although I held some hope for his recovery, as being near the massive fairy frolic in the harem seemed to have restored him somewhat. His hands were no longer covered with coarse hair and his voice was less of a bray than it had become.

“Do you need to go to Titania?” I asked Cobweb.

“I think not. Not today.”

“Will she not visit some wrath on you?”

“I’ve had enough of the night queen and shadow king and their bloody wrath. We’ll stay with you. Get your mate out of jail. Won’t we, mates?” she called to the other fairies.

“Aye,” said Moth, “she sent my brother and our other mates there.”

“What?” said Peaseblossom. Since reaching the forest, the simple fairy had been fascinated with her newly shaven bits and was resolving a furious wank by an oak tree, her back turned for privacy. “Right. Me too,” she said. “We should find Moth’s hat with the tongues. I quite fancied that hat.”

“Why wouldn’t they come?” Cobweb said, cradling her head in her hands. “They only had to run a little bit and they would have been free.”

Gritch and Talos, both some sort of officers among the goblin soldiers, had cleared a path out of the Night Palace, ordered the guards on duty to stand down and let us pass. Cobweb bade the harem fairies to follow her, but when we threw open the doors they cowered by the walls, backing away from the door as if a monster might come through it any second.

“Come on, then,” Cobweb begged, but the harem fairies hid among the cushions and draperies, as they had when I’d first come into the harem. “The goblins won’t hurt you, go on.”

But they had stayed, terrified to leave, more afraid of the unknown than the familiar horror.

“Cobweb,” I called. “We have to go, love. Perhaps they’ll follow at dawn when they change.”

She strode over to me like she was facing down an enemy, tears of frustration, perhaps anger, in her eyes. “They can’t come out of here after they change. They couldn’t run into a goblin city with no one to lead them, even if they did leave here.” She turned. “Come on, you cowards, come be free of the shadow king’s blades forever. Come to the forest where you belong.”

I put my arm around her shoulders and she shook me off. “Help me with the doors,” she barked. Inside, one brave fairy, the bloke with the clouded eye and clipped ear, peeked out from behind an arras.

“Bolt the doors behind us,” Cobweb called to him, pushing her door shut.

As we ran down the hall after Moth and Peaseblossom, I said, “They all can’t take the piss out of the shadow king to find their power like you did.”

“What do you know?” she had screeched. “You know nothing. You are not a slave.”

Now, in the forest, the dawn was nearly upon us, and Cobweb still wore the anguished mask she had put on upon closing the harem door.