Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(67)

In a moment, everyone had stopped fretting about the murder and had turned their attention to the lunatic in the winged donkey outfit, at which point Nick Bottom strode to the edge of the stage and lifted his wings. “Gentle ladies, fear not. Gentle gentlemen, fear not. Fear not, for I am Pegasus, magical horse of mythology and mystery, and I am here to make all things right. This is not blood you see, but stage blood, and that knife but a prop knife.”

I skipped over to Snug and Drool and whispered, “Grab the dead puff toad and drag him to the antechamber, now, and bow before you drag him in the door.”

“And this good gentleman,” continued Bottom, pointing to the quite dead Egeus, “to show his love and appreciation for the duke and his bride, agreed to be part of our romantic comical tragedy. He is playing the tragic victim part, because it didn’t require a special costume.”

Drool and Snug had seized Egeus’s body by the arms and were dragging him past the duke and Hippolyta, leaving a red trail on the stone. When they reached the door, they dropped the body, bowed, then picked up the expired puff toad and dragged him in.

When the door closed I started applauding wildly while nodding at the audience members, who, afraid that they were not important enough to be let in on the joke, began to applaud with me. I applauded at the exiting watchmen, at the lovers onstage, at the newborn Pegasus, and even at Helena, who had come to her senses and smiled as I smiled and nodded to her. Go with me here, love, your life is on it. The two blokes holding her arms let her go and she took a bow and nodded her gratitude around the room.

“And that is act one,” I announced. “There will be a brief intermission, then act two.” Then I took my bow and ran offstage, dragging Bottom out of a flourish of bowing so effusive one of his wings had fallen off. I pulled him by one of his long ears until we were through the entry of the antechamber, where I slammed the heavy door and leaned my back against it.

Peter Quince, standing over the body of Egeus, said, “I have a few notes.”

“That were smashing!” said Cobweb, bouncing on her toes in front of me like a child waiting for a sweet.

“Where have you been?” I asked.

“Having a wee frolic,” she said.

“We were at wit’s end. You were supposed to meet us in Drool’s cell. It’s been hours.”

“It was a long frolic,” said Peaseblossom. “We are not good at time.”





Chapter 19

Act 2




A knock on the antechamber door.

“They’ve come to take us to the gallows,” said Peter Quince.

“And they’ve decided to knock first?” said I. “So as not to surprise us out of costume?”

“True,” said Quince. He opened the door a crack. The girl Hermia stood outside.

“When is my father going to return?” she asked.

I stepped over her dead father to a spot where I could peek out the open door. “In a bit, love. Still cleaning the beet juice—stage blood—off of him. After act two, methinks.”

“It looked so real,” said Hermia.

“We are using the master’s method,” said Peter Quince. He shut the door and turned to grin at me.

“What creature of dark snark have I borne?” said I.

Before Quince could answer, another knock. He cracked the door. Looked out.

“Suck your dick for silver,” came a gravelly voice.

Quince closed the door and looked back to me. “It’s for you.”

I looked around at my players, Drool, and the fairies, one of whom, Moth, was petting my monkey, and strangely, he was letting her. I said: “Drag Egeus further away from the door—put him in that corner. And someone get my dagger out of his melon, if you would be so kind. Mechanicals, do not be alarmed, but you are about to meet a goblin. If you scream I will dirk you in the gonads to give you good reason.” (I looked at Robin Starveling then, who would likely have denied goblins existed even as one was gnawing off his knob.) “At our last meeting, this goblin was an ally, we shall assume he remains so. Drool, we do not have any silver. Give Jeff the tongue hat for a bit to keep him distracted.”

With the company moving at my instruction, I opened the door just wide enough to accommodate a goblin, reached out, grabbed Gritch by the arm, and dragged him in.

The goblin was wearing one of the same black hooded robes that the fairies of the harem wore, and with the hood up, he looked like a short, shiny monk, if you didn’t look too closely.

“Gritch, where were you?”

“Here,” said the goblin. “I told you we were coming here.”

“Then all those black robes on the periphery of the hall, your soldiers?”

“Yes.”

“Blacktooth and Burke let you in through the gendarmerie, the dungeon?”

“Yes.”

I looked to Nick Bottom. “That’s why only the one young guard, and I’ll wager he was sent off on an errand when the goblins came in.”

“Yes,” said Gritch.

“How many?”

“A hundred. Twenty in the hall. The rest around the doors and balconies.”

“Goblins are very good at counting,” said Peaseblossom in admiration.

The Mechanicals, except for Bottom, who was beyond being surprised, all stared at Gritch with various levels of curiosity and horror. I put my arm around Gritch’s shoulders and walked him into the corner, where, yes, we were standing over Egeus’s corpse, but also, there was some privacy.