Shakespeare for Squirrels: A Novel (Fool #3)(75)

Moth, sitting now next to the two dying royals, held out her arms and Jeff jumped into them. She petted his head and whispered to him. She stood and walked away, letting the razor clatter to the floor.

I looked to Gritch in the balcony. “Mate?”

The goblin shrugged. “I didn’t know who to shoot.”

“Which leaves us,” said Rumour, calling the horrified audience’s attention back to center stage, “with the three words left us by the Puck. The three words that he wanted to be his legacy. The three words that, had the hapless English fool figured them out, might have saved us much of the carnage we have witnessed tonight.”

“Oh, do fuck off,” said I.

“Good guess, but no—”

“Oh, for fuck’s sake,” said Cobweb.

“Is that three?” asked Peaseblossom. “I feel as if that may not be three.”

“Kill them all!” came a voice from the balcony, and everyone looked up to see Robin Goodfellow standing on the edge of the balcony.

“Kill them all!” said the Puck.





Chapter 21

The Three Magic Words




“Don’t kill them all,” said I. “Don’t kill anyone.” I looked to Gritch to confirm my command. A nod from him so terse his great goblin ears flapped a bit.

The Puck looked around the hall. “I was going to kill them all. It was to be a surprise.”

“No,” said I. “No more.”

“What about her?” said Puck, pointing to Hippolyta. “We should kill her. Kill all the powerful and corrupt.”

“No,” said I. “No more.”

“But she killed me.”

“No she didn’t. A goblin killed you, on the order of Titania.”

“Well that’s hurtful,” said the Puck. “I was going to kill her anyway, for sending the fairies to Oberon’s harem, but Titania kill me? No.”

“Yes. You paid the assassin yourself when you delivered the silver bracelet to the goblin Talos.”

“She said that was for weapons for the Amazons, so I had to appear as a mortal to deflect blame.”

“She lied.”

“But I was her favorite.”

“Not anymore. The Indian boy was her favorite in the end.” I nodded to the boy, who now stood over the dead king and queen, studying them.

The Puck leapt from the balcony, but instead of falling he blinked to a spot by the Indian boy. He leaned in close to the boy, examined him, looked him top to bottom, then looked to Rumour, who was smiling in a self-satisfied way center stage. “Why does this sprout get a hat? I didn’t get a hat.”

“The boy is your son, Puck,” said Rumour.

“Bollocks,” said the Puck. “Did he say that? Did you say that?”

The boy looked at his father like a dog watching a bee working a flower, intrigued by the movement, but relatively sure he was not good to eat.

“Come here, boy,” said Rumour. And the boy blinked to his side. “Could anyone but the progeny of the Puck do that?”

“Blimey,” said the Puck. “A son. With a hat.”

“Yes,” said I. “Magical and a bit thick—the boy is yours. Not so his turban. Puck, mate, you are short of time and there are things you need to put right.”

I jumped onto the stage and waved for the Puck to join Rumour at center stage, while I went to Cobweb. “This is why you were so late?”

“Took a massive fucking frolic to bring him back, dinnit?” she said. “He’d been dead three days.”

“Does he know? Does he know he won’t last?”

“I think he can feel it.” She nodded at the Puck, who was leaning on Rumour as he coughed, which seemed to distress him more than finding he had a son.

I pulled my coxcomb from my head, went to the Puck, and fitted it on his noggin while I whispered in his ear, “This is yours, mate. You traded for it fair and square. Now we have to put this disaster in order. Your best magics, Robin Goodfellow, for this shall be your legacy.”

I patted his back and pushed my way in front of Rumour. “You could have just told me,” I said sotto voce. “Those were not magic fucking words.”

“I didn’t say they were. I said they were the key.”

“You said the lovers were the key as well, and that was utter rubbish.”

“Puck used his second flower on the lovers. There was no flower to give to Theseus to use on Hippolyta. He had no intention of delivering that potion. Had you not been so thick, you would have known he had gone to Turtle Grotto for another purpose. His intent, since hearing Hippolyta’s plan with Oberon to bring the goblin soldiers to the wedding, was to gather the powerful and corrupt and kill them all.”

“Your hat smells of monkey fuck,” I replied. I turned to the audience and raised my hands for quiet.

“What you have seen here you shall remember only as a dream. When you wake, people of Athens, you shall go about your business, your farming and your trades, and give thanks to the forces of nature, and once a year, in the spring, take an offering of fabric, needle and thread, and simple tools, and leave them in the forest to the east. And four times a year, take a hundredweight of silver to the forest in the north, and for this the gods shall protect you from invaders. As now, you may never enter the forest at night, and never shall anyone do harm to a squirrel, for any reason, lest they bring bad harvests onto the city. You will remember goblins and fairies only as stories you tell to delight your children. Further, the working people of Athens shall keep the fruits of their labor, and only give so much of it to the city as is required to pay these offerings and protect the city, not to enrich their leaders or maintain a conquering army.”