“Where did he go?” He swung his sword harmlessly through the air in front of him as if searching for a spirit. Behind me, the Mechanicals cowered together in a huddle.
He looked to Drool, who stared at me, more gap jawed than normal, a bit of dribble spilling down his chin. “Pocket?”
“Seize him,” said the captain, and the spearmen fell on Drool, wrestling him to the ground. Burke was limping in a circle, trying to get a grip on my dagger, which wagged in his bum like the tail of a friendly dog.
“Run, you bloody idiot,” called the puppet Jones, from his place in the dirt. “Run!”
There was no helping Drool, the spearmen were clearly better fighters than their commander and already had the great git pinned, a man on each limb.
“Run!” screamed the puppet. “Into the forest. Run.”
And so I did, leaving Blacktooth staring at the spot I’d just left. I snatched Jones up out of the dirt as I ran. Drool was wailing my name as I passed by but if I stopped now we’d both be killed. This way, perhaps a rescue.
“Don’t fight, lad,” I called over my shoulder. Then I vaulted a fallen tree nearly as thick as I was tall and landed in a pile. I climbed to my feet and glanced back over the tree at my pursuers. But there were none. All the watchmen, even those holding Drool, were looking at the spot where I had ducked under Blacktooth’s sword. Not even an eye turned my way.
“Bloody bumbling knobs,” I muttered to myself. “Can’t even give proper chase.”
“Well they wouldn’t chase, would they?” said the puppet Jones. “What with you being dead and all.”
I tossed the puppet stick away; it bounced and came to rest on a bed of moss.
“Don’t be such a wilted willy about it,” said the puppet. “You’d think you’re the only one ever had his head chopped off.”
“My head is not chopped off.” I tugged at my coxcomb to confirm my point as I am often unreliable.
“Fine, call to your mates.”
So I did. I shouted at Drool, at the Mechanicals, called to Blacktooth, “Over here, thou bee-brained cocksplat!” Not a head turned. Not an ear perked. No ire was sparked. Drool whimpered and wept as he was bound by the watchmen.
“Dead,” said the puppet.
“But I am here.”
“Talking to a puppet on a stick.”
“That does seem a bit out of order.”
“’Tis often said, there’s always a bloody ghost, you know?”
“And I am he?”
“Indeed.”
“Why can’t I see my dead body?”
“Rules, I reckon.”
“So I am slain.”
“Sharp as a rolling road-apple, you are.”
“Fuckstockings!”
* * *
Well, death was a darkling dollop of dog wank. Neither paradise nor perdition as promised. No shining gates to welcome me into the bosom of those I had loved, nor pit to pull me onto the pikes of mine enemies. No angels sang me into sweet slumber, nor did a thousand barb-dicked devils bugger me senseless. Even of peace was I deprived, for as my spirit wandered in that poxy wood, worry still wrinkled my bruised brow over Drool, sadness over lost love still weighed heavy in my heart, even hunger still dug at my gut. Had I known hunger would follow me into the undiscovered country I would have taken more time for lunch before shuffling off this mortal coil.
And what an ignominious death it was! Death by dunderheaded official? I grieved for myself, for despite the most minor snag in character or smudge of misdeed, in life I had been fucking lovely.
I thought to rend my clothes in grief but halted as I had only the one outfit to serve me for a death that might go on for a dogfuckingly long time; instead I leapt onto the fallen tree trunk from behind which I had watched Drool and the Mechanicals being led away by the watch, and I cried out to the empty forest: “Woe! Agony! And Despair! I am slain! I am slain and I grieve for a barren, broken world deprived of my delight.”
“Oh for fuck’s sake, shut your festering gob, you wanker!” cried the puppet Jones, who had persisted in chattering on without my help.
Oh, I had before lusted for the grave, years ago when my sweet queen was murdered, even for a moment when the wave overturned our boat and the briny deep pulled me down, I felt an instant of relief—surrender to sweet oblivion, only to be yanked back to a confusion of quick bright things. But if this were truth, even then there would have been no rest, but penance to wander sodden and sullen to the jabbering cadence of a self-possessed puppet. At least poor Drool might have been spared capture, and would now be licking berry juice from thorn-pricked paws while pert and nimble Cobweb stood by with eyes like harvest moons full in amazement. Poor dribbling giant, beyond my reach or rescue, but not my concern.
“Why not just let me drift in the dark!” I shouted to any gods who might have been listening. “Let me be to un-be!”
“So,” said a bloke’s voice, close enough behind to startle me. “Newly dead, are you then?”
I nearly fell off the log turning toward the voice. There, in the hollow of the broken, moss-covered stump from which my own tree had fallen, sat a nearly naked fellow, as pale as the moon, his head a mop of black curls that he shook out of his eyes as he grinned.
“It would seem,” said I.
“Won’t be needing that jaunty jester’s hat then, will you?”
I touched my hat, black and silver satin like my jerkin, three tentacles, each as long as my forearm, once tipped with gaily jingling bells, now denuded, bell-less, sad and silent. “I quite like this hat.”
“It’s smashing. And will be more so once it graces my melon.” He jumped onto my tree and scampered to me, held out his hand. “I’ll have it.”
“You will not have it, thou unctuous little hedgehog,” said I. He was shorter than me by a head but sturdy. He was barefoot and wore nothing but a loincloth belted at the waist with a vine. A doeskin pouch hung at his hip.
“Come on, hand it over. You can’t use it, you’re dead. No one can even see you.”
“Well you can see me, can’t you?”
“Right, but I’ve got special talents, don’t I, a person of the forest. Normal, city folk can’t see you.” He leaned in and I could smell the odor of moss or something green coming off him. He whispered, “Because you’re dead. Dead, dead, dead. You are an expired fool. A ghost. Now, hand over the hat, I’ve some tricks to perform, and they will appear even more wonderful if I am wearing a proper hat.”
I stepped away from him, looked him over. Besides being small and pale, and having disturbingly wide green eyes, he had ears that came to gentle points. I hadn’t noticed them among his dark curls at first.
“The Puck, I presume?”
“Called Robin Goodfellow.” He bowed deeply. “Jester to the shadow king.”
“The shadow king?” The consort, I guessed, to Cobweb’s mistress, the night queen.
“The shadow king, Oberon. I craft clever japes in his court, trick and transform and make good sport. Bring him laughs and hoots and smiles—provide sweet respite for a while. Take the form of winsome filly and beguile the stallion horse’s willy. I can put a girdle round the Earth in forty minutes—fetch a flower from every land I visit. Take the form of a three-legged stool, when auntie sits, dump her bum-bruised like a fool. I am the merry wanderer Puck, a player of jest, a changer of luck.”