Shakespeare for Squirrels

“The Puck,” said Quince. “Said he’d teach us a fashionable dance to do for the duke. Took our coin, then buggered off to who-knows-where, leaving us fuck-all for our trouble.”

“The rascal,” said I. I exchanged a look of flabbergast with the puppet Jones. Truth told, until that moment, I had thought I, too, might bugger off to parts unknown, leaving them with fuck-all for their trouble, but now I felt honor-bound to mend the reputation of my fellow fool and rascal. There are so few of us, after all, subject as we are to being hanged by humorless royals. “That’s in violation of the fool’s code. I shall make good on the Puck’s promise and teach you all a jaunty dance. After lunch.”

“We don’t need a dance now,” said Francis Flute, au falsetto behind his veil. “We’ve Thisby and Pyramus to carry the day.”

“Gentlemen,” said Bottom, as he rifled through the rucksacks, drawing out bread, fruit, cheese, and various basketed jugs as he went and placing them on a shawl he’d spread out on the ground. “Let us allow our professors to regain their strength. I fear the romantic bombast of my Pyramus may otherwise overwhelm their sensibilities.”

“Proceed, gentlemen,” I said, as Drool and I fell upon the Mechanicals’ lunch like wolves on the fold.

Peter Quince, carpenter and director, stepped forward. “Now am I the chorus.”

“Pray continue,” I said around a mouthful of coarse brown bread.

Quince unrolled his scroll. “Two households, both alike in dignity—”

“Rawr,” said Snug, the tall fellow.

“Now is not the time to roar,” said Quince. “I have not yet warned the ladies not to be afraid.”

“Rawr,” repeated Snug.

“No one will be afraid,” said I.

“I shall wear a mane made of straw, and paint my jaws with the blood,” said Snug.

“Do it again,” said I, snatching a plum from our hoard and skipping to the lion’s side.

“Rawr,” said Snug.

“Pathetic. You have to summon the full wind and throat of the beast, lad, not simply say ‘rawr.’ Call up an echo from your memory, then let it roar from time’s ear to today’s lips. Hear the beast, be the beast.”

“Hear the beast, be the beast,” said Drool, note for note in my voice, which is the ninny’s peculiar talent. It’s bloody unsettling at times.

The Mechanicals stared in wide wonder at Drool.

“Like that,” said I. “Make the sound you have heard a lion make.”

“I’ve never seen a lion,” said Snug.

“Well, extrapolate your roar from such fierce creatures as you have seen.”

“I’ve seen a chicken,” said Snug.

The knot on my brow suddenly began to throb and I pushed my coxcomb back to relieve the pressure.

“I believe I could improvise the most terrifying of chicken roars,” said Nick Bottom. “If I may have a go.”

“No!” said I. “There will be no roaring chickens. What ferociousness-deprived land is this? Have you no bears, no wolves, the odd fox with a cough—no wild beast from which to draw your inspiration?”

“We might,” said Snug, “but they aren’t about in daytime, and none of the town folk go into the forest at night, only the wood folk.”

“That is true,” said Bottom.

“Oh fuckstockings!” said I. Why had I not offered a song for our meal, perhaps a threat? I looked to Drool, who had laid waste to much of the tradesmen’s lunch. We could dash now, I supposed, and leave them to their roaring chickens and wall shagging.

“I have seen a goat as well,” said Snug, with more pride than goat-spotting generally merits. “Many goats.”

“Perhaps a different approach.” I reached up to Snug to bring him into my confidence, thought to put my arm around his shoulders, but he was so tree-fuckingly tall I ended up accidentally clouting him on the back of the head, knocking his cap to the ground.

“Hey!” said the hapless joiner.

“There you have it,” said I. “If you have not heard a ferocious creature you must summon it in yourself. Now, think of when that rascal Puck had his way with your wife.”

“He only just touched her up, he—”

“Roar, player! He ruined her forever! Used her like a common tramp while the whole village watched.”

“But—”

“Roar!” I clouted him on the back of the head again for good measure.

“RAWR!” roared Snug, with great improvement, surprising himself and startling Drool so that he aspirated a bit of the sweet wine he was quaffing.

“Oh, well done,” said Bottom. “Bravo, good Snug.” He clapped politely and the rest of the Mechanicals joined in.

Snug smiled shyly and bowed his head. “If I were a lion I would bite the neck of that rascal Puck.”

“Your ire serves you well,” said I. “Gentlemen, shall we progress to actual lines from the text?”

“Who roars there?” came a voice from the edge of the clearing. I looked to see a large, scruffy fellow dressed in leather armor and trailing a sword at his waist, followed by a smaller bloke in black aiming a crossbow, loaded and drawn, upon poor Snug.

“Blacktooth,” whispered Bottom. “Captain of the watch.”

Chapter 3

The Watch

The captain of the watch, Blacktooth, was the sort of beetle-browed brute I’d encountered my whole life at the fringes of royal courts: large men whose talent for violence and incapacity for original thought carried them into middling positions as enforcers, jailers, and executioners. There had been a dozen or so of that stripe on the pirate ship, and if not for my own wary quickness with a blade or fear of Captain Jessica’s vengeance (she’d once dirked a fellow pirate in the dick for touching her bottom sans consent) I’m sure I would have been pummeled and cast broken into the sea long before we were set adrift. ’Tis best to proceed with caution when confronted by such slow-witted, quick-tempered creatures, particularly when they are backed by a ferrety second with a cocked crossbow.

“Bow to your betters, thou chicken-witted catch-farts!” exclaimed the puppet Jones, much to my surprise, because I had not thrown my voice nor worked the ring and string that move his mouth, which, generally, is how the puppet makes his point.

The ferrety watchman raised his crossbow and aimed at my chest. I dropped Jones and dove behind the thespians as I drew one of the daggers from the small of my back. Once I heard the bolt fly I might close enough distance between myself and the watchmen to send a dagger at the big one before his sword could clear its scabbard. There’d be an instant while the smaller one tried to reload, and I could send a second dagger to his throat. The big one would still be staggering, my slim blade a bloody brooch in his breast, but with good fortune, Drool could help me bring them both to a swift finish. (I am not a fighter by nature, and spent much of my time during pirate raids in the rigging shouting encouragement to my mates and withering insults at the enemy, but Drool, if you caught him between wanks and snacks, could summon great strength and fury when the dashing of brains needed to be done.)

I came to my feet, leapt, then launched myself off the shoulders of Snout the bunny-hatted tinker—a vault I hoped would put me in knife-throwing range of the watchmen. But alas, no bolt was loosed, and as I somersaulted, I saw the captain pushing his cohort’s crossbow down. I landed lightly, and light-h

eaded, not twenty feet in front of them. I shook off my dizziness and went to one knee with a theatrical flourish, fitting my dagger back into its sheath as I bowed.

“Gentlemen!” said I. “Good day to you, and greetings from our humble troupe of players, the Mechanicals!”

“The Mechanicals!” repeated the players (may all the errant gods bless them). They bowed in a rough approximation of unison.

The captain scowled at the archer. “Burke, we of the watch do not shoot a man for sporting an impotent puppet.”

“Impudent,” corrected Burke.

Blacktooth then turned to us, doffed his bronze officer’s helmet, which looked like it might have been used recently for boiling beans, and said, “Beggin’ your pardon, gents, Burke is under training these two years and is yet a nematode in the ways of the watch.”

“Neophyte,” corrected Burke.

“Take the shot, ya scurvy coward,” said the puppet Jones from his spot lying in the dirt. “Or haven’t you the stones for a fight?”

How? It was my smaller voice but not from me. Drool, perhaps . . . “Drool, stop that!” I called.

The great ninny opened his mouth and an avalanche of half-chewed bread tumbled down his front. Not Drool. What trickery was this?

Then four more watchmen with spears stepped out of the wood and the notion of a fight or escape sizzled like a butterfly in a firestorm.

“Halt!” said the captain. The watchmen stopped. Blacktooth turned and stepped up to me—loomed, as it were.

The ferrety archer slung his crossbow onto his back by a leather strap and scampered past me. “Show your passports, citizens,” he commanded.

Each of the Mechanicals produced a wooden chit from his pocket or from a lanyard around his neck, each chit bearing a wax seal and burnt inscription of some sort.

Burke read aloud from each chit before moving to the next. “Peter Quince, Joiner’s Guild. Nick Bottom, Weaver’s Guild. Francis Flute, Bellows Mender’s Guild.”

“You have enough broken bellows to support a guild of menders?” I asked Flute.

“There’s just me and another fellow,” said Flute from the modesty of his veil.