Shakespeare for Squirrels

Burke tried to stop but found himself sliding into the vault to see an enormous ninny holding a halberd with which he had just soundly brained the captain of the watch.

“Foe?” Drool asked as Bottom and I trotted up behind Burke.

“Aye, lad, but give us a moment.”

“All right,” said Drool, disappointed.

Burke reached back to feel the quite useless crossbow slung across his back, then glanced at the dagger at his belt, at which point I drew one of my own and Bottom brandished one of his ersatz leg sticks like a club.

“Consider, leftenant, before you draw your dagger, that my apprentice has dispatched your commander with the shaft end of that poleaxe, but had he used the blade end, Blacktooth’s head would likely still be rolling free.”

Drool, sweet lad, flipped the halberd so the blade was leveled at Burke’s chest.

Burke did not move except to look at the unconscious forms of Blacktooth and the young, spot-faced guard lying next to him. I relieved him of his dagger and handed it, hilt first, back to Bottom.

“What do you want?” said Burke.

“For now, for you to stand completely still and refrain from shouting. Is there no one else here in the gendarmerie?”

“No, just that one.” He nodded to the unconscious lad.

“Drool, are you hurt? Did they harm you?” The oaf looked as vital, huge, and filthy as usual.

“No, Pocket, I was real quiet and they left me alone.”

“Except to feed you?”

“No, they didn’t give me food nor water. I asked for some but the guards said they would cut off me willy if I asked again so I dinna ask. Cobweb give me some water just now. She’s a love.”

“Where is Cobweb?”

“She and her mates ran off when they heard you coming. Hiding, probably.” He dropped his guard with the halberd a bit, then pretended to have a thought. “Hey, Pocket, did you know that Cobweb is a—”

“I know, lad. It’s a secret, so let us not discuss it in front of this fucktoad. Later.”

“Aye, Pocket.” Drool nodded.

It was all I could do to not spear Burke’s liver right then. Poor Drool had had nothing since eating the Mechanicals’ lunch three days prior, while I had been dining with kings and being frolicked back to health. A quick thrust of my dagger and Burke would bleed out just slowly enough to know which particular of his cruelties had cost him his life. Instead, I reached over and tipped the quiver of bolts that hung at his waist until its contents rattled out onto the floor. There were six long oak bolts and a single, shorter, black, distinctly goblin-looking bolt.

“I didn’t kill the Puck,” Burke said, jumping ahead of my accusations.

“I know,” said I. “But you paid the goblin who did.”

“I did not. I swear.”

“He told me such.”

“Then he lied.”

“Why were you at Turtle Grotto that morning then?”

“The duke sent us. To retrieve something the Puck was bringing him.”

“But the young Athenian Demetrius fell to your goblin bolt, did he not?”

“Why no. I am an officer of the watch, I would never—”

“Kill him, Drool,” said I.

The great ninny drew back the point of the halberd, deciding, for variety’s sake I suppose, to skewer rather than bludgeon the watchman.

“Yes, yes, yes,” said Burke. “It was I. I didn’t mean to kill the yellow-haired one. ’Twas the other one I was aiming for.”

“Why didn’t you go back and kill Lysander as you’d been hired to do?”

“Well you’d seen me, hadn’t you? Running like a loony after me in the forest. And I’d used all the goblin bolts I had with me. We’d have had to kill the whole lot. Egeus would have known it was us, and you were on task for the duke. Blacktooth thought it best to offer aid to the other youths and claim you’d been seeing things, or you were lying, if you lived to return to the duke.”

“Then Blacktooth was in on it?”

“A half a mile back, yes. He moves like an ox crashing through the forest. I couldn’t risk letting him come closer.”

“And what are you up to tonight? Why is there only one guard down here?”

“The wedding. Half the watch is patrolling the crowd outside the castle and the other half is out in the streets getting pissed themselves.”

“Will others come down later to relieve this lad?”

“Yes, any minute now.”

“We had better kill you, then,” said I.

“No,” said Burke rather quickly. “He was to be on watch all night by himself.”

“How do I get into the upper castle? Will there be more guards?”

“Straight ahead, left, then right, up a spiral staircase, gate at the top. No guards tonight. Hippolyta’s Amazons perhaps—”

And that’s when Nick Bottom brained Burke with one of his false horse legs. The watchman crumpled atop his colleagues and a rivulet of blood trickled out of his scalp.

“What’d you do that for?” I said.

“I thought you were going to kill him,” said Bottom.

“I wasn’t. I just needed him to think I would kill him.”

“Well you had me convinced,” said Bottom. “You are truly the master.”

“Don’t try to flatter your way out of this, Bottom. I had more questions for him.”

“Pocket,” said Drool. “Why is that donkey talking?”

“Oh, that’s no donkey, lad. That’s Nick Bottom the weaver. You ate his lunch in the forest. Remember his fine waistcoat?”

“No.”

“Well he’s been changed into an ass by magic.”

“Smashing!” said Drool. “Magic is the mutt’s nuts, innit?”

“Shall we find the fairies and carry on?” said Bottom.

“Fairies!” said Drool. “Smashing!”

“Cobweb is a fairy,” I told the dolt. “As are her mates. And, Bottom, don’t change the subject, I’m not finished being angry with you. You two, drag these three into Drool’s old cell. Take their clothes and weapons and lock them in irons. I will look for the fairies.”

“Aye aye, Pocket,” said Drool. “Did we have any food?”

“I’ll look, lad. The gendarmerie has to have a larder down here somewhere.”

“Right,” said Drool. He set his halberd on the floor, grabbed the unconscious spot-faced guard by the collar, and began dragging him.