Shakespeare for Squirrels

“Sorry,” said one of the girls. “We was looking for Bottom and was excited to find him.”

“And I am most abundantly found,” said Bottom.

“These here are my mates,” said Cobweb. “That there is Moth.” The first girl in the line curtsied and grinned. She had hair the color of an eggshell, short, like Cobweb’s, and wore a similar rough linen frock, in mossy green, that hung to just above her knees, although there were fewer burrs and sticks tangled in hers. “That there is Peaseblossom, she’s dead simple.” Peaseblossom, with light brown locks, rounder and a bit shorter than Cobweb and Moth, curtsied and nodded in agreement. “And that rascal there is Mustardseed.”

“I am also simple,” said the boy. Well, not boy, really, just a small, slight man, with pointed ears and short black hair, cut in the same manner as the others’, which was, from appearances, with a knife, in the dark, by someone who was angry. He bowed. “At your service, good sir.”

“Fancy a frolic, Master Pocket?” said Peaseblossom.

“Oh, that would be lovely,” said Mustardseed, jumping on his toes.

“Yes!” said Moth.

“Master Pocket don’t frolic,” said Cobweb. “Now, we need to get Master Bottom back to the queen’s bower or she’ll roast our dicks on a stick. Go on.”

Mustardseed and Peaseblossom took Bottom, each by a hand, and led him further into the forest. Moth hung back and held her hand as if for me to take it.

“Go on,” said Cobweb. “Follow the others. I got this one. Go, and no fucking frolicking along the way.” She waved Moth on and fell back beside me, letting the others get far enough ahead that all I could see was Moth’s white hair bobbing in the dark like, well, a moth.

“Don’t say nothing about the Puck being killed. Not yet,” Cobweb whispered as we went along. “And you can’t let on you haven’t magic like him. Do some tricks with your puppet stick there, and juggle and sing and hint that you have fearsome powers.”

“You think that will work?”

“It must. Show the queen your passport from the duke, too.”

“How do you know about that? I didn’t show you that.”

“And she’s going to try to shag you, so be ready.”

“I am no stranger to deflecting the attention of lascivious queens. My aspect is fair, but I have a particular charm that keeps them at bay.”

“I know, you are a shit. But the queen has a particular taste and you’ll want to stow that cracking big codpiece or you’ll never be rid of her.”

“Perhaps you could wear it as a lovely elven hat,” said I.

She rolled her eyes at me in the manner of a priest surrendering my filthy soul to hell, which is an expression I had seen more than once, and called, “Oi! Mustard! You want to wear the fool’s stupid codpiece?”

“Is it magical?” Mustardseed called back.

I nodded furiously.

“No,” said Cobweb, “but it’ll be cracking for carrying your nuts and berries.”

Mustardseed made his way back to us. I untied my codpiece and handed it over.

“This will be smashing with some black kit the Puck give me,” said Mustardseed. “Trousers, a jerkin, and now a codpiece. I’ll be fancier than a mortal watchman.”

Cobweb whispered, “And I still don’t believe the Puck’s dead.”

“I’m sorry, lamb, he is. I held his chill form in my arms.”

“You don’t know how tricky he can be,” Cobweb said.

Chapter 9

Queen of Tarts

Bottom led us into an open space in the forest canopy where, bathed by moonlight, a multitude of fairies were lashing saplings together into great Gothic archways and weaving a cupola of willow over the lot, tying branches with vines and strips of bark, until it appeared that a great green cathedral was rising out of the forest floor as fairies scurried up, down, and around the branches and beams, fitting in new pieces with industrious fury.

“The night queen’s palace,” announced Moth.

I looked to Cobweb. “It’s just a great bundle of sticks.”

“Don’t let the queen hear you say that,” said Cobweb.

“How many fairies attend her?” I asked.

“I don’t know. Seven?”

“Seven? There are at least a hundred I can see.”

“I don’t know,” said Cobweb.

“We’re not good at counting,” said Moth.

A team of four fairies dashed around the edges of the construction snatching fireflies out of the brush and tossing them into lanterns constructed of gold-flecked mica, until each lantern glowed brighter and softer than any oil lamp. Then one would climb into the growing dome and place it among the arches.

“We build it every night,” said Mustardseed.

“The queen is ever so particular that it’s suitable for entertaining,” said Peaseblossom.

“She’s been right cranky since Oberon chucked her out the Night Palace,” said Moth.

“How long ago was that?” I inquired.

Moth shrugged. “Many.” She danced into the fray and began helping another fairy to lash branches to the dome.

The fairies were all as slim and tattered as Cobweb but dressed in many colors and styles, as if they’d found their kit on a beach, the flotsam of a shipwreck. None wore shoes or any jewelry, although some had striped their limbs with clay or dye. Meanwhile, Mustardseed was strutting around the perimeter wearing my codpiece, thrusting it at anyone who dared look up from their work.

A flaxen-haired girl fairy called from atop the dome, “Mustard! What you got there?”

“It’s my new kit,” said Mustardseed. He thrust it at her. “Fancy a frolic?”

The blond fairy ran down one of the ribs of the dome, as sure-footed as if she were on flat ground, and, while still five yards above the ground, leapt off the edifice, landed with a roll, and came up onto her feet in front of Mustardseed, where she honked his codpiece. “It’s lovely,” she said. She grinned around our group, her hand still on the cod, her gaze coming to rest on me. “Who are you, sir?”

“He’s a fool,” said Cobweb. “Like the Puck. Pocket of the Far Away. Pocket, this here’s Fluffer-Nutter.”

Fluffer-Nutter curtsied and averted her gaze to the ground. “Beg pardon, sir.”

“Enchanté,” said I, in perfect fucking French.

“Is he fucking French?” Fluffer-Nutter whispered to Mustardseed.

He shrugged. “Don’t know. Mayfly, I reckon.”

Dismissing it all with a wave, Fluffer-Nutter looked back to the ribs of the great growing dome. “We’d best get to work. We’re behind and the queen will be steaming if we don’t finish before she arrives.” With that she turned and ran bac

k up a sapling making up one of the arched openings, as quick and agile as Jeff the monkey might have been. Mustardseed, Moth, and Peaseblossom followed her up with the grace of dancers. I am an accomplished acrobat myself, having been trained as a boy to be a second-story man for a thief, and later as an entertainer to the king, so I could climb and tumble as well as anyone I’d ever seen, but these fairies moved about the green rigging of their cathedral like they were born to the trees.

A tattoo of drumming sounded from out of the clearing and a cohort of perhaps fifty fairies marched out of the forest bearing a covered litter festooned with flowers upon their shoulders, followed by a line of fairies carrying trays of fruits, others carrying earthenware amphorae, presumably filled with wine, or maybe, since these were fucking fairies, some kind of nectar.

“That’s her,” said Bottom. “And if past is prologue, I am to be most grievously and jauntily used—used like a—like a—”

Bottom snuffled his muzzle against my shoulder and his long ears batted about the tentacles of my coxcomb as if trying to make friends.

“Like a beast of burden?” I suggested.

“Aye,” said the ass-man. “Like a beast.” He hid his eyes against me and let loose a wheezing whinny.

With that, the diaphanous curtain of the litter was swept aside and Titania, queen of the night, stepped out onto the green. She was no taller nor rounder than the other fairies, and, but for garlands of flowers draped across her hips and breasts, quite naked. Her skin was as pale as the moon, so pale it seemed that she might be composed of moonlight herself. Her cape of curls was woven with flowers and fragrants so numerous that a moment passed before I could discern that her hair was the same light brown as Peaseblossom’s. Her eyes were emerald green and so wide it seemed she was in a perpetual state of surprise, or perhaps excitement, but definitely—as they darted around like minnows in a bucket—undeniably, as mad as a fucking bedbug.

“Oh, sing again, my glorious mortal, thy song is as beautiful as thy shape.” She danced, tiny steps, across the forest floor until she stood by Bottom, where she stroked his long ears with delicate fingers. “Oh, sing again, my love. Sing again.”