"These Late Eclipses," Part 2
Jun. 5th, 2010 09:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_t_rainPart 1 is here.
Kent's dialogue with the Gentleman is abridged from King Lear 4.3. The Fool's song is adapted from Child Ballad 10 ("The Twa Sisters" -- better known to Loreena McKennitt fans as "The Bonny Swans"). I'm not sure who originated the theory about the Fool that I have borrowed here; I don't buy it as canon by any means, but it worked surprisingly well for this particular story.
And Straight It Began to Play Alone
Kent had found time to fashion some fishhooks, so they had fresh trout for supper that night, baked in clay from the river. The fool, meanwhile, had slipped off to the nearest village to sing songs, and had collected enough coins for a loaf of bread and a bucket of ale. Edith sniffed at the bread and said that she could have baked much better if she had a proper fireplace, good flour, and leaven, but as far as Edmund was concerned, it was the best meal he’d had in a week.
His father and Edgar talked of state with Kent. Edmund found the conversation too tedious to bear listening to; there seemed to be no hope of persuading the two older men that someone other than King Lear ought to rule, even though the king was at present absorbed in braiding straws together and sticking them in his hair. Edmund reached for his cup of ale, and discovered that it was empty. The liquid seemed to have transferred itself into the fool’s cup right in front of his eyes.
He blinked. “How didst thou that, boy?”
“A mere trick of the hand. The timing is all.”
“Fetch me some more. No. Show me how.”
“I had rather give thee thine own back again, and keep my tricks to myself. But I’ll show thee another pretty one.” The fool produced a handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it into the air. “Knowst thou how to turn a handkerchief into a dove?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.” The handkerchief came to rest on the board. “But there is thine own back again.”
Again, Edmund’s own cup stood in front of him. He understood now that it had been the cups and not the ale that had moved; he could see that the empty cup still had a chip in it. But he could not for his life work out how the fool had switched them when he was sure he’d had his eyes on the boy the entire time.
“Show me how, sirrah.”
“Wouldst thou apprentice thyself to a fool, sirrah, and learn the mysteries of the trade?”
“I will learn what I can, from whom I can. That does not make me thy apprentice.”
“Then I will teach thee, for I see thou art almost wise enough to be a fool.”
After half an hour of practice, Edmund was almost as quick with his hands as the fool, and he trusted that he could be as clever at diverting his victim’s attention, should he ever have need of his new skill.
Gloucester and Kent said their good nights and bedded down by the embers of the fire. Edmund decided that it was high time for a private word with Edgar.
“This has gone far enough, brother. I put no trust in armies from France, and there are three men in this kingdom that I’ll back for king. You, me, and the Earl of Kent. If you would have me stand with you, take your choice.”
“Kent, then,” said Edgar. “But he’ll not have it.”
“No. He’d rather serve a madman than lift a finger to govern in his own right. But I tell you he could govern if he would, and that’s more than I can say for Lear.”
“King Lear.”
Edmund helped himself to another cupful of ale. “Tell me,” he said, “if the world were made new – and if only the eight of us were in it – who among us would the others think fit to be king? ‘Twould not be an old madman, I can tell you. If we would live, we’d do better to choose a peasant like Owen, a man who knows how to find a trail in the wilderness and which mushrooms won’t kill you. I’d choose the fool over Lear, for God’s sake. At least he can sing for his bread, and he’s got good taste in brewers.”
The fool, who had been curled by the fire, apparently asleep, sat up abruptly. “You called, sir?”
“Wouldst thou be king, fool?”
“I had rather be a pig in a sty, a bear in a cave, or a worm in its own proper place than a king in motley. Will you have a song, lordings?”
“Aye!” called King Lear. “Sing the one about the knight with the gold codpiece.”
The fool shrugged apologetically. “That one is his favorite,” he explained. “He calls for it every night. If you would prefer a different song, I can sing it after he goes to sleep.”
Some forty-three verses later, the king was snoring comfortably. “Now masters, would you hear another?”
“As you will,” said Edgar, “and make it what song you will.”
The fool ran his fingers over his harp-strings. “Any song at all, my lord?”
“Any.”
There was a king lived in the North Country,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And he had daughters one two three,
With a hey down down a down-a.
He gave the eldest a gay gold ring,
With a hey down down a down-a,
But he gave the youngest a better thing,
With a hey down down a down-a.
O sister, sister, will you walk with me,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And see our father’s ships on the sea,
With a hey down down a down-a.
And when they came unto the sea-brim,
With a hey down down a down-a,
The eldest pushed the youngest in,
With a hey down down a down-a.
“Why do I have a feeling I’ve heard this story before?” said Edmund.
“Hush,” said Edgar. He was staring at the fool with a strange, fixed expression.
A famous harper passing by,
With a hey down down a down-a,
This drowned lady he chanced to spy,
With a hey down down a down-a.
He made a harp of her breastbone,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And straight it began to play alone,
With a hey down down a down-a.
Whoever and whatever he might be, the boy had a sweet voice. Edmund’s mind drifted; he found himself thinking of the world and its changes.
He brought it to her father’s hall,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And there were the lords assembled all,
With a hey down down a-down a.
He laid this harp upon a stone,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And straight it began to play alone,
With a hey down down a down-a.
O yonder sits the king my father,
With a hey down down a down-a,
Doth he not know his own true daughter?
With a hey down down a down-a.
Edgar rose and knelt at the fool’s feet. “My lady,” he said.
The fool blinked tears out of her eyes. “You must not kneel to me, sir. I am nothing.”
“You are a Queen. How come you to be here and not in France?”
“I never went into France. It seemed to me that my duty lay here.”
Edgar absorbed the implications of this. “How, you never went to France! What of the French king – is he coming here?”
“I hope so,” said the fool. “I wrote to him, and I told him to come to Dover and bring his army, if he loved me.” But she did not look altogether certain.
“What do you mean, if he loved you?” Edmund demanded. “Are you married to him, or not?”
“I suppose I am. By proxy.”
“Proxy?”
Her eyes twinkled. “I dressed my father’s fool in my own gown and veil, and sent him over in my place. It seemed a fair exchange, since he had lent me his motley.”
Edmund roared with laughter. “By all the gods, Cordelia, you’re a girl worth gold! Though I’m bound to say that if I were king of France, and I found myself married to a fool, I might not think so.”
Cordelia grew sober again at once. “I hope he will understand. I made him know my reasons in my letter. It was not that I meant to make a fool of him, only ... I could not leave my father. I could not.”
“You did right, my lady,” said Edgar gently.
“I hope so.” Cordelia bit her lip and looked doubtful.
“Brother,” said Edmund later, after all of the others were asleep, “I think we have found a queen we can agree on.”
Privately, he reflected that if the game went his way, he stood a fair chance to be king. Women had always liked him – why, old Edith had practically adopted him as a son. He thought that the king’s youngest daughter might come to like him very well indeed, especially if she took after her sisters in certain matters.
* * *
A few more days’ traveling brought them to a farm outside Dover, where Owen and Edith had a grown daughter, Emma. She was married to a prosperous yeoman and lived in a house filled with dogs and children, which seemed too small to accommodate Emma’s mother and father – let alone a one-eyed traitor, a servant with a suspiciously polished accent, an outlaw, a fool, a madman, and a bastard.
But somehow, they managed. Emma and Cuthbert gave up their own bed to the king, and found pallets and clean linen enough to make beds for their other guests around the fire. Emma added more water and a handful of barley to the pot of soup that was bubbling on the hearth, and said that they were very welcome. “We’ll give you better cheer tomorrow,” she promised. “It is only that we need things from the town, and I do not like my husband to go abroad too late. These times are very bad. Uncertain, and men have no law to keep them from thievery.”
“Hear you any news of ships from France?” Kent asked.
“Ay, sir,” said Cuthbert, the yeoman. “They say the king has been and gone, and left the Marshall LaFar behind him with certain of his men.”
“Been and gone?” Cordelia demanded abruptly.
“Ay, so I heard. There’s a gentleman come from the French camp can tell you more, if you speak with him tomorrow.”
At the first light, Edmund rode to the French camp with Kent and Cordelia, who had borrowed Emma’s best gown and dressed herself as a woman again. The French had pitched four rows of tents, shining white in the morning sun. Banners adorned with the fleur-de-lis fluttered between them. Cordelia shaded her eyes and gazed upon them; she did not speak for some time.
“They are not enough,” she said at last. “They are beautiful. But it is not enough.”
Kent, meanwhile, had located the gentleman Cuthbert had spoken of. “Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back, know you the reason?”
The gentleman’s answer was vague. “Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of; which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger, that his personal return was most required and necessary.”
“Of Albany’s powers you heard not?”
“‘Tis so, they are afoot.”
“Know you how many?”
“I have heard, as many as the king of France took back with him; that is to say, three times as many as are here.”
Edmund turned to Cordelia. “Are you quite sure your husband did not mind discovering that his new bride was your father’s fool?”
Cordelia went brick red. Edmund thought for a moment that she might be about to slap him, or burst into tears, or both. Then she rallied. “I suppose I must consider myself divorced.”
“Well said, my dear. There are better husbands in the world.”
This time, she really did slap him, which Edmund took as an encouraging sign.
“My lady –” said Kent.
Cordelia drew a shuddering breath. “‘Tis well,” she said. “I am myself again.” She turned to the gentleman. “Know you whether there is any doctor in the camp?”
“Ay, madam. Shall I bring him to you?”
“Please. My father has not been well for a long time.”
* * *
Back at the farmhouse, Cuthbert had butchered his only pig. It was a hot day, no season for butchering, and Edgar and Kent protested that there was no need for it, but Cuthbert shook his head firmly. “‘Tis not every day we feast a king under our roof.”
The king, Edmund thought, was unlikely to care whether he ate the pig’s flesh or its dung; he was wandering around the barnyard, fantastically crowned with flowers. But the rest of the guests, hungry and weary as they were, would appreciate a feast. Edmund certainly would. It was as like as not that they’d all be dead in a matter of days; why not enjoy good meat while they could?
A loin of pork was roasting over the fire, and women filled the kitchen, making sausage and brining hams. Cordelia looked on for a moment, pulled on an apron, and joined them, a decision which Edmund found baffling. It was sweltering in the kitchen, and it wasn’t as if she could be of much use to them; her fingers were clumsy, obviously unused to the work, and she was constantly getting in the way of the servants and having to ask them how to do things.
He swiped a newly-stuffed sausage for himself and stuck it on the end of a peeled twig to roast it, as it looked like it would be some time until dinner. One of the servant girls tried to slap his hand away, but another one explained that he was the Earl of Gloucester’s son. After that they left him alone – except for Cordelia, who turned to him in some annoyance as he was taking his first bite of the sausage. “If you are going to spend all day in the kitchen, you might make yourself of some help.”
“I am helping. I’m helping them eat the pig before it spoils.”
Cordelia wiped her hands on her apron. “They don’t want help doing that. They want help with everything else. My father and his household are a sore charge for them.” But she had paused in her own work; she looked very tired, and a trickle of sweat was running down her face, under her close-cropped hair.
Edmund broke off a bit of sausage and thrust it into her mouth before she could protest. “You’ll be in a better mood when you’ve eaten some of my sausage. Women generally are.”
She made an indignant noise, but she couldn’t retort properly with her mouth full, which gave Edmund another opportunity. “I suggest you swallow, my lady. ‘Tis only good manners when one eats sausage.”
She answered in the fool’s voice. “It is good manners to chew it thoroughly first, is it not? And I am happy to say, my lord, that I still have all of my own teeth.”
Edmund grinned. “Why, there’s a wench! I thought that a lady who knows forty-three verses of ‘The Knight with the Gold Codpiece’ could not be long without an answer.”
“I am,” said Cordelia in her own voice, “a woman of many parts. Some of which you will never see, nor know anything about, so you need not make the obvious jest.”
“I am content with the parts I can see. They are fair, indeed.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes and turned back to her work. “We are idle, sir; we burn daylight.”
Kent came into the kitchen, looking surprised to find Cordelia there. He bowed. “My lady, the doctor is come and would speak with you.”
Kent's dialogue with the Gentleman is abridged from King Lear 4.3. The Fool's song is adapted from Child Ballad 10 ("The Twa Sisters" -- better known to Loreena McKennitt fans as "The Bonny Swans"). I'm not sure who originated the theory about the Fool that I have borrowed here; I don't buy it as canon by any means, but it worked surprisingly well for this particular story.
And Straight It Began to Play Alone
Kent had found time to fashion some fishhooks, so they had fresh trout for supper that night, baked in clay from the river. The fool, meanwhile, had slipped off to the nearest village to sing songs, and had collected enough coins for a loaf of bread and a bucket of ale. Edith sniffed at the bread and said that she could have baked much better if she had a proper fireplace, good flour, and leaven, but as far as Edmund was concerned, it was the best meal he’d had in a week.
His father and Edgar talked of state with Kent. Edmund found the conversation too tedious to bear listening to; there seemed to be no hope of persuading the two older men that someone other than King Lear ought to rule, even though the king was at present absorbed in braiding straws together and sticking them in his hair. Edmund reached for his cup of ale, and discovered that it was empty. The liquid seemed to have transferred itself into the fool’s cup right in front of his eyes.
He blinked. “How didst thou that, boy?”
“A mere trick of the hand. The timing is all.”
“Fetch me some more. No. Show me how.”
“I had rather give thee thine own back again, and keep my tricks to myself. But I’ll show thee another pretty one.” The fool produced a handkerchief from his pocket and tossed it into the air. “Knowst thou how to turn a handkerchief into a dove?”
“No.”
“Neither do I.” The handkerchief came to rest on the board. “But there is thine own back again.”
Again, Edmund’s own cup stood in front of him. He understood now that it had been the cups and not the ale that had moved; he could see that the empty cup still had a chip in it. But he could not for his life work out how the fool had switched them when he was sure he’d had his eyes on the boy the entire time.
“Show me how, sirrah.”
“Wouldst thou apprentice thyself to a fool, sirrah, and learn the mysteries of the trade?”
“I will learn what I can, from whom I can. That does not make me thy apprentice.”
“Then I will teach thee, for I see thou art almost wise enough to be a fool.”
After half an hour of practice, Edmund was almost as quick with his hands as the fool, and he trusted that he could be as clever at diverting his victim’s attention, should he ever have need of his new skill.
Gloucester and Kent said their good nights and bedded down by the embers of the fire. Edmund decided that it was high time for a private word with Edgar.
“This has gone far enough, brother. I put no trust in armies from France, and there are three men in this kingdom that I’ll back for king. You, me, and the Earl of Kent. If you would have me stand with you, take your choice.”
“Kent, then,” said Edgar. “But he’ll not have it.”
“No. He’d rather serve a madman than lift a finger to govern in his own right. But I tell you he could govern if he would, and that’s more than I can say for Lear.”
“King Lear.”
Edmund helped himself to another cupful of ale. “Tell me,” he said, “if the world were made new – and if only the eight of us were in it – who among us would the others think fit to be king? ‘Twould not be an old madman, I can tell you. If we would live, we’d do better to choose a peasant like Owen, a man who knows how to find a trail in the wilderness and which mushrooms won’t kill you. I’d choose the fool over Lear, for God’s sake. At least he can sing for his bread, and he’s got good taste in brewers.”
The fool, who had been curled by the fire, apparently asleep, sat up abruptly. “You called, sir?”
“Wouldst thou be king, fool?”
“I had rather be a pig in a sty, a bear in a cave, or a worm in its own proper place than a king in motley. Will you have a song, lordings?”
“Aye!” called King Lear. “Sing the one about the knight with the gold codpiece.”
The fool shrugged apologetically. “That one is his favorite,” he explained. “He calls for it every night. If you would prefer a different song, I can sing it after he goes to sleep.”
Some forty-three verses later, the king was snoring comfortably. “Now masters, would you hear another?”
“As you will,” said Edgar, “and make it what song you will.”
The fool ran his fingers over his harp-strings. “Any song at all, my lord?”
“Any.”
There was a king lived in the North Country,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And he had daughters one two three,
With a hey down down a down-a.
He gave the eldest a gay gold ring,
With a hey down down a down-a,
But he gave the youngest a better thing,
With a hey down down a down-a.
O sister, sister, will you walk with me,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And see our father’s ships on the sea,
With a hey down down a down-a.
And when they came unto the sea-brim,
With a hey down down a down-a,
The eldest pushed the youngest in,
With a hey down down a down-a.
“Why do I have a feeling I’ve heard this story before?” said Edmund.
“Hush,” said Edgar. He was staring at the fool with a strange, fixed expression.
A famous harper passing by,
With a hey down down a down-a,
This drowned lady he chanced to spy,
With a hey down down a down-a.
He made a harp of her breastbone,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And straight it began to play alone,
With a hey down down a down-a.
Whoever and whatever he might be, the boy had a sweet voice. Edmund’s mind drifted; he found himself thinking of the world and its changes.
He brought it to her father’s hall,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And there were the lords assembled all,
With a hey down down a-down a.
He laid this harp upon a stone,
With a hey down down a down-a,
And straight it began to play alone,
With a hey down down a down-a.
O yonder sits the king my father,
With a hey down down a down-a,
Doth he not know his own true daughter?
With a hey down down a down-a.
Edgar rose and knelt at the fool’s feet. “My lady,” he said.
The fool blinked tears out of her eyes. “You must not kneel to me, sir. I am nothing.”
“You are a Queen. How come you to be here and not in France?”
“I never went into France. It seemed to me that my duty lay here.”
Edgar absorbed the implications of this. “How, you never went to France! What of the French king – is he coming here?”
“I hope so,” said the fool. “I wrote to him, and I told him to come to Dover and bring his army, if he loved me.” But she did not look altogether certain.
“What do you mean, if he loved you?” Edmund demanded. “Are you married to him, or not?”
“I suppose I am. By proxy.”
“Proxy?”
Her eyes twinkled. “I dressed my father’s fool in my own gown and veil, and sent him over in my place. It seemed a fair exchange, since he had lent me his motley.”
Edmund roared with laughter. “By all the gods, Cordelia, you’re a girl worth gold! Though I’m bound to say that if I were king of France, and I found myself married to a fool, I might not think so.”
Cordelia grew sober again at once. “I hope he will understand. I made him know my reasons in my letter. It was not that I meant to make a fool of him, only ... I could not leave my father. I could not.”
“You did right, my lady,” said Edgar gently.
“I hope so.” Cordelia bit her lip and looked doubtful.
“Brother,” said Edmund later, after all of the others were asleep, “I think we have found a queen we can agree on.”
Privately, he reflected that if the game went his way, he stood a fair chance to be king. Women had always liked him – why, old Edith had practically adopted him as a son. He thought that the king’s youngest daughter might come to like him very well indeed, especially if she took after her sisters in certain matters.
* * *
A few more days’ traveling brought them to a farm outside Dover, where Owen and Edith had a grown daughter, Emma. She was married to a prosperous yeoman and lived in a house filled with dogs and children, which seemed too small to accommodate Emma’s mother and father – let alone a one-eyed traitor, a servant with a suspiciously polished accent, an outlaw, a fool, a madman, and a bastard.
But somehow, they managed. Emma and Cuthbert gave up their own bed to the king, and found pallets and clean linen enough to make beds for their other guests around the fire. Emma added more water and a handful of barley to the pot of soup that was bubbling on the hearth, and said that they were very welcome. “We’ll give you better cheer tomorrow,” she promised. “It is only that we need things from the town, and I do not like my husband to go abroad too late. These times are very bad. Uncertain, and men have no law to keep them from thievery.”
“Hear you any news of ships from France?” Kent asked.
“Ay, sir,” said Cuthbert, the yeoman. “They say the king has been and gone, and left the Marshall LaFar behind him with certain of his men.”
“Been and gone?” Cordelia demanded abruptly.
“Ay, so I heard. There’s a gentleman come from the French camp can tell you more, if you speak with him tomorrow.”
At the first light, Edmund rode to the French camp with Kent and Cordelia, who had borrowed Emma’s best gown and dressed herself as a woman again. The French had pitched four rows of tents, shining white in the morning sun. Banners adorned with the fleur-de-lis fluttered between them. Cordelia shaded her eyes and gazed upon them; she did not speak for some time.
“They are not enough,” she said at last. “They are beautiful. But it is not enough.”
Kent, meanwhile, had located the gentleman Cuthbert had spoken of. “Why the King of France is so suddenly gone back, know you the reason?”
The gentleman’s answer was vague. “Something he left imperfect in the state, which since his coming forth is thought of; which imports to the kingdom so much fear and danger, that his personal return was most required and necessary.”
“Of Albany’s powers you heard not?”
“‘Tis so, they are afoot.”
“Know you how many?”
“I have heard, as many as the king of France took back with him; that is to say, three times as many as are here.”
Edmund turned to Cordelia. “Are you quite sure your husband did not mind discovering that his new bride was your father’s fool?”
Cordelia went brick red. Edmund thought for a moment that she might be about to slap him, or burst into tears, or both. Then she rallied. “I suppose I must consider myself divorced.”
“Well said, my dear. There are better husbands in the world.”
This time, she really did slap him, which Edmund took as an encouraging sign.
“My lady –” said Kent.
Cordelia drew a shuddering breath. “‘Tis well,” she said. “I am myself again.” She turned to the gentleman. “Know you whether there is any doctor in the camp?”
“Ay, madam. Shall I bring him to you?”
“Please. My father has not been well for a long time.”
* * *
Back at the farmhouse, Cuthbert had butchered his only pig. It was a hot day, no season for butchering, and Edgar and Kent protested that there was no need for it, but Cuthbert shook his head firmly. “‘Tis not every day we feast a king under our roof.”
The king, Edmund thought, was unlikely to care whether he ate the pig’s flesh or its dung; he was wandering around the barnyard, fantastically crowned with flowers. But the rest of the guests, hungry and weary as they were, would appreciate a feast. Edmund certainly would. It was as like as not that they’d all be dead in a matter of days; why not enjoy good meat while they could?
A loin of pork was roasting over the fire, and women filled the kitchen, making sausage and brining hams. Cordelia looked on for a moment, pulled on an apron, and joined them, a decision which Edmund found baffling. It was sweltering in the kitchen, and it wasn’t as if she could be of much use to them; her fingers were clumsy, obviously unused to the work, and she was constantly getting in the way of the servants and having to ask them how to do things.
He swiped a newly-stuffed sausage for himself and stuck it on the end of a peeled twig to roast it, as it looked like it would be some time until dinner. One of the servant girls tried to slap his hand away, but another one explained that he was the Earl of Gloucester’s son. After that they left him alone – except for Cordelia, who turned to him in some annoyance as he was taking his first bite of the sausage. “If you are going to spend all day in the kitchen, you might make yourself of some help.”
“I am helping. I’m helping them eat the pig before it spoils.”
Cordelia wiped her hands on her apron. “They don’t want help doing that. They want help with everything else. My father and his household are a sore charge for them.” But she had paused in her own work; she looked very tired, and a trickle of sweat was running down her face, under her close-cropped hair.
Edmund broke off a bit of sausage and thrust it into her mouth before she could protest. “You’ll be in a better mood when you’ve eaten some of my sausage. Women generally are.”
She made an indignant noise, but she couldn’t retort properly with her mouth full, which gave Edmund another opportunity. “I suggest you swallow, my lady. ‘Tis only good manners when one eats sausage.”
She answered in the fool’s voice. “It is good manners to chew it thoroughly first, is it not? And I am happy to say, my lord, that I still have all of my own teeth.”
Edmund grinned. “Why, there’s a wench! I thought that a lady who knows forty-three verses of ‘The Knight with the Gold Codpiece’ could not be long without an answer.”
“I am,” said Cordelia in her own voice, “a woman of many parts. Some of which you will never see, nor know anything about, so you need not make the obvious jest.”
“I am content with the parts I can see. They are fair, indeed.”
Cordelia rolled her eyes and turned back to her work. “We are idle, sir; we burn daylight.”
Kent came into the kitchen, looking surprised to find Cordelia there. He bowed. “My lady, the doctor is come and would speak with you.”
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no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 07:49 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-06 08:02 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2010-06-07 03:31 am (UTC)Did they really not find out "Cordelia" was actually the Fool until after the wedding?
I was wondering where Cordelia had learned sleight-of-hand, but then I remembered reading somewhere that Yorick had raised Hamlet more than the king, and convincing the Fool to trade places with her would take real affection, or maybe a yes-this-really-is-royalty moment. (I'm sorry I can't explain it better, but most of my examples are things you probably haven't read- Memory by Lois McMaster Bujold?- and I'm sure there are lots of other examples elsewhere in Shakespeare that I don't know about. In my school's production of Henry V, when Westmorland is worried about the odds, first he and then the others kneel during the speech, until Henry joins them on "We few, we happy few" to make sort of a football huddle, and by the end of the speech everyone who was anxious before is inspired and fired up.)
Er. Sorry about the ramblyness, it's pretty late for me to be still up. This was a strange and longwinded way of saying, I really liked this story and it made me think about interesting things.
no subject
Date: 2010-06-07 12:36 pm (UTC)Heh. I guess France didn't know her very well beforehand!
Thanks for all your comments!
no subject
Date: 2010-06-22 10:29 pm (UTC)I wondered if the Fool would turn out to be Cordelia; it does work really well in this context. Looking forward to the next section!
no subject
Date: 2010-06-23 09:57 pm (UTC)