Thirteen: Bold and Saucy Wrongs

THIRTEEN

Bold and Saucy Wrongs

She came to me in a dream. I’d been lying in for a week after the Moor had stopped me from drowning myself, letting Drool and Jeff bring me wine, moving off the sweat-soaked sheets only to hover wobbly over the chamber pot before sinking back into my grief.

“Morning, love,” said my Cordelia.

She wore the polished black-and-gold breastplate of her armor with frilly knickers, which tipped me off that all was not in order.

“Are you a dream, or a ghost?” said I, reaching out to her, then catching myself before tumbling off the bed.

“Which would better suit you?”

“Dream, I think. Less annoying rhyming.”

“But then, there’s always a bloody ghost . . .”

Cordelia’s own mother had returned as such a spirit, resting only after her tormentors had been vanquished and her daughter settled in my arms.

“But you’re fully dressed,” said I. Her mum had been quite the tarty ghost. “In a manner of speaking.”

“I’m not here to have you off, pet. Consolation and guidance, bit of spiritual direction, given you’ve fuck-all in the way of a moral compass.”

“It is you,” I sobbed then, bit of a nancy, I know, but fucking grief got the better of me, didn’t it? “I’m broken without you.”

“Oh, sweet Pocket.” She cradled my cheek in her hand, but I could not feel it. “You’ve always been broken, love, it’s the crux of your character. What would I have done with one of those fragile princes I was born for, his pride as delicate as crystal? You were like that lovely damaged doll a girl can bung down the stairs to see which limbs might come off, just for a laugh, just for the adventure of it.”

“Or out a high tower window?”

“That was just the once, and you jumped.”

“Being bloody gallant on your behalf, wasn’t I?” I had jumped. To save a kitten. Cordelia’s.

“Yes, as you have always been, and now must be again.”

“Shall I dive out the window, splatter on the walkway, and join you in the Undiscovered Country? I’m quite ready, if you can help me to the window ledge.”

“No, you need to help the Moor.”

“Othello? Help him what? He’s strong as a warhorse, rich, commands a bloody navy, annoyingly tall, and his—”

“His lady?”

“He is not married.”

“His love?” said Cordelia. “Desdemona.”

“Desdemona, the senator’s daughter? She can’t—well—he’s a Moor, isn’t he?”

“See to it.”

“See to what?”

“You’re clever, Pocket. Be clever. Help the Moor.”

“Brabantio will never allow it. And I am but a wisp of a fool, drunk and weak, and vice versa, with no will to live.”

“Yet you conquered a kingdom and handed it to me.”