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  That daughter stepped forward and bowed in turn, speaking in a voice that struck Kent as unpleasantly liquid.

  “My father and royal majesty, my sister’s heart bespeaks my own. I would echo her words and magnify them a hundredfold, affirming that I decline all other love or pleasure in this world if I may but give my heart to you.”

  Again, Kent watched the speaker with the same sense of unplaceable loathing that the older sister inspired, even when he tried not to dwell on what she had said, or on how she had sounded while saying it. But Lear only smiled and replied, “To you, my beloved Regan, and your no less valued Cornwall, I give this one-third portion of my lands, from here to here, replete with forests and sparkling rivers, no less a portion than for Goneril and Albany, and may you dwell in endless happiness. And how speaks our youngest daughter Cordelia?”

  That young lady stepped forward and bowed to her father. Kent, watching her, thought how unlike her sisters she was. It was a strange thing to find such women in the same family. Some years ago Lear’s peculiar, vaguely repulsive wife, whom few people had ever seen in her later years, had died unaccountably, or so the king had said, and Kent had always suspected that this odd person, of whom virtually nothing was known to this day, had passed along to her daughters some obscure unwholesomeness that seemed to increase in repugnance as the years passed. But it had affected only Goneril and Regan; somehow, in whatever unimaginable way in which the stars and planets guide the paths of human creatures, the growing hereditary pestilence that seemingly afflicted the older daughters had left the blossom-cheeked Cordelia clean and fresh. In moments of whimsy Kent half imagined that the girl did not have the same mother as the older sisters, as if the king, his old friend, had secrets folded tight to that ancient, withered chest. But Cordelia was speaking now.

  “My father and revered king, whom I dearly love, you must reflect upon the fact that my sisters profess unlimited love for you, claiming to love no other. But does not a proper wife retain at least half her love for her husband? If I had a husband, so it would be with me, as I think is only proper. If I loved you to the exclusion of all else, I would have no love left for the husband you have hoped for me to find, and whom I may find here today. I assure you I do love and cherish you, so far as a devoted daughter should. But I do not have so glib a tongue as do my sisters. I have only a desire to tell the truth, and not embellish it for gain.”

  Kent’s heart warmed to hear such candor, but Lear bristled with an incipient anger. “Mend your words, child, if you care about your fortune.”

  Cordelia was unmoved. “I cannot buy my fortune with oily words. I honor and love you because I know you will understand that I love the truth as well.”

  At this Lear’s anger grew to a smoldering fury that caused his old voice to tremble, but not to lose its resolve. “Then you are no longer a daughter to me. By all the gods, by the orbs of heaven that form our being, I disown you and have no more concern for you. Your sisters Goneril and Regan will divide between them that portion of our kingdom which might have been yours, had you a civil and caring tongue. Now let us see what suitor will still court a dowerless girl. France and Burgundy, kindly come forward.”

  These personages approached, and Lear addressed the Duke of Burgundy first. “What say you?”

  The duke looked uncomfortable, but finally spoke up. “It is unseemly for a man of my position to accept a maiden who has no fortune to bring to a marital union.”

  “Reasonably spoken,” Lear said, turning to the King of France. “And you, sir?”

  The French king shook his head, not in any disdain of Cordelia, but rather for reasons that his words would make clear. “My old acquaintance Burgundy, I fear, has more water in his veins than blood. Cordelia’s fairness, her intelligence, her undaunted spirit, her honesty, her goodness of heart, these things are all the fortune I require in a dowry. I will take her for my wife and queen.”

  Lear looked disgusted. “Then, sir, I bid you farewell. May the penniless Cordelia be to your liking. As for me, I never wish to see her again. My servants will bring ‘round your carriage.”

  Kent could no longer contain his distress. He rushed to Lear’s side. “Good my liege, please consider what you do. Sometimes decisions made in anger—”

  Lear gave Kent a furious look and clapped his hands to summon attendants and guards. “Escort this person from my sight. Kent, you have profited nothing from your years if they have taught you so little about the honor due a king. You are henceforth banished from the realm. If you are found within its boundaries five days hence, that will be the day of your death.” Motioning to his attendants, Lear made ready to leave the chamber. In a few moments he was gone.

  Kent, stunned, waited by the side of the guards who were to escort him out. Cordelia and her royal husband-to-be looked on with genuine sympathy, while Goneril and Regan filed past him in turn and fixed him with expressions that were more shocking to him than his banishment had been. He could swear, seeing them close up, that there was something about those bulbous eyes that was not even human.

  Disguised, Kent appeared some weeks later outside the Duke of Albany’s castle just as Lear and his knights came thundering back following a hunt. After Lear’s attendants helped him to dismount before the entrance, Kent made bold to step up and speak to him, being careful to alter his voice as best he could.

  “Noble liege, I wish to place myself in your service.”

  The king looked him up and down. “What is your name?”

  “Caius, your majesty,” Kent replied. “And what can you do?” Lear demanded.

  “Whatever your majesty requires,” Kent said. “I offer faithful allegiance, an uncommon offering these days, if I may venture to say so.”

  At this point a servant from within the castle appeared, addressing Lear. “My lady wishes to inform you that she and her lord will not be joining you for dinner. My lady also expresses displeasure at the crude and boisterous and riotous behavior of your knights.”

  Kent stepped up and smashed the servant in the face with such ferocity that the man went down on the ground groaning. “That’s to remind you to whom you are speaking, swine. You are in the presence of a king.” The servant picked himself up and scurried back into the castle. Lear and his train made ready to follow him inside, but not before Lear turned to the disguised Kent and said, “You may remain with us, Caius. I am pleased to have you in my service.”

  Inside, it was not long before the abhorrent Goneril appeared and confronted her father. Kent stood only a few feet away, and at this proximity he had a chance to scrutinize her in more detail than he ever had before. What he saw, though it was vague and uncertain, filled him with a crawling sort of revulsion. It was as if her condition, whatever it was, had worsened in just these few weeks since he had seen her last. The unblinking eyes were not just protuberant and watery; they seemed to gaze along lines of sight that diverged outward, and it took Kent a moment to realize that this was because the very shape of the woman’s head appeared subtly to have altered, narrowing so that the eyes peered each in its own direction, almost like those of a fish. There was something unwholesome, too, about the texture of her skin, which in this light appeared almost scaly. But she was remonstrating with her father.

  “Your servant struck mine down, just now, and your knights are loud and bothersome. I will not tolerate this.” Her voice sounded, to Kent at least, almost like the gurgling tones of a person speaking under water.

  Lear drew himself up. “You forget whom you address. I am your father, the King of Britain. How does the Duke of Albany feel about the presence of my retinue?”

  “My husband’s views are not of relevance to this discussion,” Goneril replied. “And what need do you have of a hundred knights? Fifty would suffice. Dismiss half your train if you wish to pass another night within these walls.”

  Lear was furious. “How sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is, to have a thankless child. We depart at once. Your sister Regan will be mor
e hospitable, I have no doubt.”

  In a remote inner chamber of the Duke of Cornwall’s castle, Regan was in quiet conclave with her sister, Goneril having arrived ahead of Lear’s party and having already conferred with Regan about their father’s behavior.

  “He has only himself to blame,” Goneril croaked, wagging her oddly angular head. “I think he charges our dear mother with the gradual unsettling of his mind, though he has never come right out and said so much. Watching her—change—watching her develop into her true self was, in the end, too much for his pathetic little earthbound brain. Poor benighted souls, these ground-dwelling mortals with their narrow view of the world and their limited perceptions! Would that he could only have beheld our mother in terms of the glory that she was, a creature to be revered, a credit to her own ancestors. But Father was not capable of understanding that.”

  “No,” Regan said in that thickly fluid voice, “but we understand, you and I, sister. We know what wonders await us one day when we shall see that realm where Mother always belonged, and where she now dwells. I know that she lives in beautiful bliss now, in the place of her deepest dreams. Do you remember the stories she told us when we were children? Stories replete with marvels?”

  Goneril rested her face upon her hands, noting idly as she did so that her fingers were beginning to web. “I will never forget them. I blush to recall, now, that at the time I thought they were mere tales with which to amuse children. But now we know, do we not? We know that she was telling us of a genuine world of wonderment and joy.”

  “It’s thrilling to remember,” Regan mused, “those stories of great R’lyeh and the Deep Ones, the real stories that the myths of men only so faintly and distantly reflect. How I wish—”

  But from without, a faint din of horses’ hooves and a chorus of shouting men came through, and the sisters exchanged a knowing look. “It’s Father and his wretched train of knights,” Regan said. “I’ll go to meet them. But scarcely to greet them.”

  It had been a long ride, and Kent had stayed close by Lear’s side the whole time. Upon their arrival at the castle, Regan met them at the entrance, frowning mightily. Had Goneril sent a swift-riding messenger before them? Seeing Regan, Kent was struck with this woman’s altered appearance. Like her disgusting sister, she had unblinking eyes that seemed to stare emotionlessly out of a head in which the very bone structure had narrowed, making the eyes appallingly fishlike. Her ears seemed to have atrophied, being now barely visible. There was something odd about the woman’s throat as well, though Kent could not quite tell what it was. Darkly fascinated by her strangely aquatic ugliness, he almost failed to notice the unkind words she was addressing to her father.

  “Your wearisome company will not be welcome in my home,” she said, again in that watery voice that sounded disturbingly like her sister’s.

  “I suppose,” Lear said, wincing at the cruelty of her words, “that like Goneril you would wish me to reduce my train to fifty knights.

  Regan abruptly raised her head in a way that almost made Kent gasp aloud, so strongly did it resemble the motion of some gilled creature of the deep, a nameless oceanic lurker disturbed by some sudden distraction. “What need of fifty?” she asked. “Twenty-five would be more than enough.”

  Lear snorted. “I could go back to Goneril and keep fifty.

  “Then go,” Regan snapped.

  But then Goneril herself stepped out into the waning light. It seems that she had not just sent a messenger, but had made the journey herself. She fixed her father with that disconcertingly unblinking, unfeeling stare that Kent had come to know all too well. “What need of any knights at all? We have our own attendants here. Dismiss your entourage and we will give you dinner. And your man Caius there, yes, that fellow, shall go into the stocks for being a ruffian.

  Guards advanced from within the castle and seized Kent. Lear’s knights started to react, but Kent shouted to them, “No, let it be! I will gladly sit in the stocks for the good name of my king, whom these unnatural hags would slander and abuse!”

  The stocks were a considerable distance from the entrance to the castle, so that by the time a servant came out some hours later to release Kent, that noble follower of the king had no idea what had become of Lear. By now the night was dark, and a ferocious storm had gathered, rending the scowling sky with thunder and lightning. A dismal gray rain began to fall. “What of my master the king?” Kent asked the servant.

  “He has left the castle, going out into the night, swearing that he would perish sooner than remain with ungrateful and unloving daughters. His entourage of knights is scattered to the winds, and by now he wanders on the heath alone.”

  Alarmed beyond words at this news, Kent set out upon the storm-wracked heath, soon coming upon the poor monarch, who stood waving his arms in the downpour, his head wreathed about with wild nettles in place of the crown he should have worn.

  “Blow, mighty tempest! Rage, you ancient gods, and smite me with your lightning if you dare! Your fury is nothing beside the tumult of my soul.”

  “Your majesty,” Kent shouted to him over the howling storm, “do you not know me? I am your servant Caius, and you cannot remain in this place on such a wild night. Come along with me.” Having noticed a wretched hovel standing nearby upon the heath, Kent took the muttering Lear by the arm and led him there.

  Inside, they made themselves as comfortable as possible on the straw-covered dirt floor, with the rain sizzling against the thatched roof and the thunder reverberating like a volley of cannons without.

  “The ingratitude of one’s children is hard enough to bear,” the king began, gazing at the disguised Kent in wide-eyed earnestness, “and if I could be a god and hurl those lightning bolts into their cold hearts, I would gladly do so. I know that I have invited my own troubles, but I have suffered at my daughters’ hands out of all proportion. I am a man more sinned against than sinning. But dear Caius, this is not what chiefly unbalances my wits. This is not what torments me.”

  “What, then?” Kent asked.

  Lear’s eyes seemed to settle in their expression, as if the seriousness of what he was contemplating was the one thing powerful enough and important enough to solidify his wandering reason against what assailed it. “It is—it is what they are becoming.”

  “My lord?”

  “Goneril and Regan,” Lear said. “Have you not noticed it? You must have. Every day it seems worse.”

  “I have noticed an odd look about their faces, their eyes,” Kent admitted. “I thought it was some illness—”

  “Would that it were only that,” Lear said, moaning. “No, it is the curse left to them by their mother, my departed queen.”

  “I don’t understand,” Kent said. But he was beginning to fear that perhaps he did.

  “It was the same with her, my wife,” Lear continued. “This is why I kept her out of sight. Her eyes grew large and waterish, her head became narrow, her voice took on the quality of some nightmare from the ocean floor. The condition came upon her slowly at first, but at some point began to overtake her apace.”

  So that was it, Kent thought. It was their mother, the shadowy figure who had spawned the daughters. Who or what had she been?

  “You have no idea,” Lear went on, “what it was like, watching her grow more monstrous with each passing day, seeing that loathsome face looking at me with no more emotion than an eel, hearing that croaking voice that one would not want to hear twice in a lifetime, that voice I had to hear day and night, until—”

  Kent leaned forward. “Until—?”

  “Until one night she finally took to the water,” Lear said, covering his face with wrinkled, trembling hands.

  “What do you mean, took to the water?”

  Lear shuddered. “When it was time, when she spent every minute gasping for breath and could no longer live on the land, my attendants and I took her in a closed carriage to Dover and released her into the sea, whence her own forebears had come. You see, at remote, name
less places on the coast of Britain, certain—rites—had once been performed, certain obeisances to the gods of the deep, who dispensed favors in return for the privilege of mating with human women, as happened with my wife’s mother. I did not know, when I married her, took her as my queen, took her to my bed, that she was the product of such a union, that she was only half human. And in such cases, it seems the non-human half always wins out in the end.”

  Kent was shocked into silence, but at length roused himself to ask, “But what about Cordelia? She—”

  Lear groaned and held his head. “When my queen had degenerated to the point where I could no longer bear her presence, I—was with another woman, in secret. Out of wedlock. Cordelia’s mother. My sweet Cordelia, whom I have so tragically wronged. As I have wronged others dear to me. The Earl of Kent—”

  Able to maintain the pretense no longer, Kent removed his disguise. “Caius, your royal majesty, is none other than Kent.”

  Lear’s eyes swam with tears. “The gods of old be praised! How can you ever forgive the dotage of an old tyrant?”

  But before Kent could answer, the ramshackle door opened, admitting a wind-driven blast of rain and a ragamuffin figure like a scarecrow. “You will, I trust, let me in. Poor Tom is cold.”

  Lear patted an empty spot on the earthen floor. “My enemy’s dog, though it had bitten me, would sleep by my fire on such a night as this. But who are you?”

  The newcomer glanced about the dim space of the little room, where flashes of lightning showing through the spaces provided the only illumination, looked about as if to ascertain that only Lear and Kent were there, and then replied, “I am Edgar, rightful son of the Earl of Gloucester. This beggar’s garb is my disguise, to spare my life. I salute your majesty.”

  “What are you doing out in this dreadful storm?” Kent asked.

  “My bastard half-brother Edmund plots against me and turns me out into the world as a fugitive, because he aspires to the earldom himself. By now, I suspect, he will have had our father slain for sending word to the court of the King of France that the houses of Albany and Cornwall have so wretchedly deported themselves toward the king. Edmund betrayed our father to the treacherous Cornwall some days ago, and I have been powerless to stop his vengeance, being an object of it also. But Cornwall himself, you know, is on the verge of death—”