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“We are not pirates,” said I “We were set adrift by pirates”

“But you were on a pirate ship?” she asked

“For two years,” said I “There was a girl, a Venetian Jeho fancied me She wanted to be a pirate but became homesick When she returned to Venice I was not welcomed to join her”

“So you stayed with the pirates?”

“For a while”

“And they set you adrift?”

“With no food and only enough water for three days, the scoundrels”

“But why?”

“They gave no rhyme nor reason,” said I

“It was because you’re a shit, wasn’t it?”

“No, ould you say that?”

“Because I only have known one fool, a fellow called Robin Goodfellow, and he, also, is a shit”

“I’m not a shit,” said I I am not, that she could prove

“Did you insult them? Make sport of their efforts and appearances? Craft clever puns on their names? Play tricks on the naïve and the si bawdy songs about their mothers and sisters?”

“Absolutely not There was no way to know if they even had sisters”

“I think you were a shit, just like the Puck, so they set you adrift”

“I was not a shit And who are you to say? Why, I areat beauty and character, one for whom my heart still currently breaks, and I’ll not be abused by a waif, an urchin, a linty bit of stuff like you”

“Feeling stronger then?” she asked, thin, sharp eyebrows bouncing over her disturbingly wide green eyes

“Possibly,” said I

A horn sounded in the distance, as if to call hounds to the hunt, and Cobweb leapt to her feet “I have to go”

“Wait,” said I

The girl paused at the edge of the firelight “What?”

“Where are we?”

“Look around, you’re in the forest, you git”

“No, what land?”

“Greece”

“It doesn’t look like Greece”

“Have you been to Greece before?”

“Well No”

“This is what it looks like I have to go The night queen beckons”

“The night queen?”

“My mistress calls Rest, fool Your friend knohere the stream is and there are plenty of nuts and berries to eat Stay clear of the captain of the watch He’s a shit, too And not so playful as you and the Puck”

“Wait—” But she was gone like a spirit in the night

“She were the dog’s bollocks, ee Cobweb,” said Drool

“She was not,” said I “And where is Jeff? Have you seen him?”

The ninny wiped a sore from his lips “No”

“Drool, Jeff is a friend and valued crew member If you ate him, I shall be very cross with you Very cross indeed”

Chapter 2

Presenting the Mechanicals

Two ticks after Cobweb disappeared into the thicket, sunrise was on us like an angry red dog I donneddaggers into the sheaths across my lower back under my jerkin, which was sewn and slotted to conceal theers and a calabash of water into the boat before ere set adrift It was good Montalvo who had convinced the crew to spend the boat at all, rather than just cast us into the sea For a pirate, he had been a gentleman

Drool was learning the unpleasant lesson of how berries grow in proxireat paws before leading us further into the forest LikeWe would need to find a village or town fro our supper, or we’d be little better off than we’d been a day before at sea The forest was a pri froes, not the sun-bleached stone hills with the odd olive tree clinging to them that I’d been told composed the Greek countryside

We drank deeply froeneral westerly direction, away from the sea, over which the sun rose, for no other reason than it was the direction Cobweb had fucked off to If there was a queen in that direction, I reasoned, so would there be a town, and acco a brace of abused indoor fools

We called for Jeff as ent along, with no response I hoped that he had sca he h

ad happened upon an to suspect that he had perished in the sea, and while there was still a chance that Drool had eaten hi for monkey bones like some philosopher, so I took his word that nuts and berries had been his only fare

When not calling, we listened for the jingling of Jeff’s bells He wore a tiny silver and black o traded my bell-toed jester’s shoes for soft leather boots, and the pirate crew had trimmed the bells fro, they had never been able to catch Jeff, and he had jingled in the rigging like a bright simian sprite

I would grieve, when there was tih adventures and ilea from his eyes of late Maybe years pass more quickly for a monkey There hite hairs on Jeff’s little chin Perhaps he was in hisfeeble, his ers in his monkey mind That was my explanation, anyway, for why he spent our two years before therhesus feces down upon the crew, or trying to shag the ship’s cat Jeff was a vile little creature, really, but still, he had been a friend When my humors were restored, I would shed a tear

When the sun was high overhead and our rowlingand orating in turn like a band of polite loonies—rehearsing a play, it appeared

They were not gentle each other up the bum, like proper Greeks, but hard-handed ristle into such sharp-jawed countenance as is shaped by hard work and lean diet One roared like a lion and I pushed Drool behind a bush and bade hihten the players