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Navarre; or, love’s labours anticipated
‘Excuse me, sir,' said Malvolio, bowing, 'but I would just like to remind you that the Princess of France and her three companions are due to visit tomorrow.’
‘Hmm, what?’ The King of Navarre looked up from drafting his Super Awesome Oath of Study, Stoicism, Self-discipline and NO GIRLS ALLOWED.'
‘The Princess of France, sir,’ said Malvolio.
‘Oh. Yes. Thank you.’ The King put his notebook aside. ‘I should probably hold off on the oath thing then, shouldn’t I?’
Malvolio bowed and left the room. He walked to the hallway window and looked down the Southern Road. It wouldn’t be long now. The Princess of France, her three companions, and a certain gentleman called Boyet. It had been a decade now since Steward School, since that dance …
He flicked a minute speck of dust from the sideboard, straightened the flower arrangement, paused, then added one of the flowers to his buttonhole. He allowed himself a brief smile, then went on with his duties.
London; or, muffling the chimes at midnight
The King let fall the paper informing him of his eldest son’s latest misadventures. ‘Who would have thought,’ he said, ‘the greatest threat to my Kingdom’s future would be a fat old drunken knight who only seems to move when he’s running away from a fight.’
That new steward, the one with the long legs, stepped forward. ‘If I may speak, your Majesty, I happen to have some trifling experience in this matter. Perhaps you can learn from my mistakes and those of my former mistress …’
Verona; or, attention to detail
One more tick on his to-do list, then it would be time for coffee. Item: ring Friar John.
‘Hello. Malvolio here. What? Oh, you’re quarantined? Yes, of course. I’ll send someone around to collect the letter and get it delivered. Just leave it by the door and remember to stay at least two metres away. Don’t worry about sanitising the envelope unless you want to: my guy will look after it.
Tick.
Attention to detail. It matters. ‘Yes, that’s barista blend oat milk, please.’
Venice; or, a certain amount of tolerance
‘I have taken the liberty, sir, of talking to my friends in the Jewish quarter. I have made a list of reputable money lenders, of whose services sir may wish to avail himself.’
Antonio snorted. ‘Reputable? Ha, what does ‘reputable’ even mean to that sort?’
Malvolio coughed politely. ‘Well, sir, I have always found that not asking for body parts in the case of default tends to be a good start.’
‘A reputable Jew is like a … an elephant-sized shrew. It simply does not exist.’
Malvolio regarded faithful service to his employer as the highest virtue, and yet ... ‘I’m sure you are right, sir. Shall I arrange an appointment with this Shylock fellow, then?’
‘Yes. Yes, please do.’ Antonio sank his head into his hands.
As Malvolio put on his coat, his mind began to work. The contract, as currently drafted, would be difficult to enforce. Precisely a pound? How could that be measured before cutting it out? They should revise it to specify a certain amount of tolerance: ‘between one and two pounds’, perhaps. Or he could suggest something more specific but less fatal, like an arm or a leg. The lender may even be satisfied with a finger or two. Or some good old-fashioned humiliation – he still had those yellow stockings stuffed at the back of his sock drawer.
A certain amount of tolerance, he reflected as he strode down the cobbled street toward the Jewish quarter. Malvolio knew that a chastening experience could be conducive to developing that.
Athens; or, the pale companion
‘Go, Malvolio,’ said Duke Theseus. ‘Stir up the Athenian youth to merriments; awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth; turn melancholy forth to funerals. The pale companion is not for our pomp.’
Malvolio bowed. Stirring people up to merriment was not exactly his strong point, but he liked a challenge. He could head out into those woods where Peter Quince insisted in rehearsing his am-dram groups. You could always rely on Pete for 'pert and nimble'.
***
He awoke with a sore head. How much time had passed? Hours? Days? Years? She still lay beside him, the beautiful woman. She sighed, and rolled toward him, draping an elegant arm over his skinny, pale chest, her dark hair coiled about them both, the curls keeping their shape despite both sleep and the vigorous activity of the night before.
He didn’t see the tall man and the … boy? thing? approach, but suddenly they were there.
‘Be as thou wast wont to be,’ intoned the man. A charm. An incantation. An unholy thing. ‘See as thou wast wont to see. Dian's bud o'er Cupid's flower hath such force and blessed power …’
Malvolio shivered with an icy jolt that seemed to come from deep within him, spreading out from his chest and belly into his face and limbs. This was not a place for mortals, lumpen as we are, swathed in heavy flesh.
‘Now, my Titania; wake you, my sweet queen,’ said the man.
She blinked, and sleepily she sat up. ‘My Oberon! what visions have I seen! Methought I was enamoured of … of …’
She turned around so slowly.
A cruel grin spread over the man’s face. His companion was capering around like a monkey. ‘There lies your love.’
***
‘Tell me why I shouldn’t kill you,’ she said as she pinned up her hair. They were alone again. He stared at the soft dark skin of her back. She hadn’t looked at him this morning since that one, first, horrible look.
He was curled up miserably in the mossy bed, hugging his knees. She should kill him. And yet he wanted to live, wanted – more than anything – to continue gazing on her.
‘Tell me,’ she said, ‘why I shouldn’t sentence you to eternal torment for profaning my bower?’
Because none of this is my fault. No. A pitiful, whining excuse, and he knew her to be without pity.
‘Because,’ he said, the answer coming to him slowly, ‘… because your husband exploited your weakness.’
A sharp intake of breath. Her fists clenched. She still did not turn to him, but her fury was like the wave of heat when the wind turns at a bonfire.
‘… and so,’ he continued, ignoring the clamorous beating of his heart, ‘you should exploit his.’
He took her silence as assent to go on. ‘One of his weaknesses,’ he said, ‘is that he appears to have chosen as his valet some kind of elemental force of mischief and malevolence.’
She was slipping into a loose, shimmering gown, the translucent sleeves fluttering around her long arms, revealing their beauty more than concealing it.
‘And if there’s one thing I know,’ he continued, ‘it is that the services of a good valet are the best way to get ahead in the world.’
He looked around at the forest, the numinous mist, the leaves a vivid, venomous green. Too green. Impossibly green.
‘In any world,’ he amended. ‘Yours or mine. And if there’s another thing I know, it’s that elemental forces of mischief and malevolence do not make very good valets at all.’ He swallowed hard, but did not allow his voice to waver. ‘And if there’s a third thing I know, it is that I am an excellent valet, and one who would be honoured to enter your service in that respect.’
Her turning was like the turning of the year: immense, slow and inevitable. She looked at him. Really looked at him, her eyes too dark to be real. A smile flickered across her full lips. ‘I suppose,’ she said, ‘that is a good point.’