Fool
Christopher Moore
 Pocket is the royal fool at the court of King Lear of Britain. To prevent Lear from marrying off his daughter Cordelia, a girl Pocket is especially fond of, he schemes with Edmund of Gloucester. Pocket advises the bastard (i.e., illegitimate) Edmund how to get the land of his legitimate brother Edgar, while Edmund is to prevent the marriage of Cordelia. Edmund somehow gets Lear to ask each of his three daughters – Goneril, Regan and Cordelia – how much they love him. While Goneril and Regan please the old king with their exaggerations, Cordelia enraged him with her famous laconic “I love thee, according to my bond.” Lear disinherits Cordelia and divides his kingdom among Goneril and Regan. Notwithstanding, the prince of France marries Cordelia and takes her with him. Deprived of his adored Cordelia and angry with Lear because of the way he treated her, Pocket – advised by the ghost of a girl who turns out to have been not only his deceased lover but also the former queen of Lear and mother of Cordelia – starts his own vendetta: He encourages Goneril and Regan to strip Lear of his remaining power (especially his train of 100 knights, one of the conditions on which Lear passed the kingdom to his daughters) and tries to drive the older sisters into war against each other. Lear finally realizes his mistake and goes temporarily mad. To estrange the sisters he makes both believe that they are in an affair with Edmund of Gloucester. While successful in this, Pocket fails to incite civil war, simply because Cordelia – now a veritable warrior queen – invades Britain with her army from France. Lear, and later on Pocket, end in the dungeon of the castle now ruled by Edmund, now Earl of Gloucester. The two elder sisters are in the same castle and ally against Cordelia, but poison each other out of jealousy nonetheless. Edmund confronts Lear and Pocket, and Pocket kills him with his throwing knives. Shortly after, Lear dies. Cordelia invades the castle and becomes queen of Britain. Pocket, who has been told by witches that he is the son of Lear’s brother, marries Cordelia and becomes king.