Content notes: violence, sexism, internalized transphobia

It was late — so late it was early, or so Sir Toby claimed — when he and Sir Andrew came staggering back into the manor. Sir Toby closed the door with exaggerated care, an effort immediately wasted as Sir Andrew walked right into the coat rack and knocked it clattering to the floor.

Sir Toby hauled Sir Andrew up, and they picked their way around the fallen coats, continuing their whispered argument.

“Faith, so they say,” Sir Andrew said, “but I think life rather consists of eating and drinking.”

Sir Toby chuckled and just missed the door frame as he led Sir Andrew into one of the sitting rooms. “Thou’rt a scholar; let us therefore eat and drink.” Then, he dropped the whisper to call loudly, “Marian, I say! a stoup of wine!”

It was not Maria who answered, but the fool. He, being sober and thus capable of actual quiet, came up behind the pair and pulled them down onto a couch with him. “How now, my hearts!”

Sir Toby and Sir Andrew shrieked like one who saw the dead walk, then Sir Toby started laughing. “Welcome, ass. Now let’s have a catch.”

Clapping (and trying to hide how he gasped from fright) Sir Andrew hurried to praise the fool, “Thou wast in very gracious fooling last night, when thou spokest of Pigrogromitus, of the Vapians passing the equinoctial of Queubus.” (It had, in fact, been Queubus passing the tropic of the Vapians, but let it go. Sir Andrew was a fool of a different sort.) “Twas very good, i’ faith. I sent thee sixpence for thy pleasure: hadst it?”

The fool assured Sir Andrew that he had received the money and turned it into a joke on Malvolio. At that time, Malvolio was always good for a laugh, and laugh Sir Andrew did. “Excellent! Why, this is the best fooling, when all is done. Now, a song.”

Sir Toby agreed, tossing the fool a coin. Sir Andrew gave another, and the fool cut him off before he could say aught more. “Would you have a love-song, or a song of good life?”

“A love-song, a love-song,” demanded Sir Toby, and Sir Andrew went along with it, as he did.

The fool began to sing, “O mistress mine, where are you roaming? O, stay and hear; your true love’s coming…”

As he sang, the knights commented to each other on the choice of song and tenor of his voice. The fool sang for several minutes, watching their eyes drift close. He sang and played more softly, “In delay there lies no plenty. Then come kiss me, sweet and twenty, youth’s a stuff will not endure…” until he trailed off into silence.

For a moment, none moved, and the fool made ready to take himself from the room. Then Sir Toby snorted himself awake.

The couch creaked as he sat up, rousing Sir Andrew to blinking awareness. “To hear by the nose…” Sir Toby mumbled, “it is dulcet in contagion. Very… contagious.”

Shaking himself, he jumped to his feet and dragged Sir Andrew up with him, calling, “But shall we make the welkin dance indeed?” he grabbed the fool’s arm, pulling him into a huddle with the two knights. “Shall we rouse the night-owl in a catch that will draw three souls out of one weaver?” he demanded, with all the enthusiasm of the hearty drunk, “shall we do that?”

“An you love me, let’s do’t,” Sir Andrew rubbed his hands together. “I am dog at a catch.”

“By’r lady, sir,” The fool saluted, “and some dogs will catch well.”

“Most certain. Let our catch be, ‘Thou knave.’ “

“‘Hold thy peace, thou knave,’ knight?” The fool asked Sir Andrew, “I shall be constrained in’t to call thee knave, knight.”

Sir Andrew gave the fool several more openings, which he was pleased to take. But before long, they began the song, a popular drinking catch meant to be bellowed at the top of one’s lungs.

Since getting them to sleep it off had failed, to fool joined in fully. If he would not be allowed to sleep, he might as well enjoy himself.

They were well into the catch when Maria, eyes full of sleep, stepped into the doorway and stared at them. It took her a moment to find her voice, but she found it well-tended and in good form. “What a caterwauling do you keep here!” She stomped up to Sir Toby and shook her finger in his face. “If my lady have not called up her steward Malvolio and bid him turn you out of doors, never trust me.”

Sir Toby burped and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. He bent to whisper in her ear. “My lady’s a Cataian, we are politicians, Malvolio’s a Peg-a-Ramsey, and” suddenly in full voice, he sang, “‘Three merry men be we.’

“Am not I consanguineous? Am I not of her blood? Tillyvally. Lady!” And he swept her up into a dance, singing, “‘There dwelt a man in Babylon, lady, lady!’”

The fool and Sir Andrew sat back on the couch together and watched Sir Toby spin Maria around the room, singing along.

After two rounds of the room, Maria broke free, trying not to laugh herself. “For the love o’ God, peace!” But she couldn’t keep a straight face, and her giggles broke free.

The fool was the first to notice Malvolio lurking in the doorway. He sobered himself, grabbed up his instrument, and retreated to a corner. Maria, giddy but not drunk, noticed him next and moved away from Sir Toby to stand quietly, head down, hands clasped.

Still thoroughly drunk, it took Sir Toby and Sir Andrew nearly a full minute to notice the steward. Finally, they quieted and stared at the steward, shamefaced.

“My masters,” the steward asked, “are you mad? or what are you? Have ye no wit, manners, nor honesty, but to gabble like tinkers at this time of night? Is there no respect of place, persons, nor time in you?”

Sir Toby quickly lost his shame in the face of Malvolio’s scorn. “We did keep time, sir,” he growled, “in our catches.”

“Sir Toby,” Malvolio sneered. “I must be round with you. My lady bade me tell you, that, though she harbors you as her kinsman, she’s nothing allied to your disorders. If you can separate yourself and your misdemeanors, you are welcome to the house; if not, and it would please you to take leave of her, she is very willing to bid you farewell.”

Sir Toby stood up, walked right up to the steward, sneered back at him, and began to sing. “‘Farewell, dear heart, since I must needs be gone.’”

“Nay, good Sir Toby,” Maria tried to stop him. But the fool had had more than enough of Malvolio and was quite willing to encourage Sir Toby. “‘His eyes do show his days are almost done.’”

The two of them traded lines the song back and forth to the increasing upset of the steward. With each line, the fool egged Sir Toby on further until Sir Toby dropped the game to confront Malvolio directly.

“Art any more than a steward? Dost thou think, because thou art virtuous, there shall be no more cakes and ale?”

“Yes, by Saint Anne,” the fool put in, “and ginger shall be hot i’ the mouth too.”

“Thou’rt i’ the right,” Sir Toby nodded at the fool. “Go, sir, rub your chain with crumbs. A stoup of wine, Maria!”

Maria, like Sir Toby, had lost what shame she’d had in the face of Malvolio’s arrogance. She turned immediately and headed for the wine on the sideboard.

“Mistress Mary,” Malvolio stepped in front of her, “if you prized my lady’s favor at any thing more than contempt, you would not give means for this uncivil rule.”

Maria stuck her tongue out at him and stepped around to continue on her way. “She shall know of it,” Malvolio yelled, “by this hand.”

Then he stalked out of the room like a wet cat, closing the door with blatant quiet behind him.

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