“And... my mother? She was a part…?”
“Leave her to God and the thorns of her own conscience. Ask no more for…”
The ghost stopped, tipped his head up as if catching a scent on the breeze. An expression on its face Hamlet failed to recognise at first. So unexpected was it. The spirit was afraid now. The soft glow was flowing through it again and as the radiance grew stronger the spectre seemed to tighten as if suffering an inexpressible pain.
The clenched jaws opened in a rising grief and then, like an echo from across a mountain gorge, Hamlet heard its terrible cry of anguish and suffering.
“Father…”
So many questions. So many fears.
But the light was spreading through the armoured figure like fire until there was nothing left but eerie phosphorescence. Then, in an instant, it faded to nothing. The cry lasted a fraction longer before it was borne away on the wind. After that… the cold and unforgiving light of dawn.
2
The Play’s the Thing
Three days later Ophelia sat in her room, sewing idly, mending her father’s clothes. Eyes straying to the window. The river was frozen. The trees bare of leaves. Winter had Elsinore in its relentless grip, and it was so cold she wondered if spring would ever come.
There’d been few words that morning at breakfast. He’d taken the food from her, given some orders about the housekeeping and the servants. Left matters at that.
But Polonius needed to say no more and knew it. He had her secret. The failed clandestine affair. The lost child. He thought he knew everything, but in that he was wrong, though the knowledge only made Ophelia’s private grief more painful.
She stabbed at the sheet on her lap. The needle missed, stuck into her leg. A gasp of pain. Ophelia lifted the soft damask fabric over her knee, looked at the pale flesh just above, saw a tiny pearl of blood begin to grow on her skin.
Stood up, dropped the sheet, dabbed at the wound with a spare length of thread.
Then looked and saw someone at the door, leaning against the frame, watching her avidly.
Hamlet walked in and closed the door quietly behind him. Ophelia forgot the sharp needle, stiffened her back, held up her head defiantly.
“My father says…”
He was on her then, strong hands lifting the fabric higher, fingernails brushing lightly against her thighs.
“The Lord Chamberlain insists…”
Hamlet pushed her against the wall. Held her there, tight against the fabric of the one tapestry she owned.
“Not now, Hamlet,” she whispered. “Not here.”
“Says who?”
“Polonius. And I must obey him. As you…” She shook her head. A stupid thing to say. “As you must obey the King.”
“Says who?”
Ophelia folded her arms, looked him in the eye. The dreamy, wistfulness she’d loved when they were in the woods by the river was gone. Now he looked hard of heart and manic.
His fingers briefly brushed her stomach.
“You were plumper before, lady. Or so my mother says. She thinks you’re sick. Wasting away. And all since my father died. Why? He was mine not yours. With you there’s a reason to argue for a necessary boundary of grief.”
She didn’t answer.
“And yet…” He stood back, put a thoughtful finger to his chin. “You look much the same as I remember when I went off to Wittenberg. My mother…” He paused and said this very carefully. “Perhaps she’s mistaken. Or lying.”
Close again, he stroked her flaxen hair, moved it from her cheek.
“Slender. Charming. Beautiful.” His eyes were laughing, even if the rest of him seemed wrapped in misery. “Willing. That was a splendid summer, Ophelia. Did I learn more from you? Or you from me?”
“I never touched another man!”
His hand briefly stroked her cheek.
“I could tell you I was a virgin too I suppose…”
“And in Wittenberg?”
He did laugh then.
“In Wittenberg mostly I read books.” A shrug. “Or sleep. And sometimes dream.”
“My father has commanded me. I mustn’t see you.”
“Why were you fat before? And thin now? Or is my mother lying? Again.”
“Stop this.”
He touched her shoulder tenderly.
“No. I won’t. I’m your… beloved, aren’t I? Prince of Elsinore. I’ll do what I damned well like. If I fancy a roll with the chief counsellor’s daughter I’ll have it. Whether he’s willing… or she…”
“This isn’t you!”
There was a madness in his eyes then.
“Do you think you know me, lady? If so you’re a better judge of character than I. If…”
“I had your child!”
He blinked, recoiling as if struck.
“What?”
“I had your child…”
He shook his head, squinting at her as if trying to make sense of a code or foreign language.
“It died,” she went on in the silence. “He died.”
Another long stillness, but in it Hamlet seemed to freeze. His eyes which had been momentarily full of pain, hardened.
“I lost the baby,” she went on, desperate to finish the story now, “the night Old Hamlet passed away. There was a commotion in the castle. They said there was a viper loose. For a while my father seemed terrified. Perhaps he thought the Norwegians had come too…”
A sly, sarcastic nod.
“We blame the men from Oslo for everything, don’t we? I had a child? Was that a man from Oslo’s doing too?”
“Yours! Two months. Perhaps three.” Her eyes drifted to the window. “A gift from the long summer. I lost it. I thought no one knew except a nurse I used. Who’s now in France at my command. Yet my father seems to have spies within the fabric of this bloody place…”
Hamlet jabbed a finger at his bare chest.
“Why didn’t you tell me? I had a child and you kept me ignorant.”
That goaded her.
“What was I to say? You were beside yourself with grief for your own loss…”
“It was mine!” He stopped, thought. Closed his eyes. “Ours. So what got rid of it? A potion from your French bitch? Or a…?”
Her hand flew at his face and slapped him hard.
“What kind of love demands the life of another? A child at that?”
“Danish love, my sweet. Can’t you smell it?”
“I lost the baby through grief and fear and… and shame.”
He had his hand to his cheek, as shocked as she was.
“And if I’d carried it? What then? Would you have married me? Or paid for the bastard to be raised elsewhere out of embarrassment? While you took a more suitable noble lady for your wife? Because a fallen woman could never be your queen now, could she?”
His fingers gripped her throat. Any tears she had were gone.
“I would have wed you. Without a second thought.”
She dragged herself from him.
“But only if I was a virgin. Your family would have demanded that. And there’s the problem, sir. What you… what we wanted… ruined the game. I was your summer love and grateful for it. It was more than I expected. And if I could have kept that child I would have loved it all the same.”
“So that’s two murders then.”
“Two?” she asked. “What madness is…?”
She stopped. There was a new look to him, and something there she’d never witnessed before.
“Don’t hate me, Hamlet. I beg you.”
“You could have been my queen.”
At that she laughed.
“What me? Your secret mistress by the water? I’m too easy. Too lustful. Spare me the compliments.” She pointed at her breast. “Queens aren’t made of this.”
He stepped back, staring at her with those cold, hard eyes.
“You had no faith in me. In us.”
His face was blank, his voice level. But she could hear the r
age within him, trapped like a wolf inside a cage.
He retreated to the door. Without another word, he was gone.
Across the Øresund, in a makeshift encampment behind Helsingborg, Fortinbras sat in his commander’s tent, listening to the Scottish warlord Gregor go through the numbers.
A thousand Norwegian foot. Four score knights on horseback. Two hundred and fifty bloodthirsty foreign mercenaries, the only battle-hardened warriors he had. Supplies for a week’s campaigning, no more without support.
“Could you find more hired men? Quickly?”
Gregor was a gruff, ginger-haired giant. The leader of the mercenaries. Veteran of a host of campaigns throughout Europe. He scratched his head and asked the question Fortinbras knew was coming.
How much?
“You know the coffers are empty, Scotsman. They get paid out of booty and what they can find.”
The giant laughed until he shook.
“No offence, sir, but my comrades rarely get off their arses without a penny in their hand. As for plunder... it’s Denmark. Pretty as their women are there’s not much worth nicking outside Elsinore except herring. And we’re drowning in them already.”
The Norwegian took a sip of the cold, sour beer. Even that was running out.
“We could take Elsinore with these men. And hold it too. Claudius is quaking in his bed. Sending begging messages to my uncle...”
“I believe that’s called diplomacy. It’s his trade.”
“And warfare’s mine. My uncle will be dead before winter turns to spring. He won’t stop me...”
The Scot smiled.
“But he won’t send you more men either, will he?”
“Get me over there and I’ll give you half of Jutland.”
Gregor shrugged his shoulders.
“Give me the ships. Or a thousand sets of wings and I’ll do it. There’s that small matter of the Øresund. I know you could spit from one side to the other if the wind’s in the right direction. But it’s too far to bridge or for men and horses to swim. If...”
Fortinbras got to his feet. He was thirty. Three years old when his father died and his uncle Magnus was elected to the throne. That was the way the crown worked in Norway. The man the nobles liked – or feared most – became monarch.
“If I can take Elsinore they’ll make me king of Denmark and Norway together. And then...”
“This is all a matter for diplomats, Fortinbras. Men like Claudius over there. Not soldiers like me. Nothing...”
“I pay you to fight, Scotsman! Not to argue with me.”
The giant got up, walked to the open door of the tent. They had camped on a hill overlooking the small port below. The slender strip of water lay beneath them, placid on this bright, calm winter’s day.
“I’ve served with the best of them. Learned from them, too. One of the finest, a condottiere from Milan, told me something I should never forget. We’re mercenaries. We’re not paid to fight. We’re paid to win.”
“And?”
“Only fools die for nothing. Not us. If there’s a chance of seizing Denmark and getting rich from someone’s coffers we’ll take it. But if it’s just a matter of sitting here freezing our balls off...”
He thrust his fists in his pockets. Gazed at the distant blue horizon.
“Scotland’s lovely in the spring, lord. I’ve got women over there. And kids. Wouldn’t mind seeing them. For a little while anyway. Until I’m bored.”
Fortinbras shoved him out of the way. Stretched out his arm, pointed at the distant shape of Elsinore across the water.
“Twenty seven years ago the Øresund froze. My father died there on the ice. Through Old Hamlet’s treachery. Did you know that?”
Gregor tapped his ginger head.
“Got half the history of Europe in there, mate. Not much room for anything else.”
“The sea froze! My father had his entire army across there, beneath the castle walls. Could have taken Denmark like a wolf seizing a lamb if that bastard hadn’t talked him into single combat. While Claudius watched from the bedchamber of his queen...”
The Scotsman looked interested finally.
“If it freezes, we can walk across. Gregor, will you be with me? Will you lead my men?”
“If it freezes like you say.” He looked up at the clear blue sky. “But will it?”
“I don’t have mastery of the weather. Just money. Men. And you.”
Gregor sniffed, wiped his nose with his sleeve.
Then shivered and pulled his fur cloak around him.
“We’ll give it a month at most. After that it’s Perth for me and mine.”
Polonius was in his study, listening to reports from two of his spies. Violent men his daughter knew and feared. He mixed with them so easily, always had. And yet to the court he could appear the most gentle and urbane of lords.
Voltemand, the man from Copenhagen who had been dispatched to the royal court in Oslo, was there too, eyeing her as she walked in.
Back already. She wondered if that was good news or bad. She loathed politics.
Her father glared at her when she entered, told her to wait outside until he called.
An hour it took and when the spies came out they were grinning and counting out gold pieces in their fingers. One of them held up a coin, winked at her. Made a coarse gesture and asked, “Up for it?”
Ophelia laughed in his face. Watched his hand rise.
Voltemand was behind them, struck him hard with the back of his hand, then fetched a knee to his groin and sent him gasping to the floor.
“Offend this lady again and neither of you will leave Elsinore alive.”
The one who was still standing looked terrified.
“He thought she was a servant girl,” the spy said, then kicked his compatriot hard to make the point. “Didn’t mean nothing.”
Voltemand smiled at her.
“The Lady Ophelia’s no servant. Too lovely for that.”
She pushed past him.
“You flatter me without purpose, sir. No good reason at all.”
Her father was at his desk, poring over papers and maps. Books open in front of him. Danish, English, Latin. Military tomes from what she could see.
“Don’t walk in on me freely again,” he said without looking at her. “Not until we’re done with all this business. We’re as near as dammit in a state of war. I’ve affairs to manage that shouldn’t reach a woman’s ears.”
Finally he put aside his quill and documents. Checked his watch for no reason other than to show he owed the damned thing. Glared at her.
“After all I said last night… did I waste my breath?”
“Father?”
“Hamlet visited you. In your room. When you retired there this morning. It was a brief encounter. Raised voices. Afterwards you were flushed and near hysterical. The way feeble girls are in love…”
“You do not know!”
“If I can’t stop you rutting I’ll dispatch you to a convent. Or marry you off to a farmer.”
“He came to me. I didn’t want it. Any of it…”
“But you let him…”
“He wanted nothing more than to talk to me. He’s distressed. I’ve never seen a man in such pain. Perhaps his mind’s adrift or something. I don’t know.”
Polonius looked interested. He got to his feet.
“You think he’s mad?”
“I’m not a physician. Just a feeble girl…”
His hand struck her cheek, hard enough to bring up a blush.
“Don’t mock me, child.”
She didn’t cry. Refused to. But she held her fingers to her face.
“The prince is sick. He needs help and comfort. Perhaps if you told his mother …”
“You’re saying he did nothing?”
“I am.”
Another blow. She took it, stared at him.
“You’re lying.”
“I fear he may harm himself. Or others. There’s a violence to him I’ve never
seen before. I tell you this because you’re my father. And the king’s adviser. What you do with it, sir…”
“If he presses himself upon you again keep him interested. Keep him on the hook. Let’s see what happens. That’s my wish.”
“It’s not mine. And I…”
His hand was raised a third time.
“Best hit me somewhere private, sir. Unless you want him to see.”
“You’re an insolent child. Do as I say.”
“If you’ll tell the Queen he’s sick I’ll do it. And report back to you with everything. Like a spy so you can love me.”
He looked at her with interest then.
“Don’t fail me, daughter. There’s a price for that. You wouldn’t like it.”
Hamlet was toying with the penknife again.
“I’ve been giving some thought to this weapon of yours.”
The dwarf looked up, interested.
“And which way are you pointing the blade, Prince?”
“That seems to be the question, doesn’t it? Such a little thing, the pressure it takes to push the tip of a good dagger through flesh.”
“Makes a mess though.”
“Of all kinds,” Hamlet agreed. “Perhaps this is easier.”
He reversed the knife so that its tip pressed softly into the skin of his own throat.
Yorick watched him, unimpressed.
“Probably. Still a bit bloody. No thought for the poor bastard who’d have to clean up after you.”
“That’s all that worries you?” Hamlet asked, still holding the blade against his neck as if testing it.
“Pretty much. What do you want? A few home truths? A sermon on despair, the unforgiveable sin against the holy spirit? I could maybe rustle up a few woodcut prints showing the torment of those damned for suicide if that would help.”
“Seems unlikely.” Hamlet removed the knife and looked at his face reflected in the blade. “Still, not much of a reason to live, is it? The fear of being punished for killing yourself? I thought God was supposed to be full of love and forgiveness.”
Yorick tugged on his long, untidy hair.
“I’m sorry. Have me we met? I’m the king’s underpaid jester.”
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