“That’s why you wanted to see me?” A post-show critique? Bollocks to that.”
“You forget who you’re talking to!”
“No,” said Hamlet, rounding on her until she took a step backwards. “I remember who you are. I know full well. You’re the one who’s forgotten. You’re the queen, my father’s brother’s wife. And, more’s the pity, you’re my mother.”
Gertrude reached back and slapped him once, hard across the face. Hamlet didn’t pull away, didn’t even flinch. But his eyes flashed, and his hands reached for the dagger in his belt, drawing it in one, swift motion that sent his mother staggering backwards towards her bedroom door.
“What are you doing? Put that thing away!”
Then he heard. A shuffling of feet from the left side of the room. The movement of a man concealed behind one of the wall hangings.
A spy, hiding. This time there would be no hesitation.
“What’s this, mother? More rats in the walls?”
“Wait! Hamlet!” she yelled but already he was on the move.
A shape behind the tapestry. He flung himself at it, hitting with all his weight. A groan from behind. Hamlet brought up his knee hard, grasped the struggling figure.
A man. Tall, but not especially strong. Breathing as if elderly. Perhaps it was the king, and this the moment he’d wished for.
The dagger rose in his hand. But…
He’d left Claudius in the chapel on his knees. There was no time to reach these quarters.
No time to think either. The shape behind the fabric was struggling to roll out of his grip. Together they stumbled, tearing the tapestry from the wall as they collapsed to the floor. Hamlet shifted, pinning him, his mind racing, and through the sudden silence he heard the distinctive ticking of a watch.
Second by second, eking out the time.
Polonius.
Creeping. Whispering. Plotting. With all of them, his mother, his uncle. All Hamlet’s life the Lord Chamberlain had watched them from Elsinore’s shadows. What had his part been in the murder of Hamlet’s father? What had he done since, keeping Ophelia from him, turning her against him?
In fury he stabbed once. Twice. Then paused, breathing hard, as he pulled the tapestry aside to reveal the white bearded face beneath.
There was blood on the pale lips, a gout of it bursting from his throat.
“What?” Hamlet asked lightly. “Speak louder, fellow.”
He put his ear to Polonius’s chest, pretended to listen. Looked at his mother, frowned and shook his head.
Gertrude began to scream.
Another day, another world, he might have been struck with horror at what he’d done. Not now. Not here. He pulled the gory dagger from the body and rose to face his mother, sending a thin rain of crimson droplets spattering across the floor.
“Mother?” he said, pointing the blade in her face.
Gertrude fell silent, chest heaving, sobs subsiding as the fear took over.
“Good. Keep quiet.” His heart was racing. There was a tang of blood in his mouth as if he had bitten his lip during the struggle. Or perhaps it was the stench of the dead man in the room. “You will listen to me, mother. You will tell me what you knew of this business.”
“This business?” she cried. Her eyes wouldn’t leave the pool of scarlet that had begun to puddle around the crumpled tapestry by the old man’s corpse. “Polonius arrived before you. He wanted to hear our conversation. We were concerned about your sanity...”
“This doesn’t concern my health. My father. I want to know what you did.”
“I...I don’t know what you mean, child.”
“Two months you waited! Between my father’s death and your marriage to my uncle. Two months. Makes a man wonder, mother.”
“Wonder? Wonder what?”
She had one hand clasped over her heart, and below it hung a locket. Hamlet snatched the thing from her neck, snapping the chain, then opened it. On one side was a miniature of Hamlet’s father. On the other, newly added, one of Claudius.
“I wonder how a woman who wept for this man,” said Hamlet, holding the first portrait in front of her face, “goes to this, in less time than it took for the funeral banquet to rot. I’ve had dogs that were more loyal.”
“You knew this before,” she said, forcing herself to look at him. “You just killed a man, Hamlet! What’s happened to you? This is more than grief. Your mind’s infected…”
Hamlet gave a shout of derisive laughter then cast the locket across the room. For a moment he stood there, face in bloody hands, eyes shut, rigid with concentration. Gertrude extended cautious fingers towards him, her tears flowing freely now. But as she touched his cheek he seized her by the wrist and flung her backwards.
“No! You won’t treat me like a child. You will listen!”
Like a mad beast he roared the last word. She shrank away, hands over her ears, braced as if he would hit her. Then there was silence again, and at last she turned to see what he was doing.
Hamlet was gazing open mouthed into the bedroom doorway, looking almost as appalled as she did.
“What is it?” she asked, trying to see whatever had caught his attention. “What frightens you now?”
“Look,” he said, his voice barely above a whisper. “There. You see it?”
She peered again. Still nothing.
“I don’t understand…”
“There!” he shouted, grabbing her head and pointing her face towards the doorway. “Look!”
“I see nothing!”
“My father!” Hamlet screamed, jabbing a finger at the shadow. “In your bedroom, wearing his old robe. As he was in life. As he is in death.”
Gertrude fastened her gaze on Hamlet’s face.
“There’s nothing there, dear Hamlet. Nothing, my son. You’re sick.”
“Look at him!”
“This is a disease of the mind. I understand,” she said, glancing sadly at the body of Polonius. “He was right. He said you were ill... I should have listened.”
“You’ve come to demand why I haven’t done it yet,” Hamlet whispered, staring straight ahead of him. “I tried, but... I will do it. I swear, sir. I swear…”
Her hand fell on his arm and stayed there.
“There’s just the two of us in this room,” Gertrude said calmly, reaching up to stroke his face. “Who do you think you’re talking to?”
He was looking at her again, with a new concern.
“Sorry, mother. I didn’t mean to frighten you. Truly…”
One last look in the bedroom and then he nodded.
“He says I should leave you to your grief. The king’s going now. I wish you could see him. It might make you remember who you are.”
“What do you want me of me, son?”
“Pray,” he answered with a shrug. “And when Claudius asks you to join him in his bed, say you’re...sick. Which you are, even if you can’t see it. Stay away from my uncle. It would be for the best.”
He kissed her on her tear-streaked cheek and then moved to Polonius’s blood daubed body. At the sight of it, something of his former mood returned.
“I suppose I’d better lug this old meat out of here before it turns more rancid than it was before. No rest for the wicked, eh?”
He grabbed the corpse by its ankles and dragged it from the room.
“Night, mother!” Hamlet called from the hallway. “Sleep well.”
3
A Sea of Troubles
The morning following her father’s death Ophelia received a visit from Voltemand. After a few casual words of comfort he talked to her about the funeral, wanting to know how she planned to pay for it. For some reason the man’s eyes wouldn’t quit the apartments. Once he left she locked her bedroom door and tried to think. Not about mourning. That might happen sometime in the future. Out of duty, little more.
But she needed to think about loss and rejection, how best a woman might deal with them.
The servants were gone.
Fussing around a corpse. Negotiating with an undertaker. Arranging hymns and pulpit eulogies. The pain and the confusion in her head still hadn’t diminished one whit.
Her mind was on the Spanish wheel-lock pistol she’d stolen from her father’s weapons drawer in his study early that day. A heavy complex weapon, locks and levers, brackets and cogs. Laertes told her a famous Italian, Leonardo da Vinci, had invented the device to protect the Florentines against their foes. A quicker, surer way of killing a man than any blade in history.
Then, one bright morning that lost summer, her brother had taken her into the wood behind Elsinore, a place she associated with love and Hamlet, and shown her how to work the thing. Talked of sear arms and pyrites, mainsprings and a mechanism called the dog.
All she remembered was the loading. Gunpowder in the pan. A ball in the barrel. Arm. Pull. Fire.
In the forest Laertes taught her how to hold it. Laughed as her arm jerked back and she yelped with surprise and more than a little pain from the sudden and unexpected recoil.
He roared when out of the ash tree ahead the brown shape of a sparrow fell before them, all feathers, blood and mangled skin tumbling to the leafy carpet where, not far away, unknown to him and all the castle, she and Hamlet came to make sweet love. Ophelia had been horrified that she‘d taken the little bird’s life, however unintentionally, and never touched the gun again.
Remembering that distant time she took out the weapon from beneath the sheets, held it, looked at herself in her mirror. The long gun in her hand. Her body slimmer now the baby was gone.
It was hard but she tried to remember what her brother had taught her. There was a waxed box of powder, some round lead balls that fitted the muzzle.
She played with them. Put one where she thought Laertes had said. Held the weapon in her hand. It wasn’t so heavy. Not so difficult to manage either. A man, hit full and close by its force, would go from waking to dead so quickly.
It was not within her nature to wish him pain or anything but love once he’d given that in return. More so than Polonius, her father. A cruel, distant man who’d treated her as servant and chattels, another pawn in the quiet game he’d played within Elsinore’s walls.
There was another solution.
Ophelia lifted the wheel-lock, shifted her flaxen her out of her way then pressed the cold metal barrel against her temple.
One shot through the skull and then everything she knew, everything that moved and affected her, would be extinguished. Or rather the memory and consciousness of it would be. The causes would remain, not that she understood them.
Suicide was a sin. It would condemn her for eternity. But so was murder, even a just one sought out of righteous grief.
The revenger always dug two graves, they said. One for his victim. One for himself. She’d never understood that old saying till now.
Either way she was dead. They’d bury her father later that day, in the cemetery within the castle walls where aristocracy were interred. There was no time to waste. Gossip was rife within Elsinore. The king had lost patience with his nephew. Hamlet would be gone from Denmark before nightfall.
Ophelia checked the powder and the ball again. Found her long black mourning dress and slowly pulled it on. Slid the weapon in the pocket. Walked out into the chilly corridor and turned for the stairs to the royal quarters.
A tiny sparrow was the only thing she’d ever killed, and that by accident, not intent. But this was a changing world of which she was but a small and mutable part.
Hamlet sat in the king’s study, opposite Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern scared on chairs in the corner.
“Another funeral in Elsinore. At this rate, uncle, you should bargain with the undertakers. Perhaps they’ll give you a discount for bulk.”
“Hamlet…” Claudius began.
“Unless you think they’re finished for now. Do you?”
He’d hidden the body of Polonius to begin with. Refused to tell anyone where. It had taken Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the best part of an hour to find the Lord Chamberlain’s bloody corpse, stowed in a privy set aside for the royal household. They had lugged it into the common chapel where it would lie until interment.
Gertrude remained in her quarters, refusing to speak to anyone.
“If you weren’t a prince, nephew, and still loved by the people, I’d have your head off before sunset,” the King said. “No trial. No questions asked or answers given.”
Hamlet shook his head.
“But I am. So what’s the problem?”
“You slaughtered a faithful servant of the crown!”
He shrugged.
“An accident. Could have happened to anyone. There I was enjoying a private conversation with my mother. I heard someone skulking behind the tapestry.” He pointed at the maps on the king’s desk. “It could have been a Norwegian spy. Or an assassin. I can’t believe you dragged me in here for a bollocking. I rather thought I’d be on the receiving end of your gratitude. Especially after that play I gave you last night. I do hope the old man paid those actors properly.”
He caught Claudius’s eye.
“They read their parts well. I contributed more than a little to the tale by the way. In case you hadn’t heard.”
The king summoned the pair from the corner. They slunk to his side, looking rattled.
“Before you murdered him I had Polonius draw up documents of travel. We’d already decided it was time you left Elsinore for a while.”
“We? So you and the old fool worked as a pair, did you? In everything? Surely not. He was just a servant.”
“Don’t be impertinent! Or so disrespectful. The man’s dead, at your hand.”
Hamlet shrugged then yawned.
“I’m surprised you don’t promote me. Polonius would have.”
Claudius looked away, his jaws clamped shut.
“You’ll go to England.” He glanced at the two men next to him. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will accompany you.”
“As jailers?” Hamlet asked, eyeing them with suspicion.
“To ensure your health and safety,” Rosencrantz said meekly. “We pray for your return to happiness, lord. But if the king commands…”
“If the king commands you’ll wipe his arse.”
The two shrugged as if this was obvious.
“There are private diplomatic discussions to be had between our realm and the English crown,” Claudius told them. “To do with tributes.”
“I’m a tax collector now, am I?”
“No. You’re a murderer.”
“What’s that these days, sir? Men die at the hands of others all the time.”
Claudius turned to Rosencrantz.
“I’ll have the warrants of passage brought to you. They bear my seal so keep them safe. Show them to the officers of the court who will greet you in the English harbour.”
“When?” Hamlet demanded.
“On the next tide.”
“I want to speak to my mother.”
“Well she doesn’t wish to speak to you. I’ve discussed this with the Queen. You go with her good wishes. But after last night… she’s still upset.”
Hamlet stormed to his feet. Rosencrantz clutched at his sword in terror.
“She’s my mother!”
Claudius stood up and faced him.
“You must leave these shores immediately. I’ve sent word to Laertes. He’s in Lübeck dealing with court business before he goes to France. The lad knows of his father’s death. When he gets here he’ll understand the circumstances. I’ll do my best to deal with him, but not with you around.”
That calmed him a little.
“Nothing makes up for losing a father.”
“I know. I lost mine. It happens to us all.”
“Though the circumstances may differ. And I may return when?”
“When it suits our interests. When you’re fit and well. These gentlemen…” He gestured to the pair from Copenhagen. “They will communicate your conditio
n. I will follow it most carefully. As will the queen.”
“Can I take the jester?”
“What?” the king demanded.
“Can… I… take… the… jester?”
“A jester? For pity’s sake, Hamlet, what do you need a jester for? Be on your way.”
“I want my fool!”
Silence in the room. Claudius gestured at the door and went back to the papers on his desk.
Then Guildenstern said, as cheerily as he could, “We’ll find us a nice boat, Hamlet. How about that?”
“You’ve got two fools already,” Claudius said without looking up from his work. “That should be enough for you. Get out of here the lot of you.”
Yorick had vanished. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were sorting Hamlet’s things into trunks. A few clothes. Some books. The weapons he was allowed.
He left the pair in his quarters, thought about going to the queen’s chamber, forcing his way in. Trying to… understand.
The ghost had been there the previous night. His father’s shade or something like it. The spectre had urged him on. And things from the grave saw everything. It must have known Polonius was complicit in his murder. Must have protected Gertrude, too. Since she lived and might so easily have perished under Hamlet’s furious hand.
Down a dark corridor, halfway there, a slight, slim figure stepped out of the shadows and stopped him.
He saw the face. Pale and beautiful. But different somehow. Lost and a little crazed like him.
“I owe you an apology,” he said, honestly. “I was rude to you yesterday, Ophelia. I meant it, but for a reason. And the reason wasn’t you. Not really.”
Wild-eyed and lovely she had her hand in her black dress. He wished he could roll back time and take her to the forest again, the two of them locked together beneath a perfect blue sky.
“You slaughter my father and apologise for petty insults?”
Out of the dress her hand came. In it was a pistol, one of the new Spanish types, he thought, not that he knew much of powder weapons. Swords would do just fine.
Ophelia stabbed the barrel at his chest.
“Your father killed mine,” he said. “And never apologised at all.”
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