Alas, Poor Yorick

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Gertrude is at the far end of the garden, by the ancient gate; she is leaning against it, and I have the oddest thought that she has just closed it. Her eyes are bright when she turns to me, and there is a sound in her voice that is new. “Yorick. You surprised me.”

  I bow to her and I murmur an excuse. “This is from Margitha, who asks that you read it at once.” I hold out the note and hope that my intrusion has not offended the Queen. She takes the note and draws the pin from it, reading quickly and with growing impatience. “She is determined to add to her importance,” says Gertrude with asperity as she puts the letter into a pocket of her apron; then she relents and says more gently, “Yet she may mean well.” The color in her cheeks is brighter and I notice that her camisa is unfastened at the neck.

  “My Queen?” I say, still puzzled by Gertrude’s demeanor. Perhaps it is the warmth of the day, I think, or the sun. Many another gardener opens smocks and other clothes when the weather is so warm. Often those in the sun are rouged by it. Why does it seem to me that there is another cause? I despise my thoughts, for they only confirm what I wish least to know, and I must admit that Gertrude is unfaithful. Gertrude is gathering up her things, moving swiftly. “Tell Margitha that I have read her note. And tell her that I will give some heed to what she says.” Her apron pockets bulge and now there is a shine on her forehead and upper lip. She indicates her garden. “It is coming along well, isn’t it? I love this garden; I think I am happier here than anywhere on earth. In another month it will be wonderful.”

  I obey her and look over the new plants. “The buds are promising. Some of them are bright already.” I point out where the edge of one bud has a tiny ruffle of deep pink where the flower will come.

  She laughs a little. “Oh, Yorick, you are always so careful.” She takes the last of her implements and starts for the door. “Are you coming?” “Yes; in a moment.” I have bent to pick up something I have seen on the narrow stone path, a scrap of shiny bronze against the grey paving. I hold it in my fingers, letting the sun glint off it, and I try to remember where I have seen such glowing fabric before: it was not long ago, and the occasion was grand, a celebration. The brass-colored damask was…. My recollection brings me neither comfort nor satisfaction and I follow the Queen from the garden with such thoughts crowding my mind as I have not known before now, and wish I had never had.

  * * *

  My pillows have been taken over by the kitchen cat and her five kittens. She lies between them, her kittens at her tits, and purrs. They are such tiny, fragile things, these kittens. They move clumsily, their eyes still shut, blundering into things and one another, their high, plaintive voices the biggest part of them. The kitchen cat indulges them, and spends the greater part of an hour washing them, holding them down with her paw as she starts at the tops of their heads and works down, like a groom cleaning a horse. “You’re a proud mother,” I say to the cat, and add a few words to the Male Goddess to guard her and her babes. “I’ll bring you an extra portion of meat tonight,” I promise her. “As a birthing token.”

  One of the kittens looses his purchase at the nipple and starts to cry, and at the same time keeps nudging his mother to find his food again. With his eyes closed he is helpless, and I consider reaching out to move him. But the kitchen cat sees my hand and bats it away, her claws out, and I accept her rebuke. “Yes,” I tell them all, “be glad that your mother takes such good care of you. She will guard you from all harm.”

  I hear an outburst of sound from the kitchen, and then Voss is bellowing to one of the scullions and there are shouts and pleading. “You stay here,” I say to the kitchen cat, knowing that Voss has no patience with kittens. “If you must move your family, keep them in this chamber. Otherwise Voss will take them from you.” I scratch her ears, and she permits a little of this, and then moves just enough to be beyond easy reach. “Guard them well, little mother.”

  The cat has no time to spare for the likes of me.

  * * *

  Once again Gertrude has argued with Raissa, this time about Hildegarde; Raissa finds the new lady insipid and makes her the butt of her sly remarks. In answer to this unkindness, the Queen has ordered her countrywoman to stay away from her for ten days. Raissa has taken this command with poor grace, complaining loudly to anyone who will listen to her, and promising to demand an apology before she curtsies to Gertrude again; though we all know that this is only a ploy, not a threat. She spends most of the time sewing, accompanying her embroidery with complaints.

  During the afternoon I play for the women while the Queen continues to spend that time alone in her garden. I am uneasy about the arrangement, but Hamlet himself has approved it, and my misgivings shame me far more than they shame Gertrude: Oduvit’s poison must have infected me.

  “She isn’t herself,” Raissa complains to Margitha as they fold their guimps in preparation for pressing them. “She’s using that child there as an excuse to keep me away from her. It is all a ruse, nothing more than a trick, a way to keep her women from knowing what she is doing. You’ll see. She has a secret and she doesn’t want me to learn what it is.”

  “She seems well enough to me,” says Margitha. “In fact, I don’t think I have ever seen her in better looks in all the time she has been in Denmark.”

  “I tell you, there is something different about her,” Raissa insists with a toss of her head. She glares around the room. “It is not only the way she has treated me. Until this last month she has never been so demanding, or capricious.” She glances at Hildegarde, who sits apart from the other two. “I think she is happy,” says Margitha, and looks over at Hildegarde, “Wouldn’t you say that the Queen appears happy?”

  Before Hildegarde can answer, Raissa laughs. “What does she know? Gertrude is a stranger to her. She’s only just come here and she is frightened as a rabbit.”

  “I think she is happy,” says Hildegarde in a small, shaking voice. “I do. I think any woman who is going to have a child looks happy.”

  There is a moment of astonished silence. “Have a child?” Raissa asks in disbelief. “The Queen?” Margitha exclaims at the same time.

  My playing falters, and I feel my heart slam in my chest as if it were suddenly much bigger. “It’s absurd. She can’t be right,” says Raissa to Margitha as if Hildegarde cannot hear them. “We are her waiting-women, and we are with her every day. How can she be with child? We would know it.”

  “Well,” Margitha says with a touch of smugness, “you said yourself that she has a secret. Maybe the pregnancy is it.”

  “She would say something, at least to me, as another Frenchwoman,” Raissa insists. “Possibly she would keep it from others, but she would tell us. We’re her women.” She looks back at Hildegarde. “Why do you say she is with child?”

  “Because she has the look of it,” says Hildegarde tremulously. “Look for yourself. Everything about her is filled with life. Her eyes, her walk, all of it.”

  I pick up my tune again, but I can no longer put the proper spirit into the wistful melody of “The Lost Bride of Scotland,” and as soon as I reach the end of the refrain, I begin ‘Isolda’s Potion’; that goes rather better because I know the tune well and need not think of it while my fingers find the stops. I know it is wrong, but I devote myself to listening to what the women say.

  “There were hopes before,” Margitha reminds her, “and they came to nothing. It must be early days, and she does not want to raise the same hopes again, that might not be fulfilled.”

  “She would tell us,” Raissa declares.

  “If she is increasing,” adds Hildegarde, and makes a painful effort to explain. “I do not know that she is with child, but only that she appears to be with child. She might have another reason to appear so. I haven’t been at court here long, and I might be wrong about her.”

  “It would account for her caprice,” says Raissa as if nothing else could. “Some women take odd notions while they are increasing.”

  “Do you think we shou
ld ask her?” Margitha looks at Hildegarde. “I…. I don’t know,” says the young woman. “I have only just met her.” “I think we should,” says Raissa with determination.

  “Will she tell us, if we do?” Margitha wonders aloud.

  I continue to play, all the while remembering that scrap of bright, brass-colored brocade on the garden walk, and the gate at the end of the garden.

  * * *

  Such a secret cannot be kept long, and it is just two days later that Hamlet is accepting the congratulations and good wishes of his Counsellors.

  “It was only a matter of time,” says Horatio, looking pleased in his severe way. “The worth of the King is richly rewarded. There is bound to be a son by Christmas.”

  “Or earlier,” says one of the other Counsellors, determined to make a favorable impression on Hamlet. “A son of our King will not be content to wait. The vigor of his father will bring him into the world impatiently.” “Better that he does wait. Let the child come to full fruition before he enters the world. Early sons do not flourish,” says one of the others; from where I am sitting, I cannot see all those gathered around the table. “A full pregnancy to the Queen, and a delivery without danger.”

  “Yes. Let us all pray that the Queen delivers her son safely, and that babe and mother come well through it,” says Martinus, his old eyes glittering with emotion. He has lost one wife—his second—to childbirth, and everyone knows he has not been the same since. His first wife died by her own hand, or so it is rumored, and the woman he married three years ago is much younger than he and not often in his company.

  The Counsellors are just preparing to drink to the expected Prince when Claudius arrives, bowing to Hamlet and excusing his tardiness. “I fear I lost track of the time. I pray you will not hold it against me.”

  “It happens easily enough,” says Hamlet, who would pardon any malfeasance today. “We are drinking to the Queen and the babe she carries—the Prince of Denmark.” Claudius is reaching for a goblet, but he stops as he hears this. He turns toward his brother and says in a strange voice, “The Queen? Is with child?”

  “Yes. Finally she is with child,” says Hamlet, showing his pride with a grin and his thumbs thrust through his belt. “And this time there will be no loss of it. I have sent for the Bishop and Mother Bertrade, the Bishop to bless and pray for my son, and Mother Bertrade to tend to my Queen. The child will live and he will thrive and all Denmark will rejoice with me.” I have never seen so odd an expression as the one Claudius wears now. He is smiling at Hamlet, but there is more gloating than rejoicing in it, a curious look of triumph disguised as delight, and in his large, clear eyes I catch that hungry sorrow which always consumes him. “Well,” he says, clearing his throat, “to the Queen then, and the son she will give you.”

  The Counsellors all endorse this, and a few of them cheer after they drink.

  Hamlet goes to Claudius and claps his arm around his brother’s shoulder. “Ah, you are a worthy brother. I am glad of your good wishes, Claudius. It confirms my trust in you.” He himself takes a goblet and orders beer for it; the servants fetch the beakers at once. “I wish to drink another toast,” he exclaims. “To my House and my brother.”

  Again the Counsellors lift their goblets, but I detect a subtle reluctance that was not part of their celebration of Gertrude’s coming child. Claudius acknowledges this fine gesture and regards Hamlet with cordiality. “It is like you to be so generous.”

  All this good-will causes the Counsellors to beam. Old enemies forget their differences and fall to praising one another as if to show their approval of the brotherly spirit that has engulfed them all.

  Even Horatio, who rarely unbends so far, prepares his goblet to offer a toast, lifting it and saying, “As my devotion to the King is ever staunch so will the devotion of my son Horatio be to my King’s child. I swear now that I will do all to make our sons companions. May they know the blessing of friendship as well as the reward of staunch loyalty.” After that he drinks little, but sits watching the rest, listening and revealing nothing of what he thinks.

  The King’s brother is another matter. “I will welcome the Queen’s son as if he were my own,” cries Claudius when he has finished his third goblet of beer. “I will be his second father, I swear it to you, brother. I will hold him in—”

  Hamlet laughs loudly and the Council joins in, a few of them too loudly. He drinks again to Claudius, saying, “I am heartened to know that if any ill befalls me, my son will have Claudius to look after the throne for him.”

  “That I will,” Claudius affirms.

  I sit by Hamlet’s raised chair, and as I prepare to entertain the Council, I try to banish the dread clutching at my heart.

  * * *

  It is now three weeks since the Queen’s pregnancy was announced. All but one of the kitchen cat’s kittens are gone; Voss has taken them and drowned them. She frets and calls for them, and hovers over her remaining kitten, moving him from hiding place to hiding place. She does not often sleep on my bed and I find that I miss her autocratic presence; I continue to bring her meat and milk, and she eats them quickly, nervously, before returning to her one remaining kitten. I have left offerings to the Male Goddess on their behalf, more to console myself than to bring comfort to the cat.

  But the kitten is adventuresome and is given to exploring, as fearless as a tiger would be. He is greyer than his mother with the very ends of his thick fur tipped in black, and his eyes are orange. He is indifferent to what people do, but he has already begun to hunt under his mother’s careful instruction. He has turned one of my old leggings into a toy, and treats it as roughly as any child treats one.

  I have taken to spending a short time before supper every evening playing with the cat and her kitten. We have little opportunity for amusement but we manage to make the most of what we can. I have tied a ball of old wool along with the scrap of cloth I found in Gertrude’s garden to a long cord, and I use it to trawl for the two of them, delighting in their pounces and leaps and murderous digging with hind claws.

  If the kitten lives until he is half-grown, he might be able to survive at Elsinor for years; it was what happened to his mother. “I will help you guard him, I will help you keep him safe,” I promise the kitchen cat, as I stroke the kitten; she looks up at me with her inscrutable eyes, as if taking my measure. “I will,” I repeat, and she comes to knead my leg.

  SONS

  June turns warm, and in Gertrude’s garden there are flowers everywhere, all growing in such profusion that I am astonished that the ground can contain them. It is as if the Male Goddess is lavishing His-in-Her wealth on Gertrude. But is this opulence a promise or a mockery? Does He-in-She want to reveal a secret or honor Gertrude? I ponder the question without an answer, and find no consolation in the blooms. If I could bring myself to ask her, to find the gentlest way to discover if she has heard the gossip, and what her answer to it is. But such audacity is unthinkable. There is no one I can confide in, not the full extent of my suspicions; I disgust myself, and often I try to convince myself that I have invented the whole, and that my supposed certainties are more the product of Oduvit’s implications than anything I have witnessed. But I cannot forget that scrap of brass brocade in the garden; only one man at court has such a color in his clothing, and he is not the King.

  “It will be in winter that the Prince comes,” Gertrude says as she cuts another of the branches from the columbine and lays it in the shallow basket she carries over her arm. “There will be nothing here but bare ground and snow.”

  I continue to play “The Eagle and the Lark” for the Queen, glad that she does not expect me to speak to her. “I try to imagine what he will be like, the kind of baby and youth and man he will be,” she goes on, cutting other blossoms to put in her quarters. She pauses at her work and beams down at me. “What color will his eyes become? How will he stand? What will his strengths be, and his weaknesses? Who will he favor? I wonder how much he will be like his father.” She gest
ures to indicate I should go on playing. “You don’t have to say anything, Yorick. I am indulging myself, trying to determine what my son will be.”

  That is a matter I do not wish to explore; I bow to her and damn myself for the thoughts that rattle my mind. The music pleases her and she hums with the shawm as we continue our stroll.

  “At night I lie awake and try to feel him move. I think that I do feel him, light and so little that a feather would be stronger, from time to time, but it may be too early for that. Other women tell me that I cannot know that I feel him yet, but I know I do. I know that he is moving already. He is a flower unfurling.” She cuts one last branch and then puts her little knife into her apron, straightening up and looking around the garden, her eyes lingering on the gate. “You see, all those hours here in the garden? Don’t you think they were worth the effort?” She smiles at her flowers.

  But my thoughts are on a different path, and try as I will, I cannot turn from it, and the loveliness around me is nothing more than players’ trumpery.

  * * *

  Oduvit makes endless jokes about the Queen’s pregnancy, but only to the other jesters. I hate to listen to him, but that serves only to fuel his determination to cast doubt on the Queen’s chastity. He delights in snide remarks and nasty innuendos. “Hamlet has been at her for quite some time and there was only a dead lump to show for it. Now that his brother is back, the Queen increases. What service to Hamlet’s House.” He pays no attention to the howling noise Tollo makes; none of us do.

  Mect stares at the two loaves Voss has given us, as if he hears nothing. He cuts a piece of bread with his knife as if he were cleaving it with a sword. “What do you seek for yourself?” he asks Oduvit.

  “What you seek for yourself, and the Emperor,” says Oduvit at once, and beams at his riposte.

  Mect is unwilling to be goaded into a dispute. He speaks in the same steady voice he used at first. “Because as you are going, you will come to an early grave.” “I say nothing that the rest of the world is not thinking,” Oduvit says with a shrug. “Everyone is aware that the King’s brother and the Queen have become friendly. Anyone can see that Claudius is nearer Gertrude’s age, and his travels have made him a man more to her liking than her husband. Compare how they dress, Hamlet and Claudius. Who can blame Gertrude for preferring the handsomer, better-traveled man?” “It is not a question of her preference,” says Mect. “It is the contract between Lorraine and Denmark that is at issue. This is not some peasant’s wife liking her neighbor’s husband better than her own, this is a Queen you impugn.” “She’s a woman before she’s a Queen,” says Oduvit with a toss of his head. “You know what women are. Let them but see a well-favored man and all the vows in the world are nothing compared to him.”