Rogue's Gallery

by Robert Barnard

  I went off to find him. Somewhat surprisingly I found him at the door of the royal chapel. Coming up beside him and looking through the door I saw, before the altar, King Claudius on his knees and at prayer. What did he and God have to say to one another, I wondered?

  ‘Now might I do it, Pat,’ said Hamlet.

  ‘Well, go on and do it,’ I urged. ‘You’ll have the support of the whole court, after his exhibition of guilt today.’

  But of course Hammy was not displaying a resolution for action, merely putting the point of view that he would immediately contradict.

  ‘What, and send his soul straight to heaven?’ he demanded. ‘As the souls of those killed in prayer immediately do go?’

  ‘Your theology is positively Dark Ages,’ I said. ‘Nobody in their senses believes that sort of stuff now.’

  ‘I couldn’t take the risk,’ said Hammy.

  ‘Then what are you going to do? Raise an army and start a civil war? With you two at each other’s throats in the country, and Fortinbras coming from the north with a force of fresh Norwegian troops, you’d be handing him the country on a plate.’

  ‘Hmmm,’ said Hammy. ‘This needs thinking about.’

  ‘Quickly,’ I urged.

  But by now things were moving at double time at Elsinore. We had no sooner got back to the main body of the castle, where the Queen was distractedly looking for a bottle of something to calm her frazzled nerves, than the court was electrified by the appearance of the Lord Chamberlain at the great door in obvious perturbation.

  ‘Your Majesty, Ophelia is dead.’

  ‘Dead? But how!’

  ‘Drowned, my lady.’

  ‘Drowned?’ She threw a look of reproach at her son. ‘Disappointed in love, poor girl. Betrayed by one she believed she could trust. No doubt she walked into the river, letting her court dress hold her up until the weight of the water pulled her down to the reeds below.’

  ‘Not quite, Your Majesty. She slipped on a muddy patch on the river bank and died with her head in the water clutching a bottle of aquavit.’

  ‘I knew it was somewh—’ began the Queen, but there came a second interruption. I think I’ve mentioned Laertes – a loud-mouthed and poisonous nerd whose idea it had been to hitch his sister up with Hammy. If this alliance (of whatever sort) had come about, his low-born family’s grip on the levers of power would have been unbreakable. Now that ambition was shattered, and he burst into the great chamber making an almighty fuss and noise. He was followed by his father Polonius, looking as if his politician’s instinct to be all things to all men was affecting his mental grasp. Laertes, as usual, had to hold the floor.

  ‘Where is he? Where is that trifler with a young girl’s affections? Where is that so-called prince? Where is he?’

  ‘Here,’ said Hammy, coming forward with chin raised, with an expression of disdain perfected for Julius Caesar being petitioned at the Capitol.

  ‘What have you to say to my poor sister’s death – you who drove her to it?’

  ‘I no more drove her to it than I drove her to drink. It was your preposterous ambitions drove her to get ideas above her place. A prince marries a princess.’

  ‘As, I suppose, a king marries a queen,’ sneered Laertes, looking towards Gertrude. ‘If there is one available.’

  Hamlet started towards him (Hammy let no one insult his mother but himself), but to keep the initiative Laertes removed his glove and whipped it across Hammy’s face.

  ‘I challenge you to a duel,’ said Hammy.

  ‘I’ve already done that,’ said Laertes. ‘That’s what the glove means.’

  ‘Enough!’ shouted the King, entering from his prayers. ‘A duel there shall be.’

  You can say what you like about the old King – courtiers were muttering as they discussed this development behind their hands in nooks and corridors (and what they mostly said about him was that he was much too fond of aquavit, and he turned, if not a blind, then a bleary eye to his wife’s serial infidelities) – but he would never have allowed an upstart politician’s brat to challenge a royal prince. Laertes would have been shipped off down to the Danish equivalent of the Tower of London with a price on his head (fifty kroner for a nice clean cut). The fact that this did not happen said something about Claudius’s indebtedness to the Amundsen family, father and son.

  Before the day was out many had made their way to the back door of the health food shop near the vegetable market, the standard source for effective and out-of-the-way poisons in Elsinore. The whole thing seemed to be getting out of my hands, and I was reduced to trying to ensure that Hammy remained alive.

  ‘How can you be sure that Laertes won’t be fighting with a poisoned sword?’ I asked him.

  ‘I shall reject the swords supplied by the king and insist that he choose a sword from one of the royal guards,’ he said. ‘There are ten guards on duty, and he can choose at random.’

  ‘He will insist that you choose yours from one of the guards as well.’

  ‘Very well, it will be a fair fight.’

  ‘Laertes was champion fencer at the Copenhagen University Fencing Club,’ I said meaningfully.

  ‘A provincial establishment, our university,’ he said airily, ‘fit only for the boors and bumpkins who attend it.’

  ‘Academically laughable,’ I agreed. ‘The university is notable only for its jousting, its beer drinking and its swordsmanship. Laertes was the best from among the best in the world.’

  Hammy thought.

  ‘Then I shall make sure all the guards’ swords are smeared with poison. Then a mere scratch will kill him.’

  ‘His sword will be poisoned too. A mere scratch will kill you too.’

  ‘Hmmm … Advise me, for God’s sake, Pat! That’s what you’re here for!’ The note of panic in his voice boded ill.

  I told him I had a plan, and when darkness came I slipped off to Mensana, the health food shop. I went to the back door, but there stood a hard-faced lad handing out queue tickets with times scrawled on them. I filled in the hour and a half between with a visit to the red lantern district and a girl from Belfast who was earning her ticket home and reduced her prices to anyone with an accent that made her nostalgic.

  When I returned to Mensana I was shown into a dark back room in which sat a figure of indeterminate sex with whom I was forced to communicate in dog Latin.

  ‘This concerns a duel, I would guess,’ said its hoarse voice.

  ‘Yes. We fear poisoned sword-tips,’ I said.

  ‘Client confidentiality forbids—’ it began.

  ‘Of course, of course. But I wondered if there was something that could be administered before—’

  ‘To kill?’

  ‘No. Preferably something to disable for combat – something that will prevent the victim from performing at the top of his bent.’ There was a few seconds’ silence.

  ‘Balance … Successful swordsmanship depends on balance. Administer this and the … the patient will have the gait of a newborn calf for twenty-four hours thereafter.’

  ‘And how is it administered?’

  ‘For maximum effect, in the ear while sleeping.’

  I laughed out loud at that. Perfect! There were problems, of course, but I thought that with O’Ratio one of the big cheeses in the Royal Guard I could surely get one of the men who guarded Laertes while he slept – and someone would, Claudius would see to that – to do the necessary for a bag of kroner. Hammy was in fact my main problem.

  ‘From now on,’ I told him, ‘we are inseparable. I send out for food to town. You drink nothing but wine from my own store.’

  ‘But I don’t like your wine. You have rotten, English taste. I prefer my own wines.’

  ‘They could be already poisoned. In Claudius’s court you are worth killing, while I am not. When it comes to the fight I shall hold goblets of both wine and water, and you will drink nothing else. There will be bottles of wine and jugs of water set out for the contestants. Don’t touch them.’


  ‘You’ll have to remind me.’

  ‘Oh, for heaven’s sake!’ I said disgustedly. ‘Whose life is this I’m protecting?’

  Anyway, that showed me there could not be a moment’s relaxation in my vigilance. We had a disgusting pork chop meal sent up from the Kongelig Dansk Hotel in town, and then I locked the bedroom door and we settled down to get what sleep we could. Heaven knows what rumours started going round the court. My only concern was whether O’Ratio would manage to get the destabiliser administered into Laertes’s ear. One thing was in our favour: it would be just like Laertes to sleep soundly, so hideously confident as he always was.

  The great hall next day was stripped for action. All furniture had been moved to the walls, and the great central area was bare. Claudius was no doubt used to masterminding such affairs of honour from his army days. At the far end of the hall were two thrones, and on the table in front of them bottles, a carafe and goblets. The King and Queen were already seated when Hamlet and I arrived. When the King saw I was carrying a bottle and a glass a shadow passed over his face. Hammy cast a glance at the two épées laid out at either end of the long table.

  ‘Your Majesty, I demand fresh swords.’

  ‘Fresh swords?’ All injured innocence.

  ‘Swords I can trust. I demand that we choose swords from those borne by the royal guards.’

  He gestured in the direction of the assembled picked troop. The king hummed and hahed. Then he gave way. He knew the abilities as swordsmen of his stepson and his first minister’s son, and he trusted to the latter’s superiority.

  ‘Very well. When Laertes arrives – ah, here he is.’

  But the words almost died in his throat. Weaving his way like a drunken porter Laertes came into the hall, lurching from left to right, stumbling, and finally weaving his way erratically up to the thrones.

  ‘Your Majesty, I demand a postponement! I have been poisoned! You see the result. Please God it does not prove fatal.’

  ‘Hah!’ said Hamlet, with an expression of stage disgust. ‘The man’s feigning. He’s an arrant coward. The court yesterday saw whose the offence was – a rank insult to the blood royal. I demand satisfaction now, at the place and time Your Majesty appointed.’

  Now the King really was in a quandary. He knew that his behaviour at the play the day before had sent waves of suspicion rippling through the court. To be seen to favour his first minister’s son – the upstart grandson of Jens Amundsen, a backstreet fishmonger – over his stepson would set tongues wagging furiously. At this point O’Ratio made a rare positive contribution.

  ‘Your Majesty, I pray this unhappy matter be settled with all speed. The Norwegian threat is imminent. There are rumours of a landing—’

  ‘Very well. The contest will take place,’ the King said, with palpable reluctance. An expression of arrant terror suffused Laertes’s face. Everyone in the room must have suspected that he had been set on to challenge Hamlet by the very man who now signed his death warrant.

  The swords were chosen, directions given. Laertes made desperate attempts to gain some kind of control of his movements.

  ‘Swords at the ready!’ said the King, his voice quivering. ‘Let battle commence.’

  Laertes lurched forward, his sword flailing. Hamlet parried it a couple of times, then he stood back, sword raised. His adversary saw his next move, and a look of pleading came into his eyes. Hamlet plunged his sword through his heart.

  Advantage Hamlet.

  He pulled out the sword, dripping blood on to the flagstoned floor, then he turned and bowed to the two thrones. He went forward.

  ‘Oh, the poor young man,’ said Queen Gertrude. ‘And his poor father. To have lost both his children! Hamlet, are you all right?’ Her priorities seemed less than motherly. Confused, she bent forward and picked up a goblet full of red wine from the table.

  ‘Gertrude!’ said the King.

  ‘I am faint. Hamlet, you are sweaty and scant of breath. Drink too.’

  ‘Hamlet!’ I shouted, running from the far end of the hall. As I reached the table he was quaffing deep. As he set down the goblet he caught sight of his mother: her face was blue and she was struggling for breath. His eye went from her to the King, guilt deeply etched on his sensual, cunning face.

  ‘Murderer. Twice, thrice murderer! Die thyself!’

  And he plunged his sword into the guilty King. At last the blood of the Kloakkgate fishmongers was mingled with that of the Oldenborgs. Hamlet sank to the floor. I knelt down beside him and began to press his stomach, trying to make him vomit up the deadly draught. He too was going blue, he too breathing with difficulty. All my efforts were in vain, but as I pressed and struggled I heard a commotion at the great hall door. I turned and looked. Coming under the great arch, flanked by a fearsome troop of men, was a superb armoured figure, six feet or more in height, proportionately broad, fair of beard and hair, steely of eye. He advanced at the head of his army. Fortinbras!

  He came towards us, his cold eye observing the scene. His demeanour seemed to say that he’d seen worse sights on the field of battle, but not many. He stopped beside Hamlet, looking down on him from his great height. The prince half-opened his eyes and spoke his dying word.

  ‘Dishy!’

  The breath left his body. The face of the invading prince was twisted with disgust.

  ‘How absolutely vile! I had heard the Danish court was a sink of iniquity, but this is beyond anything. The realm needs cleansing – needs a purging of the rottenness and foulness which has infected it to the heart. I shall use the gallows and the stake should they be necessary, but I shall bring back decency and godliness to this unhappy land. It will be my first priority as king.’

  My heart sank. I knew those tones, those absolutes. I’d heard them in my native land. Thus spoke the upright Ulsterman with a mission, and a sword to enforce it. Thus speak men who know that God is on their side, and all decent men too. It was the authentic voice of the Moral Majority.

  Flee it, I thought.

  Gone were all hopes of serving this or that Danish king. I had thought to bring international sophistication to the Danes’ conduct of foreign affairs, but serving in an administration formed by King Fortinbras would be a nightmare. As soon as it was safe to do so I stuffed my belongings into a backpack and scuttled down to the docks. As luck would have it I found a fishing vessel ready to depart for Aberdeen. I breathed a sigh of relief as we crossed the bar and headed for the North Sea.

  Thinking it over, the idea of Scotland appealed to me. The cussed old English Queen had, as near as dammit, named the King as her preferred successor. A fine, learned man, James VI, or so I’d heard. He had his drawbacks: a Danish queen and an anti-smoking obsession. But on the plus side he had two fine sons, a ready wit, and strong views on the divine rights of kings. He would need advice from some worldly-wise figure, someone with connections to the courts of Europe. Yes, there was no doubt about it: the Stuarts were the coming men. With my help they could become the foremost dynasty in Europe. I made a firm resolve to hitch my waggon to the rising star of the Stuarts!

  WHERE MONGRELS FEAR TO TREAD

  Svein slowed down the car as we approached Fredshavn, probably to think. Svein can’t drive fast and think at the same time, and he’d said to me as we set out: ‘Everything has got to be done just right, Loyd.’ That was no doubt why he’d put me straight on the back seat. He doesn’t mind me in the front seat if he forgets, but at other times he says it looks cutesy and odd, a dog on the front passenger seat. I can see through that sort of flannel. He’s afraid people will think he’s my chauffeur (which is pretty much what he is). But today, as we approached the high wrought-iron gates, I sat there unprotesting, so that everything was just right.

  Wrought-iron gates! you might think. I certainly did. Hardly a Norwegian touch. And that was only the start. Svein had to pull up in front of them, then get out and ring the bell on the right gatepost. Soon he was talking into thin air, then he jumped back i
nto the car as the gates began swinging open to allow our admittance into the estate called Fredshavn. As we moved forward towards the distant white house they closed silently behind us. We could be in Martha’s Vineyard or Zurich. ‘Great wealth walks silently,’ said the social philosopher dog Heidegger (fl. Trondheim 1920s). But he might have added that silently-walking money feels horribly creepy to those of us in the real world.

  The hedges surrounding the estate, and the little box ones in the garden, were trimmed to within an inch of their lives, apparently with nail scissors. The grass was the same. No leaf, no blade was allowed the liberty of sprouting further than its fellows. All sign of individuality or enterprise was suppressed: all marched along like a splendidly-honed crack regiment, one body, not a thousand men. It was all very depressing.

  ‘We’re mixing above our station,’ said Svein. ‘No leaving your calling-card here, old boy.’

  And the truth was, I wouldn’t have dared.

  We pulled up on a circular drive situated outside the front door. The door itself immediately opened, and a small man in something rather like a waiter’s gear slipped out.

  ‘If you could put your car over by the stables?’ he suggested insinuatingly, as if we had very nearly committed a serious faux pas. Svein nodded, drove over, then walked back to the house.

  ‘Keep it in, Loyd,’ he whispered.

  ‘If you’d come this way, Herr … er …’ said the small man, whose accent was south Norwegian, but whose inbuilt (or feigned) servility was all his own. In the hall he hesitated. ‘The dog …?’

  ‘Comes with me,’ said Svein, to his credit. ‘He’s part of the package.’