Ophelia

by Jackie French

  Dedication

  To Gillian Pauli, who gave us a Hamlet who breathed, sulked, and was also open to endless interpretations

  Epigraph

  With murder, ghosts, love, plots … and quite a lot of cheese. And with apologies to Denmark and its history.

  Contents

  Cover

  Title Page

  Dedication

  Epigraph

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Chapter 13

  Chapter 14

  Chapter 15

  Chapter 16

  Chapter 17

  Chapter 18

  Chapter 19

  Chapter 20

  Chapter 21

  Chapter 22

  Chapter 23

  Chapter 24

  Chapter 25

  Chapter 26

  Chapter 27

  Author’s Notes

  About the Author

  Titles by Jackie French

  Copyright

  Chapter 1

  ‘You would be a good queen,’ said the king’s ghost, hovering above me as I sat on the battlements of the castle’s tiny privy tower, nibbling my Wette Willie cheese. The tower’s winding staircase was too narrow for watchmen in armour to climb up it, but ghosts and little girls don’t take up much room. The wind tickled under my nightdress. It smelled of ships and privy and stubborn snow sitting on the mountains.

  The king was grey mist, his beard and crown no thicker than a wisp of cloud. Beyond him, the farms and harbour’s waves and forest were black under the blaze of stars. Down in the castle courtyard, torchlit shadows flickered. I wasn’t scared of falling. At six years old, you don’t worry about crashing down onto the cobblestones. I wasn’t scared of ghosts either, though Nurse said they were fearsome visitors from the grave. But how could a ghost hurt me if it was just a mist?

  And ghosts could fly! It must be fun to be dead, I thought. I’d tried to fly once, piling up the banqueting benches at our house and leaping off. But I just tore my skirt, and got a scolding from Nurse. She’d scold me now if she knew I’d crept out of bed, and through the door that led from our house to the castle, and up to the tower. And was talking to a ghost.

  ‘What’s it like being a queen?’ I asked. I took another bite of cheese. Even at six years old I knew you only got Wette Willie for three weeks in early spring, when the lambs were frolicking and the ewes’ udders were full of milk; weeks before the first cow’s milk cheese was ready. In two weeks’ time, the Wette Willie season would be finished for another year.

  The ghost smiled. He had a nice smile. ‘I was a king, not a queen.’

  ‘But you had a queen,’ I insisted.

  ‘She died. When my son was born.’

  ‘My mother died too.’ I took another bite of the Wette Willie, then offered the remaining lump to him.

  He shook his head. ‘Ghosts cannot eat, child.’

  ‘Not even cheese?’

  ‘Not even cheese.’

  I considered the matter. I was fond of cheese. I’d rather eat cheese than fly, I decided. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to die. Or not yet.

  ‘Is my mother a ghost too?’ It hadn’t occurred to me before that I might ever meet her.

  The ghost smiled at me sadly. I could see the stars dimly through his face. ‘If she is, I have not met her. Most people do not become ghosts. Only those who must walk the earth to avenge a wrong that was done to them become ghosts.’

  ‘What wrong was done to you?’

  The ghost stared out at the darkness that was Denmark. ‘A man I thought was my friend got me drunk and tricked me into betting my kingdom on a sword fight. He won; I died. Now he rules my kingdom, and I must roam the world till I am avenged.’

  ‘Oh.’ That sounded like politics. My father talked politics. And talked. And talked. ‘What does a queen do?’

  ‘Sometimes she does nothing except let her ladies dress her, sew tapestries, and walk in her garden.’

  That sounded as boring as what I was expected to do now. I wrinkled my nose.

  ‘Or,’ said the ghost, ‘a queen can help her husband rule.’ He gazed at me intently now, as if he wanted me to soak up every word. ‘A queen can have power, if she has the courage to take it. If my queen had been alive, perhaps she would have stopped the fight. Perhaps, after my death, she would have led our army to fight the usurper who took my throne.’ The ghost lifted off his crown and touched it gently, like it was a kitten and he a mother cat. ‘Perhaps,’ he said softly, ‘she might even have won.’

  I liked the idea of leading an army. On a white horse of my own, and dressed in gleaming armour, like my brother Laertes wore sometimes when he practised sword fighting. Girls weren’t allowed to use swords … unless, I realised, they were a queen. A queen could fight with a sword. Perhaps a queen could eat all the cheese she wanted, even before bedtime.

  ‘Can queens do anything they want?’

  ‘If they have courage and determination.’ The ghost smiled at me again. ‘Beauty helps too. People admire those who are beautiful.’

  I nodded. I knew I was beautiful. Hair like wheat in the sunlight, my father said. Cheeks like a lily, declared Nurse. I knew I was courageous and determined too, but the ghost was the first person I’d met who seemed to think they were good qualities for a girl. Or for a queen.

  ‘I’ll be a queen when I grow up,’ I decided. ‘I’ll fight a king and win a kingdom. I’ll have to borrow Laertes’s sword,’ I added, ‘and practise.’

  The ghost looked amused. ‘I am not sure you will find another king willing to bet his kingdom. Girls become queens by marrying a king, or a prince who will be king when his father dies. Or if their own father is a king who has no sons.’

  My father was only lord chancellor, not a king. I must find a king to marry, or a prince. The only one I could think of was our Prince Hamlet. I didn’t like him much. He had said I mustn’t when he caught me climbing the apple tree. He was old, nearly fourteen, and was away now with his tutor in Wittenberg.

  I’d have to find another prince. One who liked climbing trees. And cheese.

  ‘Is your son a prince?’ I asked hopefully.

  ‘He is. But he has no kingdom to inherit. Not now.’

  ‘Maybe he will fight our king and get your kingdom back?’ Then I could marry him, I thought. And be the kind of queen who carries a sword and eats all the cheese she wants to.

  The ghost looked at me seriously. He was the first person who had ever looked at me seriously, though of course he was a ghost and not a person, so maybe that didn’t count. ‘Perhaps my son may try to take this kingdom back. But I will not ask him to, not even to bring me to the gentle rest of death.’

  ‘Why not?’

  ‘Revenge is a dish that sits bitter in the stomach, even if the first taste is sweet.’

  That sounded like Runny Roger: a winter cheese that was soaked in fermented whey, then wrapped in chestnut leaves. Runny Roger tasted good but gave you a tummy ache if you ate too much.

  ‘Does that mean you will be a ghost forever?’ I asked. There were no other girls my age at court, and it would be good to have the ghost to talk to. He was interesting.

  ‘To be, or not to be? That is the question.’ The ghost peered into the darkness again, as if he could see the beech trees, the cattle byres and pigsties of his lost kingdom. Perhaps he could. ‘I do not know, child. Justice has a way of slipping into the world, like the sun creeping up into the dawn. One day, perhaps, my grandchildren will sit on Denmark’s thr
one. But I will give my son his own road to ride, not chain him to my path with bonds of revenge.’

  Rat droppings, I thought, borrowing Nurse’s favourite curse. I would need to find another prince to marry. I suspected there weren’t a lot of them around. I swallowed the last of my Wette Willie regretfully. I’d hidden the hunk of cheese at breakfast time. Nurse didn’t let me eat cheese at supper; she said it would give me bad dreams. A silly idea, I thought, sitting comfortably on the battlements with my ghost.

  ‘Ophelia? Lady Ophelia? Drat the child. Ophelia!’

  It was Nurse; she had tracked me down. A servant must have seen me come into the palace. Servants saw everything. I needed to get down the tower stairs before Nurse found me. The tower was my secret, even if my visits to the palace were not.

  I slid off the battlements reluctantly. ‘I have to go … Your Majesty,’ I added, remembering my lessons and sketching a curtsey.

  I was still trying to think of a prince to marry. I wanted to ask the ghost if he knew of any, and how to make them want to marry me. And how to lead an army, and other things a queen might need to know.

  ‘Ophelia!’ I could hear Nurse opening and shutting doors below.

  Tomorrow night, I thought.

  ‘Goodnight, fair child,’ said the ghost king. He smiled at me again, another sad smile, a strange look of hope upon his foggy face.

  ‘Goodnight, King Fortinbras,’ I said.

  I would eat ten seasons of Wette Willies before I saw a dead king again.

  Chapter 2

  I stared at King Hamlet’s body lying on the bed. His eyes were as glassy as those of the stuffed bear and wolf heads that gazed down at him from the walls. His face was blue, like polished wax. The servants had found his body lying in the garden, in the brief midday sunlight. They had carried him in here, but no warm bed or posset could help King Hamlet now.

  Outside, the midwinter wind howled. Night had suffocated the brief candles of day. Ice-splintered waves slapped and sucked at the castle’s stones. I envied the waves, free to crash and foam, while I was imprisoned in long skirts and polite manners as one of the queen’s ladies, in a room that smelled of too many people, and a strange scent that must be death.

  The queen stood next to me, her face expressionless as ice. With us were her other ladies: Lady Annika, crumbly as an old blue-vein cheese; Lady Anna, her grey moustache thicker than the hair on her head; and Lady Hilda, round as a barrel of butter. They had been with the queen for most of her life.

  The lords of the court stood behind us, silent in their furs and satin.

  My father felt the king’s wrist, then bent down solemnly to check he didn’t breathe. ‘The king is dead,’ he proclaimed.

  Of course he’s dead, I thought, no one can be that colour and alive. But it was the proper thing to say. The sky could turn to goat’s cheese and my father would still make sure his stockings were unwrinkled and the kingdom’s accounts were neatly balanced in their ledgers.

  The queen gave a small cry. Was it grief? I didn’t think so. Surprise? But she must have known her husband was dead as soon as she saw him. She kneeled by the bed and kissed her dead king’s cheek, then hid her face among the furs.

  Lord Claudius, the dead king’s older brother, put a comforting hand on her shoulder. Queen Gertrude took his hand in hers. He helped her up.

  No one may touch a queen unasked, yet this man had, and the queen hadn’t protested. I glanced at her, taking care not to stare. There were no tears in her eyes, nor on her face. Did anyone in this room weep for the dead king?

  Father reached into his purse for two gold coins, then pressed the dead eyes shut, placing a coin on each to keep them closed. I waited for him to add, ‘Long live the king.’ That was proper too.

  I had learned much about kings and kingdoms in the last ten years, through my reading in the palace library, and listening to Father talk at breakfast. Father should say, ‘Long live King Hamlet,’ and all the court must repeat the words. Prince Hamlet, son of Hamlet, must come home from Wittenberg at last and take his place upon the throne.

  Instead, Father glanced at the queen, then at Lord Claudius. I waited for Lord Claudius to say, ‘Long live King Hamlet!’, for anyone at all to say the words.

  The room was quiet as the dead king’s breath.

  Lord Claudius nodded to us, the queen’s ladies. ‘Take Her Majesty to her chamber.’

  Still no one spoke. One of the minor lords coughed nervously.

  Something was happening here that I didn’t understand. The air felt as sharp as swords. Yet no man carried a sword here, in the king’s chamber.

  Queen Gertrude held her hands out to me. Soft hands, with sapphire rings and brown age spots; hands that had never done more work than hold a spoon or a needle. Yet this woman had the power to challenge my father about new taxes, and even sometimes to coax a kind ruling from the king.

  ‘Lady Ophelia will come with me,’ she murmured to Lady Annika, Lady Anna and Lady Hilda. ‘Just you, my child.’

  The others stood back to let me approach the queen, their skirts swishing silk against the bearskin rugs.

  ‘Your Majesty.’ I felt a thrill that she had chosen me, the youngest of her ladies. Her soft hands shook as I took them.

  ‘Help me,’ whispered the queen.

  I put my arm around her shoulders, but as soon as I touched her, I knew she did not truly need my support. Her request was a message for the court. Queen Gertrude was saying as clearly as if she had shouted it from the battlements: ‘This girl touches me as a daughter.’

  The only way I could be her daughter was to marry her son. Who better to marry the new king, a stranger to the court, than the daughter of the lord chancellor?

  My skin tingled. Next year, when the mourning period was over, I would be queen. I could have danced around the bedroom with one of the stuffed bears the old king had killed. My cramped, confined life as dutiful daughter and lady-in-waiting was almost over.

  I had dreamed of the ghost’s words ever since I had met him in the tower all those years ago. I would be a good queen. Other women were wives, nurses, tavern wenches, nuns, all obeying orders. A queen must know how a kingdom worked; she must understand the importance of fine weather in midsummer to make the hay to feed the cows over winter so they could give milk for cheese in spring.

  My father knew how to tax the fleet that brought herring and stockfish, but Queen Gertrude knew why too high a tax on dried stockfish led to starvation. She knew when to give out soup to the poor in a hard winter; how to ignore her husband’s dalliances and cruelties; and how to persuade him — sometimes — with sweet whispers to put the good of the country before his games of hunting and bear-baiting. Queen Gertrude was the most interesting woman I knew.

  I even almost loved her.

  The best way to marry a prince, I had learned, was for his parents to approve of you. And to be rich and well-connected. I was all of these. And beautiful. King Fortinbras was right about that: kings and princes like beauty. And the continued support of the lord chancellor, the man with the largest estates and the most powerful private army in Denmark.

  Of course the new king would need to agree with his mother’s choice. But I could persuade Father to wear double stockings so his knees didn’t ache in winter. I had coaxed old King Hamlet into sparing the young thief who had raided the palace larders midwinter; had made the old king laugh instead of having the boy whipped to bone and blood to amuse him. If I set my mind to it, I could set the wind to singing lullabies. I could even make Prince Hamlet climb an apple tree.

  No, he was King Hamlet now. Young King Hamlet. I would make sure young King Hamlet was a better king than his father. Queen Gertrude had been a good queen. But I would be a better one.

  Still there was no cry of ‘Long live the king!’ Were they waiting till the queen had left the room, out of respect for her new widowhood? I wanted to ask Father what was happening, but a daughter can only ask questions in the privacy of her father’s ho
use. And a lady-in-waiting waits.

  I led the queen out of the stuffy room and the strange silence. She didn’t speak, or even make a sound, as we trod down the cold stone corridor, ignoring the bows and curtseys of servants carefully hiding their curiosity. The old walls breathed out the scent of torch soot and damp.

  We entered her chamber. The fire burned bright here, the wax candles smokeless.

  ‘Bring warm wine and hot cheese with bread sopped in it,’ I ordered.

  The maid curtseyed and ran out, leaving us alone. I helped the queen onto the bed, slid her slippers off, then took her hand again. It felt cold, despite the fire, as limp as the hand of the dead king.

  ‘I am so sorry, madam. I know you loved him.’

  The queen hadn’t loved him. She knew I knew it too. But a lady-in-waiting learns the polite words to say.

  ‘I loved him not,’ she whispered.

  I met her eyes. Is that another reason I am here, I thought, and not your other ladies? Because I’m not shocked that you would say the words aloud?

  Had anyone loved the old king? His mother maybe, once. Perhaps his son. But if Prince Hamlet loved the king, it was as a dream father. He hadn’t seen the king in ten years. Nor had we seen Prince Hamlet. His home was among his friends and teachers and books far away down south in Wittenberg, not here in our cold stone castle, with icy waves, our forest and our cheese.

  I thought of the king’s corpse, lying between the satin draperies of his bed. He hadn’t been a bad king, just a careless one. Old King Hamlet had loved his throne — so cunningly won from King Fortinbras — more than his people, or his wife. But he had left the kingdom alone enough to allow my father to keep it prosperous: the barns stocked with hay to feed the cows through winter; the cellars stocked with dried fish and sausages, butter and cheese. He had not objected — or perhaps not noticed — when my father consulted the queen, informally, as she sat with us sewing, about taxes or a new fishing fleet.

  Suddenly the queen covered her face with her hands. She began to sob, deep dry cries that shook her body. She isn’t weeping for the king’s dead body, I thought. She is crying for all the years she had to spend with him alive.