Ophelia

by Jackie French

  My clothes dried as sweet as washing on a line. Sitting on the branch in the dappled sunlight, I even began to feel warm. And hungry. I should have brought food. But what could I have packed in the stockings that the water would not have soaked? Cheese, I thought. I should have brought some cheese.

  I had no cheese. No water either. I should have drunk from the stream when I’d had the chance. Would the search party never go?

  The sun rolled down the sky and sat upon the trees. At last the searchers left, still muttering, my poor muddied clothes piled on the door they’d brought to carry away my body. More searchers would be here again tomorrow, I thought. But by then I would be gone.

  I waited till the birds began to sing again as the intruders left their forest. Then I clambered down, causing them to lapse into silence again, and slipped through the trees to the road. I waited then, just inside the edge of the forest. I did not trust that I could find my way through trees in darkness, but I could find my way along a road by moonlight.

  Time passed. Carts creaked along the road. Oxen bellowed in protest at their loads. Boys yelled and whipped at them with sticks.

  A countrywoman passed, singing a song as bawdy as the one I’d sung to pretend madness. I peered out at her. She was Father’s age, with grey hair under her cap. No burden — she must have sold her goods today. She carried nothing but the loaf of bread she chewed between her verses, and perhaps some coins tied in her petticoat. I envied her the bread and her contentment. Envied her the freedom to sing a song with bawdy verses. Envied her the home she would be going to, with a bright fire, a pot on the hearth set by her daughter or daughter-in-law. A prosperous cottage, for she was well-fleshed. Winter had not left her hungry. No doubt she had pigs in the sty. And a family waiting for her.

  I cried again, a little. For my father, for myself. Would I ever have a family now? If Laertes seized the throne, I would be coin for a royal alliance, like poor Hamlet. But if Laertes did not rebel? If Hamlet returned with an army? If …

  So many ifs. All I could do — like every other woman in the world, except those who were queens — was wait to see how the men disposed of the land, and us.

  At last the road grew quiet. Night settled like a soft dark quilt across the land. Stars flickered in the velvet deep. Doubt thou the stars are fire …

  I thrust the memory away.

  The moon rose: a goodly cheese, round and uncut. The stars faded in its light, as did the lamps’ glow from the farmhouse across the way. I waited while the moon rose higher still. The palace would be asleep now, except the guards on the towers. They would be watching for an army, for men on horseback, for a rabble armed with rakes and scythes, not for one young man who knew the palace’s walls and shadows. Where better to hide than in the place I knew like my own hand?

  I had no chance of getting through the gate unseen. But my brother had told me of a spot in the wall with footholds, where young men climbed over when they wanted a night of dalliance. I found the place without trouble; put my feet in the crumbled stone, my hands in the holes above. I wondered how many generations this wall had served. It would be of no use to an invading army — too easy to pick off soldier after soldier climbing slowly up. But it was perfect for dallying young men. And me.

  I half slid, half jumped down the wall on the other side. It was higher than I thought, and I fell, twisting my knee. It hurt, but I could still move. Must move, now, before I stiffened.

  I did not make for the main palace door, of course, nor even the kitchen entrance, but for a tiny door on the other side, which was opened only in high summer, when the court left for the country and the privies were cleaned. I moved quickly, a shadow among shadows, trying to look as much like a servant on lawful duty as I could.

  The door was unlocked. Why bolt a privy door? It was too narrow for an army to pass through it. Even my skirts would not have fitted.

  The stench made me gag, but I was soon past it. Along the corridor, up the servants’ staircase, past Lady Annika’s robing room, where her dresses hung by the privy hole to keep the moths away. I hoped her servants slept as soundly as she did.

  The old floors of the palace creaked. Rats gnawed at the wainscot. I must remind Lady Hilda to call the rat-catcher and his terriers, I thought automatically, then shrugged it away.

  My stomach rumbled. But I could not risk going down to the kitchens tonight. It had taken me too long to get here. I risked meeting an early servant stoking up the breakfast fires, who might ask questions. One day without food and drink wouldn’t kill me. Discovery might.

  Along another corridor, then I was unlocking the tiny tower door. I shut the door behind me, and shut away my old life with it. I turned the key in the lock, put it in my pocket, then climbed the stairs. My childhood stairs, dear familiar tower stairs. I was safe.

  I did not look around from the battlements tonight. Instead, I curled like a hedgehog on the second-highest of the steps, using the top one as a pillow. Hard stone, but away from the wind. At last I slept.

  The sun woke me. I stretched. I remembered cold; the brief night sucking the heat from the palace walls, and me. I remembered warmth as daylight spread a blanket over me. Now I was too hot in the narrow staircase.

  I rubbed my eyes, sat up. I didn’t stand, in case someone saw movement on the little tower and wondered who was up here.

  I needed a privy. I hadn’t thought of that. A privy tower but no privy! Well, I would have to wait till tonight for that too. The privy was only next to my tower door, but too much chance that a servant might slip down the corridor to use it during the day. The palace would be bustling by now.

  What was happening in the world outside?

  Worry about yourself, not the kingdom, I told myself. Yesterday I had wanted only to find safety. I was as safe here as anywhere in the kingdom, now I was dead. And yet the kingdom’s future was unravelling all around me. Denmark’s fate might be as dismal as my own. I had to at least try to find out what was happening.

  I couldn’t risk standing up on the tower in daylight, but I could peek between the battlements. I edged my way across the tower on my knees, glad of the breeches not skirts, and peered between the stones.

  Nothing. Or rather much, but nothing to sway a kingdom. No rabble calling for Laertes to be king today. No Hamlet marching upon the castle with an army. No rebellion. Just a guard relieving himself against a wall. My need for the privy grew.

  Beyond the walls of the royal garden, the usual carters headed home, their loads delivered to the palace. Far-off tiny figures threw grain to even smaller hens. I smelled baking bread and my stomach growled again.

  I crawled over to the other side of the battlements. I could see the road through the woods from here, the castle gate, even hear a porter making a joke to another. I could see the church and graveyard. There was my father’s grave, newly filled. The flowers we had carried behind his coffin had wilted against the dark soil. It was almost company, seeing him there. Almost.

  I glanced up at the main tower. Guards stood on sentry duty, as always. They probably couldn’t see me, but it was silly to risk staying up here. Best go back down.

  I crawled to the staircase, then climbed back down to the door. Few people used this little corridor, but just possibly, if I stayed with my ear to the door, I might overhear something that could tell me what was happening in the castle. A footman saying, ‘We must polish the king’s gauntlets — he is off to fight Laertes tomorrow.’ Or ‘Prince Hamlet’s army is approaching.’ I might even hear, ‘The king is hunting deer tomorrow,’ which would mean rebellion had been forgotten. Or perhaps two maids might stop to gossip …

  I halted near the bottom of the stairs, and stared. There, inside the shut door, was a flask; a plate piled with rye bread, white sheep’s cheese flecked with herbs, and pickled herring; a folded man’s cloak; and, wondrous as a shooting star, a chamberpot politely covered with a thick cloth.

  My first reaction was a wave of hunger and relief. My second: dange
r. That was a locked door! I checked my pocket. Yes, I still had the key.

  Cautious now, I tiptoed down the last steps and over to the door, in case anyone waited beyond it, and tried the handle. Locked, as I had left it. Yet there was the plate, the flask, that lovely chamberpot.

  I used it first, covered it with the cloth, then carried my meal up to the top of the stairs. I used the cloak as a cushion. I drank the small ale — it was good new ale; sweet, not sour — then slowly ate every speck of bread and cheese and herring, and licked my fingers till even the scent was gone.

  Fresh bread. Sheep’s cheese from three years ago, I thought, at its peak; its flavour matured but not crumbly with age. The herring had been lightly pickled with dill and juniper. Who could have brought it?

  Gerda, I thought. She must have followed me to the tower one night. Many nights, perhaps. Gerda was loyal to me. Perhaps she’d guessed I might come here. But how had she got a key? Most doors had more than one key, but even if Gerda knew where spare keys hung in the palace, she wouldn’t have known which one to take. Besides that, I suspected the guards would be keeping my servants confined to our house, in case they ran to join my brother.

  Could Queen Gertrude have arranged this? She was fond of me, I knew, fond almost as a mother. Nor, despite Hamlet’s ravings, could I think of her as guilty as he judged her. She had shown only bewilderment when the king had raged off during the play. The queen was skilled at hiding her feelings, like everyone at court, but I did not think she could pretend as well as that.

  Had someone seen me come in here last night and reported it to the queen? I thought back. I was sure I had not been seen. And why should Queen Gertrude help me now, when she had ignored me in my sorrow after Father’s death?

  Yet someone who knew my habits must have guessed I might be here. Someone who had a key, had opened the door, crept up the stairs and seen me as I slept. Horror crawled along my arms and legs. They could have killed me. Fool, to think I was safe here.

  No, I was safe. There had been no knife stabbing me in the darkness, just a gift of food and drink, a cloak and a chamberpot.

  Was it the ghost of old King Fortinbras? I smiled at myself. King Fortinbras wouldn’t think of a chamberpot either, even if a ghost could spirit up bread and cheese and herring. No, a real friend, of bones and blood.

  That chamberpot told me much about my secret friend. A jailer might think of food and water. Laertes, if he were here, if he had heard somehow from our servants where I might be found, might have ordered someone to bring me cheese and ale. Horatio might have too. But not a chamberpot, with a cloth to stop it stinking. Men never thought of such things. My friend must be a woman.

  I had a friend. I hugged the thought to me, warmer than the cloak on which I sat. Perhaps I should not venture out to find more food and drink tonight, but let my friend help me.

  Time enough to think of that. I took the plate back to the door, then climbed the stairs again. And slept.

  Chapter 22

  It was late when I woke. Now, so close to midsummer, the sun lingered long after honest folk had eaten their suppers. I peered cautiously between the stones of the battlements. There was no one to be seen, except a porter sweeping the day’s horse, goat and sheep droppings from the castle courtyard, and an ancient beggar picking her way around the market square, hoping for a dropped bun or turnip or a farthing lost among the cabbage leaves. I crept back into the stairwell, then stopped.

  A noise, below. A rat? No, the clinking of a key.

  I hesitated only a moment. If it was my unknown friend, I had nothing to fear. If not, I would pretend to be a lad coming down from admiring the view from the tower. ‘Key?’ I’d say. ‘What key?’ And then I’d run.

  I rounded the last corner of the staircase as the door shut. The key scraped in the lock. I fumbled for my own key, tied in a corner of my shirt. I slid it in, trying to hear any movement outside. Footsteps, the swish of cloth …

  At last I got the door open. I peered out, just as a skirt vanished around a corner into another corridor.

  I stepped back quickly and locked the door again. It was a woman; I had been right. The corridor had been too dim to see the skirt clearly. It could have been silk or wool; queen or washerwoman.

  I looked at what she had brought me. A closed pot of what smelled like fish soup. More bread, a hunk of aged Summer Mountain cheese, a small bowl of strawberries. Strawberries! Not a washerwoman then. Nor Gerda. No one in our house could have gone berrying in the forest, and to buy berries like these would have cost a silver piece.

  The chamberpot sat where I had left it. I lifted up the cloth. Empty. For a second I thought it was enchanted. A ghost had spirited away the mess I’d left there. Then sense took over. This must be another pot, the other taken away. One chamberpot looked like any other. Even the queen’s was plain white china.

  Her Majesty would not carry a chamberpot. But she had trusted maids who might. The queen need not even tell the maid why she must go to the small cupboard in the dusty corridor and leave food and a chamberpot. Queens were obeyed, not questioned, even if their excuse was thin. Who else could have brought me strawberries? Maybe she had not called me to her after my father’s death because she thought being in the chamber where my father had been murdered would hurt me.

  It had been my father, I realised, who had warned me that Hamlet might have to make a diplomatic marriage, not Queen Gertrude. She might have thought — with reason — that this stranger son, so long a foreigner to his people, might do best with a bride from a family the people knew and trusted. She might have truly wanted me to be her daughter. Perhaps she hoped it still.

  I slept the next night out on the battlements, wrapped in the cloak; it was all I needed in the summer warmth. Its cloth was dark enough to hide me. Whoever had left it for me had thought of that too.

  I hoped rather than expected more food to be at the bottom of the staircase when I woke. It was. Bread and cheese — sheep’s milk again. Did whoever left it know I didn’t like goat’s milk cheese? And more fresh-made ale, with a small pot of stewed cherries. And this time, a ewer of water and a washcloth.

  Two women brought all this, I thought, not one; unless she made two trips.

  I realised something else too. My provisions came only when I was safely up above. Someone watched my tower.

  Whoever my friend was, she didn’t want me to know her identity. How easy to call up to me: ‘Lady Ophelia! Your food is here.’ Or even, if she had been given orders and did not know my name: ‘Kind sir, do not let the ale go cold.’ But she came in secret. Knew my secret too. I had never told anyone that I came here, not since I had told my nurse about King Fortinbras, so many years ago. I had told no one I intended to hide. How could they know?

  I shivered. Only ghosts could know I was here. The ghost of Hamlet’s father, who must truly walk these battlements. Old Fortinbras’s ghost. Did the two old enemies meet each other now, on top of the castle?

  But ghosts did not carry chamberpots, nor rye bread. Nor could they hurt the living, except by poisoning their minds.

  Poor Hamlet, pushed and harried by his father’s ghost. Doubt that the sun doth move; doubt truth to be a liar; but never doubt I love.

  I clenched my fists with sudden resolution. I could do one thing, at least, hidden up here. I could summon the old king’s ghost tonight.

  That, at least, I owed to Hamlet.

  The midsummer sky was grey above me, just dark enough for pale stars to struggle through. I sat against the stones and hugged my cloak around me. I could just make out the watch on the main tower, their dark armoured silhouettes against the sky. An owl hooted in the forest nearby. Some poor creature shrilled its death; another owl’s meal. I tried to count the stars to pass the time, but gave up as clouds drifted past them like Lady Annika’s lace shawl. Surely it was gone midnight.

  ‘King Hamlet!’ My voice was low, but loud enough to call a ghost.

  No answer.

  I tried aga
in. ‘King Hamlet! It is I, your son’s friend, who calls you.’

  The battlements showed a distinct absence of ghostly king.

  ‘King Hamlet!’

  No answer. Perhaps summer’s darkness was too thin for a ghost to appear. Did ghosts get bored in summer, with so few black hours when they could haunt?

  I called again, and again. I called till the moon hid behind a shawl of cloud. My eyes began to close … The clouds thickened into shape. A man peered at me. No, not a man — a ghost. He wore the same crown that now King Claudius wore, with the gold doublet and hose I had seen the old king wear, though both were grey now. Even their embroidery was grey. The black and white beard was grey too. His grey eyes that had once been blue stared at my face.

  I scrambled to my feet. I tried to curtsey, then found I had no skirts to hold. I made a clumsy bow instead. ‘Your Majesty.’

  He floated further off and still said nothing. Even as I watched, he began to fade. Would he speak only to his son?

  ‘Your Majesty,’ I said urgently, ‘I am Ophelia, your son’s affianced wife.’

  Was I? I wasn’t sure. Officially I was dead, and Hamlet exiled. There had been no bridal contracts planned. But the ghost heard enough truth in my voice to float closer.

  I should be scared, I thought. I had always been nervous around the old king, a man who threw his baked carp at a servant because the sauce was too sweet, then had the man hung by his thumbs for three days. Sometimes I still dreamed of his screams. A man who watched his hounds rip open a deer’s throat; while the deer’s blood flowed, at least the rest of us were safe. But even a mortal girl is stronger than a ghostly king.

  ‘Remember me!’ The ghostly voice was hoarse, but still that of the king I’d known.

  ‘I remember you,’ I said.

  The grey crowned head loomed above me. ‘I am thy Hamlet’s father’s spirit, doomed for a certain term to walk the night, confined all day to waste in fires, till the foul crimes I have done are burned and purged away.’