by P. N. Elrod
Those inhabitants of Elsinore I passed to reach my brother’s apartments continued their normal business with the peace of ignorance. Apparently Polonius spoke the truth about seeing me first, and word had not yet spread. Only when I descended several flights and entered the arched hall leading to Hamlet’s private orchard did I perceive signs of trouble. Six guardsmen stood clustered before the orchard door. As a man, they had their swords ready in hand, tardily prepared to defend their royal master, but against what? Death? When his bony hand falls upon your shoulder, what mortal army can turn his purpose?
“Let me pass,” I said.
The tallest, Francisco, planted himself in my way. “I beg forgiveness, Lord Claudius, but Lord Polonius ordered that we arm and keep all from the enclosure until his return.”
My flare of anger was reflected in their frightened faces. “Even the king’s brother?”
“Even so, lord.” He looked to be highly unhappy with his lot. “I will send a man to fetch him here, though.”
I could have bullied my way in, but chose to hold back. If it was true, if my dear brother was dead, then it would be best to follow the forms of custom and wait. “Do that. And quickly. He was last in my chambers.”
Francisco nodded shortly to the youngest in his charge, who sheathed his weapon and hurried off.
“Do you know aught of what has happened?” I asked.
“Only that at the telling of the last hour Lord Polonius went to rouse his majesty from his sleep as usual. I was on watch. His lordship came out, seeming most stricken. He told me to bring more men, and when I did he then instructed us to stand firm and let none inside.”
That made sense. The unexpected death of a much-loved king was bad enough, but letting the news fly forth without consideration for its effect on the common people could cause disorder. Polonius was well aware of the impending threat from Norway; the last thing Denmark needed was to be thrown into chaos and thus be seen as vulnerable by the rapacious Fortinbras.
“You did well,” I said. “We’ll wait for the lord chamberlain’s return.”
“Lord? Do you know what is wrong?” Behind him, his men cast uneasy glances at the closed door to the orchard, ominous in shadows. They would be guessing the worst, of course. In light of Polonius’s odd actions and orders, of me here at this time of day, of the king not showing himself, they would guess rightly. If the worst were true, then this would have to be handled with great care.
“Be at peace, all will be revealed soon.”
That did little to bolster them, quite the opposite. I curbed my impatience as best I could until Polonius arrived, short-winded and troubled. He must have known his orders would have gone ill with me, but I put a reassuring hand on his arm to let him know I was not offended. He had done the right thing.
“Stand down,” he puffed at Francisco, “and let Lord Claudius pass.”
One of them thrust open the door and the yellow light of late afternoon flooded the dim hall. I blinked against the glare and stepped into it, looking around. There was a strong scent of apple blossoms on the sea-washed air. This was my brother’s sanctuary from the cares of his crown. Few were allowed here: myself, his queen, their son, Polonius, and a gardener whose only job was to tend this great garden. He worked alone and was always gone when Hamlet desired its peace. Ever busy with other concerns, I’d not been here in decades, not since Hamlet and I played within its high walls as children and certainly not since he was crowned king all those years past.
I recalled childhood memories of this place, but they were of no use now. Whatever paths we played on then were changed. Trees had grown, died, been uprooted, and replaced with other growth. This space covered no more than an acre, but the plantings were high and dense, and one could easily become lost.
Polonius was at my side. “This way, lord.”
“Have you sent for a priest? For a physician?”
“Both, lord. They will be here anon.”
He took me on a twisting path that seemed to lead toward the center. It was a cunning design, giving the illusion of a goodly walk, and within a turn or two it felt like we were in a shady orchard miles away. The branches above laced together in some spots concealing even the looming bulk of Elsinore castle.
I recognized a landmark. Ahead, overlooked by an old apple tree, was a vast stone bench. It was part of the very base of the massive sea cliff that Elsinore rested upon. The thrust of stone was larger than two beds pushed together and much longer. A master hand had, in ancient times, carved it with fantastical shapes and patterns on the sides. The top was smoothed to within a foot of the ground, and polished. It had served as throne, fort, feasting table, ship, riding steed, and other imaginings in our childhood play until we outgrew it. Now it was covered with thick robes to lend ease to the hard stone and there would my brother find respite from his cares.
And there he lay in his last rest.
I’d seen battle, and knew death’s countenance. At a dozen paces I recognized the stillness peculiar to its presence. That it had come for my brother was true after all, and I was no longer master of my progress. Halting, I leaned on Polonius as the certainty swept over me. With no mind to the words, a prayer fled from my lips, and I crossed myself.
“This is trouble enough, but a harsher, more evil woe awaits,” he told me.
“What mean you?”
For once Polonius was unable to summon words for explanation and again would only shake his head. My curiosity became stronger than my anguish. Hanging on each other like two old women, we slowly approached my brother’s final couch of rest, my heart filled with dread.
The cushioning robes were in disarray, tossed about as though Hamlet had fought desperately against a relentless foe. His arms were flung wide over his head, hands turned into grasping claws, his whole body twisted and frozen in a posture of extreme agony. As we came closer, more details revealed themselves to the eye, but the mind denies such awfulness as being too impossible to exist, and so we stare and stare and stare into overwhelming horror.
My poor brother’s skin was crusted and splotched with some loathsome excretion, as though he sweated the puss of vile infection through each and every pore. Crusted also was his very blood, which had burst from his eyes, nose, and gaping mouth. A stench like that of a man dead for a week, not mere hours, rose from him to merge with the sweetness of the apple flowers. Flies buzzed in legions around him.
Grabbing up one corner of a robe, I drew it over his bloated face. Had he not been in garb familiar to me I should never have recognized him.
I had seen men die from paroxysmal fits when their hearts stop, and I’d seen what the ravages of contagion could do to a body, but this. . .a bitterly cold hand closed hard around my spirit. What had taken my brother away was neither fit nor sickness.
The fear I’d felt before was a pale thing compared to what seized me now, for now I was round full with terror.
And I dared not show it.
“Lord Claudius?”
I looked at Polonius. . .and wondered. Could he. . . ?
Thus did he return my look. I saw my own thoughts running panicked behind his blue eyes.
“You remember?” I asked.
He nodded, his lips thin with the effort to compress them together, lest he speak anything aloud.
“And think you it was I who did this?”
“I think nothing, your lordship,” he said most carefully.
I was too stunned to be angered. “I understand your suspicion, but. . .see me, good friend.”
“Lord Claudius, I—”
“See me!”
He looked from me to Hamlet’s shrouded form and back. Polonius seemed balanced on the very edge of a cliff.
I had to pull him from it. “Recall you the service of my whole life as I recall yours. You above all others know my heart and the honest love I bear my brother—a match to your own, is it not?”
He teetered for a long moment, then cast his gaze downward. “I am most desper
ately shamed, lord. ’Tis a wicked devil who placed doubt in my mind.”
“And mine, too.”
I took up his trembling hand, seeing truth and trust restored in his withered features and with each fresh tear that started from his eyes. “So, despite our knowledge of such dark matters we are guiltless of this deed. That leaves us to find who is responsible. Who and how.”
“And why,” he added, wiping his cheek with his sleeve.
“Then avenge ourselves and Denmark for this treason.”
The physician and the priest, one for Hamlet’s body, the other for his soul, both arriving far too late, came up the path. I withdrew as they each tended to their spheres of influence, notwithstanding their appalled reactions to the condition of the king’s body.
While the priest continued with prayers, the physician approached us and bowed. He seemed shaken, but who would not be?
“Your lordship,” he said to me. “If it please you, I am most heartily sorry that—”
“What caused my royal brother’s death, sir?” I said abruptly. “Speak plainly and quick.”
“Sir, I believe it was poison that left him in so lamentable a state.”
My heart fell. If word got out that the majesty of Denmark had been murdered. . .
“What poison?” asked Polonius, assuming an air of reservation.
“Most likely from an adder slipped over the wall.”
What? My surprise was genuine. Was the man a fool? But perhaps his experience was insufficient to the task. He was very young, having taken over most of the duties of his father, who had taught him his skills. Not well enough, it appeared.
Polonius and I exchanged a look. A shared memory was the cause of our moment of shared distrust. We both knew no serpent’s sting would bring about such a putrid sweating as to leave a body bloated and stinking in the space of a few hours. Only a powerful poison could do that—one crafted and distilled by an expert hand.
Twenty years and more ago, as a young courtier dispatched to Italy, it had been my lot to learn of a death by identical means of dispatch. A cuckolded gentleman, unable to give challenge because of his advanced years, chose to kill his wife’s lover by poison. The artificial infection (it was found) was poured into the unfortunate’s ear as he slept and shortly he succumbed to convulsions, the sweat, and the bleeding, passing in terrible pain from this life to the next. The husband was judged to be within his rights and acquitted, and his wife took herself away to a nunnery, which, considering the nature of her marriage, was a much safer place to be than home.
I’d brought the tale back to Denmark, telling it to Polonius, among others, but only he knew the particular signs of that concoction, which was called juice of hebenon, though it was made of many other things as well. Some might know the name, but not its nature or how to make it. And like myself, my old friend could not tell a henbane plant from rosemary.
Yet still we stared at one another, for he had memory of the story the same as I. But by that we each knew the other would have instantly known, therefore, neither could have done it. Only someone else. . .
“An adder?” Polonius questioned sharply. “Are you sure? What sort?”
“There are many,” said the doctor. “I know of none whose bite would ordinarily cause such a reaction. However, just as one man may suffer the sting of a bee and move on while another falls and dies from it, I believe his majesty may have had the same susceptibility as the latter wretch. If he was overly sensitive to the venom, then would he quickly succumb with great violence to it. Perhaps, bitten while he slept, he awoke too late to call for help and thus passed from life.”
Polonius nodded and looked to me. The explanation was reasonable, and though we knew it the wrong one, we had no choice but to make it serve for the moment.
“Then the orchard must be searched from top to bottom,” I said. “If such a serpent is loose here, none are safe. Perhaps it pleased God to take our king from us in such a hasty and terrible manner, but I am not pleased and would have the instrument of His use destroyed.”
“Presently, your lordship,” said Polonius. “That shall be seen to presently, but there are other necessities pressing. We must organize. The other lords must be informed, and dear God, but the poor queen must be told.”
This would destroy her, I thought. Gentle Gertrude hung on my brother’s every word as though her life came from him and not Heaven. “I will do that. And it must be done softly. She cannot see her husband while he is in so abhorrent a state. Her ladies should be at hand, and you as well, doctor. You will also be needed to see to the cleansing of my poor brother’s body and to stop rumors of plague or pox so none may take alarm. See to it.”
“I am at your service, my lord.”
Polonius threw him a sharp look at the error. I was not king, and therefore not his or anyone else’s lord, but the old man couldn’t say so to him while I was in hearing.
I shook my head at Polonius, so he saw it was of small matter to me, which it was; we had larger matters to discuss.
But not now. I could hold my grief back no longer. I turned quickly from them and walked a few paces into the trees to escape their sight, and there gave in to it. They would doubtless hear my sobs, but allow me the necessary privacy for as long as it took until the first wave subsided. It was my lot to set things in motion. In the days to come my public duties would intrude upon my private mourning. But for this hour I ached bitterly at this unexpected sundering from my onetime playmate, lifelong friend, and finally king. My beloved brother was dead, and I felt his loss like a mortal wounding from a dull blade.
* * *
When my parents died, it had fallen to others to see to the forms and processions of grief. I was able to mourn for as long and as deeply as my soul needed. Now the heavy responsibilities were on me, and I had few friends to help with the burdens. But that dear old man, Polonius, proved to be my greatest ally, advisor, and most trusted support through the worst of it.
My position in Denmark’s court had never been an enthusiastic one, for there were many lords who vied to be my late brother’s favorite and thus was I mistakenly perceived as an interloper ready to subvert their ambitions. They were fools to think their links to him could prove stronger than my own constant link of blood. Certainly Hamlet found grim amusement in their antics. However, their ever-shifting games of vanity and power were nothing to me; I did not play. It was far better to watch than participate in such politic comedies.
There was also a most important detail that these strivers continually overlooked: I had no desire to increase my power nor possessed designs on the throne. That sovereign seat was destined to go to my nephew, young Hamlet, and he was welcome to it. In the course of years, if I was spared, I fully expected to serve the Danish cause as his loyal ambassador in his turn.
But his father’s sudden death at this, the worst possible time, usurped his anticipated succession. Within a week Fortinbras—who was clearly preparing to take back the lands his father lost to us—would hear of King Hamlet’s passing; within a week after that the young firebrand’s armies would be ravaging those border lands he wished to reclaim, shattering our long peace and prosperity beyond mending for years to come.
Fortinbras would not—with his aspirations to glory—stop at the disputed borders, though, but continue from Elsinore to Esbjerg, taking everything between in bloody conquest. The Danish nobles would defend each their several lands, but not unite to effectively defend Denmark as a whole unless they had a king to lead them. Separately they would fall, only together could we triumph.
But Prince Hamlet was in Wittenberg, a full month’s journey away for the fastest messenger. He couldn’t hope to return in less than two months, and by then he would have no kingdom to return to; it would be too late.
Polonius and I discussed this thoroughly and with much pain and care as well as consideration for young Hamlet’s position. Had we some way to acquaint him with the crisis, he would have approved the necessity of instant ac
tion to preserve the state. Above all, Denmark must have a sound king, but particularly now.
The solution, Polonius said, was for me to assume the crown and do so without delay.
I confess the prospect was not a desirable one; I preferred my lesser position. “Let another be elected from the nobles of the land.”
“Who?” he asked. “Who of that self-serving lot would you trust? This such-a-one is more ambitious than Fortinbras, that such-a-one too rabbit-like in manner to defend us in need or another is so grand in his vanity that he would bankrupt the whole of the treasury for a single suit of raiment. No, Lord Claudius, none of them have your understanding of what it truly means to rule wisely and well. You stood at your brother’s side through many years and before that witnessed and learned from your father’s long term. Young Hamlet does not possess such experience, and he’s not here to be advised by either of us. Anyone else will bring eventual ruin to Denmark.”
“But the nobles like me not. They will never elect me to be their lord.”
“A majority of them will, at a word from me. The rest will fall in with the vote to prevent rivals from rising above their station.”
“ ’T’would be better were their confidence be wholehearted and freely given, not forced.”
“There will be no force, only persuasion. Once I set the facts plain before them, they’ll be willing enough to have you stave off the invasion. Your report on what is afoot there—”
“They’ll say I’m creating a threat from Norway to further myself.”
“That they cannot do. Think you that yours were the only eyes and ears for Denmark in that court? I know of a dozen nobles with spies in place there, and to a man they will confirm the ill tidings you brought. They all want Fortinbras stopped. If you present them with a plan for that—”
“I had a recommendation prepared for—for my brother’s approval. . .”
“Too late now for him to hear it, but in life he heeded your counsel more often than not, and your advice was ever sound—another fact to put before the nobles. Your lordship, you must walk this path for the state to live on preserved from strife, and it must be an immediate starting.”
