Leon Garfield's Shakespeare Stories

by Leon Garfield

  They looked at her in astonishment. They wanted no money.

  “Whither bound?” asked the old man.

  “To Milford-Haven.”

  “What’s your name?”

  “Fidele, sir,” she said, and trusted in her disguise to be believed.

  To her relief, the old man nodded and smiled; and he and his sons—for surely he was their father—invited her to shelter for the night in their mountain dwelling. “Most welcome!” exclaimed one of the brothers, and clapped her warmly on the shoulder. “Be sprightly, for you fall ’mongst friends!” he laughed, as she staggered and he caught her in his arms.

  The evening meal was over and the old man sighed with contentment. His two boys had shown their guest a kindness and courtesy that a king might have hoped for from his sons. And the beautiful youth they had taken into their home had proved as full of grace as his appearance had promised. He had cooked with rare skill; and like a fond nurse, he had even cut their vegetables into the shapes of letters that had spelled out their names: Morgan for the father, and Cadwal and Polydore for his sons.

  The old man sighed again. There were other names that he alone knew, long-hidden names that, had they been discovered, would have meant his death. Once, he had been known as Belarius; and he was that very man who, long ago, King Cymbeline in one of his sudden rages had unjustly banished. He had fled from the court with the woman he loved, who had been nurse to the King’s two sons, and had taken refuge in the wild and mountainous land of Wales. In revenge for Cymbeline’s cruel sentence, they had carried off the infant princes and had brought them up in the mountains as their own sons.

  Not long after, their supposed mother had died, and was buried near to the cave. Since that time, Belarius had been both father and mother to them; and now they were approaching manhood, he looked with pride upon what he and Nature had achieved. Their true names were Prince Guiderius and Prince Arviragus; but they needed no such grandness to be royal: they were princes by nature, and no court on earth could have bred a pair so courageous, so upright and so fine.

  Next morning they awoke, eager to go out hunting and show their guest the rare wonders of the forests and mountains and fast rushing rivers amid which they dwelt. But Fidele was unwell. “Remain here in the cave,” advised Belarius, much concerned, “we’ll come to you after hunting.” Arviragus, no less concerned, gently urged her to follow the good advice, while Guiderius proposed that the others should go out hunting while he remained behind with the sick Fidele.

  “So sick I am not,” protested Imogen with a smile, “yet I am not well.” Briefly Belarius and the brothers conferred, and decided that Fidele might safely be left untended.

  “We’ll not be long away,” promised Arviragus, and Belarius added, “Pray, be not sick, for you must be our housewife.”

  “Well or ill,” returned Imogen, “I am bound to you.”

  “And shalt be for ever!” called back Belarius, as the hunters left the cave. Though they had known each other for so short a time, a deep affection had sprung up between them.

  Alone in the cave, Imogen remembered the little box that Pisanio had given her. “If you are sick,” he’d said, “a dram of this will drive away distemper.” She opened the box, took out the phial it contained, and drank some of its contents.

  The hunters halted. Their way ahead was suddenly barred. A huge, brawny fellow had lumbered into view and stood astride the narrow path, fiercely brandishing his sword. Though he wore the garments of a gentleman, Nature had provided him with nothing to match. His thick head came out of his shirt collar like a mad bull that had got among the washing.

  It was Prince Cloten. Dressed in Posthumus’s clothes, he had followed Pisanio’s directions and believed that he had come at last to the very place where he would find his despised rival, cut off his head, and ravish his wife. He glared from side to side; then he spied three villainous mountain folk—an old man and two young ones—standing in his way. Even as he saw them, two—the old man and one of the young ones—made off, leaving the third to face him.

  “Thou art a robber, a law-breaker, a villain!” shouted the Prince, advancing upon the wretch, who, from the savage skins he wore and the rough-hewn cudgel he carried, was plainly an outlaw. “Yield thee, thief!”

  “To who? to thee? What art thou?” demanded Guiderius contemptuously. Though he asked, he knew quite well who the stranger was. Belarius had recognized him and, fearing an ambush, had gone with Arviragus to search for Cloten’s attendants. “Have not I an arm as big as thine? a heart as big?” pursued Guiderius, calmly standing his ground. “Thy words I grant are bigger; for I wear not my dagger in my mouth.”

  The Prince’s face grew red with anger. “Hear but my name, and tremble!”

  “What’s thy name?”

  “Cloten, thou villain!”

  Guiderius shook his head. “I cannot tremble at it. Were it Toad, or Adder, Spider, ’twould move me sooner.”

  “I am son to the Queen!” howled the Prince; and, beside himself with fury, fell upon the insolent wretch with a furious sword, meaning to dispatch him like a dog.

  Belarius’s fears had proved unfounded. No other men had been discovered, the Prince had been alone. He and Arviragus returned to the path. Guiderius and the warlike Cloten were nowhere to be seen. As they began to fear for his safety, Guiderius appeared. He was a little out of breath, but unharmed. “This Cloten was a fool,” he declared, “an empty purse, there was no money in’t,” and, clutching it by its hair, he held up Cloten’s dripping head!

  “What hast thou done?” cried Belarius, in terror. This deed would surely bring the King’s men howling about their ears for revenge!

  But Guiderius was unmoved. “With his own sword, which he did wave against my neck, I have ta’en his head from him,” he explained proudly. “I’ll throw it into the creek behind our rock,” he said; and off he went, swinging the glaring head like a schoolboy’s satchel.

  “I fear ’twill be revenged,” muttered Belarius; but Arviragus was more concerned for Fidele, whom they’d left lying sick in the cave. He hastened away, leaving Belarius to wait for his brother.

  Presently Guiderius returned. To Belarius’s relief, he was empty-handed.

  “I have sent Cloten’s clotpoll down the stream,” he began, when there was a strange interruption. They heard music. They stared at one another. It was Belarius’s harp they heard; and it must have been Arviragus playing it. The music was slow and solemn, and it struck a chill into their hearts. “What does he mean?” wondered Guiderius uneasily. “Since death of my dearest mother, it did not speak.”

  They walked towards the cave. As they reached it, the music ceased. Arviragus came out. In his arms was Fidele.

  “The bird is dead,” he wept, “that we have made so much on!”

  They stared at the lifeless body in frantic disbelief. It was as if the heart of their world had been torn out, leaving a black hole of grief.

  “Let us bury him,” murmured Guiderius at length.

  “Where shall’s lay him?” asked his brother.

  “By good Euriphile, our mother.”

  “Be’t so.”

  Slowly and sadly the brothers bore Fidele to the burial place. As they laid him gently down, Belarius remembered Prince Cloten, whose headless body had been left for flies to feed on. “He was a queen’s son, boys,” he reminded them, “and though he came our enemy, remember he was paid for that. Bury him as a prince.”

  “Pray you fetch him hither,” said Guiderius, but more out of respect for his father than for the prince he’d killed.

  When Belarius had gone, Arviragus said softly, “Let us sing him to the ground, as once to our mother.” Guiderius nodded and they knelt beside the dead youth and began the song that Arviragus had been playing, the song they’d sung long ago, over their mother’s grave:

  “Fear no more the heat o’ the sun,

  Nor the furious winter’s rages,

  Thou thy worldly task hast done, />
  Home art gone and ta’en thy wages.

  Golden lads and girls all must,

  As chimney-sweepers, come to dust . . .”

  When they’d finished their requiem, Belarius returned, bearing Cloten on his back. “Come lay him down,” said Guiderius, with a touch of impatience; and while the brothers disposed the headless Prince’s limbs into some semblance of dignity, Belarius gathered all the flowers he could find, to strew them over the dead. He tried, as best he could, to hide the bloody stump of Cloten’s neck with primroses, harebells, and leaves . . .

  When it was done, they went away. They would return at midnight to finish their melancholy task.

  The light was fading, and the mist-wreathed mountains seemed to creep up round the burial place, like huge quiet children come to stare down at the pair who lay so still under a tattered coverlet of flowers. Then the coverlet stirred. One of the pair had begun to move!

  Imogen opened her eyes. “Yes, sir, to Milford-Haven, which is the way?” she called out, still distracted by dreams and memories, and not knowing which was which. She stared about her. Where was she? She was lying on the earth and strewn all over with flowers. She turned her head. There was someone beside her. It was a man, and he too was lying under a scattering of flowers.

  She looked more closely. She cried aloud in horror. The flowers that covered her bedfellow were speckled with blood! The man was dead! Fearfully she stretched out a hand to move away the honeysuckle and primroses and harebells that hid his face. He had none. His head had been severed at the neck!

  But she did not fly from this horror. A greater one had overwhelmed her. The headless man was dressed in garments she recognized. It was Posthumus, her husband!

  “Damned Pisanio! ’Tis he and Cloten!” she wept. In the madness of her grief, she could conceive only that the servant had forged the letters and murdered his master for money. “The drug he gave me, which he said was precious and cordial to me, have I not found it murderous to the senses? That confirms it home! O, my lord! my lord!” she wailed, and clung to the dead man in wild despair.

  It was Lucius, the Roman general, on his way to Milford-Haven with his officers, who found her, still clinging to her grim companion, and stained with his blood.

  She told him she was a page and her master had been murdered by robbers who lived in the mountains.

  “Thy name?” he asked.

  “Fidele, sir.”

  “Thy name well fits thy faith,” said Lucius, much moved by such fidelity to the dead. “Wilt take thy chance with me?”

  “I’ll follow, sir,” sighed the still-weeping page. “But first, an’t please the gods, I’ll hide my master from the flies.”

  Lucius nodded, and gave orders that a grave should be dug and the dead man honourably buried. When this was done, he and his companions continued on their way to Milford-Haven, where legions from Gaul had landed, and a company from Rome was expected, to march against the rebellious Cymbeline.

  Not far from Milford-Haven, a Roman soldier wandered alone in the countryside. He had crept away unnoticed from the camp. Once out of the sight of his fellows, he hid his Roman uniform under the ragged garment of a British peasant, and, to conceal his features, he smeared his face with earth. It was Posthumus. He had been brought from Rome in a company under the command of Iachimo, to fight against his native land.

  He was clutching a piece of cloth, stained with blood. Pisanio had sent it to him to signify that his command had been obeyed, and Imogen was dead. Now he cursed the madness that had made him order her death: her life had been a thousand times more precious to him than her virtue. “O Pisanio,” he groaned aloud, “every good servant does not all commands; no bond but to do just ones!” Wretchedly he stumbled on in search of the British forces, to fight with them against Rome, and die for Imogen.

  “The noise is round about us!” cried Guiderius, his eyes shining with excitement. The uproar of battle filled the mountains as the advancing Romans met the fierce resistance of Cymbeline’s army.

  “Sons,” urged Belarius, “we’ll higher to the mountains, there secure us!” for they stood in as much danger from the King for the killing of Prince Cloten, as from Roman arms.

  But the brothers scorned to hide. “What pleasure, sir, we find in life,” demanded Guiderius, “to lock it from action and adventure?” They seized their swords and, with Belarius following, rushed down their mountain like avenging angels, to fight against the invaders.

  Below, the battle raged among rocks and clefts and narrow ways, breaking up, like an interrupted torrent, into a thousand rattling skirmishes. Companies were scattered, captains cut off from their men. Iachimo, the glittering Roman commander, suddenly found himself alone upon a rocky path. He turned, seeking his followers. A wild-eyed British peasant, with a face to grow cabbages on, was at his heels. A pitiful opponent, scarcely worth the killing.

  They fought, and in moments Iachimo was forced to retreat before the fury and unexpected skill of the peasant. With a violent blow, his sword was sent clattering from his grasp and, weeping with shame, he awaited death at the hands of the muddy lout who’d proved the better man. But he was spared. With a look of contempt that pierced him as surely as a blade, his enemy left him in possession of his life.

  Posthumus was seeking his own death, not Iachimo’s. He’d heard a shout of triumph. Cymbeline had been taken! Desperately he ran to the defence of his king; but by the time he reached his object, the fortunes of war had most miraculously changed.

  Three of the strangest warriors in the world had rescued Cymbeline, and were defending him against fifty times their number! Posthumus could scarce believe what he saw. In a narrow lane, the might of Rome was being beaten back by the supernatural strength and courage of an old man and two boys! He rushed to join them, and together they fought until the lane was choked with Roman dead.

  The news of their heroic stand, flying from mouth to mouth, lifted up the spirits of Cymbeline’s half-defeated army. Men near dead from weariness and fear, turned and began to fight like lions for their land. The Romans, amazed by the suddenness of the onslaught, fell back, and fled in terror and dismay. Lucius and his officers were made prisoner, and his fleeing soldiers were hunted down and put to death.

  A search was made for the old man and his sons, to reward them for their great valour. Soon they were discovered; but the poor soldier who’d fought by their side, no less bravely than themselves, was nowhere to be found.

  Posthumus was in prison. He’d stripped off his peasant’s garment and given himself up to capture, as a soldier of Rome. The death he’d longed for had evaded him, even in the madness of battle; now he sought it at the end of a hangman’s rope. “For Imogen’s dear life take mine,” he begged the gods, “and though ’tis not so dear, yet ’tis a life; you coined it.” At last, worn out with hopeless repentance, he fell asleep.

  As he slept on his straw bed, in the deepest pit of misery, with his limbs chained in iron and his conscience chained with guilt, he was visited by a strange and wonderful dream that flooded his darkened spirit with joy.

  So real was this dream that it seemed to have the deeper truth of a vision. When he awoke, and was told that the death he desired was still to be denied him, that instead of being hanged, his shackles were to be struck off and that he was to be taken before the King, he smiled and said to the messenger, “Thou bring’st good news, I am called to be made free!” almost as if he’d expected it.

  He’d dreamed that the ghosts of his long-dead father and mother and his two brave brothers, moved by his despair, had dared to accuse the gods of afflicting men with needless suffering, out of spite; and Jupiter himself, in all his glory, complete with thunderbolt and glaring eagle, and shining like ten thousand candles, had come down into the prison cell to answer their charge. Angrily the god had told them that mortal suffering was no concern of theirs; then, in gentler tones, he had pronounced the impossible words that had kindled the impossible hope: “Be content. He shal
l be lord of Lady Imogen, and happier much by his affliction made.”

  An extraordinary morning! an amazing morning! a morning that sent King Cymbeline’s head spinning like a schoolboy’s top; and every fresh blow sent it whirling the faster! Yet everything began calmly enough in the royal tent, with the brave old man and his sons kneeling before the King to be honoured and the King sighing that the poor soldier who’d fought with them had still not been found. He’d just had time to say, “Arise, my knights o’ th’ battle,” when into the tent, like a black whirlwind, rushed old Cornelius, and all the Queen’s ladies rushing after, with streaming eyes and tragedy mouths!

  The Queen was dead! The King staggered, clutched his head in his hands. “How ended she?” he cried. “With horror, madly dying,” said the physician; and before he could weep for her, he was told there was no need. She had been a monster of evil! She had always hated him and his daughter and had planned to poison them both. Her son, Prince Cloten, was to have been king. It had been Imogen’s flight and her son’s strange disappearance that had finished her off. Her wickedness had failed; she had killed herself in despair!

  The King looked to the Queen’s ladies. They nodded their heads. All that Cornelius had said was true. “O my daughter,” he groaned, repenting of his folly towards her; but again he was cut off. In came the Roman prisoners and the father was forced to give way to the King. He put aside his distress and solemnly condemned them to death.

  They bowed their heads, but did not falter; they were brave men. “Had it gone with us,” said Lucius, their general, “we should not, when the blood was cool, have threatened our prisoners with the sword,” and Cymbeline felt the sting of the reproach. But his blood was not cool. It was boiling with anger when he thought of his fiendish Queen. “But let it come,” said Lucius. “This one thing only I will entreat: my boy, a Briton born, let him be ransomed,” and out of the shuffling little crowd, he led a mud-stained youth.