Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

by A. J. Hartley

  The King held out his hands, beseeching.

  “And I plead too… As your monarch. As your loving uncle.”

  “I wouldn’t want my mother’s prayers to go unanswered. After all I am a loyal, dutiful son.”

  “Of course you are!” Claudius clapped his hands happily. “Honest and fair. I can only guess at the sorrow you feel. But remember… he was my brother too, much loved. A fierce and warlike man. I’m not like him, I know. God made me more the diplomat than the warrior. Words are my armour, and what pass as my weapons too.”

  He smiled and felt Hamlet’s arm.

  “I know you think of yourself as a bookworm. But you’ve your father’s blood in you. I’ve seen you practising with a rapier. It’s there and perhaps one day we’ll need it.”

  A thoughtful expression crossed his face.

  “But if I can negotiate a settlement…Your father slaughtered Norway out on the ice for herring rights and land that will scarcely grow barley. There’s room to haggle. There always is.”

  “And lose these clothes,” his mother ordered, tugging at his black sleeve. “Smile once in a while. Be pleasant to the court. There’s a fine line between mourning and melancholia. Don’t overstep…”

  “I wouldn’t want my mother’s prayers to go unanswered,” he repeated in a dull, plain voice.

  “That’s my boy,” the King declared.

  But though Gertrude smiled she stayed silent.

  Back in his room Hamlet found Yorick at the window.

  “You again? Get out.”

  The little man didn’t move.

  “But where am I to go, Prince? It’s dead boring out there. And no one but you gets my jokes.”

  “I don’t laugh at them.”

  “You understand them and that’s what counts.” Yorick clambered down from the ledge and waddled over to Hamlet at the desk. “Cheer up. It might never happen.”

  “What?”

  “Whatever makes you think you’ve the weight of ten worlds on your shoulders.”

  “Maybe it already has happened.”

  “Ah. So we’re feeling suicidal, are we? Excellent.”

  Hamlet glared at him.

  “I’ll have you arraigned for witchcraft, imp.”

  “And then who’ll you talk to? Yorick will do just fine by the way. But if it’s any help…”

  He hunted in his suit, came out with a pocket knife, held it out in his right hand, bowed and flourished the blade with his left.

  “Take it. Nice and sharp. Want me to run you a warm bath too? Recommend a suitable vein?”

  “Go away.”

  Yorick came round and stared up into Hamlet’s face.

  “No. I won’t. Not until you’re frank with me.”

  “About what?”

  “Your problem.”

  “The problem? All the world knows the problem.”

  The jester chuckled.

  “All the world’s got problems of its own. Enough to concern it without worrying about yours.” He raised a finger. “Oh! I remember now. Your father’s dead. Denmark’s like a beautiful garden gone to seed and weed. And as for your mother….” He raised himself as high as he could manage and said in a theatrical voice, “Frailty, thy name is woman. Who said that? Search me. I suppose it fits Gertrude actually, but once you’ve seen one courtly lady...”

  “Don’t push it.”

  “But Hamlet, dear boy. Pushing’s what I’m paid for.” He sat on the floor, cross-legged, like a pupil in school. “That god of yours would be mightily pissed off if you topped yourself, you know. As I’m sure those clever theologians in Wittenberg told you.”

  Hamlet jabbed a finger at the door.

  “Tonight she’ll be with him again. Sweating away in their filthy, incestuous sheets! While I lie here listening…”

  Yorick shook his head.

  “Strictly speaking that’s not incest, is it? Also I think you’ll find the king and queen get the finest bed linen in the whole of Denmark. You could just ask for another room. Somewhere a little along the way. Besides…”

  A knock.

  “Get that.”

  “I’m a jester not a bloody servant,” Yorick muttered and slunk into the shadows.

  Three men there. Barnardo and Marcellus, castle guards. And Horatio a Danish student Hamlet knew from Wittenberg.

  “You should be back in Germany at your studies,” Hamlet told him. “Like me.”

  “I came for your father’s funeral, sir. It seemed only right.”

  “You’re sure it wasn’t for my mother’s wedding?”

  A moment of embarrassment. None of the men would look at him.

  “There wasn’t much time between them,” Horatio agreed eventually.

  “Close enough they could have used the same banquet for both. Sometimes I feel I still see my father round this grim place…”

  “Where?” Horatio asked. “When?”

  “In my mind’s eye. Where else?”

  Barnardo stamped his fist against his chest.

  “He was a damned good king. A warrior. He stood up for Denmark.”

  “My father was a man. Nothing more. Nothing less. I won’t see his like again. Nor you.”

  They looked at each other as if afraid to speak.

  Then, almost in a whisper, Horatio said, “My Lord, I think I saw him last night…”

  “Saw who?”

  “The king. Your father.”

  Hamlet closed his eyes.

  “I pay a jester for jokes. Not students and sentinels…”

  “This is no joke, my Lord,” Barnardo cut in. “Three nights we’ve watched his spectre on the castle walls. Last night Horatio joined us and saw it too. A figure just like Old Hamlet. Full armour. Helmet up so I saw his pale face, his grizzled beard. It was the king as we knew him… after a fashion. Though on his face there was pain and grief and horror.”

  Hamlet came close, looked into their eyes.

  “And did he speak?”

  “Not to us,” Horatio answered. “He looked as if…”

  The words fled him.

  “He looked as if he was looking for someone else,” Marcellus said. “We’re just guards and a humble student. He was the King of Denmark. A great lord doesn’t come back from the grave to talk to the likes of us.”

  Horatio nodded.

  “We felt you should know.”

  “And tonight… you think it’ll walk again?”

  “Like clockwork,” Barnardo insisted.

  Hamlet took Horatio by the collar.

  “How many others know?”

  “Not a soul, sir. Only you. And we three.”

  “Keep it that way. Go about your business. We meet again after dark.”

  After they left Yorick crawled out of the corner. Stood before him, arms folded.

  “Is this wise? I mean…” He brandished the pocket knife. “God or no God I thought you’d made up your mind. At least as much as you ever do…”

  The prince snatched the blade. Found a soft pear from the previous summer. Lay on the bed cut off a few chunks and gnawed at them, thinking.

  Laertes threaded the last strap through the buckle of the trunk, pulled it tight and nodded for the servants to take it.

  “You’re leaving now?”

  A woman’s voice.

  She stood in the doorway, simply dressed in grey, long blonde hair up in an ornate knot: his sister, Ophelia. Not now, he thought and looked away, trying to conceal the fact that he’d wanted to slip out unnoticed.

  “Yes. The ship’s waiting.”

  “When will you be back from France?”

  “At the end of the spring term.”

  “Not till then?”

  She sounded genuinely surprised, even a little hurt.

  Laertes shrugged.

  “If this Norwegian business turns nasty I’ll be back sooner. But I could do with a little less drama for a few months. I imagine you feel the same way.”

  “Meaning what?”

&
nbsp; She was, he supposed, beautiful. Skin pale as milk, hair like spun gold, and eyes the silvery grey of a young salmon’s flank, candid, open and inviting. Too much so.

  “I’ll write. We don’t have time to talk now.”

  “We had time before but you’ve been avoiding me for days,” his sister shot back, stepping in close so he couldn’t avoid her fixed, determined gaze.

  Two servants were lifting his trunk between them, then heading for the door.

  “I said… not now, Ophelia.”

  She hesitated, listening to the porters’ footsteps in the stairwell.

  “Is this about Hamlet?”

  “Of course it is.”

  He seized a satchel and checking the contents irritably.

  “You don’t like him.”

  Even when they were children she’d had a talent for drawing out of him things he’d rather not say.

  “I think you like him more than enough for both of us. Don’t you?”

  For a second he thought she might slap him. She did that often enough when they were young too.

  “So what?”

  “So what? So people are talking. There are... rumours.”

  She laughed at that.

  “I don’t care about castle gossip.”

  “You should. You will.”

  “Really? Why’s that?”

  “Because he’s Prince Hamlet, Ophelia. Prince.”

  “You think I’m not good enough for him? Our father’s Lord Chamberlain here. Not a swineherd...”

  “Exactly.” He snatched her hand and held it. “You’re making him look like a fool. Me, too.”

  She twisted out of his grip.

  “I’ve hurt your pride and standing, dear brother. And our father’s. How thoughtless of me. This is absurd.”

  “Would it be absurd if the King orders Hamlet to marry some Norwegian princess in order to patch up an old quarrel? Leaving you...”

  “Leaving me where? Leaving me what?”

  “Damaged goods.” His voice was just above a whisper. “Another man’s castoff. Or perhaps his secret mistress. A whore on the side…”

  She did slap him then. He took it without comment and when he looked at her again her cheeks were red, her eyes shining.

  “I’m going to miss my boat.”

  He stepped round her but hesitated in the doorway.

  “I’m simply telling you what others won’t. You’re my sister. I love you. I’m sorry we didn’t get to spend more time together. When I come back things will be different. Like they used to be. I hope…”

  She came over. He felt the soft pressure of her hand on his arm, but when he started to reach for a last embrace she pushed him gently into the hall.

  “Go,” she said, smiling sadly. “The tide will be turning.”

  “Can’t believe you’re going through with this nonsense. There’s no such thing as ghosts.”

  The dwarf sat on a bench by the windows in the prince’s quarters, picking at his nails with a small dagger.

  “You know that, do you?”

  “Did you read all those books in Wittenberg? Or just stare at the pages? This is the modern world, Hamlet. Not the old one where gods and ghosts walked everywhere as if they owned the place. You’re the clever one. Prove me wrong.”

  Hamlet looked at the clothes he’d put on at the behest of his mother: green velvet pants, scarlet waistcoat. The jester giggled, shook his stick of bells in the air. Stroked his own blue and yellow harlequin suit, smiled a supercilious smile.

  “Not just me they make dress up and look like a moron, is it?”

  “My father lives in here.” He tapped his head. “I see him. Hear him. Is that proof?”

  A snort.

  “No. That’s memory.”

  “What’s the difference. Don’t you remember yours? Isn’t he still alive there somewhere?”

  The jester got up from the seat, waddled to the window, made a short sideways leap to the stone ledge, pointed through the leaded glass.

  “My father’s down there. In the graveyard. Bones and rotting flesh.” A brief, sour look. “Head cleaved from his body. While I was doing the endless rounds of European courts at his behest. Not that…”

  “Why?”

  The little man hopped down, went to the sheets at the end of the room, tidied them up into a roll, stuffed them in a cupboard.

  “You sleep here too, don’t you?” Hamlet asked him.

  “When I feel like it. You know how bloody cold this place is outside the royal quarters? No heat. No decent grub. No women either, except they’ve got beards.” A nod at the window. “Beats me why the common folk love you. Maybe it’s your looks.”

  A long evening before Horatio’s arrival. A fork in the road perhaps. A journey to nowhere.

  “I want to know…” Hamlet whispered, almost forgetting for a moment there was another in the room. “I dream things…”

  An ugly, distorted face in his vision.

  “You want to know what, boy? How the world began? What brings it to an end? You’re Prince of Denmark. The next king if you’re lucky. Look at me…”

  Hamlet turned away.

  “Look at me!”

  A cripple. A hideous dwarf. Fat, twisted limbs. A face no woman could love. Little bells tinkling as he walked his crooked walk through the corridors of Elsinore.

  “What do you see?”

  “A midget. A man all the same. Your father was a kindly soul. With a soft voice. When I was a child and troubled he’d tell me stories…”

  “Old Yorick. Young Yorick. Old Hamlet, Young Hamlet. Old Norway, Young Norway. Flaming hell… can’t you lot think up any names of your own?”

  “Young Norway’s name is Fortinbras. He…”

  “As was his father’s if you knew! And the young one’ll come over from Sweden with his army and have your guts for garters given half a chance. With good reason too. There’s a tale…”

  One hour. The Queen and her foul bed mate were at supper. Probably furious that he wasn’t with them. A unified family front.

  “Tell it then, jester.”

  “No. You demand answers you know already. You pose questions that needn’t be asked. It’s outrageous.”

  Hamlet laughed.

  “But I’m the Prince of Denmark. And you’re a low-born fool. I command it.”

  Yorick toddled over to him and peered in his eyes.

  “Is that so?”

  “It is.”

  So he told the story anyway. Because that was what he did.

  Close your eyes. Know your place. Watch. Listen to the ghost in your ear.

  There’s a January gale that shrieks and moans all round this bleak, bare corner of Danish rock. Smell the dry hard tang of winter. Look on a world of ice and snow and blood.

  Behind you sits Elsinore’s towering grey castle. Before it the Øresund, a narrow channel of frozen sea dividing two nations.

  On the ice shapes move. Two groups of shivering fur-clad figures shuffling back among the packed drifts, making a circle for themselves. Denmark and Norway, one nation each side.

  This is a battleground now, a fleeting stage set for the smallest of wars.

  Amid cheers and the rattle of weapons two giants in gleaming armour step forward from the throng. Like shining monsters they circle one another, broadswords flashing, grim-faced behind helmets that reveal nothing but grizzled beards and taut cruel mouths set for violence.

  Old Hamlet for Denmark. Old Fortinbras for Norway. King against king, dancing the bloody dance of single combat, fighting for the frozen land and the fish that swim beneath them.

  Inside Elsinore logs crackle and spit from the smoky flames of a fire grate beneath a vast sooty chimney. Somewhere a woman weeps. This is the castle’s grandest chamber, the king’s own. Shields on the wall. Heavy red velvet curtains the colour of dried blood. Three arrow-slits carved into cold stone. A vast ceremonial window that leads to the triumphal balcony overlooking the waters below.

  The midwi
fe they found in the hovels that lean along the shoreline teetering over the mud. Next to her a stiff-backed courtier, Polonius, tugging uselessly at his sleeves. At the foot of the bed the king’s brother, Claudius, smooth cheeks, smooth hands, never touched by battle. By him the grim-faced medic, Swedish, black clothes, blank face, cold heart.

  All eyes on Gertrude, Hamlet’s queen, naked legs akimbo, writhing in agony on soiled and sweaty sheets as her husband gives battle on the ice outside.

  “Do something!” the brother cries. “We brought you here for this…”

  Her thighs stretch open. No royal modesty here. Her belly’s fit to burst. Blood and broken waters leak onto Cambric linen. Look close – you know you want to. See. There’s the briefest sight of an infant’s reddened scalp. A hidden life to come.

  The physician shakes his grey head.

  “If the child’s afraid to be born there’s no forcing matters. If it’s scared of the light. The world it faces…”

  Clumsily, trembling with fear and fury, Claudius unsheathes his dagger, threatens. The doctor glares back, unimpressed.

  “No man can cure death. Even for a king. It’s too late to rip the infant from her womb.’ He shrugs. ‘Besides, if her husband falls to Fortinbras…”

  He looks round the room, at each of them.

  “Elsinore, all of Denmark will belong to Norway. Everything the land contains. Fortinbras is a decent man but a king above all else. If this is a son of Hamlet’s he’ll run his sword through its little heart anyway…”

  The Queen screams. The knife, a slim, slight diplomat’s weapon, slices the cold air.

  “He’s alive now,” the brother says. “And so’s Gertrude…”

  From the window comes a loud and violent racket. Shouts and cheers. A familiar tongue, that of Norway.

  Outside the tallest, greatest of the two lies on the packed ice of the Øresund, legs sprawled, as awkward and defenceless as his wife in the royal bedchamber above.

  “This is for property,” Fortinbras roars above him. “For land me and mine own by right…”

  “The earth belongs to those bold enough to seize it,” Hamlet snarls on the packed snow then wipes blood from his beard, removes his helmet, shakes greying locks in the harsh January sun.

  His sword lies an arm’s length away, next to it a battle axe.