A court official motioned for the letter. Rosencrantz handed it over with an elegant bow and made a fussy speech about how proud they were to serve their country and the English crown.
Guildenstern thought he saw a fractional sneer ghosting the woman’s lips. It reminded him of Hamlet. Feeling oddly frightened he lowered his eyes.
The silence that followed was long and worrisome. Finally he looked up, catching Rosencrantz’s expression of frozen concern, then returned to study the queen.
The letter wasn’t long. The parchment was just translucent enough that Guildenstern could see the shadowing of the inky scrawl through the sheet, which meant she was either a very slow reader indeed or was taking in the contents several times over.
That deathly white face was utterly blank, the kind of set nothingness that politicians favoured when they wished to keep their thoughts to themselves. At last two bleak dead eyes came up over the parchment and found the two Danes before her. Queen Elizabeth of England stared at them and passed the letter to the tall counsellor who’d delivered her message of welcome. The man scanned the lines then paused, looked slowly up at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, eyebrows raised.
The queen struggled to her feet, smoothed down her gilt robe, glanced at the door and gave the slightest of nods. The counsellor issued an order in English. Guildenstern just about understood.
“We’re dead,” the fat man whispered, to no one in particular, not even the trembling compatriot by his side.
In a brisk and practised movement the two halberdiers who’d brought them began moving, weapons off their shoulders, levelled at the Danes’ backs. Behind them other guards stepped hurriedly from the walls in a clatter of steel.
“What’s this?” Rosencrantz demanded, his voice high and desperate, all trace of his courtly sophistication gone. “What did we do? It’s not our fault we lost the Prince! We couldn’t have done anything! My lord, have mercy...!”
Guildenstern tried to hold the queen’s eyes as she walked unsteadily from the hall. His sad smile never reached her and he knew it. Just as he understood he would never walk the streets of Florence, pick that sweet, warm orange off the tree... Yet the world would not miss him. It had scarcely noticed his existence at all.
Rosencrantz was shrieking, wailing, begging, slipping to his knees trying to snatch at the hem of the queen’s long gown as she was marched out by her entourage.
Guildenstern stayed where he was. He would have, for once, a moment of dignity. They were waiting for her to leave. That was all. A monarch gave orders. Some she didn’t need to see carried out.
Then, like a gilt ghost, she was gone. They were alone with nothing but soldiers and their weapons.
He didn’t move to resist, to protest, to protect himself even. And he still wore that sad, lost smile as the long, slim point of the halberd came hard and deadly through his back.
The winds had stalled. After a maddening day becalmed in the Baltic Laertes had insisted he be put ashore at Rodbyhaven on the southern coast of Lollund. From there he had ridden hard, changing horses twice at inns, and taking a local ferry to Vordinborg where he had stopped, reluctantly for the night in a room above a traders’ tavern. The next morning he rose at first light and rode all the way to Elsinore. It was the most ground he’d ever covered in a single day and he arrived stinking, sweaty and exhausted, but so driven by outrage that he barely felt any of it.
His first impulse had been to march straight into the castle and corner the king: demand what he knew of the circumstances of his father’s death. Hamlet had not been punished. He had – it was hard to comprehend – been sent away, rewarded for killing the king’s oldest counsellor with a holiday jaunt to England. No state funeral for Polonius for fear of drawing attention to the royal identity of his killer either. Claudius would answer for that.
How, Laertes wasn’t sure. Storming into the throne room alone might get him killed. But he had friends in Elsinore, and – ever his father’s son – had learned to keep them close and curry favour with the common folk. As Polonius had become more enmeshed in state affairs, the management of his own property and holdings had fallen to his son, who had been careful to be seen as a just and generous land owner.
So he avoided the castle and went to the country manor house Polonius owned outside the town. There he called together the steward, all the senior servants, and the commander of the local watch whose arms Polonius’s family had supplied for generations. To these people the king was no more than an idea, an abstraction most had never seen, though they lived less than three miles from Elsinore.
Laertes told them of his father’s death, his shamefully private funeral in the castle grounds and laid the charge for these indignities at Claudius’s feet. He said nothing of Hamlet, for fear that would complicate their anger. The prince still had a reputation and was loved in some quarters. All he wanted, he said, was an escort into Elsinore: sufficient protection to ensure he’d be heard.
Given the family’s generosity over the years it wasn’t much to ask. An hour later they gathered in the twilight, fifty men and boys with boathooks, harpoons, clubs, and rusty pikes. They followed in grim silence at his back, reaching Elsinore as the black winter night fell, marching into the main entrance before the sentries knew they were there. By the time the alarm was raised they were across the bridge and inside the curtain wall.
Servants fled before them. The guards scattered, awaiting orders on where to take their stand. In moments they were at the doors of the Great Hall. They were locked, but Laertes banged on them with the pommel of his sword, watching out of the corner of his eyes as the duty sentries massed at the end of the corridor, muskets and halberds trained on him.
“I demand audience with the King of Denmark!” Laertes bellowed, undaunted by the soldiers only yards away. If they attacked, his men would run or fall in seconds, but that didn’t matter. His point was already made.
His men had started drumming their weapons on the stone floor. The noise was deafening. The castle soldiers, watching from both his right and his left, looked uneasy. One false move, one unsteady trigger finger, and this would be a battle, and an ugly one.
“Open these doors!” he roared. “Or as God is my witness we will break them down!”
Finally an old woman came. One of his father’s maids, part of the household since he’d been a child.
She’d been crying. Her eyes were still pink and full of tears.
“Bette.” He remembered her kindness when he and Ophelia were young. “This anger belongs to me. As does the mourning for my father. Where is Claudius?”
“Oh, sir. I weep for your loss.”
“As do I. But it’s more than a week now. Leave the wailing to me.”
She didn’t speak.
“I’ve come to speak to the king. Nothing more.”
“You won’t find him here,” she answered, and for some reason this simple remark seemed to intensify her grief.
“Why not”
She just shook her head.
“Where’s Claudius?”
“By the river. Something was discovered there this afternoon. I fear to tell you…”
He was growing tired of her evasiveness.
“What?”
“I can’t say it, my lord. You should go. See for yourself. I cannot…”
Enough of crying women, he thought. The river wound from the forest, past the castle, to the Øresund.
“Where’s the king’s party ?”
“Close to the weir near the woods. You’ll see them. Oh, what a world this has become since the old king died. I fear for…”
Laertes didn’t listen. He ran through the guards, back to his mob. They were looking at him in a curious way. Frightened. Expectant. As if they’d heard something.
“We grieve for your loss, lord,” one of them said warily as he went for his horse.
“I know,” he answered then rode for the gates of Elsinore and the river.
A mile beyond the castle th
e king had gathered his men. The river was broad and swollen by the recent rains. The small island in the middle was barely above the surface. There, pinioned to the weak, bare trees, lay a bloated naked body caught on the trunks. Face just recognisable, even a few days after death.
He’d understood what had happened the night Ophelia was reported missing by her worried household staff. Had seen the look in Voltemand’s sharp, bright eyes as the two of them took in the news.
And Claudius had asked not a single question. Events had begun to fall beyond his control, almost – it now seemed – from the moment he’d slunk up on the sleeping king and poured the Copenhagen poison into his ear. One foul deed to stave off another. A necessary murder that would ensure he and Gertrude would survive. Perhaps even prosper, find a kind of happiness once more.
There were a million reasons to justify what he had done. But however many he found they didn’t change the act itself. Murder, of a brother. The oldest crime. From that moment on he was damned and should have known it.
There were soldiers trying to reach her using small dinghies. But the current was so strong every time they got close to Ophelia’s corpse the current swept them away. Gertrude had joined the royal party once she heard. Voltemand was directing them, acting the part. Shocked, caring, full of grief.
No news of Fortinbras. None of Hamlet either. The world turned without the bidding of the King of Denmark. It was spinning on its own. Leading somewhere he could only guess at.
Claudius watched Gertrude with her servants, standing by the water’s edge. She’d stopped crying. Now she simply stared at the fast-flowing river and the sad, pale body on the tiny island just a few short, impossible yards away.
The girl’s long blonde hair was filthy with mud. Her lovely face damaged by something. The rushing water perhaps. Or a darker deed.
He walked over to the Queen and said, “My lady. This is no place for you. Let the soldiers recover her under Voltemand’s direction…”
“Why not?” she snapped. “He put her there, didn’t he?”
Claudius blinked, struggled for the words.
“I don’t know what you mean.”
She took his arm, dragged him to the edge of the group, beyond the hearing of all the others.
“This morning, when we heard of her death, I received this.”
Gertrude reached into her cloak and he knew what she would withdraw from it, even before he saw the brown parchment.
“A copy of a letter she sent to Laertes. She left it with one of their faithful servants. To be given to me if she died. She knew he would come for her. Did you, Claudius?”
“I… am… not the master of every single act, vile or decent, that happens in this kingdom.”
She brandished the parchment in his face.
“I’ve made inquiries of my own. Your creature Voltemand chased after the ship that carried it. Her brother never saw this, did he?”
The King opened his hands, stayed silent.
“But you did, Claudius.”
“I’m only human, love.”
“Don’t use that word with me.”
“What? Love? It’s what brought us here, isn’t it? If we’d never broken our vows…”
“I killed no one! I never would…”
He took her arm, told her to speak more quietly.
“The men here will tear us both apart if they knew. Denmark’s fragile. In such times it’s the crown that makes the sacrifice.”
“Like Old Hamlet?”
So many things he wished to say. Late at night, in the comfort of their bed. Gertrude in his arms. He’d never wanted another, not since that day he saw young Hamlet delivered from her while the king, her husband, tricked Old Fortinbras and slaughtered him on the ice before Elsinore, using his own son’s new-born cries to fox the Norwegian and take off his head.
“Your vile husband knew, my love,” Claudius said softly, with some real regret. “About us. He told Polonius. If the old man hadn’t seen me as a better bet we’d both be dead now. What choice…?”
She didn’t answer. There was hatred in her eyes.
“What else could I have done?”
“Paid for your sins. As would I…”
“He was a monster, Gertrude. He never loved you. Nor Hamlet. Not the way I did. The way I do…”
“And now my son’s in England. To return… God knows when. And Ophelia’s dead. Like her father.”
“It was a righteous act. To kill a brute who would have taken our lives for no good reason. Simply because we enjoyed the one thing he could never have. A mutual affection. A sense of… of family.”
He closed his eyes and saw there the river again, sweeping towards him. But this time it was red and rank and overflowing its banks, lapping at the grey walls of Elsinore, staining the waters of the Øresund a vivid scarlet.
“It’s easy enough to open a single vein,” Claudius whispered. “But precious hard to staunch all the blood that follows.”
“What are we to do?”
“Survive,” he murmured.
Another dinghy was trying to reach the island and the body on it. She stared at it then looked back to Elsinore.
“For this?”
“This is all there is.”
“Then I want none of it. And nothing of you.”
Gertrude turned and left him. Talked to the women she’d brought. And then the party returned to their horses.
There were no more boats on the river now. Perhaps the body would have to stay there until the waters abated. If that ever happened. It seemed the world was in flood and a part of Claudius couldn’t wait for its cold grey all-consuming waters to reach him.
A noise behind. An angry, anguished cry.
Laertes was riding towards them, whipping his steed. Hair wild in the drizzle and breeze. Eyes as crazed as any man he’d ever seen, fixed only on the still, sad shape on the island in the foaming, furious river.
Voltemand was watching too. He glanced at Claudius. A command in his face: this is mine. I will deal with it.
So the king watched, stayed back. Listened.
“Sir…” the man from Copenhagen said as Laertes dismounted. “Be calm, I beg you. Listen to what I say…”
“What is this?” Laertes roared. “My sister!”
For a moment he just stared, pale and exhausted. Young-looking. The shock seemed to have taken the life out of him. But only for an instant. Seconds later the stunned, empty sorrow was gone. The righteous rage was back. He barked at one of the soldiers to fetch him a boat.
Voltemand stood in front of him.
“She was distraught. Your father’s death. Hamlet’s treatment of her…”
“Hamlet…! Where is the blasted Prince?”
The boat was dragged towards him.
“I fear she took her own life, sir. We should have noticed how distressed she’d become. I blame myself…”
“I blame him. The boat! Oars!”
The man from Copenhagen put a hand out to stop him.
“The river rages, Laertes. We need to wait for it to calm.”
“Nothing’s calm from now on.” Laertes leapt on the boat, took the oars. Got the soldiers to push him out into the current upstream of the little island.
There was silence on the bank. All watched. None moved.
Straight away the tiny boat was swept away by the power of the flow. But Laertes had planned for that and thrust the oars in, trying to take himself to the far side.
Judged it well, too. In a matter of seconds the prow hit the tiny island, not far from her. He climbed onto the nearest stump, found a branch, lifted himself out of the dinghy which span away and turned downstream, circling on itself, out of control.
He never noticed. In three swift steps he was with her, cradling her broken face in his arms, crying, wailing, shouting curses, screams and threats.
Voltemand watched. Claudius knew this man now. Understood what he’d hoped for. That Laertes would be borne away on the surging waters, t
oo, disappear forever, one more problem solved, another body buried for good.
“Find a rope,” Claudius ordered the captain of the guard. “Get it over to the island. Shoot the thing on an arrow if need be. Once it’s there we can get a boat safely over and recover them both.”
Gertrude was on her horse, watching him. A cold and hateful look in her eyes. He walked towards her. Perhaps there was an explanation. An apology to be offered. But she rode off without a word.
Then Voltemand was there.
“We can manage this,” he said. “The queen seems… distracted.”
Claudius stared at him. If he understood what Gertrude had learned perhaps he’d plot her death, too. This was man knew no limits.
“She’s upset at a young woman’s unnecessary death. As am I. Can you really not appreciate that?”
“Grief can be dangerous, my lord. I’ve caused enough to know. Is there anything I should be told?”
“Only that we need another funeral. You can manage that. I’m sure.”
“True.” He nodded. “But it’ll have to be in the common cemetery, with the paupers. Not the castle graveyard.”
The King waited, wondered, listening to Laertes howling as he clutched his dead sister on the little island in the middle of the muddy, swollen driver.
“A suicide,” Voltemand added. “The girl can’t be buried in hallowed ground.” He snapped his fingers at a couple of soldiers, issued some orders. “I’ll see it’s done. Leave everything to me.”
4
Quintessence of dust
No games, Fortinbras promised the Scots. Yet that, for a difficult while, was all they got. A march south to the encampment outside Copenhagen. A tetchy standoff with the Danish locals. No word from Oslo about when the army should move on Poland.
Hamlet, Prince of Denmark Page 19
