Hamlet, Prince of Denmark

by A. J. Hartley

  The Norwegian prince knew what was happening. Magnus, a sick, scared old man, was keeping him away from home, organising his own succession. Buttering up the nobles who would choose the next man to wear the crown.

  Blood meant nothing in the Nordic states. Unless it was spilled for glory.

  And so the Scots grew restless, moaning all the time as only they could. Gregor and his men were the heart of his forces. Tough, ruthless mercenaries, ready to do anything he wished. So long as it seemed in their interest and there was treasure at the close.

  In the cold, muddy fields outside Copenhagen, having to buy or barter for every bite and beer and woman, they had no such prospects. This miserable campaign appeared to be stuttering to a close without so much as a battle let alone a victory.

  And in Copenhagen there stood a busy harbour. Gregor might take his men anywhere from there. Across the Baltic to Lübeck. North to Helsinki or St Petersburg. Or out of the inner sea altogether, into the open ocean, sail for home or Europe.

  They were a small but mighty force, much appreciated, expensive too. Florence, Milan, Venice… any number of troubled states would employ them without a second thought, in a land that was warm and full of plenty, rich for robbing.

  Fortinbras, prince of Norway, a man who could feel the ultimate prize, the thrones of two kingdoms, slipping from him day by day, sat at the table in his campaign tent staring at a map of Europe. So many opportunities there, yet none that seemed headed his way.

  Words at the door. A gruff, sarcastic voice.

  “Allow Sir Gregor in,” he told the guards. “. He needs no permission of you.”

  The Scot took the chair opposite, stared at the map.

  “There,” he said and planted a finger on Seville. “There.” This time Florence. “There.” Venice now.

  “What?” Fortinbras asked.

  “I have missives from all these states, my young Norwegian friend. Pleading for our presence. Offering more than a handful marks, bad beer and salt herring. We Scots bore easily. It’s not good for our tempers sitting around on our arses in mud.”

  “Elsinore’s the richest treasure in Denmark. One day’s march from here. It’ll take you months to reach Spain or Italy. Why not go with full purses instead of empty ones?”

  Gregor laughed and scratched his grey locks.

  “Because we’ve hung around here a week and not moved an inch towards old Claudius. Or showed any sign of it.”

  “Patience wins wars.”

  The Scot frowned.

  “I told you. We’re mercenaries. We fight battles. Not wars.”

  The Norwegian got up and went to his money chest, threw it open. The gold and silver were fast diminishing. Another week and he’d be out of funds with no easy way to replenish them.

  “You want more money”?”

  “We want activity, sir. I tire of saying this.”

  “Then…”

  So few options. Fortinbras could smell Elsinore. The treasures inside it. The blood of his father leaking into the Øresund.

  Another sound at the door. A messenger there, breathless, anxious.

  “From Magnus?” he asked.

  “Aye, sir,” the man replied. “And another missive I received upon the road. From one…”

  He glanced at the Scot.

  “From a private source, my lord.”

  Gregor chuckled.

  “You have spies, Fortinbras! That news cheers me up. I thought you were above such things.”

  The messenger deposited two letters on the table.

  The first, from Magnus, was curt and to the point. The excursion to Poland was to be abandoned. Diplomacy had brought about a peaceful resolution to the dispute over taxation and borders. Fortinbras was ordered to return his forces to Norway immediately, by boat from Copenhagen. Forbidden to set foot further in Denmark. Summoned home, his troops to be disbanded, his warrant to lead armed forces withdrawn.

  “How is the king?” he asked.

  The messenger glanced nervously at the Scot.

  “They say he fades a little more each day.”

  Fortinbras stabbed a finger on the parchment.

  “This is not his hand.”

  “No, sir. I believe it was dictated by one of the nobles. They run the court since Magnus lacks the fortitude to rule.”

  Gregor came over, grabbed the letter, looked at Fortinbras.

  “They’ve picked your uncle’s successor already, haven’t they? And once they’ve got your army off you…”

  Fortinbras shrugged.

  “Then they’ll probably try and take my head. That’s the way it’s done in Oslo. The strongest rules.”

  The Scot put a hand to his arm.

  “I’ll have room in my boat for another. The pay’s not bad so long as we find a good employer who’s up for a fight. And the women in Venice…”

  He cooed and made an obscene gesture with his arm.

  “Don’t insult me, Scot.”

  “I’m offering you a way out. A little gratitude wouldn’t go amiss.”

  The second letter bore Fortinbras’s name on the envelope and was unsigned. No seal. But the handwriting he knew of old.

  “I’ll go talk to the harbour captains,” the Scot said getting to his feet. “Draw up a list of possible destinations.”

  “You’ll stay where you are.”

  Gregor stopped. Fortinbras spread out the new letter across the table.

  “Who sent you this?” the Scot asked.

  “A well-paid turncoat in their camp.”

  The big man read it, nodded then shrugged.

  “You reckon you can you trust him?”

  “He’s vain, ambitious, greedy and fearful. What do you think?”

  The despatch was short, perhaps written in haste. It read, “Hamlet has gone to England and will die there. Claudius has lost his grip on the throne. Polonius, the Lord Chamberlain, is dead by Hamlet’s own hand. Elsinore stands in chaos, sir. It needs a strong hand and the people themselves would welcome that. Here is an invitation, Fortinbras. Will you take it? Your friend who awaits you.”

  Fortinbras stared at the Scot and smiled.

  “One day to prepare. One day to march. One day to win the richest prize in Denmark. After that then you can go to your whores in Venice, and afford the finest the city has to offer. Well?”

  Gregor nodded.

  “Well let’s get started,” the Scot replied.

  The jester took a big bite of the apple in his fist, pulled an ugly face then spat out the pieces.

  “Rotten to the core. Yuk. I must say I found those pirates deeply disappointing. Where was the romance? The sense of theatre? Not a single parrot or earring among them. Had I not known better I would have called them out for nothing more than common criminals.”

  “While we’re uncommon ones?”

  They were lodged in an inn in a small port somewhere south of the city. Thugs on the door under the command of a surly landlord, once a pirate himself from what he said. There was no chance of escape. Only the opportunity for ransom.

  “Speak for yourself, matey,” Yorick said and jumped down from the chest by the window. “I’m just an innocent bystander in this tale.”

  “How did you get here?” He’d been too busy during the encounter on the seas to think of Yorick and had regretted that a little later. “I thought you were still with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern.”

  The jester tapped his nose.

  “Low cunning and sly talent. I don’t wish to go into details. You’ve no need to know.”

  Hamlet shook his head.

  “You get on the boat from Elsinore without my knowledge. You do the same when these cut-throats come at us on the high seas. For a clown you’re more resourceful than I imagined.”

  The unexpected praise seemed to embarrass the little man.

  “This isn’t about me, is it? Haven’t you noticed?”

  Hamlet laughed.

  “It’s about your life too, Yorick. They’ll han
g you as readily as they’ll hang me when we get back to Elsinore. Unless I can raise a rebellion. With Ophelia’s help.”

  That seemed to discomfort him more.

  “Let’s get out of this hole first, shall we? One step at a time.”

  “Why me? Why all this attention? I don’t…”

  “Because my father loved you!” the jester said with obvious anger. “From the day you were born, to the day he died. He felt sorry for an intelligent and sensitive child, trapped in that grim castle with a father who didn’t care for anything but conflict and blood.”

  “I had my mother.”

  “You had Claudius, too. More of a father to you than your own. Don’t you recall that?”

  He did. Clearly. And it made a difference, too. That was the real reason he hadn’t killed his uncle at prayer. It wasn’t some trumped-up religious quibble about whether the man would go to heaven or hell. It was nothing more than affection, a bond built up over the years.

  “And he killed my father,” Hamlet murmured.

  “To save himself and Gertrude from the old king’s cruel and violent wrath. You sit in judgement on so many others, Prince. Do you ever turn your searching gaze upon yourself?”

  “Frequently.”

  “And what do you see?”

  “A bigger, sadder fool than you. Why ask this? What business is it of yours?”

  “I already said. I owe it my father. And there are… worse duties, my young friend.”

  “I’m your owner, aren’t I? And you my slave. What friendship’s there?”

  Yorick walked to the little window and opened it. The smell of the open sea filled the room. Hamlet could just make out the shoreline and a distant horizon.

  “Plenty,” the jester told him. “I think. There’s a world out there. If these thugs set you free why not explore it? Avoid Elsinore. Walk away from courts and kings, crowns and conspiracies. Find a life for yourself somewhere.”

  Hamlet looked around the little room.

  “In a dump like this?”

  The jester shrugged. His harlequin costume seemed scarcely dulled or dirtied by the ordeal on the sea. Nothing appeared to damage this odd little man.

  “Perhaps. Life’s wherever you are. Provided you’re still breathing, of course.”

  “I promised Ophelia…”

  “But you killed her father. And I doubt Laertes will be as forgiving as she.”

  “No.” Yorick had a way of reading his thoughts. Of helping him clarify the confusion in his head. “I’m not fleeing any more. I ran from my father’s ghost. From Claudius on his knees. I sought satisfaction in books and knowledge and a rational, civilised mind. But I mistook the world. It’s cruel and bloody and unjust. As shifting as quicksand and it cares not a jot for the likes of us. I must face that down. Confront what’s there. Hurt it as it hurts me.”

  Yorick came away from the window and sat on a stool in front of him.

  “Don’t be a silly billy. Turn round now, old chap. Back away from this mad venture. Go herd sheep somewhere. Or become a poet.”

  “And leave Ophelia in that hellhole? I made a vow…”

  “What if she’s past help? What then?”

  He laughed.

  “You mean promised to a minor noble. Then I’ll seize the crown on my own account and take her anyway.”

  He bent down, touched Yorick’s shoulder.

  “You are my friend. No slave, little man. But I won’t run away any more. Or turn back. It’s Elsinore for me…”

  “Even if that way lies grief and blood and pain.”

  The prince shrugged.

  “So what’s new?”

  “What’s new is you wish it on yourself, as much as all the others. If you could kill them all… every last man who’s wronged you… Claudius even… would you do it?”

  “In a heartbeat. And drag down every last damned stone of Elsinore into the bargain.”

  There was an expression in the jester’s face he couldn’t read.

  “You don’t believe me, do you?”

  “Up to a point,” the jester agreed. “But no further.”

  Then he clapped his hands and waddled to his feet.

  “Well, I do believe it’s lunch time. What’ll it be? Beer and herring for a change?”

  Thirty miles north in the mariners’ quarter by Elsinore’s harbour Horatio scanned the alley ahead, hugging his cloak about him. It was too cold to be standing around outside and the docks had become more dangerous with each passing day. Laertes had managed to rouse the town into something dangerously close to rebellion.

  Elsinore felt as if it were on the edge of a dangerous precipice. Hamlet’s curious absence, Polonius’s bizarre death, rumours of ghosts and a Norwegian army gathering in the field in the south all made for a nervous country, and nervous people were dangerous people.

  Then a page came to his room asking him to visit one of the lowlier dockside taverns after sunset to receive a private message from Hamlet. He’d pressed the boy for more but he knew nothing. And so Horatio had come reluctantly, rapier at his side, knife in his boot, and a primed pistol in his belt.

  The inn was a place he would never have willingly entered, a sailor’s tavern, rowdy, full of the noise and stink of the port. The harbour wasn’t under lockdown yet, but the local merchants were too tense to risk much in the way of traffic with war possible every day. So the sailors, porters, shipbuilders and fitters did what they always did at times like this: they drank, argued and fought. Sometimes there were pitched battles between rival crews. Pickpockets and worse roamed everywhere. Times were hard, and so were the people enduring them.

  Horatio may as well have had a sign around his neck saying, ‘Rob me.’ Every head turned as he took his seat at the corner of the bar. When he asked for Canary wine one of the nearest men guffawed, then took a little mincing step, arms bent at the elbows like chicken wings. Quickly he changed his order to beer but it was too late.

  The man’s shoulders were at least a yard across. He staggered around, dribbles of beer in his beard and the stains on his jerkin. It had been a long day’s drinking.

  “You from the castle?” he demanded, poking a thick finger into Horatio’s chest so hard it almost knocked him off his stool.

  “Just visiting,” said Horatio trying to make eye contact with the landlord.

  “From where?” asked the bearded man, his eyes narrowing. His two friends had turned to watch, grinning like dogs smelling a rabbit.

  “Out of town,” said Horatio.

  “Where?” the other pressed.

  “Wittenberg,” said Horatio, knowing this was a mistake but unable to think of anything better. “I go to school there.”

  “Oooh,” said one the bearded man’s friends, his leer spreading. “Student. Thought as much.”

  “And staying in the castle as well,” added the bearded man, grimly pleased with the discovery. “A friend of those stuck-up buggers keeping me and my lads from earning an honest day’s pay, are you? Brought some books for your little holiday too, I dare say. Don’t care for books myself.”

  “Or those who read ‘em,” added his mate.

  “Which puts you in a bit of a pickle,” the bearded man concluded. “So I think we’ll go for a little walk outside, the four of us. A… tootorial. Ain’t that what you call it? The subject being… what you got about you that might make the likes of us feel a bit more warmly towards your skinny little person?”

  Before he could answer they dragged him off his stool and shoved him towards the door.

  There was an appreciative roar from some of the bystanders. They were all stinking drunk. Horatio was wondering whether he could make a run for it. He reached under his cloak with one hand, grasped the butt of his pistol. But the bearded thug was too quick for that. He kicked his feet from under him, sent him flying down to the floor. The gun skittered under a table where someone grabbed it.

  “Inside, outside… makes no difference to me,” the man said, looming over him. />
  He pulled back a massive fist. But before he could launch the punch someone stepped in close and jammed the barrel of a long snaplock against his head. For a moment, the tavern was silent. One of the bearded man’s accomplices reached for the knife in his belt but was struck hard with the pommel of a cutlass before he even saw his assailant and crumpled on the spot.

  “Your name Horatio?” asked the newcomer with the pistol, not taking his eyes off the bearded man.

  “I am grateful to you, sir,” he answered, scrambling to his feet. “That’s me.”

  “Message for you.”

  Someone thrust a letter into his hands: good parchment with a familiar wax seal.

  “Read,” ordered the gunman. “Then we’ll talk.”

  Horatio staggered to the back of the room, aware of the standoff behind him, quiet, threatening words being said. Then his assailant backed off, muttering apologies to the man with the gun. And that, at least, was over.

  The letter was in Hamlet’s familiar handwriting and made clear that the men who’d just saved his life were none other than pirates. The one who seemed to be in charge met his gaze and grinned: one front tooth silver, the other absent entirely.

  At that moment the bearded thug snatched up a stool and launched himself at him with a drunken bellow. The pirate stepped sideways, caught him with an elbow to his flank, then brought the butt of the pistol down hard on the back of his head. The man went down like an ox, unconscious before he hit the stone floor.

  “Now we have a little quiet,” the pirate said cheerily, turning to Horatio as if nothing had happened, “tell me, lad. Do you think we’ve got room for discussion here? Business to be transacted?”

  The cheeky grin again.

  “I do hope so. Cos if not you’ll have to make your way out of here all on your own.”

  Horatio eyed the motionless man on the ground.

  “I’ll need to access to some funds, sir. But yes. We can deal.”

  Laertes was back, with the same company he had the previous day. The doors of the Great Hall creaked open. Seated on the throne Claudius watched as the young man strode in, rag tag band at his heels, crude weapons in their fists. They had spent the night in the castle grounds after their master had returned from the river with news of his sister’s death, and their fury – which had cooled in his absence – was rekindled.