Alas, Poor Yorick

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  I have an instant to decide if it is worth following either of them, and I have almost decided to continue on my way when I see that Claudius is signaling to Lucius. I move away from the surge of courtiers leaving the church and find a place where I can observe the two men. It is a strange feeling, watching Claudius whisper to Lucius while the highborn of Norway and Denmark eddy around them. I cannot hear most of what they are saying, but I see Lucius shake his head vehemently once, and Claudius scowl at him.

  Then Claudius notices me, and he departs abruptly, leaving Lucius standing at the entrance to the narthex, his expression puzzled and crafty at once.

  SPRING

  Now that the days are growing warmer and the rain has lessened, Gertrude spends more time in her garden rather than in her sewing room, for she has decided to plant again this year. It is a small garden, enclosed by a stone wall with a single door to the outer courtyard at the far end; her women often sit with her while she tends her seedlings, but they are more fastidious than she and will not dirty their hands.

  “It is a pity that flowers, which are so pleasant, should require so much that is disgusting,” says Raissa as she continues working a decorative border on a velvet hood. “They would be more enjoyable if it were possible to grow them without muck and dirt, and ruining the skin.”

  “But it is not possible,” Gertrude answers her, holding a frail, four-leaved stem in her hands.

  I have been playing my shawm for them, sitting in the shadow cast by the castle. Today everything Gertrude has asked to hear has been love songs, particularly those about doomed or unrequited love, the plaintive tales of dashed hopes and broken hearts. My playing must please her, for she occasionally hums the melody with my shawm. Raissa brushes at her skirts to show that she wants no part of the garden but the flowers. “If you are determined to do what peasants do,” she says, making herself the victim of ill-use with an implication of distress. “Peasants grow crops, grain and peas and other things to eat. They leave the flowers to those of our rank, who have the opportunity to grow them without sacrificing the earth or the time that peasants cannot spare.” She puts another seedling into the ground. “Some of the prosperous merchants let their wives grow flowers.” “Merchants and peasants!” scoffs Raissa, and looks to Margitha for support. “Would it not be better for the Queen to undertake more seemly entertainment?”

  Margitha is subdued in her manner, her pale eyes downcast and her manner contained. She does not look at Raissa to answer. “If it pleases Majesty to plant flowers, then it is for us to approve it.” Raissa laughs. “Oh, very apt.” She claps her hands in mock salute, then resumes her needlework. “Well, if this is what is required, then so be it.”

  Gertrude looks up from her self-appointed task. “In the summer, when this garden is full of blossoms, you will sing another tune, with the birds who will flock here,” she tells Raissa in French, unaware that I know the language well enough to sing in it. “And then it will be my turn to laugh.” There is heightened color in her face, and as she smiles I can see her eyes are very bright. “Is that one of the plants Claudius gave to you?” asks Raissa, determined to be playful since she cannot discourage the Queen.

  “I…. I am not certain,” Gertrude answers unsteadily. “How strange a gift,” says Margitha in a subdued way.

  “The King approved it,” says Gertrude as she continues to prepare more holes for her plants, using her trowel with inexpert determination. “I am grateful that Claudius seeks my good opinion.” “I suppose it is not inappropriate, given that he is the King’s brother. He has to be prudent,” says Raissa, her arched brows lifting, “But it is still a strange gift. Seedling plants! For herbs!”

  Gertrude glances toward the small wooden box where the frail seedlings stand. “Rosemary,” she says distantly, pointing out the tiny plants as she names them, “And fennel, and pansy, and rue.”

  “Not a very amorous selection; more anodyne,” says Raissa, and encounters a sudden, quelling stare from Gertrude.

  “The King,” says Gertrude pointedly without looking up, “has given me young rose roots and sprouted violets. The daisies that were here last year should grow again, and the columbine as well.”

  I have stopped playing, having just completed ‘Heloise’s Lament,’ and I observe Gertrude closely. She is not frowning, but there is a stillness in her face: something is troubling her and I cannot determine what it is.

  “The King,” says Raissa in a tone almost as clear as the Queen’s, “should arrange a marriage for his brother before there is trouble.”

  Margitha looks shocked and she moves her chair back, away from Raissa. “How can you say that to the Queen.”

  “Oh, not that Gertrude would do anything,” Raissa continues hastily, “but Claudius could grow impatient, lacking all the things he wants. If he had a family he would be less dissatisfied, for as long as Hamlet has no son to come after him, Claudius knows he might yet be ruler in Denmark.”

  Gertrude rises from her work. “If you speak such sentiments again, Raissa, you will return to France and a convent, where you may spend your days learning humility.” She brushes off her clothes and faces Raissa directly, her anger masked with coolness. “You want me to suggest to the King that Claudius marry. Am I wrong to think you would like to be his bride?”

  Raissa meets her gaze directly, “You are correct,” she says.

  “Brazen,” Margitha says to herself, so softly that only I hear her.

  “Because you want the advancement, or because you are captivated by him?” Gertrude asks with disdain.

  “I seek advancement, and Claudius is the most handsome man at court, with the manner to match his appearance.” Raissa is defiant now, and she stares at Gertrude. “You cannot have him. He is your husband’s brother. Then let him have me.” She clasps her hands in unexpected supplication, “Stop tormenting him, and yourself. Give him up.”

  “I do not have him,” Gertrude says quietly but there are hectic spots in her cheeks that contradict her.

  “But you do,” Raissa protests, then puts her hand to her mouth.

  “I did not hear you say that,” Gertrude tells her quietly. “But if you repeat it, you will be gone from Elsinor.”

  Raissa knows now that she has gone too far, yet she strives to put a good face on her embarrassment. “We are both overwrought. I will go to the sewing room until I am less agitated.” “Margitha had better go with you,” says Gertrude firmly. “So that you will complain only to her.”

  Any protest Raissa could make now would be useless. She curtsies to Gertrude, gathers up her sewing, and goes to the door leading into Elsinor. “You should not be alone, my Queen.”

  “Yorick is here, and the doors can be bolted; I will be protected,” Gertrude tells her with that same chilly courtesy. “Leave me, and do not come again until you can speak as a woman of your position ought, and ask my pardon for your effrontery.” She gestures to Margitha. “Stay with her.” Margitha curtsies and murmurs, “Yes, my Queen,” before she follows Raissa out of the garden.

  Gertrude stands watching where they have gone, and then moves the mat she has knelt on to another section of the flower beds. “Play me something sweet, good Yorick,” she says as she prepares to continue her gardening. “Do you know ‘The Italian Lovers?’”

  “I think so,” I answer, for there are two songs with that title. I set the shawm to my lips and begin the more familiar tune. “Is this the one?”

  “Yes,” she says, and kneels down to continue planting, handling the tiny plants with tenderness and care. When I finish the song, she does not interrupt her work. “I will need another half hour, I think. But it is time you waited on the King.” She looks up swiftly. “I will not keep you, Yorick. Be on your way with my thanks for your playing.”

  I bow to her, but I know it is wrong for me to leave her by herself. “You should not be alone, my Queen.” She laughs a little. “You are my good angel, jester; but truly, I don’t suppose any harm will come to me in
this place. There are guards in the hall, and the gate at the end of the garden opens onto an old courtyard. What harm can befall me here, in my husband’s palace?” She motions me away with impatience. “If the King is displeased I will answer for it.”

  It would be inexcusable to object to her order; I bow to her again and take up my shawm. “As you wish, my Queen,” I say before I leave her to her garden, alone.

  * * *

  A messenger brings word today that Ricardis is delivered of a son, a great lusty boy his father has named Laertes. Hamlet is the first to offer a toast to the babe, and to delight in Polonius’ good fortune.

  “Let us all thank God for protecting the child,” says Hamlet, and cannot keep from glancing once at Gertrude.

  The Queen reddens and her long fingers fidget with the edge of her wide sleeves. She reaches for her goblet and drinks the toast to Ricardis’ son, taking more mead on her first sip than is her wont. She watches Hamlet from the corner of her eye. “Let us also toast the King,” says Claudius, who is seated with the Counsellors. “It is a fine thing that Polonius has his son, but let us also pray that Hamlet will soon be shown the favor of Heaven with a son of his own.” The Counsellors are quick to join that toast, and I can see the pleasure in Horatio’s canny old eyes as he watches Claudius. “A worthy wish,” he says when the goblets are lowered. “And well-spoken.” Claudius preens and then makes a gesture of modesty, his handsome face wreathed in too-ready smiles. “Hamlet is my brother, and Denmark is my country. How can I not wish the greatest joy for both of them? And that would be an heir.”

  “Which you are, at the moment,” Horatio points out with no apology for the directness of his words.

  “But I have no wife,” Claudius says. “And that makes me a very slender limb on which to hang the hopes of this House.” He shakes his head. “Rather too many healthy sons than too few.”

  “Certainly,” says Horatio, and drinks a third time.

  Hamlet has already ordered more mead poured and the serving men are making their way around the table where the Council sits, holding opened barrels of the strong honey wine on their shoulders to make the pouring easier and more entertaining.

  Claudius beams as the mead flows. “The mark of a good King,” he says to the table at large, “is his generosity.”

  Several of the Counsellors raise their goblets once more, and a few look toward Gertrude as they do.

  “It is the hope of us all,” says one of the most doddering of the Counsellors, an ancient named Willegius, “that the Queen will bring a son to her husband, as the hope of all Denmark.” “Yes,” second two or three others, hefting their goblets with enthusiasm.

  The Queen is pale now, and she moves away from her place at the table, curtsying to Hamlet. “You have much to discuss with your Counsellors, my King,” she says with deference. “I will leave you to your talk. I am grateful you permitted me to come to drink to the health of Ricardis and her son.”

  Hamlet gazes on her fondly, the warmth in his eyes so great that a few of the Counsellors turn away for fear of intruding; Claudius clears his throat as if embarrassed. I wonder what the Male Goddess makes of this, and what He-in-She would advise, for it appears to me that there is trouble in Hamlet’s affection.

  “How does it happen,” says Hamlet as Gertrude starts to withdraw, “that you are more lovely with every passing day.”

  Now it is Gertrude’s turn to be flustered. “It is my greatest pleasure to delight you, my King. You are all consideration, to show me such distinguishment in this company,” she says, all but rushing to the door. The King stares after her as if she were the greatest treasure in Denmark.

  * * *

  By the time Polonius leaves Elsinor, everyone is tired of hearing him crow. For once I find myself in accord with Oduvit, who has been mocking the proud father at every turn. At first his jibes were not applauded, but now there are a goodly number of courtiers who are unafraid to share his hostile mirth.

  “Wait and see,” Oduvit predicts as we jesters take our evening meal together. “After all this promise of loyalty and devotion, Laertes will disappoint the King, and his father. It is always the way when children are over-praised. They become worse than traitors to their own House, and to the Kingdom. This Laertes will be one such, wait and see. He will bring down Hamlet’s House.” “That is too much to charge a baby with,” I remark in the hope that it will end this too-familiar complaint.

  “I predict it,” Oduvit declares, unwilling to abandon his favorite topic for the moment. “I predict that Hamlet’s House will fall by Laertes’ hand.”

  Mect is not willing to have another argument about the infant Laertes, “There will be time enough to condemn the boy when he is grown. He has yet to live a month, let alone a year.”

  “But he is doomed already,” declares Oduvit with relish. “His father will require him to be his son, and that is not a fate to wish on anyone.” His laughter is raucous and he gives himself more beer. “Laertes is Ricardis’ son as well as Polonius’,” I say. “That should count for something.”

  Oduvit scoffs at this notion. “It is the father who shapes the child. Everyone knows that.” He slaps his knee. “No wonder Polonius is so full of himself, seeing a lusty boy in his wife’s lap. The only male a man would like to see in his woman’s lap.”

  I want to defend Hamlet from these affronts, but I know Oduvit well enough to be certain that if I speak a single word, the others might lend credence to what Oduvit is not quite saying. I notice Hedrann is picking at his food, his face creased with deep lines. While I wish him no harm, I am grateful to him for his pain. “What is the matter, old friend?” I ask him.

  Hedrann turns to me and does what little he can to smile. “Nothing worth mentioning,” he says, breathing hard with each word.

  Mect looks at Hedrann uneasily. “Do you hurt?”

  “A stitch in my side,” he says, doing his best to dismiss it entirely. “No more than if I had run up two flights of stairs.”

  “Tell the physician,” I recommendd, for I have seen others who have made such a complaint and were dead within a fortnight.

  “He is an old woman,” says Hedrann. “It will pass.”

  Mect shares my concern. “Speak to the physician anyway,” he suggests. “He may have something to ease you, and that is worth listening to his blather.”

  Oduvit stalks out of the Refectory, his back stiff with contempt.

  GERTRUDE

  Since Gertrude has continued with her gardening, her women have taken to spending their afternoons sewing together in the Queen’s quarters, out of the sun.

  I have been told to stay with the ladies, and with some ill-defined misgivings I have done as Gertrude asks.

  This day is much like the last sixteen have been; I have played for the women as they sew, and aside from the absence of the Queen, it is as it has been for two years, except that today there is a new companion for Gertrude, a girl of fifteen whose father commands Hamlet’s ships. She is a pale creature, slight and self-effacing and given to starting at shadows, called Hildegarde, as unworldly as the saint she is named for. She has taken her place with Margitha and Raissa and has attempted to become invisible.

  I want to cheer her, this poor youngster with the enormous sea-colored eyes, and so I play only spritely ditties on my shawm as the women ply their needles.

  “I understand that today the Queen is planting lilies,” Raissa remarks with an arch look at Margitha. “Lilies are for the dead,” says Margitha in depressing tones. “We have no need of lilies.”

  Raissa laughs, “Are the lilies another gift from Claudius, I wonder? Or has he found a more appropriate plant? A mandrake, perhaps?”

  “If you do not want to find yourself returned to France, you had better keep such notions unsaid. Gertrude will not forgive you a second time.” Margitha is sorting colors, holding them up to the sunlight to be sure they match. ‘”I am from Lorraine, as she is. If she sends me home, she will have only the clothe
s sent by her father to remind her of what she has left behind; her memories protect me,” Raissa says, but she changes the subject as well. “How does all this seem to you, Hildegarde?”

  “Very grand,” says Hildegarde just above a whisper. Her sewing is worked in minute stitches, as timid and perfect as she.

  “That will not last,” Margitha assures her. “In a month it will all seem very ordinary to you.”

  “How can that be?” Hildegarde asks, abandoning her sewing to listen to the answer.

  “It is grand because it is strange and Elsinor is large. When I first came here I got lost at least once a day,” says Raissa. “And my Danish was poor, so I could not understand what I was being told. I thought I would always be a stranger here. But then I learned my way, and my Danish improved, and this place was no longer an enchanted island but a very big house with better tapestries than most. You have an advantage over me; you know Danish already. Elsinor will be familiar to you sooner than it was for me.”

  Hildegarde listens with somber attention. At last she ducks her head once, picks up her needlework, and says, “’I hope it will be so.” Margitha reaches over and pats Hildegarde on the back of her hand, “Do not be put off by our ways. Everyone at court pretends to be unawed.”

  As I begin the bouncing phrases of ‘The Two Blind Men of Paris,’ I glance over to see if the spritely tune has pleased Hildegarde; I see only her gilded chaplet over her pale hair.

  * * *

  At the end of the following week Margitha gives me a note to carry to the Queen in the garden when my playing is done. “See that she has it before she goes to wash,” she warns me. “I need her answer quickly.”

  I bow and take the folded paper that is held with a pin. “At once,” I tell her, and start off toward the garden, note in one hand, shawm in the other. I hurry along so that I will not miss the Queen, and I enter the garden with hardly more than a knock.