Alas, Poor Yorick

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  Then Polonius claps his hands loudly and calls for Mect and for me, summoning us to entertain the court while they dine.

  As I stop before the high table to bow to Gertrude and Claudius, I cannot keep from wondering where she was in the afternoon when her garden was empty. I want to believe that, like the rest of us, she had found a vantage-point to watch the army. I caper toward her and spring into the air, clicking my heels. Yet I will not permit my apprehension to blight my entertaining. “Lovely lady,” I tell her as I drop to my knee, “end my doubts.” Along the table the courtiers nudge one another, a few of them chuckling at this ridiculous courtship.

  Polonius stifles a muttered condemnation as Ricardis nudges his side.

  “And how may I do that, Sir Yorick?” asks Gertrude with a delighted smile and a gracious inclination of her head.

  “Plant me in your garden, to grow in your care, your steady sentry and constant protector,” I ask; it was not what I had intended to say, and it takes me aback.

  Gertrude laughs aloud, and her merriment is contagious; shortly all the Counsellors and courtiers join her. She motions me to continue, reaching for the end of her outer sleeve to dab at her eyes.

  Baffled by this response, for I thought my quip was not very funny, I try to summon up more of the same patter. “As candid as a daisy, I will turn my face to you as the daisy turns her face to the sun. I will sway in the wind caused by your garments as you pass along the way.” My manner is so obsequious that I find some relief that the King is not here to see this. Gertrude continues to laugh, and I realize that I have struck on some secret language of her own; the humor she knows is a private jest she has with herself, and I have stumbled on it accidently; what amuses her only she truly knows. Yet the rest of those dining with her know they must laugh when she does, and so my inane remarks are touted as inventive wit. “So long as your cause is true and you are not rue or pansies, or a vile weed, then bloom there, Sir Yorick, and welcome,” she says at last, lifting her goblet to toast me. “Be willing to bloom for me, summer and winter, and I will tend you faithfully.” Her smile is bright as the sun.

  I bow repeatedly, as low as my back will allow, and then I reach out and pluck her kerchief from her sleeve. “To wear as favor,” I cry, and tie it around my arm as I would if I were going into battle.

  Now Polonius is laughing so hard his face is the color of mulberries. Beside him Ricardis does her best to appear in good humor, but her eyes are bright with fear. What have I said? I ask myself. What message have I sent, all unintended? I continue to cavort along the high table, and I take every opportunity to exaggerate the honor Gertrude’s kerchief bestows on me. I stop in front of Claudius and flip the ends of the kerchief in his direction. For an instant there is wrath in his face, and he starts to his feet as if he would tear the favor from my arm. Then he recalls himself and once again sits down, his rich, insincere laughter resounding over the rest. “How well you teach us the foolishness of our actions; your instruction could serve as lesson to a Bishop. You have a clever way, Sir Yorick. A most excellent fancy. Without doubt. Treasure that you are, I wonder that my brother did not take you with him to drive away the tedium of campaign, and to cheer him when the battles are done.”

  “He trusts the Poles to do that, my lord,” I say with a deep bow, and am rewarded with another surge of laughter from everyone including Claudius, who dares not fail to laugh at such a jibe.

  “More than he may want,” Claudius whispers so that only he and I can hear. Polonius is swabbing his eyes with the edge of his capacious sleeve. He is pleading me to stop, that he can endure no more hilarity. Beside him Ricardis smiles and smiles as if her face is about to crack.

  Gertrude signals to me. “Good my cavalier servant,” she calls, “let me set you a task to prove your adoration.”

  I hasten back to her and bow again. “Whatever pleases you must also be my delight, my Queen,” I say as I clasp my hands over my breast. “Be good enough to joust for me,” says Gertrude with a glitter in her eyes that does not come from wine.

  “Certainly,” I tell her at once, puzzled that she could make such an odd request. “But how? If I am to grow in your garden, it will be a great task for me to enter the lists, except as a token dropped from your hand to the honor of a more mobile champion than I would be, no matter how I bloomed.”

  “Not as a flower, as the fellow you are,” she says and her invitation masks a deeper purpose.

  “I would please you in every way, my Queen,” I say, letting the courtiers snicker at the impossibility of it. “But I fear I must disappoint you. There is no tourney planned until the King’s victory.”

  “Oh, so far as that goes, you are correct. No knights are to joust while the King is at war. But you can, can’t you? Why not have a jesters’ tourney?” she wheedles. “You can mount yourself on one of the bear-hounds, and face off against a player on a donkey, can’t you? Since it would delight me?”

  “A jesters’ tourney?” I repeat, sensing I have played my way into a clever trap. “What do you mean?” “What I have said; you may enter the lists as my champion if you will arrange it for me.” She continues to smile, but the light in her eyes has nothing to do with wit.

  “You mean jester against jester?” I cannot fathom her purpose. “Battling for your favor?”

  “Yes, almost,” says Gertrude. “You and one of the players will meet on the lists of honor tomorrow, to achieve my favor.” She tosses her head. “In the afternoon.”

  “If it is what you wish, my Queen, it will be done,” I say, but with great uncertainty. “I will speak to the players tonight.”

  “You must,” Gertrude insists, no longer bothering to laugh. “I desire it.”

  I bow deeply, and make some trivial comment that causes many of the courtiers to laugh again; then I back away, leaving the place clear for Mect. This one time, I wish Oduvit were entertaining now; he would deride the notion of a tournament so completely that the Queen would have to withdraw her order or face unendurable ridicule. But Oduvit is belowstairs, his mead-sodden body shaking as with ague. “I warned you,” whispers Mect before he rushes forward to present himself to the courtiers at the high table.

  As Mect cavorts and recites outrageous ribald verses, I keep to my place, no longer hungry, and quite unable to laugh with the rest. I watch the Counsellors and courtiers and I wonder who among them is my enemy, and why? And I ask what reason Gertrude has to treat me this way? What have I done to deserve her scorn? Alas, I find no answers in any of their faces, and the Male Goddess will not reveal their souls; I pass the evening in growing apprehension which I dare not express.

  FAVOR

  “A worthy steed,” Gertrude approves as she puts her hand on the massive head of the bear hound I have chosen from among the oldest and laziest of the huge dogs; his long, pink tongue lolls, and he licks her hand generously, and she wipes her hand on her skirt afterward. Mect blows a cow’s horn for fanfare, which hardly holds the dog’s attention, so indifferent has he grown with years.

  The court has assembled in the largest of the courtyards within the walls. Benches have been hastily set in place, and a dozen servants hurry about putting up poles to mark the field of honor. It is a breezy day and pennants flap from the courtyard eaves and the players’ wagons. “This is ridiculous,” complains Hieronymous as he watches Guilaume don the sham armor of players. “What is the Queen trying to do?” “Direct the gaze of the court away from herself,” I say, which is the answer I have arrived at after a sleepless night. “She is too much watched and does not wish to be. By bringing attention to this ludicrous contest, she frees herself of scrutiny and the wagging tongues that plague her. Now that she is seen to be courted by such as we, other suitors will be less noticeable.” I have her kerchief tied around my arm over my armor as a favor for battle. Hieronymous makes an impatient gesture. “Surely something less…preposterous than this would serve her purpose.”

  “Possibly,” I tell him. I have donned the leat
her armor Hamlet had made for me, and I feel sweat on my back already. “But in making this a joust for her favor, it paints all such dalliance in this spirit of tomfoolery, and—”

  “A-a-h,” Hieronymous sighs in satisfaction. “Adroit, very adroit. Yes, a clever solution to her troubles with gossip and rumors, I would think. She is a very canny woman, this Queen Gertrude. Who would not chuckle at her flirtations after such an episode as this one?”

  “Or who would dare not chuckle?” I ask quietly.

  Hieronymous smiles at Guilaume, the player who is to face me. “The donkey will not move faster than a walk, no matter what you do. So try to remain in the saddle until Yorick is close enough to strike you with his jester’s staff.”

  Guilaume does his best to look pleased, but is not very successful. “I will do it,” he says faintly. He is hardly older than a page; a stripling, not yet grown.

  “And take care not to strike Yorick with your baton. Let him strike you in order to win. He is to be the victor today, for the Queen’s amusement,” adds Hieronymous. “Just drop your baton when you are touched. Then we can get back to rehearsing The Spinsters of Hamburg.” It is the farce they will present tonight.

  Guilaume, who is to play the youngest of the three spinsters, stretches out his hand as if expecting it to be kissed. “Lord preserve me, good sir, from rogues like you,” he exclaims in high, girlish tones.

  “None of that,” Hieronymous tells Guilaume sharply, “You are to be the challenging knight. Be sure you do your role.”

  “It is more fit for Italian clowns than for players,” scoffs Guilaume.

  “Do it, and be pleased that we have done a service for the Queen,” says Hieronymous sharply. He ties the last of the mock-armor to Guilaume’s back. “Come. It is time we were about this japenapery.’”

  “All right,” says Guilaume, straightening up and reaching for the baton he is to carry against me. He pauses and glances down at me. “Two passes, and you strike me down. That is what we decided.”

  “If the animals will co-operate,” I remind him, “If they will not, I will strike when I can. Let us hope that we do not have to end it so quickly that the Queen asks for a second bout.” “Do you think she would?” asks Hieronymous, distressed at the notion.

  “She might,” I answer, sensing that Gertrude is determined to have as much amusement from this as she can. “Watch her, and gauge what you do by her actions. If she is laughing, all is well.”

  “Yes,” agrees Guilaume, holding out his hand to me.

  I slap my palm to his—neither of us wish to endanger our fragile gauntlets with a strong grip—and touch the visor of my helm. “Fortune favors the brave.” “So it does,” says Guilaume, “but how does she view the ridiculous?” I shrug. “Well, do the best you may, for the Queen.”

  We allow Hieronymous to escort us out into the sunlight for this travesty of a tourney.

  Mect sounds his cow’s horn in greeting, and I see the bear hound raise his large head from his paws at the sound.

  Hieronymous has appointed himself herald. He strides to the Queen and bows in imitation of Polonius’ elaborate style. “A contest for the favor of Queen Gertrude, between Sir Yorick of Elsinor and young Squire Guilaume of Bruges.” He signals to Mect for another honk.

  “Sir Yorick wears my favor,” calls out the Queen, and nods to Claudius, who sits beside her. “A fine champion, my Yorick.”

  Claudius achieves a sour smile.

  Now bemused Guards are leading up our mounts to us. The bear hound has been muzzled and a kind of bridle improvised for it. For a saddle there is a rug secured around his body with a belt. I shake my head once and look to the Guards for assistance. One of them grabs me under the arms and with a grunt swings me onto the big dog’s back.

  The dog grumbles at this, and stiffens with my weight on him; he has had children on him before, but never a dwarf jester in leather armor. He makes a sound that could become a growl, and I try to find a seat that will serve me for a little while. The dog’s back is tense and I worry what he will do when the Guard releases his hold on the muzzle.

  Coaxing the dog with clicks and kisses, the Guard takes him to his place for the start of this battle. I cling to the belt securing the rug and hope it will not slip. The burden of my staff is so great that I am no longer certain I can aim it well enough to strike Guilaume with it, assuming we actually get so far as meeting.

  Claudius makes a point of betting on Guilaume, laughing and pointing at the donkey with such bonhomie that I can’t find it in my heart to be angry with him.

  Many more bets are being laid, some of them as ridiculous as these lists themselves. I try not to be distracted by the wagers as they are called aloud, but it is impossible to shut them from my mind.

  The bear hound dislikes having his head tugged around by the muzzle, and he pulls hard against it, with the result that he and I turn in backward circles, to the vast amusement of the court. Hieronymous is helping Guilaume into the pack-saddle on the donkey, and trying to point them toward me and my recalcitrant mount.

  Finally I am able to start the hound forward. I cling to the securing belt as I strive to keep the dog moving toward the donkey. I hate the mockery I must endure as I strive to do the task set for me. Have I not performed honorably? The sooner this disgraceful incident is finished, the more satisfied I will be. Gertrude might well claim after this that any ill report I give of us her is revenge for this humiliation. But, I remind myself as I wrestle with my mount, Gertrude is not one who thinks it is possible to disgrace a jester, and so this may mean little to her.

  Guilaume is having less luck with the donkey than I am with the dog. The beast is unwilling to move at all, and has lowered his long-eared head so that it can kick out with his rear hooves. Poor Guilaume looks distressed under his trumpery armor, and clings to the pack-saddle with the same desperation that I cling to the belt around the dog’s middle.

  In order to complete the confusion Mect sounds the cow horn a third time, and the donkey brays in answer, swinging around to face the noise as if it were the challenge. Guilaume tugs on the reins to no purpose. The court cheers and squeals with laughter. Fortunately the muzzle keeps the bear hound from barking, but he gives a series of determined coughs that all but shake me from my perch.

  “Sally forth, Sir Yorick,” the Queen cries gaily, waving her hand as if to urge me on to battle. She has brought Hildegarde up beside her, and orders her lady to raise Prince Hamlet into the air to watch this fiasco.

  A sudden, unexpected shame burns in me like vitriol, and I pull with renewed determination on the dog’s head, clicking my tongue angrily to make him move. Why I am so abashed by her encouragement, I cannot guess, but I feel it possess me as if it were the oldest god of storms in Denmark. I force the dog to move near enough to the donkey that I can take a swipe at Guilaume, the anger in my arm making my staff strike the donkey on the poll.

  The donkey stretches out his neck and tries to bite the bear hound.

  All the court is in the thrall of laughter, incapable of anything but shaking derision.

  Then the bear hound lunges at the donkey, muscles bunched for a fight, a growl rumbling in his chest. I am all but flung from his back, where I am pitched about like a boat in a tempest as the dog closes with the donkey, who spins and lashes out with his rear hooves.

  The hound gives a muffled howl as the hooves clip his side. Luckily the kick is a glancing one or the dog would be badly hurt.

  For an instant I see Guilaume’s eyes, wide with terror, as he attempts to scramble from the donkey’s back without injury; he lets himself slip to the side of the saddle where he hangs on with the tenacity of a limpet. It is an unwise move; the donkey swings around again, and this time his hooves hit Guilaume’s leg as he drops off the saddle and tries to roll away from the furious animal. A loud shout followed by a hissed string of curses inform the world that Guilaume has been hurt.

  The court falters in its jubilation, then resumes with renewed
outbursts.

  The donkey, unencumbered, turns and flees at a jarring canter as the bear hound pursues it, and I, willy-nilly, take up the chase with him.

  Three Guards stop the dog, and one of them takes me from his back. “Quite a ride you had,” he says in grudging approval. “Is Guilaume—” I begin, my ire vanished and my ignominy forgotten. Hieronymous has already reached his fallen player and is kneeling beside him. He looks toward me. “I don’t think it’s broken. But he’s bleeding.”

  I take the Queen’s kerchief from around my arm and hold it out to Hieronymous as I rush toward him.

  Gertrude gets to her feet, her eyes enormous as I tie Guilaume’s wound with the kerchief. If she feels that this an unworthy use of her token, I will defend myself later, I promise inwardly.

  Polonius is now trying to restore order among the courtiers, though none of them are paying heed to him.

  Guilaume moans and stares up at me. “What happened?”

  “You were kicked when you fell,” I say, and feel relief as Hieronymous interrupts.

  “You did very well, Guilaume. Your leg is not broken, but you have a very bad bruise. You will have to lie down for a few days until it is better.” His voice is soft and persuasive, musical as a lullaby. “We will take care of you.” “I tried to do what you said,” Guilaume remarks distantly.

  “You did very well,” I assure him, and look up as Claudius strides up to us, his face set in uncompromising lines.

  “Is the player hurt?” he asks bluntly, staring down as if on a nest of vermin; his lip curls to show his reluctance to so much as touch one so far beneath him.

  “His leg is bruised, and he has some bleeding; the hooves cut through his skin of his thigh, and his shoulder is badly pulled,” I tell him, getting to my feet and bowing. “He will not be able to joust a second time.”

  Claudius shakes his head. “I should think not. It would not amuse anyone, in any case, not now. It would look too dangerous to be funny. How did he come to have such ill-luck?” He does not look at Guilaume directly but rather inspects him from the tail of his eye. “The Queen fears that he has suffered on her behalf and bids me tell the player that the aid and care of all the court physicians are extended to him, with her sincere condolences.” He glances over his shoulder toward Gertrude and adds softly, “She wanted only to make fighting an entertainment, for the sake of those who have men going to war. She never intended this misfortune.” “Of course not,” says Hieronymous, with the smoothness of one long used to the favor of the mighty. “It was an accident, the eeriest mischance. Everyone saw that it was.”