Alas, Poor Yorick

by Chelsea Quinn Yarbro

  When Oduvit has finished, he bows lavishly, and then stands aside for the other entertainments, accepting the praise that follows him as his due.

  The animals come next, two bears, three small dogs and a long-armed red ape so old his face is grizzled with age; one of the bears is snuffling with what I suppose is hunger at the scent of food. Its trainer jerks hard on the chain linked to the collar on the bear’s neck. I wince for the pain the animal must feel at this treatment, and for the next half hour, I devote myself to playing old tunes for young Hamlet while the bear is made to cavort at the sharp commands of his trainer, for I do not like to see the great animal made such mock of. The Male Goddess despises that which denies nature, and His-in-Her judgment is often severe.

  The court watches the animals in fascination as the dogs draw the ape in a little cart, and the bears roll large balls in the pattern of a star, the dogs following them balanced on their hind legs, and the whole ending with the ape standing on the shoulders of the bears with the dogs in his hands and on his head. They are rewarded with applause as favorable as any Hieronymous’ players received, and I feel a deep offense on their behalf, that the court should not know that players are more accomplished than dancing bears.

  Then musicians are brought down from the gallery to play cornemuses, courtauts, sordones, crumhorns, and rackets for the assembled company, going largely unheard over the clatter of talk along the tables, as the meal is not over and no one is yet ready to dance. I listen to their tunes and join them on my shawm, hoping that the Prince will take some pleasure in the sweet strains.

  Young Hamlet wakens once, after the trenchers and chargers have been cleared away, and stares about him, his eyes very large.

  I lean over his cradle, saying to him, “Do not trouble yourself, little King, This is for you, to make you happy.”

  His features soften in the first touch of returning sleep, and he puts his hand up awkwardly to his mouth, shoving his knuckles against his four tiny teeth. He is about to fuss, but then he slips back to dreaming.

  At the conclusion of the evening, Gertrude and Claudius make a great show of bidding one another good-night, and parting with meticulousness at the yawning door of the Great Hall.

  “May this mark the first celebration of a long and glorious life for the Prince,” says Claudius, his full attention on the Queen.

  “Amen,” answers Gertrude, and is echoed by many of the courtiers and Norwegians who witness this final gesture of the evening. “And may Denmark thrive in the might of the King,” she adds, and smiles as the other courtiers cheer in response.

  As I follow the nurse bearing the Prince down the hall, several paces behind the Queen, I realize how much I want to return to that time when all I had to do was think of ways to amuse the court.

  * * *

  The animal trainers do not mix with jesters as the players did; they keep to themselves, with their beasts on the far side of the stables, where no one is welcome; and so Oduvit, Mect and I are once again reduced to our own society. We gather in the Refectory, hunched over our loaves of noon-day bread-and-cheese, and try not to think of the terrible things that are taking place in Polonius’ apartments, where Ricardis lies in agony, unable to deliver her babe though she has labored now for well over a day.

  “She’s going to die,” says Mect at last, when our attempts at conversation have flagged for the eighth time. “They will have to kill her to save the child. Or they will lose them both.” “A pity,” says Oduvit bluntly. “But she has given her husband one living son, which is more than many wives do.”

  I stare at him, too exhausted to upbraid him for his indifference to Ricardis’ fate. “The woman suffers.”

  “As must all daughters of Eve,” says Oduvit with the same great indifference as before. “It is the way God told them to have children when He got tired of making new men and women.”

  Mect stares at Oduvit, “Where did you get such a notion as that?” He blesses himself, a thing I have rarely seen him do, even in church.

  “It was what the priest taught in my town,” says Oduvit, his bluster unsuccessful. “It is heresy,” says Mect with great conviction. He shakes his head slowly. “No wonder you place such small value on those around you.” Oduvit draws himself up, “Do not blame the priest for that, Mect; I have come by my contempt honestly. If I am a heretic, it is my own conversion that makes me so. I have seen what is in men’s minds, not the great aspirations, but the true, small deeds that multiply until the aspirations are weighted down with a thousand little nastinesses and cannot be achieved. And I have heard how these men account for that; how they blame their wives or their children or their masters, to be rid of any obligation in their own corruption.” He leans back and glares at Mect. “Can you tell me that you do not see the same thing?”

  “Oh, I see it,” says Mect, “but I do not take it as an excuse for my own laxness, but as an example of what to avoid.” He sips the hot cider Voss has poured for us, and points a finger at me. “And you, Yorick? You have been strangely silent.”

  I regard the two of them, thinking of all the sins I bear on my shoulders, and all the betrayals I am afraid I have had to make in order to keep my oath to protect the Prince, torn as I have been between the two Hamlets. After a moment I say, “I think that no matter how we argue these points, poor Ricardis is dying, and that is all that concerns me. It is unfair that she die in this manner, but I do not expect death to be fair in anything except that soon or late it comes to all of us.”

  “And do you tell the Prince that?” asks Oduvit, his pose of contempt once again firmly in place.

  I answer him without reservation this time. “Yes.”

  “And do you think he understands?” Oduvit challenges in disbelief.

  “As well as any of us do,” I reply.

  * * *

  “So Polonius has a little girl, like you,” I tell the kitchen cat on the evening after Ricardis’ obsequies. “And he is without a wife at mid-winter.” Gertrude has ordered that the celebrations in a week be somber ones, fitted to the official mourning mood of the court. “Laertes has been crying for his mother every hour. It is pitiful to hear him, even when he rages.” The kitchen cat continues to knead my hip in determined, purring bliss. She has had two collops of mutton from me for her meal and is now readying herself to settle with me for the night. How carefully she prepares the place she is determined to curl up, and how magnificently she purrs; she feels as if her purr would tangle her tongue and choke her with rapture, so contented is she.

  “She was laid under the floor in the church,” I go on, aware that she enjoys the sound of my voice. “It was too cold to dig her a grave in the churchyard, and so, though she was not noble enough for the honor, the Queen ruled that Ricardis should rest in the church itself, as part of her household. Polonius was so pleased with the distinction that he smiled through the whole of the ceremony, though he tried not to.” I stare up at the ceiling, only faintly visible in the dark of my little room. “It will be difficult for him with his two children. They are to be sent to his mother when spring comes, with Hildegarde to act as their governess.”

  As the kitchen cat puts her head into my hand to encourage me to scratch her ears and her ruff, I roll onto my side so that my shoulder does not ache so tenaciously; the Prince is getting heavier and carrying him as he likes to be carried is becoming more of an effort for me even as it has become a more frequently demanded pleasure for him. I try to ease the stiffness from my body, but without much success. I decide that I must go to the bath-house oftener, so that my joints will not stiffen and crack.

  “Poor children, to have no mother, and so young,” I say to the kitchen cat, who has once again had her kittens taken from her. “And poor mother, to have lost your babies. You will know how that infant feels.”

  The kitchen cat turns around and curls against my side, still purring all to herself, leaving me to my sore sinews and restless thoughts.

  MID-WINTER

  For
the coming of the new Year, Gertrude once again wears the Mid-Winter Crown, its candles making her face appear to float above her dark mourning clothes, giving her a spectral look. The west and east doors are open to the clear, cold night, and the feast lasts for more than four hours, the courses being presented by servants in splendid livery which throughout the evening is increasingly smirched with grease and smuts from the fare they bring.

  Claudius occupies the seat beside Gertrude, glorious in a black houpelande of Venetian cut velvet with a fan-ruff of thick amber lace, the amber silk-lined triangular sleeves so long they are knotted in order to keep them from trailing too much on the floor; rarely has mourning been so flattering, or so ostentatious. He is easily the most elegant man in the room, and he knows it, taking pains to sit and move to show himself to advantage.

  Polonius is absent, and so Fortinbras’ ambassador, Count Axel, occupies his place.

  “They aren’t laughing,” complains Mect when he has done his stint for the guests. “It is because of the funeral,” says Oduvit, and spits to show his opinion of this observation. He has been at the mead again and already his words are slurred; and still his fear is visible to me.

  “And the war,” I remind them. “With no news for six weeks, they are growing worried.” And I am one of those who worry, I add to myself.

  “But they knew there would be little news through the winter,” Oduvit protests, disdain making his mouth curl.

  “Nevertheless, they are worried,” I tell him, unwilling to permit him to dismiss these concerns as unimportant. “Then they are fools, far more than we,” Oduvit declares, and glances again in the direction of the high table. “Look at them. They want us to think they miss the King. All they’re worried about is Hamlet’s return; they hope it will never come. They are all but mounting each other there on the table.” “Oduvit,” I warn him. “If you cannot see it, then you are blind!” Oduvit hurls this accusation at me as if it had physical weight.

  Mect studies the rushes. “Perhaps he is just mindful of his position,” he suggests mildly to Oduvit.

  Oduvit turns on him. “By which you mean to say I am not?”

  “No, you are not,” I tell him. “And you are willing to imperil all of us for the sake of your assumptions about the Queen, who can turn you out of Elsinor with nothing more than your clothes if you push her too far.”

  Oduvit laughs in my face, “Do you think she would dare?” “I think she would do anything she must to keep her place unquestioned.”

  Mect takes up the matter. “And no one at court would question her act, given all you have said. Do not think otherwise.” “What about you?” Oduvit demands of Mect. “Have you eyes enough to see what is going on? Do you know how they conduct themselves in private? Are you so naive that you think they are only praying? And have you courage enough to name what they do?”

  Mect shrugs.

  Then young Osrick comes to take me to perform, and whatever the rest of the argument between Oduvit and Mect brings, I do not hear it.

  * * *

  Hildegarde’s pale features are composed as she stands in the courtyard to take leave of the Queen; behind her is the traveling carriage that will take her, the wetnurse, Laertes and his nurse, and the babe Ophelia to Polonius’ holdings in the north. The first, fragile signs of spring are showing in the trees, and the wind, though cold, is gentle.

  Laertes, in his nurse’s arms, is crying passionately, waving his fists in the air as if railing at Heaven itself, calling out “Mamer, Mamer,” when he can get enough control of himself to do it. His face is red and his features tightened up so that they seem pulled together in his head.

  On the Queen’s orders I have brought the Prince to bid Hildegarde and Laertes farewell; he is on my shoulder, hanging onto my hair with both hands, and bouncing in good spirits, though a short while before he was sulking for not being permitted to put my shawm in his mouth; these days he tries to taste and chew everything he can reach. The ache is welling in my back now, and extends from my hump down my arm.

  Gertrude is still in mourning, her deep-mulberry cotehardie unadorned to show her grief. She embraces Hildegarde once and does her best to smile, though the attempt is unsuccessful. “Travel in God’s favor, dear Hildegarde.”

  “Thank you, my Queen,” she replies, doing her best not to weep. “Think of Ricardis, and love her children on her behalf.” This admonition does not give Hildegarde the purpose it is intended to.

  “But how?” she cries out. “I know so little.”

  Gertrude puts her arm around Hildegarde, and pats her affectionately, “You know the ways of the court, which these children will one day have to know. They are the children of a great man, and as such will have to be worthy of him. Teach them to honor and serve the King and Denmark, and show them that you are there to defend them, and they will thrive.”

  Hildegarde lowers her head. “As you wish, my Queen.”

  “It is not what I wish, but it is the best we can do, given what God has done. If I had my wish, Ricardis would still be alive and you would be able to remain here in my company, and we would all know only joy at the birth of Ophelia.” She achieves a faint smile. “But God has had other plans for us, and it is our duty to acquiesce in His will; we have our tasks in this world, and it is for us to perform them as best we may.”

  “Parting is hard, my Queen, no matter how necessary.” Hildegarde catches the last word in her throat and stifles the outburst that threatens to overcome her.

  I nod in sympathy with Hildegarde, and this causes the Prince to fix his hands in my hair more firmly than ever. “I will not let you fall, young Hamlet,” I promise him, trying to work his fingers loose; Hamlet does not release me.

  A small escort of Guards come to the carriage, their horses restive, waiting to leave.

  “It is time,” says Gertrude, and offers Hildegarde a single kiss on the forehead before she steps back.

  Hildegarde nods in mute acceptance, and turns to climb into the carriage, looking for all the world as if she were being sent into exile in disgrace. Once seated inside, she slides open one of the windows and leans out, as if by looking at it, she can remain at Elsinor for as long as possible.

  As the carriage rattles out through the gates, I cannot help but think of how it was when Ricardis arrived, coming to this very courtyard in that same vehicle, to keep the Queen company while the King was gone to war. Young Hamlet drubs his fist on my head and gives a single shout of protest as the gates close behind the carriage and its escort.

  * * *

  Voss has laid down two sides of beef in salt, and has filled his pickling vats with the winter vegetables from his kitchen garden, so that the whole of his domain smells of brine and pepper. He has condescended to turn a pig on the spit so that we might all have something to eat tonight; he has already sent a great Lenten spread to the court, a vast selection of fishes in many sauces, three kinds of eggs, a dozen sorts of fancy breads, and apples fried in batter. We are permitted the pork because when it is cooked, it is white, and for peasants and servants, the Bishop has said that pork does not violate the rule against meat.

  “No frolicking tonight, eh, Sir Yorick?” Voss asks me, knowing the answer full well. “It is Lent, so we must be penitent; it’s part of the mourning. The Queen has ordered the court to observe it strictly, and to pray for the success of the army. Nothing but sermons for enjoyment.” I have drawn a stool up near the fire, and my shoulder is slowly giving up its pain to the heat; I hope the Male Goddess will not mind that I must keep Lent with the rest of the court.

  “Mect has taken the time to go on a visit,” says Voss, as if imparting amazing news.

  “To his old aunt, or so he claims,” I finish for him. “And Oduvit is abed with a cough and the flux. So you have only me to wile your hours away for you.” The odor of roasting pork is making me so hungry I find it hard to put two ideas together. “Elsinor will be thin of company until Easter, or so I suppose,” Voss announces, as if he expect
ed the pig on the spit to dispute his statement.

  “No one is expected to come,” I agree, grateful that I will not be required to do more than keep up with the Prince for the next several weeks. “But we may have news from the war, and that sooner rather than later. Now that the roads are passable, Hamlet will surely send us his messenger.” As I speak, I miss my King with an intensity that all but makes my eyes water. “Polonius has already dispatched his messenger to the south.”

  “And the fellow can expect to arrive there anytime between now and May,” says Voss, sighing. “Still, with the countryside bare of livestock, it is just as well, I suppose, that we need not take anything more from the farmsteads around Elsinor; the farmers would not like to part with their stores. Not,” he adds judiciously, “that they have it to give.” “Truly,” I second. “The farmers and peasants are all pushed to the limit. If they starve, the castles starve. It is a pattern known of old.” I recall the many times my father read to me the acts of the Kings of Denmark, and how they inevitably shared the fortunes of the meanest of their subjects, whether it was their wish to do so or not. Voss’ attention has wandered, and he checks the roasting pig, pricking the skin with a long fork so that the hot fat comes sizzling out, blackening as it falls to the hearthstones; the smell is so potent it might be chewed.

  One of the scullions sighs as the roasting continues, almost smiling in anticipation of the meal to come.

  “Sweet as a sinner in hell,” says Voss, admiring his handiwork. He laughs at his own wit, saying to me when he is done, “You may repeat that if you like. There are those who could profit from a reminder of what befalls those who break Commandments and oaths of fealty.”

  I nod twice, and wonder if I dare do such a thing with Hamlet at war and his court ruled by his Queen and his brother. Doubtless in time I will learn.