“Time and enough for that,” says the officer, and there is the sound of coins chiming together. “This is more than sufficient thanks, in any case.”
“Yet you will let her distinguish your service,” says Claudius with such purpose that the officer coughs once. “Very good, Captain,” he approves.
“It is nothing, to be rid of an old woman, and such an old woman as that one is a danger to everyone, anyway,” the Captain declares. “She was ancient enough that she could have been blown away by a heavy wind.”
“But we cannot depend upon such good luck, can we, Captain?”
“If you say so,” the Captain replies, and again the coins sing their soft golden chorus.
He waits for a heartbeat or two, and goes on as mellifluously as he would do if he were speaking to a beautiful woman. “You may have all the advantage of favor or all the weight of disfavor; it will be as you decide, Captain.”
“I have sworn myself to you and I will uphold my oath with my life, if it comes to that,” the Captain says.
“I am pleased to hear it, though I join your hope that such drastic actions will not be necessary,” Claudius tells him, and then puts a question to the Captain about game in the forest, and what might be expected to happen to any unfortunate left to battle against the hungry denizens of the wood.
I hasten away from my vantage-place and make my way back to my room with an uneasy mind. Has Claudius paid the Captain to murder the old woman whom Margitha brought to help Gertrude? It seems so to me, but I know that I may be mistaken. As I throw my chamber-robe aside and draw the quilts up to my shoulders, I speak to the kitchen cat, who has come walking up my body to nuzzle me under the chin. “It could be that they do not mean that woman. It could be she is not dead. I want to be wrong in what I fear, little mother.”
* * *
The kitchen cat kneads my chest, her sturdy paws working steadily, as I try again to find surcease in dreams, all in vain.
WAR
A company of wounded have arrived at Elsinor. These are the ones who have been hurt badly enough that they are not worth much in the fray, but are not so badly wounded that traveling would worsen their injuries, They are received as great heroes by the court, and there is much celebration all through the day and into the evening, when I am sent to their barracks to entertain their feast; tonight the court will content itself with the tunes of the musicians and the pleasure of dancing.
Finding amusement suitable to the soldiers is difficult; it is not like making merry at the court, for these veterans are more blunt in their tastes, and they prefer broad pranks to honed wit. Therefore I and the other two jesters are at pains to cut capers more in tune with the marketplace than the halls of Elsinor. We are welcomed with hoots and hollers that are as genuine as the most delighted applause offered by the high-born of the court. While the soldiers dine on roast pig, baked lamb, new cheese, pease porridge, monk’s stew, bread, and Rhine wine—a gift from the Emperor—we do what we can to keep them cheerful as well as happily fed.
Mect limits himself to juggling, for he has very little experience of soldiers to guide him, and his mind does not recognize the things that make them merry. Still, when he juggles two daggers, a short axe and a haunch of ham, they whoop and stamp their feet for him, and approve his skill with ribald suggestions as to what else he might be able to juggle, and how.
Oduvit is pleased and contemptuous at once, for he does not like to use his talents for such as these, though his two-sided jests are richly approved by the soldiers. He drinks along with the soldiers and before they are finished with eating, he is too drunk to stand upright, and his tales have gone from salacious to lewd.
I begin when his speech becomes so slurred that not the most indulgent of the soldiers can pretend to understand him. I scamper over Oduvit where he sits, reciting the most obscene lyrics I have ever heard him speak; I bow to the soldiers, and survey their obvious injuries, from missing limbs and eyes to shocking burns and scars that would affright young children. “So,” I say to them, “if you are so ill-used, what does the enemy look like?”
This is welcomed with a cheer and a hearty guffaw, and one man with an eye gone with half his face, shouts, “Worse than this!”
The men drub their tankards on the table and howl approval, a few of them going so far as to throw torn crusts of bread at the speaker. They chant blasphemous oaths in cadence with their pounding tankards. “Right you are!” I concur as bravely as I can, leaping upon the bench and from that to the table, where I make my way through the remains of the meal, pointing out first one dreadful token and then another. “Where did you skewer the other man, then?” This to a man with an arm hanging limp at his side, the sinews cut by a ferocious wound to the shoulder.
“Through the heart,” he cries, and points to my humped back. “I’d have got his shoulder if it were as big as yours.”
I laugh along with the rest of them, and do a jig as I continue on my way down the line. “You!” Singling out a fellow with his leg gone at the knee, “So long as the Pole did not walk away.”
“He did not move,” promised the soldier, to another round of cheers. “He will be sprouting forget-me-nots shortly.”
“And you!” I round on a stripling who breathes with great effort, the result of broken ribs. “Did you leave the foe any air at all?”
The lad is pale and not as quick as some of them to make light of his hurts. But he rallies and declares, “Not a breath of it, for I have need of it all.”
More cheers and a few friendly thuds on the table endorse his answer.
I choose another fellow who is nursing a mangled hand, “What did you require of the enemy?”
“Not enough. He lived to crawl away.” Then he adds, “His guts trailing behind him.”
The man who started this roistering, the one with the ghastly face wound and gaping eye socket, bellows at me, “Too bad that hump isn’t hollow. Then all soldiers would want one.”
Some of the men are so convulsed with laughter that they cough heavily, their faces darkening.
I make my way back to the one-eyed soldier, reach for his tankard and empty its bounty of Rhine wine over his head, much to his delight and the delight of those around him. “If this were hollow, I should carry more weapons than you can imagine in it. And enough food for a winter in tents. In fact, I would make it larger, so that I could shelter in it during bad weather.” There is little invention in what I say but the men are so used to hilarity that they laugh anyway. I bow to them all and scamper down the length of their tables, patting my hump and grinning.
The one-eyed soldier wipes the wine from his hair and eyes, and looks up at me; it impresses me strangely, to have that single, bright blue orb shining next to such corpselike ravages. “The King’s own jester has christened me, and I am new-born,” he exclaims, and is seized with giggles so encompassing that he draws his knees up to his chest and shakes.
I bow to him, and once again wander down the table, selecting one then another to exchange verbal buffets with. As I go, I cannot help but wonder what will happen to them, these men who have already spent the strength of their manhood in battle.
Later that night, as the two of us sit in the Refectory, I pose the question to Mect, who shakes his head, “Some will recover, and they will go back to the work they began as lads. But some will not be able to. They are the ones who will live to curse their valor, and the name of the King. Farmers need both arms, and though a man with a wooden leg can drive a horse, he is hard-put to ride one.” “It isn’t impossible,” I point out. “When I was a boy, I knew a man who had lost a leg and who had a saddle made for him that would permit him to ride. It even had a scabbard for his crutch. He was a factor for several merchants, and so did not need his leg for his labors.”
Mect nods. “But a saddler needs both hands, and the hands must be strong.” He stares at the wall. “Some will eventually go to the Church, and it will take them in as monks, or other servants. Those whose wound
s are too disfiguring will have to be given work where they will not often be seen, so that they will not be stoned by the peasants for bringing bad omens to them.”
“The man with the missing eye—” As I say this, I think of him again, calling him sharply to mind. “He is horrible to look upon.”
“That he is,” says Mect. “For all his scars make him a hero, they also make him a monster.”
“What do you think will become of him?” I ask, for it seems to me that if my face had been as misformed as my body, his fate might well have been my own.
“If he does not become a beggar, he will be set to work that keeps him apart from the rest of the world. He has not lost his wits, as some who are hideously injured do, and therefore he can be trusted with duties that the mad cannot accomplish.” He leans back and fixes his gaze on the dying fire in the small grate. “It is lamentable that valor should have such a high price. But it is the nature of war to destroy.” “Does the Emperor know you think that?” I ask him, astonished that he could hold such deep convictions when I have not seen them clearly until now. “I do not say that war is unnecessary,” Mect corrects me. “It is the way of the world, and nations will vie with one another. But there is always a cost, and it is more truly measured in flesh than in conquered ground.”
I look at him in continuing surprise. “You speak as if you know of these matters from life.” His curt reply is one I half-expect. “My father was a soldier, and two of my brothers were as well. If I had not been…as I am, I would have followed them into war for the Emperor.”
“And what became of them? Your father and your two brothers?” For a moment I doubt he will answer me, and then he shakes his head as if driving off a miasmic presence.
“One of my brothers is a Captain in the Emperor’s army. The other died of wounds when I was little more than a boy. My father is still alive, but he has not been himself for many years. He often wakes in the night, screaming that he has been left on the battlefield among the dead and that pigs and bears are coming to eat him. It happens, you know; the wounded are devoured along with the dead.” His voice is distant and dreamy, and he recites these calamities as if he speaks of someone else entirely, someone in a story or the object of a jibe in a play. “My uncle is a priest, and he has come to exorcise these demons from his mind not once but many times, and still he wakes in the night.”
I can think of nothing to say.
“He prays for God to forgive him for his sins, and then he declares that not even God can do that. When he is most bedeviled, he subjects my mother to treatment that would shame a Turk.” Mect puts down his tankard and directs a hard look at me. “He deserves better than pity.”
“Most certainly he does,” I agree at once.
“He is not a coward; he has not forgotten his duty to the Emperor. He has done all that a man might who wishes to serve those who rule him. This is an excellent thing in a man of valor. He fought with courage and he was victorious over the enemy, which is the greatest service he could render.” Now there is more force in his words, and a kind of anger I cannot redress with sympathy or scorn. “It is terrible for him that his sons are not able to accomplish what he has done.”
“And you have shown him honor by doing the Emperor’s work in another way, one that is just as dangerous as meeting the foe on the field,” I tell him at last, hoping that this is what he seeks to hear.
“Yes, I hope this is so, not that my father will ever know of it, given that my tasks are secret. But it is all I can do, given how God made me.” He drinks down the last of his wine and shoves himself to his feet in one long gesture.
I watch him stand and only then do I realize that he is very drunk; until now he has not shown it in his manner or his speech. But his attempts to keep upright reveal that this is almost more than he can do; as I watch, he reels out of the room and makes his precarious way down the corridor, headed toward his chamber; very soon after, I go to mine.
HAMLET
All through the spring and into summer I tend young Hamlet while Claudius and Gertrude dally in her garden, secure in their treason; my shoulder aches constantly from young Hamlet’s increasing desire to be given ever-longer rides, and as the days wear on, I put more emphasis on telling him tales and singing ballads. Slowly, and with many errors, the Prince begins to sing along with me the words of the great sagas of heroes and Denmark. His interest extends beyond our borders, and he often asks for the lays of those who have left their marks on history, particularly ones that recount the perils of independent thought or the hazards of unhallowed love, though what a child of his age can know of either puzzles me. He is especially fond of “The Adventures of Abelard the Frenchman,” and often does his best to sing the refrain:
“Let everyone pray for his soul
And praise his greatness of mind;
He sought an unreachable goal
For the glory of all humankind.
Yet the price he paid
For the love of a maid
Exceeds all rewards he could find.”
Margitha often keeps us company, her manner remote enough to make me think she feels shame in being made to keep the secret of her Queen. If that is why she holds herself aloof, I cannot think ill of her for doing it. But it means that there is little conversation between us, and so I devote my time to the Prince, repeating his prattle and singing ballads to him I trust the King would approve.
Young Hamlet is growing into a slight but sturdy child, with straight hair that is prone to fall into his eyes. He is not as noisy as many babes, often spending long hours staring out the window, his eyes alight with curiosity as he points out one thing and then another. I tell him what each one is in turn, and he sometimes repeats what I say, usually in an abbreviated form. He is learning to take stock of the world around him, and doing it at a very early age. By the end of June he is making his first essays at walking, and though he does not achieve great success, he continues with a determination that reminds me of the King, and brings him praise from his mother.
By the start of summer, old Horatio’s son arrives at court with his older sister to accompany him—and find a husband. The boy is a stubborn child, with a set to his jaw that promises an intractable old age; he is clumsy in his overtures of friendship, the more because he is not at an age to behave gracefully. He and Hamlet do their wary best to be friendly, but it is hard-going, and often their encounters end in fits of sullens from both of them. At those times, Horatio’s sister, the nine-year-old Eglantine, scolds her brother for not setting an example, since he is older than the Prince. Hamlet is not often reprimanded by Margitha, who is too much shocked by Gertrude’s conduct to enforce her will on the Prince.
In July comes word that Hamlet and the Danes have won a great victory, and for the next week, Elsinor celebrates the news with feasting and more entertainments. Mect is more pleased to learn of it than is Oduvit, who is now drinking from midday until he falls asleep over his tankard at night, making him all but useless for the festivities, or anything else.
A troupe of mummers arrives for the August celebrations of the first haying, and takes to entertaining the court with their dancing and odd performances that are half dumb-show and half play, with strange costumes and traditions that puzzle me and Mect. They are from England, and only their driver speaks Danish, so we are reduced to eating together in noisy nonunderstanding, doing with mime and repeated gestures what we cannot accomplish with words. Their leader is a non-descript man nearing forty years, with a cheerful face and deep-set eyes who chuckles at his own jokes and shakes his head in disbelief at the appalling sight of Oduvit sprawled at the foot of the long table, his face pressed into his trencher.
Mect and I do what we can to make a better impression on the English mummers, but as they cannot comprehend our jibes and jests, they have no way to tell if we are skilled at what we do or not.
After a month the mummers depart again for England, their leader taking the time to do his best, in the few words of
Danish he has learned, to thank Mect and me for serving as their hosts. Then he mimes standing on the deck of a rocking ship, the wind at his back; it is his last performance here.
When the mummers are gone, Mect and I are again sent to entertain the newly arrived wounded, and again we do what we can to make the burdens of their wounds more bearable. Oduvit accompanies us, but does little more than drink with the soldiers and tell them rambling, scurrilous stories about the court.
Then one night in mid-September, when thunderstorms skulk in the night sky, Oduvit suddenly announces his intention of speaking the truth for a change; his audience is the assembled servants of Elsinor, and they are eager to hear whatever tidbits he can offer them. He is only half-sprung, and therefore he makes a modicum of sense when he talks. Hands on his hips, he paces down the length of the servants‘ hall, declaring that it is time to set aside the lies we had all embraced and to put our hearts to the task of dispelling all mendacity. Everyone listening supposes that this is meant as an opening salvo to outrageous statements, and so they whistle and stamp their feet to encourage him. For once he is offended by this endorsement and regards them all with scathing contempt. “You do not want to see what transpires here, under your very noses. You make yourselves blind and so doing you defile yourselves.” He flings up his hands. “If you seek dishonor so ardently, who am I to deprive you of it?”
“How do you mean, dishonor?” asks one of the understewards, at the same time nudging his neighbor with his elbow. “We listen to you. Isn’t that enough?” “Dishonor,” says Oduvit with determination, “because you will not speak out against treason and adultery where it is so plain that a man without eyes would know it from the odor of rut on the air.” He bends down and farts deliberately. “You can smell that, can’t you? Then why do you not decry the stench that rises from the Queen’s bed?”
Alas, Poor Yorick Page 33
