Ophelia

by Jackie French

  The maids brought me a mirror. I saw summer in my reflection — the harvest of ripe wheat; the lush green grass and green trees; and yellow cheeses, the land’s wealth. Denmark needs a queen, I thought, who knows why cheese is so important. Swords are all very well, as long as you have a store of cheese.

  The three ladies-in-waiting walked behind me across the courtyard to the throne room. My ghosts came too. I could not see them — might never see them, even at midnight in my tower — but I knew they were with me still.

  The porter stared at me as we entered the great hall. ‘But, my lady,’ he said stupidly, ‘what about your grave?’

  ‘It will keep,’ I said. ‘For another sixty years or so. Please tell Prince Fortinbras that I am waiting for him in the throne room. And tell the lord of the exchequer too.’

  Fortinbras’s army had swords, but the exchequer had the money.

  The porter bowed. Not a servant’s bob, but a deep one, to the floor.

  I smiled, and felt the warmth of approval like a small sun on my back from the ladies who walked behind me.

  I looked out the open doors and up at my small tower. Old King Hamlet would not walk there again, I realised, even in the darkest winter midnight. He had been avenged, even if his son had died doing it.

  Old King Fortinbras had been avenged too. His usurper had been killed, along with the usurper’s brother and wife and son. But I didn’t think my ghost would leave Elsinore, not yet. He would want to see his son live a good and happy life, and his grandchildren too.

  I remembered something else King Fortinbras had said: ‘Hate begets hate.’ We had seen that in Denmark this past year. Brother killing brother; father urging son to kill again. All who had hated, who had plotted, were now dead; the entire House of Hamlet was gone, as if the snows had frozen it forever.

  Good men had died too. My father and my brother.

  It was time for a new rule now. Kindness instead of hate. Compassion for our people. No shadows, no vengeance from the past. Just good sense, and cheese.

  ‘You would be a good queen,’ the ghost had told me when I was a child. I knew how to be one now.

  ‘Thank you,’ I whispered to my ghosts: my sensible father, clever queen, the wise dead king. But there was no wind, not even a breeze, to answer.

  We walked on, into the throne room. The two thrones were still arranged side by side. Gertrude’s was warm, as if she had only just left it. You taught me the game well, I thought. But a hive can only have one queen.

  My stomach growled. I should have had more than just the posset. I wanted breakfast, or even dinner, but it would spoil the regal image if the prince arrived to find me munching on pickled herring.

  The old women arranged themselves below the dais, sitting on the stools at my feet.

  The doors opened. Two knights came in, then stood on each side of the doors. I waited for the trumpets to sound. But this young man had no need of trumpets. He stood there, in the doorway. He must have changed from his travel-stained clothes, for he wore silver velvet.

  I smiled. Gold and silver. We matched well.

  He was younger than I’d thought he would be; a year younger, perhaps, than poor Hamlet. Neither tall nor short, but sturdy; a man used to sword play, to riding with his men. A man who had turned aside from conquering Denmark. Who had, when it had come to it, put aside revenge. He had a look about him of his father. I hoped he had his father’s kindness and wisdom too.

  He scrutinised me before he spoke. ‘I had thought to find the throne of Denmark empty.’

  I smiled. ‘There are two thrones here, my lord, a king’s and a queen’s. And one of them is empty.’ I stood. ‘I am Ophelia, daughter of our late chancellor, lord of Denmark’s largest estates, and betrothed of the late Prince Hamlet, the girl who all expected would be queen.’

  It was an invitation and a warning. Lord Fortinbras grinned. He understood them both.

  He gestured to his men, to the servants peering in at the door. ‘Away!’ He inspected Lady Annika, Lady Hilda and Lady Anna, and bowed low. ‘If your gentlenesses would excuse us for a time alone?’

  The old ladies rose. As one they curtseyed deeply, as to a king, and then to me, equally deeply, as to a queen.

  ‘But, sir!’ One of his guardsmen lingered. ‘Is it wise to be alone in such a place?’

  ‘Do you think this lady will stab me with a fruit knife?’

  The guard looked at me warily, as if he thought I was capable of exactly that. ‘No, sir.’

  ‘Then go. I expect she and I will deal well together.’

  They left. He walked towards me.

  I held out my hand. ‘I bid you welcome to Elsinore, Lord Fortinbras.’

  He bowed and kissed my hand. ‘Well, my lady?’

  ‘Very well indeed,’ I said, and sat on the throne again. It was as if I had always sat there now. ‘Denmark needs a king. It seems we may have found one.’

  He looked amused. ‘You have.’

  ‘A sensible king. A man who knows what to do and when to do it. A man whom the people will accept.’

  He was enjoying this. ‘Why will they accept him, madam?’

  ‘Because he has arrived with an army of great might, which probably has a mighty thirst. I warrant your men are already filling all the alehouses.’

  He raised an eyebrow. The grin appeared again. ‘I thought that perhaps you meant because he will marry the Princess Ophelia.’

  ‘That too, of course. But I have never been a princess. Only a girl who would be queen.’

  ‘Yes, we will deal well together,’ he repeated. ‘May I take the throne beside you, madam?’

  ‘Of course, my lord. And then perhaps we might call the court in to greet us properly.’ I raised an eyebrow of my own. ‘And the captains of your army, before they are too drunk to stand.’

  ‘And you can show me where the garderobes are, and other useful things. But first …’

  He bent and kissed me again, first on the back of my hand, and then on my mouth. His lips were warm. He smelled of man.

  I thought: why didn’t Hamlet kiss me like this? And then I didn’t think at all.

  Some time later he raised his head and grinned at me again. ‘Now we will call in the court.’

  He sat on the king’s throne. I watched him arrange his face, a king now, not a lover. I chose my expression too. He lifted his hand and hit the gong to call the others in, then reached for my hand and held it tightly.

  The doors opened. His men jostled briefly with the lord of the exchequer. The lord of the exchequer won by a grey whisker. He made his way towards us, Lord Fortinbras’s men behind him, then the courtiers, and, at the back, my ladies of the bedchamber, looking again as if they had no thoughts beyond their tapestries.

  You sew well, my ladies, I thought, and not just cloth.

  The lord of the exchequer bowed low. ‘What is your wish, my lady, my lord?’

  He was no fool, the lord of the exchequer. No fool at all. Our new lord chancellor, perhaps? Fortinbras and I must discuss this further, when we were alone.

  Fortinbras was already speaking. ‘The archbishop, to marry us. At once, if you please.’ He turned to me. ‘You have no objection, Lady Ophelia?’

  I should be grieving, I thought. A year in mourning for my father, my brother, for Hamlet. But Denmark could not spare me a year. Nor did I want it. And I had the example of Queen Gertrude, who had not let mourning stop her placing this throne here, on which I now sat.

  ‘No, my lord,’ I said demurely. ‘It shall be exactly as you wish.’

  He grinned. ‘Somehow I doubt it.’ He turned back to the lord of the exchequer. ‘A quick anointing afterwards. Nothing elaborate. We can leave the coronation proper for next week.’

  ‘And dinner,’ I added. ‘Now.’

  ‘Certainly.’ The lord of the exchequer hailed a servant. ‘Bring venison, pastries, roast goose …’

  I sighed. The palace cooks would not have begun dinner with their royal masters dead
. It takes hours to roast a goose.

  ‘Bread and cheese will do me,’ said Fortinbras. He raised his eyebrow at me, half apologetically. ‘Soldier’s fare, but none the worse for it.’

  ‘As long as it is good cheese,’ I informed him.

  He laughed. How long had it been since these walls had heard laughter? ‘Of course, madam. It must be good cheese.’

  ‘Bread and cheese,’ I told the lord of the exchequer sweetly. ‘Midsummer Gold, three years old, and well-cellared. Barley, rye or wheat bread, whichever is freshest. And fast, if you please.’ I turned back to Fortinbras, his hand still warm in mine. ‘We must show ourselves to the people, my lord, on the balcony above the square.’

  That would help keep his troops in line too, I thought. Remind them that this was no town they had conquered, to be sacked, but a kingdom where they would live in peace, with plenty of cheese and herring.

  ‘A balcony scene,’ said Fortinbras. ‘I like that. I suspect the crowd will too.’

  The servants were already carrying in trays holding flagons of wine and ale, loaves of fresh rye bread and cheeses: caraway and green cheese, double cream and Musty Maude, Queen’s Blue and, at the front, a hunk of Midsummer Gold. I glanced at Lady Annika. Exactly three years old, I had no doubt. A perfect cheese.

  ‘I hope the goblets have been washed well,’ I said. We didn’t need the remnants of Claudius’s poison now.

  ‘Of course,’ said Lady Annika.

  Her eyes were almost closed again, but a half-smile lingered under her bristly top lip. Lady Hilda and Lady Anna picked up their tapestries.

  ‘With your permission, Your Majesties?’ The lord of the exchequer took a gleamingly clean goblet filled with wine that was definitely not poisoned, and raised it up. ‘I give to you all a toast. To King Fortinbras, and to Ophelia, queen of Denmark.’

  I held my prince’s hand and smiled. I felt his warmth, the heat of the old stones of the palace, the sun that shone on the lush grass of Denmark that would give us a harvest of good cheese.

  I felt my ghosts smile too.

  Author’s Notes

  First, my apologies to Denmark, its royalty and its history. This book isn’t set in Denmark, or any other country; rather the setting is a blend of my imagination and Shakespeare’s, who set his plays in the worlds within his mind. Any glimpses of the real Denmark are a gift from a dear friend, Linda Bunn, and her stories shared about her childhood there.

  This story wriggles between the lines of Shakespeare’s play The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark. There is nothing in it that contradicts the play, but there is much that certainly isn’t what Shakespeare intended. This isn’t his play fleshed out — as in my book I am Juliet — but another story twisted into his.

  Would Shakespeare have minded? Probably he would have been justly annoyed that I wasn’t able to do him the courtesy of asking his permission, though his ghost did not appear on our veranda to condemn me while I was writing this book. Shakespeare has no direct descendants to inherit his play that I could have asked — except, of course, his audiences over the centuries.

  Shakespeare certainly suffered from plagiarists stealing his plays while he was still alive, including whoever published the First Quarto (so called because the printing sheets were folded), which contains the first known and poorest version of Hamlet. Possibly it was stolen by someone who’d been to see the play, or even dictated by one of the actors who no longer had the script to copy.

  But if I had been able to ask Shakespeare’s permission to rewrite his play, I suspect he may have given it to me. Shakespeare too took other people’s work and changed it to become his own. He was also a theatre manager as well as a playwright, in the days when each performance of the play might differ from another to fit the abilities of the available cast, or the appetites and moods of the audience. A brilliant actor might be given a larger part; an apprentice actor might have his part reduced. A performance for Queen Elizabeth I or King James I might have differed considerably from that presented to an audience of farmers and labourers. Or perhaps not. Without seeing Shakespeare’s original scripts, we cannot know. But I do not feel the weight of his anger sitting on my shoulder, muttering, ‘What have you done to my play, old crone? And to placate my impertinent curiosity, what clothes are those upon your nether limbs?’

  Ours is a world where women wear jeans, and Shakespeare’s plays are studied on the page, not experienced on the stage. I suspect Shakespeare would be more horrified by his plays being studied in books than with the liberties I’ve taken with his plot and script.

  Shakespeare’s plays, even a tragedy like Hamlet, were full of movement and laughter. On stage, the actors could break up long speeches with movement and expression, or a bit of ‘business’, like playing with a dancing bear. (A dancing bear performed just down from The Globe, Shakespeare’s theatre, and seems to have been added whenever a play threatened to become a little long-winded or tedious.) Gorgeous costumes helped too — often donated second-hand, when Shakespeare’s patrons were tired of them or they were moth-eaten; as did music, sword fights, love-making, and coarse jokes that modern audiences no longer notice because the English language has changed so much.

  Hamlet is perhaps the most perfect of black comedies, but unless you are used to the language, it doesn’t read like that. Language in Shakespeare’s time was more formal, florid and wordy than it is now. Shakespeare’s work wasn’t intended for the uneducated. It cost at least a penny to see a play; more often threepence if you wanted to sit on a stool. At a time when a journeyman or tutor might get thirty shillings a year, this was a high price to pay to see a play. You could enjoy a hanging for free.

  Those of breeding and education (Shakespeare was a glove-maker’s son but he was well-educated) prided themselves on witty speech, flights of impromptu poetry and wordplay. The quotes attributed to Queen Elizabeth I show an ease and playfulness with words; and while those that have survived are undoubtedly among the wittiest, they’re evidence that the classes who attended Shakespeare’s plays were used to language more elaborate than we are today. Even in my lifetime, our speech and writing styles have become shorter and plainer — an effect of TV, texting, emails and, possibly, a faster, more impatient pace of life. These days it is rare to hear the long embroidered anecdotes of my childhood, when every adult was happy to tell you at great length over dinner or an afternoon biscuit long stories about their childhood, the war, or encounters with a bunyip.

  MELODRAMA

  Shakespeare’s world was naturally melodramatic. A third of a village might die of plague within a week. Traitors were tortured and publicly beheaded. Young men fought with rapiers in the streets. A man might have three wives, who died one after the other in childbirth. The wrong religion might result in you being tortured or burned at the stake. Children were taken to see men hanged or traitors’ heads rotting on stakes in the same way they might be taken to an amusement park now. Mary Queen of Scots’ supporters’ plots against her cousin, Queen Elizabeth I, were as dramatic, and unlikely, as anything in Hamlet.

  In our, more sensible age, Ophelia would have talked everything over with her best friends; Hamlet would have seen a grief counsellor. When Polonius died, Ophelia would have sent a text to Laertes to tell him, and discuss what to do next. Mobile phones would have wrecked the plots of most of Shakespeare’s plays.

  Shakespeare probably chose to start Hamlet with the king’s ghost appearing on the battlements because it makes for a rattling good dramatic performance. There is a legend that Shakespeare himself played the part of the ghost. I imagine he played it wonderfully.

  THE HISTORY OF THE PLAY

  The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark was written and first performed about 1599–1600. Noted Elizabethan actor Richard Burbage made the title role famous.

  The play wasn’t published then; Shakespeare would have wanted to keep it for his own company of players. He would have kept all his handwritten copies locked away, and shown them only to the a
ctors so they could learn their parts.

  The pirated First Quarto appeared in 1603 or 1604.

  Hamlet was published with other plays by Shakespeare in 1632, after his death. This version is known as the First Folio — another printing term.

  Why did Shakespeare set the play in Denmark? James I, the new king of England, had a Danish wife, so the play might have been meant as a compliment to her; and to the king, by showing a usurping royal house being overthrown and the true heir of Denmark returning to its throne.

  Shakespeare’s own son was named Hamnet, but I doubt it was in honour of the play. The play’s Hamlet isn’t really a role model for any young man. Maybe Shakespeare just liked the name.

  Was there a real Hamlet? Possibly. Maybe. Unlikely. And only a small resemblance, if there was.

  A sixteen-book collection of Norse legends, Gesta Danorum, or History of the Danes, collected by Saxo Grammaticus and written in Latin around 1200 AD, includes the possibly true story of a man called Amleth, son of one of two brothers who were joint kings of Jutland. Amleth pretended to be mad after his uncle killed his father and married his mother. His pretence of madness worked: he avenged his father and became king of Jutland.

  The Gesta Danorum books were published in Paris in 1514. In 1570, Francois de Belleforest translated them into French and included them in a collection of tragic stories called Histoires Tragiques.

  In 1608, a story appeared in English called The Hystorie of Hamblet. It might have been a translation of de Belleforest’s work, or a story based on Shakespeare’s play, or a combination of both. The Amleth, Hamblet and Hamlet stories differ in major ways.

  There are also references to a play called Hamlet by Thomas Kyd, written in the 1580s, in which a ghostly father cries, ‘Hamlet, revenge.’ But no copies of that play seem to have survived, only accounts from theatregoers who saw it, so there is no way of knowing how much Shakespeare’s version copied Kyd’s, or even if Shakespeare’s company took Kyd’s play and gradually improved it.