Pseudonymous, Part 3
Feb. 3rd, 2012 07:52 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
a_t_rainIn which Hamlet tells a very peculiar story. Parts One and Two are here.
Chapter Three: I Could Condemn It As an Improbable Fiction
Hamlet clutched his forehead.
The second half of The History of Amleth, Prince of Denmark – in which Amleth escaped the treachery of his father-in-law, committed bigamy, and propped up dead corpses to make it seem as if his army had greater numbers – was going to be even more impossible to adapt for the stage than the first half. By the time Amleth had finally been slain by Wiglek, and his beloved wife Hermentrude had yielded herself up to be the conqueror’s spoil, Hamlet had developed a raging headache. If he were to adapt the play faithfully, it would be about six hours long and would please no one – and because Amleth had chosen to kill his uncle’s retainers by fire, they’d probably have to burn their scaffold to the ground halfway through and perform the rest of the play on the ashes.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” said Hamlet.
Thank God, it was Karl, not Frederik. “Burning the midnight lamp, I see? How are you getting on with the play?”
“So-so,” said Hamlet.
“Have some wine.” Karl produced a bottle. “It helps the words flow.”
Hamlet accepted half a glass – he had particular reasons to avoid heavy drinking – and said, “I think Frederik has set me another impossible task.”
“That is very like,” Karl admitted.
“He seemed to like me well enough when I was a prince. I must remember that what men say to princes has little to do with what is in their hearts. ‘Tis better this way; I had rather have truth than flattery.”
“He did like you well enough when you were a prince,” said Karl. “He has often said so. It is only that he knows not what to do with you now that you are a player, and so he hopes you will give it up and go home so that things can be as they were.”
Hamlet smiled and shook his head. “They cannot be as they were. It is impossible. Soon enough you will understand why.”
“So you will not turn back.”
“No. So I have no choice but to write this play.”
“Good luck. If you are in difficulties over the plot, have one of the characters put to sea and be taken by pirates; that nearly always helps. Oh, and try to make it comical-tragical-historical-pastoral, if you can. That is the present fashion.”
“I could try. I don’t see much pastoral about it.”
“Love in a fen?”
“What sort of shepherd would willingly go into a fen?” Hamlet didn’t know much about shepherding, but he was fairly sure this would be a good way to drown your sheep.
“Pastoral does not always mean ‘with sheep.’ It is – It is more of a state of mind. You know – song and dance, and lovelorn swains and maidens gathering flowers.”
“So if one of the characters went completely mad, and started singing and dancing and gathering flowers, that would be pastoral even if they were in a castle?”
Karl considered this for a moment, and finally said that he wasn’t sure, but you could never have too many mad scenes in a play, so Hamlet might as well try it out and see how it went over. “You might put in an elegy if you wanted to make it a bit more pastoral,” he suggested. “Willows weeping over the glassy stream, and that sort of thing.”
Somewhat bewildered, Hamlet did his best to follow these instructions.
* * *
Thomas, meanwhile, was drinking in the taproom. The chamber he shared with Prince Hamlet was in another wing of the inn; he could see the light in the window, although the hour was already very late, and so he lingered and ordered up another stoup of wine. He didn’t want to talk to Hamlet. He was aware that the prince hadn’t actually done anything to him, and had in fact acted with perfect courtesy when Thomas himself had been on the verge of making a very embarrassing scene, but that almost made it worse.
“How now, Thomas? D’you mind if I join you?”
Thomas slid over and made room for Hans on the bench.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. What makes you think something’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Only I’ve never known you to get drunk alone before.”
“I am not in a company-keeping humor tonight. No, stay. I’ll try to be.”
Hans poured himself a drink and waited.
“Have you seen Judit with – with our new fellow?”
“Afraid that he may cut you out? I would not worry about it. Frederik would hardly give his consent, and I think he’s settled in his own mind that you’re to be his successor, whether Judit will have you or no. He certainly would not dream of handing over the company to a man who’s greener at this trade than Alexander.”
“Why does everyone think I am marrying Judit so I can inherit Prince Hamlet’s Men?” Thomas demanded with some asperity. “I don’t give a straw for being head of the company. The truth is, it’s exactly the other way around. She’s marrying me so she can be head of the company, in fact if not in name.” It stung him to admit it, but he was fairly sure that it was true.
Hans thought about this for a moment. “She’d be rather good at it.”
“I know. I’m more than willing to let her.”
“Where is the trouble, then?” asked Hans. “You remain the heir apparent to the company; our fellow Francisco is merely heir apparent to the kingdom, if he ever gets around to claiming it – and that means Judit will choose you when the stakes are down, no matter how much he may have turned her head for the moment. I’ve known her since we were eleven years old. I’m sure of it.”
“It’s not enough.” Thomas took another gulp of wine, although the taproom was already beginning to sway alarmingly. “That is not why I want her to choose me.”
“Oh – damn. You’re in love with the fair Judit, then?”
“Yes.”
“That’s bad.” Hans shook his head sympathetically. “You should never fall in love where you have business. It only leads to heartache.”
“What are you doing with Karl, then?”
“It is different between two men. There is no question of marriage, which, properly done, is far more of a business arrangement than being a shareholder in a company of actors.”
“Then I do not want to do it properly,” said Thomas. “I want to know that she chose me of her own free will, and not because of what I could give her. Is that so much to ask? It is no more than every poor shepherd or plowman has.”
“Are you saying you would leave the company to become a shepherd or plowman?”
“That,” said Thomas, “is not the point.”
* * *
It was very late when the light in the chamber window went out, and Thomas finally stumbled upstairs and threw himself down on the bed, his shirt and breeches still on. It was some time after that when the noises in the room awoke him. The wine had made him thick-headed and stupid, and it took him a moment to realize that Prince Hamlet was in the grip of a nightmare.
He reached for his tinder-box and a sulfur match, and struck a light.
“Brimstone,” murmured the prince. “Father!”
“Sh-h-h.” Thomas lit a candle. “‘Tis well. Everything is well. Wake up.”
Hamlet’s eyes were open, but Thomas was not sure how much he saw. He gripped the prince’s shoulder cautiously, which turned out to be a bad idea, because Hamlet cried “AAAAGHH!” and vaulted out of bed. On the other hand, he did wake up, which was what Thomas had been trying to accomplish.
“I, I, I, I beg you pardon me,” stammered Hamlet. “I mistook you. Er, for one of the demons of hell.”
“You flatter me, my lord.”
Hamlet managed a feeble smile, and shook his head. “Not ‘my lord.’ No more.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, his hands shaking.
Thomas had never intended to practice medicine again, apart from treating the minor injuries that the players inevitably sustained in the course of their profession. But there was no question he had a patient on his hands now, and his physician’s instincts took over. He opened his medicine chest and poured a generous measure from one of the bottles. “Drink,” he said firmly.
“Will it help?”
“Yes,” said Thomas, by which he meant “maybe.” The stuff was merely aqua-vitae flavored with bitter herbs, and Thomas suspected that its benefits came from its tendency to loosen the patient’s tongue, rather than any medicinal properties of the herbs themselves. But it sometimes worked, and he had damned little else that did anything for diseases of the mind at all.
What did help, sometimes, was getting the patient to confide his troubles; only there was no particular reason why Hamlet should want to confide in Thomas. Actually, he had a very good reason not to want to confide in Thomas. Thomas thought back to the aftermath of their rehearsal that morning, and wished he had acted more politely.
But then, Hans and Karl and Henrik had treated the prince with perfect courtesy, and had gotten nothing more than a smile and a word of thanks out of him – not even an explanation of why he had joined their company. No, if Hamlet told anyone what was troubling him, it would be Judit. Oh damn.
And – because every now and then life worked like the theater, with people entering pat on cue – there was a soft rap at the chamber door, and when Thomas went to open it, there stood Judit with a playbook.
“I saw a light,” she explained, “and I thought, since you were both awake, we might look over the script for Achilles and Hector. The part with Ajax and the goat will have to be cut, I think, ‘tis an old device and the jokes are stale, and besides, Father sold the goat a year ago. Might we write a new scene for Achilles and Polixena instead? Love stories please the city audiences well.”
Typical, thought Thomas. Other men’s brides-to-be slipped into their lovers’ chambers at night to offer them their virginity, or at least a kiss or two. Judit came to talk about plays. Or worse yet, perhaps she came to see Prince Hamlet and the play was only a pretext.
“With yourself playing Polixena to our fellow Francisco’s Achilles, I suppose?” Thomas realized too late that he was sneering. He must master himself.
“No,” said Judit sadly, “Father would never allow it. He was furious after I took Alexander’s place yesterday, and said that I must never act again.”
Good, thought Thomas, and then felt ashamed of himself, because Judit looked genuinely distraught. God, he was turning into an ass. Petty, easily jealous ... Neglecting his duty to his patient, too. “Excuse me,” he said. “I think I hear one calling for me below. I will see what he wants. Judit, stay here a moment.”
He sprinted down the corridor toward the stairs, leaving Hamlet and Judit alone together.
He waited a minute or two, and then returned. They were still staring at each other, bewildered. He grabbed his cloak and his medicine-chest, pouring another generous measure of the cordial for Hamlet, and said, “There is a man dying of plague in the next house, and I am summoned to do what I can for him. I may be some time.”
“Must you go?” Judit asked. “I thought you had sworn off medicine forever.”
“It is my duty,” said Thomas, with difficulty, and turned away and went out.
* * *
As soon as he had gone, Hamlet whirled around and demanded of Judit, “Are you his intelligencer?”
“Whose, my lord?” asked Judit, feeling instinctively that the question had come from Hamlet the prince and not Francisco the player.
“Thomas’s. No, Polonius the Lord Chamberlain. O God!” Hamlet sank down on the edge of the bed, clutching his head as if he feared it might explode. “No, of course you are not a spy. Forgive me; of late I see spies everywhere. Judit ... I think I may be mad.”
This put Hamlet in the company of about half of Denmark, but it didn’t seem polite to say so. “What makes you say that, my lord?” Judit asked.
“Never mind. No, I will tell you, if you swear not to speak of it. By the way, he is lying about the plague, you know.”
“Who? Thomas?”
“Yes. Thomas and Polonius, as it happens.”
“Thomas does not know Polonius,” said Judit, now convinced that the rumors about Prince Hamlet’s madness were nothing less than the plain truth. “He’d never met him before we came to Elsinore, and I do not think they exchanged three words while we were there.”
“No. I mean that Thomas must be using the plague as a ruse to leave us. There is no plague. ‘Tis an invention of Polonius’s, though Thomas knows it not.”
Judit stared at him. This was clearly absurd. Thomas was not a liar. And to judge by his behavior these last few days, the last thing he wanted was to leave her alone with the prince.
Hebe stirred and snorted in her sleep. Hebe. The little dog had been named for the Greek goddess of youth and health. Thomas maintained that people who kept terriers often came through a plague unscathed while their neighbors died. It was ridiculous, like most of his theories, but Judit was very sure that if he had been called out to tend a plague victim, he would have taken her with him.
“But why should Polonius invent a plague?” she asked, trying to distract herself from wondering why Thomas should lie.
“To keep the people in their houses, and to provide a plausible cover for King Claudius not to be seen in public. The king is dead, and Polonius would not have it be known.”
“Did you kill him, my lord?”
Hamlet started. “Why do you ask?”
“You had blood on your garments when you came to us. And then you hid them in the trunk with the shields and helmets and the head of Mary Queen of Scots.”
“You found them?”
“I am the company’s properties mistress, Francisco. Did you think I would not notice?”
“And you told no one?”
Judit shook her head.
Hamlet regarded her in silence for a moment, and seemed to decide that she could be trusted. “I know not whether I killed him. I must ask you to trust me when I say that if I did, I had good and weighty reasons for it. Your trust, by the way, will help you not at all if Polonius and his intelligencers learn that you have been giving me shelter.” He began to pace back and forth across the room. “O God, you and your friends had a bad bargain when you allowed me to join your company. If you are arrested, you must say you knew nothing of this. If they should find that you did know, beg an audience with my mother and tell her that you allowed your loyalty to me to outweigh your duty as a subject.”
Judit had only been half-attending to the second part of this speech. “You know not whether you killed the king?”
“It happened this way. I went to the chapel after the play. I went there with a thought of killing him – for, as I told you, I had a weighty reason. He was on his knees as though he were praying, with his head resting upon the altar-rail. I remember that I stepped nearer. I thought I might do it easily while he was praying. And then –” Hamlet shook his head violently. “The next thing I remember, I was standing over him, and he was dead. I touched him. His blood was still warm and flowing. There was a dagger lying on the floor – there was too much blood on it for me to know whether it was mine, but I suppose it must have been, and I must have killed him. But wherefore do I not remember?”
“I know not, my lord,” said Judit. This story, more than anything else the prince had said, sounded like it ought to have been the ravings of a madman; but somehow it left her with a forcible impression of the prince’s sanity. “But – but – Your majesty!” She dropped to her knees, realizing the full implications of Hamlet’s story.
“You had better rise, and spare your gown. The floor’s none too clean, and I am not the king, nor am I like to be. The electors would never choose me, and I am of their mind, for what sort of king cuts a man’s throat in a dream and then remembers nothing of the act?”
“And so ... you joined a company of players instead?”
“It seemed a reasonable thing to do at the time. I am not sure I remember why.”
Judit sat down on Thomas’s bed, suddenly overcome by a fit of giggles. “My lord! You have far too poor a memory to be a player, I think!”
“I was accounted a good player,” said Hamlet ruefully. “We used to have Christmas revels at Wittenberg, and I ... Well, let that be. ‘Twas another country, and I am now become somebody else. We would both do well to remember that.”
* * *
The morning was well advanced, but Hamlet had not been down to breakfast. Thomas said he was sleeping, and ought not to be disturbed.
Judit half-wondered whether she had dreamed the previous night’s events. Thomas looked rather haggard, but he said nothing to the others, and gave no sign that he had been out late. He was sitting in the common room, chatting with the innkeeper and old Henrik.
He wouldn’t be there, Judit realized abruptly, if he had been tending to a plague victim last night. Plague doctors kept well away from company. She could see Hamlet’s face again, white and staring. There is no plague. He had looked like a madman, but he had evidently been telling the truth and Thomas had been lying, and Judit didn’t know what to think.
“Thomas?” she called when he came away from the others.
“What is it, love?”
She looked at him. She had meant to ask him how his patient fared, but she found, suddenly, that she didn’t want to put his honesty to the test.
“Is it possible for a man to do a thing and remember nothing of it afterward?” she asked instead.
“Of course,” said Thomas. “I remember nothing of where I put my cloak-bag, for instance. Have you seen it?”
“I mean a thing of grave importance. Could a man – Could he fight a duel, let us say, or steal something very valuable, and remember nothing?”
“I have heard of cases of sleepwalkers...”
“Suppose he were not sleepwalking, but broad awake.”
“I do not know. I have heard, also, that those who have had a great shock, or who have seen horrors, as on the battlefield – Sometimes they lose their memory of the event.”
“Are such people mad?”
“In all other things they are as sane as you or I.”
Thomas did not ask Judit why she had asked the question, and she had the uncomfortable feeling she had already betrayed Prince Hamlet’s confidence. She nodded, and turned to go.
“Judit –”
“What?”
A party of rowdy young men came into the common room and began calling for sack and sugar. “Never mind,” said Thomas, over the noise of the strangers. “I’ll explain another time.”
* * *
“Monsieur Laertes?”
“Yes?”
“I have a letter for you. From Denmark.”
Laertes tipped the boy a couple of sous and opened the letter. It was completely blank. This would have flummoxed some recipients, but not Laertes, who was well aware of his father’s penchant for invisible ink. He hoped Polonius had used something other than urine as a base, and then recollected that one of the other possibilities was semen.
Back in his chambers, he passed the paper over a candle flame until his father’s writing appeared.
Come home at once. The king is dead. Prince Hamlet fled. ‘Tis thought he slew King Claudius in his madness. These times may make our fortunes, or destroy them forever. Thy loving father, Polonius.
This was, Laertes thought, surely the shortest letter that Polonius had written in his life – by a margin of about ten pages. Then he noticed that another line of writing had appeared. Ah. Of course Father hadn’t been able to resist adding a postscript.
Ophelia is missing. I fear she has fled with Prince Hamlet. Find her and do whatever you must to preserve her good name.
Laertes went pale, pulled on his cloak and riding-boots, and scribbled a hasty note to the two friends who shared his lodgings. Within a quarter of an hour, he was on his way to Rouen, there to catch the next ship to Denmark.
Chapter Three: I Could Condemn It As an Improbable Fiction
Hamlet clutched his forehead.
The second half of The History of Amleth, Prince of Denmark – in which Amleth escaped the treachery of his father-in-law, committed bigamy, and propped up dead corpses to make it seem as if his army had greater numbers – was going to be even more impossible to adapt for the stage than the first half. By the time Amleth had finally been slain by Wiglek, and his beloved wife Hermentrude had yielded herself up to be the conqueror’s spoil, Hamlet had developed a raging headache. If he were to adapt the play faithfully, it would be about six hours long and would please no one – and because Amleth had chosen to kill his uncle’s retainers by fire, they’d probably have to burn their scaffold to the ground halfway through and perform the rest of the play on the ashes.
There was a knock at the door.
“Come in,” said Hamlet.
Thank God, it was Karl, not Frederik. “Burning the midnight lamp, I see? How are you getting on with the play?”
“So-so,” said Hamlet.
“Have some wine.” Karl produced a bottle. “It helps the words flow.”
Hamlet accepted half a glass – he had particular reasons to avoid heavy drinking – and said, “I think Frederik has set me another impossible task.”
“That is very like,” Karl admitted.
“He seemed to like me well enough when I was a prince. I must remember that what men say to princes has little to do with what is in their hearts. ‘Tis better this way; I had rather have truth than flattery.”
“He did like you well enough when you were a prince,” said Karl. “He has often said so. It is only that he knows not what to do with you now that you are a player, and so he hopes you will give it up and go home so that things can be as they were.”
Hamlet smiled and shook his head. “They cannot be as they were. It is impossible. Soon enough you will understand why.”
“So you will not turn back.”
“No. So I have no choice but to write this play.”
“Good luck. If you are in difficulties over the plot, have one of the characters put to sea and be taken by pirates; that nearly always helps. Oh, and try to make it comical-tragical-historical-pastoral, if you can. That is the present fashion.”
“I could try. I don’t see much pastoral about it.”
“Love in a fen?”
“What sort of shepherd would willingly go into a fen?” Hamlet didn’t know much about shepherding, but he was fairly sure this would be a good way to drown your sheep.
“Pastoral does not always mean ‘with sheep.’ It is – It is more of a state of mind. You know – song and dance, and lovelorn swains and maidens gathering flowers.”
“So if one of the characters went completely mad, and started singing and dancing and gathering flowers, that would be pastoral even if they were in a castle?”
Karl considered this for a moment, and finally said that he wasn’t sure, but you could never have too many mad scenes in a play, so Hamlet might as well try it out and see how it went over. “You might put in an elegy if you wanted to make it a bit more pastoral,” he suggested. “Willows weeping over the glassy stream, and that sort of thing.”
Somewhat bewildered, Hamlet did his best to follow these instructions.
* * *
Thomas, meanwhile, was drinking in the taproom. The chamber he shared with Prince Hamlet was in another wing of the inn; he could see the light in the window, although the hour was already very late, and so he lingered and ordered up another stoup of wine. He didn’t want to talk to Hamlet. He was aware that the prince hadn’t actually done anything to him, and had in fact acted with perfect courtesy when Thomas himself had been on the verge of making a very embarrassing scene, but that almost made it worse.
“How now, Thomas? D’you mind if I join you?”
Thomas slid over and made room for Hans on the bench.
“What’s the matter?”
“Nothing. What makes you think something’s the matter?”
“Nothing. Only I’ve never known you to get drunk alone before.”
“I am not in a company-keeping humor tonight. No, stay. I’ll try to be.”
Hans poured himself a drink and waited.
“Have you seen Judit with – with our new fellow?”
“Afraid that he may cut you out? I would not worry about it. Frederik would hardly give his consent, and I think he’s settled in his own mind that you’re to be his successor, whether Judit will have you or no. He certainly would not dream of handing over the company to a man who’s greener at this trade than Alexander.”
“Why does everyone think I am marrying Judit so I can inherit Prince Hamlet’s Men?” Thomas demanded with some asperity. “I don’t give a straw for being head of the company. The truth is, it’s exactly the other way around. She’s marrying me so she can be head of the company, in fact if not in name.” It stung him to admit it, but he was fairly sure that it was true.
Hans thought about this for a moment. “She’d be rather good at it.”
“I know. I’m more than willing to let her.”
“Where is the trouble, then?” asked Hans. “You remain the heir apparent to the company; our fellow Francisco is merely heir apparent to the kingdom, if he ever gets around to claiming it – and that means Judit will choose you when the stakes are down, no matter how much he may have turned her head for the moment. I’ve known her since we were eleven years old. I’m sure of it.”
“It’s not enough.” Thomas took another gulp of wine, although the taproom was already beginning to sway alarmingly. “That is not why I want her to choose me.”
“Oh – damn. You’re in love with the fair Judit, then?”
“Yes.”
“That’s bad.” Hans shook his head sympathetically. “You should never fall in love where you have business. It only leads to heartache.”
“What are you doing with Karl, then?”
“It is different between two men. There is no question of marriage, which, properly done, is far more of a business arrangement than being a shareholder in a company of actors.”
“Then I do not want to do it properly,” said Thomas. “I want to know that she chose me of her own free will, and not because of what I could give her. Is that so much to ask? It is no more than every poor shepherd or plowman has.”
“Are you saying you would leave the company to become a shepherd or plowman?”
“That,” said Thomas, “is not the point.”
* * *
It was very late when the light in the chamber window went out, and Thomas finally stumbled upstairs and threw himself down on the bed, his shirt and breeches still on. It was some time after that when the noises in the room awoke him. The wine had made him thick-headed and stupid, and it took him a moment to realize that Prince Hamlet was in the grip of a nightmare.
He reached for his tinder-box and a sulfur match, and struck a light.
“Brimstone,” murmured the prince. “Father!”
“Sh-h-h.” Thomas lit a candle. “‘Tis well. Everything is well. Wake up.”
Hamlet’s eyes were open, but Thomas was not sure how much he saw. He gripped the prince’s shoulder cautiously, which turned out to be a bad idea, because Hamlet cried “AAAAGHH!” and vaulted out of bed. On the other hand, he did wake up, which was what Thomas had been trying to accomplish.
“I, I, I, I beg you pardon me,” stammered Hamlet. “I mistook you. Er, for one of the demons of hell.”
“You flatter me, my lord.”
Hamlet managed a feeble smile, and shook his head. “Not ‘my lord.’ No more.” He sat down on the edge of the bed, his hands shaking.
Thomas had never intended to practice medicine again, apart from treating the minor injuries that the players inevitably sustained in the course of their profession. But there was no question he had a patient on his hands now, and his physician’s instincts took over. He opened his medicine chest and poured a generous measure from one of the bottles. “Drink,” he said firmly.
“Will it help?”
“Yes,” said Thomas, by which he meant “maybe.” The stuff was merely aqua-vitae flavored with bitter herbs, and Thomas suspected that its benefits came from its tendency to loosen the patient’s tongue, rather than any medicinal properties of the herbs themselves. But it sometimes worked, and he had damned little else that did anything for diseases of the mind at all.
What did help, sometimes, was getting the patient to confide his troubles; only there was no particular reason why Hamlet should want to confide in Thomas. Actually, he had a very good reason not to want to confide in Thomas. Thomas thought back to the aftermath of their rehearsal that morning, and wished he had acted more politely.
But then, Hans and Karl and Henrik had treated the prince with perfect courtesy, and had gotten nothing more than a smile and a word of thanks out of him – not even an explanation of why he had joined their company. No, if Hamlet told anyone what was troubling him, it would be Judit. Oh damn.
And – because every now and then life worked like the theater, with people entering pat on cue – there was a soft rap at the chamber door, and when Thomas went to open it, there stood Judit with a playbook.
“I saw a light,” she explained, “and I thought, since you were both awake, we might look over the script for Achilles and Hector. The part with Ajax and the goat will have to be cut, I think, ‘tis an old device and the jokes are stale, and besides, Father sold the goat a year ago. Might we write a new scene for Achilles and Polixena instead? Love stories please the city audiences well.”
Typical, thought Thomas. Other men’s brides-to-be slipped into their lovers’ chambers at night to offer them their virginity, or at least a kiss or two. Judit came to talk about plays. Or worse yet, perhaps she came to see Prince Hamlet and the play was only a pretext.
“With yourself playing Polixena to our fellow Francisco’s Achilles, I suppose?” Thomas realized too late that he was sneering. He must master himself.
“No,” said Judit sadly, “Father would never allow it. He was furious after I took Alexander’s place yesterday, and said that I must never act again.”
Good, thought Thomas, and then felt ashamed of himself, because Judit looked genuinely distraught. God, he was turning into an ass. Petty, easily jealous ... Neglecting his duty to his patient, too. “Excuse me,” he said. “I think I hear one calling for me below. I will see what he wants. Judit, stay here a moment.”
He sprinted down the corridor toward the stairs, leaving Hamlet and Judit alone together.
He waited a minute or two, and then returned. They were still staring at each other, bewildered. He grabbed his cloak and his medicine-chest, pouring another generous measure of the cordial for Hamlet, and said, “There is a man dying of plague in the next house, and I am summoned to do what I can for him. I may be some time.”
“Must you go?” Judit asked. “I thought you had sworn off medicine forever.”
“It is my duty,” said Thomas, with difficulty, and turned away and went out.
* * *
As soon as he had gone, Hamlet whirled around and demanded of Judit, “Are you his intelligencer?”
“Whose, my lord?” asked Judit, feeling instinctively that the question had come from Hamlet the prince and not Francisco the player.
“Thomas’s. No, Polonius the Lord Chamberlain. O God!” Hamlet sank down on the edge of the bed, clutching his head as if he feared it might explode. “No, of course you are not a spy. Forgive me; of late I see spies everywhere. Judit ... I think I may be mad.”
This put Hamlet in the company of about half of Denmark, but it didn’t seem polite to say so. “What makes you say that, my lord?” Judit asked.
“Never mind. No, I will tell you, if you swear not to speak of it. By the way, he is lying about the plague, you know.”
“Who? Thomas?”
“Yes. Thomas and Polonius, as it happens.”
“Thomas does not know Polonius,” said Judit, now convinced that the rumors about Prince Hamlet’s madness were nothing less than the plain truth. “He’d never met him before we came to Elsinore, and I do not think they exchanged three words while we were there.”
“No. I mean that Thomas must be using the plague as a ruse to leave us. There is no plague. ‘Tis an invention of Polonius’s, though Thomas knows it not.”
Judit stared at him. This was clearly absurd. Thomas was not a liar. And to judge by his behavior these last few days, the last thing he wanted was to leave her alone with the prince.
Hebe stirred and snorted in her sleep. Hebe. The little dog had been named for the Greek goddess of youth and health. Thomas maintained that people who kept terriers often came through a plague unscathed while their neighbors died. It was ridiculous, like most of his theories, but Judit was very sure that if he had been called out to tend a plague victim, he would have taken her with him.
“But why should Polonius invent a plague?” she asked, trying to distract herself from wondering why Thomas should lie.
“To keep the people in their houses, and to provide a plausible cover for King Claudius not to be seen in public. The king is dead, and Polonius would not have it be known.”
“Did you kill him, my lord?”
Hamlet started. “Why do you ask?”
“You had blood on your garments when you came to us. And then you hid them in the trunk with the shields and helmets and the head of Mary Queen of Scots.”
“You found them?”
“I am the company’s properties mistress, Francisco. Did you think I would not notice?”
“And you told no one?”
Judit shook her head.
Hamlet regarded her in silence for a moment, and seemed to decide that she could be trusted. “I know not whether I killed him. I must ask you to trust me when I say that if I did, I had good and weighty reasons for it. Your trust, by the way, will help you not at all if Polonius and his intelligencers learn that you have been giving me shelter.” He began to pace back and forth across the room. “O God, you and your friends had a bad bargain when you allowed me to join your company. If you are arrested, you must say you knew nothing of this. If they should find that you did know, beg an audience with my mother and tell her that you allowed your loyalty to me to outweigh your duty as a subject.”
Judit had only been half-attending to the second part of this speech. “You know not whether you killed the king?”
“It happened this way. I went to the chapel after the play. I went there with a thought of killing him – for, as I told you, I had a weighty reason. He was on his knees as though he were praying, with his head resting upon the altar-rail. I remember that I stepped nearer. I thought I might do it easily while he was praying. And then –” Hamlet shook his head violently. “The next thing I remember, I was standing over him, and he was dead. I touched him. His blood was still warm and flowing. There was a dagger lying on the floor – there was too much blood on it for me to know whether it was mine, but I suppose it must have been, and I must have killed him. But wherefore do I not remember?”
“I know not, my lord,” said Judit. This story, more than anything else the prince had said, sounded like it ought to have been the ravings of a madman; but somehow it left her with a forcible impression of the prince’s sanity. “But – but – Your majesty!” She dropped to her knees, realizing the full implications of Hamlet’s story.
“You had better rise, and spare your gown. The floor’s none too clean, and I am not the king, nor am I like to be. The electors would never choose me, and I am of their mind, for what sort of king cuts a man’s throat in a dream and then remembers nothing of the act?”
“And so ... you joined a company of players instead?”
“It seemed a reasonable thing to do at the time. I am not sure I remember why.”
Judit sat down on Thomas’s bed, suddenly overcome by a fit of giggles. “My lord! You have far too poor a memory to be a player, I think!”
“I was accounted a good player,” said Hamlet ruefully. “We used to have Christmas revels at Wittenberg, and I ... Well, let that be. ‘Twas another country, and I am now become somebody else. We would both do well to remember that.”
* * *
The morning was well advanced, but Hamlet had not been down to breakfast. Thomas said he was sleeping, and ought not to be disturbed.
Judit half-wondered whether she had dreamed the previous night’s events. Thomas looked rather haggard, but he said nothing to the others, and gave no sign that he had been out late. He was sitting in the common room, chatting with the innkeeper and old Henrik.
He wouldn’t be there, Judit realized abruptly, if he had been tending to a plague victim last night. Plague doctors kept well away from company. She could see Hamlet’s face again, white and staring. There is no plague. He had looked like a madman, but he had evidently been telling the truth and Thomas had been lying, and Judit didn’t know what to think.
“Thomas?” she called when he came away from the others.
“What is it, love?”
She looked at him. She had meant to ask him how his patient fared, but she found, suddenly, that she didn’t want to put his honesty to the test.
“Is it possible for a man to do a thing and remember nothing of it afterward?” she asked instead.
“Of course,” said Thomas. “I remember nothing of where I put my cloak-bag, for instance. Have you seen it?”
“I mean a thing of grave importance. Could a man – Could he fight a duel, let us say, or steal something very valuable, and remember nothing?”
“I have heard of cases of sleepwalkers...”
“Suppose he were not sleepwalking, but broad awake.”
“I do not know. I have heard, also, that those who have had a great shock, or who have seen horrors, as on the battlefield – Sometimes they lose their memory of the event.”
“Are such people mad?”
“In all other things they are as sane as you or I.”
Thomas did not ask Judit why she had asked the question, and she had the uncomfortable feeling she had already betrayed Prince Hamlet’s confidence. She nodded, and turned to go.
“Judit –”
“What?”
A party of rowdy young men came into the common room and began calling for sack and sugar. “Never mind,” said Thomas, over the noise of the strangers. “I’ll explain another time.”
* * *
“Monsieur Laertes?”
“Yes?”
“I have a letter for you. From Denmark.”
Laertes tipped the boy a couple of sous and opened the letter. It was completely blank. This would have flummoxed some recipients, but not Laertes, who was well aware of his father’s penchant for invisible ink. He hoped Polonius had used something other than urine as a base, and then recollected that one of the other possibilities was semen.
Back in his chambers, he passed the paper over a candle flame until his father’s writing appeared.
Come home at once. The king is dead. Prince Hamlet fled. ‘Tis thought he slew King Claudius in his madness. These times may make our fortunes, or destroy them forever. Thy loving father, Polonius.
This was, Laertes thought, surely the shortest letter that Polonius had written in his life – by a margin of about ten pages. Then he noticed that another line of writing had appeared. Ah. Of course Father hadn’t been able to resist adding a postscript.
Ophelia is missing. I fear she has fled with Prince Hamlet. Find her and do whatever you must to preserve her good name.
Laertes went pale, pulled on his cloak and riding-boots, and scribbled a hasty note to the two friends who shared his lodgings. Within a quarter of an hour, he was on his way to Rouen, there to catch the next ship to Denmark.
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