Hamlet (14 page)

Claudius, always formidable in a fight, retreated to his throne and stood in front of it, hands on hips. The queen sank back onto her chair, aware that she could pull no strings here, play no role, have no influence. All she could do was watch and wait for the scene to play itself out.

Noise hubbled and bubbled into the room. As the crowd got bigger and pushed in farther, the noble colors of those who resided at court gave way to grubbier clothes, grays and browns and blacks. The first wave, members of the royal household, forgetting protocol, no longer in control of their lives, had their backs to the royal couple, watching anxiously to see what their future might look like. The second wave all looked forward, with sharp and hungry eyes.

In the middle of them, like a young conqueror, through the huge oak doors, bright and excited, strode Laertes.

“Where is the king?” he shouted, and then, self-consciously, added, “Oh, there you are.” He turned to the crowd. “Give me space, I beg you. I need to talk to the king.”

“No, no!” they shouted at him.

“Yes, please, I entreat you, I am here to speak of my father. If you honored him, then let me have this time to speak to the only man who can answer my questions.”

Scowling, reluctant, but having to acknowledge his rights, the crowd began to withdraw. The guards, sensing the change in mood, began to move against them, applying pressure around the edges. The Elsinore residents and staff, too, started to shuffle away. In a short time, only three people were left in the room.

Laertes, trembling with excitement, faced the older man. Both were red-faced, chests puffed forward, staring at each other. “Oh, vile king,” he exclaimed, “give me my father.”

“Be calm, Laertes,” Claudius urged.

“Calm! Calm! If there is a single drop of blood in me that is calm, then that drop of blood says that I am not my father’s son. That drop of blood says my mother is a slut, who slept with someone else to get me. I will not be calm.”

In a frenzy of rage he grabbed the king by the front of his robe. The queen leaped to her feet and opened her mouth to call for the guards. But Claudius, who liked the physical as much as he hated battles of words and wit, disentangled himself and gestured to her to sit again. “Have no fear, Gertrude,” he said. “A king is surrounded by the protection of God himself. When faced by true royalty, treason can only blink. Now, Laertes, tell me, what troubles you? What is the cause of such massive rage?”

“Where is my father?”

“Dead.”

“But not killed by the king,” Gertrude interrupted.

Again Claudius waved her away.

“How did he die?” Laertes demanded. “I won’t be juggled with. If God protects you, then I say to hell with God, to hell with my vows of loyalty, I say that my allegiance to the throne of Denmark can go to the blackest devil. My father was loyal to me, and I return that loyalty now. I don’t care if I stand in the deepest pit of the fieriest furnace — as long as I get revenge.”

“Tell me this,” said the king, his voice rumbling from deep in his chest, “is your desire for revenge so overwhelming that you don’t care who you attack? Will both friend and foe fall to your avenging sword?”

“Of course not. His enemies only.”

“Will you know his enemies, then? And his friends?”

“I’ll embrace his friends warmly. They will be my honored guests.”

“Ah! Now you speak like a good son and a true gentleman.”

Laertes opened his mouth to respond, but another disturbance in the doorway distracted him. He looked around and was astonished to see his sister enter. She drifted in like a wisp of mist in the late afternoon. Laertes’ mouth stayed open. It was obvious that Ophelia was deranged. She wafted around the room with no sign that she was aware of her brother’s presence. For two or three minutes Laertes watched, unable to speak. In that time he seemed to age ten years.

Ophelia began singing:

Finally Laertes made his mouth work again. “Oh, sweet Ophelia! Oh, dear, kind sister! It is possible that the mind of a young woman could be as fragile as an old man’s life? Could nature have sent a part of her to accompany our father? Oh heat, dry up my brains! Oh, let my tears be thick with salt and burn out my eyes so that I do not have to look upon this sad sight.”

“There’s rosemary,” Ophelia said suddenly. “That’s for remembrance. Remember that, love. There are pansies — they’re for thoughts. There’s fennel and columbines for the queen. Some say they speak of unfaithfulness, but what would I know of that? There’s rue for you, sir, the king, sir, to show you repent, if indeed you do. There’s rue for me, for my sadness. We may call it the herb of grace on Sundays. I would give you a daisy, for love, and some violets, for faithfulness, but they withered when my father died. They say he made a good end. . . .

Still singing her mournful song, Ophelia eddied out of the room. The melody could be heard for a long time as she drifted down the staircase.

“Oh, dear sister,” Laertes muttered, “if your mind was whole and you had a thousand words to persuade me to seek revenge, you would not be more successful than you are now.”

Laertes, head in hands, was slumped on the edge of the platform on which the two thrones sat. He looked up and met the king’s eyes.

“Does God see this?” he groaned. “How can he allow such offense to all that is fair?”

“Laertes,” said Claudius urgently, “we are in this together. We are on the same side. If you ever find that the queen and I conspired in any way to do you harm, you can have my kingdom. You don’t have to ask for it. I will give you everything: crown, castles, treasure. My life, even. Have it; take it. Instead of blaming us, find your true enemy. And, where the offense is, there let the great ax fall.”

“I know you’re speaking of Hamlet. But if it is true that he took my father’s life, why have you let him go free?”

“Laertes, good Laertes.” The king helped him stand, then walked him down the room, away from the queen’s hearing. They stopped in front of a giant portrait that hung on the southern wall. It showed a Madonna cradling the body of her crucified son. “Magnificent, isn’t it?” said the king. “It was a gift from old King Fortinbras of Norway, twenty years ago. Grandfather to the Fortinbras who pecks at our borders now.”

The king turned and faced the young man.

“Laertes, you should know, one of my problems in dealing with Hamlet is his mother. She worships the ground he walks on. To her, he can do no wrong. And the queen is so conjunctive to my life and soul that I revolve around her — like a star moving in an orbit which cannot be altered. It is my virtue and my plague that I am so dependent upon her. But the same problem exists with the general population. Hamlet is loved by the common people. He is the pet of the public! If I put him on trial . . . well, my arrows, aimed against him, would turn back on me and deliver me a mortal wound. Don’t you understand that? My position is not what you think.”

“And so I lose my father. And now my sister too, it seems, is slipping away.”

“No, no, you underestimate me. I have made arrangements that I think you will smile upon. You may not have heard that I dispatched Hamlet to England. In the company of those fine fellows Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Now, there’s a pair of conspirators, if you like! Who knows what they might get up to in England, with their royal charge.”

“Your Majesty is mistaken,” said Laertes coldly, sniffing for a plot closer to home. “Hamlet is not a hundred miles from Elsinore.”

“I think not,” said the king, smiling. “He will have arrived at his final destination by now. His final destination — do you understand what I mean? I am waiting for news from England that Hamlet is — let me put it delicately, in his mother’s presence — that Hamlet is most finally arrived.”

“Whilst you are waiting for that news, you might speak to Horatio, my lord. Horatio has in his hand a letter from Hamlet advising that he has just landed in Denmark after a devilish bad voyage. I believe he abandoned Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in Calais, giving them strict instructions to continue their journey to England without him.”

Claudius staggered where he stood and gaped at the young man. “Can this be true?”

“Horatio recognizes the writing, and the letter is blood-red with the prince’s seal.”

The king threw back his head and roared like a lion. Spittle flew from his mouth. Laertes stepped back. Claudius tore away from him and paced up and down the floor, swinging his cloaks about him. The queen, wisely, slipped out of the room. After two agitated minutes, Claudius turned again to Laertes and bellowed at him. “Then you shall have your revenge! On the one who is the instrument of all your misfortunes! I’m not so feeble that I’ll allow people to pull my beard while I sit there giggling at their play. Have your revenge. And I will have mine!”

“Then hurry, Hamlet, to Elsinore,” Laertes growled back. “It warms the sickest parts of my soul that I will soon be able to say to him, ‘Now your turn has come!’”

“Wait! Wait!” The king strode to the door and checked that they were unobserved. “Softly, my dear fellow. If you will be ruled by me on this . . .”

Laertes bowed his head. “Majesty, you are my king.”

“Good. Then do as I say. We will fix this so that, whatever happens to Hamlet, no blame can fall on either of us, you especially.”

“Is that possible?”

“Certainly. I have an idea already. I remember reports that you are much improved in swordsmanship since you went to France?”

Laertes nodded.

“Good. That’s a start. Now, Laertes, let me ask you this. Did you love your father? Or are you merely a painting of sorrow? A face without a heart?”

“How can you ask?”

“Oh, I know you loved him. But love is controlled by time, dear Laertes. There lives in the flame of love a kind of gas that will abate it. Just as a candle has its wick, no matter how bright the flame burns, sooner or later the wick gives out and the flame dies. What we would do, we should do. But ‘would’ soon gets eaten away by the cancers of time and change and words and indecision. How far are you prepared to go to show that you are truly your father’s son?”

“I would cut Hamlet’s throat in church,” said Laertes without blinking, without a tremor. “In front of the altar, with Christ looking on. Does that satisfy you?”

“Well, you’re right,” said the king. But even he blinked and trembled at the savagery of the younger man’s rage. “You’re right, of course. There should be no place sacred against a murderer. Not when you are acting properly, for the honor of your family. Even a church. Well, well. But as I was saying, let us try to be more subtle. When Hamlet does reach here, why don’t you keep to your own apartments and let us devise a plan. We’ll cast out a bait and let him rise to it. When the time is right, we’ll organize a sword fight. He’s such a trusting fellow, we can accidentally leave the protector off the tip of the sword, so instead of a hit leaving nothing but a faint mark, you’ll run him through. How’s that for a plan?”

“I’ll do better than that,” Laertes snarled. “I have a poison I bought from an old witch in a back room in Marseille. It’s lethal enough to shrivel a tree and send the leaves falling. I’ll daub the tip of the sword with it. One scratch with that and he can call to the highest heaven for help, but nothing on earth or beyond it will save him.”

“Good, good. Anything we can do to make this a certainty is worth doing. We can’t afford to fail, dear Laertes. In fact I have some poison too, a concoction I have used only once, to get rid of an old bull. A sniff of it would dispatch a wayward calf.” Claudius burst into a fit of coughing and had to wipe his eyes and blow his nose before he could go on. “I’ll add it to Hamlet’s wineglass. A bit of hot sword fighting, a pause while he takes a drink, and if you can’t scratch him with your weapon, then, as his limbs become sluggish with the venom, you are not the duelist whose praises I have heard sung throughout Denmark!”

“I’ll do it,” said Laertes, fervent and red-eyed. He clasped the king’s hand in a double grip, and the two men clenched fists until their fingers were white and bloodless. Then, satisfied with their afternoon’s work, they went their separate ways, each smoldering, each ready to burst into flames.