There had been a day in their childhood when Ophelia saw the timidity of Hamlet. It was in April, the weakest month. He picked up Horatio and Ophelia one morning, when the two boys were nearly twelve and Ophelia nearly eleven, and led them from the southern wing back to his tower, down the final steps and out of the castle. They ran through the western gate, yelling cheek at the young Dutch guard, whom they liked, and on into the village.

Hamlet went this way often enough. The people here admired him and stopped what they were doing when they saw him coming, left their work, moving forward eagerly. Some clapped; a few girls called his name; half a dozen boys ran down the hill after the young prince and his friends.

Hamlet, however, paused for nothing and no one until they were in the forest. By then Horatio was nearly fifty meters behind and Ophelia was white in the distance, a goose perhaps, a bird struggling for her life.

Hamlet stopped and watched her. He seemed fascinated with her today.

“What are we doing?” Ophelia asked when she caught up to them and had finished panting.

“I don’t know. Looking for the monster? Searching for dragons? I felt possessed by the running urge.”

Horatio looked cross. “I thought we were doing something special.”

Hamlet ignored him and smiled at Ophelia. “We are. Maybe. Who knows?”

They walked on, calm now, chatting only of the here and now, the faint track to the left, the spider scuttling across their path, the piece of bark patterned like the king’s personal standard.

“Do you know this road?” Horatio asked the prince.

“No. But I imagine it leads to Eligah.”

“I went there when I was little, with my father. But I don’t think we came this way. Anyway, we were in a carriage. I wasn’t paying much attention.”

“What’s Eligah?” asked Ophelia from behind them.

“A village. They make cheese, mostly. Haven’t you heard of Eligah cheese?”

She didn’t answer.

A thumping from the left hinted at a wild boar, and the three children walked closer together, looking eagerly and anxiously from side to side. Only a few weeks earlier a baby had been taken by a boar, or so it was believed, and the villagers were still trying to hunt the beast down. But the forest was quiet and the road clear.

Soon it became monotonous, and Horatio, who liked everything to have meaning and purpose, almost suggested turning back. But a glance at Hamlet’s face dissuaded him. The young prince was intent on something. He looked more like a jungle hunter than a boy traveling through the woods in Denmark.

They walked for nearly two hours and reached the outskirts of Eligah. Now Horatio became more interested. Here was an interruption; here was the quickness that comes only with people. The village was larger than he remembered, with an ancient bridge just ahead of them and a tall church spire in the distance. On both sides of the track were pig and dairy farms, the tiniest farms Horatio had ever seen. He began to wonder if he had ever been here at all.

To his frustration, however, Hamlet stopped.

“Time we were heading back,” he announced.

“But why have we come all this way?” Horatio objected. Already he was sulking, knowing that his wishes would not prevail. It was not just that Hamlet was a prince; it was also that Horatio was not quite strong enough.

“How would you like it,” Ophelia said shrewdly, “if you couldn’t go anywhere without people making a fuss of you? He’s entitled to some privacy.”

“But you don’t know if that’s what he’s thinking,” Horatio said.

“Don’t talk about him as if he’s not here.”

“Well, that’s exactly what you were just doing.”

Hamlet watched the squabble with interest, smiling slightly. He had nothing more to say, though, and started walking back along the clear, wide track. Horatio was baffled. Why had they come here? Had there been no reason after all?

At that moment there was a cry from Hamlet’s left and slightly behind him. Horatio and Ophelia stood frozen, listening and staring. Hamlet seemed to need no time to study the situation. At the first sound he was already running, and in a moment had passed them.

He has the reflexes of a dog, Horatio thought, grudgingly, admiringly, enviously. Then he followed his prince.

Hamlet had dashed through a screen of trees as though they were not there and was already out of sight. When Horatio burst through the same line of young elms, he saw Hamlet stooping over a dark shape on the ground. Horatio first thought this was the baby taken by the boar but then realized that was not possible; the baby had disappeared three weeks ago.

There seemed to be no danger. The boy ran to Hamlet’s side and stood with him looking down at the creature. It was not a baby but a badger, wounded in some wild attack, by a wolf perhaps. Its snout had been half torn off its face. It was an old badger, with a graying muzzle, as much as could be seen of it through the blood. Its teeth, exposed in its distress, were worn and stained.

With the arrival of Horatio, and then Ophelia, the badger stirred and tried to drag itself away, on three wobbly legs, the fourth trailing behind, so impotent that for a moment Horatio thought it was a stick the badger had caught in its fur. The creature struggled about ten meters and collapsed again. It lay there waiting in fear for the end. Until then death had meant nothing more than the avoidance of pain; now the creature understood oblivion.

“Better finish him off,” Horatio said to Hamlet.

The prince drew his sword, a short weapon, as befitted boys of their age, but sharp enough. The three of them had followed the badger and now they stood over it once more, watching its heaving flanks and tiny eyes, listening to its grunting breath.

“Do it,” Ophelia said urgently. “I can’t stand it. Poor thing.”

Hamlet held the handle of his sword. He had not yet fully withdrawn it from its scabbard. Horatio realized that he was hesitating, that perhaps he was not yet ready to use it. Some boys were like that, but he’d never imagined Hamlet might be one of them. He didn’t know what to say but thought he should say something. Wisely, though, he held his tongue.

“Go on,” Ophelia said again. “It’s all right. It’s the only thing to do. Look at its face. It can’t survive.”

“I . . .” Hamlet said. “I don’t think it’s big enough.”

“Of course it is,” Ophelia said. She had not yet understood the problem. Hamlet could not do it in front of anyone, only on his own. “Please, Hamlet. The pain it is . . . you must put it out of its misery. Nothing in such pain should live.”

Hamlet jerked and swallowed. “You . . . I can’t . . .” he said. “Why should I? Oh, all right, then.” And he stabbed angrily at the badger, missing the heart by such a margin that the sword went in somewhere along the back of the spine, near the tail. The badger grunted and flailed its legs. Hamlet realized the enormity of his mistake and stabbed wildly now, three, four times, until blood was everywhere across the ground and breath was leaving the spasming animal.

For every breath the badger lost, Hamlet breathed harder, and now that the creature had nothing left, the boy panted, as if somehow breathing for them both. Soon, it was over. In anger and embarrassment he looked around for his two friends. They had backed away and were behind him now, Ophelia with averted eyes, Horatio frowning.

“It’s different with bow and arrow,” Hamlet said. His anger felt like scarlet fever. If I were here on my own, I would stab myself, he thought. That would be easy. But I wouldn’t do it in front of anyone. I’d probably mess that up too.

The best swordsman in the castle, for his age! Horatio was thinking. Probably the best in the country! But he went to water. I would have done it with one clean stroke. I’ll be better than him one day.

And as they walked home in silence, Horatio trailing behind the other two, he practiced huge stabbing strokes at the prince’s back, realizing with terror as he did that such a thing was tantamount to treason.