It was Osric. “Ah, Your Royal Highness, my lord,” he said, pulling off his hat and giving an exaggerated bow to Hamlet, and then Horatio. “Here you are. Not easy to find. Well, well. I trust you are both well? Highness, what a terrible homecoming, to hear the sad news in such a way. She was a splendid creature, to be sure, the finest-looking filly in Elsinore.”

He seemed nervous, prattling like a child in front of a strict and feared teacher.

“You may put your hat back on your head,” Hamlet said. “It belongs there: that is its right and proper place.”

“Why, thank you, my lord. It is a cold day. I am most exceedingly grateful.”

“Now, there you are wrong,” Hamlet said. “It is actually quite warm with this southerly wind.”

“Warm? Well, yes, indeed, there is a warm aspect to the wind. Yes, yes, you are right, sir. I have not been out in it long enough to understand how warm it truly is.”

“Sultry,” Hamlet remarked thoughtfully, gazing around him. A few drops of sleet, almost snow, blew around him. “Very sultry and hot for my complexion.”

“It is that, sir; why, for your complexion, yes, yes, I can understand that the sun would burn on such a day. Very sultry, very hot, why, that’s true.”

He took a confidential step forward and whisked off his hat again. Hamlet coughed discreetly and nodded at the offending item. Osric blushed and restored it to his head. He had been about to speak, but he now had too many issues to deal with. It took him some seconds to remember what he wanted to say.

“The king, His Royal Majesty,” he began, and was so moved at the thought of his royal master that he reverently removed his hat again, “has sent me to you . . .”

“The hat,” Hamlet said.

“Ah, the hat. The hat? Oh yes, I beg Your Royal Highness’s pardon. I am a little overheated.”

“Heat? Would you call today hot?”

“Well, well, perhaps not exactly hot, sir, but tending toward heat at times.” He wiped his brow.

“The hat,” Hamlet reminded him again.

“Ah!” The hat went back on the head, and Osric plunged in again. “The fact is, noble sir, that the king, His Royal Majesty, has asked me to step in your direction to speak to you, sir, of Laertes. Now, there is nobility, sir, both of you sirs. Laertes is a man who is the very definition of a gentleman. If I were to write a book, and I have sometimes thought that I might or should, if I were to write a book on the makeup of a gentleman, what constitutes a gentleman and so forth, and if I were to write it entirely about Laertes, I would not go very far wrong, insofar as his manners, indeed his manner to all people . . .”

“Well, you do him credit, and he deserves every word you say,” Hamlet said. “In fact, to my mind it is almost disrespectful to Laertes to speak of him with your hat upon your head.”

Osric jumped as though flicked with a wet towel. “I meant no disrespect, I assure you, sir,” he said with an embarrassed giggle. He swept the hat off and bowed flamboyantly, then in a rush said, “The king has staked six Barbary horses in a bet with Laertes, who has bet six French swords in return. I have been sent here to tell you that.”

“Put on your hat,” said Hamlet in a kindly tone. “I would not have your ears catch cold.”

Osric did so, but now he was getting sulky.

“What kind of swords?” Horatio asked, with the interest of a professional.

Osric doffed his hat again to speak to Horatio. “I know not exactly, my lord, but I warrant they would be of the finest, and I believe they come with girdles and straps and hangers, all in all, sir, a prize worth winning.”

He turned to Hamlet and made to speak, but just as he took in breath, Hamlet mouthed the word “hat,” and Osric collapsed again.

“Well, I assume this bet involves the prince,” Horatio suggested. “Perhaps you had better tell our royal master how it concerns him.”

Now Osric had his cue, and nothing could stop him. He leaned in again, in his confidential way, toward Horatio, whom he felt he could trust. “They were talking, His Royal Majesty and Laertes, about swordsmanship, and of course everyone knows the prowess of Laertes, noble and starred youth that he is, but the king would have it that you, sir Hamlet, are not to be sneezed at, and so the bet was made. Laertes is certain you cannot get within three hits of him, and so he offers to fight you seven rounds, saying you will not win more than two. In other words, if he beats you by five to two, then the horses are his, but should he only beat you by four to three, then the outcome is the opposite.”

“What if Hamlet should beat Laertes by, say, seven to nothing?” Horatio asked.

Osric smiled indulgently and doffed his hat to the prince. “The affair would not proceed past the third round in that eventuality, and of course Laertes would lose his rapiers.”

“And what is Laertes’ weapon of choice?” asked Hamlet.

“Rapier and dagger.”

“That’s two, but let it be.”

“Will Your Royal Highness accept the challenge?” Osric asked eagerly.

Hamlet thought, but only for a moment. “You may tell the king that I will walk in the great hall in an hour or so. I won’t fight with daggers; they are weapons for assassins. But if rapiers are brought and the gentleman likes to attend, then I shall do my best to win the king’s bet for him.”

Osric was enraptured. “How chivalrous!” He held his hat over his heart. “Truly, you and Laertes are well matched. Perfect, sir, perfect. I shall inform His Royal Majesty, if the prince will give me leave to . . . er . . . leave.”

“Certainly.”

After Osric exited, with more flourishes and bows, Hamlet turned to Horatio. “Who knows what this is about? But it is good, I think. Something may happen or it may not, but at least there is movement.”

“You had better be careful of Laertes. I believe he improved greatly whilst in France.”

“I’ve beaten men who have beaten him,” Hamlet said excitedly. “You don’t realize all the practice I’ve been having. I’ve been training hard the last year, with some fine teachers. Prince Heinrich von Bellheim, for one, and Monsieur Paul D’Eglantine. A start of three? I’ll win easily.”

Horatio smiled. He had never heard Hamlet boast before.

“I think I’ve been approaching this the wrong way,” Hamlet said. “I’ve been wanting to design the world all over again, to rearrange it according to . . . well, according to the way my father would have wanted it. But I haven’t been able to, and that’s because I’m not God. This is better now. This way I don’t create a new world; I just tweak it a little. As it flows along, I move a rock or take away a dead branch. I’m not in charge of the world. That was a conceit on my part.”

Horatio nodded. He was not entirely sure what Hamlet was talking about, but that was common enough. He appreciated that at least, since his return, the prince seemed rational with him. He suspected no one else saw that side of Hamlet anymore. But this was a new mood now. Hamlet looked absurdly young again. There was a freshness about him, an energy. Something about the bet had excited him. It seemed that the thought of action had tipped him into a new state. The thought of action, there was a funny idea. Didn’t they contradict each other, those words: “thought” and “action”?

Horatio smiled to himself. He opened his mouth, but it was Osric who spoke. The foolish young man had returned to the rocky point where they were sheltering from the bitter wind, and was standing in front of them. He held his hat behind his back and spoke with less ceremony. “Your Royal Highness, His Majesty sends me to ask if your pleasure is still to play with Laertes, and whether you will do so now, or whether you need a longer time?”

Hamlet shrugged, but Horatio could sense that he was bursting. “I am as always the king’s to command. If he is in a rush, I will accommodate him.”

Rather more confidently, Osric performed a bow and replaced his hat on his head. “Sir, the king and the queen and indeed all the court are on their way to the hall now to enjoy the entertainment.”

“Then I too am nearly at the entrance. Not here, Osric, but just outside the hall. Half a dozen steps away.”

Horatio expected that this would be enough for Osric, but not so. Now he executed another bow, removed his hat, and added, “Most Excellent Highness, I am bidden by that most noble lady the queen your mother to convey a further request to you.”

Hamlet was leaning against the stone wall, as he had been for some time. Yet Horatio was aware that he was never still. Now, at Osric’s words, Hamlet stood rigidly, and the difference was stark. The twitching finger, the lively eyes, the nervous jiggle, all were gone as he waited in straining silence to hear the message from his mother. What power she has over him, Horatio thought.

Hamlet waited until Osric spoke again.

“Well, noble prince, it is simply this, that she desires you speak warmly to Laertes before the bouts begin. I believe she seeks a rapprochement. I understand there was a certain indelicacy at the cemetery. . . . I was not able to attend, but the queen spoke most feelingly upon her return. . . .”

Hamlet seemed to shudder for a moment. Horatio could not understand his reaction. But he sounded willing enough when he answered. “She gives good advice.”

Osric made off, glad to be gone. Hamlet drummed his bottom lip with a finger. Horatio waited to hear what he would say. At last he spoke. “He thinks he is the new Polonius,” he remarked.

“Osric?”

“Yes. Pulling our strings and expecting us to dance. But Osric to Polonius is as a stuffed sheep to a fox.” Horatio didn’t reply. After a minute Hamlet added, “You wouldn’t believe how sick at heart I feel, Horatio. A strangeness has come over me.”

“Sir —” Horatio began.

But Hamlet cut him off. “It’s nothing. It might trouble a woman, perhaps, but I’m not letting it concern me.”

Horatio took a step toward him. “Hamlet,” he said, “if your heart dislikes anything, obey it. Trust your instincts, which are good ones. I’ll go and tell them you’re not fit and they’ll have to postpone.”

“No, no. I defy these feelings. When a sparrow falls from the sky, it affects the whole universe. If something happens now, it won’t happen later; if it happens later, it won’t happen now. Since no one leaves with anything, what does it matter when we leave?”

Again Horatio was baffled by his friend. He stared at him as the sky turned red around them and the new detachment of guards marched past to take over the watch.