‘You would be a good queen,’ said the king’s ghost, hovering above me as I sat on the battlements of the castle’s tiny privy tower, nibbling my Wette Willie cheese. The tower’s winding staircase was too narrow for watchmen in armour to climb up it, but ghosts and little girls don’t take up much room. The wind tickled under my nightdress. It smelled of ships and privy and stubborn snow sitting on the mountains.
The king was grey mist, his beard and crown no thicker than a wisp of cloud. Beyond him, the farms and harbour’s waves and forest were black under the blaze of stars. Down in the castle courtyard, torchlit shadows flickered. I wasn’t scared of falling. At six years old, you don’t worry about crashing down onto the cobblestones. I wasn’t scared of ghosts either, though Nurse said they were fearsome visitors from the grave. But how could a ghost hurt me if it was just a mist?
And ghosts could fly! It must be fun to be dead, I thought. I’d tried to fly once, piling up the banqueting benches at our house and leaping off. But I just tore my skirt, and got a scolding from Nurse. She’d scold me now if she knew I’d crept out of bed, and through the door that led from our house to the castle, and up to the tower. And was talking to a ghost.
‘What’s it like being a queen?’ I asked. I took another bite of cheese. Even at six years old I knew you only got Wette Willie for three weeks in early spring, when the lambs were frolicking and the ewes’ udders were full of milk; weeks before the first cow’s milk cheese was ready. In two weeks’ time, the Wette Willie season would be finished for another year.
The ghost smiled. He had a nice smile. ‘I was a king, not a queen.’
‘But you had a queen,’ I insisted.
‘She died. When my son was born.’
‘My mother died too.’ I took another bite of the Wette Willie, then offered the remaining lump to him.
He shook his head. ‘Ghosts cannot eat, child.’
‘Not even cheese?’
‘Not even cheese.’
I considered the matter. I was fond of cheese. I’d rather eat cheese than fly, I decided. Maybe it wasn’t such a good idea to die. Or not yet.
‘Is my mother a ghost too?’ It hadn’t occurred to me before that I might ever meet her.
The ghost smiled at me sadly. I could see the stars dimly through his face. ‘If she is, I have not met her. Most people do not become ghosts. Only those who must walk the earth to avenge a wrong that was done to them become ghosts.’
‘What wrong was done to you?’
The ghost stared out at the darkness that was Denmark. ‘A man I thought was my friend got me drunk and tricked me into betting my kingdom on a sword fight. He won; I died. Now he rules my kingdom, and I must roam the world till I am avenged.’
‘Oh.’ That sounded like politics. My father talked politics. And talked. And talked. ‘What does a queen do?’
‘Sometimes she does nothing except let her ladies dress her, sew tapestries, and walk in her garden.’
That sounded as boring as what I was expected to do now. I wrinkled my nose.
‘Or,’ said the ghost, ‘a queen can help her husband rule.’ He gazed at me intently now, as if he wanted me to soak up every word. ‘A queen can have power, if she has the courage to take it. If my queen had been alive, perhaps she would have stopped the fight. Perhaps, after my death, she would have led our army to fight the usurper who took my throne.’ The ghost lifted off his crown and touched it gently, like it was a kitten and he a mother cat. ‘Perhaps,’ he said softly, ‘she might even have won.’
I liked the idea of leading an army. On a white horse of my own, and dressed in gleaming armour, like my brother Laertes wore sometimes when he practised sword fighting. Girls weren’t allowed to use swords … unless, I realised, they were a queen. A queen could fight with a sword. Perhaps a queen could eat all the cheese she wanted, even before bedtime.
‘Can queens do anything they want?’
‘If they have courage and determination.’ The ghost smiled at me again. ‘Beauty helps too. People admire those who are beautiful.’
I nodded. I knew I was beautiful. Hair like wheat in the sunlight, my father said. Cheeks like a lily, declared Nurse. I knew I was courageous and determined too, but the ghost was the first person I’d met who seemed to think they were good qualities for a girl. Or for a queen.
‘I’ll be a queen when I grow up,’ I decided. ‘I’ll fight a king and win a kingdom. I’ll have to borrow Laertes’s sword,’ I added, ‘and practise.’
The ghost looked amused. ‘I am not sure you will find another king willing to bet his kingdom. Girls become queens by marrying a king, or a prince who will be king when his father dies. Or if their own father is a king who has no sons.’
My father was only lord chancellor, not a king. I must find a king to marry, or a prince. The only one I could think of was our Prince Hamlet. I didn’t like him much. He had said I mustn’t when he caught me climbing the apple tree. He was old, nearly fourteen, and was away now with his tutor in Wittenberg.
I’d have to find another prince. One who liked climbing trees. And cheese.
‘Is your son a prince?’ I asked hopefully.
‘He is. But he has no kingdom to inherit. Not now.’
‘Maybe he will fight our king and get your kingdom back?’ Then I could marry him, I thought. And be the kind of queen who carries a sword and eats all the cheese she wants to.
The ghost looked at me seriously. He was the first person who had ever looked at me seriously, though of course he was a ghost and not a person, so maybe that didn’t count. ‘Perhaps my son may try to take this kingdom back. But I will not ask him to, not even to bring me to the gentle rest of death.’
‘Why not?’
‘Revenge is a dish that sits bitter in the stomach, even if the first taste is sweet.’
That sounded like Runny Roger: a winter cheese that was soaked in fermented whey, then wrapped in chestnut leaves. Runny Roger tasted good but gave you a tummy ache if you ate too much.
‘Does that mean you will be a ghost forever?’ I asked. There were no other girls my age at court, and it would be good to have the ghost to talk to. He was interesting.
‘To be, or not to be? That is the question.’ The ghost peered into the darkness again, as if he could see the beech trees, the cattle byres and pigsties of his lost kingdom. Perhaps he could. ‘I do not know, child. Justice has a way of slipping into the world, like the sun creeping up into the dawn. One day, perhaps, my grandchildren will sit on Denmark’s throne. But I will give my son his own road to ride, not chain him to my path with bonds of revenge.’
Rat droppings, I thought, borrowing Nurse’s favourite curse. I would need to find another prince to marry. I suspected there weren’t a lot of them around. I swallowed the last of my Wette Willie regretfully. I’d hidden the hunk of cheese at breakfast time. Nurse didn’t let me eat cheese at supper; she said it would give me bad dreams. A silly idea, I thought, sitting comfortably on the battlements with my ghost.
‘Ophelia? Lady Ophelia? Drat the child. Ophelia!’
It was Nurse; she had tracked me down. A servant must have seen me come into the palace. Servants saw everything. I needed to get down the tower stairs before Nurse found me. The tower was my secret, even if my visits to the palace were not.
I slid off the battlements reluctantly. ‘I have to go … Your Majesty,’ I added, remembering my lessons and sketching a curtsey.
I was still trying to think of a prince to marry. I wanted to ask the ghost if he knew of any, and how to make them want to marry me. And how to lead an army, and other things a queen might need to know.
‘Ophelia!’ I could hear Nurse opening and shutting doors below.
Tomorrow night, I thought.
‘Goodnight, fair child,’ said the ghost king. He smiled at me again, another sad smile, a strange look of hope upon his foggy face.
‘Goodnight, King Fortinbras,’ I said.
I would eat ten seasons of Wette Willies before I saw a dead king again.