3

A Sea of Troubles

The morning following her father’s death Ophelia received a visit from Voltemand. After a few casual words of comfort he talked to her about the funeral, wanting to know how she planned to pay for it. For some reason the man’s eyes wouldn’t quit the apartments. Once he left she locked her bedroom door and tried to think. Not about mourning. That might happen sometime in the future. Out of duty, little more.

But she needed to think about loss and rejection, how best a woman might deal with them.

The servants were gone. Fussing around a corpse. Negotiating with an undertaker. Arranging hymns and pulpit eulogies. The pain and the confusion in her head still hadn’t diminished one whit.

Her mind was on the Spanish wheel-lock pistol she’d stolen from her father’s weapons drawer in his study early that day. A heavy complex weapon, locks and levers, brackets and cogs. Laertes told her a famous Italian, Leonardo da Vinci, had invented the device to protect the Florentines against their foes. A quicker, surer way of killing a man than any blade in history.

Then, one bright morning that lost summer, her brother had taken her into the wood behind Elsinore, a place she associated with love and Hamlet, and shown her how to work the thing. Talked of sear arms and pyrites, mainsprings and a mechanism called the dog.

All she remembered was the loading. Gunpowder in the pan. A ball in the barrel. Arm. Pull. Fire.

In the forest Laertes taught her how to hold it. Laughed as her arm jerked back and she yelped with surprise and more than a little pain from the sudden and unexpected recoil.

He roared when out of the ash tree ahead the brown shape of a sparrow fell before them, all feathers, blood and mangled skin tumbling to the leafy carpet where, not far away, unknown to him and all the castle, she and Hamlet came to make sweet love. Ophelia had been horrified that she‘d taken the little bird’s life, however unintentionally, and never touched the gun again.

Remembering that distant time she took out the weapon from beneath the sheets, held it, looked at herself in her mirror. The long gun in her hand. Her body slimmer now the baby was gone.

It was hard but she tried to remember what her brother had taught her. There was a waxed box of powder, some round lead balls that fitted the muzzle.

She played with them. Put one where she thought Laertes had said. Held the weapon in her hand. It wasn’t so heavy. Not so difficult to manage either. A man, hit full and close by its force, would go from waking to dead so quickly.

It was not within her nature to wish him pain or anything but love once he’d given that in return. More so than Polonius, her father. A cruel, distant man who’d treated her as servant and chattels, another pawn in the quiet game he’d played within Elsinore’s walls.

There was another solution.

Ophelia lifted the wheel-lock, shifted her flaxen her out of her way then pressed the cold metal barrel against her temple.

One shot through the skull and then everything she knew, everything that moved and affected her, would be extinguished. Or rather the memory and consciousness of it would be. The causes would remain, not that she understood them.

Suicide was a sin. It would condemn her for eternity. But so was murder, even a just one sought out of righteous grief.

The revenger always dug two graves, they said. One for his victim. One for himself. She’d never understood that old saying till now.

Either way she was dead. They’d bury her father later that day, in the cemetery within the castle walls where aristocracy were interred. There was no time to waste. Gossip was rife within Elsinore. The king had lost patience with his nephew. Hamlet would be gone from Denmark before nightfall.

Ophelia checked the powder and the ball again. Found her long black mourning dress and slowly pulled it on. Slid the weapon in the pocket. Walked out into the chilly corridor and turned for the stairs to the royal quarters.

A tiny sparrow was the only thing she’d ever killed, and that by accident, not intent. But this was a changing world of which she was but a small and mutable part.

Hamlet sat in the king’s study, opposite Claudius, Rosencrantz and Guildenstern scared on chairs in the corner.

“Another funeral in Elsinore. At this rate, uncle, you should bargain with the undertakers. Perhaps they’ll give you a discount for bulk.”

“Hamlet…” Claudius began.

“Unless you think they’re finished for now. Do you?”

He’d hidden the body of Polonius to begin with. Refused to tell anyone where. It had taken Rosencrantz and Guildenstern the best part of an hour to find the Lord Chamberlain’s bloody corpse, stowed in a privy set aside for the royal household. They had lugged it into the common chapel where it would lie until interment.

Gertrude remained in her quarters, refusing to speak to anyone.

“If you weren’t a prince, nephew, and still loved by the people, I’d have your head off before sunset,” the King said. “No trial. No questions asked or answers given.”

Hamlet shook his head.

“But I am. So what’s the problem?”

“You slaughtered a faithful servant of the crown!”

He shrugged.

“An accident. Could have happened to anyone. There I was enjoying a private conversation with my mother. I heard someone skulking behind the tapestry.” He pointed at the maps on the king’s desk. “It could have been a Norwegian spy. Or an assassin. I can’t believe you dragged me in here for a bollocking. I rather thought I’d be on the receiving end of your gratitude. Especially after that play I gave you last night. I do hope the old man paid those actors properly.”

He caught Claudius’s eye.

“They read their parts well. I contributed more than a little to the tale by the way. In case you hadn’t heard.”

The king summoned the pair from the corner. They slunk to his side, looking rattled.

“Before you murdered him I had Polonius draw up documents of travel. We’d already decided it was time you left Elsinore for a while.”

“We? So you and the old fool worked as a pair, did you? In everything? Surely not. He was just a servant.”

“Don’t be impertinent! Or so disrespectful. The man’s dead, at your hand.”

Hamlet shrugged then yawned.

“I’m surprised you don’t promote me. Polonius would have.”

Claudius looked away, his jaws clamped shut.

“You’ll go to England.” He glanced at the two men next to him. “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern will accompany you.”

“As jailers?” Hamlet asked, eyeing them with suspicion.

“To ensure your health and safety,” Rosencrantz said meekly. “We pray for your return to happiness, lord. But if the king commands…”

“If the king commands you’ll wipe his arse.”

The two shrugged as if this was obvious.

“There are private diplomatic discussions to be had between our realm and the English crown,” Claudius told them. “To do with tributes.”

“I’m a tax collector now, am I?”

“No. You’re a murderer.”

“What’s that these days, sir? Men die at the hands of others all the time.”

Claudius turned to Rosencrantz.

“I’ll have the warrants of passage brought to you. They bear my seal so keep them safe. Show them to the officers of the court who will greet you in the English harbour.”

“When?” Hamlet demanded.

“On the next tide.”

“I want to speak to my mother.”

“Well she doesn’t wish to speak to you. I’ve discussed this with the Queen. You go with her good wishes. But after last night… she’s still upset.”

Hamlet stormed to his feet. Rosencrantz clutched at his sword in terror.

“She’s my mother!”

Claudius stood up and faced him.

“You must leave these shores immediately. I’ve sent word to Laertes. He’s in Lübeck dealing with court business before he goes to France. The lad knows of his father’s death. When he gets here he’ll understand the circumstances. I’ll do my best to deal with him, but not with you around.”

That calmed him a little.

“Nothing makes up for losing a father.”

“I know. I lost mine. It happens to us all.”

“Though the circumstances may differ. And I may return when?”

“When it suits our interests. When you’re fit and well. These gentlemen…” He gestured to the pair from Copenhagen. “They will communicate your condition. I will follow it most carefully. As will the queen.”

“Can I take the jester?”

“What?” the king demanded.

“Can… I… take… the… jester?”

“A jester? For pity’s sake, Hamlet, what do you need a jester for? Be on your way.”

“I want my fool!”

Silence in the room. Claudius gestured at the door and went back to the papers on his desk.

Then Guildenstern said, as cheerily as he could, “We’ll find us a nice boat, Hamlet. How about that?”

“You’ve got two fools already,” Claudius said without looking up from his work. “That should be enough for you. Get out of here the lot of you.”

Yorick had vanished. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were sorting Hamlet’s things into trunks. A few clothes. Some books. The weapons he was allowed.

He left the pair in his quarters, thought about going to the queen’s chamber, forcing his way in. Trying to… understand.

The ghost had been there the previous night. His father’s shade or something like it. The spectre had urged him on. And things from the grave saw everything. It must have known Polonius was complicit in his murder. Must have protected Gertrude, too. Since she lived and might so easily have perished under Hamlet’s furious hand.

Down a dark corridor, halfway there, a slight, slim figure stepped out of the shadows and stopped him.

He saw the face. Pale and beautiful. But different somehow. Lost and a little crazed like him.

“I owe you an apology,” he said, honestly. “I was rude to you yesterday, Ophelia. I meant it, but for a reason. And the reason wasn’t you. Not really.”

Wild-eyed and lovely she had her hand in her black dress. He wished he could roll back time and take her to the forest again, the two of them locked together beneath a perfect blue sky.

“You slaughter my father and apologise for petty insults?”

Out of the dress her hand came. In it was a pistol, one of the new Spanish types, he thought, not that he knew much of powder weapons. Swords would do just fine.

Ophelia stabbed the barrel at his chest.

“Your father killed mine,” he said. “And never apologised at all.”

“What?”

A long silence between them. When she shook her head her hair moved like August straw and he knew how much he’d lost. Her eyes were on his, the pistol seemingly forgotten though it still pointed squarely at him.

Hamlet reached down and took the gun from her fingers, too easily. Then laughed.

“Oh love. You haven’t a clue. Here.” He moved the mechanism, corrected it. “And here.”

Then returned it to her hand.

“What do you mean?”

“I mean we’re fools, the pair of us. Polonius schemed with my uncle to kill my father. By putting put poison in his ear. The play pricked what passes for his conscience. The way he reacted shows his guilt as clear as the light of day.” He closed his eyes for a moment. “That and a few other things.”

“You know this?”

“As much as I know that every word I wrote in those letters you threw back at me was true.”

He placed his fingers on her shoulder, touched the warm flesh of her neck. She didn’t recoil.

“They tell me my father was a cruel man. I never noticed. Or never allowed myself that pain. Perhaps sons don’t. For his final years I was in Wittenberg, apart from the summer. And that I spent with you.” He looked at her. “Was it true?”

“All men are cruel.”

“But a few have love inside them too. Did he?”

No answer.

“Did I?”

“Once,” she whispered. “And then you were mad. Or pretending to be.”

“Pretending? I abandoned you. I walked away and…”

So many conflicting thoughts and desires. Perhaps he could smuggle her onto the ship. Take her with him to England. Though what might happen there…

He took her fingers, pointed the gun barrel at his chest.

“Shoot me. Have done with it. I deserve no better. I murdered your father yet I couldn’t kill my uncle. I don’t know why. Perhaps that, too, was an odd, unwanted love. He was kind to me once. Still was until today.”

His hand moved, found her hair.

“As you were always.”

A sudden stern commanding tone to his voice.

“Shoot me and have done with it. No one will blame you. And somewhere my sad shade will weep with gratitude.”

Her fingers didn’t move.

“I hate you.”

He smiled.

“Then do it.”

Ophelia sighed, didn’t look at him. Her hand came away and with it the gun.

Abruptly Hamlet snatched it from her, thrust the muzzle to his neck but she was on him in an instant, pointing the barrel into the darkness, pulling at the trigger.

A snap, a spark, a puff of smoke into the shadows. Then nothing.

The Prince rolled back his head, laughed, almost cried.

“I even fail at this. The most helpless, hopeless, useless man in all the world.”

She took the gun from him.

“True,” Ophelia agreed. Then looked at him and found herself laughing briefly too. “Here we are, me about to bury my father. You headed for England and exile. Acting as if this were somehow… happiness.”

His hand went round her waist. He pulled her to him.

“If there’s time we’ll give one another joy again. The briefest but greatest there ever is and in your arms…”

Her fingers flew to his lips and silenced him.

“Time abandoned us the moment you left me last summer.”

“Perhaps there’s a watchmaker in London. With a mechanism that will let me wind back the months…”

Her eyes grew damp.

“And then we go through this misery again.”

He glanced down the passageway.

“There must be somewhere…”

“A part of me came to kill you, not to love you.”

“Not much to choose between them, is there? Ophelia…”

There was something in her eyes he recognised. The quick cunning she used to hide them in the woods.

“How long will you be in England?” she asked.

“Not a minute more than I can manage. Though how I can find my way safely back to Elsinore…”

Her hand touched his cheek.

“The people love you, Hamlet. They recognise a good heart when they see one.”

“What use is that? I’m a murderer now. Of your own father…”

She rapped her knuckles on the wall.

“The only things set in stone are these. Perhaps Elsinore is more open to change than you imagine.”

Hamlet gazed at her.

“My sweet. It sounds like you’re plotting. How very unladylike.”

“You think? I am my father’s daughter.”

He shook his head.

“This is a dream. I’ll be in England. And everything I’ve attempted here has come to little more…” He could barely look at her, “…than the murder of an accomplice. Not the villain himself. I’m captive to the wishes of the King now. If he…”

“Hush!” she ordered. “Be quiet and listen to me. I’ve access to my father’s papers now. His records. Everything. What if somehow there were evidence? Proof of what he and Claudius did?”

He looked interested.

“Then a judge would throw it out, since the judge would be the King’s.”

“But if you were to hold it. To publish it. The people do love you. They have no great affection for your uncle, especially with Norway’s army at the door. If you were to prove he killed your father. And perhaps reach an accommodation with Fortinbras along the way…”

A quick and pretty smile. It broke his heart twice over.

“Who knows? Perhaps you could come back to wear the crown,” she said.

“And you my queen. There’s a dream worth having. Claudius would take your pretty head in an instant if he heard a word of it.”

“And what’s that worth?”

“Everything if we’re together.”.

“And nothing if we’re not. Oh, damn…”

She threw the pistol into a shadowy corner.

“I hoped you’d be horrid to me again. That would have made things so much easier.”

He shrugged.

“That’s possible if you want it…”

“Take me somewhere,” she sighed, reaching for him, hands in his hair, mouth fighting for his. “Quick, before you go.”

There was a man Gertrude didn’t recognise in the king’s study. Lean, about thirty, of average height, with a black velvet jacket and trousers, an intelligent handsome face, a trim dark moustache in the Italian fashion.

He was the new Lord Chamberlain, Claudius said. Voltemand, a man who’d spent the last few years in Copenhagen overseeing the harbour dues. He came from a trusted family, one that had once provided captains for Viking ships and now produced treasurers and tax collectors.

Gertrude took one long look at him, glanced at Claudius and asked, “Do we need to be so hasty?”

Voltemand smiled then nodded.

“A good question, madam. Polonius is not yet buried. Perhaps it would be more decent to wait a while.” He glanced at the king. “To interview other candidates. It’s important you make the right decision. In the meantime… I will perform whatever function you wish.”

“That makes sense.” She took a seat, hoping it wasn’t so obvious she had acquired a dislike to the man already.

“No need. You’re the Lord Chamberlain and that’s that,” Claudius replied.

The king waved a letter at his wife.

“It was on his recommendation that we had Voltemand send messages to Magnus in Oslo, to keep young Fortinbras in check. A fine job he did too. I have a note here from Polonius advising I promote him to the highest position available by way of reward. If the old man placed sufficient trust in our friend here that’s good enough for me.”

“Do I have any say in the matter?”

“No. There may be a war coming. To say nothing of the mess your son’s left for me to clean up.”

She looked at him coldly.

“I am your wife, the queen and Hamlet’s mother. Would it not have been at least good manners to have told me you planned to send him into exile?”

Claudius sighed.

“It would. I’m sorry. It was a hasty decision. Polonius pressed it upon me. Had I reflected on it this morning I would have reconsidered. But the circumstances have changed somewhat…”

“You’re a poor liar, sir.”

He glared at her. Voltemand shifted awkwardly, looking at the carpet, trying to smile.

“You, my lady, should know your place,” Claudius said without feeling. “Hamlet will go to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. They have instructions to deal with matters of state in London. Problems over tributes and taxation. The kind of tedious civil affairs a prince like Hamlet should be concerned with if he’s to wear this crown one day.”

Gertrude got up, stormed over, jabbed a finger in his face.

“Don’t play games with me. He’s sick, Claudius. If this journey will cure him…”

“Travel and an absence from his troubles should surely ease his mind,” Voltemand said easily.

“Do you know my son, sir? Have the two of you ever met?”

“I’ve watched him from afar, madam. He’s a fine young man who will one day make a worthy king I’m sure. Once this present ailment has left him.”

“How long?”

“A month or two no more,” the king said. “If there’s an army on our doorstep… it depends upon his state.”

He took her hands.

“I want him back. I want him well. We need him here. He’s popular, the object of some sympathy now. More than Polonius ever was from what I hear.”

“No one likes the man who holds this position,” Voltemand observed cheerily. “If they love him the job’s not done well.”

“Wise words.” Claudius took a set of keys from his desk. “These are for Polonius’s quarters. His offices. All his records. His staff works for you now. Judge them as you see fit. Fire any you feel merit it. No need for recourse to me.”

“That was his home too!” Gertrude cried. “A few hours dead, not even buried, and you give it to a stranger. What about his daughter? Where’s she to live?”

Claudius stared at her, angry now.

“Polonius was a servant of the state! The realm stops for no one. Not even a king. This is what he would have wished.”

“The king knows what dead men desire now, does he? Are you coming to the funeral or not?”

They rarely argued. Never in public. Or with such venom.

“You will represent the crown, I’m too busy with matters of state. Voltemand and I…”

“And what of Ophelia? Do I tell her she’s homeless once we’ve buried him?”

Voltemand came over. He looked sympathetic, concerned.

“I’ve seen the lady now and then, when I’ve visited Elsinore. Also this morning to discuss the arrangement of the service. She’s naturally much distressed. With good reason. I would never wish to put her to further pain, my lady. The apartments are of some size. Until there’s an acceptable alternative it seems sensible, so long as she’s willing, that she keeps the rooms she has. And the servants. I’ll make my own arrangements. It will be of no inconvenience to me. Very much the opposite.”

He smiled then and she knew for sure she loathed him.

“I have a niece in Copenhagen much the same age. These girls, even with the losses Ophelia has borne, can become weak and feverish in the head. They imagine things. Have fancies that delude them. If I can be an uncle to her, help guide her back to a happy, contented state. Perhaps one day…”

He shrugged.

“It would be good if we could find her a noble husband.”

“She’s about to bury her father!”

The smile again.

“Of course. But there will be a tomorrow. And a tomorrow after that. The future comes on whether we ask for it or not. Better we bury our parents than they bury us. With a little affection, some understanding and a little patience these juvenile fevers of the mind… perhaps one day she’ll laugh at them. As will your son.”

Gertrude was lost for words.

“Tell her at the funeral,” Claudius ordered. “If she’s not content with the idea…” He glanced at the papers on the desk then his wife. “Do something else. You must excuse us. There’s business to be done.”

Hamlet hunted up and down the jetty. The captain of the little vessel was getting restless. So were Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, and the small team of soldiers they’d brought to make sure he sailed with the ship.

Finally the fat one came up and tried to look commanding.

“The tide calls us, sir,” he announced. “If we don’t heed its cry your father will be furious. At you. At us. Please…”

“I’m looking for my companion. A little man. The jester. Yorick. Have you seen him?”

Guildenstern rolled his eyes.

“Your father said nothing about a jester. It’s only a small ship. There’s not much room…”

“He didn’t say I couldn’t take him either.”

Up and down the cobbled pier he marched, shouting the clown’s name. No response. Blank looks from those around, soldiers, sailors, fishermen bringing in their herring to be gutted, salted and sent for smoking by the woman in the harbour huts. It was a cold clear day and the Øresund had the aroma of winter: salt with ice behind it, and a touch of sharp, raw fish.

He hadn’t seen Yorick since the previous night. There was no sign of him in Hamlet’s room. No news of the jester anywhere in the castle. The mention of his name drew blank looks. Had Claudius agreed to see him Hamlet would have asked if the fool had been dispatched back to foreign lands , the kind of life he’d led before his own father’s sudden execution.

Finally, at the end of his tether, he found the harbourmaster. An old and decent man, with a ginger beard and fierce blue eyes. When Hamlet was young this man had taken him out on the channel in a sailing boat, giving the boy his first experience of the sea.

“I’m trying to find Young Yorick,” Hamlet told him as the man oversaw the unloading of baskets of fish, still flapping, from one of the small coble boats the locals used inshore. “I want him with me in England. Have you seen him?”

There was a look in the harbourmaster’s eyes he couldn’t read. Puzzlement, confusion, embarrassment.

“Claudius wishes you to go to England, my lord. Do as the King asks. Let’s have no nonsense. The ship must sail now or the tide will keep you back another twelve hours or more. The weather…” He looked at the blue winter sky. “It’s set fair. The wind’s good. It won’t stay that way. It never does. You need to depart, sir.”

Hamlet looked around the harbour, then back at the towering walls of Elsinore. His childhood home.

“To leave Denmark? For England?”

“If what they say about Fortinbras is true,” the harbourmaster replied, “perhaps it’s for the best. You’re more scholar than a warrior, aren’t you? And from what I hear you need some respite from this place.”

“Because I’m mad?”

He didn’t like making this good man feel awkward.

“They say you’re not well.”

“And there are good doctors in England? Better than here?”

“I’m a servant, Hamlet. Nothing more. I’ve my orders. If you’re not on that ship shortly those soldiers…” He nodded at three men in armour, watching him, hands on swords, at the foot of the quay. “They will put you on it. Whether you go easily or not.”

“I want Yorick. I want my jester. Not the king’s two idiots for company…”

The harbourmaster closed his eyes, exasperated.

“Don’t make a scene. The people here like you. They know you have a kind heart. They wish you well. But if they should see you sick in the head…”

The soldiers were coming for him now.

“If you’re forced onto that vessel like a criminal going to justice it won’t serve you well when you return…”

“When I return? You think that’ll be soon?”

The men arrived, stamped feet, hands on swords. Stared at him.

“What do you want?” Hamlet asked.

“The king demands your presence on ship,” the tallest said. A fearsome-looking man with a battle scar across his cheek. “One way or another.”

Hamlet had his dagger. His pistol. More scholar than warrior? He might show them otherwise. He could fight them right there. And if he was lost in a bloody and pointless scuffle here on the dockside, what difference would it make?

But Ophelia had put an idea in his head. A dream. A hint of possible redemption.

“Is my baggage on board?” he asked.

“All three trunks,” the soldier said.

It seemed a lot but then he hadn’t packed himself.

“We’re going now,” the man added. “You can walk or we can lug you.”

Hamlet clapped the harbourmaster’s shoulder then pointed to the fishwives in the huts.

“Tell them to go lightly with the salt but smoke them well. I’ll be back before you know it and wanting some of their wares.”

For the first time the man smiled.

“I’ll do that, sir. And look forward to the day.”

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern followed him on board. The gang plank was pulled up, then the anchor. The sail rose and the wind caught it. Slowly, yet picking up speed, the little barque pulled out onto the Øresund, was soon midway between Elsinore in Denmark and Helsingborg in Sweden, heading north, out to the open sea and England.

From afar the castle looked like a sprawling stone monster, slumbering on the hill above the port. Somewhere within those walls Ophelia was burying her father, a man he’d murdered. Somewhere Claudius plotted. Of that, and little else, Hamlet felt sure.

The congregation in the castle church was small and there principally out of duty, not love. When he lived Polonius had a constant stream of visitors to his door. But they were men who wanted something, seeking advancement not friendship or company. Ophelia knew him to be a cold and solitary man. An employer of spies and minions, neither of whom were known to mourn their masters.

And what of his daughter? Who would mourn her when the time came? Her mother had died in childbirth. He’d never tired of reminding her of that, as if it were her fault somehow. Not that Polonius ever spoke with much affection about his late wife. There was no portrait in their quarters, no letters, no sign of fondness between them at all.

Men and women lived and died, mostly without consequence. That was one of his many, oft-repeated aphorisms. And now he was a corpse in a simple pine coffin, borne by paid bearers out of the chapel into the bright day. A quiet ceremony on the King’s orders. He wanted no fuss, no gossip, no trouble.

She followed the procession in silence. The graveyard was at the seaward end of the castle, manned by a couple of sextons who went about their business with surprising good cheer. That morning she’d talked to them, tipped the more senior for the best plot he could provide, left them setting their spades to the hard brown earth.

Something the man said had stayed with her.

“You’re lucky, darling,” the sexton chuckled taking her coin.

“Lucky? Why’s that? My father’s dead.”

“Well everyone’s dead in the end, love. But you and yours get buried inside the castle walls. Along with all the other posh folk. Nowhere better except the royal crypt and that’s just for their highnesses, ain’t it? We mere mortals…” He punched his fellow gravedigger on the arm. “They chuck us in the ground outside. Down by the water’s edge. Where wolves and badgers can come and dig you up. And not much to mark your grave either.”

The other one spat in the bare earth.

“If you’re dead it don’t matter, you dolt.”

And then the two of them laughed.

If you’re dead it didn’t matter all, she thought, as she watched the coffin bearers come to a halt, gently place their grim cargo on the ground, listen to the words of the priest and watch him scatter the earth.

She closed her eyes and thought, “He never loved me. Never said a kind word. I was one more pawn to be shuffled round his chess board. A player in a game, nothing more. To be sacrificed if needed.”

Held by black bands the coffin was slowly lowered to the base of the grave. The sextons reached for their spades and began to shovel the hard, dry Elsinore soil, pebbles rattling as they found the plain, unseasoned pine of the casket.

A hand on her shoulder. She looked. Saw the lined, unhappy face of Gertrude.

“You can cry if you want,” the Queen said.

“But I don’t.”

She handed Ophelia a handkerchief. It wasn’t true. Tears were rolling down her cheek, unwanted, without a thought. She took the fabric, wiped them away. Realised she didn’t want to watch this pointless ceremony any more.

“May we speak?” Gertrude asked. “Frankly. When you’re ready.”

“I’m ready now, my lady,” she said and the two of them walked away from the black mourners and the small choir paid to sing a final hymn.

In the shadow of the main gate they stood shivering.

“Is he gone?” Ophelia asked.

“Your father? Of course…”

“I meant Hamlet.”

The queen took her hand and led her up the steps to the battlements. The day was so clear they could see smoke rising from chimneys in Helsingborg across the water. A small ship, white sails billowing with the lively breeze, headed towards the broad open water called the Kattegat which led to the North Sea, and then the world beyond.

“My husband… Old Hamlet…” the queen said, hair blowing in the wind, “used to say this narrow stretch of water was Denmark’s treasure trove. It’s the only way for foreigners into the Baltic. All those rich states they call the Hanseatic League. The English, the French… anyone we choose must pay tribute to pass the channel.”

“I know. My father told me many times. Is this an occasion for a history lesson?”

Gertrude stared at her.

“You’ve a sharp tongue on you when you wish it. There are those in this castle who think you a feeble-minded, willing young girl. Not I.”

“I asked a question. I was wondering about the relevance of your answer.”

“The relevance is Hamlet has gone to England to seek back payment of some of those dues. Money we’re owed. Which may come in useful should Fortinbras’s intentions be more hostile towards us than he claims.”

Ophelia drew her cloak around her, couldn’t stop following the distant motion of the ship on the grey sea. The wind had truly filled her sails. She moved rapidly away from Elsinore, from Denmark. Once beyond the Kattegat the vessel would be in waters beyond the rule of law, full of brigands and hostile ships of many nations. The journey to England was commonplace, but not without peril.

“When will he return?”

Gertrude sighed.

“When he’s better. When the king allows it. That’s all I know.” She peered into Ophelia’s face. “It would be best if you didn’t hold out hopes for him. I’m sorry. If your father was still alive and Lord Chamberlain… perhaps there might have been a match. Not now.”

“I could be his mistress.”

Gertrude’s face fell.

“That is not a position to covet. Believe me.”

“So when… if… he returns I’m to leave him alone. And him me.”

“That would be best. For both of you. I will be grateful. You won’t regret it.”

“How do you know that, madam? How can you?”

The Queen glowered at her.

“You should keep a check on your temper and your words, child. This is a time to make friends, not enemies.”

That, Ophelia thought, was doubtless wise advice. So she stayed silent.

“There’s one more matter,” Gertrude added. “My husband has appointed a new Lord Chamberlain. A little hastily it seems to me. But men…”

Ophelia waited.

“His name is Voltemand.”

“Voltemand! He’s not even an Elsinore man…”

“The king decides! Not you or me. Voltemand it is. By rights he owns your apartments now. They belong to the title, not the man.”

“So I’m fatherless and homeless! All in a single day.”

“Only fatherless. Voltemand has no objection to you occupying your own rooms, while he takes your father’s and the office.”

“Such kindness…”

Gertrude watched her.

“If it’s any comfort I’m of a similar opinion about the fellow. But you can stay there for a while. I’ll help you find other quarters. Perhaps there’s a household, beyond Elsinore, looking for a match.”

“I can find a man if I want one, madam.”

The queen laughed then.

“It’s clear what my son saw in you. The two of you might be twins.” She placed her arm through Ophelia’s affectionately. “Headstrong. Innocent. And so full of life. As was I once. Or so I imagine.”

Her eyes were on the horizon too, and the boat working its way across the Øresund.

“But the years wear you down and make you see sense. You have my love and admiration, Ophelia. I will help you all I can. If Hamlet comes back with an English bride… what the two of you do in private is your business. But listen to me; in public… no.”

“In the meantime I’m Voltemand’s handmaiden. As I was my father’s.”

“Not at all. That I won’t allow.”

Ophelia tried to think this through. Time was short. The man from Copenhagen seemed intelligent, determined, thorough.

“Is the new Lord Chamberlain in place already?” In my quarters, I mean?”

“Not yet. I left him with Claudius. They have much business to conclude.”

Ophelia nodded.

“So, my lady. May I have a few hours to myself in my rooms? To mourn. To think. It’s the only home I’ve ever known.”

“I’ll ask Voltemand to give you till this afternoon.”

“Will he listen?”

Gertrude withdrew her arm and scowled.

“If Claudius tells him. Will that do?”

Two hours out. Guildenstern had been heaving over the side. Rosencrantz watched, laughing. Hamlet had seen enough of these two already. He retired to his cabin and not long after heard footsteps following down the corridor.

They entered without knocking. The tall one happy, impudent. His little fat friend still green from the rolling sea.

“It’s polite to give me notice.”

“Oh come on,” Rosencrantz replied. “We’re all shipmates together now. No need to stand on ceremony.”

Hamlet said nothing. The silence unnerved them.

“Are you comfortable, sir?” the little one asked. “We told them to give you the most comfortable cabin. As befits your station.”

He looked around at the bunk bed, the tiny table, the porthole window.

“No. I require more luxury. Call in at the next port and find me carpets, fur bedding. A woman.”

“There will be no port calls until Harwich,” Rosencrantz told him. “The captain has his orders. We’ve enough provisions to cross the North Sea. Once we arrive in England a coach will take us to London and the court.”

Hamlet shrugged.

“Then why ask if I’m comfortable?”

“Out of politeness,” the tall one said coldly. “Nothing more.”

“I’d like something against the nausea. Not that I have any. But there’s a family recipe…” He closed his eyes as if trying to remember. “A raw egg with garlic in it. Vinegar. The blood of a fresh fish. And fried porridge.”

Guildenstern’s hand went to his mouth and he raced for the door. Rosencrantz stayed and stared at the prince.

“Jokes pall on the ocean, don’t you think?”

“Not if they’re good ones. What exactly do we have to discuss with the English court? Where are the documents? I wish to study them.”

Rosencrantz hesitated, then said, “The formal papers preceded us. We receive them when we’re there.”

“Then what am I to read, sir? How shall I pass the time?”

The tall man laughed.

“Talking to yourself?” He juggled a finger at his ear. “That’s what you do, isn’t it?”

“I find I get a better class of conversation that way. Shouldn’t you go and look after your friend?” Guildenstern was coughing and heaving somewhere outside. “It sounds as if he needs it.”

Rosencrantz didn’t move.

“What?” Hamlet asked.

“Ships are great levellers, don’t you think?”

“You’ve lost me, sir.”

A long forefinger jabbed at him.

“Don’t push your luck. You don’t have Claudius or the king’s soldiers to do your bidding here. Or us.”

Hamlet got up, caught his collar, propelled him to the door.

“I gathered that,” he said then dispatched him outside with a boot to the arse.

Back in the Lord Chamberlain’s quarters Ophelia rushed about, wondering where to start. Men were clearing out her father’s bedroom already, making way for Voltemand’s things. But his office remained untouched. That made sense. Nothing would change except the identity of the official who occupied the grand chair by the window, behind the desk that managed the realm.

Polonius had been a parsimonious man, using scribes and clerks reluctantly. Partly this was money. Partly a matter of trust. As much as he could he wrote letters in his own hand, kept records privately, writing up the day’s events himself in the evening.

His daughter knew this well. She’d been the one to fetch him food and wine as he worked at the desk under the light of an oil lamp.

But what happened to those records after he’d written them…

She went to her own quarters. In the sitting room stood a small bureau where she wrote. A few love letters from Hamlet remained in the drawers, those she hadn’t tried to return when her father ordered it. Private missives, tender, frank and painful on both parts.

Reading through a few she wondered what Claudius, Gertrude or Voltemand might make of these sad, lost sentiments. Then, with a heavy heart, she bundled them up and walked to the fire.

The parchment burned easily, sending a steady spiral of smoke up the narrow chimney.

Love and hope, fear and despair, all reduced to a single grey cloud and a scattering of ash and embers.

She tried to imagine where his little ship was now, then thought again of what they’d discussed before that last brief embrace.

If there were some way she could prove his suspicions, a form of hard evidence, ink on parchment, that confirmed the king’s guilt, then Gertrude’s kind yet heartless calculation – that she was fit to be no better than wife to a provincial lord, and at best mistress to her son – might prove mistaken. The thing Hamlet yearned for most – a sense of justice – could be delivered to him, and with that would surely come his constant, unwavering love.

At that moment she caught sight of herself in the mirror. Blonde hair, pale skin, fresh face. They took her for a girl, still. None knew that she’d slipped into the woods with the king’s son and enjoyed such sweet and secret pleasures there. And almost borne his child.

“They see a courtier’s feeble daughter, not me,” Ophelia whispered. “Only Hamlet has that talent.”

Yet to pry into state affairs was surely dangerous. Treason even. The king had little love for anyone who intruded into his business. And Gertrude had her own interests.

The face in the glass glared back at her.

“I am not a weak and fearful girl.”

She walked out into the hall and looked at the closed door to her father’s study. So many hours she’d spent fetching and carrying for him there. She could picture it in her head now. The empty chair at the tidy desk. The quill pen, the inkwell, the pot of pounce for drying Polonius’s spidery handwriting. Missives that condemned men to death and a nation to war. Or simply changed the plumbing, or the way a farmer might be taxed. All came from there.

His invoices, receipts and business correspondence. He locked the door when he went in, locked it when he came out. Voltemand had his key now. Surely that came with the position.

But there was another. She was her father’s servant as much as his daughter. Perhaps more. Each night, on the hour, she had to enter, ask his wishes, fetch him anything he needed.

Hers still sat inside her gown, tied to her undergarments by a ribbon.

Ophelia checked the apartment. No sign of Voltemand or anyone new.

Then went back to the office, looked round nervously. Took out the key and let herself in.

The three trunks from Elsinore were stored between the porthole and the bunk. As Hamlet sat on the single seat by a small table he saw the lid of the largest begin to rise. A small, stocky figure stood up, flourished an arm and declared, “Ta da! Rejoice! The entertainment’s arrived.”

Yorick cast a suspicious glance at the door.

“Those two travelling companions of yours are very hugger-mugger. Do you think they’re queer? Riding the wrong horse? Biting the…?”

Hamlet scratched his head.

“I was looking for you everywhere. I didn’t know you’d got on board.”

“Spur of the moment decision,” the little man said climbing out of the trunk. “You should be honoured. I hate boats. They always stink of poo and spew.” Yorick looked around the cabin, walked to the door, stared at the chamber pot there, grimaced and held his nose. “Though had I been aware I’d be condemned to travel with the hoi polloi… is this the best they’ve got?”

“The very best.”

“Oh well.” The jester clapped his hands, went to the table, picked up a piece of dry ship’s biscuit. “You are, aren’t you?”

“What?”

“Honoured?”

Hamlet closed his eyes and laughed.

“Yes. Deeply.”

The jester did a little dance, grinning from ear to ear.

“Good. Then I have a purpose once again.”

“Won’t they miss you? In the castle?”

Yorick brushed away the idea.

“Doubt it. I rather feel my career’s peaked in Elsinore. Besides the place is no fun without you to bate. Sorry. I mean… amuse.”

He crunched on the biscuit, pulled a disgusted face, then went to the porthole and lobbed it out. A fierce cold wind blew in at that moment. There was the salt tang of the ocean and from somewhere the plaintive cries of gulls.

Yorick came and sat on the bed.

“Let’s hear it then. Brief me, if you will.”

Hamlet folded his arms, realised he was glad of his company. The little man made him think. Ask questions. Raise doubts in his own head. Without the jester’s questioning voice he felt adrift, bereft of direction.

“I’m an embarrassment to my uncle. To spare the court seeing my malady I’m being sent to England with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern for company. There to learn…”

“What?”

“Manners.”

“Manners? From the English? Are you serious? What are they supposed to teach you? The finer arts of farting? Bloody hell…”

“Claudius wants me out of the way.” Hamlet shrugged. “Perhaps it’s not a bad idea.” He looked Yorick in the eye. “You saw I couldn’t kill him. I had the chance. On his knees in the chapel. Praying. I couldn’t…”

“And yet you stabbed an old man hiding behind a curtain.” Yorick paused then said very slowly, “By mistake one assumes.”

Silence.

“Well, let’s call it an unfortunate blunder, shall we? Either way that nasty old bastard’s dead.”

“I told you. If I murder a man at prayer I go to hell and he doesn’t. I don’t mind the former. But…”

Yorick put a finger to his cheek.

“We’re back with that one, are we? I never realised. Is there a book you can consult that has all the rules? Must be difficult mastering them…”

He realised now the memories had stayed his hand too. When Hamlet was a child it was Claudius who took him to that same chapel. Who sat with him, reading the Bible. Talking about those strange and savage stories, trying to find some sense in them. Telling whispered jokes when the priest’s sermon went on and on.

“What if he wasn’t praying?” Yorick asked. “What if he was just…?”

The jester fell to the timber boards, on his knees, eyes closed, hands together.

“Dear God… if you’re listening, kindly get my murderous nephew out of my hair before he makes me as barmy as he is. Stick the boy on a boat to England. Have those brutes deal with him not me.”

His eyes opened, his hand went to his ear.

“What? What?”

Yorick frowned.

“Sorry. Nobody listening…”

“It’s Elsinore I wanted to murder,” Hamlet said in a low and toneless voice. His hand went out, made a tearing gesture. “That damned place. That world. If I could rip its heart out…”

“You with it? Me too? Ophelia. Your mother… everything?”

“Everything…”

Yorick looked up at him, serious in a flash.

“Then that’s what your uncle sees. He’s an intelligent man. He knows you better than you know yourself. That’s why you’re on this stinking boat to England.”

He got up from the floor and dusted himself down.

“What orders do you carry for the English court? What papers? Let’s see them.”

“Claudius didn’t give me any.”

The fool put a finger to his lips.

“Oh, right. That pair of chums he’s sent. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. What do they have?”

“I asked. They said they had none except some papers of passage. The court documents have gone ahead.”

The jester bunched his big fists.

“What? He only decided to ship you off last night. How could he have dispatched the papers separately? There’s one ship left Elsinore for England this morning and we’re on it.”

“True.”

“Ergo… Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are a pair of lying, toadying bastards. A king doesn’t send his heir to a foreign country without sealed instructions. It’s unthinkable.”

He slapped Hamlet on the arm.

“Time for a new talent, chum. To add to murder and the ripping out of hearts.”

“Which is?”

“You need to wait until those two are out of their cabin, puking or eating or mincing or whatever it is they do. And then…”

Hamlet waited.

“Then Prince of Denmark, you must learn to be a thief.”

“You, jester,” he said, tapping the harlequin jacket. “You…”

“No, sir.” The little man strode across the room and sat on the edge of the trunk. “This is your job. Your role in this drama. Your fate. Not mine.”

Ophelia had spent an hour patiently going through her father’s papers. The daybook. The records. The receipts and invoices. There was nothing there but the records of the state. Nor should she have been surprised. Polonius was cautious and secretive by nature. He would never have allowed evidence of black deeds to be found easily.

And yet… he was a pedantic, pompous man too. He would have wanted credit for his actions. Testament to them for posterity. He was too long-winded, too fond of his own voice to allow it to be silenced by something as primitive as death.

There was none of his odd, controlling personality in these documents. She couldn’t believe this would have satisfied him.

Ophelia looked at the study. Books on all three walls. Ledgers and records of meetings and decisions, all in her father’s careful hand. She’d taken every one off the shelf. Flicked through them as best she could and was close to giving up the fight when something caught her eye.

On the bookcase nailed to the northern wall by the window he kept the most tedious records of all: simple diaries of the comings and goings at Elsinore. Ambassadors received and dispatched. Nobility. Emissaries of the church. The occasional fleeing statesman from elsewhere seeking sanctuary.

A cunning man would hide his secrets beneath the thickest layer of tedium he could find. She snatched off the bottom shelf of books, found nothing. Then the middle. Polonius was a tall, stiff man. Sometimes she’d seen him reaching to ease his back when he finally retired from the office at the end of the night. She found a low stool, stood on it, removed the first few volumes at the top.

There was something behind just visible in the gloom. She got a candle, lit it, looked. Her heart fell. Nothing but a keyhole, small and damaged in the wood at the sides as if by clumsy use.

It was getting dark. She’d no idea how long it would take Voltemand to return. So little time, and nothing to do with it.

Half-running she returned to her room and went through the things they’d given her after her father was washed and prepared for the burial. Personal effects. Clothes, a chain of office, a watch. What she took to be a snuff box, one of the fashionable new items arrived from America via France and Italy.

A set of keys. All familiar, for the doors of the quarters. Then she looked at the snuff box again and saw an odd button protruding from the side. Tobacco was a disgusting habit. He’d always said so. And hadn’t the Pope recently threatened sanctions against any who took to the new habit of snuff?

She played with the button. A lever clicked and out of the side came a short brass key.

Back to the office, up on the stool. She reached in, just managed to find the slot, opened it. Put her hand through and took out a thick leather-bound volume that smelled of dust and age and him.

In the dying light of the afternoon Ophelia sat by the window, read and wept. This was his personal diary written at the end of each day. Every hateful thought, every caustic observation. He was here, still alive, full of an irascible contempt for all around him. Old Hamlet, Young Hamlet. Claudius, Gertrude and the members of the court.

And, at regular intervals, entries about his daughter. No love there. No love for anyone, she could see that. Polonius was a bitter, wicked old man who sat in judgement on the world he smiled at and pretended to serve. Old Hamlet, a vicious, cruel king, too bent on domination and foreign adventure to recognise the dissent and perils close to home. His son, an energetic warrior in spirit broken by his father’s neglect and reduced to the fey intellectual life of a student. Claudius, an unimaginative diplomat whose sole weakness was a lustful obsession with his own brother’s wife. Gertrude, the flawed queen tempted from her lawful husband by a persuasive and gentle suitor.

It was all there, Elsinore in his venomous curt prose. Even, when she read towards the end, the means, the intermediaries, the plan by which the throne would change hands.

She shivered as she discovered the details. Felt a cold hatred for him when she went through the entries about herself. A daughter stayed blind to the darker aspects of family. That was duty. It came naturally. She knew he had no time for her but didn’t understand until this moment the contempt and disappointment he felt. She was no cowed, obedient servant as her mother must have been. Every question, every demand and last proof of her own identity seemed to him a rebuke, a denial of his position as father, ruler of the little kingdom behind the doors of their apartment.

And over the years, she now realised, that had turned to hate.

It was dark by the time she’d finished, weary, upset, wishing all this had stayed hidden. Some things were best left unsaid. Here was her father’s life, in his own hand, a testament to an existence spent despising others.

She thought of putting the diary back in its hiding place and throwing the blasted secret key in the counterfeit snuff box out of the window, to be lost in the wintry night. But then she’d disappoint another. Hamlet. The one man whose love she truly craved. Now more than ever.

There was a noise beyond the door. She closed her eyes and tried to think. Then she hid the book as best she could beneath her garments, waited for the footsteps beyond the door to recede, left the office, locking the door behind her, and scurried down the dark passage to her own bedroom.

Ophelia flew in, slammed the door behind her, put the book on her dressing table, wondered what to do.

Ordinary things, she thought. Bathe. Get dressed. Take dinner alone. Think.

And never read her father’s blasted private thoughts again. That way lay lunacy, a real madness, not the feigned one of an indecisive man struggling to come to terms with a terrible truth.

“My lady,” said an amused and confident voice behind her.

Angry and frightened in equal measure she turned. Voltemand stood there smirking by the bed. He’d been there all along.

“These are my private quarters,” she snapped. “A gentleman doesn’t enter them without my bidding.”

He laughed, walked to the dressing table. She stood and blocked his way.

“But I’m no gentleman. I’m Lord Chamberlain. I go where I please. As did your father.”

“If I tell Gertrude…”

“She’ll shout and scream and make a million demands which Claudius will ignore.” He reached for the book. “You keep a diary?”

“It’s mine,” she told him.

“Judging by the cover you were writing it in the womb.”

“Get out!”

His hand rose, stroked her breast, his fingers curled around her throat. Close up, white teeth, neat moustache, cruel smile, he whispered, “You will bid me… enter, Ophelia. I assure you.”

He took her ear lobe between finger and thumb, bent down to kiss her. Stopped when the dagger she’d slipped from his belt reached his throat, the point pricking the skin.

“One last time,” she promised. “Leave me now. Or there’ll be another funeral in the morning. And the king will be looking for his second Lord Chamberlain in as many days.”

Voltemand retreated, still smiling.

“The harder the battle, the greater the satisfaction in victory. Another day, my lady. Not far off.”

Then, with a flourish, he was gone.

She sat on the bed, shaking. Found a flask of wine. Took a swig. Looked at the leather-bound book. Felt she could hear her father’s sarcastic laughter working its way out from the beneath covers.

In a fury she leapt up, ripped out the pages that mattered, hid them beneath her clothes in the drawers, and threw the rest on the fire.

There it crackled and spat and shrieked, burning on the logs and the embers, parchment pages turning in on themselves, blackening into nothing but ashes. In the end there was only the leather cover, reduced to a piece of hard, ebony skin.

This and a rotting corpse in the castle cemetery were all that remained of him now, and somehow they still seemed too much. She had what mattered. And when Hamlet returned they’d use it.

Heading north from Elsinore the waters had been millpond calm, and had stayed so as they neared Gothenburg where they pulled hard west across the Skagen spit, hugging the shore to keep a healthy distance between them and the coast. After that there was only the wide grey-green expanse of the North Sea, bleak, cold and churning beneath them. The vessel tossed relentlessly as the wind picked up, and Hamlet threw up over the side twice. He crawled back to his berth feeling weak and hollow, but the nausea didn’t return.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern took rather longer to settle. They spent all of the second day clinging to the rail, pale and greenish, but too desperate for air to heed the lashing of rain and sea spray. Their fashionable doublets with their slashed silk lining were already ruined, but for once they were too miserable to care. Everything they had been seemed forgotten. Their beards were left untrimmed, their hair tangled, the perfumes with which they usually dotted their throats and handkerchiefs abandoned, as was their clever banter, their elegant gait, their testing out of lines from popular songs... All gone.

They were like people Hamlet had only seen from afar, through the window of coaches or as he passed on horseback: vagabonds who didn’t give a tinker’s cuss for what anyone might think of them.

All of which made the leather satchel they had with them interesting. Hamlet hadn’t noticed it right away because it was small and unadorned. Then it struck him as odd that they would carry it about with them so religiously when everything else was discarded or abandoned to their cabin. He made a point of watching them from a distance, braving the gale and the slick, lurching deck to see if they ever got anything out of it: a tonic for their seething guts, perhaps.

Nothing.

They had it with them the next day too, trading the case between them when they went to piss or puke over the side, never leaving it more than a couple of feet away. It was hard to imagine why such tedious correspondence as warrants of passage would need this kind of care.

“Feeling better, lords?” Hamlet had called to them. “We’ll be there in a week if this wind holds.”

They didn’t respond except to nod miserably. Guildenstern attempted a wan smile, then pretended he couldn’t hear over the gale, and returned to staring at the dark, foaming water. They had been too seasick to sleep, and were now close to exhaustion, particularly since they hadn’t kept down any food since leaving port.

Tonight then, Hamlet thought. That would be the time.

He’d been serious when he said he hoped the voyage would be brief. These were dangerous waters, and not only because the sea itself was treacherous and brutally inconstant. The trade routes were dogged by pirates, privateers from England often operating unofficially on behalf of their king, others from Ireland or Scotland, sailing from the howling wastes of the Orkneys or Faroe Islands. There had been reports of merciless and efficient Turkish pirates coming up from Algiers...

Hamlet went back to his cabin and watched the darkening sky through the porthole.

“Your chums stumbled off to bed an hour ago,” Yorick announced from the shadows. “They looked distinctly peaky to me.”

The prince just nodded.

“What if they wake up?” asked the jester. “Will you serve them the way you did Polonius?”

Hamlet gave him a dangerous stare.

“What?” Yorick protested. “It’s all right for you to think it but not for me to say? Apologies, Your Travesty. I forget my place.”

“I’m not looking to kill anyone tonight. I just want to see their orders.”

“Right. But you didn’t answer my question. What if they catch you snooping? Embarrassing that. For a prince, I mean. A thief or a clown on the other hand…”

“Are you volunteering to do it for me?”

The dwarf held up his hands.

“Already been there. I told you. Burglary’s not in my contract. Besides, I don’t have the heart for secret nocturnal prowling or the head for state politics. You’re on your own this time, chum.”

“Then leave me be.”

“Fine. Try not to kill anyone this time, shall we? Accidentally or otherwise.”

Hamlet watched him shrink into the shadows, then brooded for another hour. When the darkness seemed complete he went out and began to pick his cautious way across the deck.

Two days of listless inactivity and she was bored. Ophelia had sent Gertrude a note asking for new quarters, received nothing by way of reply. Voltemand had lurked, pestered her from time to time in the apartments. But pressed no further. This was not, she felt sure, reluctance or a change of heart. Simply a question of time.

The winds of war were starting to blow around Elsinore. Rumours were sweeping the castle suggesting Fortinbras’s forces had no intention of going to Poland, whatever the ailing Magnus in Norway thought. One day soon they would turn north from Copenhagen and march straight to the high-walled castle by the sea, camp outside its battlements and wait for the kingdom of Claudius to fall.

Then midway through the morning, when she was wondering whether she ought to learn to sew as her father had so often demanded, there was a knock on the door. A messenger with a letter newly arrived on a ship from Lübeck across the Baltic.

Ophelia paid him and retreated to her bedroom. The seal on it was her brother’s. It appeared unbroken, but then with her father’s spies they usually did.

She lay back on the bed and broke the wax, saw the familiar slanted handwriting of her brother, could feel his fury in the words.

The Inn of The Three Wise Virgins, Lübeck, Thursday

Sister...

Scarcely am I gone from Elsinore and dread news reaches me here on the way to Paris. They say our father is dead. Worse, I hear the manner of his death. The king may be keeping it quiet – for which outrage he will answer – but I’m told he died at Hamlet’s hand.

What do you say about your lover now? The murderer of our father? What words of excuse or justification do you have?

Or have you finally seen Hamlet for the treacherous lunatic he truly is?

I am a son and I know what I must do. Anyone implicated in our father’s death – prince, king or whoever, will answer for it with their lives the moment I return. Which will be soon.

I talked long with our father about your perfidious, immoral dalliance with the prince. I know – even if you don’t – how much it hurt him. The idea that his own daughter far from being the chaste and modest young woman she pretended was nothing more than a hussy for the court.

These crimes against him I may one day forgive. But warn your lover of my coming vengeance... and this I swear: your blood will mark my sword as easily as his.

Find yourself a forgiving husband. A village idiot somewhere. Or a convent where you can spend your days in solitary silence for all the sins you’ve committed.

Do that yourself or I will command it on my return. In my grief a righteous anger burns. Hamlet shall bear the brunt of it. But you too, should you be rash enough to stand in my way.

Our father’s dead. I will exact a bloody retribution for his murder. Mark those words. Think on them. Expect me in Elsinore soon. Then we’ll have a reckoning, you and me and him.

Your brother who once loved you.

Laertes

The ship had only four cabins, two for the captain and his first mate, two for wealthy passengers who wanted some vestige of privacy. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern shared the one on the port side. There was no lock on the door, but Hamlet listened for a long moment, eyes clenched shut, before trying it.

It opened with a low squeak. He froze, poised to run if he heard anything from inside. They would never know it was him. They might guess but they couldn’t possibly see.

Still nothing. A single sighing snore from the left bunk. Then a creaking groan from the rolling ship itself, far louder than the noise the door had made.

Hamlet took a careful breath and stepped inside, gently pulling the door behind him.

It was close in the cabin, the air fetid with the aroma of old vomit. There would be an oil lamp hanging somewhere, but it had been blown out so the room was utterly dark. He dropped into a squat, cautiously spread his hands and, with infinite care, inched forward, feeling for the ends of the bunks. He found them then, reaching further, the soft, cool flesh of a leg. Hamlet flinched away instantly, sat motionless, waiting.

Whichever of them it was rolled in his sleep, but did not wake.

Pressing on he neared the heads of the bunks, conscious that he was squatting right between the two men. As his fingers swept the wooden boards beneath the bunks his left hand snagged on something. A thin strap. Leather. With a purse-like satchel attached.

Heart thudding he fumbled for the buckle, opened it and felt inside. Odds and ends. A small knife. A ball of twine. A bottle with a stopper, probably perfume. And a letter, the envelope large and stiff, sealed with wax and bound with ribbon.

He took it out, closed up the satchel and pushed it back where he had found it, then crawled to the door. Moments later he was back on deck and walking briskly to his berth, the letter slipped beneath his shirt, pressed tightly to his heart.

A day she waited. Nervous. Uncertain what to do. Then she walked down to the harbour, talked to the sailors there. A ship was leaving for Lübeck early the next morning, expected to arrive the following day. Once a vessel had quit the harbour there was no bringing it back. No chance for Voltemand’s spies to intervene before Laertes heard what she had to tell him.

It took only money to persuade the captain to take a private letter to the Inn of the Three Wise Virgins. Then she had a long and empty evening to write it. A night in which to be more candid with her distant brother than she’d ever managed in their father’s lifetime.

She told the servants she had a headache and was retiring to her bed. Even Voltemand would never dare to disturb her there.

Then, at the small table in the cold room, she took out her quill, the inkwell, and began to write.

On the other side of the castle in the royal quarters, the king and queen sat alone in an uneasy silence, barely touching the food set before them.

Finally Gertrude leaned over, stole a piece of meat from his plate and said, “Not hungry, sir?”

“Affairs of state,” Claudius grumbled.

“Perhaps you should share the burden with your consort?”

“Do you know about wars, madam? About intrigue?”

She laughed.

“We both know plenty about the latter, don’t we?”

He got up to go. Her hand stayed him.

“Don’t be cold with me, Claudius. We undertook a long journey here. Together.”

“Together? You think that?”

“I believed so. Is there news of Hamlet? When will he be in London?”

“I’m only King of Denmark. Not the wind and the tides.”

“What will he do once he’s there?”

“As I told you! Matters of state. No business of yours.”

“He’s my son. Your nephew. You said your preferred heir, should the lords wish it.”

“The lords… the lords… What they wish and what they say they wish may be two very different things.”

She nodded, felt she understood.

“Who schemes against you?”

“Who doesn’t? If Fortinbras goes on to Poland I’ll be applauded victor for my diplomacy. If he comes here hunting territory… who knows?”

“This creature of yours… Voltemand…”

“…is the only loyal servant I have. Don’t get between us, Gertrude.”

“And yet I never met the man before. Why is that?”

“Because you are queen and I am king. There are matters which lie beyond your interest…”

“I hurried into this union, Claudius! It helped you to the throne.”

He shook his head.

“Was that why we married then? To put a crown on my head?”

“No!” He’d never reduced her to tears, unlike his brother. “We used to share…”

“Like he did? My brother beat you black and blue and all I could do was watch. He bedded anything he felt like. Didn’t even look at his own son. And here you are. Questioning me…”

She didn’t take her eyes off him.

“I loathed that man. As he loathed me. You know that, Claudius. But ever since the day he died it’s as if there’s been a poison in this place. Worming its way into our lives. Our minds. Our bed…”

“Then find another! Go back to your old quarters. Where you retreated when you realised what you’d married before. Stay there. I’ve a kingdom in crisis. Perhaps a foreign army on the way. If…”

“I wear your ring because I love you!” Her voice was too high, too loud. She knew it and wondered if the servants might hear. “Because I believed you loved me. Not a throne. Not a piece of metal…”

“And you doubt that now?”

He looked both hurt and angry then. With a beard and a few scars he might have been his brother. Or himself, seized by the dead man’s shade.

She looked into his face and whispered, “There’s a venom in this place, husband. I don’t know how it got here. Or how we make it go away. But it’s among us. I know you feel it, just as I do.”

The King nodded.

“Then I’ll leach the venom from our veins. And if the blame’s mine for some reason I’ll take that on my shoulders. This misery…” He leaned back, closed his eyes. “It seems to go on forever. But I will deal with it as best I can.”

He got up from the table then and she didn’t try to stop him.

“Perhaps it would be best if you thought of quitting Elsinore for a while, Gertrude…”

“I will not leave you! Not if an army’s on the way.”

He was silent.

“Not unless you ask it, sir.”

There was a sadness and resignation in his face at that moment. Defeat too, and that was new.

“I ask nothing of you, wife, except your love. Which in the present circumstances is, I see, a demand too far. Retire to your old quarters, Gertrude. Keep with your women.”

“Claudius…”

“I will restore equilibrium to this land. One way or another. If this world is out of kilter I will right it. If not me… then who?”

“The man who made it so,” she whispered, watching him intently.

He called for the servants.

“It’s been two months since those quarters of yours were occupied. If there’s anything you need for them then order it. No need to ask.”

The letter bore the formal, spidery hand of Polonius. In the cramped cabin Hamlet held it close to the candle flame reading the contents in disbelief.

“Well?” Yorick asked. “Let me guess. They’re planning to throw you a birthday party and needed the English royal court to lay on currant buns, whores and fireworks?”

“Quiet, fool. I’m busy.”

He went through each line again. There could be no mistake. The directions were clear. This was a direct communication on behalf of Claudius to the English king and it contained a simple request. That – in accord with their recent treaties and the state of goodwill between their nations – England should do what Denmark could not without unsettling the stability of the country. Put Prince Hamlet, who accompanied the letter carriers, to death immediately as a material threat to both their nations.

He scanned it one last time, then thrust it into Yorick’s hands.

“See for yourself.”

The jester read, his eyes widening. For once he looked shocked before that familiar, cunning grin returned and he asked simply, “Surprised?”

Hamlet lay on the bed, eyes closed.

“A little.”

“Well I’m not,” Yorick declared. “Look on the bright side.”

Hamlet got up, puzzled and stared at him.

“I’m in a puke-filled tub on the way to England. Carrying my own death warrant. The bright side?”

Yorick punched his arm.

“The decision’s made for you. The gloves have come off. Now you can put away your student act and become your true self.” He swept the air with an imaginary rapier. “A man of action. Vengeance personified.”

“We have to get back to Denmark,” Hamlet noted.

The pretend sword went down.

“Oh yes. That. Might prove tricky. Unless you intend to kill all on board here and somehow steer us back to Elsinore by yourself. Do you know your way around a boat? I don’t.”

“I’ll think of something.”

It was a feeble reply and they both knew it.

“And in the meantime?” Yorick prompted, waggling the letter under his nose. “What about this?”

Hamlet rooted around the bottom of his personal trunk and pulled out a velvet bag containing a stick of sealing wax and a gold signet ring.

“My father’s. It has the royal court of arms on it and is therefore...”

“The same seal as the one Polonius used to close the letter,” Yorick declared, raising a stubby finger. “So you can close it up and they’ll be none the wiser. Clever boy!”

The Prince looked at him and sighed with disappointment.

“Is that really the best you can do?”

“Well, yes,” the jester admitted. “I mean. I’m the humorous sort. Not good at sneaky…”

“I can change the letter, Yorick! Rewrite it. Then reseal it. And the English will never know. Nor those two treacherous halfwits either.”

Yorick considered this.

“Blimey. You’re born to this. What are you going to say?”

Hamlet didn’t answer. He plucked out a pen, an ink bottle and a piece of plain parchment then began to write. When he’d added the final instruction for the English king the jester read through it and stared at him with horror in his eyes.

“Isn’t that just a touch excessive? In the circumstances? I mean, I know what I said about that pair but…”

Hamlet folded the letter back into the original envelope then reached for a candle and the wax.

“Ah the power of princes,” the jester sighed. “To determine the fate of ordinary men with a few lines of ink on parchment and a royal ring.”

“They had it coming,” Hamlet muttered and dribbled the red liquid across the paper.

Elsinore, Thursday

Dearest Brother

Know that I love you. Know that what I speak now is the grim truth, and that if any but you see it I shall be dead before you return to Danish shores.

Yes, Hamlet killed our father. Yes, it was a cruel and shocking deed. But before you sit in judgement on the prince understand this: he, like us, is wronged. By our father, by Claudius. Perhaps by his mother too – that I cannot tell.

Since his death, prompted by Hamlet’s suspicions, I have found proof in our father’s private papers. The necessary pages I’ve kept; the rest destroyed, for my own safety and for the sanity of our family. We both knew our father for a secretive, callous man. Our duty to him does not make us blind. He hated me. You he found lacking in the mettle he expected. Do not ask for details. I’ve read his most private thoughts, set down in every last detail. In time I hope to forget them. Perhaps remember those rare moments when he seemed to love us, or at least showed a little respect.

If only the largest crime that could be laid at his door was that of a neglectful parent…

At this point Ophelia broke off, went to the door and checked there was no one near. When she returned to the page the words there seemed so meagre and inadequate. Hers had never been a close, frank family. But now the paucity of her prose seemed to damn them as much as the knowledge she had to impart.

She retrieved the quill.

Here is the greater crime, brother. It’s set down day by day in his own hand, from the inception to the act. Not long before Old Hamlet died, the jester, Yorick, saw Claudius and Gertrude together in a hunting lodge in the forest. He informed the old king. In return for his honesty, Yorick was executed, to keep him quiet it seems. Our father was summoned by Old Hamlet and ordered to plot the further downfall of both of them, the king’s brother and his queen. There was to be no trial, no public accusations. Both were to be murdered quietly, by poison in the case of Gertrude and by a hunting accident for Claudius.

This is set down in the familiar hand we both know, signed by Polonius, written in the dry and unemotional fashion with which he managed the realm.

Perhaps it’s to his credit that he told the king he’d organise the deed then did the very opposite. I am an innocent in politics. I only knew Old Hamlet to be warlike, surly and cruel. But I never understood the hatred and the fear he generated in his own nobility. Our father did and appreciated how this might be used to his benefit. So instead of organising their murder he told Claudius of the plot that was afoot, and between them they planned the killing of the king instead.

It’s all here in black and white. How Polonius took advice on poison from a nobleman named Voltemand in Copenhagen, whose wife, being Italian, was familiar with potions from the Medici court. How he paid this creature for the substance and the instructions on how to use it. And how Claudius himself performed the deed, pouring the foul mixture into Hamlet’s ear while the king was numb with drink, then blaming the death on an imaginary viper within the castle walls.

There. You know it now. Believe me, brother. For this is true. I can show you the pages, the cost of the venom, the instructions on how it was to be administered. The concessions Polonius demanded from Claudius in return for gaining the support of the nobles for the throne when it fell vacant.

Every word I read in horror, understanding it to be true.

Hamlet also knows and this is why he is as he is. A murderer. A man bent on vengeance. Much like you.

A son who has been wronged. An innocent cheated by his own father. A decent man struggling to know which way to turn in a world that is falling into bloody anarchy and chaos. Also much like you.

Do not be hasty in your actions. Do not mention a word of this to any soul about you. We live in perilous times, where right and wrong, good and evil, meet each other in the dark night and fail to recognise themselves for what they are.

I am your ever-loving sister. Come back to Elsinore. Stay your sword till we have spoken. Hear me out, brother. Mark my words.

And then…

Ophelia stopped writing, lost for what to say. Everything she thought certain in the world now seemed false and treacherous. Every inch of Elsinore full of danger.

Then between us – as brother and sister! – we will decide what’s to be done. Beware of this Voltemand above all else. He is a sly and crooked man, and has seized our father’s old position, given to him by Claudius for reasons you must now understand full well.

And when you’ve read this letter burn it. That is the last thing I demand until we meet.

Your loving sister.

Ophelia

Replacing the envelope in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern’s leather satchel proved far easier than stealing it. The darkness didn’t bother him since he knew the layout of the cabin. The two men remained sound asleep throughout. In a minute it was done. If he was honest, Hamlet was glad that it was still too dark to see their faces. They had, after all, been friends of his once. Acquaintances, anyway. If they hadn’t betrayed him they might have had nothing to fear.

As he closed the cabin door behind him he turned to find himself face to face with the first mate, a huge, weather-beaten man with a mane of red hair. A moment of tension and fear, trying to think of how to explain what he was doing.

Then the sailor stepped around him and kept moving with such urgency that Hamlet sensed something was wrong. And it had nothing to do with dignitaries stealing in and out of each other’s cabins.

On the deck outside someone was yelling.

“What’s happening?” Hamlet called after the man.

“Don’t know yet,” said the burly mate. “Looks like we have a ship on our tail. I suggest you get under cover, sir. Leave this to us.”

Still he followed the man outside. The rain had stopped. The beginnings of dawn were showing in the east. Hamlet tracked back to the stern, where another crewman was gripping the aft rail and staring into the greyness behind them.

“Where is it?”

The crewman said nothing, but pointed a gnarled finger to a shadowy vessel cutting through the breakers.

“No lights,” the man said.

“Which means?”

“Don’t want to be seen, do they? Probably been tracking us for hours. Even days. Now they’re closing.”

Ships. He knew so little about them.

“Can we outrun them?”

The sailor snorted and have him a filthy look.

“You got a weapon, sir?”

“A sword. In my berth.”

“I’d find it if I were you,” the man grunted. “We got pirates calling.”

In Elsinore the ship’s captain was barking at his men impatiently when Ophelia hurried back to the harbour. It was barely daylight. What looked like the last goods were being hauled onto the small trading vessel. The man glared at her and shook his head when she came to the foot of the gangplank and held out the sealed envelope.

“You’re late, lady. And so am I. Should I ask the tide to wait too?”

“Your ship’s not yet laden, sir. You wouldn’t be gone yet whether I’d got here earlier or not.”

He grinned.

“You are a smart one. And the money?”

She held out the purse. There was a man close by she recognised. Reynaldo, a bookkeeper who often spoke with her father. Why he should be on a ship going south she couldn’t imagine…

“You’re not going to get me into trouble, are you?” the captain asked. “They hang spies here. In Lübeck too. Hang people who carry their secret messages too.”

Ophelia laughed.

“Do I look like a spy?”

“If you could tell a spy from the way they looked they wouldn’t be spies, would they?”

“This concerns a simple, emotional issue written in confidence,” she insisted, holding out the envelope. “Nothing more. A matter of the heart.”

He grimaced.

“I may be a ship’s captain, love. But I know enough to understand emotions are rarely simple. It’s to your brother, isn’t it?”

He was wavering. She’d no idea what else she could offer. The last crates were on board. The ship’s mate was calling for the remainder of the crew to get on board.

“It’s to Laertes, yes. Son of Polonius. The master of spies here. A man whose authority you’d never dare question if he was alive. Will you carry it or not, sir?”

He sniffed and took the envelope.

“You’re a pretty one. I’ll say that. Best get hanged for beauty, eh?”

She handed over the purse and thanked him.

The captain turned to his crew and bellowed, “All on board who wants to travel. Anyone who don’t can bugger off now.”

The young bookkeeper hurried down the gangplank ahead of her. Perhaps dealing with paperwork, she reckoned.

Then Ophelia retired to the shadows of a warehouse by the quay and watched the wooden trader raise sail, heading out into the flat waters of the Øresund. One day and she’d be at the foot of the Baltic in Lübeck and Laertes would have her letter.

She stayed long enough to see the ship turn and head off on the southerly wind. Then she returned to the castle, locked herself in the quarters, knew how hard it would be to wait for an answer. And if none came?

There would be a stratagem for that too. She found more paper, and began to write.

So caught up in the act she never once went to the window, never saw a swift customs cutter leave harbour to chase after the trader’s vessel, a man in black in the prow, watching as the two vessels closed.

Hamlet’s ship was small and meant for commerce, not battle. There was only a pair of small, crude cannons for defence. He watched with sour apprehension as these were brought to the stern and loaded with chain.

“Aim for the rigging!” roared the captain.

Slowing the pirate ship down was their only chance of escape, and it was a slim one. Now that the sun was higher they could see that the enemy vessel was sleek and trim, high in the water and arrayed along its side with serious artillery.

“Why aren’t they shooting?” asked Guildenstern, pale with fear.

“Because they want the ship,” Hamlet told him. “They’re going to board us.”

The first cannon blast missed entirely. The second cut a rope or two and slashed the edge of one sail. Still the pirate ship came on hard, nosing away as it got close so that the two vessels were side by side only twenty yards apart. The sky darkened. Hamlet looked up to see a dozen or more grappling irons raining down on them trailing ropes. They scraped along the deck, shedding splinters, then snagged fast. Men opposite, faces visible, grim and violent, heaved and the two ships ground together, the sea beneath them spouting, as the boarding planks slammed down and climbing nets flew across.

The pirate ship’s rail was suddenly a mass of bodies vaulting over and streaming across, clubs and cutlasses and axes in their hands.

The captain was cocking a snaplock pistol, grim-faced.

“What are our chances?” Rosencrantz asked.

“If they take the ship they’ll kill us all and chuck us in the briny. That answer your question?”

“I meant what are our chances of fighting them off.”

The captain took a deep breath and glared at him.

“The only chance is if we cripple their sails. Then we might get away. If it comes to a pitched battle we’ve had it.”

He shook his head and aimed his pistol at one of the brutes who was crossing the nearest boarding plank. There was a cry, a curse, a rush of air and then a crossbow bolt was sprouting from his chest. The captain fell backwards, dead before he hit the planking.

Rosencrantz and Guildenstern backed away. Hamlet dropped to the corpse, snatched up the pistol, aimed and fired in one quick motion, felling the closest boarder who tumbled screaming into the sea. Then he snatched out his rapier and stepped up onto the plank.

The blade was too long for deck fighting but out here, where he had room to thrust and couldn’t be hemmed in by enemies with cutting swords, he might do better. One more step along the plank, out over the dark water. The next pirate brandished a pair of hatchets, hesitated, roared and ran at him. Hamlet held his ground, dropped the tip of his sword under the wild axe parry and lunged precisely, pulling the blade from his heart before he fell.

There was a space behind the man. Without thinking, Hamlet ran forward, spitted the next pirate on his sword before he was halfway along the plank then leapt onto the enemy deck . The pirate crew was intent on boarding the trader, not being invaded itself, and in the smoky hue and cry of battle Hamlet found he had gone unnoticed.

He returned to the man he’d killed and took from his bloody hand a battle axe with a broad half-moon blade then moved on to the nearest mast and started hacking ropes.

Behind him the battle was a chaos of screaming and shouting. From time to time there came the flat crack of a pistol but mostly it was hand-to-hand combat. Beyond the crash of metal against metal there was little to distract him. Another rope he slashed with his sword, and then the next. With the third a spar came swinging free and the wind fell from the sail.

Finally that got the pirates’ attention.

Two men came for him. The first he met with the axe, leaping and swinging so that he caught the raider just above the elbow. The man crumpled to the deck, screaming. Hamlet turned to face the other, dragging his rapier from its scabbard, advancing on him, shoulder first, as if they were in fencing school. The pirate grinned at that, and came on slashing with his cutlass.

Hamlet gave ground, caught the squat weapon on his sword in his right hand as he swung the axe with his left. The pirate saw the blade too late, and as he flinched away it caught him in the side.

Another down and no one else near. He went back to work on the rigging, moving to the central mast, cutting at everything he found. A rope whipped past his head. The mainsail seemed to deflate like an old balloon.

Instantly the ship groaned as its momentum stalled. Two of the boarding planks were yanked back and fell into the sea with the men still on them. The nets tensed and it was suddenly clear that the merchant ship was breaking free. On the other side the sailors were breaking from the pirates in order to cut the grappling lines.

“Back to the ship!” shouted one of the pirates, Irish by the sound of his voice.

Good idea, Hamlet thought.

But in his case easier said than done. As he scanned the deck for a point to cross there were only pirates coming towards him. He grabbed one of the hanging ropes and started running for the side, leaping out over the water only for the long sweep to swing him back to the pirate vessel in a broad arc.

Then the ships parted. The trader rocked into the wind and freedom. Hamlet looked down, knowing he’d never reach it. Knowing, too, that if he dropped into the water the pirates would watch him get ploughed beneath their hull.

Death had rarely been far from his thoughts these past weeks. But never like this.

Then he heard a cry. His name.

“Hamlet! Prince! Oh… Hamlet! Dearest sir…”

Not Yorick. This was a long, wavering cry full of anguish and despair. The rope returned to the enemy ship. Hamlet dropped to the deck and in an instant four powerful arms grabbed him then a knife went to his throat.

This was all unreal. He barely noticed. All he could think of was the man who’d called out his name with such terrible sadness. It was Guildenstern. The fat little fool sent to Wittenberg by Polonius to pose as a friend when in truth he was nothing more than a spy.

Not a bad man. Just a weak one. A friend almost. One who, only hours before, Hamlet had despatched to a grim and certain death.

Two hundred miles south on the rolling waters of the Øresund there was an uneasy standoff between the king’s vessel and the ship bound for Lübeck.

Four soldiers came on board with Voltemand, hands on weapons, ready to draw. Reynaldo the bookkeeper with one, pointing out the man he wanted. All eyes were on the ship’s captain as the Lord Chamberlain of Denmark ordered him into the small cabin.

“We are, I think, correctly ordered when it comes to duties and documents, sir,” the skipper said in a friendly tone. “If a mistake’s been made it’s an oversight, nothing more. We’re all good Danes and wish to do what we can for our country. If…”

He looked at Reynaldo.

“You were supposed to be on board with us, lad. It’s not our fault we left without you. A ship don’t wait on passengers. No use calling in fine lords to pull us back when you’re too bloody tardy to…”

“Quiet,” Voltemand ordered. “This is nothing to do with your passengers. A woman gave you a letter to carry to Lübeck.”

The captain laughed.

“We carry all manner of cargo, sir. Salt herring and cod. Fabrics. Hard spirits. They love that over there…”

Voltemand was on him, fingers at his throat. The two men behind drew their swords.

“If you toy with me I’ll have you hanged, drawn and quartered before the morning’s out. We’ll stick your head on a pike for your wife to laugh at…”

“A letter?”

“A young woman named Ophelia paid you to carry it. Reynaldo here saw everything.”

The ship’s master smiled at the young spy.

“Well isn’t he the clever one? The lady said it was a private message of an emotional nature. Nothing to do with matters of state. Simply a note to her brother in Lübeck. I…” He glanced towards the worried crew beyond the door. “No one on this ship would help or harbour any enemy of the king.”

“Give,” Voltemand ordered.

The captain reached inside his jacket and handed over the envelope.

“And the money she paid. You won’t be earning that now, will you?”

The Danish marks were still in the little leather purse she’d used. He hadn’t even counted them.

“May we resume our journey now, my lord?”

“Do that. Make no contact with Laertes in Lübeck. After that find yourself another route to ply. I’ve no wish to see you back in Elsinore before spring’s out.”

The captain shook his head.

“We’ve family, sir. Mouths to feed. Children to keep.”

Voltemand ripped open the envelope and started to read. Then looked at him.

“And what if they’re orphans? Offspring of traitors whose estates have been seized for their sedition? Who’ll feed them then?”

He called his men to get ready to return to the cutter.

“Keep silent,” Voltemand ordered. “Keep distant. Then, if you’re lucky and I’m willing, you may live.”

One hour later the new Lord Chamberlain was in the study of the king, brandishing the letter.

“This is treason. Treachery plain and simple.”

Claudius looked at the careful, intelligent writing. Read the affection and concern between the lines.

“It’s the truth,” he said softly. “Isn’t it?”

The man in front of him laughed.

“Treason usually is. If it wasn’t why would it worry us?”

“The girl’s lost her father.” Claudius pushed the letter away. “She’s distressed. Alone without her brother.” He stared at Voltemand. “Forced to stay in a familiar apartment with a stranger she may find… hostile.”

“The wench is trying to inflame your nephew. I suspected something was amiss with her from the start.”

Claudius shook his head.

“There’s another letter damning Hamlet. One that carries my seal and the words your predecessor put in my mouth. What does it matter if she thinks Hamlet’s coming back for his vengeance? Within a week he’ll be dead in London and I’ll be damned twice over, for killing a father and his son.”

Voltemand seemed taken aback by this news.

“Polonius ordered his death? Or you?”

“It was the old man’s notion. I merely... acquiesced. As I usually do. Does it matter?“

“It’s not just Hamlet the girl wants to toy with. Her brother…”

Claudius shook his head.

“I’ve enough blood on my hands already. Her brother’s a decent man. He thinks she’s mad in any case. Sent that way by Hamlet …”

“Laertes won’t be in Lübeck forever. He’ll come back here. She’ll tell him to his face what she tried to say in this letter.”

Claudius gazed at the window. This cold season seemed endless. As if his brother’s death had condemned the kingdom to perpetual winter.

“What would you have me do, Voltemand? My conscience labours under the weight of my brother’s murder. And though I did not shed it the blood of Polonius is on my hands too. Hamlet, a child I adored and who once loved me, is now on a ship to a foreign land, there to die. My queen is slipping away from me and there’s nothing else, no love in all the world, I seek but hers. What would you have me do, sir? Add a young girl’s corpse to the list too?”

The man from Copenhagen scowled.

“A king rules. A king demands. We still have Fortinbras on manoeuvres not a few leagues from my home. This isn’t a time for faint hearts. Besides…” He cast a cold and bitter glance at Claudius. “Once you’re a little way into blood there’s no turning back. Not unless you want to be wading through your own before long. I came here to serve you, Claudius. To build and maintain your grip upon the throne.” He stabbed a finger at his chest. “But I have cares and ambitions, too. A wise monarch looks to keep those around him happy. Or pays the price.”

Claudius didn’t know whether to laugh or not.

“Is that a threat? Is this the position to which I’m reduced? Listening to the menaces of a man who not long ago was collecting tithes from herring fishermen in Copenhagen?”

“That money helped you seize the throne. Polonius told me. Much else besides…”

“I murdered my own brother with poison you were paid to procure!” the king yelled, slamming his fist on Ophelia’s letter. “What else is there to know?”

“Nothing. I am your loyal servant. It’s in my interests as much as yours that none of this… idle gossip becomes public.”

“I could have you hanged.”

Voltemand laughed.

“Not practical, my lord. I’d still have chance to speak before they put the noose around my neck. And those few words would damn you too…”

The king snatched a dagger from his belt and brandished it.

The man before him shook his head.

“You’re not a murderer, Claudius. That’s the problem. You’ve too much conscience about you. Too fond an association with the past to worry about what matters. The future. Although…” A wry smile. “You could order me to murder myself I suppose.”

“What do you want?”

A shrug.

“The usual things. Money. Power. Security.” He fixed Claudius in the eye. “Perhaps when you’re gone they’ll choose someone lowborn for a king.”

“What? A tax collector from Denmark?”

“Taxes make the realm go round. Much more than weak and indecisive monarchs.” He picked up the letter. “Hamlet may be headed for the grave but Laertes isn’t. He could be here in days. What are your orders, my king?”

Silence.

“Do nothing?” Voltemand taunted him. “Or should I go to the chapel and pray for the Almighty to shine his eternal love upon Denmark, that we may live in peace and just prosperity till the end of our days?”

“Do not push me too far, sir. Even a weak king has his limits. If I didn’t we wouldn’t be here.”

Voltemand placed the letter in his jacket, stared at Claudius impudently, kept silent.

“Do whatever you see fit, man. I don’t want to know.”

“Your highness…”

An exaggerated bow, a flourish of the hands, then he was gone from the room. Claudius sat miserable and distraught for a while. After a while he called for wine, strong red Frankish. Plenty of it.

Pinned to the mast, arms gripped hard by two hulking pirates, Hamlet had to stifle an urge to laugh. A third, a weasel of a man, had a pistol to his head and a powerful urge to pull the trigger.

He’d cost them their prize, a good number of men and left them adrift on the open sea. More a scholar than a man of action, was he? It would take hours to undo what a few strokes of his axe had achieved and they weren’t happy about it.

“You’ll pay for what you did,” said the weasel, cocking his pistol and stepping back so he could have the satisfaction of watching the lead ball work its violence.

Hamlet looked at him, a resigned smile on his face.

“That’s the trouble with pleasure. It always comes at a price.”

“Pleasure? You thought it was fun, did you? Crippling our ship? All that bloody mayhem.”

“Course it was! You’re a buccaneer. A brave upon the ocean. In my place you’d have done the same. Stopping a pirate ship single-handed? If a chap of your blood doesn’t recognise a spot of spirit when he sees it…”

“He has a point there,” one of the big men holding him noted. “Mostly them merchant men wet their pants and chuck themselves over the side when they see us coming. This young fellow’s got spunk, I’ll say that for him.”

Hamlet nodded in agreement.

“Thank you for that, sir. Kindly and aptly put if I may so. I’m offended your friend here seeks to play the aggrieved high party. After all you were about to butcher everyone on that ship. I don’t think you have a lot of moral high ground in this matter.”

“High or low, you’re going in it,” the weasel grumbled, looking down the sights of his gun.

“Strictly speaking you’ll have to take me to shore first,” Hamlet pointed out brightly. “To put me in the ground, I mean. Out here, you’ll have to put me in the water, which doesn’t sound quite as menacing somehow.”

The little one with the gun was getting angrier by the second.

“Are you trying to be funny?”

“It’s a gift, actually. Comes naturally of breeding. My father never loved me, you see. Comedy’s a kind of defence…”

“My old dad was like that,” the big man said and relaxed his grip a little. “A proper bastard.”

“We share a sad burden, my friend,” Hamlet agreed with a friendly nod. “Those lucky men who come from loving families will never understand it. Happily I don’t care whether I live or die. So shoot if you like, but don’t expect me to dignify the moment with politeness. Speaking of which, you people all smell terrible. Did you know that? Are there no baths…?”

The weasel slapped him with the butt of his pistol then levelled it at his heart.

“You’ll learn a little respect before you die, chum.”

Hamlet could taste blood on his tongue.

“Not for the likes of you. My uncle’s the king of Denmark and he can’t get a civil word out of me. So what chance has a scrawny water-rat got?”

With a vile curse the one with the gun reached back to hit him again. Then a hand from behind stopped him, pushed the pirate to one side. Hamlet found himself facing a giant of a man with a tangled mass of straw coloured hair, a bloody scar down his cheek and very bright blue eyes.

“Ah,” the Prince said. “Finally I’m talking to someone in authority.”

The others gave ground.

“The captain, may I presume? Some insignia or sign of office might help, sir. If…”

He was brandishing a club of what looked like hard, dense wood with a knotty and irregular end, shiny from use.

Hamlet winced at the thing and said, “I suppose that’ll do.”

Then closed his eyes. This, he thought, was it. Hopefully it would be quick.

“Your uncle’s that stuck-up bugger Claudius, King of Denmark?” the pirate asked.

One eye opened warily.

“So they tell me, sir.”

“Then you’re Hamlet, son of the old king?”

“If my mother can be believed, that’s right.”

The big man holding his arms spoke up.

“That’s what that bloke on the ship called him, right as the ships separated. I heard the name. Thought it was a funny one. Fights good for a dandy, I must say.”

Guildenstern, Hamlet thought, and his smile stalled.

“Don’t suppose you’ve got some proof?” the captain asked. “I mean you wouldn’t believe the lying toe rags we meet out here, all pretending they’re of royal blood, hoping for a ransom.” He tugged on his hair. “Don’t work out well for them when we find out otherwise.”

“Funnily enough. I have. If you reach into the pouch on my belt you’ll find my father’s seal. I don’t usually carry it. Maybe God was watching over me after all. Seems unlikely, but still….”

They rifled through his things, produced the seal and studied it with comic caution before pronouncing it genuine. The weasel, who had obviously been looking forward to shooting him, looked most disappointed.

Hamlet shrugged and tried to look sympathetic.

“Life, eh? If it’s any consolation the item that’s worth a fortune to you lacks any value whatsoever to its owner.”

“What?”

“My life, poltroon.”

“I’ll poltroon you…” he began, and lifted the pistol once more.

“Cut that out. The pair of you,” the captain remarked just as Hamlet was about to point out that poltroon wasn’t a verb. “We’ll make our money yet. A royal ransom’s got to be worth as much as a ragged merchant ship any day.”

“Absurd, isn’t it?” Hamlet agreed.

“Hoist sail! Set course for the Danish coast. And stick this one downstairs. Somewhere I can’t hear him.”

The bells from the chapel tower had tolled nine of the evening. Outside the weather was squally. Icy rain fell constantly. The castle felt freezing. She never went to the living room any more. That was Voltemand’s, not that he used it much. The man seemed to drift around Elsinore like a ghost, sending out spies and emissaries, flitting in and out of the king’s quarters then returning to write furiously at her father’s old desk.

Ophelia had no idea when he went to bed. Or with whom. He had a carnal look to him she recognised. But since her first rejection he hadn’t pestered her. And that seemed odd, though perhaps the man had better things to do.

In her head she could see Laertes receiving her letter. Imagine his immediate fury. Hope for some rational consideration once his temper had eased. She wasn’t seeking forgiveness for Hamlet. Only understanding. When he returned from England the three of them could meet, speak frankly…

There was a settlement to be reached there surely. A recognition of past misdeeds: their father’s, Hamlet’s uncle’s, the prince’s own. Once that conversation had taken place they could, perhaps, discuss how to proceed. Their individual safety was at stake. But more than that the realm of Denmark mattered, too. There was open gossip among the servants about the threat to Elsinore from across the water, the return of Young Fortinbras to avenge his father and seize the crown for himself.

Growing up she’d found Elsinore tedious. The most exciting moments were the illicit ones spent in Hamlet’s arms. Now the home she’d known forever seemed more a prison than a castle. A perilous one at that.

This night was like all the recent ones, all those to come until he returned. Spent alone in her bedroom with a plate of food from the kitchen. Reading. Thinking. Planning.

Then, finally, she would ask one of the maids to bring in hot water, fill the copper bath. And Ophelia would lie in the fragrant water, remembering his presence from the scent of his gift, staying there under the wan candlelight until the water turned cold and there was nothing to do but go to bed. Then wake to another cold day, hiding from sight, staying by the window to watch the grey Øresund, praying that a mast would appear from England or Lübeck, and with it good news.

She finished the stew and the bread. Knew she should be in bed before the next bell tolled the hour. Called the maid, got rid of the plates, watched as the young woman returned with buckets of hot water for the bath. Closed the bedroom door and locked it.

Two bottles of bath oil he’d left her. Rose from Paris, bergamot from Italy. The first she preferred. It was sweet and familiar. The bergamot had a strange, exotic fragrance, like perfumed citrus. It seemed… illicit somehow. Which was doubtless why he chose it.

Ophelia picked up the flask. A thing of beauty itself. Venetian glass from Murano he said, with a twisted surface of orange, tiny coloured beads within it. Too dainty and fine an object for the monochrome northern world of Elsinore.

But there was more to life than this. Had to be.

She went to the copper tub. The water was still too hot to touch. Another time she might have scolded the girl. But for that she would have had to wander outside her own small quarters, and might run into the man from Copenhagen with his staring, greedy eyes.

So she opened the bergamot and poured a measure into the steaming water, swirled it with the bottle, inhaled the scent. Wondered what Italy was like. Warm and full of colour, she imagined. One day…

Dreams.

That was all she had. Perhaps all there would ever be. Ophelia took off her velvet dress and then the long soft silk shirt beneath. Her undergarments. Stood naked on the cold flagstones in her bare feet then bent forward and put a finger in the water.

“Too hot,” she muttered and looked up idly at the mirror by the window, not wanting to see herself because that made her think of him too. And the child they’d lost.

“You should whip the girl who fetched it,” said a voice behind her.

Her head swam in the steamy perfume. For a moment she thought she might faint.

He’d slipped into the room while she was out with the maid. She knew it in an instant. And Voltemand was not a man who did anything without a firm intent.

Ophelia turned and faced him, didn’t hide herself or blush.

“Leave my room now and I may forget this intrusion. Stay and I will scream until these walls fall in on themselves. I promise…”

He laughed and moved towards her. She retreated, back to the cold stone wall. His knuckles rapped the masonry beside her face. His mouth was close to hers.

“No one will hear you, Ophelia. And even if they did…”

He had very white, very even teeth. Too perfect for any man.

“They would never dare come. These are my quarters, girl. Not yours. A naked bitch inside them…” He shrugged. “Who should she belong to but me?”

Her hand flew at his crotch, caught him there, squeezed hard. He cried. Drew back his hand and whipped it across her face.

Strength in the man. She found herself flying towards the copper bath, knees grazing the floor.

Breath gone. Mind struggling for reason.

Voltemand was on her then, fingers to her throat, left hand yanking back her long blonde hair.

“I will fight you,” she spat at him. “And when Gertrude hears of this…”

“Of what?”

His fingers tightened on her throat like a claw.

“Of…”

There was something in his eyes and it wasn’t the lust she’d seen before.

“You flatter yourself, lady. I’m not a man for wooing. I take what I want when I desire it. And if she refuses…”

Pinned against the tub she flailed round, trying to find a weapon.

The Venetian bottle was just out of reach. There was nothing else.

“Here’s my invitation,” Voltemand said.

His hand came away from her hair, reached inside his jacket. Took out something that made her heart sink.

The letter to Laertes.

“Treason from a beautiful woman’s still treason.”

She snatched for the sheets. He threw them out of reach.

“You killed the old king. Murdered Hamlet’s father.”

“You shock me, girl. I did no such thing. I followed the orders of your father. And he the wishes of the man who now wears the crown. Good servants, both of us. Not criminals. Not like your lover, Hamlet…”

“Hamlet will slaughter you when he returns.”

The laugh again. His sparkling eyes watched her.

“Hamlet’s dead. Your father wrote out the orders himself, put the seal of Claudius on them with the king too afraid to stop him. Those fools Rosencrantz and Guildenstern carry his death warrant to the English court. As soon as your lover lands…”

He swept one finger across his throat and grinned.

“Liar!” she shrieked, and tried to catch him with her nails.

Voltemand was quick to dodge, quicker still to catch her with an elbow to the face.

It hurt. Not as much as his words.

“If your brother catches wind of these words I’ll kill him, too. Perhaps I’ll do it anyway. As a precaution.”

“Why do you hate me, sir?” she asked, slyly reaching for the bottle.

His handsome face creased with irritation.

“Why? Because you and yours deny me what I want. So I must act for my own security. For my purse. My future. A man’s what he makes of himself. Not what others give him.”

He looked around the room, seemed distant for a moment. Her fingers brushed the orange glass.

“I grew up in a Copenhagen brothel. My mother was one of the bitches. I fetched beer for the stinking sailors who filled her bed – ten a day sometimes – while they screwed her. And you ask… why?”

“Just wondered,” she said and got hold of the flask, brought it up, a wild blow at his head.

The glass shattered. Voltemand screamed. Blood, she saw that. And the smell of bergamot, like fragrant lemons.

Then she was on her feet, slipping on the wet tiles, heading for the door and safety. Willing to run naked all the way to the queen’s quarters and throw herself on Gertrude’s mercy.

It wasn’t treason. It was justice. And the queen herself had the right to know.

One step from the door and she stumbled, caught by a stool hidden in the shadows. Went down hard onto the stone, a shriek rising in her throat.

But not for long. Voltemand’s face was in hers then. Blood on his cheek, fury in his bright eyes.

“I’d thought we’d have a little sport first, lady. But now you’ve ruined my mood.”

His fist balled, punched straight into her face. Broke something. Her nose maybe.

More blood. Hers. And pain. He was dragging her, arms hard against her breasts. The copper tub came up. He banged her skull hard against the shiny metal.

Then she was in.

The water was still hot. It hurt against her wounds. She gasped, got sight of him. Knew then this was lost.

“I will haunt your every night…”.

“No such thing as ghosts,” he said and caught her hair in his right hand, forcing her down.

The scent of bergamot filled her nose, her mouth. She gasped and when she did that the water came and raced into her lungs.

Ophelia shivered. Felt both hot and cold. Tried to breathe. Her limbs flailed against the shiny metal sides of the copper bath she’d used ever since she was small. A bright and hopeful child in the strange world of Elsinore. Following the little prince then. She’d always done that.

Her lungs screamed again and now the boiling fragrant water was everywhere. Coursing through her throat, racing greedily inside, racking her body with throes and spasms.

She thought she heard him laugh. And then, held deep below the fragrant water, she heard no more.

The last days of the voyage had been the worst. It wasn’t the weather. Guildenstern had finally got his sea legs and the crossing to England had been calmer than those first nights in the open water off the Danish coast. Nor was it a sense of imminent danger. They had, as Rosencrantz kept reminding him, survived an encounter with the most infamous pirates in the area and – apart from prince Hamlet – escaped unscathed. It was, everyone said, something of a miracle, and they celebrated all the next day, with double rations of Canary wine.

Only Guildenstern felt the weight of what had happened. He hadn’t been a friend of Hamlet’s. Not really. He and Rosencrantz liked to pretend otherwise because it made them feel important. That deceit had earned them a little of the King’s trust, but in his heart Guildenstern knew it was a lie and so, he imagined, did Claudius. They were nobodies with little money and no real talent for anything except the pursuit of fashion. In the grand scheme of things they weren’t much more than clowns, jesters like that dead dwarf whose statue straddled the laughing tortoise in Elsinore.

Had Hamlet sensed this in them? Certainly. An intelligent, educated, sensitive man would see straight to the heart of the matter where people were concerned. And under the melancholy and reflective softness there was a practical, clinical hardness about the prince, a hint of mockery about him. Oh, yes. Guildenstern was under no delusions about what Hamlet thought of him.

So he remained at a loss to explain why the capture of the prince in the battle with the pirates had depressed him so much. There was the possibility that he and Rosencrantz would feel Claudius’s wrath for losing their charge before they could deliver him to England. But no one could realistically expect two students to keep a prince safe when their ship was boarded by pirates.

Guildenstern spent much of the day after the pirate episode sitting in the prow, letting the salt water spray over his face, his fancy clothes, wondering what would happen to Hamlet next. They could have killed him on the spot without realising who he was. They might torture him to death for old political grievances and send his mangled body back to Denmark as a message. Or string him from the yard arm and throw his body to the sharks.

“It’s not our fault,” Rosencrantz insisted for the fiftieth time when they landed in Harwich and began the long, slow ride to London. “If Hamlet wants to play the warrior hero that’s up to him. Stick to the story about what happened and lose the woe-is-me face. It doesn’t suit you. And besides. It’s the truth isn’t it?”

He had a point there. The two of them had barely spoken since they lost the prince. For years they’d been inseparable but something about this business had driven a wedge between them, pointed up all that made them different. Guildenstern doubted they would still be friends when it was over. For the first time he could remember he’d started making plans for what he would like to do next, on his own.

Maybe he would take a break from Wittenberg. Travel south to Italy, perhaps. Visit Florence, Venice, get away from the frigid climes in which he had spent his entire life. He could walk through sun-splashed piazzas, pick an orange off a tree and eat it warm…

Then come back and maybe open a tailor’s shop.

They were summoned to a grim place by the river called the Tower. It looked like a prison, not a royal palace. But maybe in England they thought a gloomy fortress like this passed for grandeur.

“The Queen will see you,” said the attendant in terrible Danish and went to the door.

“The Queen?” Guildenstern shook his head. “What’s happened to the King?”

“There is no king of England, idiot,” Rosencrantz whispered. “It’s that old bag Elizabeth. Give me the papers.,”

Guildenstern fished in the leather satchel and plucked out the wax-sealed parchment.

“Bit moot now.”

Rosencrantz brandished the envelope.

“This is our ticket to the inner court. It shows we’re on official business. Hamlet or no Hamlet.”

A pair of halberdiers escorted them to the main chamber. Rosencrantz drew himself up and plastered a serene smile on his face. Guildenstern had seen it a thousand times, but for once he wanted to slap it off him.

More regal grandeur, just like distant Elsinore. Walls hung with tapestries displaying the political and military triumphs of Elizabethan England, the ceiling a complex puzzle of gilded timber buttresses. The queen wore a long golden gown. She looked surly and a little mad, a pale, elderly figure in an obvious ginger wig over a face plastered in white makeup, hunched on an opulent throne, busy in muttered conversation with a tall, severe-looking man by his side. For a long moment she didn’t seem aware of their presence at all. Then the courtier next to her smiled expansively and delivered a speech in English. It lasted almost a minute but the attendant translated it simply as “Her majesty welcomes you to England.”

A court official motioned for the letter. Rosencrantz handed it over with an elegant bow and made a fussy speech about how proud they were to serve their country and the English crown.

Guildenstern thought he saw a fractional sneer ghosting the woman’s lips. It reminded him of Hamlet. Feeling oddly frightened he lowered his eyes.

The silence that followed was long and worrisome. Finally he looked up, catching Rosencrantz’s expression of frozen concern, then returned to study the queen.

The letter wasn’t long. The parchment was just translucent enough that Guildenstern could see the shadowing of the inky scrawl through the sheet, which meant she was either a very slow reader indeed or was taking in the contents several times over.

That deathly white face was utterly blank, the kind of set nothingness that politicians favoured when they wished to keep their thoughts to themselves. At last two bleak dead eyes came up over the parchment and found the two Danes before her. Queen Elizabeth of England stared at them and passed the letter to the tall counsellor who’d delivered her message of welcome. The man scanned the lines then paused, looked slowly up at Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, eyebrows raised.

The queen struggled to her feet, smoothed down her gilt robe, glanced at the door and gave the slightest of nods. The counsellor issued an order in English. Guildenstern just about understood.

“We’re dead,” the fat man whispered, to no one in particular, not even the trembling compatriot by his side.

In a brisk and practised movement the two halberdiers who’d brought them began moving, weapons off their shoulders, levelled at the Danes’ backs. Behind them other guards stepped hurriedly from the walls in a clatter of steel.

“What’s this?” Rosencrantz demanded, his voice high and desperate, all trace of his courtly sophistication gone. “What did we do? It’s not our fault we lost the Prince! We couldn’t have done anything! My lord, have mercy...!”

Guildenstern tried to hold the queen’s eyes as she walked unsteadily from the hall. His sad smile never reached her and he knew it. Just as he understood he would never walk the streets of Florence, pick that sweet, warm orange off the tree... Yet the world would not miss him. It had scarcely noticed his existence at all.

Rosencrantz was shrieking, wailing, begging, slipping to his knees trying to snatch at the hem of the queen’s long gown as she was marched out by her entourage.

Guildenstern stayed where he was. He would have, for once, a moment of dignity. They were waiting for her to leave. That was all. A monarch gave orders. Some she didn’t need to see carried out.

Then, like a gilt ghost, she was gone. They were alone with nothing but soldiers and their weapons.

He didn’t move to resist, to protest, to protect himself even. And he still wore that sad, lost smile as the long, slim point of the halberd came hard and deadly through his back.

The winds had stalled. After a maddening day becalmed in the Baltic Laertes had insisted he be put ashore at Rodbyhaven on the southern coast of Lollund. From there he had ridden hard, changing horses twice at inns, and taking a local ferry to Vordinborg where he had stopped, reluctantly for the night in a room above a traders’ tavern. The next morning he rose at first light and rode all the way to Elsinore. It was the most ground he’d ever covered in a single day and he arrived stinking, sweaty and exhausted, but so driven by outrage that he barely felt any of it.

His first impulse had been to march straight into the castle and corner the king: demand what he knew of the circumstances of his father’s death. Hamlet had not been punished. He had – it was hard to comprehend – been sent away, rewarded for killing the king’s oldest counsellor with a holiday jaunt to England. No state funeral for Polonius for fear of drawing attention to the royal identity of his killer either. Claudius would answer for that.

How, Laertes wasn’t sure. Storming into the throne room alone might get him killed. But he had friends in Elsinore, and – ever his father’s son – had learned to keep them close and curry favour with the common folk. As Polonius had become more enmeshed in state affairs, the management of his own property and holdings had fallen to his son, who had been careful to be seen as a just and generous land owner.

So he avoided the castle and went to the country manor house Polonius owned outside the town. There he called together the steward, all the senior servants, and the commander of the local watch whose arms Polonius’s family had supplied for generations. To these people the king was no more than an idea, an abstraction most had never seen, though they lived less than three miles from Elsinore.

Laertes told them of his father’s death, his shamefully private funeral in the castle grounds and laid the charge for these indignities at Claudius’s feet. He said nothing of Hamlet, for fear that would complicate their anger. The prince still had a reputation and was loved in some quarters. All he wanted, he said, was an escort into Elsinore: sufficient protection to ensure he’d be heard.

Given the family’s generosity over the years it wasn’t much to ask. An hour later they gathered in the twilight, fifty men and boys with boathooks, harpoons, clubs, and rusty pikes. They followed in grim silence at his back, reaching Elsinore as the black winter night fell, marching into the main entrance before the sentries knew they were there. By the time the alarm was raised they were across the bridge and inside the curtain wall.

Servants fled before them. The guards scattered, awaiting orders on where to take their stand. In moments they were at the doors of the Great Hall. They were locked, but Laertes banged on them with the pommel of his sword, watching out of the corner of his eyes as the duty sentries massed at the end of the corridor, muskets and halberds trained on him.

“I demand audience with the King of Denmark!” Laertes bellowed, undaunted by the soldiers only yards away. If they attacked, his men would run or fall in seconds, but that didn’t matter. His point was already made.

His men had started drumming their weapons on the stone floor. The noise was deafening. The castle soldiers, watching from both his right and his left, looked uneasy. One false move, one unsteady trigger finger, and this would be a battle, and an ugly one.

“Open these doors!” he roared. “Or as God is my witness we will break them down!”

Finally an old woman came. One of his father’s maids, part of the household since he’d been a child.

She’d been crying. Her eyes were still pink and full of tears.

“Bette.” He remembered her kindness when he and Ophelia were young. “This anger belongs to me. As does the mourning for my father. Where is Claudius?”

“Oh, sir. I weep for your loss.”

“As do I. But it’s more than a week now. Leave the wailing to me.”

She didn’t speak.

“I’ve come to speak to the king. Nothing more.”

“You won’t find him here,” she answered, and for some reason this simple remark seemed to intensify her grief.

“Why not”

She just shook her head.

“Where’s Claudius?”

“By the river. Something was discovered there this afternoon. I fear to tell you…”

He was growing tired of her evasiveness.

“What?”

“I can’t say it, my lord. You should go. See for yourself. I cannot…”

Enough of crying women, he thought. The river wound from the forest, past the castle, to the Øresund.

“Where’s the king’s party ?”

“Close to the weir near the woods. You’ll see them. Oh, what a world this has become since the old king died. I fear for…”

Laertes didn’t listen. He ran through the guards, back to his mob. They were looking at him in a curious way. Frightened. Expectant. As if they’d heard something.

“We grieve for your loss, lord,” one of them said warily as he went for his horse.

“I know,” he answered then rode for the gates of Elsinore and the river.

A mile beyond the castle the king had gathered his men. The river was broad and swollen by the recent rains. The small island in the middle was barely above the surface. There, pinioned to the weak, bare trees, lay a bloated naked body caught on the trunks. Face just recognisable, even a few days after death.

He’d understood what had happened the night Ophelia was reported missing by her worried household staff. Had seen the look in Voltemand’s sharp, bright eyes as the two of them took in the news.

And Claudius had asked not a single question. Events had begun to fall beyond his control, almost – it now seemed – from the moment he’d slunk up on the sleeping king and poured the Copenhagen poison into his ear. One foul deed to stave off another. A necessary murder that would ensure he and Gertrude would survive. Perhaps even prosper, find a kind of happiness once more.

There were a million reasons to justify what he had done. But however many he found they didn’t change the act itself. Murder, of a brother. The oldest crime. From that moment on he was damned and should have known it.

There were soldiers trying to reach her using small dinghies. But the current was so strong every time they got close to Ophelia’s corpse the current swept them away. Gertrude had joined the royal party once she heard. Voltemand was directing them, acting the part. Shocked, caring, full of grief.

No news of Fortinbras. None of Hamlet either. The world turned without the bidding of the King of Denmark. It was spinning on its own. Leading somewhere he could only guess at.

Claudius watched Gertrude with her servants, standing by the water’s edge. She’d stopped crying. Now she simply stared at the fast-flowing river and the sad, pale body on the tiny island just a few short, impossible yards away.

The girl’s long blonde hair was filthy with mud. Her lovely face damaged by something. The rushing water perhaps. Or a darker deed.

He walked over to the Queen and said, “My lady. This is no place for you. Let the soldiers recover her under Voltemand’s direction…”

“Why not?” she snapped. “He put her there, didn’t he?”

Claudius blinked, struggled for the words.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

She took his arm, dragged him to the edge of the group, beyond the hearing of all the others.

“This morning, when we heard of her death, I received this.”

Gertrude reached into her cloak and he knew what she would withdraw from it, even before he saw the brown parchment.

“A copy of a letter she sent to Laertes. She left it with one of their faithful servants. To be given to me if she died. She knew he would come for her. Did you, Claudius?”

“I… am… not the master of every single act, vile or decent, that happens in this kingdom.”

She brandished the parchment in his face.

“I’ve made inquiries of my own. Your creature Voltemand chased after the ship that carried it. Her brother never saw this, did he?”

The King opened his hands, stayed silent.

“But you did, Claudius.”

“I’m only human, love.”

“Don’t use that word with me.”

“What? Love? It’s what brought us here, isn’t it? If we’d never broken our vows…”

“I killed no one! I never would…”

He took her arm, told her to speak more quietly.

“The men here will tear us both apart if they knew. Denmark’s fragile. In such times it’s the crown that makes the sacrifice.”

“Like Old Hamlet?”

So many things he wished to say. Late at night, in the comfort of their bed. Gertrude in his arms. He’d never wanted another, not since that day he saw young Hamlet delivered from her while the king, her husband, tricked Old Fortinbras and slaughtered him on the ice before Elsinore, using his own son’s new-born cries to fox the Norwegian and take off his head.

“Your vile husband knew, my love,” Claudius said softly, with some real regret. “About us. He told Polonius. If the old man hadn’t seen me as a better bet we’d both be dead now. What choice…?”

She didn’t answer. There was hatred in her eyes.

“What else could I have done?”

“Paid for your sins. As would I…”

“He was a monster, Gertrude. He never loved you. Nor Hamlet. Not the way I did. The way I do…”

“And now my son’s in England. To return… God knows when. And Ophelia’s dead. Like her father.”

“It was a righteous act. To kill a brute who would have taken our lives for no good reason. Simply because we enjoyed the one thing he could never have. A mutual affection. A sense of… of family.”

He closed his eyes and saw there the river again, sweeping towards him. But this time it was red and rank and overflowing its banks, lapping at the grey walls of Elsinore, staining the waters of the Øresund a vivid scarlet.

“It’s easy enough to open a single vein,” Claudius whispered. “But precious hard to staunch all the blood that follows.”

“What are we to do?”

“Survive,” he murmured.

Another dinghy was trying to reach the island and the body on it. She stared at it then looked back to Elsinore.

“For this?”

“This is all there is.”

“Then I want none of it. And nothing of you.”

Gertrude turned and left him. Talked to the women she’d brought. And then the party returned to their horses.

There were no more boats on the river now. Perhaps the body would have to stay there until the waters abated. If that ever happened. It seemed the world was in flood and a part of Claudius couldn’t wait for its cold grey all-consuming waters to reach him.

A noise behind. An angry, anguished cry.

Laertes was riding towards them, whipping his steed. Hair wild in the drizzle and breeze. Eyes as crazed as any man he’d ever seen, fixed only on the still, sad shape on the island in the foaming, furious river.

Voltemand was watching too. He glanced at Claudius. A command in his face: this is mine. I will deal with it.

So the king watched, stayed back. Listened.

“Sir…” the man from Copenhagen said as Laertes dismounted. “Be calm, I beg you. Listen to what I say…”

“What is this?” Laertes roared. “My sister!”

For a moment he just stared, pale and exhausted. Young-looking. The shock seemed to have taken the life out of him. But only for an instant. Seconds later the stunned, empty sorrow was gone. The righteous rage was back. He barked at one of the soldiers to fetch him a boat.

Voltemand stood in front of him.

“She was distraught. Your father’s death. Hamlet’s treatment of her…”

“Hamlet…! Where is the blasted Prince?”

The boat was dragged towards him.

“I fear she took her own life, sir. We should have noticed how distressed she’d become. I blame myself…”

“I blame him. The boat! Oars!”

The man from Copenhagen put a hand out to stop him.

“The river rages, Laertes. We need to wait for it to calm.”

“Nothing’s calm from now on.” Laertes leapt on the boat, took the oars. Got the soldiers to push him out into the current upstream of the little island.

There was silence on the bank. All watched. None moved.

Straight away the tiny boat was swept away by the power of the flow. But Laertes had planned for that and thrust the oars in, trying to take himself to the far side.

Judged it well, too. In a matter of seconds the prow hit the tiny island, not far from her. He climbed onto the nearest stump, found a branch, lifted himself out of the dinghy which span away and turned downstream, circling on itself, out of control.

He never noticed. In three swift steps he was with her, cradling her broken face in his arms, crying, wailing, shouting curses, screams and threats.

Voltemand watched. Claudius knew this man now. Understood what he’d hoped for. That Laertes would be borne away on the surging waters, too, disappear forever, one more problem solved, another body buried for good.

“Find a rope,” Claudius ordered the captain of the guard. “Get it over to the island. Shoot the thing on an arrow if need be. Once it’s there we can get a boat safely over and recover them both.”

Gertrude was on her horse, watching him. A cold and hateful look in her eyes. He walked towards her. Perhaps there was an explanation. An apology to be offered. But she rode off without a word.

Then Voltemand was there.

“We can manage this,” he said. “The queen seems… distracted.”

Claudius stared at him. If he understood what Gertrude had learned perhaps he’d plot her death, too. This was man knew no limits.

“She’s upset at a young woman’s unnecessary death. As am I. Can you really not appreciate that?”

“Grief can be dangerous, my lord. I’ve caused enough to know. Is there anything I should be told?”

“Only that we need another funeral. You can manage that. I’m sure.”

“True.” He nodded. “But it’ll have to be in the common cemetery, with the paupers. Not the castle graveyard.”

The King waited, wondered, listening to Laertes howling as he clutched his dead sister on the little island in the middle of the muddy, swollen driver.

“A suicide,” Voltemand added. “The girl can’t be buried in hallowed ground.” He snapped his fingers at a couple of soldiers, issued some orders. “I’ll see it’s done. Leave everything to me.”