A Wounded Name (Fiction - Young Adult) (23 page)

“
Julius Caesar
; Brutus killed me in the capitol.”

“It was a brute part of him to have done so.”

Horatio rolls his eyes and helps me slide my plate of hidden food to the floor.

“Well? Are you coming, or aren’t you? The players wait upon our arrival!” He spins in a great circle, his cape swirling around him like a dervish’s skirt, but there is nothing of prayer and meditation in his movement. He bounds from the room, singing “It’s a Small World” in German and leaving us all staring after him.

Horatio sighs and shakes his head. “Exit, pursued by a bear,” he mutters, and I laugh and accept his aid in standing. The others follow and together we enter the parlor that Horatio tells me has been locked all afternoon.

The small dais Claudius erects for gatherings has been extended into a stage two steps high that marks barely ten feet across, the ends hidden by hastily mounted curtains. Hothouse flowers cover the front and back of the space, perhaps three feet deep, and around the Hellene chaise that stands as the only furniture. Within the audience space, there are only three chairs, two of them nearly thrones side by side, the other more simple and placed slightly behind and to the left.

Horatio and I sink to the thick carpet to the right of the chairs. Ros and Guil hesitate, looking about for more seats, then reluctantly follow suit on the left. They aren’t comfortable on the floor.

But then, Dane knows that. It’s exactly why he’s arranged it this way.

Gertrude sits in one of the quasi-thrones and pats the air to her open side. “Come, Dane, sit by me.”

“No, good mother,” he says shortly and drops to the carpet beside me. “Here’s metal more attractive.”

“The games I can handle; the puns may kill me,” murmurs Horatio, and I bite back a smile.

On Gertrude’s other side, Father nudges Claudius and whispers something, more proof for his theory, I think.

Plopping his hat atop Horatio’s head, Dane sprawls out across me, his head pillowed on my thighs. “Lady, shall I lie in your lap?”

“No,” I retort, aware of Father and Claudius watching.

But he doesn’t move. “Do you think I meant country matters?”

“I think nothing.”

“It’s a fair thought to lie between maid’s legs.”

Heat floods my face, burning the skin like the star burns my breath. “You’re merry tonight.”

“Who, me?”

“Yes, you.”

“What should a man do but be merry?” He grins at me, but the bite is still there in his tone, in his eyes. “After all, see how cheerfully my mother looks, and my father dead only these two hours.”

A quick glance shows Gertrude’s stricken expression, Claudius’ anger slowly leaking past the congenial façade. “Not at all, it’s been more than four months.”

“So long? Oh heavens! Dead four months and not forgotten yet? Then there’s hope a great man’s memory may outlive his life by half a year.” He settles himself more comfortably across my lap, one arm thrown over his head to drape across Horatio as well. “How like a hobbyhorse our pathetic little lives are, forgotten in the attics of other men’s memories.”

Gertrude’s hand flutters at her chest in her distress, tears bright in her blue eyes. “Dane …”

“Hush, woman! The show!”

Above us, the lights of the chandelier dim.

The play’s the thing, he said.

The show must go on.

CHAPTER 29

“Play with me, Ophelia,” whispers Dane, voice hidden beneath the shuffle of Father and Claudius taking their seats. He laces his fingers through mine, places our joined hands against his chest. I can’t feel his heartbeat through the layers of fabric, but I can feel the star spin where my own heart should be.

With the hand he hasn’t claimed, I stroke Dane’s hair back from his face. “So, what means this?” I ask lightly, for my own benefit as much as for the game he asked me to play.

“What, this? Miching mallecho! It means mischief.”

A single light returns, fixed on a slightly nervous eighth-grade boy on the middle step.

“We’ll know by this fellow,” Dane says lazily. Unseen by those in the chairs or beyond, his other hand grips Horatio’s with a white-knuckled grip. I can feel the tension in his body despite the seeming ease of his pose. “The players can never keep a secret. They’ll tell us everything.”

“And will he tell us what the play will show?”

“Or any show you care to give him. If you’re not ashamed to show, he won’t be ashamed to tell you what it means. Will you give him a show, Ophelia?”

Father makes a disapproving sound that brings a reluctant smile to my lips. “You are wicked and horrible, and I’m watching the play now.”

The eighth grader—a fierce blush burning under the makeup—clears his throat and releases his lines all in a rush. “For your generosity and for your patience, we and our tragedy beg your careful listening.” He races offstage, and I can hear a few of the younger actors giggling. But then, they’ve had less than a day to prepare this.

Dane shakes his head. “Is this a prologue or the inscription on a ring?”

“It is brief,” I allow.

He brings our joined hands to his lips and places a lingering kiss against my palm. “As woman’s love.”

Piano music, soft and menacing, spills from behind one of the curtains, and Keith walks onto the stage with one of the sophomore girls on his arm. I should know her. I know we have classes together, but it’s never seemed important to know the names of people I’ll never truly know. They both wear elaborate crowns and fine costumes that wouldn’t be out of place in the celebrity pages. They dance for a time to the music before he bends close and kisses her deeply, an embrace she returns with equal ardor. When he pulls away, he rests his head against the curve of her shoulder, a gesture somehow more intimate even than the kiss that preceded it.

Passing a hand over his face, the King lies down across the chaise, surrounded by the hothouse flowers.

Like Hamlet’s favorite alcove of the garden.

The alcove where he died.

Oh, Dane.

In silence, in stillness, even in the costume of a king, Keith isn’t someone you notice more than once, but as he takes a breath and swells his chest to speak, there’s something mesmerizing about him. “Thirty years we’ve had together, thirty years of dreams and growth, of moons and suns and the endless cycle of the Earth beneath our feet. Thirty years, my dearest love, since the Church and our families united us in sacred bonds.” He lifts her left hand and kisses the plain gold band there, a simple gesture that brings a worried smile to the Queen’s face.

Gertrude’s right hand twitches in her lap to cover the left; so Hamlet used to kiss her wedding band, grateful every day for the gift of their marriage.

The Queen touches his cheek lightly, draws his face to hers, and kisses him gently. “And I hope we have another thirty years, but I worry for you. You’re so tired of late, so out of sorts and depressed.” She gives a soft laugh and pats her hair, a dead-on imitation of Gertrude. “I know we women fear too much, as much as we love, and as thirty years have made my love great, so has my fear grown. What worries you so?”

“I must leave you, love, and shortly too. Everything in me grinds to a halt, and you shall live on in this fair world, and remarry—”

“Oh, do not say the rest! Such a thing must be blackest betrayal. In second husband, let me be only cursed: I will wed no second but that he kills the first.”

“Well, that’s a bitter gift to give yourself!” Dane laughs. Neither actor gives notice to his interruption.

“Second marriages have much of practicality to them,” she continues, “of financial comfort, but nothing of love. If any second husband kisses me in bed, a second time it kills my first.”

Claudius sighs and shifts in his chair. Gertrude angles towards him, an instinctive response, but her hands lay folded in her lap to conceal the ring that glitters even in poor light.

The King smoothes a hand over her hair beneath the crown and sinks down to sit on the edge of the chaise. “I know you believe what you say now, but what we would vow, we often break. Purpose is but the slave to memory, strong at first but with little stamina. The vows we would make to ourselves have little to keep them once the reason for them is gone, as many a man knows when he falls from fortune to disgrace and must see how his favorites desert him for greater gain. This is how our world works, so it is no strange thing for you to vow so fervently that you will not remarry. These thoughts will die when I am also dead.”

She shakes her head stubbornly and lays her hand against his heart, taking a deep breath. “May the Earth give me no food, nor Heaven light; may the days deny me all pleasure and the nights all rest; to desperation turn my trust and hope, as in a prison with no scope beyond its barren walls. May every curse follow me and give me lasting strife if, once I become a widow, I should ever be a wife.”

“Oh, if she should break that now!” Dane laughs again, a manic sound that splinters the silence of the tiny audience. All but Horatio and I flinch. “A second time cursed, and by her own tongue both times.”

“It’s a heavy promise.” The King sighs and passes a hand over his face. “Sweet, leave me here awhile. I am so very tired.”

Kneeling down beside him in a waterfall of beaded silk, the Queen kisses his brow. “May sleep come quickly and gently, and let no misfortune ever come between us.”

He’s asleep nearly before she exits, his head propped on the high, single arm, one hand pressed against his heart.

Above the stage, someone—Keith and Dane, no doubt—has rigged a screen for a projected slide show of photos, all of Gertrude and Hamlet. They start in school, both in the uniforms that have barely changed, and progress inexorably to a wedding day where a scowling Claudius stands at his brother’s side, to Dane’s birth, moving through the years until the last photo, taken only a week before Hamlet’s death. Gertrude gasps at the enlarged image of her portrait’s gentle smile and closed eyes as a laughing Hamlet kisses her temple. Keith slumbers on.

Dane twists about in my lap until he’s sprawled across both Horatio and I, chin in his hands, elbows digging into Horatio’s thigh. “Madam,” he directs towards his mother, “how do you like this play?”

“The lady protests too much, I think,” she answers stiffly, but there’s uncertainty there too.

Gertrude is not the cleverest of women.

“Oh, but she’ll keep her word, of course!”

Claudius clears his throat, willing to speak now that the actors show no immediate sign of continuing. “What do you call this play?”

“
The Mousetrap
. Isn’t it apt? It tells the story of a murder in Vienna. Gonzago is the Duke’s name, his wife Baptista. You’ll see. It’s a bastard piece of work, but what of that? Where our souls are innocent, its darkness cannot touch us.”

A new player enters and stops at the foot of the chaise, in clothes nearly as fine as the King’s.

“That one is Lucianus, brother to the King.”

“You’re as good as a chorus, Dane.”

He twists back around to grin at me, lays flat on his back again over our legs. “I could interpret between you and your love, if I could only see the puppets dallying.”

“Yes, Dane, we’re all astonished by your keen wit,” I laugh.

Taking my hand, he brings it past his heart, past his stomach, and presses my palm hard against him. “It would cost you a groan to take off my edge.”

“Still better and worse. You’re a wretch.”

“Better and worse? More the fool your husband. Come, murderer!” he yells suddenly at the stage. “Quit making those damnable faces and begin!”

The senior playing the poisoner isn’t as good an actor as Keith; the barest smile twitches across his face before he can pull his character back around him like a shroud. “Evil thoughts, ready hands, waiting poison, the time is right. No one’s here to see.” From his waistcoat, he produces the syringe with its remnants of proof and holds it up for us to see in all clarity. “An instant death.” He fakes removing the clay bead and pretends to inject the liquid behind the sleeping King’s ear.

Dane twists back around so he can see his mother and uncle. “He poisons him in the garden for his estate,” he announces disingenuously. “The story actually exists and is written in very choice Italian. If you wait but a moment, you can see how the murderer wins the love of Gonzago’s wife.”

“Look at Claudius,” I whisper.

Claudius’ chair falls back against the carpet with a dull thump, overturned by the violence with which he rises. He stares at the stage, at the picture still emblazoned above. His eyes glitter fiercely in a too-pale face. Every muscle is taut with tension, the stillness before the storm.

“Claudius?” murmurs Gertrude, stretching out a hand in concern. Not the one burdened with their marriage vows.

“Stop the play!” calls Father.

The boy playing Lucianus glances offstage, probably to the Queen as Keith is “dead” and won’t break character, and holds his position.

“Turn the lights on!” Claudius croaks, and Father immediately calls for it to happen, but before anyone can get near the light switches, Claudius races from the room. After a moment of stunned silence, Father and Gertrude follow him, the Toms hot on their heels.

Dane watches them, all the mockery gone from his voice, his face. “So goes the wounded deer to weep. Some must watch while some must sleep, thus runs the world away.” He sits up, worms his way between Horatio and me so he can face us both. A mask seems to slide away and his expression eases. “I think I deserve a permanent star on the walk for this performance.”

“Perhaps an insert in the program.”

“Not at all, this is worth an Oscar!”

“I’ll write the Academy myself.”

They’re both trying too hard, but Dane can’t keep it up. Keith stands to flip on the lights, drowning the projection, and Dane doesn’t even blink. “It looks like Father’s ghost was correct. Did you see it?”

Horatio takes a deep breath. We’re on the edge of the precipice, the proof that Dane has been seeking for two months, and his words may well hurtle us over. “Yes, I did see.”

“At the moment of poisoning?”

“Yes, Dane, I was watching.”

The door opens again. Before the shapes can even enter, Dane has already fallen back into the character that’s only half an act. “A show should have music, yes? Not just that dreary piano. Don’t you have any recorders back there?”

Keith, still with the crown lopsided on his hair, smiles and tosses him a recorder. “From the wedding scene.”

Guil clears his throat from the doorway, uncomfortable and angry and scared. Perhaps he’s finally realized that the task he’s promised won’t be as easy as he thinks. “Dane, can I have a word with you?”

“A whole novel, if you like.”

“The Headmaster—”

“Is dead. What of him?”

“The Headmaster has gone to his room, pissed as hell.”

Behind him, Ros sways nervously on the balls of his feet, hands shoved so deep in his pockets that his belt strains to hold up his trousers.

Dane simply gives them a banal smile. “Is he drunk?”

“No, he’s furious.”

“Then tell it to a psychologist, not to me. If I were to tinker with his fury, it’s entirely likely I’d stoke it instead.”

That’s true enough.

Keith tosses more recorders our way. I catch one and wet my lips with my tongue, aware of the way Dane watches the movement. I lift the mouthpiece and arrange my fingers over the holes, moving them in the memory of a song but don’t give it air to give it voice.

“Dane, seriously, we need to talk.”

“And we are talking, are we not?”

“Your mother is very upset, almost in tears, and she’s sent me to you.”

“And you are most welcome.”

“This is not a joke, Dane!” snaps Guil. Ros shrinks back against the door. “Either give me the chance to tell you what your mother said or I’ll simply leave now!”

“Sir, I cannot.”

“Can’t what?”

“Give you a chance. Chance, after all, is luck, and my wit’s diseased, hardly a matter of luck and fortune, and therefore, no matter of chance. But convey such words as you wish to parrot, and perhaps I’ll in some measure comprehend them. My mother, you say?”

Guil stares at him, confounded into momentary silence. Horatio’s jaw trembles against the need to laugh.

But Guil wouldn’t be Guil if he didn’t barrel on obliviously, so even though he can’t find words, he elbows Ros sharply. His shadow flinches violently, eyes wide and terrified, but he swallows hard and makes the effort. “You’ve baffled her, Dane. She can’t understand your behavior at all.”

“Oh, wonderful son that can so astonish his mother! But there’s a sequel to your words, yes? Please, continue.”

“She wants to speak with you in her room before you go to bed.”

“And we would obey were she ten times our mother. Is there anything else?”

For the first time, I can see a trace of the Ros that might have been if Guil hadn’t gotten a hold of him at such a young age and browbeat him into submission. His dark eyes study Dane miserably, and I think Ros might actually regard Dane as a friend in some way. But Ros doesn’t have the strength to protect himself, much less anyone else. “We were friends once.”

“And so we are still.”

“Then why won’t you tell us what’s going on? You don’t do yourself any favors by keeping your friends in the dark.”

“Sir, I lack advancement.”

“You’ll be the next headmaster of the damn school,” snaps Guil.

“Yes, the next, but while the grass grows …” He gives a crooked smile. “No, that doesn’t quite work, does it? But you do take a backward way of approaching things. Why do such a thing, like to drive me into a trap?”