Ophelia (18 page)

A burst of applause made us look toward the stage. I held my breath to see one of the players juggle oranges while balancing on an overturned chair. Then a sudden fanfare of trumpets sounded and he jumped to the floor, bowing deeply as Gertrude and Claudius, arm in arm, descended the processional stairs into the great hall. We stood until the king and queen were seated on the dais. Faint clapping of hands and a few cheers sounded, but Claudius scowled and did not acknowledge them. He sat gripping the arms of his great chair. I considered that there could be truth in Cristiana's warning.

I saw Gertrude reach out to her son, beckoning him to sit beside her. He regarded her for a moment, then shook his head and turned away. Looking over his shoulder at his mother, with deliberate steps he crossed the room to my side. I saw her smile fade, and I drew in my breath at his unkindness.

When Hamlet reached my side, Horatio took his leave, saying, "In faith, Ophelia, I remain your servant." The kindness in his eyes consoled me briefly.

Now Hamlet knelt before me, like a spring coiled tight with energy. His eyes were bright with reflected light, his cheeks flushed. He grasped my hands, sending a spark through my body that made me feel weak with longing for him. But I was determined to remain aloof until I knew his feelings for me. Most of all, I wanted an apology for his cruelty.

"Lady, shall I lie in your lap?" He raised his eyebrows to highlight the question.

This rude request was no proper greeting.

"No, my lord, this is hardly the place," I replied, my voice sharp with rebuke.

"I mean, simply, may I rest my head upon your lap?" he asked, pretending boyish innocence. Did Hamlet now mean to play our game? How should I know his changing mind?

"Yes, my lord," I said, for this seemed to fit his role of pleading lover. I let him lean against me, certain that a gentle apology would follow. But instead he made a lewd joke about fair thoughts lying between a maid's legs. His eyes aimed at what he spoke of, and I pushed his head from my lap and turned away from him.

"I am fair, and I am honest. A maid no more, but your honorable wife," I said.

My indignant words found no response. Instead they were drowned in the applause that greeted the players as they stepped out from behind the curtains. Hamlet's play was about to begin. The torches were covered, save those near the stage, bringing darkness to the hall. I hoped the play would take my mind from his strange behavior, but it offered nothing diverting or pleasant. The speeches were long and formal, and my attention wandered.

The play's the thing,
Hamlet had said. So I struggled to attend to the tedious speeches. The player king lamented his impending death. His queen, acted by a boy speaking in a high voice, vowed never to remarry, while the king doubted her resolve. The action of the play closely resembled recent events at Elsinore, but I could not discern its purpose. Why would Hamlet stage scenes that rubbed the still-raw memory of his father's death and his mother's remarriage? I stole a look at the figures on the dais, but in the dim light I could not see the expressions of Claudius and Gertrude.

Like a rude commoner watching performers on some village green, Hamlet commented loudly throughout the play.

"Your wit is keen," I assured him, raising my hand to silence him. In reply he took my hand and brought it to his lap.

"Then will you take off my edge?" he whispered.

I pulled my hand away. Offense and anger rose in me. Did he hold me as lightly as a whore that he could speak so crudely with me? A sudden thought struck like a blow to my belly, leaving me breathless.

Was Hamlet unfaithful to me?

Fearful doubts oppressed me. But boldness urged me harder. I could not let Hamlet cast upon me the burden of his sin. I would confront him with his own question,
Are you honest?
and observe his response.

Watching the play, I waited for an opportunity to speak. Hamlet's excitement mounted as the black-robed villain crept from the curtains, holding a vial and praising its rank and poisonous contents. I saw the villain pour the potion in the sleeping player king's ear and heard the gasps around me.

"Watch! Now you shall see how the murderer gets the love of the king's wife," Hamlet said bitterly.

I realized then that Hamlet believed it was a man's lot to be cheated by the woman he loves. I would make him see the injustice of such a thought, and I would discover whether I had been betrayed. I gripped his arm and when he looked at me questioningly I spoke with firm intent.

"Hamlet, my husband, this I ask you. Are you honest?"

At that instant, Claudius bolted from his chair and cried out in a voice strangled with fear, "Give me some lights! Away!"

My question received no answer, for Hamlet threw off my hand and leaped to his feet. Guards drew their swords and surrounded the king. His attendants came running with flaming torches. Ladies and courtiers drew back as the king fled from the hall with Gertrude at his side. The players took refuge behind the curtains. They knew that a king's displeasure could mean their death.

I must have looked pale, too, for I found Horatio at my side, supporting my arm.

"Did you see, Horatio?" cried Hamlet with glee. "My uncle's guilt is now plain. The ghost is an honest one!"

"I noted it," said Horatio. "Be more discreet." He seized Hamlet's doublet, but Hamlet pulled away and clapped his hands, calling for music. The players scrambled for their instruments and struck up a wavering tune while Hamlet dashed among the crowd, trying in his manic way to restore their festive spirits.

"He has lost his reason and is possessed by his father's demon," I said in amazement.

"There is, he says, a reason in his madness," Horatio said, but with doubt in his voice.

"It was utter folly to have the players enact his father's murder in the presence of Claudius himself. How is this revenge?" I whispered, unable to hide my deep dismay.

"Violence goes against his nature, which is gentle and prone to thought," Horatio said, close by my ear. "He seeks revenge, and yet he shuns it."

While Horatio and I conversed as intimates, a new fear took hold of my mind. This night Hamlet had revealed, through the play, his knowledge of Claudius's crime. Cristiana had warned me of the king's anger and suspicion. And Claudius had behaved like a man afraid for his life. He knew that I consorted with Hamlet. What if he began to suspect that Hamlet had revealed the king's crime to Horatio and me?

My eyes met Horatio's and I saw that his thoughts ran in the same course as my own. At once he withdrew from me, holding out his arm to prevent my speaking.

"Hamlet's play puts us in mortal danger," he said. "You should not seem my friend; nay, be a stranger. Therefore, go."

Chapter 23

After Hamlet's play broke off and the audience dispersed, worried and whispering, the night turned even more foul. Damp, foggy winds blew through the castle's every hall and chamber and whistled in the ramparts, sounding like faraway screams. Torches flickered and died until darkness reigned both within Elsinore and without.

For hours, sleep eluded me. Finally I rose from my bed to mix a calming draught. I made my way through the queen's gallery, where the tapestries with their wordless stones hung dark and silent. I passed the gallery and came upon the tower stairs that led down to the apothecary. An evil presence seemed afoot, and my skin prickled as if touched by invisible ghosts. At the top of the steps I froze. A dim figure cloaked in black approached. By his gait, I knew my father.

Fumbling with a key while trying to steady his candle, he unlocked the nearby door that led to the king's lodgings. It was used by Claudius and formerly by King Hamlet to come and go secretly from Gertrude's rooms. My father did not lock the door behind him, so I slipped in and followed him with silent steps through the retiring chamber and into the bedchamber. The vast bed of state, its curtains drawn back like the wings of a giant bird about to seize its prey, was empty. No doubt Claudius was ensconced in a secure room blazing with light and surrounded by his guards.

I longed to know my father's business here. He raised his candle, whose light threw shadows that trembled, for his hand shook. With another key he opened the door of a tall cabinet near the king's bed. I crept closer and concealed myself behind a bed curtain. My father appeared to be looking for something. The light played over the contents of the cabinet—a jumble of books and boxes, rocks, carvings, and other curiosities. Then I saw in the corner of an upper shelf a small glass vial lying on its side. Its label bore a death's head, and broken red wax surrounded its unstoppered mouth. In its shape, size, and smallest detail it was like the vials of poison I had seen in Mechtild's cabinet. Elnora's words on that occasion came to me:
Turn away, lest you tempt evil.
Should I turn away and forget the sight? Or should I go forward and satisfy my curiosity?
No, turn away from evil!

I must have spoken, for my father whirled around and fell against the open cabinet. Books fell down with a thump and boxes crashed around him.

"What spirit is this? Who comes?" he asked in a tremulous voice.

Dropping the curtain and moving swiftly from the shadows into the candle's weak light, I reached for the vial. My fingertips touched it. Standing on my toes, I closed my hand around it. I confronted my father, whose face revealed his alarm and confusion.

"Is this what you seek?" I asked, opening my hand.

"Give me that, girl! It must be destroyed."

"No, I must give it to Hamlet, for it proves the ghost an honest one." I held the vial up to the flickering candlelight and saw that it was half empty.

"What nonsense do you speak?"

"No nonsense, but truth. Claudius is a murderer."

My father seized my wrist and the vial was dashed from my hand into the darkness.

"No!" I cried, falling to my knees and pawing the floor in vain for the lost bottle.

Then the far door of the chamber was flung open and one of the king's guards stepped into the room, a cup of ale in one hand and a sword at his side. Despite the dark, I recognized his shape, and when the light from a lamp behind him illuminated the hideous scar on the side of his face, I knew for certain that it was Edmund.

"Who's there? Declare yourself!" he called in a voice slurred with drink.

"Go, child, make haste to save yourself!" my father whispered, flinging his cloak around me.

"Is it Polonius? Who runs away? Halt!" growled Edmund, staggering forward.

I needed no urging from my father to run as fast as my feet and the darkness would permit. As I fled, I saw my father, his arms held wide to block Edmund while he declared in a torrent of words that he was doing the king's bidding.

I do not know if he spoke the truth. I never learned what became of the bottle, that evidence of Claudius's evil, and I never saw my father again.

Chapter 24

In the gray dawn of the following morning, a noisy and riotous dream disturbed my sleep. I opened my eyes to the sound of wailing and pounding outside my chamber door. Then Elnora burst in and seized me in her arms.

"No, no. Poor child, she must not hear it!" she murmered, covering my ears. I shook off sleep and Elnora's suffocating embrace.

"What has happened? Tell me!" I demanded, suppressing my rising fear that Hamlet was dead, slam by Claudius.

A disheveled Gertrude appeared in the doorway, wringing her hands and weeping as Cristiana toed to comfort her. Seeing Gertrude, I was certain. "Something terrible has befallen Prince Hamlet!" I said in a rush, forgetting all discretion.

"I must speak to her myself. It was but a tragic accident!" Gertrude cried, pushing Cristiana away. "Hamlet stabbed at the arras in my room, thinking it hid a spy. Alas, it was your father, and now, oh! Now he lies dead."

Still lethargic from my sleep, I wondered if this was a game, a joke of Hamlet's.

"My father? Dead? Is this true?" I asked in dull confusion.