Ophelia by Lisa Klein Page A

especially weary this day." It was the king's habit, after dining at midday, to rest in his orchard.
    "Mark the time!" Her tone was urgent but her voice quivered. "Attend here," she ordered, hastening away. I waited, as bid, wondering at her agitation. Cristiana resumed her needlework as if nothing were amiss. Elnora, whose eyes were too weak to see her stitches, merely sat with some unsewn pillow covers in her lap and closed her eyes.
    I returned to composing my poem. Was it possible to rhyme blossom with bosom? Would Hamlet consider the verse clever or merely forced? Perhaps, I thought, I should forego the nonsense of rhyme.
    While I was entertaining these trivial thoughts, a momentous and terrible event was unfolding close by. Sudden screams pierced the quiet and startled me so that I dropped my pen, blotting my words with smeared ink. The screaming echoed from the walls as if a horde of demons shrieked from the stones. I rose from my seat but could not move farther, feeling my feet rooted to the stones beneath them.
    Elnora jerked to her senses.
    "Oh, what a frightful dream I have had! Beyond all imagining!" Her breath came in short, quick bursts. "I must be bled of these black humors!"
    Having relented a moment, the screams resumed. And the words that came to my ears amid the cries made my blood stop in my veins.
    "Help! The king is dead! Help, oh!"
    Cristiana began to tremble and mew like a cat. Elnora fainted. I tried to revive her by tapping her cheeks, then eased her bulky form onto its side and left her to recover.
    "The king is dead?" I whispered, the words making no sense to my mind. "How can such a thing be true?" I flung open the window and leaned upon the ledge to see guards running helter-skelter in the orchard, their pikes and swords in hand. They shouted and beat the trees, looking for the thief who stole the king's life, but no murderer was found there. Petals fell from the branches like a late, wet snowfall.
    That night it was reported that a serpent had stung King Hamlet and its venom had instantly paralyzed his heart. I was doubtful of this official word. I had never heard of poisoned snakes around Elsinore, nor had I read of any such creatures in Denmark. Then a rumor arose that those who had seen the body in the orchard noticed a loathsome crust like a leprosy covering the skin. It was whispered that the king had been murdered as he slept and the false traitor had fled to Norway. Another suspicion grew, too terrible to be spoken aloud, that the unknown murderer was still in Denmark, even at Elsinore among us.
    That night I dreamed of the king's pale and bloodless corpse sprinkled with innocent white and pink blossoms. A black and mighty whirlwind arose, scattering the flowers and cracking the trees, carrying screams upon its currents and making the very stones of the castle shudder. I knew in my heart that goodness had been murdered and that a reign of evil had begun at Elsinore.

Part Two
    Elsinore, Denmark
May-November 1601

Chapter 12
    When the earth quakes, mountains fall and rivers alter their courses. With King Hamlet's death, the state of Denmark was in a like manner shaken to its foundations and chaos took the place of order. Greed, suspicion, and fear ruled all hearts. Edmund's father seized the king's treasury, and the lords contended for control. Laborers refused to work, merchants cheated their customers, and brigands ran at large. No one knew his place in this disordered and kingless country.
    Gertrude also left her queenly seat, making two thrones vacant. Overcome with grief, she closeted herself like a nun and received no one for weeks. She lay in the dark of her bedchamber or knelt in her oratory, praying until her knees were stiff. Elnora and I ministered to her with the juice of bitter roots and crushed flowers to purge her foul humors and ease the pains in her head. But the queen remained as dull as a stone. One day, hearing a crash from her chamber, I entered to find her in a