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"Adieu, adieu... remember me..."
As the whisper faded, she sat up, brought to sudden wakefulness by the ghostly voice. The chamber was quiet, with no noise save the snores of her new husband, asleep with his mouth agape. It was a comforting sound. The rhythm of his breathing shifted as she lay back down and he rolled toward her, drawing her into his arms in sleep.
Slowly his renewed snores stilled the pounding of her heart and the memory of a fading voice. A dream, it was naught but a dream.
Freya, goddess of hearth and marriage, knew what she had suffered. She had married as duty and her father commanded, married the prince who became King Hamlet. The Danes saw him as a great war leader, luck-gifted and fearless. For the sake of his battles, they had forgiven even the way he allowed the priests of the Christos to batten onto the court and country, wooing folk from the old gods. Yet with each passing winter, a darkness that was more than lack of sun deepened in his soul, till she fled from him in terror through all the daylight ways of Elsinore. At night in the royal bedchamber, there had been no escape.
He was dead, now, dead and gone, and his brother held the throne of the Danes. Duty and the old ways had brought her to the new king’s bed four days since, and for the first time Gertrude discovered pleasure in her duty. But each of those four nights had brought dreams that were haunted.
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"Horatio! Be welcome to our court." Gertrude smiled at the young man who stood a step behind her son, but her thoughts were dark. Hamlet followed his father in all things; he was Christian and would have the court so. He did not need the encouragement of his Saxon friend nor did she welcome another pair of accusing eyes.
"He arrived but a day since, Mother, too late for his purpose, yet I hope he can remain with me a while. He came to see thy wedding. Or was it my father’s funeral? I confess, I scarce can tell them apart."
"Would you shame me thus before this foreigner?" She spoke in an undertone, past her rigid smile.
"I? Not for my soul, Mother, but it was not I who shamed thee with an incestuous match." Prince Hamlet glanced at his friend, whose smile was also carved like a statue in a church. "‘Tis no new tiding, lady, he knows thy shame, as does the whole of Denmark and the world beyond."
"My marriage bed is no shame but duty plain to Denmark. Your father’s death was a grief to all, yet do we serve him or his crown by looking ever to his grave?"
"Indeed, you do not look to it, nor have you since it was made, I think. Come, Horatio, I think I hear my uncle-father approaching, and I would sooner see the jakes or something equally fair. Madam, good day." He leaned forward and kissed her lightly on the cheek, then strode off. His friend stepped back a pace to let him past, then bowed formally to the Queen. There was a cold gleam in his pale eyes.
"Majesty." Horatio turned and followed Prince Hamlet.
The King found her there. He took her hand and pressed it to his lips, in a kiss that was more than formal greeting.
"What troubles thee, my Queen?"
"My son."
"He grieves still for his father. In time, custom shall lend ease to him about our union, Gertrude."
"Not while his foreign priests do tell him it is damn’d lust and incest," she said bitterly.
"It is but two months since his noble father died..."
"Noble!" She spat the word from her mouth, as though tasting the bitter poison of it. "Was it nobility when he did curse us both for that which was a lie? Was there honor in the death he gave himself? Good my lord, King Hamlet was thy brother and I would not stir thy grief, yet never were two brothers less akin. I cannot mourn that he is dead. No more than I would mourn our solemn vows before the gods."
"I mourn the brother he once was." Again the King raised her hand to his lips. "Yet even in my mourning is there joy. For thy son, alas, sorrow compasses all things still. Two scant months since my brother’s death, and but days since our joining. Be patient yet awhile with him."
"I am his mother; how can I be aught else?" She raised her hand to carress the King’s cheek. He captured it and dropped a kiss into the palm. Gertrude’s breath caught. So, years before, had her son’s father done.
They spoke no more. But the memory of her son’s words lingered with the Queen into her dreams that night.
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