Free Hamlet by John Marsden

companion?”
    You didn’t know him too well, Horatio thought.
    And Hamlet had an almost identical reaction: If that’s all they knew of me, they knew little indeed.
    “Gentlemen,” he said, “I lack prospects.”
    “But you will inherit one day! The king has always spoken of you as the one who will replace him. How can you say you lack prospects?”
    Hamlet shrugged. “Amid the growing grass, the horse can still starve.” He picked up a flute and handed it to Guildenstern. “Play this for me,” he said.
    “Highness,” said Guildenstern, putting his hands behind his back, “I cannot.”
    “Please?”
    “Sir, I can’t!”
    “I beg you.”
    “It is not possible, Your Highness, believe me. I don’t know how!”
    “Go on.”
    “I wouldn’t know where to start. I have never learned music.”
    “Oh, you’re making too much fuss. There’s nothing to it. It’s as easy as lying. Use your fingers and thumb to cover these holes — give it breath with your mouth, and it will make the most beautiful music. Look, here are the stops.”
    “But I can make no harmony. I don’t have the skill.”
    “Why, then, look at what you are doing to me. You would play upon me as though I am a flute, you think you know my stops, you would sound me from the lowest notes to the highest . . . yet here is this little flute, which contains much excellent music, and which you cannot make speak. By God, do you think I am easier to be played on than a pipe? Call me what instrument you will, try as you might to reach my heart, you cannot play upon me, sir!”
    Both Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were unable to respond. As they looked at each other in consternation, Polonius appeared silently behind them. He seemed to have shrunk in the space of an evening. Hamlet had always thought of him as old, but now he looked ninety. Huddled into his robes with just his dry, wrinkled little head protruding, he called to Hamlet. “Highness, the queen would like to speak to you, as soon as possible.”
    Hamlet stared at him. “Do you see the cloud through the window there?” he asked. “The one that looks like a camel?”
    Polonius made a pretense of looking through the window. Outside was black as a grave. “Indeed, it is like a camel,” he said.
    “Actually, I think it’s like a rabbit.”
    “Yes, now that you mention it, it does have the shape of a rabbit.”
    “Or a whale?” Hamlet asked.
    “Very like a whale.”
    “Then I will come to my mother in the next ten minutes.”
    “I will tell her, Your Royal Highness.”
    Polonius withdrew. Rosencrantz and Guildenstern took advantage of the moment to go with him. Hamlet nodded to Horatio, who gave a slight bow and followed the others.
    Hamlet was left alone, his mind still whirling with the excitement of the evening and the success of his plot. He felt that events were now about to accelerate toward a terrible climax. Gazing out the same window that Polonius had glanced at, he noticed the extreme darkness. The wind was still pulling at the building and rattling the shutters. It’s the witching time of night, he thought. When graves yawn open and hell itself exhales diseases and decay. Now is my opportunity. Now I could commit bitter acts, of a kind that daylight would fear to look upon. Now my sword can become a serpent. Now I could drink hot blood. But first, I will go to my mother.
    He drew a deep breath and straightened up.
    Oh heart, he told himself, do not lose your nature. Let me not be evil, think evil, or act from evil thoughts. I will say what I want to say to my mother, but I will do nothing violent toward her. With her, my tongue and my soul shall contradict each other. I will speak daggers to her but use none. However much I shame her with words, I shall do nothing shameful to her.
    He left the room.

There had been a day in their childhood when Ophelia saw the timidity of Hamlet. It was in April, the weakest month. He picked up Horatio and Ophelia one morning, when the two