"Remember me," said the ghost in armor.
Will could have sworn the ghost appeared after he woke. But of course it had been a dream, before the alarm on his bedtable went off. A good sign, really—the play was working its way into his unconscious.
He did not want to talk about Thomas Kyd that day in class, but there was no getting around him.
"The revenge tragedy was the blockbuster entertainment form of Shakespeare's day," he told the class. "Kind of like special effects films nowadays. The form was introduced in England by a playwright named Thomas Kyd, who worked a little before Shakespeare got off the ground. His play The Spanish Tragedy isn't that hot as a work of art, but it sold wagonloads of tickets, and pretty soon everybody wanted to do one. Elements in it even worked their way into Hamlet. Kyd may have also written the first version . . . the first stage dramatization of Hamlet.
"Why do you think revenge plays were so big for the Elizabethans? Any ideas?"
No response, as he'd expected.
"What was going on in Shakespeare's England? What was happening in his society?"
After a pause, Kimberly Olson said, "The Renaissance?"
"Yes, but that's not what I'm thinking of. What did Queen Elizabeth's father, Henry the Eighth, do?"
"He chopped off all his wives' heads," said Jason Nordquist.
"Two out of six wives," said Will. "Actually you're in the neighborhood. What was the big consequence of Henry VIII's first divorce?"
"The church thing?" said Kimberly Olson.
"The English Reformation, yes. Whatever your religious beliefs, it's impossible to underestimate the cultural impact of the Reformation. What were some differences between Medieval Catholic thinking and Protestant thinking?"
The students looked around at each other. They weren't used to discussion of religion in school, and it made them uncomfortable. It was much the same reaction a teacher would have gotten for mentioning sex a hundred years earlier.
"The Pope?" asked Kimberly Johnson.
"In a way. What did the Pope represent?"
No one said anything.
"I'm not trying to push my beliefs on you," said Will. "I'm not even going to tell you what my beliefs are, assuming I have some. But religion was a very important part of life in Shakespeare's day. It still is for a lot of people. If we're going to talk about ideas and the history of ideas, we have to consider religion."
"Did the Pope represent tradition?" asked Kimberly Engel.
"Yes. Or that's close, anyway. The English were new Protestants. They were enjoying a freedom of thought they'd never known before, and they were high on it. Instead of ideas coming down from headquarters, under the weight of tradition and authority, they had a new ideal—the plowboy with his Bible. The Protestants said that a plowboy with a Bible had as much authority as all the popes and councils that ever met. This was very heady stuff in that time and place. Did you know that the early Puritans were accused of being sex maniacs? It's true. They read the Bible and concluded from their reading that, contrary to what they'd been told, sex was a good gift of God, and ought to be enjoyed when it was used properly—which for them meant within marriage. Bishops had heart attacks when they heard that."
"What does this have to do with Hamlet?" asked Jason Weber.
"I was getting to that. What did I say yesterday about attitudes toward revenge in Shakespeare's time?"
Blank looks.
"All right, what I said was that Elizabethans made a moral exception for revenge. They were nominal Christians, but they set aside Christian teaching when it came to avenging the murder of a family member.
"That was an oversimplification. As I've been saying, England was a country in cultural revolution. The revenge rules were part of the tradition they'd inherited—not necessarily Catholic tradition, just cultural tradition. But the new ideas that the Protestants and Puritans were spreading led them to question these traditions. The Protestant teachers pointed to their Bibles and said, 'Show me where it says this in Scripture.' It was very confusing. Take revenge and the Protestants will call you a sinner. Don't take it and your friends will call you a coward.
"Look at the ghost of Hamlet's father. What does Hamlet think of the ghost? Why does he arrange his 'Mousetrap' play? Why not just take the ghost's word?
"Look at the end of Act 2, Scene 2:
'The spirit that I have seen
May be a devil, and the devil hath power
T'assume a pleasing shape, yea, and perhaps
Out of my weakness and my melancholy,
As he is very potent with such spirits,
Abuses me to damn me. I'll have grounds
More relative than this. . . . ' "
"That's ridiculous," said Kimberly Johnson. "Everybody knows Christians are the most violent people the world has ever seen. What about all those wars?"
"I asked a guy I know about that once—a Christian guy I act with in the theater. He said, 'Hey, think about it. What do people kill for? They kill for love. They kill for security. They kill for patriotism, or loyalty. Are those bad things because people kill for them?' The fact is, people kill for anything that's really important to them. The fact that they kill for a thing doesn't mean it's a bad thing, just that it's an important thing, at least to them. And I don't think you can make the case that the world has become less violent since large parts of it have stopped taking religion seriously.
"So, anyway, Hamlet may be superstitious by our standards, but by the standards of his own time he's a very rational, skeptical man. He doesn't accept anything on authority, not even the authority of his father's ghost. He's rethinking the whole world—he's a representative of an age that re-created the world—that invented modern science and universal education. Whether your family came from England or Norway or the Ivory Coast or Vietnam, if you're living here and now, Hamlet is your ancestor."
When class was done he couldn't stand it anymore. He'd planned to make the call after work, but he stopped Sharon the guidance counselor in the hall and asked if he could use her office for a private call. "It's long distance, but I'll use my credit card," he promised.
Sharon said that was fine, and he went into her office and closed the door. He dug a card and a slip of paper out of his wallet and dialed a number in Minneapolis—the office of Arundel Perry, his faculty advisor from his student days at the U.
He didn't really expect to reach Del on the first try—he had no idea what his schedule was these days. But it was Del himself who answered, not even a student assistant.
"Perry," said a smoke-scarred voice.
"Del? It's Will Sverdrup."
"Will. How the hell are you? You in town?"
"No. I'm calling from Epsom."
"Epsom?"
"Where I teach now."
"Oh, yeah. I heard you were someplace out in the sticks. How's it going?"
"Good. I'm playing Hamlet in our local theater."
Del congratulated him and made some vague promises to see if he could come down for the show (fat chance).
"Look. Somebody's asked me about a situation, and I said I'd talk to you." Will couldn't bring himself to connect himself directly to the Kyd volume. He was afraid it would commit him before he'd worked out a strategy.
"This person—who doesn't want his name brought into it yet—he thinks he's found a copy of Kyd's Hamlet."
Silence at the other end. Will could imagine Del taking a long pull on a cigarette, though smoking was surely forbidden in faculty offices.
At last Del asked, "Have you seen it?"
"Yes."
"Bound?"
"Yes. The Spanish Tragedy is also in there, along with some sonnets."
Del said something Will didn't catch. Then he said, "What's it look like?"
"You mean, how does it read?"
"Yeah."
"That's the shocker. It's almost word for word the same as the Good Quarto text. It can't be right. It must be some mistake—some misattribution by a publisher."
"Hmm. Maybe, maybe not. I want to see that book."
"What do you mean, maybe, maybe not?"
"You can't be that far out of the loop, even in Morton, Will."
"Epsom."
"Whatever. We're reevaluating Shakespeare. He's not the shibboleth he used to be. T.S. Eliot had the nerve to say it, a long time ago—Hamlet's a mess. We've built this mythology around a play that's too long, too unwieldy, too self-contradictory. We keep looking for a central theme—a solution to a mystery. The fact is, there is no theme, no mystery. It's just a bad play. It's time somebody came out and said the emperor has no clothes."
Will couldn't speak for a moment.
"If we can prove Hamlet is just a bad play by Kyd," Del went on, "misattributed to Shakespeare, or even stolen by him to meet a deadline, maybe it'll help dethrone this whole Shakespeare religion."
Will almost croaked, "I can't believe I'm hearing this from you. You used to hate the revisionists."
"Things have changed around here since you graduated. We're dismantling the pedestals. The world has all kinds of great literature, and it wasn't all written by dead white males. We've got to knock some chairs away from the table so there'll be room for new voices."
"So you're knocking Shakespeare's chair away?"
"Forget that metaphor. Say we're taking away his tenure, making him fight for his job like everybody else."
"I don't think—I don't think the person who found the book will be eager to produce it if he thinks it'll be used to take away Shakespeare's tenure."
"He has an obligation to scholarship."
"I think—I think he—or she—will interpret what you're saying as more politics than scholarship."
"Then don't tell him—her—whatever—that. Tell them anything, but I've got to see it. If it's money they're worried about, there are foundations who'll pay big bucks— I mean six, seven figures—to acquire it."
"I'll . . . I'll see what I can do."
"You stay in touch. If I don't hear from you, you'll hear from me."
"Yeah. Thanks." Will said goodbye.
Blast. Del had blindsided him. He hadn't expected this conversion to political correctness. Del was a good scholar, but he wasn't discreet. Will had counted on his devotion to Shakespeare to keep him quiet. So much for that.
A woman was leaning against the driver's door of his Jeep in the parking lot when he left the building that afternoon.
Will cursed under his breath. It was Ginnie. He'd have liked to turn and walk back the other way, but that would have looked cowardly.
"Hello, stranger," she said. She was taller than she looked, her roundish face belying her long legs. Curly golden red hair, dimples, wonderful blue eyes. The kind of girl you'd be happy to fly off to Club Med with or take home to mother, if you had a mother. She wore jeans and a hooded jacket, the hood thrown back.
Will stood facing her, his briefcase in his hand, breathing white steam.
"You haven't returned my calls," she said, giving him a sad smile without the dimples engaged.
"There's nothing to say," he answered.
"I have things to say."
"I don't. I could sit someplace and listen to you, but it wouldn't change anything."
"You're saying you don't care at all? Our time together hasn't meant anything to you?"
"It meant something. But it didn't mean what you wanted it to. I can't be what you want me to be, Ginnie. I don't have what you want."
"Maybe you don't know yourself as well as you think you do."
"You're wrong about me. You think you can change me, make me into somebody you've imagined. Look, the right guy's out there for you, and you deserve him. Go find him. Don't waste time on me."
She looked at her feet a moment, bending a little at the waist. Standing straight she said, "You're a damn fool, Will Sverdrup. I'm a helluva fine girl, and I could have made you very, very happy. But you'll never know. Someday you'll be old and alone, and you'll think back on this day and you'll want to swallow Drano."
"Ginnie, you're probably right. I'm sorry."
She walked off, tall and graceful, oscillating her elegant bottom.
I must be terrified of commitment, thought Will. Otherwise I've got to be crazy. He imagined a world where he was a different kind of man; where he could give and receive the way this woman needed him to give and receive.
Will was one of the actors to arrive early for blocking that night. He usually was. He'd always loved just being in a theater, watching all the sundry activities that synergized to bring a production to term. On top of that, he hadn't the responsibilities of family and overtime that many others had. Bess was there already, as usual. She was onstage talking to Pat and to the middle-aged lady who painted the flats.
Peter Nilsson was also there, and Will went and sat by him in the audience seats.
"Got your part memorized already?" asked Peter with a smile.
"Not quite. Fortunately I've been teaching Hamlet for years, so a lot of it's already in my head. But it's still a challenge."
"I envy you your memory, kid. You make me wonder what I'm doing here."
"You underestimate yourself. You're on my short list of people I'm always glad to work with.
" 'Thou hast been
As one in suff'ring all that suffers nothing,
A man that Fortune's buffets and rewards
Hast ta'en with equal thanks; and blest are those
Whose blood and judgment are so well commeddled
That they are not a pipe for Fortune's finger
To sound what stop she pleases.' "
"Thanks, but you just made another generous contribution to my inferiority fund."
"You'll be fine."
Peter shook his head. "I don't know why I keep doing this. Well, I do know. I love being on stage. I'm a ham. But the lines! I get them all down word-perfect, backwards and forwards, and then I start to put on my makeup and I get the jitters, and they fly out of my head."
"It's just nerves."
"My nerves are enough. I shouldn't put you other actors through it. You never know what'll come out of my mouth."
"It's not that bad. You're not really worse than anybody else. We all drop a line from time to time."
"No, it's worse with me."
"Really, it isn't. Relax, Peter."
"As you say, O Prince. Did I ever tell you I planned to teach English myself when I was in college?"
"No, really? What happened?"
"My sister got seduced by Lord Byron."
Will thought a moment. "You're older than you look," he said.
Peter smiled. "It was a sort of an intellectual seduction. Carrie was a nice kid—very straightlaced, very proper. Really pretty. But when I was in college and she was in high school, she discovered the Romantic poets. I'm afraid it was partly my fault. I was heavily into Byron and Shelley. Anyway, she ran away from home. She left a note with a quotation from Byron:
'Tis vain to struggle—let me perish young—
Live as I lived, and love as I have loved;
To dust if I return, from dust I sprung,
And then, at least, my heart can ne'er be moved.
"This was the '70s. Everybody was doing it. There was never a sexual open season on young girls like they had then. 'If it feels good do it—it ain't hurtin' nobody.'
"Carrie got hurt though. She came home on a bus one day in 1976. We hadn't heard from her for years. She'd had syphilis and gonorrhea, and an abortion—a legal one—had left her sterile. She weighed ninety-six pounds and she was hooked on heroin.
"I always felt responsible for her running away. I'd heard from her now and then the first few months after she ran off. I knew what she was doing. It didn't seem so romantic when it was my little sister. She died of kidney failure in '78.
"The more I thought about those bastards—guys like Byron and Shelley and Robert Burns—the angrier I got. Here were jerks who treated women like Kleenex, and everybody talks about them like they were heroes. Even the Feminists don't criticize them. They were political radicals, so they have to be saints—who cares who got hurt? You know what happened to girls who got pregnant out of wedlock in those days? You can gas all day long about how society's hypocrisy was at fault, but that doesn't help the girls those predators ruined.
"So I changed my major from English to Business. Nobody studied Business in the '70s. I had my choice of jobs when I graduated. How I crashed and burned in that arena is another story."
They heard someone coming in and turned around to see Howie Smedhammer entering, followed by his hulking, black-garbed son.
"Ever wonder if the real Hamlet was like Eric? Just a big punk in a black T-shirt?" asked Peter.
"I wonder what he's doing here," said Will. "I know he's not much interested in the play."
Father and son stopped to greet them. "Eric's going to be helping with the tech crew," said Howie.
"Really?" asked Will. "You're gonna be a techie? I didn't think this sort of thing interested you, Eric."
"Techiesurcool," Eric mumbled back.
"You think so?"
"Sure. They wear black."
"I guess that makes me cool, too. Hamlet wears black."
Eric responded with the kind of smile he'd have given a stupid sibling, when he wasn't at liberty to hit him.
"Come up on stage," said Howie to his son. "I want to show you the trapdoor."
"Arrogant and sullen," said Peter as they watched them climb the stage steps. "But on the plus side he's condescending and offensive."
"He's been through a lot," said Will.
"Yes, that's what everybody says about Eric. 'He's been through a lot.' The whole town's become his enabler. We're not doing him a favor."
Various cast members entered as they talked. Will noticed with interest that Rosemary and Randy came in separately. He wondered if Randy had dumped her already.
Bess called them up onstage and they began working through Act I, playbooks in hand, making penciled notations in the margins about where they should walk so they wouldn't bump into one another or the scenery.
This production would open with Act I, Scene ii, beginning with King Claudius' speech. Sean showed up precisely in time for it. As they walked through the scene, Sean constantly edged toward the rear of the stage, forcing the other actors (Randy as Laertes, Peter as Polonius, Diane as the Queen, and Will, along with the two bit players who played Cornelius and Voltemand) to turn away from the audience to address him.
"Stop upstaging everybody, Sean," said Bess. "Move it down, move it down."
"Was I upstaging? I do beg your pardons. I only thought the secrecy and cunning of the character called for me to seek out hidden, shadowed places—"
"You're a king," said Bess. "You stand in the center of everything and enjoy the attention. You know how to do that, Sean, I'm sure. Three steps forward, please."
Then followed the scene with Hamlet, Horatio (Howie) and Marcellus (Alan Johnson), and the "To thine own self be true" scene with Rosemary as Ophelia, along with Polonius and Laertes. That ended Act I, enough for the first night's blocking.
They ran through everything once more and broke up at about 9:30. Bess said, "Will, Randy'll be choreographing your duel. Have you got time to run a few passes with him?"
Will said, "Sure," and he and Randy went down to the basement together. Randy carried a long, leather-covered box under his arm. He opened it on a table, revealing a pair of beautiful cup-guard rapiers with grips that looked like ivory.
"Wow," said Will. "These aren't genuine, are they?"
"They're genuine swords," said Randy. "They're not genuine antiques. Don't worry. It's synthetic ivory and the points are tipped." He took one out of its formed nest and gave it a couple of the swishes no man, it seems, can resist.
Will took the other and assumed the en garde position.
"You've fenced before," said Randy.
"Just stage fencing, and not much of that. A couple classes in college."
Randy took his stance and they traded a few thrusts and parries. Randy got past Will's guard with one of his thrusts, landing a jab in his left pectoral muscle. Without padding, it hurt.
Will felt a sudden rush of adrenaline. His mind knew it was crazy, but his body went into defense mode. It believed it was being attacked, and it rather liked the feeling.
They traded a few more parries. Will's ego blossomed, convincing him he was defending himself with great skill.
Randy burst his bubble by scoring two touches in a row. They both stepped back. Will was panting. " 'A touch, a touch, I do confess't,' " he said.
Randy smiled. "Ever see Erroll Flynn's Robin Hood? That duel between Flynn and Basil Rathbone? Rathbone carried him all the way. He was a world-class fencer. Flynn was too busy getting starlets drunk to put in time with a foil or a saber." He took his stance and attacked again. Steadily, relentlessly, he pushed Will back and back, toward the kitchen end. Will's confidence drained out through his armpits. He was on the defensive, and worse, he was certain Randy was holding back.
"I could kill you with a sword," said Randy. His dark eyes glowed, his face was flushed. Will thanked God for the buttons on the tips, but wondered what he would do when his back hit the wall.
For just a moment the lighted basement seemed very dark, a place of stone walls lit by flickering torches. Will thought he saw Randy coming at him with an untipped sword. They both wore doublets and hose.
"Swords! Ah, how I love the sword!" said a voice from the stairway. Randy turned to face it and once again he was dressed in his customary oxford shirt and jeans, in the old church basement. The duel ended. The voice was Sean O'Reardon's. He stood on the first step, leaning on the handrail. "Did I ever tell you about the time I almost fenced with Sir Laurence? Larry, we used to call him . . ."
Randy swung back and, with a swift lunge, disarmed Will and sent his rapier spinning toward the ceiling. He reached with his left hand and snatched the weapon, and in a few moments had both swords cased and was gone up the stairs.
"Arrogant son-of-a-bitch," said Sean. "I never could abide a prima donna."
Will didn't say anything, but sat in a folding chair, trembling. Sean looked at him a moment and decided, apparently, that there was nothing more to interest him here. He headed for the men's room, his original goal.
Will climbed the stairs and made for the seating area, where he'd left his jacket.
Bess and Rosemary were working through some blocking on the stage. He stopped and watched them a moment. Rosemary moved very well. She had grace. He enjoyed watching her. He wondered if she'd broken up with Randy, and how he could find out. But the thought of Randy made him nervous, and he knew he wouldn't do anything about it tonight.
He went out to his car for the duffel bag he'd brought. Back inside he caught Bess as she was packing her notes into a portfolio.
"Can I show you something?" he asked her. "I've got this thing I need to talk about, and you're the best one I can think of."
Bess said, "Thanks, I think," and they went to her office in the basement. Will took the Kyd volume out of his bag and undid the newspaper he'd wrapped it in. He laid it on her desk, open to the title page.
"Hell's garters," said Bess. "Is this what I think it is?"
"You tell me."
They examined the book carefully. Finally Will wrapped it up and packed it again, and suggested they get a cup of coffee. Bess agreed and they left their cars at the theater and walked two blocks to the Home Maid Café. Will carried the bag.
"Jesus," said Bess as they walked. "Have you talked to anybody in the scholastic community? You went to the U, didn't you? Isn't there somebody up there you know?"
"Yeah, I did. I called my old advisor. He's a Shakespearean scholar. But he's changed his politics. Turns out he's anti-Shakespeare now, and he wants the book for career purposes. He wants to prove he has no reverence for dead white males."
"God damn all political correctness. Except for gay rights, of course."
"Of course." They reached the café and went inside to sit in a corner booth, away from the few other customers.
"So what do you think?" she asked. "You think Kyd wrote Hamlet?"
"Absolutely not. A, Kyd wasn't that good. B, I can't imagine Shakespeare trying to pass off a known work of somebody else's—especially a hack like Kyd's—as his own. Artists have too much ego for that. Real geniuses may do all kinds of godawful things, but they have too much contempt for other artists to steal their work.
"No, the way I figure it, somebody printed up a volume of Kyd and threw Hamlet in out of ignorance or stupidity or sheer bloody-mindedness. It's got to be something like that."
"Makes sense to me," said Bess. The waitress came and she ordered tea. Will ordered coffee.
"I know a few people at the U myself," said Bess when the waitress was gone. "I'll make some calls, see if I can find you somebody without an axe to grind."
"Thanks." It felt good to share the burden. Will asked, "How are things with Minn?"
Bess shook her head. "It's over, Will. She's gone. I came home from work yesterday and she'd moved all her stuff out."
"I'm sorry."
"Thanks. Damn it, Will, I thought this was it. I thought she was the one. We'd even talked about having a baby. We discussed who we'd get for a donor. Your name came up, by the way. Would you have been willing to do it?"
Will had to smile. "I'm flattered, I think. It isn't something I'd ever considered. But I guess—no, I'd have had to say no."
"Why?" They'd moved into dangerous territory, and Will could read the defensiveness behind the question.
"Not for moral reasons. Not the kind you're thinking of, anyway. I guess—I know there are guys all over the place who've fathered children they never give a thought to. I know they do it. But I don't know how. If I had a kid, I'd need to be part of his life."
"You're a good guy, Will Sverdrup. A little square, but good. Don't mind me. How's your own love life? Who you seeing now—that redhead? What's her name—Ginnie?"
"It's over. No future."
"For a square, you don't stick very long. That was one cute girl. You don't suppose she swings both ways, do you?"
"Not to my knowledge, no."
The hot drinks came and they went back to the original subject.
"How do you think the book ended up in your attic?" Bess asked.
"Aye, there's the rub."
"Hmm?"
"It looks suspicious, doesn't it? Here I am, a teacher of English Literature and a Shakespeare fan—I'm teaching Hamlet in one of my classes and I'm playing Hamlet. And just now I happen to discover the lost Ur-Hamlet. How many mystery movies have you seen where the cop says, 'I don't like coincidences'? Well I don't like them either. That's one of the things that makes me cautious. I keep wondering, who do I know who'd want to go to all the trouble to forge the manuscript, break into my house and plant it? It's not impossible, but it's a lot of inconvenience when you could just scratch my car hood with a key."
"Probably one of your old girlfriends."
"There's only one person I can think of who'd have a motive for mounting a hoax like this."
"Who?"
"Me. I didn't do it, but it's me I'd suspect if I heard about it. If this is a fraud, somebody has gone to a lot of trouble and expense to wreck an already lackluster academic career."
Bess stirred her tea. "Probably the Masons," she said with a smile.
"More like the Illuminati."
"Or the Elders of Zion."
"The Liberal Media."
They played the name game for a while, and Will felt better.
He drove home, garaged the Jeep and went to the house.
The door was open, "heating the whole county," as his mother used to say. Inside, Abelard sat crouched in a corner, his teeth bared, shivering.
Every cupboard was open. Every drawer had been pulled out and dumped on the floor. The TV, the stereo and the computer had been knocked off their stands. His filing drawers hung open and all his books had been swept from their shelves.
Eric Smedhammer sat at his computer. He was composing an e-mail, to be sent to a long list of addresses he'd collected from web boards.
Dear Friend (it went):
My name is Megan, and I am 12 years old. I am writing to you because I got your address as someone who has a compassionate Christian heart.
I am writing for my mother, who has a rare form of cancer that attacks the hands and feet. The doctors say that unless she gets a very expensive kind of surgery, her hands and feet will have to be amputated.
I don't want my mommy to lose her hands and feet. I want to be able to hold her hand and take walks. I want her to be able to comb my hair and cook me breakfast and teach me how to sew and work in the garden.
Mr. Van Houghton at Butterfield Industries says that if I get 10,000 people to read this e-mail and pass it on to their friends, he'll pay for my mommy's surgery. Please, please, please, forward this message to everybody you know. Mr. Van Houghton's company has tracking software that tells them how many people read this e-mail.
I don't want my mommy to lose her hands and feet. Please, if you consider yourself a Christian and have any love in your heart, forward this message to as many people as you can. I promise I will pray for you. Father McCarthy says God will never forgive anyone who turns his back on us.
Thank you.
Megan Underhill
Pretty good, Eric thought.
He could hear his father coming up the stairs. He'd gone into the den to exercise his grief after rehearsal, while Eric had gone up to his room. His father had missed one of the stages in the grief process, and his counselor had assigned him to work on his Bargaining.
His father knocked at the door. Eric sighed, turned off his monitor and said, "Yeahcummin."
"Hey, tough guy," his dad said.
"Hey."
"You know what happened to the Flattenbagger?"
"Flattenbagger?"
"Yeah, you know that machine I ordered from the TV. The one where you put stuff in the plastic bags and the vacuum cleaner sucks all the air out. So you can fit more in storage."
"Yeahaymember. I thinkismaybe in the spare room closet."
"I was sure I left it in the garage."
"No, I thinkis i'thuhspareroom."
"Okay, I'll check. Don't stay up too late."
"Mm."
"Well, goodnight."
"Mm." The door closed.
"Dork," said Eric.
Feng shouted, "Everyone out!" The warriors and the thralls beat dust up from the rushes on the floor as they hurried out, leaving the prisoner and his uncle alone in the shadowed, raftered hall. The hall had a raised benche along each wall and a long-fire in a hearthway that ran down the middle. Along the walls hung tapestries, with shields and armor—trophies of war.
Feng took no great risk being alone with Amlodd. The young man was naked under a wadmal cloak, his hands bound with a belt, his wrists and bloody fingers swollen. He stood with his mouth open, drooling, making no attempt to cover himself where the cloak hung open in front.
Feng planted himself in front of his nephew. He drew his belt knife, just in case. As they stood, clothed and near naked, anyone could tell they were of one blood. Amlodd could have been Feng himself, twenty years since. Both had red-gold hair and beards, and gray eyes. Both were only middling tall, but wide in the shoulders, with chests so massive as to look unhealthful, like goiters.
They stared one another in the face for many heartbeats. Feng sought to force a way into Amlodd's mind with his gaze, as a man might lever a woman's legs open with a knee. But Amlodd kept his mind's maidenhead.
The look in Feng's eyes changed then. His brows lifted as if in sorrow. "Do not make me slay you," he whispered.
Amlodd thought, You come late with that bidding, but let no muscle of his face betray him. It was hard work, this lassitude.
"I ever loved you," said Feng. "Do you know why I loved you? 'Twas because you were so like your father."
Amlodd felt himself lose control then. He rolled his eyes and fell to the floor, rocking himself in the rushes and dirt and cast-off bones. He made animal noises to keep his grip on the secret he clutched in his mind.
"Odin's eye! It drives me mad myself to see you thus, so like your father you are!" cried Feng. "You'll not credit it—you're too young to understand. But I loved your father. He was a god to me."
Amlodd threw himself into a fit then, roaring gibberish and arching his back so that he stood on his heels and the back of his head. It took almost no art—it seemed the fitting thing to do.
Feng leaned against a pillar, like a man wearied in a fight. "You are young. You cannot understand how anyone could kill one they loved—kill them because they love them."
"I love you," said Amlodd from the floor, his eyes wide and sweet.
"I warrant you do," said Feng. "And I'll wager you'd like to prove it as I did with your father.
"Are you truly mad? Have the gods given me this gift, that you are mad, so that I need not put you out of the world? That would be a blessing—a mercy I'd not hoped for. To kill a madman would be shameful, and a sacrilege to Odin.
"Yet how can I know? Even if you are mad in truth, suppose you should regain your wits? Would I sense it soon enough to ward myself?"
He walked down the hearthway between the earthen benches into the entry room. On his left was the door. He opened it and shouted for Guttorm, his marshal.
When the tall warrior appeared, Feng told him, "Take Amlodd now, and keep him under guard in one of the old storehouses. When night comes, take him to the river and drown him there. We'll say he got loose and made away with himself."
Amlodd, on the floor in the hall, heard the words. "Raven," he whispered, "Bird of Odin—give me counsel. Help me to save my life, that I may get my vengeance and make you the feast I promised."
Odin answered him with a vision. He saw in his mind's eye the raven he'd met in the fen.
"This will not serve," said the bird. "You lack the art to feign madness. But you are lucky. I know where to get a feigning mind. If you would live and avenge your father, go now where I send you!"
He saw a door before him in his mind—a rare door of wonderful workmanship—elegant wood gleaming bright as steel, of a strangely spare pattern, with an odd latch like a ball of brass. In his mind he put his hand on that latch and pulled the door open.
The words came out from his mouth without lighting in his mind—words in a tongue no man could understand—and those who came to carry him away stood gaping in wonder.
"Oh what a rogue and peasant slave
am I!
Is it not monstrous that this player here,
But in a fiction, in a dream of passion,
Could force his soul so to his own
conceit
That from her working all his visage wanned,
Tears in his eyes, distraction in his
aspect,
A broken voice, and his own function suiting
With forms to his conceit? And all for nothing,
For Hecuba!
What's Hecuba to him, or he to Hecuba,
That he should weep for her? What would he do
Had he the motive and the cue for
passion
That I have? He would drown the stage with tears
And cleave the general ear with horrid speech,
Make mad the guilty and appall the free,
Confound the ignorant, and amaze
indeed
The very faculties of eyes and ears. . . . ?"
This was madness indeed—there could be no doubt of it. Amlodd was touched by the gods, like a devoted beast. None dared molest him.