None of the Companions were with him at supper, and Hamlet realized that Father was punishing him. Even though Hamlet hadn’t asked to go anywhere, Father had apparently disapproved of his going, and so he would be barred from saying good-bye to his friends.

  Then, after supper, he walked on the battlements of the castle to take his last look at the lingering sunset of early summer. The sun spread its pink light along a row of clouds on the western horizon, over the low hills of Zealand. On the eastern side, darkness gathered on the Swedish side of the Oresund, as if night had to work up a great deal more strength before it could leap the straits and land in Denmark.

  Someone was walking on the battlements. But staying in the shadows.

  For one moment Hamlet felt a thrill of fear as he thought: This is how an assassin might come.

  But in a moment his stealthy visitor came out into the open, and it was Laertes, not a murderer. Hamlet had to laugh at his own fear. “I thought for a moment you were someone who had come to kill me,” he said. “The way you stayed in the shadows.” As if anyone would find Hamlet worth killing.

  “I hid because your father forbade any of the Companions to speak with you.”

  “Of course he did,” said Hamlet. “For fear you’d make me feel as though I might be missed.”

  “You will be,” said Laertes. “More than you know.”

  “Father’s taking you into his own service. Men now, not Companions to a boy prince.”

  “It’s an honor I did not want.”

  “Nor did I want to be a prince and get sent off to Heidelberg,” said Hamlet. “Sometimes we just have to be patient with inconvenient honors.”

  Hamlet’s tone had been jesting, but the darkness that came upon Laertes’s face was almost painful.

  “What is it?”

  “Hamlet, I beg you, before you go, ask your father to send me away. To France. My mother’s brother is there, lord of a small holding on the border between Normandy and the Ile-de-France. Father will never ask—he’s too much the courtier. But if you ask—”

  “Laertes, when did you ever see my father listen to me and do something that I asked him?”

  Laertes turned away, his face a mask of despair. “I know,” he said.

  “Besides,” said Hamlet, “how can you go, when your sister Ophelia is beginning to need the protection of a good sword?”

  “Ophelia’s in no danger from any man in Elsinore,” said Laertes.

  “If you want a favor from my father, perhaps you ought to enlist the help of the person who was able to persuade him to send me away.”

  “And who was that?”

  “The Queen my mother,” said Hamlet.

  “Queen Gertrude doesn’t even know my name,” said Laertes.

  “Then let’s go to her, and I’ll introduce you.”

  It took some persuasion, but Laertes was so desperate to leave Elsinore that at last he trailed along behind Hamlet through the halls of the castle. Finally they came to the Queen’s chambers, which were on the south side of the castle, overlooking the practice grounds. How often, wondered Hamlet, has she watched from here as I bested every opponent with my sword? If she ever did, he had not heard of it.

  But Mother, at least, knew he was alive. She had taught him much, and thought enough of him to think he might benefit from more education. She cared enough to persuade Father of it. That was more than the nothing he got from Father.

  Hamlet knelt before her and she took his hands in hers, then glanced up at Laertes, who waited just inside the door of her rooms.

  “Father isn’t coming here, is he?” asked Hamlet.

  “Small chance of that,” said Mother cheerfully. “Why have you brought me Polonius’s boy?”

  “To ask your help for him,” said Hamlet. “He wants to go live with a cousin in France, but his father won’t plead for him to be released from the King’s service in order to do it.”

  “The King’s service?” asked Mother.

  So she hadn’t known that his Companions were being taken directly into the King’s own guard. And when he explained it, she frowned and reached out a hand to Laertes. “One would have thought,” she said to the boy, “that you served him well enough already.”

  She stood, and saw that Laertes was already as tall as she was, and laughed. “Well, it seems you’re determined to be taller than your father.”

  “I should be,” said Laertes. “My mother was.”

  “I think that if you bide only a little while, my dear husband will have no further use of you.”

  Laertes looked away. “If I live so long.”

  “Live,” said Mother. “I command it.”

  “Then I’ll obey,” said Laertes, but it didn’t sound like playful banter; he sounded sad.

  “I’ll speak to the King about releasing all the Companions. I think that all your fathers would be glad to have you back, since you are no longer with the Prince. You are all the sons of barons, and can’t be commanded like the sons of commoners.”

  Laertes gave one short bark of a laugh.

  “Your service,” said Mother, “is not the King’s to take, but rather your father’s to offer.”

  “Do you doubt that my father would offer me?” said Laertes.

  “I doubt he would offer you willingly,” said Mother. “But no, I do not doubt that he’d give you over to the King’s service. So I will frame it to my dear husband in such a way as to keep him from holding on to you just because your father dares not stand up to him. But when it happens, then get yourself to France as quickly as you can, and stay out of sight, because my dear husband will be in a snappish mood for some months to come, if I know him at all.”

  “I thank you with all my heart, my lady Queen,” said Laertes. “Know that I am forever in your service, if you ever have need of me.”

  “I take that pledge of honor most seriously, Laertes,” said the Queen. “Now leave me with my son. I will say good-bye to him, as my dear husband knew perfectly well I would do, even though he commanded me not to and I promised faithfully to obey him.”

  Hamlet had no idea what it meant, for her to claim on the one hand that Laertes’s word of honor was worthy of respect, and on the other hand that she had given her own oath to Father with the full intent of breaking it. Women were not to be understood; it was as simple as that.

  As soon as Laertes had slipped out and closed the door, Mother rose to her feet and embraced Hamlet. “You’re a better son than your father and I had any right to hope for,” she said.

  “It’s a well-kept secret from my father.”

  “You do not know what you do not know,” said Mother. “Your father has loved you better than you think.”

  Then she turned away and said, “Come out and bid your nephew Godspeed.”

  To Hamlet’s surprise, Uncle Claudius emerged from behind a tapestry. “Your uncle and I were conferring about a matter of some estates in Holstein,” Mother explained. “But since my dear husband has forbidden him to take an interest in the royal lands, I can only get his advice by stealth. When you knocked on the door, I commanded him to hide.”

  Claudius stepped forward and held out his hand. “I’m sorry you’ll be leaving us,” he said. “I’ve taken much pleasure in watching you play with your opponents on the practice field.”

  So someone, at least, had been watching. “Thank you, my lord,” said Hamlet.

  “He called me ‘my lord,’ ” said Claudius to Mother with a smile. “Even though he’s one of the three in this land who don’t owe me any honorifics. You’ve raised him to be gracious.”

  “No one raised him,” said Mother. “He is what he is because of the nature God gave him, and nothing he got from parents or teachers.”

  “I learned everything from you, Mother,” said Hamlet, “except war.”

  “Ah,” she said. “But war is the all in all, isn’t it? That’s what separates princes from other folks—the power to lead great numbers of men out to kill people, without fear of reprisals from God.”

  “No man is above the judgment of God,” said Hamlet. “Not even Kings—you taught me so yourself.”

  “You have me confused with the archbishop,” said Mother. “I don’t teach anybody about God. He and I are little acquainted of late, and I wouldn’t presume to speak for him.”

  “Whom are you little acquainted with?” asked Claudius. “You are unclear. The archbishop or his master?”

  “I referred to neither,” said Mother, smiling. “I spoke of God.”

  Claudius laughed lightly and moved away toward the window.

  So Mother thought the archbishop’s “master” was not God. Then who did she think owned the man? Father? Or the devil?

  “There’s so much you never taught me,” said Hamlet.

  “Or me, for that matter,” said Claudius confidingly, as if he and Hamlet were brothers in an old conspiracy. “Ever since your father became King, the only teacher I’ve had is your mother. But she holds back the juiciest bits of information for herself. She’s afraid we’ll become too powerful, if we know what she knows.”

  “I don’t even know what I know,” said Mother. “I don’t dare ask myself a single question for fear I’ll tell me an answer that I can’t afford to hear.”

  Claudius laughed again, but Hamlet didn’t understand the jest, if it was a jest.

  “God be with you, Mother,” said Hamlet. “I’ll try to make you proud of me by all I do in Heidelberg.”

  “I’m glad of that,” said Mother. “I’ll be waiting for you when you come back. I’m proud of you. I’m proud of the man I see you ready to become.”

  “And the King,” said Claudius.

  “What about him?” asked Mother.

  “The King that your son is nearly ready to become,” said Claudius. “I spoke of that.”

  “My father your brother is still a young man,” said Hamlet. “It will be a long while before Denmark needs another King.”

  Claudius seemed about to say something else, a bitter remark that twisted his mouth a little; but Mother held up her hand and he did not say it. But Hamlet knew what would have been said—that Denmark needs another King right now, but isn’t likely to get one. It bothered him that Claudius and Mother seemed to speak freely between themselves about Father’s shortcomings as King. There was much to be said on that score, of course, but it was unseemly for the King’s wife and brother to scorn him, even privately.

  Hamlet put it out of his mind. Claudius and Mother had both praised him, and Hamlet held his uncle in such high esteem that he knew that his respect should be enough.

  But it wasn’t.

  He bade them good-bye and returned to his chamber, where his clothing for the next day’s journey was already laid out, and all his other clothing packed away in trunks and bags that littered the floor of the room. He expected to lie awake, dreaming or fretting about Heidelberg, or mourning for the childhood that had just ended so abruptly. But he fell asleep instead, and if he dreamed, he remembered nothing of it in the morning. By noon he was aboard a ship, with the oarsmen pulling strongly into the currents of the strait, heading northward to round the coasts of Jutland and bring him, eventually, up the Rhine to the Neckar, where Heidelberg awaited him.

  What is there to say of Heidelberg? It was the happiest time of Hamlet’s life. Though at first he was homesick—how could he help but be, so far from the sea, so far from the friends he had known from childhood on, so far from his mother? But he soon found new friends, and of a different sort than he had ever known before.

  There were few lordlings in Heidelberg, save of course the local dignitaries. He paid his visits and gave them their due, but made it clear he was at Heidelberg to be an honest student, and would have little time for hunting or dancing or the other pastimes of the nobility.

  And he made good on his word. He found himself far behind many others in Latin and Greek, for his fellow students were no hand-picked firstborn sons of nobles; they were the second, third, and later sons of barons and knights, who had no prospects of inheriting their family lands and therefore had nowhere to turn but to the church; as well as the promising children of tradesmen looking to raise their families’ stations through a lofty church appointment.

  There were few who had any interest in swordplay or other games of war; they pounded their heads against their books and conversed continually in Latin, arguing theology from Augustine and Aquinas, as well as philosophy from the Greeks, while reciting poetry from Homer to Virgil, with many a stop at Ovid and other racier poets along the way.

  At first, feeling uncomfortably ill-prepared, Hamlet made a show of carrying his sword with him wherever he went, and he managed to take offense in several of the pubs frequented by students. But he so quickly disarmed his few opponents that there was no sport in it; nor was anyone impressed, at least not among the students of the sort he wanted to befriend. Within a few months, he hung the sword on a peg on the wall of his rooms and carried books like everyone else.

  He soon found that the road to acquaintanceship was to spend his money, not on fine foods, but on precious books. He found out from the best professors what books they most coveted, and then endowed the appropriate monasteries with funds enough to procure copies at the earliest date. It took a few months for the first of these books to arrive, but when they did, he made a point of forbidding the professors to tell how they had obtained them. As he well knew, this absolutely guaranteed that his generosity would be celebrated throughout the university, along with a reputation for modesty.

  Meanwhile, he paid poorer students to tutor him and practiced his Latin as once he had practiced with the sword. Soon enough, though he never lost his Danish accent, he was fluent enough not only to be understood when he spoke and to make sense of most of what he read, but also to be able to overhear others’ conversations, without knowing the topic, and understand them. He was, in a word, fluent, and it felt to him as if the whole world had opened its gates to him. He made friends, not only with young men of the armiger class, but also with the sons of tradespeople, a sort of person he would never have known in Denmark, except to order their obedience. And by the second year he found that some of his best friends were men long dead, whose books spoke to his heart with such brilliance and power that he revered them more than any living men he had ever known.

  For four years he studied, and if he had not been the heir to the throne of Denmark, so that he could not take holy orders, he would have been offered many a prestigious post; even with his high birth, he was invited to come to Rome to study there, and gave it serious consideration for a while, though eventually he decided it would not be wise to be seen in Denmark as a tool of the Pope, which would imply too close a connection to the Holy Roman Empire, which always loomed on the southern borders of Denmark, despite its ups and downs. The Danish earls would need to be assured of his loyalty to Denmark and his fealty to no one but God and the Danish people.

  Out of his father’s shadow, he was happy. There were people who loved and admired him, not for his birth or his beauty (though neither was ignored), but for his mind and his wit and his loyalty and his kindness. He liked being loved, and he looked forward to the day when he would govern Denmark with generosity and rectitude. “Even as ye have done it unto the least of these, ye have done it unto me”: He intended this to be the guiding principle of his reign, and aspired that someday he might be remembered, not as King Hamlet the Great, but rather as Hamlet the Good or Hamlet the Just. He would not go a-conquering; he would labor to keep the peace and help his Kingdom prosper, unburdened by a luxurious court or excessive military adventures.

  Then came the messenger with a letter from Elsinore that could not await the normal post. He had hastened from Denmark on horseback, with a military escort as befitted the message.

  “Hamlet, my son, your father has died, and you are needed at home. I send with this letter money enough for you to settle your debts if they are not unreasonable. Please come home at once.” It was from his mother, who continued to style herself Queen Gertrude, though, of course, she would only bear that title until Hamlet married.

  “Does this mean you’re King now?” asked one of his professors, when he stopped to tell the news before he left.

  “Not in Denmark,” said Hamlet. “Though I’m the likeliest heir, the earls can choose from any of the lords. I must win their hearts to be considered. They hardly know me now. The last they saw of me I was a boy.”

  “So your Kings are elected, like the Holy Roman Emperor?”

  “Yes—but then we have more power, once we’re chosen.”

  “More power than the Emperor?”

  “Our country is smaller, of course, but our freedom to choose is greater, so that we can make decisions with less need to look over our shoulders.”

  “I know of no man readier to be a King,” said the professor. “Plato once longed for a King like you, who was a philosopher first. We are Christians; we want our Kings to be philosophers and saints.”

  “I’m no saint,” said Hamlet. “But I hope I will disappoint my people in neither wisdom nor virtue—nor strength and courage in battle.”

  “I know nothing of you as a soldier,” said the professor. “But I know you to be fierce in argument.”

  “Here I’ve been gentle with my hands and fierce with my speech,” said Hamlet. “At home I’ll need to reverse that, for we Danes are still a violent people, when the need arises. And it arises too often for our own good.”

  “Then take that sword of yours off the peg on your wall. I hope you haven’t lost any of your ability.”

  Hamlet laughed. “Who remembers now that I ever thought myself a swordsman?”

  “We all remember, Prince Hamlet, though we don’t speak of it. You bested the finest swordsmen in Heidelberg, who made a point of provoking you in the public houses.”