“And you’ve forgotten a few,” said Horatio. “But not as many as you think.”

  Then Horatio made a brute-force move to disarm him, and Hamlet, alert now, sidestepped and spun the sword out of Horatio’s hand, all in one quick, dancing move. Horatio’s own momentum sent him sprawling into the dirt. He got up laughing. “I should have known!” he said. “You were toying with me!”

  “Hardly,” said Hamlet. “I’d never seen that move before—no one was strong enough to try anything like that.”

  “I thought it might work.”

  “It almost did,” said Hamlet. “My heart’s beating as if I had just swum from Sweden. You gave me a scare!”

  “Well, that’s something,” said Horatio. “But don’t give me any more nonsense about how you’ve forgotten all your skills with the sword.”

  “Be honest, Horatio. Beating you never took all my skills.”

  “With a sword, maybe,” said Horatio, smiling with mock malice. “If we stood at either end of a stone wall, pitching heavy rocks as we walked toward each other, I bet I’d win.”

  “Unless you got confused and threw your head at me.”

  Whereupon they began a wrestling match, which ended as such matches always did, with Hamlet flat on his back, fully pinned, and Horatio nonchalantly pretending not to see the prince wriggling under him to get free.

  At supper they were boisterous enough to draw the attention of King Claudius, but it was a smile he gave them, not a frown. “I’m glad to see your grief at your father’s death has eased enough to give you room to laugh,” he said.

  Grief at Father’s death? But Hamlet could hardly say, in front of the whole court, that he barely remembered that he’d had a father, and it was only his native soberness of mind and carefulness that kept him so quiet up to now. “For a moment with an old friend I forgot my grief, sir,” said Hamlet. “But at your reminder, the shadow of mourning is reawakened, and I regret it if I seemed to show disrespect to my father’s memory.”

  “I meant no rebuke to you, Prince Hamlet,” said Claudius.

  “And I did not take it that way,” said Hamlet. “I rebuke myself, and thank you for helping me remember my duty to my father.”

  Hamlet had meant it to be a conciliatory statement, but Mother frowned a little, and the way Claudius turned away to converse with someone on the other side of the table left Hamlet wondering what he had done wrong. The currents in this court were too tricky for him; Aquinas was plain and simple compared to the moods of Kings and Queens.

  Hamlet found himself wishing he could go home. Even though he was home, supposedly.

  It was the middle of the night two days later when Hamlet awoke from a dream of being awakened in a monastic cell to join his holy brothers for prayers. It was no monk shaking him, though—it was Horatio.

  “Hamlet,” he said. “Quietly, quietly . . . nothing’s wrong, except I need you to come with me.”

  “It’s full dark outside,” said Hamlet.

  “Last night I thought maybe it was too much wine at dinner,” said Horatio, “but then in the morning I had no headache, and I realized that I had drunk only a little.”

  “What are we talking about?” said Hamlet as he dressed.

  “I think I saw your father last night.”

  Hamlet looked at him sharply. “Didn’t you hear? He died. Or are you saying that the whole kingdom is deceived and he’s only pretending to be dead?”

  “Dead,” said Horatio. “I saw him dead, but walking the battlements of the castle.”

  “A ghost,” said Hamlet, not even trying to conceal his skepticism.

  “He looked right at me,” said Horatio, “but with such contempt that . . . I don’t think I’m the one he wanted to see.”

  “Spirits are either in heaven or hell,” said Hamlet. “They don’t walk the earth.”

  “Excellent,” said Horatio. “I’m glad to hear it. In fact, I told the ghost so myself, but he ignored me and continued to exist. Perhaps tonight, if you tell him, he’ll go.”

  Horatio’s words were light and bantering, but his voice trembled a little, so Hamlet knew he was frightened. And nothing frightened Horatio.

  “Has he been seen tonight?” asked Hamlet as they left his room.

  “He came last night in the hour just before dawn, and left when the light came. Marcellus and Bernardo saw him first, and then brought me. Every night he comes.”

  “And the word of this hasn’t already flown through the castle?”

  “They’re afraid of being thought lunatics,” said Horatio.

  “But you have no such fear?”

  “I don’t fear the opinions of fools,” said Horatio.

  “So you fear only the ghost itself?”

  “No,” said Horatio. “A spirit is airy; it’s nothing, not even a fog. I could see through it, the walls behind it. When it passed between me and Marcellus, I could see Marcellus plainly. What is there to fear from something insubstantial?”

  “And yet you’re afraid,” said Hamlet.

  Horatio was silent until they came to the stair leading up to the battlement. “I’m afraid,” said Horatio, “because of what the thing might say.”

  “Its body isn’t real,” said Hamlet, “but its words might be?”

  “Words can be as sharp as swords, and stab as deep. I fear that what this ghost might have to say will leave this castle draped with corpses.”

  “Or perhaps he’ll have words to save us,” said Hamlet. “Perhaps he knows something of the plans of Fortinbras.”

  “Why should hell care what befalls kingdoms here above?”

  “Hell?” asked Hamlet.

  “Or heaven,” added Horatio.

  “You’re sure my father must be in hell?”

  Again Horatio kept his silence.

  Marcellus and Bernardo waited, sitting and leaning in a corner. “If I didn’t know better,” said Hamlet, by way of greeting, “I’d say that you were drunk.”

  “I wish we were, Your Highness,” said Bernardo.

  “Fellow soldiers now,” said Hamlet. “On guard against the world invisible.”

  “I wish it were invisible,” said Marcellus.

  “We’ll be glad of it someday,” said Horatio with bravado. “To tell our grandchildren that we saw the ghost of the old King on the battlements in the days before he was buried.”

  “No doubt that’s why he appears to you,” said Hamlet. “Because his body has been so long kept out of the tomb.”

  “Then in God’s holy name,” whispered Bernardo, “let’s bury him.”

  “Deep,” said Marcellus.

  “When should we expect him?”

  “Soon,” said Horatio. “The same time every night—he walks for half an hour, and leaves at the first light in the east.”

  “Nonsense,” said Hamlet, trying to lighten the mood. “My father would never flee from anything he saw coming from Sweden.”

  They didn’t laugh. Instead, Marcellus turned his face away and pointed at something behind Hamlet.

  Hamlet turned, and there he was, staring coldly at him: his father, just as he was in life, except insubstantial, like a few wisps of fog so clearly defined that Hamlet could see his features, the expression on his face, and above all, his eyes, which shone as if black fire burned within them.

  “Father,” he whispered.

  The ghost said nothing, but looked at Hamlet and did not move.

  “Have you come to give us warning?” asked Hamlet. “To protect the kingdom?”

  “He never speaks,” whispered Bernardo. “We’ve asked him all these questions.”

  “I’m not the King, Father,” said Hamlet. “Should I bring your brother Claudius here to confer with you?”

  The ghost’s face shivered and contorted as if a hot wind had come to melt it or blow it away.

  “No,” it said.

  Bernardo cried out in alarm, and Marcellus whimpered. Hamlet did not blame them. It was not a human voice; it seemed not to fall upon his ears, but struck in his heart, shaking his heart like the tones of a deep bell rung loud and close.

  “Are you my father?” asked Hamlet. “Or some demon in disguise?”

  “If he means to deceive you,” murmured Horatio, “then he’ll give the same answer as any honest spirit.”

  Still the ghost did not take his gaze from Hamlet. “He wants to talk to me,” said Hamlet. “Now that we know he’s capable of speech, leave us alone so I can hear his message.”

  “I won’t leave you,” said Horatio. “What if it means to harm you?

  “Why would my father want to hurt me?” asked Hamlet. Though he recognized the question as soon as he asked it—it was the very one he had asked inside his heart through all the years of growing up without ever having his father’s high regard or company.

  “A ghost may not be able to strike you,” said Horatio, “but what if he entices you off the battlements, to fall to your death?”

  “Then either I’ll be deceived, and die, or not, and live,” said Hamlet. “But you can see this spirit is not to be denied. Let me speak alone with him, or he’ll be back again and again.”

  “I don’t want to leave you,” said Horatio. “This is our watch of the night.”

  “You would stand with me before any mortal foe,” said Hamlet. “No one doubts your courage or your loyalty. Nor would you abandon your post. But this is a spirit, and no man has any strength against it. As Prince I order you to go, then, and leave me to hear his message.”

  It took no more words, but several minutes yet for Horatio to get Bernardo onto his feet and Marcellus with him, and shepherd them down from the battlements.

  “Why have you come here, Father?” asked Hamlet.

  The lips did not move, and yet it spoke. “Avenge me,” he said.

  More than the sight of the ghost itself, more than the way its words shook his body, the idea that his father had been murdered struck him hard and deep. For he knew at once that there was only one man who might have done it—the man who now wore the crown in Father’s place.

  The brother whom Father had mistreated from childhood; the brother who had won the respect of the barons; the brother that all were glad to follow, now that Fortinbras of Norway was threatening war.

  The uncle Hamlet loved more than he ever loved his father.

  “So you came with no message to benefit the kingdom?” asked Hamlet.

  Rage came to his father’s face then, and he loomed closer. And yet the closer he came, the more transparent he was to Hamlet’s eyes, so he could barely see his father’s spirit.

  The words, though, rung more harshly with the ghost almost on top of him. “Murder and usurpation, treason and adultery,” said the ghost. “I live now in hell. Will you have all Denmark join me there? Avenge me, and purify this kingdom.”

  “Who killed you, Father?”

  “You know already,” said the ghost. It backed away.

  “How was it done?” asked Hamlet.

  “Do you doubt me?”

  “Will I kill my uncle on the word of one witness?” asked Hamlet.

  “No one but the murderer saw the crime!”

  “How will it benefit Denmark for me to kill my uncle now, with Fortinbras preparing his long ships against us?”

  “I speak of blood and horror in your own family, and you answer me with fleets and armies.”

  “What duty do I owe to you?” asked Hamlet.

  “Then you consent to my death, and God will damn you as a patricide.”

  “Why should I listen now, who never heard your voice when you were still alive?”

  “I was a better father to you than you know,” said the ghost.

  Hamlet said nothing, trying to think how his father could have been worse.

  “I never laid a hand on you,” the ghost said.

  “Not your hand, not your heart, barely your eyes if you could keep from seeing me.”

  “My beautiful son,” said the ghost.

  “Too late,” said Hamlet.

  “My sweet, pure-hearted, golden-haired, lovely, strong, and clever son. How often I stood at the window and watched you practice with the sword, the grace of God upon you, the sun shining in your hair. You were the only joy in my life.”

  Hamlet gasped and sank to his knees. To hear these words now . . .

  “The only good gift your mother gave me. My only hope for the future. All lost. All stolen from me just when I was ready to take you into my confidence and set you on the throne beside me.”

  Is this what Uncle Claudius stole from me? The hope of having, at last, my father’s love? “Why did you wait?” whispered Hamlet. “Why did you keep me at such a distance?”

  “I would have coddled you. Spoiled you. I needed you to be a man of firm resolve. Strong, cold-blooded as a King must be, and yet I knew I injured you. Even that was a gift to my people: Out of your anguish would come your compassion. A just and merciful judge you would have been, but now you are supplanted, as I was supplanted.”

  “I’m a scholar now.”

  “You are the healer of the kingdom’s wounds,” said the ghost.

  “When we have the victory over Fortinbras,” said Hamlet.

  “There will be no victory,” said the ghost. “Not with Denmark led by a murderer and adulterer.”

  “My mother was hasty to marry your brother,” said Hamlet, “but you were dead, and it was not adultery.”

  “Better my death would have been, if I had left a faithful widow behind me.”

  “Do you say my mother sinned with him while you were still alive, Father?”

  “I knew it in my heart for many years,” said the ghost. “Our bed turned cold when you were still a baby. I was content to think we had this one perfect son, and no other to rival him. But your mother is young. She means to bear more sons. She means to kill me again as my brother slew me first, for he killed my body, but she will kill all my seed. You are doomed, if you do not strike first.”

  “To avenge a crime I might strike,” said Hamlet. “But not to win a throne. I’ll take holy orders and go abroad.”

  “Why do you think that you were born?” demanded the ghost. “To whimper in some monastery? To scratch on parchment all your life? No! To sit on the throne and wear the crown and rule this kingdom after me! Avenge me!”

  “There was no mark on your body.”

  “I lay asleep in the garden,” said the ghost. “He crept near enough to pour a savage poison into my ear. It burned through into my brain so quickly that I was dead before I could rise up. The heart stopped in my chest so quickly that I never bled. If any other had approached me, I would have woken up, but his footstep had been part of my life since he was born, and in my sleep I felt no fear of him. This is why treason is of all crimes the most detested by heaven. It is an act made possible by love and trust. Nature shudders when such deeds are done. Didn’t you feel the earth shake, even there in Heidelberg?”

  “I felt nothing,” said Hamlet.

  “And feel nothing even now,” said the ghost contemptuously.

  “I feel too much.”

  “If you love me, avenge me.”

  “How could I love you? What did you ever give me to love?”

  “I gave you life. What more does a father need to give? You were born with the duty of reverence to me. Nothing I did or didn’t do absolves you of that duty.”

  “And you had no duty to me?”

  “I fulfilled my duty to you, better than you know.”

  The second time he’d made that claim. “Tell me now,” said Hamlet, “and then it won’t be better than I know.”

  “Are you my true son?” asked the ghost. “Your deeds will show.”

  “I will serve justice,” said Hamlet.

  “Then you will serve me, for my cause is just.”

  “I never saw a murderous nature in my Uncle Claudius.”

  “Do you argue with a spirit bound in hell? Stay your hand, then. I will walk the earth in agony until my murder is avenged and justice served, but what is that to you? Young as you are, you’re content to let the earth fill up with suffering souls, so long as you’re not inconvenienced.”

  “Why should I hurry you on to eternal torment?”

  “The torment is here upon the earth,” said the ghost. “The torment is knowing that I was murdered, and no one lives who will avenge me. Must I choose another to be my son? Must I lay this charge on one of your Companions? Then they are my sons in truth.”

  “I am your son!” cried Hamlet.

  “Then swear to me that you will do what sons do: Avenge me!”

  “I swear it,” said Hamlet.

  “And will you keep your word?”

  “I swear by God. I swear in the name of Christ. May my own heart be torn out if I do not serve justice in this matter.”

  “Do it, and we will not meet again until you die.”

  “You will be at rest soon enough, then, Father,” said Hamlet.

  But even before he finished the sentence, the ghost was gone. Hamlet looked only at the stones of the battlement.

  I have sworn to kill my father’s murderer. To do justice. But how can I be sure that justice would be served by killing Claudius? He is my mother’s husband now, which should be a cause of mercy, unless he and she were adulterers together before my father’s death. And I always loved him better than my own father—should I kill him now, for causing a death I did not grieve for?

  Yes, if he killed my father. But that’s the question, isn’t it? As the ghost said, Only the murderer was witness to the deed. Not my father—he was asleep. Are ghosts so quickly made, that they can see, in the moment of the body’s dying, how it died, and at whose hand?

  He called me beautiful. He watched me from the window as I practiced with my sword. He wanted me to have his throne.

  Or does he only know that these are the words to make me serve him as his slave? Am I his puppet, killing where he wants murder done? He says he’s already tied to hell. What more can he suffer, then, for the sin of lying to me? What if he only wants to bring down his brother?

  What kind of man was my father? For that’s the kind of man he must be now. Souls don’t change their nature, merely because the body’s set aside. If he had a lying nature then, he’ll lie now, too. If he was spiteful then, he’ll claim vengeance where none is owed him.