Chapter Text
I don't know the name of the town where we are forced to wait for the storm to pass. Hamlet has half-killed both horses and companion in his rush to Elsinore, yet now sits on a chair in front of an open window as seemingly patient as the trees. His quietness worries me as much as his haste surprised me. I have never seen him quiet unless distraught, and I would not have expected him to rush to Elsinore. Not even, or least of all, to the funeral of his father.
Not inclined myself to brood, I'm using the time to rest and write, the latter being necessary to rest my thoughts. "Put my thoughts to rest" is how he would have put it were he not so quiet. This is the second largest stretch of silence I have experienced while at Hamlet's side, which is almost the same as saying since my arrival at Wittenberg. The prize is taken by the hours he spent in dead silence after the messenger told him of the King's death and the Queen's impending marriage (how strange a way to rely a message - although I suppose the post would not be seen as fit to carry such news to a prince).
The messenger dismissed with thanks and a gift – by me! – the man carries more in his purse now than I do in mine – Hamlet remained in silence, sitting on his bed and ignoring my words, until night fell and, with a customary whirlwind of movement, told me to pack lightly for our rush to Elsinore.
Would it be small of me to remark that he did not ask me if I would accompany him? At the time it did occur to me that he should have asked, even as I knew we both knew the answer.
But don't judge him harshly, reader (who? Myself, years hence, perhaps, reviewing what will surely seem like youthful folly. Hamlet, I should hope, not. Nobody else I would let see these words, so why am I writing them?). He proved his love the day he stood between an unlucky brigand and me, giving back many times the slight wound he received, and he proved his trust when he let me take off his clothes in my rooms to clean the blood away.
He made no comment as he saw in my eyes my surprise at his naked body. He said no word asking for my silence or explaining his name, deportment, and clothes. He didn't blush, avert his eyes, or fix them on mine. He was in every sign a young man making light to a friend of a wound more painful than he would have wanted to acknowledge, and it dawned on me, even as I responded in kind, that I had no doubt that this was exactly what he was.
I'm writing this down mostly so you will know – or remember – this: what I feel for Hamlet (and, either Horatio or Hamlet, if you read this and have come to understand, I don't know that I envy you) I felt long before that moment. Hence this inn, town, ride, and storm.
I asked Hamlet nothing, putting my slender bags on one of the horses he had hired and following his mad race against I do not know what, not with his father already dead and his mother already married. But I've pondered since then the answer he gave me to a question not long ago. We had been discussing (or he had been lecturing) on the Julia gens, and I asked, I thought subtly, if he had chosen the Hamlet name out of his love for his father or to the necessities of the realm.
It was not subtle. I was, perhaps, not as sober as I am today. But neither was him.
"I chose Hamlet as my name because it was my name," he replied. "I was just informing the King and Queen of the fact."
I drank to it, or after it, vowing to myself never to mention it again. And I haven't, but we're rushing to them now, one dead, the other - I don't know what - and I imagine that not even a prince would have an easy time informing a king of something like that.
And yet he stood in silence for hours and then rushed us until the skies convinced him of what I dared not try, and we found this inn to while away the storm.
I should sleep, if I can, for we resume our travel not tomorrow but the moment the storm allows us.