Madness In Great Ones

Chapter Three

"What are you doing?"

Startled, Amleth looked up from where he sat by the fire. He put the vacant expression on his face as a matter of habit. After three years of acting mad, it was almost second nature to him. It frightened him when he made himself think about it.

He wondered if he should take off the pretense. He had never seen this girl before, and she was very young – But youth doesn't mean she's stupid, he reminded himself. I'm still young, and look at me! "Good day to you, fair lady," he said in the singsong voice that he'd perfected in three years of playing insane.

The girl giggled and skipped over to him. She was bright-eyed and pretty, her features elfin and delicate. When she smiled, Amleth could see that she'd just lost a tooth, probably her first. "I'm not a lady," she corrected cheerfully, "I'm Olwa!"

Olwa… The name rang a bell somewhere in Amleth's head, and not a warning bell either. Perhaps the daughter of one of his mother's ladies…

"Papa said you were by yourself, so I came to keep you company!" she went on.

Amleth grasped at the straw she offered him. "And who is your father? What does he do to make a living, or does he make no living at all?"

His odd words would have made any other member of the court look away from him and pretend they hadn't heard. Olwa sat down, legs crossed, and answered promptly, "His name is Herning, and my mama is Margret."

Amleth had rarely known such relief in his life. That was where he remembered the name from! Olwa was Herning's daughter. That made his life much easier at the moment. He need no longer put on the show of madness, not for Herning's kin. Careful, Amleth, warned a voice in his head. Don't relax too much. Walls have ears, and ears belong to Feng.

"So what are you doing?" Olwa asked again, peering with interest at the piece of wood in Amleth's hand.

"That's not very polite," Amleth said, smiling to let her know he was teasing. "You should ask my name first." He kept his voice down, just in case.

"Oh. Well, what's your name?"

"My name is Amleth," he told her, "and I am whittling." He picked up the knife on the floor and showed her how he chipped away little bits of the wood to make a shape. "You see this? It's going to become a wooden hook when I'm done with it."

Olwa picked it out of his hand unceremoniously and examined it. "It looks more like a flower," she said, handing it back.

"A flower?" Amleth hooted. He looked at the piece of wood again. "I think it looks like a hook."

"Well, I think it looks like a flower!" said Olwa. Amleth looked at her, ready to snap something rude – and then stopped when he saw the sparkle in her eyes. He had to take a moment to process her reaction. Olwa, it seemed, was not like any of his mother's ladies. He had gotten to know them very well through observing them, and they were either argumentative or whiny – Feng's choices, all of them. None of them took pleasure in anything as far as he could see; all were equally dry and irritating. But if their conversation was any clue to her disposition, Olwa knew how to enjoy herself. She said what was on her mind, but she didn't mean harm by it.

Amleth smiled.

"Then a flower it shall be," he said suddenly, "and you must help me make it." She squealed with delight and scooted closer to him. "Now, since I can't see this flower, you'll have to tell me where it is. Where's the stem?"

"Right there, silly," she teased, touching the end that he'd been carving into the curve of the hook. From one end of that, the wood blossomed into a square block, quite large enough to carve petals out of.

"Oh, I see it now," he said. "What kind of flower is it?"

Olwa considered. "A daisy!"

Amleth thanked his lucky stars that she hadn't said a rose. He thought he could just barely manage a daisy. "All right." He started to work on it. "Now, you'll have to talk to me, so that I don't get bored."

"Can I tell you a story?"

"Please!"

Olwa leaned forward, her elbows on her knees. "Once upon a time, there was a handsome prince…"

Don't all stories begin that way? Amleth thought, amused, his knife busily at work. Once upon a time there was a handsome princeno, a king, who was murdered by his jealous brother for his crown and his wife

He frowned, his amusement gone. It had been three years. He was ten now, with many years to go before he could even make a reasonable attempt to avenge his father's death, and he did not like waiting. He liked even less his mandatory appearances for court feasts. He was probably not the only one – Amleth would lay money that most of the court would have liked to keep the mad prince out of their sight – but Feng had had no child by Gerutha in three years, so Amleth was still the sole heir to the throne. That must rankle Feng in the small hours of the night, Amleth thought. That his ambition will be lost when the son of his brother ascends the throne

But that only made his situation more precarious. If Feng decided that the royal line wasn't worth the sacrifice of losing his hard-won job to Amleth, the prince very much suspected that he would not live much longer. It lent a desperate edge of reality to his game of madness, which was becoming less and less a game with the passing years.

"Amleth?" He felt a hesitant tug on his sleeve and jumped. He had forgotten all about Olwa, and he flushed in chagrin. "You weren't listening," she said softly, the hurt she felt plain in her voice.

Maybe this was the answer. Maybe Olwa, cheerful, bright Olwa, could be his savior from madness. Maybe she could be the line he could cling to, to connect him with sanity. Hope flooded through Amleth, hope and genuine regret that he'd hurt her.

"I'm sorry, Olwa." He held up the block of wood. "See how well it's coming?" She nodded. "Please keep going. I promise I'll listen from now on."

She smiled shyly. "Once upon a time there was a handsome prince…"

Feng whirled on Polsgrunn with shock and, the councilor was startled to see, fear in his eyes. "What did you say?" he demanded.

Polsgrunn repeated his message, gathered from the various spies he'd set around the castle. "Apparently Prince Amleth was lucid today, for some amount of time. Rosen said that he talked for a while with Herning's daughter."

The king began to pace. Polsgrunn watched him with growing apprehension. He had thrown in his lot with Feng shortly after the murder, and he had no desire to lose everything now. "Damn him," he heard Feng mutter. "Damn him." Polsgrunn couldn't tell whether Feng was talking about Amleth or Horwethil. Maybe both.

"There is still hope that Queen Gerutha will conceive," Polsgrunn reminded Feng.

"Oh, aye, plenty of hope," snarled Feng. "So much hope that she all but refuses me her bed except for a few times a month! I think she plans it so that she will never conceive. Aye, Polsgrunn, there is an abundance of hope that the fair Gerutha will bear me a son."

"You are her husband!" Polsgrunn countered. "You do not need her permission to lie with her."

Feng rubbed his face with both hands. "It makes it more difficult," he confessed.

Polsgrunn sighed. Feng was in love with the queen, and she could not forgive him for the murder of her first husband, and it was all very, very bad for him if things continued as they did. "Shall I keep spies on Amleth?" he ventured to ask, tactfully changing the subject.

"Yes," said Feng heavily. "Yes. Many spies. And constantly."

Polsgrunn knew when his king wanted him to leave. This was one of those times. He bowed and withdrew, heading off to speak to the spy Rosen about his new duties.

Author's Note: Okay, so obviously Olwa is Ophelia, and Polsgrunn is Polonius. I'm basing this fic off the actual happenings, but I couldn't resist throwing in some elements from the play!