Prologue

St Emilion, France
November 1601

My lady:

I pray this letter finds you in a place of safety. I write in brief, for few words are best when they can bring only pain.

The royal court of Denmark is in ruins. The final fruits of evil have spilled their deadly seeds. At last, King Claudius is dead, justly served his own poison. Hamlet slew him with a sword envenomed by the king himself. Queen Gertrude lies cold, poisoned by a cup the king intended for Hamlet. It was the sight of his dying mother that spurred Hamlet's revenge at last.

But the greatest grief is this: your brother, Laertes, and Prince Hamlet have slain each other with poisoned swords. I have failed in the task you set me. Now Fortinbras of Norway rules in our conquered land.

Forgive Hamlet, I beg you. With his dying words he charged me to clear his wounded name. Believe me, before the lust for revenge seized his mind, he loved you deeply.

Also forgive, but do not forget.

Your faithful friend and seeker,

Horatio

The letter leaves me stunned, dazed with fresh pain so that I cannot even nse from my bed.

I dream of Elsinore Castle, a vast stone labyrinth. At its centre, the great banquet hall, warmed by leaping fires, where courtiers passed like lifeblood through a heart, where King Hamlet and Queen Gertrude reigned, the mind and soul that held the whole body together. Now all fire and all flesh are but cold ashes.

I dream of my beloved, the witty, dark-haired Prince Hamlet, before he was taken from me by madness and death.

In my mind's eye the green orchards of Elsinore appear, ripe with sweet pears and apples that bent the branches and offered themselves to our hands. The garden where we first kissed, fragrant then with sharp rosemary and soothing lavender, now lies blasted and all withered.

Through my dream gurgles the fateful brook where I swam as a child and where the willow boughs skimmed the water's surface. There I met my watery end and began life anew.

I see myself and Hamlet on the mist-shrouded battlements, where an unseen ghost witnessed our embracing, then turned Hamlet's mind from love to vengeance. I see the fearsome face of Claudius, Hamlet's uncle, who murdered his father and married his mother, my dear queen Gertrude, whom he poisoned.

Alas, my Hamlet is dead! And with him all of Elsinore ruined, like Eden after man's fall.

I, Ophelia, played a part in this tragedy. I served the queen. I sought to steer the prince's course. I discovered dangerous secrets and fell foul of the tyrant Claudius. But how did it come to this end, the death of all my world? Guilt consumes me, that I should live while all are lost. That I could not divert the fated course.

I cannot rest while this history remains untold. There is no peace for me while this pain presses upon my soul. Though I have lived .only sixteen years, I have known a lifetime of sorrow. Like the pale moon, I wane, weary of seeing the world's grief, and I wax again, burdened with life. But like the sun, I will dispel the darkness about me and cast a light upon the truth. So I take up my pen and write.

Here is my story.

Part One

Elsinore, Denmark
1585-1601

Chapter One

I have always been a motherless girl. The lady Frowendel died giving birth to me, depriving also my brother, Laertes, and my father, Polomus, of her care. I had not so much as a scrap of lace or a remembered scent of her. Nothing. Yet by the miniature framed portrait my father earned, I saw that I was the living image of my mother.

I was often sad, thinking I had caused her to die and therefore my father could not love me. I tried not to vex or trouble him further, but he never gave me the attention I desired. Nor did he dote on Laertes, his only son. He cast his gaze everywhere but on our faces, for he was ambitious to be the king's most valued and secret informant.

We lived in the village of Elsmore in a fine house, timber-framed with mulhoned windows. Laertes and I played in the garden my mother had kept, the beds growing wild after her death. I often hid among tall rosemary bushes, and all day I would carry the pungent scent about me. On hot days we swam in Elsinore's river where it meandered through a nearby wood,and we captured frogs and salamanders on its grassy banks. When we were hungry we stole apples and plums from the marketplace and darted away like rabbits when the vendors shouted after us. At night we slept in a loft beneath the eaves, where on cold nights the smoke from the kitchen fires rose and hovered beneath the rafters, warming us.

On the first floor of our house was a shop where ladies and gentlemen of the court sent their servants to buy feathers, ribbons and lace. My father disdained shopkeepers as unworthy and low, but he consorted with them and aimed favour with the customers, hoping to overhear court gossip. Then, wearing a doublet and hose in high fashion, he would hasten down the broad way to join the throng of men seeking positions in King Hamlet's court. Sometimes we would not see him for days and we worried that he had abandoned us, but he always returned. Then he would carry on excitedly about some opportunity certain to befall him, or he would be silent and moody. Laertes and I would peek through the broken panel of his chamber door and see him bent over a small pile of money and papers, shaking his head. We were certain that we would be ruined, and we wondered, lying awake in our loft, what would happen to us. Would we become like the orphan child we often saw in the village streets, begging for bread and eating scraps of meat like a wild animal?

My father's anxious office-seeking consumed our family's fortunes, the remains of my mother's dowry. But he did manage to hire a tutor for Laertes, a bookish, black-capped man.

"A girl should not be idle, for then the devil may do his work in you," my father said to me. "Therefore study with Laertes and take what benefit you may from it."

So from the time I could babble and my brother could reason, we spent hours in daily study. We read the Psalms and other verses from the Bible. I marvelled at the Book of John, with its terrible revelations of angels and beasts loosed at the end of time. I loved to read about Ancient Rome, and I was quicker than my brother to find the lessons in the fables of Aesop. Soon I could cipher as well as he. I also learned to bargain with Laertes, who disliked all study.

"I will translate these Latin letters for you, if you will first give me your cake," I would offer, and he would gladly consent. Our father praised Laertes' schoolwork, but when I showed him my neat rows of numbers, he only patted my head as if I were his dog.

Laertes was my constant companion and my only protector. After our lessons, we joined the children playing barley-break in the dusty streets and on the village green. Being small, I was easily captured and made to stand in the circle that was called hell, until I could catch someone else and be freed or until Laertes took pity on me. Once Laertes saved me from a dog that seized my leg in its teeth and raked my back with its claws. He beat the dog senseless and wiped the blood from me with his shirt while I clung to him in terror. My wounds healed and my father told me to be comforted, for the scars would not be seen until after I had taken a husband. But for years, even the sight of a lapdog in a lady's arms made me quiver with fear.

Surely I must have had nurses who tended to me, though I remember none of their names or faces. They were careless of me, leaving me to roam freely like a pet goat. I had no one to mend my torn clothes or to lengthen my skirts as I grew. I remember no tender words or scented kisses. My father sometimes made me kneel while he put his hand on my head when he rattled off a blessing, but his was a heavy hand, not the gentle touch I desired. We were a family living without a heart, a mother, to unite us. My father found employment before we became destitute.

He chanced to discover some intelligence relating to Denmark's enemy, King Fortinbras of Norway. For this he was honoured with the position of minister to King Hamlet. From the way my father spoke of his reward, it seemed he would be placed at the right hand of God himself, and we would henceforth live a glorious life.

I was but a child of eight and Laertes was twelve when we moved from the village to Elsmore Castle. For the occasion I received a new set of clothing and a blue cap woven with beads for my unruly hair. Laertes and I skipped alongside the cart that carried our goods. I was full of excited chatter.

"Will the castle look like heaven, such as Saint John saw? Will it have towers sparkling with gold and bright gems?" I asked, but my father only laughed and Laertes called me stupid.

Soon the stark battlements of Elsmore rose against the blue sky. As we drew nearer, the castle appeared more vast than the entire village, and the sun itself was not able to brighten its grey stone walls. Nothing shone or sparkled. The countless dark windows serried close together like ranks of soldiers. As we passed beneath the shadow of the gates into the courtyard, my disappointment deepened into a fearful dread. I shivered. Reaching for my father's hand, I grasped no more than the edge of his cloak, its folds fluid as water.

Excerpted from OPHELIA © Copyright 2011 by Lisa Klein. Reprinted with permission by Bloomsbury USA Children's Books. All rights reserved.