irreproachable, and seemed indeed to shy from her touch, when she involuntarily reached out to brush his sleeve or tap the back of his hand in titillated gratitude for some especially vivid or amusing anecdote, some bauble fetched from this or thatcorner of a variegated, fabulous Europe. She was unused to a man she could talk to, and who was willing to listen to her. Horwendil and Amleth would walk away from her in the middle of a sentence, to exchange masculine facts and to make their private calculations.
“My brother seems to please you,” Horwendil remarked in their lofty, drafty bedroom. His voice was neutral and reedy, a stoic nagging.
“He tells me of lands where I shall never go, since I lack a man’s freedom. In Venice, he tells me, palaces are erected on tree trunks sunk into the sea; the streets are water, and men and women go back and forth on bridges like so many little staircases, and use boats as we use horses and carriages. In Castile, it rains only in the spring, when poppies turn the hillsides red. In France, each village has erected a church the size of a mountain, dedicated to the Virgin.”
“Such tidbits you could gather from your romances. Which may be where Feng has himself gathered them. As a boy he gave my father and mother much grief with his incorrigible propensity for lying. My brother is one of those people, gifted in many regards, and of course charming, who believe that there exists a shortcut to the prizes of life, whereby patient labor and fidelity to obligation can be circumvented. Because he is my brother, by the blood-bonds God has forged I must love him and receive him, but you need not be as lavishly hospitable as you are. The Prince has observed your tête-à-têtes, and is disturbed.”
As they spoke she was helping the King out of hisjousting armor, undoing the many little latches and catches and knotted thongs that held the burnished layers each in place. Chain mail was giving way, as swords grew sharper and arrows swifter, to plated armor; in the overlapping scales of his flexible brigandine Horwendil seemed a kind of merman, bulky and gleaming. As she helped remove the articulated segments, and then unknotted at his back the supporting articles of leather and quilted padding, the effect of gradually diminishing bulk left him appearing rather pitiable and shrunk, though he had put on paunch with the years.
Clad in her own nightgown of undyed wool, Gerutha fetched her husband’s and, while his arms were struggling with its folds, launched her reply at his enwrapped, hidden head. “I am surprised,” she jousted, “that the Prince has deigned to notice any behavior of mine. Ever since infancy he has been steadily fleeing me, so as to embrace you ever more closely. He is tormented by the half of him that belongs to his mother. When he next reports to you the perturbation of his offended sensibilities, you might suggest that he himself show his uncle more courtesy of attendance. Feng very possibly finds my feminine company trifling, but it is all that is offered him, since you and Amleth contrive always to be elsewhere within Elsinore, or else away together on some superfluous foray.”
“It is important that the boy learn the ways of manhood and kingship,” Horwendil informed her, with that aggravating grave calm he assumed when placing himself on a higher level of authority. The public self hehad developed felt to her so wearisomely hollow. Kingship had gutted the private man even in a nightgown. “Within a year, Amleth will be leaving us to study in the Emperor’s domains, where modern enlightenment, guided by the Church Fathers’ divinely inspired precepts, is attaining heights to overshadow the ancients.”
“Denmark has its clever enough tutors. I don’t see why we must banish our only child.”
“ ‘Only’ not by any desire of mine, Gerutha.”
“Nor mine, my lord.”
“I would have welcomed a brood, to ensure that our royal line flourish.”
“I
“My brother seems to please you,” Horwendil remarked in their lofty, drafty bedroom. His voice was neutral and reedy, a stoic nagging.
“He tells me of lands where I shall never go, since I lack a man’s freedom. In Venice, he tells me, palaces are erected on tree trunks sunk into the sea; the streets are water, and men and women go back and forth on bridges like so many little staircases, and use boats as we use horses and carriages. In Castile, it rains only in the spring, when poppies turn the hillsides red. In France, each village has erected a church the size of a mountain, dedicated to the Virgin.”
“Such tidbits you could gather from your romances. Which may be where Feng has himself gathered them. As a boy he gave my father and mother much grief with his incorrigible propensity for lying. My brother is one of those people, gifted in many regards, and of course charming, who believe that there exists a shortcut to the prizes of life, whereby patient labor and fidelity to obligation can be circumvented. Because he is my brother, by the blood-bonds God has forged I must love him and receive him, but you need not be as lavishly hospitable as you are. The Prince has observed your tête-à-têtes, and is disturbed.”
As they spoke she was helping the King out of hisjousting armor, undoing the many little latches and catches and knotted thongs that held the burnished layers each in place. Chain mail was giving way, as swords grew sharper and arrows swifter, to plated armor; in the overlapping scales of his flexible brigandine Horwendil seemed a kind of merman, bulky and gleaming. As she helped remove the articulated segments, and then unknotted at his back the supporting articles of leather and quilted padding, the effect of gradually diminishing bulk left him appearing rather pitiable and shrunk, though he had put on paunch with the years.
Clad in her own nightgown of undyed wool, Gerutha fetched her husband’s and, while his arms were struggling with its folds, launched her reply at his enwrapped, hidden head. “I am surprised,” she jousted, “that the Prince has deigned to notice any behavior of mine. Ever since infancy he has been steadily fleeing me, so as to embrace you ever more closely. He is tormented by the half of him that belongs to his mother. When he next reports to you the perturbation of his offended sensibilities, you might suggest that he himself show his uncle more courtesy of attendance. Feng very possibly finds my feminine company trifling, but it is all that is offered him, since you and Amleth contrive always to be elsewhere within Elsinore, or else away together on some superfluous foray.”
“It is important that the boy learn the ways of manhood and kingship,” Horwendil informed her, with that aggravating grave calm he assumed when placing himself on a higher level of authority. The public self hehad developed felt to her so wearisomely hollow. Kingship had gutted the private man even in a nightgown. “Within a year, Amleth will be leaving us to study in the Emperor’s domains, where modern enlightenment, guided by the Church Fathers’ divinely inspired precepts, is attaining heights to overshadow the ancients.”
“Denmark has its clever enough tutors. I don’t see why we must banish our only child.”
“ ‘Only’ not by any desire of mine, Gerutha.”
“Nor mine, my lord.”
“I would have welcomed a brood, to ensure that our royal line flourish.”
“I
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