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CHAPTER VII

"All right, let's say I'm Amlodd," Will told himself. "What happens to me? What do I need to prepare for?"

He got to his feet, wrapped his blanket around him, and began to pace. Pacing in the straw in bare feet was an adventure—under the straw was dirt, and stones, and small bones and things that wriggled.

But he found he was less fastidious than he'd been in his own body. He was vaguely aware that he itched most everywhere—no doubt he had lice and fleas like everybody else in the Dark Ages. But he felt no distress about it. The soles of his feet were tough, insensitive to what they trod on short of knife blades or red-hot coals.

His strength sang under his skin. He'd never felt anything like it. He looked around him for something to lift or bend or break. Nothing in the house recommended itself.

He tried the door and found it barred. He gave it a shove and it burst open, the wooden bar outside snapping and flying off in two pieces. He stood in the doorway with no plans to go anywhere, just enjoying his ability to smash barriers. Strangers stared at him, but no one challenged him. He felt an ease of tension as he stood in the open air, and he realized that he hated being cooped up.

He didn't, however, care to be outdoors wearing just a blanket, so reluctantly he went back in.

He needed to concentrate. Amlodd had a story, and it lay over him like a death sentence. He needed to prepare himself for it.

The trouble was, to know what Saxo wrote was not the same as knowing the story. Saxo's account was a garbled collection of legends and folk tales. Half of them probably hadn't even happened to Amlodd, and the other half were remembered wrong. Still, it was all he had.

He remembered with a shudder that some scholars judged Amlodd a myth—a culture hero who existed only in legend. Scholarly habit gave him a frightened moment of fear that he might disappear; then he laughed at himself.

What had happened to Amlodd?

They had tested him, to see if he were really insane. How did it go?

Feng's men had taken him out riding, with some plan about putting him in contact with a woman and seeing what he would do. Why this would be a test of madness, no one could say. Will remembered a Monty Python routine about a village idiot, which ended with the idiot in bed with several attractive young women, saying, "I may be an idiot, but I'm no fool."

Amlodd's response made no better sense. He had gotten away from the witnesses and enjoyed the girl, then gone home and admitted he'd done it. Why hide it in the first place then? Another example of Saxo's sloppy storytelling and garbled sources. There was some wordplay involved too, Hamlet's famous riddles.

Then Amlodd had talked privately with his mother, discovered a spy in a pile of straw and killed him—the inspiration for the death of Polonius in the play. He had disposed of the body by chopping it up, dumping the pieces into a drain and giving them to the pigs. He had been sent to England (he actually got there, had adventures and married the king's daughter), and returned to burn the jarl and his household in their hall. And he'd lived to fight another day—Shakespeare had taken a dramatic liberty in killing him off at the climax. The real Amlodd had been a Viking, not a Greek, and knew nothing of Aristotle's Poetics.

He heard footsteps approaching and turned to see two big men coming toward the house. They were dressed like Guttorm. One carried an axe, the other an unsheathed sword.

"Trying to break out, madman?" asked the one with the sword as he stepped through the door.

Will tensed with fear, and a feeling he'd never known surged through his body. All the reflexes that would have sent him running away in his own time and place hurled him in the opposite direction now. Before he knew it, he had attacked the swordsman, bare hands against steel, ducking under the man's slash, grasping his arm and breaking it over his knee like a stick. As the weapon flew free he caught it by the grip, wheeled and faced the axeman, stepping back so he wouldn't trip over the injured one.

"Want some of the same?" he asked, dancing the weapon from hand to hand, rejoicing in its balance and keenness. The axeman's eyes went wide, and he backed away and fled.

Will found himself laughing. It had all been done without thought—his nerves and his muscles had reacted as they'd clearly been trained to. It was wonderful to be strong and skillful and dangerous. He danced the sword in a figure eight. It felt like a drug, but better than any he'd ever tried in his brief flirtation with chemicals in college.

Guttorm reappeared at the door. "Give me the sword, Amlodd," he said, holding a hand out.

"You've only to ask," said Will, and he returned it, presenting it over his forearm in a gesture that would not be seen again for hundreds of years.

* * ** * *

Bess and Del approached the man they knew as Will carefully, as they would have a Ming vase or a manticore.

"You're Amlodd?" asked Bess.

"I am, and I demand to know what witchcraft has made me a weakling."

"You heard the ghost. You know as much as we do."

"He spoke words without meaning. What is 'physics'? Who is Hamlet?"

"We have a friend named Will. The body you're wearing is his. Somehow his . . . his soul and yours must have got switched."

"Ah," said Amlodd. "That I can grasp." He rubbed his chin a moment, then said, "What are you people? You wear fine clothes, though the pattern is strange. You men wear paltry rings and no weapons, and your hair is short like thralls' and you have no beards. You women dress without modesty, in trousers like men. And you're all weaklings, except for the troll over there." He gestured toward Eric.

"You might say we're skalds, poets," said Del. "But we don't tell our stories in verse. We take the words and deeds of the people in the saga, and relive them."

Amlodd's eyes widened. "You must serve a great king, if he can keep so many skalds to tell tales in this manner."

Howie, from behind them, said "We don't have—" but Peter put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Culture shock," he whispered, and Howie shrugged.

"We've been working on a . . . a saga of a hero called 'Hamlet,' " said Del.

"I have not heard of this hero."

"Hamlet is Amlodd."

Amlodd was silent a moment. "I've ever purposed to have a saga of my own," he said. "But I've done naught as yet to make my name known in so distant a place as this must be."

Bess and Del exchanged a look.

"We're not just distant in miles," said Bess. "We are distant in time as well."

Amlodd shook his head like a horse agitated.

"Hundreds of fathers and sons and grandsons have lived and died since your time. We are from your future."

Amlodd drew himself up in a ball for a moment, like a hedgehog. Then he stretched himself and got to his feet.

"I am dead then? This is Hel? I see no great feasting, no mighty warriors, as in Valhalla. I must have died in bed, and have come down with the women and thralls to Niflheim."

"We don't know what place this is," said Howie. "But we think we're alive. And, at least in that body, so are you."

Amlodd crouched, pushing his fingers back through his hair. "There are so many things I cannot grasp," he said. "This place. You people. That troll—"

"What do you mean 'troll'?" asked Peter.

"That thrall-faced boy over there." He pointed at Eric, who sat apart, sulking. "Can you not see the magic in him?"

"None of us can see magic," said Peter.

"Has the race grown so weak?" asked Amlodd. "Puny bodies and no vision? Well might you relive the sagas of heroes. It's clear you've none of your own. My counsel is to kill the lad now, if we can, before he makes trouble."

Howie got up and took a step forward. "The boy is my son," he said.

Amlodd, still crouched, said, "Then your son is a troll."

Howie took another step and raised a fist. "I don't know who you think you are—"

Amlodd rose from his crouch like a cat and rushed at his attacker. At the same moment Eric moved swiftly between them. No one could tell clearly what happened in the darkness, but there were shouts and the sounds of blows on bodies. When all was done, Amlodd lay on his back, Eric was running off into the darkness, and Howie stood where he had been, looking confused.

Amlodd shook his head and sat up. "Curse this wretched body!" he said. "If I'd had my own arms and legs, I'd have snapped his spine for him."

"Eric!" Howie cried, walking in the direction where the boy had run. "Eric! Come back."

"Can you expect him to stay in the state he's in?" asked Amlodd.

"In what state?" asked Bess.

"He became a monster. Surely you saw it. Arms like a squid he had."

Howie turned on him again. "Will you stop telling lies about my boy? I don't care who you think you are, my boy is—"

"A troll and a warlock."

"Will you shut your—"

He rushed on Amlodd with a fist raised, and quickly found himself on his back on the floor. Amlodd stood above him, hands on hips.

"I may not be the man I was," Amlodd said, "and my nerves may be slow, but I've skill enough to handle such as you. I've no wish to kill you, for that would be shameful as killing a child. But goad me not."

Howie got to his feet again and said, "I've got to find Eric." He headed after his son.

Bess stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe it's best we all stay together," she said. "Eric's a tough kid. He'll be able to take care of himself. And he'll find his own way back."

"He's all I've got left, Bess."

"Getting lost yourself won't help him."

Howie slumped his shoulders, hesitated a moment, then went and sat with the others.

There was silence for a time.

"I don't like ghosts," said Peter at last in the half-darkness.

"Few people do," said Sean.

"No, I mean I don't like getting directions from ghosts. I don't believe in them as such."

"As such?" asked Bess.

"What we saw was clearly a supernatural presence. Lots of people have seen presences like that over the years. But just because they're supernatural doesn't make them ghosts."

"What else could they be?" asked Rosemary.

"For want of a better word—demons."

Randy said, "Oh yes, we have a Bible-thumper among us, don't we? Everything's either black or white for you."

"I don't believe that human souls stay around after death—not for very long, anyway. If something looks like a ghost, I think it's probably an evil spirit."

"You forget," said Sean. "Even if it were true in our world, this is Hamlet's world, and Hamlet's ghost was real."

"I think you're mistaken, Sean. In two ways. First of all, this isn't Hamlet's ghost, it's our friend from the theater, the child molester, tab collar and all. He got sucked out of our world just like us. Secondly, I've always thought that Hamlet's ghost was a demon, too."

"That's ridiculous," said Diane. "Hamlet's ghost told the truth."

"And led Hamlet on to disaster. Hamlet wonders about it himself. That's why he sets up the Mousetrap play."

"But the ghost passed the test," said Rosemary. "He told the truth."

"The error wasn't in the information he gave. The error was in demanding revenge."

"Oh jeez," said Bess. "You don't understand about the Elizabethan view of vengeance—"

"And you don't understand about the Protestant teaching on vengeance, which was a hot new idea in Shakespeare's time."

"What you're saying," said Rosemary, "is that we shouldn't trust this ghost."

"That's my suggestion."

"Have you got a better explanation than his for where we are?" asked Howie.

"Not at the moment. His information may be correct, like the ghost's in the play. But his guidance might be disastrous."

"Well, I agree with you on one thing," said Howie. "I don't like ghosts. But for different reasons."

"Scientific?"

"Of course. I can believe in alternate universes. But I don't think ghosts or spirits of any kind exist in any universe."

"You seem to know a lot about the unknown."

"I can't claim to know it. I just don't believe it."

"Because you'd have to rethink your whole world if there were spirits."

"And you'd have to rethink yours if there weren't."

"Touché."  

"I understand how you people come to believe in eternal life," said Howie. "It's understandable when you think about it. We all once lived in a world of eternal things. When you're a baby, and a small child, unless you live in a really screwed-up situation, everything seems eternal. Your parents and grandparents have always existed; you probably live in the same place you've always been; nothing much has changed as far back as you can remember. As you grow older, things start to change. Naturally you hanker for the time when everything seemed secure and immatable. That's where religion comes from."

"What do you say to that, Peter?" asked Randy.

"I . . . I can't prove it wrong. I just don't believe it's true. It's not the only possible explanation."

"Just the best one," said Howie.

"All real scientific and cold-blooded," said Diane. "It explains love, too. When you're little, everybody takes care of you, so you think love exists. You grow up and find out that everybody doesn't love you, but you still hold on to the childish belief that love exists, and that it can give meaning to your life."

"I believe in love," said Howie.

"The illusion is understandable, once you analyze it scientifically," said Diane.

"I'm hungry," said Amlodd. Everyone jumped at the opportunity to change the direction of the discussion.

"Yes, what are we going to do for food here?" asked Sean.

Amlodd clapped his hands twice and shouted "Thralls!" as if that was how he always dealt with hunger, as indeed it was.

Straightway there came a rushing of feet and a dozen shadowy, dark-clothed figures appeared, bowing.

"Set a table," said Amlodd.

The figures bowed again and rushed off. A few moments later they returned with a large tabletop and trestles, which they proceeded to set up. They covered the table with some dark cloth, then set out metal plates and goblets made of what looked like pewter, along with spoons and knives. They brought in long benches then stopped and looked toward Amlodd.

"Feed us," said the main character, and they rushed off to return shortly with platters and bowls heaped with . . . something.

The company sat down to dine and poked their knives tentatively into what they found before them.

"This seems to be meat," said Peter. He cut a small piece and put it in his mouth.

"Don't tell me it tastes like chicken," said Sean.

"It doesn't taste like anything. It's just a bland, generic sort of meat product. If you told me it was beef, I'd believe you, but I'd call it pretty poor beef. If you told me it was horse, I'd believe that too."

"But it's edible?" asked Diane.

"It doesn't taste rancid or anything."

"This seems like some kind of vegetable mush," said Rosemary, taking a chance with a bowl. "The same thing—nothing unpleasant, but nothing to enjoy either."

"Well, I'm starving," said Diane. "Better to be poisoned than starve." She dug in and soon they all joined her, hungrier than they had realized.

After a few minutes Sean said, "Hey, I'm the king. If Will the Barbarian there can get service, why can't I?" He tapped his metal goblet with his knife and called, "Servants!"

The dark shapes gathered.

"I want some light. Bring torches or something."

The servants bowed and turned, but Peter stalled them with a question. "May I ask for something else to drink?"

"What's the matter with what we've got?" asked Howie.

"I'm not sure, but it smells a little like wine. I suppose that's what they'd serve in this world. But I'm a recovering alcoholic. If I can get water, I'd rather not mess up my sobriety."

"God, not only a Jesus freak but a Friend of Bill," said Randy.

"It seems to me I read that the water in Shakespeare's time was so polluted you'd get dysentery and typhoid from it," said Rosemary.

"Well, let's see what we get," said Sean. "Garçon, bring this man water. Clean water. Water from a spring."

The servants trotted off. A couple minutes later they returned with a flagon of what Peter pronounced perfectly good water. "Bland of course, but in water that's a virtue."

They also came with torches which they set into sconces in the walls. The company took the opportunity to get a better look at the servants, but they all wore hoods, and somehow the light did not seem to reach under them.

They feasted for some time, and even Howie grew cheerier. At last they put their knives and spoons down. "I wonder where we sleep?" said Diane.

Amlodd put a hand on Rosemary's arm. "Are you a wife?" he asked.

Rosemary said no.

"Betrothed?"

"No."

"You're a virgin?"

Rosemary laughed. "Not for a few years now—"

"Good, then you're a whore." Amlodd picked her up off her bench and began to carry her away. Rosemary struggled and screamed.

"Do something, Randy, she's your girl," said Sean.

"Not for a couple days now," said Randy, grinning.

Peter got up and walked into Amlodd's path.

"I probably can't fight you any better than Howie could," he said, "but this is not how we treat our women."

"She's yours?"

"No. But I can't let you take her against her will."

"I can hurt you."

"You'll have to then."

"It's okay, Peter." Rosemary said it.

"You want to go with him?" Peter asked.

"Better this than a fight. And, hey, he's Hamlet."

"And you're Ophelia. You know how she ended."

"I'm tougher than her. I'll see you in the morning."

Peter stood and watched as Amlodd and his conquest disappeared down a sort of corridor that hadn't been there before.

"Well, if we're going to be in character, would you care to retire, wife?" Sean asked Diane. Diane smiled and gave him her hand.

"I don't like this," said Peter. "Once we start living our roles we may not be able to stop."

"The old lament of the born-again Christian who isn't getting any," said Diane.

"Servants! Conduct us to our bedchamber!" cried Sean, and the servants appeared with lamps to lead them down the same corridor Amlodd had taken.

Howie sat watching, still at the table, and was startled by the voices of two shadowy men who approached him.

"Master Horatio," they said,
"Bearing on thine affect for Lord Hamlet,
Much remarked and praised by all and general,
Who holding high conceit of his
discourse and parts
Would see him eased from the dark address
Of his late melancholy; for his good weal
We'd tell thee of a wonder.
Strange visitation, wondrous to the sight
Hath us o'ertaken in our nightly watch
Portending woe and horror in the land;
The form of him we knew as liege,
By name King Hamlet, walking in the night
Upon the bastion; as may be t'hold
An eye upon the lands which once he swayed.
Straightway we saw him, stiffened all our limbs;
Burst sweat upon our chill and smoking flesh
Be-rimed to kiss the cold envenomed air.
We thought he made to speak, but in
our fear
We fled that place. And thought we then
Of thee, a man of parts and subtle
To discern.
We pray thee, as a friend and
Christian man,
To honor us our company to bear,
Upon our watch, to view this prodigy;
Grant us, men plain and dull of wit,
Benison of thy rarer schoolman's sense,
To ravel truth from lie—" 

"Get out!" Howie shouted. "Get the hell away from me! I'm Howard Smedhammer, not Horatio! There is no Horatio! If I have my way, there never will be!"

The servants fled.

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Framed

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CHAPTER VII

"All right, let's say I'm Amlodd," Will told himself. "What happens to me? What do I need to prepare for?"

He got to his feet, wrapped his blanket around him, and began to pace. Pacing in the straw in bare feet was an adventure—under the straw was dirt, and stones, and small bones and things that wriggled.

But he found he was less fastidious than he'd been in his own body. He was vaguely aware that he itched most everywhere—no doubt he had lice and fleas like everybody else in the Dark Ages. But he felt no distress about it. The soles of his feet were tough, insensitive to what they trod on short of knife blades or red-hot coals.

His strength sang under his skin. He'd never felt anything like it. He looked around him for something to lift or bend or break. Nothing in the house recommended itself.

He tried the door and found it barred. He gave it a shove and it burst open, the wooden bar outside snapping and flying off in two pieces. He stood in the doorway with no plans to go anywhere, just enjoying his ability to smash barriers. Strangers stared at him, but no one challenged him. He felt an ease of tension as he stood in the open air, and he realized that he hated being cooped up.

He didn't, however, care to be outdoors wearing just a blanket, so reluctantly he went back in.

He needed to concentrate. Amlodd had a story, and it lay over him like a death sentence. He needed to prepare himself for it.

The trouble was, to know what Saxo wrote was not the same as knowing the story. Saxo's account was a garbled collection of legends and folk tales. Half of them probably hadn't even happened to Amlodd, and the other half were remembered wrong. Still, it was all he had.

He remembered with a shudder that some scholars judged Amlodd a myth—a culture hero who existed only in legend. Scholarly habit gave him a frightened moment of fear that he might disappear; then he laughed at himself.

What had happened to Amlodd?

They had tested him, to see if he were really insane. How did it go?

Feng's men had taken him out riding, with some plan about putting him in contact with a woman and seeing what he would do. Why this would be a test of madness, no one could say. Will remembered a Monty Python routine about a village idiot, which ended with the idiot in bed with several attractive young women, saying, "I may be an idiot, but I'm no fool."

Amlodd's response made no better sense. He had gotten away from the witnesses and enjoyed the girl, then gone home and admitted he'd done it. Why hide it in the first place then? Another example of Saxo's sloppy storytelling and garbled sources. There was some wordplay involved too, Hamlet's famous riddles.

Then Amlodd had talked privately with his mother, discovered a spy in a pile of straw and killed him—the inspiration for the death of Polonius in the play. He had disposed of the body by chopping it up, dumping the pieces into a drain and giving them to the pigs. He had been sent to England (he actually got there, had adventures and married the king's daughter), and returned to burn the jarl and his household in their hall. And he'd lived to fight another day—Shakespeare had taken a dramatic liberty in killing him off at the climax. The real Amlodd had been a Viking, not a Greek, and knew nothing of Aristotle's Poetics.

He heard footsteps approaching and turned to see two big men coming toward the house. They were dressed like Guttorm. One carried an axe, the other an unsheathed sword.

"Trying to break out, madman?" asked the one with the sword as he stepped through the door.

Will tensed with fear, and a feeling he'd never known surged through his body. All the reflexes that would have sent him running away in his own time and place hurled him in the opposite direction now. Before he knew it, he had attacked the swordsman, bare hands against steel, ducking under the man's slash, grasping his arm and breaking it over his knee like a stick. As the weapon flew free he caught it by the grip, wheeled and faced the axeman, stepping back so he wouldn't trip over the injured one.

"Want some of the same?" he asked, dancing the weapon from hand to hand, rejoicing in its balance and keenness. The axeman's eyes went wide, and he backed away and fled.

Will found himself laughing. It had all been done without thought—his nerves and his muscles had reacted as they'd clearly been trained to. It was wonderful to be strong and skillful and dangerous. He danced the sword in a figure eight. It felt like a drug, but better than any he'd ever tried in his brief flirtation with chemicals in college.

Guttorm reappeared at the door. "Give me the sword, Amlodd," he said, holding a hand out.

"You've only to ask," said Will, and he returned it, presenting it over his forearm in a gesture that would not be seen again for hundreds of years.

* * ** * *

Bess and Del approached the man they knew as Will carefully, as they would have a Ming vase or a manticore.

"You're Amlodd?" asked Bess.

"I am, and I demand to know what witchcraft has made me a weakling."

"You heard the ghost. You know as much as we do."

"He spoke words without meaning. What is 'physics'? Who is Hamlet?"

"We have a friend named Will. The body you're wearing is his. Somehow his . . . his soul and yours must have got switched."

"Ah," said Amlodd. "That I can grasp." He rubbed his chin a moment, then said, "What are you people? You wear fine clothes, though the pattern is strange. You men wear paltry rings and no weapons, and your hair is short like thralls' and you have no beards. You women dress without modesty, in trousers like men. And you're all weaklings, except for the troll over there." He gestured toward Eric.

"You might say we're skalds, poets," said Del. "But we don't tell our stories in verse. We take the words and deeds of the people in the saga, and relive them."

Amlodd's eyes widened. "You must serve a great king, if he can keep so many skalds to tell tales in this manner."

Howie, from behind them, said "We don't have—" but Peter put a hand on his arm to stop him. "Culture shock," he whispered, and Howie shrugged.

"We've been working on a . . . a saga of a hero called 'Hamlet,' " said Del.

"I have not heard of this hero."

"Hamlet is Amlodd."

Amlodd was silent a moment. "I've ever purposed to have a saga of my own," he said. "But I've done naught as yet to make my name known in so distant a place as this must be."

Bess and Del exchanged a look.

"We're not just distant in miles," said Bess. "We are distant in time as well."

Amlodd shook his head like a horse agitated.

"Hundreds of fathers and sons and grandsons have lived and died since your time. We are from your future."

Amlodd drew himself up in a ball for a moment, like a hedgehog. Then he stretched himself and got to his feet.

"I am dead then? This is Hel? I see no great feasting, no mighty warriors, as in Valhalla. I must have died in bed, and have come down with the women and thralls to Niflheim."

"We don't know what place this is," said Howie. "But we think we're alive. And, at least in that body, so are you."

Amlodd crouched, pushing his fingers back through his hair. "There are so many things I cannot grasp," he said. "This place. You people. That troll—"

"What do you mean 'troll'?" asked Peter.

"That thrall-faced boy over there." He pointed at Eric, who sat apart, sulking. "Can you not see the magic in him?"

"None of us can see magic," said Peter.

"Has the race grown so weak?" asked Amlodd. "Puny bodies and no vision? Well might you relive the sagas of heroes. It's clear you've none of your own. My counsel is to kill the lad now, if we can, before he makes trouble."

Howie got up and took a step forward. "The boy is my son," he said.

Amlodd, still crouched, said, "Then your son is a troll."

Howie took another step and raised a fist. "I don't know who you think you are—"

Amlodd rose from his crouch like a cat and rushed at his attacker. At the same moment Eric moved swiftly between them. No one could tell clearly what happened in the darkness, but there were shouts and the sounds of blows on bodies. When all was done, Amlodd lay on his back, Eric was running off into the darkness, and Howie stood where he had been, looking confused.

Amlodd shook his head and sat up. "Curse this wretched body!" he said. "If I'd had my own arms and legs, I'd have snapped his spine for him."

"Eric!" Howie cried, walking in the direction where the boy had run. "Eric! Come back."

"Can you expect him to stay in the state he's in?" asked Amlodd.

"In what state?" asked Bess.

"He became a monster. Surely you saw it. Arms like a squid he had."

Howie turned on him again. "Will you stop telling lies about my boy? I don't care who you think you are, my boy is—"

"A troll and a warlock."

"Will you shut your—"

He rushed on Amlodd with a fist raised, and quickly found himself on his back on the floor. Amlodd stood above him, hands on hips.

"I may not be the man I was," Amlodd said, "and my nerves may be slow, but I've skill enough to handle such as you. I've no wish to kill you, for that would be shameful as killing a child. But goad me not."

Howie got to his feet again and said, "I've got to find Eric." He headed after his son.

Bess stopped him with a hand on his shoulder. "Maybe it's best we all stay together," she said. "Eric's a tough kid. He'll be able to take care of himself. And he'll find his own way back."

"He's all I've got left, Bess."

"Getting lost yourself won't help him."

Howie slumped his shoulders, hesitated a moment, then went and sat with the others.

There was silence for a time.

"I don't like ghosts," said Peter at last in the half-darkness.

"Few people do," said Sean.

"No, I mean I don't like getting directions from ghosts. I don't believe in them as such."

"As such?" asked Bess.

"What we saw was clearly a supernatural presence. Lots of people have seen presences like that over the years. But just because they're supernatural doesn't make them ghosts."

"What else could they be?" asked Rosemary.

"For want of a better word—demons."

Randy said, "Oh yes, we have a Bible-thumper among us, don't we? Everything's either black or white for you."

"I don't believe that human souls stay around after death—not for very long, anyway. If something looks like a ghost, I think it's probably an evil spirit."

"You forget," said Sean. "Even if it were true in our world, this is Hamlet's world, and Hamlet's ghost was real."

"I think you're mistaken, Sean. In two ways. First of all, this isn't Hamlet's ghost, it's our friend from the theater, the child molester, tab collar and all. He got sucked out of our world just like us. Secondly, I've always thought that Hamlet's ghost was a demon, too."

"That's ridiculous," said Diane. "Hamlet's ghost told the truth."

"And led Hamlet on to disaster. Hamlet wonders about it himself. That's why he sets up the Mousetrap play."

"But the ghost passed the test," said Rosemary. "He told the truth."

"The error wasn't in the information he gave. The error was in demanding revenge."

"Oh jeez," said Bess. "You don't understand about the Elizabethan view of vengeance—"

"And you don't understand about the Protestant teaching on vengeance, which was a hot new idea in Shakespeare's time."

"What you're saying," said Rosemary, "is that we shouldn't trust this ghost."

"That's my suggestion."

"Have you got a better explanation than his for where we are?" asked Howie.

"Not at the moment. His information may be correct, like the ghost's in the play. But his guidance might be disastrous."

"Well, I agree with you on one thing," said Howie. "I don't like ghosts. But for different reasons."

"Scientific?"

"Of course. I can believe in alternate universes. But I don't think ghosts or spirits of any kind exist in any universe."

"You seem to know a lot about the unknown."

"I can't claim to know it. I just don't believe it."

"Because you'd have to rethink your whole world if there were spirits."

"And you'd have to rethink yours if there weren't."

"Touché."  

"I understand how you people come to believe in eternal life," said Howie. "It's understandable when you think about it. We all once lived in a world of eternal things. When you're a baby, and a small child, unless you live in a really screwed-up situation, everything seems eternal. Your parents and grandparents have always existed; you probably live in the same place you've always been; nothing much has changed as far back as you can remember. As you grow older, things start to change. Naturally you hanker for the time when everything seemed secure and immatable. That's where religion comes from."

"What do you say to that, Peter?" asked Randy.

"I . . . I can't prove it wrong. I just don't believe it's true. It's not the only possible explanation."

"Just the best one," said Howie.

"All real scientific and cold-blooded," said Diane. "It explains love, too. When you're little, everybody takes care of you, so you think love exists. You grow up and find out that everybody doesn't love you, but you still hold on to the childish belief that love exists, and that it can give meaning to your life."

"I believe in love," said Howie.

"The illusion is understandable, once you analyze it scientifically," said Diane.

"I'm hungry," said Amlodd. Everyone jumped at the opportunity to change the direction of the discussion.

"Yes, what are we going to do for food here?" asked Sean.

Amlodd clapped his hands twice and shouted "Thralls!" as if that was how he always dealt with hunger, as indeed it was.

Straightway there came a rushing of feet and a dozen shadowy, dark-clothed figures appeared, bowing.

"Set a table," said Amlodd.

The figures bowed again and rushed off. A few moments later they returned with a large tabletop and trestles, which they proceeded to set up. They covered the table with some dark cloth, then set out metal plates and goblets made of what looked like pewter, along with spoons and knives. They brought in long benches then stopped and looked toward Amlodd.

"Feed us," said the main character, and they rushed off to return shortly with platters and bowls heaped with . . . something.

The company sat down to dine and poked their knives tentatively into what they found before them.

"This seems to be meat," said Peter. He cut a small piece and put it in his mouth.

"Don't tell me it tastes like chicken," said Sean.

"It doesn't taste like anything. It's just a bland, generic sort of meat product. If you told me it was beef, I'd believe you, but I'd call it pretty poor beef. If you told me it was horse, I'd believe that too."

"But it's edible?" asked Diane.

"It doesn't taste rancid or anything."

"This seems like some kind of vegetable mush," said Rosemary, taking a chance with a bowl. "The same thing—nothing unpleasant, but nothing to enjoy either."

"Well, I'm starving," said Diane. "Better to be poisoned than starve." She dug in and soon they all joined her, hungrier than they had realized.

After a few minutes Sean said, "Hey, I'm the king. If Will the Barbarian there can get service, why can't I?" He tapped his metal goblet with his knife and called, "Servants!"

The dark shapes gathered.

"I want some light. Bring torches or something."

The servants bowed and turned, but Peter stalled them with a question. "May I ask for something else to drink?"

"What's the matter with what we've got?" asked Howie.

"I'm not sure, but it smells a little like wine. I suppose that's what they'd serve in this world. But I'm a recovering alcoholic. If I can get water, I'd rather not mess up my sobriety."

"God, not only a Jesus freak but a Friend of Bill," said Randy.

"It seems to me I read that the water in Shakespeare's time was so polluted you'd get dysentery and typhoid from it," said Rosemary.

"Well, let's see what we get," said Sean. "Garçon, bring this man water. Clean water. Water from a spring."

The servants trotted off. A couple minutes later they returned with a flagon of what Peter pronounced perfectly good water. "Bland of course, but in water that's a virtue."

They also came with torches which they set into sconces in the walls. The company took the opportunity to get a better look at the servants, but they all wore hoods, and somehow the light did not seem to reach under them.

They feasted for some time, and even Howie grew cheerier. At last they put their knives and spoons down. "I wonder where we sleep?" said Diane.

Amlodd put a hand on Rosemary's arm. "Are you a wife?" he asked.

Rosemary said no.

"Betrothed?"

"No."

"You're a virgin?"

Rosemary laughed. "Not for a few years now—"

"Good, then you're a whore." Amlodd picked her up off her bench and began to carry her away. Rosemary struggled and screamed.

"Do something, Randy, she's your girl," said Sean.

"Not for a couple days now," said Randy, grinning.

Peter got up and walked into Amlodd's path.

"I probably can't fight you any better than Howie could," he said, "but this is not how we treat our women."

"She's yours?"

"No. But I can't let you take her against her will."

"I can hurt you."

"You'll have to then."

"It's okay, Peter." Rosemary said it.

"You want to go with him?" Peter asked.

"Better this than a fight. And, hey, he's Hamlet."

"And you're Ophelia. You know how she ended."

"I'm tougher than her. I'll see you in the morning."

Peter stood and watched as Amlodd and his conquest disappeared down a sort of corridor that hadn't been there before.

"Well, if we're going to be in character, would you care to retire, wife?" Sean asked Diane. Diane smiled and gave him her hand.

"I don't like this," said Peter. "Once we start living our roles we may not be able to stop."

"The old lament of the born-again Christian who isn't getting any," said Diane.

"Servants! Conduct us to our bedchamber!" cried Sean, and the servants appeared with lamps to lead them down the same corridor Amlodd had taken.

Howie sat watching, still at the table, and was startled by the voices of two shadowy men who approached him.

"Master Horatio," they said,
"Bearing on thine affect for Lord Hamlet,
Much remarked and praised by all and general,
Who holding high conceit of his
discourse and parts
Would see him eased from the dark address
Of his late melancholy; for his good weal
We'd tell thee of a wonder.
Strange visitation, wondrous to the sight
Hath us o'ertaken in our nightly watch
Portending woe and horror in the land;
The form of him we knew as liege,
By name King Hamlet, walking in the night
Upon the bastion; as may be t'hold
An eye upon the lands which once he swayed.
Straightway we saw him, stiffened all our limbs;
Burst sweat upon our chill and smoking flesh
Be-rimed to kiss the cold envenomed air.
We thought he made to speak, but in
our fear
We fled that place. And thought we then
Of thee, a man of parts and subtle
To discern.
We pray thee, as a friend and
Christian man,
To honor us our company to bear,
Upon our watch, to view this prodigy;
Grant us, men plain and dull of wit,
Benison of thy rarer schoolman's sense,
To ravel truth from lie—" 

"Get out!" Howie shouted. "Get the hell away from me! I'm Howard Smedhammer, not Horatio! There is no Horatio! If I have my way, there never will be!"

The servants fled.

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