Authors: Beth Trissel
“‘Stay
!
’” Douglas
ordered
.
Ron grabbed L
yle back at the king’s signal.
Douglas rose from his t
hrone and walked to the table.
“‘Give me d
rink!’” he said
, as he
’
d
decreed.
He
lifted the goblet and sipped, t
hen took a large pearl from his pocket
and dropped it into the cup. ‘“Hamlet this pearl is
thine
.
Here’s to thy health!’”
He
offered the cup to Will. He
refused
a swallow
.
“‘I’ll play this bout first.
Set it by awhile.’”
Douglas seemed a little put out by
Hamlet’s reluctance, but he set the cup back down
.
Lyle paused by the table, eyeing the g
oblet.
He stood over it
for
a moment
.
Trumpet blasts signaled the next round.
Will and Lyle faced off
and extended their
swords
.
T
he spark of steel
fell
in earnest
now
.
They’d rehearsed
every step
,
but Will
set his
teeth as t
hey lunged back and forth, swinging and clashing.
He
crossed blades
with Lyle,
forci
ng him
back.
Lyle countered with
an upward twist
and
broke fre
e
.
He
swu
ng at Will.
In a sudden move, Will
side-stepped the
whistling
blade
,
and tapped
Lyle
in passing
.
“‘Another hit!
’”
Will shouted.
“‘A touch
––
I do confess,’” Lyle said.
Will grew
heated
insi
de the mail vest and the crowded hall was stuffy
.
Both
he and Lyle breathed
heavily, and no
t only in
acting.
Will sat on a low s
tool and Lyle strode to Paul for
a small towel.
Douglas
beamed
in supposed
delight at
Hamlet’
s success.
“‘Our son shall win.
”
Wil
l offered the
deceitful
king a salute.
Still,
Douglas
stayed in his chair, making
no move to rise and drink his health as promised.
Instead, the quee
n mother rose from her throne.
“‘He’s scant of breath.
Here, Hamlet.
Take my napkin, rub thy brow.
’”
She
walked to the table, smiling
at
Will, and lifted the
gleaming
cup
.
“‘
The queen c
arouses to thy fortune, Hamlet.
”
An odd turn of phrase
, Will thought, but there was no accounting f
or some of Shakespeare’s choices
.
Douglas leapt
up.
“‘Gertrude, do not drink!’”
The
willful queen discounted him.
“‘I will, my lord, I pray you pardon me,’” she announc
ed with another smile at Will.
She raised the cup to he
r lips and took a long swallow,
then
flowed to Will in her regal robe
and offered the goblet to him.
He declined.
“
‘I dare not drink yet, Madame.
By and by.’”
Douglas and Lyle exchanged significant glances and a far more somber king retook his
seat
.
“‘
Come, l
et me wipe
thy face.’”
Queen Nora took a white cloth
from her gown and
blot
ted
Will’s
forehead.
She kissed his cheek, and he lightly squeezed her aged hand.
She strolled back t
o her throne
under the king
’s
rueful
eye
.
Trumpets sounded
for the third and final bout
.
Lyle reached
for his sword
and Paul shifted it into his grasp
.
He strode toward Will with
the end of his blade
dipped in
greenish-black
dye
to resemble
the deadly
poison
wolf
s
bane
.
Supposedly, t
he
same toxin
had permeated the pearl
, and
consequently,
the wine
.
Queen Nora was about to enact her death scene.
Will beckoned to
Lyle
with his sword
.
“‘Come, for the t
hird, Laertes
.
P
ass
with your best violence.’”
“‘Say you so?
Come on!
’”
Will charged, swinging
.
They came together in a riotous clash.
This was the round where Laertes nicked
Hamlet with the deadly blade.
Lyle would
fake
a stab at him and
then
––
“‘Look to th
e queen there, ho!’” Jon called
.
Will paused in mid-swing.
Lyle did the same, and both swiveled
to
ward the throne.
Grand
mother Nora had outdone herself
.
This was her best
perfor
mance ever
.
She wiped at her glistening
brow, panting in shallow breaths. How had she managed the clammy pallor of her skin?
She
’d
even
adopted a
believable
tremor. Gasping, clutching her chest, she
slid down into her chair.
Weakly lifting her hand, she fluttered her fingers
at the cup
and uttered
the immortal words, “‘The drink
––
the drink
.
’”
Nora’s head lolled back in her chair
and
Julia shrieked,
“She’s poisoned!”
Wait
––
t
hat wasn’t
Ophelia’s line.
She wasn’t
even
in this scene.
Sick dread seized Will
.
His grandmother
wasn’t
acting
.
“Charlotte
!
C
all 911!
Have them send an ambulance a
nd the police!”
The audienc
e gasped in unison.
Women cried
out
.
The faces of the cast were a
shocked blur
.
Will
pointed a
n accusing finger at
Lyle.
“Seize him
!
And don’t touch those swords!
”
“I didn’t bloody do it!”
Lyle protested, as Ron and Dave tackled him.
Will bounded to his grandmother
and gathered her, tremb
ling, in his arms.
Douglas raised stricken eyes.
“What’ll
we
do?”
In true
Nora style, she
summoned the strength to
murmur, “That’s not your line.”
Will had the terrible feeling those were the last words she’d ever speak. And more, that poisoned sword had been meant for him.
He doubted Lyle ever
intended
a
mere
tap with the lethal point.
“I never thought it would be her,” Will said numbly.
Not
only had an ambulance and
three police
cars
arrived, but a state trooper,
a
ladder truck,
the fire chief
and W
ill wasn’t even sure who else.
All the techno color flashing in the
dark
parking lot
made the
surreal scene even more so
.
Julia slid trembling
fingers into his and
they watched
helple
ssl
y from the lawn
while
two
blue-uniformed f
igures rolled
Nora past them on
a gurney along
the brick walk
.
Never, ever, had Will
thought Midsummer’s Eve woul
d end abruptly with his grandmother
wheeled away
, IV tubes
stuck
in her
arms, an
oxygen mask over her white face as she lay
unconscious
.
“Wait
,
” he
entreated
the two emergency technicians
.
They
paused and
he
let go of Julia to bend
over his
unmoving
grandmother. “It’s me
,
William,
” he choked
past the lump in his throat.
“
I’ll be right there
with you
as soon as
the police
let me come
.”
He
squeezed her chilled hand.
She didn’t press his
in return.
He
forced himself to
st
raighten
and motioned the medical technicians
on.
They
hoisted the gurney
up
into the ambulance
and
slammed the doors
.
The finality of that
sound ricocheted
through
Will
like a rifle shot
.
He
caught
one fellow’s
arm
.
“
Is there a
ny
chance
she
’ll
survive
this?”
The technician was middle-aged, his creased eyes sympathetic, but
masked by
years of experience
.
“We’re
doing everything we can for her,
Mr.
Wentworth
,
b
ut she’s elderly and
has a heart condition.
That was
a
n awful
lot of poison for one old woman.”
At least the man had
been frank.
Will nodded with the daunting realization
that he probably wouldn’t ever
se
e his grandmother alive again.
How was that poss
ible? She’d always been there,
a thorn in his side much of the time, but a driving force
like a
stiff wind whipping the sails of a clipper sh
ip.
He would sorely miss her.
Life at Foxleigh
without
the imperious
Nora
Wentworth
was unimaginable.
“I should go
to the
hospital,” Will said
.
Julia retook his hand
.
“
I’ll go with you.”
Charlotte came up behind them, h
er voice cracking.
“
There’s not
hing
either of you
can do there now
.
Besides, y
ou’
re needed here.
It’s what Nora would want.
”