I requested Henri. Being French and uninvolved in the mob, he was neutral in all this, as neutral a person as I could find, anyway. Really, I just needed a friend like lungs needed oxygen. Together we would investigate Claudius’ claim of innocence. Even though Henri had a weak grasp of Danish, I knew it was safer to join our judgments together after looking at the facts. If he came to the same conclusion I did, then we had our man. After the past twenty-four hours, I didn’t trust myself at all.
The likelihood that Claudius had killed King Hamlet tainted my opinion of him, but he acted so assured of his innocence in my father’s death that I had to discover if he was right.
That was how, two days later, I found myself in the Queen’s apartments accompanied by Henri, Queen Gertrude, and four
