Let's Kill The King

A Story by Tejana

Not a story. First we each wrote letters as an assassin, addressed to Hamlet to offer our services in killing his uncle. Then we were each given another's letter and asked to reply to it as Hamlet.

02 December 1614

Coup de Grace

Kronborg Castle’s Seventieth Tree

Elsinore, Denmark

Coup de Grace:

I am much relieved that you are willing to offer your services in hearing my predicament. I hold you in great esteem and I look forward to your partnership in this murder. Our mutual friends have done us justice in allowing us to meet and express our pleasures in honouring my father, the previous king, and doing away with my uncle, the current king.

Indeed, your competence is shown in your previous assassinations and may I add, I did but loath the Prince of Orange. As for my mother, the Queen, she will not be targeted for she does not carry the many sins of my uncle. Only the King will be targeted and his death will be the punishment bestowed upon him for his tresspasses.

Your aforementioned method of a slow and ghastly death entices me a great deal. I suggest you use this method in allowing him to seek repentance for his crimes and administering to him a most dire torture. In succession of this murder, I request both his eyes; the eyes foretold to be the windows of his soul, the eyes which could not see past his own greed, and the eyes which saw my father in his last breaths and in the agony of his betrayal.

The assassination should take place between two and five of the morning, when the maids and guards are off duty. I will meet you at the seventieth tree which you have requested and there we will further accommodate my uncle’s death. If the murder is executed perfectly and the eyes of the King brought to me, ten chests of gold will await you for your excellence.

Yours,

Prince Hamlet