by John Boyne
I lost myself in drink for a time and could usually be found in one hostelry or another, my head slumped over some wooden table with a roughly carved top, slurring words of regret deep into the night until either the landlord or another customer dragged me out and threw me in the gutter. In the evenings, before the drink took its effect, I might pick up a woman who was willing to offer her favors for a few coins, debasing myself with such transactions.
It was in a tavern called the Bickspitel, however, that I had the good fortune to encounter my older brother, Jasper, who I had not seen in several years. When last our paths crossed, we had been staying overnight in a hostelry, he heading south, I heading north, and he had left early the following morning before I awoke. Seeing him march toward me now, grinning in delight with his arms open wide, I felt a wave of delight break over me.
“Brother!” he roared, the words emerging from a face that seemed more hair than skin. His red beard covered him so thoroughly that only his eyes and nose were visible through the foliage. He seemed to have grown no older and his body appeared accustomed to combat. I was certain that he could still fell a man for nothing more than looking at him the wrong way.
“Jasper,” I replied, standing up to embrace him. “Can it be you?”
“It can and it is!” he said. “I saw a miserable-looking creature sitting over here in the corner, drinking alone, and thought, I recognize that ugly face. What brings you to Belgium?”
He sat down opposite me and when the waitress came over with more beer, he dragged her onto his lap for a few moments before sticking his tongue in her mouth, a liberty to which she offered no objections. Their ardor grew even more intense as his hand wandered up her skirt and when I saw her throw her head back and sigh in contentment at whatever he was doing to her under there, I began to wonder whether he had forgotten my presence entirely. Finally, however, he released her, slapped her on her rear end, and she wandered off to serve someone else.
“What?” he asked when he turned back to me, the rouge from her cheeks feathering his beard. “You don’t like women?”
“I do,” I replied. “But I usually ask before doing…whatever it was that you were doing.”
“Your trouble, Brother, is that you were always too polite,” he said, slapping his hand on the table before him. “I’ve never asked permission from a woman in my life and have no intention of starting now. Remind me, Brother, you have a wife? Or you had a wife? I can’t recall.”
“I had two,” I said. “I lost them both.”
“In childbirth?”
“The first in an accident, the second to murder.”
“I hope you cursed the god responsible for the former,” he said, frowning. “And killed the man responsible for the latter.”
I gave a noncommittal smile and he grunted, finishing the rest of his beer in one draft before reaching into the middle of the table, where a bowl of roasted chicken legs sat. He gnawed his way through three before tossing their denuded bones over his shoulder, where they landed on the head of another drunk, who looked up in surprise for only a moment before settling back to sleep. A dog sensed his chance, leaped up on the table and grabbed the carcasses before making its way into a corner, where it settled down with its spoils.
“Your accent,” I said. “Of course, you’ve been away from home for many years, but you sound very different. Where have you been living?”
“Scotland,” he told me. “Perhaps I’ve picked up some of its filthy brogue. I’ve had a good life there, Brother. Sired a bunch of children, although I haven’t seen any of them in years and couldn’t tell you their names. Some were girls, some were boys, I know that much anyway. I was a farmer for a time, then I set up an inn of my own, much like this one, but I didn’t like serving men and cleaning up their vomit when they’d taken too much. So I gave it up and set out on the road once again in search of adventure and before long I found myself in service to the King.”
“The King of where?” I asked.
“The King of Scotland, of course, what other king would I mean?” He nodded toward the end of the room, where a crowd of similarly burly men were gathered around a tall, thin man, laughing sycophantically at his every word as if he were the greatest comedian of his age. “That’s him down there. Yon weaselly looking fellow with the droopy eye.”
I raised an eyebrow skeptically. “The King of Scotland is sitting in a tavern in Bruges?” I asked. “That seems unlikely to me.”
“Men have died for suggesting I’m a liar, Brother,” he said, pushing his face close to mine. “So have a care with your words, aye?”
“My apologies,” I said, bowing my head a little. “It’s just unexpected, that’s all. And his name?”
“Surely you know the name of the one true King of Scotland?” he asked, sitting back again and looking at me askance. “How ignorant can you be? ’Tis King Macbeth and no other! You were supposed to be the clever one in our family, I thought. Have you no knowledge of any land outside your own?”
“I’ve been away from the world for some time,” I told him, choosing not to enlighten him on my recent activities. “I haven’t kept up with politics.”
“Well, that’s the poor bastard down there anyway. He’s been King these last ten years, aye, since Duncan trespassed into Bothnagowan and sacrificed his life on account of it. A nice enough man, is Macbeth, if you get him on the right day. A total monster, of course. Brutal and sadistic. But a nice enough man all the same.”
“So—forgive me—but what is the King of Scotland doing in an inn in the Low Countries?”
“It’s all a lot of nonsense, if you ask me,” he replied, leaning forward and lowering his voice. “He’s on a pilgrimage, may God bless him for his eternal stupidity. Going to Rome to see the Pope and get the papal blessing, because he knows that’ll put the wind up that English prick, Edward, and there’s no great love lost between the pair. Perhaps he has a stain on his soul that needs removing. I don’t know and I don’t much care. He doesn’t confide in the likes of me.”
I stood up and made my way down toward the piss-pots at the rear of the tavern, taking the opportunity to steal a look at this supposed King when I passed his table. He had a bushy head of dark hair but, unusually for a man of these times, a clean-shaven face. Next to him sat an elegant lady with fine blond hair. When she caught my eye, it was difficult to hold her gaze for too long, for she was very beautiful. Her face bore an inscrutable expression and it seemed that she was determined to stare at me until I turned away and so, finally, I did.
“And the woman?” I asked Jasper when I returned to our table.
“What woman?”
“The one sitting next to him.”
He glanced around for a moment as if he were unsure, even though she was the only female in the inn outside of the serving girls and prostitutes.
“Oh, that piece of filthy baggage?” he asked, blowing a sound of distaste through his lips. “The Queen. Granddaughter of King Kenneth as once reigned. Daughter of Prince Boite. Once Lady Macbeth, but that was a little further away from the seat of power than she liked, so she made sure to rise to even greater heights. The power behind the throne, as they say.” He sniffed as he lifted both a fresh beer and the skirt of another passing girl, who, unlike her colleague, entertained no such liberties, taking an empty plate from the table next to ours and smashing it down over my brother’s head. He took the assault in good spirits, all the same, laughing heartily and pressing the heel of his hand against the cut on his forehead until the blood clotted. “I’ve had the Queen a few times myself, as it happens,” he added. “I’d recommend her to you, Brother. She’s a dirty wee mare and knows the kind of tricks that can drive a man to dribble with lust.”
A little drunk, I couldn’t help but laugh, and he shrugged his shoulders.
“Most of us have been called to her bed at one time or another,”
he continued. “She likes variety, you see. Tall men, short men, fat men, thin. Ugly men, too, so you’re in with a chance there. The King doesn’t care. He likes a bit of variety himself and doesn’t go a day without finding a little pleasure of his own. It’s what you might call a very happy marriage.”
“Perhaps he’ll have to spend longer confessing to the Pope than he might anticipate,” I said. “And you’re going on this pilgrimage with him?”
“I’m one of his guardsmen,” he replied. “He likes us to be big and brutal, so I fit the bill quite nicely, don’t you think? I can’t imagine anyone wanting to attack him, though—no one in Europe even knows who he is—but the poor man likes to think he’s very important so he surrounds himself with men like me and we get paid handsomely for it. You should join us, Brother! It’s a long road to Rome and I could do with someone sensible to talk to. Most of these animals can barely string three words together.”
I considered his offer and felt immediately drawn to the idea. I would have food and accommodation, after all, and could ask after my cousin in the towns and villages along the way. For now, though, there was more drink to be had, more memories of the past for us to share, and before I knew it, I was stumbling back to a room above the inn and falling into a deep sleep.
* * *
• • •
Like any man, I was accustomed to having dreams of an erotic nature, but that night, I experienced one that felt more real than anything I had known since I was a young boy edging my way toward manhood. A woman was between my legs, her mouth around my cock, and I was groaning in pleasure as she made herself familiar with it. Soon, the dream became so vivid that my eyes opened and, to my astonishment, the woman was no figment of my imagination, but a living, breathing person. I pulled aside the thin sheet that I had thrown atop myself and there was a naked woman, seducing me in my sleep. I cared not who it was, for I was too far gone in my lust to protest and simply lay back with my head upon the pillow, my eyes closed again, while she moved her body up a little and allowed me to slip inside her. When I was spent, I reached down to pull her closer, certain that she would be some doxy my brother had arranged to be sent to my room as a surprise and was shocked to see that this was no common trollop at all but a person of far greater import.
“You’re not as big as your brother,” said the Scottish Queen in a cool voice when our eyes met. “But I think you might have more tenderness in your soul. And you lasted a little longer. He’s more interested in his own pleasure than anyone else’s. And he doesn’t often take long to achieve it.”
“How did you get in here?” I asked, dazed and astonished by her presence.
“There are no locks on the doors.”
“And what if the King finds out?”
“The King is otherwise engaged,” she said. “Having done to him what I’ve just been doing to you. There’s no reason to worry. My husband is not a jealous man. We have an understanding, he and I.”
I frowned. As much as I’d enjoyed the experience, I wasn’t sure that I liked being treated in such a cavalier fashion. At the very least, she might have asked first.
“Do you always enter the rooms of strangers in the middle of the night, when they’re asleep, and seduce them in this way?” I asked.
“Whenever I feel like it, yes,” she replied. “I’ve never been the sort that seeks permission of others. Anyway, you enjoyed it, didn’t you?”
“What if I had a wife?”
“There’s no one here with you.”
“There could be someone waiting for me at home.”
She smiled and shook her head. “I don’t know you,” she said. “But if I’m certain of anything, it’s that there is nowhere in this world that you call home anymore. I saw it in your eyes earlier.”
I felt a sharp pain in my stomach at this observation but, after all, she was right and there was no point in my denying it.
“I hear that Jasper has invited you to join us on our pilgrimage?” she continued, climbing off me now and pulling her clothes together as I sat up in the bed and nodded.
“He did,” I admitted.
“Are you a person of religious scruple?”
“I’m not, no.”
“All the better. Neither am I. And neither is the King, in his heart, but he has a superstitious bent.”
“Although I did spend a year among monks not so long ago,” I told her. “And found their company stimulating. There was a serenity there that—”
“I don’t care,” she said.
I laughed, unsure whether to be offended or charmed by her bluntness.
“You know that we’re planning an audience with the Pope when we arrive in Rome?”
“Jasper told me, yes.”
“Perhaps that would interest you, regardless of whether or not you’re a believer.”
“Would I be welcome, do you think?”
“In Rome? How should I know?”
“I meant if I were to join your retinue. There wouldn’t be any…awkwardness?”
She burst out laughing and shook her head. “You’re quite naïve, aren’t you?” she said. “No, you don’t need to worry about any of that. I may want to have sex with you again as we continue our journey, or I may not. Who knows? Don’t let it concern you, it’ll be up to me to decide either way and you won’t have any say in the matter. If you hadn’t chanced upon Jasper, where would you have gone anyway? What were your plans?”
“To travel through the bigger cities of Europe,” I told her. “I’m trying to track down an old friend and, given enough time, I’m sure I’ll be able to find him.”
“And this man has done you some disservice?”
“He has.”
“So, you mean to kill him.”
“I do.”
She nodded. “Then you must do so. Some killings are justified.”
“I suppose a queen would know that very well,” I said, and she threw me a fractious look.
“Don’t be impertinent,” she said. “My husband came to the throne in the old-fashioned way. Defeating King Duncan in battle. He invaded Moray, which was our domain, so my husband led an army against him. And rightly so. Duncan fell on the field of battle and my husband took the crown. Yes, there was killing involved, but all of it defensible. It’s been that way since the dawn of time. It’s how thrones are won. Perhaps you’re too innocent to understand.”
“I’m not as innocent as you may think,” I replied quietly. “As it happens, I have the blood of more than one person on my hands.”
“Then you’re just like everyone else in this scarlet-soaked world,” she said, standing up and making her way toward the door. “We have choices in this life. We hurt or get hurt. We betray or get betrayed. We kill or get killed. If you want to survive, then you need to know which side you’re on.”
“And which side are you on?” I asked, and she smiled, as if the answer were obvious.
“My own,” she replied. “Always my own.”
* * *
• • •
A few hours later, I descended from my room to the inn where Macbeth, his Queen, and their guards were eating a lavish breakfast, and it was as if nothing unusual had taken place at all.
“Well, Brother?” asked Jasper, taking me to one side and throwing a big, burly arm around my shoulder. “Have you made your decision? Will you join us?”
“For now,” I said. “Perhaps not all the way to Rome but, if the offer still stands, then I will join you for some part of the journey and earn my keep.”
He slapped me on the back so hard that I stumbled forward, tripping over a chair, and fell to the floor. Jasper burst out laughing and, as he picked me up, I saw the Queen cackling, too, and shaking her head.
“Two brothers back together,” he said. “Just as nature intended! Our father would have been a proud man a
t this moment!”
NETHERLANDS
A.D. 1086
PRIDE AT SEEING HIS TWO SONS reunited would have been one thing, but I suspect our father would have been less gratified to learn that the man we’d been hired to protect was killed by his own brother only a few days later, and we had been unable to prevent this from happening.
Having spent little time in the company of the King, I felt no great sense of loss at his murder, but the effect on Queen Adela was obvious and she deferred to my brother Jannik on what to do next. He advised that we leave our lodgings under cover of night, but still, it was not until several days later, when we reached Enschede in the Netherlands, that any of us began to feel secure.
Naturally, the Queen was fearful that those traitors who had murdered their sovereign would come after her, too, but we were careful to hide our tracks as we rode. Since we were only a small group of seven—the royal party, a lady-in-waiting, Jannik, three other soldiers, and I—we hoped to arrive in Flanders without further incident.
“We shall call it a pilgrimage,” the anxious Queen declared as we rode along, and Jannik and the soldiers nodded in agreement, for warriors always preferred to think they were journeying toward a place rather than running away from a fight. “Since I was a girl, I have been told of the beauty of St. Bavo’s Cathedral in Ghent and, if asked, I shall say that I want to kneel at the altar there to pray for the soul of my beloved husband.”
“You have a spiritual bent, my lady?” I asked as we rode ahead, our conversation muted so that our companions would not hear our words.
“Of course,” she replied. “I am an anointed queen. How could I honor that title if I did not feel a devotion to Christ?”
