by David Hewson
“Friends,” he said, still staring into the darkness, waving her down. “There’s one I thought I’d see here. The greatest friend of all. My savior and my rock. Oh, Banquo...” He scratched his head. “Where are you, man?”
“His absence is a shame,” Ross said. “The man has only himself to blame for missing so glorious an evening.”
“Where are you...? Where...I cannot...”
The king’s voice died into a soft and terrified howl and the room fell silent, hushed by his terrified countenance.
“My lord...” Skena said, gripped by a familiar and frigid apprehension.
“Do you not see?” he cried, pointing beyond them into the dark corridor beyond. “Ross? Lennox?”
The two men glanced uneasily at each other, and Lennox said, “I see your subjects and servants, sir. Nothing more...”
“Which among you did this?” he thundered, turning to them, staring red-faced at the seated figures around the tables.
“His highness is not well,” Ross said, rising. “The queen is right. It’s time we all departed.”
“Do not judge him,” Skena said quickly, rushing to his side. “The king suffers from a minor malady, a fit, nothing more. He’s known these since his youth. In a moment he will be himself, I assure you.”
She took his arm. Still, Macbeth stared ahead into the darkness where the servants lay, moving between kitchen and hall, though none came now.
“Gone?” he muttered. “Gone? And yet I saw—”
“Husband?” she said out loud, then more quietly in his ear, “Macbeth, my lord. Act like a man, not a frightened fool.”
“A man? A man?” His voice was as light as that of a girl and so detached he seemed lost to her. “I am a man and dare face that which would appall the devil. But not that fiend...”
She held him tight and close and murmured, “This is drunken lunacy. Like the dagger you saw in the air at Inverness. Like the voices you heard. All dreams and fancies, an old woman’s story by a winter’s fire. Find reason in yourself and I will lead you out of here.”
A gentle kiss on his rough, bristly cheek, a squeeze of his cold hand. She took the drink from him and looped her arm through his, trying to fix on his wild and darting eyes.
Macbeth shook his head and stared at the room with all its silent, puzzled faces. “I apologize, most worthy friends,” he said. “Do not be concerned. As my lady says, this is a malady from my youth. A strange and temporary infirmity, nothing to those who know me. Come!” He picked up the nearest tankard and banged it on the table. “More wine for you, though...” He glanced at her and winced. “I shall be sober from now on, as you and my wife deserve. A toast...”
“To Banquo!” cried Lennox and others after him. “To—”
A sudden, shocked silence. Sweating, cursing, Macbeth tore from her grip, wild-eyed and shrieking yet again, pointing back toward the corridor opposite.
“Look there!” he cried. “For God’s sake, see!”
She followed the line of his finger and made out a figure in the shadows beneath the arches, beyond the balustrade. A gigantic shape, shoulders as wide as those of two ordinary men, a face unrecognizable for blood, a beard and hair disheveled like that of a corpse upon the battlefield.
Around this apparition’s shoulders stood something silvery gray, and on its scalp a mask like the head of a wild creature, long fangs falling across his grimy forehead.
“What is this...?” she whispered, frozen with sudden fear.
“Do not shake your gory locks at me!” Macbeth cried. “Keep your corpse in the charnel houses and graveyard. Do not offend the living. Crawl back into the earth!”
She left him, took two steps forward to see this thing better.
“Banquo?” she murmured, and approached a step closer.
The creature was trying to speak, yet uttering no words that any knew, only a series of raw, inhuman moans, no language in them, merely pain.
The massive figure took a step into the light and MacDuff said, so loud and clear all heard, “I’d know that wolf’s mane anywhere. But what’s the beast that wears it?”
The vile porter who hung around Macbeth too much scurried into view from behind the stumbling, troubled figure.
“Apologies, lords,” the man cried, eyes wide with fright. “This poor, dumb soul was lost within the palace and stumbled in here, confused and sore in mind.”
MacDuff was on his feet.
“He wears Banquo’s cloak!” the thane cried. “With blood upon it. Who is this man? And who his master?”
“Some visitor from the north,” the porter replied, pushing the giant in the wolf skin back into the shadows.
“Banquo?” Lennox shouted.
Macbeth stood there, frozen to the spot, seemingly as dumb as the shambling figure in the animal skin before him.
“There has been a tragedy on the way to Laggan,” the porter cried, arms outstretched, voice breaking. “Robbers attacked the lord and his son as they rode into the hills. This man came upon them and sought to help. He was wounded in the fray himself and found his way here after. Do not blame him, I pray you...”
More unintelligible sounds found their way out of the creature’s throat and now Skena could see the strange truth: he had no tongue.
“He is dumb, sirs,” the porter said. “A brave Scots soldier mutilated by the Vikings for his courage. He brought the skin to show us the truth he cannot speak and has been wandering these dark passageways in great distress...”
“And?” MacDuff demanded.
The porter spread his arms wide in apology. “Three guards found the good lord in a ditch. The boy is gone. Where, no one knows.” The tears stood in his eyes, so full of bleak sincerity she wished to scream. “Lord Banquo’s dead. They hunt the mountain rogues who killed him now...”
A breathless sigh ran round the hall. Macbeth stood there, speechless, rooted to the spot.
“Banquo?” MacDuff said, his eyes narrow and suspicious, casting round the crowd. They came to a halt on the silent figure with the crown staring at the strange and bearded man in front of him, as if he, too, saw a ghost. “Murdered?”
There was a long silence. Ross gazed into his cup while the woman opposite him began to sob quietly.
Skena broke the tension, stood in front of her distraught husband, and pleaded with them, “Lords and ladies, kindly give my husband room for grief. He and Banquo were the dearest of friends. You are witness to his keen distress. Retire to your rooms. There, mourn our great lost lord. Tomorrow, in the daylight, let us see what news of this dire event may be found, and hope that we can track the boy Fleance and keep him safe from these vicious mountain rogues.”
“Tomorrow,” MacDuff said, “I go home to Fife. I mourn Banquo there—alone. If need be.”
He set his tankard quietly on the table. There was a finality to the act, and when he looked around the thanes close by him, Skena followed, watching to see who met his eyes. Lennox, Angus...they kept their counsel.
“What say you, Your Highness?” Ross asked boldly.
Macbeth could not remove his eyes from the creature in the wolf skin.
“Take this bloody man away!” she ordered, and quickly the porter obeyed, leading the mute giant from the hall.
Still, the king stood there silent, locked on the darkness ahead of him.
“I pray you,” Skena answered, “do not ask more questions of my husband. Questions only serve to stoke his illness. Good night! Don’t stand upon the order of your going. Leave now, I beg you.”
Lennox got to his feet and smiled feebly, looking at Macbeth. “Good night. And better health attend his majesty,” he said with a brief salute.
It was more than they got from most. There was a storm of chairs and benches, then an eerie silence as everyone left the chamber, some exchanging dark looks, some with streaming eyes, all speechless. Within a minute the hall was empty and the two of them stood alone in silence and the flickering yellow light of the torches.
“Late,” she said. “Too late.”
“MacDuff suspects us. I see it in his cunning face.”
She rounded on him.
“Suspects us? Suspects what? Did you give him reason?”
He looked away, as if her presence was unimportant, scanning the tables, with their half-finished plates and goblets. “I’ll put money into all their houses—MacDuff and Lennox, Ross and all. So not a one of them lacks a servant in my pay. They’ll tell us what these traitors whisper in the night, and then I’ll deal with them.”
“Macbeth!” she cried, clinging to him. “What have you done? Banquo?” She recalled the strange talk earlier. “That was the deed you spoke of? To murder your childhood friend and his meek and powerless son?”
“I did not seize this realm for them. The witches told me—”
“Not to kill them!”
“The sisters said from him stemmed a line of monarchs...” His eyes turned dark and thoughtful. “And for me a crown alone. I must see them soon. Those women. I will know the worst, whatever it pains me...”
“Enough!” she whispered, choking back the tears. “We killed Duncan for the crown. To take it from a tyrant and place upon it a man who was worthy of it. Not...this!”
It was as if he were deaf to the sound of her voice.
His index finger stabbed the dark air as he murmured grimly, “I am so far steeped in blood that if I chose to wade no further, then returning would be as bloody as to proceed. There are things here”—he pushed a finger to his temple—“that must be acted upon before the likes of MacDuff know it. Banquo told me my face is a map, open to the world. Let them read it well.” He raised his hand before her. “From this day on, I treat those who love me with kindness and the rest with the iron fist of my swift justice. Tomorrow we make for Forres. Then—”
“Husband,” she said in the faintest, weakest voice. “You must sleep. These cares, these troubles, wreck your reason.” She took his arm. “Come with me. Come to bed.”
“Bed?” His stark eye held her. “I will sleep when I am ready. We’re still young in deed. There’s mischief yet to come. More than any know.” He gazed at her and for one brief moment seemed sane. “Even I.”
The night was strange and restless. Macbeth wandered the palace halls, his blood thrilling to every night sound, incapable of rest. When he finally entered their chamber, he saw his wife was awake, staring at the ceiling and quite still. She did not move, did not look in his direction, when he entered. After a moment watching her, he left and found a blanket on the floor of the great hall.
Dawn broke over the distant hills, revealing a palace in disorder. MacDuff was gone by the time Macbeth rose, his head hurting. The others followed not long after, a few making an attempt at politeness, others vanishing without a word.
In his mind, he saw his kingdom now, a vast and diverse land of mountain, glen, and pasture, inhospitable coastline, vibrant, prosperous ports. From the English border by the Tweed at Berwick to the contested lands of the far north to which the Vikings still laid claim, the nation stretched before him, daring him to master it.
He knew now why Duncan was such an itinerant man, moving from palace to palace, Stirling to Dunkeld, Forres to the grim fortress on the southern rock of Edinburgh. This ceaseless caravan kept him safe from discord, spread his presence and his authority from thane to thane, keeping all in check, close and familiar, drawing every local warlord into the shared conspiracy that bore the name of the state.
Before he seized the crown, Macbeth was thane of Glamis, forced to live in Inverness as Duncan’s lieutenant overseeing Moray, one knight among many upon the chessboard known as Scotland. Now he was the player, not a piece, and the complex range of gambits, stratagems, and sly alliances that lay before him stretched beyond his knowledge and imagination. He was a general at heart, a warrior who saw the world in black and white, not a diplomat or politician used to treading between so many shades of gray they seemed like nightfall slipping from a fading sky, crossing the gamut from bright sun to black through every hue between.
Those skills were Skena’s when she chose to use them. Yet now she was as distant as any of the blank-faced nameless courtiers he found around him, inherited like furniture from the king who went before. Even Cullen seemed more distant, as if that loyal, decent man had seen a shadow in his monarch’s face and taken a step backward.
None said a word when he ordered them to quit Scone for the north. It was left to Cullen to tell him the weather was closing in, making the journey back by boat to the Moray Firth unwise.
That only left the hard way, through the Grampians and the Cairngorms, taking the mountain passes by horse and mule, an entire household in his train.
“If we waited a week, sire...Scone is not so unpleasant,” Cullen suggested.
It was afternoon by then and the palace was empty, the Hill of Credulity covered in the first flecks of the coming snow.
“We strike for the north in the morning,” Macbeth ordered. Then he told the man what he knew of the three sisters, their appearance, their manner, and asked that they be found.
“You have no names?” Cullen replied, amazed.
“None. The youngest, little more than a child, has strange eyes. Black. And a tattoo upon her chest, from below the navel almost to throat.”
The man blinked, lost for words.
“She’s a bairn,” Macbeth snapped. “And I am not Duncan. I have good reasons you should find them. Do that. Tell her we must speak.”
The following morning, they left on horseback, a party of more than sixty riding toward the peaks. The sky was black with snow, each man and woman, courtier and soldier, wrapped in such heavy winter clothing they seemed anonymous as their mounts trekked ever upward, past the lowland forests, then into the bare passes that led through the highest, bleakest ranges.
Laggan was this way, he recalled. Not that he raised the idea with Fergus, no longer porter, now steward and paymaster for the journey as he wished. Banquo had been right: some things were best left unsaid.
At the end of that first day, they passed a frozen mountain burn next to a rowan grove, the kind the pagans thought holy.
A simple wooden cross, freshly cut, rose from the virgin snow around it. In the ice by the river stood the unmistakable signs of blood locked beneath the surface. Something—a wolf, perhaps—had scratched at it for meager sustenance in the vicious cold.
Fergus glanced at the spot with a grim and knowing look as they passed. Macbeth stopped and stared and let the party struggle on through the screeching gale.
After a little while, Cullen made his way back and came to the king.
“Sire,” he said, struggling with the gale. “There’s shelter ahead. A hamlet. We will take the houses, and the folk there will happily sleep outside, such is the pleasure they will feel at your presence.”
“A sudden and unexpected honor,” he murmured, unable to take his eyes away from the simple makeshift cross of rowan branches. “One so great they will bestow it without foreknowledge. A king is fortunate to have such readily loyal subjects.”
A shape moved in the dark fir trees behind, a crablike figure, and behind it, another, skinny and fleet of foot.
“The sisters I spoke of...” he began. He should have known they’d find him first. They had the power of inner sight, of arcane knowledge, that he craved. They’d know he needed them.
“We continue looking,” Cullen answered. “Without a name. An idea of where they come from—”
“No need,” Macbeth said, waving him away. “Leave me.”
“I’ll send guards,” Cullen replied.
“Send no one! Those are my orders!”
The man didn’t move. “It was here that Banquo fell,” Cullen said. “The robbers who killed him may still be close
.”
“I fear no robbers!” Macbeth barked. “I cower at nothing that walks and breathes upon this blasted earth.” He nodded toward the line of horses, now stationary a short way along the path. “Go with them. Say I wish to mourn my comrade where he died. I shall meet you at this hamlet and sleep in a tent like all the rest. Do not evict a poor and harmless farmer from his home for me.”
“Sire...”
The man fell silent, seeing Macbeth’s face, then left.
When the party had disappeared from sight, he dismounted, walked to the cross, stared at the frozen burn, Banquo’s blood locked inside it.
“They said you fought like a bear,” he murmured. “How else?”
The rowan bushes parted. The three were there, one tall and muscular, one hobbling spiderlike on her black crutches. The third, the youngest, most slender, erect and smiling, black eyes gleaming in the dying sun, a fine wool cloak pulled around her.
Macbeth withdrew his sword and said, “If Banquo’d had his way, we’d have slain you back in the Great Glen that night and been the happier for it.”
“Oh, sir.” The child laughed in a bright and girlish voice, coming straight to him, dashing out her thin fingers to touch the silver edge of the blade, then recoiling, feigning shock, surprise, a little excited fear. “You give us too much credit. What have we done? Nothing. We tell of possibilities only, wispy fortunes that may be. It’s for others to make them happen, if they please.”
“Your magic—”
“Is illusory,” she interrupted. “A shiny ribbon on a gift you give a loved one. Appreciated but nothing like as priceless as the thing itself.”
She touched the sword again.
“The thing itself being you and yours. How is the queen? As resolute and strong-minded as ever, I trust?”
His hand was there to slap her. The smile stayed fixed upon her face.
“Stay away from her,” Macbeth muttered. “And do not trifle with me.”
“We never have and never will,” she said, peering into his face. “You should know by now. I see so many questions in your eyes...”
