Macbeth

by David Hewson

“So they say.”

  “Two enemies, then,” Banquo muttered, playing with his beard.

  “We deal with each in their turn. And the gate?”

  “The doors are new. Solid. We’d need a ram.”

  “Ladders,” said Macbeth. “Get men in, then open the gates from the inside.”

  “The troops are tired,” said Banquo. “Readying the approach and preparing an assault will take—”

  “MacDonwald is the rallying point of this rebellion,” Macbeth reminded him. “This is his final stand. He has sold Scotland—our land—to foreign rabble. His Irish kerns and gallowglasses have mown our people like so much wheat, women and children burned like chaff before them. And Sueno himself will be here in a matter of hours, unless Cawdor can hold him off.”

  “I know, but we are not equipped...”

  “One hour,” said Macbeth.

  Banquo cocked his head and frowned at Macbeth’s hard, relentless gaze, then shrugged.

  “You, my friend, are either the finest general in Scotland or a bloody fool.”

  Macbeth looked into his bright eyes and laughed. “But which?” he asked.

  Banquo threw the helmet on his head, and the wolf’s pelt followed like a cloak behind his back. “One hour,” he said. “And then I think we’ll know.”

  The rain picked up and the sky darkened further. Ravens circled overhead as if sensing carrion. The ladders were no more than roughly hacked trunks, their branches trimmed to rungs. They would be slow and hard to climb.

  The enemy watched their preparations idly, and Macbeth wondered how much they knew of Sueno’s arrival. Plenty, he hoped, since that knowledge would give them confidence, and sureness made a man idle and weak. Surprise was as good a cloak for recklessness as they were likely to find, and he had tried to maintain it, keeping the men huddled as they readied their weapons instead of lined up, ready for an assault. Their scattered cavalry he had grouped and sent off to the north—give MacDonwald’s lookouts something to watch—and a hundred foot soldiers had been arranged just out of the range of the archers on the western walls, where the fortifications were most ruined. These were diversions. The real assault would come directly from him, from the south, straight over the crumbling ramparts, using the rough-hewn ladders the men had disguised as best they could with cloaks and branches.

  Macbeth strained for signs of movement on the ramparts, but he could see nothing. If MacDonwald knew they were coming, he wasn’t showing it. Macbeth checked the handle of his shield once more and looked up to the sky as a great black raven soared shrieking overhead. The sight of it made the men around him wince. Superstition and soldiery went hand in fist at moments like this. He watched the black bird glide, buffeted by the wind, then drew his long sword and pointed it up toward its outspread wings, sighting along the blade as if he were shooting a bow.

  His movement brought about a sudden nervous stillness in the army at his back. He felt it rippling through the ranks like their tightening muscles, the tension, the fear, and the wild exhilaration that began a battle. Behind him, Cullen, a loyal master of his family household, now pressed into service as a sergeant, muttered a prayer. Macbeth watched him. Macbeth had always thought Cullen a good and decent man, but he was struck by the strangeness of his words, by the idea that God might watch, might help, giving speed and strength to his soldiers, while splintering the weapons of the enemy. Priests might divide the world into good and bad. In battle there was strong and weak and nothing else.

  High above, the raven called once.

  Macbeth brought down his sword and the army roared into life.

  They made a good thirty yards before the arrows began to rain down. The first volley was ragged and mistimed, but deadly all the same. A pale, thin boy was the first to fall, the shaft of a long dart in his neck, screaming as he stumbled to the heather and mud. But most of those around him had their shields above them, and the air was thick with the sound of iron biting leather and wood.

  Macbeth made sure he was among the first to reach the battlements. For a moment, there was nothing to do but wait amid the hail of rocks and arrows as the tree trunks were lugged into place. He flattened himself against the cold, wet stone, then broke into the open and grabbed a rope, his shield slung onto his back. The man beside him was a bearlike figure, and as he strained to pull the massive ladder into position, an arrow snagged the flesh of his shoulder, opening a long, deep gash. It bled heavily, but the soldier never took his eyes from the top of the tree trunk until the wood fell heavily against the battlements. Then he stood beneath, holding it in place with massive arms as the men scrambled up, barely wincing at the ones who placed a boot on his torn shoulder along the way.

  The rungs—such as they were—were slick with rain. Macbeth felt as if he were scaling the sky itself, open and exposed, propelled by the urgent thrust of those behind him. At the summit he took his right hand from the ladder and dragged his sword from its sheath.

  At the top of the ladder, the man above Macbeth screamed suddenly. A huge kern had buried an ax deep in his chest. Macbeth did not give the kern time to wrench the weapon from his victim, but leapt over the wall and brought his blade down between the man’s neck and shoulder. Sinews snapped, and with a single scarlet jet, the kern’s legs buckled. Macbeth was past, shield swung round in front of him now, squaring for the next assailant.

  The lowly kerns ahead were pulling back already, fodder for the blade: archers mainly, unprepared for close combat. Macbeth knew that if he could get enough men over the ladders that part of the battle would be won. The vicious mercenaries from the Western Isles, the men called gallowglasses, would be another story altogether, but he would deal with them when they showed themselves.

  Three kerns, sharing their courage, ran at him. They brandished knives and axes with blades slim as picks. He stepped into their charge, shouldering one off the wall with his shield, then ducking beneath their axes. He came up hard, the tip of his sword driving up through the belly of one, his shield meeting the ax of the other. The weapon shivered in the fool’s hand. The kern left it stuck in the shield, slashing desperately with his knife. Macbeth stepped back once, then twice, as if faltering, and as the man came at him again, reached suddenly with his sword. The point skewered his ribcage and he dropped, dead before he hit the ground.

  There were two more at the top of the stairs down into the courtyard, but they fled before him. An arrow flew past and rang on the stonework beside his head. Macbeth bounded down the steps and into the chaos below.

  The castle had a central keep with a flight of steps and a heavy oak door studded with blackened nails. As Macbeth watched, sword gripped hard in his sweating fist, he saw it open. The gallowglasses, the cruelest mercenaries any rebel leader might buy, were coming, and with them was a red-haired man with a two-handed ax and eyes the color of deep, cold water.

  MacDonwald.

  As the kerns scattered, the gallowglasses marched down the steps, their mail shirts and helmets shining in the weakening winter sun, swords and pole arms flashing.

  “To me!” Macbeth bellowed.

  His men drew up beside him, but the mercenaries came on undaunted, a wall of iron death barreling toward them. Macbeth curved his shield, then angled his sword above it. He held his breath, heart pulsing, as they came closer.

  Twenty yards. Ten. Five.

  Then only the fury and desperation of battle.

  The clash of steel, the dull thud of severed bone, the rip of flesh, and the cries of anger and bravado, terror and death. The courtyard was packed with struggling bodies, the living, the wounded, all crowded in so tight that even the dead stayed upright. His men were trapped, packed in like sheaves of wheat, and the gallowglasses were the reapers. They wore crested helms with metal plates, which covered their faces with terrible masks so that only their eyes showed through. Their armor was thick. Not just mail, but metal plates laced together over heavy hide. Twice, Macbeth delivered what he thought was a killing blow, only to feel it s
top and slide off the target.

  And then, quite suddenly, there was room to move. A space opened and he climbed over the corpses slumped about him, turning to see Banquo and his men pouring in through the gates, smacking the gallowglasses side-on with their spears so that the enemy turned, shock and confusion in their eyes.

  Heavy in their armor, the mercenaries tried to run. Some made for the keep, some fleeing for the hills outside. Macbeth scanned the slaughter and saw MacDonwald cutting his way toward the keep.

  He crossed the courtyard and charged down the door, ran on through a stone hallway lit by pitch torches, then into a vaulted chamber that echoed with the shouts of those huddled by the great fireplace at the far end. There were doors and passages in the alcoves, frightened figures hiding in the darkness against the walls, servants, women, children. There were bodies, too, a few soldiers, but also others, struck down where they stood.

  He stopped by a cowering group of women and switched the grip on his sword.

  “Where’s the traitor?” he demanded.

  A cheer went up from outside. He knew that roar anywhere. Banquo, triumphant.

  “We harm none who wish us well,” Macbeth declared. “Where is MacDonwald?”

  A boy stepped forward from beneath the skirts of one of the kitchen girls and pointed at the door.

  Macbeth strode toward it and used his shield arm to twist the latch. A tight spiral staircase ran before him—a tower or a way up to the roof. The fighting here would be more difficult and confined than the courtyard, and if MacDonwald was above him...

  It was dark on the spiral stairs. He had to feel his way with the knuckles of his sword hand, listening to his labored breath, his gaze fixed up ahead. He took three more of the narrow, treacherous steps, then stopped, straining to hear. The quality of the silence had changed. Beyond the sound of his own movement he could hear the thin whistle of wind in the tower. He was near the top. Three more steps and he could see light bleeding round the rounded corner ahead.

  Stealth or speed?

  Stealth. He kept the sword close so its steel would not ring on the stone and inched up the spiral with agonized slowness. Two more steps and he saw the leaden sky, felt rain on his face again.

  There was no sign of the red-haired man.

  Perhaps the boy had lied, lured him in here so the rebel could make his escape or trap him inside with the fearsome gallowglasses. He stepped out onto the turret, but before he could turn from the mountains laid out in front of him, he felt movement behind him.

  “Still running Duncan’s errands, Macbeth?”

  He turned.

  MacDonwald was standing against the crenulated wall of the tower. A broad, two-handed ax leaned against the parapet. He was training a short and powerful crossbow squarely at Macbeth’s heart.

  “I serve the king,” said Macbeth. “I serve my country.”

  “Whereas I serve myself, you mean? That’s a convenient way of looking at things.”

  Macbeth didn’t answer.

  “Put down your blade,” said MacDonwald.

  Macbeth didn’t move.

  “Show a little sense,” MacDonwald went on, extending the bow slightly, his fingers tightening around the trigger, stock to his strong shoulder. The bolt was thickset, the point fluted and ugly.

  Macbeth lowered his sword arm till the tip touched the stone floor, then let it fall. In the silence the crash of the metal rang out like shattering glass.

  The rebel was a handsome chieftain from the north, with a thin, sardonic mouth that now broke into a smile.

  “There’s a sensible man,” he said. “Now you’ll come downstairs with me and we’ll have a little parley with whichever of Duncan’s errand boys holds the purse strings. Banquo, is it?”

  “You’re past forgiveness,” said Macbeth.

  The surprise was genuine.

  “Forgiveness?” MacDonwald echoed, the smile returning. “What can I do with that? I want a horse and free passage.” He looked Macbeth in the eye. “Or you beside me in this just cause. Macbeth, you’re a fine warrior. A decent lord so far as I can tell. As am I. Do you think we raise rebellion lightly?”

  “Treason’s treason. I neither know nor care for your reasons.”

  “Then get your wits about you,” MacDonwald cried. “Or it’s your head next. Why not listen to me for one moment? Why not join us?”

  “I know my place. I know my duty.”

  Anger flared in the man’s gray eyes. “Duty to a cur like Duncan? A coward? A thief who’ll steal the crown of Scotland for his own folk if we give him half the chance? When the king dies, we choose his successor. The nation’s lords, the thanes. We do not hand it on a plate to any bastard Duncan happens to have fathered along the way...”

  “What trickery do you throw at me now?” Macbeth barked back. “I know about Sueno, MacDonwald. I know he came for land, not booty, this time. What’s the reward for the Viking’s sword? What portion of our homeland have you promised him? Where’s your patriotism there?”

  MacDonwald shrugged his shoulders. “Desperate times demand desperate measures. Land that’s taken now may one day be recovered. But give away the crown and the nation goes with it. A greater spill of blood ensues. Oh, Macbeth! Why is it you can see so much and yet so little?”

  “Away with your nonsense. You talk as if you have won, but your army is broken and running, and Cawdor will hold Sueno.”

  “Ah, yes,” said MacDonwald. “Cawdor.” There was something new in his face. Amusement, perhaps. “When men pick sides, they should choose wisely. This shall be an interesting day for those who stand beside Duncan’s throne.”

  Macbeth’s eyes narrowed. The man’s composure felt wrong.

  “Enough of this. Down below,” MacDonwald ordered. “I wish no quarrel with you. Stand down your men. I’ll treat them fairly. But you must surrender. This moment, if you please. Then we will speak, and I will give you such reasons as will change your mind about the king. Come, man, your duty’s to Scotland and to yourself. Not him. When he’s gone, by rights, any of us might wear that crown, if his peers so wish it. Even you.”

  “I’ve never slain a lunatic before,” Macbeth replied. “But there comes a first time for all things, so they say.”

  The insult was deliberate and well timed. It hid the way he watched the dark mouth of the spiral stone staircase and took a step toward it. MacDonwald bent slightly to pick up the discarded sword, and in that moment, Macbeth moved.

  He wheeled, vaulting over to MacDonwald’s ax, which still stood propped against the wall. The shot was rushed. Macbeth leaned and the crossbow bolt scudded through the space over his right shoulder. He turned, and MacDonwald had already halved the distance between them, sword at the ready, screaming.

  Macbeth dropped his shield and came up with the long-shafted ax, swinging it in a wide, lethal arc, and MacDonwald hesitated, but only for a second. Then he came on, blade sweeping from over his head. Macbeth caught it with the haft of the ax, thrust its edge aside, and kicked at MacDonwald’s stomach. The red-haired man stepped back, his smile now wolfish. His second rush was faster, the sword cutting the thin, damp air as Macbeth dodged and parried. Two steps backward and Macbeth felt the wall of the turret against his back.

  MacDonwald switched his grip on the hilt, lowered his head, and lunged. Instead of parrying, Macbeth rolled right, let the ax head fall a little, then, as he completed the circle, swept his cruel blade up with a fearsome violence.

  It caught the rebel lord just above the waist and kept going till it tore free beneath his chin. His body opened as he dropped, and Macbeth stepped aside, adjusting his stance just long enough to raise the ax one last time and strike off his head.

  The regret was instant. This was a noble death. Not the hanging the man’s foul sedition deserved.

  Duncan the First, king of Scotland, played with the heavy gold cross he always wore around his neck, tracing its edge with his thick fingers. The air in the tent was thick with smoke and the so
urness of men too long in the field. He would have pinned back the canvas flap over the entrance, but the rain had picked up again.

  The remains of an entire cock pheasant, taken on the rugged hillside behind Invergarry, stood on a silver plate in front of him. The bird sat heavy in his belly, its grease rank on his hands and face. Outside he heard the shifting of horses. There was still no news of the scouts who would bring tidings of the two battles, Macbeth against MacDonwald, Cawdor tackling the unwelcome and unexpected intervention of the Norse king Sueno. Time was running short.

  So the king sat surly in his furs and gleaming ceremonial mail, distant from the fighting by his own design, now feeling slighted and outmaneuvered. The treachery of MacDonwald had been known but not its depth, and his reach beyond Scotland to Norway had been a most unpleasant surprise. Macbeth and Banquo had harried the turncoat to some ramshackle castle close to the loch of Linnhe and—in time—they would, no doubt, have his head. But while the king welcomed the thought, he would have preferred others to have brought the trophy. Those two were as useful as leashed wolfhounds were, but they were proving too popular, Macbeth most of all. And that could make trouble of a different kind. When it came to the kill, it mattered who gave the final blow. One of Duncan’s sons might have been better. Malcolm or Donalbain. He would speak to a chronicler and turn invention into the artificial truth called history, but that wouldn’t solve the immediate problem. He—and therefore the kingdom—owed Macbeth and Banquo a great deal. Too much, perhaps, for comfort.

  Duncan watched his sons. The brothers lay sprawled on their beds. Donalbain, who was only nineteen, was asleep after another evening of toasting other people’s victories. Malcolm, ten years older, was doing nothing as usual, lying on his back whistling tunelessly and watching a single sluggish fly move over the tent fabric.

  The king frowned. Further victories from Macbeth and Banquo might complicate matters, but Duncan’s grasp on the Council of Thanes remained firm, and the loyalty of his captains was beyond question. MacDonwald must have made some contract with the Viking. Land and money, perhaps some slaves. If the Vikings still proved strong, Duncan might settle a similar contract with them after MacDonwald’s death. Then he would change Scotland forever, by making public what he’d privately been mulling for some months: the pronouncement of his eldest, Malcolm, as prince of Cumberland and heir to the throne by right of blood, second in a dynasty that would prosper for all time.