by David Hewson
The candle still remained within. She found her gaze drawn back to that dread room. Duncan lay there cruelly torn upon the gory sheets.
“The king,” the man cried. “The king!”
Then turned and gripped her by the throat.
There was a muffled thud, then another. It came from the gatehouse, and even in his drunken state Fergus knew what it was. Someone was at the door.
“At this time?” he sputtered. “As if I’ve nothing better to do. I should be asleep!” He blundered down the steps, conscious that the knocking on the door had become a steady, rhythmic banging. In the thirty years he’d served at Inverness he’d come to know every stone beneath his feet, but in a night as dark as this he still trailed one hand against the wall as he emerged into the courtyard. Somewhere an owl hooted. It had been squawking off and on all night. The banging at the gate was getting louder.
“Hold your horses,” Fergus bellowed, fumbling at his belt for the keys. The cobbled courtyard was slick with ice.
There were voices out there with the knocking, irritable, curse-laden mutterings about what would happen to him if he didn’t get the door open quickly. Fergus slowed down deliberately. See how they enjoyed being outside in a Highland winter.
He opened the little wooden window in the gate and asked, very sweetly, if they would mind telling him who in the devil’s name they were, waking him at this hour.
“Envoys to the king!” snarled one of them. “Open the damned door.”
“Name?” said Fergus. “You could be rebel...scum...assassins, for all I know.”
This was a lie. Fergus would know that stringy beard and the scar down his cheek anywhere.
“It’s Lennox, man!” he said. “You know me. Open the—”
Fergus whistled softly, “Can’t see you properly. You’ll have to wait till sunup.”
“What?” roared Lennox. “I’ve been riding all night! It’s freezing and I have orders to wake the king.”
“Lennox?” said Fergus. “He’s here already. Been here all night. You’ll have to do better than that.”
“It’s me, man,” shouted Lennox, his face pink. “Look at me! When I get hold of you...”
“You’ll do what?” asked the porter, his face up against the little wooden window. “Think carefully. It’s hours before dawn and likely to get colder yet.”
There was a muffled curse and then silence. Fergus waited.
“I don’t have much with me,” said Lennox, with a sigh.
“Not a problem,” said Fergus, pushing his hand through the window. “I wouldn’t deprive a man of what he cannot afford.”
More grumblings, then he felt the slap of a small purse in his hand. He pulled it back, sifted through the coins inside, took half, and returned the rest. He turned the key, threw the latch, and pushed the gate open wide.
“Enter, Lennox,” he said. “Welcome to Hell.”
The man came in and uttered several low curses. “This is a cheerless hole,” he grumbled. “Why Macbeth lets a cur like you insult his guests...”
“I told you it was Hell,” the porter said. “And I but one of the master’s humble demons.”
From the keep above came a shrill and chilling sound. It was a woman screaming, a high, sharp note like the shriek of an owl. “Murder,” she cried. “Murder!”
Lennox drew out his sword and raced for the steps ahead.
There was no hesitation on Macbeth’s part. Whatever grim forebodings Duncan’s chamber held they were nothing next to his fears for his wife. Two steps at a time he took the stone stairs back to that place of slaughter, sword in right hand, burning brand in left, blade sparking off the stone walls as he ran.
There was more light there than he recalled. A second torch was lit on the wall. He kept back in shadow for a moment, breathless, panting, blind with dread.
“Who’s that?” yelled one of the soldiers, weapon bright and threatening, pointed his way.
Skena struggled in the second one’s arms, eyes wide with fright.
“This bitch has slain him,” the second guard yelled.
“Not so! Not so!” she cried, wrestling beneath his arm.
“Traitorous whore!” said the first, and slapped her with his hand.
Full of rage and panic, Macbeth leapt forward, skewered the first with one single upward thrust, then slashed at the head of the second. It was a high and forceful blow that crashed into his skull and sent him screaming back against the stones.
Skena threw herself free and fell shrieking to the floor.
Noises below. Footsteps getting closer, shouts and alarums, and in her eyes the clear presentiment of terror.
Think.
Both guards still lived and struggled, wheezing, cursing. He leapt upon the first and then the second, flailing, slashing, cursing.
There came a rush of bodies from behind, and still Macbeth wrestled with the guards, roaring, his eyes streaming.
Then arms gripped him, strong and forceful and resolute, and he loosed the bloodied blade and let it fall upon the floor.
“Macbeth?” said a deep, familiar voice.
Banquo, his face a mask of confusion and horror.
Skena sat in a pool of yellow light, distraught on the cold black stones, next to the baggage of the guards and their two slashed corpses, sobbing, casting her eyes around her, glancing toward the chamber beyond.
They were all assembling now, the thanes and their men. Lennox, Ross, and Angus. None of the king’s family, though.
“I heard the saddest sound,” Skena cried from the floor. “A child, I thought, in distress. Not wishing to wake my lord, I came here and found...” Her hands went to her mouth as she looked into the chamber and the shape upon the sheets there, dimly lit. “These two monsters, bloody handed, and a third who ran away. My lords...”
Her shoulders shook, her breast heaved.
“They have murdered Duncan and would have slain me, too, had not Macbeth fought them. Oh...” The tears were real and glistening on her cheeks. “If only...”
Macbeth bent down, held out his hand, and helped her to her feet. She clung to him like a lost child.
“Their daggers are bloody,” said Ross, squatting by the bodies on the floor.
“A third?” Lennox demanded. “Where is he?”
“He ran, sir,” Skena replied. “I do not know where.” She breathed, then added, “He dropped something. I heard...”
They followed the direction of her gaze and scanned the ground. Close by the guards’ baggage, an object glittered in the gloom.
Lennox picked it up and raised the thing aloft.
An ornate, leaf-bladed dagger. An unusual weapon, expensive and exotic.
Macbeth held her, unwilling to cross the threshold of the chamber. “This shame,” he murmured, “that he should die inside my walls...It will never leave me. Nor sleep come easily again.”
The rest had walked into the chamber and stood around Duncan’s bed, some crossing themselves, others with murder in their own eyes.
Only Banquo did not go with them. He eyed Macbeth, the bloody corpses, the bollock daggers stained with gore.
“It’s a shame you killed them,” the big man said.
“My rage,” Macbeth replied. “They slew the king.”
Skena clung to him more tightly.
“These villains would have killed my own dear wife had I not intervened.” He glared at Banquo. “Would you have done otherwise?” Macbeth demanded.
There was no answer. Banquo seemed distracted. He ran his feet across the cobbles, damp with blood and the spilled remains of a pewter flask beside the door.
Wine from the smell. With dark spots inside, like berries.
Before long the chamber was full of muttering thanes. Even the slain king’s silent, dark-eyed sons. Lennox put his head in his hands, suddenly weary beyond words. It was still dark, but the castle was awake. After the panic and horror of the discovery of Duncan’s body and the bloody events that had followed it, an
uncanny stillness had descended on the place. Servants crept up to the room with pails of water, though no one had been able to decide who should wash the king’s body.
Malcolm had turned away from his father’s corpse with revulsion, and Donalbain, the younger of the two, had vomited. They had stood there in silence, their faces subdued, but unreadable, and Malcolm could not stop his gaze, straying from his dead father to the crown, which had rolled as if forgotten into the corner of the room.
“This,” said MacDuff, “is, I think, yours.”
He handed Malcolm the strange, leaf-bladed dagger. The young prince’s hand flashed first to the empty scabbard at his belt, and then a series of sly, worried thoughts flashed through his face.
“It is your weapon?” MacDuff persisted.
“The thing was stolen from my room. I meant to raise this with Macbeth. If a man cannot sleep safely beneath the roof of his host...”
The thoughtless response, too quick to be any kind of denial or accusation, hung in the air.
“Where did you find it?” Malcolm asked.
“With the guards,” Lennox cut in, watching the prince’s face for signs of guilt or fear. Grief seemed unlikely. “The lady said there was a third man...”
Macbeth kept silent. Perhaps wondering about his wife, Lennox thought. One of her household had led her from the room, weeping, shaking. A good woman, he felt, cruelly treated by the murderers of the king and lucky to escape with her life.
Malcolm’s face was set like stone. “The dagger was stolen from me,” he insisted and took the clean, slim knife from MacDuff’s fingers.
Donalbain stared at him, then turned on the assembled thanes.
“You’re saying this was us?” he demanded, his voice high and childish. “Why? Our own father?”
“No one is saying anything,” said Macbeth.
“Just returning your brother’s property,” added MacDuff.
“Look among yourselves!” Donalbain screeched. “One of you killed our father and placed this knife here to lay the blame on us!”
“Brother...” began Malcolm cautiously.
“No!” exclaimed Donalbain. “You see their game? What they’ve done? You must punish them, brother. You’re the king now. The power is yours.”
It was a ridiculous, presumptuous challenge. The intervention of a young fool. This was no time for Malcolm to test his power and all knew it except the impetuous Donalbain. Malcolm stood his ground, defiant, a slim, arrogant figure, with sufficient self-control to keep his temper. But the fury was there and they all felt it. He wanted no talk of crowns and rule. That only made him look more guilty. Still, Lennox thought, a time would come, within hours. There were troops below, with loyalties to buy, through promises, favors, and gold.
“He named you Cumberland!” Donalbain persisted, tugging at his brother’s elbow. “Take up the crown and arraign these traitors.”
Two young and inexperienced princes, one scarcely more than a boy. A room full of warriors pressed around them. No one drew, but Macbeth felt them bracing for combat.
“We will discuss this matter later,” Malcolm said finally. “I am too grieved to speak of it now. We will retire to our rooms. At first light we will conduct a service for our king and father in the chapel, then send him for a monarch’s burial on Iona, as is his right. After the service...” His eyes turned on his brother. “Then we’ll talk of crowns and justice.”
No one spoke.
The pair left in silence, though the younger cast a last look at his dead father as he strode out.
The warriors in the room breathed as the two departed. The air was heavy with unasked questions.
“He didn’t deny it was his dagger,” Menteith muttered.
“How could he?” asked Banquo, but his voice was gruff and thoughtful, not accusing.
“Could two sons, even ones such as these...?” began Ross. “Why? Duncan was an elderly man. He couldn’t live forever. And then Malcolm would ascend the throne rightfully.”
“Had we allowed it,” said MacDuff, his voice barely above a whisper. “Duncan may have lived for many years. His son may be prince of Cumberland now. Who knows how long the father would have kept him in that title? He may have wanted a dynasty, but God knows he barely liked the boy...”
“That’s enough,” Macbeth broke in. “We will not discuss this in the presence of our dead sovereign.”
“There’s a body to be dealt with, not that Malcolm seemed much interested,” Banquo said. “Duncan’s no foot soldier. We can’t just dig a hole and throw him in.”
Macbeth’s face creased in pain as he looked at them all in turn. “Blame me for this man’s death,” he said. “He came here as a guest and was cruelly slaughtered beneath my eaves.”
“The man who stabbed him bears the blame!” Lennox cried. “Not you, sir. You are a true and loyal servant.”
“Skena and I will wash the king ourselves. Duncan died in our keeping. It’s only fitting.”
“I can help,” Banquo offered.
“No,” said Macbeth abruptly. “Thank you,” he added, managing a half smile. “Take those two dead scum outside the door. Drag them down to the courtyard and have the servants dispose of them as the garbage they are. Find Skena, and if she’s well enough, ask her to come to me.”
Banquo gave Macbeth a long, searching look, seized one of the slaughtered guards by his ankle, then dragged him out of the room and down the stone steps. Lennox followed with the other, the two hauling the bloody bodies down the black stone steps like sacks of grain.
Outside, dawn was breaking over the Moray Firth. A bright winter sun heralded the day. No clouds, no snow, no rain. A brilliant blue sky would shine on Duncan as he made his final journey to the holy isle in the west where Scottish monarchs rested after death.
They laid the corpses of the guards next to each other on the cobbles. A woman servant began sobbing and wailing over one of them. Ross barked at her, lecturing her, saying he was a traitor not worth the tears of any loyal subject. She screamed in horror at this charge.
“We found the bloody dagger in his hand!” Ross shrieked at her.
The woman screamed. He struck her hard with the back of his hand, and then she scurried away, crying loudly.
Overhead, the ravens wheeled, and the thanes watched them in silence.
Banquo nodded at the bodies. “Deal with these for me. I will find Lady Macbeth.”
As Banquo reentered the keep, there was wailing from upstairs. It was the shriek of a woman, loud and anguished. There was something fresh and tragic about the sound, a note to it he found disconcerting. No one cried like this for a king, none except his wife, and she was in distant Dunkeld.
He took the steps quickly, aiming for the source, and found himself entering the quarters of Macbeth himself. The bedroom was crammed with red-faced, bawling women, young and old, the entire castle household as far as he could make out, cooks and maids in plain, coarse clothing, faces racked with despair.
“What is this?” he demanded, pushing through.
One, an elderly woman in a white, floured hat, turned and glared at him as if he had no place here. Still, Banquo pushed on, and finally, he saw.
At the foot of the bed, Skena Macbeth sat on the stone floor, hunched and miserable next to the prostrate body of a child. A young boy, seven or eight, no more. Blond hair tumbled around his narrow shoulders, face turned to the window, pale and still. His slate eyes were open and filled with fear and pain. From his open mouth trickled a line of reddish vomit, falling to the floor.
Banquo walked forward and pressed his foot through the puddle of sick. A pewter flask lay upturned close to the dead child’s right hand. The last dregs of its contents—wine, no doubt of that from the smell—had trickled beneath the bed. It was full of what looked like crushed fruit and he had no doubt about the kind.
“Skena?” he said.
She clasped the boy’s fingers between her hands, her eyes lost in the most abject sorrow. His h
eart went out to the woman. This was more than normal grief, he thought, and then, with bitter self-recrimination, remembered the child, another boy, whose loss had, gossip said, unhinged Macbeth’s wife for weeks after.
“I need to know what happened,” Banquo began. “I need—”
“Are you stupid, man?” screeched the woman in the cook’s hat. “Does your high position make you blind? The same devil that murdered the king also wished to kill our lord here, and his lady. Put poison in their wine and left it by their bed.”
“A knife and poison rarely mix,” he murmured, thinking. Why slaughter Duncan with such cruel force and seek to kill another by subterfuge?
“Ewan asked for food and drink from the banquet,” Skena said in a soft, high voice that stilled his words. She was speaking to herself, he thought, so focused were her face and manner. “I said...I said...”
“What?” he asked.
Her eyes fell on him, wild and restless. She swept the tears and the damp hair from her shining face.
“I told him later. Later.” Her hands kneaded his dead fingers. “And forgot an instant after. He was a kitchen boy.” She glared at Banquo. “Not a thane. If this was meant for us, I wish I’d come here earlier and supped it. I wish I might breathe life back into his sweet, small body...Oh, Ewan.”
“Do not blame yourself, lady!” cried the cook.
They hurried round her, clucking, crying, holding shoulders, weeping for the child. Trying, with little luck, to pry her fingers from him.
No place for a man, he thought. No time for questions.
And there were plenty.
“I leave you with your sadness, ladies,” he said. “The death of a child, whatever his station, is a crime against us all.”
Skena Macbeth’s eyes flared. He took a step back, alarmed at what he saw.
“There are dead bairns the length and breadth of this land!” Macbeth’s wife bellowed. “Murdered by the Norse and English. Slain in the battles you and your like wage as if they were games.”
“War is war,” he said half meekly. “Duncan did not die in battle. Nor did this boy. Your lamentations do your credit, but there’s another worthy of it, too. Duncan lies below. Macbeth bids you meet him with the body. This is your castle. The king—”