by David Hewson
“No more than that?”
“They say virtue is its own reward,” said the porter archly. “Loyalty to one’s king is virtue, is it not?”
“Even if the deeds themselves are...?”
The question hung in the air between them.
“Less than honorable?” concluded Fergus for him. “I’m a humble man, sire. I leave morality to others who are better placed to judge.”
Macbeth nodded curtly and looked away, but not before he caught that smile again.
“For your sake, my liege, and for love of Scotland, I would hazard my very soul.”
“You still have a soul, then?” Macbeth murmured.
“They say the eyes are the soul’s windows,” said Fergus, stepping so close now that Macbeth could smell the beer on his breath. “Can you see it?”
His eyes were as black and empty as a burned-out house, as deep and fathomless as those of the girl witch who refused, even now, to quit Macbeth’s imagination.
The king turned quickly away. “I have heard your offer,” he said. “No more.”
“I only mean to say—”
“I heard. Have someone build a fire in here. The water pitcher has frozen solid.”
The man stood there for a moment, as if expecting more.
“Well?” Macbeth said, voice rising.
“I will do your bidding always, sir,” Fergus answered, then bowed and left the room.
In the small and richly decorated palace chamber, with its view out to the Hill of Credulity, Macbeth felt alone and detached from the court around him. He slumped into a chair and his eye fell and lingered on the silver crown, which sat on the trunk at the foot of the bed. A piece of ornate metal, nothing more. He picked it up, then sat again quite still, looking at the way the light played over the whorls of silver, feeling the weight of it in his hands. For this he’d murdered Duncan. For this he’d forfeited the simpler life that went before.
The chamber door opened again and he set the coronet down on the table hurriedly, snatching his fingers away as if caught doing something shameful.
“Come back in an hour,” he said, only turning to the door when the words were out of his mouth.
It was Skena. She stood there, stung, and then moved to leave.
“No, no!” said Macbeth, rising. “I’m sorry. I thought it was the maid come to make the fire. Don’t go.”
She stood there, quite still, watching him.
“Come,” he said. “Sit. It has been a long day and it’s still not half past.”
There would be more meetings, individual ones with the thanes who craved an audience. Then, in the evening, a banquet to mark the inauguration of his reign. Would there come another time when he might ride the Cairngorms, friends by his side, Banquo among them, hunting stags and hare? Another bright day on which he could race down the river netting salmon? These pleasures had been his since childhood, a part of his birthright, taken for granted since they seemed so mundane. Yet now, knowing they eluded him, he yearned for them all the more. Next to those few glorious hours, a circlet of silver seemed a trinket, nothing more.
Yet, still, he thought as she walked toward him, slender and erect in her pale-blue ceremonial gown, I have a wife.
Skena’s eyes moved to the crown on the table. Her hands went to her hair and she removed the slender coronet they’d given her after the ceremony, placing it next to his. “You wear the thing as if it’s foreign,” she said, coming close to him. “It’s a habit you must lose.”
“A crown’s a symbol,” Macbeth replied. “A token of our new position. I’ll be a king through ruling justly, wisely, not through a lump of silver.”
Her hands went to his gown, brushed away some dust from the collar. “They need their symbols, husband. You must look the part.”
“Scone is a strange place,” Macbeth told her. “This is a strange time. We will return to Forres and settle there for a while. When I smell the air of the Moray Firth and we assemble around us our court, then I will be content.”
He reached out and fondly touched her cheek.
“We will be happy.”
A moment on a sunny afternoon. Once, they would have thrown all cares aside, undressed each other, fallen on the bed, spent an hour locked tight together. This thought, this remembrance, was running through her mind, too. He could see the fleeting idea on her face.
Yet nothing stirred between them at that moment and he wondered when it would again.
“These ladies-in-waiting of mine suggested I take up needlepoint,” she remarked, as if searching for something to say. “I don’t know what queens are supposed to do. It seems churlish to lock myself away, but I’m sick of being stared at. At least if my hands are busy...”
It was a curious statement. Quite unlike her, or rather it sounded as if she were talking to someone else. A stranger, a guest, perhaps.
“Skena,” he murmured, and tried to take her hands, only to find she slipped back out of his tender touch.
“Banquo’s anxious to talk,” she said. “He says your long friendship should put him first in line for an audience. Somewhere private.”
She looked around the room as if avoiding his eyes.
“There it is,” she added, crossing to her side of the bed. From the window seat she picked up a circular wooden frame like a tabor with a piece of muslin tacked across it. She had embroidered a pair of turtledoves with colored silk. The stitchwork was clumsy. A needle still with thread was stuck through a half-finished flourish of leaves. She withdrew it and, as she did so, pricked herself. She stared at the tiny bubble of blood at her fingertip as if it were something foreign, hated.
“What does he want?” asked Macbeth, feeling once more the nagging anxiety in his guts.
A favor...
She licked the wound, rubbed the red spot, and kept on rubbing even after the blood was gone. “I think needlework does not suit me,” she said icily. “Banquo didn’t say. You know the man. It might be rumors of foreign invasion or just as easily a drunken yarn about your childhood. He says he wants to speak with you. Alone. That’s all I know. He was trying to spar with that sad, dreamy-eyed boy of his in the yard beside the stables. The man seems...distracted.” She looked at him directly. “Banquo is our guest tonight, isn’t he? We need him at the feast. You must keep your court close about you, husband. That is the kingly thing to do. He’s your friend, too, and a monarch should value those since they may be hard to find.”
“Banquo will be there, along with all the thanes.” He held her slender shoulders, tried to stare into those bleak blue eyes, and thought she shivered at his touch. “This disturbance in our lives is temporary. Bear with it a while and all will become...peaceful once again.”
This is not the time, he thought. Skena’s mood seemed febrile and disturbed.
“Will you walk down with me?” he asked. “The court will expect to see us. Together. Man and wife. King and queen.”
“I’ll stay here,” she answered swiftly, staring at the gauche embroidery. “Since we came here my sleep has been...” She shook her head. “I’m tired.”
“Skena, if there is something—”
“Forget the court. Go see your man,” she urged. “He’s waiting on your presence.”
“Rivers,” Banquo said. “They always remind me of when we were young. Coracles and gleaming fish. Not a care in our wee heads. Or much of a thought, either.”
That great hand came out and slapped Macbeth’s shoulder. It was early afternoon. The Hill of Credulity lay behind them, empty now. Four members of the royal guard stood watch, strong men in armor, as they walked along the flat and frozen bank of the Tay.
“Am I being overfamiliar, sire?” the big man asked with a broad grin. “I’d no idea I played those japes in the presence of a future monarch. Forgive me. I was always the stronger, the louder, the brassier. It’s in my nature. While you...”
They watched two whooper swans glide past above the water and settle on the sandy island midstrea
m. Banquo seemed fascinated by the sight.
“They say those creatures mate for life,” he murmured. “More morals in them than most men, eh?”
A wink, a smile.
“But not Macbeth. Not even now when you might take any lady in the land.”
“My name’s not Duncan,” he replied.
The birds had settled and now nuzzled one another in the reedy grass.
“No one liked that man,” Banquo said, still captivated by the swans. “But he was the king and a king’s not there for affection.” He stroked his long beard. “Admired. Respected.” He glanced at Macbeth. “Feared. All those things. How fare you with them, friend? The first two you won long ago as a general on the field. I had the privilege to watch—”
“I had the privilege, the honor, to have you help me.”
The big man dragged the wolf’s mane closer round his shoulders, laughing. The wind was bitter and biting. The booming sound of his voice sent the swans scattering, white shapes flying against the pale winter sky.
“See,” he said. “There you go. Gracious, generous, deferential to your peers, who are, of course, your subjects now.” His face turned stern. “Monarchs do not prosper on such qualities, Macbeth. You know what they call the English king, Edward? The fool who now shelters Malcolm and Donalbain as if they were his sons, not those of an enemy?”
“What?”
“Edward the Confessor! A priest who wears a crown! They reckon that when this pious old fool dies—which will not be long, from what I hear—the pope will uncover a hidden miracle and canonize him in short order.” Banquo tapped his red and fleshy nose. “England may be ruled by saints, but this is Scotland. A land of warriors. My advice? Do not seek to emulate him. Saints belong in abbeys and monasteries, not royal palaces. Those boys of Duncan will be back before long, and it won’t be for a sermon. You’ll need your thanes around you then. No doubts in their minds about their choice today.”
Banquo fetched him a baleful stare.
“No doubts. For they must fear you as they love you. With all their hearts.”
“I will consider your words, as always.”
Banquo sniffed the air and grunted, “The south. It smells different. Give me the Cairngorms and Laggan any day. Mountain air, eagles, and good deer to stalk. You go home soon, I hear?”
“You hear much,” Macbeth noted.
“This is the royal court. There’s so much hot air spoken hereabouts I wonder these frosty banks don’t melt beneath the heat.”
“We return by Perth and boat a few days hence. Skena and I, and the household.”
“Not to that black dungeon in Inverness, I trust?”
“To Forres.”
Banquo beamed. “Ah, Forres. Flowers and trees and the prettiest girls in Moray. Those lovely views down to Findhorn. I’d choose to live there myself. Were I king, that is.” He sighed. “Which I will never be. The weird sisters said so, didn’t they?”
Macbeth halted, instantly on his guard. “I am busy. There is the feast tonight. The guests, the protocol, the meetings...”
Banquo said nothing.
“You will be there,” Macbeth asked, “won’t you?”
“I’m a wild beast of the mountains. I hate these fancy banquets. Laggan’s the place for the likes of me.”
Macbeth took his arm, gazed into his fierce eyes, and said, “You will be there.”
“The king commands?” He seemed amused.
“As a friend, I request it. Not a king.”
“Then, as a friend, I have something of my own to ask,” he said, and there was a new note of gravity in his voice. “The favor I spoke of. It cannot wait. We must speak of it now, or you will become so lost in your crown you’ll not listen to your old, dear friend.”
Macbeth’s heart sank as he asked, “What favor?”
“You need an heir. All monarchs do, even if their offspring never reach the throne. Skena will not provide you with a child. I know you well enough to understand you’ll never get rid of her and marry another. If you will just—”
“No bastards in this line!” he snapped. “No shabby coupling on the wrong side of the blanket. We lost the only child we had. How can you throw this subject in my face?”
“Truly, you rewrite the rules that govern monarchy,” Banquo responded, smiling as he spoke. “I speak of it because this subject must be raised.”
“Do not presume on friendship,” Macbeth told him, “to broach such personal matters at a time like this...”
“You’re a king now, Macbeth! Nothing about you is personal anymore. And I presume on nothing.” He came close. “I only wish to help. I have an heir for you. A fine one. Young and strong.” His eyes flickered to the river. Then he added, “My own son...Fleance. Take him as your own.”
Macbeth’s mind spun. For a moment, he was back in the Great Glen, that dark and fateful night they met the sisters. “Fleance...” he murmured.
“Adopt him into your line and do it with my love. You’re king and will get the blessing of the pope, if need be. Such practices are common among the foreigners...”
Macbeth could scarcely believe his ears. “He is your son! Not mine who’s six years dead and none can replace. How do you think my wife would treat such an idea? You know how she felt over our own child.”
“Your wife’s like you,” Banquo answered. “A part of the state now. She must put the common good above her own feelings.”
“What have I done to deserve such thoughtlessness? Demand something I might deliver. Something that’s not so close to my own pained history,” Macbeth pleaded.
The man next to him stood silent, thinking. The swans returned. The river ran sluggish and eternal, the way Macbeth supposed their friendship always would. He could see now that Fleance was not far away, a slim, young figure along the bank, glancing at them furtively. This was planned from the outset, and that knowledge stirred his anger.
“What have you done?” Banquo asked in the end. “The sisters said you would be king. Of me...” He shook his head. “They called me poor for reasons I do not follow. But from my loins would run a line of kings.” He took Macbeth by the arm, stared into his face. “You heard that, too. You heard that. Give me this small piece of my due, and then we’ll speak of it no more.”
“I am one day on the throne and you seek to gain such great advantage?” Macbeth dragged himself away, now furious. “This audience is at an end. Go tell your son to earn his place among his peers. As did you. As did I. As will all good Scots who seek preferment. By duty, sacrifice, and labor...”
“Not daggers and deceit, then?” Banquo roared. “Not murder in the dark?”
The pair of swans scattered and with them rose other white shapes from the reeds. Macbeth’s blood ran as cold as the gray waters in front of him.
“Speak to me in a measured voice,” he said, his voice as hard as stone. “If those guards should hear your lunatic rantings, then I must take this further.”
“Take it wherever you may choose,” Banquo retorted, though he was quiet now and grim.
“If you have something to say...”
Banquo shook his grizzled head. “Not yet. Not easily. Make Fleance your heir...”
“I cannot.”
“You’re the king!”
“I will not.”
“Do not make me do this, Macbeth! Some things are best unsaid.”
The guards behind them came closer. One gripped his sword and asked for instructions.
“We’re Highland men,” Macbeth told him. “We talk this way. Go back to the palace and wait for me there.”
When they’d left, he turned and gripped the man beside him, fingers tight in the warm wolf fur of his mantle.
“Speak now and this one time I listen,” Macbeth told him, eye to eye, so close that even Banquo seemed a touch afraid. “But guard your words.”
“The boy—” Banquo began.
“The boy is yours! Not mine! My son is dead. I shall have no heir. When the crown
becomes vacant, the thanes decide. The old way. The way it should be done. The way I fought for...” The words died in his throat. His face flushed.
Banquo grinned. “Fought well and bloodily in the dark, too,” he said. “Oh, come, Macbeth. We’re friends. Let’s not lie to one another. The child in Inverness. The servant dead in your quarters. The poison on his lips. Your wife grieving more for his death than for Duncan’s. Mekilwort, man. Belladonna. As you used on Sueno...”
“What nonsense is this?”
“And Malcolm’s dagger clean as a razor. Even in Laggan we have eyes to see. This world is like a mirror and you would have us believe the reflection, not the original. The lie that Malcolm sought to poison you, then crept into his father’s bedroom with those two guards so conveniently dispatched...”
“I slew them for their treachery!”
Banquo paused, allowed himself the briefest moment of laughter. “Oh, dearest brother. It is your misfortune to own the most transparent, most guileless of all the faces I have ever known. You cannot profess your innocence without screaming your guilt out loud. You need to learn to lie with conviction. Otherwise, avoid this mask of candor among those who do not love you...”
“And you love me?” Macbeth shouted, pushing him away. “Who accuse me of murder? Of regicide?”
Banquo shrugged. “No one mourns that bastard Duncan. He got what he deserved.” He opened his arms, pleading. “Now let me have what I am owed. The prize the witches promised, nothing more. Not for me. For Fleance. For my line. What is it to you?”
“Consider yourself lucky you have a son!” Macbeth roared. “These vile lies—”
“The guards were drugged,” Banquo cut in with a sneer. “I found the same berries in the dregs of their flask as lay on the floor of your room by the side of that wee child. Your lady is a cunning one. I imagine this was her doing. You are too honest and upright to kill a man in bed easily. Or two half-conscious guards. Because I know you, love you, I understand why such acts must cause you pain. Ease it now with a generous gesture. Fleance—”