Macbeth

by David Hewson

  “I will not be pressed to aid the son of one who slanders me.”

  Banquo nodded, as if understanding something. “I see the reason and, because I love you, understand it. To give me what I ask, you must first acknowledge the deed you have committed and face your guilt. This is a sore predicament. To want the throne so badly you will kill a king to seize it. Then to lament your ruthlessness with such sorrow you seek to wash the necessary evil from your hands and believe they were never ought but clean. What you have done has separated you from yourself,” he added mournfully. “I understand that now. To give me my due requires that you reconcile your actions with your conscience. Yet why? Duncan slew many and never lost sleep over a single death. He would have killed any of us and dined on the story the same night. Yet you...You have my pity.”

  “Pity?”

  He pulled the wolf skin tighter round his shoulders and said, “You heard right. Understand, Macbeth. None but those two foul sons will hunt you down for slaying Duncan. That death haunts you alone. But prove a bad king, weak and cruel and willful, and they’ll have your head. Lennox. MacDuff. Ross and Angus. Every thane who kissed your hand today and swore undying loyalty. That’s the way of things.”

  “And you?”

  “Give me this one small thing,” Banquo begged. “A meager favor. Fleance is a decent, honorable boy. Intelligent and loyal. He’ll bring nothing but praise and glory to your house. We need never speak of this again.”

  “I will not suffer such extortion...”

  Banquo frowned and said, “If there was no black deed to begin with, where’s the pressure that I bring to bear?”

  “Be gone. Sit silent at my banquet, then take you to the hills!”

  “No,” Banquo said. “I go home to Laggan now, with a heavy heart. You have a week to give me satisfaction. After that, I will tell them—MacDuff, Menteith, Angus, Ross, the whole of Scotland, all I know.” He turned and his eyes were misty, raw with sorrow. “Your position is not as well founded as you think. It was a piece of silver I placed upon your head today. The keys to this kingdom must be earned, and there you have still to prove your mettle.” His face was grim and miserable. “I never wished this, truly. The sisters gave us both a promise. All I ask is you allow me one small part of it for my own...”

  “Enough,” Macbeth murmured.

  That great fist fell upon his shoulder one last time.

  “Remember what I said about the throne,” Banquo said. “Men will forgive many things in their king, cruelty and avarice and venality among them. But weakness and a humanity so gentle it deceives itself...”

  He turned and called for his horses and his son.

  “Send me a messenger in seven days to say you’ve seen some sense,” he said. “If not, I’ll sing this bloody tale from the highest hill I find.”

  Macbeth watched the two of them leave. The anger was gone now. A cold and hollow dread stood in its place.

  He wanted to go after the man who had been his friend, to protest, to plead, to apologize...

  No. To lie, a weak and pointless exercise. Banquo saw through him as easily as if he were made of glass. If there were a way a man might take back a single deed, change the past...

  What Banquo asked was impossible, cruel, and impudent. Skena’s mind had almost shattered when they lost their child six years before. How could a man he once called a friend try to foist upon them his own son as some substitute? What kind of man...?

  But Banquo knew. Had seen through all their organized guile.

  A week. Was that how long this hard-won kingdom would last before it began to unravel beneath him? Could all the good he meant to do for Scotland disintegrate so quickly?

  He stood alone in the chill wind, his breath coming in great smoking gusts, his jaws clenched.

  When he turned, he saw, across the lawn, leaning in the shadowed portal of a tower door, the porter he’d spoken with earlier.

  My left-hand man.

  The thought revolted him. Fergus was watching, considering him frankly. Then he walked out into the light and strode purposefully across the frozen grass.

  Their eyes met, king and servant.

  “Loud voices even for Highland men. Banquo seems less friendly than of old,” said the porter.

  Macbeth gazed at him and felt as if he were in some strange dream.

  Fergus looked at his hands for a moment, then glanced up at the sky as if looking for snow.

  “He’s a trusted thane and a very old friend,” said Macbeth. “You were listening?”

  “I would not dare to eavesdrop, sire,” said Fergus, sidling up to him and glancing out across the fields. “No. But intemperate voices carry on the air. Time changes all things. Even a week, I think. Or so he said.”

  “My faith in him is beyond...”

  The porter’s half smile stopped Macbeth’s words.

  “May we be honest with one another?” asked Fergus, his voice lilting as if he were speaking kindly to a child. “This is no way to begin your golden reign. Kings must be honest, with themselves above all others. A man’s face is a map and there’s envy written clear on that Highland lord’s foul mug. Think of it. Imagine. His boyhood comrade, his brother-in-arms as thane of Glamis? He rejoices. Then Cawdor, too? He wonders...And where’s the prize for me? I fought MacDonwald, and Sueno, too. Yet nothing. And now? Now you are king of Scotland. Do you wonder this rapid elevation sticks in his craw?”

  Macbeth opened his mouth to deny it, but he heard Banquo’s words in his head: “If there was no black deed to begin with...”

  The porter was quiet for a moment, then, without looking at him, said softly, “Enemies are like sickness. Cut them out when they’re a spot and all you have is a scar that fades. Leave them to fester and you lose a limb. Fool yourself there’s nothing wrong at all and then...” He opened his arms in a gesture of emptiness. “A wise monarch deals with his foes the moment he perceives them. All problems can be faced and solved. Some can simply be made to vanish. The sooner, the better.”

  Macbeth’s heart felt as if it might cease beating. His sad face buckled, and for a wild and terrible moment, he felt tears start to his eyes.

  Where were the words? He took a long, cold breath as if drinking in the air, then asked, “How?”

  Fergus scowled. “How? What’s how to you? You’re a king now. Not a general. A king says do it and walks away. The means are up to me.”

  Macbeth took him by the scruff of the neck and snarled, “This man is my oldest friend. Do not make light of what you tempt me with.”

  The thin and sharp-faced man pulled back, a little scared, not much. “I tempt you with nothing, sire. If it’s your wish, I’ll go back to running errands, fetching beer. In truth...” He scratched his head. “That’s a sound suggestion. I think I’ll take it. Fare you well, lord...”

  He turned and started to walk away.

  “Stop.”

  The word said itself, Macbeth thought. No conscious will on his part summoned it from his throat.

  Fergus came back slowly and looked at him, turning his head in a sly sarcastic gesture.

  “Sire...?”

  “I want an end to division and conspiracy,” Macbeth told him. “A chance to build this kingdom. A time of peace and justice.”

  “As do we all,” the man responded, nodding vigorously. “A welcome sentiment, I’d say. One your nation will echo. See...” He indicated the line of mountains leading north. “There’s such wicked scoundrels abroad. Thugs and bandits. Robbers and murderers. Banquo’s a landowner, and a man of property attracts foes as a candle gathers moths.” He paused. “It is to be hoped his journey’s a safe one. Though sometimes a tragedy may, by accident, do us service.”

  “Us?”

  “You, my lord,” said Fergus. “And the country. Who are now one. Where exactly is he going?”

  “Home to Laggan,” Macbeth replied without a thought, but he felt like a base informer, feeding news to the enemy.

  The porter laughed.
“Those mountain passes are more perilous than the rest—in winter, especially. I wouldn’t wish to ride them with nothing but a boy for company.”

  Macbeth breathed again, then nodded. In his head were memories of the river and the glens, deer and salmon, laughter, love, and amity.

  All gone. In truth, they died that night in Inverness, though he had not known it then.

  He offered his right hand to the porter. Fergus smiled his crooked smile and extended his left. Macbeth faltered, then shook it.

  “The boy, too,” Macbeth murmured. “Make sure of that. It’s important. Father and son. Both.”

  The porter shrugged, but Macbeth looked quickly away as if half wishing the words unsaid.

  “I have three good men from Perth at my disposal,” Fergus whispered. “Cutthroat sailors as good as any—”

  “No!” Macbeth cried, waving his hands in horror. “No. Do not tell me. Do not...” His hands fell to his ears.

  Fergus blinked, then stood there, stifling his amusement. “Of course,” he said, then bowed and left.

  It was a bright, cold, windless day in the mountains. The clouds were pregnant with more snow. The drifts from the night before had an icy crust and even the powder beneath their horses’ hooves crunched as Banquo and Fleance rode. A mile back they had seen a merlin swoop across the track and into the trees, but otherwise, nothing. The world was silent, frozen.

  His wife would have called it beautiful. He smiled to himself, but a glance at the boy on the roan mare beside him banished the thought. They weren’t out to admire the scenery. The last thing Fleance needed was a prompt to start writing poetry in his head about the glories of the mountain passes.

  The boy had barely spoken since they left Scone. He had that brooding, dreamy look his father hated. Sometimes he hummed to himself or mouthed silent words, lost in a world only he could see. Banquo had talked to fill the silence, tales of blood and battle, most of them real. But Fleance wasn’t listening, and as Banquo’s frustration built, the stories grew more violent and disturbing.

  “...so I take him by the throat like this,” he said, snatching at Fleance’s woolen cloak, “and I put the tip of my sword right here...”

  “I dreamed of this place,” said the boy, sitting up and looking around.

  “What?”

  “Two nights ago, I saw this path while I slept,” said Fleance, somehow not sensing his father’s swelling anger. “Not exactly like this, but—”

  “We’ve been this way before. We always use it when traveling south.”

  “Yes, but I dreamed of it.”

  The boy looked suddenly hunted and uneasy. Banquo recalled his own nightmare about the witches and felt for a moment the cold bite beneath his wolf-skin coat. He had never wanted to make that ultimatum to Macbeth. It was rash, spoken in anger. It would be withdrawn and never used. Not that he intended to let the king know that for a day or two. Perhaps he might see sense and take Fleance back into the court some other way.

  “What kind of dream?” he muttered.

  “There was a crow and then an overturned hay cart, an accident, but somehow not an accident...”

  “And?”

  The boy looked uncertain. He shrugged.

  “Dreams!” spat Banquo. “When are you going to pay attention to the world around you? To reality? You’re a man nearly, or should be. But when you’re not huddled in your room with a book, you’re talking about dreams and premonitions like a doe-eyed serving wench. You don’t practice with your sword...”

  “I do, I just—”

  “Don’t lie to me, boy! I’ve watched you. The moment I go you put the sword aside. Yesterday you were supposed to practice for a half hour before dinner. And went off wandering by the river. When we get back, I’m going to find boys your own age to spar with you. Once a day, every day. And they won’t go easy on you like I do.”

  “They won’t do it,” said Fleance, looking at the track ahead.

  “They will if I order it.”

  Fleance looked sullen but said nothing.

  “Why won’t they do it?” Banquo asked with a sigh.

  “They don’t like me,” said Fleance.

  “Because you show no spark! You’ve a reputation to live up to. A family name to follow. They don’t have to like you if they respect you.”

  “They don’t.”

  “Then make them,” said Banquo, fiercely. He seized Fleance’s shoulder and glared at him till the boy nodded and looked down, his face flushed.

  “And stop all this nonsense about dreams,” he added. “I’ll speak to your mother about it when we get home. She’s been too soft. What were you doing yesterday, with the waiting women in the palace?”

  “When?” asked the boy, his eyes evasive.

  “You know when. When you were sitting by the fire in the great hall just before you went to bed.”

  “It was just foolery,” said Fleance. “A game.”

  “What kind of game?”

  “I was telling their fortunes,” he said, flushing even more. “Reading their palms.”

  Banquo’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

  “To pass the time and,” said Fleance, a tiny note of defiance rising in his voice, “because they say I’m good at it.”

  “Good at it?” roared Banquo. “What are you, a gypsy girl at a country fair making up lies for a few coins?”

  “Who said it was lies?”

  Banquo wheeled his horse in front of the mare and stopped them both. “Now, listen to me,” he said, one massive fist clamped around his son’s wrist. “I don’t want to hear of this again. It does not suit your family name to be playing with such stuff and besides...” His voice fell a tone. “It’s not safe. People scare easily, especially at times like this. You’ve heard the rumors and the whispering. The last thing we want is for them to point at you, muttering about strange gifts. They might think it amusing now. But one day you’ll cross the line and find yourself turned out on the moors, trading charms for a crust of bread and trying to stay one step ahead of the hangman.”

  “Is that what the weird sisters do?”

  Banquo felt numb and stupid. “The what?”

  “The three women you met with Macbeth.”

  “Who told you about them?” Banquo demanded, his grip now vicelike but unsteady.

  “You did, Father. Last night, the night before. Tossing and turning in your sleep. You spoke about them to Macbeth. Talked to the women, too. You said—”

  Banquo slapped him across the face so hard that the boy rocked sideways in the saddle and would have fallen if the grip on his wrist had been less secure.

  Immediately, he was struck with guilt and a darker, vaguer panic. He pulled Fleance close and held him.

  “I’m sorry,” he whispered. “Nightmares are things that come to taunt us...”

  “So you dream, too,” the boy said, close to tears.

  “Stay away from them, Fleance. There’s only misery there. People will...”

  But he couldn’t think of what to say next. A breeze had picked up and Banquo felt the first kiss of snow on his cheek.

  “Come on,” he said, drawing the wolf hide tighter about him. “We have a long way to go.”

  He urged on his horse. Fleance drew alongside, eyes cast down. For several minutes they rode in silence.

  The pass through the mountains tightened, the rocky outcrops at their sides became like cliffs. A series of ragged waterfalls were frozen hard to the rock, the stone flashing like glass in the sun. At the foot of the scarp was a stream, sluggish with ice, and a grove of slender rowan trees, the kind that Banquo’s father had cut and hardened for spear shafts. He pointed them out, but as he began to speak, a startled bird rose cawing into the pale sky, its black wings beating only a few feet from their faces.

  Banquo laughed at his own surprise, but Fleance’s face was pale.

  “Crow,” the boy said softly.

  As they swung around the grove of trees, Banquo realized that his son’s att
ention had shifted from the bird and now was focused on the track ahead. A cart sat there blocking the way, one wheel splintered beneath it. Three men were working on it, one a massive, hulking brute. Banquo gave Fleance a look.

  “We should go back,” said the boy in a low, flat voice.

  Banquo stared him down, then turned deliberately to the carters.

  “You need assistance, friends?” he bellowed, sliding easily from the saddle.

  “That we do,” returned one of them, a broad-shouldered fellow who was piling spilled straw with a long-tined pitchfork. “We can repair the wheel, but we have to get it off first.”

  Banquo strode over. “Seems you already have a giant working for you,” he said, slapping the biggest of them on the shoulder. “Still can’t shift it, eh?”

  The massive figure in coarse sackcloth shrugged and nodded.

  “Cat got your tongue?” asked Banquo, laughing.

  The giant turned and gaped at him. His mouth still had a few broken and blackened teeth, but where his tongue should be there was only a pale, fleshy flap with a straight edge as if made by a knife.

  Banquo stepped back, the skin on the back of his neck prickling.

  “You have my apologies,” he said, then turned to the man with the pitchfork. “I know your face from somewhere, do I not?”

  “I doubt that, sir,” he said, eyes flashing over to the bushes.

  It was a lie. Banquo would have known it without that telltale “sir.” And as he squatted to look down at the wheel, he realized several other things at once: though the snow had frozen hard, there were footprints all around the crippled wagon, which meant they had been there a long time. Two of the wheel spokes were, indeed, shattered, but the breaks were clean and one of them showed a notch—the mark of an ax.

  This was no accident.

  He stood up and turned slowly back to his horse and, more importantly, his sword, but as he walked away, he saw the third man properly for the first time and knew him.

  Fergus. Macbeth’s skulking porter. A man for sly and wicked deeds.

  His heart sank, but his senses quickened. If this was to be Macbeth’s handiwork, then Fleance was as much a target as he was, perhaps more.