by Mike Ashley
The hunting Gruoch and I had our own small deaths to attend to, out on the heaths and inside the wind-stunted copses. She dug her spurs in to be first on the scene as the spent hart faltered – regained his footing – stumbled once more – tried to rise – but too late, for the dogs were on him! She had her favourites in the pack (Blanche, Trey, Sweetheart, some of their names I can remember) and would egg them on at the kill, red and shrieking, her mouth flecked with unbecoming spittle. At such moments I wondered at her ability to lose herself in what she witnessed.
When we were riding back, with Blanche and the other braches bounding by our side, she returned to our bed-topic.
“Why should you wait?”
“He’s old.” I didn’t pretend not to know what she was talking about. “He hasn’t got much longer,” I added.
“How do you know, Canmore? He leads a clear life. They’re the ones that live longest.”
“You mean God’s in no hurry to get His hands on them?”
“I mean that they keep away from surfeit and sin. Pure livers live longest.”
There was something in what she said. The old man did lead a clear life. He was oftener on his knees than on his feet. He spent more time with the priests in their chantries than the generals in their tents. He kept a battlefield at arm’s length. That disturbance in the west I mentioned earlier – you may be sure he received report of it but stayed well out of ear- or arrow-shot. Unlike most of his predecessors, he was continent too, or continent now. He would not meet his end between a mistress’s sheets.
“Yes,” I said, raising my voice because we were trotting on either side of a peaty rivulet. “You’re right. He’ll die in his bed.”
The Lady Gruoch looked round. At a respectful distance our retinues kept pace with us. Somewhere far in the rear, a little procession of carts and wagons transported our gralloched quarry, our dead harts.
“Die in his own –”
“What’s that?”
The breeze lifted her voice and carried it away.
“His own bed, I said,” she said.
The wind gusted once more.
“Or ours,” she said.
I thought I’d misheard again. It was growing late and the outline of Glammis was hardly distinguishable against the darkening sky.
“Ours. Die in our bed.”
She’d overstepped the mark this time, I felt. All the same, a shiver ran through me, leaving me both hot and cold.
“I have something to show you when we get back, Canmore.”
I took this as a promise of one kind of showing, especially as I knew that the animal spirits roused in her by hunting often carried over into our indoor life. So it proved on this occasion. In between bed-bouts, however, my Lady untwined herself from my arms and legs, pushed aside the curtains, exited the bed and walked naked towards a heavily ornamented press in the corner of the chamber. There was a gap in the bed-hangings and I saw, by the lazy candlelight, how she bent down towards the bottom of the press and extracted from it a small gilded casket. This she bore back to the bed, holding it warily before her.
I thought at first that what she’d wanted to show me was the casket itself, a fine piece of work but hardly remarkable. Gruoch pushed back the sarcenet hangings to let in some candlelight and climbed into her husband’s bed. Since she stayed sitting I raised myself up. Our shoulders touched. She stared down at the casket reposing on her naked lap.
“This is what you have to show me?” I said. “There is more treasure underneath it. A richer mine. See.”
She brushed aside my rash, intruding hand and from somewhere, perhaps under the pillow, produced a small key. With a touch of ceremony, she opened the casket and took out a letter which it contained. She handed it to me. The letter was from the west, from the husband who was cleaning up after the campaign. He began with salutations: “Greetings, dear wife, I trust you are in health” and so on; quite formal. The rest of it was written in a stiff, warrior-like hand and style, and signed off in similar manner.
“So,” I said. “Is this meant to make me feel guilty – a letter from your husband?”
“There’s more.”
She drew another sheet from the box and gave me this as well. By placing it over the first and seeing how the folds corresponded, I realized that they had been delivered together. The hand on this one was scrawled and wavering. There was no salutation. From her slow breathing, from the way I sensed her eyes on my face, I knew that this was the important communication, and that the other letter was just cover. Now we’d reached the quick of the matter.
“This is . . . interesting,” I said after a time. I avoided looking at her.
“Is that all?”
“You believe him?”
She tapped the paper I was holding. “This is beyond him,” she said. “He hasn’t the imagination for even a small lie.”
“And you?”
I looked at her now. Her sharp, pointy face was fixed on mine.
“Oh yes, I can lie, Canmore.”
“No, I mean, do you believe what this says?”
I surprised myself with my level tone. After all, I was intimately concerned with the contents of her husband’s letter, the second secret letter, wasn’t I?
“I . . . am not sure,” said Gruoch.
“Is this not the merest superstition? What you were so recently mocking your husband for.”
But a little dread descended on me even as I attempted to make light of the business. Meantime Gruoch reached around so that I glimpsed her tawny flank while she stretched through the parted curtains and snuffed with her fingers the candle next the bedside. We were thrown into shadow.
“Yes,” she said. “Now I believe it.”
“And he will become king – like that – without his stir?”
“They have spoken,” she said solemnly.
“What about –”
Something cut me off, like a cry choked in mid-course.
“My darling,” she said, clutching at me in the dark, “it is you I’m thinking of, all the time. You that I’m planning for. Anyway it doesn’t matter whether it’s true or not, what matters is whether he believes that it is.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Oh you do. But I will syllable it for you. If he believes, you see, then that will be enough, because we can . . . push him in a certain direction.”
“The old man’s direction?”
“A meeting can be arranged between the King and my husband – with my assistance.”
“And afterwards?”
“Afterwards is ours.”
“For your husband, I mean.”
“Exposure, denunciation, execution – that will do for him.”
“How long have you been brewing this?”
A note of admiration crept into my voice. I couldn’t help it.
“Ever since I first set eyes on you,” said Gruoch.
“I was a child,” I said. “You were a woman.”
“Even so,” she said.
“Come here,” I said.
“Wait.”
She drew the bed-curtains so that the final fragments of light in the room were dimmed almost to extinction. Then she rubbed herself against me, her feral muzzle against me.
So, the story in the letter from her husband was this. That, returning from the western front with the Thane of Lochquhaber, he had encountered three gyre-carlines (or hags, as I would have termed them) on a green. Now, Gruoch’s husband must have been in an unusually mellow mood – or simply sated with battle-killing – because in other circumstances he might have strung the hags up merely for being in his path. Perhaps what made him pause was what they’d said to him, their predictions about his becoming king and all.
All this was in the second letter, the secret letter. Gruoch was right: he couldn’t have made it up. He was too unimaginative. No more than a walking sword. Maybe that was what gave her the idea of what might happen next.
That, and what she told me after
we’d made love again.
“He is coming here in two days’ time.”
“Coming. Who?” I said, drowsily.
“The King.”
I slept and dreamed of the old man.
The next day Gruoch’s husband returned and so I was compelled to leave her chamber and install myself in the guest-quarters of the castle. She promised me that it wouldn’t be for long. That once her husband had done what was required of him and been disposed of, we’d be together for good.
I exchanged a few words with the cuckold when he entered Glammis Castle. He was glad enough to see me, the veteran war-oaf. Still sticky, still filthy from the campaign and the slog homeward across mountain and morass, he clasped his wife in the courtyard. I, who had so lately untwined myself from her limbs and torn myself from her bed, could see what he evidently did not. How she shrank in his mailed embrace. A charitable observer might have put it down to reluctance to have her delicately worked gown sullied.
Then Macbeth turned to me.
“Well, Canmore, I saw you last in the thick of battle.”
“I am surprised you had the leisure to look about you, Macbeth, you were so busy parting souls and bodies.”
“And now you have been enjoying my wife’s hospitality.”
For an instant I wondered, but only for an instant. He was too stupid to notice what was under his nose.
“She has been most gracious – and receptive,” I said.
“Honour to her, and to you,” he replied.
And with that he led her indoors while I made my way to my new quarters. She told me later how she had broached the plan to him (after he had broached her – unenthusiastically, because he was tired and ever the fighter rather than the lover) and of how he had responded, at first with hesitation. But Macbeth really had no choice in the matter. Not only was she on his back – and she would be more than enough for any man – but the three gyre-carlines on the green were behind him in spirit, harrying him with their promises and predictions.
So, yes, he said yes. I’ll do it.
We’ll do it, she said. Kill the King.
The day after Macbeth’s return the old man arrived at Glammis Castle. He looked, in contrast to Macbeth, plush and holy and old, like a prelate. In the King’s train rode my younger brother Donal, I’m sorry to say. Donal is as pious as the King, but his boyish holiness is embalmed in a rake-like body and a fierce gaze. You can be sure that my brother pretended to be glad to see me and that I simulated a like pleasure.
The King was gracious enough. He dismounted and hugged his host and hostess in the courtyard while the Glammis retainers stood around in liveried reverence. I observed that Lady Macbeth was a better player than her husband. She really did offer welcome in eye and tongue, while he merely looked shifty.
We repaired to the audience chamber. Spices had been cast on the great fire and a sweet, teasing scent filled the air. Macbeth now remembered that he was playing the part of loyal host and smiled and smiled like a stage villain.
For his valour in battle, the King acclaimed him Thane of Cawdor, a title that had belonged to one of those disloyal thanes who’d supported the rebels from the western isles. This struck me as a Greek gift. Who would choose a traitor’s name? But Macbeth seemed happy enough. As Gruoch said, he hasn’t much imagination.
Then the King turned to me.
“Now, my son Canmore, you too have fought most bravely on the edge of our kingdom and, like our new Thane of Cawdor, you deserve reward.”
“Whatever I do, majesty,” I said, bowing, “is done in your service, and that is reward enough.”
I had to make an effort not to glance in my Lady Gruoch’s direction as I straightened up after this effusion. I could imagine the red glint in her eye.
“Even so, Malcolm Canmore, you shall be honoured, and the more so for your loyalty and modesty.”
He raised his right hand, palm outwards.
“Know therefore, thanes and kinsmen, that we hereby invest Canmore with the title of Prince of Cumberland, for him and his in perpetuity.”
The court sent back the ritual cry: “Honour to him and to you.”
I looked about, pleased or seeming so. It was a prize, Cumberland, but was there ever a man content with a single gold coin when a whole purseful of them lie nearby? A ring of Scotland’s noblest lords and thanes stood round me, stamping approval with their feet, grinning wolfishly. Only the Thane of Lochquhaber fixed me with his steady gaze, as if he could see through to my inmost heart. Later, I wondered whether he had evinced a similar scepticism when he and Macbeth encountered the hags on the heath.
The old man stood up from the makeshift throne in the audience chamber. This was the signal for the court to disperse until supper. I went to my quarters and lay down, waiting for the knock on the door.
But she entered without knocking and within seconds we were tangled on the bed. Almost as quickly we separated ourselves, knowing that there was life-and-death business to discuss.
“It is arranged,” she said. “He will do it tonight.”
“You are certain?”
“Don’t doubt, Canmore.”
“I don’t doubt you, my dove, but him.”
“Listen. We have a small part to play in this. But otherwise our hands will be clean.”
I waited. Looking back, it is extraordinary how ready I was to entrust everything to the Lady Gruoch. How I trusted her – as you would a mother, a sister.
“The King is two doors from here,” she said, “in the royal apartment.”
“You didn’t house me there,” I said, with mock grievance.
“You were housed in my bed,” she said.
“A royal housing.”
“Listen. To reach the King’s chamber, Macbeth must cross the outer room where the two chamberlains are quartered.”
“Kenneth and Rhun,” I said. “I know them. And do you know that one of them is always supposed to remain awake while the other sleeps?”
“That is a custom going back to my grandfather’s time,” she said.
“So how do you propose to get round it?”
“After the King is safely in bed and asleep, we will make sure that the chamberlains enjoy a little rere-supper.”
“A late collation which you will prepare of course?”
“And which we will both of us deliver.”
“Both?”
“Because what they might look at askance from me they will readily take from you.”
“There is a better reason than that, my Lady, and you know it.”
She said nothing.
“You want both our hands to be a little sullied. So while your husband is covered in the old man’s blood –”
“For which he must die.”
“Agreed. He shall. But even as he is covered in blood, we too, or rather I too, must be a little implicated.”
“You are the chiefest gainer, Canmore. Don’t waver now.”
“And do not doubt me, Gruoch. I am resolved.”
So, it all went to plan – in the beginning. Once we knew that the King was safely installed in bed in his apartment, Gruoch and I conveyed a rere-supper of various dainties to the chamberlains who lay in the ante-room. They were pleased, if a little surprised, to see their hostess and the King’s son personally bearing salvers of food and wine.
I knew Kenneth and Rhun. They were familiar with me from when I was a lad. They had served my father for many years and, though not as old as he, had grown grizzled in his service. They greeted me with affection, which in the circumstances I did not welcome. I am not a brute or a natural hypocrite. In the corner of the room Gruoch poured out goblets of red wine, two by two, courteously bringing the chamberlains theirs before serving me and herself. As she handed me a goblet, she gave me a furtive glance. I felt tight in my belly and the room suddenly grew airless.
Then it was simply a matter of waiting. We passed the time with the chamberlains, talking about the prospects for next day’s hunting, but
all the time quiet and low because we were mindful of the sleeping King Duncan next door. As the soporifics started to take effect, Gruoch slipped from the room to prepare her husband, whom she had left safely shut up on her side of the castle. I remained behind until Kenneth and Rhun, having drained their goblets to the dregs, slumped down, one awkwardly on a bench and the other flat on his back on the ground. Before I left, I eased the chamberlains’ daggers from their sheaths and laid them out in plain sight on the rushy floor for Macbeth to pick up.
When I quit the King’s apartment I should have turned left towards my own quarters, on the way passing my brother Donal’s chamber. I’d barely spoken to him since his arrival with our father, noting only the disapproving glances he had given to all and sundry at the supper table. But I was possessed by a restless spirit – it is not every black night that one stands by while one’s father is murdered – and instead of creeping back to my room and lying low until the deed was done I turned right to go down the stairs and into the open. The night was close, even though it was midway through autumn. I thought I wanted air. But in truth I was waiting for Macbeth to make his way across the yard and climb the stairs to my father’s apartment. Although I didn’t doubt Gruoch, and indeed had the highest respect for her persuasive powers, I still wasn’t certain that Macbeth would actually be brought to do it.
I backed into a convenient doorway. From here I should be able to see anyone approaching the guest area of the castle. As my eyes grew more used to the dark, I could discern the lineaments of several of the outbuildings littering the wide yard. There were no stars and the sky was low, pressing down like an eyelid on Glammis. Something flickered in the corner of my vision. A darker shadow moved among the shapes of the yard, accompanied by a faint glimmer. No, not one but two shadows, the second small and stunted as a dwarf. My heart leapt into my throat and I must have made some involuntary noise because the larger of the walking shadows stopped. The little glimmer of light was raised, and I realized its source was a shuttered lantern.
“What is it, father?”
“Wait here, I shall see,” came a quiet but determined voice, and the shadow began to come towards the doorway where I was waiting.