Macbeth the King (55 page)

Without a word MacBeth rose from the table and hurried out.

The Queen was still in a coma when he reached their bedchamber, her breathing weak and erratic. Again he sat at her side, hour after hour, food and drink brought to him there by their young people. Eventually, in the middle of the night, without her having regained consciousness, he laid himself down beside her, and slept.

He was awakened some unspecified time later by a voice, Gruoch's voice, quite clear, even louder than of late.

"Hold me, beloved. Hold me close. I need...your strength. For a little. It will not be long now."

"Dear heart!" Gripping her, he choked, and could say no more.

"Never fear, my dear. I only leave you...for a time. I am not frightened. It is but...another journey. A good journey, I think. And your love will accompany me, all the way. So I shall not be alone. Until you join me, your own self. That is sure. Do not fear. For me. Or for yourself."

He shook his head against her dark, damp hair.

She was quiet for moments, her breathing a labour. When she spoke again, her voice was much less strong, less sure.

"It is only Lulach I fear for. The others are well enough.

Strong. Like you. But Lulach—he has never known true happiness. Look after Lulach, my heart, I pray. For our love's sake. It is not his fault."

"Yes."

"1 thank you. 1 do not know, but I think, I think...oh, hold me, hold me, Son of Life!"

Wordless he clutched her twitching, twisting person, so slight, kissing her hair, her brow, her neck. Presently the spasm faded.

He murmured in her ear, but she did not answer now. He spoke brokenly, incoherently, telling her of his abiding love.

After a little she suddenly found words again, distinct, with a kind of certainty.

"Your hand, my dear. I shall look for you...when Birnam Wood comes to Dunsinane."

She heaved twice within his arms, and breathed no more.

He continued to hold her until the sun rose.

MacBeth took Gruoch
to Iona for burial. The Church forbad e men and women to be interred together; but at least they would lie in the same small and lovely isle when his time came, a time he now looked forward to without apprehension. But he rejected any elaborate funeral obsequies, such as undoubtedly she was entitled to as Queen of Scots, but which she, no more than he, would have wanted. Only the family stood round the grave on Tor Abb that June morning, and when the monks' chanting died away they heard only the sigh of the waves and the cuckoos calling from the twisted island thorn-trees and the oyster-catchers wheepling on the white cockle-sand shore. The King was dry-eyed now. He would not weep again, ever. Lulach wept, almost the first time he had been seen to show emotion since early childhood.

MacBeth thereafter took up the burden of his kingship again with a sort of stern energy. He went down to Fortrenn, visited his forces facing occupied Lothian at the Forth, made a progress to whip up support and morale in nervous Strathclyde right to the edge of Galloway, where he summoned Paul

Thorfinnson and Harald to meet him, to discuss strategy. He called three conferences at Dunsinane; one with Glamis and all his military leaders, including Gunnar from Torfness who was no subject of his; one with the Abbot Ewan and the other officers of state, to appoint a new Chancellor—for old Bishop Malduin had died suddenly, full of years; and one of Church leaders, to appoint a new Bishop of Saint Andrews and Ard Episcop. All matters which had been too long delayed. From these councils a more aggressive military plan against the Northumbrian invaders of Lothian and the Merse was drawn up; Abbot Ewan became the new'Chancellor; and one of the Iona bishops, Tuthald by name, became Ard Episcop and Bishop of Saint Andrews.

So passed a busy two months of that summer, with MacBeth driving himself, and all others, hard—partly in duty, to compensate for what some might see as his recent neglect of the realm's pressing problems, partly to drug his personal desolation with work and physical weariness.

It was not until the beginning of August that he found time to do anything definite about starting to redeem his promise to Gruoch on the subject of Lulach. Back at Spynie, he sent for his step-son. Lulach came, reluctantly it might be inferred, from his mountains fastness in Mamore, and again brought Donald Ban with him, these two lonely young princes seeming to have become close friends, a strange development.

The King spoke to Lulach alone, pacing the
Dorus Neamh
orchard in the golden evening light, the older man little more eager than the younger.

"See you, lad," he said, more abruptly than he knew or intended. "You cannot continue in this way. Hiding yourself in your mountains, living like some eremite who has rejected the world of men. You are the heir to the throne, and you should be taking your part in the rule of the realm."

"It was never any wish of mine to be heir, sir," he was told flatly.

"Nevertheless it is your destiny. You were born to it. As I was
not.
You have to face the facts of it."

Lulach took him up quickly. "If you were not born to it, and yet are lawful and accepted King, why not another? Make Farquhar your heir. Your own son. He would king it well enough. A deal better than would I."

"Farquhar might rule, yes. But that is scarcely the point. Some men call me usurper, because I slew Duncan and became

King in his stead. Some fight against me, because of that. I will not have my son so named also, because he reigned when another had more right. You are your mother's eldest son and the right comes through her. Always this has been recognised."

"That was so, once. But now there is Donald Ban. Is he not as much lawful heir as am I? If you will not give Farquhar the succession, give it to Donald—eldest son of Duncan. And thereby heal the breach between the two royal lines. If you named Donald as heir to your throne now, would not all this warfare and struggle fade away? Those who supported Duncan would no longer have any quarrel with you, and you would unite the realm again."

MacBeth paused in his pacing, to stare at his step-son. "You...and Donald! Is this what you have been hatching? Donald seeks the throne, after all? I wondered why he clung so close to you!"

"No! It was my notion, not his. But I have thought much on it
..."

"You have not thought enough, nevertheless! Have you forgotten Malcolm Big Head? He, bastard though he is, claims the crown, as against his legitimate younger brother. Already he is calling himself King of Scots."

"If you made Donald heir, Prince of Strathclyde, those supporting Malcolm must needs think again. MacDuff and the others."

"You deceive yourself. Donald is mild, almost gentle. Malcolm is hard, strong, ambitious. Men who wish to overturn a regime will always support Malcolm's kind against Donald's. Even King Edward of England, saint as he is called, is now so doing, I am told. Calling Malcolm King and telling Tostig to aid him with men and ships. No, lad—we shall not save my throne by calling Donald heir. We shall have to fight for it, I fear."

The other was silent.

"Which brings me to what I would say to you," MacBeth went on. "I know that you are no warrior, nor wish to be—although, God knows, when you are King you will have to use the sword as well as the sceptre. But now you could aid the realm, if you will, in this pass. As Prince of Strathclyde you could call upon many of the chiefs and thanes and landed men of upper Strathclyde and Dalar, your own Highland area, where I have not had time to visit. Call in my name. Seek to have them raise their men, many men. To send to me, for the defence of

Strathclyde. They leave all to me. Seem scarce to consider it their concern..."

"Perhaps they may favour the house of Crinan? Dalar flanks Atholl."

"It could be so. Although they did not support Crinan in his revolt. But..." He paused. "...take your friend Donald with you, then! If they see that he has made his peace with me and mine, Duncan's lawful son, they might be the more willing."

The younger man looked less than enthusiastic. "How can I do that...?*'

"You have
some
duties towards this realm, have you not? Your mother's realm. Think you that all I have to do is to my taste?"

They left it at that.

The very next morning, however, the situation became suddenly more urgent. Gunnar arrived from Torfness with a messenger from Ingebiorg in Orkney. Thorfinn Raven Feeder was dead.

MacBeth grieved for his brother, of course. But numbed already as he was by the death of Gruoch, the sense of loss and pain was dulled. Also, it was no real surprise; indeed the wonder was that Thor had lingered on, like some felled tree-trunk, for so long. MacBeth's true acceptance of his brother's death had been when he said goodbye to him at Birsay that day three years before. Both had known then that they would never see each other again this side of the grave. And the Raven Feeder was probably better dead than lying useless.

But grieving apart, the tidings created all sorts of new demands. Ingebiorg's message assumed that MacBeth would attend the obsequies. Thorfinn of course, must be given the typical and elaborate Viking burial, beneath his own beached and upturned longship, with fires and wild music and saga-telling, even feasting, for the greatest Viking of them all. Much as he would have wished to be present however, the King just dared not go, not at this stage in his threatened realm's affairs. Nothing was more sure than that the news would swiftly be carried to his enemies' ears—and Scotland would immediately become more vulnerable than she had been since Siward's invasion. For so many of her friends would be flocking to Orkney, undoubtedly. Thorfinn's hosts would gather from far and near; anything else was unthinkable, for the sending of a mighty Viking on his way to Valhalla, Christianity or none, was a tremendous occasion, taking days and nights to accomplish properly. So for those days and nights the command of the seas would be in abeyance, and Tostig's Northumbrian fleet need fear no interference. Gunnar himself would be going, with most of the Torfness garrison. Assuredly Paul, now Earl of Orkney, must go, and almost certainly Harald Cleft Chin with him, leaving only Sween Kennedy to command in Galloway. Earl Somerled mac Gillciaran would be there, along with the other Hebridean chiefs. For days at least, Scotland's flanks would be wide open to any determined invader. And Edward of England's recent orders to Tostig and declared support of Malcolm Canmore as King of Scots, was significant.

MacBeth would send Farquhar to represent him—since Lulach would be like a fish out of water at a Viking burial. He might even let Cormac and Eala go too, to their uncle's funeral. Luctacus, who would drink too much, or at least be affected too greatly by what he drank—and yet was becoming an excellent soldier—he would take South with him, since South he must go.

It would all have to be done at once, for the burial could not be over-long delayed at this warm time of the year, and was arranged to start only two days hence.

By afternoon that very day, leaving Neil Nathrach to complete the mustering and bringing on of the Moray and Ross army, and seeing his three Orkney-bound offspring on to a Iongship at Torfness, MacBeth with his second son and a small, fast escort, turned to ride with all speed for the Mounth passes, heading for Glamis first and then Dunsinane. He would drop off couriers on the way, to Buchan and Mar, the Mearns and Angus, the mormaors and thanes to order musters and to come on immediately themselves.

At the hurriedly-called
council-of-war at Dunsinane, MacBeth stared grimly down the long table at his lords and leaders—or at such of them as he had been able to assemble at short notice.

"So we are faced, my friends, with the same problem and situation as we were three years ago," he said, heavily. "Having to divide our forces against a possible three-pronged assault. But this time without the aid from the sea, longships. Or few of them. We cannot fight adequately on all three fronts—Forth, Tay and Galloway. And there could be a fourth—up the Clyde firth, to attack our rear from Alclyde. In a week, ten days, we might muster sufficient men to face all, perhaps. But I fear that we will not be given such time. If I was Malcolm, or Tostig, I would not wait until the Orkney funeral was over, but would strike now, whatever state I was in. So how do we best divide and dispose our strength?"

"Lord King," Lachlan of Buchan, just arrived from the North with Martacus of Mar, declared, "This, of three fronts, or four, is but guess-work. It may be so—but it may not. After all, this sudden death of the Earl of Orkney will be as much a surprise to our enemies as to ourselves. They will not all be ready mustered, either. So it may take time for any sea-borne force to move against us, up Tay or up Clyde. We know that there are movements in Lothian, yes, with the insufferable Malcolm the Bastard. But the rest is only fears and doubts. I say that we should throw our whole strength at Lothian. At once. Or so soon as our people reach us from the North. Attack across Forth, and seek to defeat Malcolm with one swift stroke. Before any of your feared ship-borne hosts can arrive. Let us be done with defence, always defence, of waiting for others to assail us. Attack, I say!"

There was a fairly strong murmur of agreement from down the table. Because Lothian was now occupied territory, well-wishers there kept the King very fully informed of what went on, and at present they knew of major troop concentrations and movements, indicative of a renewed campaign. The general reaction was* clearly that this should be crushed before it got under way.

"I commend your spirit, my lord," MacBeth said. "And if I could be assured that our rear was secure, I might choose to do as you advise. But I have the abiding safety of my realm to consider. We might win in Lothian, yet find the heart of Scotland lost behind us. I dare not risk that."

Martacus spoke, his manner so much more hesitant than Lachlan's. "We have some few ships, Highness. Send them out to the mouth of Tay. To the mouth of the Scottish Sea also, perhaps. Not to fight, since we have not sufficient to challenge any English fleet. But to form a screen. If the enemy appears in large numbers, these to skirmish and beat about, to hold up the English for a little while fast vessels bring you the news. So that we are not caught unprepared. As to the Clyde, I cannot say."