Macbeth the King (61 page)

"So be it," MacBeth said, with a sigh. "I can do no more. But—when I have fallen, yield you. Your duty done. And now—God be with you all. And with me also. Here they come..."

The dismounted men reached the eminence in ones and twos, and halted, panting, well clear of the determined group around the stone—as well they might. For these made a notably tight defensive circle, shoulder to shoulder, swords bristling in right hands, dirks in left, a hedgehog of steel. From horses they could have been ridden down and over-reached; lances could have frustrated their defence. But the horses had been left behind, and the lances with them, for what man having to negotiate a bog wishes to be burdened with a nine-foot lance? So they held back, unsure.

Duncan MacDuff himself, heavy, anything but nimble, was one of the last to come up. And he too paused, staring and breathing heavily.

"Traitor!" MacBeth called to him. "I have long awaited this day. Come you, and receive your just deserts—you, who placed the crown on my brow and took your vows to support me!"

The other moistened his lips but said nothing. Perhaps he still lacked breath. He gazed over to the east, to where Malcolm's men, at the causeway-end, were now dismounting.

"Coward, I see, as well as traitor!" the King taunted. "Come, man, and put your hatred to the test. You can only die. Are you so fearful of death? I am not. Nor are these with me. Come you."

MacDuff muttered something, but to his men, and two of them broke off, to hurry away eastwards towards Malcolm's company. They looked thankful to go.

"Wait, MacBeth," MacDuff said, at length. "Savour a few more minutes of life, you who talk of death. For you will savour it, never fear."

"But not at MacDuff's hand, it seems! You are but the jackal. The wolf is yonder!"

It seemed that some of MacDuff's following were less discreet than he was. One man, dressed as a knight, stepped out, sword raised, shouting something in the Norman tongue. Another took up the cry, and a number of the ordinary swordsmen rallied to them. MacDuff said neither yea nor nay. With a yell, about half of the party surged forward behind this pair.

It was at the King that the assault was aimed primarily. But he could not be isolated from his supporters, close-knit as they were. Moreover, since there were less than a score of them on the outer rim, it made a comparatively small circle. So the attack had to disperse itself and work round the group. This left the assailants much less tight-packed than the defenders and consequently more vulnerable to sword-play—even though some more of MacDuff's people joined in. For their part, the men around the King found this close mutual support heartening but a little cramping for their cut-and-thrust work, although they tended to stand with sword-arm shoulders outwards.

That first assault was short and sharp, and a disaster for the attackers. When, effect and impulse spent and little impression made, the attempt petered out and the enemy fell back, they left six fallen and as many wounded, some having to be supported or dragged. MacBeth himself had a shallow flesh-wound on his forearm, and two of his devoted band were pushed back to join the other injured around the stone, the circle now slightly smaller.

But, although there were cries of triumph from his friends, the King did not join in. Not on account of his arm, which he barely felt, but because of what his eyes told him—for he was facing due eastwards and when he raised his eyes he saw sufficient to quench any satisfaction. Malcolm's men were now coming on, on foot, only slowly admittedly—but that was largely because they were burdened by carrying their long lances and spears. That was what MacDuff's two messengers had been sent to ensure.

As the others perceived it, silence fell on the defenders. None needed to have it spelt out to them. Those lances could do what swords could not, thrust well beyond arm's length. Now the end could not be long delayed.

Fixedly they watched the newcomers arrive around MacDuff. One of the last to come up, although not carrying a lance, was a stocky and burly man in his late twenties, with an inordinately large head and a shock of unruly and curling dark hair, beard forked in the Danish fashion—Malcolm mac Duncan, whom MacBeth had last seen as a five-year-old in the rath of Dunkeld.

King and prince stared over at each other for long moments, both expressionless.

Malcolm was in no hurry. He had no need to be; he had all that he needed for his purposes, his quarry could not escape, and no force was likely to come to his rescue. He drew up his men in four ranks, about eighty in all, and formed them into a square surrounding the King's circle, lances and spears forward. After conferring with MacDuff and one or two of the knights, he walked slowly round the front ranks of waiting men, instructing them with a calm, almost scornful authority. Then, as though superintending some game or contest, he stepped back and raised his hand for action.

Without haste, deliberately, his men moved forwards, inwards, spears extended.

MacBeth spoke. "Those shafts are wood. Steel cuts wood!" he said. And a snarl rose from his people.

The strange silent advance halted only about seven or eight feet from the waiting defenders, so that men on each side were looking tensely into each other's eyes, aware of each other's deep breathing. There was a cold-blooded precision and formalism about it all, inevitable as death itself.

Then Malcolm shouted a single word of command, and the four ranks moved. Only a pace or two, so that the men still remained out of reach of the Scots' swords, but sufficient for their lances, spears and pikes to drive home. Down the swords slashed. Some steel lance-tips were sliced off, some were deflected, some jerked right out of the wielders' grasps. But, by their very numbers involved, most were not, and the screams of those transfixed and gouged shattered the grim hush.

Another shout from the rear penetrated the agonised cries, to remind the attackers of their instructions. Swiftly if less than deftly, they obeyed, disengaging their weapons, stepping back, and then, without pause, immediately lunging forward again. It was a more ragged thrusting than the first time, but so quickly was it executed that most of the defenders' swords could not be raised high in time for adequate chopping and parrying. Everywhere points drove in, deep into flesh, metal-scaled leather tunics being ineffective to stop close-quarters lance-thrusts. All around the King men fell or staggered or sank to their knees.

Now all silence was of the past, with men yelling, shouting, shrieking, on both sides. Discipline on the attackers' part was abandoned also, with each man thrusting and retiring and lunging again at his own timing and blood-lust, often at figures already squirming on the ground and, as the outer ring disintegrated, at the wounded revealed within. Now the remaining defenders, who could, pathetically few, forsook the failed defensive circle and hurled themselves out at their enemies, to at least kill before they died. Malcolm's knights awaited them, swords ready.

In that so brief but terrible carnage it had taken some little while to dawn on MacBeth that he was being spared, deliberately spared rather than remaining miraculously untouched. No single lance struck the royal person, although he cut through two or three himself, and all around him his compardons went down. He realised that he was being isolated, the enemy presumably ordered not to slay him. This recognition came to him at the same moment as, jerked aside and spun round by a toppling comrade, his glance went down—and saw Luctacus lying spread-eagled at his feet, a lance through his throat, eyes glazing.

With a strangled cry, limping, left arm hanging but sword-arm raised in savage fury and pain, he leapt away and forward. Eluding the lance which swiped sideways to fend him off, he slashed down the man immediately in front of him, flung himself upon the next, knocking him aside and so ran on. Twenty yards from him stood Malcolm Canmore and Duncan MacDuff, with two or three knights, watching.

"Come!" he shouted. "In God's name, come!"

Malcolm took a pace forward, and then paused. He turned back to MacDuff, and gestured. Nothing could have been more clear. The crowned King of Scots' person had been saved from common men's steel, saved for their betters. Now Malcolm, who claimed that crown, left the
coup-de-grace
to the other, his supporter.

MacDuff, sword in hand, stood still, frowning. It all took place in mere seconds. MacBeth was running at him, however lamely. He licked his lips, shook his bull-like head, swung on the knight at his side, and pointed, vehemently. It was the same big Norman who had led that first abortive attack on the circle, before the lances arrived. Surprised but nothing loth, the Norman leapt forward. MacBeth, only a few feet away now, saw that MacDuff was not prepared to meet him.

"Coward! Traitor! Felon to the end!" he cried, and with what strength remained to him, hurled his bloody sword from him, like a javelin, at his one-time Mormaor of Fife, one of the lesser kings of the Ard Righ. To the Norman he gasped,
"Lurdan!"
the Gaelic word for knave, with his last breath, and sought to sweep him out of his way.

The knight brought down his own sword on MacBeth's now defenceless head cleaving the skull. The High King of Scots pitched forward, dead before he struck the grass, anguished spirit released at last to go seek his Gruoch.

MacDuff, a clumsy man always, jumped heavily aside, barely in time. The King's sword struck his arm, scoring his leather jerkin, before clattering to the ground.

"A usurper and a miscreant—but he died well," Malcolm Big Head observed judicially.

MacBeth's body, with
that of Luctacus, was taken up the hill behind Lumphanan village and temporarily interred in a large Pictish burial-cairn there—still named MacBeth's Cairn—later to be transferred to its final resting-place at Iona. Lulach was proclaimed King of Scots, in Moray and the North. Malcolm assumed the kingship in the South, and seven months later led an army northwards again, which sought out and slew Lulach at Essie in Strathbogie. His body also was taken to Iona, the last King of Scots to be buried on the sacred isle. Thereafter Malcolm the Third reigned undisputed as High King until his death in battle in 1093, when Donald Ban, his legitimate half-brother, gained the throne for a year before Malcolm's son Duncan displaced him. Duncan himself was slain after six months, by his own half-brother Edmond, the first of the Margaretsons. Lulach's son Maelsnechtan survived but never claimed the throne. Farquhar also, whose son and grandson feature in Moray's records.

Malcolm, oddly enough, married Ingebiorg Thorfinnsdotter, in an attempt to gain some control over Orkney and the Hebrides from Thorfinn's rather weak sons Paul and Erland, no happy union. By her he had the aforementioned Duncan and also Donald. Then, in 1070 Malcolm got rid of her, to wed Margaret Atheling, the Saxon princess dispossessed by William the Conqueror, the Saint Margaret of the history books; and through her influence began the pulling down of the Celtic Church and the substitution of that of Rome.

But that is another story.