Macbeth and Son (13 page)

But which are the enemy? The English wear their leather caps but it is still difficult to tell one man from another in the confusion. You give the battle cry again, and hear the men around you echo it, so you know that they at least are yours.

Slash, and slash…Impossible to yell the battle cry again. Breath is too precious to waste on a yell. Most of the English horses have been driven back. But there are still a few who’ve manoeuvred through the Alban ranks, their riders slashing at the foot soldiers below.

The smell of blood, of metal as swords clash…

Screams of agony—so many that after a while they are just one scream from a thousand mouths, till suddenly your horse steps back onto a dying man…

Clash, parry, clash…You fight the man in front, always fearing the man behind. That’s why you fight back to back with someone you trust…

Knut, heaving at his sword, was panting behind Lulach. Was this what they had dreamed of all those years ago, as Kenneth showed them how to wield a broadsword?

Suddenly another English horseman struck Lulach from the side. Lulach felt the blow on his left shoulder, saw the enemy lift his sword again…

And suddenly the horseman vanished. The King’s horse was next to him, the King’s shield protected
him. Then it was gone, no longer needed. Lulach turned to meet another foe.

‘
I will not yield, To kiss the ground before young Malcolm’s feet…
’

Who said that? thought Lulach vaguely. Was it the King?

Clash, parry, clash…

‘
And damn’d be him that first cries, “Hold, enough!”
’

Clash, parry…

So much noise! thought Luke, half waking a thousand years away. How can I sleep?

But he didn’t want to sleep. Not if sleep meant he had to live through this. It’s not fair! he thought. It’s bad enough that things like this happened once, without bringing them back to life! Let the battle go! Please, let it pass!

And then it did.

The dream sucked at him once again. But now the battle was over.

He had survived.

Across the glen Lulach could see the remnants of the English army running for the hills. The ground was littered with bodies: dead and dying men, horses that heaved and struggled but would never rise again. There was blood everywhere, brighter than the heather, darker than the grass.

Lulach’s horse was gone, cut from under him—how long ago he couldn’t tell.

But they’d won.

It was a shock to Lulach to find himself still alive. Even more of a shock to realise that he could stop now, that no swords were slashing at him, no knives were stabbing at him. That he had space to look
around, that he didn’t have to fight every second to survive.

His arms hurt from wielding a sword, and he had a gash on one shoulder. His muscles screamed. His ears still rang with the sound of sword blows. But the clash of swords had gone. The field was silent, except for the moans of the dying.

A horseman cantered up to him, stepping between the bodies. ‘Lulach!’

It was the King. His saffron cloak was stained with blood, but he seemed uninjured except for a gash on his cheek. He rode a different horse; Kenneth must have brought him another when his first horse fell. Or was this horse his third, or fourth?

‘You’re all right?’ asked the King anxiously.

Lulach nodded, almost too tired for words.

Another man on horseback approached. Kenneth, his half face dripping sweat. ‘An incredible victory, my Lord!’ Only one side of Kenneth’s face could show emotion now, but it glowed with triumph.

The King shook his head, gazing out at the ruin of broken bodies upon the field. He spoke almost without emotion. ‘You never win a war like this. You only win a battle, for a time. Some things must be fought for over and over again.’

Lulach looked around. Only three of Macbeth’s guards still had their horses. Perhaps some had given theirs to the King. Tiredly he began to work out who was safe, and who had died…

But they’d won, they’d won. Impossible to think of anything more, except…

Lulach turned to Kenneth. ‘Where’s Knut?’ he asked urgently.

Kenneth shook his head. His eyes were kind but full of sadness. ‘I’m sorry, lad.’

‘Where is he?’ demanded Lulach again.

Kenneth waved down into the glen. ‘Somewhere…’ he said.

Lulach handed Kenneth his sword. He began to trudge down the hill, between the bodies.

How did you know who was alive and who was dead? Open eyes, staring at the sky…Open eyes meant death. But others were sprawled among the heather, their faces to the ground.

The world was all dying men and treeless hills. The sky was still bright. That’s the trouble with summer, thought Lulach hazily. The days are so long that night never comes.

‘Water!’

Lulach kneeled. The boy was young. You needed to be twelve to join the army, but many boys lied about their age—or never knew it to begin with. Lulach held his water skin to the boy’s lips. He seemed unhurt, if you didn’t notice his blood-soaked cloak, the shadows in his eyes. Lulach beckoned to a stretcher party to come to the boy’s aid, then he walked on.

And then he found him.

Knut lay near the body of his horse. It was easy for a man on foot to cut a horse’s hamstrings, to bring it down. Horses never survived a battle long. An army needed many horses to replace the fallen.

Lulach kneeled by his friend’s body. For a moment he thought Knut was dead. Then the bruised eyes opened. ‘Have we won?’ Knut whispered painfully.

‘Yes, my friend.’

‘Good.’

Around them Macbeth’s men collected spears and hunted out the enemy wounded among their own.

‘I’m dying,’ breathed Knut.

Lulach tried to find words of reassurance. But he owed his friend the truth. The blood that seeped onto the ground was black, not red.

‘Yes,’ he said.

They had both made their confessions and been shriven before the battle—afterwards there were never priests enough. There was nothing Lulach could do now but wait with Knut until the end.

There should be something you could say to a dying friend, thought Lulach. Words of love, or comfort. But his body and his mind were numb. Words wouldn’t come.

So he sat there, Knut’s hand in his, till Knut’s breathing stopped. Even then he stayed there, too numb with grief to move.

A thousand years later, Luke waited too, refusing to struggle out of his dream. Knut would never know that two sat with him, not one. It was all that Luke could do for Lulach. Lulach would do the same for him, he thought vaguely, if he had to sit like this with Patrick…

‘My Lord?’ It was one of the King’s guards. ‘The King wants you.’

‘I’m coming.’ Lulach placed Knut’s hand on his bloody chest. ‘Stay with him,’ he ordered. ‘I want his body taken home for burial.’

It was the last, the only thing that he could do for his friend: to take him home.

Home, thought Luke, restless on his pillow. I
am
home. I’m not really here…there…The smell of
blood, the scream of a wounded enemy seeing a knife come down…None of it can touch me. I’m here in bed.

Then suddenly the dream was gone.

Luke half awoke. For a second he wondered where he was. Here or there; battlefield or bed?

But he was home. He was safe.

No—how could he be safe after a battle like that?

But it was Lulach’s battle, not his…

So that’s what it’s like, thought Luke, to fight for your country. To fight and win.

Exhaustion claimed him—exhaustion from the battle, from living it, or dreaming it. He slept again. But his dreams were normal now: faces that vanished a moment after they arrived, things that didn’t matter flickering by.

How long he dreamed like that he didn’t know. And then the chaos steadied. The world grew clear again.

The other world, a thousand years ago.

Time blurred.

Somehow Luke knew that three years had passed for Lulach. Years of hunger, as once again the country tried to recover from the loss of so many men. Years of arming men for war and raising armies. Lulach was a man now, not a youth—a man who’d lived through three years of war.

Because Malcolm had attacked again.

No one had won this battle. Both armies were destroyed.

The King knew that if Malcolm attacked again, with more mercenaries from Ireland, the battered Alban forces wouldn’t be able to repel them.

They needed yet another army. And there was only one place where they would raise one, a place where every man was loyal to their mormaer. Moray. This time even the old and sick, the cattle herders in the farthest glens, were needed.

Now, as Luke dreamed, Lulach galloped north with the King and his guard. This time the north would rise against the enemy.

This time, maybe, they’d win.

The track was muddy, and there were trees and mist around them. The air smelled of distant snow, but Lulach was hot from hard riding. The sweat ran down his back and under his leather jerkin. They’d reach the monastery of Aboyne tonight, before crossing the mountains to their own lands.

The horses were panting, their breath white in the cold air. The King raised a hand, then pulled his own horse around. ‘We’ll stop here awhile!’

Macbeth had aged, Luke realised, as he watched the King lead his horse over to a well just off the track. His red hair was flecked with grey, his face creased with weariness and trouble.

The well stones were covered in moss. Above them bare crags rose grey as the clouds. The air was thick and still.

Lulach dismounted. One of the guards pulled up the bucket from the depths of the well. The King drank first, then Lulach. The horses would drink later, when they were cooler. Cold water now might give them colic.

Lulach gulped the water gratefully. It tasted of ancient rock and soil.

There were oatcakes in his saddle bag, and cheese. One of the guards pulled out a slab of dried fish.

‘You and your fish farts can ride behind me, then!’ joked one of the younger guards.

The King gazed at the sky. ‘Storm before nightfall,’ he said with a frown.

‘We’ll be at the abbey by—’ began Lulach.

But Kenneth interrupted him. ‘My Lord!’ He pointed urgently down into the mist.

Then Lulach saw them too: riders, far below them, galloping hard, a flash of helmet and armour. Then they vanished again, into the trees.

‘Malcolm’s men,’ said the King flatly. Men on horseback were rare. Men with swords and armour even fewer.

Lulach felt a cold certainty settle into his bones. ‘Malcolm couldn’t defeat the King in battle,’ he said. ‘So he’ll ambush him where no one can see.’

Facing your foe in battle was honourable. But only a coward or a criminal ambushed an enemy.

‘How many?’ asked the King crisply.

‘I counted four,’ said Lulach.

‘I’d say ten,’ said Kenneth. ‘More, perhaps.’

Lulach stared at the trees below, but their branches hid the riders. Could the King’s party escape? he wondered. Their horses were tired. But the English horses might be tired too.

Kenneth made a quick assessment. ‘We’re safer meeting them head-on than having them at our backs. My Lord, you and the lad go across country, with two guards. I’ll lead the rest to intercept them. That’ll give you time to get away.’

‘No,’ said the King softly.

‘But my Lord—’

‘I won’t send a man to any battle that I won’t face
myself. You and Lulach head across country. Make for Aboyne as we planned; they’ll give you sanctuary there.’

‘Father!’ protested Lulach, then hesitated. What could he say? ‘No, this is too dangerous’? The King knew the danger as well as he did. ‘You ride to the Abbey and let me fight in your place’?

He met his father’s eyes—tired eyes, the eyes of a man who had done his best, done better for his people than any king before him.

But it had not been enough.

And the King was right. If they both died, Malcolm could seize the throne before an election could be held. But if the King was murdered here today, every man in Alba would rise to fight for his son.

His father smiled. He hugged Lulach quickly, then stepped back. ‘God go with you, my son,’ he said quietly. ‘Look after Alba and her people. Tell your mother…’ He paused. ‘Tell her…’

What? thought Lulach. Praise her for her duty, her loyalty? Praise her for the years she has spent governing Moray in your place, while you have led the country?

But instead the King said softly, ‘Tell her that in her I’ve had my earthly joy.’

The King strode to his horse and mounted swiftly. Within seconds his horse’s hooves were pounding down the track, his guard following behind.

Kenneth swung himself into the saddle. The unscarred half of his face was grim; the scar blank, as it always had to be, emotion burned from it. But these days Lulach hardly saw the scar.

‘Hurry, my Lord!’ Kenneth urged.

Lulach nodded.

Their horses cantered up the hill, their hooves striking sparks against the rock. His father had kept him safe, again…

His father…

Memories came crowding in. The day his father was crowned king, hoisting him up onto his shoulders.

His father in battle, putting his shield and body in front of the sword that would strike his son down.

His father…
not the King…

Suddenly Lulach pulled on his reins. The horse jerked around.

‘My Lord!’ yelled Kenneth.

‘I’m going back!’ shouted Lulach.

‘But the King ordered—’

‘And now his tanist gives you other orders! Follow me!’

Back down the hill they galloped, into the trees again, back to the track, their hooves thundering against the ground.

Lulach could hear the clash of swords now. Then he and Kenneth were on them.

Four, ten…no, fifteen invaders, one horse dancing free, its rider already on the ground. They must have hoped to catch the King unawares, rather than fight his bodyguard.

Fourteen of the enemy, then, against twelve of them. We can do it! thought Lulach, as he added his yells to Kenneth’s and waved his sword above his head. This is our home ground; the land will give us strength…

There was no fear now, no confusion.