Macbeth the King (60 page)

"Good!" Luctacus drew sword and raised it high, pointing back, as clear sign to the others.

So they swung away right-handed, down and round the skirts of Balnagowan Hill, hooves drumming. And presently, turning a sort of spur of it, they found themselves not exactly face-to-face with the other group but only a few hundred yards higher. Down on them they charged, yelling.

It was a very brief encounter. Unprepared, most of the enemy riders sought to pull aside—and it
was
the enemy, for Mac-Duff's burly figure was prominent in front. MacBeth tried to reach and strike that man down, but he became screened behind other men and horses. Outnumbered by more than two-to-one, it was no occasion for a prolonged fight. The King's aim was merely to smash through, disorganise and discourage. This they achieved, and they plunged on downhill. But at a cost, even in so short an affray. Three men fell, four were wounded, two horses were lost. The riderless men were pulled up behind others. MacBeth could scarcely rate the sally as a success—especially as Luctacus was one of those injured. But it did give them a little time, time to reach the Tarland Burn, splash across and enter the large woodlands of the Hill of Coull.

Deep within the cover of the trees, the King took urgent stock of the situation. Luctacus was reeling in his saddle, one shoulder slumped, features white. One of the other wounded had a lance-thrust through the rib-cage and was coughing blood. The others were less seriqus. Had he made a grave mistake with that charge? It was too late for any regrets. The wounded could not now continue with sustained flight. And two garrons were carrying double burdens. The enemy would rally soon enough, and follow—and catch up, inevitably. They desperately needed a refuge, if only temporarily. Aboyne was not far away, to the east, and Martacus had a dun there, an ancient fort of his family. If they could hole up there, meantime, they might hold out until help was forthcoming. This was Cromar, after all, part of the loyal mortuath of Mar. Once the folk learned that their King was being assailed by a comparatively small band of invaders, would they not come to his rescue? He decided to make for Aboyne.

This meant turning south-eastwards again, following the contours of the Hill of Coull, within the trees. So far there was no sign of MacDuff's people, but they could see for no distance. Presently the woodland thinned in front of them, and there was open pastureland sloping down to the two lochs of Aboyne, with the fort strongly placed in a bend of the Tarland Burn less than a mile away. But, as well as seeing this, they saw more. On the low ground between them and the fort was an encampment of men and horses. And even at half-a-mile's distance, they could distinguish the large flag which fluttered there to blazon a black boar on silver.

"Malcolm!" MacBeth exclaimed. "God in His heaven—Malcolm himself!"

They could not reach Aboyne's dun now. They would be seen and cut off long before they could get to it. Indeed they might well have been observed already. Looking at his strained-faced and almost swooning son, the King groaned aloud, and ordered an about-turn.

They dared not ride directly back, or they would be apt to run into MacDuff again. So he swung north-eastwards, up the hill, a spur of Coull. This kept them in cover for almost a mile, difficult and steep as it was, with fallen tree-trunks everywhere to be negotiated. But at the summit the trees thinned and there, after only a brief dip, rose the much higher hill of Mortlich, craggy and bare.

As he stared, someone shouted and pointed downhill, half-left. Down there was movement, horsemen.

He made his decision. "Leave the horses," he cried. "We must climb yonder." He pointed to the escarpment rearing ahead, steep, rock-strewn. "Horses cannot climb that—ours or theirs."

It went against the grain to abandon their garrons, but none argued. There was no alternative if they were to avoid fighting, this time with no chance of surprise and hopeless from the start. They rode the beasts as near to the foot of the scarp as they could, then dismounted and started to climb. MacBeth, with his stiff leg, supported Luctacus on one side, his former young standard-bearer on the other. The remaining wounded were aided likewise, but quickly the speared man threw up a flood of scarlet blood and fell unconscious. They had no option but to leave him there.

Clambering amongst the rock-falls, screes and ledges, they dragged themselves up. There was some 300 feet of this steep escarpment. MacBeth's fear now was that there might be mounted archers amongst MacDufFs company, and they would make easy targets so long as they remained within range. But although the enemy arrived below and stared upwards, no arrows came. Nor did any dismount to follow them up, on foot. They watched, for a while, then split up, some to ride off left about round the flank of the hill, some right-about, leaving-only two or three to keep watch at the foot. Clearly they would be awaiting the King's party at the other side of Mortlich Hill.

What to attempt now? All but at his wit's end, MacBeth deferred decision, concentrating on getting his wounded son and the others up to the top of the hill, no easy task. Eventually they made it, and collapsed, panting, on the crest.

The land was laid out around them like a map, for this was the highest hill in the vicinity. Unfortunately, all to north and east was bare, open country, a pleasant land basking in the smile of the sun, right to the Corse Hills of Mar proper, to the north. Nowhere in all that spread was there more than a scattering of thorn, scrub and whins as cover, for miles around. They could be seen from great distances in it, and picked up. Yet they could not remain up here, for these eastern slopes of Mortlich were more gentle, and horsemen could ride up them easily enough.

Once again desperate decision had to be made. The only possibility that the King could see was the extensive boggy ground of the Muir of Auchenhove below, to the north-east. All the bottom-land down there looked wet, with the tell-tale emerald green and black of mire and peat-bog. Men on foot would do better than men mounted therein. And a stream led down from this hill into it, in a reasonably deep burn-channel, the source of much of the waterlogging indeed. It might take them down into the bog, unseen.

So they made for the apron of damp ground which represented the genesis of the burn, and went ploutering down into its channel. Soon it was deep enough to hide them from distant view, and they descended in its cover. But slowly now, all weary and the injured much distressed. Luctacus voiced no single complaint, but he was obviously in a bad way.

They reached the bog at the foot, and almost at once perceived their enemies. There were three distinct groups of horsemen to be seen, one to the north-west almost a couple of miles away, another to the south, as far—MacDuff's split company presumably; and a third party, the nearest, strung along the road itself which ran up the farther side of this wide valley. These were less than a mile off—and with the banner at their head.

The Muir of Auchenhove was at least sufficiently wet, and no place for horses, with quaking moss and tussocks, peat-pools, reeds and even small lochans. There were islands of firm ground, of course. It made difficult and unpleasant going, but by jumping and wading and circuiting, men on foot could progress through it, however slowly. Horsemen could not—and clearly those trotting along the road behind the flag, on the east, did not intend to try. The valley ran north and south between the Mortlich and Torphins Hills, to lose itself eventually in the outliers of the Corse Hills above Lumphanan. The bog petered out there, so the enemy had only to ride, watch and wait.

MacBeth and his companions were now merely living from minute to minute. They could do no other. There was another and well-known dun at Lumphanan, rising dramatically on a tall, man-made mound amongst the wetlands, which served it as moat. This was the King's last hope—to gain this refuge and try to hold out behind its ramparts and stout walling. If that failed...

It was a desperate progress, apart altogether from the need for haste, floundering, splashing, falling, seldom able to pursue a straight course for a dozen yards at a time, frequently having to back-track where conditions became quite impossible. The wounded were almost having to be carried, and MacBeth's own lameness was now hampering him grievously. They had almost a mile of the bog to cover, before they reached the dun.

The enemy had their problems also, to be sure, at least as far as the Dun of Lumphanan was concerned. And it would be obvious that the fugitives would make for that. Set as it was in the marshlands, it could only be reached, on horseback, by the one route, from the north, along a twisting causeway. To attain this, the eastern party had to make quite a wide circuit of the surrounding foothill skirts, to avoid an extension of the swamp. The northern part of MacDuff's split company had an even wider approach to make, although over rather better ground. The southern section was, for the moment, out of the action.

The last half-mile of their ordeal was covered in a state bordering on semi-consciousness as far as the King was concerned—and no doubt his son and many of the others also. Mercifully, perhaps, they scarcely knew what they did, how often they fell, barely where they went. Keeping going was the one reality, that steep, symmetrical mound of the dun their beckoning goal.

It was strange, but when at least they had somehow managed to thread that waterlogged slough and were faced with the dun's refuge rising only a couple of hundred yards further ahead, neither MacBeth nor any of his companions had any idea as to how to reach it, across 150 yards or so of open water. Their every effort and faculty had been so fiercely concentrated on getting thus far that no real thought had been taken for overcoming the final hurdle. Almost in tears of frustration, they gazed across from the reedy edge, and saw that they could go no further.

With an enormous effort the King forced his reeling mind to consider the situation coherently. The way across would be by the usual underwater causeway, stones set a foot or two below the surface, in a zigzag course to confound those who did not know the pattern. And this, of course, would be an extension of the raised approach causeway across the marshland. Unhappily the eastern company under the banner were already on that causeway. They would most certainly reach the end of the crossing before they themselves could get there. In the other, north-westwards direction, MacDuff's group was further off, almost half a mile, still but making directly for them. Over at the dun itself they could see men watching from the stone-and-turf ramparts at the top of the mound. These no doubt had a boat, and could use it to save them—indeed some of the King's party were already yelling and waving and pleading for them to do just that. But with no response. Maddening as this was, how were the men up there to know, to guess who it was that needed their help? A score of tattered, mud-covered ruffians fleeing from companies of disciplined, armoured horse, one flying the royal Boar of Scotland. Why should they intervene?

Dazed as MacBeth was, one thing was evident to him. They could not remain where they were, and to turn right-handed, eastwards, would be to throw themselves into the arms of Malcolm—if Malcolm was indeed under that banner. They could not swim the moat, any of them, in their present state. Which left only a north-westwards move, towards MacDuff—and somehow, in the King's mind, MacDuff seemed to represent an easier foe, less of menace, than Malcolm Big Head.

So they turned left-handed and struggled on, north by west.

Soon they saw ahead of them MacDuff's men dismounting. Obviously they had reached the end of ground firm enough for their horses and were coming on on foot. There were about thirty of them.

Wordless, the King pointed half-left. There, about a hundred yards ahead, was a slight heightening of the ground, with a few whin-bushes, amongst which rose a single standing-stone, all that remained of a stone-circle. Evidently this land had not always been a swamp and in the far-off days of druidical sun-worship this had been a sacred place, forerunner of the Christian cashel of Saint Finan—which gave the area a corruption of its name, Lumphanan—and which was now situated on firmer terrain some way to the north. More by instinct than with any hope, they staggered on towards this little eminence and standing-stone. At least, as they made their last stand, they would have their feet on firm and once holy ground.

Actually, their eminence provided them with more than that, for not far from the monolith they stumbled on a well, a clear spring of ice-cold water pouring into a mossy stone-slab trough, no doubt used originally for the lustration ceremonies of the Druids. Thankfully they refreshed themselves, the wounded in especial.

But MacDuff's men were approaching and there was no time to linger. MacBeth limped to the summit of the eminence—only a slight swelling in the ground-level, in fact—and formed his people in a tight circle around the standing-stone, the wounded in the centre. Swords drawn, he addressed them hoarsely.

"See you, my good friends—here is a fight which we cannot win. You have supported me on a long, sore road, and I thank you with all my heart. But now, now is the end of that road. For me, the King. But it may not be,
need
not be, for all of you. I say to you—those who would, should leave me now. Go stand apart, arms thrown down, and yield you. They may accept your surrender, and give you your lives. Myself, I yield to no man, but only to God. But for you it is different. Stand apart now, who will. But quickly."

No man spoke or moved.

"Friends," the King said again, unevenly. "Some of you are young, very young. Lives before you. We have only moments now. Quickly, then. Do not think it to tarnish your honour. You have already proved that honour and courage. Go if you would live. Or
might
live, for I cannot promise that they will spare you. And if you go, take my son here with you. And these other wounded..."

"No!" That was strong, however much of a croak, from Luctacus behind him. "No, I stay!"

The growl from the others held its own eloquence, although no words were spoken. All remained in their places.