Macbeth

‘No,’ he said, looking at Macbeth. Considering he was the focus of the party, he seemed strangely burdened and ill at ease. Had the responsibility and gravity of his new post already intimidated the happy, carefree boy in him? Well, now it was too late, both for Macbeth and for himself. ‘If you go first I’ll wait a suitable length of time and follow you.’

He noticed her hesitate behind him. He met her eyes in the mirror behind the shelves of bottles. Saw she was about to touch him. Sent her an admonitory glance. She desisted. And left. Jesus.

Duff knocked back his drink. Got up to go over to Macbeth, who was leaning on the end of the bar. Time to congratulate him properly. But right at that moment Duncan came between them; people flocked around him, and Macbeth was lost in the melee. And when Duff saw him again, Macbeth was on his way out, rushing after Lady’s skirt tails, which he saw leaving the room.

Macbeth caught Lady up as she was unlocking the wine cellar.

‘I can’t do it,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘I can’t kill my own chief commissioner.’

She looked at him.

She grabbed the lapels of his jacket, pulled him inside and closed the door. ‘Don’t fail me now, Macbeth. Duncan and his guards are set up in their rooms. Everything’s ready. You’ve got the master key, haven’t you?’

Macbeth took the key from his pocket and held it up for her. ‘Take it. I can’t do this.’

‘Can’t or won’t?’

‘Both. I won’t do it to because I can’t find the will for such villainy. It’s wrong. Duncan’s a good chief commissioner, and I can’t do anything better than him. So what’s the point, apart from feeding my ambition?’

‘Our ambition! Because after hunger, cold, fear and lust there is nothing more than ambition, Macbeth. Because honour is the key to respect. And that is the master key. Use it!’ She was still holding his lapels, and her mouth was so close to his he could taste the fury in her breath.

‘Darling—’ he began.

‘No! If you think Duncan is such an honourable man listen to how he killed Cawdor to spare himself the embarrassing revelations that might have leaked out if Cawdor had lived.’

‘That’s not true!’

‘Ask him yourself.’

‘You’re only saying that to... to...’

‘To steel your will,’ she said. She let go and instead pressed her palms against the lapels as if to feel his heartbeat. ‘Just think that you’re going to kill a murderer, the way you killed the Norse Rider, then it’ll be easy.’

‘I don’t want it to be easy.’

‘If it’s your morals that are getting the better of you, then just remember you’re bound by the promise you made me last night, Macbeth. Or are you telling me that what I saw and interpreted as courage when you killed Ernest Collum was just a young man’s recklessness because it wasn’t your life at stake but my croupier’s? While now, when you have to risk something yourself, you flee like a cowardly hyena.’

Her words were unreasonable but still hit home. ‘You know that’s not how it is,’ he said in desperation.

‘So how can’t you keep the promise you made to me, Macbeth?’

He gulped. Searched feverishly for words. ‘I... Can you say you keep all your promises?’

‘Me? Me?’ She emitted a piercing laugh of astonishment. ‘To keep a promise to myself I wrenched my suckling child from my breast and smashed its head against a wall. So how could I break a promise to you, my only beloved?’

Macbeth stood looking at her. He was inhaling her breath now, her poisonous breath. He felt it weakening him second by second. ‘But you don’t realise, do you, that if this fails Duncan will cut your head off too?’

‘It won’t fail. Listen. I’m going to give Duncan a glass of this burgundy, and I’ll insist that his bodyguards at least taste it. They won’t notice anything, but they might become a little muddled later in the evening. And sleep like logs when they go to bed...’

‘Yes, but—’

‘Shh! You’ll be using your daggers so there’s no chance of them waking. Afterwards smear the blood on the blades all over the guards and leave the daggers in their beds. And later when you wake them—’

‘I remember our plan. But it has weaknesses, and—’

‘It’s your plan, my love.’ She grasped his chin with one hand and bit the lobe of his ear hard. ‘And it’s perfect. Everyone will realise the guards have been bought by Hecate; they were just too drunk to hide the traces of their crime.’

Macbeth closed his eyes. ‘You can only give birth to boys, can’t you?’

Lady gave a low chuckle. Kissed him on the neck.

Macbeth held her shoulders and pushed her away. ‘You’ll be the death of me, Lady, do you know that?’

She smiled. ‘And you know everywhere you go, I go.’

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