Adam Robots by Adam Roberts

Author:Adam Roberts [Roberts, Adam]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Science Fiction, Fantasy, Short Stories
ISBN: 9780575130364
Publisher: Orion Books
Published: 2013-01-06T05:00:00+00:00

And tomorrow and

Act I

The castle had been abandoned by almost all of its inhabitants. Its population, having decided there was little point in staying only to be slaughtered by the English army, crept out by ones and twos throughout the night, and made what peace they could with the enemy. Some even begged to join Malcolm’s troop, so as to be on the winning side in the morrow’s inevitable English victory. When Macbeth awoke, with only Seyton in attendance, he found his halls deserted, his battlements unguarded. ‘Let them fly!’ he blustered, striding up the stone stairs to survey the scene from the top of his tallest tower. ‘I bear a charméd life. I don’t need them!’

He looked down upon the investing force: a mass of humanity stretching as far as the eye could see. They had thrown down the boughs and branches taken from Birnam Wood, and now stood in serried ranks, their armour and their weapons glittering in the morning sunlight.

‘It looks bad, sir,’ said Seyton, in a miserable voice.

‘Nonsense!’ boomed Macbeth. ‘We cannot be defeated.’

‘But the charm, sir,’ said Seyton, cringing a little as if expecting Macbeth to strike him in his furious frustration. ‘Surely it has tricked you? It said you would never vanquished be, ’til Great Birnam Wood should come to high Dunsinane Hill.’

‘Indeed it did,’ said Macbeth, with enormous self-satisfaction.

‘And we need but look, sir!’ said Seyton, indicating the host that lay spread before them. ‘Malcolm’s army has brought Birnam Wood hither!’

‘Seyton, Seyton, Seyton,’ said Macbeth, genially. He clasped his servant about the shoulders and gave the top of his head a little rub with the knuckles of his right hand. ‘You’ve got to pay more attention. The one crucial thing about magical prophecies is that they are enormously and pedantically precise. So: Malcolm’s army cut down a few boughs and carried them along to Dunsinane? That’s hardly the same thing as the forest moving! Ask yourself this... if you were a mapmaker—’

‘Mapmaker,’ repeated Seyton nodding uncertainly.

‘—yes, if you were making a map – for the sake of argument, you know – you were making a map of Scotland, where would you put Birnam Wood? Over there on the distant hill...’ he pointed to the horizon where the blue-green forest still lay like a cloud against the horizon ‘...the location of the trunks and roots and most of the foliage? Or here at Dunsinane, where a few thousand branches and leaves have been carried?’

‘Um,’ said Seyton, tentatively offering his answer like a schoolchild before a stern schoolmaster, ‘the first one?’

‘Exactly! Birnham Wood is still on the hill. The prophecy has not been fulfilled. I am, accordingly, unworried.’

From below came the sound of repeated thuds. Malcolm’s sappers, in the unusual position of being able to work without resistance from castle-defenders, were knocking down the main gate with a large battering-ram. ‘Right,’ said Macbeth. ‘Better put on some armour. Not that I need it. More for the show of it than anything.’

With a great crash the gate gave way.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.