Chapter Five

Author's notes: Any direct quotes from William Shakespeare's play "Macbeth" are in double quotation marks.

Severus sat on a stone dyke, with Minerva perched on his shoulder and Aricanthe on his lap. Somehow knowing the almost full moon was obscured by the fog, made the night seem even darker to him, as though the lunar glow had been stolen, and then thinking of the moon made him think of his sweet Luna, and how he still had to decide what he would do about the next night. The Hunter's Moon, such an important moon in the lunar calendar that it somehow seemed wrong to keep Luna away from her familiar on the night he communed most deeply with his ultimate mistress, the night he needed Luna most. Severus fondled Aricanthe's tattered ears, and she turned her head to hiss fondly at him, and sink her needle-like teeth into his finger.

'Would that everyone were as true as you, my lovely,' Snape murmured. 'Never changing, are you, my Aricanthe?' The cat gave him a long hostile look, but didn't move from his knee, her throat rattling with an odd mixture between a growl and a purr, almost like an old man snoring. Snape let his mind wander through his plan again, trying to work out how they were going to deal with the added complication of Lucius de Mal Foi. He wondered if Narcissa had told Banquo just who Macbeth actually was, then wondered if de Mal Foi had told the mystery Riddler who Narcissa was, or even if Lucius knew Narcissa was not indeed Lady Macbeth. He went back to wondering about Banquo, and if the boy's puzzled look, when he had been beside the cave with Macbeth, had meant that he had already realised Macbeth's true identity for himself, and was trying to convey as much to Severus; he must have known he was nearby, after all, when his brides were. Then Severus decided he had better get a few answers, instead of wasting time on useless speculation.

Damn de Mal Foi, Snape hissed to himself; it was a mess. He had already managed to divert Merlin's attention enough to pull the wool over his eyes about the boy's true identity; he didn't care for the notion that he might have to pull it back again, and admit he had the real Banquo and Fleance safely holed up in France under the watchful magical eye of Alastor the Moody. Severus sighed as his mind wandered of its own accord; his little tumble with Bella had whetted his appetite, and he felt his cock stir more in hope than expectation of being back in the warmth of the arms of his brides in time for the main course. He was just about to suggest to Minerva that she change form and perch herself on his cock instead of his shoulder, when she turned her head, his beautiful wise Minerva, as the night-sight of her unblinking owl's eyes caught the denser dark of the Grim's other form. Aricanthe stood up on Severus's lap, arching her back and digging her claws into his thighs, as she too sensed the cur.

'All clear,' the Black murmured. 'The castle is abed for the best part, and deeply in its cups for the rest.'

'And Lucius?' Snape asked, as Minerva wafted down from his shoulder to stand at his side, and he smelt her womanly warmth, and wondered if she too had been thinking about warding off the foggy chill.

'Narcissa hasn't told him she knows who he is, and she's been casting charms to keep her own identity secret from him... She's waiting to talk to you,' Sirius replied. 'As for the mighty Macbeth, or whatever you want to call him... he's drunk.'

'So, the more things change, the more they stay the same,' Snape murmured, wincing at the thought of meeting Narcissa. 'What of this jester?' he asked. He was uneasy about Thomas the Riddler, and felt there was something else that he ought to have remembered about him, something important that had evaded him thus far. He knew de Mal Foi's measure: his passion for glory, his inability to either handle it or earn it, his habit of accepting the glitter of power without seeing it for fool's gold, but this mystery Riddler was an unknown, perhaps an innocent, more likely a serpent in the grass.

'He isn't there,' the Black replied. 'Banquo is though. Narcissa's warned him to stay away from the Riddler, as she has done too,' he said, giving Minerva a look, as though to ask if she were aware of Macbeth's companion's true identity.

'And has Narcissa told Banquo exactly who he has been fighting alongside, for the glory of the king whose crown is so coveted by Macbeth?' Minerva asked, her ruby lips pursing with amusement, emphasising each name as though to let the Black know that she had seen fit to forget more than he would ever hope to learn in a lifetime.

'He seems to have a different version of the mighty Macbeth's deeds of valour than Macbeth has told the rest of Scotland,' the Black replied. 'It seems Banquo fought like the dragon he is, and did most of the bleeding, whilst the bold Macbeth spent a considerable amount of time washing the dust out of his hair.'

'The more things change...' Snape repeated. 'Anyway, let us not play with words, Black. Just answer Minerva's question.'

'Yes, Draco knows,' Sirius replied, giving Snape a hard look that he'd laced with petty triumph, 'and he's not very happy with you either, Severus.'

*****

The castle was almost as dark inside as the surrounding moorland had been, with only one guttering wall sconce in each of the long stone corridors. Snape borrowed his familiar's form and followed the dog, and Aricanthe walked at his side, inside her own shadow, Minerva wafting above them, unseen in the high buttresses. They had almost reached the back of the castle when he heard voices, a voice, Severus corrected himself; someone was conducting a one-sided conversation. He didn't need to see Lucius de Mal Foi to know it was him; it was a habit de Mal Foi had developed centuries before, no one else really being of the predisposition to listen to what he had to say, consisting as it usually had done of overdone tripe.

As it happened, he was mistaken; two fighting men, Ross and Angus, stood just inside the half-open door of the room they had reached.

"We are sent to give thee from our royal master thanks," Angus murmured from where he stood at the door.

"And for an earnest of a greater honour, he bade me, from him, call thee thane of Cawdor," Ross added, as the man they supposed was Macbeth drew back in feigned surprise, and in the shadows outside the room Minerva smiled her superior smile at Severus's raised eyebrow, as Luna's prediction came true.

My, that was quick, Severus thought wryly to himself, wondering if Macbeth would be king too before he managed to stagger to whatever bed he frequented.

"What? Can the devil speak true?" an all-too-familiar voice, laced with amusement, said from behind Severus, and he turned to see the boy he had placed in Banquo's stead, smiling somewhat cynically.

Macbeth was speaking again inside the room, and Snape drew as close as he dared. It was too late now to waste the seconds that changing form might take, lest he miss anything he needed to hear, but Lucius seemed to be running true to his vanity.

"The thane of Cawdor lives: why do you dress me in borrowed robes?" he asked.

They listened as Ross and Angus told of the thane's treachery, and how he was all but condemned, and de Mal Foi preened visibly as he heard details of how much King Duncan was looking forward to coming to Inverness Castle two days thence to bestow the honour on Macbeth in person. Once or twice de Mal Foi raised his hand to his hair, Macbeth's wild ginger locks, and Snape could almost feel him longing for his own silver-blond to set off Scotland's crown. He had seen enough; de Mal Foi was clearly as insane, vain and delusional as he ever had been, and Snape only thanked the gods that he had at least been absent the last three hundred odd years. He had cocked his head to the others, and had just begun to move away when Aricanthe hissed in warning.

The Black shimmered into his dog from, and Minerva into her owl, and both moved to conceal themselves deeper in the shadows. Severus wrapped his arms around Draco, and the two of them slipped into Aricanthe, as she once again moved over into her shadow to give them room.

A man was walking down the corridor, dressed outlandishly in mismatched hose and breeches, and a green and yellow doublet, and a three-cornered hat with bells on it, which Severus absently noted moved with each step he took, but for all that were silent. Snape felt the raw power of the Riddler even from where he stood inside his familiar's lithe body. The man Severus had known as Thomas the Gaunt, from his days before the fall of Camelot, stopped before the doorway, as though sensing them in the way that Aricanthe had sensed him, but he moved on, unable to detect anything from the animal forms he could not see.

'Ah, Lord Macbeth, I apologise. I had thought to find you alone and in want of some company,' the Riddler said lightly, as he pushed the half-open door wide.

'These men are just leaving, Thomas,' Lucius replied. "Thanks for your pains," he murmured to Ross and Angus, as the cat slipped in the door before it closed behind the king's messengers.

He had left the Black outside; there was no help for that though. Serves him justly for being a huge lump of a cur, Severus snorted to himself, all brawn and precious little in the way of brains. He wasn't so happy that Minerva had remained outside the room too; though he was loath to ever admit as much, he relied often on Minerva's brutal logic, and her way of not allowing herself to be distracted by the beauty surrounding her. Then again, he mused, was she not one of the very beauties distracting him anyway? He pulled himself up short, before he succumbed to the urge to wander from reality through the moist pulsing tunnels of love instead. The Riddler was speaking, and Severus suspected it would do no good to miss a single word he said.

'Well, well, my Lord Macbeth, thane of Cawdor already,' the Riddler said dryly, and Snape fancied that de Mal Foi looked more concerned than pleased, and that this Riddler bowed to no man, instead expecting the worthy thane of Glamis and Cawdor to tug his ridiculous forelock to him.

"Glamis, and thane of Cawdor! The greatest is behind," de Mal Foi said somewhat cryptically, yet absently, as though he were talking to himself.

The Riddler had gone to the window, and had pulled the heavy drapes aside, and Severus suspected he did so not to see the dark foggy night beyond, but more to check whether he were being eavesdropped upon. 'Whilst we are alone, I would talk with you,' he said, looking about the sparsely finished chamber, opening iron-bound wooden chests to peer inside them. 'We are alone, are we not, thane of Glamis, and Cawdor too?' he asked, his voice a sneer, all pretence of deference dropped.

'Yes, yes, Thomas, we are alone,' Lucius replied.

'Tell me once more then, what said these crones you happened upon on the moor?' the Riddler asked. 'I would not care to find that the plans I have laid so carefully are to be thwarted by another.'

'They promised me the crown of Scotland,' Lucius replied. 'Is that not what you promised me too?'

'Fool,' Thomas the Riddler snapped. 'Do you think for one moment... no, no, I flatter you by suggesting thought is not above you... Do not imagine for one moment, Lucius, that I have plucked you from the brothels of Florence, where you were too submerged with your bum boys to even notice the years passing, for your reedy companion Banquo to take the ultimate prize.'

'I don't know what you mean,' Lucius replied, bridling, yet seeming wary of the other man. 'I shall be king. Banquo's sons may take the crown, but only after I pass from this world.'

'Which may be sooner than you think if I do not get a proper answer,' the Riddler replied. 'My interest in this crown is more long-term that its duration on your head. Now tell me where I can find these crones. I would hear for myself on what they base their prediction.'

Severus felt his heart skip in his chest; he had to somehow get out of that room. He had left his beloved Bella and his sweet Luna alone with Merlin and the Fey, with not even his wise Minerva to protect them.

The Riddler had crossed the room again, and to Severus's relief, he flung the door open. 'But first I would speak with this Banquo whose sons would snatch the throne from my grasp.'

'Your grasp?' de Mal Foi asked, emboldened as his saw his rightful prize misplaced. 'If I am to be king, the throne and the crown are mine too. I believe that is the way of things.'

The Riddler spun to him, and Severus could see that he too was wary, that he knew de Mal Foi for the acquisitive fool he undoubtedly was, and that, despite whatever sway the Riddler held over him, de Mal Foi would fight to hold on to what he had gained. 'Of course, Lucius,' he said, straightening de Mal Foi's ruffled feathers. 'I merely sought to warn you that enemies may lurk behind you, even hidden in the clothes of friends.'

"The instruments of darkness tell us truths, win us with honest trifles, to betray's in deepest consequence..." Draco's whispered words trailed off, from where Snape's arms were still wrapped around him in Aricanthe's body, as the Riddler marched from the room, leaving de Mal Foi looking after him, his face a confusing mixture of consternation and relief.

Severus had moved from the room too, leaving de Mal Foi to his mind's more inane ramblings. As the Riddler disappeared, he slipped out of Aricanthe; he had no time to waste, he had to get back to the moor and move his beloved ones to safety. As he turned to where Minerva and the Black were coming out the shadows, a thought struck him, the one that had been worrying him earlier; it hit him now like a bucket of cold night piss. Minerva and Black moved towards him, their faces taut with the concern his own look must have mirrored, but in his mind's eye Severus saw another man and woman, emerging from the shadows of the glorious castle of Camelot that had been King Arthur's home. The man had been Thomas the Gaunt, and the woman, Morgaine the Fey.

*****