Infinite Regressor Banquo

First, think carefully, weigh the pros and cons. Whether you are truly willing to lay your life down for your kingdom. 

Honest men will tell you no, they point you to sobbing children holding their father's bloody uniform. Mothers with faces blank as stone.

Your father will tell you yes. He must. 

You were born with a silver sword in your mouth and the name Macbeth. That is everything. 

When you were six, your father let you hold a sword for the first time. It is small and light, sized for a child. Swing it around clumsily, your father laughs, the creases around your mother's eyes deepen.

You don't know anything. Not yet.

But you know your father's tales of blood-smoking battles and glory, and that is enough. It is necessary for you to become an ambitious, wide-eyed soldier down the road.

A few days later, a skinny, thin-voiced man in scholar robes arrives at your home. He is holding something unfamiliar. He tells you it is a book, and your mother tells you he will be your tutor. Your father's friend had recommended him.

You don't pay much attention to the man, because standing quietly at his side is a boy with brown hair and cautious eyes.

"He's my other student, the son of your father's comrade. You two are the same age, and will learn together. That was your father's request," explains the tutor. 

You nod to the boy, unsure of how to respond. All your life, you had only known your mother, father and your uncle's family. The boy resembles your older cousin Duncan in a slightly unsettling way.

"My name is Banquo," the boy says.