Banquo Bio

I grew up in the rolling countryside of the Scottish village of Calor. When I was six I met Macbeth and we quickly bonded. The open fields and many-branched trees of Calor provided us with a perfect landscape to let our boyish intentions run wild. Our days were laced with rambunctious games of King of the Hill and breathless bouts of tag. I would win occasionally, but Macbeth had always been a little bigger, a little stronger, and more athletic. When we were younger, he was not shy to tell me exactly how much better he was, and I would hide my face, my eyes welling up, fighting the impulse to cry. Nowhere were his superior skills more evident than when we would pick up stray sticks and have sword battles. We would often fight to see who was to be crowned King of Scotland, which essentially meant King of the World to us. I would complain that Macbeth was hitting too hard and we should just have played for fun, but to be honest, it seemed like no matter how hard I tried, I could not hurt him. As we grew, Macbeth gradually stopped to acknowledge how much better at physical games he was, but the resentful feelings I had in childhood lingered. As we grew older, we played intellectual games, like chess and go, alongside the more primitive games of physicality. It was a great boost to my confidence, for I clearly had Macbeth beat in these games. Despite his arrogance, I always did love and admire Macbeth.

Which gave me all the more reason to despise Lady Macbeth, or Charlotte as she was named then, with a burning, passionate, internal rage. Macbeth and Charlotte first met when we were all nineteen. They began dating a week hence. I knew that it would not last for long, that it would just be a fling. Macbeth was strong, of body and of will, the best kind of man this world has to offer. Charlotte was manipulative and carried no principles with her. In her life she loved few things, power and suffering among them, but Macbeth certainly was not. To this day, it saddens and baffles me how she was able to ruin Macbeth. I could see Macbeth grow miserable over the years and our relationship inevitably changed. We never explicitly acknowledged that there had a been a change, but there grew a palpable distance between us. We were never as comfortable together as we had been as boys. Half of our conversations were stilted, the kind you would have between a friend of a friend.

I swear, I never had a conversation with that bitch in which she did not condescend to me. I tried; I tried hard to be friendly to her, but my tone naturally grew cold over the years to the point where I would remove expression from my face when talking to her.

Besides Macbeth, I also have a great admiration for Duncan. Duncan was a couple years older than us, but was perfectly comfortable talking to Macbeth and me when we were children. He was kind and always seemed to know the right thing to do. Though he was a great man, there was no chance I would become as good a friend with Duncan as with Macbeth. Macbeth and I were on the same level, but Duncan always seemed to be more mature, more confident.

When I was twenty two, I met Rosetta. She was a good woman, but I have little to say about her. A couple years later she was pregnant, but neither of us was ready for a child. She died in childbirth, and I thus became very close to Fleance as I raised him.