Lady Macbeth's Daughter (17 page)

He slaps my hand away, angry now.

“I will do what I must for my own good. Do not try to stop me.” His voice is threatening and his black eyes without feeling.

I let him go. It would be dangerous to rile him further.

I know that my lord is now beyond my reach. While I stand at the shore of a sea of blood, he has waded up to his neck in the gore. And he will go deeper yet. There will be more killing. But I cannot follow, not even to bring him back. I am about to lose him.

Suddenly I do not want to be alone, for without him, I will be nothing.

Chapter 15

Dunbeag

Albia

When I wake up in my tiny room, Breda is holding a cup of warm broth to my lips. The air smells of mustard and wormwood poultices. I feel dull and sleepy and all my limbs ache as if I have been fighting with swords and running with stones around my ankles. Breda tells me that I have been out of my senses for many days.

The last thing I remember is trying to warn Banquo about Macbeth. The fact that Breda calmly tends to me now persuades me that he is unharmed. Perhaps my fears were groundless after all, and grief for Geillis disturbed my mind, then made me ill. I wonder if any warning dreams came to me while I was sick, but I can remember only a few strange images. Trees in a forest stirring from their places and moving as if they had feet. A procession of kings passing me, one holding a looking glass. Mere figments of a feverish mind. And Fleance’s face, which brings a feeling of sorrow.

Banquo and Fleance have gone out hunting, Breda says. She brings me oatcakes soaked in milk, urging me to eat. Her eyes, which once made me think of ice, now recall the cool waters of a loch. When she wipes my forehead, it is like an apology for calling me a whore. I submit to her care, too weak to help myself. It occurs to me that I have mistaken our relationship, trying to please Breda as a companion, when she only wanted a daughter to care for.

But I am not her daughter. I was not Geillis’s daughter. Generous, loving Geillis! No, my mother is the queen. I feel no speck of pride in this, for the woman came by that title by foul deeds. Still less can she be called a mother, for she did not even protect me from my cruel father. I deny her. Should we ever meet, I will be as indifferent to her as she was to me. She left me to die!

Yet I did not die, for Rhuven saved me. And I did not succumb to this fever, for Breda nursed me. Macbeth my blood father is a murderer, full of foul lust, but my foster father, Banquo, is upright and kindhearted. He has accepted me as his daughter. Colum is my dear friend. And I think I love Fleance.

I start to cry, not out of grief, but with gratitude for my good fortune.

Breda’s screams make me bolt from my bed. My first thought is that bandits have invaded Dunbeag to rob and rape us.

I reach under my mattress for my sword—Fleance’s old sword. It feels heavier in my hand than before I fell sick. I stumble down the stairs on weakened legs.

Fleance stands in the hallway, covered with blood. Breda’s frantic hands flutter over his chest and his arms. She gasps helplessly. Dropping the sword, I run for a bucket of water and a sponge and by the time I get back, Fleance has slid to the ground. Breathless, I crouch beside him. Breda clutches her hair and rocks back and forth on her knees. Before Fleance utters a word, I know the truth: that Banquo has been killed.

“Father . . . tried to fight them. He told me to run . . . save myself.”

Fleance’s face contorts in agony and tears spill from his eyes.

“Who did it?” I ask, trying to hold in my anger. “Was it the king?”

“Two men. I think . . . one was Eadulf. Macbeth’s man. He had a stain like wine on his cheek. He is the one who . . . stabbed my father.”

“I was afraid this would happen!” I wail. “I tried to warn him!”

“It was my fault. We should not have been . . . hunting in the king’s woods. I should have protected him. Not run like . . . a coward.” Fleance’s face crumples in shame.

I cannot trust myself to speak. Instead I start to wash the blood away. I open his tunic and feel my face redden as I check for wounds. Fortunately he has only a few cuts.

“You should try and comfort her,” I say, glancing over at the keening Breda.

“I don’t know how,” he says, looking miserable.

“Like this.” I wrap my arms around him, drawing his head to my shoulder. My cheek rests against his matted, dirty hair. The words leap out of my mouth like a sob. “Fleance, I loved your father!”

He clutches my arm and for a long moment we hold each other. Then he pulls away from me. His eyes are damp, his chin thrust out in determination.

“I won’t be a coward anymore. Ross, Lennox, and Angus are turning against Macbeth. I will join them.”

“Where are they now?”

Fleance lifts his shoulders. “I don’t know, but I will travel the rivers and glens southward until I find them.”

“I am coming with you,” I say, having decided just that moment. “I want to help defeat Macbeth.”

“Albia, you are brave,” says Fleance with a sigh. “But I cannot let you come to harm for my sake.”

But I am determined, and I do not like to be denied.

“I can defend myself. Isn’t that why you taught me to fight? I only need a better sword and shield.”

“No.” Fleance holds up his hands, palms toward me. “He was my father. This revenge is mine.” More firmly than those hands, his words push me away.

Then he crawls over to his mother and lays his head in her lap like a child. She leans over him and they weep together.

The sight of them fills me with longing. But I suppress it, for the matter at hand is revenge. What Fleance does not know is that it was my father who killed his, even if Macbeth did not wield the knife. The revenge belongs to me as well. I dreamt it, and it will come.

No, I will
make
it happen, for I am Macbeth’s daughter.

In the morning, Fleance is gone. No one saw him leave. I am angry that he went away before I could persuade him to take me along, but I am still too weak from my fever to follow him. But I decide to waste not a day before building up my strength again. I go to retrieve my sword, but it is not in the hall where I dropped it yesterday. Instead, leaning against the wall is a round shield with a brass boss in the center. Next to it lies an unfamiliar scabbard tooled with twining ivy and birds. I am surprised to see it attached to my own belt, the one with the brass buckle Banquo gave me. I reach for the sword, and it slides from the scabbard with a sharp and satisfying zz
zzt
. It is lighter than I expect and balances perfectly in my palm. The shining blade is exactly the right length for me.

I am excited—and confused. Fleance said he did not want me to go with him, but he left me this sword. Should I seek him anyway, and the thanes who oppose Macbeth? Seeing me with a sword, they would laugh me out of Scotland. I may be stronger than most women, but it is still a disadvantage to be one. Maybe I should go to Dun Forres instead, and by some deception get the king alone, then kill him. But how? I’ve only ever killed a fish or a fowl, and that in order to eat. How could I possibly kill a man? But I must act somehow. What shall I do?

The answer comes to me, more silent than a whisper.

Rely upon the Sight. It is your gift. Use it now.

I try focusing my mind, then emptying it, but the images that come and go are of my own making. I wander around Dunbeag at night, but no white deer or black dog appears to show the path to my revenge. In my dreams, no ghost speaks to me, like Banquo’s gory head. I have only that same impossible dream of the trees moving out of the forest, as if animated by a wood-sprite. And I see the parade of kings, the last one holding a looking glass. How can trees walk? Why would a king look in a glass and see nothing? It makes no sense.

I decide to visit Helwain. She knows I have the Sight and will give me herbs to sharpen it. We will go to Stravenock Henge and invoke the gods with spells and potions until a vision comes, and she will help me understand its meaning. I will stand under the ancient oak tree, where the four worlds meet, and sleep on Geillis’s grave until I receive a sign. And then I will follow it until I destroy Macbeth.

Breda’s misery is boundless. The ice in her melts and flows out in tears that redden her pale cheeks. I never thought she cared much for Banquo. Or for Fleance, gone now to stir rebellion, perhaps to die as well. It would be thankless of me to leave her now. I suggest that she come with me to Helwain’s, and she agrees, following my lead like a lost child. We pack food and clothing. Everything that I value fits in one small bundle: the few gifts from Banquo, the girdle from Fleance, the armlet that was the queen’s. None of Dunbeag’s guard offers to escort us. Some even murmur that Fleance killed his father and ran away. Breda, now without a husband or son, has no protectors. I promise that I will stay with her, and her eyes grow round at the sight of the sword and shield Fleance left me.

“So that is why you met him in secret, and returned so disheveled,” she says, finally understanding.

“Aye. It was not what you suspected.” I blush, thinking of how Fleance and I kissed and clung to each other.

“You have changed my son,” she says. “He will not be the kind of man who sees a woman as his possession.”

“Nor was Banquo such a man,” I say. “He did love you.”

Breda looks away, but she nods just barely.

We leave Dunbeag on a sunless day like all the others. A cold wind whips our cloaks and makes the bushes and bracken rustle. I ride a gray palfrey named Gath, and Breda rides a brown one. The dry turf crackles under their hooves. We travel in silence until we see, in a valley between two looming hills, a small party on horseback coming in our direction.

My first thought is that the king has sent warriors to destroy what is left of Banquo’s family. A glance around the wide heath reveals no place to hide.

“Shall we turn back and try to outrun them?” I ask.

“Nay, we will go on and meet them,” Breda decides. She has nothing left to lose.

“Let us hope they take us for travelers and pass by,” I say. “Still, cover your face.”

I take the lead and Breda lags behind me. My apprehension grows as the riders draw closer. Then I see the lead rider carrying the standard of the thane of Fife. They are Macduff ’s men! We sigh with relief and hurry to meet them.

Rather than Macduff, it is his lady, Fiona, on her way to Dunbeag to console Breda. The two women slide from their mounts and embrace in the middle of the road. In her friend’s arms, Breda succumbs to more tears.

“This latest crime is yet more proof of the king’s boundless evil,” says the indignant Fiona. “The tyrant must be stopped!”

“Fleance has gone to revenge his father’s death,” sobs Breda, “but how can a single boy bring down Scotland’s king?”

“He is not alone!” says Fiona. “My lord leads the thanes who mass against Macbeth.”

Breda stares at her with red-rimmed eyes.

“Who are the other thanes?” I ask.

Fiona glances up at me in surprise. “Ross and Caithness in the north, and Lennox and Angus in the midlands. They are my lord’s cousins, and blood ties them together. The western thanes follow the queen’s father, who has turned against Macbeth. My Macduff has gone to England to ask King Edward to lend his army.”