Lady Macbeth's Daughter (20 page)

“Look up!” I cry, seeing a movement in the opposite tower.

An arrow whizzes by inches from my face and lodges in Gath’s neck. The horse lets out a high whinny and paws the air, almost throwing me from his back. Colum looses his arrow, but it falls short of the tower. While Caora holds the warhorse steady, he aims another arrow. It splits the air and finds its mark. With a cry, the figure falls from sight behind the wall of Dunduff.

Colum, the peace-loving shepherd, has shot a man. He did not even hesitate.

No more arrows come from the tower. Everything is still again, except for the banners flapping in the wind. Gath shakes his head from side to side, trying to dislodge the arrow. Blood trickles from his wound. We dismount and, using the horses to shield us, make our way with slow steps to the gate. To my surprise it swings open at our touch. Broken staves are strewn about the yard, where chickens peck the dirt. Caora picks up a stick to use as a weapon and Colum does the same. I count six bodies lying on the ground, twisted in violent death. The one Colum shot is tangled in the rungs of a ladder that broke his fall from the tower. Anguish shows on Colum’s face, but none of us speaks.

The heavy door of the dwelling has been hewed with axes. The hinges are broken. Caora hesitates. Her face is paler than usual. So I go in first, my sword drawn, my arm tense with dread. All the furniture is smashed, the cupboards looted. The back door is open, and I pass through it to Fiona’s garden. The once-green bushes are withered, the flowers and fruit trees all brown and sere.

Under a leafless arbor they lie, covered in blood. Fiona with a bloody baby in her arms. The twins clutching each other, their limbs whiter than a swan’s down. A boy stabbed in the act of fleeing. And by the pool, her arms flung over her head, her fingers trailing in the water—Breda.

I draw in my breath to scream, but no sound comes out. I am dizzy, the world spins around me, and I close my eyes to keep from falling. My sword drops to the ground. Caora and Colum hold me up, one on each side.

“I am too late!” I finally manage to utter. “The monster has come and gone. O damnable father, tyrant king, hellish beast!” My voice rises to a scream. I turn and push my head into Colum’s shoulder.

Caora trembles beside me. “The women and the children, all of them?” she murmurs in a daze. “Not one of them spared?”

I open my eyes again. I must count the children, though I cannot bear to look at their still bodies. There are only four of them. Wee Duff is not here.

“Duff! Where are you?” I shout. “Wee Duff, answer me!”

I tear through the house, yanking open doors and flinging aside bedding. No one is there. I run outside into the yard.
The
archer who fell into the ladder.
I run to the base of the tower and look up to see Wee Duff with the broken shaft of Colum’s arrow in his shoulder. Colum and Caora are right behind me. Colum climbs up the ladder and brings the boy down, laying him on the ground.

“He’s only a boy,” he says, his voice hoarse with emotion. “O holy God, I have killed a child.”

Caora leans down and puts her ear to Wee Duff ’s mouth.

“No, he is breathing,” she announces.

A groan comes from the boy’s lips and his eyes flutter open. They are bright with fear.

“Wee Duff, do you know me? It is Albia, and these are my friends. Don’t be afraid.”

The boy’s eyes fill with tears. “I thought you were . . . them,” he whispers. “I didn’t want to die.”

“You won’t die,” Caora assures him. “The wound is not deep.”

The boy’s brief smile turns into a grimace of pain.

“Oh, Duff, you are a brave boy,” I say, rubbing his hand. “Can you tell me what happened?”

“My uncle Ross and his band had just left when they came. . . . The king’s men.” The boy struggles to speak. “They asked for Da, but Mama told them he was away. We were not scared at first. But then they called Da a traitor and . . . showed their daggers . . . and killed my brother first!”

Wee Duff begins to cry. I kiss his hands, leaving my own tears on them.

“Next they came for me and got me . . . here.” He points to his stomach. His eyelids flutter as if he wants to sleep.

Caora tears open the boy’s stained tunic. Besides the arrow in his shoulder, he has a wound in his belly, and fresh blood seeps from its ragged edges.

“He has lost everything,” Colum whispers. “Not his life, too!”

Emotions churn inside me like the contents of a boiling cauldron. Grief for Fiona and her children, for Breda. Rage at Macbeth, rage at myself.

“Their deaths are my fault. If only I had not stopped—”

“If you had not stayed the night with us, still you would have been too late, and still the boy would have mistaken you. But you would have been alone, and the arrow would have stuck in
your
throat,” says Caora fiercely.

“Nay, I let Breda come here, thinking she would be safe. Now she is dead like her husband. Oh Fleance, now you have no father or mother!”

“Albia, take heart that he was not here,” Caora whispers.

But nothing can console me as I think of the slain children.

“The blame is all on me. I told the king to fear Macduff. I dreamt of a bloody babe, but I did not know what it meant—that he would kill the children!”

Caora bites her lip and looks at Wee Duff, lying with his eyes closed.

“His thread of life is frayed,” she says softly. “But it still holds.”

A new determination fills me. I will not let the boy die.

“Caora, you must take charge of Wee Duff. Take him to the Wychelm Wood, where Helwain will heal him. Tell her it is my wish. Colum will go, too, and show you the way.”

She nods and says, “I will take Gath, and leave you the warhorse.”

I thank Caora. It will be an advantage to have a fast, fierce, and strong steed. Taking the beast by his harness and pulling his huge head down, I speak into his cavernous ear.

“Your name is now Nocklavey. And I will ride you to my revenge.”

Chapter 18

The Spey Valley

Albia

We wash and bind up Wee Duff ’s wounds and lay him where he cannot see us burying the bodies of Fiona and her children. It takes us several hours. As soon as we are done, Caora springs onto Gath and Colum lifts the boy to ride in front of her.

I stroke Gath’s long nose and peer at the wound in his neck. It will rankle until it heals. I touch Wee Duff ’s leg. “May all the gods be with you. One day your father will know how brave you are.” My voice starts to break.

Suddenly I realize I have no idea how to find Macduff ’s allies.

“Wait. Duff, where did your uncle Ross go, when he left here?”

The boy frowns, thinking. “He said he was going to meet my uncle Angus. His lands are to the south, beyond the River Spey and across the Grampian Mountains.”

“Then we’ll be traveling in opposite directions.” Because Gath cannot carry three riders, Colum will have to walk, and that will slow them. So I urge them to leave. “If you hurry, you can reach the shelter of the glen before dark.”

Caora turns Gath toward the gate. But Colum crosses his arms over his chest and makes no move to leave.

“I am staying with you, Albia. I am in this now.”

I look at him in surprise. His jaw is lifted with determination.

“But why? What are these people to you?” I gesture toward the fresh graves.

“They were all innocent. The boy . . . I almost killed him.” Colum’s voice stumbles, then steadies. “I owe it to him to punish those who did this to his family.”

“So you would join a rebellion against the king? You, a peaceful shepherd?”

“Aye. For now I know the king to be a tyrant and a hellish beast. But tell me, what did you mean, calling him a . . . damnable father?”

I can no longer hide the truth from Colum. Caora, too, must learn it all—whatever she does not already know. I take a deep breath. There is no easy way to break this to him.

“Unbelievable as it may seem, Colum, I am the daughter of Macbeth and his queen.”

Colum stares at me and says flatly, “That is indeed beyond belief.”

“But it is true. And now you must decide if you want to remain my friend.” I swallow hard, half-afraid to look at him.

Colum strides away from me, turns around, and comes back to face me. “You are making this up so that I will leave you here.”

Caora’s voice rises over his. “Believe what she says, Colum. It is no lie.”

“And how do you know?” I challenge her.

Caora doesn’t answer. “I must be going now,” she says. “The boy needs help. May the gods protect you both.” She passes through the open gate of Dunduff, riding my gray palfrey into the gray dusk. I watch her until she disappears.

Colum is staring at me with a strange look on his face.

“How can you possibly be the king’s daughter?” he says in a hoarse whisper.

“It is a long tale,” I say, letting out a weary breath.

“I have all night.” He sits down on the ground, indicating that he means to wait.

I sit down next to him, and though I have no wish to remain any longer at Dunduff, among the dead, I begin the story of my birth and banishment. We do not rise until I have finished the story just as the sisters told it to me. I even admit that I have the Sight and that long ago I dreamt about the murder of Duncan. I describe my dream of Banquo and how he was killed and how Fleance fled, leaving me a sword and shield.

I do not tell Colum that I might be in love with Fleance.

My history must sound as fantastic as a tale of bogles and goblins told on the shieling. But Colum does not question it. He does not recoil when I tell him that the king shamefully touched me, his own daughter. Nor does he shrink away when I describe how I used my Sight to foretell the king’s doom, which spurred him to slay Macduff ’s family.

“So you see,” I conclude, dropping my heavy head into my hands, “I am his daughter, and like him tainted with innocent blood.”

“You are not the guilty one.” says Colum.

“But think of the deaths that I did not prevent, even though I foresaw them. I cannot shake off that burden. Hear me, though, for I have made a vow, and you are my witness.” I pause until our eyes are locked together. “When I meet Macbeth, I swear I will not hesitate to lift my sword against him, even if it means my own death.”

Colum stiffens. “Is it justice you seek, or revenge?”

“They are the same,” I say defiantly.

“Nay, revenge springs from malice, but justice I think . . .” He pauses, searching for words. “Justice comes from wanting what is good. Not for yourself alone, but for others.”

“A fine thought for a mere shepherd!” I snap. “There is no justice, if the king himself, who should be its source, is corrupt. There is
only
revenge.”

“I don’t wish to argue, Albia,” Colum says with a sigh. “Rather, let’s decide what to do now.”

I gaze over the ruins of Dunduff, the dead guards, the graves. Only a few days ago a joyful household thrived here.

“We find Macbeth and kill him.”

Colum looks sideways at me, his brows knit together.

“Perhaps I
will
argue with you. Shouldn’t we find Ross and the other allies of Macduff first? You and I alone . . . are not very strong.”

I know he is right. But every bone and sinew of my body longs to find the king now and strike at him, revenging all the wrong done since the days of my infancy. I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, trying to hold back the hot tears. I press so hard that wild patterns dance there like hellish sprites against a black curtain.

I hear Colum moving around. I blink until my blurry sight clears and see him struggling into a tunic made of iron mail. He has taken a helmet from one of the guards, as well as a bow and arrows. I begin searching and find a small steel and leather helmet and a jerkin fitted with overlapping brass plates that is lighter than Colum’s tunic. We gather dried fruit and meat from a storehouse and fill waterskins from the well. Before going, I pull a banner down from the tower. We now have something to show our allegiance to Macduff. All the horses have been stolen, so Colum and I both ride Nocklavey, who is strong enough to carry double our weight. Because I am shorter, Colum lets me ride in the front.

It is easy to tell which way the king’s men took after finishing their rampage. The road leading south is trodden and strewn with debris. Ross’s men also went that way, according to Wee Duff. So we take the same road. The weak sun hides behind thick clouds, yet the heat rising from Nocklavey’s back is enough to warm us.

I know each landmark in the Wychelm Wood as well as I know my own body, and Colum can traverse the shieling by smell alone. But for both of us Dunduff is the gateway to an unknown country. We have no idea how far it is to the River Spey, how wide the Grampian Mountains may be, or how we will recognize Angus’s lands.

“If we ride south, as Wee Duff said, I can’t believe that we would miss the river,” he says. “But I don’t like taking the road. We are as likely to run into Macbeth’s men as Ross’s.”

The thought of meeting the murderers gives me chills. But what else can we do but follow the way and hope it leads to the river?

“We’ll trust our luck, Colum, and keep the standard of Macduff hidden until we find our allies,” I say, trying to sound confident.

His long legs grip Nocklavey’s side, and his arm encircles me. Ever vigilant, our eyes scan the wide landscape. Instead of a grassy sea strewn with mid-summer flowers, a reddish brown terrain swept by harsh winds surrounds us. I wonder if the land will ever thrive again.

Meanwhile it seems that Nocklavey leads us, not that we guide him. Colum holds the reins slack. I hold on to Nocklavey’s coarse mane and find that his strength reassures me. Finally I have the courage to ask Colum a question that has been bothering me since we left Dunduff.

“Colum, now that you know who I am, does it disturb you?”

I feel his arm stiffen around me. After a long pause, he says, “You are the same Albia you have always been.”

But I am not the same. The knowledge of my past has changed me. Colum must sense that.

“Did you ever suspect there was something unusual about me?” I turn around in the saddle, trying to see his eyes, but we are too close. He looks over my head.