Lady Macbeth's Daughter (24 page)

I pore over the dream as if it is a Latin text, looking for meaning—for a clue to Fleance’s whereabouts, a warning image, a message about the future. Nothing comes to me. It was merely an ordinary dream built on memories and wishes, foretelling nothing. I press the sides of my head in frustration. What good is having the Sight if it doesn’t show me what I need to see?

In the wake of the dream, restlessness comes over me. Within the walls of Angus’s fort, I suddenly feel trapped. Every time I turn around, I see the same fellow nearby, a young man with straight black hair and serious dark eyes.

“See that carl over there? About your age? He watches us wherever we go,” I whisper to Colum.

“The men all wonder at you, Albia,” he says. “Can you blame them for staring?”

“This one does not smile. He is not admiring me. I think Angus has told him to watch me.”

Colum shrugs. “Let him. You have nothing to hide.”

“Why do the thanes still not trust me?” I grumble.

“They have to be careful, Albia. What they are doing is treason, and the price of it is death.” Colum meets my eyes, and I see that he is aware of his complicity, of the price he, too, will pay if the rebellion fails or if we are taken for spies. I regret drawing him into this danger, which deepens every day.

“Colum, does it seem to you that we are being held here like captives of war?”

“Nay, for if that were the case, Angus would have taken our weapons away.” He sighs. “You are too suspicious, Albia.”

“Think about it, Colum,” I insist. “We have been given no duties, no role in the preparations for battle. I am certain they mean to keep us here when they leave for Dunsinane. I can’t let that happen.”

“What will you do about it?” he asks, frowning.

It takes me a while, but I come up with a plan. “I will go to Angus now and tell him that I am leaving to find Fleance. If he refuses to let me go, then I know my suspicions are true.”

“Why don’t we just leave without telling him?” Colum suggests.

“No, that would alarm them. And we cannot leave Eadulf here alone. You must stay with him.”

Colum looks hurt. “I have not come all this way to be parted from you at such a dangerous time.”

“And I have not come all this way to be kept from my revenge by anyone!” I try to control my mounting frustration. “Whatever Angus says, I am leaving here tonight.”

When I find Angus, I notice the black-haired fellow among his men. He seems to be the son of a thane, for his garments are fine and he carries a sword, but no one pays him much mind as they polish their weapons and play at dice. Surely he is a spy.

Angus laughs at my request. “It is the eve of a great battle, and she wants to go find her brother!” He looks from side to side, trying to draw Ross and others into his amusement.

Ross regards me warily. “I understand you are worried for Fleance, but what can you do for him? You are only a lass, and likely to come to harm yourself.”

The thane of Ross may mean well, but his words anger me. It is all I can do to remain calm and wait for Angus’s judgment.

“A lass or not, consider the harm she can do,” says Angus. He jabs a finger at me. “With what you know of our preparations, you could go to the king and betray us.”

“Who would believe me, a mere lass?” I ask, glaring at Ross. “But though I am not a man”—I raise my voice and meet Angus’s eyes—“you may believe me when I say that I will give up my own life rather than Macbeth should rule Scotland any longer.”

At this, several of the men glance up with sudden interest.

“Brave words,” says Angus, clapping his thighs. “Go, then. But your companions . . . will stay . . . here.” By the way that he draws out the sentence, his meaning is clear. If anything goes wrong, or if anyone gives the king information, I will be blamed and Colum and Eadulf will suffer.

I had not expected this. How can I put them at risk? And just why is Angus allowing me to leave? The thane and I lock eyes. Who will call the other’s bluff ?

It is my turn to speak. I take a deep breath. “I will do nothing to bring harm upon them. So, I go.”

I turn to leave, but Angus calls my name sharply. He makes me wait while he and Ross confer.
So he thought I would back
down!
I can barely hide my smile of triumph.

“We would not have you go alone, lady,” says Angus finally.

“For your own safety,” adds Ross, with a tone of apology.

Angus turns and scans his ranks. His gaze falls upon the young man with the black hair.

“Luoch. You will accompany her.”

Luoch? Isn’t that my brother’s name?

Chapter 22

Dunsinane Hill in Perthshire

Grelach

My lord and I have taken refuge atop Dunsinane Hill, which rises far above the plain, its steep flanks strewn with scree, impossible to scale. The only path to the summit is defended with high stockades set in grooves of stone. The walls of the fort are many feet thick and made from oak logs and planks filled with earth and rocks, and the tower is built of dry stone and oaken beams. No king has ever been defeated at Dunsinane.

Warbands loyal to Macbeth approach Dunsinane from the north and south, camping on the plain below because the fort is too small to shelter them all. Day and night the sounds of their carousing drift up to me. My lord joins them, raising their mettle with his confidence. At night he retires to the fort for safety, bringing his officer Seyton and several thanes, including his new general, the aged Atholl. They fight each other, drink ale, and prick their bodies with needles dipped in woad, marking themselves for war.

It is noisy and crowded on this hill, but I may as well be alone.

From where I look, wooded hills stretch in every direction like a rolling brown sea. But instead of the churning surf and the shrieks of gulls, I hear the ghostlike cooing of the doves fluttering in the eaves. Where have the songbirds gone, with their merry notes? Perhaps they are all nesting in the great, thick Birnam Wood. Oh, breathe easy, Grelach! How should those trees move, unless the ground itself gape open and release their roots?

Is that how the end will come? Will Dunsinane Hill quake and crumble to the plain, burying us under rock and earth? I would prefer to die in my sleep. But such a quiet death comes only to those who deserve it—those who are innocent.
Duncan.
Did the old king die in his sleep or did he wake to feel the blade in his throat? Did he see his lifeblood spilling forth? Oh, the blood! The redness seeps from my own chafed hands, a stain that will only be cleansed when a second flood purges the wicked earth.

But Duncan’s death is old guilt, old grief. Something fresher tears at me, strong enough to pitch me from this tower to the ground below. It is the sorrow that never leaves a mother who has lost her children.

For now my son—my only hope and comfort—has left me. He has abandoned his mother, and gone—I know not where. I should have seen the signs. When Macbeth was taken with the fit and thought he saw Banquo’s ghost, Luoch could not hide his disgust.

“He is not fit to be king,” he said to me the following day. “I spit upon his crown.”

“You owe Macbeth the duty of a stepson and a subject,” I rebuked him, pressing my hand over his mouth.

Luoch pushed my hand away.

“He has never been a father to me. He has no love for anyone but himself. Mother, he doesn’t even love you.”

I could not speak. I could barely breathe. How can a son see such things? And how dare he speak of them to his mother! Did Macbeth and I not hide our hate with shows of love?

“I have heard the rumors of his crimes, Mother,” Luoch said, not sparing me with any tenderness. “I see his eyes with no spark of feeling in them.” He paused and gripped me by the arms. “Tell me. Is it true that he killed Duncan?”

For years I feared this question from my son. I held him at a distance and forced his quiet compliance in everything. When did that wayward infant pulling at my breast, that sullen boy, become this man who will not be silenced?

“You must not ask me that.” I shook my head. “I cannot speak of it.”

“But I must know. Were you a part of it? And if you cannot speak, I will take your silence for guilt.”

For a long moment we stared at each other, barely breathing.

“How could you, even for all the wealth and power in the kingdom?” His voice was thick with emotion. He glanced down at my hands. I had been rubbing them together with such force that the knuckles stood out. “They will never be clean,” he said, and walked away from me.

“Come back, son!” I cried, clutching the air behind him. “You are my only hope, my future.”

He looked over his shoulder at me.

“Mother, you are past any hope. And you are not
my
future. Therefore I must go.”

And he left, and I wanted to weep, but of course my eyes were as dry as these ancient stones.

So I spoke of my grief to Rhuven, lamenting that Luoch’s rejection was what I deserved for abandoning my daughter so long ago.

Rhuven said that I should not give up hope, that perhaps someday I might begin anew.

What feeble consolation. How shall I start over, when more than half of my thirty-one years has been misspent with Macbeth? Can the heart bloom again after it has long withered? I have not loved anyone since my daughter was lost to me. Not Luoch, not my husband. And Macbeth does not love me, as even my son knows. Oh, had we loved each other more than our own ambition, would there have come the son that would have satisfied Macbeth? Then there would have been no need for even that first crime.

Alas, it is too, too late for such supposings. Too late for regret or repentance.

I tell Rhuven she must leave me. “I am fated to end my life alone. I no longer care what happens to Macbeth. Let him live a tyrant or be killed by his enemies. Nothing matters to me.”

“I will not leave you,” she replies, almost in tears. “You are dearer to me than my own sisters. I will do anything for you.”

Her devotion moves me. There is yet one thing she can do.

“I gave you a dagger, Rhuven, did I not?”

She nods, looking fearful at what I might ask.

“If we should be defeated here at Dunsinane, do not let Macbeth or his enemies touch me. Rather, you must take my life. Do it quickly and with a sure hand.”

Rhuven shakes her head so hard that her braid whips from shoulder to shoulder.

“Never, my lady! It will not happen.”

She wraps her arms around me and runs her hands from the top of my head to the base of my spine like she often does to calm me. This time, she is the one shaking, so I hold her and kiss her hair. We sit like this until we are both still.

I will not mention the dagger again. It was too much to ask her. No, I have enough mandragora to bring my ending, the quiet death that I desire. I am only sorry for Rhuven, my faithful gentlewoman, who will be the one to find my lifeless body and consign it to the earth.

Chapter 23

Near Dunsinane Hill

Albia

My mind is in a turmoil as I leave Angus House accompanied by the young man with the same name as my brother. We head southeast, toward Birnam and Dunsinane. Luoch rides a gray charger with a blaze of white across its muzzle. He seems as nervous as I am. But riding the proud and swift Nocklavey gives me courage, and I remind myself of how I killed the vicious boar with my steady sword, now ready at my side.

We barely speak, but from time to time eye each other warily, like foes measuring each other before an encounter. Whenever I take the lead, he goes ahead and cuts me off and alters our course, slowing us down, until finally I lose my temper.

“You are of no help in getting me to Dunsinane. In fact, you seem determined to prevent my progress!”

Luoch looks abashed. “The king’s men are converging on Dunsinane from all directions. If we ride in plain sight they will see us.”

I am impatient to be at the site of this stronghold, but I see the wisdom of being cautious.

“Then let us hide in the woods here until it is dark, when we can advance unseen,” I suggest.

We find a secluded copse of linden trees and dismount, tethering our horses. Luoch lies down with a weary sigh, holding his short dagger folded in his hands. Moments later he is dozing. For a guard, I decide, he lacks vigilance. I consider going on by myself, but remembering that Angus is holding Colum, I sit down under a tree to keep watch instead. Whoever this Luoch is, he does not seem to have the ruthless nature of a warrior. His arms are thrown over his face as he sleeps. I watch his long limbs twitch, as if they are still growing. When he wakes up, I will rebuke him for being so careless.

The woods are silent for a summer day. I hear only the persistent notes of a bird, a rapid twitter that rises, then ends on a long, plaintive note. Is the bird calling for its mate? Or is it lamenting the lack of food for its young and the sun that no longer shines to green its nesting place?

Where are you, where are you . . . FLEE . . . ance?

As I listen the bird seems to sing my sorrows, too. Then from another tree comes a reply on the same mournful note.

Roaming in suffering . . . SCOT . . . land.

The two lone birds sing the sadness of this land, crushed under the heel of the tyrant Macbeth, and to their tune, I fall asleep.

Again I have my recurrent dream about the parade of kings, the last of whom holds a looking glass. Their faces, blank before, now are filled in with Banquo’s features.
No, that
is Macbeth’s vision, not mine.
I try to shake my dreaming mind clear, but the vision grows even sharper. The last king’s face is unmistakably Banquo’s, his form as lifelike as Banquo himself. But he wears no crown; he is not a king after all. I seem to smell his sweat and ale as I lean over his shoulder to look into the glass. Then the dream-Banquo shifts the mirror so that its light glances from my eyes. He is holding it out toward me and nodding. I take the mirror and gaze upon its glassiness.

Like a pond where the ripples spread out and vanish until the surface is smooth, the mirror gradually reveals a face. It is not my own, but one I know almost as well, with its sardonic smile and determined blue eyes, the face of Fleance that I love and miss.