Lady Macbeth's Daughter (5 page)

“Be assured Duncan will show his gratitude. Where is Macbeth now?”

“Not far behind us, making his way to the king’s castle at Forres.”

As the men spur their horses and part company, Helwain rubs her hands together.

“So the war-goddess favors Macbeth. And she leads him into our path. We must hurry!”

Helwain leads the way across the rough moor to a hillock high enough to be seen from all directions. Atop the hill are crumbling rocks, the remains of a half-buried dwelling. Rhuven unloads the sledge and covers it with ferns while Helwain makes a small fire. I watch the sisters put on gray-green robes the color of the lichens that grow on old stones and trees. Rhuven and my mother rub their faces and hands with ashes. Helwain does not wear a disguise. She already looks frightful, with her wild gray hair, her bristly chin, and the shadows under her eyes.

“He must be able to recognize who I am,” she says.

Mother leads me down some crumbled steps into the ground, where the last light of day shines a little way into the sunken rooms. Brown grass grows between the collapsed stones. I am too excited to be afraid.

“What is going to happen tonight?” I ask. “What magic will Helwain do?”

“I don’t know. But you must stay down here and not make a sound. Try to sleep.”

When she leaves I stand on a rock and peer between the stones. I am consumed with curiosity. But my leg aches from the long journey and my eyes grow heavy. I lie down to rest only for a moment. Instead I dream something terrible: a man’s head dripping with blood and gore. There is no body, only a head with a mouth gaping in a horrible grin. With a cry, I start up from my sleep. It must be Cawdor, the headless traitor, beside me in this tomb! My heart pounding with panic, I crawl up the steps and emerge on all fours like an animal, looking around for my mother.

In the light of the moon, round and full, I see Helwain, Rhuven, and my mother around the fire. Helwain stirs her kettle while my mother and Rhuven dance. Their shadows waver and leap. The wind whips their robes about them. Mist rises from hidden pools and blows like clouds across the moor.

From somewhere in the fog comes a man’s voice: “So foul and fair a day I have not seen!”

Two men on horseback emerge from the fog. One has thick red hair. In the crook of his arm he carries a helmet and the moonlight glints on his sleeveless tunic made from links of metal. His arms, thick as trees, are painted from the shoulder to the wrist with circles and curious markings like those on the Skelpie Stone. His horse, spattered with mud, heaves under him. White foam drips from its mouth.

The sisters stop their dancing, link hands, and face the men.

“What are these withered and wild creatures?” the red-haired man says to his companion. Then to the sisters he shouts, “Speak! Who are you?”

Rhuven calls out in a voice unlike her own, “All hail Macbeth, thane of Moray!”

“All hail Macbeth, thane of Glamis and of Cawdor!” cries my mother.

So this is Rhuven’s master, the man we have come to meet! I creep forward to get a closer look, ducking behind a gorse bush.

Helwain throws back her hood.

I hear Macbeth’s sharp intake of breath. “Banquo, see, it is the very oracle I seek! The old woman.”

Then Helwain speaks, her voice like the grating of stones against each other. “All hail Macbeth, that shall be king hereafter!”

Macbeth starts in his saddle. His horse shies as if struck by an arrow.

“My lord, why do you seem to fear things that sound so fair?” asks his companion, coming forward. “You fantastical creatures, now speak to me!” He laughs, as if this is some jest. “Look into the seeds of time and tell me which grain will grow and which will not.”

“Hail Banquo!” Helwain greets him. “Lesser than Macbeth and greater. Not so happy yet much happier. You shall beget kings though you will be none.”

Banquo makes a scornful sound in his throat. “They contradict themselves, the old women!” he says.

On a cue from Helwain, Mother and Rhuven begin to back away.

“Stay, you fateful sisters, tell me more!” demands Macbeth. “I know I will be thane of Glamis, for he is dead, but how of Cawdor? The thane of Cawdor lives. And to be king is beyond belief. How do you know this? Speak!”

He tries to spur his horse forward, but the creature will not budge. He curses. I am afraid of being seen. I feel like the little brown rabbit in the open field, sensing the boy with his slingshot.

Now Helwain lifts her hood over her face and turns away. A gust of wind blows a cloud of heavy mist around Macbeth and Banquo. Seizing my chance, I scurry for the hole and retreat into the dark earth. Just behind me Rhuven, Helwain, and my mother stumble down the steps, breathing hard.

Faintly I hear Macbeth shout, “They have melted, Banquo, and vanished like spirits into the air!”

Helwain laughs. “Ha! We gulled the powerful Macbeth.”

Rhuven is not so pleased. “Why did we hail him with such lofty titles? If these don’t come to pass, he will know that we lie. We were to prophesy strife and trouble, for those are certainties.”

“You heard the messengers. Because of his exploits in battle, he is certain to become thane of Glamis and Cawdor, too,” explains Helwain. “Then what is left for him but to become king? We merely put his own desires into words.”

“As you did when you prophesied sons? Yet that did not come to pass.”

“So, perhaps this time he will not believe me. What harm is done?” Helwain says, sounding careless.

“I saw him start, like a guilty man, when you hailed him as king,” says Rhuven. She sounds worried.

Helwain snorts. “Do you think he will go to Forres tonight and slay Duncan? He is not a fool.”

Now my mother speaks. “Even if he wanted to, he would not find the opportunity, for the king will be surrounded by his loyal warriors.”

“Then why feed Macbeth with vain promises and lying prophecies?” Rhuven persists.

“I am an old woman without any power. This gives me some sport.”

“Helwain, this is no game!” Rhuven’s voice rises with distress. “If my lord commits treason against his king, he will be killed and my lady banished, and I will also be ruined.”

“By Morrigan and all the gods!” Helwain bursts out. “We are already lost, because of Macbeth. Have you forgotten that he slew Gillam and drove us from our home? I will play foul with his fate!”

“And with Banquo’s, too?” asks Rhuven. “He is an honorable man. Lesser than Macbeth and greater—what does that mean?”

“Banquo is not superstitious,” Helwain replies. “My double-talk is meant to twist Macbeth’s reason. And how easy that is!”

“Do not overlook my Albia,” my mother interjects. “What will be her fate, when Macbeth fulfills his?”

I hear my name mentioned, but I do not understand how I have any connection to the weird events of this night. Nor do I understand why my mother and her sisters have waited for the painted warrior and taunted him with great titles. Perhaps they have eaten some mixture of Helwain’s that makes them act so strangely.

In the morning Rhuven is already gone. Helwain and Mother are silent on the way home. I follow them, biting my lip. I know that I am somehow to blame for what happened. They didn’t want to bring me. Even Rhuven was not happy to see me. Now they have quarreled and Rhuven has gone away angry. If she never visits again, there will be no more gifts for me, and it will be the punishment I deserve.

I forget to look where my feet are taking me and stumble against a hawthorn tree. A long, sharp thorn breaks off and sticks in my hand. For a moment my mind is somewhere else. A slow, fearful wail rises from my throat. The sound surprises me.

“Be quiet, my head hurts,” complains Helwain.

“You hush, Helwain. She has cut herself, my poor child.” Mother pulls out the thorn and dabs at the blood welling from my palm.

But it is not the pain or the blood that made me cry out. It was the brief sight of three bodies and a man holding a dagger with blood on its blade. I shake my head to dispel the scene, but when I close my eyes it is still there. I rub my hands together, but it only spreads the blood.

“What are you doing, Albia?” asks Mother.

“She has a strange look,” says Helwain excitedly. “What do you see? Tell me.” Her face is so close to mine that her features blur, except for the gleam in her eyes that frightens me. “Speak up, girl!”

But I press my lips tightly together and close my eyes. I will not let Helwain see inside me.

Chapter 5

Wychelm Woods

Albia

After that night on Wanluck Mhor, I stay away from Helwain. Mother puts a salve on my cut until it heals, leaving only a tiny scar on my palm. She keeps me close to her. I know she regrets allowing me to go to the moor. I don’t think she even suspects that I saw the painted warrior and heard every word that was spoken. But I often catch her gazing at me with a sad and worried expression.

“Why do you look at me that way?” I ask her. We are sitting in a small coracle, fishing in the loch with nets on long poles. A sleek, glittering fish noses my net, then darts away.

“There is so much you don’t know,” she muses, shaking her head slowly.

“Then tell me!” I tease, wanting to see her usual smile.

“Do you know that your eyes are blue, and yet gray, as when a cloud is reflected in the loch on a sunny day?”

I peer into the water where my reflection is broken up by ripples. It scares me to look where the water is so deep it is black. I sense something lurking there, something as unknowable as the time before I could speak. Mother is right. I know almost nothing. But it is not the color of my eyes I wonder about.

“Tell me where this water comes from, and the creatures who live under it.” It is the only question I can put into words just now.

“I will,” she agrees. “You are old enough to learn the ancient wisdom.”

Mother tells me how, ages and ages ago, the god Guidlicht lay with his wife Neoni, and from her womb the earth and skies rumbled into being, the mountains and valleys, fire and winds and water, and everything that lives, from the humblest creeping bug to the great leviathan of the sea.

“All these creatures, because they sprang from the same source, Neoni, partake of each other. So each person’s nature mingles the traits of different plants, animals, and elements.”

I feel my mind expand with amazement and wonder. “What makes up my nature?” I ask.

“Alas, Albia, I cannot see it. You must be the one to find it out. All I can advise you is that it is mixed of good and ill, and that you must feed your better traits that they may grow stronger than your worse ones.”

I do not understand this, nor do I know how to discover my own nature. Instead I study the nature of others. The eagle that can seize a single mouse from the moor shows keen-sightedness, but in flying so high, it also shows ambition. It is the nature of the spiky hawthorn to protect the birds that nest there and to stab any other creature that strays too near.

What is Helwain’s nature? She is like the black, harsh-voiced crow and the bent moor-pine with its rough bark. She is like the elder tree from which her staff is made, for she used its magic to cure my lameness. Once she was generous of heart, like the skies that shed rain, but now she is the dry stalk in the drought, withered by her own unkindness.

My mother, on the contrary, is all good-natured. Being light and strong as the reed, she tolerates hardship. Cheerful as the golden broom-flower, she can love even the ill-natured Helwain. Nurturing as the mother bird who feeds her chicks, she is easy for me to love.

But something begins to change between us when I am about thirteen winters old. In just a few months, I grow until I stand nose to nose with her. I no longer want to sit on her lap. Sometimes I hide in order to be alone or dally behind when we are walking together. I speak rudely to her, then look away so I will not see the hurt in her eyes. If she tries to soothe me with stories, I say that I am tired of her old tales.

Now I see that even Mother’s nature is mixed. She is the twining ivy that holds fast to what it grows upon, sometimes choking it. I want to be free of her. But how? Everything in nature depends upon something else. How could I survive on my own?

Thus I am tied to my mother and to Helwain as well. She and I are like two rams butting heads until our horns lock together. She stares at me with hard eyes and demands to know what is in my head. I stare back and refuse to tell her. When Mother is not around, she presses me harder still.

“The warrior with the painted arms we met on the moor. Do you ever see him in your thoughts?”

A noise like a hive of bees fills my ears. I do not want to remember that night. I press my fingers to my eyelids to keep away the dreadful images.

“Why do you ask me? I have nothing to do with him!”

Helwain picks up her heavy scrying stone and sets it on the table before me.

“Look and tell me, what will he do?”

The stone is round, with facets of shining quartz that scatter the light in a thousand directions. I close my eyes.

“I do not care about the future. You cannot make me see it.”

But Helwain takes my head, forcing my nose to the stone.

“What . . . will . . . he . . . do?” she repeats. Her arms tremble as I push back against them. I am surprised by her strength.

“I don’t know!” With a thrust of my hands, I send the scrying stone tumbling into the fire. The ashes and embers scatter and thick smoke billows up.

“Cursed child, spawn of wickedness!” Helwain shouts, slapping me across the face. “Ungrateful wretch!”

“I hate you—you foul witch!” I shout back, coughing on the smoke.

I run from the house and into the sheepfold, where I curl up with the lambs. Their warmth stops my trembling. But I can still hear Helwain screaming.

“She hoards the Sight! She will destroy, when she could save!”

I begin to weep silently. I know my nature now. My heart is colder than the loch-water with hatred of Helwain. I am the cruel mockingbird, the bitter wormwood, the wrathful destroying fire. There is nothing good in me.