Lady Macbeth's Daughter Read online

  “I do not deserve this!” I protested, clutching my daughter until she began to cry. “It is you who should be punished. You slew my husband and took his lands and titles. And you stole me, too. I never wanted you.”

  Fury gathered in his black eyes. He took the child from me and thrust her at Eadulf.

  “No! I am the granddaughter of a king, and she belongs to me!” I threw myself at Eadulf, but Macbeth blocked my way. I grabbed his forearms and groveled to him. “I am sorry to offend you, my lord. I will do anything you desire, only give me my daughter.”

  He shook off my hands. “You will forget her.” To Eadulf he said, “Take the spawn of evil to the heath and leave it for the wolves.”

  Eadulf ducked out of the room, my daughter under his arm. My legs gave way and I fell back onto the bed. I saw Rhuven follow him, heard stumbling on the stairs. Macbeth leaned over me, his breath hot on my cheek

  “She shall not live to rebuke your deeds—or mine!” He pressed his body against mine, and I struggled until I felt a roaring in my ears like a sea-storm and blackness engulfed me.

  When I awoke on the rumpled bed, I was alone. The cradle was empty. My breasts leaked with longing for my pale-faced daughter, and all my motherly feelings spilled out in cold tears.

  Here I lie, still. Weak and helpless as she was. Dry as dust, with no drop of milk, no tears left to shed ever again.

  My hand reaches for the other arm. It is bare.

  “Rhuven, where is my jeweled cuff ?” My voice sounds dull. “I have not seen it since—” But I cannot bear to speak of that day my daughter was taken from me.

  “I don’t know, my lady,” Rhuven replies, not meeting my eyes.

  “I think Macbeth has taken it away to punish me,” I say. “Next time I will give him a son, and he will give it back to me.”

  Chapter 2

  Wychelm Wood

  Albia

  These are my first memories, fragments mostly.

  Lying in my mother’s arms, looking up at the wychelm tree. Its limbs sway and its leaves tremble. Birds flitting in its branches, a squirrel dashing up the trunk. A longing I have no words to express.

  Tumbling with the lambs in the sheepfold. Burying my face in their soft dun fleece, imagining I am one of them.

  The smells of peat and lime, heather and damp moss. My hands and legs, dirty from scooting along the ground. Mother coaxing me with a finger coated in honey while I cry in frustration.

  A hot, smelly cloth wrapped around my leg. Helwain muttering over me. Mother rubbing my leg. Her look of dismay.

  The small horse that hauls peat from the moor. The sledge bouncing along the rocky ground while I hold on with both hands to keep from sliding off.

  A bird with a long white neck making ripples in the loch. I reach out to touch it, but the water pulls me in. Cold and terror fill me. Mother’s arms lift me out of the water. The bird glides away.

  And this, most vivid of all: night, the moon a round face overhead. Being carried in a sling on Mother’s back and clinging to her neck. Helwain leaning on an elder staff. A grove of trees with white trunks. Great dark stones jutting from the earth like arms reaching for the sky. A woman who calls my mother and Helwain “sister.”

  Helwain saying, “I tried to heal her, but my powers are weak from disuse.”

  My mother explaining, “So we came here, where the spirits are most powerful.”

  Lying on the damp grass. The stone rising up before me blacker than the sky. Helwain using her staff to draw a circle around me and the stone. The three sisters chanting:

  The old sun dies and the new one is born.

  Dead souls rise, their graves to scorn.

  The spirits come, mankind to warn.

  Helwain walking backward around the circle. Her voice wavering like grass in the wind.

  Let nature’s false knot be torn,

  That bound this babe when she was born.

  The chants filling my ears. I feel the sound deep in my bones. The spirits whirling on the winds, pushing through the earth, surrounding me.

  “Look at her eyes darting dart back and forth,” Helwain saying to her sisters. “She sees them.”

  I think that Mother and her sisters and I are the only people in the world until the day I meet Murdo and Colum, who live in a cottage on the edge of the Wychelm Wood. Murdo grows barley and oats and has more sheep than I can count with my fingers and toes. He frightens me at first. His voice rumbles like rocks falling down a hill and his head is as hairless as an egg. He carves two pieces of wood and fixes them to my leg with strips of hide. Mother explains that he is helping my leg grow straight and strong. Like a tree.

  Colum is a child like me. He has curly hair and makes me laugh with his silly faces. He can run and jump like the squirrels. I want to do the same, and one day I grasp Colum’s arms and pull myself to my feet. I take my first steps. My mother weeps, but somehow I know she is happy.

  Walking is so much better than crawling on hands and knees. I walk to the village with Mother to trade wool and baskets for cloth and food. People give me pitying looks, but I am too pleased with myself to care. When I come home my leg aches and Helwain wraps it in hot, smelly cloths. She mutters and complains, yet I know that she, too, is pleased.

  I have been to the village often enough to know that my mother and Helwain are not like the folk who live there. Helwain seldom leaves the roundhouse. She sits by the hearth, turning the stone quern, grinding flour. Or she spins, holding the wool under one arm and twisting the strands with the thumb and forefinger of her other hand. The spindle drops to the floor, whirling. It makes me dizzy to watch.

  Only at night does Helwain go out, and in the morning she returns with a basket full of leaves and roots. She hangs them from the beams to dry, where they rustle and put out strange smells. Sometimes she brings back the skull of a small animal, a snakeskin, or a lizard from beneath a mossy stone. These are my playthings—until she grinds them into powders and puts them into small pots and forbids me to touch them.

  Rhuven, the sister of my mother and Helwain, always brings me a toy when she visits and sometimes a new dress. Her own clothes are made of soft cloth the color of the summer sky or ripe berries. She peers at me with tears in her eyes and says, “How big you are getting!”

  Even my leg is growing. I can climb to the top of the Skelpie Stone on the path to the peat bog. It has rings and zigzags where the faeries have worn down the stone with their dancing. The faeries are small enough to fit in my hand. Their skin is the color of buttercups, their speech like the splashing of water or the rattle of tiny stones. At night they sometimes pinch and bite me, and when I wake up I have red marks along my arm. I even play with them in the daytime. We float a cockle shell in a bucket of water, placing tiny pebbles in the shell until it is almost underwater.

  Now sink little boat; no more shall you float,” I sing. “Here comes the storm!” And the faeries and I rock the bucket.

  “Stop, Albia, you naughty girl!” says Mother, who is watching me play. But the cockle shell and all the little stones have already sunk to the bottom of the bucket.

  “I did it, just like I have seen Helwain,” I announce.

  “You shouldn’t listen to Helwain’s nonsense.”

  But I do, even though her stories sometimes frighten me. Helwain says that the moor is haunted by a bogle that leads people to their death. But she claims to have tamed the spirit so that it guides her around the sucking bog and keeps the wolves away.

  “What does the bogle look like?” I ask her.

  “Sometimes it takes the shape of a doe and sometimes a dog. The doe is the ghost of a lady who disappeared on the moor and the dog is her husband. He went to look for her and his body was found dashed on a rock. It happened before you were born.”

  Not long after that I dream of a large black dog that leads me onto the moor until a white deer appears and the dog runs away. When I wake up I am sitting beneath a stunted birch tree in the midst of a bog. Everyw
here I step, the mire sucks my feet downward. I cry all day until Mother and Helwain find me.

  “You must never wander off like that!” scolds Mother.

  “I didn’t!” I protest, still sniffling. “A black dog led me here.”

  Helwain examines my arms and legs for bite marks. I cringe from her as if she is the fearsome dog.

  “Helwain, don’t frighten her again!” Mother says. “We must watch her more closely.”

  “Indeed I will,” says Helwain, staring at me with dark eyes that want to see inside my head.

  “It was only a dream, Albia, only a dream,” Mother says, her arms around me.

  I know my way through the woods to Colum’s house. I am not supposed to go there alone, but Mother and Helwain cannot watch me every hour of the day.

  One day Colum and I are picking bilberries and eating most of them. From nearby comes the swish-swash of a sickle cutting barley. Murdo’s bald head bobs along the edge of the field.

  All of a sudden Colum asks, “Where is your father?”

  I look at him, thinking him stupid. “I don’t have one,” I say.

  “But everyone has a da,” he says.

  “No, I have never had one,” I insist. “Mother says I don’t need one.” I ask him why he does not have a mother.

  “She died when my baby brother was born, taking him with her.”

  “So I have no father, and you have no mother,” I say with a shrug. It is just a fact, nothing even to wonder about.

  “Shhh!” Colum whispers. He pulls a slingshot from his pocket and fits a stone into the pouch. “I will show you how fast I can let fly with the stone, and there will be rabbit stew for supper.”

  I see the rabbit hopping through the stubble in the field. I close my eyes and hear the snap of the sling, then a sigh from Colum. He has missed.

  “Now you try, Albia. He is afraid now and will not move. It is an easy shot.”

  I shake my head. I have no wish to harm the rabbit.

  “Well, if I don’t kill him, Da and I will go hungry.”

  He aims again and before I can stop him, the rock hits the rabbit. A triumphant Colum runs to examine his prey. Curious yet full of dread, I follow him. The rabbit lies unmoving, its eyes open and glassy. Blood pools on the ground, a lot of blood for so small a creature. I cannot take my eyes off the gleaming flow, a thin dark stream of animal grief.

  Chapter 3

  Dun Inverness

  Grelach

  I am mistress of this tower and its furnishings of carved ash and oak, the jewels and finely woven dresses, and the kist of Viking treasure at the foot of my bed. I am mistress of all of Dun Inverness, its servants and livestock, the terraces and garden plots, the defensive ditches revetted with banks of rock. Mine is the town of Inverness, mine the rock-strewn heath that rolls all the way to the mountains. I am mistress of the wave-dashed rocks, the firth where my husband’s fleet lies at anchor, and the sea-roads beyond.

  I am Lady Macbeth of Moray, whose husband is more powerful than the thanes of Ross, Sutherland, Glamis, or Cawdor. His immense war-galley with its high stem and stern requires seventy-two men just to pull the oars. It skims across the water like a gull through the air, noiseless and swift, scattering the Viking raiders and the Orkney warbands who threaten this northern coast. Yet for all his wealth and the resources he commands, Macbeth remains a loyal servant of King Duncan—that imposter, undeserving and untested, placed on a throne of ease by his grandfather Malcolm!

  Duncan may rule Scotland, but Macbeth rules this northern kingdom. Our enemies fear us. I have riches beyond my needs or desires. The royal blood of Kenneth, once Scotland’s king, flows in my veins. Yet I am no one, and I have nothing, truly, until I have a son.

  My husband strives to beget a child upon me, softening me with gifts and tenderness, then treating me coldly when I fail to conceive. I have knelt in the town kirk and made offerings to the mother of God and the saints. I have run my fingers over the stone cross in the kirkyard, the one carved with rabbits and birds and twining ivy, and prayed for my womb to fill. And it did, twice, but emptied again as soon as I suspected a child growing there.

  I think that God in his anger has decided I do not deserve another child. Does he not know how deeply I regret losing my daughter? Afterward I would not let Luoch out of my sight. He was all that I had. As the great-grandson of King Kenneth, he might become king someday. So from the time he was old enough to crawl around, I tied him to my waist or to a post, ignoring his wailing. When Rhuven protested, I said, “Should I let him crawl into the fire, then? Or tumble down the stairs and break his leg?”

  Now the boy can escape his tether. He only runs as far as the village huts to play with the children there. But every time I call and he does not answer, I think that he has fallen from the ramparts into a ditch or wandered onto the moors to be snatched by faeries.

  Faeries? No, it is the wolves I fear.

  Poor Luoch. He actually loves his unworthy mother. When Macbeth is cold to me or makes me weep, the boy puts his arms around me and lisps words of comfort. I kiss his cheek.

  Even though I don’t love him, the sight rouses my husband to fits of jealousy.

  “Get that black imp out of my sight!” he shouts when this scene has played one time too many.

  Luoch cringes, while I become like a she-tiger.

  “How dare you speak to my son like that!”

  “He is not my son. Why should I care for him?” Macbeth’s tone is cruel.

  “Make him your son,” I challenge him. “Give Luoch your name and then you will have an heir.”

  Macbeth stares at my son’s raven-black hair and pale skin.

  “You keep me childless that your brat may take precedence over a son of ours,” he accuses with barely repressed anger.

  “That is not true! I submit to you and pray constantly for a son!”

  I do not dare tell him that twice I have miscarried. He might decide that I am cursed too. I look down, avoiding his gaze. But his eyes pry into me.

  “I know you want Luoch to be king someday. I suspect that you use me to advance that ambition,” he says. “If he becomes thane of Moray after my death, wouldn’t that put him in a fine position to steal the throne?”

  He mocks my blood, but I must be silent. I will not admit to such a grand scheme. Still my husband presses me.

  “Ranold, your own father, seeks alliances among the thanes that favor your son’s ambitions over those of Duncan’s heirs. You cannot deny it.”

  I draw in my breath. To speak or even to think of treason is to row in dangerous waters. I realize Luoch is still in the room, taking everything in with wide eyes. Rhuven is there, too, sitting on a stool in the corner. She is always with me. The woman hears everything that passes between us, but she is as silent and secret as stone. I motion for her to take Luoch away, and she ushers him from the room.

  “My lord, what you speak of is my father’s business, not mine.” I stroke his coppery hair to distract him from these jealous thoughts of sons. “My desires are yours,” I murmur, “and yours should encompass the greatness that befits you, the most powerful thane in the land. Think to what heights you can rise.”

  “Nay, I am content. Duncan esteems me. He has promised me Glamis, and it is only a matter of time until the old thane dies.”

  “Glamis is nothing. You deserve better, for you outshine Duncan like the sun outshines the moon. Let him once visit here and see our wealth, and the soft, weak king must acknowledge your greater deserving.”

  “Hide your disdain of the king,” he says sharply. “We depend upon his goodwill.”

  “What if his goodwill should turn? It would be better to depend upon ourselves.” I am no longer thinking of Duncan, but of myself. How it rankles, that I must depend upon a man who has the power to take my children from me!

  “You must notice, wife, how the other thanes rely upon me,” Macbeth replies, his tone growing boastful. “The thanes of Ross and Angus vie for my favor, an
d their cousin Banquo clamors to be my general. Others offer me their best warriors and galleys. I can raise thousands of men to fight for King Duncan. Without us, he cannot hold Scotland together. So spare me your murmurings, and cool your vain ambitions. I am content.”

  “How can you bear for such an unworthy one to call himself king?” I persist.

  “So, you think your own kin better suited?” Macbeth puts his face within inches of mine. His hair flames; his black eyes consume my face. “Before that brat of yours, I will be king.”

  Utter, breathless silence falls between us and grows pregnant with each passing second.

  “So you do desire it,” I say warily.

  “What man does not?” he snaps.

  “Why, such a thing could not happen—” I begin.

  “Unless Duncan were to die,” Macbeth says, finishing my thought.

  I look into his black eyes and see the flicker of ambition catch fire there.

  “We dare not speak of this,” I whisper, putting my hands to his lips.

  But something has just been born between us, an offspring for us to nurture, together.

  By the time Macbeth sails with his seven galleys to raid the Orkneys, he has put another child in my belly. Upon his return, I am as big as a ship with its sail full of wind. Macbeth waits upon me, worships me with eyes full of hope and hungry love. All will be well between us once this son is born and the long-ago promise of the oracle is fulfilled.

  My lord has even softened toward Luoch. Perhaps he realizes that once he has his own son, Luoch’s existence will no longer rebuke him. He gives my son a dirk taken from a Danish pirate, with gems set in its handle and a sheath made of boar’s hide.

  Luoch’s eyes shine, and he dares to ask his stepfather a question. “You left with seven ships and came back with six. What happened to the other ship?”

  The boy is sharper than I realize.

  “I will tell you a frightful tale,” says my lord, frowning. “We were four days from the farthest Orkneys when a storm struck our fleet. Gales ripped the sails and roiled the waves until their crests foamed like the mouths of wild dogs. You could hear the oars crack as the men strained against the sea. We prayed to Columba and all the saints to save us. Then I saw three ravens in the sky. They circled our ships for an entire day.”