by Lisa Klein
It is Fiona who turns around and beckons to me.
I hesitate. I feel responsible for Breda. Banquo and Fleance would want me to take care of her. But I realize that I cannot keep her safe. Macduff ’s stronghold would be a better place for her than on the road with me.
“I cannot come with you. I must go to Wychelm Wood.”
Fiona’s eyes widen. “Alone?” she asks with some alarm.
“Don’t be foolish, Albia,” says Breda, but without feeling.
“I am prepared,” I reply, indicating my sword and shield tied to the palfrey’s trappings. I realize that I am grateful to Fiona for coming along to relieve me of Breda. I prefer to travel alone.
Breda and I say our awkward farewells. I know she would rather be with Fiona. Yet as she rides away, I am struck with the certainty that I will never see her again. It is not the Sight coming to me, only the fear that either she will die of grief or something will happen to me in this wasteland where the sun never shines, and no one will know or care.
Not even Fleance.
I cup my hands and call after Breda’s retreating figure.
“When you see Fleance …” I take a breath.
Fleance. Fleance. Fleance. The name rebounds from the hills around me.
“Tell him …”
Tell him what?
No one turns around to look at me. Do they not hear me?
I shout louder, “Tell Fleance I seek him!” My voice breaks and the wind throws my words back to me.
“Tell Fleance … I love him.”
I say this to myself, to hear if it sounds like the truth.
Chapter 16
Wychelm Wood and Stravenock Henge
Albia
I am startled to see how Helwain has changed since Geillis’s death. Her back is more stooped. Her hands are gnarled and black from the walnut juice she rubs into them to soothe the stiffness. Dark crescents extend beneath her eyes and shadows haunt the hollows of her cheeks. The pain and loneliness I see there almost stir my pity.
She does not seem surprised to see me. She glances at my sword without any comment. She knew I would come. For a moment I wonder if she has been staring into her scrying stone, and if the lump of rock actually works.
“It is Macbeth’s daughter,” she says in a hard, flat voice.
“What do you mean by calling me that?”
“Like him, you’ve come to me for advice.” She lets out a harsh laugh. “But I am done with telling fates.”
All the anger in me gathers into a storm. Words burst out of me like hail and lightning.
“You are done? It was you who began it all. You told Macbeth he would have sons, and so he cast me out for dead. You told him he would be king, and he slew Duncan. You said Banquo would be greater than Macbeth, so Macbeth slew Banquo, who was like a father to me!” I am shouting now. “All this evil is on your hands, Helwain. It is far from done.”
The peat fire shudders, as if the winds of my wrath would blow it out, and Tammas the cat claws his way up a post, yowling.
But Helwain stands like a stone, unperturbed.
“You are mistaken. I don’t determine anything. I may say the sun will not shine tomorrow, but that doesn’t make it dark. Macbeth did those things of his own will. It was not fate,” she says scornfully. Holding up a bent finger, she advances toward me. “He chose evil, and his crimes have brought darkness on the land.”
“But … but you foresaw it all. You predicted what came to pass,” I protest.
“I have said before, I see what people plainly desire and I speak it back to them,” she says. “I do not have the Sight. You do.”
“Then look at me and tell me, what do I want?” I mean to sound forceful, but my question comes out as a plaintive cry.
Helwain turns to the fire and picks up a pipe from the hearth before replying.
“You desire your mother.”
“I do not! My mother is a heartless—” I break off, seeing the satisfied look in Helwain’s eyes. “Of course I wish Geillis were still here,” I murmur.
Helwain puts the pipe to her lips and puffs until bitter-smelling smoke drifts out the end.
“You also desire revenge,” she says, letting out a long breath. “But more than that, you desire justice and order. Revenge is merely your means to that end.”
“Then tell me—since you know so much—how can I get this revenge? How can I make the world right again?”
“You already know,” says Helwain. Her head is wreathed in smoke.
“Macbeth must die,” I say. “But how?”
Helwain slowly shakes her head. “You have the Sight. Use it.”
Another storm bursts from me.
“I don’t see anything that makes sense! I cannot make a vision come, and if I could, no sprite of my mind could kill a flea, let alone a king.” I dash the pipe from her mouth and wave away the smoke so that I can see her face. “You have potions and charms. Give me something to sharpen my Sight. Help me understand what I see. Now!”
I clench my fists behind my back to keep from hitting Helwain. Geillis is no longer here to stop me.
Helwain picks up a bag and puts some small clay pots into it.
“Here is amaranth for conjuring. Let it burn and breathe in the smoke. This contains elfwort to strengthen the Sight, guard against evil, and attract love. Steep it in water and drink.”
I give her a doubtful look. “If this will bring on the Sight, why did you not give it to me long ago?”
“Nothing has power if you don’t believe in it,” she says.
Then she tells me what I think I already know. That I will see nothing clearly while my mind is disturbed and crowded with angry, vengeful thoughts. That I must know what I want before I can see a way to make it happen. Also, that she does not have the answers. I must go away, alone, to seek them.
I also know before she tells me that I will go to Pitdarroch, where the four worlds meet and Geillis lies beneath the stones.
“Take my hawthorn staff, and be off,” she says, dismissing me.
I take the staff and leave without another word.
At the throw of a stone from Pitdarroch stands the cairn where Geillis lies buried. As Gath carries me by, I whisper her name and close my eyes, seeing her face before she fell ill, her green eyes and round, smooth cheeks. There are no tears left in me, none that will bring her back. Then I wonder about Grelach. Did she weep when she lost me? If I dream tonight, will the Sight bring her face to me? I dismiss the wish. I will not dishonor the memory of Geillis, my true mother.
At the base of the ancient oak tree where the roots form small hollows, I make a nest of ferns and sit with Helwain’s staff across my lap. Gath munches dry grass nearby. I listen for wolves but all is silent save for the wind that blows through the gray-green moss hanging from the oak branches like the hair of an ancient crone. I kindle a small fire and burn the amaranth, and I mix the elfwort with water from my flask and sip it, feeling a little foolish. Nothing happens. My mind is still crowded with unwelcome images of Geillis’s pale, cold body, Macbeth looking at me with lust, and Fleance covered in blood. Vengeful thoughts stir in me, but they slip away again like water soaking into the ground. The fearsome images also vanish and nothing takes their place. I am left cleansed and blank, no longer afraid. The world around me is soundless, and all within me silent and calm.
Pitdarroch is suddenly charged with spirits. I feel them as a tingling deep in my belly, a coldness on my skin, and invisible fingers lifting my hair. But I see nothing, though I strain my eyes. I think I hear them, though it may be only the sighing of the wind. I inhale, and they smell like humid earth and fresh-cut bracken. A hunger for sleep overcomes me, and I feel myself floating out of the Now-world.
I dream of being in the middle of a battle. My sword clashes against another. A man with a helmet over his face cries Beware Macduff. Fragments flit past my inner eye: a baby covered in blood, a child crowned like a king, with a tree in his hand. And again, the tre
es advancing upon a hill, a parade of kings, with the last one holding up a glass. Still the glass remains dark, but this time the mystery does not trouble me.
Though the dream is violent and still incomprehensible, I awake in the morning feeling calm and somehow wiser. I did not see myself striking down Macbeth, but I feel assured that I will have revenge. Macbeth himself will bring it about. The time will come, and soon.
My calm is undisturbed even when Helwain and Rhuven appear at Pitdarroch with fear in their eyes to announce Macbeth’s approach.
Rhuven looks haggard and her movements are frantic. She has left the queen without permission. The king’s madness deepens, she says, for now he sees the ghosts of those he killed.
“And your life is in danger, Albia, for he suspects you are his daughter.”
“I am not afraid,” I say, surprised to find it true. “Does the queen know that I live?”
“Nay, she believes the king has lost all his reason.”
“Has she no hope at all?” I ask.
Rhuven looks at me strangely. Did I really sound so forlorn?
“No more questions,” says Helwain. “You must leave, or hide, for the king comes here tonight.”
“I will not leave. He comes to know his future, and I will show it to him,” I say, not at all sure what I mean.
“Have you seen it, then?” Helwain asks, her eyes wide and greedy. “Tell me, that I may know what to say to him. He found me last night, and I told him to meet me tonight at Stravenock Henge. There we will have the advantage of the gods.”
“I will speak to him, Helwain. Not you.” I have no idea yet what I will say. “Does he come alone?”
“He has two men with him. With so many enemies, do you think he would travel unguarded?”
“It is too dangerous, Albia,” says Rhuven. “He may recognize you. If he discovers that we deceive him, our lives will be forfeit.”
“Don’t worry,” I say. “He will deceive himself.”
And so we prepare for Macbeth’s arrival, darkening ourselves with peat dust and staining our clothes, using water brown with tannin. It is my idea to weave moss into our hair, so that we look like beings from the Other-world. Helwain kindles a fire and sets her kettle on its flames. As midnight draws on, a storm arises with gusts of wind and rumbling thunder, but no rain to wet the dry earth. Then as the firelight leaps off the face of the great high stones and Helwain chants to the spirits roaming on the winds, Macbeth comes.
I hear him shout, “How now, you secret, black, and midnight hags!” Then I see his hooded figure along the perimeter of stones. My heart starts to pound in my chest as if it would break out from my ribs. Two men flank the king, their weapons ready.
“I conjure you, by all the evil you profess, answer me what I ask you,” he demands.
Rhuven’s eyes are wide with fear. Helwain chants in a low, continuous monotone, a litany of gods. She throws a chalky substance on the flames, and blue and green smoke rises up.
The king tosses back his hood, and though he stands outside the circle of firelight, I see his gold crown and red hair as if they are lit by the darkness within him.
Step by slow step he approaches the fire. And as if we are locked in a fateful dance, step by step Rhuven, Helwain, and I retreat, keeping the fire and its bitter-smelling smoke between us.
“Stay!” he commands. “Show me what will come.” He stares into the smoke, then starts back. “It is an armored head!”
Naturally, kings fear rebellion. I will tell him the truth, for I know who leads the rebellion against him.
“Beware Macduff,” I say, taking care to alter my voice. “Beware the thane of Fife.”
“You have hit my fear aright, fatal sister. I thank you for the caution,” the king replies, sounding unimpressed.
Of course he already knows that Macduff is against him. I see that it will not do to try to make him fearful. No, I must make him reckless instead, so that pride will be his weakness.
A clap of thunder sounds.
I remember overhearing Fiona say that Macduff was born unnaturally, torn from the womb before his time. This bit of truth will be my bait.
Macbeth stares into the fire again. “What do I see now?” He frowns and stiffens. “A bloody babe? Not … not my daughter! Begone.” His hands claw at his eyes.
Rhuven gasps, and Helwain whispers at my ear, “What power you have! How do you do it?”
In fact, I have conjured nothing. All I have done is to think about Macduff as a tiny infant taken from his mother’s belly. What the king sees springs from his own tortured mind.
“Be bloody, bold, and resolute!” I shout. “Scorn the power of men, for none of woman born shall harm Macbeth.”
The king’s body relaxes. He flexes his arms so that the sinews stand out and nods to his men.
“All men are born of women. So live, Macduff. I have nothing to fear from you,” he says with a laugh.
Now I think of that child—whoever it may be in Macbeth’s mind—with a crown on its head, and a branch of a tree in its hand, like a staff. As in my dream, I imagine the impossible—trees pulling up their own roots and moving across the land, Nature herself revolting against the evil tyrant.
And I declare to the king, “You shall not be vanquished until the trees of the great wood come against the high hill.”
The king claps his hands against his thighs and roars like a storm wind.
“That will never be! How shall great Birnam Wood rise from its earthbound roots and climb to Dunsinane?”
His black eyes gleam through the smoke. “Tell me now,” he demands, “shall Banquo’s issue ever reign in this kingdom?”
I remember the procession of kings from my dream. The last one carries a mirror. Closing my eyes, I imagine him with Banquo’s face.
Then I say to Macbeth, “I see a line of kings—”
Macbeth interrupts me. “I see them, too.” Then he speaks to them, looking right through me. “You are too much like the spirit of Banquo. The second like the first, the third … like the former.” His voice rises. “Why do you show me this? Another! A seventh … and an eighth, who bears a glass in which I see … many more.” Spittle forms around his lips as he shouts, “What, will Banquo’s line stretch out to the crack of doom?”
It seems that I have dreamt the king’s greatest fear: that no son of his will rule Scotland.
“He grows disturbed; let us go now,” whispers Rhuven, pulling my arm.
Helwain throws an armful of dried moss onto the flames, sending up billows of smoke. While Macbeth slashes the air with his hands, we retreat to a hollow at the base of one of the standing stones.
“Where have you gone?” the king cries, stumbling from stone to stone like a child looking for his mother. Then he shouts, defiant, “Hear me, you foul, fateful sisters! No one born of woman shall harm me. Damned be those who trust you!” His curses grow fainter, but these final words come borne on the wind, as clear as if spoken at the porches of my ears.
“Yet I’ll make assurance double sure. Traitor, you shall not live.”
And the king disappears into the black night of his own creation.
Chapter 17
Stravenock Henge to Dunduff
Albia
Traitor, you shall not live.
Macbeth’s threat lingers long after the sound of his voice has died away.
“You have pricked the king into a mad rage,” Helwain says, her eyes glittering. “Now reason and law are usurped in him, and he is most dangerous.”
“I only spoke of what I saw in the dreams that made little sense to me. But the king recognized his own fears in them,” I say, trying myself to understand what happened.
“Because of what you told him, he thinks himself invincible,” says Rhuven. She is clearly displeased with me.
“Rather, I think he is more afraid—that in the end, Banquo’s heirs will hold the throne for which he schemed so foully,” I say.
“Aye, and only by killing his
enemies can he control his fear—and hold his throne,” Helwain adds.
The thought strikes me like a fist to my gut, depriving me of air: Who is a greater enemy to Macbeth than Banquo’s heir, Fleance?
“I must find Fleance!” I cry out. “I must warn Macduff! He and his allies are in danger.”
“What can you do? You could be harmed or even killed,” says Rhuven in alarm.
“Let her go,” says Helwain, to my surprise. “She has made up her mind. And she is well equipped to defend herself.”
I fasten the sword-belt around my waist and my shield to Gath’s saddle and ride back through the woods to pick up the road where I left Breda. According to Fiona, Macduff has gone to England. Still, I can warn his cousin thanes that Macbeth intends to murder their leader upon his return. But what if I encounter the king on his way to Macduff ’s fort and he should recognize me, either as the fateful sister at Stravenock Henge or as the girl claiming to be his daughter? I shudder to think of the consequences. And what if Macbeth or his henchmen should find Fleance searching for the rebel thanes, alone? His life, too, is in peril.
I must find Fleance. I must warn Macduff.
The urgent words, repeated to the rhythm of Gath’s galloping hooves, blur like the ground passing beneath us. I ride him so hard that flecks of white foam fly back from his mouth.
The road skirts a wide bog strewn with tufted cottongrass and crowberry, passes through some stunted pines, then emerges onto pasture land. Sheep dot the hillside and a shepherd’s bothy stands in a grove of myrtle.
The peaceful scene slows me down, then draws me from the path. I dismount to drink the cold, clear water trickling down a rocky cleft in the hillside. My sword gets in the way, so I take it off and tie it to Gath’s harness. When we are both refreshed, I lead Gath up the hill to where a shepherd sits in the lee of a rock, overlooking the low hills that lie like a rumpled mantle all the way to the horizon.
Cupping my hands, I call into the wind, “Hail, shepherd, do you know my friend Colum?”
