Third Witch

by Jackie French

  She must have moved towards the window for her words faded. I strained to hear, but then her voice rose.

  ‘Come, you spirits that tend on mortal thoughts, unsex me here, and fill me from the crown to the toe top-full of direst cruelty!’

  I should not hear this. No one should. And yet I could not move.

  The cry sank almost to a prayer. But what a prayer.

  ‘Make thick my blood; stop up the access and passage to remorse. Come to my woman’s breasts, and take my milk for gall, you murdering ministers, wherever in your sightless substances you wait on nature’s mischief!’

  I glanced along the corridor. It was empty. What did she mean? Inside the chamber her voice continued, still low, thick with determination and with power.

  ‘Come, thick night, and pall thee in the dunnest smoke of hell, that my keen knife see not the wound it makes, nor heaven peep through the blanket of the dark, to cry “Hold, hold!”’

  The corridor still held winter’s chill. That was what made me shiver, as if each breath had turned to ice. What was this talk of knives and wounds? What did my lady intend?

  Nothing, I told myself. They were only words. Words like those she’d said yesterday when she’d talked of building barricades with Cawdor’s dead. She’d wished to be a tiger then. Gentlefolk liked to speak in images of spark and fire. This was nothing more.

  I forced a smile and knocked at the door.

  ‘Enter!’

  For a second the face that stared at me was a hawk’s, its beak ready to pluck out the eyes of a lamb. I blinked, and once more she was my lady, her face serene.

  Chapter 6

  King Duncan sat at the head of the high table, with my lady and Lord Macbeth on either side. Then came his men, and then Macbeth’s men — Murdoch tall and triumphant among them — then, below the salt, my lady’s women, including me, Annie Grasseyes, sitting at table with the king!

  I looked at him curiously, trying not to stare; this man who had spent his army fruitlessly each year for a whole decade, trying to gain a foothold on England’s soil, but who never wielded a sword himself. He was small, with shoulders hunched under his ermine. The long slim fingers that held the leg of peacock looked delicate. No wonder he’d needed Lord Macbeth to lead and win the battle against the rebels.

  For the first time I wondered if Lord Cawdor had cause to rebel, seeing so many of his men marched from their farms and other services every year to be slaughtered for the king’s improbable ambition. Had King Duncan ever thought to walk through his villages and moorlands? Had he seen the empty cottages, the sad widows and hungry children, the sheep untended, because of the men he’d sent to their deaths? What kind of greed did this man have?

  And yet tonight he ate little: the leg of peacock dressed with onions at the first course; an apple pastry from the second, though he left the crust; candied coleworts and parsnips from the third. He exclaimed at the feast’s final centrepiece with all the rest, praising my lady as the sugar snow slipped off to reveal a great army, King Duncan nobly at its head, raising his sword. Which he had not. But he had ordered the battle, so the victory must be counted as his.

  Table after table filled the hall. Every male servant waited here tonight; the castle’s servant girls and women sweated at the hearthstones, spits and cauldrons in the kitchen. Outside in the courtyard, yells and laughter from the villages surrounded the sheep turning on spits, the barrels of ale, the barrowloads of bannocks made as fast as the cooks and maids could bake them. The whole village feasted tonight too — at least those families whose men had come home whole. There would be dark hearths and weeping in the village tonight too.

  But not here at the castle. Mam would be out there, and Agnes too, no doubt, munching the free meat with her excellent teeth and complaining that the ale was sour.

  I glanced up the table towards Lord Murdoch. What would he think if I drew him outside, among the villagers, to meet Mam? I’d learned gentle speech and manners from her ladyship. But Mam hadn’t. Murdoch must know I came from humble stock. Yet neither would he want it shouted to the world.

  He caught my glance and grinned. He stood and bowed to the high table, then strode to me, took my hand and kissed it, in front of the whole hall. My cheeks burned.

  ‘So pensive, lady?’ he asked.

  I smiled. ‘I’m storing up these memories, as a squirrel gathers nuts, to nibble at them in the winter of my old age.’

  He laughed. ‘You will be as beautiful as winter, your hair turned to snow instead of shining like a sunrise on a stream.’

  I flushed again. ‘I . . . I am glad you took no hurt yesterday, my lord.’

  ‘I have a charmed life,’ he said lightly. ‘One horse lost under me, which pains me for he was stout-hearted and rode true. But my other bears no hurt, beyond the blood of rebels on his hooves.’

  He drew out a piece of parchment from the pouch at his waist, and flourished it as he bowed again. ‘I wrote this for you, lady.’

  As I took it, I felt the others at my table stare, waiting for me to read it aloud. The writing was plain brown ink, not garnished with gold or images as I’d seen in my lady’s books. I hesitated, making out a word here, half a word there. It would take me half the night to work out what it all said. For a moment I almost panicked. But Mam had not panicked when the snow caved in half of our roof; nor Agnes when a wolf tried to enter her cottage the year of the starvation. She’d bashed its nose with a frying pan and it had gone off whimpering. Think, girl, I heard her whispering.

  I smiled up at Murdoch. ‘I would rather have your words to me spoken not written, engraved on my heart instead of on paper.’

  He smiled back, not displeased. This meant all the ladies at this table would hear him recite his poem too. What man did not enjoy the admiration of ladies?

  ‘My lady’s eyes are nothing like the stars,’ he began, his voice as clear as any bard’s.

  ‘Stars shine cold for all, and yet my lady’s eyes are flaming green

  Her passion running as a stream, that only I have seen . . .’

  My cheeks grew even warmer as he kept reciting, and not from the vast fire in the hearth or the crush of people. Such words for me!

  Nor had he guessed I could not read. I smiled and blushed as the poem continued, and vowed to practise. I would need to cipher too when I had the keeping of the Greymouth manor. I imagined my children, who would learn how to read, to manage a great household or wield a sword . . . Of course! Mam could be their nurse. A nurse had status. A nurse could eat with me, as Mistress Ruth ate with my lady, though not of course at the high table. Mam would have her own room, and be kept warm and safe as she grew feeble . . .

  ‘And now I know is not a dream!

  My lady of the emerald eyes does love, and she is mine!’ finished Lord Murdoch. Those around us laughed and clapped.

  ‘Mistress Annie?’ A servant approached — he must have waited till Murdoch finished the poem. ‘A . . . a person wishes to have words with you. She is in the porter’s room.’

  Mam?

  I stood and curtseyed to Lord Murdoch. ‘My apologies, sir.’

  He grabbed my hand and kissed it, then whispered, ‘I will excuse you all, if I may kiss thee once again, before this day is done.’

  I flushed, not knowing how to answer, but he just smiled. It seemed he didn’t mind my innocence. I curtseyed a deeper apology towards my lady, who nodded permission for me to leave, and an even lower curtsey to the king, although I doubted he noticed it, then hurried through the crowded hall.

  Outside, the air in the courtyard was almost as warm as in the Great Hall. A great wood fire leaped to the sky, the biggest I had ever seen, splatters from roasting mutton sending sparks dancing. I was glad of its heat for I had not brought my cloak. Over by the ale butts a crowd of men sang about a dragon and a knight — one of those songs where the dragon is female and the knight’s sword thrust has double meanings enough to set a drunk to laughing.

  I skirted them, then s
topped as a warm hand touched my shoulder.

  ‘Come to mingle with the commoners, Mistress Annie?’

  Rab McPherson.

  ‘You look beautiful,’ he added. ‘And not just in your fine dress.’

  I flushed, deeper than in the hall. ‘Thank you, Rab. You look most fine too.’

  He did, standing head and shoulders above the crowd, his cloak and kilt of thick wool evenly weaved, so different from the silks and satins I’d just left.

  ‘If you’ve come to see your mam, I took her home a little while ago with our Maggie. Nay, don’t worry. You know your mother — she does not like noise.’

  Nor the tales of battle that would be told by the soldiers who’d returned tonight, I thought. I flushed again, this time with guilt. I should have come out and spoken to her; shown her my pink silk dress, made sure she had a helping of the mutton.

  I met Rab’s eyes and suddenly knew he had escorted Mam and Agnes here too. It wasn’t safe for two women, even older women, to be out alone with men fresh from battle and with ready access to ale.

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘You are the kindest of friends, Rab McPherson. I’m sorry, but I have duties . . .’

  He stood back. ‘We can’t interrupt the duties of the castle, can we? May your dreams tonight be sweet, Mistress Annie.’

  ‘And yours,’ I said quickly, and slipped away through the crowd, wondering who could have sent the servant.

  I peered into the porter’s cubbyhole. Agnes sat on the porter’s stool, a tankard of ale in one hand, a bannock piled with meat in the other.

  She glared up at me. ‘Ain’t you the fine one! Where’s me bags of oats?’

  How had she got the servant to do her bidding? She must have given him a charm sometime, or promised him one, I thought resignedly. Or just glared at him till he obeyed. ‘I thought you’d gone home with Mam.’

  ‘Not while there’s meat on them mutton bones. And when the meat’s gone they’ll make a good broth too, with a few herbs and a little oatmeal to thicken it. Mebee I could have a bag of bones when her ladyship remembers to send the oats?’

  I sighed. ‘It was me who forgot. I’ll ask the steward tomorrow.’

  That was how life worked at the castle. Her ladyship ordered her women, her women ordered the steward, the steward ordered the groom, who ordered one of the lads to deliver the oats. But Agnes could never understand that.

  ‘Aren’t you scared to go back by yourself in the dark with all the soldiers about?’ I asked her.

  She snorted. ‘Darkness is the safest time for an old woman. What man can see a black cloak in a black night? You remember that, girl. Stand still in the darkness with your eyes down and no one will even guess you’re there, as long as you don’t panic and try to run.’ She gave my dress a withering glance. ‘And supposing you wear proper colours, not a hussy’s red.’

  ‘It’s pink,’ I said indignantly.

  ‘And what is pink but red that’s not had long enough in the dye pot?’ She fixed me with black eyes like a hawk’s. ‘I heard you’ve been casting cow’s eyes at that foreigner, Murdoch.’

  ‘He’s not foreign. His father’s estate is on the coast.’

  ‘Well, ain’t that foreign? Don’t you be taken in by pretty satins. It’s not satin that makes a man, but the tilt of his kilt. Your mam needs grandbabies. She ain’t getting any younger.’

  And Agnes had been older than the boulders on the hillside even when I was small. ‘Lord Murdoch is a fine gentleman and great warrior.’

  ‘You’ve seen what being married to a warrior got your mam.’ Agnes crammed the last of the meat into her mouth. ‘Don’t let them scaggins take them mutton bones. And don’t you forget about the oats neither.’

  She creaked off and the black night swallowed her. She was right. Within three heartbeats I could not see her at all.

  I slept in the small robing room off my lady’s chamber that night, and Mistress Margaret and Mistress Ruth in their usual room along the corridor. Tonight, of course, Macbeth would share his wife’s chamber.

  As always, the women retired from the feast early, leaving the men to their drinking and boasting. We bathed my lady in warm water scented with oil of roses, and draped her in the embroidered shift that had been left warming by the hearth, ready for her husband to join her. I placed two big logs onto the fire to see it through till morning. It still seemed strange to waste good wood this way. I had only ever seen peat fires before I’d come to the castle, except at Rab’s forge.

  My mattress was soft, filled with down, not feathers. I floated deep in sleep, until voices echoed in my dreams.

  ‘If it were done when ’tis done, then ’twere well it were done quickly.’ A man’s voice.

  And then a woman’s. ‘Was the hope drunk wherein you dressed yourself? Hath it slept since? Wouldst thou live a coward in thine own esteem, letting “I dare not” wait upon “I would”?’

  The man seemed angry. Why wouldn’t he be quiet? I thought vaguely in my dream. I wanted to sleep . . . ‘Prithee, peace: I dare do all that may become a man. Who dares do more is none.’

  The lady’s reply could have withered barley with its scorn. ‘What beast was it, then, that made you break this enterprise to me?’ she cried. ‘When you durst do it, then you were a man! I would, while our son was smiling in my face, have plucked my nipple from his boneless gums and dashed his brains out, had I so sworn as you have done to this!’

  Silence.

  For some reason it was the quiet that woke me, not the noise. I opened my eyes and blinked in the darkness, then turned over to sleep again.

  ‘If we should fail?’ the man said more quietly.

  I knew his voice — Lord Macbeth. This was no dream. I sat up in bed and listened.

  ‘Screw your courage to the sticking-place, and we’ll not fail,’ declared my lady.

  What was she urging her husband to do now? Become the permanent leader of King Duncan’s army perhaps? Or even chancellor, which would give him a place at court, and her as well. The Thane of Cawdor could certainly ask for that, and might if pushed hard enough. I might even get to stay in the king’s castle, if Lord Macbeth was chancellor.

  I’d dance in a golden gown . . .

  Their voices grew too soft to hear. I snuggled back down and fell into the world of sleep.

  Chapter 7

  A scream woke me. Something loomed in the window, its wings spread wide. I relaxed back onto my pillow. Just an owl, calling to its mate. I was as jumpy as a mouse tonight.

  ‘Good hunting,’ I whispered to the bird. ‘Find fat rats about the granary and mice among the hens.’

  I heard a voice next door.

  I should not listen to whispered words between wife and husband, but what if Macbeth had gone back to his own chamber and my lady wanted me? It sounded like one voice, not two. Perhaps my lady had called, and that was what had woken me, not the owl.

  I slid my legs off the mattress and tiptoed to the door. It was my lady’s voice, but soft, the way she muttered to herself alone.

  ‘Peace!’ she whispered. Suddenly there was desperation in her tone. ‘It was the owl that shrieked, the fatal bellman, which gives the sternest good night. He is about it. The doors are open, and the surfeited grooms do mock their charge with snores. I have drugged their possets.’

  My bare feet froze to the stones. What did she mean?

  ‘Alack, I am afraid they have awaked, and ’tis not done.’ Her voice was almost anguished now. ‘I laid their daggers ready; he could not miss them. Had he not resembled my father as he slept, I had done it.’ I heard her door creak open, and then her voice again. ‘My husband!’ she cried softly, in relief.

  ‘I have done the deed.’ Macbeth’s voice was heavy.

  What deed? I pressed closer to the door as he continued.

  ‘Did you not hear a noise?’

  I had never heard Lord Macbeth sound like this before, as if something in him had died tonight, too heavy for him to bear.

&nb
sp; ‘I heard the owl scream and the crickets cry.’ My lady’s voice was reassuring now. ‘What’s done is done! You must not think of this again. It will make us mad.’

  ‘Methought I heard a voice cry, “Sleep no more!”’ he muttered.

  I kept my ear against the door. I could not help it. What were they talking about?

  ‘“Macbeth does murder sleep,”’ my lord whispered, so soft that I wouldn’t have heard it from my bed. ‘The innocent sleep, sleep that knits up the ravelled sleeve of care.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ My lady’s voice was sharp.

  ‘Still it cried, “Sleep no more!” to all the house.’ My lord still spoke in his dreadful whisper. ‘“Glamis hath murdered sleep, and therefore Cawdor shall sleep no more; Macbeth shall sleep no more.”’

  ‘Who was it that thus cried?’ demanded my lady. ‘Why, worthy thane, you do unbend your noble strength to think so brain-sickly of things.’ I could hear she was trying to sound calm. ‘Go get some water and wash this filthy witness from your hand. Why did you bring these daggers from the place?’

  He would have to come into the robing room to get water, or call for me. I crept back onto my bed and pulled up the quilt and tried to seem asleep.

  But no one called, or came through the door.

  I lay still, my eyes closed, trying to breathe steadily. What had they been talking about? Had Macbeth brought bloodied daggers from the battle into my lady’s bedchamber? No wonder she was angry. But what did she mean about drugging the grooms’ possets?

  I heard my lady’s door open and then shut again. Lord Macbeth must be going to wash in his own rooms. Slowly I relaxed again.

  Only words, I thought as sleep crept over me. My lady probably meant that even the servants had feasted well enough tonight to make them sleep, or maybe that she’d given one of the grooms a posset so he could sleep.

  The muttering next door had quietened. A mouse squeaked behind the tapestries. I heard the owl again, calling to its mate as it hunted. At last I slept too.