The bell woke me. Not the bell for morning prayer, but the harsh clang, clang, clang of the alarm bell. I leaped up and shrugged my dress over my shift. Had the Danes attacked?
I ran into my lady’s room, careless of my hair, my bare feet hidden underneath my skirts, forgetting that her husband might be with her. But she was awake, and alone, slipping from her bed as I entered. I curtseyed hurriedly and grabbed a fur cloak to cover her shift, the only thing to hand. Her dresses were down the corridor, by the garderobe.
‘My lady, what is it? Is the castle being attacked?’
‘We shall soon see. Any attackers shall feel our iron. Iron hearts and iron swords.’
She wrapped the cloak around her while I slid her silk slippers onto her feet. I opened the door for her as Mistress Margaret and Mistress Ruth ran down the corridor towards us.
‘What is it?’ cried Mistress Ruth, forgetting even to curtsey.
‘We shall see,’ repeated my lady curtly. We followed her as she swept along the corridor, then paused as a man I hadn’t seen before hurried towards us, his doublet embroidered with the king’s arms. One of King Duncan’s men then, and high in his regard.
My lady recognised him. ‘Lord Macduff! Why does such a hideous trumpet call the sleepers of the house? Speak!’
‘Oh, gentle lady, ’tis not for you to hear what I can speak.’ Lord Macduff sounded like a man who preferred his women quiet and, even better, far away.
My lady tapped her foot.
Lord Macduff shook his head. ‘The repetition in a woman’s ear would murder as it fell,’ he said patronisingly, looking along the corridor for someone worth talking to, presumably wearing kilt or trousers, not a dress.
Ha. He did not know my lady. Nor me, nor Mistress Margaret or Mistress Ruth or Mam or Agnes. Who did he think laid out the dead? Or tended the dying? Or brought children into the world with love and pain? Not men.
My lady fixed him with a glare that would skewer meat to a spit. ‘Lord Macduff,’ she began, as imperious as if she had been Emperor of Rome for two score years.
Footsteps clattered up the stairs. Lord Banquo.
Lord Macduff turned to him in relief. ‘Oh, Banquo! Our royal master’s murdered!’
My first thought was that the idiot had blurted it out in front of the ladies anyway.
My second was: The king is dead! That stooped, finicky little man I’d seen at the high table last night. Dead.
My third thought . . . I could not think it. Would not.
My lady clasped her hands. ‘Woe, alas! What, in our house?’
She seemed sincere. Must be sincere.
‘Too cruel in any house,’ said Lord Macduff.
More footsteps thudded the stairs. Lord Macbeth appeared, his bloody sword in hand, followed by Lord Lennox. I stared at the blade, at the bloodstained hand that held it. Surely Lord Macbeth hadn’t just killed the king?
Prince Donalbain ran along the corridor from the floor above, followed by Prince Malcolm.
‘What is amiss?’ Prince Donalbain called.
He had the look of his father, weak-chinned and slight. His younger brother, Malcolm, looked stronger, with the muscular hands of a swordsman.
Lord Macbeth kneeled before the princes. ‘You are amiss, yet do not know it: The spring, the head, the fountain of your blood is stopped; the very source of it is stopped.’
‘Your royal father is murdered,’ said Macduff bluntly, then bowed deep to Prince Donalbain, as if to a king.
Prince Donalbain’s mouth fell open.
Prince Donalbain will be our king now, I thought vaguely. I have met two kings . . .
Prince Malcolm stared at Macduff, and then at Macbeth and his bloody sword. ‘By whom?’ he demanded quietly.
‘His grooms, we think,’ said Sir Lennox. ‘Their hands and faces were badged with blood; so were their daggers, which unwiped we found upon their pillows.’
The grooms killed the king, I thought with relief. How could I have suspected anything different?
‘Oh, I do repent me of my fury that I did kill them,’ Lord Macbeth said softly. He laid his bloody sword at the princes’ feet, then kneeled before the princes.
Prince Donalbain stepped back in revulsion. Prince Malcolm stared at the sword again, and then at Macbeth, still kneeling on the flagstones.
‘Why did you kill the grooms?’ asked Macduff, even more bluntly than before.
I glanced at my lady. Her face was white, but I did not think with shock. No, she was angry at her husband being questioned in such a way, before so many, here in their hall.
‘Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, loyal and neutral, in a moment?’ replied Macbeth. ‘Here lay Duncan, his silver skin laced with his golden blood; and his gashed stabs looked like a breach in nature for ruin’s wasteful entrance . . .’
My lord continued with his speech — a good one. But it did not ring quite true.
I watched the faces around us. Prince Donalbain looked like he’d been knocked out by a chicken. Banquo seemed grieved and horrified. Mistress Margaret wept, as one should when a king has died. Mistress Ruth gazed at my lady’s shift under her cloak, as if concerned that she wasn’t dressed warmly enough for tragedy in the corridor.
Prince Malcolm and Macduff exchanged a glance, their faces carefully expressionless. What were they thinking? Of blood and daggers in the night?
The bloody words I’d heard spoken had been a dream. They must have been a dream.
My lady stood very still, her eyes wide with horror. Yes, that had to be what she was feeling . . .
‘There, the murderers,’ Macbeth continued, ‘steeped in the colours of their trade, their daggers unmannerly breeched with gore. Who could refrain that had a heart to love?’
A flowery speech was all very well, but this was not the time.
My lady thought so too. She caught my eye, then carefully swayed. My arms went up automatically to catch her. She was lighter than a half-bag of oats.
‘Help me hence,’ she whispered.
‘Look to the lady,’ said Macduff. No word of apology now for mentioning blood in front of ladies. His face was still as blank as a closed drawbridge.
Whatever I imagined, Macduff suspected too.
And our king was dead.
Chapter 8
My lady ate with Lord Macbeth, privately in her chamber. There would be no feasting today. My lady had ordered food taken up to the princes’ chambers too. They would not want to dine in public while grieving for their father.
Mistress Ruth, Mistress Margaret and I sat on cushions in the outer room, eating leftover minced chicken and pies and peacock. The whole castle would be eating leftovers for a week. The peacock had looked so fine when it was carried into the feast, its feathers stuck back into the roasted meat, but today it was tough and greasy. For a moment I longed for Agnes’s cottage. She and Mam would be eating mutton broth, bright with herbs and hot from the pan, not carried across the castle courtyard from the kitchens.
A thousand suspicions were muttered around the castle today.
And in this room.
‘How could servants do such a wicked thing?’ asked Mistress Ruth. She wiped her fingers on her napkin before taking a piece of bread and loading it with chicken. White risen bread, for my lady would have no bannock. ‘To murder such a gentle lord as was our king.’
‘Perhaps the king meant to dismiss them,’ said Mistress Margaret, taking a piece of goose and raisin pie.
‘But why go back to bed, and leave their bloody daggers on their pillows?’ demanded Mistress Ruth.
I glanced up from my bread and peacock. She had put her finger on the itch. Mistress Ruth was no fool, for all she fussed. The grooms must have known they’d be discovered with the bloody daggers. But if their possets had been drugged, they might have killed the king, then sleep had overtaken them before they could hide their daggers. My lady had talked of drugged possets last night . . .
‘Witchcraft,’ said Mistress Mar
garet. ‘It’s the only answer.’ She lowered her voice. ‘It’s said our lord and Banquo met three witches on the heath as they rode back from battle.’
I forced myself to chew the peacock. Rumours flew around the castle faster than bats. Banquo must have told a groom, or his servants.
‘I don’t believe in witchcraft,’ I said firmly.
‘Nor I,’ said Mistress Ruth.
Did she carefully not look at me? She must know I had lived with Agnes before coming to the castle. Perhaps it had been she who’d told my lady that I could ask Agnes for the charm? I shook my head. I needed peace to piece together all my thoughts. But there was no peace here.
Her ladyship rang her bell.
Mistress Margaret answered, then came out with their tray to take to the kitchen. She was back in less time than it took a cock to crow. She paused by the door dramatically. ‘You’ll never guess what’s happened now!’
‘What?’ I asked wearily.
How many nights had I lost sleep? The wind down the chimney whispered: Macbeth has murdered sleep . . .
‘Another murder?’ cried Mistress Ruth. I could see she thought this more exciting than stitching tapestry or pinning on sleeves.
‘No. Worse!’
‘What could be worse?’ demanded Mistress Ruth.
‘My lord has just had word. The king’s sons have fled!’
‘Fled? You mean they’ve left the castle?’ I asked.
‘No. Vanished!’ Mistress Margaret lowered her voice. ‘And we all know why.’
‘No, we don’t.’ My head felt like it was stuffed with feathers.
‘Because they must be guilty!’ she said. ‘Who else gains from our good king’s death but his sons? Prince Donalbain!’
Yes, I thought. That is what I should be thinking. Neither my lady nor Macbeth had anything to gain by the king’s death. I could have flown around the castle like the swallows in relief. Of course my lady was innocent . . .
The grooms must have thought the king’s sons would protect them. That was why they hadn’t hidden their daggers. But Donalbain and Malcolm had always planned to make the grooms take the blame. They must have drugged the groom’s possets . . . No, my lady had talked of drugging the grooms last night, before the king had been killed.
Perhaps Lord Macbeth had gone to see the king about being made chancellor and had found him dead. The bloody grooms were impossible to wake, and so he’d come back to ask my lady what to do. She would have guessed they must be drugged. But why not wait till morning to seek an audience with the king?
How could the princes have known the grooms wouldn’t confess, especially when put to the rack? And it had been Macbeth who’d shut their mouths forever, not the princes. Maybe he’d done it before they could. Or perhaps the grooms had been poisoned and dead already when he struck off their heads.
I looked at the red sauce for the chicken and shuddered.
‘’Tis said the princes rode to England,’ continued Mistress Margaret eagerly.
‘How do you know, if they just vanished?’ demanded Mistress Ruth.
‘Where else would traitors go?’
Mistress Margaret sat on the cushions again and dipped a piece of bread into the chicken juice. She had not teeth for more. She should have eaten snails, I thought vaguely, like Agnes. And how could she eat at a time like this?
‘Good riddance,’ said Mistress Ruth. ‘Scotland needs no murdering princes.’
Was I mistaken, or did she look relieved too?
I had to stop thinking of ‘how’ and ‘why’. That was the business of lords and ladies, not mine. The important thing was that no matter what I’d heard last night — or had dreamed I’d heard — the princes had proved their guilt. They had killed their father, then left the bloodied daggers on the beds of the drugged grooms. Yes, that worked. Maybe the princes had even asked my lady for a calming posset, then used it on the grooms. And Lord Macbeth had heard a disturbance and come back to ask my lady’s advice . . .
‘A foolish plot by foolish boys, sons of a foolish father,’ said Mistress Ruth firmly.
She might have been speaking of children in the nursery, yet this was royalty. I glanced at the door, hoping no one had heard.
The poor grooms. Killed not valiantly in battle, but because a beardless lad wanted to be king. A boy who didn’t have the courage to stay and bluff his way through all the questions. Had the grooms left wives, or children? I could not truly grieve for Duncan, but for the grooms — servants, just like me — for their wives, like Mam, their children . . .
Mistress Margaret took a bite of bread and gazed at us, her eyes alight. ‘You know what this means, don’t you?’ she asked softly.
A land left leaderless when the Danes attacked again?
I shook my head.
‘Why, with the king dead, and the princes guilty of the crime, the Thane of Cawdor must be king.’
Just as I had prophesied. I gaped at her.
Agnes’s cottage smelled of peat fire and simmering mutton bones. Warm and comforting, if you ignored the stink of Old Man’s Bottom.
‘You need some soup,’ said Mam, worried.
I shook my head. ‘It’s not hunger that ails me.’
In truth, I hadn’t eaten all day, but from lack of appetite. Nor could I take their food. Not now.
‘It’s good mutton broth,’ said Mam encouragingly.
‘Nice and thick, now we finally got oats,’ said Agnes.
I had to tell her. Screw my courage to the sticking-place. Where had I heard that?
I heaved my courage up to wherever a sticking-place was. ‘Mam, Agnes, I’m sorry. We’re leaving tomorrow.’
‘We?’ asked Mam, while Agnes snapped, ‘Where?’
‘My lord . . . I mean King Macbeth goes to Scone tomorrow to be crowned.’
It sounded strange to put those words together. Stranger still that I had told him up on the heath he’d be king, and now he was. But they had just been words. Stupid words, said by a stupid girl. They had nothing to do with the princes’ decision to kill their father.
Mam stared. ‘King? Our laird?’
‘King!’ said Agnes. Her scorn could have melted mutton fat. ‘A king’s good for two things: getting other people killed or getting killed himself.’
‘He rules the country too,’ I said.
‘He does not! I rules meself. And Rab rules the forge, and old MacWhirtle rules the mill, and Sam Shuteye the sheep on the eastern hill, and Tall Harry those on the west, and —’
‘Kings do a different kind of ruling,’ I said, before she could name every person in the village. ‘My lady must go with him, and her ladies must go with her.’
Mam blinked at me. ‘You’re going to Scone?’ She sounded as desolate as if I’d said I’d be crossing the seas to Ireland.
‘To Scone, then Inverness. That’s where the king’s palace is. I . . . I have to go, Mam.’
‘No have to about it,’ snorted Agnes. ‘You come back to the village where you belong.’
‘I can’t.’
I had sworn myself to my lady’s service, and that oath held. Besides, the woman who would be queen had decided I was to be betrothed to Lord Murdoch, though I hadn’t told Mam that. Murdoch was sworn to Macbeth. Where he went, so must I.
But did I want to? A sennight past, I’d daydreamed of dancing in a royal castle. Today . . . Today I longed for simple things. A cottage. The cat curling around my knees as if she knew there was a cheese in the bag I’d brought.
No, I was a fool. Rags and starvation were simple things. Did I want those too?
And there was another reason I was bound to my lady.
‘Agnes, up on the heath,’ I began.
‘Naught happened,’ said Agnes.
‘Naught happened,’ I agreed. ‘But when naught happened, I said Macbeth would be king. And now he is.’
‘I told you to keep your head down and do what you were told,’ she muttered. ‘You know too much now. And that fine lady of yours
knows you know it.’
‘But you said charms are trickery. Only words.’
I couldn’t tell her of the other words I’d heard, or dreamed, during that long night. I must stop thinking about them. The princes had killed the king and laid their daggers by the grooms.
‘Charms are words, but I don’t know about this “only”,’ Agnes said. ‘I told you, told you over and over. But would you listen? Words have power.’
‘And yet they are not magic.’
‘No. I warrant it was no magic that stabbed King Duncan, nor spirited off his sons, nor cleaved off the grooms’ heads so no one might question them.’
‘Macbeth killed the grooms,’ I whispered. ‘He said he was so horrified at what they’d done, he could not help himself.’
‘Come home,’ Mam said.
I shook my head.
If the princes were not guilty, then I had caused all this to happen. A foolish girl and foolish words had prompted a man to . . . I shut my eyes. I could not even say the words within my head.
Yes, words had power. My words on the heath bound me in guilt to the Macbeths.
Chapter 9
Mam and I talked a while. Words of no matter that mattered more than anything in heart or mind. Memories of Da and things he’d done. The words a mother and daughter say when they know that either might die of spotted fever in a day and the other not be at their bedside. Agnes sat next to the fire, pretending not to listen, checking Paddock for fleas and squishing them between her fingernails.
The shadows grew outside. I must go back to the castle. My lady had given me permission to be away only for the afternoon. But it was as if a thread bound me to Mam, and all I loved. If I went too far away, it might break.
No. I loved my lady too, I told myself. And Lord Murdoch. How could I not love a man so handsome, who treated me like a highborn lady and called my eyes emeralds? And we would be back at Glamis for Christmas. I forced myself to stand up, though I still couldn’t let go of Mam’s hand.
‘My lady has added your name to the list of castle pensioners.’ I managed to say. ‘A lad will bring you a basket from the castle every Sunday, soups and oats and bannocks.’
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