Third Witch

by Jackie French

  ‘Your ma will get better soup at my hearth, and no stale castle bannocks neither,’ grumbled Agnes. ‘A decent hunk of venison each week would be more like.’

  I finally let go of Mam’s hand and turned to her. ‘The baskets are for the servants too old to work.’

  ‘Which we are not. Tell them we want a good hunk of venison or a mutton flap, not turnip gruel.’

  I shut my eyes for a moment. ‘You said I shouldn’t draw attention to myself.’

  ‘And dancing off to court with a nearly-queen in a dress so thin it shows your backbone isn’t calling attention to yourself? Never mind then. Soup and bannocks it’ll have to be.’

  ‘And pies too sometimes. And a goose at Christmas.’

  ‘My word,’ said Agnes. ‘That will make a difference. What mother wouldn’t trade her daughter for a few pies and a goose?’

  ‘Agnes, hush,’ said Mam. ‘I’m glad for Annie. Proud. And you’ll be back visiting, won’t you now?’ She carefully kept the plea from her voice.

  ‘Of course. My lady . . . the queen and the king . . . will spend Christmas at Glamis if the snow is not too deep to travel, and sometimes we’ll be here in the summer when the palace privies have to be cleaned.’

  ‘As long as they don’t set you to cleaning privies,’ Agnes said.

  ‘Of course not,’ said Mam. ‘You’ll be doing just what you did here, won’t you, my lamb? Dressing her ladyship — Her Majesty, I mean — and . . . and things like that.’

  I had no idea how being a lady-in-waiting to a queen might differ from service to my Lady Macbeth. I wasn’t even sure what a queen actually did. But I nodded.

  ‘Yes, things like that. I . . . I’m to be carried in a curtained litter to Scone too, with my lady . . . Her Majesty —’

  ‘On one of them bed things?’ Agnes said scornfully. ‘Your legs will drop off, girl, if you don’t use them.’

  No chance of that with all the stairs in castles. I wondered if Agnes had ever climbed a staircase. And what would she say if I told her that from today Annie Grasseyes was Lady Anne?

  I stood. Paddock jumped off Agnes’s lap and twisted around my ankles. ‘I must get back to the castle and see that her ladyship’s — I mean Her Majesty’s — dresses are packed properly.’

  ‘So young to be a queen,’ said Mam wonderingly.

  Agnes gazed at the fire. ‘The young queens are the worst.’

  ‘You’ve never known a young queen,’ I said wearily. ‘You haven’t even met a queen.’

  ‘Nor do I want to. But I know young girls. Girls like you spouting words about kings when you weren’t supposed to. I saw what happened when old Graeme the shepherd took a young wife. “I must have a lambskin cloak,” she whimpered. “I must have cobbler’s shoes.” Afore the end of the season he’d sold near half his flock. And when Jan the miller wed that girl young as his oldest granddaughter, she told him, “Put the lower field into rye,” and then it got the rust and poisoned every bag ground at the mill and the whole village went barking mad all autumn.’

  ‘I never heard that,’ said Mam.

  ‘A long time ago. And them as could talk about it all died because of it.’

  Then how do you know about it? I thought.

  ‘Young girls want to change the world. And if they’re pretty enough and wilful enough, sometimes they can.’

  ‘What’s wrong with that?’ I challenged her. ‘The world needs changing. Duncan was a terrible king with all his wars, demanding so much of the harvest every year to feed his army and build his ships.’

  ‘That’s true,’ said Mam.

  Agnes raised a shaggy eyebrow. ‘So King Duncan deserved to be murdered?’

  ‘Of course not.’

  She stared at me. ‘Why not? What’s the death of one king and a pair of grooms compared to thousands in his armies?’

  ‘I . . . I don’t know.’

  My heart still bled at the thought of the poor grooms, sacrificed for ambition, their families not just grieving but having to bear the whispers of those who wondered if the grooms had been guilty.

  ‘I’ll tell you then.’ Of course she would. ‘The land has to have rules. And one of them is you don’t chop off a guest’s head. No one could travel safe if people went around chopping off their guests’ heads. And you don’t break promises neither.’

  Sometimes she made sense. I’d been tossing this over in my mind and here was Agnes, a crone from the village, handing the answer to me on a platter. Everyone at the castle that night had sworn loyalty to the king. They had broken their oath like a plate smashed on the hearth.

  I met her gaze. ‘So if . . . if you were going to kill someone, you’d challenge them openly?’

  ‘Annie!’ said Mam. ‘What a thing to ask.’

  Agnes laughed. ‘Course not. I’d smile and smile then poison their pottage the next morning. And no one would ever know they’d been poisoned neither.’

  ‘But you said —’

  ‘You said if. If I had to kill. And I don’t, and never have, so don’t you go looking at me like that. If I did, it’d be because some scunner was trying to kill me or one I loves, and that was the only way to keep them safe. I don’t hold with killing the way some folks do. Them as creeps around my cottage door at night whispering, “Oh, my poor father-in-law, in so much pain. Death would be a kindness really.” If a man’s screaming in pain, I’ll give him something to take the pain away, to make him sleep. But only sleep.’ She gazed at me steadily. ‘There’s some as may question that. But there’s one thing everyone in this village will agree with. You don’t kill someone just because you want to take their place.’

  ‘I . . . I told Macbeth he would be king,’ I whispered.

  Agnes peered at me for so long that I bent to pat Paddock just to escape her gaze.

  ‘If he believed you,’ she said eventually, ‘he could have waited till he was. But you said the princes killed the king. That’s what the whole village is saying.’

  ‘Surely you don’t think . . .’ began Mam. She shook her head. ‘Lord Macbeth has been a good thane to this village. And his lady has been gracious to us. Taking you in up at the castle, and providing baskets for the poor.’

  ‘If he hadn’t led the men to war, there’d be no poor,’ said Agnes.

  ‘Those were King Duncan’s wars,’ I said.

  ‘What really matters,’ said Mam quietly, ‘is that the new king is kind. Lord Macbeth is a kind man, isn’t he? And her ladyship?’

  Was Macbeth kind? He wasn’t unkind. And Murdoch had sworn loyalty to him. Surely Murdoch wouldn’t have given his oath if Macbeth hadn’t deserved it? And her ladyship had been good to me. But kind?

  ‘Truly, I must go now.’

  I wouldn’t cry. Crying would make Mam think I wasn’t happy and she’d worry. Or worry more than usual. And I was happy. A place at court, and Murdoch would be made an earl; and I was going to ride in a litter like . . . like a countess.

  Agnes sighed. ‘Well, if you must go.’ She fumbled in a tall basket woven from marsh grass, then handed me a grubby flask. ‘Goose fat and buttonwort. I hear Inverness is a terror of a place for congestion of the lungs. Rub this on your chest every morning and it’ll keep you safe.’

  Safe from anyone coming closer than half a league more like. But I nodded and placed the flask in the bag at my waist. I hugged her awkwardly. I’d never hugged her before. After a moment she hugged me back. She smelled of sour peat and bitter herbs and something else that was hers entirely.

  I hugged Mam then, and the hug went on and on, our tears mingling despite my fine intentions.

  She broke away before I did. ‘You’d better go. You don’t want to be late for a nearly-queen.’

  I stumbled out, my tears a veil I could barely see through.

  I’d gone a dozen paces when someone called, ‘Annie!’ Rab. He must have been waiting for me.

  I nodded politely and kept walking. I didn’t want him to see my tears.

  Suddenly he was besi
de me. ‘You need a handkerchief.’ Then, ‘What’s that stench?’

  I fumbled in my bag and pulled out the flask. It had leaked.

  ‘Agnes’s goose-fat salve.’

  He grinned. ‘There are brave men in this village, but none brave enough to contract congestion of the lungs and face Agnes’s goose-fat salve. Here, wipe your eyes on my kilt.’ He held it up. ‘And blow your nose too.’

  ‘Not on your kilt!’

  ‘Why not?’ he replied mildly. ‘There’s nothing in your nose that’s worse than what comes off a horse’s hoof or from its backside.’

  ‘Thank you,’ I said. ‘I don’t want to blow my nose in horse droppings.’

  He laughed. ‘Here, the bit within the fold is clean enough. Blow.’

  I did. And felt better.

  ‘Now, what’s the trouble?’ he asked as we began to walk again.

  ‘No trouble.’ I hesitated. The whole of Scotland would know it soon. ‘We leave tomorrow for Scone for Lord Macbeth to be crowned king. Me too.’

  ‘I see,’ he said slowly.

  ‘Lord Macbeth will be a good king,’ I said. ‘He’s a warrior, strong where Duncan was weak. And he’s seen what battle brings. He won’t attack England each summer, like a child trying to take more than his fair share of bannock.’

  Rab gave me a sharp glance. ‘You’ve learned much up at the castle.’

  We walked a while in silence. I wondered what he did see. He was no fool, Big Rab McPherson.

  ‘Do you want to go?’ he asked at last.

  ‘Of course! To see the palace, and Inverness, and visitors from foreign lands.’

  I was trying to convince myself, not him. He knew it.

  ‘How long are you bound to her ladyship?’ he asked quietly.

  ‘I . . . I don’t know. It’s not like an apprenticeship with a contract that you sign.’

  I’d always thought I’d leave service when I married. But queens had married ladies to attend them, those whose husbands attended the king. Would she let me leave if I asked her to release me? She liked me. She trusted me. Had trusted me beyond anyone in the kingdom. That alone might make her hold me close. Only I knew that she’d asked for a charm to make her husband Thane of Cawdor. She and I seemed bound by the same fate now, one maybe of my making . . .

  ‘You’re troubled,’ said Rab.

  I nodded. That seemed to sum it up.

  ‘Then stay.’

  ‘I can’t.’

  I thought he’d argue. But he nodded. ‘Each of us must do our duty.’

  ‘And yet you didn’t go to battle for Glamis.’

  ‘It’s not to Glamis that I owe my duty. Don’t worry, Annie, I’ll keep my eye on your mam. I’ve got enough peat dried for her and Agnes for this winter, and my apprentices will repair their thatch as soon as the harvest is in. I’ll write to you each week.’

  The minister at the kirk taught boys to read for a penny each on Sunday afternoons and I knew Rab had learned. But paper to write on once a week was a terrible extravagance.

  ‘You’re a good friend, Rab. I’d value a letter.’

  I’d need to ask Mistress — no, Lady Ruth — for more lessons so I could read them.

  ‘Then it’s done.’ He smiled at me. ‘And here’s your castle. I’d better be getting back to the forge afore the apprentices try to shoe the hens. One tried to shoe a sheep last week.’

  ‘Did he manage it?’

  ‘It bit him. He’s been hiding the wound ever since.’

  ‘No wonder. Bitten by a sheep!’

  I was almost at the drawbridge before I realised Rab McPherson had left me smiling on a day when I thought I’d never smile again.

  We left the next morning as dawn was cracking yellow like an egg. I wasn’t sure how you got into a litter. I watched how her ladyship did it, sitting on it like it was a bed then lifting up her legs, and did the same. The curtains dropped. Suddenly we were in a world of two. The litter began to move, rolling back and forth as if the men weren’t quite in step.

  ‘What are you thinking?’ asked my lady.

  No, the queen. Agnes was right. It felt odd to have a girl almost my own age as queen. But this girl had been married three years, had borne a son and lost him, had watched her husband go to battle and urged him to . . .

  ‘I was wondering if a ship feels like this, rolling back and forth,’ I said instead.

  ‘Much rougher. And much less safe.’

  I had forgotten that her father’s estate bordered the sea, and her mother had gone a-Viking too. She must have been in boats a hundred times.

  ‘What is the sea like?’

  ‘Big. You’ll see it for yourself soon. What is the gossip at the castle?’ she added abruptly.

  I didn’t pretend not to know what she meant. ‘That Prince Donalbain and Prince Malcolm ordered the grooms to kill the king; or killed the king themselves and made it look as if the grooms had done it. They poisoned the grooms after the deed was done, which was why they lay drugged when my lord . . . I mean King Macbeth . . . found them. Others say . . .’ I hesitated.

  ‘Well?’

  ‘That witches enchanted the grooms so they could not move once they had done the deed.’

  ‘Witches for good then, not evil,’ she said calmly. ‘Making sure those responsible for such a vile deed were punished.’

  ‘Yes, ma’am,’ I said. Mistress . . . Lady Margaret had said that was what we must call the queen now.

  She lay back on the cushions. ‘It is time Scotland had a queen.’

  I nodded. Duncan’s wife had died at Malcolm’s birth.

  ‘What do queens do, ma’am?’

  I thought of Agnes saying young girls thought they could change the world.

  ‘Scotland hasn’t had one in my time or yours,’ she said slowly. ‘But I have read of queens who led armies while their husbands were away crusading in the Holy Land or fighting elsewhere.’

  Her voice had none of the eagerness of a few days ago — had it been so recently? — when she had raged that she wished to be part of the battle too.

  ‘Do you want to command an army, ma’am?’

  ‘No,’ she said quietly. ‘Not now.’

  ‘What else do queens do?’

  ‘Much the same as the lady of the castle, I expect. Make sure important visitors are made happy. See to the comfort of their husbands and their people. Weave the threads of politics into a fine tapestry, give counsel to the king. I think, perhaps, a queen may find much more to do if she has a mind for it. But we shall see.’

  I remembered Mam’s words. ‘And be kind to her subjects, ma’am?’

  She laughed, the tension in her body relaxing. ‘I do not think the most courteous courtier would call me kind. But I will be a good queen. I will swear to that.’

  I could hear the truth in her words. Part of me that had been poised like a frightened hare, ready to run, relaxed.

  ‘And there will be a grand coronation to come, ma’am,’ I said, trying to keep her mood bright.

  Suddenly her laughter was gone. ‘Yes. The coronation. It will be grand enough. The problem is, who will come to it?’

  ‘I don’t understand, my lady . . . ma’am.’

  ‘Macbeth was cousin to King Duncan, and Cawdor is the biggest estate in Scotland. But there will be some who think that Donalbain should be king now that his father is dead.’

  ‘Even though he . . . he killed his father? And is fled to England?’

  ‘A prince is a prince as long as he lives.’ She made an obvious attempt to change the subject. ‘We must be passing the village now. Shall we have the curtains open so you may say farewell to what was once your life?’

  ‘Thank you, ma’am.’

  I pulled the curtains back and there they were, just down the hill. Mam and Agnes, standing ankle-deep in drifting fog, Rab next to them.

  I waved.

  Mam waved back. So did Rab, then put his arm around Mam as her body shook with sobs. Agnes didn’t wave. But her glare
softened into something that might, in someone else, have meant she was trying not to show her tears.

  Then we were past.

  ‘A fine young man,’ said the queen. ‘Is he your brother?’

  ‘No. But he cares for my mother as if he were.’

  The men tramped down the hill, taking the litter with them. I craned to keep looking, but the fog swirled thicker.

  And Mam and Agnes and Rab were gone.

  Chapter 10

  Lord Macbeth was crowned king on Caislean Credi at Scone, sitting on the Stone of Destiny.

  It rained.

  It had rained since the afternoon we set out from Glamis. Grey rain, soft rain, that crept stealthily into every crevice so you didn’t know how much had fallen till each small drop combined. The men trudged through mud as wet as themselves, and damp seeped through the leather curtains of our litter. Burns grew to streams, streams to rivers, rivers to flood.

  Perhaps the autumn floods were why so few thanes arrived to witness the archbishop anointing the new king. I hoped that was the reason. My lady said nothing, but I could see her counting who was here, and who was not.

  The servants had to change my sodden dress before the coronation feast. I had servants to pin me too now, into a yellow silk dress, and golden sleeves and a bodice so tight I could hardly breathe — though we three still dressed the queen. She wore gold brocade, with scarlet trim, and scarlet sleeves and petticoat. She looked a true queen, and she proceeded with the king into the banqueting hall, with the chief lords and ladies of the court behind them. I walked arm in arm with Lord Murdoch, Lady Ruth and Lady Margaret cooing at the sight of us as they walked on the arms of lesser knights.

  The banquet was a fine one. Course after course, so many I could not count them, as well as a brace of cleverly contrived cockatrices so grand that everyone exclaimed over them, a pig’s head sewn onto a capon with a sheep’s tail sewn onto that, and jellies and compotes and marzipan fancies. I stopped eating after the third course, and played with plover pastry on my plate. Lady Ruth ate every course and had a stomachache for two days afterwards.

  The queen sat, straight and gracious, smiling, offering the choice meats to her husband. He smiled too, but it seemed painted on his face. His eyes shifted uneasily about the hall, as if he expected the princes to jump out from behind the tapestries and demand the crown. But it was his now. Definite word had come from England that they were headed to the English court.