I shivered. With each word she proclaimed her guilt. Perhaps I shouldn’t have brought the doctor here. But she could not keep roaming each night like this.
‘To bed, to bed!’ she moaned. ‘There’s knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come. Give me your hand. What’s done cannot be undone!’
I ran to her. ‘To bed, my lady. Please, to your bed.’
She looked vaguely at me but still didn’t see. ‘To bed, to bed, to bed,’ she muttered again, and stepped back towards the stairs.
‘Will she go now to bed?’ asked the doctor quietly.
I nodded.
He lowered his voice further still. ‘Foul whisperings are abroad: unnatural deeds do breed unnatural troubles. Infected minds to their deaf pillows will discharge their secrets. More needs she the divine than the physician.’
I tried to untangle his speech. ‘You mean you can’t help her? What about a potion to calm her sleep? There’s a yellow flower that blooms in late summer —’
He stared at me, affronted. ‘Do you think I am a herb hag, lady? I am a physician. I do not deal in potions.’
‘But what can you give her?’
He shrugged. ‘Pray. May God forgive us all! Look after her, remove from her the means of all annoyance, and still keep eyes upon her.’
In other words, he could offer nothing. He could stitch a wound, or mend a broken bone. He could not heal an anguished mind. Agnes would know what to do, I thought desperately. But I couldn’t send for Agnes. It would be a scandal.
‘So, good night,’ the doctor said firmly. ‘She has amazed my sight. I think, but dare not speak.’ He bowed stiffly, still annoyed by what he saw as an insult.
I had loosed my lady’s secret for nothing, to a man in velvet who held himself too high to use a calming flower.
I slipped down the stairs and opened the queen’s door. She slept, tossing uneasily on her pillow, but I didn’t think she would walk again. Exhaustion would keep her here the rest of the night.
I needed sleep too. I needed a clear mind too. No clarity here, in a room that smelled of roses and apple wood and power. I climbed the stairs again. I sat upon the battlements, my legs dangling into darkness, and tried to think.
The queen had looked so young up here in her nightshift, without her crown and her scarlet robes. A girl of my age. Yet I’d lived a hundred years more than she, tucked away and tended in her father’s castle, then her husband’s. What had she known of blood and battle? Only songs and boasts at the dinner table that turned carnage into valour. She had been a child at play, ordering people killed as easily as she might banish a doll she had grown tired of.
And then she saw the blood. She became a queen, who saw the real lives of her people, as she answered their petitions. They were no longer figments to play with. No wonder her mind couldn’t hold it all. The blood stained her hands as surely as if she’d thrust the dagger into Duncan herself, into the children who might claim the throne one day, into a mother who might breed more. The guilt she hid by day tore and gnawed at her through the night.
What if I’d done no more than she’d ordered up on the heath, had said nothing about kingship to Macbeth, hadn’t promised Banquo his descendants would be kings? Would my lady have been content with Cawdor, and her husband too? No murders and no madness?
If that was so, this was my fault. Each death, each drop of blood, the agony of conscience my lady suffered — all due to me and my pride at manipulating a thane.
How could I undo the wrong I’d so unknowingly begun? Even a queen couldn’t give people life again. Nor could evil be withdrawn from the world once it had been done. We could only pray for forgiveness, repent deeply and try to do good instead.
Oh, yes, I repented. But could I do good?
The wind ruffled my hair, bringing the smell of the sea. In daylight, it seemed as though you could see half of Scotland from up here. I could almost smell home — the peat fires, the lanolin of the sheep, the sharp tang of midsummer herbs and heather.
And suddenly the answer came to me. Lady Anne could do little, but Annie Grasseyes had the skills that Agnes had taught her. I could tell a poppy flower from heartsease, and knew how to prepare both, though I’d never done it. Agnes always said powerful poppy must be prepared by the cat, not the kitten. But Agnes wasn’t here.
I stood, my mind made up. There was one other I could trust with the queen’s secret. Not her ladies, nor Murdoch, but the queen herself. I would seek a private audience with her in the morning and tell her that when she walked on the battlements in nightmares, her feet truly trod the castle’s stones. I would tell her I could ease her anguish, calm her mind and body.
Now, in summer, all the flowers I needed would be blooming, and I knew where to find them; which grew in bogs, which in the crevices of courtyard walls. By tonight my lady would have her potion and would walk no more.
And if the queen found peace, maybe Scotland, under Macbeth, might have peace too.
Chapter 17
Midsummer’s Eve sat upon the land, the days so fat and fair they squeezed out night till it was only a few hours of shadow before dawn. You could almost hear the grass grow. Larks soared singing above the palace, and lambs wriggled their white tails on the hills.
This morning I would marry Murdoch. This afternoon a messenger would take the tokens to my mother. Tonight I’d be a wife.
I stared at my reflection in the queen’s mirror. Her nights had been quiet since I’d made the potion, and the shadows were gone from her eyes in the day. Macbeth strode about the castle like a true king, Lord Murdoch often at his side. I had done my job well, I told myself. A confident king, a queen released from nightmare. I could go to Greymouth with a clear heart.
Why didn’t my heart sing?
‘Green and gold suit you,’ said Lady Margaret, looking as pleased as if the wedding day were her own. She had embroidered much of the gold thread on my gown, and the design was hers too.
The queen laughed. ‘Gold suits any woman. Here.’ She draped a second long gold chain about my waist, gold flowers matching the gold wheat in my other chain, and Murdoch’s jewelled necklace.
Was that reflection me?
‘Ma’am, it is too fine.’
‘Nonsense.’ She touched my cheek gently. ‘You are my friend. What you wear today you wear for me.’
I stood silent. Lady Margaret and Lady Ruth were quiet too. A friend. I had never heard the queen use the word before. Perhaps she never had.
‘That is more honour than any gold,’ I whispered at last.
‘I believe that friendship is,’ she said quietly. ‘My three ladies are a deeper blessing even than my crown.’
She nodded to Lady Margaret and Lady Ruth. ‘Your pardon, gentle ladies. I would speak privately with Lady Anne before I lose her.’ She smiled lightly. ‘To remind her of a wife’s duty that you need never bear.’
Lady Margaret returned the smile. I suspected she had never wanted a man in her bed.
Lady Ruth grinned. I suddenly wondered if she might have a life among the servants that we knew nothing of. Or perhaps the queen knew.
The queen waited till the door had shut behind them, then sat upon the bed and patted the place beside her. ‘Sit.’
I obeyed. Despite her words it seemed odd to be sitting side by side. The silence stretched.
‘I shall miss you,’ she said at last, as simply as any village maid.
‘Your Majesty has only to send a message and I will come. You are the queen. You can bid me be with you at any time.’
‘Yet one cannot bid friendship.’
‘No,’ I said. ‘But it is there, unbidden. There it will stay too, till we are old and hatching marriages for our grandchildren.’
And it was true, I realised. I hadn’t helped her just from duty. This was friendship. Love, perhaps, even if I had not realised it before. The girl who had so unthinkingly promised Macbeth he would be king had more in common than I had realised with the queen she sat with here.
She nodded. ‘You know I am with child,’ she said abruptly.
‘Yes. We guessed it a month ago. Lady Ruth believes you are four months gone.’
She laughed at my honesty. ‘What else does Lady Ruth say when I am not present?’
I grinned at her. ‘That we must sweeten your pottage with honey else you won’t eat it, but not too much or your skin may break out in pimples.’
‘Oh dear. I hope she says this only to the two of you?’
‘Yes, my lady.’ The old term slipped back. ‘Just as she tells only us how when you were two years old you hid your chamber pot and the cook found it and served the soup in it and no one but she guessed. We asked how the soup tasted,’ I added, ‘and she said it was most fine indeed.’
‘I am blessed,’ she said quietly, ‘to have a nurse who loves me, my Lady Margaret to dress me and design the banquet pieces, and to have a friend. It is far more than I deserve. Queens are often not as rich, methinks.’
‘I would not know, my lady.’
She gazed out the window, at the purple blaze of heather and the dark green of the forest beyond. ‘I repent it all, more deeply than you can ever know. Repent my desperate urgings, repent that night, repent ambition, lust for power, repent what I have made my lord become.’
‘I know. You talked and cried of that when you sleepwalked on the battlements,’ I said softly.
She stared at me. ‘Did I? I . . . I thought that was just a dream.’
‘Your sleep is quiet now, ma’am.’
‘Thanks to your sleeping potion.’ She attempted a smile. ‘You must send me a gift of it from Greymouth, as I will send you gifts of my affections too, Annie.’ It was the first time she had ever used my true name. Had she always realised I was Annie Grasseyes at heart? ‘Can good come out of evil?’ she whispered. ‘If we give Scotland prosperity and peace, shall that be enough?’
I didn’t answer. Her Majesty might repent. But the king believed he was invincible and that his house would reign till Birnam Wood should come to Dunsinane. Where would his arrogance, and his sword, go from here?
‘I have met two queens,’ she continued quietly, as if she knew my thoughts, ‘though I was too young to remember much of the first. I do not think their lives were happy.’ Her face clouded. ‘Nor their deaths.’
I didn’t want to blight my wedding day further by asking about the queens’ deaths.
It seemed Her Majesty felt the same. She turned to me and took one of my hands in both of hers. ‘We must be happy, today of all days! The child I am carrying must be hostage to the kingdom, married for an alliance of state. And the next as well. But if I have a third, perhaps our children may find joy together.’
‘I hope my children will serve your family as long as our houses stand,’ I said softly.
‘And be friends, as we have become.’ She stood, and put on her public smile. ‘And now your groom will be waiting. Lady Margaret has designed a centrepiece for the feast: a giant loaf that, when broached, shows Paris awarding the golden apple to the Queen of Love.’
I knew from the book I’d read — slowly, to improve my skill — that Paris’s prize had led to war. But this was just a loaf of bread. There would be no war now the thanes had all pledged to join the king in battle as soon as he sent word. The English would never lend Malcolm troops when so vast an army could be arranged against them. My worries were foolish. The evil of the pretend charms was all wound up. The harvest would be good, the land at peace.
I glanced at myself in the mirror again. Surely my dress was an omen of my life to come? Green like the grass that would feed the stock; gold like the ears of barley and wheat that would feed the people; flowers to give beauty and happiness.
And the red of my necklace’s ruby? I lifted my chin. A sign of riches, a comfortable life and the friendship of a queen.
The chapel was garlanded in white midsummer roses. They’d fade within the hour, but by then I would be married. There was a rustle of silks and velvets and plumed hats as the king and queen entered arm in arm and proceeded down the aisle with me behind them, Lady Ruth and Lady Margaret forming our retinue.
Lord Murdoch waited at the altar. He wore dark blue satin trimmed with velvet, a velvet hat upon his head. Harps played, but I hardly heard them over the beating of my heart. Murdoch glimpsed me behind the king and queen and smiled.
I held my breath as the king and queen raised their hands in an arch to let me through. I stood by Murdoch, drunk on flowers and music, as Their Majesties moved to their robed chairs on either side of the chapel, the queen on my side, the king next to Murdoch.
Murdoch took my hand.
‘Sire!’
Muttering took the place of the pleased murmurs behind us as a servant ran up the aisle, heedless of protocol. He kneeled trembling before the king.
Macbeth stood. ‘The devil damn thee black, thou cream-faced loon!’ he screamed in sudden fury. ‘Why do you kneel there trembling like a goose?’
The muttering in the pews grew louder.
So much for a calm king and a peaceful land, I thought. And on my wedding day.
The servant seemed to have hardly enough breath to speak. ‘Sire, there are ten thousand —’
‘Geese, villain?’ demanded the king.
‘Soldiers, sire.’
A woman screamed at the back of the chapel. The mutters grew to rumbling.
‘Soldiers?’ Macbeth shook his head. ‘What soldiers, lily-livered boy?’
‘The English force, so please you.’ The servant bent his head, as if expecting his master’s sword to cleave his neck.
Murdoch kissed my hand quickly. ‘See to the queen,’ he said quietly. ‘If that boy speaks the truth, then I must command the guards.’ He hesitated, then added, ‘God go with you, my lady.’
‘And with you, my lord,’ I whispered.
Murdoch bowed low to the king. ‘Your Majesty.’
Macbeth didn’t seem to hear him. Murdoch backed away and out the side door. I ran to the queen.
Macbeth was still raging at the servant. He seemed to have forgotten that the whole court was listening, shifting uneasily, trying to work out if they should run to defend the castle or stay seated here.
‘Bring me no more reports. Till Birnam Wood shall come to Dunsinane, there is nothing I need fear. What’s the boy Malcolm?’ he yelled, staring around as if the servant could produce Duncan’s son. ‘Was he not born of woman? The spirits that know all told me: “Fear not, Macbeth. No man that’s born of woman shall ever have power upon thee.”’
I looked up from my curtsey into the queen’s face. She gazed at me, her face unreadable.
‘Your Majesty?’ I whispered. ‘I think we should go to your rooms.’
Whether the servant was drunk or crazed, or there really was an army at our walls, I knew I would have no wedding this morning. And the king had just admitted hearing witchcraft.
The queen stood. ‘Good friends, I think this ceremony must be postponed,’ she said, her voice calm as she formally gave them leave to go. She walked to the chapel door as if moving in a dream, stately in her gold and scarlet robes and her crown, a true queen. We three followed, until she reached the steps and fell. Lady Ruth and I caught her, and half carried her up the stairs and along the corridors.
Below us, men yelled, spilling out of the Great Hall. Spears and shields clanged as they were snatched from the walls. I heard the creaking of the drawbridge being raised. So it was true. An army was at our very gates. I tried to shut my fear away. Murdoch had his duty, and I had mine.
We sat the queen upon her bed.
‘Look out the window,’ she ordered. Her hands trembled, but her back was straight, her voice was still composed.
I peered out and saw green leaves flash silver in the sunlight. Just a forest. Yet this dawn there had been moorland around the palace, and the bleat of sheep, not trees.
Birnam Wood had come to Dunsinane.
‘Well?’ demanded the queen.
I caught the silver flash again. Not just leaves, but armour as well. Soldiers, hidden under branches, creeping up and over our defences until they ringed the castle. Even as I watched, the branches parted and I saw cannons and a catapult loaded with a vast boulder.
‘My lady . . .’
The crash as the boulder hit swamped my words. I peered out again, saw the palace wall crumbled under its force, then withdrew as an arrow whistled past me and buried itself in the queen’s bed.
Lady Margaret screamed and backed against the wall.
Lady Ruth moved to the bed and put her arms around the queen as if she were a child again. ‘There, there, my lambkin.’
The queen shook her head, a strange smile upon her face. ‘No, good nurse, no lambkin now, but a goose for slaughter. There is no help for me; nor you if you are found with me.’ She looked at us one by one, her face strangely composed. ‘There is a small room off the kitchens, with an even smaller door that can be barred inside. You know it, Lady Margaret. Hide there, the three of you, with food and water. Perhaps the door will hold till order is found once again, and Malcolm might show the mercy his soldiers lose in the lust of battle. Go!’
‘I’ll not leave you, lambkin,’ cried Lady Ruth.
‘I am your queen.’ And still she looked it, her face calm, her eyes set as hard as any warrior’s. ‘I know my duty now, and you know yours. If these be my last words to you, then do my bidding. Go!’
I moved towards the door and opened it. If I hadn’t, I think they would have stayed, frozen in place. I ran with them, down the first set of stairs, till I saw them join a rush of other women seeking shelter.
I could hear Macbeth bellowing in the hall below. ‘Hang out our banners on the outward walls. The cry is still “They come!” Our castle’s strength will laugh a siege to scorn.’ He held his broadsword high above his head. ‘Here let them lie till famine and the ague eat them up. Were they not forced with those that should be ours, we might have met them dareful, beard to beard, and beat them backward home.’ He turned. ‘What is that noise?’
‘It is the cry of women, my good lord,’ said someone.
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