Lady Macbeth's Daughter

by Lisa Klein

  Fleance is withholding something from me. I try to see his eyes, but he will not meet my gaze. I ought to know him well enough by now to guess what he is hiding. Surely it is related to the question of who will rule Scotland. Then I remember the day I reminded Banquo of the Wyrd sisters’ long-ago predictions. Fleance’s eyes had shone at the idea that his father would beget a line of kings; that he, Fleance, might be a rival to Macbeth. Yes, he often wants more than he can have. Can he possibly still hope to be king?

  “I see now, Fleance. You want to marry me. Malcolm also wants to marry me.” I lay out the pieces one by one. “My mother’s grandfather was the great King Kenneth. My father was a king. That makes me quite a prize. Whoever weds me puts his hands on a great deal of power.”

  I fasten my gaze on Fleance. He does not blink, but seems to breathe faster as I speak.

  “And if you have little claim to rule through your own blood, Fleance, you would be wise to marry a king’s daughter, so that your own offspring have a stronger claim, especially if her brother is the king and you have helped him to the throne.” I raise my eyebrows. “Have I not hit it?”

  “I will not deny what you have said,” Fleance says, growing defensive. “But my family’s lineage is also ancient, and I am related to half the thanes in Scotland, among whom was no more honest man than my father.”

  “I see I have hit the mark. You would bargain your way into a place of power.”

  “Favor has always been bought and sold,” says Fleance sharply. “Do not blame me for the ways of Scotland.”

  Bitter sadness washes over me at the thought that nothing in this land will ever change. I thought that Macbeth’s death would bring peace to Scotland, but now I see that men still clamor for revenge and power over each other.

  “And you cannot blame me either, Fleance, if I will not be a pawn in this game, not as Malcolm’s wife or yours.”

  “At least I will love you!” he cries.

  His declaration hardly fills me with joy. “You will love me—if I marry you?” I ask warily.

  “I mean, I do love you. Now.”

  “But you clearly love Scotland more!” The accusation bursts from me.

  “And you do not?” Fleance grows heated. “You sought out Macbeth and brought about his downfall—what was the purpose of that? It was not only revenge, for you showed no delight at his death. Nor was it ambition, for you do not wish to rule. Then what moved you, if not love of Scotland?”

  His questions take me aback. What was the purpose of my coming to Dunsinane? I had told Colum that I sought justice for Scotland. But was my desire that simple or pure? Perhaps I hoped to prove myself a better person than the tyrant and his wife who bore me. Yet what did I do but betray my own father, bringing him to his knees in surrender? So that Macduff could slay him. So that my despairing mother could take her life. However deserved their deaths were, I am still guilty. Despite what I said to Fleance, my hands are indeed stained with their blood. Hoping to free myself from violence, I have perpetuated it. And now I am held fast in Dunsinane. All I have learned is that revenge is a lust that is never satisfied, the boar that is never beaten, except in dreams.

  “I don’t know anymore if it was the love of Scotland that moved me to come here, Fleance,” I admit with a weary sigh. “But I know for certain that I love you.”

  A hopeful smile spreads across his face. “Then you will stay with me.”

  “No, for I also know that my search is not yet over.”

  His smile fades. “What do you seek, if not me?”

  I spread my hands out before me, palms up, and lift my shoulders. “I will know when I find it. Please, only help me escape from here.”

  Fleance presses his hand to his forehead. I know he is weighing the consequences of betraying the powerful Malcolm.

  “I will,” he says at last.

  Before he goes to find my sword and armor, he unlocks Luoch’s cell. I wake up my brother and relate my conversation with Fleance. Luoch is anxious to rally warriors against Malcolm, and I tell him to go without waiting for me. The drunken guards are snoring heavily. Luoch grabs their weapons. We squeeze each other’s hands in farewell, and he escapes into the night. I am sad to see my brother go, for I fear that it is his fate either to be killed soon or to become Scotland’s next king and be killed later. It takes no dream from the Asyetworld to show me this.

  I pile straw beneath the blankets to fool the guards into thinking that Luoch and I are asleep. Then I wait for Fleance’s return. It saddens me to think that we are parting after yet another disagreement. How long will Scotland’s woes separate us? Such somber thoughts fill my mind in the darkness. At every sound I startle, afraid the guards are waking. After what seems like hours, Fleance returns with my sword.

  “Here, take this guard’s jerkin and helmet so that you may leave Dunsinane without rousing suspicion,” he whispers. “I hid your horse at the base of the hill east of where the king was slain.”

  I am surprised that Nocklavey let Fleance lead him. How did he know he was not being stolen?

  While Fleance tugs off the jerkin, the guard opens his eyes and starts to protest, but Fleance makes a fist and strikes him on the head, knocking him out again. I open my mouth to thank him for the risks he is taking, but he cuts off my words.

  “Quiet, and hurry. This must be your sword, though it is not the old one I gave you.”

  I shrug my arms into the guard’s too-big jerkin and take the sword from Fleance, examining the bright silvery blade that slew the boar.

  “Nay, it is the much finer one you left for me, when you went from Dunbeag for the last time,” I remind him.

  “I have never seen it before,” he insists.

  I stare at Fleance, then at the sword. “Then how—?”

  “It does not matter,” says Fleance urgently. “Go.”

  I sheathe the sword and buckle the scabbard around my waist. A strange feeling of lightness comes over me, as if I could leap right over the walls of Dunsinane. Again I wonder who left the sword for me, but I am content to live with the mystery.

  “Wait, Albia.” Fleance touches my sleeve gently. “Where will you go?” Then he holds up his hands. “Nay, it is better if I do not know—if Malcolm finds out what I’ve done.”

  My eyes are filled with tears, so that my love’s face is only a blur. I step away from Fleance, afraid that if I touch him back, I won’t be able to let go of him, ever.

  “I don’t even know where I am going, Fleance. But you can find me, if you will. I wanted to find you, and I did.”

  As I turn away, Fleance reaches for me, grasping the end of my girdle hanging beneath the jerkin. It passes quickly through his fingers and I feel only a slight tug at my waist.

  But it might as well be a rock pulling on me, so hard is it to run from Fleance again.

  Chapter 29

  Pitdarroch

  Albia

  Nocklavey bears me away from Birnam Wood and Dunsinane Hill and along the sinuous turnings of the River Spey. This time we stay clear of the steep and snowy Grampian Mountains.

  Nothing slows him, not hunger or thirst. Streams part as he splashes through them so that hardly a drop dampens us. Startled animals flee before his thundering hoofs. And I go where he takes me, burying my face in his thick mane and pressing my feet against his flanks until we become like a single creature. I have no destination. I am simply fleeing Dunsinane and a far worse prison: marriage to Malcolm.

  Running heedlessly, I do not notice the changes at first. One night the moon no longer lurks behind a scrim of clouds, but shows bright as a silver button pushed halfway through the cloth of night. Then I hear the owlets hooting to each other and the melody of the nightingales. By day I find myself squinting, for the world has again become a place of sunlight and flickering shadows. The warmed wind passes over me. It is a pure pleasure not to be always cold. On the tips of twigs, buds swell and turn green with promise. Slowly, my senses open up to these forgotten things.

/>   I pass through villages where people walk around with dazed looks, as if they have dwelled too long in a cave.

  “The tyrant Macbeth is dead!” I cry, spreading the news.

  Their bewildered looks turn to smiles of joy. Then they ask, “Who will be the king now?”

  Having no sure answer, I only spur Nocklavey harder, leaving the people to wonder. Maybe if I stop long enough and still myself, the Sight will come to me. It has already shown me a line of kings with Banquo’s features. Will Fleance one day rule? Only time will reveal if what I saw was truly the Asyetworld or only a glimpse into Macbeth’s fearful mind.

  No matter how fast and far Nocklavey takes me, I cannot outpace my thoughts. Thoughts of Macbeth’s touch, his fearful raving, the lifeblood flowing from his neck, his glassy eyes. He was my father, and I his daughter—the offspring of evil. I can’t escape that thought. No, not even by thinking of Banquo as my better father. I run, too, from the thought of my mother’s lifeless body on the hilltop. Did anyone bury her when they abandoned Dunsinane? Did she mourn me when she left me to die? Geillis was my truer mother, for she raised me with love. But Geillis is dead. Banquo is dead. Macbeth and Grelach are dead. I am orphaned over and over, and what am I left with? The blood of kings and a queen—all dispatched now to the Under-world, to face the justice of the gods—still flows in my veins and will as long as I am alive.

  There is no outrunning the truth.

  There is no letting their blood from my veins, without dying myself.

  There is only the taming of it. The curbing of cruelty and the nurture of one’s better nature. What Geillis told me when I was a child now comes home to roost in me, like a dove to its dovecote.

  I am not the prisoner of my past. I am not helpless before the Sight. It was not my visions that drove me to act, but my actions that revealed what those visions meant. I made mistakes because I did not understand what I saw. But I could not understand, until time and my deeds had unfolded the truth. The fact that I share Macbeth’s and Grelach’s blood does not force me to repeat their evil. My deeds are my own. As Macbeth’s deeds were his.

  I am no longer clutching Nocklavey’s mane in my fists. He slows his gait. I notice bluish flowers among the heather, nodding their tiny blooms in the warm wind. My mind feels lighter, as if a hood has been pushed back from my head.

  Did not Geillis and her sisters teach me that the four worlds are interwoven? That gods and other beings travel between them? Their traces are everywhere—in the braided girdle that guarded my virtue; in Nocklavey, my loyal warhorse; in the sword mysteriously left for me. But the boar that threatened my life in the snowstorm? Yes, even it was a gift. For I see now that fighting it was my test. I slew the boar; thus I did not slay the king and like him gild my hands in human blood. I held in my wrath and Macbeth came to his knees, confessing his wrongs. The foul and deadly beast of my own ill nature is what my gifted sword gave death to in the mountains.

  And who strengthened my sword-arm but Fleance? He took no delight in my weakness, but trained me to bear arms. By doing so, he taught me to discipline myself. What a prince among men he is! If I were with him now, I would tell him this: You are suited to be a leader. I would travel to the farthest reaches of Scotland in your company.

  My thoughts of Fleance fill me with hope, even as the distance between us grows with Nocklavey’s every stride. I know as firmly as I feel the girdle around my waist that my future will be bound with his. One day, Fleance will find me. But not yet.

  Now I am no longer running away from Dunsinane but toward Pitdarroch. The place itself draws me. Of course I should come back to the oak, where the four worlds meet and where my mother lies buried. Colum is nearby, and pale-haired Caora with Helwain in the Wychelm Wood. They tend to Wee Duff, whom I see reunited with his father. Pitdarroch, so far from the field of war, is a place of peace and healing. Here is where I know myself.

  I see the great oak tree even in the dark. Behind its tangled branches, the moon glows, a white face crossed with many-fingered hands. The ground is a web of shadows, alive with night creatures who nestle among the roots. In the distance the stones of Stravenock Henge stand against the sky, their surfaces white where the moonlight strikes them.

  The night is loud with the chirping, grunting, and rustling of night creatures. In them the gods rejoices. Banrigh controls the god of night again. She will make the winds blow, the tides rise and fall, and women’s blood flow again, all according to nature. I remember the night on the shieling when she first visited me and the white doe beckoned. Now she lights the stones of Geillis’s cairn for me. I remember my sorrow when Geillis died, like a wound that aches even after it heals.

  Tonight I will lie here, where the four worlds meet, and wait for the dream that will show me my future.

  A white doe steps between the tangled roots of the oak tree, moonlight and shade stippling her pale fur. I thought of her before I slept, and now she visits my dreams, unmoving, only her dark eyes blinking. I want to follow her, but my feet are as heavy as rocks. The doe fades like an insubstantial mist.

  I see a face like my own reflection in water. It is older, lined with care. The lips move in silence. I strain to listen. What are they saying? A coif covers her hair. Tears pool in the blue eyes—my eyes. Why am I sad? What grief will come to me? I do not want to know. I will close my inner eye to this Sight.

  No, show me Fleance’s face! Show me myself with Fleance. Let me feel his arms about me.

  Instead I see a round face, with brown hair and greenish eyes—Geillis as she looked before she became ill.

  My mind reaches out in yearning for the Under-world.

  “Mother,” I hear myself murmur.

  “How can she know me, even while she sleeps?” comes an unfamiliar voice.

  Does she speak to me? Let me come to you, Mother; show me where you are.

  “I will always know you,” I say, stirring. I feel the hard ground beneath me.

  “Albia, wake up.”

  I open my eyes. Rhuven is kneeling beside me. Her cloak brushes my skin. The sun is a blaze of fire on the horizon, making me blink. I am disappointed to find myself in the Now-world. And why is Rhuven at Pitdarroch?

  “I mistook you for Geillis,” I say, rubbing my eyes. “Did we both come here to be with her?”

  Rhuven does not reply. Her face is a cipher of shifting emotions. She turns her head slowly to the side and I follow her gaze, startled to see a woman standing nearby. Her back is to us and she wears a blue woolen tunic and a silk hood. Her face is buried in her hands and her shoulders are shaking.

  “It is your mother,” whispers Rhuven.

  “Am I still dreaming? Is it Geillis?”

  Rhuven shakes her head. “Nay. It is Grelach.”

  Like a sudden gale, Rhuven’s words throw me backward.

  “But Grelach took her life at Dunsinane! Is it her spirit from the Under-world?”

  “Albia, she is alive. We escaped from the tower before Malcolm captured it. It is your mother—the one who bore you.”

  I cannot make myself believe her. Yet the desire grips me to know the mother who let me be lost.

  “Show me her face,” I demand. As soon as the words are out of my mouth, I shake my head. “Nay, go away. I will not see her!”

  “Please Albia, only let her behold you,” Rhuven pleads.

  I hold myself still. I force myself not to turn away. I looked upon the murderous king; I will not fear to look upon his wife.

  Then Lady Macbeth turns. Her hood hides her downcast face. Her hands, clasped at her throat, are raw-looking and scabbed. Slowly she pushes back her hood, and a mass of dark hair, threaded with silver, tumbles forward. She lifts her head. Hers is the face I just dreamt, with the blue eyes and pale, lined skin

  “Albia, do you know me?” she whispers, her voice barely audible.

  She calls me by my name. How dare she use my name without asking? Do I know her? She does not look like someone who would cast out her infant
daughter, abuse her only son, or conspire to kill a king. But neither did Macbeth look like a murderer. Evil is ashamed to go naked, but hides behind a mask.

  This woman, however, seems to be hiding nothing. She gazes at me with her gray-blue eyes—my eyes. I can see that she was once beautiful.

  “You are Grelach. My … my mother.” I intended the words to be an accusation, but they slip harmlessly from my lips.

  “Daughter, I pray you, forgive me.”

  With these words, tears begin to course down her cheeks. She wipes them with her fingertips, then gazes at her wet hands in surprise.

  Rhuven gasps. “My lady, you are weeping!”

  Grelach nods and looks up again. She seems to be smiling.

  “All that I did,” she says, letting the tears roll down her cheeks unstopped, “was born from my despair—at losing you, Albia.”

  Her voice breaks, and her hands flutter to her sides, like birds unable to fly. But she swallows and tries again.

  “Now that I have found you, I may hope …” She leaves the sentence unfinished.

  Rhuven picks up one of her hands. “For peace, my lady?” she prompts.

  Grelach nods. “Now that he is dead.” Her voice sounds stronger now. She looks at me. “The time is free.” She takes her hand from Rhuven and slowly extends it toward me.

  I glance at at the long fingers, the palms red and blotched from self-torment. I am afraid to touch her hand. But why?

  The time is free.

  I feel it, too. All that was bound can be released. With Macbeth’s death, nature is reclaiming Scotland, stone by stone, tree by loch by glen. Slowly the land is freed from tyranny. Only my mother is still bound.

  Unless I forgive her.

  I step outside myself and observe this Lady Macbeth, late queen of Scotland, granddaughter of a king. She stands before me like a once-proud tree, struck by a storm and now broken-limbed. She has nothing and no one. Her infants are all dead. Luoch has renounced her. Only Rhuven loves her. But only I, her daughter, can ease her suffering.

  I long to unleash the questions that crowd onto my tongue. Why did you consent to his evil? Was it from weakness or the strength of your own ambition? Were you my father’s victim or his tempter? But I say nothing. I am not sure the answers even matter anymore.