Mad Helga, who is softly singing a tune without any sensible words or melody, pays no attention to my question.
Nettle gives a sharp sigh. “She meant nothing at all.”
Mad Helga glances at her and smiles to herself, still crooning her strange little tune.
I am tired of their riddles. I make my voice sharp. “Come along!”
There is no way to tell time in the mist. When we reach a narrow clearing at the side of the road, it feels as if we have been traveling more than half the day. There are large boulders scattered close together, and the clearing is ringed by seven standing stones, all but one of them taller than I can reach even by standing on tiptoe and stretching up my hand. Mad Helga and Nettle sink down on two nearby boulders to rest, leaning their backs against two standing stones, but I am too impatient to sit.
“Rest,” Nettle commands.
“But I—”
“Rest, Gilly!”
I am losing faith in Nettle’s sight and the knowledge of the Old Ones. Could all this be but a wild chase after the will-o’-the-wisp? Finally I plop down on a nearby boulder. After we rest for a long time, I ask, “Should we not be doing something?”
“We are,” Nettle says. “We are waiting.”
I mutter, “I do not like waiting.”
As the day drones on, Mad Helga dozes and Nettle huddles in her swaddling cloths, trying to get warm. I find a supple branch and pass the time by pulling strips of bark from it. After a while, I use it to whip a nearby stump. I hit it over and over.
“Gilly!” says Nettle.
I stop whipping and look at her, expecting a scolding. Instead she just shakes her head and sinks back down into her wrappings. I throw the peeled branch away, but after many minutes I go collect it again. I sit on a rock, digging patterns in the soft wood with my fingernail.
Finally I say, “Should we not discuss what we will do when we see Him?”
Nettle says, “ ’Twill come to us.”
I say, “We should plan—”
“Till I see him, Gilly, I cannot know what is needed. God willing, my double sight will give me guidance. All you need do, child, is follow my lead.”
I do not like the sound of this. “I do not think—”
Nettle says, “Settle down, child.”
I shout back, “I do not know what to do.”
“Helga and I know,” says Nettle. “Follow us, whate’er we do.”
“Nothing will come of this. ’Tis all show. You do not wish me to—”
“Hush!”
“But I do not—”
“Hush!”
I stalk over to one of the standing stones and kick it.
Just then Nettle stands up. She walks over and puts a hand on Mad Helga’s shoulder. “ ’Tis time.”
Without opening her good eye, Mad Helga nods. It is about to start. I take a deep breath and put a hand on my belly to steady myself. I feel both cold and hot, shivery with both fear and elation.
Then two men walk into the clearing, leading their horses. It is hard to make out more than their shapes. The taller one stops, steadying himself with a hand against the tallest standing stone.
It’s Him.
T W E N T Y - F O U R
HE DOES NOT SEE US. He turns to the shape that is His companion and says, “So foul and fair a day I have not seen.”
I gasp at the sound of His voice. Quicker than lightning, swords appear in both men’s hands. I throw my hands up to show I am not armed.
The other man steps forward. I recognize his striped cloak that glitters gold and cream in the mist. It is Fleance’s father, Lord Banquo. I lower my head and pull the cloth of my wrappings low over my forehead so he will not recognize me.
Lord Banquo asks me, “How far is it to Forres?”
I am frozen into silence. The man I have come to meet makes an impatient clucking in His throat, sheaths His sword, and turns to go. I cannot lose Him now, but I can think of no way to keep Him. I have made my life—
Mad Helga steps into His view. She presses her finger to her lip.
“Hsst,” she says.
Nettle steps out of the mist, her finger to her lips. “Hsst.”
I snap back to life. I imitate their gesture. “Hsst.”
Lord Banquo moves close to Mad Helga. She keeps her fingerto her lips, her one eye flickering back and forth like an adder’s tongue between the two warriors. Lord Banquo looks at her closely.
“Are you fantastical, or do you live?”
“Hsst,” says Mad Helga again.
“Are you aught that a man may question?”
“Hsst,” says Mad Helga for the third time.
He gives a little laugh, but he sounds uneasy. He glances to his companion, my enemy, who seems as frozen as I was. Then Lord Banquo looks back at the three of us. “You seem to understand me. But what are you? Who are you?” He brings his face close to Mad Helga’s. She does not move.
Then He steps close, His fingers drumming against His sword’s hilt. He regards us for a moment, and then His fingers tighten around the hilt. “Speak if you can!” His voice is pitched a little too loud. I feel a thrill of power. He is afraid. He is afraid of us. I have made Him feel fear! I am giddy with delight.
Then, to my dismay, He turns to go. “Time grows short. ’Tis clear these creatures are short in their wits, and we must—”
Swiftly, despite her age and creaking bones, Mad Helga kneels in front of Him. “All hail, Macbeth! Hail to thee, Thane of Glamis!”
Swiftly Nettle kneels. “All hail, Macbeth. Hail to thee, Thane of Cawdor!”
Clever of her! She has used her private knowledge to—
And I know just what to say.
I kneel, disguising my voice so that it is rough and low. “All hail, Macbeth. You shall be king hereafter!”
At that His head jerks up as if He has been bitten by a serpent. He exhales quickly, as if He is about to choke, and He takes several agitated steps backward. I start to rise, but Nettle’s hand on my tunic pulls me down again.
Lord Banquo looks at Him. “Good sir, why do you start and seem to fear things that sound so fair?”
But He takes several steps away till He is just a blurred shape inthe clearing. He turns His back on us, leaning a shoulder against one of the standing stones.
We have frightened Him. I do not know why, but we have frightened Him! I want to leap to my feet and do a little jig. I like this power to frighten people.
Lord Banquo studies Him for a moment and then turns back to us. “Are you fantastical, or are you just what you seem?” He reaches into his purse and tosses some coins on the ground. “You foretell great things for my partner. Now look into the seeds of time and say what fortune you see for me?”
Mad Helga says, “Hail.”
“Hail,” says Nettle.
I repeat, “Hail.”
“Lesser than Macbeth and greater,” says Mad Helga, speaking in her familiar riddling way.
“Not so happy yet much happier,” says Nettle.
I glance at Him standing by the great stone, and I pitch my voice loud enough for Him to hear, even though I direct my words to Lord Banquo. “You shall father kings, though you will not be one.”
At these words, He jerks around and stares at me. In the pale shadows of the mist, I cannot make out His expression, but His body is stiff and tight as an archer’s arm. Clearly He does not want Lord Banquo to father kings.
Mad Helga says, “So all hail, Macbeth and Banquo.”
“Banquo and Macbeth, all hail.”
As they speak, He strides across the clearing till He is right beside me. I am your death, I think, and you know it not. Yet I still do not know how I am to kill Him. Is this the moment for me to snake the dagger out of my girdle? Surely not—He is safe in His armor. But—
He shakes my shoulders so that my head flops back and forth. “Stop, you imperfect speakers. Tell me more! Since my father’s death, I am indeed Thane of Glamis. But the Thane of Cawdor is stil
l living, a healthy gentleman. And to be king is no more believable than ’tis for me to be Thane of Cawdor.”
I give a nervous laugh, and He pushes me away. I collapse to the ground, and He takes a step back as if He is looking at something foul. “Tell me,” He thunders, “from what power do you get this strange knowledge?”
Out of the corner of my eye, I see Mad Helga melting back into the mist. Nettle makes a little beckoning hand gesture to me, and then she, too, begins to fade backward out of sight.
His voice grows louder. “Tell me why in this deserted place do you stop us to pour the wine of strange prophecy into our ears?”
Lord Banquo says, “My lord—”
As soon as He turns to look at Lord Banquo, I scrabble to my feet and bolt like a hare back into the cover of the trees. The mist erases all sight, but I can hear the voices of the two men like lost souls.
“Tell me!” He shouts. “I command you to tell me!”
I hear Lord Banquo’s soothing tones. “The earth has bubbles just as the water does, and these creatures are those earth bubbles.”
A hand falls on my shoulder, and I leap, stifling a shriek. It is Nettle. “ ’Tis time to go,” she whispers.
I am stunned. “Go? But we’ve done nothing. We mumble a few words, and then we fade into the trees? Nettle, ’tis not the revenge I intended. We have not even struck one blow—”
“We have struck a blow,” she whispers. “The spell has begun— the spell that will lead to His death.”
His death . . . and mine.
T W E N T Y - F I V E
THEN WE HEAR mist-muffled hoofbeats, and we melt farther back into the trees. I want to creep back and spy, but Nettle warns me that this could unravel what we have done. “Leave it, child. The baker who checks his cakes too often in the oven will end up with naught but flatbread. Spells need time to ferment and grow.”
“But, Nettle, I don’t understand. How will this all work to destroy—”
“Leave it, Gilly. Press too much, and you will crumble our gains.”
I am not sure I believe her, but ’twould be foolish to take the chance.
“So what do we do now?” I ask.
“We go home,” Nettle says.
“Home!” Home? Creep home like thwarted grave robbers? Like whipped hounds? I am outraged. “If we go home, we will not see the spell unfold.”
“ ’Twill matter not a jot whether we see it or no. The spell will unwind just the same. Dawn comes for both the sleeper and watcher alike. We need not be its witness.”
“But I want to witness it,” I protest. “ ’Tis my revenge. ’Twill matter little if I am not there to see it.”
“Leave it, girl!” Nettle blows out her breath in a cross little puff. “All has been set in motion. You need do no more. So let us go home. There is plenty at home that needs our tending.”
“No! This is my revenge, and I must bear witness.”
“Listen to yourself, Gilly! You wanted him destroyed. What we have done will destroy him—’less your future meddling gets in the way of our spell.”
“ ’Tis not enough for it to happen unseen. I must see it with my own eyes.”
“ ’Tis a sickness, ’tis, child. Leave it be.”
“No! If this middle-mash that we just muttered is indeed revenge, then ’twill not come full circle until I witness all. Unless I am present, His destruction will be incomplete.”
We argue for a long time, until Nettle finally throws up her hands. “ ’Tis a fiend I have nursed in my hut and not a human child. Always I have had my suspicions that you have no heart, and now—”
“Let her go,” Mad Helga says. “She has bewitched herself with her dreams of revenge, and there is naught you can do to break the spell.”
Nettle does not looked pleased. “Go, then, you changeling, you unnatural child. Your revenge sickness is much beyond my arts to cure.”
My heart warbles with joy. I can see the spell run out. I can see His destruction. And so it is decided. Nettle and Mad Helga will return to their hut while I return to His castle.
“Go due west,” Mad Helga instructs me. “You will pass through this forest and find yourself at the sea. Follow the shore for the better part of a day, and you will arrive just to the northeast of Inverness Castle.”
As we part, it hurts my heart to see how small and thin the two women look as they disappear into the swirls of mist, more like twigs wrapped in rags than living women.
But I am drawn back to Him like a starving stoat who smells the blood of a dying pig. As I travel westwards, however, the voice of doubt begins to chatter in my ear. I begin to lose faith in Nettle’s spell. Was that a true spell, or just a show to quiet me and make me leave off my quest? Why did I ever trust those women? Indeed, it was no spell at all. He comes into our grasp, and all we do is mumble nonsense as if all our wits had gone begging.
Though it is now nearing summer, the air is chilly. I pull my wrappings tightly around me. My life is an arrow, and its target is his death. My life is an arrow—
Then I stumble over a rock and find myself face-to-face with the sea.
This is, of course, not my first glimpse of the sea. At Inverness when the wind blew south, I could hear the sea calling, and from the top of the castle walls I could spot its broad gray waters. But the sea at Inverness is just the mouth of the sea, not these wild, roiling waves. The air here smells of salt and dampness and a dark, vegetable smell that I cannot name. The beat of the waters against the shore is like the beat of my heart.
Awestruck, I sit down and watch.
AFTER A WHILE, I force myself to stand up and walk along the shore. I cannot peel my eyes away from the marvel that is the sea. How wondrous it would be to ride a ship far out on those unknown waters. I do think that in this afternoon if a ship were to sail up and invite me to board, I would cast aside this whole revenge business.
Coward! I chide myself. Hen-heart! Faithless of purpose!
No, I will follow my course to its bloody end . . . But it would have been glorious to sail across the sea.
I fear I might come to His castle too late to witness His death, so I keep walking well past the coming of the dark, even though dark comes late in the summertime. My belly aches from hunger, and my body aches from tiredness. My eyes feel scratchy, but I will not let myself rest. At one point I fall asleep walking and topple to theground. I lie for a moment, longing to stay there, but then I take a deep breath and push myself upward.
I continue to plod onward, although my steps grow slower and slower. I start to weave and stagger like one who has sipped too much ale.
Then at about the fifth hour of the night, I see a fire ahead.
It is not safe to seek out that fire. I must stay far away from strangers. Strangers mean danger or even death.
But something within me whispers, Still, it would be good to be warm.
Castle life has made me too soft. I will not move toward that fire. I will not move toward the fire—
Yet my traitor feet keep carrying me nearer and nearer.
Then someone grabs my arm, and a knife blade is pressed to my throat.
A man’s voice asks, “Where do you fancy you are going, peasant boy?”
I make my voice meek. “Please, great lord, please, don’t hurt a peasant boy. What harm can a peasant boy do to your—”
Then as soon as I feel him loosen his grip, I push clear of his grasp and run. He grabs my wrap, and I twist free of it. A piece of sea-drift wood lies on the ground, and I pick it up to fight with. The teachings of the Master of Arms come back into my head, and I thrust and parry. I see my opponent is a peasant, and I pray he is not trained in sword craft.
I soon see he is indeed skillful, but I am younger and smaller, which makes me more agile. I silently thank the Master of Arms for teaching me so many stratagems and counter moves. I hold my own, but I begin to lose faith that I can get out of this fight without hurt. This man is a much tougher opponent than young Fleance.
&nb
sp; A crowd begins to grow around us. They know the man who fights with me, and they toss out good-natured taunts at him.
“Be you getting soft, Padric, that you cannot overcome this wisp of a boy?”
“Padric, do you need to give over and have us send a serving maid in to finish off this intruder?”
“Padric, ’stead of taking you to battle with him, our lord might do better putting you in charge of fighting off kitty cats and such if this be all the better you can fight.”
Fortunately their jokes and japes makes him increasingly angry. As he grows more angry, he gets clumsy. Now not only do I hold my own, but I begin to show off a little, using some of the fancier moves that I learned.
Then a man’s voice, used to command, breaks through the jeers and teasing of the crowd. “Enough!”
Instantly the crowd pulls back, and my opponent drops his knife and steps back. A sturdy man with dark curly hair steps between us. He is dressed like a noble. “What is this coil?” he demands. “You have awakened my children and my wife.”
My opponent drops to one knee before him. “I beg pardon, sire. This peasant lad was sneaking up on us.”
The curly-haired man looks me over, then says in a tone that contains a thread of amusement, “I do not think a single peasant lad can do us much harm.” He takes a step closer to me, but I will not kneel. “Can you, young cub? Do you intend us harm?”
“I can knock this fat fool to the ground!” I announce. I swipe my stick at the peasant. Startled, my opponent topples over onto the sand. The crowd roars with laughter.
But I have no time to savor my triumph. Before I know what is happening, my stick is snatched from my grip and I find myself on my back on the ground, a sword tip pressing against my chest. The curlyhaired man stands over me. “Sometimes ’tis necessary to cuff cubs for their own good. Call peace, lad, and let us have no more fighting.”
I grumble, “I could have beaten him.”
The curly-haired man laughs. “In faith, I think you could have, young wolf cub. So we owe you a forfeit. Come to the fire and have some mutton stew. Let that and a warm place by the fire be your forfeit tonight.”
The man I fought starts to speak, but the curly-haired man waves him aside.
The Third Witch Page 13