Macbeth and Son

by Jackie French

  Chapter 18

  Lulach

  This castle hath a pleasant seat…

  (Macbeth, Act I, Scene 6, line 1)

  The sheep ran down the track towards the stream.

  ‘Baa!’ they cried indignantly. ‘Baaa!’

  They were small, with big horns and black faces and straggly wool.

  ‘Head them back to the pool!’ yelled one of the shepherds.

  Finally the sheep were pushed into the water. They struggled across the pool and up the bank on the far side.

  Kenneth laughed. ‘There’s nothing soggier than a wet sheep,’ he said. Half his face was brown, the other puckered red. Kenneth must have recovered, just like Lulach’s mother had said.

  Lulach grinned. ‘I imagine one of them will be our dinner at the abbey tonight.’

  Lulach was much older—a few years older than Luke perhaps. Ten years or so must have passed, Luke realised. Other things had changed as well. These days Lulach wore fine woollen cloth, striped red and blue and yellow. His cloak was held with a silver brooch, and there were rings on his fingers. Even Kenneth wore gold rings now.

  Their retinue rode behind them—guards, equerries (in charge of the horses), cup bearers, singers, pipers, even a troupe of jugglers in case the King got bored. Lulach had his own guard now too, and his own equerry—his old foster brother Knut, who had left the monastery the year before to join him.

  It was a different land now too. The green hills were the same, and so was the soft dim sky. But the men who chased the sheep were young and well fed. They’d grown up in peace, not been starved in times of war.

  Lulach and his men cantered on, leaving the shepherds and their flock behind but keeping close to the stream.

  Long-haired black cattle grazed on the hills above them, like moving black boulders, and cloud shadows raced across the grass.

  The stream grew broader and deeper. Fields stretched out on either side: barley, wheat and oats on the high lands, with kale, onions and leeks lower down. When the grain was harvested in a few months’ time the cattle would be put to graze on the stubble.

  The fields all belonged to the abbey—a gift from the King to enable the monks to feed the poor. No one starved during winter these days. Not under the rule of King Macbeth.

  Lulach could see the abbey now: the big wooden main hall, the farm buildings, the church, the hospital with its separate building for the lepers, the high stone walls that would protect the herb beds, vegetable gardens and orchards from the harshest of the cold winds and, nearest of all, the lower stone walls of the community’s guesthouse.

  Tomorrow he’d be next to the King while he sat in judgment. Lulach looked forward to days like this. The King relied on the laws, of course, when he settled people’s quarrels about inheritance or cattle theft. But he used his wisdom as well. Lulach thought he learned as much about his stepfather on such days as he did about the laws of Alba. And these days, he thought with pride, the King sometimes listened to Lulach’s advice too.

  Lulach had learned to read fluently these past few years. The laws that the people of Alba had brought over from Ireland were fascinating. Law was what protected the powerless, and made sure each person had equal access to land and care when they were sick. The law laid down how criminals should be punished. What other nations, Lulach sometimes thought with pride, had laws like these?

  A gong sounded deep inside the abbey, a single stroke to mark the quarter hour, so that the neighbourhood would know what time it was.

  Children ran to meet the royal party as they entered the abbey gate, laughing with excitement at the newcomers. One of the royal jugglers pulled a handful of knucklebones from his saddle bag. He tossed them in the air and caught them in a cascade while the children squealed with delight.

  Out in the fields, their parents, the tenants of the abbey lands, stopped and waved or cheered.

  ‘God bless our king! God bless our King Macbeth!’

  It’s a land of law and children now, thought Lulach, as they rodeup to the abbey gate. If there was smoke on the wind these days it was from hearth cakes cooking or baking fish, not burning crops.

  Even the seasons had been kind, men said, in these golden years of King Macbeth.

  Lulach had been right. The guesthouse dinner was a grand one. Roast mutton as predicted, roast beef, roast swan, a giant salmon baked in a wicker basket over the fire, stuffed herrings, stewed eels from the abbey ponds, fresh heather ale, puddings of leeks and almonds or mushrooms with green cheese, oatcakes and fresh wheat bread.

  The Abbot himself was fasting and didn’t join them at the feast. Lulach sat at the High Table next to the King. No one approached the High Table unless the King beckoned. That small distance was the only privacy the King had these days.

  The pipers finished their tune and began another, while a team of jugglers ran in, tossing their batons to each other. Lulach reached for a hunk of salmon. The juice dripped onto his trencher and he licked his fingers. He offered some to the King.

  Macbeth took the fish absently. He had spoken little all through the meal. Suddenly he said, ‘I got a letter last se’enight.’

  ‘Sire?’ The King received many letters, ten or more in a month, from lords or envoys abroad—even from the Vatican in Rome, where he had recently visited.

  ‘From Thorfinn,’ added Macbeth.

  Lulach froze. Suddenly he knew exactly what the letter was about. ‘His daughter?’

  ‘She’s thirteen,’ said the King. ‘High time she was married.’

  Lulach put down the fish. He’d suddenly lost his appetite. He had always known this day was coming, though the King had never mentioned it again after their meeting with Thorfinn.

  Suddenly he remembered his mother, all those years ago, sitting on the hill with the cows and talking about duty. She had been the same age as Thorfinn’s daughter when she first married.

  Did she love Father then? he thought suddenly. Or did she marry him from duty? For some reason that had never occurred to him before.

  These days Queen Gruoch spent most of her time supervising Moray, acting as the mormaer she had never wanted to be. She was rarely able to spend time with the King and his tanist.

  More duty, thought Lulach. Well, this is mine. He’d been waiting for this day since the handshake in the rain, all those years before. To help keep the land peaceful, to keep the alliance with Thorfinn safe.

  ‘Will we be married at Scone?’ he asked, as though unconcerned. ‘Or in Moray?’

  The King looked relieved. Perhaps he was expecting an argument, thought Lulach. ‘Neither. Her father wishes her to be married from home. He doesn’t want her sailing off till she’s a married woman.’ The King raised an eyebrow. ‘It could be done by proxy, if you’d rather.’

  Royalty were often married by proxy before they left home, with someone standing in for them at the ceremony.

  Lulach shrugged. ‘No, sire. I’ll go myself.’

  And meet Thorfinn the Raven Feeder once again, as well as his daughter. The dream of the blackened skull hardly came at all these days. But it was still hard to accept the idea of his father’s killer as his father-in-law.

  ‘Good.’ The King gave a half smile. ‘Thorfinn is easily offended.’

  Thorfinn had recently declared himself independent of the Norwegian king—no longer the Norse earl of the Orkney Islands, but their king. Thorfinn had also fought alongside Macbeth’s troops when King Duncan’s son, Malcolm, had tried to seize the throne. Malcolm had been a child when Duncan had been killed. Now he was old enough to be king, and his English uncle was helping him. No, thought Lulach, you wouldn’t want to get on the wrong side of Thorfinn.

  ‘Thorfinn’s been a good ally,’ the King went on. ‘And who knows when we’ll need him again.’

  Malcolm had been living down in England, at the court of the English king, Edward. Like other English kings, Edward believed that God had ordained that a king’s son should become king after his father died—even if he
were stupid or insane. King Edward was horrified at the very idea of electing a king. He was pleased to support a rebellion that would get rid of such dangerous ideas on his doorstep.

  If Malcolm gained the throne he’d get rid of the elections too. He was half English, and had grown up there. What did he care for Alba’s laws?

  But Malcolm had failed. He’d fled back down south to England.

  Lulach had been too young for that war. He was glad. And with Thorfinn as an ally, hopefully Scotland would be too strong for Malcolm ever to attack again, even with English help.

  ‘I’ve heard a little about Thorfinn’s daughter,’ the King continued. ‘Her name is Thora. They say she’s beautiful.’

  ‘Every earl’s daughter is supposed to be beautiful,’ returned Lulach, trying to keep his voice light. ‘She’s probably fat like her father.’ With warts too, he thought gloomily.

  ‘Perhaps she takes after her mother. Her mother died, you know, two years ago. Thorfinn has married again.’

  The King threw a mutton bone to his favourite hound. The dog grabbed it and began to gnaw at it under the table.

  The King laid his hand on Lulach’s. ‘If she’s hideous you can leave her with your mother. Visit her once a year to breed your sons. They say she’s fond of animals,’ he added encouragingly, spearing a chunk of greasy eel with his knife. ‘That shows she must have a good heart.’

  Fond of animals? Lulach imagined Thorfinn’s daughter watching her hawk rise from her wrist to pluck smaller birds from the sky and tear them into pieces. Or maybe she enjoyed bear baiting…

  ‘I’d better head north soon,’ he said casually. ‘While the weather holds.’

  The King relaxed slightly and nodded. They watched as one of the jugglers added the halfstripped sheep’s head to his batons, and then a roast leg of mutton too, while the courtiers laughed and the dogs underneath the table drooled and hoped he’d drop it all.

  Chapter 19

  Lulach

  So foul and fair a day I have not seen.

  (Macbeth, Act I, Scene 3, line 38)

  The ship was a trader working along the coast. This time she carried Lulach and his men instead of dried fish or bales of wool or furs or bolts of linen.

  The sea winds blustered across the waves, sending them slapping against the boat. Seagulls circled the ship in hope of fish. Cormorants dived into the waves in its wake.

  Lulach stared at the birds. He wondered what would happen if he played Kenneth’s pipe to them. Would the cormorants call back?

  The sails flapped and billowed up above. The wind played on the ship’s taut ropes as if they were harp strings, sending them twanging. A sudden harder gust almost seemed to keel them over. Then the ship righted herself and plunged on through the waves.

  The Captain laughed. ‘Never fear, my Lord,’ he yelled to Lulach over the wind and waves and sail’s song. ‘There’s quite a gale today, but we’ve weathered worse!’

  ‘Do you do this run often?’ shouted Knut.

  ‘Thorfinn’s a good customer.’ The captain’s voice was hoarse from years of yelling above the wind. ‘We take him wheat flour, oil, almonds, raisins, get dried fish and Greenland furs in exchange.’

  ‘You know Thorfinn’s household well?’ asked Knut, too innocently.

  The Captain nodded, rather than shout again.

  ‘And his daughter?’

  ‘Knut!’ said Lulach sharply. Whatever the girl was like, she’d be his wife—maybe one day Queen of Alba. It wasn’t right for any man—not even Knut—to gossip about her.

  But the Captain just laughed. ‘Oh, yes. The Lady Thora’s well known.’

  Well known for what? wondered Lulach. But there was no way he could ask the Captain. He caught Knut’s eye and shook his head.

  Besides, he thought, as the island came in view, a glimpse of deeper blue among sleet and the spray, I’ll find out soon enough.

  The ‘never-silent’, the great north wind, howled across the island. Sleet stung Lulach’s cheeks as he stared at the pier. It was made of solid stone, with a shingle beach on either side.

  The sleet made it hard to see, but as far as he could tell the island was deserted.

  The Captain stroked his beard. ‘Can’t hear a thing except the wind. Shouldn’t be quiet like this,’ he said. ‘Last time we were here you couldn’t move for youngsters shouting and yelling. I don’t like it. I don’t like it at all.’

  ‘Maybe there’s sickness,’ said Knut.

  Lulach shook his head. ‘Everyone wouldn’t be sick. There’d be people still about.’ He turned to the Captain. ‘Where’s Thorfinn’s house?’

  The Captain pointed. ‘Over there. You’d see it if it weren’t for the sleet. It’s a grand place. Store sheds enough for an army.’

  Lulach considered. He wished Kenneth were here, or some other experienced soldier. But the King hadn’t seen any reason to send Kenneth with a marriage party. Lulach would have to take charge himself.

  ‘Knut, bring five of the men,’ he said at last. ‘No one else is to leave the ship. Keep her ready to sail with the tide,’ he added to the Captain.

  There was something wrong here. Very wrong.

  The captain threw out the gangway. The seven of them bounded across it to the pier, the wind slashing at their faces. It seemed strange to feel solid land underfoot after two days rolling on the sea. I’d never make a sailor, thought Lulach, or a fisherman either.

  Nothing moved. The land was silent. Only the wind screamed about them as they forced their bodies through the sleet.

  ‘Lulach?’

  ‘Yes?’

  ‘The seagulls,’ whispered Knut. ‘Have you noticed?’

  Lulach nodded. There were no gulls sheltering by the pier, waiting for fish guts. What could have happened for even gulls to desert the land?

  They found the first body behind a clump of bushes by the road. It was a woman’s. Her feet were bare and she wore no cloak—she must have fled in a hurry. Her throat had been cut from side to side and there was blood on her skirt too. A dog lay by her side, its wet fur slashed across the chest.

  ‘It tried to save her,’ said Knut quietly.

  Lulach nodded. He felt sick. But if Knut, the exmonk, could look at the woman’s body without flinching, so could he.

  ‘Should we bury her?’ asked Knut.

  ‘Not yet.’

  Lulach sniffed. The wind smelled strange…sweet, but stale as well. Almost like the chimney at home after it had been swept…

  Suddenly the curtain of sleet rose.

  Lulach stared.

  The hills were bare and charred. No trees, no bushes. A few walls showed grey against the darkened earth.

  There was no long house, no store sheds. There was no sign of life at all.

  Instead the land spread out black, flat and featureless, apart from a few lumps of blackened stone or timber.

  And bodies. Not long dead, for they still had their shape—they weren’t bloated. And their eyes hadn’t yet been plucked by the ravens. Men’s bodies, soldiers’ bodies, with old scars on their arms to show the battles they’d survived before.

  But this one had killed them.

  Lulach walked among them, trying to stop the horror from showing on his face in front of the soldiers. It was like a nightmare, he thought. The howling wind, and numberless bodies tumbled on the ground. It was just like the nightmares after he had seen the blackened body of his father. Some of the bodies had been burned like his, twisted into strange shapes by the fire but still recognisable as human. Others were untouched, apart from the sword blows that had killed them, as though they had managed to escape from the flames only to meet death by steel instead.

  But there were no women’s bodies after the first one. No children’s either. Whoever had done this had killed the men, but taken the women and children prisoner. They’d be in slave chains now. He wondered about the woman they had found. Had she almost escaped? Or fought, as they dragged her to the ships, and then they’d killed
her?

  And what of Thora, his bride? Had her bones been burned in this inferno? Or was she a slave in chains, on her way to her new master?

  Who could have done this to a man as powerful as Thorfinn?

  This was what his own land had been spared, he realised. Because of Macbeth’s peace, Lulach had never had to face a battlefield of bodies, or households burned to bones.

  He gestured to the guards. ‘Spread out,’ he ordered.

  ‘What are we looking for?’ asked Knut.

  Lulach shrugged. ‘Clues to who did this. Survivors. Anything you can find.’ He looked at the charred ruins of Thorfinn’s hall again. How could anyone have survived a fire like that?

  His mind flashed back to his father’s body. Was it some form of justice that Thorfinn had died in flames too?

  No, thought Lulach. This wasn’t war. These people were taken by surprise. And innocent people died here with Thorfinn. Including Thora.

  He began to walk past the ruins, down towards the water, then noticed Knut was still with him. ‘I don’t need a guard,’ he said shortly.

  ‘Whoever did this might still be nearby.’

  ‘We’d have heard them. Captives aren’t quiet.’

  He needed some time to himself, he thought suddenly. Time to make sure he showed none of the horror he felt to his men. Time to forget the smell of burned bodies, remembered from his childhood. Time to mourn Thora, a girl he hadn’t even met. He hadn’t wanted to marry her. But she didn’t deserve this. It was all he could do for his bride now, to mourn her for a while.

  Knut headed back to the ship. Lulach wandered down to the sea again. There was a beach, a small crescent of pebbles backed by smooth boulders, with thick black drifts of seaweed to show how far the tide had reached. The waves were comforting as they washed back and forth. Waves didn’t care what happened to people. Their world went on, no matter what tragedy happened on land.

  The salt wind lashed his face. No wonder the Norsemen cover their roofs with turf, thought Lulach. Otherwise the wind would blow them off. The shingle crunched underfoot.