An Ensuing Evil and Others Read Free

old servant.
    MacBeth nodded in grim satisfaction. “Let it continue to be so, for we many yet snare this evildoer. Now where is Prince Malcolm s servant? Why is he not here?”
    “He was injured, noble lord. He now is being attended to, for in truth, he received a blow to the head, which caused it to bleed. He it was who discovered the body of his master.”
    “Then send for him straightaway, Garban. And send for my brehon to oversee these matters, according to the law. There is little time to delay in our pursuit of this assassin.”
    While a king or even a chief could be a judge and arbitrator in the law courts, it was, by law, known that a professional and qualified lawyer, a brehon, had to sit with the king to ensure the letter of the law was obeyed and a fair judgment delivered.
    The old steward was turning toward the door when there was a cry at the portal, and MacBeth turned to see his newly wed wife, the Lady Gruoch, standing there, a hand to her mouth. Garban, the steward, jerked his head to her in nervous obeisance before he hurried forward to carry out MacBeth s instructions.
    MacBeth turned to his wife. He had thought her still sleeping when he had left the bedchamber to follow Garban. “Madam, I am afraid your brother is dead,” he greeted her quietly, not knowing what else to say but the blunt truth.
    Lady Gruoch had seen much violence in her five and twenty years. It had been only one year ago that her first husband, Gillecomgain, the previous petty king of Moray, had been slaughtered in his castle near Inverness with fifty of his warriors. The castle, with its occupants, had been razed to the ground with fire. No one was caught, but whisper had it that the man who ordered the deed was none other than the man whose bed she now shared and who had been acclaimed with the mantle of Mdr-mhaor to replace her dead husband. Yet the Lady Gruoch had long been persuaded to discount such a notion, and she had come to love the young red-haired monarch who offered her and her baby, the young Prince Lulach, his protection.
    Gruoch had not been in the castle of Gillecomgain at the time of the attack but away visiting with her newly born son. The people of Moray, bereft of their ruler, turned to MacBeth, whose father Findlay had been king before Gillecomgain. For kingship, like chieftainship, descended by the rule of the ancient laws of the brehons and not by the inheritance of the firstborn male. A king, or chief, had to be of the blood, but they were elected to their office by their derbhjine , four male generations from a common great grandfather. The law of succession had always been thus so that the most worthy and able should succeed.
    No one questioned that MacBeth was worthy or that he was able. Indeed, he was also of the blood royal, for he was grandson of the High King, Malcolm, the second of his name to sit on the throne at Sgain. Thus the red-haired young noble had been duly installed as the petty king of the province.
    Within the year, MacBeth had convinced the Lady Gruoch that he had not been responsible for her husbands death and had won her love. Scarcely a month had passed since their marriage, at which he had even adopted her son, the baby Lulach, as his own. Yet the evil whispers still remained, and some said that he was ambitious and was only reinforcing his claims to the High Kingship because Gruoch, too, had been the grandchild of a High King, Kenneth III, who had died some thirty years ago. Only in these lands, which comprised the former ancient kingdoms of the Cruithne, was a succession through the female allowed by Brehon Law, but the Pictish custom, as it was called, had not been claimed since Drust Mac Ferat ruled over two hundred years before. So the gossip did not hold water.
    More logical tongues pointed out that the Lady Gruoch’s brother, Malcolm Mac Bodhe, as grandson to Kenneth III, had a more popular claim to the throne as next High King. Even if he had not, it was well known that