Lady Macbeth's Daughter Read Free Page B

her and his body was found dashed on a rock. It happened before you were born.”
    Not long after that I dream of a large black dog that leads me onto the moor until a white deer appears and the dog runs away. When I wake up I am sitting beneath a stunted birch tree in the midst of a bog. Everywhere I step, the mire sucks my feet downward. I cry all day until Mother and Helwain find me.
    “You must never wander off like that!” scolds Mother.
    “I didn’t!” I protest, still sniffling. “A black dog led me here.”
    Helwain examines my arms and legs for bite marks. I cringe from her as if she is the fearsome dog.
    “Helwain, don’t frighten her again!” Mother says. “We must watch her more closely.”
    “Indeed I will,” says Helwain, staring at me with dark eyes that want to see inside my head.
    “It was only a dream, Albia, only a dream,” Mother says, her arms around me.

    I know my way through the woods to Colum’s house. I am not supposed to go there alone, but Mother and Helwain cannot watch me every hour of the day.
    One day Colum and I are picking bilberries and eating most of them. From nearby comes the swish-swash of a sickle cutting barley. Murdo’s bald head bobs along the edge of the field.
    All of a sudden Colum asks, “Where is your father?”
    I look at him, thinking him stupid. “I don’t have one,” I say.
    “But everyone has a da,” he says.
    “No, I have never had one,” I insist. “Mother says I don’t need one.” I ask him why he does not have a mother.
    “She died when my baby brother was born, taking him with her.”
    “So I have no father, and you have no mother,” I say with a shrug. It is just a fact, nothing even to wonder about.
    “Shhh!” Colum whispers. He pulls a slingshot from his pocket and fits a stone into the pouch. “I will show you how fast I can let fly with the stone, and there will be rabbit stew for supper.”
    I see the rabbit hopping through the stubble in the field. I close my eyes and hear the snap of the sling, then a sigh from Colum. He has missed.
    “Now you try, Albia. He is afraid now and will not move. It is an easy shot.”
    I shake my head. I have no wish to harm the rabbit.
    “Well, if I don’t kill him, Da and I will go hungry.”
    He aims again and before I can stop him, the rock hits the rabbit. A triumphant Colum runs to examine his prey. Curious yet full of dread, I follow him. The rabbit lies unmoving, its eyes open and glassy. Blood pools on the ground, a lot of blood for so small a creature. I cannot take my eyes off the gleaming flow, a thin dark stream of animal grief.

Chapter 3
    Dun Inverness
    Grelach
    I am mistress of this tower and its furnishings of carved ash and oak, the jewels and finely woven dresses, and the kist of Viking treasure at the foot of my bed. I am mistress of all of Dun Inverness, its servants and livestock, the terraces and garden plots, the defensive ditches revetted with banks of rock. Mine is the town of Inverness, mine the rock-strewn heath that rolls all the way to the mountains. I am mistress of the wave-dashed rocks, the firth where my husband’s fleet lies at anchor, and the sea-roads beyond.
    I am Lady Macbeth of Moray, whose husband is more powerful than the thanes of Ross, Sutherland, Glamis, or Cawdor. His immense war-galley with its high stem and stern requires seventy-two men just to pull the oars. It skims across the water like a gull through the air, noiseless and swift, scattering the Viking raiders and the Orkney warbands who threaten this northern coast. Yet for all his wealth and the resources he commands, Macbeth remains a loyal servant of King Duncan—that imposter, undeserving and untested, placed on a throne of ease by his grandfather Malcolm!
    Duncan may rule Scotland, but Macbeth rules this northern kingdom. Our enemies fear us. I have riches beyond my needs or desires. The royal blood of Kenneth, once Scotland’s king, flows in my veins. Yet I am no one, and I have nothing,