Lady Macbeth's Daughter Read Online Free PDF Page A

marches through the Spey valley toward Duncan’s castle.”
    “A rebellion!” my mother says.
    “And where does Macbeth’s loyalty lie?” asks Helwain.
    “With King Duncan, of course!” says Rhuven in haste. “As he was leaving, he said to my lady that he would bring home the victory and lay it at her feet.”
    “That may have a double meaning,” Helwain muses. “Are you sure he has no greater ambition?”
    “He seems content,” says Rhuven. “The old thane of Glamis has died, and my lord expects Duncan to grant him Glamis’s lands and title. But something else worries me.” Rhuven pauses. “The loss of his stillborn son disturbs him deeply. Helwain, Macbeth believes you lied to him. He has vowed to seek you out.”
    “He will ask in the village, and they will tell him where we live,” says my mother, her voice rising. “But he must not come here.”
    However hard I listen, I do not understand all these matters.
    “Nay, we will go to him,” says Helwain. “Next week, when the moon is full, we three will meet at Wanluck Mhor, and in that wasteland of ill fortune, waylay him.”
    “What will you tell him, Helwain? You must not promise him any more sons,” Rhuven warns.
    Helwain shrugs. “I will know by then what to say to him.”

    All week Helwain is busy with her powders and potions. She casts bones on the hearth and prods the dust for signs. She searches the skies at night. Mother is silent and tense. On the day they are to leave for the moor, she tries to send me to stay with Murdo and Colum. But I want to see Helwain do her dark mischief, so I cry and beg and cling to Mother until she relents.
    We set out for Wanluck Mhor early in the day, with Mother pulling the small sledge laden with blankets, food, and Helwain’s kettle. It may take several days to find this lord, she says. Rhuven, coming from Dun Inverness, meets us at the edge of the woods. She frowns when she sees me.
    “Why have you brought her?” she says in dismay.
    “She is afraid to be left behind. You can understand why,” Mother says, putting her arms around me. “Don’t worry. She will stay hidden.”
    But I am not afraid, and I don’t understand why I must hide. I am simply excited to be going on a journey and curious about what I will see on the moor.
    We climb up and down steep braes where the deer drink from the rivulets running down the rocks. The rising sun in our eyes makes us blink. Dew lifts from the ground and the long purple shadows fade. The sun is overhead, then at our backs. Gradually we descend to soft earth covered with bearberry bushes, dwarf birches, and heather with white and pink flowers. Helwain prods the ground with her staff to feel where the soft, peaty ground gives way to a sucking bog. We are on Wanluck Mhor. When I ask Mother how the place got its name, she says that no one knows. But I think it must have been a great flood, for I see ruined dwellings covered in lichens and brambles, islands in a shallow, grassy sea.
    In the distance, too, there is movement. “Something is coming, Mother!” The sound of hooves thudding on the soft ground grows louder.
    Helwain heads for a nearby boulder. Mother drags the sledge off the path and into the bracken. We crouch behind the rock. Now we can hear the jingling of harnesses and war-mail as horsemen converge on the path.
    “We hail from the king!” shouts one of the men. “What news from the battlefield?”
    “Take this message to Duncan,” comes the reply. “Brave Macbeth with his smoking sword has slain the traitor Macdonwald.”
    A deep-throated shout rises from the first party.
    “And you spread this word,” orders the king’s messenger. “The thane of Cawdor has confessed to aiding the king of Norway, and to punish this treason, Duncan has confiscated all his lands and cut off his head.”
    My mouth falls open to hear about such killing. Mother puts her fingers against my lips.
    “Cursed be Cawdor’s soul!” growls the man from the