Lady macbethad, p.12
Lady MacBethad, page 12
Sinna bit her lip.
‘Have I upset you, Your Grace?’
‘No.’
We stared at each other for a moment.
‘Will that be all, Your Grace?’ Sinna asked.
‘Aye . . . No. You don’t need to call me Your Grace. Just call me Gruoch.’
‘But, Your Grace—’
‘No, I don’t like it when you say it.’
It was true, but I could not explain why. I had appreciated having sway over the older woman, but the way Sinna bowed and murmured “Your Grace”, as if she expected me to strike her, set me on edge.
‘I command you to call me Gruoch.’
Sinna nodded and smiled.
‘Right,’ I said and lay back down.
‘God guard your sleep,’ she murmured.
‘And you,’ I responded lamely. It seemed the right thing to say.
It took me a while to fall asleep after that, caught up in thoughts of the girls who had slept in this room before me. I knew about the Princess of Northumbria, of course, but I had not known she had stayed at Dunkeld and I had not known there had been yet another before her. I wondered if they had done something to displease Crinan and Bethoc, or if they were merely victims of the ever-shifting power struggles between Alba and her surrounding kingdoms.
I should not have been surprised. MacBethad had told me many times of King Malcolm’s paranoia and his desperation to make Duncan king. It would make sense that he had tried to marry him off to whichever bride would bring the strongest ally. Well, I might not be the first, but I resolved to be the last.
And with that, I fell asleep.
*
I woke to the sound of the abbey bells. I cried out to Sinna in alarm, thinking we were under attack, but she explained the bells were to call us to morning prayer. She helped me get dressed with a practised skill. I would have resisted, insisting I could dress myself, but I was still half-asleep and it was dark and I didn’t mind being assisted this once.
We made our way to a small chapel reserved for the daughters of noblewomen. As I entered all eyes turned to me, burning with curiosity. I held my head high and took my place beside Bethoc, who nodded in approval of my assumed reverence. To the other side of her sat a young red-haired girl with a sharp nose and even sharper eyes. I wondered who she was to earn such a place, and hoped she would not prove to be a threat to my position.
Prayers were so dull that I was afraid I would fall asleep, but they passed mercifully quickly. Bethoc and I left first, followed by the rest of the company. Outside the chapel, the girls swarmed into the hall like bees. A brave few approached me to introduce themselves, but my attention was drawn to the red-head who passed through the swarm without acknowledging anyone.
The other girls moved away, giving her a wide berth. I thought I caught a few who accidentally came too close to her shrink away. Just before she disappeared, she turned back to look at me and I saw my own curiosity matched in her eyes.
At the first meal I sat alone, preferring my own company, but a few of the other girls joined me.
‘Welcome,’ said one, batting her eyelashes strangely.
‘We hear you come from the North,’ another said, smiling in a way that made me feel uneasy.
‘Are you terribly wild?’ the third said, clasping her hands in a display of wonder. I could not be sure if they were mocking me or were genuinely interested. They behaved so unlike the girls I had known.
‘No,’ I replied, making no attempt to continue the conversation, but they were not put off.
‘What was Duncan like on the journey?’ cooed the one with the batting eyelashes.
‘Fine,’ I said, growing more and more irritated with their persistence.
The one with clasped hands leaned in and asked conspiratorially: ‘You must tell us. We have heard so many rumours. Is MacBethad every bit as much of a brute as they say?’
‘MacBethad?’ I spoke louder than I’d meant to, alarmed to hear his name.
‘Aye, Duncan’s cousin,’ the stupidly smiling one said. ‘Is it true he fucks his horses with a sword in his hand?’
The girls giggled and I coloured at their vulgarity. I wanted to strike them for their slurs. In a way, I knew this was what they wanted. They were testing my mettle. Would I fall in with them? Would I confirm their suspicions? I refused to be a pawn in their games.
‘What an incredibly stupid question,’ I laughed through my anger. Their smiles cracked and I continued to taunt them.
‘Duncan was right about you all,’ I said, biting into my bread and honey.
‘What did he say?’ the one with clasped hands exclaimed, though the other two tried to warn her from falling into my trap.
‘That you were a bunch of silly little whores,’ I replied, steadily staring them down. Their smiles fell and they stood abruptly.
The pleasure derived from my little victory did not last long. Later that afternoon, as I passed a group of girls in the hall, they whispered behind my back, making sure I knew they were speaking unfavourably of me. The next morning, their leader, the one with the stupid smile, blocked my path pretending she had not seen me, and I found a toad in my porridge at breakfast. When I shouted, she broke into hysterical giggles.
‘Do you not appreciate my gift?’ she asked between fits of laughter. ‘I thought it would better suit your palate, make you feel more at home.’
If they thought to intimidate me, they had miscalculated. I was a queen, it was my destiny, and I would not let them stand in my way. I told Bethoc of the girl’s disrespect and asked that she be removed. Her nobility was of a lesser kind, and her father had recently fallen out of favour, so luck was on my side and Bethoc granted my request.
After that, the other girls’ animosity deepened, but they avoided me, and though I was sure they whispered behind my back, none dared to do so in my presence. I had not set out to make enemies and would have preferred their reverence, but I soon learned that fear looked very similar.
It didn’t matter. I would have my first blood soon enough. Then Duncan and I would move to Scone to live with King Malcolm until his death. It would not do to get overly attached to anyone here anyway; it would make leaving all the more difficult. If my journey to the throne would be a lonely one, so be it.
Chapter 12
Spring passed to summer. Summer came and went, and still I did not receive my woman’s blood. The first heated animosity towards me cooled over time to tepid indifference. Where I could have borne their hatred and suspicion, I could not bear their apathy, as if I were insignificant, as if I were just another young woman in the crush at court instead of their future queen.
To make matters worse, MacBethad had been right. From prayers, to mealtimes, to lessons in Latin and prayers again, I was shooed around the abbey, closely watched at all times. Grandmother’s instruction to me to survive had not taken into account the relentless monotony of my existence at Dunkeld. I was given no time to think, to explore, to breathe.
Sinna came with me everywhere but provided little company. When I first began to despair at the other girls’ indifference, I tried to engage my maid in conversation. I needed an ally to help me navigate these complicated cross-currents, but she only shrugged at my questions and offered neither solution nor opinion. Her entire life had been spent in servitude, and though she had always been at Dunkeld, she did not seem to know anything about the inner lives of the others who inhabited the abbey. At first her dullness upset me, but she was content enough to be ignored, and so we settled into easy silence.
To alleviate the crushing disappointment of life in Dunkeld, I tried to throw myself into my studies. I was taught to read and write in the language of the new religion, Christianity, but I was a slow learner, struggled to concentrate, and came to dread my lessons as well. I could never remember the names of the martyrs or the Prayer for Penitence, and after several months of practice my Latin still sounded idiotic. Perhaps if the Christian stories held even a modicum of adventure or romance or defiance I might have been interested. But their god was so very uninspiring.
He had come to earth to walk among men just to die again. Only a very limp god could die so easily and so willingly. He had apparently conquered death and risen back to earth only to disappear once more into the clouds. Bethoc held such contempt for our pagan ancestors, yet I could not see any significant differences in our beliefs. We also had stories of gods taking the form of men; only we would never believe in a god so weak that he would sacrifice himself for another.
Loneliness drove me to seek a friend in Duncan, but a great many people seemed to congregate around him wherever he went. Any attempts on my part to separate him from his audience always led to further embarrassment for me. He was far more concerned with the well-being of his future courtiers than that of his future bride.
I was not the only one irritated by this misplaced attention; I often caught Crinan cringing at his son’s behaviour. Wrongly interpreting the source of his father’s disapproval, Duncan only redoubled his efforts to be well liked in the court of his father. I could have pitied him, but how he did not have the sense to see what his father truly wanted of him was beyond me.
One morning during harvest, after seven months of misery and boredom, I managed to evade my guards and tried to escape from the abbey, driven by a desperation to see something, anything, outside the stone walls. I was found almost immediately and brought to Bethoc before I had even reached the stables.
I expected her to yell at me but she only sat there, drawing out the silence until I thought I would be crushed beneath it.
‘Have you heard from my father? Or Findlaich?’ I asked, trying to break the tension.
‘No,’ Bethoc replied.
I bit my lip. It was unlikely she told the truth, but knowing this before I asked the question had not made the hearing of it any easier.
‘Living here is a gift, one that only comes because of Findlaich’s loyalty to your father,’ Bethoc said. ‘Do you think you make them proud with such disobedience?’
I refused to answer. This was the longest we had spoken since my arrival, and though I had resigned myself to being in close proximity with a woman I despised, I had been relieved to cross her path so infrequently.
‘You’ve managed to alienate everyone in the abbey,’ she continued.
‘They didn’t like me from the beginning!’
Bethoc pressed her lips together, hating to be interrupted.
‘I did not mean it as an insult,’ she said. ‘You show promise and strength. But if you try to run away again, I will lock you in your room and you will not be allowed out until your blood comes.’
Nodding sullenly, I turned to leave, surprised by the revelation that she saw promise in me.
‘You are Ailith’s daughter, but Donalda has claimed you as hers,’ Bethoc called out after me. Hearing my mother’s name, my heart skidded to a stop. I felt the familiar impulse to tear Bethoc’s tongue from her mouth. I dared not turn around lest my thoughts be evident on my face.
‘Don’t disappoint her,’ Bethoc finished.
I heeded her warning but felt the pain of my compliance. Never had I experienced such loneliness as in the months that followed. In my early years, my mother had been my constant companion. Once Adair was born, we had never been separated for more than a few hours. And when we had moved to Moray, there had been an endless supply of children willing to join in my ramblings – and there had been MacBethad. His quiet, steady presence had brought me more joy than I realised until I keenly felt its absence.
As time dragged on at Dunkeld, I felt emptiness creep into my heart. I was being hollowed out, slowly losing the will to continue.
And I was desperate to find a cure.
*
In mid-winter, a year after I had arrived at Dunkeld, I was standing alone in a corner of Crinan’s meeting room during the Great Council.
Once every fortnight, Crinan opened his private halls to the surrounding noblemen who wished to see him. Thanes who might have fallen out of favour would come to restore their place in his court or maybe to garner more attention from their neighbours. There were even those who came to borrow from Crinan’s abundant resources. Any could approach to woo and win him to their cause during the Great Council.
I might have been interested in these proceedings had there been someone to share my thoughts with. But the abbey girls always managed to poison my name to any newcomers before I had a chance to greet them. Eventually I gave up and resigned myself to isolation while I waited for the council to draw to a close, unable even to daydream about my past life in Burghead lest I be overcome with emotion.
Bethoc always made me stay to the end. I imagined she thought it was some kind of torture, though she insisted it was only to establish my visibility among the nobility so that I might command their respect when I became Queen. I never felt more invisible.
Duncan was the antithesis to my anonymity, making himself the loudest person in the room. He enjoyed the attention of the young noblewomen who came with their fathers, and his flirtations grew bolder as our betrothal stretched out.
The only young woman who remained completely immune to Duncan’s charms was the sharp-eyed red-head I had seen that first morning – Ardith. I envied her as she moved about these council meetings. She spoke to the thanes as their equal and all the young women cowered from her as she passed by. She had never made any attempt to introduce herself to me so I assumed she had turned against me like the others.
One morning Duncan decided to try a joke on her. I had heard it the day before as he made it before some of the novices – young boys training to be monks. It had not been particularly funny, but the novices had laughed, perhaps a bit too loudly, and Duncan had been in a good mood the rest of the day.
Ardith granted him no such favour. She snorted in derision, and the few words she said in response caused him to go red at the ears and stalk away. A small blonde stood in his path, older than the rest of us and still without a husband. She immediately saw to his hurt pride with a desperation that made me chuckle.
The sound drew Ardith’s attention and she caught me staring at her. She smiled and began walking towards me. I turned, thinking she was approaching someone else, but I was alone in my corner. Alarmed but determined not to show it, I stood up straighter and prepared myself for some kind of hostility or underhanded insult.
‘Is it true you are descended from a daughter of druids?’ she asked.
My mouth fell open, my practised indifference dissolving instantly.
‘Aye.’
‘Are you a pagan?’ Ardith asked, her sharp eyes lowering along with her voice. I suspected a trap.
‘No,’ I said.
‘How disappointing.’
She began to walk away.
‘Wait,’ I called after her. Ardith was the first person who had taken interest in either my Picti ancestry or my pagan origins, and my curiosity was piqued. She turned back to me with a sigh of boredom.
‘Why do you ask?’ I said.
‘Because I am a druid,’ she said quietly. ‘And I heard that you might be one, too. But you are not, so never mind.’
I looked around to see if any had heard, but there were still none nearby. Ardith turned her back to walk away once more. Too shocked to keep my curiosity at bay, I called out after her.
‘Do not turn your back on your future queen,’ I said, more out of desperation than any kind of frustration. A few heads swung our way. Even I was taken aback by the sharpness in my voice. Perhaps Bethoc’s talk of prominence and authority was starting to take hold.
Ardith turned back to me, and where I had expected to see annoyance or even anger written on her face, I found only pleasure.
‘What is your name?’ I asked, though I knew it already. No other question sprang to my mind to keep her there. The curious onlookers, disappointed there was to be no altercation went back to their conversations.
‘Ardith,’ she replied with a smile. ‘No need to ask your name. You are Gruoch, though I heard you were once called Groa, after the seeress. Groa of the wide eyes.’
Speaking of pagan things was not banned outright, but it felt dangerous within the halls of Dunkeld Abbey. She felt dangerous.
‘Don’t worry, Groa,’ Ardith continued. It seemed she was testing me to see how I would respond to such familiarity. ‘No one will care what two young women are speaking of – they will assume it is something trivial.’
In the year that I had been in Dunkeld, no one had spoken to me like this, and no one had used my old nickname. To my great shame, I found tears springing to my eyes. I tried to fight them, but the overwhelming loneliness that I had been trying to ignore for so long came bubbling up and threatened to spill over. I did not trust my voice, so I waited for Ardith to say something. She smiled again and took my arm.
‘Come,’ she said. ‘Let’s talk.’
Curious eyes followed us as she led me around the room. Duncan looked over from where he was courting the attention of the eager blonde and scowled slightly.
‘Duncan is such a fool,’ Ardith whispered conspiratorially. ‘Does he not look ridiculous, preening his feathers like a peacock, and for such a dull one as Suthan?’
I giggled.
‘He does. He never behaves like that when they are gone.’
‘He needs an audience,’ Ardith said, and I was pleased to meet someone who at last saw through his ridiculous charade.
‘Who are you?’ I asked.
‘I am the daughter of a nobleman; no one of note,’ Ardith said, sounding bored again. ‘I’ve come here to be educated, though I already knew how to read and write. I know a handful of languages, and I can recite all the Christian prayers. Lady and Lord Crinan want me to succeed the abbess.’
She reeled off her list of accomplishments as if she cared nothing for them, but I felt she was secretly quite pleased with herself and wanted me to be impressed. I was.
‘But you said you are a pagan,’ I whispered. ‘How can they make you abbess?’
‘They don’t know,’ Ardith whispered back. ‘And I only told you because I thought you were one, too.’
