Lady Macbeth's Daughter by Lisa Klein

Author:Lisa Klein
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: ebook, book
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing Plc
Published: 2010-08-23T04:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

Dunbeag

Albia

When I wake up in my tiny room, Breda is holding a cup of warm broth to my lips. The air smells of mustard and wormwood poultices. I feel dull and sleepy and all my limbs ache as if I have been fighting with swords and running with stones around my ankles. Breda tells me that I have been out of my senses for many days.

The last thing I remember is trying to warn Banquo about Macbeth. The fact that Breda calmly tends to me now persuades me that he is unharmed. Perhaps my fears were groundless after all, and grief for Geillis disturbed my mind, then made me ill. I wonder if any warning dreams came to me while I was sick, but I can remember only a few strange images. Trees in a forest stirring from their places and moving as if they had feet. A procession of kings passing me, one holding a looking glass. Mere figments of a feverish mind. And Fleance’s face, which brings a feeling of sorrow.

Banquo and Fleance have gone out hunting, Breda says. She brings me oatcakes soaked in milk, urging me to eat. Her eyes, which once made me think of ice, now recall the cool waters of a loch. When she wipes my forehead, it is like an apology for calling me a whore. I submit to her care, too weak to help myself. It occurs to me that I have mistaken our relationship, trying to please Breda as a companion, when she only wanted a daughter to care for.

But I am not her daughter. I was not Geillis’s daughter. Generous, loving Geillis! No, my mother is the queen. I feel no speck of pride in this, for the woman came by that title by foul deeds. Still less can she be called a mother, for she did not even protect me from my cruel father. I deny her. Should we ever meet, I will be as indifferent to her as she was to me. She left me to die!

Yet I did not die, for Rhuven saved me. And I did not succumb to this fever, for Breda nursed me. Macbeth my blood father is a murderer, full of foul lust, but my foster father, Banquo, is upright and kindhearted. He has accepted me as his daughter. Colum is my dear friend. And I think I love Fleance.

I start to cry, not out of grief, but with gratitude for my good fortune.

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