Macbeth and Son

Lady Macduff: Yes, he is dead:

how wilt thou do for a father?

Son: Nay, how will you do for a husband?

(
Macbeth
, Act IV, Scene 2, lines 38–39)

The noise wailed like the wind, waking him up. Pipers, thought Lulach, rolling over on the goosefeather mattress. Who was playing bagpipes so late at night? All the pipers had gone with the army, marching at the front when his father had led the men of Clan Moray to this summer’s war.

Lulach ran to the window and peered out. It was never quite dark even at midnight on summer nights here in the north. Tonight the cobbles and stone walls of the rath’s great courtyard were silver in the moonlight. The blacksmith’s anvil gleamed. Lulach could see the river from here, with its ripples of moonlit gold, and the fishermen’s cottages by the shore. Up on the hill the sheep bleated at the noise.

Other people were waking up now. Sleepy women hurried from the Hall door, clasping their shawls or
cloaks about them. There were even a few men as well, too old to follow their chief to the war. One or two children clutched their mother’s skirts. But there were few children in Moray these days. Wars every summer meant starving winters, and children died, even here in the rath—the Hall and clustered cottages of the Mormaer, the Chief.

The pipers were coming closer. The army must be coming back! Maybe they’d won this war, thought Lulach exultantly. King Duncan had led his men to war five times, and lost every one of them. But maybe this time…

Lulach thrust his feet into his boots and grabbed his cloak from the chair. It was midsummer, but here in the north of Alba the short summer nights were chilly.

Lulach ran down the stone stairs and out into the courtyard. The people stood aside to let him pass. Lulach was only five, but he was still the Mormaer’s son.

Knut was already at the front of the crowd, next to Lulach’s mother, the Lady Gruoch. Knut was Lulach’s foster brother and best friend, three years older than Lulach. Like most sons of high-born families, Knut was spending several years with another family, to learn their ways and help cement alliances between the families.

‘What’s happening?’ Lulach demanded.

‘The army is coming back!’ said Knut excitedly.

‘But it’s night-time!’

The Lady Gruoch glanced at them both. Her face was as pale as her blonde plaits. ‘The moon is light enough to show their way,’ she said.

There was a note in his mother’s voice that Lulach had never heard before. She grabbed his hand, so hard his knuckles hurt.

What was so urgent that battle-weary men would travel at night, with just the light of the moon to guide them? Why didn’t the women run to meet the men, as they had last year when the army returned?

Why were they so silent?

Lulach peered up the muddy track. He could see the four pipers now, their bagpipes sobbing more poignantly than any human voices. Six men walked behind them, each helping to carry a bier on their shoulders. There was something lumpy on it, covered with a cloak. Behind them trudged the tired, tattered men of Moray’s army.

A hundred men had marched away six weeks ago. Lulach didn’t think there were as many as that now.

He tried to make out their faces in the moonlight.

Where was his father? The Mormaer’s place was at the front of the army! When they marched away his father had ridden just behind the pipers on his big red horse.

Had the horse been killed in battle?

‘My Lady?’ It was Meröe. She had been his mother’s nurse, and had come with her when the Lady Gruoch married the Mormaer of Moray. Now Meröe was in charge of all the women in the rath—deciding who would make the cheeses, weave the cloth or take the cows to the hills in summer; making sure the fish were dried well enough to be stored and the barley was safe from the mice.

Knut had told him that Meröe was a witch. According to Knut, old women turned into witches
when their chins got hairy. Meröe’s beard was almost as good as her son’s, and her mouth was all wrinkles like an apple after winter.

Knut said witches could kill a cow just by looking at it. But Lulach wasn’t frightened of witches.

Much.

‘I’ll take the boy, my Lady,’ said Meröe gently.

The Lady Gruoch nodded. She let go of Lulach’s hand. He felt Meröe’s horny one grip him instead.

His mother strode over the stones of the courtyard, lifting her skirts to keep them free of grime.

The pipers stopped their playing.

One of the men left his place below the bier and came towards her.

‘I’m sorry, my Lady,’ he said softly. It was Kenneth, Meröe’s son. In peacetime he was Moray’s Steward, second only to the Mormaer—in charge of choosing which family would farm which piece of land, and who would crew the fishing boats. In wartime he was the second in command. Before the army went to war, Kenneth had made Lulach pipes from a sheep’s bone, and shown him how to call the birds with it.

What’s happening? wondered Lulach. Why is Kenneth sorry? Have we lost this war too?

‘Let me see him.’ Gruoch’s voice was calm. Lulach would have thought she felt nothing, if he hadn’t seen her eyes as she turned briefly to glance at him.

‘My Lady…’ Kenneth hesitated. ‘He was badly hurt, my Lady. Burned. Perhaps you shouldn’t see him.’

‘Let me see him!’

The men lowered the bier.

Suddenly Lulach realised what was happening. The men were carrying a body!

Was that what the silence had meant? That the Hall was mourning for its chief?

No, thought Lulach. No! His father couldn’t be dead!

His father was strong! His father could carry a deer slung over his shoulder, and fight two men at once with his broadsword! No enemy could hurt his father!

The Lady Gruoch lifted the cloak and stared down at the body on the bier. Just for a moment her face twisted. Her fist pressed against her mouth, as though to stifle a cry. Then she was in control again. As the men watched she bent forward and kissed her dead husband, then covered him again with the cloak.

The women were moving now, running into the darkness as the men broke ranks, trying to find their husbands, fathers, loved ones. But they all left a small clear space around the six men and the bier.

Lulach wrenched himself from Meröe’s grasp and darted forward. But the bier was too high for him to see his father’s body.

‘Lulach! Go back to the Hall!’ His mother’s voice was steady. But only just.

‘I want to see him!’ insisted Lulach. ‘I want to say goodbye too.’

‘It’s the boy’s right to see,’ said Kenneth quietly.

‘He’s only five summers old!’

‘And one day he’ll be a man, and can take revenge on his father’s killer. My Lady?’

The Lady Gruoch said nothing for a moment. Then she nodded. ‘Let him see,’ she whispered.

Kenneth gestured to the other men. They lowered the bier even further. Kenneth pulled the cloth from Lulach’s father’s face again.

But there was no face.

Lulach stared. There was only black…and bone…and charred eye sockets—like a stag’s head thrown onto the fire after the dogs had chewed it.

This wasn’t his father! It couldn’t be!

‘They set the watchtower on the cliffs alight. He was burned alive with fifty of our men,’ said Kenneth softly. ‘That’s the work of Thorfinn the Raven Feeder, my lad. Now you know.’

It seemed like the whole courtyard was silent now, watching, waiting. I have to kiss him farewell too, thought Lulach.

The blackened eye holes stared at him. He thought he would be sick.

But he was the Mormaer’s son. He bent forward…

Closer…closer…The skull felt cold against his lips. The stench of burned hair and bone and flesh filled his nostrils.

Then he’d done it. He forced himself not to wipe his lips.

The men picked up the bier again. They began to carry it into the Hall. The body would stay there where all could see it until the burial.

‘You should be in bed,’ the Lady Gruoch said, then gestured to Meröe. ‘Take Lulach upstairs again,’ she ordered. She bent down to hug him. ‘You did well,’ she whispered. ‘Try to sleep now.’

Sleep? How could he sleep? Even though the body on the bier was covered, the hollow eyes still seemed to watch him.

Maybe they’ll follow me forever, thought Lulach.

Knut tried to speak to him. But Lulach ignored him.

He followed Meröe up the stairs. Once he was in bed she pulled the linen sheet and sheepskin blanket over him. But there was no way he could sleep.

The leading men and women of Moray would be downstairs planning, while their dead Mormaer’s body lay on its bier among them.

Who would be Mormaer of Moray now?

New mormaers were elected from the best candidates in the old mormaer’s family, just like the mormaers and bishops of Alba elected one of the mormaers to be their king.

But who was left to be the mormaer? So many men had been killed during the seven years that King Duncan had been on the throne. Now there was only Lulach, and he was too young to be elected.

Maybe Mother will be mormaer, he thought. His father had appointed her his tanist before he left for war. Each mormaer appointed a tanist, someone to inherit their position.

Tanists weren’t always elected mormaer—that was up to the people—but they usually were. After all, the tanist was given experience and training by the former mormaer that other candidates missed out on. Women could stand for election for both mormaer and king, though few did.

I should be crying, thought Lulach. But no tears came. The dead black thing downstairs wasn’t his father. His father was tall, with blond plaits that bounced on his shoulders as he rode. Maybe tomorrow he’d gallop up the track, swing Lulach into the air once more…

Lulach must have slept again. When he opened his eyes this time the window was pink with dawn.

‘Lulach.’ The Lady Gruoch sat on the bed beside him, with something in her hand.

Lulach sat up. She’s going to say it was a mistake, he thought. He’s not dead at all. That thing on the bier was someone else and Father’s coming home.

‘Here.’ His mother handed him a piece of oatcake, spread with honey. It had been months since Lulach had tasted honey, but his stomach felt too tight for food. He nibbled the oatcake anyway, and felt its sweetness fill his mouth. Food was too precious to be wasted.

‘Lulach, I have to go away. I’ll be gone a sennight, maybe more.’

Lulach swallowed the last crumbs of oatcake. ‘Can I come?’

Gruoch shook her head. ‘No. I’ll travel fastest just with Kenneth.’

‘Where are you going?’

His mother bit her lip. ‘Lulach…Moray needs a chief. We can’t be leaderless too long, not in times like these. I’m going to ask my cousin if he’ll stand for election.’