Vile Lady Villains

Chapter 1 Lady Macbeth

‘Speak. Demand. We’ll answer.’

The weird sisters, withered and wild, hold hands around their cauldron, facing me in a semicircle of misfortune.

They talk in tandem, their voices both mellifluous and macabre, like rotten roots erupting from the earth.

Indeed, I cannot tell where their ragged robes end and where their shadows start – the sluggish Scottish sun is soon to set, leaving my eyes less sharp.

I take a measured breath, considering. One has to be cautious with witches, lest they twist your words to some intricate knot of their liking, leaving you uncannily bonded.

Yet I had to come to them, to their unholy meeting place among the pines.

There is no other way. Everything we suffer is because of them.

That greatness my lord was meant to bring to our gates, that greatness these three have promised him – All hail, Macbeth, that shalt be king hereafter!

– it has soured overnight like the wine we served Duncan and his ilk.

Clearly, something is amiss. Something my lord misunderstood, perhaps, in their prediction of our royal prospects.

I had to see for myself if there is any way we can still emerge from this the way we should: victorious.

So, I open my mouth. Three sets of hawk-like eyes observe me.

‘I demand that my lord returns home, alive and unharmed. I demand that our deeds will not be in vain; that a thousand years from now people will still tremble at the name Macbeth. And I demand …’ I pause, resisting the urge to scratch my palm with its unsightly claret stain.

‘I demand that the burden of blood is cleaned from my hand.’

The crones cackle, curse them. The sound reverberates around us, stirring up dried leaves from the forest floor. Dancing in circles, round and round the cauldron, faster and faster until the loathsome three are nigh obscured from sight, both here and not.

I’m not afraid of their theatrics – but perhaps it would be wise to leave.

To turn my back on them and head home before the sun’s last rays slip under the trees, to denounce any heathen powers these three hags ever held over my fate.

Over our fate. But for all my reason urges me to flee, my feet are stuck in grassy ground, sentinels to my stupidity.

As abruptly as it started, the weird sisters’ laughter dies out; the leaves fall in a rain of rust and gold.

Silence spreads now, punctuated by the bubbling of their cauldron.

I fiddle with my long black skirts. Will they dare ignore me?

Shoo me away? Damn me on the spot? But no – my petitions haven’t fallen on deaf ears.

One of them produces a silver cup from within her filthy robes, the second dips it in the bubbling liquid, and the third offers it to me, sharp-knuckled fingers stretching out impossibly.

I take the cup, careful not to touch her carrion-like claws.

‘The first two wishes we can grant you,’ one of the witches chants, ‘if you drink this brew tonight.’

‘Tonight, before the dawn’s first light,’ the second adds.

‘But the mark on your hand tells a different story; that blood will lead you to your glory,’ the third concludes in their irksome chorus.

I grit my teeth, holding the leash of my displeasure tight. Two thirds of victory is still further ahead than where my husband was this morning. I have ensured our legacy. I nod and turn my back on them imperiously, not wanting to suffer one more second in their presence.

‘Thunder met –’

‘And thrice a threat –’

‘Yours is the path of claret,’ the three sing-song behind my back.

I turn around to glare at them – but they have vanished. No robes, no cauldron, nothing to betray this conversation was more substantial than a wisp of air, a flight of fancy.

I shiver underneath my heavy coat. The empty forest taunts me.

The silver cup trembles in my hands, sole proof I’ve not gone mad.

Yet even so, my determination does not waver.

All I can picture is my crown, gracing my head as promised.

For all their previous facetiousness and their dramatic exit now, I know there is truth in the witches’ words.

It’s a peculiar feeling, like a beak pecking at my bones, a constant, soothing rhythm.

A murmuration underneath my marrow, so subtle it has gone unnoticed.

I pay attention to it as I resume walking, castle-bound, the liquid in the cup now cooling quickly.

Everything will be all right, this inner pecking feeling says; all I have to do is drink this brew before I go to bed.

A lonely raven caws thrice overhead, perfectly echoing my thoughts.

To bed, to bed, to bed.