Chapter 33 Anassa
Cold. Biting cold, bitter and familiar, coating every inch of my body as the door closes behind us. I place my key back in my cloak. ‘Oh, how I’ve missed the Scottish snow!’
The words come out of my mouth in heavy plumes, lingering in the air amid the swirls of wind and snow – and only laced with a little sarcasm.
It’s true, the weather is not helpful. Claret and I are both barefoot, with the thinnest slips of dress under our cloaks, and her pursed lips are turning a disturbing shade of blue already.
But we’re here; we’re home. Gruoch Macbethad’s home, that is, but how hard could it be for me to find her?
She is me, if just in part. I simply need to orient myself.
Or find the nearest inn to ask for directions, and hopefully a pair of sturdy boots.
I look around. There’s a small road curving up ahead, half hidden in snow, with no buildings in sight.
On a sunny day, I’d propose we follow it but now …
I can’t even tell what time of day it is; the sun is swallowed by that snowy shroud.
If night falls on us soon, that forest up ahead may be a safer way to travel.
I turn my gaze backward, to where we came from, trying not to focus on our door which has, predictably, already vanished.
Instead, I look at Claret; once more the brightest spot in a world full of white, just like when first we met in that unseen hallway.
Her hazel eyes tinted with copper, her new, red hair that’s almost of a colour with her cloak …
Though she’s more scared now, more cornered.
A glorious fox, realizing she’s out of moves – but still determined to outsmart her hunters, cause mighty pain along the way. Spill some blood.
Hopefully not mine.
‘What in the name of Zeus’ arrows from the sky,’ she grumbles, looking up as if she aims to cut each snowflake with her knife.
It dawns on me that if she is from an ancient, warmer climate, she may not be familiar with snow.
Add that to the long list of things I yet have to unlock about her, should we make it someplace safe enough to linger, share our stories.
‘I’m sorry about our weather,’ I say. ‘We should hurry up, take cover in that copse of trees ahead, and keep moving before it gets dark.’
And so we do. Like two drops on an empty page, one of blood and one of ink, we trudge along through the oppressive white.
We reach the forest, and I’m happy to confirm my intuition was correct.
The ground here is not thoroughly submerged in snow.
The trees’ evergreen, lush canopies offer some shelter, allowing only a soft powder to settle on the forest floor.
We might even save our toes, if luck continues blessing us.
‘We need to find a tree that’s big enough to shelter under,’ I say out loud.
Claret unleashes an obscene string of expletives. I take it as agreement.
Shortly after, we reach a sturdy Douglas fir whose trunk would fit us both with ease, if it were hollow. Sadly, all we can do is crouch at its roots, our backs flush with its bark.
A shoddy shelter, but better than none at all.
There’s one thing to be said in favour of Shepherd’s realm: I didn’t feel so much in it.
The cold; the hunger; the frigid bark behind my back; the bone-deep exhaustion; the burning of my cheeks and my scar as the cold air stretches my skin to almost breaking …
Even Claret’s body, as she huddles closer, seeking warmth, feels different here. Sharper. Like a knife that cuts –
‘Wait, what are you doing?’
Claret has grabbed my cloak’s helm, slicing it with her knife. Has she gone mad?
‘I’m keeping us alive, in this frozen end of Tartaros you brought us.
Here. Almost done.’ She rips a long, thick ribbon of fabric from my cloak, then cuts that part in two.
With hurried movements, she wraps each part around each of my feet, tying the ends haphazardly around my ankles.
They’re the ugliest shoes I’ve ever worn – but my toes do come back to life, sending pins and needles up my spine.
I exhale, half in pain, half in relief. ‘Your toes were getting almost as blackened as your fingers,’ Claret quips when I turn to thank her.
She’s done the same to her own feet, I see now, two little scarlet bundles resting on a tree root, dotted with snow already.
They look so much like poisonous mushrooms, I almost laugh. ‘Thank you,’ I say instead.
She nods.
The silence stretches, every snowflake an ellipsis in our untold lines, our upended script.
I want to say so many things; things that felt so clear in the sorry comfort of her absence, things that are now once again a muddled mess.
Yet the snow keeps falling, and I didn’t bring us here to freeze unceremoniously, two forlorn queens in a forest. ‘It would be wise to keep moving,’ I manage.
Grabbing on to the tree bark and immediately regretting its icy bite, I get up.
My toes protest, burning as my blood rushes back down to them.
Claret mirrors my movements, her face twisted in a knot of pain and anger.
I have to ask, or I’ll burst. ‘Are you mad at me? For bringing us here?’
‘I’ll let you know when I find out where “here” is. Right now, all I care about is keeping us alive.’ A pause. ‘In case I need to kill you later.’
For a second, a cold deeper than the snow, more devastating, wraps around me. But then I see it; that small, upward movement on her lips, that subtle softness in her eyes.
‘You’re making a joke,’ I realize.
‘Good, you haven’t lost all your wits from this cold.
’ She takes my hand, gives it a squeeze.
Our outside world doesn’t change; it doesn’t shed its secrets like it used to.
Yet I can feel the change inside; the strength, the sureness that together we can make it so much further …
I must have been staring at our hands because Claret clears her throat, then she continues, ‘Now, where to? Which direction are we headed to?’
‘That … is an excellent question.’ I spin around slowly, trying to get any sense of North or South, of which part of my homeland we may be in. The trees are familiar, but that is little indication. I close my eyes, hoping for a sign, for ravens swooping down to guide me …
Nothing. No, something. A tap tap sound, like time is running out, like Shakespeare’s quill tapping into the bottle to shed its excess ink before it writes our ending. I hate this feeling, this fear that even now I’m not in control of my own Fate.
‘Oh, he’s precious,’ Claret croons and I open my eyes.
The tap tap sound is real. A little woodpecker, on a tree just to our right, digging for termites.
I can’t help but smile at his tenacity. He’s plump and bold, like someone else I know, bending the elements to his will.
I take in its fluffy feathers, the green mark on its head, its blood-red belly.
Blood-red … A claret spot, really, pulsing with every move.
Yours is the path of claret … Oh, very well. Perhaps this world is subtler in its omens. Perhaps the birds are different here. ‘This way,’ I declare, pointing at the woodpecker.
If Claret senses my thread-thin bravado, she says nothing as we trudge onward, the tap tap tap tallying our footsteps in the snow.
We walk, and walk, and walk, and walk, and I’ve all but forgotten who I am, where I mean to go, what I mean to achieve. It’s only step after step, snow and more snow. Our silence stretches thick enough to eat, but I do not attribute any bitterness to it, only exhaustion.
Who knew walking on the snow was so taxing? I never had to worry about that before.
I had servants, carriages, castles, to protect me from the weather.
When I first spot the lantern, I think it’s fireflies – or fairies, like those orbs of light back in that rainy meadow, where everything was sweet.
I blame my tired mind, spinning tales out of snow, yearning for magic in a world that seems to have none.
Still, that flame flickers, its burnt orange the most welcome sight after hours of white and darkening blue.
I turn to check on Claret, see if she’s noticed anything unusual.
My fox fumbles to find her knife, her hands shaking from the cold. I can’t imagine how unpleasant holding this metal hilt must be now – yet hold it she does, teeth bared. ‘Stay back,’ she whispers, ‘I can see movement up ahead.’
‘You see it too?’ I try not to sound so relieved that I am not hallucinating.
‘Perhaps there are people we can ask for help …’ Someone to save us from having to spend the night out here, walking until we fall down or we freeze mid-stride.
If they are loyal subjects of the Queen, of Gruoch, perhaps they could even point us to my – her – castle.
My spirits lift. ‘Hello! Good people, help!’ I yell, while Claret stares at me as if I’ve grown two heads.
‘Stop in the name of the King! In the name of Macbethad! We are two lasses who require assistance!’
‘Why would you –’ Claret hisses, but there’s no time to explain.
The flame floats closer, and soon the man who holds the lantern comes into view.
‘What do we have here, then? Two pretty birds, left behind by their flock. Don’t worry, little birds. Crinan will keep you nice and warm.’
Crinan is more stain than man, a mix of rotting teeth and tattered clothes and ginger beard dotted with crumbs that seems aflame in the lantern light.
Still, we hardly look like queens ourselves.
I decide to disregard his crude comments, appeal to his loyalty to the crown instead.
‘My good man, we are so fortunate to find you! We are … friends of Queen Gruoch, you see, robbed on our way to meet her. If you take us to the castle, I assure you, you will be mightily rewarded.’ I hope.
Crinan takes a good gander at us, from our cloaks to our makeshift shoes. I’m happy to see Claret has hidden her knife inside her cloak again. No need to worry this poor man …
‘Gruoch, huh?’ Crinan spits on the ground.
‘That bitch who married her husband’s killer while his corpse was still warm?
Yeah, we haven’t forgotten about her. She’ll get what’s coming to her all right, just like that usurper husband of hers.
’ He unsheathes a knife from his belt and points it at us.
‘And you two, play nice, or I’ll see you get the same fate as them. ’
‘Oh, finally,’ Claret says. She smiles, ferociously, as her own knife comes out to play.
Crinan circles his knife comically, pointing at Claret. ‘What are you gonna do with that shiny thing, little lady? Cut yourself? Be a good girl and give it here now.’
I should warn him, not that he deserves it. But before I can tell him that he’s bitten off more than he can chew, chosen prey that bites back, a second man arrives, lantern in hand.
A man who’s marginally cleaner, a lot more handsome – and more dangerous than any fox trap snapping shut.
How did he find us here?
I want to scream and yell and possibly take Claret’s knife, plunge it to his heart.
But his brown eyes, intense, unwavering, tell me to wait.
‘I say,’ he begins, setting the stage for my recapture, ‘we have been extremely fortunate tonight, just on our second night of searching through these woods. For these are indeed the women I’ve been looking for, my late wife’s cousins, who were supposed to meet me for her funeral …
’ He sets his lantern down, carefully, granting us a smile that’s half panic, half faked sorrow.
Crinan is as confused as we are. My hatred parts, only slightly, for the smallest ray of admiration to seep through.
His companion is nothing if not able to think on his feet, spin tales in the time it takes for someone to toss a coin in the air.
But Crinan recovers quickly, turning his knife to him instead.
‘You were looking for these two? These whores who claim to be friends of Gruoch’s?
’ He doesn’t spit again, but the way he says her name …
it’s close. I shudder to think that she is not as loved as I’d hoped.
‘Well then, bully for you. I planned to honour our agreement, despite you being an English toff and all, only take the money we’d discussed, but now …
’ Crinan’s knife glints in the lantern flame, his eyes hungry.
‘Hurry up and give me all that’s in your purse, if you love your life. ’
Thunk.
A sound then, like time has run out, like a woodsman’s axe has found fresh tree bark, ripe for logging. Claret’s knife flies through the air, landing in flesh.
Will Shakespeare’s hands fly to his heart.