Page 21 of Lady Macbeth

After a moment, Macbeth says, “A room courtyard-side, then. I will have my servants show the way.”

They depart: the king, his chamberlains, Lisander, Evander, Fléance, and Banquho. The room empties of all other occupants, even the scuttling servants. Roscille and her husband are alone. The air is greasy with the smells of the feast, thick with odors of wine and men’s sweat. She adjusts the necklace at her throat; the rash is growing beneath the gold.

When the footsteps of the other men have faded, Macbeth turns to her.

“You nearly dishonored me,” he says. “With that letter.”

His voice is rough and low. Anger shows in the lines of his face, the lines that remind her that he is twice her age, that he had a wife before her (how, who?). Roscille’s heart stutters.

“I am sorry, my Lord,” she says. “I did not know—I did not mean—”

“The prince of Cumberland is too clever,” Macbeth cuts in. “There is a chance he has seen through the ruse. And all because your hand faltered. It was on your advice that I accused Cawder of treachery.”

She is shocked to hear him admit it, that he acted upon her directive. That this was arranged by her hand. Roscille draws a breath, trying to steady herself.

“I am sorry to have failed you,” she says softly. “Please, my Lord, tell me what I can do to make it right.”

She has barely finished speaking before Macbeth grabs her by the arm. He drags her toward him. Roscille closes her eyes and ducks her head, biting her lip on a whimper.

She will be struck: She has seen it done a hundred times to women, by their husbands or fathers or brothers, by their lovers or their masters. One of the Duke’s courtiers showed Hawise the back of his hand and for a week a violet bruise pulsed on her cheek, and every time Roscille looked at it she was filled with a sick, fettered anger. Roscille has never been struck, having been a noble lady, a dutiful daughter and heretofore wife. She was foolish enough to believe that the Duke would never allow such a grievous assault upon her person. But the father she thought she knew has shriveled and vanished from this earth. He is, at most, a ghost—nothing solid enough to put between Macbeth’s hand and her cheek.

But her husband does not strike her. Instead, he tears the veil from her face. She is so shocked she cannot help crying out, a short, bitten-off sound. Before she can move or truly speak, Macbeth’s broad, hard-callused hand claps over her eyes. Blinding her completely. The world is black, swimming with bleary stars.

His other arm holds her around the middle and pins her back to his chest. His mouth is close to her ear. His voice dampens the nape of her neck.

“I know what you are,” he rasps. “Witch-marked, they call you, hagseed, but no. You are more than just an unlucky maiden, cursed with supernatural beauty. Your wiles are beyond those of a duke’s bastard daughter. I know witchery. I can smell the power on you like smoke from a pyre. That flesh-burning scent. You do not enchant by accident. You compel.”

“Please.” A rising sob chokes the word. “I have no power.”

“You will not lie to me,” he snarls. “You are my lady wife.”

Her mind falls through the cracks in the floor. It flounders in deep waters. “I would never harm you, my Lord, I swear it. Please. I am no spy, no traitor—”

A sudden laugh, spittle against her cheek. “Harm me? I do not think you spy or traitor—if you were, Wrybeard would better disguise you.”

“He would not…” Tears sting her eyes. “My father would never betray an ally or broker a false peace.”

But she does not know that. Her father has become obscure to her. You are whatever creature I make you. Yet blinded like this, she cannot see her own hands, whether they are sullied with blood. She feels the points of her teeth—are they sharp or dull? Perhaps all of this is occurring at her father’s design, a plan deeper and more devious than she can fathom—or perhaps she wants to believe there is a strategy behind it, because that is more bearable than the thought that her father has merely thrust her down the cliff to drown.

Macbeth’s hand is so large that it covers her nose, too. She can only breathe through her mouth, and she gulps as a fish starved for water.

“Think no more of your father,” he says. “You are not a lady of Breizh anymore. You are a lady of Alba, of Glammis, of Cawder. Lady Macbeth. And if you choose it, you can be more.”

She cannot see, but her other senses rally to her like men-at-arms, and hold up the workings of her mind like a spoil of war: blood. She tastes it on her tongue. She smells it in the air. She feels it gather on her palms and hears it drip down onto the floor.

“More?” she manages.

Macbeth retracts the arm that has been holding her middle. Slowly, almost tenderly, he reaches up to stroke the hair back from her face.

“You are my wife,” he says again. Lower, now, almost a whisper. “Your purpose is yoked to my own. And I am not infirm of purpose. I am sanctioned by prophecy. There is not a man who would squander what is his right.”

Roscille swallows. The ruby presses against her throat. “King Hereafter.”

“Yes.” Macbeth breathes the word. “And now you are the dagger in my hand.”

Six

The veil is torn and it cannot be repaired. Macbeth leaves her, and Roscille stumbles through the dark halls, keeping her eyes on the ground. Beneath her feet, the water rises, meets the floor, and dissipates again, into tongues of foam that she can hear, for the way they simmer like grease.