Page 3 of Lady Macbeth

“Is that the water?” Roscille asks. “The sea?”

“You will hear it from every corner of the castle,” says Lord Banquho, without turning. “After enough time, you will not hear it at all.”

She thinks she might go mad before her brain learns to omit it. This frightens her more than any ignominy she might—she will—suffer to her body, that her mind could be so reduced, turned to pulp like grapes crushed for wine.

Even her father’s cold relinquishment of her cannot entirely disabuse Roscille of her oldest habits. To soothe herself, she returns to them now. She observes.

Lord Banquho is a warrior; there is no doubt about that. Even when he strides, he keeps his arm crooked, so that his thumb may occasionally brush the hilt of his sheathed sword. He will draw his blade in half the length of a heartbeat, she knows.

This is nothing new—Roscille has lived among soldiers, even if the Duke’s men have the decency to leave their weapons behind when they are in the company of women. She notices that the brooch which fastens his cloak is small and round, and made of base metal, not silver. It is something that will rust quickly, especially in this briny air.

Banquho stops in front of a wooden door. It is gridded with iron. He says, “Your chamber, Lady Roscilla.” He is hard on the c, making it into one of those braying Scottish consonants.

She nods, but before she can reply, Banquho removes an iron key from his belt and opens the door. Her empty stomach shrivels. This is a bad sign, that her room has a lock which can only be opened from the outside. She does not even indulge the hope that she will be given a key of her own.

The room itself is a wardrobe, a candlestick with three prongs, and a bed. There is a large pelt draped across the floor, dark and thick, its head still attached. A bear. Its death-empty eyes are two pools that hold the torchlight. Its black lip is pulled back in an immortal grimace of pain. Roscille has never seen a bear before, alive or dead; she has only seen their images decorating house seals and war banners. They have already been hunted to extinction in Breizh, but of course they still roam here. She leans down and examines the bear’s curved yellow teeth, each one the length of her finger.

Banquho lights the tapers, casting the room and all its cold stone in a waxy gleam. “The banquet has been set. The Lord is waiting.”

Roscille stands up again. Her knees feel limp, like jellied broth. “Yes. Apologies. I will dress now.”

She waits, for the span of a breath, to see if Banquho will leave. The Scots have strange beliefs about women. There are whispers that they still practice the jus primae noctis, the droit du seigneur, the right of a lord to share his wife among his men as he does the spoils from his conquests. These whispers have preyed upon her so fiercely that even after she accepted she would be wed, still she did not sleep for days, did not eat for longer, did not even drink until her lips turned white and chapped and Hawise had to force the thinned wine down her throat.

Roscille has heard of a Scottish king, Durstus, who forsook the company of his lawful wife Agasia. This caused her to be forced and abused by his men, in the most villainous and vile manner. Twelve she was when she heard this story, and she knew what it meant.

But Banquho turns without sound and slips through the door. She is alone with Hawise again, and Roscille nearly collapses onto the bear-rug.

There is one small relief, like a slant of light through broken stone. The bed is large enough for her and Hawise to share, but no bigger. Not large enough to accommodate the Lord.

They both disrobe in silence. Nakedness, even among women in private, is still uncommon, uncouth. Bodies are meant to be guarded like gold. The flash of a bare ankle is like dropping a pendant, so that everyone can see it clatter to the ground and know that you hold its richness and likely more. What else are you hiding in your stores, against your breast? How easily might it be stolen? You cannot blame a man for snatching something which has been taunted in front of him like meat before a dog.

As a handmaiden, as a spoil of war, as a girl with no status, Hawise’s stores are easy to plunder. Yet her attachment to Roscille has kept her safe, safe from drunken courtiers and their searching hands. She is as virginal as a nun. Soon she will be the only virgin between them.

Hawise has a Norsewoman’s build: broad shoulders, small breasts, narrow hips which mean she will struggle to bear children. They are a study in opposites. Roscille’s breasts are full enough to need binding under her square-necked gown (why tempt a man with even the suggestion of treasure?). Yet otherwise her body is still girlish, slender, making for an unnatural contrast. Above her waist she has a woman’s form, but below she is as lithe as a serpent, something sleek and made for twisting. She wonders what the Lord will think of it.

There is no mirror in the room, only a pail of water, which shows Roscille her bleary, rippling reflection. The veil is as absurd as she imagined it would be. Her limbs are mummified in white linen and lace. Her sleeves are heavy with pearls. Her gown drags after her like a sodden thing. It is difficult to walk.

“Lady Rosalie,” Hawise says—in Angevin, for it is the language these Scots are least likely to know. All of a sudden she reaches out and squeezes her hand. “You are the cleverest woman I have ever known, the bravest—”

“You say this as if you are making remarks over my grave,” Roscille replies. But she holds on to Hawise’s hand.

“I only mean…you will survive this, too.”

This, too. Hawise does not mention the other thing, the first. She doesn’t have to; they both know.

Through the thick door, she hears Banquho’s voice. “It is time, Lady Roscilla.”

The first thing she notices about the banquet hall is how empty it is. There are six long tables, but none of them are filled to their capacity; in fact, the two farthest from the dais are not occupied at all. Servants skulk about the walls, like brown mice, carrying platters, making no sound. The silence is strange, too. In Naoned, feast days are dense with noise: bards and their songs, courtiers and their gossiping, men bragging of their achievements, women swooning at the attention, draughts tiles rattling, ale mugs clinking. Toasts are made to fruitful harvests and profitable wars. The women wear their brightest gowns and the men comb their beards.

All Roscille hears now is the murmuring of voices, almost as low as the hushing sea. The men at the table press their faces close, so that their words pass only in that tight circle. There is the smell of ale, but certainly no mugs are being raised, no toasts made. The men are dressed in the same square cloaks and kilts, weapons at their sides. Warriors, all of them, who will draw their blades as easily as breathing. There are no bards or draughts tiles, and—Roscille realizes with a shocked inhale—no women.

This is the strangest thing of all. In the Duke’s court, it is essential that there be wives for gossiping and bearing children, serving girls for filling plates, kitchen girls for cooking, and even whores for using, though such things must be done with discretion. It was so dark on their journey that Roscille cannot remember the closest town they passed in the carriage; she does not know how far the peasants live who keep their goats and sheep (this rocky land is no good for farming, not green enough for cattle). Where do the men of Glammis find their pleasure, feed their appetites?

She is so shaken by this she does not notice, at first, that Hawise is being led away from her. “Wait—” she chokes out, too loudly—all the men turn to stare. “Please, Hawise is my…”

But Banquho does not turn or falter in his course. Roscille watches as Hawise is taken by the elbow and maneuvered past the tables; she cannot keep her eyes on where, because then her lord husband is upon her.

She knows him at once, for his enormity. He blots out half her vision. Reith, they call him, Scots for “red,” which is either for his hair or for his prowess at spilling blood. His hair is tied back with a thong. The Scots, she remembers, wear their hair long. He is younger than she thought he would be, no silver in his beard.