Page 41 of Lady Macbeth

She thinks she says the words aloud, but her voice is so small it scarcely sounds like her own.

“Listen.” He speaks in her tongue, in Brezhoneg, even if he has no reason to know it, much less articulate its sounds so tenderly. “I have kept myself from sleep for two days now. I do not have much time before it takes me. So let me tell you all of it before you see.”

Act IV

Les Deus

Amanz,

Les Deux

Amants

Ten

“There was a king in Alba. A virtuous, noble king, who sought to act as was right, praised handsomely. He wed a worthy woman, fair in looks, and well bred. They loved each other as a fish loves water, a love so deep that the absence of one from the world was inconceivable to the other. So, by the purity of their love, the queen fell pregnant with a son.

“In the flower of his fame and preening with such good fortune, the king went on a hunt in the forest. It was dawn, and they were eager, his knights and huntsmen, joyful in their intent. They were after a mighty stag, one that could be mounted with pride in the king’s great hall. The king rode ahead, with the dogs and huntsmen at his heels, and a squire at his side, bearing his hunting bow, quiver, and spear.

“But the king was led a strange way by his horse, wandering from his war party. And then he saw, beneath a spreading tree, a doe with her fawn in company. The creature was the purest white—a doe, yet oddly, it bore horns.

“Its fur will be a lovely prize, the king thought, in which to robe my wife. He drew his bow, letting his arrow fly. The arrow struck her hoof, so she fell to the ground at once. Yet the arrow turned back in flight, and struck the king on the thigh, so violently that he was filled with a sudden and greatly embodied rage.

“The deer lay upon the grass. She sighed in anguish, and then, astonishingly, her form began to change. She assumed the shape of a woman, beautiful beyond all conception, naked, with hair the color of moonbeams.

“The king did love his wife dearly, and he did so wish to honor her with the creature’s pelt. But the nature of man is not such that it can be undone entirely by simple affection. The king still had a man’s desires, his hungers, and his vices. And so when he thrust into the bleeding woman, it was not with the point of his sword.

“When he had finished, her blood had soaked the grass. She raised her head, with great effort, and then she gave forth speech:

“ ‘I die here, alas, slain by covetous mortal hands. Sorceress, you will name me, witch; for centuries to come, the birth of your line’s firstborn sons will all bear the mark of my vengeful magic. As you have stolen from me my natural form, so too will my power steal the forms of your sons.’

“Then the woman—witch—laid her head back upon the grass and died, and the earth ate up her body, so that by the time the king’s squire arrived, there was only the fawn, shivering and bleating for its mother. The squire bore the injured king back to the castle, where his wound was bound and treated. And when he saw his wife with her swelled belly, he fell to his knees in front of her, and confessed all.

“The king had never been an especially pious man. Yet as his son grew in his mother’s womb, he prayed and prayed, hoping that he might be released from the witch’s curse. He summoned priests, clad them in gold, and kept a dozen at his side always, to pray for absolution.

“Never did he receive God’s answer. His son was born in blood and sweat and darkness, and he feared the curse might take his wife from him, too. But she did not die, though the son she gave forth was a strange child, dark of hair where both parents were fair, pale of skin where his mother and father were lively and red.

“For days, the child did not sleep. He wept through all hours of the night, writhing every moment, as if in secret agony. The queen could not settle him. He did not wish to feed. And then, at last, when he slipped into a troubled slumber, the king saw the fruit of the witch’s curse: In his crib, while sleeping, his son became a monster.

“In these early days, it was easy to contain him. The creature had a child’s body, and a child’s strength. He could be strapped down in his bed. But as the boy grew, his monstrous sleep-demon grew as well. A separate chamber was built for him, with no windows, and only a small iron door, too narrow for the beast to slip through. All the servants in the castle were sworn to secrecy, forced never to speak of the roaring they heard through the halls, on pain of death.

“The queen bore another son, this one taking after his parents in appearance and manner, fully mortal, untainted by the witch’s curse. But this birth weakened the queen, and soon after she died. In the absence of his beloved, the king sickened, too, though he was not mercifully relieved of his posthumous existence. He aged, every day in diminished agony. His firstborn son aged, too, and with him, the monster.

“In his grief and fury, the king sought out all witches and enchantresses in his kingdom, any woman who showed a strangeness. Yet when he questioned them, they all said the same: that the curse of a witch cannot be undone by any except the witch herself. And the witch who cursed his son was dead.

“And that is how the crown of Alba came to be worn by a withering king, and promised by inheritance to a monster.”

Lisander’s voice grows lower and lower, until it can scarcely be heard at all. As he speaks, his hand grips Roscille’s tightly. She lifts her gaze, her unguarded gaze, and meets his eyes. They gleam as if lit from behind by torches. His pupils are so black that she can see herself reflected within them. Her face, revealed at last: bloodless skin and pointed chin and something strange, something wrong, that she cannot name. An aberration that runs through her like a crack in the earth itself.

“So now you have heard it all.” His voice is strained, as if something presses down on his throat. “I am Alba’s curse, and my father’s shame. Any affection he had for me was born of guilt, nothing more. He wished to name me king only because he thought it might absolve him. But he would set loose upon Scotland the cruelest, vilest creature. The beast I am cares nothing for crowns or rites or innocent lives.”

With great difficulty, Roscille raises her head. “Do you think this frightens me?”

He does not reply. His eyelids are growing heavy.

“So you are no mortal man. I have seen what mortal men can do. I prefer a monster that shows itself openly.”

Her legs feel so stiff she fears she may never move them again. The blood is drying now, sticking her to the floor.