Page 50 of Lady Macbeth

“No,” Macbeth says. “You must remain here. I entrust you not to let this castle fall to treachery or ill management. You may prepare anyway for a siege. It will not come to that, but it is wise still to be ready.”

This time, Banquho will take the task eagerly, because of all that is unspoken in Macbeth’s words. My wife failed in this endeavor. Now I trust it again to you—my right hand. She should have known it. The clever wife who was not so clever in the end; she has been discarded. And the man who was perhaps too hastily dismissed, the man who served his Lord loyally for so many years, he has been elevated again.

“Yes, my Lord,” Banquho murmurs.

“Then see to it,” Macbeth says.

The men scatter, scraping their chairs against the stone floor, rolling up their maps, slouching out of the main hall. Their gazes do not stop to rest upon Roscille for even a moment. She is wife now, only. She is beneath their regard.

Fléance stays at first, but he is banished by a quick look from his father. He, too, does not glance at Roscille as he leaves. He will go into the courtyard and practice swordplay. Or else he will find some other empty place to rage at this dismissal, at the fact that he has never wet his blade and tasted an enemy’s blood. Good. Let each of these injustices wound like the sting of a whip.

With the three of them alone, Macbeth says, “Come with me.”

“Where?” Banquho asks.

Roscille already knows.

Through the winding corridors, following the sound of the ocean. The iron key back on its leather thong, which is looped around Macbeth’s throat, and beats against the hollow of his collarbone with each limping step. Roscille and Banquho are careful to slow their paces, to make sure they are never ahead of him. Yet even now Roscille sees the stain of blood on his stockings, a strange dark blooming, like a shape under ice. They stop in front of the wood-rotted door.

“If you are to keep this castle in my absence,” Macbeth says, “then there are things you must know.”

Banquho’s eyes flicker to Roscille. His unspoken question: Does she already know?

To answer, Macbeth says, “A husband and wife should keep no secrets from each other.”

Banquho says nothing. Macbeth turns the key in the lock and the door opens.

The cold air that awaits them, the godless blackness—all of it is new to Banquho and he gasps. Macbeth pays no mind to his shock. He steps into the dark, his body cleaving the wall of air, clear and straight and unforgiving. He vanishes, and for a moment there is no sound at all, not even his splashing through the water. Then the torchlight flares. Light catches on the crest of each ripple, giving the water that familiar texture of scales.

Banquho looks to Roscille, and makes a strangled noise of bewilderment. But she merely pushes past him, and follows her husband into the dark. Her heart is pounding in her throat. She is close now. She hopes the witches do not forsake her.

Roscille stays on the steps, but the water splashes up, dampening the hem of the cloak, which is so long that it drags behind her like a wedding train. Banquho shuffles to her side. There is a sheen of sweat on his face, the dampness of terror.

The witches announce themselves with the rattling of chains. Their skin is obscenely white against the unforgiving darkness. Their blind fumbling, their visible bones, the clothes that hang off them in tatters: Banquho stumbles on the slick steps as he tries to shrink from them. They circle Macbeth, water rippling out from around them in overlapping circles.

Their voices are like stones scraping the hull of a ship.

Left Witch: Macbeth, Thane of Glammis.

Right Witch: Macbeth, Thane of Cawder.

Gruoch says, “Macbeth, King Hereafter.”

Banquho, pressed against the wall, crosses himself, just as Roscille did that first time. “My God—” he starts.

“No,” Macbeth says. “Listen. These are not mere epithets; they are prophecies. When they first spoke, I was Thane of Glammis only. I came here and they called me Thane of Cawder. I took Cawder within a week. Then I came and they called me King Hereafter. You know what happened next.”

Slowly, understanding overtakes Banquho’s face, in an amalgam of revulsion and awe. He has known, of course, that Duncane died through Macbeth’s machinations, but to know that his purpose was driven by witchcraft and sorcery is something else. Macbeth has revealed the truth that threatens to transform Banquho’s world into something bizarre, unnatural, strange. It has already begun. His vision has been altered, made to see the dark, cold aberration that runs under everything.

“Come,” Macbeth says, gesturing to him. “Hear their next prophecy. See what will guide our actions as we stand against Æthelstan.”

Banquho exhales. He looks at Roscille again. She is as still and silent as a nymph turned to stone. Yet under the surface, she is alive with feverish wrath.

Banquho takes one step, two. Foot in the water, circles spreading out from around him, his clumsy, too-human movements so obvious in the stillness of the cave. At last, he reaches Macbeth’s side. He puts a hand on his Lord’s shoulder, to steady himself, forgetting his place for a moment, forgetting the injury that still pulses behind his Lord’s knee like a second beating heart.

Quietly, he says, “Speak of my fate, then.”

The three women wring out their clothes. They toss the laundry over their shoulders, so their hands can be free. With their arms outstretched, palms open to the obstructed sky, they speak together, a chorus.