Page 8 of Lady Macbeth

The current judders around him. Three different currents, all converging, sucking at the hem of his tartan. Three women stand in the water at a distance, backs hunched with age, hair scraggly and silver, each holding a sopping garment in her hands. Each woman slaps the water with her cloth, then wrings it out, then soaks it again. Submerges, lifts, submerges, forming her own tight, snarling whirlpool.

Roscille stumbles backward and falls against the mold-slick wall. She makes a bleating sound of fear, of disbelief, which her husband does not seem to hear. Then she stands and crosses herself.

But the act feels like mockery: She invokes the Holy Trinity, the Father the Son the Holy Spirit, as the three women advance toward her, their faces white as lightning. They are so thin under their own wet garments that each notch of their spines can be clearly seen. Their hair is so long that the ratty ends brush the water.

“Buidseach,” Macbeth breathes. The world is cold smoke in the air. Witch.

It is only then that Roscille sees the shackles around their bony wrists, and the long length of rusty chain that ties them all together. As they move, it drags against the cave floor. If they come any closer, they will strain their binds, and the metal will cut into their soggy flesh, which looks as though it would fall easily off their bones, like rot from a log.

“Macbeth,” one of them says. Hisses.

The other two echo her: “Macbeth.” “Macbeth.”

Roscille read this among the monk’s tomes: Duncane has written a treatise on witchcraft in Scotland. Witches exist; he has proven it. They kill swine and perform spells with their entrails. They send storms to chase sailors to their watery graves. They turn men into mice, and women into serpents who swallow them. They can hide in the skin of any woman, but they may be identified by their sharp teeth. Or by their silver hair.

In Breizh, there is no such canonical accounting. The Duke would not waste his efforts on the creatures of hell, just as he does not waste it on the matters of heaven: Only rarely can he be persuaded to attend Mass. In Alba, the punishment for witchcraft is death. What is the punishment for keeping witches as prisoners?

Macbeth casts his torch across the water. “I come to hear your prophecy. Tell me my fate.”

Their eyes are milky white, with mortal blindness. Their noses are just notches in their faces. When the light catches them, their skin seems to sizzle, like oil in heat.

“All hail Macbeth,” the first one rasps, “Thane of Glammis!”

The other two clap in approval, chains jangling. Their damp, soft flesh slaps together.

“All hail Macbeth,” cries the second, “Thane of Cawder!”

And then, together: “All hail Macbeth! All hail Macbeth! All hail Macbeth!” They shout and shout, until their voices pile on top of one another, like heavy gouts of rain into the river, water upon black water. They shout until the words blur, their thin-lipped mouths open in bacchanalian glee, as if they are expecting wine to pour from the very air and down their throats.

Perhaps Roscille should drink from it as well. Her plan, once merely callous, now made blasphemous, vulgar, truly evil, sanctified by these unholiest of creatures.

Macbeth turns to her, his face gleaming in the torchlight.

“You see,” he says. “My lust for blood will be rewarded. We leave for Cawder at dawn.”

Three

Dawn, in Glammis: a gray sky with the thinnest line of watery light at the horizon. The men are girded and braced, their horses saddled, their battle tartans donned. Swords are sheathed at hips and spears are chucked, clattering, into the back of a mule-drawn cart. There are no bows: That is a coward’s weapon. Only birds and stags may suffer the ignominy of being slain by arrows.

Her husband is fixing his saddle, checking its tightness. Wrybeard would never saddle his own horse; that is what squires are for. It is a part she might have expected Fléance to play, only she cannot find his face among the crowd.

Roscille holds her breath and casts her gaze around the courtyard, noting each of the men that make up the war party, wondering which one of them killed Hawise. She will never know. It does not matter. Any of them would and would again. Even if she found the body—what then? The dead cannot speak.

Mountain Goat and Winter Fox and Weasel-cloak are of course among them, each flanked by six of their best men. They mutter; they grow silent and glance at Roscille and then mutter some more. Even though Macbeth did not tell them that her want of a trinket engendered this war, she sat at the council table, she spoke with assurance. That alone is enough to tarnish the glory of this fight.

She turns, and at last she spies him. Fléance. He is not saddling his horse or loading his spears; he stands at the edge of the courtyard, his face dark. From such a distance she cannot read his expression, but she watches Banquho approach his son and whisper something roughly in his ear. Fléance’s shoulders rise and his hand grips the pommel of his sheathed sword.

Then Banquho, alone, walks away and sits astride his horse. He looks quite determinedly away from his son. This small, foul interaction can mean only one thing: Fléance is being left behind. Roscille cannot help but wonder how this decision might have been reached, and whether it was Macbeth who ordered it. She can imagine the low tones, the gritted teeth. Dishonor encrusting Fléance like pond scum. She watches Fléance for a moment too long, and is surprised by the slippery feeling of deprival that sneaks beneath her skin.

When all the horses have been mounted, her husband comes to her. He cups her face and toys with the edge of her veil. His hand on her cheek is like rough fabric, scraped dry against river rocks. Thinking of laundry makes her think of the basement, the witches. Roscille flinches.

“You will have your rubies,” he says. “And I will have what is mine.”

The witches’ words echo from the deep recesses of her mind.

Macbeth, Thane of Glammis.

Macbeth, Thane of Cawder.