Page 23 of Lady Macbeth

Her heart skips. “Tell me of her. The wife who came before.”

But before Lisander can speak, there is some commotion in the hall. Footsteps and distant voices, voices she doesn’t recognize—perhaps the guards in Duncane’s retinue. With one hand on her shoulder, Lisander maneuvers her from the center of the corridor to the wall, pressing them both to the cool stone.

“Time escapes us,” he says. “But—Lady Roscille. If your lord husband puts his hands on you, whisper to me the ugly deeds he does in the dark, and I will stop him.”

Unexpectedly, his words land like an arrow, lodged painfully between her ribs. It is not the purview of a prince, the way a noble lord treats his wife. Surely it would be taken as a great offense. Surely Duncane would not allow it—allow his son, even the less preferred one, to disgrace himself by coming to the defense of a witch. He is prince, not king, not emperor. What right does he have to rescue the slave from his death by the eel’s teeth?

“Why?” she manages. “Why dishonor yourself for my sake? Why risk your birthright?”

A stretch of silence, the night warping and shifting around them.

“Because,” Lisander says at last, “I do not wish to see you live without shelter.” He pauses. “And because the crown is not mine to lose.”

They depart, each for their own windowless room. She opens her eyes at last, and they ache. It feels as if her lashes have turned inward, stabbing at the soft whites. She unclenches her fingers and the tattered veil falls to the ground. She watches it drift down, lace draping itself over stone.

Three things she has learned, from this exchange.

The first: Her husband has a proclivity for witch-women.

The second: He will not hesitate to replace one witch-wife with another.

Roscille imagines the fate of the First Wife, imagines her like Hawise, smothered by the black waves. She cannot be sure, of course, that the First Wife drowned. But it is the easiest death, in Glammis, where the sea is always here, always churning, and always hungry. If Roscille does not please Macbeth, she will share this fate. It is the dagger in her hand, or it is death by her husband’s orchestration. Glammis is not a safe place for women like you. Macbeth is like Wrybeard, in this respect. All things in this castle must serve him.

The third: Lisander wishes to protect her. Yet this is a flimsy piece of knowledge; mostly, the prince of Cumberland is still a mystery to her. She should have been below his attention, just another lord’s misused wife. He must have seen hundreds of them by now, girls cringing in their white cornettes, thighs freshly bloodied, or old matrons whose mouths have shrunken into their faces. His own mother was likely one of them. If ever he has a daughter, she will be the same.

She does not know why he stepped between her and death. And at the heart of things, she cannot be certain that he will again. He told her he had no inheritance to lose—but without the promise of a crown, what power does he have, truly, to save her?

Roscille leans over and rests her forehead against the castle’s stone wall. In the theater behind her eyelids, she watches the eels circle in their pool. She hears the cut-off scream of the stable hand as he dies. And she thinks, perhaps, the poison has already seeped through, turning her heart black.

Roscille has never been in her husband’s chamber before. It is half again as big as hers, with a large window, gridded in iron. Right now, it is morning, and she slept only in choking stops and starts, and the rheumy gray light that leaks through the windows makes her vision ripple. She has replaced her torn veil with another one, and she is grateful for the screen it provides between her stinging eyes and the world.

Behind her there is a bear-rug, identical to the one in her room. The same immortal snarl, the same yellow teeth. Perhaps they were a pair, mates, slain by twin spears.

The bed is behind Macbeth, and it, too, is half again as big as hers. Large enough, easily, to hold both of them at once. Seeing it makes Roscille’s stomach roil and churn. She reminds herself of her husband’s vow, this ancient rite he must observe. She still has two requests left. Two impossible tasks separating her from blood-slicked sheets.

Where the light streams through the window grate, it makes a thatched pattern on the floor. There are a mere two squares of light between her and Macbeth. When he exhales, her veil ripples.

“Tell me,” he says. “Tell me how you will do it.”

It has all been laid out for her, like a map unfurled across the council table. His plan, his words, snuck into her brain. Roscille draws a breath.

“I will go to the king’s chamber in the dead of night.” Her voice is a whisper. “I will ensorcell his chamberlains. I will kill him.”

“And tell me why I cannot do this myself.”

“Because,” she says softly, “when the king is found dead, the chancellor will perform the rite of cruentation. And when the words are spoken over Duncane’s body, the death wound will start bleeding in your presence.”

He lifts a hand, cups her cheek. “Exactly. And I will be sure to keep you far from the chamber. No one will suspect a woman capable of such violence.”

When spoken aloud, it sounds so easy. Oversimple. But this plan is porous with black spaces, all of which Roscille may fall through. What if she cannot ensorcell the chamberlains? She has done it only once before, that day in the stable, and never since. She does not know the margins and contours of her power. What if she cannot kill the king before he cries out and alerts someone? What if she cannot bring herself to deliver the death blow?

And then there is Lisander, his words curling in the shell of her ear. I do not wish to see you live without shelter. Not even a promise, merely a desire—and if no vow was spoken, can she truly betray him?—yet a knife twists between her ribs when she thinks of him.

All she can manage to say is, “I am afraid of failing you, my Lord.”

His thumb brushes her cheekbone, a fraction of an inch below her eye. “You will not fail. Do you remember? Your purpose is sanctified. The witches have spoken their prophecy. I did not fail in Cawder, did I?”

She shakes her head.