Page 32 of Lady Macbeth

As if he can read this fear, Lisander says, “The necklace will cover them.”

A fast, red flush again. “You will not reveal me?”

“Revealing you would damn us both, Lady Roscille. Does Macbeth really need another cause for killing me?” He shakes his head and is silent a moment. Then, lowly, he says, “I promised you protection from him. I will not relinquish that vow.”

“I did not think you the sort of man who holds to vows merely because he made them, even when they no longer serve him.”

Lisander does not reply; he merely looks down at her, gaze strangely soft. His stillness and silence force Roscille to contemplate her position, which even now is quite compromising. Though he has allowed her to sit, he keeps one arm braced around her thigh, holding her in the bed.

Then, abruptly, the corner of his mouth lifts. “A clever way to say you think me dishonorable.”

Roscille tries to keep her expression serene, remote. “What other reason would you have for refusing the crown? Spurning your dead father’s wish?”

Finally Lisander’s face shutters. He stands up, withdrawing his arm from around her leg, and Roscille cannot help but feel bereft at the loss of his touch.

“I do not relish this,” he says. “But you have given me no choice. Stand.”

She does. Her legs feel limp; between her thighs, she is still slick.

Lisander reaches for the sheet. He tears a strip free easily, muscles scarcely flexing; she is surprised by this subtle, graceful strength, which seems almost inhuman. He guides her arms around her back and binds her wrists together. The fabric is not coarse, but it is still tight enough to chafe.

Then he leaves her standing there and walks across the room to retrieve her fallen veil. When he bends over, Roscille sees the way his spine presses through the leather of his jacket; she can count every notch of bone, protruding sharply like fins.

As he approaches her, he keeps his gaze on the ground, but when he reaches her, and they are standing close again, he looks up, directly into her eyes, pinning her in place with his stare.

Roscille stares back, chin trembling with defiance.

Without his gaze ever shifting, Lisander sets her veil back in place. His ministrations are precise, and gentler than she deserves. When the fabric falls again over her eyes, he stares for just a moment more, and then averts his gaze at last.

From his trunk, he retrieves a sheathed sword. His movement is again too deft: The sword is lifted and then strapped to his belt in the time it takes her to blink.

“Come,” he says, beckoning her toward the door. His voice is hard and cold.

Roscille has no choice but to obey.

Her thoughts have been so scattered that she has not had time to ruminate upon this. Now, without other occupation, as Lisander prods her through the threshold and into the corridor, the realization forces itself into her mind. No mortal man has ever looked into her eyes and lived, yet Lisander did and still he moves and breathes and runs with blood. He was not compelled, not ensorcelled. Roscille looks back over her shoulder at the windowless room, and her eyes follow the strange marks slashed along the stone wall, no pattern to them, nothing her senses can constellate, and knows, with the certainty of a lightning strike, that Lisander is no mortal man.

As she is maneuvered through the long, twisting hallways, Roscille crafts excuses, for when Macbeth will inevitably command her to speak.

He was too strong, my Lord, he knew I was coming. I am sorry. He is too clever, as you have said.

I will do better. I will not displease you. I will not disgrace you.

And then, for the bruises at her throat: It is the necklace, my Lord. Your honor leaves its mark on me. It all sounds whinging and witless, even in her own mind. She has lost her innocence, well and truly. It is a trick that is now forbidden to her, a mask she may no longer wear. Roscille of Breizh was timid; Lady Macbeth is not.

Lisander forces her at a pace, and by the time they reach the courtyard, she is breathless. The chancellor has found his way here as well, red-cheeked with exertion that must be unusual to him, after years spent luxuriating at King Duncane’s side. He leans over, hands on his knees, looking very old.

There is another man hidden inside the chancellor: a farmer, a fisherman, a shepherd. The monk he must have been once, shaved head as bald as a baby’s, before he was plucked from his quiet abbey to attend the king. Roscille sees these men layered over one another, like the rings of a tree, more ancient closer to the center. She is surprised that she can still manage to glimpse this, cold creature she has become. But when she blinks, the vision dissipates.

The barbican grinds open. Three horses skid into the courtyard, kicking up dust. Spooked horses, their eyes rolled to the whites, snorting and salivating. One rider is Banquho, another Fléance. The last, Macbeth.

Tartans are ripped and brows are sweat-dewed, but Roscille can see no injuries. While there are no open wounds, blood is in the air. Macbeth breathes hard as he dismounts his horse, fury rolling off him in waves.

“You false, shrinking coward,” Macbeth snarls. “Unhand my wife.”

“Coward?” Lisander echoes. “It is you who sends your wife to do your rough work.”

Lisander’s sword-point is pressed against the small of her back. If there is any sudden, graceless movement by either of them, she will be stuck through with its blade like a pig on a spit.