Page 36 of Lady Macbeth

The wind picks up, blowing Roscille’s veil against her face. Once she would have shivered, but now the cold of Glammis is in her marrow, and she feels nothing at all.

“Let us go inside,” she says.

She turns, and with barely checked fury, Banquho and Fléance follow her. The men are still chanting, yet as she walks farther into the belly of the castle, their words are swallowed up by the wind, and lost with distance.

Nine

All Roscille knows of running a castle is what she learned through observation in Wrybeard’s court. The Duke’s wife by law is Adelaide, who is not her mother but is still the reason Roscille exists.

Adelaide is not beautiful, though this alone is no excuse to spurn a marriage vow, not with how many priests Wrybeard is required to keep in his company, or else risk recriminations from the House of Capet and the pope himself. It is an unfortunate consequence of her breeding. Her native House of Blois are a rough-skinned, damp-eyed, long-nosed lot, the result of of too many cousins marrying cousins, and not even an infusion of Angevin blood could correct this—Adelaide is cousin to le Tricheur, whom Roscille nearly spooked out of his mind.

No, the problem with Adelaide is not her beauty—or rather her lack of it—but that Adelaide is simple, like a stable hand kicked in the head by a horse or a baby left to lie too long on its side in the crib. Her humors are perpetually out of balance. She is suffused with a calamitous mixture of black bile and white pus, resulting in a diseased mind. In an effort to rebalance these humors, Adelaide has undergone trepanation not once, not twice, but three times. It has left one half of her mouth in a permanent rictus, and she must carry a handkerchief with her always, to wipe away the spittle which gathers in the corner of her lips. When she speaks, it is with a throaty moan, like a bullfrog.

Even this unbalance is not entirely unforgivable, not cause enough to shun a wife from such an ancient and noble—if uncomely—house. But these humors have given Adelaide a temperament both phlegmatic and melancholic, which means she must be kept away from sharp things. She must have a cadre of ladies at her side, to keep her from open windows and long falls, from hastily tied nooses and weighted dresses. In the night, she can sometimes be heard burning herself with hot wax, and moaning as if in ecstasy. Her wrists are deformed with circular scar tissue, the lesions running over one another, like ripples in a pool.

Suicide is, of course, a sin by the pope’s reckoning, and Roscille was in the room when Wrybeard proclaimed to the priests, “If it is my wife’s desire to shirk her earthly duties, then I should be no longer bound to my own earth-made vows.” There is logic in this that makes the priests’ brows wrinkle and their heads bob on their skinny necks. They take this logic back to the House of Capet, who take it to the pope. The pope says that he will not annul the marriage, for this, too, is a sin, but he will unofficially release Alan Varvek, Duke of Breizh, from his matrimonial bonds.

So there is her father, openly and unashamedly bedding the second or third daughters of the lords of his fiefs. He will not stoop to ushering serving girls into his chamber, because they tend to get ideas above their station, when they believe they have been divinely chosen to carry the child of a duke. Noble girls know better than to expect some elevation of status just because the Duke finds them attractive enough to breed.

Roscille’s mother was one of these second or third daughters, but her name is lost to time, her life released from her on the birthing bed. But any lesson a mother might impart her daughter Roscille has learned from observing Adelaide. From Adelaide, she has learned all the things she must never, ever do; all the things she must never, ever be. She must not lack in beauty. She must keep her mind whetted like a blade. And she must always be safe around sharp objects. Madness, of all things, is the most unforgivable in a woman.

On the first day of her husband’s absence, Roscille sits at Macbeth’s table and hears the reports of her subjects in his stead. How some of the sheep have suffered a blight and the shepherds will not be able to afford their tithes. How lovers from two feuding families wish to marry each other and hope to get the Lord’s permission. How one woman has bedded half the men in a town and caused such an uproar that she must be sent to a nunnery to atone. How, what a pity, none of these young boys can read Latin, can the Lord not spare a Druide or two to teach them?

Roscille says, We will take a smaller tithe from shepherding families this year. She says, These families will no longer feud over petty, ancient offenses or the Lord will come back and splatter the brains of their sons on the wall. She says, Bring this impure woman to the castle, and she will atone by scrubbing my floors and embroidering my dresses. She says, I will have two Druides come on Sunday mornings for school.

Banquho and Fléance sit at her side as she hears these complaints and settles these disputes. When the last man leaves, Banquho says, “You will not send those Druides.”

“Why not?”

“Because there is treachery still, in Glammis. You waste time indulging these petty grievances. You should spend your resources seeking out this treachery, rather than coddling these villagers. They are potential traitors, all of them.”

Roscille looks past Banquho at Fléance, who dips his head to avoid her gaze. It is too much to expect him to support her openly before his father, but she hopes to shame him a bit, by meeting his eyes. She is satisfied when a flush creeps across his cheeks.

She turns back to Banquho and says, “If you treat every man as a traitor, a traitor he will become, in time.”

Banquho’s mouth twists. “And this woman you intend to bring to the castle? She may be a traitor, too, ready to misuse her position. You sit here coveting pretty dresses while Glammis turns against its Thane. This is no occasion to fill the halls with empty-headed servants.”

“Either this woman is empty-headed or she is a traitor; she cannot be both.” Roscille rises from the table. “And this sort of treachery is born from dissatisfaction. The more meanly you treat your people, the most dissatisfied they will become. These simple justices will inspire love among Macbeth’s subjects.”

“Why is it love you wish to inspire? Fear will achieve the same.”

Perhaps it will, among the brutish people of Scotland. But Roscille will not see more of them punished for her lies. She wonders if her father would see this as weakness; what clever creature would not sacrifice lesser beings to protect itself? She turns it over in her mind. She is not Roscille of Breizh anymore. She is Lady Macbeth, and in her husband’s absence, Glammis is her domain to rule.

“This is my purview, Lord Banquho,” she says. “The Lord has left these matters to my discretion. If you do not fulfill my wishes, you will face his anger when he returns.”

For a long moment Banquho is silent. His fingers twitch at his sides, as if battling the instinct to reach for his sword. His chest heaves.

At last, he says, “There are the King’s wishes you must fulfill, Lady Macbeth. He awaits the knowledge you will draw from the prince’s screams.”

Roscille says nothing in return. Banquho draws himself up, satisfied at her muteness. He thinks they have fought and he has landed the finishing blow. But this is why he is a tactician only, not a strategist. He sees what is before his eyes and in his arm’s reach. He has the nobleman’s little power and not the emperor’s total dominion. He believes the lampreys devour at his discretion, but in truth, they are just dull mouths, and will eat anything their teeth can find.

Roscille gathers her things and leaves the great hall without another word.

The dungeon. She has never been inside it before. It is not a place for ladies. Her dress drags through filthy puddles, and where she steps, rats shriek and flee into shadowy corners. The torchlight glows wetly on the walls and the grime-coated floor. On the walls there are tools hanging, as if in a garden shed. Long whips, crusted in blood. A cat-o’-nine-tails, gathering dust. Knives in all shapes and sizes, their handles turning to rust. It is a small, oppressive, airless space, like every room of Glammis. There are no resplendent stretching racks. The Duke would find this displeasing. Torture, like all things within his influence, is an intricate, sophisticated thing. Not like these uncivil Scots and their crass, common methods of extracting pain.

Roscille approaches the nearest cell. Its bars are cold, and when she grips them, her skin turns to ice.

“I did not think you would come,” Lisander says.