Page 60 of Lady Macbeth

“There is no safety here,” she says. “Not while Macbeth lives and breathes. And he will always live and breathe.”

“How do you know?”

Because the wood will never ascend the hill. Because there is no man who is not born of woman. But Roscille does not say this. Instead, she says, “I will give you what coin I can gather, and disguise you well. In the night, you will slip out of the castle. You will have what clothes and supplies you need. You must find your children before Æthelstan’s army arrives at your village, and take them with you. The coin will get you far enough.”

Senga drops her hands, and Roscille’s hair falls back down upon her shoulders. She is silent for a long moment. “And what about you, Lady?”

Roscille draws a breath. “A queen does not forsake her people,” she replies bleakly.

Another long moment passes. Very gently, Senga holds Roscille’s chin and turns her gaze toward her. With a half smile, she says, “And a handmaiden does not forsake her Lady.”

Roscille breaks Senga’s grip on her face and turns away again. If she looks too long at Senga, she will weep. And she cannot risk her husband seeing tears on her cheeks. He does not wish her to feel any emotion he himself did not engender in her.

As if summoned by thought alone, the door is then forced open. Senga quickly slips the veil back over Roscille’s face. Macbeth stands in the threshold, so broad that he blocks the torchlight from the corridor.

“My Lord,” Roscille says, and dips her head.

“Lady Macbeth.” There is something in his voice. She cannot say what it is, but all the small hairs on her arms stand up, as if prickled with cold. “I have just finished with Fléance.”

“Oh.” Her cheeks heat. “And did he tell you what you wished to know?”

Senga’s hand rests on her shoulder. Her handmaiden’s fingernails curl, digging just slightly into her skin. She shifts, an infinitesimal movement, barely detected, the muscles rolling in her shoulders—almost as though she plans to throw herself between Macbeth and her Lady. But Macbeth’s stare keeps them both pinned into place.

“He told me very interesting things,” Macbeth says. “Come, wife. Let us go.”

He leads her down the twisting labyrinth of corridors, which Roscille now knows even blind. But he does not force her to wear the cloth over her eyes—why? If once she believed she understood her husband, and his wiles, she now feels as adrift as she did her first day in Glammis, shivering in the heathen cold.

Macbeth limps in front of her; Roscille trails behind. From this vantage point, she can see his wound well: the way it sucks at the wool of his tights, pulling the fabric into the wet, open gash. It seems impossible that he can still support his own enormous body. Sometimes the kitchen boys in Naoned would cruelly tie up a dog’s front leg and laugh while it hobbled around, whining at this confusing loss of function. When Roscille saw this it made her angry enough to wish herself a man, so she could enact violence upon them.

The corridor narrows, and the torches on the wall grow dim, showing only black scorch-marks instead of light. At the end, the wood-rotted door with its rusted iron grate. The ocean’s gnashing teeth behind it. Did the last prophecy not satisfy Macbeth? What more could he want than the total assurance the witches offered him?

Roscille risks this question: “Has something happened to displease you?”

It could be many things. The seething men in the courtyard. The nearness of Æthelstan’s army. The lingering hurt of Banquho’s betrayal. But Macbeth scarcely looks at her as he says, “Yes. But it will be righted now.”

Then he turns the key in the lock and the coldness captures them both, as though they have been snatched up into the claws of the cruel old goddess of winter. Beira, that is her name here, in Alba. They also call her caillech, divine hag. Half woman she is, and half horned beast.

Now les Lavandières shuffle forward, dragging their chains through the water. Gruoch is in the center, holding her laundry, stretching like spider silk between her hands. Their wet white hair clings to their scrawny necks. Roscille cannot imagine what new prophecy her husband wishes to beg off them. What fear does he want them to assuage?

Macbeth stands on the steps; he does not drop down into the water, does not move toward the torch. And, more strangely, he does not say a word. He merely waits until the witches have reached him there, closer to the door than Roscille has ever seen them. The light that leaks in from the corridor shines on their faces, their knobbed fingers. If they lived in the upper world, they would be midwives, wet nurses, widows who bathe the feet of brides.

They stand there waiting, rocking slightly back and forth, as if buffeted by wind. There is no wind, of course, and without their washing, the cave is silent and still. Roscille tries to meet Gruoch’s gaze, but she cannot pierce through the milky mortal blindness.

“Buidseach,” Macbeth says. The word curves out, cold, in the black air. Gruoch opens her mouth, but Macbeth holds up a hand. “No, do not speak. I do not come asking for counsel or prophecy.”

Gruoch’s mouth snaps shut. A dog, commanded: Quiet!

Roscille looks at her husband. A slow dread unfolds within her.

Very slowly, Macbeth reaches for her. His hands find her shoulders first, and then run down her torso, grazing her breasts, coming to settle at her waist. She is wearing a cloth belt, but this will not stop him. Will he really take her here, in the damp darkness, with les Lavandières as witness? Is this her punishment for Wrybeard’s apathy? He does not need to prove his power in front of the witches; already they are shackled and chained, and surely he has already had Gruoch this way, the First Wife. Roscille despises her own cowardice, but she cannot help drawing in a sharp little breath.

“Ah,” says Macbeth. “You think me unworthy of your affections?”

“No, my Lord. It is not—it is cold here.” Pitiful reasoning. Behind her, the black water bunches and then flattens, like fabric.

“I spoke to the traitor’s traitorous son,” Macbeth says. “Of course I asked him what you proposed I ask. I said I was seeking to punish another, and what should this manner of torture be? I did not speak of you, Lady Macbeth—no, Roscilla—no, Roscille of Breizh—yet somehow your name was in his mouth. He believed I sought to punish you instead. Why, I asked him. He looked at me almost pityingly, as if I were a miserable fool. To be pitied by a man in chains, with a sword dangling over his head. Why did he speak of you, Roscilla? Why did he look at me this way?”

The question is not a question. It is a snare laid under the false cover of leaves. One incautious step and she will be strung up. “I—I do not know, my Lord.”