Page 43 of Lady Macbeth

The shock of this anger makes her forget her previous plan to be silent.

“My Lord,” she says in alarm. “You are injured.”

“It is nothing,” he says.

The attendants are carrying a large trunk between the two of them. By the way their arms tremble, Roscille can tell it is heavy, full. At Macbeth’s direction, they set it down on the floor in front of him. Then he banishes them from the room.

“Shall I see to your wound?” Roscille asks meekly. This is a stupid thing to say; she is no Druide, no handmaid either. But she is unmoored. She has never been able to envision her husband as fallible. Always he has seemed as impenetrable as stone.

“Forget the wound,” he says. “Banquho has told me what transpired here while I was gone.”

Her stomach pools with dread. And then she does the second-best thing any woman can do. She clasps her hands over her chest and says, “My Lord, I am so sorry. I have failed you, dishonored you; there is no punishment I do not deserve.”

But Macbeth is not happy with her pleading. She should have known; he may be mortal, but her husband is no ordinary man. He seeks out witches as wives. He wants women with teeth. Not too sharp, of course.

“Forget the honor, too,” he says. “I have heard enough of this word from Banquho, honor and honor and honor. Enough. I am weary of it. Honor is an imagined thing, the refuge of weak men. Only power is real. So listen now, Lady Macbeth. I have taken Moray. It is mine. I have cast Duncane’s crown into the fire and with its melted remains forged one of my own.”

Roscille looks up at him and fashions her face into a mask of admiration. “King Hereafter.”

“And many of Duncane’s allies have abandoned their own vows and fallen into line. The thanes who have not will be destroyed quickly, for Æthelstan will not have them, either. These dumb beasts forget how much the English loathe Alba. The lion and the unicorn will never make peace.”

His words rumble like thunder. The hatred between the English and the Scots is as old as the world itself. And with every passing year, more bloodshed waters the roots and makes the animus grow new again.

“That is good,” Roscille says hesitantly. “All of Alba will kneel to Macbeth.”

He gives a single nod. “That is why I say forget honor. Forget these little wounds. The prince’s flight is the greatest boon I could have hoped for. Now the whole island will know that Duncane’s line breeds monsters. I have sent messengers in all directions to spread this news. Bards will sing songs of it in every noble’s court. Criers will cry it in the street. And the man who brings me the head of the dragon will be rewarded so handsomely that the sons of his sons will want for nothing in their lives.”

For a moment, all words are lost to her.

“But how,” she manages at last, in a weak voice, “will any man slay such a beast?”

“All beasts may be slain.” His eyes fix on hers. “Open the trunk.”

She must kneel in order to open it. Bending her legs like this is agony, but she bites her lip against the protest that rises in her throat. Her fingers fumble with the latches. They are trembling, diminished with so many days of disuse where she could not even bring herself to hold a quill. With great difficulty, she unclasps the latch and lifts open the lid.

Inside is a nest of white fur, pale and pure as snow. Roscille blinks in disbelief. Very slowly, she reaches down into the trunk and draws it out: the cloak.

She is holding this dead thing in her hands. Turning it over, she sees the soft pelt of a rabbit, even its small paws intact. Then there is the fox, with its long bushy tail. A bird, a swan, its feathers as sleek as fletching. The shaggy fur of a mountain goat, brushed uncommonly neat. The ermine, the creature from Alan Varvek’s coat of arms.

The cloak has a hood, as women’s cloaks ordinarily do not. A horse’s mane runs up the back, like a spine. She runs her fingers through it, disbelieving, her mind supplying only a single word over and over again: no and no and no and no. At the peak of the hood there are two ears, flattened, as if the creature is fearful even in death. And then there is the horn, spiraling, iridescent and conch-like, to its gleaming point.

He has really done it. Fulfilled the condition she thought was impossible, for there are only six white animals that live on the soil of Scotland, and one of them is the unicorn. She did not believe he would dare, that the King of Alba would brazenly slay the symbol of Alba itself. But Macbeth dares anything.

“Blasted creature gored two hounds,” Macbeth is saying. “Never hunt with another man’s hounds, with dogs you have not fed from your own hand—that was my mistake, which I will not again make. And then with men who are not from your own clan, another mistake. This one was clumsy in his sprinting. Slipped his spear against my leg. I had him stuck in the pillory for two and a half days.” He snorts. “Another king might have broken him on the wheel. Let them know Macbeth is a righteous man and capable of mercy.”

As he speaks, he begins stripping off his tartan. Roscille is too shocked to move, and his voice passes over her like water. He tosses the filthy plaid aside. Underneath, there is a stain spreading slowly across his wool stockings, blue-black. A wound, unhealed. She can see the spear sliding against the tender skin at the back of his knee—imagine any part of Macbeth being tender—the horrified look on the other man’s face, the knowledge of his unforgivable error. Her husband, spitting venom and rage.

Ignorant to her horror—perhaps uncaring—Macbeth says, “Put it on.”

The cloak. He means the cloak. Roscille slowly draws the six deaths over her shoulder. There is a clasp at the front, where the ermine’s mouth joins its tail in a perfect circle around her throat. Above it, the blood-colored ruby gleams.

Macbeth regards her for a long moment. Then he reaches out and grasps her face in his hand. He holds her chin between two fingers and turns her face this way and that, as if she is a piece of pottery he is examining for cracks.

“Beautiful,” he declares at last. The pride in his voice—as if he is the first to utter this word, as if the word is a flag he is planting upon her. He has never reminded her of Wrybeard until this moment. But he speaks in the same tone her father did when he proclaimed, Perhaps you were cursed by a witch.

“Thank you, my Lord,” she says quietly. “You honor me with this gift.”

Too late, she realizes she has made a mistake. Storm clouds roll over Macbeth’s face. “I told you I no longer care to hear this word. It is a virtue that is below me.”