Page 59 of Lady Macbeth

“What makes you cringe from me now?” Macbeth demands. “Do you not want to play a part in killing this man who is your enemy? Perhaps you have some clever ideas of how to defile his corpse.”

Her heartbeat slows, but only just. He does not mean to punish her, at least not now. He has already gotten his fill of violence somewhere else.

“I have no ideas, my Lord,” she manages.

Macbeth regards her in a strange way, his face showing both satisfaction and disgust. “Are you not your father’s daughter?”

She does not know how to answer that.

Instead, she replies, carefully, “You should ask Fléance himself, instead. Pretend you are his friend still. Tell him you will be punishing someone else in his stead. Ask him what their punishment should be. He will devise a method of execution that is most abhorrent to him. And that will be your best vengeance.”

Macbeth rests a hand against the wall to steady himself, to take the weight off his left leg. After a long beat, he says, “My clever wife.”

“A wife is only as clever as her husband permits her to be.”

She hates herself for saying this. But every moment she is sitting here, in a chair, with embroidery in her lap, is a moment she is not being whipped or forced or made to kneel. Her life has been cleaved into two simple halves: the time when there is pain, and the time when there is not.

The corner of Macbeth’s mouth lifts in a smile. He approaches her, and Roscille holds herself rigid in her chair. He takes her face into one of his hands and leans down and kisses her forehead. He gives a little huff of pain as he does. It sounds just like the way he breathes when he works himself over on top of her. She sits there, turning to stone, until Macbeth rises and leaves her.

The next day, Roscille smells smoke from down the hillside. It is distant, but when she walks onto the parapet, she can see filthy gray clouds blooming just above the line of the horizon. There are many things which could be burning: Grain stores. Houses. Stables. Sheep, cows, horses, women, men. Children made orphans with the wink of a blade. Æthelstan’s army is so close.

From the parapet, she also observes the conversations in the courtyard. Men are gathered, but fewer and wearier with each passing day. Their beards are sticky with blood. Their tartans are ragged. Their shoulders are stooped. The rain has come and it has gone, so their horses are ornery and tired looking. Macbeth remains on horseback when he does his rallying. It does not show his limp quite so badly.

Mountain Goat has died in the fighting. His men are jostling with anger over it. Macbeth says, “Are you all chickens? Can you not survive without a head?”

He is not quite making sense. Ripples of discontent pass through the crowd. But no individual man dares to speak against him—not after that first time. Macbeth kicks his horse and urges it to Winter Fox’s side. A few inaudible words pass between them. Winter Fox hangs his head. Then Macbeth’s horse trots away.

Winter Fox: I will lead today’s showing against Æthelstan. Our King has business here at the castle.

The men cannot stifle their murmurs of protest now. Scathing sounds drawn from the backs of their throats. This is not the behavior of a king. Not the behavior of a righteous man. Bellona’s bridegroom, who will hide himself in his castle walls while his soldiers die for him? Reith, who will keep his sword and beard unbloodied?

Macbeth says, “I promise all who fight today will be honored forever in history. Your sons and grandsons and great-grandsons will remember the nobility of this fight. How you drove the insatiable lion from the unicorn’s land. And whoever brings back that green prince Iomhar’s head will have a place of honor at my table, at my side, always. I am in search of a new right hand.”

The wind howls through the courtyard. It scatters the men like birds.

Roscille sits while Senga braids her hair. They are both on the floor, kneeling, cushioned by the bear-rug. Its fur is still thick and vital, even in death. Its yellowed teeth show no cracks.

Senga says, “I will braid your hair in the style of Alba. Yes?”

“If you like,” says Roscille, listless.

“So you will seem more a queen.”

Queen Hereafter. King Hereafter. All these prophecies have come true, save for the false ones she stuck into the witches’ mouths. Now she thinks of these final auguries: No man of woman born. Until the wood comes high upon the hill. She picks the words apart. Perhaps they are like glyphs or pictographs, disguising a code within. The Duke had spymasters who invented such ciphers for him, so that he could hide treacheries beneath pleasantries. These men were always light-footed as mice and spoke in whispers. Narrow men, their shoulders held high and tight. Roscille admired them. They saw what lay beneath the world everyone knew.

She had even entertained the thought of becoming a spy, as a child, but of course there are no lady spymasters. Roscille looks in the bucket of water she is using a mirror, watches Senga plait her hair. Her skin grows cold when it is lifted from her neck. With its pale color, it looks like she is wearing a coronet of bone.

Beautiful. Lisander’s words return to her.

Unnatural, she protested. Strange.

No. You have been made to fit a shape that confines you.

Roscille shoves the bucket of water away until she can no longer see. The last person to style her hair was Hawise.

Abruptly, she looks up, jostling Senga’s hands. “I will not let harm come to you,” Roscille says.

Senga frowns. “What do you mean, Lady?”