Chapter Ten

Ten

"T here was a king in Alba. A virtuous, noble king, who sought to act as was right, praised handsomely. He wed a worthy woman, fair in looks, and well bred. They loved each other as a fish loves water, a love so deep that the absence of one from the world was inconceivable to the other. So, by the purity of their love, the queen fell pregnant with a son.

"In the flower of his fame and preening with such good fortune, the king went on a hunt in the forest. It was dawn, and they were eager, his knights and huntsmen, joyful in their intent. They were after a mighty stag, one that could be mounted with pride in the king's great hall. The king rode ahead, with the dogs and huntsmen at his heels, and a squire at his side, bearing his hunting bow, quiver, and spear.

"But the king was led a strange way by his horse, wandering from his war party. And then he saw, beneath a spreading tree, a doe with her fawn in company. The creature was the purest white—a doe, yet oddly, it bore horns.

" Its fur will be a lovely prize, the king thought, in which to robe my wife. He drew his bow, letting his arrow fly. The arrow struck her hoof, so she fell to the ground at once. Yet the arrow turned back in flight, and struck the king on the thigh, so violently that he was filled with a sudden and greatly embodied rage.

"The deer lay upon the grass. She sighed in anguish, and then, astonishingly, her form began to change. She assumed the shape of a woman, beautiful beyond all conception, naked, with hair the color of moonbeams.

"The king did love his wife dearly, and he did so wish to honor her with the creature's pelt. But the nature of man is not such that it can be undone entirely by simple affection. The king still had a man's desires, his hungers, and his vices. And so when he thrust into the bleeding woman, it was not with the point of his sword.

"When he had finished, her blood had soaked the grass. She raised her head, with great effort, and then she gave forth speech:

"?‘I die here, alas, slain by covetous mortal hands. Sorceress, you will name me, witch; for centuries to come, the birth of your line's firstborn sons will all bear the mark of my vengeful magic. As you have stolen from me my natural form, so too will my power steal the forms of your sons.'

"Then the woman—witch—laid her head back upon the grass and died, and the earth ate up her body, so that by the time the king's squire arrived, there was only the fawn, shivering and bleating for its mother. The squire bore the injured king back to the castle, where his wound was bound and treated. And when he saw his wife with her swelled belly, he fell to his knees in front of her, and confessed all.

"The king had never been an especially pious man. Yet as his son grew in his mother's womb, he prayed and prayed, hoping that he might be released from the witch's curse. He summoned priests, clad them in gold, and kept a dozen at his side always, to pray for absolution.

"Never did he receive God's answer. His son was born in blood and sweat and darkness, and he feared the curse might take his wife from him, too. But she did not die, though the son she gave forth was a strange child, dark of hair where both parents were fair, pale of skin where his mother and father were lively and red.

"For days, the child did not sleep. He wept through all hours of the night, writhing every moment, as if in secret agony. The queen could not settle him. He did not wish to feed. And then, at last, when he slipped into a troubled slumber, the king saw the fruit of the witch's curse: In his crib, while sleeping, his son became a monster.

"In these early days, it was easy to contain him. The creature had a child's body, and a child's strength. He could be strapped down in his bed. But as the boy grew, his monstrous sleep-demon grew as well. A separate chamber was built for him, with no windows, and only a small iron door, too narrow for the beast to slip through. All the servants in the castle were sworn to secrecy, forced never to speak of the roaring they heard through the halls, on pain of death.

"The queen bore another son, this one taking after his parents in appearance and manner, fully mortal, untainted by the witch's curse. But this birth weakened the queen, and soon after she died. In the absence of his beloved, the king sickened, too, though he was not mercifully relieved of his posthumous existence. He aged, every day in diminished agony. His firstborn son aged, too, and with him, the monster.

"In his grief and fury, the king sought out all witches and enchantresses in his kingdom, any woman who showed a strangeness. Yet when he questioned them, they all said the same: that the curse of a witch cannot be undone by any except the witch herself. And the witch who cursed his son was dead.

"And that is how the crown of Alba came to be worn by a withering king, and promised by inheritance to a monster."

Lisander's voice grows lower and lower, until it can scarcely be heard at all. As he speaks, his hand grips Roscille's tightly. She lifts her gaze, her unguarded gaze, and meets his eyes. They gleam as if lit from behind by torches. His pupils are so black that she can see herself reflected within them. Her face, revealed at last: bloodless skin and pointed chin and something strange, something wrong, that she cannot name. An aberration that runs through her like a crack in the earth itself.

"So now you have heard it all." His voice is strained, as if something presses down on his throat. "I am Alba's curse, and my father's shame. Any affection he had for me was born of guilt, nothing more. He wished to name me king only because he thought it might absolve him. But he would set loose upon Scotland the cruelest, vilest creature. The beast I am cares nothing for crowns or rites or innocent lives."

With great difficulty, Roscille raises her head. "Do you think this frightens me?"

He does not reply. His eyelids are growing heavy.

"So you are no mortal man. I have seen what mortal men can do. I prefer a monster that shows itself openly."

Her legs feel so stiff she fears she may never move them again. The blood is drying now, sticking her to the floor.

"The bars are flimsy," he whispers. "They will not hold me. I do not know what it will do. What I will do."

Roscille turns up her hand, palm to palm, and laces their fingers together. She says, "Stay. Stay here until you cannot any longer. Please."

"I will." His voice is hoarse. Dim.

Roscille thinks she can prepare herself for what she will see, but her mind has not fully returned to her. It is trapped in the animal of her body, still feeling the sting of every lash. And there is no preparing, anyway. In the half-light, she sees Lisander's clothes rip. His bones press up through his skin. There is the wet sound of tearing flesh—she knows this sound well now—and where he was once pale, unblemished, his chest now ripples with scales. They are the same green color of his eyes, iridescent in the glow of the torch.

It is horrible, beautiful, horrible, then perversely beautiful again. She sees how even his mortal form was made for this, a chrysalis that holds the monster lovingly within it. His face vanishes from the light, and when it emerges again, it is the head of the dragon—she has examined its poor reproduction a thousand times on tapestries, on the proud pennants of the kingdom of Wales, and now it lives and breathes before her. Scales and crescent-shaped teeth, each as long as a dagger.

Its body coils like the serpent it is, and then stretches outward, wings unfolding from its back. They seem papery, oddly frail, as if hesitant about flight. The last to change is his hand, still gripped in hers. His fingers tear open with the same violence, showing the claws beneath.

Lisander was right: The cell cannot hold him. The dragon's teeth easily rend the metal apart, breaking the bars like twigs. And then he is free, long body unwinding, scales shimmering. She is amazed by the strength of its body, the thick muscularity of it as it curls over her, almost protective. Perhaps possessive. Dragons are jealous creatures, devoted to their hoards.

Roscille lifts a hand and runs it across the dragon's chest, down the long line of its belly. The scales are rough and smooth at once, like stones in the riverbed, and she is not afraid. If this is her different death, she will beg for it. She would sooner be consumed than taken apart, piece by fragile piece.

She has been turned on her back and the dragon is upon her. Her thighs burn. Despite being a cold-blooded creature, the nearness of its body, the pressure, fills her with warmth. She opens her mouth to speak, but all she can do is moan, half pained, half something more.

And then the dragon lifts off her, and with the beat of wings, it is up the stairs and crashing through the door. There are screams that echo all the way down into the dungeon, the clanging of steel. The smell of fire and ash. It feels as if these sounds pass within seconds, but they must go on for longer, and when it is all quiet, and she knows the creature is gone, Roscille closes her eyes and lets her cheeks run with stinging water.

The irony that would madden her, if she let it: Banquho sends Senga to treat her wounds. So he has decided that this is women's work, that it is a good thing there is a woman here after all.

First Senga lifts her off the floor and drags her up the stairs, to her bedchamber. The pain has become a familiar friend. Roscille does not make a sound until she is dropped with little ceremony onto the bed, and then it is only a huff of air, part relief, part expulsion of this overloyal agony.

"Was this because of me?" Senga asks. "Or because of the prince who escaped?"

Roscille presses her face into the mattress. She cannot think of a reply. The question is simple, why, but the answer is depthless. For the first time since arriving in Glammis, her mind does not twist inside a narrowing chasm, trying slowly to release itself. Now she is just meat, wrapped in twine. That is what it feels like, as Senga's tough hands rub cold water and peasant healing salves on her thighs.

They have not sent a Druide or a doctor to do this work because they do not want her to speak with a man whom she might enchant. Women cannot be ensorcelled; Wrybeard declared so long ago, and she has never covered her face in the presence of Hawise. But never mind that Roscille can barely concentrate on not becoming a corpse. Her breasts ache from being pressed first against the floor, and now against the mattress.

So much time passes before the pain withers into something bearable. In aching increments, her mind returns to her. Roscille considers what has gone wrong. She has overestimated her own cleverness. Underestimated the anger of men when their power is taken from them. She has let her heart move her. If she had said nothing while Lisander was on the wheel—if she had held the whip herself—she would be a porcelain-marble queen still, no cracks in her face, no lampreys mouthing her bare ankles and feet. But her greatest failure, perhaps, was believing she might be more: more than her father's ermine, with its pitiless teeth, more than Lady Macbeth, tugged along by her husband's will like a dog on its leash. The arrogance of hope.

She sleeps at strange hours, each sleep threaded through with strange dreams. At first Roscille fears the pain will appear in these dreams, but no—they are mostly scales and teeth. The warmth and strength of the dragon's body over her own. She does not tell Senga, or anyone, this. She does not even articulate the images into words. Does not know how.

In the meantime, Senga brings her food and news from the castle. The food: hard bread, Scottish mutton. She would commit sin for a piece of fruit, fresh with juice, soft enough to split down its center with her thumb. But nothing grows in Glammis. The news: Banquho has taken over the daily affairs of the keep. He has stopped sending the Druides to the villages, but he has let Senga stay, for now.

Macbeth is returning soon.

Fléance comes to visit her, once. He wears a scarf over his own eyes; he is taking no chances. The part of her that is still a seventeen-year-old girl, an animal licking its wounds, wants to insult him—to tell him he looks a foolish woman, shrinking and cringing from her. It is almost worth the promise of more pain, imagining the way his face would curdle with these words.

In the end, she merely says, "What is the state of your honor now?"

He draws a breath, puffing his chest. "You have no leave to speak to me of honor."

"Why not?" Roscille sits up, wincing. The pain still waits inside her like a coiled snake, ready at any moment to strike. "So you have beaten me, like a thousand women have been beaten before. There is no honor in that. And you will tell my husband I begged for it? To be flagellated for my failure? He will not blame me, for to blame me will dishonor him—he is the one who left Glammis in my hands. My failures are his failures. So stick stalwartly to your lies, but they will not save you. If you say I have no honor, I have no honor left to lose."

Fléance is silent. The wound on his neck and shoulder looks glossy, well healed, unobtrusive. It must embarrass him as much as the older wound on his ear. A child's scar. A boy playing at being a man. That is all he is, all he will ever be. Even Roscille could not make him into something more.

"You are a witch," he says at last.

"And yet you played so nicely with me, witch that I am. Eagerly succoring my schemes. That shame will not fade, Fléance, son of Banquho. Whatever lies you tell in this life, poison seeps through the generations. Get out. Let me see no more of you."

Soon Macbeth does return. Roscille does not go out to greet him in the courtyard, but she hears the barbican grind open, and hundreds of hooves beat against the dirt. Her room is windowless so she cannot see him, cannot see whether or not he comes back grinning, proudly waving the flag of his clan, dust-caulked and bloodstained but joyous with violent triumph. This is the best she can hope for.

She has had a long time to consider what she will say to him. But the correct answer is: nothing. This is what men want most of all to hear from women. He will arrange his world, and she will slide wordlessly into the place he has made for her. She feels new to Glammis again, a wide-eyed foreign bride, halting in her Scottish and cowering under her veil. Her thighs are still so raw she cannot bear to sleep on her back. She lies on her belly, gown drawn up over her hips, holding the pain at a slender distance.

Rough bootsteps on the floor jolt her from the bed. They are her husband's footsteps, the treading of a warrior, uncompromising and unfaltering. Softer, more hesitant footsteps follow his.

Macbeth pushes through the door, two attendants at his heels. She raises her gaze slowly, beneath the veil, taking in all of him. There is no blood in his beard, but he is dewed with the sweat of a long journey, his face red and wind-chapped. There are lines etched on his brow that Roscille does not remember being there when he left. As he walks toward her, Roscille realizes, astonishingly, that those arrogant footsteps were not his at all. Her husband is limping.

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 ?thelstan 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—Macbethsays, "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."

"I'm sorry." Roscille looks at the ground.

Or at least, she tries. Macbeth jerks her chin back up so she is forced to look into his eyes again. He tips his own head, as if in consideration. Then he says, "Show me."

Her mind scrambles. "What?"

"Banquho told me what occurred, in my absence. I should like to see the state of my wife's body."

Briefly, Roscille becomes stone. Her thoughts all turn to nothing, and leave her like smoke. The pressure of Macbeth's fingers on her chin brings her back to herself, enough that she can follow this rote command. With slow, halting movements, she unfastens the cloak. It slips to the floor and piles there, an embankment of snow around her feet. Her feet are bare, have been bare for days, the days in which she has only slept and lived with the pain in her bed like a lover.

Macbeth lets her go and she turns her back to him. Roscille draws her hands to her hips. She is wearing one of the dresses Senga embroidered for her in the style of Alba. A muted, simple pattern that would be regarded as ugly in her father's court. Her fingers shake as she lifts her skirts, baring to Macbeth the backs of her thighs.

She hears the breath he lets out. She hears him shift closer, lowering himself to examine her. She knows he will touch her, but when he does, she has to bite down on her lip to keep from making a sound. He pries at the skin of her thighs, kneading it with a removed scrutiny. Tears gather in her eyes. He must know that it hurts but he does not care.

Macbeth rises again, with another quick breath that this time exposes his own pain, spiraling outward from the wound in his knee.

"Look at me," he says.

Roscille drops her skirts and turns around.

"You should not have allowed this."

Her heart skips its beats. "Why?"

"Lord Varvek swore that the daughter he offered was the most beautiful maiden in the world. You have disgraced your own form, and lessened the value of our marriage alliance."

Roscille's throat closes. She can barely choke out the words, "I am sorry."

"Do not be sorry," he says. "You are a queen."

And then Macbeth closes the space between them and presses their mouths together. He kisses her, through the veil. The lace rubs her lips to rawness. His arms circle her waist, pulling her against him, and she feels as small as a child, a doll. She manages to twist herself free, breaking his forceful kiss.

"There is one more condition—" she starts. But Macbeth's eyes are black.

"Enough now, Roscilla," he says. "I have indulged this custom and your frivolous wants for long enough. You are my wife and this is your duty. I am your husband and this is my right."

She reaches for her veil, to tear it off, but he has her hands trapped at her sides. It only requires one of his arms to do this. With his other arm, he reaches out and extinguishes the candles between his finger and thumb. The room plunges into darkness.

He shifts her onto the bed and removes the dress from her back. Cold air crackles on her skin. His heavy body arcs over hers. And then Macbeth, Thane of Glammis, Thane of Cawder, King of Alba, the righteous man, takes what is owed to him.

She is so angry at herself for this: her silence.

The abbey at Naoned had a book of saints in which all their various martyrdoms were accounted. Roscille remembers reading of one woman who was put to death for refusing to renounce her faith in God. She was burned alive at the stake. The book stated that she did not protest, did not even scream as the flames ate at her flesh. Roscille stole this book from the monks' library and brought it to her father. She was still foolish enough, then, to believe Wrybeard had any interest in cultivating the mind of his bastard daughter.

"What is the point of being martyred if you do not scream?" she asked. "Wouldn't it be thought that you do not care enough about your life to protest its end?"

The Duke looked at her with tepid interest.

"No worldly agony is greater than what our imaginations can conjure," he said. "There was no need for this girl to scream. Everyone who looked on could imagine her pain. The pain is the protest."