Chapter Nine

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 andtheir 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 statusjust 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.

A jolt in her stomach. "Why would I not?"

"Because these matters are below the concern of a queen."

"You are mocking me."

Lisander scoffs, and then he emerges from the darkness of the cell. His face is paler than she has ever seen it, the circles under his eyes deeper and more garish, but his eyes are still sharp and overly green. Even his slow footsteps are graceful; he does not slouch and slog as a prisoner would. It will take longer than a day for a prince to shed his poise.

"What is there to mock? Duncane is dead, at your husband's hand. Macbeth names himself King, and his lady wife Queen."

"He is barely a king," says Roscille, "and I am a queen even less."

Surprise flashes on his face, then amusement. "I see you have lived among the barbarous Scots long enough to understand."

"I do not need to live among barbarians to understand that the greater one's rise, the farther his fall. The higher the tower is built, the more precarious it becomes. Even children with their building blocks comprehend this."

"Now you are mocking me."

"No," says Roscille. "I am not. I do not—I have never wanted this, to be Queen. I am as dull as a dog; I am only trying to survive in this pitiless world."

This confession should be shameful, but Lisander does not look at her with disdain or revulsion. Instead, he approaches her slowly. He lifts his hands and his fingers circle the bars, a mere inch above where she is gripping them.

"All your life you have been muzzled," he says. "So as not to disturb the architecture of the world. But a muzzled dog thinks only of its misery and its shackles. They may rob your body of its power, but they cannot take your mind."

Yet can they not? Roscille thinks of Adelaide, her mind its own tyrant, making her body betray itself, to lust for pain instead of pleasure. This is her deepest fear, beyond the terror of bloodstained thighs and bloodstained sheets, beyond a long fall into the cold sea. Madness. If she cannot think, she will be nothing.

"How do you know this?" she asks in a whisper.

"Because," Lisander says, "I have looked into your eyes."

A stone forms in her throat. She has to swallow hard to keep it from choking her.

"They will come," she manages to say. "Banquho and Fléance. I have been given orders to have you tortured for your knowledge. They will use every tool at their disposal to get you to speak."

"They will not succeed." His voice is flat. A fact, not a boast.

"But—" she begins. And then she stops. What can she say? That she owes him a debt twice over, once for not letting her die, and then again for not killing her? This thing that binds them does not feel like a debt; there is no ledger, no ink. They are two fish in a pool, circling each other, trapped by the same arrangement of stones. Their rhythms are identical, as they push their silver bodies through the water, in and out, like needles through black cloth. He is the only one who may see her truly. And she does not know why, not yet, but her eyes are two mirrors, throwing his own reflection back at him.

She remembers seeing the notches of Lisander's spine pushoutward from his skin when he bent over. His flesh, so thin, only narrowly protecting the spreading of veins within; the heart and lungs, so poorly insulated. She wants to retch, perhaps to scream.

"I do not feel pain as other men do," Lisander says, as if he can read her thoughts. "You will have heard that Duncane's line is cursed."

She opens her mouth to reply, but then there is the sound of footsteps on the stairs. She jumps, seized with panic.

"They must not know that I am here," she says, lowering her voice. "They will wonder why I have not ordered the torture to begin already."

Lisander nods. "Go," he says.

So she does, but she cannot help looking back. Roscille imagined she would see him recede again into the shadows of the cell, but even from a distance, his eyes are gleaming in the darkness, two beacons of unnatural green light.

Roscille has the adulterous woman, Senga, brought to the castle. She is five, ten years Roscille's senior, not old enough to be her mother, but old enough to have fine, delicate worry lines etched across her forehead. These wrinkles emerge more easily on the foreheads of peasants than the foreheads of noble ladies. Roscille is pleased to see that Senga resembles Hawise greatly. Broad-shouldered, with long yellow hair, a serious face that does not show fear. When she stands in front of Roscille, her eyes do not waver, even though Fléance had her dragged through the courtyard by her braid.

Senga does not even flinch while Roscille repeats the rumors she has heard about her, all the lascivious, un-Christian things she has done. She asks if they are true. Senga merely nods.

"Your fellow villagers want you sent away to learn chastity," Roscille says.

Senga's accent is so coarse and provincial that Roscille has a difficult time understanding her as she replies, "If it is the nunnery for me, I will go without trouble."

"No," Roscille says. "You are to be my handmaiden. Do you understand?"

She has to use the Brezhoneg word for "handmaiden." As far as she is aware, this word does not exist in Scots. And if it does, she has never heard it used by the men in Glammis.

"I am to bathe and dress you and darn your gowns? A servant?" she suggests, in Scots.

"You will also be my companion."

Senga's eyes narrow, as if awaiting a trick.

"I would like you to embroider my gowns in the style of Alba. In return, I will teach you to read and write. In your native Scots, if you do not know it already, or if you do, in Latin."

There is something in Senga's gaze that makes Roscille believe she would be amenable to this. A sharp cleverness that was surely not appreciated by the vulgar men of her village. She is brave enough to stand without trembling in front of her Lady, and when her sins were recounted, she offered no apology. Defiant and unruffled, this is the type of woman that Roscille wishes to surround herself with.

"Yes, my Lady," Senga says. "This I can do."

Senga's fingers are rough and callused with farmwork, but they will soon soften with the luxuries of courtly life: three meals prepared by the hands of servants, a feather bed instead of straw, velvet slippers instead of heavy wooden clogs. Even her slight limp will correct itself once her back is no longer burdened with carrying buckets from the well.

As she gives Senga needle and thread, Roscille allows herself to imagine Glammis under her purview, forever. She will have monks sent from an abbey with their books so that a small library can be constructed. She will have musicians play at supper and host tournaments and jousts. All of these are things that Wrybeard did—but perhaps still she can do more.

Perhaps she can bring in more such iron-willed women. She will banish men like Banquho, with their nasty, vain tempers. She will harshly punish any man who shows the flat of his hand to a serving girl. She will only fight wars which are just. When she has such power, she will no longer need to inflict small cruelties in order to survive. She does not need to be the cold creature of her father's conception.

Are these all the dreams of Lady Macbeth? Certainly they are not her husband's desires imprinted upon her. Yet she could only hope to attain this power through his design. Queen Hereafter. His words. Her fate, arranged only to please him.

But she indulges herself in this dream for several more moments, as Senga settles into her sewing.

She and Senga are talking in the great hall when Banquho enters. Rage is all around him, radiating invisible mists. The whites of his eyes are cracked through with red. He shoves past the tables in quick, long strides and then leaps up onto the dais. When he slaps both his hands down in front of her, it makes her book jump and Senga flinch so that she pricks her finger with the needle. A drop of blood squeezes out and falls onto the floor.

"You had this woman brought here against my wishes?" Banquho demands.

Roscille's eyes flicker to Senga. "You are dismissed," she says.

Senga hesitates. Roscille has saved her from the nunnery, and this act has woven a tenuous loyalty between them. The anger in Banquho's voice makes her gaze flash with fear for her Lady. But Roscille only stares at her intently, without blinking, and so Senga hurries out of the hall, trailing her unfinished embroidery.

"And you enlisted my son to do it, without my knowledge? He says he went down to the village and dragged the woman here with his own hands."

"It is Macbeth's will that I should have authority over Glammis in his absence," Roscille says. "If you do not agree, you may take up your grievance with my husband when he returns."

"He left you to keep the castle of Glammis, " Banquho snarls. "This is not Naoned; you are not a lady of Breizh. You are Queen of Alba. You will not turn this place into a bawdy imitation of Wrybeard's lavish court. That is not the will of Macbeth."

His voice fills up the empty room and echoes around them, pressing in on her. Roscille draws a breath to steady herself, but it is thin and tremulous. She has, perhaps, gone too far.

"I am sorry that we are not aligned in our values, Lord Banquho," she says. She tries to be tactful, tractable even. "I will wait for Macbeth's return before I make any more changes to the castle."

This is very reasonable. Forbearing to his desires. Surely Banquho will see it.

But Banquho does not pause. "You have forced my own son to act against his father's wishes. You have no respect for order or for the ways of our people, Lady Roscilla."

"I am sorry for that," she says. "I will not ask such of Fléance again."

Now, certainly, his anger will pass. She has folded to him entirely, done everything save falling to her knees in repentance. If she misjudged her position, she corrects herself now.

"And you have failed in your one required duty." Banquho spits the words. "The former prince of Cumberland sleeps easily in his cell. Not a wound on his body, not a scream to be heard."

Roscille stiffens. "He does not sleep easily. He knows he is prisoner. He has been in solitude and total darkness for days; that is a torment of its own."

"That is not the torment our King Macbeth has in mind."

Roscille levels her gaze with Banquho's. She thinks back to the earliest moments of knowing him, when he proudly declared he was Macbeth's right hand and how, since then, his position has eroded like a mudbank in a rainstorm, become slippery and untenable. In no small part because of her. She has even cleaved his own son away from him.

Men are cruelest in their desperation. When they have nothing solid beneath them. Perhaps she should not have been so flippant, in her own precarious position. She is still a woman alone. And all these men around her are blind, roving mouths.

"Fine," she says. But her voice is trembling, and surely Banquho will not miss that. "Let us go, then."

Roscille's mind races as she enters the dungeon, Banquho and Fléance at her heels. The torchlight gathers on all the room's sharp points and bladed edges. When she descends, she tries to step over the filth-laced puddles, so as not to dirty her slippers, but Banquho and Fléance splash through them carelessly—they wear boots, and the water does not matter to them—so the hem of her skirt is soaked anyway.

She sets the torch into one of the sconces and breathes in the dungeon's damp, terrible smell. Spreading outward, the torchlight illuminates only part of Lisander's cell, the other half still cloaked in shadows.

He steps into the light. His bone-pale face shows no sentiment at all. "Lady Roscille."

Her palms are drenched and her hands are trembling. "Lisander. You know why I come. I must ask you to tell us your brother's plans. How many men he can rally to his side. The size of ?thelstan's armies…"

She trails off. Her mouth feels full of cotton.

"And you know I cannot tell you that," Lisander replies.

"You waste time with words," Banquho hisses. "Make him scream, and he will speak. Give me leave to do it."

Roscille's gaze travels to the instruments on the wall. The bone saw with its rusted handle. She imagines flesh opening up beneath its blade, white parting to reveal vulgar red. And then she thinks of Lisander's mouth on her mouth, her jaw, her throat. The bruises have faded, but the memory is hot, warming the skin that is normally so cold beneath Macbeth's necklace. I have hated seeing you wear this.

"No," she says.

Fléance's lips part dumbly, opening and closing like a trout's. Banquho's gaze clouds and then hardens with anger.

"Macbeth should have known this is no work for a woman,"he growls, shoving past her. "Weak-minded, frail-bodied, like all members of your sex. Perhaps you have worked some common magic with the beauty of your face, but you have no other value or purpose beyond that. Step aside. I will fulfill the wishes of the King."

He grasps the whip and jerks it from his hook. He turns, the muscles in his arms and shoulders grinding together like rough boulders in an avalanche. But Roscille does not move from her place between him and the cell.

"Woman I may be," she says, "but I have worked my magic upon you. You have been deceived."

The look in Banquho's eyes. Roscille has seen it often, the bewildered fury of a man who has no experience being defied, whose worldview rests on the axis of his own absolute power.

"What did you say?"

"I said you have been deceived, Lord Banquho." She raises her voice. "There were no masked men. Your son was angry at being left behind, at having no opportunity to prove his worth on the battlefield, so he arranged a plot in which he would play hero."

She tells the story slightly wrong, not because she thinks she will get away with the lie, but because Fléance will not resist jumping in to correct her, and therefore reveal his true part in it.

"She lies!" Fléance does indeed cry out. "It was her plan, not mine—"

But then he stops. He has dishonored himself so greatly that it is enough to stain his whole line; any sons he bears will feel this shame their entire lives, will know why they are passed over, time after time, with curled lips and rolled eyes. He has confessed not only to treachery but also to being manipulated by a woman, some seventeen-year-old foreign bride hiding behind a veil. The shame will even stretch backward, staining Banquho, too.

So then it makes sense what Banquho says next. He has no other choice except to reply, "Do not protect her honor, Fléance. Obviously she lies. She means to strip your heroism from you. She means to disgrace the name of our family."

Fléance's mouth shrinks into his face. He has been dishonored twice over, for not simply denying her tale. One stupidity layered on top of the other. My fool of a son, Banquho must be thinking. If this were a private moment, he would be struck across the face.

But they are not alone, and Fléance merely dips his head, in feigned penitence.

"You are right, Father," he says. "I should not endeavor to shield the honor of a lady who has nothing but evil and trickery in her heart."

Roscille is quicker than Fléance to understand what is happening. They are actors, rehearsing their roles. They will repeat these same words to Macbeth when he returns, in the same low, regretful tones, with hanging heads and darkened brows. They will mime grief, shock. Starting at the tips of her fingers and toes, all her blood begins to run cold.

"My husband left me to keep the castle in his absence," she says, but her voice is rising through its pitches. "He trusts me. He will believe my word over yours."

Yet she cannot even pretend certainty. She is shaking so fiercely that her teeth have begun to chatter.

"Will he?" Banquho's grip tightens on the whip. "There are stories about you, Lady Roscilla. How you drive men to madness with your gaze. Perhaps Macbeth has been struck by such madness, or simply moved by the beauty of your face. But when I have his ear in private, he will know the truth."

Banquho advances. Roscille steps backward, but there is nowhere to go except the cold bars of the cell.

"I offer you this," Banquho goes on. "You will step aside now, and let me proceed with the torture of the prince, and Macbeth will never know of your treachery."

He means to bury his son's truth along with her own. The confession of Fléance's deception is too shameful to be worth what it may offer in return—Roscille's punishment. It is better to keep all the words that have passed within this dungeon a secret from Macbeth.

Because she knows this, she has some power over him, she thinks. They will both be damned by the same confession.

"No," she says. "Your son's fate is yoked to mine. I have nothing to fear from you. Leave this place."

Banquho's eyes are two points, silvery and gleaming, like the ends of a dagger.

"You put yourself between me and this ousted prince," he says, voice low and rasping. "Why?"

Why? Because she is not a cold creature who will see yet another innocent soul bleed for her lies. Because she has stanched the flow of the poison that runs from her father's seed and into her; she is no more his ermine than she is Alba's unicorn. Because Lisander saved her, then spared her, and if it is not a debt that has been woven between them, it is something exquisite, and stronger, a golden rope stretched across an abyss. Because she is the emperor now, and it is within her power to keep men from being devoured by the eels' gnashing teeth.

"Roscille," Lisander says hoarsely, "do not do this."

But she did not account for what she sees, as she stares openly, defiantly into Banquho's eyes. She did not consider rage beyond reason.

Banquho steps forward, and Lisander reaches through the bars, as if he might be able to grasp him, but it is too far and he cannot—within an instant Banquho has both of her wrists caught in one of his hands. Roscille fumbles to tear off her veil, to catch either Banquho or Fléance in the path of her gaze, but then Banquho's other hand smothers her face, forcing her eyes shut, blinding her. The animal panic overtakes her, and she is writhing, choking out half-formed protests.

She is slippery, like a fish: It takes Banquho and Fléance together to pin her down. There is a table, where the wood is soaked permanently with blood so that it is now a muted red color. They press her upon it. Ropes join her wrists, twisting her arms above her head. Her cheek touches the wood, rubs her skin raw against the lace veil. Her skirts are yanked up, and the sudden coldness of the room on her bare legs makes her shriek.

"Let her go!" She hears, but cannot see, Lisander rattling the bars of the cell. "Flay my skin from my body, I welcome it, just leave her be!"

If Lisander were of clear mind, he would not do this, would not shout. He would not protest the torture of a woman meant to be his enemy. He would watch at ease as she is whipped in his stead. Perhaps he would cringe at the barbarity of it, but he would never object, no. It is a good thing that Banquho and Fléance are too occupied with the task before them to take special note of it. The exuberant spending of such long-hoarded violence smothers all else.

"Here." Banquho's voice is rough. "I will hold her. You take the whip."

At least she hears Fléance exhale, a sound of hesitation. But that is all it is: a short breath into the cold damp air. And then the same air sings as he raises the whip and brings it down against the back of her thighs.

The pain is beyond the capacity of a noble lady's imagining. Roscille has no reason to have ever felt the sting of a whip before. That is for servants and slaves and lowborn girls who forget their place. When the first blow comes, she is still able to think, amid the haze of red in her mind, This will be the worst, and each one after will be more bearable.

She is wrong. The pain piles up like stones. The lick of the whip is no easier to bear because she is expecting it; every time, her skin sizzles, like oil on cooking meat.

She must become an animal in order to survive it. As each blow lands, Roscille imagines that her body is not her body, that she is in fact a serpent-woman like the Melusina, and instead of legs she has a scale-patterned tail, thick with muscle and fat, impenetrable to the weak weapons of men. Fléance is breathing hard, flushed with this fever-dream of power. She knows this without even seeing his face.

A scream wrenches its way out of her throat. Her mind is red, and red, and red, choked with fog and filthy air. Distantly, she hears the cell bars still rattling. Roscille wonders if Lisander is thinking of how he stroked his hands up her thighs, kneading her flesh desirously, and how that flesh is ruined now,flayed into strips and ugly and pulpy with blood.

The pain is huge enough to fill hours, but some small untouched part of her brain knows it has been mere moments. She begs: Please stop, please, please, but perhaps she forms the words in her head only. She has stopped writhing against Banquho's hands. What is the point of such protests? It will only delight her tormentors more. This is the greatest of men's aspirations, to—whether through love or through violence—draw screams from women's mouths.

Words pass between them, gruff and whispered, so she cannot make them out. But whatever is said makes Fléance pause. The sudden absence of pain is a gulf that fills instantly with terror, terror that the pain will come again. Like a dim and witless dog, Roscille whimpers at imagining it.

Then Banquho lets go. With her arms released, with nothing to hold her, Roscille's body slides limp to the floor. The cold stone is a relief. It spreads its numbness through her cheeks, her palms, her still-bare thighs. More words pass over her head.

Fléance: Look, she lies as if she is dead. If we have killed her, Macbeth will never forgive it.

Banquho: No, she is not dead. Let us leave her now. She will come to in the morning and we will send for a doctor. It is not so bad. She will walk without limping by the time Macbeth returns.

Fléance: Are you certain?

Banquho: Yes.

Fléance: Then let us go.

The room smells like a slaughter-yard. Roscille lies belly-flat on the floor. A slippery wetness drips between her legs and onto the stone. To move even an inch is agony. She is barely able to open her eyes.

Through damp lashes, she sees Lisander. He is kneeling on the floor, reaching through the bars of the cell. His hand covers hers. His palm is colder than she imagined it would be, but then everything feels cold now, in comparison to the white fire lacing up and down her thighs.

"Roscille," he whispers.

"It is not your fault. I chose this."

She thinks she says the words aloud, but her voice is so small it scarcely sounds like her own.

"Listen." He speaks in her tongue, in Brezhoneg, even if he has no reason to know it, much less articulate its sounds so tenderly. "I have kept myself from sleep for two days now. I do not have much time before it takes me. So let me tell you all of it before you see."