Lady Macbeth

Macbeth is the primary antagonist of the book. Roscille is pressed into marrying him in the first chapter, setting up her central quest to survive his dominance and assert her independence. He is the Thane (Lord) of Glammis and later becomes Thane of Cawder and then king of Scotland. He achieves these ambitions through conquest and murder, violent acts that Roscille is directly involved in due to her fear of his sexual violence and his coercion.

Reid presents Macbeth as brutish, ruthless, and powerful. Seen through Roscille’s eyes, these traits manifest in his appearance: He is covered in battle scars, including an enormous one on his neck that shows he has faced down death using his aggression. Reid emphasizes Roscille’s awareness of his huge physical frame looming over her, creating a sense of looming threat and demonstrating his ability to dominate her physically and sexually. 

Roscille initially assumes that Macbeth is an uncomplicated brute, but she ultimately realizes that he is cleverer than she thought, as he knows more about her than he lets on. As she learns more about him, his violence, ambition, and cleverness are confirmed: For instance, he keeps the three witches chained up in the basement to support his political ambitions. However, his assumption of his own dominance and underestimation of women are his downfall. He thinks the witches’ prophecies serve him and that he is more powerful than Roscille’s magic, both of which prove mistaken. Macbeth’s greatest weakness—his hubris—is also that of patriarchal society, Reid implies.

Lisander is Roscille’s love interest. Her attraction to him is immediate, and their relationship is foreshadowed as she imagines being his wife, bringing a lighter, hopeful element to a narrative full of trauma and abuse. He is King Duncane’s eldest son and set to inherit the throne, but he is reluctant to do so, as he believes his curse makes him unsuitable—a reservation that shows he does not harbor the ruthless ambition of other men. He turns into a dragon whenever he falls asleep, sharing a magical quality with Roscille, and his acceptance of this darker part of himself helps Roscille to accept her own magic. He is portrayed as kind and attentive, tending to his sick father and offering Roscille his aid and satisfying her sexually. He is a proactive character who seizes initiative, bargaining for his own survival, seeking out Roscille to help her, and using his dragon form both to escape and to fly to her rescue. Marriage to Lisander represents relative liberation within Roscille’s patriarchal environment, although this compromise is somewhat at odds with the novel’s earlier depiction of the futility of acting within the system.

Hawise is introduced in a sidekick role. As Roscille’s maid, she is a faithful companion and the only person to accompany her on her journey to Scotland. She was gifted to Roscille as a political gesture just as Roscille is now gifted to Macbeth, emphasizing the status of women as objects in a world of male power. She comforts Roscille, promising her she will survive. Reid sets her up as the deuteragonist, usually present throughout the story. However, the novel subverts this expectation: Hawise disappears within the first chapter and probably dies, underlining Roscille’s isolation and the precarity of her position.

Senga’s presence in the second half of the book recalls Hawise. She takes on the same role, both in her formal position as Roscille’s handmaiden and, narratively, as Roscille’s companion and only female ally in a male-dominated world. Like Hawise, she is lower in status than Roscille but warms to her. She is grateful for the protection Roscille offers, illustrating Roscille’s qualities as the protagonist: She wants to help those with less than her. They also bond over the position of women in their society and the difficulty they face retaining independence. Senga shows herself to be brave and loyal to Roscille, voluntarily remaining with her as the war approaches. Meanwhile, Roscille projects her guilt about Hawise onto Senga, vowing to protect her as she “failed” to protect Hawise. Senga’s presence gives Roscille purpose and encourages her to find female comradery, helping her retain her sense of her own humanity.

The narrative role of the three witches to some extent parallels that of the three witches of Shakespeare’s play. They make prophecies to Macbeth that encourage his ambitions but ultimately present a double-edged sword. However, their circumstances are very different: They are not free agents but are instead kept locked up by Macbeth. Moreover, they were not always witches, the erasure of their human identity rendering literal the way the concept of witchcraft historically served to demonize women. They are also referred to as “Les Lavandères” because they wash laundry—an allusion to a Celtic folk myth found in Breton and Gaelic cultures about three supernatural, prophetic washerwomen. They remind Roscille of these mythical witch figures, who stand in water washing clothes but attack viciously if affronted. Through these characters, Reid explores how gender and culture interact with myth and magic and shows a society in which men seek to constrain powerful women to serve them. Roscille wins the witches’ support when she visits them and addresses one of them by name—Gruoch—acknowledging the individual identity and humanity that has been stripped from her. Despite their captivity, they have their own motives and powers. They manipulate Macbeth by sharing Roscille’s invented prophecy, and their support helps Roscille defeat him, freeing them.

Banquho is Macbeth’s right-hand man. He is a thane too, though subservient to Macbeth. Like all the men, he is a hardened warrior, and his main concern is to retain his status and prove himself through violence. He is a flat character who acts an as obstacle to Roscille: He is suspicious of her influence and aims to protect his own status at her expense. As with almost all the male characters, Reid paints him ambitious and cruel. For example, he leads his son in whipping Roscille and tormenting her with threats, seeking to exercise physical and emotional control over her for his own ends. She enacts revenge through the witches’ help, making Macbeth believe he must kill Banquho to prevent him from placing his own child on the throne. She feels that his torturous death balances the agony he caused her.

Fléance is Banquho’s son. Like his father, he is violent and ambitious, but Roscille realizes that because he lacks an outlet for these feelings, she may be able to manipulate him. She notices his dissatisfaction as he drinks last from the communal cup, signifying his low status as someone who has not yet proved himself martially. He is painted as having a naïve side at the start of the book, falling for Roscille’s flattery and eagerly agreeing to her scheme. He is attracted to her and shows off by saying he will protect her. However, his self-interest and underlying aggression become apparent when he joins his father in whipping her, and he later expresses regret only that he did not rape her. Reid paints him as a youngster who has a human side but is corrupted by his violent environment.

Duncane is the king of Scotland whom Macbeth murders to clear the way for his ascension to the throne. He had been a powerful king, maintaining his control and forming a beneficial alliance with the English. He is known for his piety, keeping Druide priests close to him. Macbeth’s men are wary of him, concerned that Macbeth’s attack on Cawder will alert Duncane’s suspicions. However, when Duncane arrives, he is a weak old man with a debilitating illness. Reid creates pathos as he struggles to eat and shares a tender moment with his son Lisander, whom he then calls out for piteously before the guards kill him. This adds to Roscille’s guilt; her actions represent a moral low point for her character, as she kills a defenseless old man on her husband’s orders. However, Lisander later reveals that Duncane’s illness and his piety stem from a curse laid by a witch whom he raped and mortally injured. This story adds to the overall paradigm of gender in Reid’s world, in which men are generally perpetrators of sexual violence against women.

Evander is Duncane’s youngest son. He fits the ideal of a prince better than Lisander, as he is socially skilled and is not cursed. However, he insists that Lisander should nonetheless inherit, showing that unlike most of the men, he is not politically ambitious. He also breaks masculine norms by showing intense emotion after his father’s death, though his drive for revenge makes this more socially acceptable. After Macbeth turns on him, he is largely absent from the plot physically, but his presence remains, as he allies with the English army and leads them to advance on Macbeth’s castle, escalating the action and supporting Roscille and Lisander’s victory.

Roscille describes the Druide priests as amalgamating Christianity and their older Druide religion, underscoring her characterization of Scotland as a place on the edge of Western Christian civilization, still connected to ancient superstitions and magic. In Reid’s Scotland, the Druide priests ultimately serve political leaders: Both Duncane and Macbeth have a Druide working for them who carries out rites on their behalf. They are presented as figures of state power—Duncane’s high priest is also called the “chancellor.” Their religion and magic are presented as having physical power, as in the rite of cruentation. This practice highlights that, like the other male characters, the Druides ultimately exist in a world of violence. Likewise, Duncane’s priest is brutally killed by Macbeth, and Macbeth’s own priest carries out the bloody practice of trepanning on Banquho, killing him painfully.

Roscille’s father is Duke Varvek of Brittainy or Breizh. He is also known as Wrybeard, suggesting his cunning way of exercising his power. He is never physically present in the narrative but is an important presence in Roscille’s psyche. His coat of arms features an ermine, or weasel, which reflects his reputation for cleverness and scheming. As a ruler, he primarily uses his intelligence to manipulate circumstances in his favor, but he selectively uses violence too. Roscille is an example of this: He shapes the narrative around her strange, compelling beauty so that the fear people feel remains a source of power and status rather than tipping over into aggression. Roscille was previously loyal to him and used her powers of observation and manipulation, learned from him, on his behalf. However, when he dispatches her to marry Macbeth, she realizes he did not care about her but only saw her as a tool. She feels he has shaped who she is and struggles to free herself from this.

Roscille remembers courtiers at Wrybeard’s court and observes Macbeth’s warriors. They are flat characters whose presence contributes to the gender relations Reid depicts: Roscille remembers courtiers groping and assaulting women, and Macbeth’s warriors are battle-scarred and ruthless, killing men and raping women.

Adelaide is a flat character who offers a narrative foil to Roscille. One of Roscille’s greatest fears is “madness,” the threat of which Adelaide symbolizes. She is Wrybeard’s wife in name only, as she is considered both unattractive and mentally unwell. Though she retains her position formally and is looked after in the court, she is sidelined and spurned. She has at times undergone trepanning, in which a hole is made in the head to release evil spirits or mental illness. Notably, Adelaide’s mental state is tied, at least in Roscille’s mind, to her husband seeing no value in her, implying that “madness” is to some extent a patriarchal construct—or at least socially mediated.