Rating: PG

Genre: Angst, lots of lovely angst

Summary: This is pretty much a rewrite of the "Out damned spot" scene, but from the view of the gentlewoman attendant. This was a project for my English class, but people kept telling me to post it on so here I am. Please read on.

It was deepest night, the moon shining liquid silver upon Dunsinane Hill, the light glinting dully off the stones of the Castle of Macbeth. Inside said castle, I, an attendant of the Lady Macbeth, waited. I paced up and down the hall outside the passage to the Lady's room, the cold stone of the walls and floor lit only by a solitary torch on the wall. I shivered, clutching my thin woolen gown tighter about me. Where was the doctor now? He was going to be late for my Lady's nightly walk if he did not hurry, and… ah, there we was, hurrying along, his flat-soled shoes slapping lightly on the stone floor.

He looked hassled and weary, as if he would much rather be anywhere but here, waiting, at the midnight hour, for the ailing queen to emerge from her bedchamber. Yawning, he turned to me.

"I have two nights watched with you, but can perceive no truth in your report. When was it she last walked?"

"Since his Majesty went into the field, I have seen her rise from her bed, throw her nightgown upon her, unlock her closet, take forth paper, fold it, write upon't, read it, afterwards seal it, and again return to bed; yet all this while in a most fast sleep."

The honest truth doctor- a most disturbing thing- bizarre, not within the course of nature as it ought to run. Would I make this up? I wish my Lady well as much as any in this castle.

"A great perturbation in nature…"

A great perturbation of nature indeed, doctor. But hearken, soon she shall arrive, and then you shall see yourself the truth of the matter.

Then, from along the corridor, came the dry whisper of cloth on stone, the soft pad of bare feet, the flickering glow of a candle-flame, and then the Lady herself. Wraithlike she stood, clad only in a robe of white silk, the ever-present candle illuminating her gaunt features. Her hair, once a rich red-gold, was now straw-like and brittle, her cheeks sunken, her dull eyes wide and unseeing. There was a sheen of feverish sweat on her brow, glinting in the feeble light of the candle. I shivered. This unnatural walking and talking without waking never failed to send a chill down my spine.

The doctor started, and turned to me,

"How came she by that light?"

Of all the questions to ask. I rolled my eyes.

"It stood by her. She has light by her continually. 'Tis her command."

The doctor nodded, and then, inevitably, the next comment. Could he not keep his watch in silence?

"You see her eyes are open."

"Aye, but their senses are shut"

Can you not see, doctor? Her eyes are glassy, seeing only the demons that drive her from her bed, night after night, to walk these unforgiving halls. She is tortured, her mind like a moth flapping feebly against the constraints of sanity.

"What is it she does now? Look how she rubs her hands."

"It is an accustomed action with her to seem thus washing her hands. I have known her to continue in this a quarter of an hour."

What compulsion forces her to wander thus, searching for nonexistent things, washing clean hands for hours on end? Her mind is broken, and Macbeth calls upon you to fix it. Is it within your skill to mend a broken mind as you might an arm or leg? I think not.

"Yet here's a spot."

The Lady's voice broke the still night air, and I twitched at the strange quality it had. A dreaming voice, low and breathy, panicked at something only she could see. She was staring at her hand in apparent horror.

"Hark, she speaks!"

The doctor forgot to whisper in his sudden shock, his voice echoing along the corridor, but the Lady did not hear. Her eyes were wide and mad, and a fell light shone in them.

"Out, damned spot, out I say!"

Her voice rose to a shriek, tearing itself from her throat, echoing all around us, a terrible sound, harsh and unnatural, throbbing in my head. And then she quieted abruptly, and spoke in a suddenly rational voice, so that I almost thought she might have wakened.

"One. Two. Why then, 'tis time to do 't. Hell is murky. Fie, my lord, fie, a soldier and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account? Yet who would have thought the old man to have so much blood in him?"

Blood. My head whirled. Surely not my Lady, sometimes imperious, yes, but that was only fitting for a queen. Not the tender, sympathetic Lady I had known from my days serving at Inverness. Surely the Lady Macbeth could never have killed anyone?

"The Thane of Fife had a wife. Where is she now? What will these hands ne'er be clean? No more o' that, my lord, no more o' that. You mar all with this starting."

A sudden and deadly understanding came upon me, and my world tilted, so that I all but collapsed to the floor. This was why she walked the halls at night; this was why she washed her hands constantly. But why? What would impel my gentle Lady to do such a thing?

"Here's the smell of blood still. All the perfumes of Arabia will not sweeten this little hand. Oh! Oh! Oh!"

Oh gods, I was serving a murderess. I had loved and respected and striven to be like a murderess. The Lady Macduff? And the king we all had loved so well? And who else? What had she done?

The Lady's voice interrupted my reverie, no longer a wail or a hysterical shriek, but calm, rational, pacifying, and almost I forgot my revulsion and fury. This was the voice of the Lady I had loved and served in days of peace.

"Wash your hands. Put on your nightgown. Look not so pale. I tell you yet again, Banquo's buried; he cannot come out on's grave."

Not this, no more, please. Silently I begged any deities who might happen to be listening. Surely not Banquo too? The Lord Banquo had been a friend of Macbeth's- his boon companion, his confidant. What on the green earth would give cause for him to be killed? Had she-and her husband too, no doubt-grown that ruthless, that they might kill without remorse, any that stood in their way? If indeed Banquo had been in their way. It seemed now that anything might be a fabrication of the Lady's madness.

"To bed, to bed. There's knocking at the gate. Come, come, come, come. Give me your hand. What's done cannot be undone. To bed, to bed, to bed."

"Will she go now to bed?"

I started at the sound of the doctor's voice; I had almost forgotten he was there. I shook my head, dizzy with the dreadful realizations of the night.

"Directly."

I did not even hear myself speak through the buzzing in my ears. The doctor was saying something but I could not hear him. What was I now to do? I loved my Lady, I always had, but… how could I serve a murderer with a clean conscience?

"Good night, good doctor."

I gave the expected response and departed for my bed, not seeing where I walked, trusting my feet to tread the familiar path. I collapsed onto my sleeping pallet, burying my face in the pillow, hoping against all hope that in the morning I might wake and find that it had been nothing but a nightmare.