“And the Seyton?” asked a voice from the rear. A very deep voice.

“Ah, Seyton. Obviously, he’s ‘Sirrah,’ the unnamed servant who accompanies Macbeth like a shadow, who carries his great claymore, who joins the two murderers and later in the play emerges with a name — Seyton. He has hardly any lines but he’s ominous. A big, silent, ever-present amoral fellow who only leaves his master at the end. The very end. We’re casting Gaston Sears for the part. Mr. Sears, as you all know, in addition to being an actor is an authority on medieval arms and is already working for us in that capacity.” There was an awkward silence followed by an acquiescent murmur.

The saturnine person, sitting alone, cleared his throat, folded his arms, and spoke. “I shall carry,” he announced, basso-profundo, “a claidheamh-mor.”

“Quite so,” said Peregrine. “You are the sword-bearer. As for the —”

“— which has been vulgarized into ‘claymore.’ I prefer ‘claidheamh-mor,’ meaning ‘great sword’; it being—”

“Quite so, Gaston. And now —”

For a time the voices mingled, the bass one coming through with disjointed phrases: “… Magnus’s leg-biter… quillons formed by turbulent protuberances…”

“To continue!” Peregrine shouted. The sword-bearer fell silent.

“And the witches?” asked a helpful witch.

“Entirely evil,” answered the relieved Peregrine. “Dressed like fantastic parodies of Meg Merrilies but with terrible faces. We don’t see their faces until look not like th’ inhabitants o’ the earth, and yet are on’t, when they are suddenly revealed.”

“And speak?”

“Braid Scots.”

“What about me, Perry? Braid Scots, too?” suggested the Porter.

“Yes. You enter through the central trap, having been collecting fuel in the basement. And,” Peregrine said with ill-concealed pride, “the fuel is bleached driftwood and most improperly shaped. You address each piece in turn as a farmer, as an equivocator, and as an English tailor, and you consign them all to the fire.”