“That isnotmy will,” Marozia said. “And Agnes does not like it, either. Call the Dolorous Guard and tell them to place the trunks in this chamber instead. The other room is of no use to us.”
Waltrude glanced at the statue-girl, whose expression had not shifted. Yet her silence could not be mistaken as deafness or muteness; there was nothing dull about it. It was a sharp-edged silence, bristling like barbs, as though she were trying to punish the world by withholding speech. Her lips were so pale as to be almost white—unused, Waltrude thought, for a very long time.
Perhaps she was wrong. She did not much care to find out. It was the other lady, Marozia, who ought to be the subject of her mulling. She would be queen, sooner or later, when Nicephorus could be convinced to put aside his hatred of Adele-Blanche. Would her manner please the prince? Would her looks? Certainly he could not take issue with the latter; for all her impertinence, the Mistress of Teeth had beauty enough to compete with a purebred Seraphine.
But Waltrude did not know the prince’s proclivities. Never had she observed Liuprand lingering about the quarters of the serving girls, nor returning to his own room late, hair mussed and clothes rumpledwith the evidence of nocturnal trysts. Likewise she had not observed him taking a suspicious number of squires under his wing, as Widsith had. Sometimes he seemed above such corporeal appetites.
One thing she knew with certainty was that he would perform his duty, as he always had. So she ought to endear herself to Marozia, even if her old, embittered soul protested it. Like Liuprand, Waltrude had always performed her duty.
She gave Marozia a nod of deference and turned for the door. On her way out, she stole one last look at the statue-girl. Lady Agnes was not unlovely. But her beauty was that of a corpse, death laid over her with its gentle, lambent stillness.
XI
A Meeting
Agnes cast a horrified glance at Marozia and rushed out of the room after Waltrude. She was not horrified for the same reason as Marozia, whose bed she had shared since they were old enough to no longer need the nearness of their mothers—though in truth the idea of trying to sleep at night with a heavy stone wall between them made her insides shrink and coil, too. Neither she nor Marozia could tolerate the other’s absence.
But more immediately, Agnes had to reach her trunks before the servants began unpacking them. She had to hide the treasonous cargo—those herbs and potions inside.
She was in such a hurry that she did not hear footsteps on the floor behind her; in fact, she heard nothing at all until the prince’s voice echoed down the hall.
“Lady Agnes.”
Instantly she halted. There was an imperiousness to his tone that well befit a prince. Had her treason already been uncovered?
Stiffly, slowly, she turned. Liuprand had already taken his great long strides down the corridor and now stood so that she was in reach of his arms, should he grasp for her. But he did not. He only stood. And Agnes wondered if she would ever become accustomed to his beauty; if ever it would become as mundane to her as a painting or a tapestry on the wall she passed every day.
“Have you settled?” he asked. “Are your accommodations to your liking?”
Coldness crept up her spine. If she nodded, she was a liar, and if sheshook her head, she invited more questions that she could not answer without provoking suspicion. So she remained silent and did not move or even blink.
Liuprand stared down at her, and his gaze was searing. “Well?”
A mere two meetings and he had already discerned her. Agnes wished that Marozia had followed her into the hall. She wished for her cousin’s voice, always ready, always fluid, always perfectly tuned, to fill the palpable silence.
“Answer me,” Liuprand said. His pitch had grown lower, and Agnes flinched.
He barely let another moment pass before he prodded at her again.
“You must speak. I am your prince. You cannot refuse my orders.”
Her stomach pooled with ice, but the ice she knew, and it was like armor to her. Agnes stared back up at him.
“Open your mouth,” Liuprand said.
She was not afraid of the prince, not really. Even now, his orders had been without malice; his face showed no cruelty, only strength of will. Rather, she became afraid that he might somehow see the things she had, over the years, consumed. As if there would be plainly visible the scummy, variegated stain on her tongue, or the fleshy bits caught like maggots between her teeth.
Her lips were trembling. She opened her mouth.
Gently, with a single finger, Liuprand tipped up her chin.
“You have not been maimed,” he said bemusedly as he peered down the dark cavern of her throat. “Everything is intact. So why do you not speak?”
She had not anticipated being confronted like this, and certainly not by Liuprand. This matter was well beneath him. What did he have to gain in coaxing words from the mouth of his bride’s cousin? Agnes would serve Marozia as she always had, in dutiful silence. It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to her and expected speech in return.
The silence stretched out and filled the space between them. It felt like a solid mass, something that could be cleaved by a sword. StillLiuprand held her chin, and his gaze ran itself over her face, as if her eyes might divulge something that her mouth would not.
If she tried, Agnes could thrust her silence out around her until it became less a shield and more a weapon, a spear-point, a dagger. She could make it wound anyone who dared to come close—who dared to stay close for so long, as Liuprand did. Would he feel the prick of her blade? It did not appear so. His eyes were steady, and his finger rested there just below her bottom lip, and with every moment that passed her skin warmed beneath his touch and chased away the ice that ran through her veins.
