Her vision had ebbed to near-total darkness. She could only see the blurry canvas of her cousin’s face, her mouth a passionate smear of red, her eyes two black gashes. Tears wavered on her lash line, but still they did not fall. Her eyes only burned and raged and hated.
And then, all of a sudden, she was released. Marozia let her go so brusquely, so unceremoniously, that Agnes dropped to her knees on the fractured ground. She saw the vanishing swish of her cousin’s skirts as she knelt there, sucking in desperate, rasping breaths. Maroziabrushed past Liuprand on the parapet, dark gown fluttering after her, while Agnes was too stunned and pained to move, listening to the creaking and groaning of the stone.
This will be my end,she thought,either way.
But in half a heartbeat Liuprand had his arm around her waist and was hauling her to her feet. He pulled her to safety just as the ground at last crumbled away, into the sea below. Where each bit of rock broke the water’s surface there was a harsh, violent sound, like the crunch of bone.
Then the ocean swallowed the sounds and the tide rolled on again, returned to its ceaseless, restless rhythm. Liuprand clutched Agnes to his chest as she wheezed and gulped. Another bolt of lightning scattered the clouds. And Marozia was gone.
XVI
Distant Embraces
“It would be best if you did not try to speak.”
By the large, open window of her bedchamber, Agnes sat, slightly hunched, in a chair that had no back. This was so Pliny could move about her more easily, dabbing on a salve that smelled so bitter as to sting her nose. Her hair was pinned up on her head in a pearl-enameled clasp. Pliny pressed his fingers to her sternum and, very gently, adjusted her posture. Agnes rolled back her shoulders and tried to straighten her neck, but a dull ache pulsed from her throat as she did. She winced.
“Apologies, lady,” Pliny murmured.
Agnes swallowed, and even that—especially that—provoked another bolt of pain. The salve was warming her skin, though the rest of its promised healing properties were yet to emerge.Soon,she thought vaguely, with a hope that was not very hopeful.
“It will take time,” the leech said, as if he had read these thoughts. “Not even a day has passed.”
Agnes heard the words, but could not grasp their meaning. What had been mere hours felt the length of lifetimes, and yet, in some manner, it seemed as though not a moment had passed at all. If ever she allowed her mind to wander she was there again, on the lightning-blanched parapet, Marozia’s hands at her throat. Panic swam up. Her lungs seemed to seize and then wilt like cut flowers. She crumpled forward in her seat.
“Lady?” Pliny’s hand hovered, hesitant, above her shoulder. “Do not mourn. You will be well again.”
Slowly, Agnes sat up. She had not wept but the tip of her nose prickled with heat, as though she might, at the slightest provocation, dissolve into tears. Yet what good would it do, to weep?
Agnes’s gaze slid to the mirror.
The face that stared back at her was one of ghastliness and of horror. A throbbing necklace of bruises ringed her throat, deep purples mottled with sickly greens and garish blacks. Each was the shape of a finger, ruthlessly pressed. Small gauges showed where teeth had been driven into her skin, Marozia’s hands clenched around the regal bauble of their house. It gave the impression that Agnes had been both choked and bitten.
Her cheeks were pale and wan with lack of sleep, with the food and wine she had vomited through the burning chasm of her throat. And her eyes—the whites were now flooded with red. The look of it repulsed her. Agnes turned away.
Pliny was mixing a poultice of chamomile and honey when there was a knock upon the door. The leech glanced at Agnes for permission. She nodded, and he called out, “Come in.”
It was Liuprand. He seemed to have passed a similarly sleepless night, for there were deep, dark circles under his eyes and his golden aura flickered and waned, like a candle flame blown about by the wind. He had shed his bloodied garb and came instead in vestments of navy, with a heavy, woolen cape that dragged over the ground.
“Pliny.” He inclined his chin to the leech. Then, as he turned to Agnes, his voice lowered and his gaze grew soft and he said, “My love.”
Agnes swallowed, to yet another scrape of pain, and opened her mouth. She was halfway to forming words when she remembered Pliny’s directives. Her lips fell shut again.
“I have instructed her not to speak, my prince,” the leech said. “It will irritate her wounds and prolong the healing process.”
“I see.” Liuprand’s expression was suddenly awash with grief. “Then furnish her with a quill and parchment, Your Scrupulousness.”
“Yes, my prince.”
As Pliny went to fetch them, Liuprand approached her. Slowly,unsteadily, Agnes rose from her chair. It had been a long time, a very long time, since Liuprand had come to her chambers, for fear that such a visit would arouse suspicion. Agnes felt a cold vise of panic grip her, more instinct than reason. Because what was the use of discretion now?
Liuprand paused a pace away, eyes wavering.
“Look what has been done to you,” he whispered. “All because of my arrogance and folly. I wish that I could suffer your pain instead.”
Pliny laid out the parchment and quill on her desk. Agnes took it and scratched out a message, then handed the paper to Liuprand.
The fault lies with me. I should not have been so wounded by simple words.
