“No,” Liuprand said. “Lord Childeric’s conduct was a grave insult. Punishment was warranted…but I should not have allowed my temper to rule me. Perhaps, without the influence of the wine…” He shook his head. “It is an ignoble man who cannot prevail over his worst impulses. I had never thought I would be such a man. Uncivilized and indulgent, vulgar and weak.”
You are not that man,Agnes wrote, pressing her quill tip firmly to the page.One such lapse in thirty years does not make you a brute. And you acted to defend my honor, not out of arrogance or vanity.
Still, Liuprand grimaced. “Would that I had waited and reproved Lord Childeric in a more suitable manner. Then we would not have lost the confidence of both the House of Eyes and the House of Blood. All your efforts, gone to waste for my impulsive sin. I have kept the truth from my father yet, but when he learns what has transpired…”
Insulate the king from this knowledge now. Intercept all missives until we have come to a solution. It is fortunate that he is all but confined to his bed.Agnes chewed her chapped and bitten lip.There will be some way to repair it. To atone with Lord Thrasamund.
“Perhaps. But it will require cleverness and, on my part, abasement. I already filled Lord Thrasamund’s coffers and paid a dowry to the House of Blood. There must be more, some other manner in which I can offer recompense.” He sighed. “To rob a lord of his heir, a man of his birthright, and a parent of their child—it is a beastly thing I have done. At least when I offer my regrets, the message will be heartfelt.”
Faintly Agnes nodded. Fear, as chill as a mountain wind, was prickling her skin. She was not thinking of Lord Thrasamund, or Lord Childeric, or even of the blood and the shattered goblets. She was thinking of a young girl with golden hair, and her mother. She was remembering the sound of their broken sobs.
“I know,” Liuprand said softly—for he could always read her face. “That is another matter that must be addressed. And it is far more vital than the first. Lord Thrasamund is not the only one with whom we have lost confidence.”
What Agnes thought then she did not say, or rather, did not write. In her mind, the words churned queasily, like gray laundry being wrung.That confidence was lost long ago. This was only the truth laid out baldly, at last.
Liuprand took a step forward and closed the space between them. Pliny was busying himself with his herbs and poultices, but Agnes knew that the old leech had sharp ears, and Liuprand knew it, too. He lowered himself so that their faces were level.
“I understand,” he murmured, “that you and the princess have not been allies as of late. That loathing has blossomed where once there was love. Yet I do not believe that so much time has passed, so much distance grown, that you cannot still sense your cousin’s mind. Her heart.” He laid a gentle hand on Agnes’s chest, where her own heart pulsed and fluttered. “Has she gone completely to madness?”
Agnes’s fingers clenched around the quill. She leaned over, stiffly, and began to write.
I do not think so. Fury, yes. And for fair cause. But even now I do not believe…
She paused, her quill tip halting on the page. A sharp and sudden pain lodged itself between her ribs, causing her breath to catch.
I do not believe that she will act out of malice. She is capricious, but she is not cruel.
Liuprand inclined his chin, rising again to his full height. “Indeed. She has already had her fit of pique.” Delicately, and without touching her, he gestured to Agnes’s bruised throat. “And to expose our secretwould shame her, as well. She is proud enough that she would not wish for the world to know how her husband and her cousin carried on under her nose.”
Yes,Agnes wrote.If there is one thing that Marozia has yet to shed, it is her pride.
“I dearly wish it had not come to this,” Liuprand said. He let out a soft exhale. “If it were no more than a gash upon my honor, then I could have borne it—but you have been harmed, and that is what I cannot bear.”
With utmost tenderness, he took Agnes’s face into his hands. Indeed, his touch was so gentle that she could almost not feel it at all, and, unexpectedly, it drew from her a great swell of grief. Here he was before her and yet she was apart from him. This was what their folly had done.
“I swear, Agnes,” he whispered, “that I will never let such harm come to you again. I would fall upon a sword before I would let you be pricked by a needle. I am your servant and I am your shield. My soul has been fashioned for the purpose of loving you, and I would sooner welcome death than be stripped of this duty, this design. I would endure the blackest torments, such that my mind cannot even conjure—the most appalling agonies. Do you believe me?”
Her throat burned too much for words, her neck even for so little as a nod. Agnes merely stared up at him, into the eyes of her lover, her protector, the guardian of her honor, the champion of her heart. What had she done to deserve such a being? And what would she do to keep him?
Liuprand could not remain long in her chambers; their secret was still a secret, even if there was now one more mind that knew it. Agnes dismissed Pliny, as well.
Her empty stomach scraped as it churned, but she was in too muchpain to consider eating or even drinking. Her hand darted out for the jug of water that Pliny had left out for her, and then recoiled, as if she had been burned. Her hair remained pinned up in its pearl clasp. The thought of letting it down, of feeling it brush against her bruised throat, made Agnes flinch.
She wore only a nightgown, which fell about her limply, a shapeless garment of white linen. Her feet were bare against the floor’s cold stone. As she cast her gaze about the room, it landed once more on the mirror, on her own reflection. The wan, haunted face with its red eyes stared back at her. It was not a woman’s face. It was a ghost’s, a girl’s.
Agnes’s feet took her out of the chamber and down the corridor. She was not even certain of where she was going until she arrived. Hesitantly, her fingers flexing and twitching, Agnes pushed open the door.
Marozia’s old chamber was empty, as it had been for more than half a decade. The canopy had been removed from the bed, the mattress stripped bare. A dense coat of dust lay over everything, and the air was thick and stale. No candles were lit, and the hearth was long since cold, but the window was open, so the darkness was incomplete, striped with irregular slants of pale light.
Agnes walked forward, though the floor seemed to swallow the sound of her steps. The silence, unlike the darkness, was complete and unyielding. It engulfed Agnes in a familiar, almost relieved fashion, as the embrace of a long-lost friend. She felt the heavy air shift, folding her into this voluptuous grasp.
Slowly, though without faltering, Agnes approached the bed and sat. Like the air, like the silence, the mattress remembered her shape and drew her down. Ignoring the pain of such movements, Agnes lowered herself onto the bed and curled up on her side.
Her mind was flooded then, not with thoughts, not with words, only with images, the bright surging of memories. They blinked and flashed, one after another. She saw her hands moving briskly over scarlet cloth as she dressed Marozia. Scarlet, then bridal white, that long lace train. She saw her cousin’s collarbone and the shadow of darkcurls across it as she fell into Agnes’s arms, weeping. She saw her fingers, coaxing bread into Marozia’s mouth.
She saw Marozia’s head, pillowed in her lap, sweat plastering her hair to her reddened face, her throat pulsing with each scream of her labor. She saw the flash of white teeth as her lips parted to form these wails. She saw the glaze of wordless agony in her eyes.
What Agnes felt as she lay there, the ghost of Marozia beside her, was beyond articulation. She let her lashes flutter closed, relenting to the dream. She let tears wash her cheeks. Agnes let her thumb slide into her mouth, and she sucked it greedily, until she was lulled to sleep.
