“Good evening, Your Scrupulousnesses,” she said when she had recovered herself. “What brings you here at this twilight hour?”
The taller and thinner of the leeches—she vaguely recalled his face, but not his name—gave a faint, ghostly smile. “Does illness or injury cease to occur in the dark?”
Waltrude lifted her chin indignantly. “Do you often answer a question with another question?”
“Only when the question is inane,” the thin leech said. The stoutone merely leered at her. “We have our duties to the inhabitants of the castle, as you have yours.”
Her mouth twitched in irritation. “And who requires your services tonight, Your Scrupulousness?”
“Ah, we are sworn to discretion in this matter—our oaths to the order require that we keep our patients’ secrets. Should I ask who, tonight, is suckling your teats?”
“That is no secret to anyone,” Waltrude bit out. “There is but one child in the castle, and he is grown well past that need. Unless perhaps you should find yourself wanting for a bit of comfort at my breast? I have not yet nursed one as gray as you, but some men never outgrow their infantile appetites.”
At this the stout leech scowled, and looked as if he might make a reply, but the taller one waved a hand to silence him before he could speak. The thin leech—his name was still lost to her—merely smiled on with indulgent contempt.
“Your back may be hunched, but your wit is sharp,” he said. “I shall not forget it. But I do suggest we end this intercourse now.”
Waltrude narrowed her eyes. “And why should we? Is your task truly so urgent?”
“Yes,” said the stout leech, and his voice was not what Waltrude had expected. He spoke with too much earnestness, the word coming out in a rush. His companion was clearly the one who possessed the wiles for them both. “Most urgent.”
The thin leech’s lip curled. “That’s enough,” he said. “Our duties are not within the purview of a milk cow. You should concern yourself only with what little milk remains in your breasts, and what few years remain of your life.”
“Better a milk cow than a worm,” said Waltrude. “You ought to wriggle back beneath your rock.”
“No, I do not think I will.” The thin leech drew himself up to his full height, which was not so impressive—even Pliny was taller, and looked more robust besides. “It is you who should return to your pen. You will come to thank me for this counsel.”
“I did not ask to be counseled.” Yet a strange coldness was pricking at her. It seemed not to emanate from the stone walls or the marble floors, but rather from the leeches themselves, as if they had brought with them all the chill dankness of the dungeon. “Your purpose here—whatever it is—is of no greater importance than mine.”
“Take the advice, woman,” the stout leech rasped out. “If you do not heed us now, you will wish that you had.”
Waltrude shivered, but she held her chin aloft. “I have lived many years and made many errors in that time; regret is nothing too foreign or too appalling to me.”
“You do not knowappalling.I promise that you do not.”
It was the thin leech who spoke, and his voice was like a draft of the larder’s air. He was no clever animal. Few of his kind were, save Pliny, who, even when he vexed her, retained always his poise and wisdom. Waltrude wished that she had not abandoned him, that she had allowed him to chafe her so. She wanted now for his grace, for his considered words, for his reluctance to anger or spite. He was more temperate than she. He would have been able to reason with these men, where she was only moved to a choking rage.
“Remove yourself from my path,” she said lowly. “I will not ask with such courtesy again.”
“Waltrude,” said the thin leech, and she was both shocked and disturbed that he knew her name, “I am doing you a kindness. You do not comprehend it yet, but you will.”
“How about a game of chance?” the stout leech piped up. From the folds of his robe he removed a coin, a Seraphine silver, scratched and worn with the face of the Dogaressa on one side and the winged lion on the other. He rolled it through his fingers with surprising deftness. “I shall play you for the opportunity to pass.”
“Enough, you lout,” spat the thin leech. “Do you think of nothing else but your own mirth? And your luck is abysmal; it always has been.”
“A man’s fortune can change, as the stars rearrange themselves every night.”
“The stars do no such thing,” said Waltrude. “Let me through.”
The stout leech held out the coin on the palm of his hand. There was a scratch, which appeared to be intentional, erasing the Dogaressa’s eyes. Now she was a blind woman, trapped in this metal cast.
A feeling of misery began to form in the base of Waltrude’s belly. It thickened and hardened, like a pearl in the clutch of an oyster. Then it rose and rose, through the cavern of her stomach, and to the hollow of her throat. It rolled on her tongue. It rattled the rotten yellow gate of her teeth. It was a sob, she realized, one of furious protest and darkest despair, such that she had never felt before. Even as she laid eyes on Philomel’s broken body, she had not wept. And perhaps now this was the profit of her silence: All the years had not withered her pain; they had augmented it. A great pearl it was now, one that would fetch a hefty price.
“Move,” she whispered, yet her voice cracked the word, broke it apart in two pieces. “Make me ask again, and you will regret it. I am here on the prince’s errand.”
The two leeches exchanged glances. For such dull and simple creatures, the look that passed between them was unreadable. Waltrude could only feel the shaking of her own knees beneath her, and the strenuous beating of her aged and burdened heart.
“You do not understand what you ask,” said the thin leech. She thought she could detect the faintest hint of pity in his voice. “Your wit may be sharp, but your knowledge is lacking. Return from whence you came, Waltrude. I swear this plea of mine is a beneficent one. You will wish you had heeded it.”
