“She is plenty comfortable here,” Nicephorus said. He was still clinging fast to her.
Liuprand looked over. In one sweeping glance, he took in his father’s hand, Agnes’s fingers clenched hard enough to turn her knuckles white, and said quietly, “Perhaps she would be more comfortable if you released her arm.”
The stare that passed between father and son was not as pointed as it could have been, since their guests were getting settled in their chairs, clinking their glasses and dinnerware, murmuring among themselves, and all these sounds pricked through the silence, sapping its power—yet the look in Nicephorus’s eyes was petulant and defiant, near to being hateful, as though he were the errant child and Liuprand the severe patriarch.
At last, his face ruddy with anger, the king relaxed his grip. He did it in slow increments, fingers uncurling one at a time, as moments passed staggeringly, like droplets from a tincture. Agnes’s arm throbbed, her skin mottled with red marks that swore to be bruises.
Liuprand watched intently, and of course this meant he saw Agnes wearing the ring. She wondered if he had intended all of this as some elaborate tactic to get her to speak; as if he could draw out the wordsthank youfrom her throat by activating some deep-seated instinct of politeness. But his gaze was steady and without expectation.
As she slid her aching arm from the table, Liuprand merely gave her a single nod. And though she did not open her mouth, she looked into his eyes—she had much practiced this method of communicating—and, with her stare alone, impressed upon him her gratitude.
“Be well, Lady Agnes,” was all he said, and then he rose, in a powerful surge of white and gold, to address his guests.
“I am grateful for your attendance, that you have left your homes to bear witness to this binding between my house and a noble house of Drepane. You are also bearing witness to what I hope will be a new day for the island. For too long my house has ruled on high, remote from its subjects. Now, with the mingling of my blood with that of the island’s most ancient line, we will become more familiar to each other. One kingdom, allied in custom and in virtue, in language and in arms.Just as I promised my loyalty to the lady Marozia, princess-consort, I make this vow to all of you.”
When he spoke, the very air seemed to ripple and bend, as if it were nothing more than a conduit for his words, carrying them to the ears of each noble in the hall. So resounding was his voice, so eloquent his locution, that not a single eye averted, not a single lip pulled back into a contemptuous sneer, not a single scoff formed in a skeptical throat. Even Thrasamund, ever garrulous, was silent.
Liuprand the Silver-Tongued? Agnes could see this epithet scrawled there beside his name, ink drying on the legacy of what was sure to be Drepane’s most illustrious king since Berengar. Only one house had still truly chafed beneath the Seraphine rule, and now that house was expired, extinct, forever gone, mixed with the royal blood so as to be utterly irretrievable. Marozia was now princess first, and Agnes alone wore the House of Teeth’s both drab and glorious gray.
And was the other missing house merely absent, not extinguished? The table that should have been occupied by the House of Blood was empty, the plates and dinnerware set out for no one. She wondered if the bottle of wine had been retrieved, to be sent back to the brazen Master of Blood, or whether the king would make a show of having it shattered and stamped upon; either way, such an insult could not be left to lie.
The spell that Liuprand’s voice had cast appeared to be broken, as Thrasamund now raised his cup.
“Let us drink,” he crowed, “to this gracious golden prince and his exquisite wife, the beautiful blooming Marozia.”
Hartwig, rubies glinting in his ears, raised a cup as well. “To the fair prince and his fairer wife.”
Amycus’s raven squawked out his praise: “To the sweet-voiced prince, his lovely bride, and the halcyon days to come.”
Rabanus, stately and sharp-eyed, lifted his cup and said, “To the joining of hearts and the prince of great promises.”
Vauquelin’s son said, “To the bridge of flesh between great house and great house.”
No words, of course, came from the Master of Blood. And the Mistress of Teeth smiled, preening like a flower indeed, petals opening under their exultant praise.
Agnes looked down at her goblet. The wine inside had not been watered; it gleamed with the hue of a ruby. When etiquette demanded that she raise her cup, she did, and put it to her lips, but she only mimed drinking, and did not let even a drop of the rich liquid touch her tongue.
At last came the feasting. Good cheer returned to Nicephorus’s face, his petulance drained away. A swan was carried to the table on an enormous platter; intact even in death, its neck curling like a white-gloved hand. Crumbling cheese drowned in honey. Bread loaves in the shape of winged lions, flour dusting their false feathers; olives in the place of their eyes. Pale-green melon cut into crescent-moon slivers. Agnes watched these plates arrive in the arms of servants, like grains of sugar carried by ants, and with each one that was placed on the table she felt her stomach knot with dread.
And then came a tray of silver fish, coiled so that their tails were in their mouths. Relief struck within her, and then it was quickly snuffed out. This was not the flaky white meat of the freshwater fish that seemed to hang suspended in their stagnant ponds, the fish whose needle-thin bones Adele-Blanche crunched in her teeth. Its flesh was bright pink, like a pair of painted lips.
Agnes leaned forward, trying to catch Marozia’s gaze. Her cousin was absorbed in the candied pear that was being placed upon her dish and cut for her by a servant, who leaned decorously over her shoulder. But she sensed Agnes’s need of her.
Marozia looked up, cast her gaze across the table, and then prodded the servant.
“Water the lady Agnes’s wine,” she said. “It is too rich for her. And bring her plain bread with butter from the kitchens.”
“Yes, Princess,” the servant murmured. The request was not exceptional, though Agnes worried that the king might perceive it as rudeness. Her arm still throbbed from the memory of his grasping hand.
But it was only Liuprand who reacted to this. He turned to her and asked, “Are you feeling ill, lady?”
“Not especially,” Marozia said. “But my cousin has a deficient stomach. The misfortune of a too-early birth. As an infant, she could not even suckle. She had to be weaned upon the milk of goats.”
Liuprand’s gaze was heavy upon her. “That is an unhappy burden. How fortunate, then, that your elder cousin is so vigilant of you.” Something false tinged his tone.
Agnes gave a small shake of her head.
“No?” Liuprand frowned.
