The Exarch’s body reeked. Death had been at work on his corpse for two days now, which was not such a long time, but the manner of his passing seemed particularly solicitous, seducing forth the dark tendrils of decay. Maggots writhed inside his burst tumor with such vigor that it almost reanimated him, his limbs twitching with the rapacious feasting of parasites. And the flies swarmed so thickly that it looked as if his corpse were laid over by a blanket knitted of iridescent wings and glittering black bodies. The drone of their ecstatic repast was almost deafening.
“May you be consumed as a coal upon the hearth. May you dry up as water in a pail. May you become as small as a linseed grain, and much smaller than the hip bone of an itch-mite, and may you become so small that you become nothing.”
The Most Esteemed Surgeon nearly had to shout. Fortunately for him, there were not many gathered around to hear. There was Agnes, her hands tucked into the folds of her dress. There was Marozia, staring ahead with a fierce wetness in her eyes. There was Ninian, devotedly swatting the flies away from her mistress’s face. And across the pit stood the king and the prince, two paces apart from each other, both of their expressions cloaked in some unreadable sentiment.
Agnes should not have been doing what she was doing, which was trying to catch the prince’s gaze. She felt embarrassed to find herself making such an effort. His face was inscrutable to her at a distance. Yet his posture was poor, his back hunched, his shoulders drawn up around his ears. This alarmed her. She remembered the bitter stares that had passed between him and the Exarch at the wedding; surely he could not be grieving the man now. Something else troubled the prince’s soul.
The other noble houses had not been invited to the desecration—the Exarch was not and had never been the conduit of God to them—but their leeches were in attendance. And when the Most EsteemedSurgeon finished his service, he raised a hand, beckoning the first of them forward.
Yet none within the gathered flock shifted. Every sepia robe lay still against its wearer’s body.
The brow of the Most Esteemed Surgeon wrinkled. “Come, then,” he said. “The blood is ready to be harvested.”
Still there was no movement. The sky was as taut and blue as a cauterized wound, and not even the faintest breeze rustled the heavy parchment-colored cloth.
There was some movement at last, though not among the leeches. King Nicephorus took a mighty step forward, the dirt flattening under his foot, as if the very earth shrank from him.
“Well, then?” he called out. “Where are the representatives of the House of Blood?”
The air itself was stiff, hard as it would have been in winter. The only movement was the tapestry of flies, which rippled like it was being shaken out. Agnes did not realize she was pulling apart the skin of her thumb until a blood drop fell into the dirt.
“Answer me!” the king snarled. “I am your sovereign!”
At last came a creaking voice from one of the leeches: “They are not here, Your Highness. We are twelve only.”
Several flies came loose from their mass and seized upon the drop of blood from Agnes. They feasted until the red was gone.
“Not here?” Nicephorus echoed. “They were summoned by royal missive. Does the Master of Blood think I was merely inviting them to tea?”
No response came from the throng of leeches. They all stared penitently at the ground, as though the shame of this belonged to their whole order. Perhaps it did. Agnes did not think the king would be particularly discerning when it came to punishing this offense. He would not seek to carry out justice; he would merely seek to sate his rage.
And the rage was clear on the king’s face. It devastated his features.His lumpy brow sagged down further over his eyes, and it broke out in beads of sweat that made his skin look even more slack and greasy. His cheeks were flushed, the broken blood vessels as pink as boils. His jowls quivered, and spittle formed in the corners of his grimacing mouth.
“This is an unacceptable slight,” he thundered. “And it will not go without remark. The Master of Blood will feel the full might of Berengar’s line—”
“Father,” Liuprand said at last. He laid a hand over Nicephorus’s outstretched arm. “This is a petty slight. A tiltyard taunt. It does not require a rejoinder of clanging blades. I will travel to the House of Blood myself, if I must, to make things right.”
“And what do you plan to do?” The king sneered. “Share a cask of wine with the traitor? Make peace over roast pig and fish?”
No one else among the crowd dared to speak, and even Marozia angled her gaze away. Discomfort spasmed across the Most Esteemed Surgeon’s face, while the leeches still stared determinedly at the dirt. Their thoughts were all the same: that the king and the prince shamed themselves in this public scuffle. These matters ought to have been discussed behind closed doors and in even tones, the conclusions then communicated through pronouncements and orders. It was as awkward to witness as any spat between father and son, only swelled to truly galling proportions by the preeminence of the quarrelers. Two such powerful beings in so ignominious a struggle.
Liuprand seemed to realize this, for his voice grew low. “Let us discuss the subject later,” he said. “For now, the desecration must be performed. Truss and Mordaunt can fill the role of the House of Blood. Then we will give the leeches their sustenance and send them on their way.”
XXV
The Martyr’s Price
There was no pretense of esteem or reverence as the leeches were led into the castle. This was the basest courtesy, one any man proffered to his guests, even if all he could marshal up was some bread and wine. A meal was laid out. And so it had been, across every table in the great hall.
Agnes was last into the chamber, so she did not have the chance to see the expressions of the leeches when they first looked upon the food presented to them. Yet she could easily imagine their appalled shock. As she followed Marozia to the high table on the dais, she cast her gaze about the room, and her heart stuttered. She saw bread. And she saw wine, diluted to little more than red-tinted water, as if someone had pricked their finger and allowed only the smallest drop of blood to fall into each goblet.
It was a meal for an ascetic, a meal fit for the lady Agnes, such a one as she had eaten half her life. And as she watched the leeches curl their lips in distaste, she felt, for the first time in so long, her own deprivation. Their lack shone silver like a pool under the moonlight, and the warped, shuddery reflection of a starving girl stared back. Agnes had to look away from them.
She glanced instead at Marozia, who had already taken her seat and allowed Ninian to push her chair in. Marozia met her gaze yet did not say a word. The spark of anger remained behind her eyes. Yet Agnes knew that there was turbulence within her mind. Marozia was no fool: She, too, saw the churning waters of chaos below, and how close thisdiscord between the king and the House of Blood had pushed all of Drepane to its precipice.
Before Agnes could sit beside her cousin, Nicephorus snapped, “No. Here.”
With a tilt of his head, he indicated the chair to his right. Agnes’s stomach pooled with dread. Of course she could not refuse. With heavy footsteps, she made her way around the table to the king’s side and sat. The hunger in her stomach had turned quickly to nausea.
