The flush of passion on his face vanished, and his skin took on a cast of gray. It was no less angry, but it was a cold sort of rage, laced through with anguish and disgust. The disgust was mostly for his father, of course. It was easy to be revolted by the king and all his deranged appetites. But Waltrude knew the prince well enough to know that a bit of the disgust was for himself. An arrow pointed inward, aiming at his defeated heart. This, to Waltrude, was the vilest of all Nicephorus’scrimes: to make his son loathe himself for every one of his own repugnant acts. To make him believe that each atrocity occurred not because of the king’s nature, but because Liuprand failed to prevent it.
“He drove his knife through her hand.” Now the prince did little more than whisper. “Again and again. I could not…the Dolorous Guard thundered in and held me back. As I said, he had planned it. He said he would stop if she spoke, but I do not believe he meant it. He did not want her words; he wanted her blood. To prove his power—as if the torture of an innocent girl proves anything but his own barbarity.” Liuprand laughed, a hollow and joyless sound. “I broke from the grasp of the Dolorous Guard and stopped him, though not before he had destroyed her hand. He has ruined it, Waltrude. I do not think she will ever hold a quill again.”
Waltrude felt her own voice wither in her throat. She croaked out, “And all that time, she did not speak?”
“No. I did not see even a tear fall from her eye.”
A bit of perverse, ill-timed curiosity tugged at her. She could not help it. The same question had been winding through the halls of Castle Crudele since the arrival of the princess and her cousin. It had reached the ears of every servant, every guard, every kitchen girl, and of course all the leeches, who worked their tongues as cannily and dexterously as their hands. Each one offered a different story, from the innocent to the truly depraved. Still, Waltrude tried to keep her tone mild as she spoke.
“Whatever do you think is wrong with the lady Agnes, my prince?”
As offhand as her question had been, it aroused the prince mightily. He drew himself up to his full height, shaking off Waltrude’s hand, eyes narrowing to sharp points. His face regained its flush of passion.
“You should ask what is wrong with the world, that it has forced her into silence,” he replied. His voice was so bitter, Waltrude regretted having spoken at all.
“Yes,” she said hurriedly. “You are right, my prince. I am sorry.”
But just as quickly as it had overtaken him, the vital spirit evacuated again. His shoulders slumped, and he exhaled a low, tremulous breath.
“I could not sleep,” he confessed. “I could not excise my own rage.”Shame touched his tone once more. “And every time I closed my eyes, I saw her tearless face. I heard the princess’s sobs. The memories would not leave me.” For all his largeness, his noble beauty, the manhood that had welcomed him early and eagerly, in this moment Liuprand appeared to her like a very little boy, one she could still hold on her knee and regale with nursery rhymes about too-clever hares and grandmother’s stew. “Waltrude, you must go to her.”
“To the princess?”
“To the lady Agnes.”
Her brow furrowed. She tried to mask her bewilderment as she replied, “To what end, my prince?”
“To see to her wounds. To offer her comfort.”
It was a less ignominious task than scrubbing the blood off the floor, to be sure, but it vexed Waltrude nonetheless. “I’m afraid I am not very fit for the tending of wounds.” Nor for offering comfort, though she did not say that. “Are you certain you do not want to send for a leech? It would likely be more effectual.”
“No,” Liuprand said sharply. “No leeches. In fact, do not allow any past her door.”
Waltrude frowned at this odd request, but she did not challenge it.
“Go to her, treat her wounds. She will try to refuse your aid. Do not let her. She is stubborn and willful, so you must be resolved. I am entrusting this to you, Waltrude. There is no other in this castle I can depend on.”
She nodded, chest swelling. “I will not fail you, my prince.”
“I know.” His gaze upon her was brief but tender. “Now go to it.”
Waltrude knocked on the door, though of course the lady did not answer. Through the wood, there was no shuffling of footsteps, no rustling of skirts. Perhaps the lady was asleep. Waltrude would not have blamed her for falling instantly into an oblivious slumber, exhausted bythe torment she had endured. Yet a fear crept into her, like frost on the first morning of winter. She could recall Philomel standing at the ledge of the window in this very chamber, howling with all the anguish of a wounded animal. Waltrude and her other ladies-in-wait approached her slowly, careful not to frighten her into slipping over the edge. Waltrude remembered how terror had lodged her heart in her throat. How she could not breathe again until they had drawn Philomel away from the window and held her, hunched and sobbing, to the floor. How after that she had been moved to a distant tower, far away from the king, who had not visited her once until that final fateful night.
Now that same terror rose and compelled Waltrude to push open the door.
The lady stood by the window, but not close enough that she could easily clamber up onto the ledge. Waltrude crossed the room briskly—moved more by her own fear than any action of the lady or any emotion she exuded—and took the lady Agnes gently by her uninjured arm. She maneuvered her away from the window, toward the desk in the corner of the room. The lady did not protest, nor did she aid Waltrude by moving of her own accord. Yet she was so thin as to be almost starved looking, and it did not take much effort to position her as Waltrude wished. Gaunt and fragile, she seemed barely to inhabit the dress she wore.
The washed-out lilac gown itself was so thoroughly drenched in blood that the scent of it, coppery and bitter, thickened the air. Still damp in some places; when Waltrude let go, her fingers came away stained crimson.
The lady had her hand wrapped up in the folds of the gown, and that was where the blood was the wettest and the darkest. She did not have the wounded-animal look of Philomel; there was no desperate, anguished bravado on her pale face, but Waltrude still thought it best not to reach for the damaged hand immediately.
“Won’t you let me have a look, lady?” she asked softly instead.
Lady Agnes shook her head. Waltrude had expected as much.
“It is not a wound that will recover of its own accord,” she said.
The lady, of course, did not reply.
