Waltrude looked into her haunted eyes. They were the gray of granite in the rain, dark and matte, holding no light within them. Her oval face ended in a surprisingly pert chin, and though her stare was hollow, there was a bit of defiance in that chin—so subtle it could not be discerned unless one knew to look for it. Her lips had hardly more color than her wan cheeks. The purple bruises of a sleepless night were pressed like hard thumbprints beneath her eyes.
“Please, lady,” Waltrude said. “Let me look. I was sent here by the prince.”
At those words, something came alive in the lady’s face. Her gray eyes managed to capture a bit of the window’s draining light. Her nose—that, too, was surprisingly pert, upturned in illusive defiance—flared just slightly. The weakest hint of color trickled into her cheeks. And where her whole body had been taut in silent protest, Waltrude saw her muscles unclench in a very, very faint show of submission.
Seizing upon the opportunity, Waltrude maneuvered her into the desk chair. There the protest drained from her at last. She slumped down and let her hand fall away from her chest, stretching it out over the armrest of the chair.
With no small measure of trepidation, Waltrude peered at the hand. Whatever she had expected—whatever the prince’s words had portended—the truth was worse. Ugly, garish, bleak indeed.
There was a gash in the center of her hand, large and deep enough that it exposed a pale slant of bone. The edges of her torn flesh were withered and white and oddly damp, like something rotten. Smaller gashes between her knuckles were not quite so deep, but those still leaked, a weak and watery red, as if even the rush of blood was close to giving itself up.
And yet the worst wound was on her fourth finger, where the flesh had been split open right to the bone. It was no deeper than the large cut, but there was less skin there to protect what lay inside, and so the crass innards were exposed: the ripped bands of muscle and sinew, the dull knob of her knuckle. This sight, at last, caused bile to rise inWaltrude’s throat. She could feel the cold horror overtaking her own face, turning her cheeks as white as the lady’s.
Yet she resisted showing this horror openly—if the lady did not shed a tear at her torment, the very least Waltrude could do was appear similarly unshaken. She assumed a mask of calm and patted Lady Agnes gently on the shoulder.
“There, there,” she said. “It is not beyond repair.”
It was an absurd gesture, false comfort and bald lies. She had expected it to have no impact on the lady at all. But Agnes looked up at Waltrude through a dense fan of dark lashes and gave the slightest nod.
Enlivened by this response, Waltrude set to work. She dabbed at the wounds with water until the blood was mostly gone. She cut the cloth and wrapped the bandages—pretending, all the while, that the labor was not foreign to her. The larger wound could have done with some stitches, but she did not have a needle or thread nor enough confidence in herself to perform the task. This was the purpose of a leech, Waltrude thought bitterly, not a wet nurse. She would merely have to hope the wound could knit itself closed beneath the protective caul of cloth.
Through all this grave effort, she was surprised to see that the lady quite frequently winced. She did not, of course, utter a sound, nor did any tears wet her eyes, but there were subtle indications that she did feel the pain of Waltrude’s intruding ministrations. These flinches would have gone unnoticed by anyone who was not as close as Waltrude, or who was not disposed to wonder about this strange lady who seemed not to feel pain as others did. After what the prince had said, she had expected the lady to remain as sober as the statue-girl Waltrude had first encountered here in Castle Crudele.
But something had shifted within the lady Agnes, as faint as the rippling of water under ice. She had relented quite easily once the prince was mentioned. This, too, did not escape Waltrude’s attention.
As Waltrude wrapped the last of the bandages, she noticed the glint of metal on her finger. Previously it had been hidden beneath thegruesome splatter of blood and the gape of ruined flesh, but now that the wounds were clean and covered, it gleamed up at her, like quartz in the mouth of a cave. A silver band, set with pearls.
It was the ring the prince had given her, on the eve of his wedding. The gift that had confounded Waltrude, even as she placed it in the lady’s hand. The lady had not simply taken it as a trinket, worn it once out of courtesy, and then deposited it into her box of jewels, where it would lie ignominiously beneath gaudy strands of ruby and tumescent pendants of emerald. In fact, the lady wore no jewelry at all save for this small and rather unshowy ring. A ring that would only be noticed, would only be remarked upon, by the one who wore it and the one who had given it.
A prickle went up Waltrude’s neck. Agnes was no longer looking up at her. She was examining her own hand, trying to make the smallest movements with her fingers. Though she of course conveyed no discomfort, it was nearly unbearable to watch; Waltrude winced in sympathetic pain.He has ruined it, Waltrude. I do not think she will ever hold a quill again.
It was the meager bit of hope that these movements expressed that stung Waltrude. Did the lady, beneath that imperturbable mask, still nurture a secret longing in her heart? And if she did long for this one thing—to use her hand—could she not long for another?
“Perhaps you should let it rest now,” Waltrude said. “In time, your strength will return.” Of course, she could not promise such a thing. A leech would be able to assess it and inject the lady with the appropriate amount of optimism or despair.
Agnes let her hand go limp on the armrest, but she watched it carefully, as though it might surprise her by moving of its own accord. Waltrude’s heart winced again.
She took stock of the lady, slouched there on the chair, her bloody gown crumpled, her hair coming loose from its crown of braids, which was ordinarily so neatly bound.
“Here,” Waltrude said. “Let us get you out of this gown and into something clean.”
At once, the lady’s gaze snapped up. Her eyes flared with panic, and she shook her head furiously. As she curled her good arm protectively around her bodice, Waltrude realized she had touched upon an area of sensitivity, though she could not guess why. It would be impossible for the lady to dress herself now, with only one hand. And she and the princess kept no handmaidens in attendance; they each serviced the other as a handmaiden would. A queer arrangement that still galled Waltrude. Queerer still was the fact that the princess was nowhere to be found. Why was she not at her cousin’s side when the lady Agnes was in such peril?
I am entrusting this to you, Waltrude. There is no other in this castle I can depend on.No leeches. No princess. No handmaidens. The Lady Agnes was, in every possible manner, alone.
And Waltrude thought again of Philomel, locked in that remote tower, where she screamed herself hoarse to no avail and then at last fell silent. Even her son was not often allowed to visit. The prince was a creature of great compassion and keen observation. Clearly, he had seen the lady’s lonesomeness and sought to remedy it. That was certainly not beyond the boundaries of etiquette.
Waltrude let her hands fall back. “Very well,” she said. “The prince did say you would refuse all aid. Stubborn and willful, he called you.”
As before, mention of the prince aroused Agnes. She glanced up at Waltrude, a sudden, shimmery light enlivening her gray eyes. She seemed to be asking a question, but Waltrude did not speak the tongueless language of mutes. So she merely returned the lady’s steady gaze.
Then, with what appeared to be great effort, Agnes leaned forward and reached for a parchment upon the desk. She took it and smoothed it flat. Then she reached for a quill—all of this, of course, with one hand. By the clumsiness of her movements, Waltrude presumed she was left-handed, and unaccustomed to performing these functions with her right. But she tried. That slight defiance flared in her again. Waltrude saw then the willfulness that Liuprand had alleged.
Her writing was slow, labored. Her fingers trembled. She bit down on her lower lip, consummately focused. The letters she made wereblocky and tottering, a child’s scrawl. But she did not relent until she had finished writing out the two words.
Thank you.
And then, something extraordinary happened. Waltrude was overtaken by a wave of knowledge. It was not simply a sequence of facts that hardened like diamonds in her mind, but a total and encompassing awareness, one that engaged all her senses. Liuprand had impressed upon her his purpose, and now, it seemed, he had impressed upon her his total perception and judgment, as well.
