“True words. It will be enough, I think, to at last have a woman to share my bed. I have missed that these many years.”
“Better still, the lady is young,” Pliny agreed. “There is ample time for her to bear you many children, should you wish it.”
At that, Fredegar’s gaze snapped up. “And why should I wish it? I have an heir, and my heir has a son. My line is secured.”
The sudden hostility in his master’s voice was not unexpected, though it perturbed Pliny nonetheless. Lord Fredegar was a wise man, humane and genial. That he could have begotten a son so different in nature was a source of much philosophical musing on Pliny’s part. Yet Fredegar was not inclined to suffer any slights against Unruoching, no matter how measured or subtle. The love of a father for his son was something Pliny admittedly could not, and would not, ever understand. It was greater than a love of an artist for his painting, a yeoman for his crop, a diver for his treasure. Pliny wondered if it rivaled the love he had for his own lord.
“I only meant that she is fertile, and a child is likely to be produced from your coupling,” Pliny said hurriedly. “The lady herself might wish to be a mother. But I am not given to know.”
“It may be difficult to ply such truths from her,” said Fredegar, “if she is indeed as silent as the prince says.”
Pliny was not remote enough from his humanity for that piece of knowledge to pass beneath his interest. He wondered if perhapsthatwas the stain of incest upon the lady Agnes, that perhaps her tongue did not work as it should, some consequence of ill breeding. But he did not think his master would appreciate these musings being spoken aloud, either.
“That does not trouble me,” Fredegar said suddenly, as if he had decided the fact right then and there. “Eupraxia was near mute, at theend—do you remember? When sickness stole her voice. And then her breath.”
“I remember,” Pliny said.
Fredegar stepped away from the window and turned his back, so that his large body partially obscured the light. What little sun could leaked down around him, over his strong shoulders, in the gap between his arms and his torso, between his legs. There was his outline on the floor, a shadow man, carved out from these beams of light. This shadow man quivered, growing wispy at his edges. But the real Lord Fredegar had no such infirmity. He was like the proud hull of a ship, streaked with the white lashings of salt, yet hard-carved and pointing ever forward. If Pliny had not seen this shadow man stretched and shuddering across the floor, he would have feared nothing in the world; he would have believed his master could endure all.
But as it was, the shadow was as real as the man who cast it.
“Thank you for your counsel,” Fredegar said, lifting his gaze to Pliny’s. “It is wise as always. By the skillful shaping of the Surgeon’s hands, I shall wed the lady Agnes tomorrow.”
Pliny stepped out of his master’s chamber and closed the door quietly behind him. The corridor still felt to some degree impure, tainted by the obscure agendas of strangers. The shadows were deeper with the waning sun, and the light had a waxy tinge of gray, as though it were infected. He wondered if he alone was given to sensing it, or if others could perceive this sickness within the House of Blood.
He was not very far down the corridor when another man’s shadow stretched along the wall, warping and straining as he rounded the corner.
“Your Scrupulousness,” Unruoching said. He bowed so low, and with such a grandiose flourish, it could not be anything but drollery. Yet Pliny had never known Unruoching to be droll. The humor wasnot meant for him, for Pliny, his father’s leech and trusted adviser. It was meant for Unruoching alone. The corner of his narrow mouth twitched, barely resisting the grin his own jest had provoked.
“My lord,” Pliny replied.
“How momentous the day has been,” Unruoching said, rising to his full height. “A visit from the prince himself; who could have foreseen it? And now…a new wife for Lord Fredegar, after so many years of lonesome widowhood. What do you think, Pliny? Shall I call her Mother? I believe she is closer to my son’s age than to mine.”
“Gamelyn is just a boy,” said Pliny. “The lady Agnes is a woman grown, and mistress of one of Drepane’s most ancient and noble houses.”
Unruoching’s lips curled upward. Yet it was not what could be called a smile. “Father has warmed to this proposition, then.”
“He could not refuse it, even if he wished. And it is a greatly favorable match. No man has ever suffered for having the confidence of the king.”
“A pretty aphorism,” Unruoching replied. “You are always so full of them. Yet not all kings are made from the same stuff.”
Pliny sniffed. “You are safe to speak such words with me, my lord. But I would put these whispers away in the presence of the prince and the lady Agnes.”
“The prince is clever enough to know what many nobles think of his father.The Sluggard,they have titled him. And he even wears this epithet with pride.” His eyes, with their mottling of light and shadow, settled upon Pliny. “You are clever enough to know that my words are merely ajest.If you repeated them to the prince or to my father, they would surely see the humor in them. And they would also see the faithless leech who does not keep his master’s secrets.”
You are not my master,Pliny wished to say. It was not the House of Blood to whom his loyalty belonged. Leeches were not servants, not slaves, not vassals, not men-at-arms, not sworn swords. Their foremost faith was to their duties, and then to the Most Esteemed Surgeon himself. Pliny the leech served the articles of the Septinsular Covenant. ButPliny the man served the wise and genial Lord Fredegar, and none other.
Yet Pliny was not so full of pride that he would risk the aggravation of his master’s son. Unruoching’s vengeful nature was nothing to be underestimated. As an infant, he had bitten the nipples of his wet nurse until they bled; he had raged at his mother until she wept; he had pulled the tails of the kitchen cats until they yowled. He had once cornered a dog from the butcher’s slaughter-yard and tied one of its legs up against its body, then fell down laughing as it hobbled about, whimpering. This act had impressed Pliny. Until then he had thought his master’s son as simple as an animal. This degree of cruelty required a human’s wiles.
So he did not go about riling Unruoching now. He merely said, “I would never think to betray the House of Blood.”
“Of course not.” Unruoching’s mottled eyes danced. “That is why I know it was a simple mistake that the king’s missives were discarded under your hand.”
Pliny could not help the strangled noise that leapt from his throat. “Pardon me?”
“An unfortunate error,” Unruoching went on. “A mind of your years is not the most reliable. You have served this house since my own father’s infancy, have you not? Age takes its toll upon a man’s reasoning.”
“My mind is as sharp as it has ever been,” Pliny bit out. “I saw no missives.”
