Until the blood poisoned it. The solid crust of red was scoured from her body, turning to a thin mist as the water lifted it and spread itabout within the tub. Now the water was hot and thick and smelled of copper, of brine. It was red, and red, and red. Though her skin was clean, all around her, Fredegar’s blood pulsed and rippled. It was diluted, translucent as the tail of a fish, but not gone. It engulfed her still.
“It will all go down the drain,” Waltrude murmured. “Down the drain. Down the drain.”
She could not stop repeating this phrase, as she combed her fingers through Agnes’s hair. The pins were pried out. The braids were undone. Her hair, now loose, floated around her, buoyant in the water, like the dark tendrils of a squid.
The flowers were scattered on the floor. The white moonflowers, the infant’s breath, splattered with blood and crushed like paper as she had buried her head against Fredegar’s chest. His body had still been warm, his flesh soft. It was impossible that he could be gone. But the House of Blood had taken what it was owed from its very own master. The foundation was soaked with it and the articles of the Covenant had been fulfilled, Berengar’s cruel laws followed to the letter. And so it had to be true.
Waltrude lifted Agnes’s arm a moment from the water and scrubbed at it, expunging the blood from the clever places it had hidden, between her fingers, in the crook of her elbow. One arm and then the other. Her limbs felt heavy and foreign to her.Shewas not dead, but her body did not seem to know it.
“There’s a good girl.” Waltrude’s voice was so soft and low, it was almost a coo. “In a moment it will all go down the drain.”
Agnes found she could not close her eyes, though her body was limp in the water, unwound and as tranquil as a bird briefly stunned by its collision into glass. Instead she stared ahead, taking in the screen of the chamber, the writing desk, the stone wall and the unlit fireplace, her belongings still scattered about, placed on shelves; the wardrobe door was open and her dresses were hung within, all but the bridal gown, which was puddled on the floor, soaked in red like a gored pig.
The sensation that it was ugly washed over her. All the beauty of the House of Blood had drained out with the lifeblood of its master.What remained was a gruesome and shuddery dream, a scene set on the dark floor of the ocean, scattered about with huge-jawed fish and quivering purple kelp, curled mollusks the size of men, crabs so bulbous with barnacles that they could not lift their claws, sanguine-colored sharks that had never felt even the feeblest slant of sunlight.
Waltrude lifted Agnes’s hair and gently scrubbed the back of her neck. She whispered, but not to Agnes, “Down the drain. Down the drain.”
There was a sound outside the door. Waltrude’s gaze snapped up and she let Agnes’s hair fall and spread out again in the water.
It was the scuffling of footsteps, the faint clanking of armor as the guards posted outside the door stirred. There was the murmur of voices, but it was too quiet for any words to be discerned. Then, slowly, the door opened.
Waltrude rose to her feet, sponge clenched in her fist. A fearful but defiant expression crossed her face. But it dissipated at once, upon her seeing Liuprand.
The wet nurse did not speak, did not even acknowledge his presence with a deferent dip of her head. Yet her eyes had the steadiness of secret knowledge. At a distance, in the half-light, Agnes could not easily perceive the expression on Liuprand’s face. She only saw the soft golden gleam of him, which repelled the dark. It spasmed off him, like arrows deflected from a steel breastplate, and these weapons of shadow fell dully onto the floor.
As he stepped toward her, toward the tub, she saw the blood staining his doublet. It had dried into a deep shade of rust. Some of it flecked his throat, his chin. There was even a streak along the left side of his jaw, where one of her dyed-red fingers must have brushed. He wore her husband’s blood on him like a second layer of livery.
Waltrude stood for one moment longer, the damp sponge dripping in a steady rhythm. Then, without speaking a word, she crossed the room and went out through the door. There was more faint clanking as the retinue of guards broke apart to let her pass.
Then Liuprand stood before her at the foot of the tub, alone.
“Unruoching has been imprisoned,” he said quietly. “He will never again breathe free air.” He paused, and his eyes gleamed like the moonlit ocean. “He will never so much as look upon you again.”
“Yet he will live always within my thoughts,” Agnes said.
The shock that overtook Liuprand’s face was not fast and bright, a sudden and short-lived flicker, but rather a slow burning—embers, not flame. His aura smoldered a darker gold. And it was her voice that set this fire within him.
So delicately, almost painful in his deliberation, Liuprand stepped toward her. He knelt beside the tub, near where her head rested against the marble.
“I would give my life,” he said, “to turn it back. To have the knife buried in my chest instead.”
“No.” The word lifted from her like a pale moth, taking flight. “I would never wish for such a thing. This I may survive. But not that.”
Liuprand drew a breath. “Agnes,” he whispered. “I cannot exorcise you from my mind. I have tried—but I think of you always. In sleeping, in waking, and especially in dreaming.”
She looked upon him. His beauty was immeasurable. It could break a thousand hearts down their center. But she saw beyond that, beneath it, as one can glimpse the wondrous creatures of the sea below the surface of clear and sunlit waters.
Her friend, who had seen her when no other had cared to look. Who had urged her to speak when the rest had ignored or rejoiced in her silence. Who had taught her the language of rustling wings. Her protector, who had aided her in so many ways she could only recognize now. Who had sent the girl Ninian, so she did not have to labor any longer at Marozia’s feet. Who had ordered Waltrude to bandage her wounds and keep the leeches and their hungry mouths from her door. Who had tried, even, to stand between her and the king.
The water rippled, and she saw still more. She saw the man who read with her in quiet companionship, Liuprand the Scholar. She saw the man who spoke with such eloquence always, wise beyond his years, Liuprand the Silver-Tongued. She saw the man who was gentle to allhis subjects, even to those far beneath him, Liuprand the Good. And she saw, of course, the man who had entered a bleak and loveless union for the security of his kingdom. Liuprand the Confessor.
Her companion, her guardian, and her beloved, who had hoped and waited for her in anguished silence.
Agnes lifted a hand from the water and touched his chin with just one finger. Warmth flowed into her skin.
“Liuprand,” she said softly.
He exhaled, a tremulous sound. With both hands he clung to the edge of the tub, knuckles white.
