Cendrillon’s marginalia also decorated the page. He had drawn a rat king and a series of comic sketches wherein rabbits hunted men with crossbows and spears. The drawings were quite good. The rat king seemed to undulate there on the page, and the rabbits had perceptible vengeance in their eyes. A rush of envy flooded through Agnes, who would never create anything so poignant with a quill again.
Bordered by the marginalia were neat rows and columns. In one column, which readPrisoners,Unruoching’s name had been penned in floral script.
“Bring him out,” Liuprand said.
The dungeon-keeper was a rather lovely man. He could not be many years Liuprand’s elder, yet there was a softness about him—not just youthful but infantile. His pink, fleshy face could have been fresh from the womb. He walked with a delicate, prancing gait, his white-gold curls rippling in the torchlight, as though the dungeon were a field of flowers and he a storybook maiden within them. He wore a cream-colored doublet, and the subtle but inevitable grime of the dungeon had not sullied it. The keys that jingled at his waist did so musically.
With a nimble flick of his wrist, Cendrillon unlocked the door to the cell. His airiness, his lissome graces, were almost enough to make Agnes forget her purpose there. The dungeon was a sublime place with Cendrillon inside it. It was only Unruoching, as he emerged slouch-backed from his cell, who at last defiled it.
The Dolorous Guard had not failed to follow Liuprand’s directives; Unruoching had been bound and bound again. The chains wrapped all around his body, from his throat to his knees, so tightly that he stumbled forward rather than walked. His arms were fixed to his sides, and his fingers were purple at their tips from the stricture of the chains.
Still he wore his father’s blood upon him. It had darkened nearly to black, and stuck to his skin. Flies that had landed and gotten caught there as the blood dried twitched feebly, their filmy wings flicking as they tried vainly to free themselves. Their buzzing was mournful. Agnes watched them die one by one.
“Your Highness,” Cendrillon said with a supple bow as he presented the prisoner.
The torchlight flickered across Liuprand’s hard-boned face. “Lay him down.”
This order was not for Cendrillon (who could think of burdening this comely man with so ugly a task?) but rather for the Dolorous Guard, who crowded into the dungeon behind Liuprand. Two of them lurched forward at once, seizing Unruoching about the arms.
Two more descended on Cendrillon’s table. Cendrillon quickly snatched up his book, clutching it to his chest with an appalled gasp. The guards maneuvered the table to the center of the chamber, andthen Unruoching was laid upon it, on his back, like a roast boar wrapped in twine.
Until now, none of the gathered audience had dared to make a sound. And still Unruoching was silent, his expression one of gelid shock, as though he had been turned one moment to stone.
The sound came from Ygraine, who stood at a distance, ringed by red-clad members of the household. Their names and faces were still unknown to Agnes and would be, always. But Ygraine would not be obscure to her. Agnes would remember the broken sobs that wrenched violently out of her, as if they were living things, maggots erupting from the fetid body of their host.
Her sobs were wordless, and they went unacknowledged. Not even the members of her own household moved to offer her comfort, a warm hand upon her shoulder, or even a look of sympathy. Their gazes were limpid with shame.
Only her son, Gamelyn, gave any notice to his mother’s tears. She leaned upon her son heavily, arms braced around his shoulders, face buried into his neck. She had to hunch over to do so, and her long red hair draped over his crimson doublet like a cloak. Its vulpine color was made dull by the dungeon’s dearth of light.
Gamelyn held on to his mother, but he did so stiffly, almost unconsciously, as if it were a fulfillment of quotidian duty. It was not unloving, however. It was only that his attentions were elsewhere: His green eyes were fixed on Liuprand, and he did not so much as blink. His expression was so remote, so chillingly bleak that Agnes had to avert her own gaze, for no child’s eyes should look this cold. This single night had piled years of anguished bitterness upon him.
Liuprand approached the table in fluid steps. He peered over Unruoching’s prone form for several moments before speaking.
“Have you any words to offer in your defense?” Liuprand asked. His tone was cool—more restrained, Agnes knew, than he felt. “Choose them carefully. I will not invite your speech again.”
Unruoching swallowed audibly. His throat pulsed, straining beneath the rope, the skin rubbed raw and red.
“Please, Your Highness,” he gulped out at last. “I acted only in the best interests of my house. My father—though I loved him dearly—was weakened by age, his wisdom dried up, and he would no longer hear sense! He was past the point of reason and would not step down from his post, not shift his title to his son, asanyman of wisdom would. The king’s missives were lost beneath his inattentive eye! What more vital things could be dismissed by such an addled mind? Surely, my prince, you can understand—sometimes a son must move against his father, for the greater good of all.”
Liuprand allowed several more moments to pass, and the chamber was silent but for Ygraine’s sobs.
Then, very quietly, he asked, “And of the lady Agnes?”
All the eyes of the dungeon turned toward her.
“I would not have harmed her!” Unruoching’s voice cracked with desperation. “I aimed my knife only at Lord Fredegar. I never would have lifted a blade against the lady.”
“Liar,” Agnes whispered.
Her hair was still damp from the bath, and it flowed loosely over her shoulders. She had wanted to wear her wedding gown, bloodied and ruined as it was, but it was so wet that it made her shiver when she had tried to clothe herself in it again. Her skin rose with gooseflesh she could not banish on her own. And so Liuprand had laid upon her his own heavy blue cloak. Sheltered within its folds, she staved off the dungeon’s chill. Yet beneath the fine cloak, she could not forget she was still a widow robed in her husband’s blood.
At the sound of her speech, several in the room uttered gasps of shock. Liuprand, even, looked surprised to hear her voice. His gaze was tender when he regarded her, though his lips pressed thin with the fury he could barely check.
“Go on, lady,” he said. “What occurred in the corridor?”
“He lies.” Agnes bit out the words. “The moment his father’s body fell to the floor, he turned his dagger on me. He said he could not allow any offspring birthed of our union to usurp him.”
More scattered gasps came from the audience, and anger flared in Liuprand’s eyes. He turned back toward Unruoching.
