“We may never dance at a masque,” she said, “or hold each other in the light for another pair of eyes to see. But I will not be your secret shame.” That word,mistress,was like a rotten piece of fruit in her mouth.
“I will never be ashamed.” Liuprand sounded almost angry. “You are my secret joy, my secret comfort, my secret passion and need.” His voice grew low. “Tell me what you wish and I will do it. Make me your disciple; I will kneel for no other.”
This, perhaps, was true—he had knelt before her at the altar, and she had never seen him yield like this before. But Agnes did not wish for a disciple, for a slave. Painstakingly, she pushed her skirts back over her naked thighs. She drew her torn bodice up to cover her breasts. She began to slide down from the altar, and Liuprand immediately moved to help, lifting her into his arms and then setting her gently upon the floor.
“Not disciple.” Her fingers ghosted across his cheek; even when she touched the wound, he did not flinch. “I would have you be my equal, my matched half.” She closed her eyes, and a single tear painted a path down her face. “But it is impossible. The dead would sooner wake.”
IX
What Might Break Apart The World
“Princess? Princess?”
His words fell upon the limp body in the bed like leaves from a dead tree. They lay across her but did not penetrate. Marozia was on her side now, the child swaddled in her arms and held near to her face so that she could brush kisses against her daughter’s red cheeks. The sheets were soaked with the mucuses of birth, sweat, and blood. Her nightgown was tangled about her tired limbs, which lent her the look of a mermaid caught in a sea-net, having yet given up its desperate thrashing.
She did not seem to even hear him at all, so Pliny gently touched her arm.
At that, she came alive, flinching and then jerking up to shake off his grip. The babe stirred, but only yawned and then returned to sleep. Marozia flashed her teeth.
“Get away from me,” she rasped. “Leave me alone with my daughter. You foul little worm.”
“I will, Princess,” Pliny said. He was well accustomed to the mistrust many on Drepane harbored toward leeches, but such a slight directly against his person was enough to prick at him. “But first I must ensure that you and the child are sound.”
“I am sound enough to claw your robes to ribbons and your heart to shreds.”
Pliny retracted his hand. He laced its fingers with those of his other and held them across his middle. He did not care for the princess at all—he much preferred the nature and manner of her cousin—but hecould not help feeling a begrudged tug of admiration. She had survived what most other women would not. Such a violent labor he had never seen, and so unprovoked. He had not been given a chance to examine her during the pregnancy; Nicephorus had his own leeches perform this task, but nothing about her general condition suggested to Pliny that she would be so wrung through so brutally as her children were delivered into the world.
At that moment, as if summoned by his thought, Truss and Mordaunt came through the door. Pliny stifled a sigh.
These two leeches—the favored of the king and the Most Esteemed Surgeon—were not, to Pliny’s mind, shining paragons of their order. He had observed them spilling tonics, shattering bones as they were bundled up to be sent to Lord Amycus, and playing inane games of chance in the leeches’ bay. This could occupy them for hours. Once, Pliny had asked the short one, Truss, what had inspired his interest in surgery and ceremony, such that he would take the leech’s somber vows. Vows that would put one always in the reach of death’s white arms. Truss had replied that he enjoyed the company of men who spent their money on gambling instead of on whores.
“Princess.” Mordaunt, the taller and slightly wiser of the two, bowed his head. “Congratulations on the birth of your children.”
Marozia’s dark eyes narrowed to slits and she did not reply. She only clutched the infant closer to her chest.
“Where is the other?” asked Truss.
“Gone,” Marozia hissed. “I do not wish to see it. Do not even speak of it.”
Truss and Mordaunt exchanged dumb glances.
“With the wet nurse, Waltrude,” Pliny answered in Marozia’s stead. “Your daughter will be hungry soon, Princess. I shall call Waltrude back—”
“No!” Marozia cried out, this time with less vitriol than grief. “I will nurse her myself…it is the custom of my house…she will not spend a single night in another’s arms.”
Pliny drew in a breath. Truss and Mordaunt still regarded eachother in doltish bewilderment. A heavy and discomfiting silence filled the room, and it was broken only by a small, soft voice from the corner by Marozia’s bed.
“If it please, my princess,” Ninian whispered, “let me, I beg, at least give you a fresh gown and sheets.”
Marozia’s mouth dragged down into a grimace of pain. Yet she did not protest; she did not even speak. Evidently her handmaiden knew that this silence was assent, for she then moved toward her mistress and began removing the sheets from the bed. A difficult task, as Marozia still lay within it, stiff as a stone, but Ninian persevered.
After watching her labor for several moments, Pliny stepped forward. Silently he withdrew his shears and began to cut the bloodied sheets until mere strips of fabric remained, which could then be slipped out easily from beneath the princess’s unmoving body. Truss and Mordaunt, of course, watched this all without even the subtlest indication of wanting to assist.
Her nightgown was still plastered to her limbs with blood, drying as dark as oil. Gingerly Ninian began to peel back the fabric, but it stuck on her mistress’s skin, and Marozia gave a grunt of displeasure.
“You will need a sponge and water for that,” Pliny said quietly. His gaze flickered to Truss and Mordaunt. “Go fetch them at once.”
Mordaunt gave a haughty sniff, but if Truss chafed at being ordered by a leech of no special stature, he did not show it. The two went obediently, their sepia robes hushing across the stone floor. Once they were gone, Marozia went limp against the bare mattress.
