So perhaps it was no surprise that his entrance did not shift the air within the chapel or alert those within it to his presence. The prince was indeed there—Pliny had been right to expect this—but what else he saw shocked him to stillness, and made all the moisture dry up in his mouth.
The prince was standing at the altar, where every candle had been lit, forming one large swell of flame, greater than its discrete parts. He was half clothed, his breeches shucked and his doublet tugged down to bare one shoulder. And there before him, balanced precariously on the edge of the altar, her hair dangling down in dangerous proximity to the flame, was the lady Agnes.
All the breath was stolen from Pliny’s lungs. Agnes’s gown was pushed up around her hips, and the bodice was ripped—violently, almost, as if passion had prevailed over tenderness. Her breasts were released to the cold air, her nipples two stiff peaks, and they shuddered with each of the prince’s savage thrusts. Yet there was no cruel edge to this savagery; Pliny saw only desperation, the rough and crudeabandon of reason, of reluctance. Agnes gasped and moaned, and the prince twisted his hands into her hair, tipping back her head so the sounds could pour out of her, unobstructed, something else for his senses to feast upon.
This scattered the silver clips about the floor, and the white flowers, those petals of stubborn mourning, were shaken free and cast into the fire. Lord Fredegar’s hold upon her, released. Pliny watched it as though it were the most stunning of metamorphoses, a butterfly cracking open its cocoon, an infant breaching its gray birth caul. The prince’s love—could it be called love?—was changing her in such an astonishing way that it would have beggared his belief if he were not observing it now with his own eyes.
The prince’s thrusts deepened as he grew close to his release, battering his hips against the lady’s. He groaned, a low sound of pure need, and Agnes seemed to answer with her own whimper. His hand found her juddering breast and kneaded it, coaxing another moan from her mouth. His lips moved along her jawline and down her throat, in a manner almost worshipful.
Pliny was then possessed by the notion that it was beautiful. This highest of treasons, this act of perfidy, which could break all of Drepane and sink the island into the sea—both Agnes and the prince were wise enough to know this, and yet they feasted upon their own pleasure as though it were a banquet upon an endless table. And Pliny understood that it was more than lust, for they both could have satisfied that need elsewhere and not risked the very order of the world. He knew, down to the marrow of his austere and ancient bones, that what he saw before him was no less than love.
And for being love, the danger was immeasurable. This cold fear clutched at Pliny, like the grasping of ghosts. Liuprand spilled his seed within the lady and choked—nearly sobbed—with relief. Agnes collapsed against him, shoulders rising and falling, as if she could not breathe around the knowledge of her treachery, as if she were being strangled, slowly, by her apostate heart.
X
Tantalus
Never had Agnes been summoned to the king’s private chambers before. There was no reason for her to expect it and, even now, she was surprised by the request to join him there. She was further surprised to learn that these chambers were so far from the other apartments, those occupied by the prince and Marozia and herself. He was nearer to the servants’ quarters and the leeches’ bay, one short stone staircase above the great hall. When she considered this, it made a good deal of sense. Even in these past nine months, the king’s mobility had been greatly reduced. He could not ascend steps without assistance from at least three attendants, and of course he would not wish to be very distant from the kitchens.
Yet—when she entered the chamber, Agnes was impregnated with the heavy scent of ripening fruit. It made the room thick and damp like the air above a scummy pond. She choked on her first inhale and put a hand decorously over her mouth. She felt thatshewas the one to rudely penetrate this perversely hallowed place, that her presence was the infection and not the reverse, that this was an environment that could not foster burgeoning and tender life; it could only spread about decay.
Her senses had not misled her. Piled about the chamber were bowls and bowls of fruit, most of them past ripe and into rot, softening and blackening. They overfilled their vessels and tumbled onto the floor, where they leaked their putrid juices. The carpet was spongy, like moss thick with rainwater, and each step wet the soles of Agnes’s feet.
Nausea slicked through her. She should not be here. Her handthrobbed, those dormant nerve endings flaring like signal fires, alerting her to the danger of being alone with Nicephorus. And, too, there was a less cerebral fear within her: the base and animal fear of entering a world in which she did not belong, a world she could not know, could not love, and that could not love her in return. She was in it like poison in a vein. Like a worm in an apple. Her vision shuddered.
“Come. Come here,” the king rasped. Agnes could not see him, only his shadow; he was behind a thin screen. “And bring me a bowl.”
Agnes recoiled at such a request, her shoulders pinching. How could she touch—she should not touch—and yet it was an order, which she could not refuse. So with no small amount of reluctance, she reached for the nearest bowl. The fruit within was so far gone that its rancid juices sloshed about when she grasped it. The bowl was copper, and heavier than she expected. She had to draw an arm around it and hold the vessel to her breast as she approached the king behind the screen.
He was half reclined upon a velvet chaise, his doublet unbuttoned to show the stained shift beneath. It stretched and pulled tautly across his tumescent belly, turned as thin as onionskin by such strain, translucent enough that Agnes glimpsed through it to see his dimpled flesh. Blue veins bulged gruesomely on his neck, pulsing a sluggish beat. Past his shift, he wore nothing at all. His legs were bare and mottled purple. Several toes, Agnes noticed, had been removed, and some not-so-clever leech had badly cauterized the incision, leaving the scar tissue lumpy and gnarled as a knot on a tree.
Every step must cause him great pain, Agnes thought. She wished this realization pleased her. Yet no sensation could slither through her disgust.
“Here,” Nicephorus snapped. “Give it here.”
Glad to be rid of it, Agnes held the bowl out. Yet she had not grown close enough, and when the king reached for it, he merely swiped at the air. A low growl of frustration rumbled in his throat.
Scattered about the floor around were empty bowls, overturned, and the mushy black rot within them spilled and seeping into thecarpet. Standing there, Agnes contemplated such a tormented existence. The fruit was all around him, yet he could not reach it without help. The rot was not the sickness itself; it was a symptom. For the king would have consumed all the fruit, quickly, if he were simply able to grasp it in his own hands. But because he could not, this world was a torturous one. It was water running over him, yet nothing he could drink.
Pity, at last, wriggled its way through her revulsion.
Agnes stepped closer, and the king successfully grabbed the bowl. He fished through the slime and pulp for the most intact fruit and bit into it. Rancid juice, dark as ink, ran down his chin. Agnes’s stomach rippled and churned.
King Nicephorus ate the fruit down to its core before he spoke again.
“I am told I have two grandchildren,” he said.
Agnes frowned, wondering why she had been the one summoned to relay this information. “Yes, Your Majesty.”
“And are they hale?”
Her frown deepened. “Perhaps, Your Majesty, you might speak to a leech. I do not have their art; I am not fit to judge—”
“All my leeches are imbeciles. They prefer knucklebones to setting bones and gambling coin to stitching wounds. I am asking you, Lady Agnes. Did you not witness the princess’s labor?”
“I did,” she replied slowly. “It was not an easy one. The princess survived, but barely.” The king’s expression did not shift; it was as if the words had not been heard at all. “But as best as I am given to know, the children will live.”
The king gave a mere grunt of acknowledgment, neither pleased nor displeased. An ember of rage burned within Agnes. All of this garish suffering, all of this blood, at his orchestration—yet now he could not even be persuaded to feign joy at its happy outcome?Hehad done this, he was the architect of her agony, and Marozia’s, and his son’s. She recalled the gash on Liuprand’s cheek, his swollen lip, and the ember of rage grew to engulf her, flushing her cheeks and quickening thebeat of her heart. She would do it, she thought, she would speak, or otherwise make her fury known—
