Chapter XI A Meeting
XI
A Meeting
Agnes cast a horrified glance at Marozia and rushed out of the room after Waltrude.
She was not horrified for the same reason as Marozia, whose bed she had shared since they were old enough to no longer need the nearness of their mothers—though in truth the idea of trying to sleep at night with a heavy stone wall between them made her insides shrink and coil, too.
Neither she nor Marozia could tolerate the other’s absence.
But more immediately, Agnes had to reach her trunks before the servants began unpacking them. She had to hide the treasonous cargo—those herbs and potions inside.
She was in such a hurry that she did not hear footsteps on the floor behind her; in fact, she heard nothing at all until the prince’s voice echoed down the hall.
“Lady Agnes.”
Instantly she halted. There was an imperiousness to his tone that well befit a prince. Had her treason already been uncovered?
Stiffly, slowly, she turned. Liuprand had already taken his great long strides down the corridor and now stood so that she was in reach of his arms, should he grasp for her.
But he did not. He only stood. And Agnes wondered if she would ever become accustomed to his beauty; if ever it would become as mundane to her as a painting or a tapestry on the wall she passed every day.
“Have you settled?” he asked. “Are your accommodations to your liking?”
Coldness crept up her spine. If she nodded, she was a liar, and if she shook her head, she invited more questions that she could not answer without provoking suspicion. So she remained silent and did not move or even blink.
Liuprand stared down at her, and his gaze was searing. “Well?”
A mere two meetings and he had already discerned her. Agnes wished that Marozia had followed her into the hall. She wished for her cousin’s voice, always ready, always fluid, always perfectly tuned, to fill the palpable silence.
“Answer me,” Liuprand said. His pitch had grown lower, and Agnes flinched.
He barely let another moment pass before he prodded at her again.
“You must speak. I am your prince. You cannot refuse my orders.”
Her stomach pooled with ice, but the ice she knew, and it was like armor to her. Agnes stared back up at him.
“Open your mouth,” Liuprand said.
She was not afraid of the prince, not really.
Even now, his orders had been without malice; his face showed no cruelty, only strength of will.
Rather, she became afraid that he might somehow see the things she had, over the years, consumed.
As if there would be plainly visible the scummy, variegated stain on her tongue, or the fleshy bits caught like maggots between her teeth.
Her lips were trembling. She opened her mouth.
Gently, with a single finger, Liuprand tipped up her chin.
“You have not been maimed,” he said bemusedly as he peered down the dark cavern of her throat. “Everything is intact. So why do you not speak?”
She had not anticipated being confronted like this, and certainly not by Liuprand.
This matter was well beneath him. What did he have to gain in coaxing words from the mouth of his bride’s cousin?
Agnes would serve Marozia as she always had, in dutiful silence.
It had been a long time since anyone had spoken to her and expected speech in return.
The silence stretched out and filled the space between them. It felt like a solid mass, something that could be cleaved by a sword. Still Liuprand held her chin, and his gaze ran itself over her face, as if her eyes might divulge something that her mouth would not.
If she tried, Agnes could thrust her silence out around her until it became less a shield and more a weapon, a spear-point, a dagger.
She could make it wound anyone who dared to come close—who dared to stay close for so long, as Liuprand did.
Would he feel the prick of her blade? It did not appear so.
His eyes were steady, and his finger rested there just below her bottom lip, and with every moment that passed her skin warmed beneath his touch and chased away the ice that ran through her veins.
At last, Liuprand dropped his hand. “Very well,” he said.
Agnes felt the loss immediately. Winter rushed back into her blood.
“You may go.”
She gave the slightest of nods and waited for Liuprand to leave.
He did not. He continued to watch her until at last Agnes turned around out of pure mortification, because there was a very uncommon blush rising to her cheeks.
Even as she went, she felt his gaze on her.
She dared to give the inconspicuous look back, just a quick glance over her shoulder.
Liuprand had dropped his eyes, in an almost mollified, boyish way, and was staring down at his own hand, the one that had tipped up her chin.
She wondered if her skin had leached its coldness into him, as his had bled warmth into hers.
But she dismissed the thought. She was nothing, a shadow, a white curl of breath in the dark.
She could not leave a mark upon Drepane’s golden prince.
Yet as she turned and walked briskly down the corridor, her heart pulsed within the iron vise of her sternum, like a caught bird in a clutching fist.