Chapter XXI The Language of Rustling Wings #2
Agnes was no such creature. She rose, dusting off her skirts and brushing her palms clean. She was long past being afraid of him. In fact, when she lifted her gaze to meet his, she felt a bristle of defiance.
Liuprand held her gaze, but she did not miss the swallow ticking in his throat. “You always appear to me in the strangest places.”
Marozia had left their bed and he had risen alone.
He must know that Marozia had told her of their failed consummation, of his cold refusal.
Perhaps this was why he appeared slightly diminished.
It was not only Marozia’s duty to please her husband, but his duty to furnish the realm with an heir.
The fault and blame for this was always assumed to lie with the woman, if no one was any the wiser.
But Agnes knew the truth of what had occurred in his bedchamber—or rather, what had not.
“Your cousin tells me you do not speak at all,” Liuprand said. “Not since you were a child. I had thought that maybe you spoke to her alone, where none else could hear. But she tells me this is not true.”
It was bold of him, Agnes thought, to mention Marozia.
She also thought it was odd that she had been a point of conversation at all, in such close proximity to their marriage bed.
Still, she did not understand the prince’s interest in her speech, or lack of it.
Many others found it a mild curiosity, at first. But with time its novelty wore, and they abandoned their interest in her muteness, and usually in Lady Agnes altogether.
If their interest did persist, it was only because they found the totality of her silence maddening. Yet never had Liuprand seemed angry.
“Is it fear?” he asked, quite baldly. “Do you think you will be punished if you speak?”
Agnes pressed her lips together. She shook her head.
“Are you afraid of what you will say, if you cajole your tongue to move?”
If Agnes did speak, she would have told Liuprand that he would tire of this guessing game long before he could defeat her silence.
“I would not think you weak, if you were afraid. We all armor ourselves against our fear the best we can.”
Agnes examined the prince’s beautiful face.
She had not precisely grown accustomed to its beauty; it was more that she could now appreciate its subtleties and finesses, having had the opportunity to look upon him so closely all these times.
She saw the faint cleft of his chin. She saw that his hair was not that pure dark gold, but in fact woven with strands of lighter flaxen, which caught the glare of the sun and held it.
And she saw, with some alarm, the bruised circles under his eyes.
They were not dreadfully deep, but she had never seen such a human-looking imperfection upon his face.
If Marozia had slept uneasily, it seemed as though he had not slept at all.
There was a shifty, slippery feeling in her belly. It occurred to her that perhaps Marozia had not told her the whole truth of what had occurred in that bedchamber. But her cousin had never lied to her before. Why would she begin now?
Liuprand then said, “Will you come with me?”
Agnes stiffened. She still had the roots and buds in her gown pocket and did not want to risk losing them, and with every moment they wilted and grew less liable to bloom when they were put into the earth.
And what if—by some measure of misfortune—Liuprand discovered them?
He was perceptive, and in their every meeting he watched her intently, almost overly so.
Still she could not guess why the prince found her such an intriguing creature.
She also found herself unable to shake the indignation she felt on Marozia’s behalf—no matter the details, he had not deigned to lie with her; that much she knew Marozia would not fabricate.
But for all Liuprand’s lack of forcefulness now, he was still her prince. She could not outright refuse.
So Agnes merely nodded and allowed Liuprand to lead her through a white stone archway on the east side of the courtyard. There was a narrow dirt path shaded by vaulting olive trees, and the sun came warm and dappled through the branches.
A low rustling sound reached her ears, which she thought at first was the wind among the leaves, but the olive trees remained unruffled. It was only when the path ended and bore them both into the courtyard that Agnes could see the sound’s source: a great flurrying of a hundred pairs of wings.
It was a proper garden blooming with a riot of colors, almost too garish to be real, as though it were a scene embroidered in a tapestry.
Roses turned their bright-pink faces to the sun.
Hydrangeas clambered up their lattices, their flowers blooming between the plaits of wood in great, round bunches the size of beehives.
The tendrils of willow branches waved in the breeze, and pear trees scattered their white petals through the air like flurries of snow.
And among them, perched on every stem and branch and leaf and petal, were moths.
Moths of all colors, all patterns, and all sizes, from some that were small enough to fit on the pad of her finger to others that could sit upon her shoulder like Hartwig’s companionable raven.
Sunlight filtered through their membranous wings, showing the spread of veins beneath.
The greater moths had thoraxes as large as honeycombs, and legs that flexed and bent like copper wire.
One large moth swiveled its head and pinned Agnes with bulbous black eyes.
She could see her own bewildered reflection in those shiny eyes, but more, she saw a keenness beyond that of an ordinary animal.
This was no base creature, operating only on instinct.
It took to the air, flicking off pollen, and fluttered toward Agnes.
It hovered before her, wings pulsing. There was a true intellect within, she realized, couched inside its deceitfully common insect body.
The moth seemed to perceive this realization from her and be pleased by it. Slowly, it lowered itself onto her shoulder and nuzzled her cheek fondly.
Alarmed, Agnes looked over at Liuprand.
“Gray is for grief,” he said. There was a slight, enigmatic smile on his face.
She merely stared back, mouth ajar.
“Gray is for grief,” he repeated. “False eyes for a false surrender. Sapphire for fires; gold for relief. A clear wing calls for a defender. This is the language of moths, conceived by my ancestor Berengar. He sought to pass furtive messages to his generals stationed on other parts of the island and across the sea in Seraph. But he feared a letter could be intercepted. He needed a secret code known only to himself and to his allies, so he devised this system, one built upon the qualities of Drepane’s great variety of moths. ”
Agnes warily regarded the moth perched on her shoulder.
There was no insect of such an astounding size anywhere near Castle Peake.
The only moths that fluttered around the ancestral home of the House of Teeth were tiny, dull, wax-colored creatures, which could be swatted dead with the errant swipe of a hand.
Agnes imagined slaying an animal like the one nuzzling her cheek would require an arrow or a spear meant for a beast.
“At first this code was quite rudimentary,” Liuprand went on.
“Red for retreat, violet for victory, cobalt for a sound defeat. The like. But as his conquest wore on he realized he needed to pass more complex messages. So he began the task of breeding these moths for particular traits—size and pattern, in addition to basic color. If white was the shade of displeasure, and silver the shade of regret, and a larger moth meant a stronger sentiment, then what could Berengar’s general be given to know when a great white moth with stripes of silver landed upon his arm? ”
He looked to Agnes expectantly, as though he thought she might answer. She wondered if he would ever give up this task of drawing out her speech.
When she did not reply, Liuprand deflated very subtly, his golden aura growing paler.
“Well,” he said, “since Drepane has been at peace, the moths have not been formally bred for many years. But they propagate among themselves, as you can see, so nearly every sentiment known to the human heart can be expressed, if you can find a moth with all the particular qualities. They are intelligent creatures, too, at least as clever as ravens and crows, and their breeding has engendered in them a desire to make bonds with humans.”
The moth perched on Agnes’s shoulder was gray all over, a wholly patternless gray, dense and matte, such that the sun could scarcely manage to leak through its parchment-thin wings.
The membranes did not show clearly; they were disguised by this solid color.
There was a steadiness to its dark gaze—if an insect could be said to have a gaze at all—and its weight upon her was warm and solid.
“Fuchsia for a forward march.” Liuprand was watching her as intently as ever, and his voice grew low.
The breeze pulled down petals from the pear tree, scattering them through his golden hair.
“Emerald for a true surrender. One dark wing and one white means resolve. This type of speckling, here, which is like the bark on a birch—that is for an apology. This iridescence—it is subtle; you must wait for the wing to catch the light—means love. And this precise shade of green is for sacrifice.”
The moth Liuprand indicated was the color of a ripe lime, and its wings were banded with gold—or was it yellow?
There seemed to Agnes an awful lot of room for error in this system; what if someone mistook sapphire for cerulean?
And she could not imagine there was any need to transmit a message of love during wartime.
The lime-green moth fluttered off its perch on the neck of a rose and landed on Liuprand’s outstretched hand. It was a tiny insect, small enough to fit within his palm. Little, lime green—a minor sacrifice? Agnes frowned as her own moth shifted somewhat discontentedly on her shoulder.
“You see,” Liuprand said, drawing himself up to his full height and now exuding the full force of that potent golden aura she had come to know him by, “this is why we with tongues and mouths and human minds use our words to communicate. Without speech, things so easily become muddled.”
A flush rose to Agnes’s face. She turned on her heel and marched past the hedge lattice, through the willow fronds. Her sudden movement dislodged the gray moth on her shoulder, and it fluttered away to ornament the stem of a hydrangea.
Agnes’s gaze searched among the flowers and plants.
She carefully inspected the arrangements of petals, the pattern of bark on the trunks, and of course the moths fixed to them or fluttering through the air.
She glimpsed one through the hedge lattice and slowly worked her way toward it.
She was surprised by how easy it was to coax the moth onto her finger.
Then she returned to Liuprand, marching back through the softly undulating willow branches. The moth on her finger tittered. It was the size of a sparrow and had one black wing, one white.
Gently, Agnes raised her arm and urged the moth into the air. It flitted across the space between them and landed on Liuprand’s outstretched hand.
A wry, pleased smile turned up Liuprand’s mouth. He allowed the moth to crawl along his fingers and settle in his cupped palm.
“Black and white for resolve,” he said. “Very well.”
He retreated then, vanishing among a tall cluster of foxgloves. When he returned, he had another moth held aloft on his arm. Larger, sturdier, like an adolescent falcon. He urged it into the air, and Agnes raised her own arm to receive it.
It landed nimbly upon the inside of her wrist. She turned her hand over to examine it, yet the color could not be mistaken.
It was a deep and vivid fuchsia, and when the sun shot through its papery wings, Agnes swore she saw a glimmer of iridescence.
But then the light changed, and she could not find that shimmery effect again.
Fuchsia, for a forward march. She looked up at Liuprand, who was still smiling in that clever way.
“You will not drive me back so easily, Lady Agnes,” he said.
Liuprand the Dauntless. Liuprand the Resolute.
There were many epithets for brave kings, for gallant, unfaltering kings.
As if the annals of history would be writ with his success in coaxing one inconsequential lady to speak.
He should be seeking other ways to dress his legacy in gilt and armor.
Of course—his legacy would not be guaranteed until he gave the realm an heir.
He was such an inscrutable character, this prince.
So preeminent when he faced his subjects, so gracious with his nobles, courting them with civility, never seeking to instill fear.
Forceful but not malicious in his dealings, even when it was past the point of propriety.
Remote in affect, cold and unyielding, but never cruel. And yet—
He hid away in libraries, sought his pleasure among the pages of arcane books. He forsook his lawful wife in their bedchamber only to waste his hours endearing himself to her cousin, the lesser lady in all respects, hardly worth noticing, much less befriending.
Agnes looked down at the ring. Nothing passed beneath Liuprand’s attention; he would have seen her wearing it. All of this for what? She began to think the prince was as secretive a creature as she was, his true nature unknown to all others, perhaps obscure even to himself.
The fuchsia-colored moth fluttered off her wrist and disappeared among some large stalks of lavender.
Agnes left Liuprand again and returned with a moth whose wings had large, optical-looking spots.
When it fluttered from her hand to Liuprand’s, he laughed—openly, as she had never heard him do before. False eyes for a false surrender.
Agnes found that she quite liked the sound of his laugh. She found that she wanted to draw it out of him, again and again. And she found that she could, through this droll casting of moths back and forth. That was how she came to know the language of rustling wings.
The sun rose to its highest point in the sky as they spoke without speaking. And by the time duty called them both away, her back to Marozia’s bedchamber, Liuprand back to whatever princely business, Agnes realized she had entirely forgotten to plant her grandmother’s treasonous seeds.