Chapter XXIX Mistress of Teeth #2
For this, even Liuprand could not summon an argument.
The fog of bewilderment around Agnes began to clear, and in its place rose a cold, choking mist of fear.
She could not be married off. Adele-Blanche had forbidden it.
The words writ upon her stomach were clear.
She could seek no lustful pleasures; she could not share another’s bed.
She was not Mistress of Teeth, but she was the secret heiress to Adele-Blanche’s hopes and dreams of power. This could not happen.
Yet she could not speak in order to stop it.
All Liuprand could respond was, “A king must still take care not to estrange himself from his powerful allies.” His voice was a murmur, and his gaze was no longer on his father. He was watching Agnes with a growing horror, his dark-blue eyes showing their immeasurable depths.
“Then we are in agreement,” Nicephorus said.
He clapped his hands together, and the sound made Agnes flinch.
“The title Mistress of Teeth will be transferred to the lady Agnes. Then let us see the Master of Blood refuse such a noble and propitious match!” With a jerk of his chin, he gestured to Liuprand. “My son, will you do the honors?”
Confusion clouded Liuprand’s features. Agnes, too, found herself bewildered again. It was Marozia who first understood. She uttered a small, wordless noise of protest, and her fingers clenched around the necklace of teeth.
“Go on,” Nicephorus urged.
Slowly, his movements made heavy and stiff with chagrin, Liuprand approached Marozia.
Her breathing was quick; Agnes saw the labored rising and falling of her cousin’s chest. She even thought she saw tears springing to the corners of her eyes, glistening like shards of precious stone.
Liuprand raised his hands hesitantly, but before he could touch her, Marozia reached back and swept the hair off her shoulders herself.
She held her great mane of dark curls aloft while Liuprand unclasped the necklace and drew it from her throat.
It was not grief that Marozia exuded. Agnes knew her cousin as well as she knew her own hands.
Anger rose off her in great waves. It gusted toward the king, but he was too far away to feel it.
It blew toward Liuprand, and he felt it: He stepped briskly away from her, drawing up his shoulders—almost shivering, cowed by his own wife.
His fingers had barely grazed her, yet this was the only touch that had occurred between them since their wedding day.
The discomfort of the moment was so obvious that even the king seemed to notice; one of his pale eyebrows rose.
But most of Marozia’s anger was reserved for Agnes.
The cold cloud of it enveloped her, raising gooseflesh down her limbs.
Agnes had not known Marozia capable of this icy type of rage—but perhaps she was finally coming into her inheritance.
This was Adele-Blanche’s poison, seeping through the generations.
Marozia could not truly remain unspoiled.
Agnes had not moved even a muscle, yet to Marozia’s mind, she had marched over and yanked the necklace violently from her throat.
And this anger filled Agnes to the brim, like sips of heady, unwatered wine. The poison was in her, too. There was no antidote for one’s own blood.
Liuprand stepped behind her—so close that she could feel the heat of his body.
It sent fleeing some of Marozia’s wintry anger.
Because Agnes’s hair was, as always, aloft in its braided crown, he did not have to lift it from her throat.
He merely had to sweep away some of the soft, feathery strands so they would not be caught in the clasp.
Or perhaps he did not have to. Perhaps he only chose to, brushing his fingers so gently across the back of her neck that she shivered.
He did not speak, nor did she. He drew the necklace around her throat, faintly grazing her jaw as he wrapped it.
Agnes did not have her cousin’s full bust, so the third strand hung down deep between her small breasts, low enough to nearly touch her rib cage.
Despite having been pressed to Marozia’s skin, the teeth were cold, and she felt her own skin prickle.
Liuprand was so close that she could hear his breathing—irregular and short, as if this small act required great effort.
His fingers fumbled with the clasp. Once, twice, it caught and then slipped.
He exhaled softly. Against the back of her neck, his fingers actually trembled, and it made Agnes tremble, too.
Never before had he seemed at all fragile to her—not Liuprand the Golden, blood of Seraph.
But as his hands shook, and as he breathed unevenly, all of a sudden he seemed as shy and hesitant as a very young boy in the presence of his paramour.
She chastised herself for this thought. It was a dream she was not allowed to dream, more treasonous than any seeds she had planted or smoke she inhaled.
This whole process could not have lasted very long, but the time was somehow infinite, a tender, languid unfolding of moments.
Then the clasp was fixed with a soft snick of finality.
The necklace settled against her skin, across her collarbones, between her breasts.
It was like a coiling serpent, like a prisoner’s manacles.
It both choked her and armored her. It was an affront to the legacy of her house and the secret wish of Adele-Blanche.
Agnes had only heard her whisper it once, offhandedly, and often she thought she had simply imagined it, for the sentiment had never been repeated.
But her grandmother did not ever speak without depth of meaning or height of reason.
A pity you were born to the spare and not the heir. I would rather see a clever mind on the throne than a simple pretty face.
Marozia, of course, had not heard this offhand comment.
She was not invited to listen and learn at Adele-Blanche’s feet.
She had tutors for her harp and seamstresses for her gowns and leeches to treat the occasional blemish.
And she had Agnes for every other whim or desire, Agnes to warm their shared bed.
But she did not have their grandmother’s esteem.
And Agnes thought for the first time that Marozia truly knew that, comprehended the fullness of her dismissal.
Or else tears would not right now be threatening to spill from her dark eyes.
As Liuprand stepped away from her, Nicephorus nodded approvingly.
“The bauble suits you,” he declared. “As does the title. She is the spitting image of Adele-Blanche, no?”
He directed this question at Liuprand, his stare leering and expectant.
Liuprand lifted his gaze to look at her. It was a lidded gaze, tempestuous and dark. Each time Agnes thought she had uncovered him, he confounded her again; she could not read the emotion within his eyes now. Without taking his gaze off her, he said lowly, “I do not see the resemblance.”
Did he mean it as an insult? His voice was not cold, though it was not warm, either.
Perhaps he meant to cheer his wife’s spirits by slighting Agnes, but Marozia did not even appear to notice.
She had her fist clenched at her breast as if feeling for the vanished necklace, her fingers closing around empty air.
Almost unconsciously, Agnes lifted her own hand.
She let the teeth roll under her fingers like pebbles on the riverbank.
Her grandmother’s inheritance. A hope dashed and a wish fulfilled at once.
And a portent of Agnes’s doom.
“Well, Mistress of Teeth,” the king said, raising his mighty head, “prepare yourself for your betrothal. Pack your gowns and choose which handmaidens will attend. The House of Blood is not far, but the journey is a treacherous one. Pretty yourself, too. Some powder on those pale cheeks. I must not risk insulting the Master of Blood with my offering. A beautiful bride is essential to this mending of alliances and soothing of ills. Oh, and the Master of Blood has been alone for so long. I know he resents the coldness of his bed. He will be so happy to have a woman for his fondling, he will fall upon you with insatiable lust. I hope you are firm enough, despite that fragile shell, to satisfy these hungers without being eaten to the bone.”