Chapter XXX A Very Heavy Silence
XXX
A Very Heavy Silence
Agnes sat in the half dark, a golden cage upon her knee. The metal chilled her skin even through the fabric of her skirts. But the cage was empty, and the moth was on her shoulder. It nuzzled her cheek. Its body was warm and soft, though the comfort it offered was cold.
The carriage trundled along, jostling and jolting over what seemed to be more rough stone than road. Agnes had to cling to the seat so she was not thrust against the carriage wall or hurled forward. If she were hurled forward, she would land in Liuprand’s lap.
Liuprand. He had not taken his eyes off her since they had climbed together into the carriage, though he was yet to speak.
His blue eyes smoldered like burning glass, giving them the quality of chiaroscuro, equal parts light and shadow.
Agnes could not be entirely sure, but she suspected that the carriage’s third passenger was what prevented his speech.
Waltrude sat on the bench beside her, crinkly lips pressed together.
She had an overall discomfiting presence, her gaze shifting unreadably from Agnes to Liuprand and back again.
She knew her place and would not speak unless directly addressed, but Agnes sensed there were words on the tip of her tongue just barely restrained.
The wet nurse was not, perhaps, the most natural choice for a companion—though Agnes had few options.
Ninian would never be persuaded to leave Marozia’s side, and Castle Crudele’s other handmaidens regarded the strange silent lady with suspicion and unease.
Liuprand had suggested Waltrude, and Agnes had no good reason to refuse him.
The trust between the two was palpable, their gazes for each other tender and full of well-worn love.
And at Liuprand’s request, Waltrude had come to treat Agnes’s wounds with great gentleness.
This in turn engendered trust in her. It would have to be enough.
Agnes did not think the nurse’s wizened body could survive standing between her and her betrothed, but it was preferable to having no allies in her new home at all. Well, aside from the moth. It sat placidly upon her shoulder, gray wings folded and sheathed, legs curled under itself like a cat’s.
A wedding gift, Liuprand had said bitterly. Those were the last words he spoke to her before they stepped into the carriage, many hours ago.
The House of Blood was not far away, but, as the king had promised, the journey was indeed treacherous.
It went down a road favored by thieves and other lawbreakers, through a forest of twisted black trees.
They were mangled and ugly, as if they had each been struck down by a powerful bolt of lightning, and though the bare branches offered no concealment, the mist was thick enough that Agnes knew there were knives and clubs and greedy-eyed villains hiding within.
Yet only a crazed fool would attempt to storm the carriage.
Liuprand had insisted on taking the largest retinue that Castle Crudele could spare.
There were twenty-four members of the Dolorous Guard with them, twelve before the carriage and twelve behind, each with his sword unsheathed and held aloft as they parted the mist of the woods.
“I have heard no stories about the especial cruelty of the Master of Blood,” Liuprand said.
The suddenness of his speech made Agnes’s head snap up. She regarded him with uncertainty.
“I have not seen him myself since I was a child,” he admitted. “When his wife still lived. He seemed a docile enough man. Reasonable. I do not know what has provoked his spat with my father, but his quarrel is with the king. I do not think…”
Liuprand trailed off, a quiet agony entering his tone. Agnes felt her heart stutter. He cleared his throat and went on, “He has no animus for the House of Teeth. Unless your grandmother gravely offended him before her death.”
Adele-Blanche did not have enough contact with the other houses to offend them. Her coldness held her fellow nobles at a distance, which truthfully was better for all. Agnes shook her head.
Liuprand’s eyes shone faintly with relief, though his mouth still slanted in dismay.
“My father sought to frighten you,” he murmured. “I do not know how much of what he said is true. But I will not…” He paused, drawing in a breath. “I will not allow you to be harmed, Lady Agnes. Do you believe me?”
Desperation cracked his voice. Agnes met his gaze, and then slowly, she nodded.
He exhaled. “I will remain with you at the House of Blood until the wedding. The Dolorous Guard will protect you with their own lives. Waltrude will keep to your side, always. And if ever you are afraid, send your moth to me, and I will come. Do you believe that as well?”
Agnes nodded again. Liuprand’s jaw clenched and he looked away from her, out the window, at the black trees fingering through the mist. He did not know what war was being fought behind Agnes’s eyes.
He did not know that she was thinking of seeds and of smoke and the vapors of her dreams. He did not know that she feared the dead more than she feared the living.
She had not even had time to harvest the henbane and mandrake before she was shuttled into the carriage.
She had been forced to leave behind her mortar and pestle.
And now, with each passing moment, she was carried farther away from the secrets she was meant to uncover, from the library where the forbidden spell-words lurked, from the castle where her destiny lay.
She wore her grandmother’s necklace of teeth, but it lay across her throat in cold shame.
She was failing Adele-Blanche. And even if she beat against the walls of the carriage and tore at her hair, she could not stop it.
Agnes was too afraid of her grandmother’s posthumous existence to even let sleep draw down her eyelids.
The scars on her stomach burned as if they were new.
She had come to Castle Crudele and squandered all her chances.
What was the worth of her life now? And when the Master of Blood pinned her down to the sheets and broke apart the seal between her legs, it would not matter if she managed to find her way back to Castle Crudele, if she uncovered the words of the spell, because she could never cast it—she would be spoiled, too disgraced for her purpose.
She leaned back against the seat and closed her tired eyes, but only for a moment, not long enough for her vision to be smudged with black. If she let herself sink too deeply into darkness, her grandmother would swiftly come.
The moth on her shoulder shifted, its wing brushing her cheek.
Liuprand was watching her again, and now she returned his gaze, but this summoned an even sharper pain.
She could scarcely see him without imagining Marozia in his bed.
Her cousin’s hands tangling in his golden hair, fingers spreading across his broad, bare chest. The bruise on his cheek was nearly gone now.
It was only the look of desolation on his face that made him seem less than princely.
Liuprand the Sorrowful, she thought bemusedly.
But why? He should not grieve her. She should be nothing to him.
Agnes looked down at her left hand. It was still swaddled in bandages, and her fingers could not move the way she willed them.
But the ring glinted up from between the white fabric and the pink, swollen flesh.
It gleamed more subtly than a flame, but more steadily, too.
It would not burn down or be snuffed out.
In fact, it would pass beneath all others’ attentions. All but hers and Liuprand’s.
And one more? When she lifted her gaze again, Agnes saw Waltrude was staring down at her hand, too.
Her sharp green eyes reflected the soft glow of the pearls.
The corner of her mouth quivered as if she wanted desperately to speak.
There was knowledge in her stare, but it was a wretched knowledge, which she seemed to resent having learned.
And Agnes could not quite puzzle it out.
The wet nurse knew something she did not.