Chapter XXXVII Sequelae #2
And Marozia. Agnes’s breath caught within her throat.
Her cousin stood before the dais, hands clasped at her waist. It was a more docile pose than Agnes could ever remember seeing from her.
But there was no obeisance in her eyes. They burned like the vivifying oil within dark lanterns.
After so many days absent from her—more days than Agnes had ever passed without Marozia in her entire life—her cousin’s beauty was as astonishing as a sudden spilling of blood.
Red, she wore, deep and dark, with a matching hood that held back her long hair, caught now within a single thick plait.
She had replaced the necklace of teeth with a great golden choker, one that nearly obscured the whole column of her throat.
Agnes need not have wondered who had procured the necklace and who had braided her hair.
The girl Ninian was at her side, regarding her mistress with slavish love.
Marozia’s eyes lifted to regard Agnes, and Agnes knew what she saw.
First she must have seen the flowers she wore in her hair, white flowers, to honor Lord Fredegar.
She must have seen the way her hair was not held up in its customary crown but rather flowed over her shoulders and down her back, like a pour of water.
And she must have seen, of course, the new necklace, the elegant bauble that reflected the graces of modernity rather than the garish horrors of the past.
Agnes met her cousin’s gaze without blinking.
A white foam of guilt crested within her, but it was not guilt alone.
Beneath it, the water of her defiance was dark.
These two forces were not opposed; they were twined inextricably, a single wave that crashed and rose and then crashed again.
She looked down at the ring on Marozia’s finger, and this vexing tide grew in power and ferocity.
The king’s voice jolted Agnes from the inner workings of her mind.
“The House of Blood’s messengers preceded you,” Nicephorus said. “I know all that occurred within its walls.”
Liuprand regarded his father but did not speak. It was not fear that drove his silence, but rather the same waters that churned within him, words lost in their tumultuous foam.
“For all your high-and-mighty talk of diplomacy, of peace…” Nicephorus’s throat rattled with mucus as his pitch rose. “You have destroyed any rapport between the royal line and the House of Blood. It is expired, extinct, forever gone.”
Liuprand tilted his chin, undaunted. “The House of Blood destroyed itself. A son, slaughtering his own father on his wedding night—you would have me leave this crime unpunished? You would let a kinslayer wear the title Master of Blood? I would not have imagined you to take patricide so lightly.”
“So now you are aghast at the thought of a son betraying his father!” Nicephorus’s voice boomed through the mostly empty hall, and a cruel, humorless laugh followed.
“Always you have thought yourself too clever. But now you have shown your true face. There could have been a swift death for the betrayer, but you insisted upon the utmost depravity. Had justice been served with a mundane, expeditious hand, perhaps the Crown would not now find itself bereft of the confidence of two Houses.”
“Two?” Liuprand echoed. “Why two?”
The king let out a breath of contempt. “Because, foolish boy, the House of Blood and the House of Eyes have long been bound by marriage. Lady Ygraine’s father is Master of Eyes.”
That vulpine color of her hair. Now Agnes knew where she had recognized it. A woozy feeling of dread rose within her.
“Now Thrasamund is roiling with fury at the gross crime inflicted upon his daughter. He has forsaken all amity between his house and the Crown.”
Liuprand’s face had paled very slightly, but he did not quiver as he spoke. “Justice had to be done. Not only for Lord Fredegar, but for the lady Agnes.”
Nicephorus’s watery eyes flickered to her. Agnes flinched, and a sudden, revived pain shivered from her hand through her arm. Yet the king’s gaze did not linger; he turned swiftly back to his son.
“Liuprand the Just,” he said, tone full of dripping mockery. “Is that the epithet you seek? You have plunged Drepane into greater turmoil than ever with this act of barbarous justice.”
He allowed the hall to grow quiet for a moment, eyes still trained on his son. He expected a rejoinder, but Agnes knew that Liuprand would not grant him such satisfaction. He regarded his father in stony silence, his lips pressed into a thin line and his jaw taut with trembling pressure.
“Luckily for you,” the king went on, coolly now, “I have come to a solution that will assuage all wounds.”
Liuprand was quiet for several moments more, reluctant to indulge his father, before finally asking in a half-strangled voice, “And what is that?”
Nicephorus smiled. It was a resplendent smile, almost beautiful, yet perverse as it crossed his hideous face.
And even before he spoke, an icy, infinite horror was clambering up Agnes’s spine, like vines made of pure winter cold.
For as much as she had scarcely permitted herself to dream of Liuprand’s fetters broken, his love for her surmounting all, she had not allowed herself to imagine that there might be a worse fate for him still.
“You have yourself said many times that marriage is the most potent method of forming alliances. So I have proposed exactly that. You will make your union with the princess Marozia fruitful at once. She will bear a daughter, and that daughter will be betrothed upon birth to Lord Gamelyn, the boy who is now master. When she is of age, they will marry. The House of Blood has agreed to these terms, and even Lord Thrasamund’s anger has been abated.
Are you not pleased, sweet son, at such civil diplomacy?
It is your seed, sown within the princess, that will preserve Drepane. ”