Chapter XIV With Barbaric Luster #2
“Then forgive me,” Childeric said, “for I have misjudged my position—and perhaps yours as well. In the tales that are told across the island, you are lonely, shackled by your widowhood, confined to this castle for the pleasure of the princess. I thought that you would welcome a betrothal to another lord of fine pedigree.”
“I am not a trodden creature to be pitied.” Agnes’s heart pounded fiercely. “Nor am I a helpless maiden to be rescued.”
“No,” Childeric agreed, “you are not a maiden. Perhaps you were when you wed Lord Fredegar, but years have passed since then. Years in which—forgive me, lady—your fruits have begun to wither. I had assumed that as Mistress of Teeth you would desire an heir, and as a woman, you would desire a child. Motherhood is not yet out of reach—”
“Enough,” Agnes said. “Speak no more of this.”
Slowly, and somewhat unsteadily, she rose from her seat. She had not appreciated until that moment how wine-addled she had become, for her vision doubled and her head felt suddenly full of cotton. Agnes drew a breath to compose herself.
Childeric rose, too, though with far greater poise and alacrity. “My deepest apologies, lady. I did not mean any offense.”
The flush on her cheeks was anger now, not joy, not drunkenness. “Leave me be.”
“Wait.” Childeric’s hand shot out and gripped her about the wrist. “Lady, please. I have been too forward—too hasty—and I am sorry.”
Agnes tried to wrench herself free but found that the wine had made her weak and sluggish.
She made a low, pleading sound, halfway between a whimper and a gasp—and it seemed that noise, against all odds, cleaved through all the clamor of the feasting hall, all the far louder voices, because Liuprand’s head snapped up.
“What are you doing, Lord Childeric?” he demanded. “Unhand her.”
Instantly Childeric released her. “Apologies, my prince. I only wished to express my admiration for Lady Agnes, my appreciation for her beauty and her many graces. Perhaps I was…overenthused.”
“False flattery,” Agnes bit out, clutching her arm to her chest, as if it had been injured.
“Not false,” Childeric protested. “No, never.”
“You thought to ply me into accepting your marriage proposal,” Agnes said, “so that I might produce you an heir.”
“So you could produce an heir.” Childeric’s pitch rose, and as the rest of the hall fell silent, his words seemed to slash at the air. “Was I so wrong to think that a woman of your age and stature would wish for it? Surely—”
He cut himself off. Liuprand had risen.
“You proposed marriage?” Liuprand asked. “In this manner—under this circumstance—while at a royal wedding feast?”
“I see now that this was unwise,” Childeric said hastily.
“Please, my prince, it was not meant as a slight. I believed the lady would welcome a suitor, as a balm to her unhappy widowhood. Surely—surely you would want more for her than to languish here during her remaining fertile years. I could give her the gift of motherhood, such as all women desire.”
Heat rushed through Agnes’s veins. Fury, shame, anguish—she felt each one like the piercing of an arrow. Tears sprang up and gathered on her lashes, though only Liuprand was near enough to see.
And indeed he saw them. Their gazes met, and he recognized her misery in that moment, her outrage, but mostly her despair.
He recognized all within the fraction of a second, as quick as the pulse of blood behind a bruise, and a glaze came across his exquisitely blue eyes.
It was a barbaric luster such that Agnes had witnessed only once before, in the dungeon of Lord Fredegar.
One more beat passed. And then Liuprand had his hands about Lord Childeric’s throat.
He had lunged across the table, and it overturned, causing all the bright goblets and the golden plates to crash to the floor and shatter. Wine streaked the stone. Agnes cried out.
Within moments Liuprand had Childeric pinned to the ground.
His huge body loomed, his golden cape spread from his shoulders.
Childeric was gasping, clawing helplessly at Liuprand’s hand, trying to pry his fingers loose.
Shouts came from the mouths of the women in attendance, and even some of the men.
Their tables overturned. Their food and wine spilled.
“Release him!” roared Lord Thrasamund over the din. “That is my son—”
Liuprand’s hold slackened on Childeric’s throat, but only so that he could pull back his arm and strike him brutally across the face. There was the crunch of bone as his nose broke, and blood spurted from the site of the wound. Blood—blood—
Agnes screamed, or at least she thought she did. Her mouth was open and her throat was raw, but that terrible, animal howl was not coming from her. Through the haze of her drunkenness, Agnes searched the room.
It was the lady Ygraine who screamed. She wailed and shrieked and tore at her clothes. Gamelyn reached for her, pinning her arms to her sides so she could no longer thrash, but she fought him, and they both sank to the ground. Huddling against her son’s chest, she sobbed.
And then there was Marozia, too shocked to move, holding on to her daughter and watching in utter stillness and silence. Meriope hid her face in her mother’s skirts, not weeping, perhaps too young to understand the horror, too bewildered to produce tears.
Agnes could do little but look on, panic rising as her drunkenness ebbed. It knifed through the haze. Liuprand pummeled Childeric and there was nothing just about it, nothing princely. It was barbarism, as sloppy as a tavern brawl.
Only Thrasamund was roused to action. He grasped at Liuprand’s cape and attempted to wrest him away, but Liuprand merely shrugged him off, with a mindless, oxlike twitch, and the great lord fell back against the toppled table as though he had been dealt a blow.
“Get…away…” Thrasamund growled as his retainers rushed to his side to right him. “Stop this madness—stop—”
At first Childeric had struggled, but now he lay still.
Yet Liuprand pounded on; he was beyond reason now, excited only by his wine-stirred rage.
The stench of blood hung in the air, almost sweet as it mingled with the splattered remains of the feast. The only sounds were Ygraine’s muffled sobs and the wet, vulgar slap of skin on bloodied skin.
Finally, Agnes was able to summon up some half-numb courage.
She stumbled forward and placed a shaking hand on Liuprand’s shoulder, gently, so as not to startle him.
Then—slave as he was to her touch—Liuprand stopped.
His shoulders slumped. His fists slackened.
His labored, uneven breathing filled the hall.
When he looked up at Agnes, his eyes were glazed. Childeric’s blood soiled the sleeves of his doublet, red to each elbow.
“Agnes,” he whispered.
But before another word could fall from his lips, Thrasamund and his retainers descended. They slid Childeric’s unmoving body out from under Liuprand, leaving a lugubrious trail of blood in their wake.
Liuprand rose unsteadily to his feet, as if hobbled by the hugeness of his own form; even now, half bent, he towered over the next tallest man in the room.
Agnes saw for the first time a perversity to his size, how it made him something beyond human.
It was as if a bitter god had descended from the heavens to punish, with his own hands, the minor crime of a mortal man.
And such a minor crime it was, Agnes thought in despair: words, as insubstantial as air.
“Come now!” Thrasamund shouted, beckoning his retainers. “The House of Eyes recants all its honors and renounces all its vows! Your savage cruelty will not be forgotten, Liuprand of the line of Berengar! You have lost our loyalty to your cause!”
His retainers flocked to him. Four men together hefted Childeric’s body onto their shoulders, and Agnes was shocked to see that—very faintly—he did now stir. His eyes were too swollen to blink, but his mouth moved voicelessly.
“And the House of Blood will follow,” Thrasamund snarled. “Come, Gamelyn. Take your lady mother. And take the child, too. She is your possession now.”
Gamelyn had his arms still braced about his mother and did not move. His expression was one of cold shock. When he continued to stare on in stillness, Thrasamund barked an order to one of his retainers, and the man approached Marozia.
Brusquely, and without a sound, he grasped Meriope and lifted her off the ground. She had been holding fast to Marozia’s gown, and the fabric tore in her tiny fists.
“Mama!” Meriope cried. “Mama, no!”
These were the first words Agnes had ever heard her speak.
Marozia reached for her, but Meriope, writhing and wailing, was transferred into Gamelyn’s stiffly raised arms. At last his icy facade cracked, and his lips curled upward, subtly, in disgust. Then the circle of men closed around them, herding the guests of both houses to the door.
Their heavy, hurried footsteps, and Meriope’s continued wailing, created a terrible din.
Marozia gave chase, hiking up her skirts and breaking into a run, arm outstretched and fingers straining, straining, straining toward her daughter.
But the hosts of the House of Eyes and the House of Blood were too far ahead.
They beat open the great doors and vanished through them.
Marozia to fell to her knees, empty hand still held aloft, and let out one single, broken sob.