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YEAR 826 OF THE DIVINE HOUSE OF AGNEPHUS

On the other side of the Empire, the Emperor’s enemies were still enjoying their honeymoon.

Of course, Ophele had already been married for nearly eight months, but she had only felt married for a week or so.

It was as if she had wandered into another, more beautiful world.

Flowers were everywhere.

The very air seemed more satisfying, as if she had never taken a proper breath before in her life.

If her husband had his way, her precious feet would never touch the earth.

She didn’t even mind getting up early anymore, if it was Remin doing the waking.

Back in Aldeburke, she had hated it; the person waking her was unlikely to be gentle and certainly not someone she liked, so for years she had slept in hidden places and awakened when it suited her.

Remin’s dawn risings had seemed particularly sadistic at first, but that was before she knew that he was the handsomest, sweetest, bravest, most wonderful person that had ever lived. Ever.

Big hands caressed her into wakefulness.

The feel of his bare chest at her back, always warm, solid as a stone wall.

Ophele stretched, mewing with pleasure as his fingers slid over her breasts and moved between her legs, his mouth inscribing a biting caress at the juncture of her neck and shoulder.

Behind her closed eyelids she sensed a dim light, but her sleepy mind wondered no further whether it might be daylight or firelight; all that mattered was …

“Remin,”

she murmured, squirming as his fingers found the new spot between her legs that they had discovered a couple days ago.

She was still a little sore from the previous night—having found a new pleasure center, Remin wouldn’t leave it alone—but it felt so good that her breath caught, and he muffled her moan with a kiss.

“Good morning, my wife,”

he whispered, his deep voice vibrating into her bones, and his hard length moved between her legs. His hand tightened on her breast, pinching her nipple between his fingers, and both of them sighed as he drew back and stroked against her again.

It felt so good. Normally he would have turned her onto her back and moved over her, but as she met his gaze, the same thought occurred to them simultaneously.

Could we do it this way?

“Yes,”

Remin said instantly, his black eyes heating. Catching under her knee, he angled his body behind her, always game to try something new. She felt him catch at her opening and then press forward, stinging just a little as she stretched to take him. But it was an entirely new position, a new pressure, a new friction, and they gasped together as he sank inside. “I like this,”

he said, his voice breathy, and he withdrew and thrust again. “Does it feel good?”

“Yes, yes,”

she moaned. It was still so hard to be quiet, especially when his other hand was moving, his fingers circling that spot. “We can do it like this?”

“I don’t see why not.”

His hair tickled her neck as he buried his face in her shoulder to muffle a groan. “I never heard that we’re only supposed to do it one way. Ahhh, haaa, you’re squeezing me, wife—”

“I can’t help it when you do that…”

The words ended with another gasp and then neither of them could talk anymore, lost in the new sensations and drowning together, which was more or less how they had spent the preceding week.

Was marriage really supposed to be like this? The unions she had observed at Aldeburke had never hinted at any great passion, but maybe they were just better at hiding it.

Ophele loved the games she and Remin were playing, teasing and touching and discovering so many surprises in each other’s bodies.

Remin liked it when she bit his ears.

Ophele melted instantly when he kissed her neck.

At night, she barely even noticed the howls and cacklings of the devils because she was waiting in a fever of impatience for Remin to come home.

Sometimes he didn’t even get all his armor off before he pushed her into bed.

Was she supposed to pretend that she didn’t like it? None of the romances she had read went further than the wedding, and though Remin promised that other women would soon arrive in the valley, there was still no one she could ask.

Surely, it could not be right to lie to him.

When he was holding her in his arms and looking at her with such love, the last thing she wanted to do was push him away.

It was all so new and wonderful, like living inside a love poem, adoring each other and teasing each other and rousing each other all over again.

Unspoken was the knowledge that they would only have a little time for such play.

For as the summer waned toward the harvest and the devils began to return to the mountains, Remin and his men had sworn to follow them and destroy them in their dens.

“You’re not getting up?”

she whispered afterward, as they were lying together. Her fingertips traced the straight line of his nose. He had such a handsome nose.

“No.”

Alone in their cottage, his face relaxed from its usual stern lines. “Today you get to lie abed as late as you want.”

“Why?”

“It’s your birthday, little owl,”

he said, sounding amused. “Did you forget?”

“Oh,”

she said, startled. “It is? I mean, you know my birthday?”

“Miche reminded me.”

She had forgotten her birthday. No one had celebrated it since her mother died, and only the Aldeburke cook Azelma had remembered it at all, slipping her a bag of cookies or a small cake to squirrel away. She wouldn’t have blamed Remin for forgetting when she hadn’t remembered it herself, but the fact that he remembered made her throat tighten.

“Thank you,”

she said, a smile curving her lips as he roughly caressed her, drawing her against him until her breath came short and he rolled her over again, tangling his long limbs with hers.

Hours abed with him would have been gift enough, but she should have guessed that Remin would do this as thoroughly as he did everything else. In centuries to come, there would be no room for debate among scholars as to whether there had been a celebration for the Duchess of Andelin’s birthday.

Her first gift was a hot bath drawn by Remin himself, so that she would be fresh for her second: a new silk gown from Mistress Courcy, who had done an excellent job with some very vague instructions. It was a short-sleeved gown as green as summer leaves and worn without a kirtle, delightfully light and cool, with a skirt short enough to reveal pretty embroidered slippers. Ophele lifted one small foot to admire the scrolling suns on her shoes, overjoyed.

“Do you like it?”

Remin asked, examining her with a refreshed expression. He always liked to see her in green, especially with her gleaming hair falling loose to her hips.

“Yes, I love it.”

She beamed up at him and very nearly won another of his rare smiles. She had seen three so far, with teeth and everything. His eyes crinkled at the corners when he smiled.

There was more. In the kitchen, Master Wen yelled at her and then gave her a basket of raspberry pastries. As they left the stables, they ran into Genon Hengest, who had a small parcel of herbs and spices that he said would make a fragrant, restful tisane in tea.

“It’s not medicinal, but it wouldn’t do His Grace any harm,”

said the herbman, leveling a yellow eye at Remin.

“It was supposed to be a gift, not another one of your tonics,”

Remin began with some heat. But Ophele, seated before Remin on his black horse with a pastry in one hand and the herbs in the other, lifted it to Remin’s nose.

“No, it’s nice, smell,”

she said. There was a whiff of some subtle spice and the pleasant, earthy scent of chamomile. “I smell chamomile, what else?”

“What else would you put in a tea if you wanted a light sleep, my lady?”

Genon returned, cheerfully putting her to the test.

“Evening primrose?”

she guessed, surprised and pleased by the challenge. He had never asked her to try to apply her small store of herblore before. “And maybe lavender? Valerian would be too strong, wouldn’t it?”

“And a little ginger to warm the blood and add savor,”

he said, with another one of his grimacing smiles, the scarred side of his mouth twisting. “Add a pinch of it to your tea in the evenings and it will relax you, without laying you out flat.”

Ordinarily, the gifts one made to a duchess on her birthday tended toward gold, jewels, and precious oils, the more rare and expensive, the better. But such things were not to be had in the valley, and the humbler gifts Ophele received that year suited her very well. At the north gate, Sir Tounot was waiting to present her with a dainty belt knife as if he had known she was coming, a gift on behalf of the guards of the watch.

“It would be our disgrace if you ever needed it, my lady,”

he said, bowing his curly head. “But we give it in the hopes that you will have a great many more birthdays.”

“Thank you,”

she said sincerely. “And please tell everyone else thank you, too.”

She lifted a hand to wave at the distant guardsmen on the wall, who were shouting their good wishes.

She and Remin made the same tour of the valley almost every day, pitching in wherever they were needed, and that day there was a present waiting for her at every stop. The carpenters had made her a set of gorgeous carved combs, the hunters produced two feather fans, and the masons had made necklaces for her from small, polished stone beads. They were only common stones like jasper, quartz, and agate, but they looked as beautiful as jewels to Ophele. She put them on at once and thanked them so profusely, even the rough stonemasters blushed like boys.

As they approached the work at the north wall, they came across Master Eugene, bedecked with flowers in celebration of the day and led by a very grudging Jacot of Caillmar.

“Many happy returns, lady,”

he said, extending a flower wreath to Ophele with a red face.

“Oh, thank you,”

she said, immediately plopping it atop her head. “Did you make it yourself?”

“Might have done,”

he said gruffly. “Don’t have nothing better.”

“No, no, I love it. Did you put the flowers in Eugene’s mane?”

She scratched the little donkey’s forelock, admiring the daisies carefully woven into the coarse hair.

“No,”

he said instantly. “Other pageboys done it. Sir Miche had ’em at it early this morning.”

“Please thank them,”

she said, the corners of her mouth quivering with the effort not to laugh. She had learned something about the prickly pride of boys, but the idea of Sir Miche rousting them out of bed to adorn her pet donkey with daisies was both touching and very, very funny.

Sir Miche had to borrow a bucket of water from Jacot to douse himself before he was clean enough to present Ophele with her gifts, on behalf of the men of the wall. They had made three beautiful parasols for her, half in jest and all in seriousness, gifts to protect their lady from the sun.

“The first birthday parasols ever given to an Andelin duchess,”

he declared, with an extravagant bow. He loved recording absurd milestones. “How do you like them, Your Grace?”

“And the first time an Andelin duchess ever opened—oh, look!”

Ophele exclaimed as she examined the beautiful thing.

The first parasol was made of woven grass in intricate stripes, from the pale gold grass that grew on the plateau, the dark green grass by the river, and the long purple grass from the edge of the forest.

The second was made of waxed paper and painted with dogwood flowers, and the third was a masterpiece formed of hundreds of thin strips of wood, carefully sanded and polished to bring out the beauty of the grain.

“Look at this,”

she said, turning to show it to Remin, who looked impressed, even if his hands were too full of her other presents to examine it directly.

“The men made these themselves?” he asked.

“They had the apprentices gathering sticks for weeks,”

Sir Miche replied, hooking a pastry from the basket. “Looks like someone should’ve made a wagon to carry your presents, my lady. We might contrive something to spare His Grace’s dignity.”

“I didn’t anticipate this particular problem,”

Remin agreed, exchanging a wry glance with his knight. There had actually been some thought given about how to allow the valley’s population to demonstrate their fealty to their duchess without embarrassing her to death. Gifts were given to one’s liege both out of affection and to win their favor, usually with lengthy public ceremony in an avalanche of gifts, good wishes, and flowery speeches that would have made this lady wish to be swallowed by the floor.

“But more to the point…”

Sir Miche bent to look her in the eye, cocking his head with comical gravity. “Are you happy, my lady?”

She blinked, instantly remembering the day months before when he had asked if she would rather have stayed in Aldeburke. Her eyes went to Remin and her cheeks turned pink .

“Yes,”

she said.

Remin was her happiness, but she knew that Sir Miche had been its chief architect.

As a matter of fact, he had been looking after her since the day she got married.

“Thank you.”

At supper, there were still more gifts to be given, traditional presents from Remin’s knights that were beautiful and expensive and must have been ordered months in advance.

The fact that they had thought of her so long ago meant more than any number of jewels, and Ophele lined her gifts up at a careful distance from the platters of food: a small, jeweled peacock and pins that would join Remin’s glass bear on the mantle, a rosewood jewelry box inlaid with jade and opal, and an enameled thimble that she perched on the peacock’s head like a hat.

She couldn’t believe they were really for her.

But there was no doubt that Sir Justenin’s gift was her favorite.

“This is the first and third treatise by Vigga Aubriolot,”

he explained as he handed her two leather-bound books. “I would recommend beginning with the first, my lady. It might color your interpretation of the later books.”

“I will,”

she said, looking at the precious books with hungry eyes. “Thank you very much, Sir Justenin.”

“I will discuss them with you as you read them, if you like,”

he offered.

“You will? Yes, please,”

she said, brightening. She had so missed their conversations; it was as if he had vanished, once they arrived in the valley. But she had told herself that Sir Justenin was a knight, and a busy man; too busy for a silly girl’s nonsense.

“I thought about what you said last time,”

she said shyly. “About how the spirit and the body are manifestations of the divine and physical world…”

“Overlapping, but distinct.”

He nodded as if the conversation had occurred yesterday and took the seat on the bench opposite her. Unnoticed by Ophele, his gaze flicked to Remin, who nodded as if some understanding had been reached.

“Yes, it fits what we were discussing,”

Ophele explained. “About how the imperfect world is the place where we can be imperfect. The body is the same, isn’t it? We act on the world through the body, and those actions might be imperfect and corrosive to the spirit, or virtuous and therefore refining it… ”

Soon Sir Edemir and Sir Bram had joined the discussion, and though she looked at Remin a few times, wondering if he would contribute, he only waved her on.

“My tutoring did not include much theology,”

he said, with such a complacent air that she smiled. “You’ll have to educate me, wife. Go on, I’m listening.”

She could have asked for nothing more. But there was pudding.

“Here, Your Grace,”

said Master Wen, thumping a plate of pudding with rich cream and strawberry sauce before her as if he were throwing down a gauntlet. “There’s none can say that the Duchess of Andelin isn’t a credit to me cooking.”

“Pudding?”

Ophele said, pleased with the treat and confused by the compliment, which sounded like he was calling her fat.

“Aye. Pudding.”

He glowered, as if he were daring her to thank him for it. But she could only look at him with full eyes and a full heart, and after a moment the cook scratched the back of his thick neck and grumbled, “Blessings on your birthday, Your Grace.”

There was enough pudding for everyone at the table, which pleased her even more, and she watched Remin’s knights set to it, smiling to herself as Sir Bram stole a bite from Sir Miche’s plate, and Sir Edemir, who did not care for sweets, nudged his plate over to Sir Bram.

She couldn’t stop smiling. More than possessions, it meant so much that so many people had thought of her, had taken the time to gather sticks and stones and polish them into beautiful things. Her eyes went to the faces around her, friendly and familiar, meeting her eyes with smiles and lifted cups.

She loved them all. She loved Tresingale and everyone in it. She had never had a place like this, a place where she was safe and welcome, even loved. She had never dreamed that such a place could exist.

“It’ll be a few days before the rest of your presents arrive,”

Remin said, low. “I’m sorry they didn’t all make it in time. Are you having a happy birthday, wife?”

The promise of further riches was almost too much. She could only look at him, fighting the traitorous quiver in her lips and the tightness in her throat, and all the thoughts filling her eyes were happy ones.