Page 48

“Got it all right?”

All Remin could see of his wife was her hands on either side of the heavy wool mattress.

“Yes,”

she said, muffled.

“All right, lift,”

he said, hefting it from his end. It didn’t feel heavy to him, but it was an awkward burden, and it took some maneuvering to squeeze it through the door, setting it out to air on a nearby patch of grass. There wasn’t much to be done in the way of household chores, in a cottage so small; Ophele liked to dust and tidy it herself and Remin kept the woodbox full, but they didn’t need to cook, and laundry was a chore best not contemplated.

Their bed, however, was a problem.

With the shutters open to let in maximum light, Remin sat down on the floor and heaved the frame upright, timbers creaking in protest. Ophele crouched beside him, her long skirts pooling around her feet.

“It’s just…tied together,”

she said, pushing at the loosely connected rail. There was a hole bored in the end so it could be tied to the post, and a web of ropes to support a mattress, which would have been perfectly fine for a single, motionless sleeper. Unfortunately, their bed had been getting a lot of hard use.

“I could tie it tighter,”

Remin said, frowning.

“That won’t stop it squeaking, though.”

Their eyes met in rueful acknowledgement of the real problem.

“Hand me the rope, wife. We could still go to the carpenters.”

He knew she was going to shoot that idea down. He didn’t have a problem going and telling the carpenters that they wanted a bed sturdy enough to withstand Remin Grimjaw’s amorous activities, but Ophele would combust with shame.

“But they have to finish the work by the north gate. And the barracks. People are still sleeping on floors,”

she said, plucking the knife from her belt to trim off a length of rope. And part of Remin would always fixate on the flash of the blade, his body automatically stiffening. But in his mind’s eye, he pictured the moment she had flung the knife away, hoping repetition would make him believe it .

“They can have our bed,”

was all he said, grumbling. Looping the rope through the hole in the rail, he pulled it around the post, knotting it so tight the wood creaked. And even then, when he shook it, the damned thing still squeaked.

It wasn’t as if he needed more reasons to curse the Emperor, but the fact that he didn’t dare shrug off his guards so he could make love to his wife in the sturdy, soundproof confines of the storehouse was another. He was tired of being careful. He was tired of being quiet.

Though by now there were few residents in town who weren’t aware of a new…friendliness between their duke and his wife.

Certain muffled noises had been heard from the cottage.

Yvain and Dol, never known for gossip, had lately become very expressionless whenever Their Graces were mentioned.

And more than once, passersby had reported giggling in the woods near the manor house.

This honeymoon period was hard on everyone.

Riding along in company, it was as if the quality of the air would suddenly change around the duke and his lady, and Remin’s knights swiftly adopted thousand-yard stares to avoid seeing anything in the vicinity of a certain black warhorse.

It was a sight so novel, so shocking, that even the Knights of the Brede weren’t sure how to handle it.

Except for Sir Miche of Harnost, who could not stop laughing.

Remin was smiling.

He was as aware as anyone else of this uncomfortable state of affairs. He had been called Grimjaw since he was sixteen. But all it took was a look from Ophele to make him feel like the world was made of blue skies and birdsong. If it hadn’t been for his guards, the Emperor’s assassins could have killed him a dozen times over.

It happened again later that day. Remin tried to involve Ophele in all decisions regarding their house, and so he stopped by the cottage to pick her up that afternoon on the way to the manor, swinging her up onto Lancer at a trot to make her squeal with laughter.

“Master Didion wants to see us again?”

she asked as he settled her before him on the horse.

“We have to pick our guardian dogs,”

he explained. “They’re supposed to be built along with the house, apparently, but he had a fit when I told him to just put a mastiff or something there. ”

“Are they meant to be something in particular?”

she asked. “We had them at Aldeburke, but I never knew they meant anything.”

“Not that I know of. They had sand hounds at Ereguil,”

he said thoughtfully. “And I saw all kinds in Segoile, one even had wings. You can ask him about it when we get there.”

The master architect had more to say on the subject than anyone in the world could conceivably want to know. Normally Remin would have cut him off after twenty seconds, but Ophele was listening with such fascination that it seemed a shame to spoil her fun.

“They are built in tandem with the house,”

Sousten explained, gesturing to the empty pedestals at the foot of the steps, awaiting their occupants. “Dogs are one of the five great gifts of the stars, the companions and guardians of men, and it is only fitting to show appreciation for the blessing. And they will look quite distinguished among the pansies.”

“Mastiffs are distinguished,”

Remin remarked. Honestly, he had no particular preference, except that Sousten stop asking him this question.

“Mastiffs are unimaginative,”

the architect said scathingly. “The Duke of Andelin cannot have a common hound at the doors of his—”

“I am the Duke of Andelin,”

Remin retorted. Sometimes it seemed like Sousten needed reminding. “The Duke of Andelin’s official position is that as long as it has fangs, I don’t care.”

“Does it have to be a dog?”

Ophele wanted to know, glancing between them anxiously. “I mean, an actual canine?”

“The House of Melun has lion dogs in front of its house in Segoile,”

Remin told her, so instantly gentled that Sousten’s lower lip edged out sulkily. “There’s some latitude.”

“Well, we do have a sort of dog in the Andelin…”

she offered hesitantly. “But I wouldn’t want to offend anyone, I’m sure they’ve killed so many people….”

“The wolf demons.”

Sousten’s eyes lit up.

“Lion dogs kill people, too. I want a wolf demon,”

Remin said at once. Suddenly he cared intensely about what animal was guarding his house. “That’s my guardian dog. Sousten, I will have nothing else.”

“No, by the stars, what else could guard the Duke of Andelin?”

the architect exclaimed, clapping his hands together. “Let us make them your totem, Your Grace, chain the beasts and leash them to your door. It is perfect. I will need descriptions of the devils, or even better, sketches, if you have witnesses that could produce something…”

“It wouldn’t be blasphemous or anything?”

Ophele asked, looking between them with growing enthusiasm. “They are devils…”

“They are our devils,”

Remin said, giving her a rough caress in his excitement. Terrible as the devils were, they were only animals, and he did not fear them. One day, they would be nothing more than one of the legends of the Andelin Valley. The totem of his House.

He might have known his little owl would think of it. And blast it, he was smiling again, in full view of Sousten and his guards and the entire building crew, and when she smiled at him, he felt the warmth as if she were his own sun.

He felt like an ass, trying to settle his face after that.

Was this a weakness? Was it safe to show affection for her so openly? No one would dare to physically harm a child of divine blood, but surely it would be more dangerous if it were known that he loved her. They might fear to harm her, but kidnapping was certainly not out of the question. And that aside, he was the Duke of Andelin. He was supposed to be dignified.

It was almost as if he were discovering different versions of himself, a new person that even he didn’t know. It was fine, when he was alone with Ophele; it was such a relief to finally just be with her, without holding himself back. But he had lived most of his life around soldiers and knights, and now he was trying to be a husband and—increasingly—a lord, and finding the clothes an awkward fit.

He had a little more experience with being a lord. He knew he couldn’t be a general and snap commands at the village headmen. He didn’t want to rule that way. And when Auber’s clan finally arrived in the waning days of summer, he had to strike an even more delicate balance. They were the purest kind of peasant: farmers, the salt of the earth, and very clearly Auber’s family, down to the mild brown eyes and hair.

And by the stars, he was hoping they’d brought women.

He let them get settled in the cottages on the north side of town before he pounced. Normally, the arrival of a bunch of farmers would be far beneath the notice of a duke and duchess. But though Ophele never complained, Remin imagined she was dying to have other women about, and he was almost willing to fall to his knees if they would just consent to do her laundry. He had ruined three of Ophele’s chemises so far and neither of them had any idea how.

“Welcome, all of you,”

he said as he and Ophele stood before the assembled Conbour family that evening. The wagons in which they had arrived were already empty, and smoke rose from the chimneys of their cottages. “You’ve come a long way and uprooted your lives. I can see that you’re industrious folk. The Andelin rewards courage and hard work. We have done our best, but I don’t mind telling you we’ll be glad of your help with the harvest.”

“Thank you, Your Grace,”

they murmured together, with a shuffling of bows and curtsies.

“This is my wife, the Duchess of Andelin,”

he continued, drawing Ophele forward. He had to catch her hand before her fingers pressed together in her usual nervous gesture. She was still painfully shy before strangers.

“We’re very glad you’ve come,”

she began, her eyes flicking to them and then swiftly fleeting away. “Sir Auber has been looking forward to your arrival. There aren’t any other women in the valley except us right now, I’m afraid. If you lack anything, please come to me. Or if anything troubles you.”

“Thank you, my lady,”

they murmured again. Actually, they weren’t the only women in the valley; there was also two dozen prostitutes Remin was pretending not to know about, split between the masons’ camp and the Gellege Bridge gatehouse. But they were not fit company for the Duchess of Andelin, and Remin had no dealings with them other than to make sure she never laid eyes on them.

He had hoped there might be someone her age among Auber’s relations: a companion, even if there was no one fit to be a lady’s maid. But scanning the crowd, he only saw two women, closer to forty than thirty, and a little girl.

“For now, you can get your food from Wen at the cookhouse. You’re welcome to join the common meals or get foodstuffs to cook for yourselves, whichever you prefer,”

he said, a little stiffly. “In time, more merchants will join us, and you can buy whatever you like. At the moment we have one, Istaire Guian. ”

That was Ophele’s cue.

“I can show the ladies the rest of the town tomorrow. If you like.”

Her cheeks were pink even before she began to speak, the color darkening along her hairline and spreading to the tips of her ears. “Mr. Guian p-promised to open his shop early. In c-case you need anything.”

The two women exchanged glances and then bowed very low.

“That is very kind, Your Grace,”

said the shorter woman. They could hardly say anything else. Inwardly, Remin sighed and bid them all farewell as politely as he could. It would have been one thing, if they had been younger women. A pair of sturdy farmers’ wives were perfectly capable of finding everything they needed by themselves and would be unlikely to seek the company of a young noblewoman, let alone a Daughter of the Stars, sacred child of the Emperor of Argence.

“It’s all right,”

he told her as they walked home together. “Others will come, wife.”

“I know.”

She tried to smile, but he knew she was embarrassed. And though he was uncomfortably aware of the eyes that might be watching, he still closed her hand in his, squeezing gently. He didn’t know what to say.

He hadn’t considered this when he brought her here. There was no one anywhere near her rank. Even when his knights began to marry, Ophele would always be the Emperor’s bastard, recognized by her father and isolated by her illegitimacy. Even if he could persuade some of the higher nobility to make the long journey to the valley, she would never have peers.

But did that matter? Was there something immoral about Ophele socializing with farmers’ wives?

How did society get started, anyway? Was he supposed to do something? Was it his responsibility to see that his knights got married? How could he, when the reputable female population of the valley currently consisted of three married women and a nine year-old?

“I need to speak with you,”

he told Juste at supper that night. This was something else he didn’t know how to do, but for Ophele’s sake, he was going to try.

* * *

“I appreciate your concern,”

Juste told Remin dryly as they walked along the market road the next day. “Yes, managing society is Her Grace’s domain. Normally she would host gatherings and invite guests for extended visits, partly for the pleasure of company and partly to make connections for you. And it would be an opportunity for men and women to mingle and partner.”

It had occurred to Remin that this task might rightly belong to Ophele. But she wasn’t one of the Roses of Segoile, whose first entrance into aristocratic society had been play dates with other blue-blooded toddlers. She had grown up in exile, a prisoner. They would have to find another way.

“There have been some requests from other lords,”

Remin said thoughtfully. “Interested in trade. We have iron, and there were mines in the Berlawes, before Valleth came. Count Druimon was interested in testing the soil for our vineyards.”

“Profit makes it easy to overcome their scruples,”

Juste observed, and they exchanged a cynical glance as they reached the market square. There was the racket of construction all around them, merchants and craftsmen willing to face devils when there was a large, captive population nearby, with a year’s wages saved up and nothing to spend them on. In the distance, Remin could see skinny Nore Ffloce bounding down the street like a grasshopper, trailing papers and assistants.

“A few offers are probably genuine. And the old man would say beggars can’t be choosers.”

It was galling to admit it, but there were few noble Houses willing to associate with Remin Grimjaw at all, despised by the Emperor as he was. Duke Ereguil had counseled him to be careful in choosing his friends, but not to reject any offers out of hand. “If I accepted, perhaps they would be willing to bring their wives and older children.”

“Even if you manage to persuade them that they will not instantly be set upon by devils, there is nowhere to put them, at present,”

Juste pointed out. “Even when the main house is built, my lord, there will only be room for you and the duchess and a few retainers and servants. It would do you no favors to invite them to stay in a cottage.”

“We will deal with the devils,”

Remin said, with a baleful look at the distant Berlawes. It was too early for snow on most of the peaks, but the advance of those whitecaps would mark the retreat of the devils for the year. The timing was tricky. If Remin waited too long to pursue them, there would be nothing to find, but it would be suicide to attempt the journey now.

A journey that Huber had attempted. Remin’s mind was never far from his friend, gone these many weeks to Ferrede with no way to know whether he lived. But if anyone could survive weeks in the wilderness with devils, it was Sir Huber Adaman.

“We must plan for what will come after,”

Remin said stubbornly. “Miche swears he will be a bachelor, but the steward’s lady would be a fit companion for Ophele.”

“I would prefer to find a lady in my own time, if it’s all the same to you.”

But Juste’s tone was compassionate rather than sarcastic. “It will be a work of years, my lord. Building the house, defeating the devils, and bringing civilization to the valley won’t happen in a night.”

“At this rate you’ll all be old men before that happens,”

Remin grumbled, and then realized with horror that he sounded like Duchess Ereguil. “Never mind. I only thought that I would like companions for my wife. I didn’t think of it, before I brought her here.”

“She might thank you more for a teacher,”

Juste said sympathetically as they climbed a low hill overlooking the market square. “If she had been any other child, she would have been sent to the Tower. I can’t imagine what her divine father was thinking.”

“What do you mean?”

“It took me years to understand what she grasps in days,”

Juste replied, with unusual vehemence. “It is the most profligate waste of a fine mind, and the stars do not give such gifts to be squandered. If we have not already made an offer to the Tower, then we should, even if it is only for the eyes of heaven. She has both interest and aptitude, my lord.”

“Perhaps they will find a Daughter of the Stars more interesting than witch-summoned devils.”

Remin huffed, raking his fingers through his hair. “I will have Edemir write to them again. He managed to find a sufficiently mad arborist. Perhaps he can find a mathematician who reveres the stars more than he fears the Emperor’s displeasure.”

“Or accusations of heresy from the Temple,”

Juste agreed, his lip curling. It was ludicrous, but nonetheless true: the Tower would no more support Remin than the Temple would, and for the same reasons. The Emperor had many ways to wage a war against House Andelin, and not all of them required steel. “Her Grace would be a new argument to put before them, I suppose.”

“I wouldn’t bother, if we didn’t need healers so badly,”

Remin growled. “But we will make our own study of the devils in the meantime, and I would give the task to her, if you and Edemir are willing to teach her.”

“There was a book I read, some time ago, on how knowledge is properly catalogued,”

Juste said thoughtfully. “The Tower has methodology for their investigations, you know. I’ll speak to her about it. Though I’m no scholar, either. Edemir is the closest to a scholar among us.”

“I’d be grateful. She wants some useful occupation,”

Remin said, relieved. “But we need to make the valley fit for ladies and scholars first.”

“I was meaning to talk to you about that. It could be regarded as another problem of society,”

Juste said, with a flick of his pale blue eyes. “Until now, we’ve been an army, and our labor force is used to obeying orders. But your soldiers are only about half of the population now. Did you hear about the incident at the gatehouse?”

“The fight or the incident with the prostitute?”

“A stabbing. Last night.”

“No.”

Remin’s brows lowered. “What happened?”

“I imagine Bram’s been too busy to report yet. I just happened to hear it from one of my herdsmen this morning. There was a disagreement between a mason and a bricklayer, who were dicing. One pulled his belt knife.”

This was the third incident in as many weeks. How many was too many? Remin frowned. Some rough behavior should be expected and tolerated in a place like this; a group of men who were given money with no way to spend it would inevitably start dicing, and violence followed gambling like the moon followed the sun.

“I’ll look the other way for a fistfight,”

he said slowly, sounding out his own principles. “But not if someone picks up a weapon, whether it’s a blade or a tree branch.”

“Under the Imperial Code, the penalty is flogging. Hanging, if the other man dies,”

Juste said, nodding. “Unless it was self-defense.”

“Was it? ”

“Not according to my herdsman. But the man who drew the knife has the right to make an appeal to his lord, and offer a defense.”

It would have been nice if the valley had been a happy band of intrepid settlers, scratching civilization from the red maw of merciless Nature.

Remin and his men did their best to make it appear so.

But they were all imperfect men, as Ophele’s favorite The Will Immanent would say, and the only reason there had been no worse crimes was because the Knights of the Brede kept a tight leash on who was permitted into the valley and gave them all little opportunity for mischief.

“I’ll talk to Tounot and Bram,”

Remin said grimly. “We’ll begin as we mean to continue. I don’t agree with public punishments. I won’t have them in my land.”

“It is standard practice in the rest of the Empire.”

“I don’t recall anything in the Imperial Code that requires a mob to witness the punishment.”

Remin knew the Code as well as Juste did; he had set himself to learn it with the determination of a cleric learning his catechism. The Emperor would never get around him that way.

“That is true,”

Juste conceded. “There are other ways to deter repetition of such behavior. You have been a most amiable lord. To this point.”

The implication hung there.

Juste was the correct person to answer this riddle; the herdsman, master manipulator of the clever beast called man.

Before their invasion of Valleth, they had spread rumors of Remin Grimjaw all along the border to soften up the population.

For the cost of a little silver, rumors in taverns warned that he was coming for them: the man who had slaughtered their armies, their mercenaries, defeated their magicians and laughed in the face of the Andelin devils.

The stories fed on themselves, each more terrible than the last, and by the time Remin completed his conquest of the forts on the Valleth border, he only had to take a single city before the rest of the country fell at his feet.

Valleth had done far worse, when they invaded the Andelin Valley.

The summer Remin was seventeen, they sacked three cities south of the Brede, with the worst kind of slaughter and rapine.

The flanking action that won him his knighthood had spared a fourth city.

Remin could offer any number of justifications for his actions, and even without Juste’s soft confessor’s voice telling him he had done right, he knew that there had been no other course available to him .

But still, he had given the order to destroy a city, and killed anyone that resisted him.

“I don’t want to make them afraid of me,”

he said quietly. Ophele had only just stopped fearing him. He never wanted her to know that side of him. “I won’t rule that way, either.”

“I don’t think we need to go that far,”

Juste said gently, as if he had overheard every word that flashed through Remin’s mind. “They have been ruled by fear for long enough. Now that they need not fear the devils, they can learn a healthy respect for their lord.”

And that was how it was decided that the time had come for the Andelin Valley’s first tourney.