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Remin had told Ophele about the upcoming tourney, if not all the reasons it was being held.

But it wasn’t long before she discovered some of them for herself.

Really, there were so many changes in the valley, it was hard to keep up.

Auber’s folk were barely moved in before they were out in the fields, preparing to bring in the wheat.

Ophele told herself that they were working so hard, of course they wouldn’t have time to socialize, and it would be rude to trouble them, even though they almost assuredly would know how to work a needle.

Merchants. Builders. Tanners. Potters. Candlemakers.

Even a weaver, a relation of Sir Ortaire’s who would be making use of the year’s shearing.

Genon Hengest was already waging a cold war with a new herbalist who had moved in by the east gate, and though Ophele’s instinct was to kick out anyone who upset a man she had come to like very much, Remin said sternly that they couldn’t play favorites until the new herbalist actually poisoned someone.

Almost every day brought new folk over the river, and Sir Tounot and Sir Bram were run off their feet, keeping up.

It was strange to see so many faces she didn’t know about town, and adding to the chaos was a mass move of soldiers to the barracks.

Those who wished to keep soldiering rather than learning another trade trained every day under the critical eyes of Remin and his men, and the weapons were moved from the storehouse to a new, thick-walled armory.

The arrival of specialists meant the original settlers of the valley were moving from the roles they had adopted by necessity to their chosen professions.

It was a milestone Ophele noted in her mental history of Tresingale, and far more significant than the valley’s first parasol.

The only thing that troubled Ophele was that there didn’t seem to be a place for her.

“Could I go with you? Just to watch,”

she asked Remin one afternoon as she helped him don his armor. It was very interesting, how it fit together.

“No, wife, I’m sorry.”

He tilted her chin up and kissed her. “I wouldn’t mind if it was just the other knights, but fighting men can’t be worried about the presence of a lady. A man needs to be able to swear when he gets hit in the face.”

“Is there something else I can do?”

she asked, trying to hide her disappointment. It wasn’t that she wanted to be in his pocket every moment of the day, but lately, with so many workers arriving, there didn’t seem to be any occupation for her unskilled hands. Soon, even her little school would close .

“Soon,”

Remin said encouragingly. “There will be some matters of scholarship that could use your attention.”

As if she were any kind of scholar. Ophele felt another pang of conscience, that he thought so highly of her when she was nothing special at all. She never would have predicted that Remin’s high opinion would make her nearly as anxious as those dreadful days when he thought her nothing but a nuisance.

“All right?”

he asked softly, his big hands stroking her cheeks, and Ophele smiled unwillingly, swaying into him.

His touch made her forget all about matters of scholarship.

His head bent and he kissed her and kissed her and kissed her again, until the sunlight paused in its path across the floor of the cottage and everything in the world faded but the feeling of his firm lips stroking over hers.

It was some time before Remin finally pulled away and rested his forehead against hers, his fingers caressing the back of her neck.

“You…be careful,”

she said vaguely, her eyes unfocused. Her lips were tingling.

“I’ll be home soon,”

he promised, reluctantly straightening.

Ophele stood in the doorway to watch him swing up onto his horse, straight shoulders and handsome head, everything a knight should be.

He always turned to look back at her at the bend of the road, his black hair flying as his horse turned neatly on its hooves, and Ophele lifted her hand to wave at him, feeling giddy and foolish for missing him already.

He was only going to be gone for the afternoon.

Even from a distance, she could see how he twitched his shoulders before he kicked his horse into a gallop, as if he were embarrassed by the display of affection.

There was always some mending to be done or buttons to be reattached, and Sir Edemir gave her most of their accounts to reconcile now, especially since she could save them precious paper by adding up even a very long column of figures in her head.

The mending and the accounts were far too difficult and far too easy, respectively.

Sewing was an activity that Ophele was coming to loathe with all her soul.

Based on what she had seen of Lady Hurrell, this was what she was supposed to be doing with her time.

Not mending, of course.

Ophele’s clothing at Aldeburke had been patched and much-mended, so she knew very well that such work was the province of maids.

A lady embroidered.

They stitched beautiful and intricate works of art into their slippers, sashes, and handkerchiefs.

Lady Hurrell had used shimmering silk thread to make flowers and birds, stitching the high-flying kite emblem of House Hurrell into everything, as if sheer repetition would make it reality.

The tourney was only a week away, and Ophele had many pleasant daydreams about presenting Remin with a sash she had embroidered herself, perhaps with a little owl and bear tucked away in a corner, a love-note for him to discover.

But so far, her only successes had been with buttons.

Either she was spectacularly bad at mending torn clothes, or Remin was spectacularly good at tearing them.

Gloomily, she set the day’s mending aside and went early to the cookhouse to meet Jacot.

She would have to unpick all those stitches again.

No matter what she did, they just didn’t look even, and she was afraid Remin might guess how much she didn’t know if she gave him something so incompetently done.

In her mind, it was like the tip of an iceberg: as soon as she let one failure bob above the waves, he was bound to discover the mass of them she had hidden under the water.

Absorbed in her troubles, she didn’t hear the man approaching from the side of the cookhouse and almost bumped into him as she came around the corner.

“Oh, pardon me,”

she said politely, trying to sidestep him, but he stepped quickly to block her.

“Look at you,”

he said, catching her elbow. “You’re a pretty one, ain’t you? What’s your name, sweetheart?”

“What—why?”

she said, stepping back and trying to tug away, looking up at him in puzzlement. He was tallish and lanky, with brown hair and eyes, and was wearing a strange expression that made her heart bump. She didn’t know him. “Please let go. Are you a builder?”

“Thought you girls weren’t allowed on this side of town.”

If anything, his grip tightened. “No need to play coy, girl. Happens I have a silver sov. Come on, I know a spot.”

“What do you mean? Where are we going?”

she asked, dragging her feet as he pulled her toward the back of the cookhouse. She was becoming more nervous by the minute. “I don’t want any silver, let go!”

“My lady!”

Jacot called, racing toward them, the freckles standing out on his pale face. “You daft ass, let go of her, that’s the duchess! ”

The man let go of her as if she’d burned him.

“The—what?”

He stared at her in utter horror, and Ophele retreated a pace, her eyes huge. She didn’t quite understand what was wrong, but his fear suddenly made her feel very afraid. Jacot of Caillmar was livid.

“Apologize,”

he snarled, shoving his face into the man’s as if he weren’t twenty years younger.

“B-beg p-pardon, m’lady.”

The man bowed deeply. His face was ashen. “Excuse me. Please forgive me. Didn’t mean any—”

“You can apologize to His Grace, too,”

Jacot interrupted hotly, but the man suddenly shot away like a jackrabbit, over the street and into the trees at the end of the line of cottages. Ophele rubbed her elbow, staring after him.

“What girls?”

she asked, looking at Jacot. “On this side of town? Are there girls on the other side of town?”

“He meant the whores,”

Jacot said, glaring at the distant shrubbery.

“What’s a whore?”

“Oh, stars. Nothing. Never mind.”

A brick-colored blush climbed up the boy’s neck. “Heaven save us, when I think what might’ve happened—I need to tell His Grace. He’s not here?”

“He’s at the barracks.”

“Sir Edemir, then. C’mon. Please,”

he added, bobbing a bow. “M’lady.”

Puzzled, she went, and felt like both a fool and a child, standing there in the office while Jacot whispered an explanation to Sir Edemir.

Why couldn’t he say it out loud? The man had apologized, hadn’t he? No harm had been done.

She had a sick feeling in the pit of her stomach that this was something she should already know, and she turned scarlet when Sir Edemir snapped at one of his secretaries to go fetch His Grace.

“That’s not necessary,”

she said, her face burning as all of them turned to look at her. “I’m perfectly fine, and the man apologized. I just want to know what he wanted. I don’t understand.”

“I beg your pardon, my lady,”

Sir Edemir said, looking more uncomfortable than she had ever seen him. “But I think it would be His Grace’s place to explain it.”

This was even more confusing. Was it because Remin was her husband, or because he was the duke? Either way, the thought of disturbing him with her ignorance made her cringe inside .

“Then he can explain it to me tonight,”

she said, and was mortified to hear the quiver in her voice. That man must have done something wrong, and she was too stupid to understand what it was, and all of them were looking at her now with embarrassment and pity. “Jacot, let’s go have your lesson.”

“Your Grace—”

Sir Edemir began, and though she wanted to lie to herself that it was a dignified retreat, it was a retreat because she couldn’t face any of them for an instant longer.

If only she had understood what that man wanted, she might have told him no.

She could just imagine what Lady Hurrell would have done: a masterpiece of icy, offended dignity that would have sent him scampering off like a whipped dog.

“M’lady, wait!”

Jacot called from behind her as she walked stiffly to the cookhouse. Ophele only moved faster. She was so embarrassed, she had gone beyond blushing; her face was actually prickling, a tingling numbness, and her ears were filled with a vast buzzing.

“Come and sit down,”

she tried to tell him, her voice bouncing through several octaves.

“My lady, I really don’t think—”

he began, this fourteen year-old boy whose voice hadn’t even completely broken yet, but somehow still knew more of the world than she did.

“Just open the book,”

she said, struggling for some semblance of dignity, but it was too late. As a perfect finale, she started to cry.

* * *

They sent for Remin anyway.

“I’m fine, I’m fine!”

she said, bursting into tears of pure vexation when he appeared in the door of the cottage, looking like one of Noreven’s Three Idols of Wrath. Jacot had fled as soon as he persuaded her to go home. It had been a farce, with him alternately threatening to get Sir Edemir and pleading with her to stop crying, while she tried to order him to read Summer’s Golden Songs.

“Then why are you crying?”

Remin wanted to know, shutting the door with a thud. “Edemir said someone tried to make off with you. Come here and let me see you. You’re all right?”

“No, he wanted a whore. What’s a whore? No one will tell me. I told them not to bother you, I’m fine. ”

“Come here,”

he repeated, with a sharp undercurrent of command, and Ophele reluctantly emerged from the corner of the bed to let him look at her, since apparently they would make no further progress until he had.

“Jacot said there were whores on the other side of town. And a man said he would give me two silvers if I went with him. And Sir Edemir said it wouldn’t be proper for him to explain why, which means it’s something only my husband should talk about.”

Ophele laid out her reasoning as Remin looked her over, as if searching for some invisible injury. “So, are whores women that do…that for money? That’s what he wanted? Do we have those?”

Remin hesitated.

“Do we?”

she asked, her voice rising, because if there was one thing that could rouse her meek temper, it was being denied knowledge.

“There are two dozen of them, between the bridge and the mason’s camp,”

he said, sighing. “The men would riot otherwise. Bram keeps them safe and out of sight. And you shouldn’t say whore . It’s a rude word.”

Her face flamed.

“Oh,”

she said, mortified, and let Remin move her into his lap as he sat down on the edge of the bed with a jingling of chainmail. “I didn’t know. I’ve never…I never heard that word before.”

“I would hope not,”

he said sharply. “Jacot has been told to mind his tongue before ladies. If you have to talk about them, say prostitutes. But it’s not a subject for polite company.”

It didn’t matter; neither word had made its way into the books in Aldeburke’s library. And she had never been in company, polite or otherwise.

“So that’s what he wanted,”

she said, low. Her small mouth firmed into a straight line as she absorbed it. “So—I thought…but I guess there’s nothing to stop people from doing that if they’re not married, is there? Or even if…”

She looked up at Remin with dawning comprehension, and the first hint of worry in her tawny eyes.

“No,”

he said instantly. “Never. I have touched one woman in my life, little owl, and I want no other. I swear by the light of every star.”

She believed him. His hand rose to stroke her cheek.

“Is that why you were crying?”

he asked quietly. “I never would. ”

“No, I didn’t think of it until now,”

she said, with heartless honesty. “Why didn’t you tell me? I didn’t know what that man wanted, and no one would tell me, and I felt so…so stupid. Even Jacot knows what a prostitute is. Is it something I should know?”

“No,”

he said sharply. “I don’t want you to know such things. It’s not something you should have to think about.”

“But I have to know, or something like that could happen again!”

“No, it won’t,”

he said, with such finality that she looked up at him, startled. “You’ll have a guard, after today.”

No.

She didn’t want that.

Over the last few months, she had come to think of all of Tresingale as her home, a wild place filled with wonderful people, people she had worked alongside and greatly admired.

People who smiled at her and were kind to her and listened when she spoke.

Friends.

She had never had friends before.

She didn’t want a guard, as if she couldn’t trust them.

Ophele looked down at her hands, trying to work through her objections.

She had never been good at moments like this.

She needed time to think, to reason out her position.

She hated not knowing things.

Above all else, she hated not knowing.

Ignorance was weakness.

Ignorance made her vulnerable.

The worst humiliations in Aldeburke had come from things she didn’t understand.

Lisabe laughing because Ophele hadn’t known how to put on a breast binding, when no one had taught her.

Lady Hurrell’s sweet, vicious corrections for errors Ophele still didn’t understand.

Julot…if she thought about it, she had no doubt she might now understand some of his taunts, but she didn’t want to.

And now this.

She had said a curse word in front of Remin without even knowing what it was.

Stars, what if she had said it in front of Sir Edemir and his secretaries? The thought made her want to curl up right there and die.

“I still want to know,”

she said, struggling to find the words to explain it. “I…I could have stopped him, if I had known. That man. I didn’t know why he wanted me to go with him, but if I’d known…”

Remin’s face darkened.

“What did he look like?”

“I…wha—no,”

she said, drawing back. “No, Remin, he apologized. It was just a misunderstanding. I don’t want anything bad to happen to him, it was my fa— ”

“Jacot said you told him to let go, and he was pulling you to the back of the cookhouse,”

he said, his voice deepening with suppressed anger. “Do you realize what could have happened?”

“But he apolog—”

“Ophele. He might have raped you. Do you know what rape is?”

he snapped, and Ophele flinched, flushing white and then red.

It wasn’t just at his tone, or the terrible question.

Stars, she was stupid.

She did know what rape was.

She had read it in histories, frequently in connection to the sacking of cities, in the usage of rapine. Aldeburke had several dictionaries.

But she had never once connected that word with herself.

In her mind, what she and Remin did together was so separate from anything else in the world that it never occurred to her it was even possible with someone else.

Or that someone could… make …her…

“I know…”

she whispered. The thought of anyone but Remin touching her that way sent such a wave of terror through her that she recoiled, rejecting it instantly. It had just been a misunderstanding. No one in Tresingale would do that.

“I’m sorry,”

Remin said, drawing her into the dubious comfort of his breastplate. “I’m sorry, I shouldn’t have said it like that. I’m not angry with you, little owl. I’m—help me get these things off,”

he said impatiently, yanking at his gauntlets.

Silently, Ophele helped him slip them off so he could touch her with his bare hands.

“I’m angry that this happened.

I don’t want you to worry about things like this. I don’t ever want you to be afraid again. Of anything.”

“I’m not a child,”

she began, troubled, but the new knowledge of rape was so tangled in her mind that it was hard to convincingly claim she wanted to learn more things like it.

“I know you’re not.”

His thumb stroked the line of her jaw, turning her eyes up toward him.

“But you’re my wife, and a lady.

I don’t think there’s any shame in being innocent.

I like it about you.

I like how you see things. I don’t want you to know about…ugly things. Once you do, you can’t not know them.

Like when I told you there are prostitutes in the valley. What was the first thing you thought?”

“If you ever were with one,”

she said dully. The thought of Remin with another woman made her feel sick. This whole conversation made her feel sick and confused .

“And now that you know you could have been raped,”

he continued, his tone jarringly gentle against the brutality of his words, “what will you think if another stranger approaches you?”

“I know,”

she said miserably.

“I don’t want you to be afraid.”

He drew her against his side, his strong arm wrapped around her. “I know what it’s like. If you’re not careful, soon your fear is all you can think about. I don’t want that for you.”

“You’re not afraid of anything,”

she said, moved by the tenderness in his voice. He was the bravest man in the world. Everything else feared him.

“I don’t want you to have to think about things like that,”

he said softly. His lips pressed against her forehead. “What’s all this for, if I can’t protect you? I want you to feel safe. I want you to be happy from the moment you wake up until you fall asleep. Nothing but happy. Nothing bad will ever touch you.”

He said it with such love that her eyes filled. No one had ever loved her like this. It was the sweetest thing anyone had ever said to her. But though she didn’t know why yet, she thought somehow it was wrong.

“But I want you to be happy too,”

she said, turning her face into his caressing fingers. “You shouldn’t be stuck with all the bad things. That’s what we swore,”

she remembered, recalling the oaths spoken on their wedding day. “All our joys and sorrows. And, Remin…I hate not knowing things.”

“Some things no one should know.”

The fact that she couldn’t entirely understand what she saw in his face seemed like a case in point, but…did she really want to hear some of the tales Remin Grimjaw could tell? Ophele touched his cheek, consoling, and his black eyes lifted to hers. “They were always eager to hear about it, in Segoile. As if knowing about filth makes you wise.”

“That’s not…what I want to know,”

she said hesitantly, and bit her lip. “I need to think. I don’t know…what I think yet. Please.”

“All right. When you’ve thought about it, we can talk again.”

He kissed her. “But you’re still getting a guard.”

“Remin,”

she said, exasperated.

“There are too many new people in the valley now,”

he said sternly. “There are guards with me at all times. I just make them stay out of sight. Either you have a guard, or I’ll get rid of all of mine. ”

He was wearing his stubborn face. Ophele’s mouth worked soundlessly. She could not think of a single objection.

“All right?”

he asked, bending to bump his forehead against hers. His eyes were crinkling at the corners. He knew he had won.

“All right,”

she conceded, amazed that she could be smiling already, that he could so quickly turn her sorrow into joy.

“Good.”

His lips tickled hers. “Now help me get my armor off.”

The questions were still whirling at the back of her mind even as they undressed each other and he moved over her on their squeaky bed, always eager, always hungry.

He, the devourer; she, the devoured.

His were the hands that held, while she was held.

He was ever the invader, and she yielded herself to him with pleasure.

It was the natural order of things, wasn’t it?

Even when he was inside her, Ophele was stepping outside of herself to look at him, so strong, so fearless, so powerful, always in command.

The boulders of his biceps flexed on either side of her as they panted their pleasure together, and she stroked her cheek against his arm to admire his strength, thrilled by it, and so envious.

No one disobeyed him.

No one would ever think of challenging him.

Of all the varieties of wolf in the Andelin Valley, Remin was the deadliest of them all.

“Ophele,”

he said hoarsely, his deep voice a rumbling, panting growl, his huge body levering hard and fast into her.

He was so immense, his arms so strong, it was easy to believe that he could make a wide and beautiful place where nothing bad could touch her.

She loved how protective he was.

How he bared his teeth at the merest hint of danger.

No one had protected her since her mother had died.

She had never had a safe place.

She didn’t want him to stop doing that. It seemed an ungrateful and foolish thing to ask, especially when she loved how he made her feel so much.

But she wanted to be more like him, all the same.

“Remin…”

Her voice quavered.

Her body trembled, taut, held by him, surrounded by him, filled by him and straining to contain him.

Deep inside she felt him pulsing, and the hot bursts as he emptied himself into her, thrusting hard against that place that made her fly apart.

Burying her face against his chest to muffle her cries, Ophele sank her small teeth into him, and left her marks in his skin.