Page 54

“He’s been looking forward to this all week,” said Sir Miche as they watched Remin approach the line of knights. He sounded resigned. “We tried to talk him out of it.”

“Yes, why can’t they just fight each other?” Ophele asked unhappily. “There are so many of them, how is it a test—”

“No, the numbers are about right.” Sir Miche stretched his legs and waved a dismissive hand. “The hallow part, that’s what we tried to get him to reconsider. Hasn’t been fashionable in centuries, and I will not be the one trying to explain it in the capital.”

“H-Hallows?” Ophele’s tongue flatly refused to produce the word. “Hallow knights?”

“Soul-sworn knights,” he said helpfully, as if she had never read a history book. Ancient history, harking back to the Age of Heroes, as if Remin thought himself one of those legends. And maybe he was, but it was ludicrous to think of herself in such company.

“I’ve heard of them,” she said, feeling very insignificant and foolish as she looked at the line of men on the field. Her face burned at the thought that all this fuss was for her. “Why? Even the Empress only has regular knights.”

“Rem seems to think if he dies, we’ll leave you in a box by the side of the road,” Sir Miche replied, with some amusement. “If he had his way, he’d make them take an oath to be buried alive with you if you die, like a Yezi war chieftain. ”

Ophele did not find this funny. She was fighting the urge to bury her face in her hands as she counted the armored combatants. Fourteen of them. If they were going to fight for her—why? Why? Why would anyone do that?—then she owed it to them to at least count them. She felt an overpowering urge to leap to her feet and shout that this was all a mistake, she wasn’t a princess, she was a bastard, a blot on the Emperor’s sacred lineage. She didn’t deserve to have grown men, honorable men, competing to bind their lives to hers, forsaking all their own hopes, dreams, and relations. She felt like she was telling an enormous, unforgivable lie just by sitting silent while this happened.

“My lady?” Sir Miche glanced back at her, his blond brows drawing together. “I was just teasing, you know. What’s wrong?”

“I don’t want guards.” She could hardly find the words to speak what was bothering her, and even if she could, she couldn’t tell anyone, even Sir Miche. “I don’t want hallows. Don’t they want to have their own families one day? Doesn’t that mean they’ll keep guarding me even after we die? I’m…”

…nothing.

She swallowed the word, but Sir Miche looked at her as if he had heard every thought racing through her mind.

“The Duchess of Andelin,” he said, with none of his usual frivolity. “You’re not just Ophele of Aldeburke anymore, my lady. You’re a position. The first lady of the House of Andelin must be protected, and Rem’s wife doubly so. If any harm came to a child of the House of Agnephus, he would be blamed, and the stars only know what would happen then. You know that.”

There was no arguing that. However ill-suited she was to the role, there was no doubt that the role existed and she was in it. It was irrefutable logic and still made absolutely no sense.

“But still,” she said, looking again at the line of men. “They’re going to give up their whole lives…”

“Didn’t you do that?” Sir Miche pointed out. “Rem told me what you said, about making up for what your father has done. You’ve done quite a lot to try to make up for it. And though Rem won’t tell you so, he doesn’t understand it, either. He feels guilty about it. ”

“But…that’s…” He hadn’t just taken the wind out of her sails, he’d scuttled her whole ship. Ophele floundered. The thought that Remin might feel the same way she did had never occurred to her.

“I’ll tell you what I told him,” Sir Miche said, to punctuate his point. “Respect their decision. People have the right to spend their lives as they choose.”

This was all far too much for her to offer any intelligent response, much less a counter argument. But somehow Ophele felt that even after she had reasoned it through, she would likely find that he was right.

“You’re a very good friend,” she said finally. He flashed a smile.

“I’m spending my life how I choose, too,” he said with his usual drawling good humor. “Now, did Rem tell you what he was planning, or did he just show up in armor?”

“He just showed up,” she said, fluttering her fan to hide her smile.

“His genius is very specific,” he observed with an exaggerated sigh. “Don’t forget to scold him for it later, or he’ll never learn. He wants the pressure of a crowd watching while he tests your guardsmen, and the two who perform best will take the oaths as hallows. It’s not a complicated plan,” he acknowledged, and made her laugh.

“He really won’t get hurt?” she asked, directing her attention back to Remin. “He doesn’t even have his helmet.”

“He doesn’t need it. No archers, and this isn’t a fight to the death. He wants to be able to hear, especially when he’s outnumbered. Looks like they’re ready,” he added, rising to swing over the railing, perfectly at ease with going to speak to a thousand people at a moment’s notice.

“The melee today will be different from the usual contest,” he announced, his voice clear and carrying. “All of you know you’re here for the new beginning of an ancient land, whose traditions were lost in the invasion of Valleth. Today you will see the creation of new traditions, and the building of a new House. You are privileged to witness history,” he added, with a wicked glance at Ophele that made her want to smack him. “Today’s melee will be fought against His Grace, the Duke of Andelin, for the honor of becoming the hallows of the duchess.”

A babble of amazement rose from the crowd, and Ophele sensed the weight of their eyes as an almost tangible thing, swinging from the challengers to herself, an insignificant little figure hidden in the shadow of Remin’s chair. So many eyes. The weight of them made her feel faintly breathless, but she lifted her chin and looked straight ahead, trying for Remin’s sake to look like someone who deserved hallows.

With the exception of Sousten Didion, the watching crowd was probably less interested in the historical event unfolding before them and more interested in watching Remin Grimjaw fight fourteen of the best warriors in the valley. Betting was brisk.

“Good luck,” Sir Miche concluded, with a satirical glance at the challengers, and got out of the way.

How exactly was the winner determined? Did they have to knock Remin down? Knock him unconscious? He was tall, but there were at least three other knights approaching his size. Ophele shot Sir Miche an anxious glance as he flopped back into his chair. She had no idea what to expect. She had never seen anyone fight, with or without a sword. For a few moments, the combatants milled, looking at each other.

The last thing she expected was for Remin to charge.

He exploded into motion faster than she had ever seen anyone move, descending on the two unfortunate men to his left like a lightning bolt. They barely had time to step back, much less lift their swords before he was on them, standing so close together that he smashed both blades out of his way with a single strike. Was that why he had decided to attack them? Her hands went to her mouth as his huge boot slammed into one man and ripped the sword out of the other man’s hands, flinging it a dozen yards away.

The man he had kicked flew a third of that distance and landed nearly as hard as Sir Osinot had. He did not get up.

Remin’s shaggy head turned like a wolf scenting the air. Even from a distance she could see his black eyes moving over the nearest men, the opaque eyes of a predator, sharp and eager.

“They always think he’s going to be slow,” Sir Miche remarked as Remin pounced on a third man. This one at least managed to get his sword up, but the clang as Remin’s sword struck it was so loud, it felt as if the very air vibrated. A fourth man tried to seize the opportunity while Remin’s back was to him, but Remin must have heard him coming; his left arm came down on the third man like a falling tree and his sword swung up to block the fourth man’s strike with such force, it almost knocked him over .

“Oh, stars,” Ophele managed, shocked, as the remaining men scattered. Fourteen men, now down to ten, in less than two minutes. “How—how—is it just that he’s strong? Is he hitting them so hard?”

“Partly,” Sir Miche replied as Remin looked down at the men he had just flattened. Ophele would have sworn he was asking them if they were all right. “It’s more he knows where to hit. You can see how fast he is, and when he hits you it’s like having a mountain fall on you, but more important, he can look and see exactly where the openings are, and how to attack them. And he’s much faster at closing the distance than people expect.”

“Even against you? And the other knights?”

He knew she meant the knights she knew, the Knights of the Brede.

“Yes. That’s why I don’t let him hit me anymore,” he said, without rancor. He sounded proud, like a teacher with a particularly exemplary student. “The first time he beat me in a bout, he was fifteen. He beat the old man—Duke Ereguil, that is—a year later. Some people are just born for a purpose. Oh, there he goes!”

Impatient with the strategizing among the survivors, Remin charged at the nearest knot of three men, who instantly dispersed before he could bowl them all over. The way he moved was incredible, an explosion of motion and then just stop, an agility that seemed almost supernatural. For an instant, he stood between the three men with his head cocked, as if he were assessing their individual merits. One corner of his mouth tugged up.

The men on the sides tried to collapse in to save the man in the middle, but it was too late. Remin went through his sword like it wasn’t even there, slamming into him with a shattering impact of steel, using his own massive, armored chest like a battering ram. The man didn’t even have a chance to hit the ground before Remin grabbed him by one arm and threw him at one of the others.

Distantly, she heard Sir Miche laughing. Remin turned to face the last of the three with the light of battle in his eyes and Ophele realized that he was enjoying this. She had thought that men must hate each other very badly to fight, but there was no anger in Remin’s face at all. He shook out his shoulders as he advanced, immense and fearless as an Andelin bear, his teeth bared in a savage grin.

The third man put up a good fight. He looked like he was at least learning the rhythm of Remin’s attacks, the brutal efficiency with which he fought. Ophele thought she was spotting a pattern, too. A few smashing blows with his sword to get their sword out of the way, followed immediately by one of those shocking charges, so fast and backed by so much power that she didn’t see how anyone could stop him. She knew exactly how massively muscled he was, under that armor. She had just never imagined what it was… for .

The thought made her cheeks feel hot. Ophele lifted her fan to hide her face.

They attacked him all at once. They fell back and came in waves, two and three at a time, and the eel-like quickness of Sir Bertin and Sir Auber was nothing compared to the way he twisted between their blades and counterattacked. Only Sir Miche’s confidence kept her in her seat, one hand over her mouth as Remin spun and ducked and smashed his way through the line of his attackers again and again.

Ten knights became eight, became seven, became five. She would never have believed it if someone had told her, but it wasn’t even a fair fight. He was unstoppable.

But as the field dwindled, it seemed to her that one pair of men were working together. Again and again, they appeared, a medium-height knight with a falcon crest on his helmet and a tall man with ill-fitting and rather shabby armor, always there, constantly harassing, though they rarely attempted to confront Remin directly. Indeed, it seemed they weren’t really fighting him so much as…

“They’ve figured out the game,” Sir Miche said approvingly. “It’s not about being the last man standing.”

“They saved him, didn’t they?” Ophele asked as the pair of knights interceded yet again, giving Remin’s latest victim room to roll out of harm’s way. “Why?”

“They know they’re meant to be guards, rather than knights,” he explained with a sharp smile. “And that two men are wanted. I’ll wager they made an agreement before they ever took the field.”

Ophele nodded, her eyes wide. Her heart was beating so fast as Remin ripped through his opponents, heaving knights in full armor off the ground as if they weighed nothing, tearing their swords from their hands. Sir Miche was still talking, but she couldn’t hear it. Her eyes were filled with this new Remin that she never knew existed, doing things she had never even read about .

The watching crowd was silent. Only the two men remained, the falcon knight and the shabby knight, and there was no doubt that Remin was attacking them rather than the other way around. The clash of steel echoed over the silent field as again and again Remin went after one man and then the other. It was as if the whole fight to this point had been to prove how unstoppable Remin was, and now these two men had to try.

It went on. And on. The afternoon sun hung eternal in the sky and Ophele distantly felt beads of sweat trickling down her own neck. Remin’s attacks never wavered, never slowed, never granted a moment’s mercy. At first, everyone was simply interested in the fight, but as the two men lunged to defend each other again and again, everyone began to remember that the purpose of this contest was not mere spectacle. These two men were fighting to become hallows, sacred knights sworn to give their lives to their charge.

They wanted it. No one would fight so hard if they didn’t. It was impressive that they just managed to hold onto their swords and keep on their feet, but several times they seemed to stumble into a deadly rhythm and actually managed to drive Remin back a pace or two, moving almost as if they were the same person. And if anything, that only made Remin look pleased. At last, someone was giving him a challenge.

There was no doubt of the outcome. Remin called a halt, lifting a hand and lowering his sword. His opponents were staggering.

“They’ll do, I suppose,” said Sir Miche with no sympathy at all, and stood to conclude the ceremonies.

For a few moments, he, Sir Bram, Remin and the two men spoke amongst themselves, and then the survivors—Ophele felt it was a stretch to call them winners— took off their helmets. They were too far away for her to see their faces.

“Sir Leonin of Breuyir, and Davi Gosse,” Sir Miche announced. Rather than standing in triumph, the two men knelt on one knee facing the dais, holding their unsheathed swords before them. “The first hallows of the Duchess of Andelin.”

She had no idea why they would want to be. But Sir Miche was right; if they were willing to make such a sacrifice, then she should at least honor them for it. She rose and went to stand at the edge of the dais, gripping the railing. Everyone was looking at her again, but she tried not to feel it, searching for Remin’s eyes across the field .

“You have witnessed their effort under the sky, if not the stars,” Remin said, his voice flat and carrying. “I ask all of you to give them your prayers. Be blessed under the stars.”

The crowd murmured a prayer as Sir Miche and Sir Bram lifted Sir Leonin and Davi—was he not a knight?—back to their feet, and then dispersed, an unusually somber ending to a tournament.

“They asked to wait until tomorrow to meet you,” Remin said when he returned to the dais, taking off his gauntlets to squeeze her hand. “They would prefer not to do so before a crowd. And they’re not at their best, at the moment.”

Ophele nodded. Her eyes were fixed on his face.

“We’ll wait here until the crowd clears out,” he continued, thumping into his chair and running a hand through his damp hair. “They’ll do. I think you’ll like them, but tell me if you don’t. After tomorrow, if I’m not with you, they will be. Davi isn’t technically a knight, but he has four younger sisters…”

She nodded again. She should be paying attention. But all she could see was the shape of his firm mouth. Her eyes went to the strong brown column of his neck, his black hair clinging to it in damp curls, the taut muscle of his trapezius above the neck of his armor, starkly defined from the heavy work of the melee. He was magnificent.

“…in court,” he was saying. Something about etiquette? His head bent, his handsome face startling her as he loomed nearer. “Wife?”

Ophele lifted her fan to hide both of them from the passersby. She felt very peculiar.

“I want you to take me home, please,” she whispered, looking up at him with eyes whose pupils swelled, dark and devouring.

* * *

Looking into those glowing, heated eyes, Remin actually felt all the blood in his head stampeding southward, as if it had just remembered urgent business elsewhere.

“We can leave in a few more minutes,” he promised, resisting the urge to toss her over one shoulder and start running. The cottage was about half a mile away. They could be there in three minutes.

“I heard all the stories,” she began, her voice soft, her fingers brushing tentatively at his arm. He had never seen this look in her eyes before. “ About how you won all those tournaments and no one would challenge you anymore and Valleth didn’t want to fight you. But I didn’t know…”

“You didn’t know what?” he prompted when she trailed off. He felt oddly breathless. He was willing to say anything as long as she kept looking at him like this.

“You threw that man at the other men. You threw him. I didn’t know you could…do that.”

“It usually makes the others think twice about getting close,” he explained. He wasn’t sure what she was getting at, but the lashes veiling her eyes were so very dark. His hand moved to cover hers.

“I would,” she breathed, looking from his face to his body with unmistakable admiration. Her cheeks were flushed, pink sweeping over the soft curves, her lips tantalizing him with their plush rosiness.

“Yes,” he agreed vaguely. At that moment he would have agreed with anything she said. The air felt thick. Her lips parted slightly, a quick little breath, and he could see how fast her pulse was beating in her slim throat. He had to swallow before he could speak. “Miche! Miche!”

“Yes, my lord?” From somewhere on the field, Miche shouted back. Remin didn’t even turn to look at him.

“We’re leaving,” he said, sweeping Ophele out of her chair and toward the cottage, trusting his knights to clear a path for them. This was why he suffered having guards all the time anyway. Well, not this specifically, but if he wasn’t going to make use of them now, when would he?

They couldn’t speak on the way home, with people streaming all around them and his knights before and behind. He didn’t dare look down at Ophele; he was afraid of what his face would reveal if he met her eyes. But he was blazingly aware of the feel of her hand in his, her curls bouncing as she trotted beside him, her small, neat figure in her gown, low-necked enough to reveal the upper swells of her breasts. The fog of desire wrapped around them was so thick he could barely breathe.

They left a trail of armor and clothing from the door to the bed, but to Remin’s surprise it was Ophele pushing him backward, rising on her tiptoes to kiss him and drive him staggering across the cottage, until he fell onto the bed with a grunt. Her soft lips covered his hungrily as she moved over him, a tiny ravening wolf, savaging him. Remin still didn’t understand why this was happening, but he gave himself up to her in supreme bliss .

“Remin,” she breathed, and her small, soft tongue pressed between his lips, stroking and eager. Her hands were everywhere, feeling his body all over, his muscles still taut and ridged from the exertions of the contest. Heat baked from his skin like a furnace.

“Ophele…” She was biting his neck. Remin’s head jerked, an instinctive response before he forced himself to lie still, to grant her the freedom of his body. Her slight weight moved over him and he felt her thighs on either side of his hips, the wet heat of her pressed against his aching length. Both of them froze.

Seated astride him and beautifully naked, Ophele looked down at him with a sudden sharpening in her tawny eyes, and rocked her hips forward.

“Ohhhh…” he groaned involuntarily as her slippery flesh stroked over him. They had never done this before.

“It feels good?” she whispered, and he nodded, his eyes closed as she did it again, a gliding wet stroke that made him throb so hard it hurt. Her hands slid over the ridges of his belly, caressing, and Remin gripped her thighs to feel her moving against him.

“That’s… so good,” he managed, his breath catching and stuttering as she kissed the planes of his chest, sank her teeth into him, even licked his flat nipples. Her fingernails dragged up along his sides and his hips thrust involuntarily upward, making her gasp.

“You are so beautiful,” she whispered, leaning over him with the color high in her cheeks. She was doing something he couldn’t see with her hips, sending waves of sensation through his body. He didn’t realize what it was until he felt himself catch at her entrance, and then she impaled herself upon him in one deep stroke.

Oh, stars.

Remin barely managed to strangle his gasp. It was the middle of the day and who knew who was wandering about outside their cottage, to say nothing of the knights standing guard, but oh, nothing had ever felt so good.

“Wife,” he panted, as Ophele covered her mouth with one hand and braced herself against his hard belly with the other, muffling gasps of pleasure. His big hands cupped her breasts as she began to move, a smooth, liquid glide that made him slide out of her and plunge back in over and over and over .

“Ahhnn, ahhhh, Remin,” she whimpered, the words so high-pitched they were almost inaudible, throttled in her throat. Her breasts swayed against his palms with the motion of her slender body, moving faster as she figured out the rhythm and plunged onto him. At the point where he was buried deepest inside her, she suddenly pushed down hard, and as her body ground against him he could feel her spasm on him, forcing another groan from his lips.

“Haaa, ahhhh, there,” he managed, his tongue suddenly thick. “Fu—ahhhh, Ophele!”

He thrust upward, unable to help himself, and Ophele’s head fell back as she rode him, impaled with her full weight upon him and grinding, shuddering, both of them silently expiring from the incredible pleasure. It wasn’t sustainable, no one could feel so good for long and survive. She fell forward against him, her palms catching on his chest, and her hips began to rock remorselessly again.

“It feels sooooo gooooood,” she moaned as she rode him faster and faster, the bed thudding into the pillows they had stuffed behind the headboard. “That…that spot, it’s hitting, nnngh, nnngh, every… time!”

Another spasm inside her, gripping him, squeezing him wildly, and it felt like crimson fire burst inside his skull. There was no rational thought left in him, only sensation, her teeth and her nails and her quick, heated breath searing his skin as she devoured him. He hadn’t the least idea what had gotten into her, but he never wanted it to end.

It would, of course. It was inevitable. They panted together, faster and faster, and in the end, he couldn’t restrain himself and grabbed her hips to move her when she tired, dragging her roughly against him as he pounded up into her, building to an explosion that seemed like it should obliterate the cottage and everything inside it. He was so deep inside her, the angles and friction felt so different in this position, almost as if he could feel her breathing through the joining of their bodies.

“Remin, Remin, ahhhh, ohhhh!” Her hips bucked forward and he felt her climax on him in spasms, driving her body down onto him so hard he had no choice but to follow. The eruption was sudden, immense, almost volcanic. A mingling of fluids, of heat, his already-sweaty body made more so as she fell forward, her wetness slicking him messily. Ophele crumpled over on top of him and lay motionless .

He couldn’t feel his face.

“No, don’t move,” he managed fuzzily as she shifted, slitting his eyes open to look up at her. Her face was buried in his chest, their heated bodies sticking together with perspiration. “Too much. Just for a minute.”

“All right,” she whispered, and made him hiss through his teeth as she fluttered around him, as if to extract every drop of his seed from him.

“Don’t…do that,” he said, strangled.

“Sorry, I don’t mean to.” One golden eye opened. Her hair was a mess, half of her coiling curls collapsing and the knot at the back of her head tumbling down. Her skin glowed. She looked beautiful. “Was that…all right? What we did?”

“I dare anyone to say otherwise.” He was surprised by how much he liked it when Ophele took charge. He had never been entirely sure that she wanted him, much less with the desperate hunger he felt for her. All this time he had been trying to temper himself, so he wouldn’t hurt or frighten her.

“I bit you,” she said apologetically, touching a spot on his chest. Remin peered down at himself.

“So you did,” he agreed, closing his eyes. “If you want to use me that hard, wife, you have to be gentle with me afterward.”

One corner of his mouth tugged up and he lifted an arm when he felt her weight shift, catching her chastising hand.

“I’ll be sore for days,” he said mournfully, making her burst into giggles.

“Are you saying I’ve worn you out?” she asked, daring to tease him back, her eyes dancing with mischief.

“Never.” His lips teased hers, and he could feel himself hardening. “I am claiming my forfeit,” he told her, and pushed up into her. “Do that again.”

It was a different sort of hunger that drove him out of bed later, and Remin went to the washstand to wipe away the evidence of the day’s rigors, grumbling a little as various aches asserted themselves. He was so dusty and sweaty that the thought of putting clothes on his sticky skin was unpleasant, but he was hungry enough to be cross about it.

“Oh, Remin, your back,” said Ophele behind him, sitting up in a tangle of blankets. “Someone hit you? ”

“Of course,” he said, glancing back at her mildly. That was what happened in a fight. He could feel a few tight, heated spots on his back and there was a hell of a welt on his left shoulder, probably from someone’s sword. Pouring water into the washstand, he dipped a cloth in it to wipe himself down, but Ophele appeared beside him.

“I’ll do it,” she offered, dressed only in her clouds of hair and holding out a hand for the cloth. “You said I should be gentle with you. After.”

“I did,” he agreed, bemused by this reversal of roles. Normally, it was him tending her. He let her nudge him over to her bath basin, which was ludicrously small for him, and sat down as Ophele hauled over some water. They always kept a few buckets handy.

“It’s purple,” she fretted, pouring water over his head in much the same way she did to Master Eugene. “On your back, doesn’t it hurt? You said you’d be fine…”

“I am fine,” he said, and lowered his head toward her as she lifted his arm to wash down his side. “Do you want me to prove it again?”

“No, that’s all right.” A smile tugged at her lips as she knelt on the rushes beside him. “But I could send for Genon…”

“I don’t want Genon,” he said flatly. “I want to be clean, and I want food.” His stomach growled audibly.

“But it’s right over the bone—”

“Food.”

She chewed her lip and dumped another bucket of water on him.

“All right,” she said, and pattered over to her trunk to pull on a fresh chemise and dress, then twisted her hair up into a somewhat respectable knot on the back of her head. She paused, visibly nerving herself, and snapped open the shutters of the window over her trunk.

“Sir Tounot,” she said, leaning over the sill. Her cheeks were pink. There was no way Tounot didn’t know what they had been doing just five minutes ago, and Remin scrubbed silently, watching as she lifted her chin. Her ears were red. “Would you mind sending someone to fetch food for His Grace?”

“Meat,” Remin ordered from his basin. He had fought fourteen men and then been ravished by his wife. He wanted real food.

“He says he wants meat. ”

Tounot’s voice was an unintelligible murmur, but Ophele seemed satisfied as she closed the shutters and returned to Remin, plucking the cloth from his hand.

“Will you go to the bathhouse later?” she asked, all solemn eyes. “Hot baths used to help when my legs hurt.”

“When did your legs hurt?”

“When I was helping at the wall. I got used to it,” she added stoutly. This was probably an exaggeration at best. He looked down at her, softening.

“All right,” he agreed. “We’ll both go to the baths tonight.”

It was surprisingly pleasant to be fussed over. No one had fussed over him since his mother had died. Leaning forward with his elbows loose over his knees, he sighed as she gently washed his back, a new kind of intimacy. It had never much bothered him to be naked around her; his life hadn’t left him the luxury to worry about things like modesty, and she was his wife and had the right to see him naked if anyone did. But it made him happy that it didn’t embarrass her.

“No,” he repeated as she fussed some more, closing his eyes as her fingers scrubbed his wet hair. “It doesn’t hurt at all.”

* * *