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“I know — he was just a d-donkey,”

Ophele said between sobs, the words muffled into the front of Remin’s shirt.

“I’m sorry, it’s silly…”

“It’s not,”

Remin soothed.

His hand slid up and down her back as her shoulders shook.

“It’s all right, little owl.”

Seated in his lap in their cottage, she sobbed with peculiar silence, her shoulders heaving up and down as Remin held her, glad for her sake that she had held herself together until they got home.

It was lucky that he had been only a few minutes behind Jacot in reaching the stables, and the look of brittle grief on her face had told the tale before the boy could.

Jacot was there, after all, and the donkey was not.

There wasn’t much to be done.

The men of the wall, knowing how fond Ophele was of the little animal, had already brought his body inside so the devils wouldn’t get at it.

“He was s-so sweet,”

she wept.

“He worked so hard, and he—always h-helped…when I w-was tired…and it was…”

The words terminated in a single, almost inaudible squeak, and then more of those silent, wracking sobs.

Remin pressed his lips to the top of her head.

He was not overly sentimental about animals himself.

He had stopped naming his horses after the third one was killed under him, and he had lost far too many people to grieve much for a donkey.

But Ophele loved the animal, cooing and petting Eugene like he was a kitten. Even after Jacot had taken her place on the wall, she had still gone to the stables every day to look after him. That beast had the most velvety gray coat Remin had ever seen.

“You looked after him very well,”

he told her, stroking her hair.

“He was just old, wife.”

Her head nodded.

The tears went on.

Was he doing something wrong? Or did she just have to get it out of her system? For a long while, Remin held her quietly, his hands gently stroking, wondering if he should say something else, and what it might be.

He was also starving and trying manfully to ignore it, though he and his men had been out in the fields that afternoon finishing the harvest and his stomach was under the impression that his throat had been cut.

But he was not the sort of brute who would abandon his wife when she was crying, Remin told himself sternly.

Horses—and, he supposed, donkeys—were one of the five great gifts of the stars, and deserved respect for their work and loyalty.

“You should go eat.”

Having finally cried herself out, Ophele lay limp against his chest, her voice husky.

“I don’t want you to miss supper.”

“It’s all right. I’m fi—”

His cavernously empty stomach chose that moment to give a righteous roar of indignation.

Ophele hiccupped and lifted her head.

“You get cross when you’re hungry,”

she informed him, giving him a watery smile.

“It’s all right, I’ll stay here.

I must look a mess.”

“You’ve been crying,”

he agreed, wiping the tearstains away.

Her pretty face was blotchy.

“I am sorry, wife.”

“I know.”

She sniffled.

“Would you bring back tea?”

No one looked shocked to see him in the cookhouse, so Remin assumed he wasn’t a heartless bastard for being there.

Taking his seat at the high table, he beckoned for Wen to bring his plate and set to it with a will, ravenous.

“If the beast had to die, it’s fortuitous timing, my lord,”

said Juste.

He alone was unperturbed; the rest of Remin’s knights had offered slightly embarrassed condolences.

What was the etiquette for the death of a duchess’s pet donkey, anyway? “With the harvest in.

If you would like, I can help Her Grace make arrangements to send the animal to the service of the dead.

It may be some comfort to her.”

“That’s good of you.”

Remin masticated thoughtfully.

“If you don’t mind, I think she’d like it.”

They had to do something with the body.

“I know he was just a donkey,”

Ophele said quietly in bed later that night.

“But I used to talk to him while I was working.

It was…boring a lot of times, walking back and forth all day.

And he could tell when I was tired, he used to shove his head under my arm to walk with me.

He was my friend.”

“I’m glad he was.”

Remin hadn’t thought of that.

Once, he had only thought it was a nuisance, waiting impatiently for her to be done cooing over the animal, an outpouring of affection with no other outlet than a humble donkey.

His arms tightened around her until she squeaked a protest.

“Tounot suggested naming the road after him,”

he said, low.

Tounot had mostly been jesting, but now it didn’t sound so ridiculous.

“Would you like that?”

“Really?”

She gave a hiccupping laugh.

“Eugene Street?”

“Well, Juste said he did help build the wall,”

Remin said, embarrassed.

“It could be a tribute to all the beasts that helped build Tresingale.”

“They did, didn’t they?”

She lifted her head to look at him, wondering.

“Would you really do that?”

“Yes,”

he murmured, accepting a salty kiss.

Inside, he admitted there was probably very little he wouldn’t do for her.

Eugene Street.

Remin tried on the name when he stepped out of the cottage the next morning, surveying the cobblestone street that curved away to the south.

The main road of Tresingale extended all the way from Gellege Bridge to the east and thence through the bridge gate and all the way the north gate on the opposite side of town.

It would be Tresingale’s longest road, and one day a major thoroughfare to the rest of the valley.

It wasn’t the sort of grand name Remin had imagined when he planned the capital of his duchy.

Even as his men squabbled over Auber Avenue and Harnost Highway, Remin had thought of the most musical names he had ever heard, from the Street of Nightingales in Abharana to the Celestial Road of Segoile.

But maybe this was better.

This was a name that told the story of Tresingale, its people, and its beasts.

In a way, it even told the story of the Lady of the Wall.

And fittingly enough, that was where they burned Eugene later that night, on a bier near the north wall, where the little donkey was all but hidden beneath a mass of flowers.

Dandelions and daisies, henbit and goldenrod, the scruffy little blooms that had composed much of his diet, in life.

Ophele laid a few carrots beside his soft muzzle and straightened, tears streaming down her face.

“Go ahead,”

said Remin, drawing her back beside him.

He was dressed in black for the occasion and still feeling a little foolish about it, but the nearby guardsman was nothing but respectful as he stepped forward, touching a torch to the pyre.

It lit immediately, a white-hot blaze that burned blue to its heart, sending up a great gout of white smoke.

Ophele retreated, covering her nose with her sleeve against the stink of burning hair.

Like most of Remin’s men, Juste had a great deal of experience in preparing bodies for burning, and the whole pyre was ablaze in moments.

“The Temple teaches that the spark of life is the essence of the divine,”

Juste said, his face dusty with the powders he had used, preparing the donkey’s body.

“That is why it is considered good to plant, evil to destroy, and wise to reap with care for the seasons to come.

Mankind is unique in our capacity to reason, and so we are uniquely responsible for nurturing the life of the world.

And especially for the care of those wise beasts that serve us so willingly, even at the cost of their own comfort and lives.”

Ophele gulped, squeezing Remin’s hand.

“Therefore, we believe that those willing beasts may accompany us on our journey among the stars,”

Juste went on quietly.

“The beasts that in life chose the company of men, offering their service, their companionship, their protection.

And so you may send him forth from this world, Your Grace, just as you would any other that you love, with prayers and good wishes, and remember him before the stars.”

“He was my friend, and he worked hard for us,”

Ophele said thickly.

“Go to my mother, Eugene.

Rache Pavot.

I promise she will look after you.

Mother, take care of him for me, please. He likes…c-carrots…”

“Go to Lady Pavot, faithful beast of Tresingale,”

Remin said, when her voice failed her.

He was looking beyond the smoke and flames to the long road that stretched the full length of his city, and wondering what roads lay invisibly between the stars.

Well, he supposed this clinched it.

“Serve her as well as you served us, and we will remember you always.”