Page 67

She was a liar.

And sooner or later, Remin was going to find out.

With every step toward the cottage, Ophele’s heart sank further into her shoes.

How had she not realized that this would happen? Of course, he would expect to meet their families together; that was what normal people did on the Feast of the Departed.

She had been so busy preparing for the feast and the feeding of the fields, it had seemed like a different holiday altogether.

And this one would not end with Ophele alone by the fire, with only a single pinch of incense to summon a wisp of her mother, a breath of regret and longing.

His family would be there.

His whole House that her mother had helped to murder, and her mother would be standing there beside them.

Would they know it? Would they sense each other? Would they understand who Ophele was? The daughter of the Emperor that had ordered their executions, married to their last remaining son! Oh, she could imagine those ghostly faces in the smoke, those furious, accusing eyes, their righteous rage at what had been done to them.

Would Remin hate her for it?

He had said over and over that he did not hold her responsible for anything her father had done.

Unconsciously, her hand tightened on his arm at the thought, and she only distantly heard his deep voice, telling her about his mother and father and grandparents.

And another thrill of fear struck her, because even if she was not to blame for her parents’ crimes, she was deceiving him.

She was not what he thought she was.

Even if Remin did not know enough of women to tell the difference, his mother and grandmothers, great ladies of ancient Houses, must certainly know the truth at a glance.

Her throat clicked as she swallowed dryly.

Until now, it hadn’t seemed so bad, hiding it from Remin; there was still time to learn, time to turn the lies into truth.

But dressed in her fine red silk gown and going to face real noblewomen, she felt like a sparrow clutching a pair of peacock feathers.

They would see right through her.

And in her mind, they had the look of Lady Hurrell, and that voice sounded in her head, wondering how Remin, the son of an ancient and noble house, had come to marry such a wretch.

“Wife?”

Remin tugged her gently; she would have kept walking straight down Eugene Street and out the bridge gate without noticing.

She started.

“Oh, sorry,”

she said faintly.

She was trying not to think of Granholme.

Trying not to remember the night when she had fallen asleep in his arms and awakened to find he hated her.

But she would never forget that look on his face, filled with enough hate and fury to stop her heart.

Even Lady Hurrell had never looked at her like that.

Oh, stars, what would she do if that happened again? Just thinking of it made her feel as if the dark waters of the Brede had closed over her head, cold and deep and airless.

The cottage was dark when they went inside, and as Remin bent to build a fire, Ophele busied herself with moving the small table out of the way and pushing their chairs before the hearth.

There was a pouch full of sacred blue-white incense on the table, more incense than she had ever seen in her life.

Enough to last all the way to sunrise.

Together, they closed the shutters and took their seats, and Ophele’s throat tightened as she looked up at him.

If only her mother hadn’t done what she had done.

If only Ophele herself was not a bastard, a base and crooked thing that under ordinary circumstances would never have laid eyes on a man like Remin in her whole life.

He was so handsome in his doublet and silver chain, and the look in his black eyes made her chest hurt, warm and soft as he turned back to her.

“Ready?” he asked.

She nodded, her tongue rooted in place as he poured a measure of incense into the copper brazier.

“Who will you ask to come?”

He took her hand, his fingers twining in hers.

“M-my mother,”

she managed.

“And my grandparents.

My mother had a brother,”

she added nervously as she watched the first tendrils of smoke curl up from the brazier.

“Consotin.

But I think he’s dead.”

“I had a big family,”

Remin replied, an unwitting slice at her heart.

“My father had four brothers and two sisters, and my mother had two brothers and three sisters.

I don’t know how many cousins I had.

But I remember my grandparents.

I visited House Roye the winter I was six. Grandmother Roye had the baker make cookies every day.”

He was excited.

It didn’t show in his stern face or his voice, but she could feel it in the grip of his hand.

If only things were different.

She might have met his Grandmother Roye.

She might have gone to his house as a beloved bride, maybe even betrothed when they were children, and been as much a part of that large, lovely family as he had been.

Now the smoke was rolling thickly from the brazier, curling up and flowing onto the floor like clouds sweeping down a mountainside.

It was strongly scented, a sharp, crisp smell that stung the nostrils and seemed to bubble into her blood as she inhaled it, making her feel as if she were breathing very cold, thin air.

“Go ahead,”

Remin murmured beside her.

And though she had been longing for years to commune with her mother just once, now the last thing Ophele wanted to do was summon her.

But she had no choice.

“Mother,”

she whispered, conjuring the memory of her mother to her mind.

Her mother had been blonde, slender and graceful, but so many years had passed that Ophele no longer remembered her face.

“Rache Pavot.

Dorame Pavot.

Michinot Pavot. Mother, grandmother, grandfather, please come to me. I am Ophele Agnephus. I am your daughter. I am your granddaughter. I am your blood…”

She breathed the incense deep, feeling it tingle oddly in her lungs.

She had never had so much before, and it made her feel light-headed as she repeated their names, trying to inhabit the words, calling out her own identity to the faraway stars.

Ophele Agnephus, the baseborn daughter of Rache Pavot and Bastin Agnephus.

A child of stardust, the living disgrace to the Emperor’s sacred lineage.

It seemed to her that there was a weight coalescing in that drifting white smoke, a listening presence.

She had never met her grandparents, but she felt loving strangers reach out to her, a call of blood to blood.

And then the sense of her mother’s spirit, so strong it was nearly tangible.

Tears sprang into her eyes.

“Mother,”

she whispered, her throat choked with longing, and in the smoke there was a breath of Rache Pavot, the sensation of embracing arms.

Her lips trembled.

“They’re here.”

“I feel them,”

Remin murmured.

It felt as if he were the only real thing in the world, wrapped with her in the tendrils of smoke, drawn into some elsewhere between this world and the stars.

His dark eyes were very wide.

“I am Remin,”

he said, sitting up straight in his chair.

“Son of Benetot and Sidonie.

Son of House _______ .

I am Remin _______ .”

He said the name of his House.

He said his real name, the unspeakable name that it was treason to say, even to write down.

In the library of the Tower of Scholars, that name was blacked out of all the history books.

“Come to me, Benetot and Sidonie, Pierot and Jannote, Albe and Louinese of House Roye… ”

He said so many names.

So terribly many names, all the names of two noble Houses that had been wiped out at the Emperor’s command.

House Roye lived on, headed by very distant cousins, but his father’s house had been utterly exterminated.

Ophele wanted to shrink as he called them.

She knew the fury of the wrongly accused.

Every time Lady Hurrell had slapped her, it was with the reminder that Ophele deserved it, for what her mother had done.

Involuntarily, her eyes squeezed shut, bracing for the lash of their judgment.

“Mother, Father…”

Remin’s hand tightened on hers.

She felt…something there, listening, but she could not perceive it with her eyes or ears.

“This is Ophele, my wife.

I’m in the Andelin Valley.

I brought her here after we married. And I love her.”

“Hello,”

she managed, almost inaudible.

There was a ghostly sense of curious eyes, a thrill of rejoicing as he said wife and love.

They would be happy for him.

She was frozen with fright, trying desperately to think what to say, wondering whether she ought to just go to her knees and beg pardon.

But shockingly, Remin beat her to it.

“Lady Pavot.

Mother-in-law,”

he began.

The presence of Ophele’s mother was distinct enough that he could turn that way, a short distance toward the hearth and an infinity to the stars.

He drew a deep breath and squared his shoulders.

“I…wasn’t a good husband to your daughter, at first.

I’m sorry for that. I was cruel to her the first time we met, and I didn’t even let her pack a bag when we left Aldeburke. She still doesn’t have a maid…”

Boggling, Ophele listened as he confessed everything to her mother and grandparents, and in far harsher terms than she would ever have described it herself, things that she would never have blamed him for.

Who cared if he kept tearing her clothing in the wash? He explained what he had done and why from the moment they met without ever making excuses for himself, ending with his test of her with the dagger.

“I don’t know how else I could have done it,”

he concluded, and bowed his dark head.

“But I am sorry, for the many pains I caused her.

I will make sure that she is happy and never wants for anything again, as long as she lives.”

From her mother and grandparents, Ophele sensed unhappiness and worry.

And from Remin’s family, there was surprise, embarrassment, and the beginnings of shame .

“No, no, you couldn’t trust me,”

she burst out, unable to bear it.

They should never be ashamed before her.

“He couldn’t! He didn’t tell you my name, I am Ophele Agnephus, how could he trust me—after everything my father did to you!”

she added, turning back to Remin.

“And I bet you never told them how many times he tried to have you killed, and you didn’t say anything about that assassin in Granholme, either! I’m sorry, I’m so sorry for everything my father did…”

Unthinking, she rose to her feet as the words tumbled forth, her hands knotting together as she stood before them, feeling as if she stood before a line of executioners.

She could not hide her guilt from them.

She couldn’t pretend that she was someone else’s child.

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry.

And for whatever my mother did, too.

For what happened to all of you.

She told me you were innocent, she did, she told me over and over.

And I will try—I can never make it up to you, but I will help Remin. I will be a good wife. I love him too, very much. I will learn—”

But there, words failed her.

She couldn’t confess now, not after what Remin had said.

She could not tell him she had lied to him after he told them how he loved her.

Her breath caught.

“I will…I will be a good lady to him,”

she finished lamely.

“I’m sorry.”

“You didn’t do anything wrong,”

Remin said pointedly behind her, drawing her back to him.

“I told you, you don’t need to apologize.

But I will make that promise, too.

I will make up for the wrong that I’ve done.”

“But you’ve already done so much…”

She let him pull her onto his knee and there was a fluttering feeling around them, as of wings or shifting feet, as if the spirits were drawing close to listen.

She couldn’t let them think so ill of him.

“Mother, he sent Sir Miche to bring back the entire Aldeburke library for me, and he’s buying me a horse, an Anglose, and you should see the manor we’re going to have, a man named Sousten Didion is building it…”

She was sure he hadn’t told his family even half of what he had done.

He never thought anything he did was remarkable.

But they needed to know what a good man he was, and that it was understandable that he had been wary of her at first, and how very proud of him they should be.

“You didn’t tell them about the wall, or Wen’s kitchen,”

Remin interrupted, before she could get to the tourney and how he had fought fourteen men by himself.

She was sure his father would like to know that, though his mother might be less pleased.

“I had to go deal with a problem in one of the villages, and I wasn’t gone a week before she turned half the town upside down.

When I got back, I wasn’t sure whether I had the right cottage.

I wish my knights were half so organized.”

It was so odd to hear herself praised, it almost felt as if he were speaking of someone else.

But she had done those things, it was true.

Ophele couldn’t work out the math.

How did they balance against the crimes of her parents? Against the weight of her deception? As soon as she could, she told them more about him, and Tresingale, anxious that they should know that he was giving his knights lands and titles to settle the valley, to make more towns.

That he was helping his soldiers to learn trades. That he was building things. Their voices tumbled over each other, praising each other, excited about the work they were doing, and all of it was a sweetness as keen as a blade.

Her cheeks tingled.

Her nose felt cold, as if that white smoke had drifted to her from a glacier.

The feeling of those gathered sprits was as real as the tip of her nose, each of them so distinct that she thought she might learn to tell them apart, in time.

And she kept searching for anger among them, waiting for the deluge to fall on her head.

Had they misunderstood when she told them who she was? Could they not see her properly? Was there something wrong with the incense?

“…river traffic,”

Remin was saying, excited as always when he spoke of his plans for the valley.

“Next year, we’ll begin building an academy.

We might as well do something with all those books.”

“I want to learn,”

Ophele tried, the merest beginning of the truth.

“Once I have the books, I’ll learn everything so I can help.

He asked me to study the devils, and I like it.

I’ll learn to do it properly.”

“I know.”

Remin gave her a proud glance.

“We’re going to be building a port soon, even though we’ll have to dig through the Cliffs of Marren to reach the water.

Who else will inform me about exotic fruits from across the Sea of Eskai?”

“I will,”

she said, startled into a smile.

“It will help?”

“It will.

We’re going to build together the rest of our lives,”

he said.

“And even then, we won’t come close to filling the valley.

But our children will carry it on for us.

We’ll teach them how to build, too. ”

“Not yet,”

Ophele said quickly, her ears blazing.

There was a cacophony of rejoicing amongst the spirits.

“I’m not, yet.”

She still hadn’t had her bleeding yet.

Remin’s arm tightened around her.

The thought of having a baby was both exciting and frightening, and she would do it for him, though she wished with all her heart for someone like a mother to tell her how it happened, and how she would know when she was with child, and what would happen when she had it.

But there was no such person.

Her father had taken away every woman that should have been there to explain it to her.

“I want to,”

she added, looking up at Remin.

“I do…want to.

If we have a boy, we could name him Victorin.

If you want.”

“I would like that.”

His lips brushed her forehead.

“We could name one of the girls after your mother.”

“One of the girls?”

she repeated.

“I want a dozen,”

he said cheerfully.

There was a burst of consternation among the spirits.

“Six girls and six boys.

There’s still Clement, Bon, Rasiphe, Ludovin, and then my father and our grandparents—”

“Twelve?”

Her voice squeaked.

The idea of one baby was overwhelming.

“Twelve? How—how would we… twelve?”

“Once you have enough of them, they start raising each other,”

he assured her, and she saw the mischief lurking in his black eyes.

“And all of them with eyes like their mother.”

“Black eyes,”

she countered, unable to suppress a smile.

She could imagine the outline of this little spirit, too, Remin’s son.

A little boy with black hair, a miniature version of his father.

Oh, how she would love him.

And as Remin teased her about the family they would have, and boasted about her, all she could feel from the spirits was love and joy.

Had she managed to deceive them after all? Ophele had to look down to hide her expression, trapped in a vortex of fear and guilt and shame, because she didn’t know what to do with this outpouring of love.

It could not be for her.

It would evaporate the instant they knew the truth.

In her head was Lady Hurrell’s voice, so real and present, it was as if Ophele had summoned her through the sacred smoke.

Little mouse. Liar. Bastard. Ophele was only married to Remin because the Emperor had wanted to hurt him, to chain him to a wife who would hinder rather than help him .

Which was worse? Continue the deception, or confess all right now? It would humiliate him if she did that, and right after he had praised her to his family, but how could she sit and listen, knowing it was all a lie? He would hate her, he would never trust her again, she could just imagine the look on his face, the warmth draining from his eyes, and hear that terrible cold fury in his voice again.

Stars, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, the thought of it made her want to be sick—

Remin’s voice never stopped as his big hand caught her and drew her into his chest, as if he had sensed her turmoil.

And she had never been so grateful just to hide.

For a long time, she breathed his warm, familiar scent, dispelling some of the cold giddiness of the incense.

Gradually, her thoughts stopped chasing each other so frantically.

She always ended up in the same place.

By now, the length of her deceit was almost worse than the thing she was trying to conceal.

And she was too much of a coward to confess it.

Next year, when she had learned to be a lady and was carrying his child, then she could say it.

Then she would confess and beg pardon as forthrightly as Remin had.

It would be her last lie.

The biggest and worst of them, maybe, but she wasn’t brave enough to do this now.

“All right?”

Remin murmured, and she nodded, lifting her head.

“The smoke,”

she said, trying to smile for him.

It was not a lie.