Page 16

“There’s about a hundred of them, Your Grace,”

said Remin’s scout.

Eude was still winded from his fast ride back to Tresingale, a short and slightly built man who was born to lurk.

In Remin’s absence, Jinmin had dispatched scouts and trackers to locate the bandits, and reports had been coming in for the last week.

They were not all bad, but they weren’t good, either.

The number was less than originally supposed, but a hundred men was a formidable force.

On the north side of town, Remin had resurrected his old commander’s tent and set up a worktable, just as it had been through all the long years of the war.

He even had his maps rolled up in their usual corner, stored in oilskin cases and neatly labeled.

“They made winter camp in the Veralde Forest.”

The scout pointed to the place on the map.

“I saw a lot of old Vallethi army insignia.”

“That’s a lot of men to be living off the land,”

remarked Bram, who had come in from the Gellege Bridge early that morning.

All of Remin’s knights had some degree of tactical genius, or they would never have become knights at all, but Bram of Lisle was uniquely attentive to practicalities.

A hundred men would clear a forest of game inside a month.

“They cleaned up the camp some, sir, but we found this.”

Eude held up the remains of a rough burlap bag, burned in the middle but whole enough to get an idea of size.

“There were many more like it.

Near their cooking pit.”

“A grain sack,”

said Remin, his jaw tightening.

Men living as fugitives in a forest should not have sacks of grain.

Men living as fugitives in a forest should not have access to trade.

Men living in a forest over a long, bitter winter should have been eating each other’s frozen carcasses by the new year.

Which meant someone was supplying them.

“The nearest villages are Ferrede and Meinhem,”

said Bram, tapping each with a fingertip.

“Ferrede is three or four days away, if I remember right.

Meinhem, nearer a week.”

The scandalmongers of the Empire claimed that Remin had put every man, woman, and child living in the valley to the sword, to make sure no one loyal to Valleth remained.

He had not.

But if he had, he would not currently be having this problem.

“I’ll leave that to you, Bram,”

he said after a moment.

“Go watch the villages, see who goes in and out.

Stop any wagons you see on the road.

Take eight men.”

Bram nodded.

He always reminded Remin of a rather moth-eaten ferret, with button-black eyes, a narrow, pockmarked face, and long black hair, peppered with gray.

“Where are they now, Eude?”

“About ten days out, Your Grace.

Marching south-southeast on foot.

Mostly spears and clubs, but I saw some swords and about two dozen bows.”

The tent was silent as they let him think.

Remin knew every ripple and fold of the valley; he had been riding it for seven years and had an excellent memory.

He wasn’t worried about dispatching a mob of deserters, though the fact that they were men of military experience shouldn’t be taken lightly.

The greater concern was that every man he sent away from Tresingale was leaving some necessary work unfinished.

If the walls were delayed, then they would be increasing night watches for Andelin devils; if the spring planting was delayed, then they might be hungry, come winter.

And more than anything, he resented having to take his war horses from their plows.

“I’ll lead a force out tomorrow afternoon,”

he said finally.

“We’re not going to sit and wait for them to come to us.

They’re in rough, rocky hills, with a lot of choke points.

We’ll intercept them when they’re moving in column and hit them with our archers, then send in some horsemen to mop up.

How many can we spare, Auber?”

“Dozen horses at most, unless you don’t mind stopping some major projects.

Most of them are doing draft work.”

“Tounot, pull some archers out of their work details today, and give them some practice time.”

Remin scowled ferociously.

“Edemir, report to me later about how we can minimize the impact on planting and wall building, but I’m willing to give up a few acres of planting before we lose a foot of wall.”

These were familiar problems, too much to do and not enough resources, and not even gold could buy a solution to everything.

Between grudging rewards from the Emperor and tribute from Valleth, Remin had more money than he knew what to do with.

The thing he was lacking was time.

Finding and securing the experts and supplies he needed didn’t happen overnight, much less transporting them to the valley.

By late summer, Tresingale would be bursting with men and materiel, but they would have to survive that long, first.

He would take Juste, Huber, and Jinmin along.

Sir Jinmin of Oskerre was a stolid man of nearly forty who went about his work on a battlefield the same way he went with his belt knife at dinner.

A knight on horse was worth twenty bandits.

A Jinmin of Oskerre was worth forty.

After he dispatched more scouts under Eude’s command, Remin reviewed the rest of his plans with his knights, to make sure nothing was overlooked.

The only remaining trouble was what he would do with the people supplying the bandits.

It might not be the whole village; it could be only two or three people who had taken it upon themselves to commit treason.

The loyalties of the Andelin commonfolk were complicated.

After a century of war, they might regard themselves as citizens of either Valleth or the Empire.

But he had offered them amnesty.

He had offered to escort anyone who considered themselves citizens of Valleth to the border, and even gave them a few silvers to help them on their way.

Someone had refused that offer and then stabbed him in the back.

Remin Grimjaw had no mercy for traitors.

For now, he handed the problem over to the back of his mind and went to have a look at the spring planting.

It gladdened his heart to see the furrows of rich, dark earth stretching away on the north side of town, acres of fresh-turned soil that would soon sprout, green and living.

There were small dots in the distance, men and horses plowing and seeding, singing out their commands to the beasts under Auber’s experienced eye.

“Looks good, doesn’t it?”

Auber asked, trotted his bay over to stand by Remin’s warhorse.

They only had a few horses to spare for riding, but the quantity of acreage would have made it impossible for Auber to manage on his own feet.

“We’ve got about sixty acres plowed and forty planted, so far.

Based on Edemir’s figures, that ought to see us through the winter comfortably.

I agree with the men, though, we ought to plant the carrots and such inside the wall.

Birds are already stealing seed and next it will be deer in the carrots.”

The wooden palisade on the north side of town was a stopgap measure.

Both men glanced at it automatically, a ten-foot wall of heavy logs planted upright, spiked on the top and currently three miles long.

It would keep deer out, but stranglers would go up and over it as easy as a ladder.

Deer.

Ghouls.

Stranglers.

Demon wolves, regular wolves, human wolves, traitorous villagers and the coming winter and no doubt a host of other hazards that Remin hadn’t even conceived.

It was overwhelming, if one started a list.

“You want a turn with the plow, Rem?”

Auber glanced at him sidelong, and Remin decided he would.

“Let’s see if you beat me this time,”

he said, kicking his horse into a gallop toward the nearest plowman and grinning as Auber swore and raced after him.

Of course, Auber was a farmer’s son and had taken his first toddling steps behind a plow, so the contest wasn’t exactly fair.

But it was nearly time for the noon meal and the men welcomed any excuse to stop, much less the treat of another contest between the Duke of Andelin and Sir Auber Conbour.

“First to five?”

Auber handed his horse to one of the men nearby.

“And the row doesn’t count if it looks like a drunkard plowed it.”

“That only happened one time,”

Remin protested, but he didn’t mind the good-natured mockery.

Manual labor sounded like just what he needed.

A few minutes later, Remin and Auber were standing at the end of their respective rows, plows and reins in hand, waiting as the spectators excitedly counted them down.

“Gee up, there!”

Remin shouted, starting his horse off with a jolt.

Until last year, he had never touched a plow in his life.

It was hard work; the soil of the valley was rich, but wet and heavy, and the muscles in his shoulders and back burned pleasantly as he pushed the nose of the plow down, dragged forward by the horse in front of him.

The soil rolled up and outward like the wake of a ship, and the primal smell of fresh earth filled his nose.

“One!”

shouted Auber distantly, to cheers from the spectators, who had already placed their bets.

The odds heavily favored Auber.

“One!”

Remin shouted back, clicking his tongue to get the horse to turn at the end of the row.

He reset himself, pushed the plow into position, and called again, “Gee up, there!”

Five rows were a solid bit of work, and he was sweating when he was done, scarcely twenty seconds after Auber.

But his rows weren’t bad at all, following the curve of the hillside, and there was quiet satisfaction in this work that had been lacking even when the warlords of Valleth had fallen at his feet.

“I keep telling you, you don’t have to push the plow down so hard,”

Auber said, mopping his sweaty face with a handkerchief.

Even years of campaigning hadn’t browned his skin, and he turned red under the slightest exertion.

“We’re planting wheat, not digging a mine.”

“When I plow a furrow, the earth will never forget it,”

Remin said gravely, to the sniggers of the listening men, who received all vulgarities with the delight of twelve year-old boys.

Remin rode the length of Tresingale twice that afternoon, checking on his prized breeding rams, the progress of the wooden palisade, two sites where wells were being dug, and then met his town planner on top of the east gatehouse to look at the town site.

Nore Ffloce was a twitchy, excitable man with the angular limbs of a grasshopper, but he had an eclectic experience that was worth a little twitching.

“You can see we have the stakes up to mark the first two streets, Your Grace,”

he said, holding up an enormous parchment so Remin could see the beautifully visualized depiction of a future Tresingale, with artisans’ quarters, shops, and houses, a temple, and a market square that Remin could already imagine decorated for the midsummer Turning of the Stars.

The grubby reality was a bunch of stout sticks and string in the mud, like a Bhumi wind graveyard.

“What about the flooding around the back of the temple site?”

Remin asked, pointing to the large stagnant pool that the men called Mosquito Pond.

“Ah, we have been working on the drainage system, look here, Your Grace,”

Nore said, as if he had been dying for Remin to ask.

Rapidly, he shuffled through his parchment.

“It’s fortunate that we’ve had a year to observe the troublesome areas, I’ve modeled your sewage system on the city of Indhigi, in Daitia…”

Even the drains were fascinating.

Remin listened, asked questions, and then left to bolt down the noon meal and head to the forest with his hunters, to see if they might get a look at a boar.

None deigned to make an appearance, but they did hear some distant grunting from deep in the trees that was either an enormous boar or a very localized earthquake.

By late afternoon, he had postponed going to look at the wall for long enough.

It was visibly longer than it had been even the day before, but Remin only watched the work from a distance.

He didn’t want to distract his men, who were doing hazardous work in high places, and the less he saw of his wife, the better.

Leaning over his saddle, he watched as the earth was shifted and stones moved into their places, one backbreaking rock at a time.

The figure in green scampering past the scaffolding might not even have been the princess.

From this distance it was impossible to tell who was who.

It wasn’t like he was looking for her, anyway.

* * *

There was a very slight incline on the lane into town.

Ophele hadn’t noticed it at all that morning, but she was sure she could have calculated the exact angle that evening, just from the pitch of the shrieking in her legs.

“All right, Your Highness?”

asked Sir Miche beside her.

He was unspeakably filthy from digging all day, with his muddy shirt slung over one shoulder and his sword slung over the other.

She nodded.

She was tired, but complaining about it wouldn’t change anything, except that maybe they wouldn’t let her help anymore.

“If you ever need to rest, say so,”

he said, eying her critically.

“You’ve already done more than anyone should expect.”

Exactly how low were their expectations? She had filled buckets with water.

Helpful, yes, but minstrels would never sing songs of it.

“I’m all right,”

she said.

“But you don’t…mind? Digging all day? You’re a knight and everything.”

“You’re a princess and everything,”

he noted, with a wry twist of his mouth.

“Still not sure I like watching you sweat.

But I like work, myself, even if it’s digging.

It’s clean work.

That was Rem’s idea.”

“What was?”

“This,”

he said, jerking his chin toward the valley.

“Andelin’s a poisoned sweet, just like all the Emperor’s gifts.

He gives Rem a knighthood, then orders him over the Brede.

Gives him the valley, but it’s filled with Vallethi demonspawn and deserters and who knows what else, and then he pardons a pack of criminals and sends them to settle it.

No one would’ve blamed Rem if he just sold off what he could and retired to Capricia.

But he wants a grand city right on the Brede, and he wants to give all of us a chance to build something instead of destroying it.”

The last part buzzed right by her, unnoticed.

Ophele was appalled.

“The Emperor sent…criminals?”

she echoed.

“It’s nothing to worry about, my lady.

They’ll never get across the river. Oi, Rem!”

Sir Miche lifted a hand as they approached the cottage.

The duke was coming out of the stables further down the street, looking almost as grimy as Sir Miche; his boots were black with soil and his jerkin was covered with burrs.

“Wall’s coming on well, thanks to your lady,”

Sir Miche said, according Ophele a sweeping bow.

“I’m glad she was useful.”

The duke didn’t look at her.

“Go into the house, wife, I need to speak with Miche.

I’ll be in in a moment.”

She went.

After the news about the criminals, she couldn’t look him in the eye anyway.

How was she ever going to pay him back if her father kept adding to the debt?

Was there any point in trying to write the Emperor a letter? Ask him to please stop being mean to her husband? No, her father had never given her any consideration before.

The fact that she was now the wife of his enemy would not help her cause.

A poisoned sweet, like all the Emperor’s gifts.

She wondered if Sir Miche knew that she was one of those poisoned sweets, too.

A princess that was no sort of princess at all, an honor that was a backhanded insult.

She was tired.

Thinking about all of it now just made her…more tired.

After a day sweating at the wall, she felt unspeakably grimy, but if she wanted a bath, she was going to have to heat water herself, and the wood wasn’t going to set itself on fire.

Groaning internally, she reached for the kindling box.

There was a nice blaze going by the time the duke knocked at the door.

“Already started a fire?”

He slid his jerkin off and hung it on the back of a chair.

His white shirt was sticking to him with perspiration.

“I want a bath, please.”

He gestured to the buckets by the door.

“You can bathe whenever you like.”

Ophele looked at them grimly.

More buckets.

“Can you tell me where the well is?”

She pushed herself back to her feet with a screech of quadriceps.

“I can get the water myself.”

“I’ll go with you.

Wait, look at me.”

The duke caught her elbow as she went by and tilted her face up to look at her, his eyes narrowing.

“Your face is burned.

Wear a hat tomorrow, we’ll get one from the storehouse.

And try to keep in the shade, as much as you can.”

The noblewomen of the Empire were famous for their aristocratic pallor.

He wouldn’t want his princess to embarrass him with a peasant’s tan.

Ophele looked away.

This was enough to almost make her angry, which was very difficult to do.

She didn’t mind working hard, but being rebuked for not looking regal enough afterward was too much.

“I have something to tell you anyway,”

he added as they walked to the well, behind the row of cottages at the top of a small hill.

“You remember we heard about bandits in the area when we were in Trema? I’m going to have to go and deal with them.

I’ll be gone a few weeks.”

Ophele was silent, absorbing this.

“You’re not going to tell me to be careful?”

he asked dryly.

“I do want you to be—”

“The men will be giving you their oaths tonight,”

he said, as if he hadn’t heard her.

Ophele shut her mouth and looked at her feet as he filled the buckets for her, cranking the big windlass.

“You’ll need to dress nicely after your bath.

In future we’ll do something more formal for those that mean to live in the valley, but I want everyone to make their oaths before I leave.

You’ll be safe, Miche will keep an eye on you.”

A bear.

She followed him back to the cottage, hauling her heavy pair of buckets.

An angry bear, roaring away in front of his cave, and in the end all of his roaring meant stay away.

Don’t talk to me, don’t bother me, don’t come near me.

Putting water on to heat, she trudged back to the well with more buckets, and returned to find the angry bear naked at the washstand.

Ophele’s face instantly flamed and she almost dropped her buckets in her haste to turn her back.

“What are you doing?”

he asked testily.

“Come in and close the door.

You’re not a maiden anymore, Princess, we don’t have time for your blushes.

You’ll have to get used to it.”

Would she? Could she ever get used to this? His comment about her maidenhood struck her like a slap and she set her buckets down without looking at him, crouching by the fire to wait for her water to boil.

This was just like back home, when all she could do under Lady Hurrell’s bullying was to be small and quiet, like a mouse, and hope to go unnoticed.

The duke scrubbed himself from head to toe, dunked his head in a bucket, and then shook his black hair like a dog.

“I’ll be back soon,”

he said, pulling on a fresh shirt and clean breeches.

“Be quick about your bath.”

It was lukewarm at best.

As she scrubbed, Ophele wondered that a man eighteen inches taller and two hundred pounds heavier than she could clean up in five minutes, while she took at least half an hour, most of it painstakingly soaping and rinsing sweat and stone dust out of her long hair.

She was nowhere near ready when he knocked at the door.

“Wife?”

“Wait!”

Maiden or no maiden, she still bolted for the bed and pulled on a fresh chemise that instantly clung to her soaked skin.

And then she hesitated, her fingers knotting together as she looked at the door, because she wasn’t ready yet and if he scolded her one more time she didn’t think she could take it.

“Princess?”

“Come in,”

she said, as if to an executioner.

The duke ducked through the doorway and then stopped as suddenly as if he had struck a wall.

He didn’t speak.

He just looked at her with those opaque, unreadable black eyes, and the room filled with a deep and dreadful silence, as if to make room to allow her to contemplate the totality of her failure.

He looked at her for so long that Ophele wrapped her arms around herself nervously, her eyes on the floor.

Lady Hurrell used to do this, too.

When Ophele was in trouble, the lady would just sit there in silence, staring, letting the pressure build and build until Ophele didn’t care what cruel thing the lady did as long as it happened and was over.

“We don’t have any towels,”

she said at last, when she couldn’t bear it any longer.

“I had to wash my hair, it got all dusty, but it takes too long to dry.

It’s too long, I’m sorry, most noblewomen don’t have their hair so long, I could cut—”

“No,”

he said instantly, and then blinked and seemed to shake himself.

“No.

I told you to tell me if you need something.

I’ll find some towels before I leave.

Come, I’ll help you with your hair.”

“You’ll…”

The vision of the duke clutching her hairbrush was nearly as mind-boggling as the idea of him sewing tippets to her sleeves. “…help?”

“Yes.

We’re not cutting it.

Come, show me what to do.”

Crossing the room, he pulled a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders.

“Here, you—cover up.

Now, explain.”

It was probably like brushing his horse to him, she told herself.

A prized horse that he needed to tend so he could trot it out to be admired.

But it was still surreal to have him stand by the hearth and brush one side of her hair while she combed the other, separating and untangling the long locks so the heat of the fire would dry them faster.

“That looks well enough,”

the duke said when they were done, shifting back from her so carefully that it was as if he thought he might catch fire if he so much as touched her.

“Tell me if you need help with such things.”

“All right,”

Ophele said to the floor, thoroughly bewildered and wishing he would just be hateful, if he hated her.

At least then she would know what to expect and have no hope for anything different.

“Be quick,”

he said, striding to the doorway without looking back at her.

“It’s dangerous to keep a hungry man from his meal.”