Page 22

“Twenty-foot sections and six-foot gaps,”

said Remin, who was confronting a much less impressive wall on the north side of town.

The palisade had already advanced eastward beyond the wheat fields to the edge of the old forest, and he had to raise his voice to be heard over the din of shouting and sawing and falling trees.

“We’ll fill in the gaps later.”

“It’ll be a fortnight before there’s enough wall to be worth defending,”

rumbled Jinmin, stumping along beside him.

Having taken command of the night watch, the big man was deeply concerned about the progress of the palisade.

“It’s still a long way to the east wall, m’lord.”

“It’ll be a fortnight before we’re trying to stop them here,”

Remin replied, pausing by one six-foot stretch of wall, the raw timbers lashed together with wet rope.

It would dry and shrink tight quickly in this heat.

“Save the pines for pitch.

We’re going to need a lot of torches.”

Ahead of them were hundreds of men busy at every stage of construction for these defenses, from clearing the land to deny the devils cover to dragging the trees in for processing.

Sawyers, busily hewing them into planks.

Rope-makers, pressed into service to soak long strips of bark and grasses in water and then weave them together.

Pitch-makers, hauling away the pine branches as fast as they were trimmed, to be burned for their resin.

Tounot was overseeing the construction of the palisade itself, the finished timbers thudding into the earth, braced with heavy stones to keep the devils from simply digging under it.

And other trees were reserved for barriers like the one lying at Remin’s feet: six feet wide, eight to ten feet tall, lashed together with two cross-braces on the back to make them strong.

“Break walls,”

said Jinmin, eying them with foreboding.

“They’ll fill in the gaps in the palisade, when we’re ready,”

said Remin, and confirmed Jinmin’s worst suspicions by bending to lift the nearest barrier, jerking his chin at the other man.

“Get the other side.”

Normally such work was reserved for draft horses, but Remin and Jinmin made a reasonable substitute.

It was a long walk to the cluster of cottages by the north gate, wattle-and-daub structures already obscured behind three lines of break walls.

Every section was braced with two sturdy logs behind it and banked with earth at the base, designed to withstand even the deadly charge of a wolf demon, so that a single man with a sword could pin them between sections of wall.

Behind the last line of walls were stands for archers, with baskets sitting ready for their arrows and sturdy braziers to give them light for shooting.

The land had been cleared for twenty yards from the last line of break walls.

There were many lines of defenses.

More soldiers guarded the nearest gaps in the palisade, funneling the devils into a gauntlet of archers.

Each of Tresingale’s small camps had been built on a hilltop, with excellent visibility and no cover for the devils, so that even the sneaky stranglers could not approach unobserved.

Devils did not fear torchlight, but they had sufficient animal intelligence that they would not attack an alert, wary target unless they outnumbered it.

Remin was still dissatisfied.

In this part of the valley, the devils usually didn’t arrive until late April, then escalated to a peak in late July and August.

So far, his men had been keeping pace with the beasts; they had only lost a single guardsman, and there was no doubt the early warning from Ferrede had saved lives.

They kept the devils’ corpses out of sight to avoid alarming the camp, but Remin knew exactly how many there were.

He felt with deepest instinct that this was only the beginning.

He managed a few hours of hauling sections of wall before Juste appeared to protest the activity, galloping up as urgently as if he had been informed that the Duke of Andelin was running around the north gate with no clothes on.

“My lord,”

he said pointedly, swinging off his evil-tempered roan, which immediately tried to bite him.

“Please let me take your place.

My horse could use some exercising.”

“Thanks, Juste,”

Remin said agreeably, surrendering his section of wall.

Jinmin was busy propping it up with two heavy braces.

“I want this line finished by sunset.

I’ll go look in on the barracks, if you’ll give Jinmin a hand.”

“Please let the bricklayers haul the bricks, Your Grace!”

Juste called after him, correctly guessing what he was off to do.

Remin waved a hand.

A few of his men had strong opinions about what work was appropriate for the hands of a nobleman, and Juste and Edemir in particular objected to Remin including himself among the town’s beasts of burden.

But Remin thought it was good for his men to see him working.

They could hardly complain about their own labors if they saw the Duke of Andelin trundling by with a load of bricks on his back, and it wasn’t as if he had any other useful skills.

Remin was not a mason or a bricklayer or any sort of craftsman.

He was a knight and a general, and he had spent his life learning to break walls, not build them.

There was plenty of work for his unskilled hands.

He was pulled in a dozen different directions every day, and he genuinely loved all of it.

One day he was helping mix clay for bricks, then juggling them as they came scorching out of a kiln.

He took his turn felling trees, digging wells, digging trenches.

There was no part of Tresingale that he had not touched, and he was learning right alongside the rest of his men how to mix mortar, how to build a foundation, how to plow and sow and one day, if it pleased the stars, to reap a bountiful harvest.

After supper, he donned his armor and took his place in the lines of soldiers, secretly glad of the excuse to get out of the cottage and away from the princess.

Soon, construction would begin on their house, and then they would hardly see each other at all.

And so, congratulating himself on how well he was managing everything, he walked in on her in the bath.

“Your Grace!”

She squealed, ducking behind the lip of the cauldron, but it was already too late.

The sight of her smooth white shoulders and bare breasts had already been seared onto his eyeballs.

“I’m sorry,”

he said, electing to brazen it out rather than retreat like a coward.

“I came to tell you, we’re looking at the manor site with Sousten tomorrow morning.

He wants to show us his plans.

Would you like to go?”

“The plans for the house?”

she asked, peeping over the lip of the cauldron.

He had never seen her in the bath before, and he was struck by how ridiculous it was; she looked as if she were about to be cooked into a soup.

His lips twitched until the back of his brain observed that she would make a very meager meal.

“Yes,”

he said slowly, his eyes narrowing.

Had she always been that thin? Surely her cheeks had been more rounded before, hadn’t they? Her eyes had always been splendid, thickly lashed and luminous, but now they looked almost too big in her small face.

“I would,”

she said, her shoulders hunching under his regard and red to the tips of her ears.

Remin politely yanked his eyes away.

“I hadn’t realized how cramped that is,”

he said abruptly.

“I’ll find a proper tub.”

“I need something deep enough for laundry.”

“You’ve been washing your own laundry?”

he snapped, and then could have kicked himself; who else would do it? The squires were responsible for tending their masters’ clothing and armor, but the Duchess of Andelin could hardly send her underclothes to a bunch of teenage boys for washing.

She nodded, looking as if she wished she would drown in her bathwater.

“I’ll think of something,”

was all Remin could say, and left her to get on with her pitiful bath.

All this time, he had never thought of such a basic chore.

When had she found the time? Or the energy? He had done his share of laundry when he was a squire, and it was hard work that demanded a great deal of strength.

There was a reason washerwomen had hands like blacksmiths.

Once, it would have given him pleasure to put the Emperor’s daughter to such work.

Now he couldn’t imagine how the prospect had ever pleased him.

Well, he would have to do it himself, whether she protested or not.

At least she seemed happy to be going to see where the manor would be built.

The next morning, she woke up on only the third try and was already dressed when he returned to pick her up, soft and pretty in a modest violet gown, and doing her best to be invisible.

The planned site of the ducal estate was on the southwest hill overlooking the river.

Two smaller hills hugged its side, flattish on the top and gently sloping toward the back, perfect locations for outbuildings.

The front of the hill was a bit of a climb through tall grass and there wasn’t much to see at the moment; the old forest was still thick here, and an immense oak stood at the summit, hoary and ancient.

Sousten Didion was already on the crest, equipped with a worktable and disdaining a tent, which he claimed would ruin the atmosphere of the entire hill.

“Ah, you must be His Grace’s lady wife!”

He exclaimed, hurrying over to kiss the princess’s hand.

“I am charmed and delighted, blessed lady, charmed and delighted! What an honor to build a home to shelter the daughter of the stars! I beg you to speak freely if our plans are not perfect in the slightest particular.”

He had the habit of simultaneously over-pronouncing and swallowing his words, like an actor’s parody of an aristocrat.

But even if he was a little flamboyant for Remin’s taste, he couldn’t argue with Sousten’s work.

The man was a genius.

“Thank you,”

said the princess, bobbing her head.

“It may be difficult to imagine now, but the finished house will have a tremendous view,”

said the architect, flinging out his arms to embrace both the town and the river.

“Imagine the great city that will lie at our feet, bustling by day and lit with lamps of an evening, nestled beside the river.

Decorative trees will line the streets, and there will be the temple, with its gleaming crystal spires.

And in the distance, far white walls and green hills.

That is what you will see from the front doors of your home.”

He snapped his fingers, and two assistants produced an enormous canvas depicting this vision, a watercolor that was like a dream of the town to come.

The princess drew a breath, her large eyes absorbing every detail.

“And we promise a view every bit as spectacular from the opposite side,”

Sousten went on, smug with this success.

“A natural view of the river, the fores, and eventually the new bridge.

As such, there will be no back of the house…”

Another picture.

Tounot, Juste, and Miche had accompanied Remin to the site; they had been with him longest and deserved to see the rewards of their hard work.

Remin drew the princess in front of him as they crowded around the picture, to make sure she got a look.

As Sousten said, this would be her home, too.

“There will be extensive terracing on the grounds,”

said the architect, beckoning them onward.

Every time he stopped, his assistants unrolled another picture or diagram depicting the things he was describing.

“Imagine, my lady, that here you see gardens and follies and manicured lawns descending, with a manmade pond over there…”

There were places that would be raised and others that would be flattened, connected with paths and bridges and stairs.

High walkways would look down on lower gardens, with arches and cascading flowers and connecting tunnels that made the gardens spectacular and multidimensional, a fanciful construct like nothing Remin could have imagined.

“I have designed it for all weathers, you see,”

Sousten explained.

“The whole estate is meant to be experienced: walked, ridden, circumnavigated by carriage and in the winter, by sleigh.

One must consider all seasons, how it will look under snow, where the cool places will be in the summer.”

It was a masterpiece.

No, it was dozens of individual masterpieces flowing together in elegant harmony.

It would be the wonder of the Empire.

“But you took out all the trees,”

the princess said timidly.

“Yes, Your Grace?”

The architect said, pausing mid-sentence.

“All these trees,”

she said, gesturing at the forest surrounding them.

She looked nervous with so many eyes suddenly upon her, and her hands pressed together, her fingers knotting.

“They’re all gone.

Trees take a long time to grow.”

“There will be many new trees, Your Grace,”

Sousten said reassuringly, snapping his fingers again.

His assistants rifled rapidly through the parchments to produce the one he desired.

“Ornamental trees from all over the Empire.

Here, plum and cherry, very beautiful in the spring, with maples for color in autumn…”

She nodded and said nothing more, her hand resting lightly on Remin’s arm as they moved through the rest of the grounds.

But he could see the busy mind working away behind her great eyes, solemnly absorbing it all, and he wondered irritably why she never just said them, all those thousands of thoughts.

He had never met anyone who thought so much and said so little.

At the crest of the hill, they came to another stop.

Sousten Didion had saved the best for last.

The house.

They had already discussed it endlessly, wrangling over it in person and through messages for over a year.

They had shouted.

Sousten had quit twice.

He had designed a dozen different manors, each more beautiful than the last, and Remin had rejected them all.

The last time, Sousten had thrown a tantrum and tore up the design, then disappeared for a week-long bender through the taverns of Segoile.

When he sobered up, he reappeared and began barraging Remin with questions, even consulting Tounot and Juste at various points.

Materials, colors, even the shape of the shingles, he had worked for months to extract even the dimmest and foggiest memories.

This was the result.

“It’s Tressin,”

Juste whispered, and Remin nodded.

He couldn’t speak.

That was his home.

Not a perfect reproduction, of course.

Remin was eight years old when the Emperor burned down the ancient seat of his House, and there was so much he couldn’t remember.

But he recognized the angled towers and deep windows, the rounded rooftop over the main house, the majestic entryway with its wide steps and four tall pillars.

“You…like it?”

Sousten asked warily.

“Yes.”

Remin’s throat was tight.

He probably ought to have warned Juste; Juste had been born there too, and had seen that ancient and beautiful house burn.

His family had been executed alongside Remin’s.

Tounot had come to foster every summer, and he and Remin had climbed every stair and garret of that old place.

Remin could see in his friend’s eyes that it was right.

“Tressin?”

The princess echoed, glancing between them, and then her face paled.

“That…that was your home, wasn’t it? The seat of House…your family’s House.”

“It was,”

Remin said, filled with a grief that was so great, he could say nothing more.

Wisely, Sousten suggested that they postpone further discussion for another day, to give everyone time to absorb the current plans.

But Remin found himself returning often to look at the hilltops again, following the game trail that would one day be a riding path, or walking up the wider lane that would become a road.

He had fought a war for this place, he could remember every terrifying, horrifying, exhausting moment he had endured to get here, and now he could hardly believe that it would really be his.

And as he rode, he found himself remembering what the princess had said.

Trees take a long time to grow.

They did.

Remin slid off his warhorse to look at the monster oak near the top of the hill, the widest tree he had ever seen.

It had to be centuries old, maybe even millennia.

Oaks could live that long, couldn’t they? This oak might have been alive when his House was established, eleven hundred years ago.

Wouldn’t that be something?

A tree like this couldn’t be imported, like one of Sousten’s ornamental plums.

It couldn’t be bought for any price.

Was that what the princess had meant? All of these trees were old growth forest.

Who knew how old? Might there not be other trees as ancient here? Or others equally beautiful in their gnarled and grand old age?

The next morning, he slipped quietly into the cottage in the gray light of dawn to look at the princess, sleeping in her usual place in the center of the bed, curled up small around a pillow.

All by themselves, his fingers reached to stroke her soft hair.

He liked the thought that trees took a long time to grow.

He liked that she would think of such a thing.

That same day, he went to talk to Sousten.

“Leave the trees,”

he said, ducking through the low door of the architect’s cottage.

“You can clear out the ones that are in the way of the house, or some other necessary structure, but try to include the rest in the gardens.”

“But these are formal gardens, Your Grace,”

Sousten protested.

“A lot of old, wild forest will quite spoil the sightlines.

The fashion in the capital—”

“This is Tresingale,”

Remin said firmly.

“It is old, and wild.

And you can’t buy a thousand year-old oak.”

Sousten’s mouth shut and his eyes turned thoughtful as the idea struck true, and lingered.