Page 25

There wasn’t much leisure in Tresingale for contemplating the spirits, good or otherwise.

The last day of the week was sacred to the stars, a day of rest and contemplation during which believers gave thanks for the many bounties of the divine.

Remin tried dutifully to observe the religious holidays of the Empire, but more than a year after the end of the war, there was still no cleric in Tresingale.

The nearest thing they had to a representative of the Temple was the seventeen year-old illegitimate daughter of the Emperor, who looked utterly panicked at the prospect of leading a prayer.

In the Holy City of Jaen, there had been a prolonged struggle over whether to send anyone to Tresingale, or more specifically to the service of Remin Grimjaw.

It was a complicated problem.

The Emperor was the Beloved of Stars, and Remin was definitely not beloved by the Emperor.

Edemir had sent a very polite letter pointing out the increasing number of believers/taxpayers in the valley, as well as the fact that the Duke of Andelin was already incomprehensibly wealthy and would only become more so in years to come.

Tresingale had planned to build a new temple, the most splendid temple in the Empire, but if no one from the Temple was coming…

A cleric had duly been dispatched.

In the meantime, on the last day of the week, most of the Andelin’s faithful contemplated their laundry.

“Princess.”

Remin ducked his head under the low door of the cottage one Sunday afternoon, squinting to adjust to the comparative dimness.

“Come with me.

Grab some buckets.”

She didn’t ask questions.

Silent as a ghost, she pulled on her small boots and followed him to the well and back, filling all the buckets and dragging out the cauldron without ever asking why.

As he put water over the fire to heat, she hovered behind him, so transparently nervous that Remin’s jaw clenched.

He didn’t know what there was to be nervous about.

He had barely spoken to her in weeks.

He was tempted just to send her away and get on with her laundry himself, but he had no doubt there were oceans of mystery he had yet to fathom when it came to women’s clothing.

Mentally shrugging, he turned and waited for the kettle to heat, and then almost tripped over her as he turned to pour it into the cauldron.

“Careful,”

he said sharply, jerking the kettle back.

She said something inaudible, retreating until she bumped against the wall.

“Speak up,”

he repeated for the hundredth time.

“You can go sit down.

It doesn’t take two people to heat water.”

The way she hastily decamped to the other side of the cottage and hid behind her book made him wonder wearily what was wrong.

Why was she so nervous? Had he said something? Mentally, he reviewed the last fifteen minutes and came up empty.

Was it because he told her to speak up? How else was he supposed to hear what she was saying?

Scowling ferociously at the teakettle, he waited in silence for it to boil.

“Bring your white clothes over here,”

he said when the cauldron was half-full of steaming water.

It gave him another twinge to watch her rifle through her small trunk.

She had put a partition inside it to keep the dirty clothing from touching the clean, and it made him feel both guilty and irritated.

He hadn’t thought to wonder what she was doing with her clothing, but she hadn’t asked for help.

How many times had he told her to tell him if she needed something?

“I can do it,”

she said as she approached, clutching the bundle of chemises and unmentionables.

“If you tell me how…”

“Just put them in,”

he said, waving her over.

“What soap have you been using?”

“That,”

she said, pointing to the washstand, where all her fragrant bath soaps were lined up neatly on a shelf.

“You have to use laundry soap, and lye for white clothing.”

Automatically, he fell into the brisk, lecturing tone he took when he was teaching squires and pages, and tugged a small pouch from his belt to show her.

“Not too much, or it will burn your hands.

About this much for that much water, see?”

Her eyes flicked from the small mound of white powder in his palm to the cauldron, and she nodded.

“We’ll scrub them first, then put them into soak.”

Remin crouched beside the cauldron to show her.

“Next time, you can do this part yourself, if you want to.

Come on, you try.”

For a moment, she watched as he methodically crushed the fabric in his hands, scrubbing the lye water into the fibers, then moved to the far side of the cauldron to follow.

She was careful not to touch him as their hands worked together in the water.

“You can scrub these, then let them soak,”

he said, straightening.

“I’ll be back.”

Leaving the clothes to stew for a while, Remin went to scrounge up a large laundry tub, a basket, and a washing bat, determined to do this right if it killed them both.

“We can finish everything by the river,”

he said, startling her when he appeared in the doorway.

“Grab the bedding, too, we might as well wash that while we’re at it.

You can use this basket for dirty clothes from now on,”

he added, setting a tall, narrow basket made of woven grass beside her small trunk.

It was the only wall space left in the small cottage.

Fishing the laundry out of the lukewarm water of the cauldron, he hid her underthings beneath the rest of the clothing and blankets, then set off for the river with the princess’s light, bouncing steps patting on the cobblestones behind him.

There was a footpath from the main road to the riverside, winding through tall grass and wildflowers beneath the clear summer sky.

On the southeastern bend of the Brede, there was a small inlet and a beach with smooth pebbles and sand, cool underfoot and shaded by tall trees.

Remin sat on a handy rock to take off his boots, basking in a soft breeze.

It would have been a nice day for fishing.

“Can you swim?” he asked.

“No,”

she replied, sitting a short distance away to remove her boots.

“Don’t go out further than your knees, then.

I’ll have to teach you one day.”

He rolled up the legs of his trousers and tugged off his jerkin, hanging it on a nearby branch.

Laundry was messy work.

“Usually the river is pretty consistent, but if you’re ever down here in spring, you might see sudden floods.

See that pole over there?”

He nodded toward a sturdy pole a few feet out in the water, marked with black lines at regular intervals.

“That marks the river depth.

We check it every morning and evening.

During the spring thaw, you’ll see huge chunks of ice break off the glacier in the Berlawes and fall in the river.

If you ever see it start rising fast, run.”

“I will,”

she said, for the first time looking intrigued, rather than nervous.

“We’ll do one of the blankets first, they’ll need the bat.

Tuck your skirts up so they don’t drag you down in the water.”

Obediently, she tucked them to her knees and then waded after him into the river.

There was a small spit of land that jutted out into the Brede, and the water in the inlet was clean, clear, and still enough that he could see minnows darting away as they headed for the rocks.

“First, we soak it, and then scrub it with soap,”

he explained, producing a rough bar of brown soap from his pocket.

“If there are any spots, scrub them harder, but otherwise we just want the whole thing soapy.”

She nodded, unfolding the blanket in sections for scrubbing and then taking her own turn with the soap.

It took both of them to fold it back up again and set it on the rock, and then Remin retrieved the bat, spinning the handle in one hand.

He put a little muscle into it as he smacked the flat end of the bat onto the folded blanket, sending out a wave of soapy water.

“Sorry,”

he said as the princess brushed suds off her skirts.

“We’re both likely to get splashed.

Turn it over and fold it the other way.”

“It’s all right.”

She moved quickly to obey.

For a while, they worked in silence, but it was a better silence than the oppressive, anxious tension of the cottage, and the princess was quick and efficient as she plunged the blanket into the river and dragged it back onto the rocks.

“Can I try?”

“Sure.”

Remin handed her the bat and retreated a pace.

“You don’t need to hit it too hard, you’ll wear—”

The paddle cracked onto the blanket and a fountain of water shot up, nailing him directly in the face.

“Oh.”

The princess dropped the bat and gazed up at him in round-eyed horror, the tips of her fingers rising to cover her mouth.

“Oh, I’m so sorry.

I didn’t mean…”

Remin spat out a mouthful of water.

“—wear yourself out,”

he finished, the corner of his mouth twitching.

Contrary to popular opinion, he did have a sense of humor, and that had been funny.

Swiping at his face with his arm, he handed her the bat before it floated off.

“It’s fine, go on, Princess.”

It was hard, tiring work, and in due course he relieved her of the bat and they soaked down the blanket again, dragging it back onto the flat rock.

He didn’t exactly plan anything in particular, but when he brought the bat down it was at an expert angle that sent out an explosion of icy water, and the princess dodged away with a squeal.

“You did that on purpose!”

She accused, forgetting her nervousness for a moment as she pushed her wet hair out of her eyes.

“I’m just doing laundry,”

Remin said blandly.

“Come, turn it over, my hands are full.”

Warily, she approached to flip the blanket and then rapidly backpedaled, her bright eyes shy and wondering.

It made him want to tease her, and it was only belatedly that he realized that it was too late; that was exactly what he was doing.

It felt so natural, he hadn’t even noticed.

Remin forced himself to focus on the work, using the bat to grind the soap deep into the fibers of the blanket, and then finally waved her back over.

“Hold this end,”

he said, handing her one end of the blanket.

This would be the hardest part for her, and the reason why he hadn’t just written her a list of instructions and let her get on with it by herself.

Twisting the blanket to wring it out, soapy water cascaded into the river.

When it stopped dripping, they plunged it into the river again and repeated the motion, rinsing and wringing until the water ran clear.

“I’m sorry,”

she said as her hands began to shake with effort.

The tighter he wound it, the harder it was for her to hold onto her end.

“It’s slipping…”

“It’s fine.

I don’t expect you to be able to do this by yourself,”

he said.

He finished wringing it out by himself, his huge hands crushing the water out of the cloth, and then they hung it over a handy tree branch to dry.

They repeated the process on the second blanket, and while he wrung it out, he sent her to fill the washtub.

Wading over to her, he tossed all her white things into the tub, along with a few of her dresses, and then bent again with the bar of soap.

“The lye will irritate your skin if we don’t wash it out,”

he explained.

“And we do the same thing with your dresses that we did with the blankets, but they’re too delicate for the bat.

Scrub them down with soap, and then I’ll show you what we do next.”

It was pleasant, feeling the sun on his bare back and the soft sand gritting between his toes.

They traded the soap back and forth, scrubbing, and when everything looked sudsy enough, he rose.

“All right, in you go,”

he said.

“We’ll take turns.”

“What am I doing?”

she wanted to know, lifting her skirts to step into the tub.

“Stomp on them.

You have to use your toes and heels to grind in the soapy water.

Yes, just like that,”

he said as she began to stomp first one foot and then the other.

White articles bobbed to the surface of the water, the white linen and silk too buoyant to sink down the way her dresses did.

Remin poked them.

He’d never washed clothes like those before.

“When did you learn how to do this?”

she asked timidly, as if she expected him to scold her for asking.

“When I was a squire.”

Remin sat down next to the tub, stretching out his long legs as she moved in a stomping circle.

“I squired for Sir Liyoun Carteret.

Ever heard of him?”

She shook her head.

“He was a lancer.

That was never my weapon, but he had some skill with it.

Most squires have to look after their master’s clothing and armor.

And it’s good exercise,”

he observed, noting her fatigue with an expert eye.

Such work was harder than it looked.

“Do you want a break?”

“I’m all right.”

She paused to twist her long hair into a knot on the back of her slender neck and then soldiered on.

She lasted quite a bit longer than he expected, and it was only when he saw her legs begin to wobble that he pushed himself to his feet.

“That’s enough, princess, my turn.”

“They should almost be done, shouldn’t they?”

she asked, puffing.

“It was almost the same amount of time as when we scrubbed my chem—”

One of those chemises tangled around her ankles and Remin lunged to catch her as she stumbled forward, flinging out her hands with a squeak of surprise.

His palm pressed flat against her belly and the shock of touching her tingled through every fingertip, blazing all the way to the back of his neck.

“I’m sorry.”

Her tawny eyes struck his like flint to steel, and her cheeks flushed pink.

“I’m all right, thank you.”

“You can go sit down,”

he said stiffly, removing his hands.

“I’ll do the rest.”

“I was just trying to he—”

“You’ve done enough,”

he snapped, and when she scuttled instantly away, even he could tell that she was absolutely crushed.

He hadn’t meant to do that.

He almost called her back, even though he had no idea what he could possibly say.

He was sorry.

He didn’t mean to hurt her feelings.

He knew she would accept the apology, but then what? He had barely spoken to her for months, and all it took was one afternoon with her to knock him completely off balance.

He didn’t know what to do.

Stooping, he reached vengefully for the laundry, squeezing and twisting the clothing in his hands.

She had done a good job with them.

All that was left was to rinse them in the river and wring them out, though that task probably would have finished her off for the day.

Remin kept his back to her as he went to work, spreading her dresses over nearby bushes and hanging them over tree branches to dry in the sun.

Repeating the process with chemises, he frowned as he shook one out and found it had ripped in a number of places.

When had he done that? Her clothes were so fragile, somehow he damaged them even when he didn’t mean to.

Grumbling, he turned to spread it over a nearby rhododendron, and then stopped cold.

Behind him, the princess was asleep on the riverbank, curled up in the grass with her slender legs and feet bared by her tucked skirts.

A purple butterfly was resting on her cheek, tapping soft kisses onto her skin.

Stars, she was so pretty.

The thought popped into his head before he could stop it.

The sight of her filled his eyes and the corners of his mouth tugged upward in a smile so unwilling, it felt as if it should crack the hard lines of his face.

He had to look away.

He almost stepped backward, a shameful retreat.

And even though he knew better, even though a single moment of softness toward her felt like the jaws of a steel trap springing shut, he still spread the torn chemise on the branches above her, shading her fair skin from the sun.

He faced devils every night, but to Remin Grimjaw there was no creature in the world so dangerous as this girl, asleep in the grass with wildflowers dancing above her.