Page 27

Ophele had just endured another of those long and dusty days.

Sitting on the steps at the foot of the wall, every muscle in her body was voicing the usual complaints, from the blazing burn in her legs to the ache in her feet to the stabbing pains in her arms, as if someone had driven a dagger directly into each bicep.

It was a pain she could never have imagined back in Aldeburke, but it was the familiar conclusion of her days now, along with the unsettling feeling that her arms were only loosely attached to her shoulders.

Master Eugene nosed her, and she stroked his velvety muzzle.

A little way up the trench, she could catch occasional glimpses of Sir Miche’s blond head, scrambling up and down the huge mounds of earth that lined either side of the pit.

The diggers had run into a problem a few hours ago, and almost everyone else had gone home for the day.

She had just crept a little way up the stairs, hoping for a better look, when a voice behind her nearly made her topple off in surprise.

“Good evening, my lady,”

said Sir Tounot, quickly catching her elbow.

“You’re still here?”

“Testing the stairs,”

she said, embarrassed.

“Well, if they are fit for the Lady of Andelin, then they must be an honor for the rest of us,”

he said gallantly, helping her to her feet.

“But if you’re waiting for Miche, it will be a bit, I’m afraid.

Would you like to go up and have a look?”

“Oh, could I?”

she asked, brightening.

She had been forbidden the top of the wall, along with almost every other interesting place in the valley.

“It wouldn’t be any trouble?”

“I was just going up myself to have a word with Ammon,”

he assured her.

“So long as Master Eugene won’t take it in his head to wander off.”

“No, the cart has a brake now, and he falls asleep whenever he’s standing still,”

she assured him, trotting up the stairs.

It was refreshing just to feel the wind at the top of the wall, cool and clean, almost as if the valley’s summer humidity was a low-lying phenomenon.

And Sir Tounot must have known how much she wanted a look around, because he set her safely in the center and then left her to amuse herself.

Ophele was happily oblivious to the masons sidling nervously along the wall beside her as she explored, as if they feared she might suddenly throw herself over the side.

Much of Tresingale was still heavily wooded, and from where she stood, she was looking up at whitebeam trees and wych elms, eighty and ninety feet tall, elderly giants.

Closer to eye level were black pines and glossy green holly, and clusters of mossy oak with their distinctive leaves, like finding old friends.

There were some wonderful old oaks back in Aldeburke whose branches had cradled and concealed her over the years.

But many of those splendid trees had been cut back to deny concealment to the devils, and she could see more clearing underway on a distant hilltop, where the manor house would soon rise.

Nearer at hand were the hills of the barracks and Court of War, and she drifted down the completed portion of the wall for a better look.

There were the beginnings of the bridge that would one day butt up against the high wall, a curving fortification that dropped straight down into the river.

The masons were very excited about the progress of the bridge footings.

Ophele could have watched this fascinating work all day.

Sir Miche had walked with her down the hill to the river a few times, but from there she could only see bits and pieces of the machines involved.

Now she could see all of it, creaking away in the fading daylight, and she didn’t realize how far she had come until Sir Tounot came trotting up behind her.

“I will walk with you, lady, if it pleases you,”

he said, offering his elbow.

“You can see the treadwheel quite well from up here, can’t you?”

“That’s what it’s called?”

Ophele was always pleased to learn the proper names of things.

“A treadwheel crane, yes, my lady.

One of the largest in the Empire, according to Master Guisse,”

he said, puffing comically to make her giggle.

“And that’s the pile driver beside it.

They’ll use that to make a coffer dam—that’s that diamond shape—and then bail out the water from the middle…”

Well, that was where some of the elms and whitebeams must have gone, Ophele thought, listening with rapt attention as he explained how the dam would become a footing, and the footings would support arches, and the arches would span the river all the way to Firkane.

“I like that,”

Ophele said, deeply impressed.

What she wouldn’t give for such a wheel to work the well, and spare her the endless cranking of the windlass.

A breeze lifted, combing cool fingers through her hair, and she sighed.

“Oh, the wind is so nice.”

“It puts me in mind of the wind off the Emme, in the capital,”

Sir Tounot said reminiscently.

“There are great paved walks along that river, and this time of year they are shaded by trees and arbors, with blue morning glories and climbing hydrangeas.

But there is no view like this in Segoile.”

“Maybe one day we will have walks like that,” she said.

“If Master Ffloce has his way, we will exceed anything the capital can boast,”

Sir Tounot said smugly.

“He plans public walks like the ones in Capricia, where even the common folk are welcome to promenade of an evening, and artists and musicians will gather under streetlights to compete for the attention of passersby.

In Capricia, they say the Walk of Dreams is sustenance for the soul.”

“And we will have artists coming, and musicians?”

she asked eagerly, looking down at the river as her imagination painted them over the trees and scrub brush.

But then she caught her breath, her hand tightening on Sir Tounot’s arm.

“What is that? Down in the trees, did you see it?”

“That is a devil, my lady.”

He halted beside her, his eyes narrowing.

“I thought they didn’t come out until night.”

“It’s dark enough under the trees that they can move a little by day, or they would not be here to trouble us at all,”

the knight answered somberly.

“The hunters have to be wary, when they venture into the forest.

But the devils have to stay hidden in whatever holes they have found, for the least sunlight will set them afire.”

“I wish it would burn that one,”

she murmured, looking with dread fascination.

She didn’t want to see it, but she was also afraid to take her eyes from it.

“Do you know what kind it is?”

“Too small for a wolf demon,”

he said, looking obligingly down at the small shape.

“I would say a strangler, my lady.

Ghouls are rarely alone, and stranglers like to hide in such pla—”

“My lady!”

came a call from behind them, and she turned to find a sodden Sir Miche striding toward them, soaked to the chest in muddy water.

He was not smiling.

“There you are.

Please step back from the edge of the wall.”

“There’s a devil in the wood down there,”

she explained as he seized her elbow and drew her back.

“Sir Tounot was just—”

“Sir Tounot ought to have more sense,”

he said sharply, with none of his usual drawling good humor.

“All we need is for a bird to startle or that devil to start racketing and give you a fright, and we might as well throw ourselves over the side after you.

Please do nothing of the sort again.”

“Well, I won’t,”

she said meekly, and he sighed, rumpling up his hair.

“I beg your pardon,”

he said.

“It gave me a turn to find Master Eugene by himself, but I suppose you’ve earned a look from the top.

Just stay back from the edge, I beg, for the sake of my heart.

Where’s the devil?”

“Over there, you nagging auntie,”

said Sir Tounot, eyeing him with some amusement.

“Though it’s ducked back under cover now.

Wish I had a bow.”

“I expect you’ll have another shot at it tonight,”

Sir Miche said grimly.

“With all that water in the ditch, the devils are just going to have to paddle across.

I think we’ve discovered where all the water from the stream at the north wall went.

You’re going to have a busy night on this side of town if we don’t get it emptied.”

“Stars and ancestors.

You’ve got them bailing it out?”

“Like bailing out the Brede,”

Sir Miche said acidly, and Ophele trotted after them to the opposite end of the wall, glancing back at the churning mechanisms on the river behind her.

Would something like that work to drain the ditch? Like a water wheel and a sluice down to the river? In her mind, she could see how the pieces would fit together, but she had no notion how hard it would be to build such a thing.

It was on the tip of her tongue to ask, but they were already discussing the matter, their voices clipped and urgent, and Ophele’s hands moved anxiously together.

She couldn’t interrupt them with her nonsense.

If it was a good idea, surely they would have thought of it already.

Near the end of the wall, they came to a halt at the sight of the low trench, now a muddy moat where muck-covered men were scrambling about with torches, jamming them into the sides of the dirt piles.

It appeared they had filled one pond only to excavate another.

“Please excuse me, Your Grace,”

Sir Tounot said, turning to offer a polite bow.

“It was a very pleasant promenade.

I will hope for another, once we have sufficient safeguards for yonder nursemaid.”

His humorous glance at Sir Miche made his intended target clear.

“I would like to watch them building the bridge again,”

Ophele replied.

“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble.”

“As long as you warn your nursemaid beforehand,”

Sir Miche said as Sir Tounot departed, drawing her back toward the stairs.

“I promised Rem I’d keep an eye out for you, my lady.

Not because of anything you might do, but to make sure no misfortune befalls you.

There are many varieties available.”

“I know.

Like that devil.”

“That is one virtue of placing you atop a mighty wall,”

he conceded.

“They would have some trouble reaching you here, barring the—careful,”

he said quickly, grabbing for her as Ophele suddenly swayed, sagging toward the wall and for an instant, supported only by his arm.

“Are you all right? Miss a step?”

“Yes. I guess,”

Ophele said woozily, shaking her head.

She felt very peculiar, with a strange buzzing in her ears like a swarm of bees at night.

“I’m sorry.”

“It’s been a long day,”

he said, but his tawny eyes narrowed as he examined her, and he boosted her directly into the cart when they reached Eugene.

“No, stay in the cart.

You need a little feeding, my lady.”

“Oh, no, I just missed my footing, and Eugene has already worked so hard—”

“If he can pull six barrels of water, he can haul one Duchess of Andelin,”

Sir Miche replied, light and implacable.

“I wonder what Wen’s making for supper.

Another few minutes and I might settle for a haunch of donkey.”

“He said mutton and parsnips,”

Ophele replied, her nose wrinkling.

“I’ll trade my bread for your parsnips, Your Highness.”

Sir Miche whistled and made her laugh as they set off east, the rickety cart swaying.

* * *

Remin was the first to step upon the completed footing of the bridge.

“Not a wobble,”

he said, marveling as he watched the dark water of the Brede streaming around the new stone island, an oblong diamond that cut straight and true through that turbulent tide.

“You’ll be starting the docks next week?”

“Yes, Your Grace,”

said Master Guisse, examining the sides of the footing with a critical eye.

“So long as we have sufficient hands, I do not anticipate any further delay.”

“I do not anticipate borrowing any more workers from you,”

said Remin, who had stolen a dozen laborers to sort out the flooding by the wall.

That had been a very long couple of days for everyone.

But even with devils and floods, the work of the valley continued, and he and the master went on to the proposed site of the port, where the first piles had already been driven into the river, outlining its curving form.

The machines required to build a bridge were much the same as those that would build the port and its network of docks, and the need for transport across the river was urgent.

The long summer days allowed plenty of time to shuttle men and supplies back and forth from the Gellege Bridge, but soon enough the days would begin to shorten, and they could not afford to have wagons racing the devils to the gates.

Remin already had another work crew building a fortification halfway between Tresingale and the bridge, just in case.

This port would solve the problems of overland travel.

Like everything else, it would grow with time; Master Didion and Master Guisse had put their heads together on the final design, a marvel of engineering where even the cranes would be works of art.

The port of Tresingale must be efficient, for all the trade of the Brede would flow through it, up into the valley or onto the bridge, for further transport overland.

But it was important to Remin that it should be beautiful.

One day, the faces of the stars would look down on visitors from the hillside: Zeraf, the governor of trade, or Nahvet, the star of sailors, a weathered old man with keen eyes, and his lamp ever lifted.

Remin wanted people to know when they had arrived in Tresingale.

“We have been considering your competitors, my lord,”

said one of Edemir’s secretaries later that afternoon, a former merchant named Bendir who had charge of the river trade.

They were meeting in the new offices above the storehouse, to accommodate their expanding number of experts, and Bendir produced a map of the river, pointing to the duchy furthest east.

“Leinbruke charges a passage tariff, a single fee to any merchant that wants to move through the duchy without stopping to trade.

It’s cheap, but if a merchant sells so much as a hair ribbon, it’s considered smuggling.

Firkane charges by the mile, but there is no tariff on trade.

Norgrede is the worst; they have both a passage tariff and fees at the ports, so they’re essentially double-dipping. A merchant who wants to move goods from Leinbruke to the port at Alenre will pay around twenty gold sen. That’s why Lein cashmere is so expensive. It costs the earth just to get it out of Leinbruke.”

All of this was far outside Remin’s experience.

But from the excited glances the secretaries were exchanging, he suspected it was good news.

“We can do better?”

he guessed.

“A tariff by port, Your Grace,”

said Bendir, indicating multiple black markers on the map.

“You have a monopoly on the river; anyone wishing to use it for trade must use your ships and pay your price.

You can charge fees for transport based on portage rather than miles, as that will be the greater constraint.

We have done some calculations, to project volume, expenses, and profits…”

He ran through the list of expenses first, being a glass-half-empty sort of fellow, and made sure that Remin understood that there were other factors were likely to crop up that they hadn’t anticipated, as well as factors they could anticipate but not quantify: the other duchies were likely to lower their tariffs in response, for example, but who could say when, or by how much.

But when all was said and done, the profit was staggering.

“You’re quite sure?”

Remin’s eyes narrowed as he skimmed the figures.

He didn’t know much about trade, but he knew how much things cost.

He knew exactly how much gold it had taken to arm and feed his army.

He knew how much it was going to cost to build Tresingale, from the walls to the town to the manor house.

With the profits from the river trade, he could build another Tresingale every three years.

“Quite sure,”

said Bendir, with the avaricious delight of a born merchant.

“The Brede is the only river that feeds into the Sea of Eskai for a hundred miles.

And no matter how low the other duchies set their tariffs, they will never match your speed.

Travel on the Brede does not require horses or oxen, who must be fed, who might throw shoes, or who might be injured or sicken.

The only other obstacle is the port cities.

There isn’t enough room on the river for you to match a Sideriel or Alenre.”

“Then we’ll build on the sea,”

Remin said instantly.

His mind was already racing ahead, calculating the position of greatest advantage.

He knew the place where the Brede ran out into the sea; on the north side, it was surmounted by the Cliffs of Marren, high and treacherous, stretching all the way from the Brede to the border of the neighboring country of K’ar Yez.

There was a reason the Empire had never tried to invade by sea.

“We’ll dig all the way down to the water and build our own port. Edemir—”

“I know.”

The knight sighed, resigned, but his eyes gleamed at the prospect.

“I’ll find out how long it would take and how much it would cost.”

“A port on this side of the Brede,”

Bendir breathed.

“Your Grace.

I can say with some certainty that you would recoup your investment within a decade, and likely much sooner.”

It wasn’t even the prospect of money that excited Remin, though if everything went to plan, he would be wealthier than some nations.

After a discussion like that, he left the office feeling so exhilarated, he hardly knew what to do with himself.

He wanted to see those ships on the river.

When the manor house was done, he would be able to watch them sailing by from his bedroom windows.

The talk of building a port city of his own made him want to saddle his horse and race to the Cliffs of Marren to tear the earth out of his way with his bare hands.

And what of the world beyond the Brede, and the Sea of Eskai? K’ar Yez was right there, a poor country that was nonetheless rich in resources.

They had remained understandably neutral during the last war with Valleth; their country was so rugged and inhospitable that the inhabitants scraped a meager living, and they had been cruelly chastised for supporting the Empire in the past.

Every gem in those mountains had to be pried out by the fingernails.

Remin was neither an invader nor a pirate, but soon, he would be positioned to make some serious investments.

What could he do, if he worked with the clans of K’ar Yez, and gave them passage to his port city to trade the wealth of their lands?

He had barely gotten half a mile down the road, and he instantly turned his horse around and galloped back, bursting into Edemir’s office with this latest inspiration.

“We are not a sovereign nation,”

Edemir reminded him, and not for the first time.

“Such trade would have to go through the Court of Merchants, Rem.”

That dented his enthusiasm.

Just a little.

He could be his own nation, though.

It was dangerous even to think that.

It was greedy.

And though nothing he had gained could ever replace what had been taken from him, Remin knew when to quit while he was ahead.

Or at least pause, and think very, very carefully before he proceeded any further.

He was a young man with his whole life ahead of him, after all.

And the Emperor was growing old.

The valley and all its cares sometimes felt so far removed from the rest of the Empire that it was easy to forget they existed.

But Remin knew that even if he wasn’t thinking about the Emperor, the Emperor was almost definitely thinking about him.

That was the reason for another meeting in Edemir’s offices a few days later.

Every few days, Remin called his knights together to discuss more sensitive topics.

“They call themselves the Clocksmen,”

explained Bram, who had forged a lifetime of questionable connections and frequently made use of them on Remin’s behalf.

Before them on the table was a copy of the tattoo they had found on the assassin in Granholme, the many-spoked clock and slit-pupiled eye.

“They say they know the hour of your death.”

“Shouldn’t they say the minute, if they want to charge for a service?”

drawled Miche, unimpressed.

“Go on, Bram,”

Remin said, though he did appreciate Miche’s irreverence.

Ever since he was a boy, Miche had been taking the terror out of terrible things.

“They’re originally out of Rendeva.

Swords for hire who want to pretend they’re something more.”

Bram shrugged one shoulder, contemptuous as always of such conceits.

“They have been known to operate in the Empire, so it’s not likely they called one just for you, Rem.

This fellow in Granholme was likely nearby on another job, and got tapped to do you at the last minute.”

“Were there any other deaths in Firkane, or the neighboring duchies?”

Juste asked.

He would be taking over the matter from Bram, now that they had something to go on.

“There was,”

Bram confirmed.

“Duke Firkane has been having trouble with one of his bannermen.

Count Morbray had a hunting accident four days before we reached Granholme.

He was forty-three and notoriously cautious, given his relations with his lord.”

There was no guarantee it was related.

All of it was circumstantial evidence, but it threw the weight of circumstance onto the Duke of Firkane, who loved the Emperor, rather than the Princess Ophele, who had never laid eyes on him.

Something untwisted inside Remin at the thought.

But…could she have been in league with him? Could he be sure that she had passed no messages, that afternoon in Granholme? Or even just acted to delay him in her bed? His jaw clenched as he looked at the picture of the spoked wheel and its angry red eye.

He just couldn’t know.

“I’ll give this to Juste,”

he said, as they had all known he would.

“I would like proof, Juste.

One way or the other.”

Juste nodded, his pale blue eyes as placid as ever.

“We’ll have to send someone,”

he said.

“Not me.

The Knights of the Brede are too well known to be discreet.

But we will need people in the Empire more generally, beyond this specific task.

Our reach there is too tenuous, at present.”

He was volunteering to once again become Remin’s spymaster.

“You’re entitled to lands in the Andelin,”

Remin reminded him.

“And you have your place as my steward.”

He had sworn to himself, at the end of the war, that he would find a peaceful place for every man that had carried a sword beside him.

“I am ever a herdsman,”

Juste replied gently.

“I’ll second Darri, if you don’t mind.

He has an aptitude.”

With that, they turned to issues at the other end of the valley.

With so many grand designs on the horizon, sometimes Remin became impatient with the small matter of the devils.

He did not fear them, himself.

He chafed at the restrictions they imposed.

But as precarious as the situation was in Tresingale, it was even more so for the folk outside it.

“Our reinforcements have arrived from the border,”

said Tounot, who had charge of this matter.

In his hands was the latest stack of reports, ferried by Remin’s fledgling navy since travel overland had become impossible.

“They say the men there are holding, especially with supplies from Raida.

They’ve agreed to guard and fortify the village in exchange for foodstuffs.”

“Good.”

Underneath the papers scattered across the table was a map of the valley, and Remin’s eye effortlessly picked out the small village on the northeast end, ten miles from the Vallethi border.

“Did Raida take many losses?”

“The border detachments sent both men and builders to them,”

Tounot replied.

“All they needed was a stone barracks.

At night they shut the doors, post a couple guards, and sleep soundly.”

That was more or less what he had intended for Ferrede.

Remin was glad to hear it.

And he hadn’t given up on Rollon and the builders he had sent to the village months ago; there was a better than even chance they would come back as soon as the devils melted away for the winter, none the worse for their adventures.

But he had four more villages, oath-sworn to give him fealty, and he owed them protection.

Even after their first disastrous experiment, he still hadn’t given up on the idea.

The thought of his people out there facing the devils alone made it very hard to sleep some nights.

“There must be a way,”

he said aloud.

“To get to the other villages.

I know we’re short of men, but I don’t want to wait until the walls are up to come up with something.

We need a way to get teams of men to the other villages in one piece.

Men in armor might survive the trip, but we need to send builders.”

“A very small selection of men in armor could survive that journey,”

Edemir corrected dryly.

“Not many of us are up to facing down a charging wolf demon, Rem.”

“We can’t afford to send all our knights in any case.”

Remin waved this point aside.

He never thought of himself as extraordinary and still didn’t really understand why anyone else did.

“But I was thinking of the armor in particular.

Devils can’t bite through metal.

Couldn’t we have the smiths make something sufficient to protect a small party? They could take turns sleeping during the day.”

“I wouldn’t like to carry a metal coffin on my back from here to Isigne,”

said Miche, but he was thoughtful rather than mocking.

“But maybe with a supply cart or something, it could work.

I’ll take that one, Rem.

The blacksmiths and carpenters need to make friends.

They can knock their heads against this together, or I’ll knock their heads off separately myself.”

“Trouble?”

Remin asked, his black brows lifting.

“Nothing I can’t manage,”

the blond knight said languidly.

“People are on edge.

They’ll get over it when the walls are up.”

But it was a warning, all the same; Miche was very good at reading people.

It was important to remember that most people in the valley weren’t thinking about building ports and arranging trade with K’ar Yez.

Most of the valley’s inhabitants were enduring long hours of backbreaking work in murderous summer heat, and spent their nights trying not to hear the howling of devils.

After a while, that would wear on anyone.

Except for the pages.

Remin only sporadically saw the youngest people in his service, but they were all energetic and resilient and didn’t have the sense to be afraid.

Edemir, Tounot, and Huber maintained connections with other noble Houses and each had a few pages, ranging from eight to thirteen years old.

The boys were useful for running errands and frequently did small, mindless chores, though the rest of their teaching had been somewhat disrupted lately.

This fact did not go unnoticed by Jacot of Caillmar, who had swum the Brede.

“Morning, Your Grace,”

he called one day as Remin approached on his horse.

The boy had placed himself in the duke’s path more than once, and Remin had several suspicions as to why.

“Just finished helping old Wen, need anything?”

“Did you ask Wen if he was done with you, or did you decide you were finished by yourself?”

Remin was wise to the ways of pages.

“Well, I saw you coming,”

the boy said, jogging alongside him at a respectful distance from the warhorse.

“And I said to myself, surely in proper order I should ask His Grace first, has he got any job what needs doing.

Though it ain’t what I expected, being a page.

Ain’t somebody supposed to teach me to read and play the lute or something?”

“You might not have noticed, but we’re a little busy for the fine arts,”

Remin said dryly.

“You can sing by yourself if you feel your musical education is being neglected.”

“And so I do,”

the boy agreed cheerfully.

“They said I had a nice voice back home.

In Celderline, he claimed his prize, An exile princess, Imperial heir, And a light like stars was in her eyes, And roses, in her hair…”

“That’s what they’re singing now, is it?”

So the story of Remin Grimjaw was ending with marrying the princess after all.

And she had worn roses in her hair.

“All over Celderline, they never shut up about it.

You sure there ain’t nothing I can do to change your mind, Your Grace? I’ll sing the whole thing, if you like.

Or never sing again.”

The boy was quick-witted, Remin would give him that.

“Why do you want to be my page?”

he asked, mostly out of curiosity.

Remin did not take pages. Ever.

“Who wouldn’t?”

Jacot replied.

“Train under the greatest knight in the Empire? It’s like walking into a story, innit?”

“This is not a story.

You could die here and no one will sing songs about it.

You know that?”

“I know it ain’t.

They wasn’t lying about the Brede, for starters.”

Jacot was completely unabashed.

“Was that cold! Thought my balls would never drop back down.”

Remin did not laugh.

But that was funny.

“If you need something to do, go see Auber at the palisade.

He’s been saying he needs help moving branches out of the way while they’re trimming down the trees.”

Auber didn’t have any pages yet.

Maybe it would be good for him to take on the irrepressible Jacot.

“Yes, Your Grace,”

the boy said, disappointed.

He hurdled a ditch and shifted direction toward the north gate.

But there were many kinds of danger in the Andelin, and he’d hardly gone a dozen steps more when one of the masons came riding hell for leather toward Remin, shouting.

“Your Grace! Your Grace!”

He drew up so sharply he almost went over his horse’s head.

“My lord, the Duchess fainted by the wall.

Sir Miche is down in the river with her, by the bridge, he thinks it’s sun sickness.”

“Go get Genon,”

Remin ordered, after a stunned instant, and thumped his heels into his horse.