Page 31

“Only for the morning,”

Remin cautioned as Ophele finished plaiting her long hair and gave herself a final look in the mirror.

“And only once along the wall. Slowly.”

“I know,”

she said for the dozenth time, clearly willing to promise him anything if it meant she finally got out of the cottage.

“I will.

Can we get carrots for Master Eugene? Or maybe apples? I hope they haven’t been working him too hard, he needs to rest in the shade during the noon meal or he gets too tired—”

“You need to rest in the shade this morning or I’m not going to let you go,”

Remin interrupted, collaring her before she could put on her hat.

A fortnight of rest and feeding had helped a great deal; her eyes were bright and her cheeks were already rounder, though her gown was still a little large.

“Promise me, Ophele.

If you feel hot, or dizzy, or at all unwell, you’ll stop and tell me.”

“I will.”

She looked up at him, and it was discouraging to see how easy it was to crush her when she was happy, even when he didn’t mean to.

All the fun was gone from her face.

“I promise.”

After nearly two weeks abed, Ophele, Genon, and Miche had finally convinced Remin that it was not practical to keep her locked in the cottage forever, though Remin’s inclination was to keep her there until cooler clothing arrived or cooler weather did, whichever happened first.

He had two fairly devastating counterarguments: first, that people felled once by sun sickness were more likely to be struck down again, and second, Ophele did not have a distinguished record of asking for help when she needed it.

This morning excursion was their compromise.

It was a fitting reward to show her how far the wall had advanced in her absence, though there were practical reasons for visiting, as well.

Remin was coping with an increasingly familiar blend of fondness and anxiety as he followed her to the cookhouse, though outwardly his face was as grim as ever.

Most of Tresingale’s inhabitants were already abroad for the day, but every man that passed paused to offer greetings to their duchess, and they looked so dazzled at her answering smile that Remin was struck with an irrational urge to growl.

“Master Wen?”

Ophele paused cautiously at the threshold of the sacred kitchen.

“How many times have I told ye, it’s Wen.”

The vast cook turned with his hands on his hips.

“Did the fever affect your memory, Your Grace? You’ll find Master Eugene’s treats in the usual place.

And wash your hands before you touch me cupboards.

Vectors for plague, the lot of you, that’s what Genon says.”

He relished the words, jabbing a fat finger at the small washbasin to the left of the cabinets.

“The bread smells good,”

she offered as she went obediently to wash, and while her back was turned, Wen’s glare faltered, one beady eye twitching.

He had been shockingly willing to provide tempting dishes at all hours of the day for the past two weeks, beginning with thin soups and porridge and graduating to richer, heartier fare, aromatic and subtly spiced.

“It’s good ye can offer some compliment today, considering the wrong you’ve done,”

he growled.

“’Tis a wonder I can hold me head up for shame.”

“What?”

She turned to face him, eyes wide. “Why?”

“Aye, ye heard me,”

Wen said loudly, crossing massive arms over his chest and glowering down at her.

“Is there something wrong with me cooking, I’d like to know? Is there a reason the Duchess of Andelin should be reeling about and fainting and looking like a chicken someone’s plucked?”

That was going a little far, but Remin suspected he knew where this was headed and held his tongue.

“No, there’s nothing wrong, it’s very good,”

Ophele said, bewildered.

“Thank you for the porridge, I liked the berries—”

“Then eat!”

The cook bellowed.

“If someone were to ask, who is it that cooks for the wife of Duke Remin of Andelin, hero of the Gresein, and pointed to a wisp like yourself, I’d be the laughingstock of the whole ruddy Empire! My cooking puts meat on bones! Meat! Soldiers march the length of the Empire and chew up armies by teatime because I feed them! I will not be defeated by a picky teenage girl!”

Snapping a pair of cupboard doors apart, he produced a basket of large, buttery croissants and slapped it down on the end of the counter, all of them studded with berries and dusted temptingly with sugar.

“Croissants?”

“Aye, croissants!”

He thundered.

“Bleeding croissants! I never thought I’d see the day when I’d be reduced to bloody pastry! But by the stars a woman what’s fed by Wen of Tallford has fat cheeks and a waist a yard round or I’ll know the reason why! And if ye call me Master Tallford just once, then that will be Master Eugene’s final carrot! Now take your croissants and get out of me kitchen!”

“I—thank you, I will, I do like your cooking—”

Ophele plucked a croissant from the basket and retreated, clearly unsure whether she was supposed to eat or was about to be eaten.

“I said all the croissants!”

Wen roared, and she grabbed the basket and fled out the door like a rabbit.

“I’ll get the carrots,”

Remin said in a ringing silence, and went to wash his hands.

“You couldn’t just tell her you hope she feels better?”

“Croissants.”

Wen was still breathing fire.

“To think this day would come.

Mincing about the kitchen with an armload of butter like a poxy Caprician patissier.”

“Thank you, Wen.”

“Sod off, Your Grace.”

Ophele was waiting outside at the side of the road, hugging the basket of croissants and looking anxious.

“Oh, thank you,”

she said, when she saw the carrots in Remin’s hand.

“I only remembered after I got outside, is he really mad about the croissants?”

“It could be viewed as a commentary on his cooking,”

Remin acknowledged, though from the glance she gave him, he suspected Ophele was wise to Wen’s game, even if his bellowing did make her flee in terror.

“I can’t eat all this,”

she said, tearing a croissant in half and offering it to him.

“Would he be offended if I gave some away?”

“Eat at least two yourself.”

Remin bit into the treat with pleasure.

After observing his wife for some days, he thought her problem had been overwork rather than starvation.

She ate orders of magnitude less than he did, but for her size, he thought she probably did well enough.

Just not enough to support the work she had been doing.

It was still early as they walked to the stables together, chewing contentedly on the croissants.

The sun was only two fingers above the horizon and Ophele prevailed on him to give his murderous warhorse a carrot as he saddled it, looking longingly at the handsome animal.

The horse was velvety black and powerfully muscled, with deep scars over his chest and flanks and fierce dark eyes.

Looking at the girl, he put his ears back warningly, as if he suspected her of nefarious designs.

“Come, up you get,”

Remin said, holding out a hand and feeling a wave of nostalgia as he lifted her into the saddle before him.

He was torn between the warring impulses to pull her close and push her away, and his heart beat faster as she settled shyly into place before him, clutching her basket and uncertain whether she should keep her distance.

That made two of them.

“Are they almost to the gatehouse?”

she asked, peering east.

The walls were three miles away from the main road of Tresingale, at best a vague white line shimmering on the horizon.

“Getting close.

We’ve already got a third crew digging there, it won’t hurt to have a pit between us and the devils.

The walls should get there in a few more weeks, and we’ll be done with the palisade in days.”

Remin was grimly satisfied with these milestones.

“That will leave only defenders on the palisade and behind the barricades at the gatehouse.

Soon nothing will get past our perimeter.”

“It will be over?”

“For Tresingale.”

He wasn’t ready to broach the subject of the rest of the valley yet; the idea of leaving her when he knew how much the devils scared her was difficult, and he didn’t know whether his first duty was to her or to his people.

“It’s amazing,”

she said quietly.

“Everyone has worked so hard.

They deserve croissants.

Is that why we’re going to the wall?”

“No, I didn’t tell you? Jacot, that boy who swam the Brede, has been trying to fill in for you, but he’s lagging, for all that Miche says he works hard.

Guisse asked if you’d come show him what you were doing.”

“Really?”

Ophele twisted her head back to look up at him with doubt in her eyes.

“Yes,”

he said, puzzled.

“They’re still trying to figure out how one person kept half the wall watered.

Guisse said he’d never seen the like.”

“Oh,”

she said, looking hastily away.

“Of course.

I’ll help.

I really helped?”

“You did.”

Understanding dawned.

“You did very well, wife.”

It would have taken a stronger man than Remin Grimjaw to keep from tightening his arm around her as she glowed at the praise.

If he had learned nothing else in the last few weeks, it was how astonishingly little it took to make her happy.

Even as they rode together, she was nibbling another croissant and looking contentedly at anything and everything around her, as if she wanted nothing more from the world that morning.

She was so shy, and the least harshness cowed her, but surely it meant he was doing something right if she could look like that.

“Look how far they’ve come,”

she marveled as they turned off the road toward the south wall.

The wide gap between the two walls was filled with heavy mobile barricades designed to be moved into place at nightfall, sturdy enough to hold back all but the most determined wolf demons.

They had hardly gone five minutes before they reached the far end of the diggers, already sweating with their labor, and their shouts rose in a wave as they spied Ophele.

“Hello, good morning,”

she said, waving and scarlet to her hair.

Remin took pity on her and didn’t linger, nudging his horse into a trot as they reached the scaffolding.

His sharp ears caught some interesting words among the shouting.

“…lady of the wall?”

he repeated, and was surprised to see Ophele’s eyes shift guiltily away.

She was no master of deception.

“I wonder where Master Eugene is?”

she said, as if she had gone temporarily deaf, and craned her neck to look south.

“There,”

Remin said, at the same moment that she gave a cry, and he indulgently galloped over to the wagon where Jacot was leading the elderly gray donkey.

She would have leaped off the horse if he hadn’t caught her and lowered her, and she only paused to offer a quick greeting to the boy before she rapturously embraced Eugene.

“M’lady? Maybe you oughtn’t…”

The boy trailed off as the donkey nuzzled eagerly at her pockets, and the fact that Ophele had come prepared with carrots was sufficient to make him step back respectfully, glancing up at Remin.

“The Duchess will be your teacher this morning,”

Remin explained, leaning over his saddle.

“I hope you’ll be able to do the job as well as she did.”

Jacot’s mouth fell open.

He glanced over at the small noblewoman, who was cooing over the donkey as if he were a kitten.

The boy had given his age as fourteen, but he was eight inches taller than the lady and his long limbs were taut with wiry muscle, strong enough to cross the Brede.

“I will,”

he said stoutly.

“And treat that beast well,”

Remin added, with a weight of warning.

He hardly needed to say it; it was clear that Ophele had made a pet of the creature, and Jacot was clever enough to see how things stood. “Wife?”

He extended the small basket of croissants, hoping it would be enough to keep her from carrying anything heavier.

“Be careful,”

he cautioned.

“If you feel the least bit tired—”

“I’ll sit down in the shade.”

“You’d better, or you’ll spend another week in the cottage.

I’ll come find you at the north end of the wall.”

She nodded, offering him a shy smile, all the more precious for its rarity.

For many reasons, Remin had to fight down an impulse to follow.

Jacot of Caillmar posed a challenge.

There was no way to ascertain whether he was who he claimed to be; he claimed to be no one, and orphan boys were a dime a dozen.

It was entirely possible he was just a brave lad hoping to become more than he was, daring the Brede because he had nothing to lose.

Or he could be one of the Emperor’s creatures.

Every precaution had been taken.

Only guards on watch and Remin’s knights were permitted to carry weapons as a rule, and the clothes the boy had been wearing when he arrived had been confiscated and searched.

He had no belongings, and would be allowed none until he was a squire.

Unless he ran over to one of the blacksmiths and stole a hammer, he had no weapon but his bare hands.

Seeing wolves in every lamb…

But Remin was trusting him with Ophele.

Watching her go, he had the familiar sense that he was drowning, and the harder he floundered, the faster he sank.

And he had known it would be that way.

He had known that the more he looked, the more impossible it would become to look away.

She hadn’t gone twenty paces before she was surrounded by masons and handing out croissants, pleased to have something she could give away.

Remin wheeled his horse around and kicked him into a gallop, feeling shamefully as if he were fleeing.

* * *

“It’s mostly counting,”

Ophele explained as she walked with Jacot of Caillmar, petting Eugene and watching the page from the corner of her eye.

The only boy she had known before was Julot, but she was charitable enough to assume he was not the standard for his gender.

“The blacksmiths do different things on different days, so some days they’ll go through more water than others.

If you keep count in the morning, you can usually guess how much they’ll need in the afternoon and bring them some extra barrels to get ahead.”

“Keep count?”

Jacot asked blankly.

He had a pretty face for a boy, with rough-cropped brown hair and bright blue eyes.

“Of how many buckets and barrels they go through.

It takes an hour to go the length of the wall and back, so if you keep count of how much everyone is using in an hour, then you can figure out the averages…”

Ophele had carefully tracked the numbers in her mind over the months, adjusting the averages over time, and after three months she had become fairly skilled at guessing how much water would be needed where.

Efficiency was the only way she could have managed the task.

She didn’t have the strength to muscle through it.

But after a while, she realized Jacot was having very little to say.

“I didn’t know there’d be so much reckoning,”

he said, his brows knotted.

“Dunno if I can do that.”

“Oh.”

Ophele blinked and flushed.

The Habits of a Lady said it was a cardinal sin to make someone else feel embarrassed or uncomfortable, but it had never occurred to her that anyone might not know how to calculate averages.

“Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn’t think…”

“No, I can learn,”

the boy said stubbornly.

“I know my counting.

What’s a average?”

Compassion made her braver than she would have been otherwise, to make up for her thoughtlessness, and Ophele began with multiplication and division before she introduced averages, though there wasn’t nearly enough time to do any of it justice as the north end of the wall approached.

“Sure you’re all right, Your Grace?”

Jacot asked doubtfully as they turned to head south.

“Be my neck, something happens to you.”

“No, I’m quite well,”

she assured him, her mind focused firmly on the problem before her.

“The six times is where it gets harder, but if you use your fingers as an abacus, it will help.

There are lots of tricks you can use to help you remember, like the trick of nines.”

“What trick?”

Jacot glanced nervously over his shoulder.

“The sum of any two digits that are the product of nine times any other number equal nine,”

she said blithely.

“Nine two times is eighteen, right?”

She tried not to be discouraged by the fact that the boy’s fingers jittered at his side before he nodded his agreement.

“Eighteen is a one and an eight.”

She held up her own fingers to illustrate.

“One plus eight is nine.”

“Yes…”

“Now add nine three times.”

It had been a very exciting day when seven year-old Ophele recognized this pattern.

She loved patterns, it was like discovering a secret.

“Twenty-seven.”

“And two plus seven is…?”

“Nine.”

Jacot’s eyes widened.

He was ignorant, but he was not stupid.

“And…thirty-six, forty-five, fifty-four, sixty-three, seventy-two, eighty-one, ninety…”

Ophele clapped her hands, beaming.

“See? It doesn’t work with ninety-nine, but then it works again at a hundred and eight, a hundred seventeen…”

“Is there more like that?”

Jacot asked eagerly.

“I was hoping for some learning when I got here, but all the squires say we got too much work what needs doing to bother.”

“Maybe I could lend you a book…”

Ophele faltered as soon as she visualized the books on her shelf.

There was nothing there suitable for a beginner.

“No, lady, but thankee kindly.

I ain’t quite up to books yet.

And I wouldn’t give a f—I wouldn’t care what Sir Tounot’s lads say about anything else, but I am shamed, being so backward at my age.”

“Well, you want to learn, don’t you?”

she said warmly.

“If you don’t ask, then you’ll never know.”

A noise of hooves trampled the end of that sentence, and as Ophele turned to see the duke rapidly overtaking them, she realized with a start that they had come halfway down the wall already.

There was a grimness in his face that sent a warning shiver up her spine.

“We agreed you would only go as far as the north end,”

he said as he drew up beside her.

On the other side of Eugene, Jacot gulped.

“It’s my fault,”

Ophele said instantly.

“I told him it was fine.

I’m all right, I don’t feel hot or tired at all.”

Unconsciously, her hands moved to cover Eugene’s long ears, as if the donkey might be troubled by the tenor of the conversation.

The duke looked down at her, his opaque black eyes so dark, it was as if they could devour the world.

“You gave me your word,”

he said ominously.

“Jacot, you may go.

Thank the lady for her time.”

“I do,”

the boy said fervently, giving her a bow.

“Very grateful, Your Graces.

I’ll remember the nine times table.

And I’ll be good to Master Eugene.”

He was grateful, but he was still a boy, and departed at speed.

Ophele’s fingers twisted anxiously before her.

“Come.

We’re going home.”

The duke’s jaw was tight with displeasure as he nudged the horse nearer.

Ophele was frozen.

She didn’t think he would come to hate her again over something that had seemed so trivial, but his voice had those stiff, frosty tones she remembered all too well, and all the friendliness was gone from his face.

It felt like a weight of ice had settled solidly in her middle.

“I’m sorry.”

She had to force the words out, her tongue feeling clumsy, a moment from rooting itself to the roof of her mouth.

“I didn’t mean anything, I wasn’t thinking…”

“You’re speaking too quietly.”

The duke held out a hand, his brows knotting together.

“Come here.

I can’t hear what you’re saying.”

“I said, I’m sorry.”

She made herself take his hand and let him lift her into the saddle.

“I didn’t mean to go so far.”

“I don’t like it when people break their promises.”

That handsome, arrogant face could look so forbidding.

She didn’t know what to say.

It had seemed like a small thing to tell Jacot, no, we’ll go on, meaning no harm and thinking they would only go a short distance further.

She hadn’t considered it in the light of a promise broken, and certainly not something that could fracture the fragile peace between the duke and herself.

The bare thought made her struggle against rising panic.

But wasn’t breaking a promise the same as telling a lie? He already couldn’t trust her; she shouldn’t dare to stir a step without making her intentions clear.

What should she do? The silence prickled between them and she could feel the scant, stiff inch between her back and his chest like wind howling through a chasm.

They rode in silence down the length of the wall, and turned onto the east road.

“Why did you do it?”

he asked abruptly.

“Jacot doesn’t know how to do averages.”

She answered quickly and had to remind herself to speak up.

“That was how I kept track of how much water everyone was using.

The buckets and barrels.

He was just giving everyone the same amount.

But I had to teach him multiplication and division first, and I wasn’t done when we got to the north end, and I didn’t realize how far we’d gone until you came.

I’m sorry.”

He waited, eying her to be sure she was finished.

“I understand.

But you promised me.

It might seem like a small thing, but this is a dangerous place.”

He nudged her to make her look up at him.

“Wife.

I want to be able to trust you.”

“You do?”

Ophele was nearly holding her breath.

She had not expected it to go this way, at all.

“I do.”

He shifted in the saddle, and she realized that he was uncomfortable, and the shocking thought struck her that maybe this was as difficult for him as it was for her.

“Promises are important to me.”

“I’m sorry,”

she said again, laying a hand on his arm.

“I didn’t think of it that way.

I won’t do it again.”

“Then that’s the end of it.”

And that really was it.

His arm tightened around her and Ophele settled back into the comfortable crook of his shoulder and chest, feeling so light she could have laughed, or burst into song.

Was it really so simple as that? Could it really be this way between them?

“He said he can’t read,”

she told him impulsively.

“Jacot.

The other boys are making fun of him.”

“There will be time for such things when the wall is done,”

the duke replied.

“He will have to learn to cope with insults on his own, wife.

Believe me, he will not thank you for intervening.”

“But it would help him on the wall if he knew more arithmetic, at least.

Perhaps I could teach him again tomorrow, in the morning?”

“Will you keep your word to go no further than the north end?”

There was a pleasant rumbling in his voice, even though his face was stern.

“I will.”

“Then yes.”

It was so nice.

She didn’t want the ride to end.

She wanted to see anything, everything, and it was so comfortable to ride with him this way.

And surely he was as tired of the cottage as she was.

“Is there somewhere else you have to go?”

she asked, thinking of the many projects underway throughout the valley.

“To see Master Didion or Master Ffloce? The planting? Or the palisade? Or that new building by the river?”

He still wouldn’t tell her what that was going to be.

“The planting is done,”

he said, slanting a look at her that said he wasn’t fooled.

“But they’re laying the foundation of the manor house today.”

“It’s still early,”

she said, glancing east, where the sun was now a handspan above the horizon.

It would be a hot day, but not yet.

“I don’t mind, if you want to go look…”

“That’s very gracious of you.”

The corner of his mouth twitched.

The duke wasn’t wearing his armor today.

Ophele could feel his heart pounding against her back as he turned the horse south, down lanes lined with sticks and string, like the shadowy outlines of a dream.