Page 34

In a curious contradiction, the building of the walls opened the town.

To be sure, the soldiers’ barracks had been under construction for some time, and all the arriving merchants and tradesmen had already been on their way to the valley long before.

But almost overnight, it seemed Tresingale transformed from a settlement under siege to a frontier town.

At last, the defenses began to move away from the vulnerable camps and sleeping places, tightening around the gaps in the walls, and now men could sit around their campfires at night, talking and drinking and dicing, then seek their beds without fear.

Those beds had moved at last from the cookhouse to the barracks, which left room for other society, the first real society Ophele had ever known.

After supper in the evening, whenever Remin and his knights were not on guard themselves, they lingered by the fire, spreading their maps over all the tables and endlessly planning.

For hours she listened with fascination as Sir Bram spoke of planting vineyards on the hills east of town.

Sir Justenin wanted to build an observatory overlooking them, for the peaceful study of the stars.

Sir Tounot dreamed of a town of his own, beside a shining blue lake on the plateau.

He had looked oddly sorry when he said it, but Remin had only nodded and marked the site on the map, making Sir Tounot the first Marquis of the Andelin, master of lands yet unnamed.

“The rest of you had better hurry up and make your claims,”

he said, looking at the enormous expanse of territory, a fifth the size of the entire Empire.

Ophele had little to say in such matters; it was all foreign to her experience.

Not merely the building of a new duchy, but even this rough society.

She had never known anything as simple as sitting beside the fire in company, listening to the unwinding of a conversation.

It had always been just her and her mother at Aldeburke, and once Lady Pavot died, the best she could hope was to be ignored by the Hurrells.

It was wonderful.

Whether they were planning the planting for the next five years or recounting war stories when they were in their cups, Ophele was content to sit at Remin’s side for hours, soaking up all this knowledge.

“No, it has to be the trebuchets outside Jardingard,”

Sir Auber contested, when they were discussing some of their more lunatic exploits.

“That was pure luck, it never should have worked.”

There was some dispute among the Knights of the Brede as to what their all-time stupidest plan had been.

In her opinion, Sir Jinmin’s one-man assault on a supply gate at a fortress called Bittern sounded the most insane, but apparently there was some stiff competition.

“Jardingard is one of the border fortresses in Valleth,”

Sir Tounot explained kindly to Ophele.

“Rem was making it clear that he was going to invade if they didn’t surrender.

Though we would have preferred not to.”

“We’d likely still be laying siege to Mindelind if we had,”

said Remin, grimacing.

Mindelind was the capital of Valleth, and its walls were famously twenty feet thick.

“If you’d been a second later on those trebuchets, they might have flung you halfway there,”

Sir Auber said acidly.

“If I’d had three or four more Jinmins, I wouldn’t have gone,”

Remin retorted.

“Too many of you short bast—none of you could reach to cut the lines.”

“If you’d waited a day, Juste would’ve shown up with reinforcements.

But what do you think he did instead?”

Sir Auber addressed this to Ophele.

“He and Jinmin stole some Vallethi uniforms and infiltrated the lines, figuring that Valleth would never guess our general would be stupid enough to go wandering around the battlefield by himself—”

“And they didn’t,”

Remin pointed out.

“—and while he and Jinmin were ripping the machines apart, the rest of us mounted a charge to reach them before Valleth could move archers in to turn them into pincushions.”

Sir Auber shook his head.

“When I got there, Rem was dangling off the arm of the last trebuchet and if just one of those Vallethi sods had the sense of a goat, they would’ve cut the block weight loose and pasted our general against the walls of the fortress he was defending.”

“No,”

Ophele breathed, her eyes round at this picturesque image.

“I think the most amazing part of the story is that Rem and Jinmin found Vallethi uniforms that fit,”

Sir Miche observed dryly, to a burst of laughter.

There were dozens of stories like that, most often recounted later in the evening, after they had consumed a fair amount of wine.

Ophele loved the stories about Remin best; he would never tell her such things about himself, and it was so good of his knights to do it for him, boasting of their young lord over his own protests.

When they walked home together afterward, she couldn’t help looking at him, marveling.

Not because he was the great military genius and hero, Remin Grimjaw, but because now she understood how he had done it.

And most often, it was with creativity, courage, and brute stubbornness rather than superhuman strength.

Oddly, the more human he became to her, the more she admired him.

But it wasn’t just the stories.

The workings of his mind were a constant source of fascination to her, being both opaque and relentlessly rational.

Once he made a decision, it was almost as if he set up mental tripwires for the required conditions of the next step, and never mentioned it again until they had been met.

Ophele herself had forgotten that she wanted to teach Jacot arithmetic until the day Remin gathered up a selection of books, took her to the cookhouse, and thrust her in front of the boy with the announcement that the time had come.

“Now?”

she asked, as Jacot hastily swallowed his lunch and scrambled to his feet.

“Didn’t you say you wanted to teach him? We’ve space for it now, and it’s cooler here than the cottage with the doors open.”

Remin looked surprised that she had not been preparing all along for this day.

And that was how the Andelin Valley acquired its first school, with a single student and a wildly inexperienced teacher.

Every afternoon, Jacot left Eugene on some shady grazing by the wall and bolted back to the cookhouse, determined to learn as much as he could.

“Master Eugene is well,”

he always assured her as he took his seat.

“And Sir Justenin says he’s going to get another donkey to haul water for the west side of the wall, did you know? Digging wells and all just like they did on our wall.”

Jacot was as smugly superior with this arrangement as if he had devised it himself; the men who had worked with Ophele were very proud of their water management scheme.

And as gratifying as this news was, Ophele seized on a much more interesting possibility: baby donkeys.

“Oh, I hope he gets a female,”

She said rapturously, wondering if there was any way she could drop a hint.

“Dunno if Master Eugene is up to being put to stud, lady,”

Jacot replied, bolting down bread and cheese as if he thought someone might take it from him.

By now he knew where the lady’s priorities lay.

“He’s slowing down a mite.”

“Nonsense,”

Ophele said firmly.

Master Eugene was the finest and noblest of donkeys, he would breed splendid babies.

But Jacot did only have an hour, so she turned her book where he could see it, pointing to the poem they would be reading.

Her book of poetry was the best primer available; the necessity of rhyming kept the vocabulary fairly simple, though Jacot did not appreciate the flowery language.

“I have a good one today,”

she promised.

“Is it?”

The boy said doubtfully.

“The Hero of Vindelein,”

she read, encouraging.

“Penniless, fatherless, a son of the stews…”

“With a smelly old jacket and holes in his shoes,”

Jacot said through a mouthful of bread, chortling.

“Stop that.”

She would not laugh.

Ophele felt less shy with people younger than herself, and though she had never had a teacher of her own, she had the idea that they should be very serious.

“Here, go ahead and read the next line.”

Jacot was an ideal student.

Eager and quick-witted, he gave Ophele the confidence to expand her efforts to the rest of the pages, who soon began to assemble for lessons during the hottest part of the day.

Ophele never dreamed that the pages’ real first lesson had been on the horrors that awaited them if they once upset their gentle teacher, delivered by everyone from their squires to the knights to Remin himself, who promised he could throw them quite a good distance into the Brede.

Even a month ago, she couldn’t have imagined a life like this.

It was as if the whole world had burst open, so far beyond the narrow boundaries of Aldeburke that she was scrambling to keep up.

The wall.

The building of a town.

So many new people, a home of her own, work that she could do well, and devils and knights, like something out of a story book.

It was so much and so far beyond her pitiful experience that sometimes she felt dizzy, thinking of it all.

But from the moment she opened her eyes every morning, Remin was there.

Gentle and unsmiling, the unshakable bedrock beneath every step she took.

How wonderful it would be, if he would always be there.

* * *

Yet somehow, as the weeks went on, she began to wonder if something was wrong.

It was a ridiculous thought on its face.

There was no concrete evidence she could point to; outwardly he was the same as ever, or at least unchanged in this new, kinder iteration of himself.

He wasn’t perfect.

He was stiff and cold by nature, and often abrupt, though she thought he might not mean to be.

There were so many things he didn’t know that he was trying to learn for her sake, and even his clumsiest efforts were touching.

But even as the town grew safer, her worry for him grew.

There were the guards, for one thing.

Folk still went cautiously in the dark, and no one ever went anywhere alone after nightfall, just in case.

But for the most part the standing guard in town was gone, except around the cottage.

Every night, Yvain and Dol came to stand at their posts on the front and back of the house, and Ophele had finally realized they weren’t there just for her benefit.

The Duke of Andelin slept there.

And it wasn’t safe for him to sleep without guards.

And then there was an incident at the cookhouse one afternoon, when she had arrived a little late for the noon meal and caught Master Wen flaying a newly arrived builder alive.

To that point, Ophele had privately thought that Master Wen yelled just because he liked to yell, and maybe he didn’t really mean it.

But that day there was no doubt that he was deadly serious.

“…something wrong with your ears, ye lackwit? I told ye to stay on that side of the line.

That line, on the floor, it’s white and it’s there for a fucking purpose.

Cross it again and I’ll gut ye.”

His victim made some reply, which Ophele couldn’t hear from ten feet outside the door.

“No, this is my kitchen and His Grace’s fucking food, and if ye move one inch nearer to it, I’ll shove a spit up your ass and roast ye for supper.

What ye see in that cupboard is what ye get, and ye let me watch your blooming hands while ye take it.

Slow.

Now ye’ve got your biscuit, get the fuck out and never do that again or ye can go hunt devils for your dinner.”

It was the angriest she had ever heard him, and for a while, she didn’t understand why.

She had written off the periodic explosions from the kitchen as Master Wen’s unique way of expressing himself.

But he had said, His Grace’s food.

The duke was fed from that kitchen.

Master Wen rigidly controlled all access to the food he ate, and was ferocious as a mastiff to anyone that tried to get near it.

And then she remembered that even in Aldeburke, they had heard about Remin getting poisoned.

More than once.

The Emperor had been outraged, outraged that someone would attack a noble-born boy, but nothing ever came of the investigations.

That thought would have shamed her before, but now it made her furious.

How dared someone do that? All this time, she had been trying to repay her blood debt on principle, but suddenly she felt a fierce urge to protect him.

It was a ridiculous idea, considering he was three times her size and the greatest knight in the known world.

He had never been unhorsed.

He had never been defeated in combat.

The only way anyone could get to him was with sneaky, despicable things like poison.

Again, she remembered that morning months ago, when he had so nearly struck her.

She had been frightened at the time, but she had learned to read his face better now, and it was not because he had been angry.

Those widened eyes, the careful way he had stepped backward, hands up…

If it had been anyone else, she would have said he was afraid.

Remin.

Every day she was learning something new about him, unraveling some mystery, discovering virtues he hardly seemed aware of himself.

He wasn’t modest so much as adorably oblivious, as if he really didn’t know he was one of the most handsome men in the Empire.

Sometimes just looking at him made her feel flustered.

And other times, it made her worry.

His black eyes were as opaque and unreadable as ever, but sometimes when she looked into them, she had to fight the inexplicable impulse to lay a hand on his forehead, to see if he was well.

He did look tired.

He never looked tired.

Was that it? Was that why she had the strange sense that something was wrong?

“What’s this?”

he asked when he came home one evening, to find a steaming cup of tea waiting for him at the table.

“Tea.”

The town’s first merchant had arrived, and claimed that this blend was good for calming and promoted sleep.

“Mr.

Guian had a dozen tins of it and I asked him to save one for me.

There’s even a little honey or sugar, if you like it sweet.”

“Where did you get the money?”

he looked at the tea with an unreadable expression as he stirred half a spoon of sugar into it.

“I had something put by.”

Ophele’s eyes slid away from his.

She had sold one of her books.

“I can get milk next time, if you take your tea that way.

Master Wen says if I want milk, I have to get it from the cow myself.”

“This is fine.”

The corner of his mouth twitched, the nearest Remin Grimjaw ever came to a smile.

“Is something else different?”

“Maybe.”

Ophele watched him, nervous and excited.

She had never surprised anyone with presents before.

There had never been anyone to surprise.

She had cleaned up the cottage as best she could, lit the lamps on either end of the mantle, and put out fresh bouquets of flowers, but there wasn’t much to work with.

She watched as his eyes drifted over the neatened shelves and tidy washstand, then landed on the mantle.

“Where did you find that?”

His dark eyes fastened on the small glass bear, set prominently in the middle.

“I was looking for teacups in the storehouse and saw it,”

she explained, hoping he wouldn’t be angry.

It wasn’t pretty exactly, but there was something touching and a little melancholy about the bear, seated on its haunches with one paw outstretched.

“Do you like it?”

“It looks good,”

he said, with a nod that encompassed the whole of the cottage.

“I always wondered why you asked for a bear.”

“I like bears.”

Ophele felt her cheeks heat and looked down at her own teacup.

“I took these cups from a set, I hope it’s all right.”

“It’s from the Duchess Ereguil.

She sent a full tea service as soon as we settled here.

I don’t think she understood what Tresingale was like last year.”

“Will they ever come to visit? The Duke and Duchess?”

The prospect made her nervous because of course they would, one day.

The whole point of having a vast manor was to host guests, sometimes dozens of them at a time.

Ereguil was one of the great duchies of Argence, an ancient and noble family whose House was as old as the House of Agnephus, the House of the Emperor.

And the Duke and Duchess of Ereguil were the nearest thing to parents that he had.

“Next year, most likely.

I’m hoping to have a respectable place for them to stay, and they both say they want to see the valley.

Maybe that was why she sent the tea service,”

he added reflectively.

“She’s the greatest lady I know.

If you decided to go and stay with them, they would bring you back when they visit.”

The words were as sudden and shocking as a slap, and Ophele hastily lowered her eyes to hide her hurt.

He hadn’t mentioned the possibility of sending her away since her sun sickness, and she thought he had forgotten.

With the wall nearing completion, it didn’t seem there was any reason for her to leave.

Unless he didn’t want her here.

All this time, he had kept his word to take care of her.

But maybe he still didn’t like her.

Maybe he was just doing what he had to do to make sure she was healthy enough to bear his children.

Maybe he would rather she was out of the way until she was strong enough to do so.

Strong enough for him to bed her, without love.

Her mind shied away from that thought as unbearable.

Before, she thought she could do it.

As long as he didn’t actually strike her, he was an improvement over the Hurrells.

And she had given an oath to do it; the most important thing she could do was to secure his succession.

But if he didn’t love her…

“Is that what you want?”

he asked quietly.

It was the hardest thing she had ever had to say.

To screw up her courage to tell him the truth, especially when she didn’t know what would happen after she did.

But she didn’t want to go.

She wanted to help him.

She wanted to be here for the building of his dream, which she had thought was becoming their dream.

Be brave, and don’t tell lies.

“No,”

she whispered.

“I want to help.

Do…do you want me to go?”

“You have helped,”

He replied softly, and his big fingers brushed hers, to make her look at him.

“I hadn’t realized how much.

But I want you to be safe.

I don’t want you to be afraid anymore.

I know this place is hard for you.”

“I don’t mind.”

“You should mind,”

he said, and when his black eyes met hers, she felt the jolt to her heart.

“You’re a lady.

You’re a princess.

And you deserve so much better, you should have everything, and I can’t—I thought, when you first came here, that you expected it, but Ophele, you’re just so…”

She was looking at his lips.

Suddenly, he was so near that she would only have to turn her head a little, and he would kiss her.

She could see herself reflected in his eyes, and his voice was so deep and aching that she could hardly breathe.

She wanted him to say it, whatever it was.

She wanted it so badly, it was as if the fate of the world hung in the balance.

“What?”

she whispered finally, and her hand reached for his all by itself.

“Nothing. Nothing,”

he said, rising so abruptly his knees banged the table.

“Never mind.

It’s just my foolishness.

I should go and help on the wall, I meant to go earlier.

I’ll be back to fetch you for supper.

Don’t go outside until it’s cooler, Juste thinks it will be another scorcher this afternoon…”

He was pulling on his boots as he spoke, and Ophele watched, hurt and bewildered and for some reason unspeakably disappointed.

“I won’t,”

she said, as if she had a habit of roving the countryside in the heat of the day.

It didn’t make any sense.

If he didn’t like her, why did he look at her that way? So many times, he would forget himself and laugh, or his eyes would get so warm, and then when he touched her…

But it wasn’t only his touch.

As she watched him gather his things, Ophele considered and rejected the possibility that this was a purely physical phenomenon, or, contrariwise, a matter of simple obligation.

By now, their nights together seemed almost a romantic dream, a chance encounter with a mysterious stranger that would never happen again.

But she had never forgotten that kindling between them, and she had come to know Remin better, since then.

The man that listened and explained, patient and persistent, a brave man that tried even when he didn’t know how to do things.

She liked this man.

She liked him very much.

And he had already told her that he didn’t know how to do this.

“I’ll be back soon,”

he said as he ducked out the door, and Ophele nodded, her eyes watchful.

“Be careful.”

Take care of His Grace.

That was what Sir Huber had told her, when they were dancing together the night of the banquet.

And of course, she had agreed; that was what a wife was supposed to do, even if the husband was Remin Grimjaw and the wife was manifestly unqualified to take care of anything.

But Remin’s men all seemed to think he needed care, and Ophele quietly picked over the evidence.

She knew little of the world and nothing of men, but when she put forth the proposition that he didn’t care for her, the weight of evidence did not seem to support it.

His observed behavior flatly contradicted it.

If he had wanted only to be rid of her, he would have seized this chance with both hands.

Which meant there was something else troubling him, and as Ophele’s eyes drifted toward the door he had closed so gently behind him, she understood that this was a puzzle, of a kind she had never attempted before.