Page 5

When he finally decided to move, the duke was like a tidal wave.

Ophele barely had time to jam her feet into a pair of shoes before she found herself swept into the manor courtyard with a thousand questions on her lips and a dozen things she was trying to do at once.

He was barking orders so fast, she couldn’t tell which were for her, and suddenly the area was boiling with men and servants and assembled baggage, two lines of blanket rolls and saddle bags forming as if by magic.

There was another growing pile of foodstuffs requisitioned from the kitchen, and even as she watched, one of the squires trundled by covered in so many waterskins, he looked like a lumpy bipedal mole.

“But Your Grace,”

Lord Hurrell kept saying, hurrying after them, distinctly rumpled after the servants had had to haul him out of bed.

The lord of the house preferred to sleep late.

“The girl needs clothing! A lady-in-waiting! She has barely risen from her sickbed—”

The duke flashed him a glance like steel.

“She managed to rise into the rafters of the library.

She’s fine,”

he said curtly.

But he did yield to protests about the weather and took a cloak from a nearby maid, jamming the hood onto Ophele’s head with a jerk that hid her face to the tip of her nose.

He had assumed command of the house as if it were a poorly trained army and a dozen maids were falling all over themselves to assemble some form of trousseau.

“Ophele? Ophele!”

Lisabe appeared at the manor doors, panting, her blonde hair tumbling loose over her shoulders.

Her hands clasped together.

“Oh, please, Your Grace, we have barely had a chance to say good-bye!”

“They’re still saddling the horses,”

the duke pointed out, striding toward the baggage line. “Say it.”

Bewildered though she was, Ophele was not about to suffer a tearful farewell from Lisabe, who had once stolen her favorite doll and burned its hair off, who had always taken the last cookie rather than let Ophele have one, and who had never failed to offer Ophele up as a scapegoat for her own misdeeds.

The list of grievances was long, a lifetime of petty torments and injustices, but it was the sight of those crocodile tears that made Ophele retreat in revulsion.

“Don’t,”

she said, her hands held out as if warding the other girl off.

“Good-bye, Lisabe.”

Lisabe wasn’t quite shameless enough to force her to accept an embrace, but Lady Hurrell had no such restraint.

She swept into the courtyard with a keening cry, as if her heart were shattering to pieces.

“Ophele!”

The wide sleeves of her gown flapped like wings and before Ophele could escape, her head was trapped in the lady’s bosom, smothering in the scent of rose sachet.

“Your Grace, please, it is too soon! She is like my own child, have mercy!”

Ophele couldn’t hear the duke’s reply; she was too busy trying to thrash free, and she was struck with a lunatic urge to laugh.

This was ludicrous.

It was a farce.

Lady Hurrell’s arms tightened and her voice hissed in her ear.

“Faint,”

she ordered.

“Right now, or you know what will happen.”

With a wrench, Ophele yanked free, panting.

Her cloak was turned around the wrong way and her hair tumbled wildly around her face, half-blinding her, but outrage and hurt for once loosed her tongue.

“Do you think he’ll take Lisabe if you make him kill me?”

she whispered, disbelieving.

Even after everything, she hadn’t really believed that Lady Hurrell would do it.

Her voice trembled.

“He wants the Emperor’s daughter,”

she said bitterly.

“That’s all he wants.

He will never let me go.”

Stars, it was true.

She stumbled away, weaving between neighing horses.

They were leaving Aldeburke forever, right now, and he was taking her with him.

She had to find Azelma.

Ophele darted up the long drive to the kitchen, dodging a few of the duke’s knights, who hesitated as if they were unsure whether the princess needed recapturing.

The kitchen had a separate delivery entrance around the east side of the house, and she could already see the old lady in the herb garden, hurrying forward with her apron still on.

“Azelma!”

“Oh, Princess!”

Those soft, strong arms went around her and then it was real, and a sob burst from her throat as Azelma held her and rocked, a floury hand sinking into her hair.

“You shouldn’t,”

Ophele wept, already regretting the intimacy in full view of a furious Lady Hurrell.

“Let go, or push me away, quickly.”

“Never.

None of that, wipe your face,”

said Azelma, pushing her back to dab at her cheeks with her apron and applying a light dusting of what smelled like cinnamon.

“Here.

This is for you and His Grace.

Make sure he eats, a hungry man is a terrible beast.

Promise that you’ll share it.”

“I will.”

Ophele rubbed her nose and took the heavy parcel, wrapped in a knotted cheesecloth.

The tears were falling faster than she could blot them away, and Azelma tutted, tugging her cloak back into place around her shoulders.

“Now, now,”

she said, more gently.

“You can’t go to him with a face like a wet Sunday.

You’re well away from here.

They get letters even in the Andelin, make sure you write to tell me how you’re getting on.”

“I will,”

Ophele repeated, sniffing.

“I need a handkerchief.

Azelma, I can’t go to Andelin without a handkerchief.”

“Here, you silly girl,”

Azelma laughed, but for all her admonishments, the old lady’s eyes were suspiciously bright as she tugged a square of linen out of her pocket.

Her hand gripped Ophele’s shoulder and gave her a shake.

“Be brave, and don’t tell lies.

All will be well, I promise.”

Ophele trudged back up the drive, tucking Azelma’s handkerchief into her sleeve and wondering if she was going to her death.

If she was, there was nothing she could do about it.

Lady Hurrell would say what she wanted to say, and the duke would do what he wanted to do, and Ophele had no control over any of it.

It was just as her mother had told her, with serene acceptance of life’s vicissitudes: the only thing Ophele could control was herself.

But when she stepped into the courtyard Lord Hurrell was still trying to argue with the duke and Lady Hurrell was standing beside Lisabe and Julot, weeping theatrically and determined to go down with all flags flying.

“—a carriage at least, she is the daughter of the Emperor!”

Lord Hurrell exclaimed.

“If you give us but a little time, we can ready a carriage, as is appropriate to her station—”

“There aren’t any roads where we’re going.”

The duke swung up into his saddle, his eyes landing on Ophele as if he had assumed all this time that she would be exactly where he had left her when the time came.

And here she was.

“Princess, give me your hand.”

At this point, it wasn’t worth trying to protest.

Obediently, she offered her hand and the duke hoisted her into his lap with one arm, tucking her cloak over her knees.

The Knights of the Brede were already mounted and waiting in perfect order, shining down to their shin greaves.

“Good-bye, Your Highness,”

called Tam behind them as the horses started forward, and there were a few half-hearted farewells from the other servants.

The Hurrells said nothing.

“Good-bye,”

Ophele whispered as the manor house receded behind her and was finally lost among the trees.

She had never been on a horse before.

She had never left the estate.

It almost felt as if the air should be different as they passed through the gates.

“What’s this?”

The duke asked, poking at the parcel in her lap.

“Give it to me, we can put it on the supply wagon.”

“No,”

she said, clutching the cheesecloth as if it were Azelma herself.

“It’s mine.”

“Don’t complain when your arms get tired.”

They rode in prickling silence.

Ophele lowered her eyes, wishing she had a horse of her own.

She was acutely aware of his chest at her back and his heavy thighs under her legs, thick with saddle muscle.

She hadn’t been this close to another person since her mother died.

And he hated her.

He probably didn’t like touching her at all, any more than she liked touching him. But she had made a promise, and her mother had told her to always keep her promises.

She bit her tongue and screwed her courage to say, scarcely audible: “It’s lunch.”

“What?”

he barked.

“This,”

she said, almost stuttering in fright.

Why was he angry? Her voice died under that black glare, but she nudged the parcel and forced the words out.

“Azelma gave it to me.

To share with you.

Your Grace.

If you want.”

His eyebrows lifted.

“I see.”

He sounded skeptical.

“We’ll be stopping to eat in a few hours.”

He probably thought she was going to poison him.

Ophele lowered her eyes, bumping along in his lap with his arms on either side of her like two walls closing in.

The shoes dangling off her feet were tidy slippers of the sort worn inside the house, forest green with dangling gold tassels and vastly oversized.

They were Julot’s.

* * *

If Remin had wanted to be married the same day they left Aldeburke, it wouldn’t have been impossible.

There were three small villages within a few hours of the estate, and at least one of them would’ve had a cleric available.

But the Duke of Andelin would be married with the same thoroughness he did everything else: inarguably, irrevocably, smashing through all resistance to stamp the act on the pages of history, so even scholars in generations to come could not contest his will.

To that end, they were going to Celderline.

It was a large town with a temple and a Prior, three days from Aldeburke.

As much as he hated to waste the time, he would have smoke sent up from the Temple, call forth the town criers, and cram as many witnesses as possible into the temple.

Songs would be sung.

Oaths taken.

The marriage certificate would be notarized in triplicate and then locked in the same casket where he kept proof of the princess’s identity and parentage.

Even in the chaos of his departure from Aldeburke, Remin had collected every page of the records belonging to Lady Rache Pavot.

His abrupt departure had served him well; the lord was too surprised to have time to conceal anything, and too rattled to lie convincingly.

From Celderline they would go straight to the Andelin Valley, a much longer journey and large portions of it through rough country.

He had already decided that he and his new bride wouldn’t have children right away, not until he had a respectable home in which to install them.

But he meant to have a brood, as a hedge against the calamity that had plagued him all his life.

The Emperor had wiped out his House down to the last infant.

Remin was all that remained.

And he would protect his children from suffering that fate even before they were born.

His eyes went to the princess, sitting alone by a fire and entirely ignorant of these plans.

She looked tiny, huddling in her cloak, but according to the records of her birth, she had been born in 808 and would be eighteen this year.

Old enough.

Surprisingly, she hadn’t been much trouble so far.

Remin had watched her carefully at lunch and only ate the things she ate, after she took the first bite.

Sitting with her wasn’t like sitting with his men and he frankly wasn’t sure what to do with her.

They ate silently and didn’t make eye contact, an eternity of chewing.

“The bread is good,”

he had finally offered.

The words fell into the silence like a stone dropping down a well.

“Azelma made it,”

she said, her eyes flicking up to him and quickly away.

Her voice was so soft, he had to lean forward to hear her.

Their only other interaction that day had been when he caught her sidling away from the group during a short break in the afternoon, as if she thought she might slip off unnoticed.

He had collared her before she got five paces.

“I’m just…to the bushes,”

she had explained, without meeting his eyes.

The tips of her ears were scarlet.

Accustomed though he was to his men doing any number of unspeakable things on the march, Remin released her at once.

“Very well,”

he said stiffly.

“If I have to come find you, you’ll never go without an escort again.”

She nodded and sped out of his sight, and in the five minutes she was gone he hovered, for the first time uncertain.

Suddenly it dawned on him that even if she wasn’t actively trying to escape, the world was a dangerous place.

There might be snakes in the underbrush; a red-mouthed adder could kill with a single bite.

Badgers.

Foxes with foaming sickness.

Even a rabbit would bite, if startled; bites could turn septic even with treatment. It wasn’t quite spring, and the nights were still cold, what if she did actually get sick?

He had commanded whole armies and ordered thousands of men to march to their deaths, but he had never been responsible for anything as fragile as a girl.

As if to punctuate his thoughts, the princess rubbed her hands together and held them out to the fire, scooting closer.

Remin went to take a look at the supply wagon.

He hadn’t been lying when he told Lord Hurrell that there were no roads where they were going.

The supply wagon rode high off the ground on two iron-shod wheels, so it could bounce along over the roughest terrain.

Remin had no fondness for the Emperor’s daughter, but he wasn’t cruel enough to make her ride in that.

She’d bite off her own tongue before noon.

But as a bed, it might be better than sleeping on the ground.

After he ordered the load shifted off the front of the wagon and commandeered several large fur-lined cloaks from his grumbling men, Remin returned to collect the girl.

She was sitting in exactly the same place by the fire, hunched in a little ball.

“Princess,”

he said gruffly, crouching beside her.

Her eyes were closed, thick dark lashes curling over her cheeks, with her small chin propped on her knees and a half-empty mug of wine staining the hem of her cloak.

If it had been one of his men, he would’ve administered a gentle kick, but he sensed that would not be appropriate.

He shook her shoulder instead.

“Princess. Wake up.”

“Wha—huh?”

She blinked up at him and instantly retreated, clutching the remains of her supper.

Remin huffed with irritation.

“Come.

If you want to sleep, do it somewhere safe,”

he said, pulling her up by her elbow and reaching for the bread.

“Are you done with this?”

She muttered something.

“Speak up.”

“F-for the morning,”

she said, clutching it closer.

“Give it to me, it’ll attract vermin.

We’ll have breakfast before we leave, I don’t starve my men,”

he added, irritated.

It wouldn’t surprise him to learn that there were such rumors about him.

“Come, you’re sleeping here.”

Drawing her to the supply wagon, Remin stuffed the cloaks into the narrow space at the front, just enough room for a small girl, and folded the hoods over to make a rough pillow.

“The furs should keep you warm enough.

No, don’t climb,”

he added, plucking her off the wagon wheel and depositing her in the wagon before either of them could think about it too much.

“If you get cold, tell me.

We don’t have time for you to get sick.”

She nodded without looking at him, and he frowned.

What was wrong with her?

“I won’t be angry if you get cold,”

he said sternly.

“I will be angry if you don’t tell me.

Understood?”

“Yes, yes.”

Her knees drew up defensively and he thrust his own cloak at her, annoyed without understanding why.

“Go to sleep,”

he ordered, and beckoned to nearby Darri to guard her.

Sir Darrigault of Ghis had eyes like a cat in the dark, and the good sense to be blind to anything his duke didn’t want him to see.

He was much more at ease among his men.

Taking his usual seat by the fire, Remin held out his cup for wine, nicely warmed to counter the night chill.

Seven of his friends had survived the war, and they were now his closest counsellors: Miche, Auber, Bram, Tounot, Edemir, Huber, and Justenin.

All of them were now properly titled, and some of them had been nobly born, but among themselves there was no need for courtesies.

They all remembered the same faces, missing from the circle around the fire.

“We have a wager,”

said Bram of Lisle, the firelight flickering over his narrow face.

“Do you think that was the Emperor’s orders at Aldeburke, or His Lordship’s own idea?”

“It could be both.”

Remin grunted.

“I sent two messages to Aldeburke.

The guards at the gates of the estate saw three messengers.”

“The Emperor has been in a generous mood,”

Edemir remarked, gesturing with a sheaf of papers, their seals dangling.

The son of a count, he was the most educated of Remin’s men and handled the duke’s correspondence, official and otherwise.

“To celebrate the victory over Valleth and in earnest prayer for lasting peace,”

he read from one paper, “the Emperor extends his mercy to his most unfortunate subjects…anyone who has committed minor offenses, excepting capital crimes…it seems he has decided to empty the prisons in advance of your announcement, Rem.”

“The Brede will be well fed,”

Remin replied grimly.

“No one with the brand of a criminal will be allowed across the bridges.

I thought he would do something like this.”

On the first day of spring, messengers from the Duke of Andelin would spread the word that for at least the first year, the Andelin Valley was open by invitation only.

He would need that long to build the infrastructure to support them, roads and granaries and storehouses, to begin an orderly process so he would not become the Duke of Shanty Town.

Then he would open the floodgates.

His lands were vast and almost empty of people, and he needed farmers.

Miners.

Chandlers and weavers, hunters, fishermen, people to sow and reap and spin.

He wanted quarries in the mountains and fields of wheat as far as the eye could see on the Talfel Plateau.

Remin could picture it as clearly as if the towns had already been built, and the long miles of road rolling to the horizon. It would be the work of many lifetimes.

But in spite of his orders, new people had already been arriving even in the depths of winter, and it would only accelerate once the weather was warmer.

The Emperor’s edict would salt criminals among the flood of people, yet another poisonous gift to endanger the innocent and plague Remin’s lands for years to come.

It also made the Emperor look benevolent and rid him of prisoners that were expensive to feed and house.

As far as Bastin Agnephus was concerned, it was a win all the way around.

“We’ll have to leave a few more men on the bridges unless we want a repeat of the charge of Gresein,”

observed Juste.

“I’ve already sent warning,”

said Edemir, before Remin could order him to do so.

The stars blessed a competent man.

“And advised Their Lordships of Norgrede, Firkane, and Leinbruke that we will not be admitting criminals.

I asked them in your name to keep a patrol on the south side of the Brede River, but…”

“People will attempt the crossing,”

Bram of Lisle said grimly.

It was ironic that only a few years ago, he would have been one of the criminals they were trying to keep out.

When one of the Emperor’s freed prisoners mounted a suicidal charge onto an enemy-held bridge, then Remin would reconsider his position.

He couldn’t blame them for trying.

Many of the people coming to Andelin were fleeing all manner of hardship, but he could hardly fling open the bridges and let them throw his lands into chaos, never mind the dangers of the Andelin devils.

So they would try the Brede, and he would send regular patrols to clear away the corpses to keep them from fouling the water.

“I’ll draft additional orders tonight,”

he said.

“You can forward them on, Miche, I’m sending you ahead to Celderline tomorrow.

You too, Huber.

Make sure the Prior’s still in residence and pay some men to spread the word that the Duke of Andelin is getting married.”

It still felt strange to say it, as if he were talking about someone else who was a duke, and someone else’s wedding.

“Give me money,”

drawled Miche, sprawled out by the fire with his long limbs in everyone’s way.

He was never shy about asking.

“No more than ten sovereigns.”

“Should I spread word that the duke is getting married in a barn?”

“How much do you think you need to bribe a few drunkards?”

Remin retorted.

“Pay the Prior and buy two rings.

Plain silver.”

“My older brother got married twelve years ago,”

said Auber.

“I know it was twelve years ago because my sister-in-law complains about her silver ring every year on the same date.

Not one diamond to grace it, not one star for her hand.”

“Weren’t we camped on the Talfel most of last year?”

Tounot asked.

“I got letters.

She mentioned it in the letters,”

Auber said, a little grimly.

Remin looked from one man to the other.

There seemed to be an important message here.

“You’re suggesting I buy diamond rings,”

he said slowly.

“And maybe some flowers,”

Miche put in, to a general murmur of agreement.

“Even if she is the Emperor’s get, Rem, she’s going to be your wife for life.

Women don’t forget this kind of thing.

Don’t do anything you don’t want to hear about for the next fifty years.”

“Twenty sovereigns,”

he said, in a tone that closed the discussion.

Wisely, his men moved on to another topic.

The subject had made him acutely uncomfortable.

After he drafted his orders, Remin relieved Darri at the supply wagon and propped himself against the wheel, wrapped in a blanket.

He could see the girl’s sleeping face in the starlight, turned in three-quarter profile and undeniably pretty, when it wasn’t hidden under a mass of hair.

Had the third messenger at Aldeburke come for her? Would the Lord and Lady even know about it, if the girl had a habit of roaming around the estate unguarded? And if the message had been for her, what might it have been? Even if she was the Emperor’s spawn, she hardly looked capable of assassinating him herself.

And once they reached his lands, she would be utterly alone.

She had no allies. She wouldn’t be able to send so much as a smoke signal without his knowledge.

He watched her sleeping for some time, burrowed into the fur cloaks at the front of the wagon.

Her hair was impractically long, cascading off the side of the cart and already tangled.

Had any of those benighted maids thought to pack anything as useful as a comb?

“Here’s fifty,”

he told Miche before dawn.

The company’s gold was distributed among a number of saddlebags and other unlikely places, including the soles of Remin’s boots.

“Buy diamond rings.

And find her a dress.”

“A dress?”

“One that fits.

And one for the wedding.”

Remin scowled, daring the man to be amused.

“If the duke is getting married, his bride shouldn’t look like a beggar.”

“They’ll think she’s a queen,”

Miche said, with his most elegant bow.

Sir Miche of Harnost was a cynic and a womanizer, but he could charm birds out of the trees and for reasons known only to himself, had sworn his service when Remin was still a boy.

“Size-wise, you think she’s more like Lady Flavie or that seamstress back in Merelde? Chinot, that was her name.”

“How should I know? You saw a great deal more of them than I did.”

Remin’s eyes flashed a warning, because he knew exactly what was going through Miche’s filthy mind.

“Use your discretion about what else a woman might need, but make sure she’s fit for travel.

And don’t waste my money.”

“I will hire minstrels to sing the story of your love throughout the Empire,”

Miche promised, and ducked Remin’s fist.

“Huber.”

“Yes, Your Grace.

No minstrels.”

Huber was already mounted, the humorless balance to irreverent Miche.

“Quit fucking around, Miche, get in the saddle.

We’ll have to ride hard to make Celderline before nightfall.”

Knowing Miche, Remin found himself wondering if maybe he should have given them a little less time.

Idle hands were ripe for mischief.