Chapter 1 – Segoile’s Newest Rose #6
It seemed unfair. They were her feet and ought to do as they were told.
But between curtsies, dancing, and the general rush to get where she was going, Ophele never really stopped stumbling all that day.
It was a wrench, having to send Elodie away with the promise that she would summon her again the moment she could, and she barely caught Jacot as he was leaving the offices above the storehouse that afternoon, bolting out the door like he had devils on his heels.
“Oh, my lady,” he said, drawing up short. “Beg pardon.”
“You won’t need lessons anymore?” she asked, disappointed. Jacot had come to Tresingale last year by swimming the Brede, and had dived into his studies with the same stubborn tenacity. It had been nice, having someone to teach.
“No, lady. Sir Justenin says I’m not far behind the other lads, now.” Jacot scratched the back of his neck. “But thankee. Seems a while since that trick of nines.”
“Yes,” she agreed sadly, remembering their walks by the wall with Eugene and the water wagon. “But if you wanted to continue, I could—”
“No, m’lady,” he said, so quickly her mouth shut with a snap. Jacot’s eyes flicked toward the offices above them. “Shouldn’t like to bother Sir Justenin, or yourself. You’ve got things to get along with.”
“If you’re sure,” she said, and held out a hand. It probably wasn’t done, but Jacot had helped her more than he knew. “Please take care of yourself, Jacot. And the other boys, I shall miss you all.”
Jacot glanced at the looming Leonin and Davi before he took her hand.
“Well—I will,” he said, his ears turning red. “Ain’t like I won’t be about, my lady. But you’ve been uncommon good to me. Uncommonly good. If you ever need a hand, you’ve got mine.”
“Thank you,” Ophele said, equally touched and awkward, and after another uncomfortable few moments he made his escape, leaving her curiously bereft.
Upstairs in the office, Sir Justenin had a stack of books waiting for her on her desk.
“All of these have the seal of the Tower, my lady,” he said, pointing out the stamp on the cover of the top book.
Tugging a chair over, he sat down on the other side of her desk and slipped on his spectacles.
“They are part of the approved curriculum. I hardly expect anyone to ask you to solve equations at a banquet, but you should be familiar with these concepts. I believe the explanations in the text will be sufficient for your understanding, but I would rather you ask than persist in being wrong. And show your work.”
“All right,” she agreed eagerly, taking the book.
She knew fractions and percentages, but this book used them in new ways, and it took less than an hour for her to complete the first three chapters, filled with joy at being quizzed.
It was a lonely feeling when no one cared enough to even ask her to do algebra.
Sir Justenin was deep in conversation with Edemir’s secretaries the next time she looked up, so Ophele went on to the next chapter with delight, her eyes skimming page after page of ideas that seemed so rational, so self-evident, it felt as if she must have always known them.
She forgot all about showing her work. Her quill scrawled down answers as fast as she read the question, and she was halfway through chapter six when a shadow fell over her desk.
“I see you have finished the assignment,” Justenin said dryly, taking her paper and skimming it. “You had no difficulty with the text?”
“No, I was just getting to graphs,” she replied, her eyes shining.
“I might have used those, mightn’t I, for the devil problem?
I could have expressed the data by region, or arranged it in sets.
I didn’t know there was such a thing. Why doesn’t Sir Edemir use it for budgeting?
He was so worried last month about where all the construction money was going, if we just categorized it—”
The ideas were fairly bursting in her brain, a dozen applications for the things she had just learned, but Justenin held up a hand.
“I am afraid that will have to wait, for the present,” he said, with a hint of amusement. “You went further than I intended today. Have you encountered these topics before?”
“Oh, no, this was just what I was hoping for! In Aldeburke, there were only children’s texts or books like The Sacred Angles of the Stars, and it took me ages to figure out how they were calculating their conjunctions…”
“I…see.” Justenin gave her the same odd look Edemir often gave her when she was helping with accounts.
“Then we will leave these for you to study on your own time, my lady. These books will carry you through trigonometry. You should consider them personal enrichment,” he added severely.
“I believe you can manage on your own, but if you have any difficulties, I will endeavor to assist you.”
“I will. Thank you,” she added, resisting the urge to hug the books.
“It is nothing, my lady. Grammar and penmanship will be of more practical use to you now,” he went on. “You will be obliged to reply to a great deal of correspondence, and you must not give them any opportunity to find fault…”
This lesson went less well. It was not the rules that were the problem so much as the maddening number of exceptions.
Diagramming a sentence was a satisfyingly methodical exercise, but Ophele felt surprised and betrayed that her own language was riddled with inconsistencies that Sir Justenin did not even attempt to defend.
“There is no definitive answer, my lady,” he said, when summoned to provide a rule about when to use a semicolon. “In this case, it is dependent on context.”
Her textbook certainly had opinions about the matter. Ophele was relieved when he called a halt to move on to the Court of Nobility. Surely government could not be as nonsensical as grammar.
Aldeburke had had the full course of the Imperial curriculum, so Ophele already knew the basic structure of the Five Courts and their bylaws.
But she was surprised and disillusioned to have both her language and her government betray her in the space of an afternoon, and Rhetoric and Oratory was nothing short of a disaster.
“Your voice is pleasant, my lady,” Sir Justenin said as he produced this textbook. “Well-modulated and without accent, which will serve you well in the capital. But it is also exceedingly quiet. You must speak loudly enough to be heard. Please read this aloud. Look only at me.”
Oratory was one of the arts of the Empire.
Ophele had heard Lady Hurrell rebuking Lisabe and Julot often for their speech, both for content and for expression.
She had numerous examples of carefully cultivated voices before her every day: Lady Verr’s clear, bell-like tones, Sir Edemir’s pleasantly rounded vowels, even Remin’s brisk and confident bass.
A duchess would be expected to speak often and publicly.
Dread solidified in her stomach as she opened her mouth.
“The Lord and Lady Havellin had a h-happy…” He was looking right at her.
Mild, patient Justenin, with his pale blue eyes and the scar bisecting his right eyebrow.
She talked to him easily every day. But now, Ophele’s tongue twisted and she halted as that hateful heat crawled up the back of her neck.
“A little louder, please, my lady,” said Sir Justenin gently.
“The Lord and L-lady…” Ophele stopped, resisting the urge to hide behind her book. Drew a breath. Tried again. She hadn’t read aloud since her mother died; there had been no one to read to. “The Lord and Lady Hav—Havellin…”
She plowed on, unable to meet his eyes, working down the list of tongue-twisters.
The book explained that such exercises were meant to correct pronunciation and forced the speaker to slow down; things like I saw a kitten eating chicken in the kitchen could only be safely spoken one syllable at a time.
But then one of the secretaries happened to glance in her direction and Ophele actually felt the beads of sweat burst along her hairline.
It was ridiculous. If she had been speaking to him at supper, it wouldn’t have bothered her at all.
There was no reason to be afraid, no one was doing a thing to her.
But suddenly all she could think about was what if all of the secretaries turned to look at her, stuttering her way through the tongue-twisters like an imbecile, and a heavy weight thumped squarely onto her chest.
“That will suffice,” Justenin interrupted. His eyes were thoughtful. “Let us discuss rhetoric.”
The forms of argumentation were soothingly logical, and Ophele took a bitter pleasure in constructing her arguments and then refuting them, as she had done so often over supper with Edemir, Bram, and Justenin. She could construct arguments all day, so long as she didn’t have to say them out loud.
Ophele was very quiet as Davi handed her onto Brambles’ back that evening. It seemed an age had passed since she had been so afraid to confess her ignorance to Remin. Had it really only been a few days?
“You have consumed a great quantity of information today, my lady,” said Justenin, who had elected to ride back to the manor with them. “Tomorrow we will see how much of it you can retain. If you find that it is too much, we will adjust accordingly.”
“It’s fine,” she said automatically. Her head did feel strangely full, but she thought she still had the capacity for more grammar, perhaps with some nice linear equations for a reward afterward.
“If you insist on continuing to work, I would suggest oratory,” he said blandly, as if these thoughts had been printed across her eyeballs. “I recall when I was a boy, the brothers would have us recite before the whole class.”
The thought made her stomach drop, as if she had slipped on the stairs.
Ophele nodded. He was right, of course. She would have to learn it.
It was embarrassing, having lessons at her age, but hadn’t Jacot said the same thing, that day by the wall?
He had sat side-by-side with eight-year-old Valentin to learn long division.
Ophele had been wishing for books and teachers for months, and now she had them. She would be grateful.
They rode up to the manor to find Remin coming out of the stables, huge and shaggy with his new black bear cloak over his shoulders and his sword strapped to his back. It made her feel better just to see him.
“I was hoping I’d catch you together,” he said, moving to intercept Brambles. The big horse was steaming away toward the stable, eager for his supper. “I understand you’ve got reservations, wife, but if we’re going to court, we’ll need to talk about your hallows.”
Stars and blazes.
She almost said Davi’s oath out loud. And as Davi and Leonin turned toward her, Ophele tried to remember everything she had just learned about the construction of a persuasive argument.