Chapter 6 – The Place of White Stones
It had not taken long for Remin to learn the details of his parents’ executions.
Three months. He had not even turned nine.
They were traitors. The shock and terror of the Conspiracy followed him all the way to Ereguil, the last survivor of his House, a walking warning of the Emperor’s wrath.
Duke Ereguil had saved his life with some desperate gambit, but the logic of the people was that if the punishment was so terrible, surely the crime must have been unspeakable.
Even in Ereguil, people looked at Remin askance, and common-born children called him a traitor to his face.
He felt guilty for years for visiting that shame on Duke and Duchess Ereguil. Though the Duke always swore that Remin’s parents were innocent, for the longest time, Remin had been sure it was a lie, and the only reason the old man said it was because of some promise he had made to Remin’s mother.
His father had died first. He learned that barely a month after it happened.
Benetot of _______ had gone to the block in rags that scarcely covered his huge body, an unnamed prisoner whose House had already been blotted from the history books.
It took six men to drag him to the block and hold him down.
“Stars above, protect my son,” was all he said when they read the charges, and then they made him kneel, and put his head down on the block, and cut it off.
His mother had fought. Freezing in a ragged shift that was too cold for February, with her long hair shaved off, she had wept and struggled, refusing to lay down her head.
Some of the Ereguil children had laughed at that, and called her a coward, but Remin had always wondered if she just hadn’t wanted to put her face in her husband’s blood.
Red blood showed very dark on the Place of White Stones, where rightful judgment could be witnessed by all, and then scrubbed white and clean after justice had been carried out.
And after his mother had come Remin’s grandparents, and then his uncles, and it had taken seven blows to sever his Uncle Soucine’s head, after which they paused to sharpen the axe.
The executions went on for weeks, as all of the guilty were captured and brought to the capital.
All of his father’s House, down to the furthest cousins.
All of his mother’s House Roye, to the third generation.
All the servants of both Houses, saving those who had fled.
The oldest was Remin’s great-grandmother Batilde, who was ninety-three and had to be helped up the steps to the block.
His cousin Paole was the youngest to be beheaded; at twelve, he was tall enough to pass for sixteen.
All the other children and babies were strangled in prison.
Remin did not want to know these things.
Others had flung this unwelcome knowledge in his face over the years, sometimes drunk and sometimes sober, sometimes viciously, and sometimes on the sands of the Court of War, hoping to unbalance him.
When he was seventeen and went to Segoile, Remin had sought out the details himself, so at least he would know what was rumor and what was true, or malicious lie.
He had heard all of this before. He knew how all of them had died. That was a very old wound.
The cold air sank sharp teeth into him and Remin realized he was outside, but he hardly knew where he was going or why, only that he couldn’t stay where he was.
His long legs carried him down the lane beside the house, the white snow illuminating the dark enough for him to find his way, and the path to the stable had been shoveled only that afternoon.
His chest hurt. His hands shook as he clenched them into fists, striding faster and faster, and when he pushed open the doors of the stable, he didn’t know why he was there. If he was running, he could not escape the thing that was chasing him.
There was no safe place. Ever.
* * *
Miche found him there a few minutes later, standing in the wide straw-strewn aisle between horse stalls, with his arms wrapped tightly around himself.
“Rem,” Miche said, pushing the door shut. “A little late to go out riding.”
“You were listening.”
“Of course. Saves me the trouble of asking you and Ophele to repeat it later.” Miche moved forward, but not too close. Even with the warmth of the horses, it was still cold enough in the stable that their breaths curled up white.
“I just needed to think.” Remin’s voice hitched. “I knew she had something to do with it. I knew—it doesn’t change anything. They’re all dead, and nothing will ever bring them back, and she…betrayed them.”
“Whatever her mother did, Ophele is innocent,” Miche said quietly.
“I know. I know, I don’t blame her. I love her.
I just don’t…I don’t know,” Remin said, and sank down on a nearby bale of hay, scrubbing a hand over his face.
“I know how it works. I can guess how it happened. She was young, alone, I’m sure they threatened her.
They used her to kill my father, my mother, everyone, and I still don’t know why. ”
Miche sat down beside him. Listening.
“If I don’t know why, it could happen again,” Remin whispered.
His arms wrapped around his middle, his black eyes fixed on the floor.
“I keep…dreaming about it, ever since that messenger came. I dream about the Place of White Stones, and…sometimes it’s my father and my mother, and sometimes it’s you there, or Juste, or Ophele on the block, and they cut off all her hair, and she’s crying for me but I can’t get to her, or I have to watch, and sometimes he’s there and he makes me see it, he makes me watch… ”
Miche did not need to ask who he was. There was only one person in the world that put that raw horror in Remin’s voice, and Miche was one of the few people that knew that Remin was afraid of the Emperor, that he feared that man with an almost religious terror.
The Emperor had destroyed his world, and had been terrorizing him since he was eight years old.
“He won’t do that. That won’t happen,” Miche said, gripping his shoulder hard. “Juste is already seeing to that. And she’s the Emperor’s daughter, he can’t—”
“Who says she is?” Remin yanked away, suddenly furious.
“Can we prove that? What’s to stop him from declaring her an imposter the second we walk through the gate in Starfall?
He could say I killed her and got some woman to replace her, and who’s going to argue?
What am I going to do, wave fucking papers at him? ”
“Oh.” That was all Miche could manage, stricken.
“He could.” Remin caught his breath. “He could. The Court of Nobility wouldn’t stop him; they didn’t stop him when he wiped out two noble Houses.
The Temple wouldn’t, not if he claims she’s not an Agnephus.
They might even have her flogged for blasphemy.
He could have her killed, or imprisoned, or even if it’s not now, it could be my children, he could take everyone away from me again, to the—the P-Place of White…
and…and the crowd, and I can’t…I can’t…”
He was shaking all over, gasping, and Miche rose and went to him.
“Why can’t he leave me alone?” Remin asked, his voice cracking, and even as Miche reached for him, he broke, in terrible, racking sobs.
His shoulders heaved as he bent, letting Miche hold him even as Miche staggered under the weight and held on, arms squeezing as hard as he could, pounding the back of one huge, shaking shoulder with his fist.
“We’ll think of something,” he promised, forcing the words through his tight throat. “I swear it, Rem, I swear it. That will not happen. We’ll talk to Juste…”
Remin wasn’t listening. Not yet. His hot face pressed into Miche’s shoulder just as he had done on a night many years before, the night when he had slipped away for his first kiss and come home with his first kill, and the blood of his sweetheart on his hands.
And now, as then, there was no remedy. There was nothing Miche could say.
Nothing he could do but hold on tight, and curse the Emperor in his heart.
But it wasn’t long before this storm passed, and it wasn’t because of anything Miche did. Remin just stopped, straightened, and sucked it in, shoving it all back down as he had done so many times before.
Gently, he shrugged off Miche’s hands and stepped back.
“Sorry,” he said, averting his eyes. “Sorry. I’ll be back. I’m just going to…dunk my head.”
Miche nodded. When Remin finally reappeared sometime later, his wet hair was freezing in spikes, and his eyes were very red.
“I had this put by,” Miche said, producing a bottle of wine and patting the hay bale. Actually, he’d run off to Davi’s cottage to steal it, but he had figured it might take Remin a bit to compose himself. “Drink. Don’t stop until I count to five.”
Remin did not smile. But he drank obediently for five slow seconds, and then sighed and handed the bottle back. His hands had stopped shaking.
“We won’t let that happen,” Miche repeated.
“It’s good that you thought of it. Edemir’s there right now, and Juste is sending his singers out all over the Empire.
If it comes to that, Bram will have his mercenaries in the Place of White Stones.
The river’s not far from there, and we’ll have boats waiting.
We’ll have people in the prison. We’ll get Brother Oleare to attest the authenticity of Ophele’s birth records.
Find some folk at Aldeburke to witness that Ophele is who we say she is.
It’s a good thing I didn’t run them all off after all, I guess. ”
“Azelma?” Remin asked thickly, letting his head fall back against the stable door behind him. Brambles stuck his nose through the bars and chewed gently on his hair.
“Yes,” said Miche, deadpan. “That was my plan all along.”
Remin slanted a look at him.
“I never give you the credit you deserve.”