Chapter 6 – The Place of White Stones #4
It was the truth. And Remin’s spirits rose as he thought of gossiping about it with Ophele, as well as discussing the knottier question of whether he should care about the lineage of his knights.
Society was a ladder. Auber would be choosing to place himself and his offspring on a lower rung.
But there were probably a good number of arguments either way and thinking about it made him feel tired and fuzzy, and it really was hard work, trudging through deep snow all day.
“Your hands are like ice,” Ophele said when he dragged himself home that evening. “Peri, could you call Magne up to run a bath for His Grace, please? And put out something warm to wear?”
“There is a blizzard outside,” Remin reminded her a little sourly as he thawed himself by the fire. She was exactly where he wanted her, inside and warm, but it was hard not to feel a bit resentful.
“Were you outside in it all day?”
“Shoveling snow.” His jaw tightened as heat lanced his fingertips. He glanced over his shoulder. “Lady Verr, Leonin, Davi, you are invited to supper. Juste will be back with it in about an hour.”
He could hardly send them down to the cookhouse for their meal in the middle of an endless blizzard, but Remin did not feel like sharing a noisy, crowded table that night.
Davi and Leonin had volunteered to help with the chores around the manor since Sim and one of the stableboys had fallen ill, and Remin tried to pay attention as Miche and Juste obliquely discussed further interviews with Azelma.
Ophele was vibrating between several poles of anxiety, with the additional burden of another dispute between Lady Verr and Master Tiffen to mediate.
He wasn’t sure whether that was the cause of the worried glances she kept sending his way, and he hoped she would just tell him what the problem was instead of making him guess. Remin picked at his supper and wished everyone would go away.
“Are you all right?” Ophele asked him in their bedchamber later.
“Yes,” he said, giving himself a shake. He had been all but dozing in his chair. “Do you need help with the Imperial Code again?”
“No, I’m all right. I am a little tired,” she said, taking his hand. “Would you lie down with me?”
There was nothing in this world he would have liked more.
“Make sure you’re staying warm,” he said as she pulled the blankets over them both and nestled at his side. “Remember what Juste said about Sim? You shouldn’t take sickness lightly. Gen says there’s a fever in town, too. Don’t go near the cottages, I don’t want you breathing sick air.”
“I won’t,” she promised, and the last thing he felt before he fell asleep was her deliciously cool hand on his forehead.
* * *
“It’s just a cough,” a rasping Remin assured her the next morning, as he sat in his chair to pull on his boots.
“You were just telling me last night not to take sickness lightly,” Ophele protested. “It doesn’t count if it’s you? Can’t it wait until you feel better?”
“No. It looks like the storm’s clearing off and Miche is leaving tomorrow. There’s a lot to do.”
“And you have to do it?” she asked anxiously, reaching once more for his forehead. People were always doing that in books, and his forehead was very hot and even beaded with a few drops of sweat, so obviously there was a fever, but what was she supposed to do about it?
“Yes.” Standing, he stooped automatically to kiss her, and then thought the better of it.
“Don’t worry, wife. During the war, everyone came down sick with it, both us and Valleth.
We used to stand in the snow and cough at each other.
Some years I think it was Genon and his tonics that won the battle. ”
“All right,” she said dubiously.
“I’ll be inside most of the day, anyway,” he added, and Ophele’s eyebrows drew together in her own version of a ferocious scowl as she watched him go out the front door, carrying a muffler and mitts in his bare hands.
She did not have much experience of sickness.
Ophele couldn’t remember the last time she had been sick herself, and the folk of Aldeburke had hardly needed her to nurse them.
At most there had been Azelma, who used to ask for tea and dry toast when she was feeling poorly, and made soup and porridge for others.
“Miche?” Ophele had donned her cloak and muffler and boots and headed directly for his cottage, hoping he had not yet left for the day. “Are you there?”
“A moment,” she heard from inside, muffled through the thick door, and after the promised moment, Miche appeared in a loose shirt and breeches. “My lady?”
“Remin is sick,” she said, too worried for preamble.
“Is he?”
“He was coughing.” Ordinarily, Ophele would have hesitated to interfere in what was strictly Remin’s business as the Duke of Andelin, but she and Miche had conspired in secret to take care of Remin before. “And he said there’s sickness about…”
“We’d have to tie him up to keep him home,” Miche replied, with an air of experience. “You might not have noticed yet, my lady, but His Grace can be remarkably pigheaded.”
“But is there something I should do? I don’t know much about sickness,” she confessed. “There are books about such things, aren’t there?”
“I should certainly hope so, when I went to the trouble of hauling an entire library here,” Miche laughed, and laid an affectionate hand on her head. “Genon always prescribes tea with honey for a cough. I’ll keep an eye on Rem today, and have Juste bring up some honey with supper. How’s that?”
“Thank you,” she said gratefully. She meant to go through the books herself, all the same. Perhaps Genon would have some to lend. “You will take care of yourself, too, won’t you? When are you leaving tomorrow?”
“First light, my lady. Don’t worry about me, I’m never one to suffer in silence,” he assured her, and quickly lifted his hand from her head as the door opened in the next cottage. “Lady Verr.”
“Sir knight,” Lady Verr replied coolly. “You are in dishabille.”
“Frequently,” he agreed, turning his attention back to Ophele. “I’ll keep an eye on him today. After I’m decently habilled, eh?”
He directed a cheeky grin at Lady Verr, bowed, and shut his door.
“It is inappropriate for a gentleman to appear before a lady in his shirt,” Lady Verr explained to Ophele, with a rather frosty look at the door. “I beg your pardon for overhearing, but did you say His Grace is ill?”
“Yes, a cough, just like Sim,” Ophele fretted, falling into step beside the taller lady as they moved back toward the house.
“Tea with honey will help, as will thyme and peppermint,” Lady Verr said unexpectedly. “Though sometimes it is better to let them cough. It depends on the sort of cough it is.”
“Oh yes, Duchess Ereguil said that you had some knowledge of healing,” Ophele remembered. “There are different sorts of cough?”
“Yes, my lady.” Lady Verr looked rather sorry for bringing it up, but explained the phlegm-y particulars on the way back to the solar, and then shifted the discussion to the House of Berebet, notoriously phlegmatic themselves.
But Ophele was pondering her own duties, and as important as it was to learn about these faraway people—and to learn to dance for them, too, when Leonin and Davi appeared some hours later—she thought there were people nearer at hand to whom she was responsible.
The Duchess of Andelin should know what to do, if her people were sick.
Davi and Leonin did not agree.
“My lady, I don’t think His Grace will like it,” Davi protested as she stepped out into the bitter cold. “This is dangerous cold. People lose fingers in weather like this.”
“I have gloves,” Ophele said stubbornly, though the first slice of wind made her eyes water. She had gloves, and a scarf, and was wearing so many layers she could scarcely move, but she had never imagined it could be so cold.
She would not be out in it long. With a clear day, the builders had descended on the hilltop in swarms and trampled paths in the wide field between the main house and the great husk of the library. Without them, the snow would have been up to her waist.
Inside the huge structure, there were a number of skeletal fireplaces that the men were constantly stoking, so the carpenters’ hands would be warm enough to work.
It was something, to see the entire library of Aldeburke crated up all around them.
Ophele was still discovering whole categories of objects that Miche had stolen; only yesterday someone had cracked open a crate to find an avalanche of toys, and she had very nearly cried when Master Didion presented her with the long-lost Sir Bunkin, her stuffed rabbit, dressed in cloth armor and ready to defend his lady.
The toys were easier to organize than the thousands of books. Ophele was sure there were books on healing, herbs, anatomy, and similar subjects somewhere, but the crates were taller than she was.
“You can help me look,” she told Leonin, when he again ventured the opinion that Remin would not like her to be out in the cold. It was tempting to remark that Remin was out in the cold with a cold, but she would not criticize her husband before others. “Books on medicine and illness.”
They only managed to find one before Ophele was forced to concede that she liked her fingers and wanted to keep them. And Remin had been out in this all day yesterday and for who knew how long today! Her eyes narrowed when he came home that night, nearly bloodless with cold.
“J-just let me warm up a b-bit,” he said through chattering teeth, trying to sound reassuring as he went to shiver violently by the fire.
“In a hot bath,” she ordered, appalled, pressing a cup of hot tea into his hands. “Drink this. Oh, Remin, you look dreadful.”
“It’s not that bad,” he said thickly, trying to smile. “Don’t worry, wife.”