Chapter 9 – Small Blessings #6
She should have noticed all this. Wasn’t that the whole point of everything Justenin was teaching her? To observe, and analyze? And yet at the same time she wished Justenin and Mionet had never said a thing about it.
“You must tell me if you notice such a thing from now on,” she told Mionet, adding a generous dollop of Genon’s pain medicine to her tea. “I want everyone to feel welcome when they come here. And that’s what His Grace wants, too.”
“I will do my best, my lady,” Mionet promised. But as Ophele poured a cup for Justenin, she saw the knowing flash in his pale blue eyes, as clear as if he had spoken the words aloud.
Mionet also might choose what she noticed, and what she reported. And what she did not.
Ugh.
Ugh.
* * *
Ophele was still turning the problem over as she sat with Remin later that night, reading aloud with less than her usual enthusiasm. Reading to Remin really seemed to help her to speak better, and though Remin was usually buried in stacks of paper in the evening, she had no doubt he was listening.
“You already read that paragraph, wife,” he noted without looking up. His quill slashed over the page. “Is something wrong?”
“No. Not really,” she said, and cracked almost instantly. “Only maybe some of the women aren’t as nice as I thought.”
Remin’s eyes lifted to hers, instantly hardening.
“What did they do?”
“Nothing to me,” she answered, and set her book down. “They wouldn’t, would they? I’m the duchess.”
“Ah.”
“Justenin and Mionet were talking about it today,” she said unhappily, and explained what they had said, resisting the urge to rub her abdomen. Had she eaten something bad? It felt as if someone had tied a knot in there and was yanking on it.
“I suppose it’s a caution.” His brows lowered. “I’ve never been especially good at such things, wife. I don’t have patience for it. But I don’t mind if people have their opinions, so long as they don’t make trouble.”
“Justenin says we ought to take care to be seen with Brother Oleare.” Ophele felt a surge of relief as he bared his teeth. “I know! It makes me not want to, even though he’s perfectly nice.”
“Juste’s instincts for such things are good,” said Remin reluctantly. “I suppose there might be busybodies who worry we might convert to whatever it is they believe in Benkki Desa.”
“Atar Ma, it’s a sort of animism and it’s lovely.” Ophele’s chin jutted belligerently. “They have poems about the Lady of the Moon. Why should anyone care what we think?”
“We are meant to be the example,” Remin said, with a hint of humor, but Ophele did not find any of this funny.
“I shall set the example by speaking to whoever I like,” she retorted, with such irritation that he looked at her in surprise. “You said we should welcome everyone, and my mother said that’s what a proper lady does. So I will.”
Even if she wasn’t quite sure what that would look like yet.
But it came to her the next day, unplanned and unprompted, in a chance encounter that Mionet would certainly have protested if she had been there.
As the last sufferers of the fever recovered, work had resumed on the manor, and it was once again filled with carpenters, plasterers, and masons, plowing away at their various projects.
Blown through the front door after a visit with Azelma, Ophele found a crew of masons building a fireplace in the shell of the office.
It was not an insignificant structure, in a house this big; the hearths in the bedchamber and solar were taller than she was, and this one was nearly as tall as Remin.
Peeling off her gloves, Ophele slipped off her outdoor shoes, watching curiously.
“Why is there brick?” The question escaped her before she even realized she was speaking. Ophele flushed as the four men turned toward her, but decided to brazen it out. “Instead of making it all stone, I mean.”
“Flat surface reflects heat better, Your Grace,” said one of the bricklayers, splatting mortar on the edge of his trowel.
“Oh. It does look very well done,” she replied, eying the straight lines of the bricks and wondering what on earth was possessing her.
Maybe it was some spirit of defiance, or lingering resentment for the sudden, unwanted burden of social expectation.
Leonin and Davi were staring. “It must have taken a great deal of practice to learn to set them so straight.”
“Some, lady.” The bricklayer was puzzled but willing. “Apprenticed when I was twelve.”
“Oh, did you? I should like to hear about that,” said Ophele, and then realized it was true.
And why not? She was the duchess, no one could be rude to her or Remin would crush whatever was still wriggling after Leonin and Davi were through with them.
“You take a rest at noon to eat, do you not? The four of you?”
“We…do, m’lady.” The bricklayer’s friends were looking at him with expressions that said now see what you’ve done.
“Then I would like to invite you to luncheon, the four of you. And you can tell me about building fireplaces, and becoming apprentices and journeymen,” she said, trying not to sound nervous.
“If you don’t mind. It will be quite proper; my guards and lady-in-waiting shall be there. If you would like to come?”
“My lady,” said Leonin, in a warning undertone, but Ophele ignored him.
“I…suppose,” answered the bricklayer, with reluctant murmurs of agreement from his fellows. She didn’t miss their consternation and wariness, commoners called to entertain a duchess, but Amise said men would forgive almost anything if you fed them something nice.
“Good. Shall we say tomorrow?” She forced a smile as prickling heat blazed up the back of her neck to her ears. “I will have s-something brought up from the kitchens. Please don’t be troubled. I am only curious.”
Turning away, she blew out a silent breath.
Her heart was hammering. Even she had no idea where that had come from, and oh, stars, please don’t let them all stare at once like that tomorrow.
There was an anxious, tugging ache in her stomach at the thought that she might have made a very embarrassing mistake.
“My lady, I am not sure His Grace will approve,” Leonin warned as she ascended the stairs.
“Then he can say so,” she replied. It would be embarrassing if he did, but she did not think she had done anything that bad.
And though she knew Leonin was only trying to protect her, she was a little annoyed as she climbed the stairs, until a sudden, half-remembered sensation made her pause midstride.
Frowning, she tried to place it. She hadn’t felt it in quite some time.
“Lady?” Davi asked behind her.
“I’m fine.” Ophele sped up the steps, her eyes averted. Oh, no.
Even before she arrived in the Andelin Valley, this was not something she had experienced often.
She had always been too anxious and ill-fed for any regularity.
But as she hastened to the privy, she felt that twisting pain inside and could only hope she had noticed quickly enough, and that Emi and Peri had stocked things with their customary thoroughness.
Pulling up her skirt, she found red spots on her chemise.
Filthy girl.
Her shoulders cringed. She had been fourteen at her first bleeding, a deeply humiliating experience.
She had come into the house crying that she was sick, and Leise and Nenot had shoved her into a tub and scrubbed her so vengefully, it was as if they thought she had made a mess on purpose.
Lady Hurrell and Lisabe had taunted her for days, asking whether she needed to go and change her dress.
Twisting, Ophele reached futilely for the laces of her gown.
She couldn’t even undress herself, the knot was midway up her back, and there was no bellpull in this room.
Was there anything on the back of her skirt?
Oh, stars, what if there was, and Davi or Leonin had seen? Her face felt as if it were on fire.
“Davi?” She cracked open the door. “Would you call Emi, please?”
He would certainly guess. Both he and Leonin would guess, and Emi and Peri would know, they had to change her clothing and restock her things, and Mionet would know too, and so would the laundresses.
And while everyone in the manor would understand that Ophele was an adult woman and would do what every other woman did, she hated that so many people knew such intimate things about her.
“My lady?” Emi’s voice came a few minutes later, and Ophele opened the door just wide enough to admit her.
“I’m sorry,” she said, her eyes fleeting away from the maid’s. “I’m sorry. Could you…help me get my gown off?”
“Of course, Your Grace,” Emi replied in her cheery way, moving behind Ophele to untie her laces. It wasn’t hard to guess what was needed, between the open cupboards and the disarranged skirts. “Oh. I see. Well, it happens to the best of us, doesn’t it?”
“Yes.” Ophele looked anxiously over her shoulder. “It didn’t hurt my gown, did it?”
“I don’t think so…” Emi lifted the skirt, examining, and then pulled the gown over Ophele’s head. “No, it looks fine. Would’ve been a shame, wouldn’t it? I like this one.”
“Yes,” Ophele said again, dumbly grateful. She had to look down to hide the tears in her eyes as Emi went briskly back and forth, producing the necessary undergarments and sanitary linen, then fetching a new chemise. “I am sorry.”
“Please don’t mind, Your Grace. It’s no trouble. Well, it is,” Emi said, angling her head in a friendly way to meet Ophele’s gaze. “Being a woman is a pack of trouble.”
The gray sky lowering outside the windows suited her mood when Ophele emerged, to find Justenin waiting with a stack of papers and a cup of tea. A blizzard had been threatening all morning, but it did not seem an unpleasant prospect. It would be nice to curl up by the fire and sleep.
Unfortunately, that was not an option. Her brain felt infuriatingly foggy as she sat down for her interrogation, and the previous day’s lessons felt very long ago and far away. The third time she couldn’t remember something, Justenin frowned.
“Is there anything wrong, my lady?” he asked. Ophele did not forget things.
“No. Well, I have a little headache,” she admitted, which was true. “I’m all right.”
Justenin eyed her, as if he was reading her mind, and Ophele hastily looked down at her book.
Embarrassing. Embarrassing, uncomfortable, at times very painful, and though she would have liked to conceal it from Remin, even if she thought she could, she wouldn’t. Over the course of the afternoon, it dawned on her that this was more than just an embarrassing inconvenience.
“Are you well, wife?” he asked as they retired to their bedchamber for the night. He lifted a hand, brushing gently at the pain line between her eyebrows with his thumb.
“Yes. Well. Yes.” She stopped, drawing a breath. “I…it…it started, today.” Her hands went to her abdomen, willing him not to make her say it. “So…it means I’m not pregnant now, but now I can…”
“What—it did? Today?” Remin stopped in his tracks, his eyes lighting up. “So you’re well now? Really well.”
“Well, it hurts,” she said, a little sulkily, and then gave a shriek and burst into giggles as he snatched her off her feet and all but crushed her against him. “Remin!”
“Thank the stars, I am glad,” he said, catching her chin to kiss her. “It hurts? I will find Genon’s tonic, there’s a bottle somewhere. I remember the book said it might, and that you might be tired, or have—”
“Yes, yes,” she said quickly, before he could get into further details. Ophele did not mind such things in an academic sense, but it was deeply mortifying when applied to her person. “But Remin…it means I should be able to have your baby. For your House. House Andelin’s heir.”
“Our House. Our baby.” He kissed her, striding across the room to deposit her in bed. “Lie still, I’ll go find that tonic.”
“You don’t need to fuss,” she said, as he hunted through the cupboards and drawers of the sideboard.
“I do. I didn’t like to say anything, but I’ve been worried, all this time.
” Producing the small, stoppered jug, he brought it to her and knelt beside the bed, rubbing her head gently as she drank.
“Not just because of the child. I’ve never forgiven myself that you were so thin.
That I did something so terrible to your body. I am sorry.”
“It was as much my fault as it is yours. Would you rub here?” She guided his big, warm hand to her belly, where a twisting ache made her grimace. “That feels better.”
“It looks as if it hurts a lot,” he observed, frowning. “Give me a minute to get settled, and I’ll rub all you like.”
“It’s worse that I can’t think,” she complained, as he went about setting out their robes and slippers for the morning. “I couldn’t remember half my lessons with Justenin, I had to write them all down.”
“Is that normal?”
“Mionet says some ladies get muddled.” Ophele had been annoyed enough to ask, in a roundabout, metaphorical way. And soon enough Remin was curled up with her in a roundabout, literal way, making a comfortable pillow for her head as his hand gently rubbed exactly where it hurt.
“I’ll have Wen send up something sweet from the kitchen tomorrow,” he promised, his voice rumbling pleasantly. “I’m sorry it hurts, little owl, but I’m glad your body is doing what it ought. We are both finally well. It has been hard.”
It had been. It had been very hard, in so many ways.
“Hazelnut cookies?” she asked, brightening.
“I don’t see why not, when we gathered the hazelnuts ourselves,” he replied, amused. “I’ll bring up a cask of honey mead for supper, and Miche can make you a hot toddy, and you can lie abed all day if you like…”
With the fire crackling and her foggy head and the dull ache twisting through her body, the thought of lying in bed and watching the snow swirl outside the windows sounded lovely. But Ophele suddenly sat up.
“Oh, no, I can’t,” she remembered all at once, and turned to tell him about the surprising guests she had invited for luncheon.