Chapter 11 – An Experiment in Lace #6
There would be other opportunities to visit the Tower.
Both Master Forgess and Brother Oleare were willing to petition them on Ophele’s behalf, to send for someone to evaluate her.
But inwardly, Remin admitted he wanted to see her acknowledged for her own sake.
He wanted the Tower to fawn over her. He didn’t like the idea of presenting her to Segoile as the Exile Princess, an object of pity and curiosity.
He wanted all of them to know how extraordinary she was.
And he wanted to rub her father’s face in it.
“The trouble isn’t what she knows or doesn’t know,” Juste said when Remin broached the subject in the stables the following evening. “The trouble is concealing it. Her Grace misses very little, when she is paying attention. But she is easily distracted and a very poor liar.”
“Then we can do it last,” Remin replied stubbornly. “Once our business in the capital is finished, they can make of her whatever they like.”
“We won’t be going back to the capital for a while anyway,” Miche agreed, moving unobtrusively to support Juste as he dismounted. It was tricky with one arm.
The three men were accustomed to riding home together at the end of the day, and as warhorses would not accept handling from anyone but their masters, it gave them a few minutes for conversation while they were unsaddling and grooming the beasts.
Fetching a hoof pick, Remin nudged Lancer’s inquiring nose out of the way and bent to tend his hooves.
“I could go with her for the examination, I suppose,” Juste said thoughtfully. “Normally it is a private interview, but they will make an exception for the Exile Princess. I will write a few letters tonight.”
“You mean you will dictate them,” Miche corrected, peering over his horse’s shoulder. Blond, gallant Miche had a white horse, because of course he did. “I saw the stack of orders you sent off this morning. You need to save your arm for better things than correspondence, Juste.”
“If I chose a secretary, it would not be you,” Juste retorted.
“I would want me for a secretary,” Miche replied seriously. “Perhaps that is my destiny. Somewhere in the capital is a rich widow crying out for a man of many talents.”
“Just the one widow?” Remin asked dryly. “I’ll take whatever orders you can send my way, Juste.”
Miche already had too much to do. Because he never laid claim to any large patch of Tresingale’s operations, he always ended up with dozens of little ones, and never uttered a word of complaint, even when he really ought to.
Tounot and Auber had both reported finding him asleep in strange places, a warning sign that he was stretched too thin.
“I’ll make sure he does.” Miche waved a hand before Remin could argue. “I’m fine, Rem. Don’t worry about me.”
Remin shot Juste a look nonetheless as they parted, a silent command to see exactly how out of control Miche’s workload had gotten.
All of them were overburdened. With Edemir, Bram, and Jinmin away on their errands and over seven hundred extra people in town, there was enough work for a dozen Knights of the Brede. But there was no help for it.
Supplies were another problem. Grain cost the earth in February, but Remin seized the excuse of all those extra mouths to order it in vast quantities, to feed the refugees and his army, should they need to march.
Juste had even suggested leaving early for the capital; the hundred or so people Remin brought with him would make a real difference to their storehouse.
But Remin would not neglect Tresingale. The Duke of Andelin would be present for every one of the spring rituals, and the Emperor could go hang if he didn’t like it.
This foolishness in Segoile was a distraction for a season. Tresingale would be the work of his life.
“Come and sit with me,” he told Ophele one night after supper, taking his seat at the table in their bedchamber rather than his comfortable chair by the fire. “Juste isn’t the only one with things to teach you.”
“You’re going to give me lessons too?” she asked, sitting on the other side of the table and scooting her chair forward.
Truthfully, he would rather not. At least not on this subject.
Remin’s mouth tightened as his quill slashed rapidly over a page, wondering for the hundredth time how to present this to her in a way that wouldn’t frighten her or make her anxious.
Miche had bluntly pointed out that keeping her ignorant was the opposite of protecting her.
“A few,” he answered, frowning. “Leonin and Davi want you to come to our practices, so the three of you can get used to moving together. Practice swords only,” he added grimly.
He did not like this idea, but it was hard to argue that it was preferable to letting them figure it out while someone was trying to abduct Ophele.
“Oh, will you be trying to snatch me away from them?” she asked interestedly. “That could be fun. Am I allowed to climb?”
“It’s not a game,” he said, trying to sound stern, though the memory of their chase through the hazelnut grove made his lips twitch.
He’d forgotten that; she was very quick on her feet.
But the thought that she might have to be killed any real pleasure in the exercise.
He was silent as he finished writing, and then pushed the paper to her.
“Usually, I’d have you copy this over a few times every night, and burn the copies,” he said. “Let’s see how well you can memorize it now.”
She took it, rapidly skimming the page. It contained two columns of coded phrases and their translations.
I am well: I am writing this message voluntarily.
I am well enough: I am being forced to write this message.
They are looking after me well: Kill the bearer of this message.
Her eyes lifted to his.
“You think…I might need to know this, when we go to the capital?” she asked, and he saw the pulse beating faster in her slender throat.
“I hope you will not,” he said levelly. “We are taking great pains to ensure it. But we always plan for the worst. That’s all this is, wife.”
“I know that,” she said softly, looking again at the page. “You have to think of the worst thing…”
Her lips pressed together and she read it again. There were more than three dozen coded phrases, many of them repetitive and necessarily simple and vague, easy to embed in a longer letter. For ten minutes, she read and reread it in silence, and then handed the paper back to him.
“When you use these, you have to make it look natural,” he told her. “If you think there’s any risk that they might notice something odd, err on the side of caution. If they think there is code in your letter, they won’t let you send it. A little information is better than none.”
She nodded, filing this away in the vault of her memory.
“They are looking after me well,” he prompted.
“Kill the bearer of this message,” she said steadily.
“I have been sleeping well.”
“They are keeping me in a place without windows.”
Unsurprisingly, she had memorized all of them. Remin rose and thrust the paper into the fire. He would quiz her every night, from now until they went to Segoile.
“There are many things I haven’t told you, and that I don’t mean to tell you,” he said, taking his seat.
“You’re not a good liar, and I don’t expect you to become one in the space of a few months.
But there are some things you have to know now.
You remember I mentioned that I have guards of my own? ”
She nodded solemnly.
“The old man got them for me when I was twelve,” Remin explained. “I won’t tell you who they are. They’re not meant to be noticed. They are concealed somewhere nearby, and only a few men know who they are. It’s harder to bribe or threaten them, if no one knows they’re there.”
That had happened to a few of his early guards. To their credit, none of them had betrayed him, but some of them had paid dearly for their loyalty.
“There will be many more of them, positioned about the city,” he went on.
“Even in Starfall. If they must, they will identify themselves to you by saying, seven ravens roosting. Don’t think too much about it,” he added, as the gears in her mind visibly whirred to life.
“Don’t try to figure this puzzle out. It’s better if you don’t know. ”
“All right,” she agreed. “You really have guards all the time?”
“Yes.”
“I’m glad,” she said, and bent obediently over the next paper he presented to her.
There was so much to teach her. Maps of the capital, with safe houses and meeting places marked, though she had only seen one city in her whole life and the thought of her attempting to navigate Segoile by herself made his heart palpitate.
It was his intention that she should never be separated from him, much less parted from Leonin and Davi, but he would prepare her as best he could.
Lady Verr taught her about the finer parts of the city, the safe places with guards, frequented by nobles.
Remin told her about the parts of the city she should avoid, and what to do if she ever found herself in them.
It infuriated him that she had to know this.
That the bastard Emperor was forcing this upon them.
Every night after these lessons, he looked into her eyes and worried that he might make her afraid, might make her anxious, might be teaching her that the world was an ugly place when he still believed it could be beautiful, if only they were let alone to make it so.
And finally, he told her about House Hurrell.
He did it while they were already at the table together and halfway through their study of the Wold, maybe in the hope that he could make it seem a part of the lesson. On this street we have a safe house, and two blocks that way, House Hurrell has their new manse.
“Edemir said they arrived a month ago,” Remin said, covering both her hands with one of his own. “They must have received a pardon from the Emperor. Which means he has some use for them.”
“They had to go somewhere.” She tried to smile, but it wilted around the edges. “I did…wonder.”
“Can you guess what they might know, or why he might have pardoned them?” Remin didn’t have much hope for either.
“No. I did try to think of it, ever since you took me,” she admitted, and looked up at him guiltily.
“I didn’t tell you. I should have told you.
Lady Hurrell said…she said, if I didn’t obey her, then she would tell everyone that I tried to run away from you.
She said she would spread it all over the Empire. She said…”
Her slim shoulders hunched.
“She knew what my mother did,” she whispered. “That day, when we left Aldeburke, she told me she would tell you if I didn’t do what she said, and you would…kill me.”
He was so appalled, for a moment he couldn’t speak.
“No,” he managed, and rose immediately, dismayed by the fear lurking in her eyes. “No, I would not. Ever. Ever,” he repeated, catching her shoulders in his hands and squeezing. “No matter what. You know that, don’t you?”
“Yes. I know,” she said, with a quivering sigh as he moved them both to his chair by the fire. “I should have told you, I’m sorry. I don’t know what she’ll do, but she’ll hurt us if she can. She wanted you to marry Lisabe.”
“Then I will continue to disappoint her,” Remin said firmly, and that was the end of lessons for that night.
These were not the things that he wanted to talk to her about. He had things he wanted to teach her, everything he had learned about how to lead and build and plan. He wanted to dream with her about their city. But now he had no choice but to let all the foulest things he knew pour out like poison.
He told her about poison. He taught her how to pretend to eat and drink—she was not very good at either—and explained how her food would be tested for poison and then tasted before her. As a daughter of the House of Agnephus, she had a right to demand proof that her food was clean.
He had an endless stream of cautions about how wine should taste, and how she should spit out anything if she felt the least bit suspicious, and also that she ought not linger near braziers, which might contain strange alchemical powders.
If she ever saw or smelled smoke in a room, she was to instantly check the people around her to see if they were behaving strangely; incense might contain soporifics or intoxicants.
And there were even worse things that he could not bring himself to tell her, powders with aphrodisiac properties, powders that…
Countless dangers, each one filthier than the last. Did he really have to tell her about all of them?
His lamb, whose innocence he wanted so badly to protect.
After these lessons, he took her to bed, where he tried to blot all these terrible thoughts from her mind, reassuring them both with the strength of his body. To prove that he could keep her safe. He would. No matter what it took.
Maybe he succeeded. After they made love, she curled up against him just as she always did and fell asleep, leaving him to look at her and wonder. Ophele always said she was fine. And he feared to even ask that question too often, lest simple, stupid repetition ruin all his efforts.
He wanted her to feel safe.
He never wanted her to feel the way he did.
He never wanted her to have nightmares like his.
At night, he lay awake in the dark and thought of all the worst things. Trying to tell himself that he was doing everything he could, and these dangers were in the future and might never materialize. It was necessary to think of them, and plan for them, but counterproductive to dwell on them.
The next morning, he woke to a knock on the door, and Auber’s grim face on the other side.
“I’m sorry,” Auber said without preamble. “I had to come get you. Someone tried to kill Wen.”