Chapter 12 – A Taste of Poison #2
And there was nothing he could do but wait for it to happen.
It was midafternoon when Juste appeared, bringing one small, anxious witness.
“Tell His Grace what you told me,” Juste instructed, as Remin crouched down in front of the boy and reminded himself not to glare.
“I saw a man in the hideout once,” said eight-year-old Valentin, looking from Juste to Remin, worried. “Was he a bad man? I didn’t know.”
“What’s the hideout?” asked Remin.
“We have a fort, but we can’t go there when it’s cold, and a tree fell on it anyway,” Valentin explained.
“Back there, behind the big practice yard? We cut the bushes all up in summer, we used to hide from Barnabe there, he got so mad. But one day, I went there, and there was a man and he said wasn’t I supposed to be with the other boys, and I said this was our secret fort and he said he wouldn’t say anything if I didn’t.
And so I didn’t,” he confessed, with tears filling his big brown eyes. “Was he the bad man that hurt Mr. Wen?”
“We don’t know, but it’s good you’re telling us now,” Remin said, squeezing the boy’s shoulder and giving him a little shake. “Do you remember what he looked like?”
It might be nothing. A soldier wandering into the trees for a break, playing hooky just as Valentin had.
And the man Valentin described could have been one of hundreds in the valley: shorter than Juste but taller than Jacot, dark hair, plain clothes, and no visible scars or tattoos.
The man had been in their fort back in autumn, before it got too cold for the boys to be sneaking off outside.
“He won’t hurt Her Grace, will he?” Valentin asked miserably, after he had completed this description.
“No one will,” Remin promised. “You did a good job, Valentin. Keep your eyes open and tell me if you see anything else.”
“I will, Your Grace,” he promised, his face filled with boyish determination.
Juste departed with the child in tow and a promise to see what the other boys might know. And while there was no reason for Remin to question Valentin—Juste could have done so easily, and he would be the one to investigate anyway—it was a little easier to concentrate, when he was gone.
There was still plenty of other work to do. Orders to be issued. Practice with Leonin and Davi, who left Tounot to guard Ophele for a few hours. The hunt for an assassin did not mean everything else stopped. It just added one more item to the list.
It was a very late night and Remin had nothing to show for the day but a headache when he finally came home, inspecting the faces of every guard on the way in and taking comfort in the massive Rendevan locks on his doors.
No one could come in without his hearing it.
He had guards inside and outside his home, and he knew every one of them personally.
His windows were twenty-three feet off the ground.
They were safe. They were safe. They were safe.
His stomach was tied in knots.
“Wife,” he said as he entered the bedchamber, looking automatically to Davi and Leonin, seated beside her by the fire.
“Remin.” She rose at once to come to him, her eyes anxious. “Did you find anything? Is everyone all right? Tounot said Wen was hurt.”
“Everyone’s fine,” Remin soothed, cupping her cheek gently. “Davi, Leonin, give me a few minutes to get settled and then we’ll lock up.”
“Of course, my lord,” Leonin replied.
Remin would not leave Ophele alone even for the length of time it took him to wash up and change for bed. It was only when he was certain they would need nothing else for the night that he thanked the guards and locked the doors, then picked up his wife and buried his face in her hair.
“What happened?” she whispered, her hands stroking his back. “No one would tell me anything. Someone really tried to kill Wen?”
“Yes.” Remin was trying to keep his outright lies to a minimum. “Someone stabbed him. But it will be all right,” he added quickly. “Wen will be fine in a while, and no one else was hurt. These things…happen, sometimes.”
“Because of my father,” she said, pushing back against his chest to look at him. “He’s trying to get to you, isn’t he?”
“Maybe. It’s fine.” Remin set her down and sat in his chair, rubbing his head. “Well, not fine, but it’s not the first time and it won’t be the last. I don’t blame you, little owl. It’s nothing to do with you at all.”
“Just my father,” she repeated savagely. “Whoever it was, they’re here because he ordered it, aren’t they?”
“Probably.”
“Didn’t anyone see anything?” She filled a kettle and set it over the fire with sharp, angry motions. “Did Wen hear anything?”
“No. No, it’s all right, I don’t want anything,” Remin added, waving away the supper she had saved for him. He couldn’t blame her for asking, but he did not want to talk about this. He should have thrown Juste in the door first to take the worst of the mauling.
“What if we tried to trap them somehow?” she wanted to know. “Could we lure them out? If we made it look like you were unguarded…”
She had read far too many books.
“It doesn’t work that way,” he answered, trying to be patient.
“Don’t worry. In some ways it’s good to see where they struck, and who; it gives us a gauge of their capabilities.
They’ve probably been watching us for a while, looking for an opportunity, and we’re doing well if this is the best one they found.
And it’s not just because it’s me, every duchy in the Empire probably has a few of his spies… ”
But the harder he tried to reassure her, the angrier she became.
“So there’s nothing we can do?” she demanded, furious. “They stabbed Wen! Because they want to kill you!”
Remin’s jaw tightened. It was on the tip of his tongue to snap that Wen was not the first and would not be the last. And no, there was nothing to be done, there was nothing anyone could do but pray with all their might that the fucking bastard in Starfall dropped dead sooner rather than later, but he had promised himself he would not insult her parents before her.
He didn’t want her to be angry or frightened or anxious.
Genon had said more than once that Remin should try to keep her calm and happy if they wanted to make a child together.
It took a massive effort to shut all of that down, to shove it all away somewhere to be dealt with later. But there had been days worse than this. For right now, this moment, she was with him and the doors were locked. They were safe.
“Ophele,” he said gently. “Let’s leave it alone. Come here and tell me about your day.”
“I had lessons,” she said, sulking. “Do you want tea?”
“I don’t want anything but you,” he replied, holding out a hand to her. “Come and warm me up.”
This rarely failed to draw her out. And it was true, too; Ophele was always warm, a soft and wonderful little bundle of heat that Remin huddled around like a small flame.
For a while it was good to wrap himself around her and listen to her talk about her day, and eventually she was calm enough to let him kiss her.
Closing his eyes, Remin bent his head, trying to make himself feel it. Feel her, and nothing else.
“Remin,” she whispered, turning her body into his. For the first time, her touch did not rouse him.
“Wife,” he whispered back. Rising, he carried her to their bed, forcing himself to focus on the feel of her mouth, the soft and gliding caress of her tongue. Laying her on the bed, he moved over her, tugging her robe open.
He really did not want to do this. All he wanted to do was go to sleep and hope there were no dreams. But someone had come to Tresingale to kill him, and he had come too far to fail at the last moment.
He must make an heir. He was the last of his blood, and he owed it to all his murdered family to ensure that their line did not die with him.
He must make a child.
Once he had done that, it wouldn’t matter if an assassin finally got past his guards.
* * *
“My lady, I don’t know if we ought to…” Davi began for at least the eighth time that morning as Ophele pulled up the hood of her cloak and stepped into the icy air.
“Did His Grace tell you to keep me locked in the solar forever?” Ophele was feeling a trifle belligerent.
“There is a difference between knowing an assassin may be there and knowing they are certainly there, my lady,” Leonin pointed out as both men strode after her, their boots crunching through five fresh inches of snow.
“That is why you are with me. We will see them coming for a mile, with all this snow,” she replied stubbornly. She had been pent up in the house for three days and had hardly seen Remin or any of his knights, and all anyone would say was that everything was fine and how could that possibly be true?
It took a great deal of bullying to get Leonin and Davi to saddle her horse, but soon enough they were on their way to the infirmary in a light snowfall, with flakes so small they seemed to hover in midair.
They had dissuaded her from visiting twice already, but her worries for Remin aside, she wanted to see Wen for his own sake.
“Only for a little bit,” Genon said grudgingly, when she presented herself in the infirmary and politely demanded to see the irascible cook. “I don’t know that you’ll get much sense from him…”
“That’s all right,” she said, trying to sound brave as she marched to the small room at the back of the long aisle of beds.
But it was something else when she reached the door, and Ophele had to nerve herself to knock and poke her head inside, half curious and half afraid of what she might see. Remin had told her Wen was stabbed more than once, and she could only hope it wouldn’t be too horrid.