Chapter 13 – A Little Treason #2
“I am glad to hear the land prospers,” Berebet said approvingly. “It is hard work, building something from nothing. Do you know the origins of House Berebet?”
“Not much, I’m afraid,” Edemir apologized. His own House Trecht was in the duchy of Leinbruke, and Edemir had been drilled on the glories of the House of Lein—which included wool, cheese, and many other sheep-related products—since he was five.
“We are not so ancient as some other houses,” Berebet conceded. “We were not kings before the arrival of Ospret Far-Eyes. My ancestor, the first duke of Berebet, was fortunate enough to rule a bit of land in the back of beyond, and was content to keep it that way.”
“I had not heard that,” Edemir remarked.
“He was a clever man, Gllaomin of Berebet. In all those early wars of Ospret’s ascendance, there were no battles over his bit of bog, and no notice of all the iron and copper in his hills.
But when Gllaomin was called to the oathtaking in Starfall, he was the first to arrive, and bore the mightiest gift.
For while all the other great lords had been making war, you see, he had been preparing for the peace. ”
“Great Houses are born of foresight,” Edemir said carefully. Berebet was choosing some very alarming subjects.
“I thought you would understand,” Berebet agreed.
They had moved away from the press over the course of their conversation, and stood alone on a balcony now, out of earshot of anyone else.
Berebet set his glass down on the railing and leaned back, exhaling a faint white puff into the chilly air.
“It is telling, who a lord chooses to send as his emissary.”
“Or if he sends no emissary, and comes himself,” Edemir returned, and won a smile.
“Well, we have already endured the formalities.” There was something about the cast of his face and the glint of his teeth that made Edemir think of a lynx. “Do you know what Gllaomin brought, as a gift to Ospret?”
“No.”
“Copper and iron,” said Duke Berebet. “Not treasures. Not heirlooms of his house. Copper and iron, because Ospret wanted to build.”
Three days later, a message came from the masters of the Guild of Masons saying that they would be pleased to meet him at his convenience. Edemir hardly needed to see the Berebet insignia on the messenger.
It was a shrewdly selective use of Berebet’s influence, all the more impressive for its subtlety, with the underlying message that House Berebet had determined it wise to offer the Duke of Andelin a gift.
The question was why.
* * *
Two weeks left.
Ophele was counting down the days, and there just weren’t enough of them.
Every day she found another plan, another project, another corner of Tresingale that could do with a little tweak or two.
In the middle of the night, she jerked awake thinking: wait.
She had an entire library of books now, of all levels of difficulty, including some that Jacot could have been practicing on, and why hadn’t she thought of that sooner?
She felt like a condemned prisoner, forced to spend her remaining days learning fan language and Articles forty-five through fifty of the Imperial Code.
And even when she appealed to Remin, certain that he would agree that the welfare of Tresingale must come first, he had just told her to keep a list and give it to Lady Verr.
That was a lady-in-waiting’s job, after all.
Ophele made him pay for it by inviting company over.
“I got this tea from Master Guian today,” she said as she lifted the kettle from the hearth and poured hot water into Remin’s teacup, then Azelma’s. She was careful to let him break the wax seal on the tin of tea himself. “It’s from Bhumi, roasted with lotus fruits. Sugar?”
“I’m fine. Thank you,” he added, in a touching and unsuccessful effort to look less forbidding. Ophele knew he wasn’t actually glaring at Azelma, but an outside observer could only conclude the old lady had offered him some mortal insult.
“Azelma was the one who taught me to make tea,” Ophele went on, pouring herself a cup and sitting in an armchair positioned diplomatically between the two of them. “I used to sneak into the kitchen at night when she was baking bread, and she always had me manage the kettle.”
“It kept you out of other mischief,” Azelma agreed, adding sugar and a dribble of milk to her own cup. “Can’t go too wrong with a pot of tea.”
“I just wanted to help,” Ophele protested. The injustice still rankled. “It looked like fun, kneading dough and making buns.”
“It’s certainly a dangerous business when you liked to stuff dates and sultanas and cloves of garlic and the stars know what all else into it the minute my back was turned, mercy me,” Azelma said tartly.
“She did that with the apple bread once, my lord, studded it up with cloves like it was a haunch of ham. I’ve no idea how I missed it, but sure enough, up it went for breakfast the next morning. ”
“The Hurrells ate it?” Remin looked interested in spite of himself.
“They did indeed, sir, and all but seared the tongues right out of their heads,” Azelma replied, to their mutual satisfaction.
For all that she had borne the brunt of Lady Hurrell’s fury after that incident, Azelma often repeated the tale, especially when she wanted to forbid Ophele from doing anything interesting in the kitchen.
And this really was working just as Mionet had said it would; Ophele knew the sorts of stories Remin liked to hear, and the sorts of stories that Azelma liked to tell, so all she had to do was give her an opening to do it.
It was also the perfect opportunity to show Remin how well Azelma ran a kitchen, though that was definitely secondary.
“And the cheese man, you remember him?” Ophele prompted. “Remin, there was this one cheese merchant that used to come to Aldeburke, but he could never fool Azelma…”
“Well, it was as plain as my nose that he wasn’t selling real Norgrede cheddar,” Azelma said, flicking her fingers.
“You can smell it, Norgrede cheddar has a sharpness. He used to come every other month, peddling his fraudulent cheeses, and every time it was something new, red rinds on blue cheese or him trying to sell me on the new virgin Lein cheese. Virgin, says he, because the rennet came from unspoiled sheep. And here’s this one next to me in the door,” she said, nodding to Ophele, “wanting to know what’s a virgin sheep. ”
“I trust you didn’t explain it,” Remin replied, with an amused flick of his black eyes to Ophele. He knew better than anyone how woefully ignorant she had been about all species of virgin.
“Indeed not, fouling a child’s ears with that sort of talk,” said Azelma indignantly.
“She wouldn’t stop asking for days, I had a little shadow pattering after me in the kitchen, wanting to know did we have virgin sheep, and were they different from regular sheep, and why couldn’t we make virgin sheep cheese ourselves. ”
This was not quite the sort of story Ophele had meant for her to tell.
“But at least you never bought any of the nasty cheeses…” she interjected, trying to shift course back to the original subject, but Azelma was already off to the races.
“My stars, Your Grace, I think I spent half my life trying to guess what she might take into her head next,” Azelma confided, as Remin scooted forward in his chair.
“I think she was…twelve, maybe, when we had a sudden plague of squirrels in the kitchen garden, and no idea where they had come from or why. Into everything, making off with the tomatoes, I didn’t know squirrels would even eat broccoli.
Though they never did touch the peppers. ”
“They don’t like spicy things,” Ophele tried to explain. “The book just talked about them hoarding nuts for the winter, but I wanted to know what they ate for the rest of the year…”
And she had also been trying to train them to do her bidding, but she was hardly about to admit that now.
“Squirrels again?” Remin asked, and then of course he had to tell Azelma about the afternoon in the hazelnut grove, though he did omit certain key events. Azelma rocked with laughter.
“Oh! A legion of squirrels!” she chortled, wiping her eyes.
“It was rabbits one year, as I recall, I found a nest of newborns in a basket under my bed one night, ugly as moles. But if you do roast hazelnuts yourself, Your Grace, mind you crack the shells first. That was one of the more spectacular of Her High—Her Grace’s experiments. ”
“I saw you roasting peanuts and you didn’t crack their shells,” said Ophele, wounded.
“Peanut shells are porous. Hazelnut shells go off like they were fired from a crossbow,” Azelma replied in tones of infinite patience.
“And it was so hard to catch her, she was so quiet! I swear, half the time I never even saw her at her mischief. I would just wonder why all my measuring spoons had gone, or find a cat half-shaved in the pantry, or one fine day we’d have hazelnuts suddenly exploding in the fire.
Kitchen boys scattering, scullery maids shrieking, you’d have thought there was a war on. ”
That actually made Remin laugh out loud.
“Shaved cat?” he repeated, looking expectantly at Ophele.
There was a breed of dog in Sachar Veche whose fur was often dyed and shaved in interesting ways.
Resigned, Ophele confessed to the crime and then gave up trying to divert them, munching on a gingersnap and wondering idly how one did correct a conversation that had veered so wildly off course. It was worth it to hear Remin laugh.
This small dream was all Ophele wanted: that the two people she loved best in the world would get along. The evening flew by, and all too soon Azelma was glancing at the moon rising through the window and rising regretfully to her feet.