Chapter 13 – A Little Treason #3
“It is a little late for a baker, my lord,” she apologized, straightening cautiously. Azelma always said she stiffened up like lumber if she was still for too long. “I thank you for the invitation, and for indulging an old lady for an evening. Her Grace is very dear to me.”
“It was a pleasure.” Remin looked surprised to find he meant it. “I am glad to know that she had such a friend in that place.”
“I am glad that she has come to this place,” Azelma replied, unusually somber as she accepted her cloak from Ophele. “Good night, my lady.”
“Good night.” Ophele moved to embrace her, wrapped at once in the comforting smells of the kitchen.
“I’ll see you to your cottage,” Remin said when they parted. It was only courteous, given the hour and the cold, but Ophele thought it was a good sign that he had volunteered. And even better when she heard his voice in the hall, asking where the measuring spoons had gone.
This was something they could come home to.
Ophele recognized a pattern to their preparations, as the days dwindled: not just for their departure, but for the town that would go on in their absence.
The size of both the house and household would double in their absence, and so she spent a few hours closeted away with Justenin and Adelan, making provisions for the staff, and then a further afternoon trailing after Sousten, reviewing plans for the library.
“It is inspired by the great libraries of Sachar Veche,” Master Didion explained, as they craned their necks in the vast shell of the structure.
“Imagine floors and floors of shelves, my lady, each built atop the other so the adjacent floors seem to float, with a lacework of railings and carved columns like trees…”
She could see it, looking from the sketches to the shell.
The gaps for deep reading nooks under the windows, massive chandeliers, and immense fireplaces, yet all of it was…
natural, as if it had grown together in those flowing shapes.
Curving balconies, overlooking the floors below.
Wide galleries, where she could just imagine the hushed murmurs of scholars, walking up and down in pensive conversation.
“That is where the murals will go, Your Grace,” Sousten explained, flicking his fingers to make Matissen produce the next page.
“There will be some in the manor, but this is where the history of your House will live. You can see I have broken them into sections, with each one punctuated by these immense vases and roses—”
“No roses,” Ophele replied, leaning over to examine the sketch. Those vases would be taller than she was. “His Grace says they are capital nonsense.”
Because of the Roses of Segoile, she assumed. Remin really did hate absolutely everything about the capital.
“His Grace is surprisingly sensitive to symbolism,” Sousten observed. “But it is true, roses are the traditional symbol of the nobility. Every Great House has its own cultivar. Yet have I not often spoken of the Flower of the Andelin?”
He examined Ophele through narrowed eyes, as if she were a puzzle that wanted solving.
“They call the camellia the Rose of Winter,” he said slowly. “For it blooms in unlikely places, when all other flowers have withered. That would be a fitting emblem for the Lady of House Andelin. Now, the murals, my lady. Have you any ideas for their subjects?”
Confronted with vast swaths of empty wall, Ophele’s mind went blank. It was too strange to think of Remin or herself as subjects of a mural or inspiration for an emblem. And House Andelin was brand new, forged by Remin with blood and brute will. It hardly had any history, yet.
But…actually, that wasn’t true, was it? Her brow furrowed as she thought of the painful history of the Andelin Valley, annexed to the Empire, ravaged by Valleth, and conquered again.
It had a very long history, and a bloody one, and the people in the cottages by the North Gate were the last ones who had survived it.
“I don’t know…” she said thoughtfully. “What do they have in other noble houses?”
“Usually, it is the story of their founding, my lady,” offered Mionet, who had tagged along for the tour. “In Ereguil, every bannerman has at least one mural of Laisse Ereguil, who founded the House, and his son Valenot, who defended against invasion from Noreven.”
“Just so,” said Master Didion, nodding. “Duke Tries commissioned one like that for his new gallery, the largest in the Empire. Tries is very proud of their history.”
“Perhaps a little too proud,” Mionet said wryly. “You don’t mean the one of Segeband? Rising from the waters like the Daitian Lord of Fishes, wearing nothing but some seafoam and his beard.”
“Well, yes, I warned him about that,” Sousten grumbled, with something perilously close to a pout. “If it is too grandiose, there is a point where it becomes counterproductive…”
“Let’s not do that,” Ophele agreed.
In the duchy of Andelin, Remin would be that founder.
But what about his family? His ancestors were every bit as famous as Segeband, builders of a thousand-year dynasty whose name was synonymous with the lands they had ruled.
That House had nearly been extinguished, save for Remin: their sole living legacy.
“His Grace’s family had a great history, too,” she said, watching the flicker of alarm in Sousten and Mionet’s faces.
She had tried to get both of them to talk about the Conspiracy, but so far they had skillfully evaded all attempts.
And if it was treason to talk about his family, it was surely even worse to immortalize it in art.
As if his whole family had never existed.
“We can wait to decide,” she said finally, sparing them both. “I don’t want to just say something so the painters have something to do.”
But the blank walls nagged her. It seemed everything she did was the shaping of House Andelin’s story, from the livery she approved for its servants to the motif of camellias that would soon appear in her own clothing.
Mionet’s lessons in beauty murmured in her memory, and Ophele understood that this was her own contribution to history, superficial as it might seem: the unique form of the beauty of her home, as well as its mighty founder.
Which was how she came to supervise the fittings of the legend himself. A rainbow assortment of doublets, jerkins, coats, shirts, breeches, and other masculine accoutrements that Remin yanked at, complained about, and ripped off the instant he could.
“It’s choking me,” he growled under his breath as Master Tiffen and Magne consulted each other about various styles of collar. The high-necked collar was fashionable again, according to Lady Verr, and Remin claimed he would rather have worn a noose.
“Shhh, don’t hurt Magne’s feelings, he’s been telling everyone all day how well His Grace looks in that lace thing,” Ophele whispered, beckoning him down. “Let me see.”
She had begun attending his fittings partly from a sense of duty: she was his wife; she ought to know what clothes he wore and how they all went together.
But she had of necessity become the peacemaker.
Master Tiffen repeatedly burst out in a passionate fury over the quantities of useless lace and braid and dangling chains, fashionable affectations of military honors that most wearers had not earned, which looked garish besides and served no useful purpose.
And that was all the excuse Remin needed to agree, reject the whole project, and go back to the barracks.
Which left poor Magne as the lonely voice of reason. He had been valet to a capital gentleman for over thirty years, so he actually had the best judgment as to what those gentlemen were wearing and what would look best on Remin.
“A chain would be nice,” he said now, as a frowning Remin bent to let Ophele adjust his collar, which was not actually choking him at all. “Pearl studs with those rubies, it is not nice if it’s all black…”
“That will be your last chain, unless you mean to start laying rubies yourself, like a Yezi goose,” said Tiffen around a mouthful of pins. “You ask me, you need it more on the black brocade.”
“Yes, it’s too dark, too dark…” Magne fretted, glancing from the offending garment to Remin’s glowering face. The black brocade had no slashed sleeves or lace or silver braid to enliven it, which was exactly why Remin liked it.
Ophele thought him handsome no matter what he wore.
The final reason she attended these fittings was because when he was dressed as the Duke of Andelin, she could hardly take her eyes off him and frequently trailed off midsentence.
Dressed in a dark blue doublet with a stiff collar framing his strong throat, she could sympathize with Master Didion; Remin looked like he belonged in a painting.
He looked like someone’s ancestor that they would still be telling stories about, hundreds and hundreds of years from now.
“It itches,” he complained.
“But there won’t be anyone else in the whole capital who looks as nice,” she whispered back, smoothing the lace so it was a little less scratchy, and colored like a strawberry when he stole a kiss.
“There will be at least one other person,” he said with an approving glance at her ensemble, and unwittingly proved Mionet’s contention that even the most unpleasant prospect was more tolerable when one was wearing a pretty gown.
* * *
“It’s not possible for a live fish to carry poison, is it?”
Miche’s question emerged in white puffs, floating over the dark water of the Brede.
“I beg you not to repeat that question in His Grace’s presence,” replied Juste. The Coldest Knight did not allow his teeth to chatter. He kept them clenched instead, the hard bone of his jaw jutting as he cautiously moved the oars of their rowboat, testing his healing shoulder.