Chapter 13 – A Little Treason #6
“There will be four or five new roads for them to shovel, this time next year,” he said wryly. Four or five new roads to name.
They passed Genon outside his infirmary, pulling a hood over his head as he bustled off on some errand.
They saw the stableboys working in the yard, hauling in the day’s allotment of hay.
Ophele lifted a hand to greet one of the Mistresses Conbour—Remin still couldn’t tell them apart—and leaned down from the saddle to exchange greetings.
“Of course I will come,” she said, pleased, when Mistress Conbour invited her to tea in the cookhouse a few days hence. “Should I bring anything? Or would you like Azelma to make something?”
“Just yourself, m’lady,” Mistress Conbour replied, offering a respectful nod to Remin. “Mistress Tregue says she’s heard from a lady that might like to set up a teahouse in town, we’re writing a letter…”
Ophele, of course, was delighted to add her signature in support, along with a postscript describing several lovely lots available in town to entice the new tea-mistress to emigrate.
Rumblings of this proposal had already reached Remin, and it pleased him beyond telling that the women of his town were taking part in its growth.
They rode on. There was Elder Brodrim, bearded and wizened, already a prominent man despite his deafness. He had forgotten more about running a town than Remin had ever learned, and Remin was not so grand that he would refuse to make use of his experience.
Turning before the North Gate, they ran into Siyoun Arpelle, the fisherman from Isigne, whose stutter had improved over the last couple months. Both he and his little girl looked much less emaciated as he lifted the child up to say hello to Their Graces.
“One of the ladies is minding her during the day while I work, in exchange for b-bass and trout,” he explained to Remin, with only a little flinching and ducking. “We’ll have boats on the water every day, come spring.”
“That will be a sight,” Remin said, wishing he would be there to see it. “Have you been making progress with Master Gibel on the fish market?”
“Aye, m’lord, and p-plans for eel ponds besides…” Warming to his subject, the fisherman was soon explaining their plans at length, as well as offering a recipe for fish fried with butter and peppers that made Remin’s stomach growl.
Everyone was abroad, enjoying the sunshine.
Remin even greeted Master Forgess when they spotted him in the market, trailed by his retinue of journeymen.
The scholars had redeemed themselves somewhat, in his opinion; they might have been tardy in recognizing Ophele’s brilliance, but they’d gotten there in the end.
Their letters recommending Ophele to the Tower had been so effusive in their praise, Remin really had to work to glare at them.
But his glare appeared again as they passed Master Brestle’s cottage just outside town, where a wagon was piled high with household goods.
“Your Grace,” said the herbman, starting as he came out the front door. “I must…I must ask you to forgive me. My…wife is wanting to visit her family…”
“It is important to keep peace with your wife’s family,” Remin agreed flatly. “I wish you a safe journey.”
“And you, my lord. We are all hoping that you will return safely,” the man said, with a deep bow. “Genon says there are other healers on the way, so I believe I won’t be leaving you short.”
“Yes. From Lusse,” Remin replied curtly, giving Lancer a nudge with his heels. Ophele turned to look over Remin’s shoulder as they rode away, her eyes solemn.
“He’s not coming back, is he?” she asked. “He wouldn’t be taking furniture if he was coming back.”
“No.”
But Remin couldn’t completely despise the man, now that he had a wife of his own.
What would he have done in Brestle’s place, with devils bearing down from one side and the possibility of war with the Empire from the other?
The tales from Nandre, Meinhem, Isigne, and Selgin were all over town, and while Remin and his men had been focused on the Emperor, the people of Tresingale were worried about what might be coming out of the mountains when the snow melted.
Remin had been preparing for that, too.
“It looks like you’re ready for a war,” Ophele murmured, and Remin glanced down at her sharply.
There was no insinuation in her guileless eyes, but it was truer than she knew.
Beyond the high walls of the town, he and his men had dug lines of trenches all winter, deep enough that even wolf demons could not scramble out of the bottom.
The base of the city walls was studded with immense pikes, long enough and strong enough to skewer even the Nandre devil.
“We’re not coming home to another Meinhem.” It was an oath. “When the devils come, we will be ready.”
He had only meant to go a short distance beyond the gates; enough to see those defenses, to reassure himself and Ophele that he had done everything he could.
But when Lancer snorted and sped up the slope of the perimeter road, Remin gave him his head, jogging lightly past the snowy pastures, the shadowed forest, the sweep of bare fields that would soon turn green with planting.
Their breaths puffed white as he turned at last, one arm wrapped tight around Ophele, turning to gaze upon their city.
Their home.
Their dream.
It was still so small. A cluster of cottages by the North Gate; the distant smoke of the market and craftsmen’s quarter, barely visible above the treetops.
One day, the spire of his cathedral would top those trees, magnificent against the wild blue sky.
One day, the dome of the Court of War would shine white as alabaster, a beacon visible for miles upriver.
And within those walls would swell the rumble and thud of people at work, the hew and cry of humanity, the great stir of life and love and growing.
“I don’t want to go,” Ophele burst out suddenly. “I don’t. I don’t want to leave.”
“Neither do I.” Remin’s hands clenched on the reins. He had never in his life wanted to do anything less.
“It feels like we’re running away,” she said. “I know Huber and Auber will look after everyone, but we should be here. It feels like we’re leaving them behind.”
“I know.”
It could not possibly feel any other way. Remin’s jaw tightened as he looked at his town, his people, the small and vulnerable space of civilization in all the wide valley. They had bled to take it. Broken their backs to build it. And now they would have to bleed again to hold it.
“I…hate this,” he said slowly. “I hate it so much.”
Maybe it was because of where they were.
Outside of Tresingale, away from their house, there was nothing around them but the cold, quiet hills and naked trees.
Maybe it was that these words had been locked inside him for so long, a weight in his chest and a lump in his throat, and he was tired of fighting them down.
They clawed their way out, raw and furious.
“I don’t want to go,” he said savagely. “I should be here to protect them. The stars only know what will be coming out of that mountain, and there is nowhere the devils will come but here, to beat on the walls. I should be here when they do. All these people have suffered so much already, I already failed them once, and now I’m supposed to tell them all will be well and go to the capital for the season? Knowing that any time—”
Ophele’s eyes were on his face, quiet and watchful.
“It’s fine. I just worry.” He was trying to leash his tongue and finding it harder than he expected.
“We’ll be safe. I have planned everything, you can see the defenses, and if I really thought there was danger, I would leave more men behind.
But we need—that is, I want to make sure you are protected.
Not that it’s dangerous,” he added quickly.
“I am taking no chances. They are good men, you haven’t begun to see what they can do yet, so you needn’t worry. ”
He couldn’t keep the words back when she was looking at him like that.
“I don’t want you to worry. But sometimes, I…we have so much, and it’s safe, it is, but I…I have been so…”
“Afraid,” Ophele said softly.
“Yes.”
“I am afraid, too,” she whispered, laying her hand on his. “I’m afraid all the time.”
“Still?” he asked gratefully, running his other hand gently over her back.
“Yes. Well…of little things,” she said. “Things you can’t protect me from, I guess.
I’m afraid of doing something wrong. Or saying something wrong.
And of people I don’t know, and leaving home, and all those people in the capital, and…
Lady Hurrell. I think I’m…better, but sometimes I still get so nervous… ”
“I’ll be beside you,” he promised.
“I know. I know, I’m just…saying. Lady Hurrell has been there all this time, and you don’t know…well, you do, a little. But she knows things,” she said grimly. “She knows them, and she holds onto them until just the right moment.”
“But we have Lady Verr,” Remin said very seriously, and made her burst into giggles. He kissed the top of her ear. “There are some good people going with us, wife.”
“Yes,” she agreed, giving him a smile. “I did think of that, we have Miche and Justenin, and Edemir will be there already…and we have good people staying here, Remin. Amise and all the other ladies promised me they would take care of things. It won’t be just Auber and Tounot.
The women know the devils are coming. They won’t just sit about waiting for them. ”
“Really?” Remin felt his heart lift. “What did they say?”
“Well, they heard about the shell curtains your men made during the war,” she began.
“They’re making those for the doors and windows, and Mistress Tregue wondered whether everyone ought to have a bell in the house, a great big loud one to warn everyone else if a strangler’s spotted. Wouldn’t that help?”
“Yes, it would.” Remin’s arms tightened around her. “That’s a good idea, wife. I’ll tell Auber to have it done.”
“It’s their home, too,” she reminded him softly, and for a long time they sat together on Remin’s big black horse, gazing down upon the dream they had so carefully nurtured, and hoping it was strong enough to survive without them.