Chapter 1 – A Tale of Wolves #6
He and Justenin had begun discussing the learning theory of the Tower with her at increasing length lately, particularly the balance between interrogation and didactic learning: the need to let the boys ask questions, and more importantly, want to ask questions, without straying too far from the subject at hand.
This was one of her particular weaknesses, Ophele knew.
Having grown up in a library, she was used to being able to indulge every question she had, and unanswered questions tickled mercilessly at her mind, an itch begging to be scratched.
“Maybe we don’t need books for some things,” she admitted.
The words felt blasphemous. “But I wish I had some references. Denin wanted to know the maximum distance of a trebuchet with different projectiles where he could still destroy the keep, but none of the books say what the minimum weight of a projectile should be.”
“Wind’s an issue if they’re too light,” said Sir Bram, who always surprised her with his participation in these discussions. He was the oldest of Remin’s knights, lean-faced and scarred and thoroughly intimidating, but he was surprisingly intellectual, for all his rough demeanor.
“Oh, we didn’t talk about wind,” she said, making a mental note. “Are there equations for that? The book didn’t say anything.”
“What under the stars are you teaching them, wife?” Remin asked, amused.
And a few minutes later, Ophele found herself explaining the problem to the Knights of the Brede over a replica of Barnabe Town made of fruit and cups.
They argued about trebuchet placement in almost the exact same withering tones as their pages, even down to calling each other halfwits.
“You don’t need to work equations?” Ophele whispered to Remin, who had taken one look at the town and placed a single trebuchet in position to knock out all six towers and the gatehouse.
“After a while, you get a feel for it,” he replied, as if it hadn’t taken everyone else ten minutes to mathematically prove that he had picked the perfect position. Ophele eyed him curiously. Was this the sort of thing that made people call him a genius?
“I’ll see about your books, my lady,” said Edemir, who was looking at Remin with some chagrin. “Even if there isn’t much time for study now, there will be in future, and there will be more pageboys too, soon enough. Where did you find this exercise? I don’t remember it from any of my texts.”
“The boys like it better when it’s a real problem, instead of just numbers…
” Ophele skirted the question nervously, wondering if she had done something wrong, coming up with her own exercises.
In her mind, if they expected her to teach, it was because she was supposed to know how, and she couldn’t admit she had never had a tutor of her own.
She could just imagine the looks on their faces, if they ever realized how ignorant their lady was.
She had sworn to make them proud to serve her.
“That would have been my preference, when I was a boy,” Sir Justenin said, smoothing the conversation over. “The brothers taught us geometry with the stars, but we would have much preferred trebuchets.”
“There was a book on celestial geometry in Aldeburke.” Ophele accepted this offering gratefully. “I liked it. The same equations that measure spiral galaxies can measure the spirals on a snail shell.”
They really worked, too. She had tried it on one of the snails in Azelma’s kitchen garden .
“Was it The Sacred Angles of the Stars?”
“Yes,” she said, surprised.
“That’s an advanced text.” His pale blue eyes were placid and unreadable. “I’m surprised your tutor chose it.”
“I found it in the library.” Ophele looked away.
This was a true statement, though it did not correct his assumption, and she felt uncertain all over again.
Was it a book she ought not have read? Sir Justenin was so shrewd, sometimes she felt like he was helping her, and sometimes she felt instinctively that he was laying out bait.
“It was philosophically interesting. Calculating the paths between stars. Not so different from this,” he said, gesturing to the cups and fruit of Barnabe Town. “A path between points. A map between heavens.”
As a conversational lure, this was irresistible.
Ophele eyed him for only a moment before she pounced, though she was aware of the contrast between the lively trebuchet discussion and the far more selective circle that quickly drove away everyone but Sir Edemir, Sir Justenin, and Sir Bram.
Sir Miche tipped her a wink before he slid toward the other end of the table.
“I hope it’s not too boring,” she told Remin as they walked home together in the moonlight. Her mother would have rebuked her for so exclusive a conversation, better reserved for a private salon. And tonight, Ophele felt uncertain about everything. “When we talk about geometry, and the stars.”
“Sometimes it is,” he said bluntly, but he took her hand and laid it on his own. “It pleases me that you enjoy it, wife. I’m sorry I’m not much of a scholar.”
“I’m not either,” she said, subdued. The truth was a weight.
What would he do, if she turned to him and told him that she really didn’t know anything?
He wouldn’t hate her for it, would he? “I want to learn,” she said instead.
“I don’t know what I think about any of it. I just repeat the things I read.”
“I don’t know what I think, either.” Remin’s dark head tilted back, looking at the vastness overhead, a night sky so clear that the whole river of galaxies streamed above them, with all the clouds of their currents.
“We had clerics in my army. Brothers who treated the wounded and burned the dead. But they never had much to do with me. Usually, they only spoke to Juste. ”
“We never had a cleric in Aldeburke,” Ophele said tentatively, a tiny beginning of the truth. It was so hard because she didn’t know what was normal, whether this was outrageous or completely unremarkable.
“That doesn’t surprise me, somehow.” He always looked stern.
In the dark, she couldn’t tell if he looked more stern.
For a long time, they looked into the sky in silence, and even with Remin standing beside her, Ophele felt adrift on the shores of those galaxies, unmoored among the unfathomable stars.
* * *
The Duke of Andelin had no mercy for buttons.
Otherwise, he was perfect. Ophele’s opinion of her husband had shifted somewhat, and now she was firmly convinced that everything before had been a regrettable misunderstanding, and really he was the most amazing man ever to walk the earth.
But it had dawned on her, the other day when they were doing laundry, that Remin was terribly hard on clothing.
They had just ruined her fifth chemise and Remin was silent and…
well, she wouldn’t say a man that big was sulking.
“Maybe the silk is plant-based, instead of animal-based,” she offered hesitantly as they pulled her clothing down from the lines inside the cottage. The Duchess of Andelin’s undergarments could hardly be hung out to dry by the roadside. “Maybe that’s why it doesn’t like that soap.”
“There’s different kinds of silk?” Remin’s voice was flat, but he was trying to sound interested.
“Yes, some kinds are made by insects, and some are plant fiber. Like lotus silk from Bhumi. Maybe one is more brittle than the other, or breaks down when you get it wet? Like spiderwebs,” she said thoughtfully.
“Did you ever notice, some spiderwebs will collect morning dew, but others fall apart when they get wet?”
“I had not.” But he glanced down at her, the corner of his mouth twitching. “Did you make a study of spiderwebs, little owl?”
“I always had to watch out for them in Aldeburke. I hate walking into them,” she said with a shudder. “I would be walking through the trees and if I wasn’t careful there would be a sticky web in my face and I didn’t know where the spider was. Yuck.”
That made him smile, and she smiled back, pleased .
“Have you ever heard of alternative methods for cleaning silk?”
“No,” she said, her brow furrowing. “Maybe steaming? The maids sometimes steamed clothes in Aldeburke, but I don’t know how. Or why. I wish we had books. What happened to your jerkin?”
“What?” He looked over as she held up the offending article, pointing to a button dangling by the thinnest of threads. “Oh, put that aside. I’ll do something about it.”
Remin’s ravages were not limited to her chemises, though to be fair, he had tried to be gentle with the latest casualty.
He had no regard whatsoever for rips, stains, or loose buttons on his own clothing, and even as Ophele’s wardrobe had improved over the months since her arrival in the valley, his had steadily deteriorated.
Was this her responsibility? It was, wasn’t it?
All the other knights had squires and pages that looked after such things, but Remin had neither, and showed no interest in acquiring any.
Now that she was looking, she noticed the jerkin he was wearing had a huge tear in the back.
Ever since he and his knights had begun training at the barracks every afternoon, his clothes had been taking a beating.
And he was the Duke of Andelin, and the handsomest man ever born. He shouldn’t be going about in rags.
“I can fix it,” she said, fighting down nervousness at the prospect.
She was determined to be a proper wife for him, even if she had never threaded a needle in her life.
How hard could it be to sew a button? “But…do you have a needle and thread? Sir Bram gave me a thimble, but I don’t have anything else… ”
If she was honest, she wasn’t sure what to do with the thimble. Remin looked at her for a moment and then pulled her into his lap, wrapping his arms around her.
“I’m sure Guian has needlebooks and such,” he said. “I made you leave your own things behind in Aldeburke, didn’t I? I’m sorry. Do you want to send for them?”