Chapter 13 – Behemoth
This was not the first time Ophele had erred in the estimation of her own value.
It made it all the more surreal that she could tell Lady Verr, I don’t want to see anyone else today and know that she would be obeyed.
She arrived in the forecourt of the manor with just enough time to dismount, hand Brambles to Jaose, and walk into the house with some semblance of dignity, deaf to the hoofbeats thundering behind her.
She needed to think.
She didn’t want to think.
She couldn’t face anyone else right now, but once she was in her room with the door locked, she especially couldn’t face herself. How had she not seen it? All these years, the evidence had been right there, but the underlying premise was so fundamental, she had never thought to question it.
She knew her father didn’t care about her.
Lady Hurrell had explained from earliest childhood that Ophele was a disgrace to him, a bastard, a blot.
She brought him nothing but shame. But somehow, in some secret part of her heart, Ophele had thought that he would at least honor the bond of their divine blood.
He had acknowledged her as his daughter.
If he had wanted to, he could have just denied that she belonged to him at all.
Remin and his men were operating under the same assumption.
It was an unquestioned fact that the blood of the House of Agnephus was sacrosanct.
All of them thought that her heritage would protect her and serve as a shield for Remin’s heirs and a foundation for his House.
A powerful deterrent to any would-be assassins.
The Emperor must punish any threat to her ferociously, in defense of the sanctity of his own blood.
But there was a great deal of evidence to the contrary.
Ophele was standing in front of an empty fireplace, but in her mind, she was back at Aldeburke.
She could almost smell that place. Sharp soap.
Azelma’s baking. The often-overwhelming scent of dried flowers, as if Lady Hurrell wished to remind everyone that the estate had no hothouse for fresh ones.
Ophele had not lied to Sir Justenin, but she had not told him the whole truth, either.
She remembered every moment of the ten long, lonely years after her mother’s death.
And after her mother had died, Ophele could have chosen almost any week at random to provide powerful counterevidence to the proposition that there was anything sacred about her blood.
But there was one day that she would never forget.
Generally, Lord Hurrell had ignored her.
He was not a big man, except maybe in the belly, but still large enough for Ophele to fear him, knowing he did not regard her with favor.
But Lisabe had always been his especial pet, and when she came home dripping wet and sobbing that Ophele had pushed her into the stream, his wrath had been so spectacular that Ophele had gone out one of the parlor windows and disappeared into the forest.
For three days, she hid in the woods, foraging for nuts and berries and trying to make friends with the animals, as if they really might make a home for her in a hollow tree, like Rosalie Blue.
Sleeping in the forest with all those shifting branches and night noises was scary, but still less scary than Lord Hurrell.
Three days, while he stewed impotently and Lisabe goaded him with tears and complaints.
Even as a child, Lisabe had known how to manipulate her father.
By the time one of the groundskeepers captured Ophele and dragged her back to the estate, Lord Hurrell was so furious he had chosen to deal with her himself.
“But I didn’t push her!” Ophele cried desperately, frightened and bewildered. Lisabe was standing behind her father, smirking, and the injustice made Ophele’s voice quiver. “I was just reading—”
It had been a very hot afternoon. If she closed her eyes, she could remember it exactly, the way the shadows of the leaded glass windows had stretched across the floor, the weight of the eyes on her that made the humid air even stuffier, the silhouettes of the servants at the end of the room.
Her words had tumbled forth in breathless, panicked bursts.
“—she tried to take my book, but I didn’t give it to her, and her hands slipped and she fe—”
Crack.
Something smashed into the side of her head so hard, lights exploded behind her eyes. Ophele couldn’t even catch herself before her head smacked painfully on the floor. She lay still, stunned.
“We took you in.” Lord Hurrell was quivering with fury as he stood over her, the words distant and strange, as if she were hearing it underwater. “Raised you after your mother betrayed us, destroyed our House, our family. And this is how you repay us?”
“Didn’t. I didn’t,” Ophele said, staggering back to her feet and clutching her head. It hurt.
“Ophele,” came Lady Hurrell’s voice, and the sound of those soft, sorrowful tones was enough to bring tears to her eyes.
Lady Hurrell was her protector. The arms that held her, the hands that tenderly stroked her, the voice that rebuked and then consoled.
Ophele’s eyes wove toward her, burning with tears.
Lady Hurrell was smiling.
It was only for a moment. One time in ten years when Lady Hurrell’s carefully controlled mask slipped.
A traitorous quiver of her lips before she turned them down, a single instant where malicious glee shone in her eyes.
And Ophele might have argued with herself that she was confused, she hadn’t seen right, surely Lady Hurrell could not be pleased…
It was an instant of such stark, searing truth that Ophele could never doubt it.
“You’re a liar.” Ophele’s voice quavered, thick with tears. Slowly, she retreated, her hands trembling as they lifted to touch her own face, reassuring herself that this was real, this had just happened. “You’re a liar. You’re a liar, you’re a liar!”
All this time? All these years? All those times Lady Hurrell had slapped her, all those punishments, all those cold, hungry, lonely days when the only consolation had been that it hurt Lady Hurrell as much as it hurt Ophele.
It was Ophele’s fault for making the lady punish her.
They had cried together as Lady Hurrell explained that she didn’t want to do it, such discipline was horrid and vulgar, but necessary to correct a bastard’s crooked, ugly nature.
And Ophele had believed her! How could Lady Hurrell smile to see someone strike her?
It didn’t make sense. Had she been secretly hiding that smile every time Ophele came to her, cowering and begging pardon for things she couldn’t remember doing?
And those moments of kindness, the scraps of affection that Ophele had worn out in her memory, starving her heart out for just a little love…
had all of it been lies? Lady Hurrell didn’t care about her at all?
“Ophele…” The smile was gone now. Lady Hurrell had realized how much she had betrayed herself. “Sweetheart, come here, your head…”
Blood was running in a slow stream from Ophele’s temple, dripping down her chin. It felt warm.
She turned and ran.
Somehow, she had found a place to hide. Her head hurt so dreadfully, she wasn’t sure where she was or how she got there. Crawling into the smallest, darkest space in the room, she curled up around her churning belly and slipped into blackness like going underwater.
In her dreams, her father had come for her.
Funny, she had forgotten that until now.
Ophele dreamed for a very long time, nauseated and sick, her head pounding as if it might burst apart.
She dreamed the Emperor came to Aldeburke, sweeping into the house filled with fury that they had dared to lay hands on his child.
He had come to take her home, it had all been a mistake, a misunderstanding, and really he had loved Ophele all along…
But he had not come. He had never come. And when eleven year-old Ophele opened her eyes, it was with the understanding that she was alone, and no one cared if she was the Emperor’s daughter. Least of all the Emperor.
It was an understandable error for a child. But Ophele was old enough now to know better.
Mechanically, she went to build a fire, her head thumping with an echo of that remembered pain.
The sanctity of the blood of the House of Agnephus was another premise so deeply embedded in the fabric of the Empire, it was sacrilegious to question it.
Ospret Agnephus had come from the stars and married a star’s daughter.
That bloodline continued unbroken to Bastin Agnephus.
But what would really happen if someone killed her?
Remin would make a fuss, of course, and his knights, but who cared about them?
Certainly not the Emperor, unless it could be used to his advantage.
The Court of Nobility had had nothing to say about all the attempts on Remin’s life, which might not be blasphemous, but was still regarded as a terrible crime, and for the same self-serving reasons.
The Temple? It had taken them more than a year to send a representative to the valley.
No. Her illegitimate origin had always outweighed her sacred blood. It would be no protection to Remin. It had been no protection to her. It would not protect their children.
Which meant she had nothing to offer Remin but herself. A lying bastard. A cowering mouse. A princess who did not have the love of her father. A duchess who was barely a lady.
All poison, no sweet.
A sob burst from her throat.
For a long, long time, she curled up in bed, sobbing into Remin’s mutilated jerkin and wishing with all her heart that he was there.
There were so many things to cry about. She cried for hours.
She cried until her eyes ached and her head throbbed, until the sun set and night fell and the room was cold and quiet.
And then she lay silent in the dark, limp and drifting, and wondered what under the stars she should do.