Chapter 14 – The Devil of Nandre #8
“I don’t know how anyone could decide such things,” she went on, troubled.
“When to send help, or not. How many to send. I didn’t realize what it meant, back in July, when all that was happening.
I know it isn’t strictly a matter of numbers, but if thirty-nine men died to bring seventy-six people back, and there are four hundred and thirteen dead in Meinhem and Nan—”
“Next time, I will consult you,” he said to shut her up, the words biting and acid and far angrier than he meant them to be. Her eyes flicked up to his, widening with hurt.
“That’s not what I—”
“I know it’s not. I’m sorry,” he said, and then couldn’t think of anything else to say.
It was like her to treat it as an intellectual exercise, and no doubt she would have a number of valuable insights, but he didn’t want to hear it right now.
Anything he might say sounded to his own ears like self-defense, justifying a decision that had cost four hundred and thirteen innocent lives so far.
He would never know how many might have lived, if he had tried to send help sooner.
“It’s all right,” she said softly, and it was a quiet ride to the manor, and awkward in a way that it hadn’t been for some time.
“I’ll settle Lancer and be in soon,” Remin said in the forecourt of the manor, lowering her from the horse’s back and trying to look reassuring. It just wasn’t happening today.
He had known this would happen, when he decided not to help.
He had decided to let his villagers die.
What right did he have to feel shocked or upset when it happened?
He had weighed the odds and decided that they were doomed, and any men he tried to send to save them would die. But what if he had been wrong ?
There was no point in dwelling on past decisions.
He knew that, too; they were past, and could not be changed.
But Remin lingered a long time over Lancer, grooming the velvety black hide, dabbing a little more salve onto the healing gashes on his legs and haunches.
The stable was warm with the heat of the horses’ bodies, and quiet, except for occasional stamping and blowing.
Lancer did not thank him for the attention.
He had always been a savage creature, even as a foal; as Remin picked his hooves clean, he kept turning his head to snap, not so much with the intent to bite as to prove he could.
Remin met those dark, ferocious eyes and produced a carrot from his pocket, feeling a fond sort of irritation as Lancer immediately snatched it, then butted him with his nose, demanding to be pet.
It was some time before Remin realized why he was lingering.
But Huber wasn’t coming.
Even if he had been in Tresingale, he wouldn’t have come.
There had been so many times, after a terrible day, when they would meet in the stables or the kennels for the uncomplicated company of beasts.
Remin had always found a little bit of peace there, before.
Not forgiveness; Huber would never forgive him, now that Rollon was gone.
Four hundred and thirteen dead. The population of Selgin numbered nearly three hundred; tiny, idyllic Isigne was around a hundred and fifty. Five hundred lives, counting Huber and his men.
That was nothing compared to the nearly ninety thousand men who had marched in his army over the course of the war, of whom almost twenty thousand had died.
Edemir had kept the rolls, with some understandable uncertainty as to the exact number, but it was agreed to be at least nineteen thousand.
And how many Vallethi soldiers had died?
How many had died in Ellingen, the Vallethi city he had razed?
Juste said that nothing good would come of asking these questions. That in the moment, given the same conditions, he would likely make the same decisions. But at what point did he have to account for the dead?
Maybe this was the real reason he hadn’t wanted Ophele to come this afternoon.
He hadn’t wanted her to know how badly he had failed his people.
He wanted to be the man he saw reflected in her eyes.
But maybe that was foolish. She had already learned for herself how cruel, short-sighted, and wrong-headed he could be .
But Remin had been dealing with this for years. People had been dying for him and because of him since he was nine. There was a deep, dark place inside him where he shoved these feelings, a bottomless pit, locked down tight beneath a weight of stone.
Remin closed it up and went to wash the smell of horse off his hands.
Ophele was in the bedchamber, seated at her desk and scribbling away. Somehow, he had known exactly where she would be. With a nod, he dismissed Peri and Lady Verr from the room and went to kneel beside her chair, taking her hands.
“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he said, looking up into her eyes. She was wearing her solemn-owl face. “I am not…proud of myself today. I don’t know if I made the right decisions.”
Ophele stretched her arms out and wrapped them around his neck, her soft cheek pressing against his.
“Maybe there wasn’t a good decision,” she said. “Sometimes there isn’t a good place to camp.”
That was not something that someone who lived in the shelter of a garden would say. Remin let her hold him and felt deep down that he did not deserve it, filled with the bittersweet knowledge that he, at least, had come home safe.