Chapter 2 – A Wedding
When he finally decided to move, the duke was like a tidal wave.
Ophele barely had time to jam her feet into a pair of shoes before she found herself swept into the manor courtyard with a thousand questions on her lips and a dozen things she was trying to do at once.
He was barking orders so fast, she couldn’t tell which were for her, and suddenly the area was boiling with men and servants and assembled baggage, two lines of blanket rolls and saddle bags forming as if by magic.
There was another growing pile of foodstuffs requisitioned from the kitchen, and even as she watched, one of the squires trundled by covered in so many waterskins, he looked like a lumpy bipedal mole.
“But Your Grace,” Lord Hurrell kept saying, hurrying after them, distinctly rumpled after the servants had had to haul him out of bed. The lord of the house preferred to sleep late. “The girl needs clothing! A lady-in-waiting! She has barely risen from her sickbed—”
The duke flashed him a glance like steel.
“She managed to rise into the rafters of the library. She’s fine,” he said curtly.
But he did yield to protests about the weather and took a cloak from a nearby maid, jamming the hood onto Ophele’s head with a jerk that hid her face to the tip of her nose.
He had assumed command of the house as if it were a poorly trained army and a dozen maids were falling all over themselves to assemble some form of trousseau.
“Ophele? Ophele!” Lisabe appeared at the manor doors, panting, her blonde hair tumbling loose over her shoulders. Her hands clasped together. “Oh, please, Your Grace, we have barely had a chance to say good-bye!”
“They’re still saddling the horses,” the duke pointed out, striding toward the baggage line. “Say it.”
Bewildered though she was, Ophele was not about to suffer a tearful farewell from Lisabe, who had once stolen her favorite doll and burned its hair off, who had always taken the last cookie rather than let Ophele have one, and who had never failed to offer Ophele up as a scapegoat for her own misdeeds.
The list of grievances was long, a lifetime of petty torments and injustices, but it was the sight of those crocodile tears that made Ophele retreat in revulsion.
“Don’t,” she said, her hands held out as if warding the other girl off. “Good-bye, Lisabe.”
Lisabe wasn’t quite shameless enough to force her to accept an embrace, but Lady Hurrell had no such restraint. She swept into the courtyard with a keening cry, as if her heart were shattering to pieces.
“Ophele!” The wide sleeves of her gown flapped like wings and before Ophele could escape, her head was trapped in the lady’s bosom, smothering in the scent of rose sachet. “Your Grace, please, it is too soon! She is like my own child, have mercy!”
Ophele couldn’t hear the duke’s reply; she was too busy trying to thrash free, and she was struck with a lunatic urge to laugh. This was ludicrous. It was a farce. Lady Hurrell’s arms tightened and her voice hissed in her ear.
“Faint,” she ordered. “Right now, or you know what will happen.”
With a wrench, Ophele yanked free, panting. Her cloak was turned around the wrong way and her hair tumbled wildly around her face, half-blinding her, but outrage and hurt for once loosed her tongue.
“Do you think he’ll take Lisabe if you make him kill me?” she whispered, disbelieving. Even after everything, she hadn’t really believed that Lady Hurrell would do it. Her voice trembled. “He wants the Emperor’s daughter,” she said bitterly. “That’s all he wants. He will never let me go.”
Stars, it was true. She stumbled away, weaving between neighing horses. They were leaving Aldeburke forever, right now, and he was taking her with him.
She had to find Azelma.
Ophele darted up the long drive to the kitchen, dodging a few of the duke’s knights, who hesitated as if they were unsure whether the princess needed recapturing.
The kitchen had a separate delivery entrance around the east side of the house, and she could already see the old lady in the herb garden, hurrying forward with her apron still on.
“Azelma!”
“Oh, Princess!” Those soft, strong arms went around her and then it was real, and a sob burst from her throat as Azelma held her and rocked, a floury hand sinking into her hair.
“You shouldn’t,” Ophele wept, already regretting the intimacy in full view of a furious Lady Hurrell. “Let go, or push me away, quickly.”
“Never. None of that, wipe your face,” said Azelma, pushing her back to dab at her cheeks with her apron and applying a light dusting of what smelled like cinnamon. “Here. This is for you and His Grace. Make sure he eats, a hungry man is a terrible beast. Promise that you’ll share it.”
“I will.” Ophele rubbed her nose and took the heavy parcel, wrapped in a knotted cheesecloth. The tears were falling faster than she could blot them away, and Azelma tutted, tugging her cloak back into place around her shoulders.
“Now, now,” she said, more gently. “You can’t go to him with a face like a wet Sunday. You’re well away from here. They get letters even in the Andelin, make sure you write to tell me how you’re getting on.”
“I will,” Ophele repeated, sniffing. “I need a handkerchief. Azelma, I can’t go to Andelin without a handkerchief.”
“Here, you silly girl,” Azelma laughed, but for all her admonishments, the old lady’s eyes were suspiciously bright as she tugged a square of linen out of her pocket. Her hand gripped Ophele’s shoulder and gave her a shake. “Be brave, and don’t tell lies. All will be well, I promise.”
Ophele trudged back up the drive, tucking Azelma’s handkerchief into her sleeve and wondering if she was going to her death.
If she was, there was nothing she could do about it.
Lady Hurrell would say what she wanted to say, and the duke would do what he wanted to do, and Ophele had no control over any of it.
It was just as her mother had told her, with serene acceptance of life’s vicissitudes: the only thing Ophele could control was herself.
But when she stepped into the courtyard Lord Hurrell was still trying to argue with the duke and Lady Hurrell was standing beside Lisabe and Julot, weeping theatrically and determined to go down with all flags flying.
“—a carriage at least, she is the daughter of the Emperor!” Lord Hurrell exclaimed. “If you give us but a little time, we can ready a carriage, as is appropriate to her station—”
“There aren’t any roads where we’re going.” The duke swung up into his saddle, his eyes landing on Ophele as if he had assumed all this time that she would be exactly where he had left her when the time came. And here she was. “Princess, give me your hand.”
At this point, it wasn’t worth trying to protest. Obediently, she offered her hand and the duke hoisted her into his lap with one arm, tucking her cloak over her knees. The Knights of the Brede were already mounted and waiting in perfect order, shining down to their shin greaves.
“Good-bye, Your Highness,” called Tam behind them as the horses started forward, and there were a few half-hearted farewells from the other servants. The Hurrells said nothing.
“Good-bye,” Ophele whispered as the manor house receded behind her and was finally lost among the trees. She had never been on a horse before. She had never left the estate. It almost felt as if the air should be different as they passed through the gates.
“What’s this?” The duke asked, poking at the parcel in her lap. “Give it to me, we can put it on the supply wagon.”
“No,” she said, clutching the cheesecloth as if it were Azelma herself. “It’s mine.”
“Don’t complain when your arms get tired.”
They rode in prickling silence. Ophele lowered her eyes, wishing she had a horse of her own.
She was acutely aware of his chest at her back and his heavy thighs under her legs, thick with saddle muscle.
She hadn’t been this close to another person since her mother died.
And he hated her. He probably didn’t like touching her at all, any more than she liked touching him.
But she had made a promise, and her mother had told her to always keep her promises.
She bit her tongue and screwed her courage to say, scarcely audible: “It’s lunch.”
“What?” he barked.
“This,” she said, almost stuttering in fright. Why was he angry? Her voice died under that black glare, but she nudged the parcel and forced the words out. “Azelma gave it to me. To share with you. Your Grace. If you want.”
His eyebrows lifted.
“I see.” He sounded skeptical. “We’ll be stopping to eat in a few hours.”
He probably thought she was going to poison him.
Ophele lowered her eyes, bumping along in his lap with his arms on either side of her like two walls closing in.
The shoes dangling off her feet were tidy slippers of the sort worn inside the house, forest green with dangling gold tassels and vastly oversized.
They were Julot’s.
* * *
If Remin had wanted to be married the same day they left Aldeburke, it wouldn’t have been impossible.
There were three small villages within a few hours of the estate, and at least one of them would’ve had a cleric available.
But the Duke of Andelin would be married with the same thoroughness he did everything else: inarguably, irrevocably, smashing through all resistance to stamp the act on the pages of history, so even scholars in generations to come could not contest his will.
To that end, they were going to Celderline.
It was a large town with a temple and a Prior, three days from Aldeburke.
As much as he hated to waste the time, he would have smoke sent up from the Temple, call forth the town criers, and cram as many witnesses as possible into the temple.
Songs would be sung. Oaths taken. The marriage certificate would be notarized in triplicate and then locked in the same casket where he kept proof of the princess’s identity and parentage.