Chapter 5 – An Imperfect Creation #5
“It’s my honor, my lady.” Genon bowed and gave her a glimpse of the scars seaming the top of his head. “I’ve known His Grace a long time, it will be a pleasure to serve his lady. You ever need anything, I’m your man.”
“Thank you.” She was staring, her fingers knotting together in an anxious gesture that Remin recognized.
He was willing to let her timidity pass, to a point, but he was going to have to talk to her about that.
He would not allow her to embarrass Genon.
“I have heard of you, I think,” she said hesitantly, so softly even Remin didn’t catch all of it, and he was right next to her.
“Some of…Genon minding the valley. And…good hands. On the way here.”
“Is that so?” Genon gave a booming laugh, having made out enough of it to understand it was complimentary. “That’s kind of you to say, my lady. There’s a lot of work to be done. But we’ve kept His Grace’s croft ready against your arrival, to make you as comfortable as we can.”
The look Genon was giving Remin from his one yellow eye was as good as words: see to your lady and then come talk to me. There was news, and it could wait, but not for long. And as much as he wanted to plunge straight into the work of the valley, his first responsibility was to his wife.
“I’ll find you in the cookhouse shortly,” Remin said, catching the princess’s elbow and steering her toward the cottage. “Tounot, have some of the lads bring the princess’s things up. The rest of you, be about your business.”
The princess nodded politely to Genon and moved with Remin, picking up her skirts and tiptoeing to keep out of the mud.
His cot wasn’t far, the second one down the narrow lane, a thatched cottage with a recent coat of whitewash on its thick daubed walls.
Weeds and scrubby dandelions filled the front yard.
“I told you it wasn’t much,” Remin said shortly, plodding across the muddy yard.
By rights, he should be taking his new bride to the ancient and beautiful manor where he had been born, one of seven separate estates that had belonged to his murdered House.
That place was gone, burned to the ground on the Emperor’s orders.
The rest of his ancestral lands had been seized.
What he had now was a peasant’s cottage.
Dark, dusty, dingy, though he could see his men had tried to keep it up for him.
The rushes on the floor looked fresh, and so did the bedding.
The bed was the one concession to his rank, an actual bedstead that took up the rear third of the small cottage, vast enough to accommodate his size.
The princess said nothing. She stood in the simple doorway, dusty and disheveled from weeks in the saddle, her eyes moving from the small hearth to the rough table and chairs to the single heavy trunk under the window.
It was most charitably described as humble, and the contrast between this hovel and the dignified estate at Aldeburke made Remin flush with humiliation.
“Not what you were hoping for, Princess?” he asked, tossing his own rough pack into the only empty corner.
He wanted her to be angry. She should be angry to be brought to a place like this.
It was her father’s fault she was here, and her father’s fault that Remin Grimjaw had nothing better to offer his wife.
“You told me it would be a cottage,” she said, blinking. “Is there—could I have a bath before supper? I was hoping—”
“There will be no maids to draw baths for you here.” Best she knew the worst of it now. “If you want to wash, you’ll have to fetch water from the well.”
“I will.” Her hands pressed together, her fingers twining an anxious knot. “I—I was p-planning to dress for dinner, I wanted…a fresh…”
Her voice wavered, each word quieter than the last, and the last of it was completely inaudible.
“Speak. Up,” he said impatiently. “We don’t dress for dinner here. There won’t be room for half your dresses in this cottage. You’ll have to get used to living simply.”
“I know,” she whispered. “In Aldeburke—”
“Does this look like Aldeburke?” Suddenly, he was furious.
“There’s no great house here, Princess. No servants, no maids to wait on you, no groundskeepers to chase away foxes.
In a few weeks, there are going to be hungry things coming out of the mountains, and no one’s going to have time to coddle the Emperor’s spawn.
There’s nothing here, do you understand?
We have nothing! We are going to have to build all of it ourselves, because your father—”
“I know!” She burst out, her eyes round with fright.
“I know, I will do it, I will get water myself, I won’t trouble you, I just don’t know where anything is and I wanted to look nice when I meet your men, I’ll be careful, you just have to tell me and I’ll do it, I only need a bucket, a b-basin, I’m sorry, I’m sorry! ”
Tears spilled from her eyes and she covered her mouth with her hand, shocking him out of his temper.
What was he doing? He had backed her up into the wall, and she was gripping the windowsill like she was about to go over it.
Automatically, he reached for her, but she ducked back, cringing into the corner.
His hand dropped.
“No,” he said into a heavy silence. “No, I’m sorry. Go sit down. You can draw your own bath next time.”
“I can do it,” she wept, scrubbing at her face with her sleeve.
“I know you can.” Carefully, he nudged her toward the closer of the two chairs, keeping his hands low and unthreatening. “I’m sorry. I went too far. Don’t cry, Princess. Stay here, I’ll be back.”
Ducking through the door, he closed it behind him, trying not to hear the soft sounds from inside the cottage. He felt like a brute, and a bully, and he deserved to. Even if she were feigning her tears, she had done nothing wrong. He had just been so angry.
“Leave her things here,” he said to the approaching squires, laden with the oilskins containing the princess’s books and clothing.
There was no place to put them but on the ground, in the mud.
“I’ll deal with them. Go and see if we have a large tub in the storehouse. Or a cauldron, from the kitchen.”
The boys exchanged glances.
“How big, Your Grace?” Ferme wanted to know.
“Big enough for a lady’s bath.”
* * *
The cauldron His Grace had acquired from the kitchen was just large enough that they could have cooked her in a stew.
Ordinarily, Ophele would have found this very funny.
Heating bathwater was a tedious process, especially given the size of the hearth.
She knew how to manage fire and boil water, and she figured out the hearth mechanisms easily enough—there was a cast iron bracket that swiveled to hold the pot over the fire—but she was literally watching water boil, and by the time she got one potful steaming, the previous one was already beginning to cool.
A series of buckets marched from the hearth to the door of the cottage, waiting their turn over the fire.
That was fine. All she wanted was to be clean, as if she could wash not just the road and aches of riding but the whole day from her body.
She didn’t understand what she had done wrong.
Her head throbbed dully as she gazed at the fire, trying to reason her way through the puzzle.
She had tried so hard to fix things, on the way to the valley.
She had kept quiet and stayed out of His Grace’s way, sick at the thought that she had delayed them so much.
The duke might have come home to find everything in ashes, of course he would be furious.
But then, why was he angry now? Hadn’t he said he wanted her to look nice, like a princess instead of a beggar’s brat? She hadn’t meant to complain, she wasn’t going to complain, it didn’t matter to her whether she lived in a cottage or a palace. Either was better than Aldeburke.
But maybe it wouldn’t be. Her stomach knotted as she glanced toward the window, wondering what hungry things would be coming out of the mountains.
Slipping out of her sweaty gown and chemise, Ophele climbed into her stew pot, ducking her head to soak her hair.
She still had all the soaps and lotions and sundries from Celderline, and she reserved a few buckets of cold water to rinse herself off, shivering.
There were no towels. Wrapping her arms around herself, she went to stand by the fire, hoping no one would come to the door and nothing hungry would come through the windows.
Spread on the bed was the gown she would wear tonight, as beautiful as anything Lisabe owned.
It was an unlikely combination of bronze and dark blue, studded with pearls on the bodice and skirt.
She could dress herself as far as her chemise and the bronze silk kirtle, but there was just no way to put on the overdress herself.
The duke might say that there was no one here to wait on her, but ladies’ gowns were complex constructions with many layers, fastenings, and laces, and often there were pieces that had to be sewed on after the lady was dressed.
Imagining the duke clutching a needle and thread in his huge hands made her mind boggle.
At least he had brought her books to the cottage. Ophele sat down at the table and hung her hair over the back of the chair to dry, then promptly fell asleep.
“Princess?”
She woke up to find the duke frowning down at her, as shaggy and black and bearlike as ever. He had taken time to wash and shave, and it was strange to see him without a beard, his bare cheekbones high and arrogant.
“Sorry,” she said at once, skittering nervously away. “Sorry. I fell asleep.”
“It’s all right. You need help with your dress?” he asked, taking in the many pieces laid neatly on the bed. Ophele had already donned the kirtle, a simple underdress studded with topaz along the neck.