Chapter 6 – A Poisoned Sweet #4
“Gee up, there!” Remin shouted, starting his horse off with a jolt.
Until last year, he had never touched a plow in his life.
It was hard work; the soil of the valley was rich, but wet and heavy, and the muscles in his shoulders and back burned pleasantly as he pushed the nose of the plow down, dragged forward by the horse in front of him.
The soil rolled up and outward like the wake of a ship, and the primal smell of fresh earth filled his nose.
“One!” shouted Auber distantly, to cheers from the spectators, who had already placed their bets. The odds heavily favored Auber.
“One!” Remin shouted back, clicking his tongue to get the horse to turn at the end of the row. He reset himself, pushed the plow into position, and called again, “Gee up, there!”
Five rows were a solid bit of work, and he was sweating when he was done, scarcely twenty seconds after Auber.
But his rows weren’t bad at all, following the curve of the hillside, and there was quiet satisfaction in this work that had been lacking even when the warlords of Valleth had fallen at his feet.
“I keep telling you, you don’t have to push the plow down so hard,” Auber said, mopping his sweaty face with a handkerchief. Even years of campaigning hadn’t browned his skin, and he turned red under the slightest exertion. “We’re planting wheat, not digging a mine.”
“When I plow a furrow, the earth will never forget it,” Remin said gravely, to the sniggers of the listening men, who received all vulgarities with the delight of twelve year-old boys.
Remin rode the length of Tresingale twice that afternoon, checking on his prized breeding rams, the progress of the wooden palisade, two sites where wells were being dug, and then met his town planner on top of the east gatehouse to look at the town site.
Nore Ffloce was a twitchy, excitable man with the angular limbs of a grasshopper, but he had an eclectic experience that was worth a little twitching.
“You can see we have the stakes up to mark the first two streets, Your Grace,” he said, holding up an enormous parchment so Remin could see the beautifully visualized depiction of a future Tresingale, with artisans’ quarters, shops, and houses, a temple, and a market square that Remin could already imagine decorated for the midsummer Turning of the Stars.
The grubby reality was a bunch of stout sticks and string in the mud, like a Bhumi wind graveyard.
“What about the flooding around the back of the temple site?” Remin asked, pointing to the large stagnant pool that the men called Mosquito Pond.
“Ah, we have been working on the drainage system, look here, Your Grace,” Nore said, as if he had been dying for Remin to ask.
Rapidly, he shuffled through his parchment.
“It’s fortunate that we’ve had a year to observe the troublesome areas, I’ve modeled your sewage system on the city of Indhigi, in Daitia… ”
Even the drains were fascinating. Remin listened, asked questions, and then left to bolt down the noon meal and head to the forest with his hunters, to see if they might get a look at a boar.
None deigned to make an appearance, but they did hear some distant grunting from deep in the trees that was either an enormous boar or a very localized earthquake.
By late afternoon, he had postponed going to look at the wall for long enough.
It was visibly longer than it had been even the day before, but Remin only watched the work from a distance.
He didn’t want to distract his men, who were doing hazardous work in high places, and the less he saw of his wife, the better.
Leaning over his saddle, he watched as the earth was shifted and stones moved into their places, one backbreaking rock at a time. The figure in green scampering past the scaffolding might not even have been the princess. From this distance it was impossible to tell who was who.
It wasn’t like he was looking for her, anyway.
* * *
There was a very slight incline on the lane into town. Ophele hadn’t noticed it at all that morning, but she was sure she could have calculated the exact angle that evening, just from the pitch of the shrieking in her legs.
“All right, Your Highness?” asked Sir Miche beside her. He was unspeakably filthy from digging all day, with his muddy shirt slung over one shoulder and his sword slung over the other.
She nodded. She was tired, but complaining about it wouldn’t change anything, except that maybe they wouldn’t let her help anymore.
“If you ever need to rest, say so,” he said, eying her critically. “You’ve already done more than anyone should expect.”
Exactly how low were their expectations? She had filled buckets with water. Helpful, yes, but minstrels would never sing songs of it.
“I’m all right,” she said. “But you don’t…mind? Digging all day? You’re a knight and everything.”
“You’re a princess and everything,” he noted, with a wry twist of his mouth. “Still not sure I like watching you sweat. But I like work, myself, even if it’s digging. It’s clean work. That was Rem’s idea.”
“What was?”
“This,” he said, jerking his chin toward the valley.
“Andelin’s a poisoned sweet, just like all the Emperor’s gifts.
He gives Rem a knighthood, then orders him over the Brede.
Gives him the valley, but it’s filled with Vallethi demonspawn and deserters and who knows what else, and then he pardons a pack of criminals and sends them to settle it.
No one would’ve blamed Rem if he just sold off what he could and retired to Capricia.
But he wants a grand city right on the Brede, and he wants to give all of us a chance to build something instead of destroying it. ”
The last part buzzed right by her, unnoticed. Ophele was appalled.
“The Emperor sent…criminals?” she echoed.
“It’s nothing to worry about, my lady. They’ll never get across the river.
Oi, Rem!” Sir Miche lifted a hand as they approached the cottage.
The duke was coming out of the stables further down the street, looking almost as grimy as Sir Miche; his boots were black with soil and his jerkin was covered with burrs.
“Wall’s coming on well, thanks to your lady,” Sir Miche said, according Ophele a sweeping bow.
“I’m glad she was useful.” The duke didn’t look at her. “Go into the house, wife, I need to speak with Miche. I’ll be in in a moment.”
She went. After the news about the criminals, she couldn’t look him in the eye anyway. How was she ever going to pay him back if her father kept adding to the debt?
Was there any point in trying to write the Emperor a letter? Ask him to please stop being mean to her husband? No, her father had never given her any consideration before. The fact that she was now the wife of his enemy would not help her cause.
A poisoned sweet, like all the Emperor’s gifts. She wondered if Sir Miche knew that she was one of those poisoned sweets, too. A princess that was no sort of princess at all, an honor that was a backhanded insult.
She was tired. Thinking about all of it now just made her…
more tired. After a day sweating at the wall, she felt unspeakably grimy, but if she wanted a bath, she was going to have to heat water herself, and the wood wasn’t going to set itself on fire.
Groaning internally, she reached for the kindling box.
There was a nice blaze going by the time the duke knocked at the door.
“Already started a fire?” He slid his jerkin off and hung it on the back of a chair. His white shirt was sticking to him with perspiration.
“I want a bath, please.”
He gestured to the buckets by the door. “You can bathe whenever you like.”
Ophele looked at them grimly. More buckets.
“Can you tell me where the well is?” She pushed herself back to her feet with a screech of quadriceps. “I can get the water myself.”
“I’ll go with you. Wait, look at me.” The duke caught her elbow as she went by and tilted her face up to look at her, his eyes narrowing. “Your face is burned. Wear a hat tomorrow, we’ll get one from the storehouse. And try to keep in the shade, as much as you can.”
The noblewomen of the Empire were famous for their aristocratic pallor.
He wouldn’t want his princess to embarrass him with a peasant’s tan.
Ophele looked away. This was enough to almost make her angry, which was very difficult to do.
She didn’t mind working hard, but being rebuked for not looking regal enough afterward was too much.
“I have something to tell you anyway,” he added as they walked to the well, behind the row of cottages at the top of a small hill. “You remember we heard about bandits in the area when we were in Trema? I’m going to have to go and deal with them. I’ll be gone a few weeks.”
Ophele was silent, absorbing this.
“You’re not going to tell me to be careful?” he asked dryly.
“I do want you to be—”
“The men will be giving you their oaths tonight,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her.
Ophele shut her mouth and looked at her feet as he filled the buckets for her, cranking the big windlass.
“You’ll need to dress nicely after your bath.
In future we’ll do something more formal for those that mean to live in the valley, but I want everyone to make their oaths before I leave.
You’ll be safe, Miche will keep an eye on you. ”
A bear. She followed him back to the cottage, hauling her heavy pair of buckets. An angry bear, roaring away in front of his cave, and in the end all of his roaring meant stay away. Don’t talk to me, don’t bother me, don’t come near me.
Putting water on to heat, she trudged back to the well with more buckets, and returned to find the angry bear naked at the washstand. Ophele’s face instantly flamed and she almost dropped her buckets in her haste to turn her back.