Chapter 8 – The Growth of Trees #2
“The worst part is, it will slow down the wall,” Edemir said grimly, surveying his new lists. His secretaries had been writing their fingers off, keeping pace with the flow of orders. “It’s going to be full summer before they even begin the northern stretch.”
“At some point we’re going to have to find out where the devils go during the winter, and why,” said Juste. “Are they hibernating? Breeding? Or one spring night we may find they’ve bred up more than we expected over the winter.”
“Maybe that’s what they did this winter,” said Huber, who was always good for a bad thought.
“Let’s not make any assumptions,” Remin said firmly. “We know what we’re dealing with, if not how many. Let’s call back a reserve force from the Vallethi border, and we can discuss tracking the devils to their burrows come fall.”
With the next day’s work divided between them, they broke for the night, far more warily than usual. The devils feared the sunlight and avoided torchlight, but it wouldn’t stop them. Outside the cookhouse, Remin found Miche leaning against the wall, waiting.
“She was scared,” Miche said, without preamble. “I told you to take her home because she was scared, Rem, not so you could get her out of the way. I know you’re an idiot about women, but you’re verging on being cruel. If she’s scared, you stay with her until she’s not.”
“My wife is not your business.”
“You made her my business. And you’re my business too, you giant git.”
Remin had been at odds with his men before.
It was inevitable; all of them were accustomed to command, all of them had strong opinions, and though Remin bore the title of the Duke of Andelin, it wasn’t a card he cared to play often.
He wanted his knights to argue with him if they thought he was wrong.
But this was the first time Miche had ever cared enough to have an opinion.
“I know we’ve always had to be wary of the Emperor’s gifts,” he was saying.
“But she’s not a knighthood or a duchy. She’s a seventeen year-old girl and no one asked her if she wanted to come to the edge of the Empire and listen to devils howling.
And she’s a good girl, she’s been working like a dog, which you would know if you ever talked—”
“It does not please me to find her hands in the kitchen, in Nore Ffloce’s planning, in Guisse’s construction, and managing the water supply for both the north and south wall.
” When Remin was angry, it came out in the all-but-forgotten tones of his father, stiff and icy and snapping like a whip.
“Have you considered for an instant how much damage she could do?”
“We’re talking about the same person, right? Five feet tall, timid, calls Bastard Wen Master?”
“The one who has you eating out of her hand.” Remin leveled a black stare at him. “You’ve never cared about a woman before, why does this one matter so much to you, Miche?”
“Don’t even try to tell yourself that lie.” Miche glared right back. “You’re the one that handed her off to me. I’m telling you that if you’re wrong, you’re going to be sorrier than you’ve ever been in your life.”
There wasn’t much more to say, after that. Remin stalked into his cottage and stripped down in the dark, rolling out his bedroll with a snap. The last straw would have been a timid question from the darkness, but if the princess was awake, she had the sense to hold her tongue.
In the morning, he found out where the flowers infesting his cottage were coming from.
“What the hell are these?” he asked, turning back through the cottage door with several ragged bundles of wildflowers in his hands. A number of them had been lying on the front step. The princess was sitting up in bed and her eyes were open, but that was all the progress she had made so far.
“The flowers?” She rubbed her eyes. “Someone leaves them.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know.” She wilted visibly under his stare, her voice shrinking. “They’re just there in the morning…”
Under the codes of courtly love, there was nothing inappropriate about anonymously leaving flowers for an admired lady.
Indeed, it wasn’t even necessarily romantic; knights frequently left small tokens for a lady that struck them with her beauty, grace, or skill at some noble pursuit.
Remin was effectively clutching notes that said, you have a fine wife.
Most men would have been proud that she was so—
Remin’s arm snapped back to strike before he could think about it, and Ophele, who had materialized at his side on her light little feet, ducked backward with a gasp.
Name of all the stars. He had almost struck her.
“I—I was just—” she began, her voice high with fright.
“It was just a reflex,” Remin said loudly. He set the flowers on the table and retreated, looking at her small white face. He hadn’t hit her, thank the stars. But his mouth was dry, and his heart was hammering so hard, he was almost dizzy. “Please do not…surprise me, wife.”
“I won’t,” she whispered.
“I’ll send Miche to take you to the wall,” he said, backing away, unable to take his eyes from her hands. Empty. Of course, they were empty. But for a second, from the corner of his eye…
“Get dressed,” he said, his stomach churning. Whatever Miche said, he wasn’t a complete idiot. He could see that she was frightened, and hurt, and it gave him no pleasure. This was why he was doing his best to keep away from her. To train his eyes to pass her by.
But no matter what he did, she persisted in being seen.
* * *
That was how all her days began.
“Get up.”
Black eyes. Thick black brows. Chiseled lips pressed tight together, stern and forbidding. Every morning the same frowning face swimming above her, as if sleep were an affront.
“Uh?”
“Up,” the duke repeated, pulling her into a sitting position. Left to her own devices, Ophele would have kept going straight over onto her face. It felt as if she had barely closed her eyes.
“…izzit?” she mumbled, rubbing her face with her hands.
“It’s dawn, time to get up.”
Blearily, she watched him put on a kettle to heat washing water and then strip off his shirt, dirty and sweaty and a little blood-spattered from guarding against the devils.
It wasn’t his blood. It was never his blood.
And he had been very careful to wash the worst of it off before he woke her ever since that first time, when she had opened her eyes to see him glaring at her through a mask of devil’s blood.
Half the town had heard her shriek, to her lasting humiliation, and it had taken some time before she could be sure it wasn’t all a nightmare.
To be fair, he had been sorry about that.
Ophele understood something of her father’s frustration, watching him shave.
Didn’t he ever get tired? Was he even human?
Night after night, he was standing watch, sometimes returning at dawn to wake her and wash before he went to work for the day.
She knew this because often she was still awake when he came home.
Yet somehow he looked as fresh as if he had come from a good night’s sleep, while she was so exhausted she was starting to believe in the Bhumi night hags, ephemeral demons that rode on the shoulders of their victims, whispering nightmares in the dark and leeching away warmth and strength by day.
Hands gripped her shoulders and lifted her bodily out of bed, standing her on her feet, and she had to catch herself. She had almost fallen back to sleep.
“Awake now?” His finger pushed her chin up to look at her, and Ophele shrank away. She knew she was nothing to him, neither wanted nor useful, nothing more than a chore.
Once, she had wanted to say so many things to him. Apologies, explanations, and an endless number of questions. Now she just felt paralyzed in his presence, afraid to do or say anything. Sometimes it seemed as if just the sight of her infuriated him.
He had made it very clear that he wanted nothing from her. Not even her help.
That hurt her more than almost anything else, including the incident with the flowers.
Ophele had unraveled that mystery inside twenty minutes; of course he would not want her near him, and would see her as a threat: her father had spent almost twenty years making sure of it.
But she had thought he would be pleased, when he saw the other things she had done.
Wasn’t it better if Master Wen didn’t have to stop cooking to fetch things?
And both Master Ffloce and Master Guisse had said they were glad she thought of the wells, especially with the stream by the north wall already drying up.
But maybe they hadn’t meant it. She was their duchess. Maybe they had been afraid to tell her she was wrong. What did she know of wells and walls?
“Get dressed,” the duke said as he shrugged into a rough jerkin, belting it around his waist. “I’ll see you at supper.”
The cottage door thudded shut behind him.
Safflower. That was the Bhumi remedy for night hags. Ophele stood in the silent cottage, feeling the rushes with her bare feet, and then moved stiffly to dress.
There was always a bouquet or two of flowers on the front doorstep, and she put them in water and hung the old bouquets over the bed to dry, filling the cottage with the sweet scent.
There was no sign of Sir Miche yet, so she stood by the new road, looking with pleasure at the cobblestones.
They had just been laid yesterday; was it safe to walk on them?
Did the mortar have to set, or something?
Cautiously, she stepped onto them, feeling the rounded river rocks through her small, sturdy boots.
“Admiring the metropolis, my lady?” Sir Miche’s voice said from behind her, and Ophele retreated guiltily.
“It will be, one day,” she said, brightening as he approached with Eugene. The donkey’s hooves clopped onto the road and the wagon wheels bumped upward with a sound that was like a touch of civilization. “Do you think that’s the first time anyone’s heard wagon wheels on cobblestone in the valley?”
His eyebrows lifted.