Chapter 11 – Try
Jacot of Caillmar was right. The Brede was cold.
It was nearly evening by the time it was safe to take the princess out of the icy river. Remin thought she was finally cooler; the pink flush had faded from her skin and she had stopped saying that it was too hot, but he was so cold himself, it was hard to tell for sure.
“Better, aye,” said Genon, wading knee-deep into the water to check her. His masses of silver-pink scar tissue made him too sensitive to temperature to take a turn in the river himself. “Breathing’s finally slowed down, heart’s beating regular. I think we can take her home.”
“She’s going to be all right?” The words had to be squeezed through a throat so tight, Remin wondered that he hadn’t strangled.
“I think so.” Genon lifted his fingers from the pulse point of her neck. “We won’t know for sure until she wakes up.”
Remin nodded.
He felt numb. Numb with cold, numb with shock, numb with fear.
He knew how to shut himself down when he had to, when he couldn’t afford to think or feel, but in this case there was nothing to fight, no action he could take, nothing he could do but endure.
He had spent the longest day of his life in the icy river.
“I can’t swim,” she had kept crying, confused pleas he would never be able to forget. “Let me out, I can’t swim, I’m fine, it’s just so hot…”
“It’s all right.” In waist-deep water, Remin held her away from him so he wouldn’t warm her, her soaked chemise drifting around her body and her long hair streaming in clouds around her head.
“Ophele, it’s all right. Didn’t I tell you I’d teach you to swim?
This is the first lesson. I’ve got you, all you have to do is float. ”
She was trying to listen. Her huge, soft eyes tried to focus on his face, on the trees shifting against the sky, seeing everything but understanding nothing, so bewildered that he couldn’t stand it.
Remin knew sun sickness. During summer campaigns in the Andelin Valley, sometimes sun sickness felled more men than the battle.
Everything her body was doing was working against her, from her racing heart to those panting breaths.
In the icy water, she shivered violently, her body’s perverse attempt to warm her when she was already burning up inside.
“It’s all right,” he said again. “Wife, I’m here. Shh, shh. Breathe, a good breath, deep and slow…”
Hadn’t he said that, on their wedding night? And then she had trusted him, and they had breathed together. But Remin knew he was no comfort to her now.
A white-faced Miche was waiting when he finally brought her out of the river, and Remin gave her to him for the length of time it took to bring his horse around and mount up.
All of the workers on the bridge had kept their distance, mindful of their lady’s modesty, but Miche hadn’t budged from the riverbank all afternoon.
“She’s cooler, thank the stars,” he said as Remin nudged Lancer over and reached out for her. His eyes were red. “Rem. She’s been working for you. She’s meant to be the mother of your children. You have to take care of her. Swear it.”
“I will,” Remin promised through numb lips, as Miche carefully surrendered her.
In their cottage, he pulled off her wet chemise and tossed it aside, laying her naked on the bed.
Sun sickness was caused by an imbalance of fire.
The cooling elements of air and water had to touch as much of her body as possible.
Was she warmer? He couldn’t tell, his own body was still icy from the river.
Remin soaked a towel in cold water from the well, sponging her with it. Water and air, cool water that would evaporate on her skin. The thought that she might die…
It could not be thought. He wouldn’t let it happen.
How had he let this happen? What business did she have, laboring day after day in the merciless summer heat?
When she woke up, he would never let her lift a finger again.
If she woke up. She would. Remin bent beside her, his face drawn into stark, forbidding lines, his chest so tight he could barely breathe.
What was wrong with him? He was never like this.
For some reason he couldn’t find the usual icy calm he felt in a crisis, and his thoughts kept scattering.
She was going to be so embarrassed when she woke up.
He could already imagine the look on her face.
Fainting in front of half the men on the wall, Miche cutting her dress off, and now she was naked in front of Genon.
Why did these things keep happening? He never intended to embarrass her, but he failed to prevent it, over and over.
“Going to be dark soon.” Genon grunted as he crouched beside the bed, taking the princess’s wrist between his fingers. “If I thought there was the slightest danger, I’d stay, but I think she’ll live. Miche saved her life, getting her down to the river as fast as he did.”
“Will she be all right otherwise?” Remin made himself ask. He had lost many people dear to him over the years, but he had never felt anything like this horrible, hollow helplessness.
“I don’t know.” Genon never lied about things like this. “It took a long time to cool her down.”
“That one soldier, at Creussen. How long did we keep him in the bath?” Remin couldn’t remember.
“It’s not the same, Rem. He was older, and it was almost two hours before we got him into a cold bath.”
That man had been unconscious for two days and awakened an idiot.
A drooling simpleton. The Hurrells had tried to convince him she was simple back in Aldeburke, but all it had taken was one good look into her eyes and Remin had known it was a lie.
When she opened her eyes, if she opened her eyes, what was he going to see now?
Ruthlessly, he cut that thought off.
“Someone should get Eugene. The donkey.” He lifted his head. “Can you check? Make sure someone took him to the stable.”
“I will,” Genon promised. “I know she’s fond of the beast.”
“Yes.”
Miche said the donkey followed her everywhere, with or without a lead rope.
“I set out some medicine on the table.” Genon laid her hand on the bed.
“The powder on the left if her head hurts, the elixir in the middle if she’s nauseous, and the one on the right she should take regardless, to cool her blood.
Mix them with water and have her sip slowly.
When someone brings your supper, I’ll have Wen send honey to mix with the medicine.
She needs sugar and salt. Lots of water, but slowly. ”
Remin nodded. He was familiar with these measures; he had nursed many sunstruck men when he was a squire.
“I’ll let Tounot know not to expect you on watch tonight. We’ll manage well enough, just you focus on your wife.” Genon heaved himself to his feet and began to pack his bag, rolling up the long, felt case that contained his tools and medicines.
“If you had to guess.” Remin couldn’t bite the words back. “If you had to make a bet…”
“I don’t believe she’ll die. We’ll know more when she wakes up. I’ll be back at first light to check on you.” The herbman paused at the door, gripping the handle. “She’s too thin, Rem. At least a stone underweight. You didn’t notice?”
Remin shook his head.
The door closed and latched. It sounded like a condemnation.
* * *
Color faded with the daylight, and Remin never took his eyes from her.
All this time, he had been trying so hard not to see her.
Forcing his eyes to go past her, pushing her to the furthest periphery of his life.
That had been a mistake. Perhaps it was the reason why he was so wrongfooted every time she appeared.
He had never been able to shake her out of his mind.
But in this one, crucial area, he had succeeded very well.
Stretched out on the bed, it was impossible not to see it, now.
He could see how terribly prominent her ribs were, the jut of her hip bones, even the knobby little protrusions of her wrists.
And he knew what she was supposed to look like.
Remin remembered every moment of their nights together, how her body had felt in his hands, against his lips, under his tongue.
He had kissed those ribs, he had felt those fragile bones jerk as she gasped with pleasure.
He had tried so hard to forget, but he never could.
Remin washed one thin arm, noting the bruises dotting her fine white skin, the scratches and scrapes, the stringy, starveling muscle from months of heavy labor. Her hands shocked him. New blisters layered on top of old, ragged fingernails. Those were not the hands of a lady.
This was not what he had intended. If someone had returned a horse to him in this condition, he would have had them whipped. And this was his wife.
An Imperial wife, a daughter of the stars, a princess of the House of Agnephus.
He had gone through fire and blood to be sure his new House would be built on bedrock, on the divine blood of the Emperor himself, so it could never again be taken away.
And for seven years he had imagined the spoiled, pampered princess he would marry, growing up with every kind of luxury, while he starved and worked and fought and froze.
And the whole time he had thought: he was going to make the Emperor’s daughter work.
He was going to show her what deprivation was like.
Let her go wailing to her father about the harshness of the world.
Let the Emperor gnash his teeth. Let him taste bile. Let him feel helpless.
From the day he met Ophele—no, from the instant they met—Remin had been trying to force her to play this part.
And she had never complained. Not once.