Chapter 12 – Lady of the Wall #2
“Look how far they’ve come,” she marveled as they turned off the road toward the south wall.
The wide gap between the two walls was filled with heavy mobile barricades designed to be moved into place at nightfall, sturdy enough to hold back all but the most determined wolf demons.
They had hardly gone five minutes before they reached the far end of the diggers, already sweating with their labor, and their shouts rose in a wave as they spied Ophele.
“Hello, good morning,” she said, waving and scarlet to her hair. Remin took pity on her and didn’t linger, nudging his horse into a trot as they reached the scaffolding. His sharp ears caught some interesting words among the shouting.
“…lady of the wall?” he repeated, and was surprised to see Ophele’s eyes shift guiltily away. She was no master of deception.
“I wonder where Master Eugene is?” she said, as if she had gone temporarily deaf, and craned her neck to look south.
“There,” Remin said, at the same moment that she gave a cry, and he indulgently galloped over to the wagon where Jacot was leading the elderly gray donkey.
She would have leaped off the horse if he hadn’t caught her and lowered her, and she only paused to offer a quick greeting to the boy before she rapturously embraced Eugene.
“M’lady? Maybe you oughtn’t…” The boy trailed off as the donkey nuzzled eagerly at her pockets, and the fact that Ophele had come prepared with carrots was sufficient to make him step back respectfully, glancing up at Remin.
“The Duchess will be your teacher this morning,” Remin explained, leaning over his saddle. “I hope you’ll be able to do the job as well as she did.”
Jacot’s mouth fell open. He glanced over at the small noblewoman, who was cooing over the donkey as if he were a kitten. The boy had given his age as fourteen, but he was eight inches taller than the lady and his long limbs were taut with wiry muscle, strong enough to cross the Brede.
“I will,” he said stoutly.
“And treat that beast well,” Remin added, with a weight of warning. He hardly needed to say it; it was clear that Ophele had made a pet of the creature, and Jacot was clever enough to see how things stood. “Wife?”
He extended the small basket of croissants, hoping it would be enough to keep her from carrying anything heavier.
“Be careful,” he cautioned. “If you feel the least bit tired—”
“I’ll sit down in the shade.”
“You’d better, or you’ll spend another week in the cottage. I’ll come find you at the north end of the wall.”
She nodded, offering him a shy smile, all the more precious for its rarity.
For many reasons, Remin had to fight down an impulse to follow.
Jacot of Caillmar posed a challenge. There was no way to ascertain whether he was who he claimed to be; he claimed to be no one, and orphan boys were a dime a dozen.
It was entirely possible he was just a brave lad hoping to become more than he was, daring the Brede because he had nothing to lose.
Or he could be one of the Emperor’s creatures.
Every precaution had been taken. Only guards on watch and Remin’s knights were permitted to carry weapons as a rule, and the clothes the boy had been wearing when he arrived had been confiscated and searched.
He had no belongings, and would be allowed none until he was a squire.
Unless he ran over to one of the blacksmiths and stole a hammer, he had no weapon but his bare hands.
Seeing wolves in every lamb…
But Remin was trusting him with Ophele. Watching her go, he had the familiar sense that he was drowning, and the harder he floundered, the faster he sank. And he had known it would be that way. He had known that the more he looked, the more impossible it would become to look away.
She hadn’t gone twenty paces before she was surrounded by masons and handing out croissants, pleased to have something she could give away.
Remin wheeled his horse around and kicked him into a gallop, feeling shamefully as if he were fleeing.
* * *
“It’s mostly counting,” Ophele explained as she walked with Jacot of Caillmar, petting Eugene and watching the page from the corner of her eye.
The only boy she had known before was Julot, but she was charitable enough to assume he was not the standard for his gender.
“The blacksmiths do different things on different days, so some days they’ll go through more water than others.
If you keep count in the morning, you can usually guess how much they’ll need in the afternoon and bring them some extra barrels to get ahead. ”
“Keep count?” Jacot asked blankly. He had a pretty face for a boy, with rough-cropped brown hair and bright blue eyes.
“Of how many buckets and barrels they go through. It takes an hour to go the length of the wall and back, so if you keep count of how much everyone is using in an hour, then you can figure out the averages…” Ophele had carefully tracked the numbers in her mind over the months, adjusting the averages over time, and after three months she had become fairly skilled at guessing how much water would be needed where.
Efficiency was the only way she could have managed the task.
She didn’t have the strength to muscle through it.
But after a while, she realized Jacot was having very little to say.
“I didn’t know there’d be so much reckoning,” he said, his brows knotted. “Dunno if I can do that.”
“Oh.” Ophele blinked and flushed. The Habits of a Lady said it was a cardinal sin to make someone else feel embarrassed or uncomfortable, but it had never occurred to her that anyone might not know how to calculate averages. “Oh, I beg your pardon, I didn’t think…”
“No, I can learn,” the boy said stubbornly. “I know my counting. What’s a average?”
Compassion made her braver than she would have been otherwise, to make up for her thoughtlessness, and Ophele began with multiplication and division before she introduced averages, though there wasn’t nearly enough time to do any of it justice as the north end of the wall approached.
“Sure you’re all right, Your Grace?” Jacot asked doubtfully as they turned to head south. “Be my neck, something happens to you.”
“No, I’m quite well,” she assured him, her mind focused firmly on the problem before her. “The six times is where it gets harder, but if you use your fingers as an abacus, it will help. There are lots of tricks you can use to help you remember, like the trick of nines.”
“What trick?” Jacot glanced nervously over his shoulder.
“The sum of any two digits that are the product of nine times any other number equal nine,” she said blithely. “Nine two times is eighteen, right?”
She tried not to be discouraged by the fact that the boy’s fingers jittered at his side before he nodded his agreement.
“Eighteen is a one and an eight.” She held up her own fingers to illustrate. “One plus eight is nine.”
“Yes…”
“Now add nine three times.” It had been a very exciting day when seven year-old Ophele recognized this pattern. She loved patterns, it was like discovering a secret.
“Twenty-seven.”
“And two plus seven is…?”
“Nine.” Jacot’s eyes widened. He was ignorant, but he was not stupid. “And…thirty-six, forty-five, fifty-four, sixty-three, seventy-two, eighty-one, ninety…”
Ophele clapped her hands, beaming.
“See? It doesn’t work with ninety-nine, but then it works again at a hundred and eight, a hundred seventeen…”
“Is there more like that?” Jacot asked eagerly. “I was hoping for some learning when I got here, but all the squires say we got too much work what needs doing to bother.”
“Maybe I could lend you a book…” Ophele faltered as soon as she visualized the books on her shelf. There was nothing there suitable for a beginner.
“No, lady, but thankee kindly. I ain’t quite up to books yet. And I wouldn’t give a f—I wouldn’t care what Sir Tounot’s lads say about anything else, but I am shamed, being so backward at my age.”
“Well, you want to learn, don’t you?” she said warmly. “If you don’t ask, then you’ll never know.”
A noise of hooves trampled the end of that sentence, and as Ophele turned to see the duke rapidly overtaking them, she realized with a start that they had come halfway down the wall already. There was a grimness in his face that sent a warning shiver up her spine.
“We agreed you would only go as far as the north end,” he said as he drew up beside her. On the other side of Eugene, Jacot gulped.
“It’s my fault,” Ophele said instantly. “I told him it was fine. I’m all right, I don’t feel hot or tired at all.”
Unconsciously, her hands moved to cover Eugene’s long ears, as if the donkey might be troubled by the tenor of the conversation. The duke looked down at her, his opaque black eyes so dark, it was as if they could devour the world.
“You gave me your word,” he said ominously. “Jacot, you may go. Thank the lady for her time.”
“I do,” the boy said fervently, giving her a bow. “Very grateful, Your Graces. I’ll remember the nine times table. And I’ll be good to Master Eugene.”
He was grateful, but he was still a boy, and departed at speed. Ophele’s fingers twisted anxiously before her.
“Come. We’re going home.” The duke’s jaw was tight with displeasure as he nudged the horse nearer.
Ophele was frozen. She didn’t think he would come to hate her again over something that had seemed so trivial, but his voice had those stiff, frosty tones she remembered all too well, and all the friendliness was gone from his face.
It felt like a weight of ice had settled solidly in her middle.
“I’m sorry.” She had to force the words out, her tongue feeling clumsy, a moment from rooting itself to the roof of her mouth. “I didn’t mean anything, I wasn’t thinking…”
“You’re speaking too quietly.” The duke held out a hand, his brows knotting together. “Come here. I can’t hear what you’re saying.”
“I said, I’m sorry.” She made herself take his hand and let him lift her into the saddle. “I didn’t mean to go so far.”