Chapter 12 – Lady of the Wall #3
“I don’t like it when people break their promises.
” That handsome, arrogant face could look so forbidding.
She didn’t know what to say. It had seemed like a small thing to tell Jacot, no, we’ll go on, meaning no harm and thinking they would only go a short distance further.
She hadn’t considered it in the light of a promise broken, and certainly not something that could fracture the fragile peace between the duke and herself.
The bare thought made her struggle against rising panic.
But wasn’t breaking a promise the same as telling a lie?
He already couldn’t trust her; she shouldn’t dare to stir a step without making her intentions clear.
What should she do? The silence prickled between them and she could feel the scant, stiff inch between her back and his chest like wind howling through a chasm.
They rode in silence down the length of the wall, and turned onto the east road.
“Why did you do it?” he asked abruptly.
“Jacot doesn’t know how to do averages.” She answered quickly and had to remind herself to speak up.
“That was how I kept track of how much water everyone was using. The buckets and barrels. He was just giving everyone the same amount. But I had to teach him multiplication and division first, and I wasn’t done when we got to the north end, and I didn’t realize how far we’d gone until you came. I’m sorry.”
He waited, eying her to be sure she was finished.
“I understand. But you promised me. It might seem like a small thing, but this is a dangerous place.” He nudged her to make her look up at him. “Wife. I want to be able to trust you.”
“You do?” Ophele was nearly holding her breath. She had not expected it to go this way, at all.
“I do.” He shifted in the saddle, and she realized that he was uncomfortable, and the shocking thought struck her that maybe this was as difficult for him as it was for her. “Promises are important to me.”
“I’m sorry,” she said again, laying a hand on his arm. “I didn’t think of it that way. I won’t do it again.”
“Then that’s the end of it.”
And that really was it. His arm tightened around her and Ophele settled back into the comfortable crook of his shoulder and chest, feeling so light she could have laughed, or burst into song. Was it really so simple as that? Could it really be this way between them?
“He said he can’t read,” she told him impulsively. “Jacot. The other boys are making fun of him.”
“There will be time for such things when the wall is done,” the duke replied. “He will have to learn to cope with insults on his own, wife. Believe me, he will not thank you for intervening.”
“But it would help him on the wall if he knew more arithmetic, at least. Perhaps I could teach him again tomorrow, in the morning?”
“Will you keep your word to go no further than the north end?” There was a pleasant rumbling in his voice, even though his face was stern.
“I will.”
“Then yes.”
It was so nice. She didn’t want the ride to end. She wanted to see anything, everything, and it was so comfortable to ride with him this way. And surely he was as tired of the cottage as she was.
“Is there somewhere else you have to go?” she asked, thinking of the many projects underway throughout the valley. “To see Master Didion or Master Ffloce? The planting? Or the palisade? Or that new building by the river?”
He still wouldn’t tell her what that was going to be.
“The planting is done,” he said, slanting a look at her that said he wasn’t fooled. “But they’re laying the foundation of the manor house today.”
“It’s still early,” she said, glancing east, where the sun was now a handspan above the horizon. It would be a hot day, but not yet. “I don’t mind, if you want to go look…”
“That’s very gracious of you.” The corner of his mouth twitched.
The duke wasn’t wearing his armor today. Ophele could feel his heart pounding against her back as he turned the horse south, down lanes lined with sticks and string, like the shadowy outlines of a dream.
* * *
In the dark hours before dawn, Remin jerked awake.
The cottage was still dim and sketched silhouettes of familiar shapes: the chair he was always knocking his knees against, the washstand at his feet, the bed a scant foot past his head.
His eyes flashed underneath it, checking the frame automatically for the shape of concealed weapons before he sat up, careful of the many breakable objects nearby.
Even if he had survived another night without anyone trying to murder him, living in such a small space meant he lived in constant, hunched terror of knocking things over.
It was early, but there would be no more sleep. Yawning, he scrubbed his eyes with his palms, trying to drive out the dream still rattling in the back of his mind like an unquiet ghost. His skin was slippery with sweat.
His dreams were starting to wear on him.
Rising, he went to scrub his face, then built a fire and put on a kettle of water to heat.
Soon, there would be an actual bathhouse with water piped from the river and constantly heated by furnaces.
Nore Ffloce’s eclectic background served them well; it would be a bathhouse in the luxurious Benkki Desa style, clean and practical, easily expanded when the time was right.
Already there were two teams of bathhouse workers on the way from Abharana, with a Madam Imari Sanai to manage the women’s half.
He was saving that as a surprise for Ophele.
There were a number of other gifts creaking their way to the valley in various wagons, some of which she knew about and others she did not, but it was sheer coincidence that they would arrive around her eighteenth birthday.
Remin deserved no credit for remembering it.
It was Miche who had wondered aloud if the Duchess had attained her majority yet, and that had been a nasty moment, when Remin realized it might have already passed.
He suspected that was another thing he would have heard about for the next fifty years, if he had forgotten her birthday.
Ophele didn’t so much as twitch as the teakettle whistled.
Remin washed, shaved, and dressed, foregoing his shirt and making do with a simple cotton jerkin that left his arms bare.
It was too hot for layers. He couldn’t imagine how Ophele endured all the drapery that fashion decreed was required, and every day he sent an impatient inquiry to the Gellege Bridge, asking if there was news of the order of clothing from Mistress Courcy.
What did women wear elsewhere in the world?
Imperial noblewomen mostly stayed indoors, so maybe it wasn’t such an inconvenience elsewhere in the Empire, but now that he had seen how impractical his wife’s clothes were, his opinion had turned resolutely against them.
Remin felt no obligation to abide by the foolish conventions of the Empire.
This was his valley. They would wear what they liked.
Maybe he could find a tailor and some seamstresses who would appreciate a little creative freedom.
“Ophele.” Kneeling next to the bed, he peeled the covers off and shook her. “Wake up, wife, it’s morning.”
“Iss mornin…?” Her eyes were still closed as she sat up.
“Would you rather stay and sleep?” he asked, unable to resist teasing her when she was still mostly unconscious. She was so pretty with her face all soft from sleep. “I wanted you to go with me today, but if you’re too tired…”
“No, I want to go.” Her eyes snapped open, and he repressed a smile.
“Here,” he said, putting her hand around a cup of water, and as soon as she managed a sip, he stepped outside to let her wash and dress.
By the time he went to the cookhouse for breakfast and the stable for his horse, she should be ready to go.
And sure enough, she was waiting outside the cottage when he rode up, looking creditably awake.
“Where are we going?” she asked eagerly, taking his hand to be lifted into the saddle. She was dressed in a pale green gown with slashed sleeves and a curving neck that revealed the upper swells of her breasts. The sweet scent of her soap wafted as Remin set her before him.
“We’ll have a look at the palisade first,” he said gruffly, trying to ignore these temptations. “Something’s been gnawing at the end near the ridgeline. Then Auber wants to take a look at the land west of the wheat fields. It’s all hilly forest, might be good for an orchard.”
“Apples?”
“And cherries, and whatever else we can get to grow.”
“Apples are my favorite.” Ophele settled against him as they swung north, chewing on a breakfast biscuit. “What about you?”
“Peaches. There was an orchard at Rospalme, in Ereguil.” It was peculiar how even this simple answer made him feel as if he were giving another tiny piece of himself into her keeping. Remin twitched his shoulders and tried to ignore his unease.
Before her sun sickness, he had been accustomed to making a circuit of the valley in the morning, looking in on the various projects to see their progress with his own eyes.
He had been ashamed to realize that she had never seen any of them before.
Until her illness, she had never gone anywhere but the cookhouse and the wall.
Today she would go with him. It was cool enough in the morning that he thought it was safe to go out, and he found himself wondering what she would say. She had been getting braver about speaking, and every time she dared to offer an opinion or started a conversation, it felt like a victory.
“We’re on the same latitude as Abharana, in Benkki Desa,” she said thoughtfully. “They grow peaches there. And black plums and white cherries.”
“Did you memorize that book?” he asked, amused. Ophele had already trotted out tidbits from A Survey of the Nations of the Sea of Eskai several times, which included information on the major exports in the region.