Chapter 2 – A Song of Shepherds
There were a variety of guard traditions in the Empire, both sacred and practical.
The guardsmen of the Imperial family had both.
The Guard of Ange, consecrated knights who competed for the honor to live and die for their charges.
Among the Great Houses of Argence, there were lineages of guardsmen nearly as long and distinguished as the Houses they served; who ever heard of a Melun aristocrat venturing forth without their attendant Eparde swordsmen?
In Segoile, no nobleman left his townhouse without at least two, even if he had to drag them out of a tavern and stuff them into livery before they had a chance to sober up.
Remin’s original House had had its tradition, too.
For seven centuries they had been patrons of the Macheis, a warrior family who had trained their sons and daughters as guardsmen with almost religious devotion.
There had been many distinguished warriors in that line, a long and honorable history, and they wandered into Remin’s mind just long enough for him to flatly reject them.
They had already failed when it mattered most.
He needed better shepherds for his lamb.
Long after Ophele was asleep, Remin lay awake, thinking.
War had taught him the hard way never to repeat his mistakes, and she made him question himself.
It did worry him that she was so innocent.
They would eat her alive in Segoile. In fashionable society, even maidens making their debut affected world-weary cynicism, a jaded air that Remin found both laughable and repellant.
As if they knew the first thing about suffering. He didn’t want her to be like that.
Shouldn’t there be room in the world for lambs?
The things he had seen in the capital had shocked him.
Through all the years of war, it had been some comfort to him to imagine that cultured, elegant world far away, a place beyond his hot, ugly hell.
Yet when he went to the capital, all those cultured, elegant people had wanted nothing more than to gobble up every dreadful detail, as if filth was the only thing that could rouse them from the dreadful boredom of their clean, safe world.
Ophele was the peace he had dreamed of, without even knowing it. It soothed something deep in him to watch her look at the world with her clear, clean eyes. He would go through that hell all over again, if only he could watch her enjoy the peace afterward.
The world needed lambs to make the work of wolves worthwhile.
“You’ll be at the storehouse this afternoon,” he told her as they walked to the stables the next morning, turning his head to take a long look toward the distant mountains, where there was still no sign of snow.
While she was in the offices above the storehouse, he would be searching among his wolves for someone to guard her while he was gone. “We’ll have a talk with Edemir first.”
Her eyes flicked up to his, widening.
“Both of us?” she asked nervously.
“Yes. I’m not angry that he sent someone to fetch me yesterday. If someone tries to walk off with you, I want to know. Immediately.”
“But he wasn’t,” she objected. “Once that man knew who I was, he stopped and apologized.”
“And if Jacot hadn’t shown up?” Sometimes it was very, very difficult to manage his temper. Remin pushed open the stable doors with a little more force than necessary.
“As soon as I knew what he wanted, I would have said no,” Ophele said stubbornly. “He didn’t seem bad, even if he did want a…” She paused and looked around before she whispered the forbidden word. “…prostitute. ”
Remin gave her a sharp glance as he went to fetch his horse.
His saddle was already waiting in its usual place, the leather carefully cleaned.
He wasn’t sure what to do. Should he push this point, to make her wary?
Overnight she seemed to have convinced herself that no one in Tresingale was capable of doing such a thing, and while he could have absolutely provided evidence to the contrary, he didn’t really want to.
What if it made her more timid? It had only been a few months since he had finally coaxed her to speak to him.
“I am not persuaded,” he said, electing to let the issue lie for now. “I’m not going to order Edemir to blindly obey you, wife.”
“I…don’t want that,” Ophele said slowly, her delicate eyebrows drawing together.
“Then what do you want?”
“I don’t want to bother you when you’re busy,” she said, with enough emphasis that Remin looked at her in surprise. It didn’t sound like a capital crime to him.
“I don’t mind,” he said, swinging atop his horse and offering a hand to pull her into the saddle before him. “I don’t think you’re a bother, wife.”
“I mind.” She settled into the crook of his shoulder.
Out in the open morning air and with everyone else hurrying about their business, Remin wasn’t worried about anyone overhearing their conversation.
“It was embarrassing,” she went on, low.
“They all made such a fuss, and I didn’t understand why.
I wasn’t hurt. And they wouldn’t even listen when I said I was fine, and they made you come all the way back home, as if…
as if I were a little girl who wanted her nanny. ”
This was the closest to angry he had ever heard his gentle wife, and Remin thought about it as they headed south on the road, his horse’s hooves clacking on the cobblestones.
They had no particular destination. These morning rides were one of his favorite parts of the day, a perfect time for this kind of conversation.
“I want to know,” he said finally. “If something happens to you. I want my knights to tell me right away. But…”
Maybe they had all overreacted. Remin’s knights had been away to war as long as he had, with similarly limited contact with women, and Ophele was a particularly petite and lovely specimen that roused every protective instinct they had.
Edemir’s message had been pungent and delivered by a secretary who had galloped to the barracks as if his horse’s tail was on fire, and Remin had bolted home in a black fury, expecting to find Ophele terrified and sobbing, if not something worse.
“It wouldn’t have been bad, if it was just a message,” she offered.
“Then I have to be able to trust you to tell me when you really need me,” he said, looking at her seriously. “No telling me you’re fine if you’re not. If I come home to find you’ve been hurt, or something happened, then I will be very angry.”
“I will. And you have to tell me too, if something happens,” she replied, with a mutinous and adorable pout to her lower lip that made Remin want to agree to absolutely anything she asked.
“All right,” he said, feeling a smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. Since there was no one nearby, he slowed his horse to a walk and bent to kiss those pouting lips, wondering if all men were such fools.
It was a fair distinction to draw for Edemir later that morning, and Remin forced himself to let Ophele make it, when his natural instinct would have been to leave her at the cottage and have a word with his knight himself.
Especially when Ophele was red-faced and obviously embarrassed, after yesterday.
But Remin thought there was some justice to her complaints about being treated like a child, and he had learned this lesson already, with his squires and soldiers.
He couldn’t do this for her. If she wanted his men to respect and obey her, Ophele would have to learn to assert herself.
“I understand why you didn’t want to…explain yesterday,” she began, standing before Edemir in the hallway outside the offices, where at least there were no witnesses.
Behind her, Remin avoided Edemir’s eyes to make it clear that he wanted Edemir to deal directly with her.
“But if I say not to trouble His Grace, please don’t.
We can send a message,” she added, looking up at Edemir.
Her fingers knotted together nervously. “Is that fair?”
“Yes, my lady.” Edemir gave her a bow. “I would have been neglecting my duty, if I hadn’t sent a message yesterday. I’m sorry if it distressed you.”
“I understand why you did,” she said, with an odd note in her voice. “But I don’t want to interrupt him unless it’s really necessary. Or any of you,” she added honestly. “I don’t want to be a bother. ”
“Yes, my lady.” That won a smile from the stolid knight. “Though I hope it won’t often be necessary. Are you here for the rest of the day?”
“Yes, except for an hour with Jacot. His Grace said you wanted my help?” she asked, following him into the office as he beckoned her on. This surprise was a few days ahead of schedule, but Remin trailed after her in great anticipation.
“Yes. Rem told me about Master Didion’s request for information about the devils, and there are other reasons why we need to make a study of them,” Edemir explained, wending his way through the worktables to a small space at the back of the room.
“Do you remember what I told you about the structure of knowledge?”
“Yes,” she breathed, her eyes widening as they came to stop by an Ophele-sized worktable and chair, set by a narrow window. “Thesis and components? About the devils? Is this for me?”
“Yes,” Remin said, unable to restrain himself any longer. “You’ll be working here in the afternoons, and you can interview my knights and soldiers, around the other duties Edemir assigns. You can ask all the questions you like, lit…wife.”