Chapter 3 – A Lamb’s Tale #5
…so very happy. Only yesterday, His Grace held the valley’s first tourney, and how exciting it was!
You know we never had such things at Aldeburke, and it was so splendid, with knights on horse, and archers, and a grand melee which His Grace won, and even jousting.
I never knew there was such an art to jousting…
Maybe it was a little mean to linger over the tourney when she knew that Julot and Lisabe had never seen one, and weren’t likely to. They had been raised in exile, just as she had. And anyway, this was a message to Azelma, not a spite letter for House Hurrell. Ophele shook herself.
But it has not been all tourneys and birthday parties.
I told you about the building underway in the valley already, and it is my delight to see it growing bit by bit every day.
Only a few days ago, I went with His Grace to see the place where the orchards will be.
Black plums and white cherries, do you remember?
I mentioned it to His Grace months ago, and do you know that he has sent for folk to tend them, all the way from Benkki Desa!
They are clearing the land now, so it will be ready when they come next year.
And though there are some who might mock him for it, I am so proud to see that His Grace does not scruple to toil with his own hands.
It is hard work, clearing trees, and in that particular hollow is an oak native to the valley which they call ironheart oak, a curious species that gets harder the deeper into the trunk one goes.
The men say the bigger trees might as well be made of stone.
Well, it happened that they were laboring at one such tree while we were there, and they finally managed to sink the axe only for it to stick there, like Hulainn’s sword in the stone in the old story.
And His Grace does hate to watch folk struggling, so he hopped off his horse, had the axe out, and then took down the tree in four whacks, like it was a sapling!
He will swear it is nothing, and I am no judge, but the men were certainly impressed .
We lingered a while so that he could help with other such oaks, and so I saw as they cleared them how they divided the trees up, so the pines went for building and the oak, walnut, and chestnut to the carpenters, and the rest will be for fire and charcoal.
Nothing goes to waste. Is it not something to think that the trees felled today will become useful and perhaps beautiful things, used for years and years by people who do not even know where they came from? But it pleases me that I know.
Remin teases me when I say such things, but he loves things made in the valley best of all.
The letter was very Remin-y, when it was done, and Ophele rather hoped he wouldn’t read it after all.
Glancing over at him, she found him characteristically scowling at his papers, his heavy black brows furrowed together.
But if she should speak to him, she knew his eyes would light up and there would be nothing but warmth in his voice.
She did not care if other people knew such stories of him. No. She hoped they would tell them.
They passed the morning in tea and correspondence, as the rain pattered musically on the cobblestones outside the windows.
* * *
By noon, the rain still had not abated. Ophele endured an undignified transport from the cottage to the cookhouse, cradled in Remin’s arms to save her skirts from the mud and holding her oilpaper parasol over his head.
She looked as respectable as she was ever going to look in a violet gown with lace panels in the bodice, and the cookhouse was breezy and cool when Remin set her down, its doors flung open to admit the rainy air.
Three men were already waiting by a roaring fire, Sir Justenin’s sandy blond head bent between two others.
Ophele shook out her parasol, suddenly feeling anxious.
“My lord.” Sir Justenin spotted them and moved instantly to greet them, bowing. “My lady. May I present Sir Leonin of Breuyir and Davi Gosse? They are to be your hallows.”
The two men bowed, ill-matched even at a glance.
The black-haired man was medium height and very elegant, dressed in an immaculate blue doublet and breeches as if he had never heard of mud.
His companion was tall and stringy, brown as a bean from his hair to his skin and dressed in rough homespun.
He did not bow as if he were accustomed to it.
When he straightened, she saw he was missing his right eye.
“You,” she said, startled. She had a good memory for faces, and while there were a number of one-eyed men in Tresingale, she remembered this rawboned face with its rough eyepatch. “You worked on the wall, didn’t you?”
He offered a familiar crooked smile, one corner of his mouth tugging up higher than the other.
“Aye, lady,” he said, shifting back to keep from looming over her. “Davi Gosse, at your service. You fetched me trowel once or twice, when I was fumble-fingered.”
“And you fought with Re—His Grace,” she amended, glancing up at Remin beside her. “Davi was the first to welcome me at the wall.”
“I have good men on the wall,” Remin agreed, extending a hand to Davi and a flick of his eyes to her that reminded her to be evenhanded with them. He had said several times that it was important not to play favorites.
“Sir Leonin of Breuyir, that’s in Tries, isn’t it?” she asked, turning her eyes to the black-haired knight and blessing the many hours she had spent among Aldeburke’s books of heraldry. “I saw the falcon device on your helmet.”
“Yes, my lady.” His eyes were a sharp and penetrating blue, clear as ice crystals. “I am honored.”
“Both of you honor me,” she said, with a nervous waving of her hands. “I think I remember Sir Auber mentioned you were at Jardingard. With the trebuchets?”
“Yes, my lady,” he repeated, with a single well-bred nod. “I joined His Grace after he crossed the Brede.”
She never knew what to say to remarks like that; you must be very brave was both obvious and trite, and she felt vastly unqualified to comment on the war in any way. She couldn’t help glancing at Remin for help, uncertain what was expected of her.
“I know them both well,” he said, taking her elbow. “Wen will be along with luncheon, there’s time to talk.”
It was a little more comfortable once they were seated by the fire, given a wide berth by the small groups of men who had come for their meal.
It was an unusually fine repast, with china and silver and a meal surpassing the standard bread and cheese.
Several game birds had been stuffed with red currants and roasted, so succulent they fell apart with a fork, and there were platters of tubers and greens, potatoes, and the hearty rolls Wen usually served at supper with thick pats of pale yellow butter.
“How did you come to serve His Grace?” she asked when the table was laid, the first polite question that came to mind. Really, she wanted to ask why under the stars they would choose to bind their lives to her, but she sensed she should not lead with that question.
Sir Leonin and Davi exchanged glances, and Sir Leonin spoke first.
“I am the fifth son of my family, my lady,” he said, laying his utensils down before he spoke. “I wished to make my own name. And I had just survived my first social season in Segoile,” he added, with a hint of humor. “Valleth seemed the lesser evil.”
This won a chuckle from Remin and Sir Justenin, and Ophele smiled politely, uncomprehending.
“And you, Sir Davi?” she asked. He glanced at Sir Leonin before he too laid his utensils down.
“I’m not a knight yet, if you’ll pardon, lady,” he said bluntly, but with such good will she didn’t feel chastised.
“Just a common soldier, that’s me. Marched under Duke Norgrede first. I wasn’t there for the bit on the Gresein, but I was at Kiel Gorge.
When Duke Andelin gave me command of me own lads, I asked to say me oaths to him.
Worked out well enough,” he finished, with another flash of that crooked smile.
“You didn’t want to keep building?” she asked, a little plaintively. To her, it seemed like such a waste, to survive the war and learn a trade only to take up a sword again.
“Sword fits my hand better, lady,” he said with an apology in his voice. “Tried it His Grace’s way, just to see what it was like, but it ain’t for me.”
“Oh, I didn’t mean anything…bad,” she said quickly. “Huvara said there are some people meant to stand watch, and some people are meant to listen for the bells. She’s at the baths. Huvara, I mean.”
“One of the Benkki Desa women?” Sir Leonin rescued her as Ophele reddened at her clumsy explanation. “The one who fought yesterday?”
“No, she’s one of the other ladies.” An avalanche of information about the serenity of maidens threatened to burst forth but ran solidly up against her own clumsy tongue, stuck firmly to the roof of her mouth .
“It was a good bout,” Sir Leonin said, filling the silence politely. “I confess I know little of that country, but Master Balad has been good enough to tell us…”
Under the table, Remin’s hand brushed hers, but it was less consolation than usual.
It had just dawned on her that these men were going to see all her embarrassing moments.
They would witness every mistake, every awkward conversation, inevitably discover every secret.
Her life in Aldeburke had at least afforded her some privacy.
And she couldn’t even protest on those grounds; a normal noblewoman would be accustomed to attendants and guards from earliest childhood.
These two men would be with her the rest of her life.
She would see them every single day. Sir Miche had blown apart her objections so effortlessly, it felt like whining to voice them again, but she still couldn’t accept it.
And though until very recently her opinions and feelings had no bearing whatsoever on what happened to her, Remin and his knights had been listening respectfully to her foolishness for months.