Chapter 6 – The Feast of the Departed #7
Had she managed to deceive them after all?
Ophele had to look down to hide her expression, trapped in a vortex of fear and guilt and shame, because she didn’t know what to do with this outpouring of love.
It could not be for her. It would evaporate the instant they knew the truth.
In her head was Lady Hurrell’s voice, so real and present, it was as if Ophele had summoned her through the sacred smoke.
Little mouse. Liar. Bastard. Ophele was only married to Remin because the Emperor had wanted to hurt him, to chain him to a wife who would hinder rather than help him .
Which was worse? Continue the deception, or confess all right now?
It would humiliate him if she did that, and right after he had praised her to his family, but how could she sit and listen, knowing it was all a lie?
He would hate her, he would never trust her again, she could just imagine the look on his face, the warmth draining from his eyes, and hear that terrible cold fury in his voice again.
Stars, she couldn’t, she couldn’t, the thought of it made her want to be sick—
Remin’s voice never stopped as his big hand caught her and drew her into his chest, as if he had sensed her turmoil.
And she had never been so grateful just to hide.
For a long time, she breathed his warm, familiar scent, dispelling some of the cold giddiness of the incense.
Gradually, her thoughts stopped chasing each other so frantically.
She always ended up in the same place. By now, the length of her deceit was almost worse than the thing she was trying to conceal.
And she was too much of a coward to confess it.
Next year, when she had learned to be a lady and was carrying his child, then she could say it.
Then she would confess and beg pardon as forthrightly as Remin had.
It would be her last lie. The biggest and worst of them, maybe, but she wasn’t brave enough to do this now.
“All right?” Remin murmured, and she nodded, lifting her head.
“The smoke,” she said, trying to smile for him. It was not a lie.
* * *
If Remin had had his way, he would have lingered with his family until dawn.
There was so much still to tell them. So much he had forgotten, in the years since his last Feast of the Departed.
Before tonight, he hadn’t spoken to the spirits of his family since he was seventeen and on his way to war, promising them with the boastful ignorance of youth that he would defeat Valleth and take back everything that had been stolen.
There had been no time for feasting during the long war. And last year, with Valleth’s surrender only a few months old, he hadn’t known what to make of any of it, much less what to tell his family. He hadn’t felt victorious. He had just felt empty.
But he thought he understood now why he had avoided them all those years. It had been too hard to face them when he was alone .
“It will really be safe?” Ophele asked as they made their way to the north gate together. She was shivering in the chill and a little wobbly on her feet, light-headed from the incense.
“Yes. Wait.” Remin turned her face up to him and cupped her cold cheeks in his hands, stroking with his thumbs.
Dimly, he remembered his mother doing the same on his first Feast of the Departed.
“Draw deep breaths, and it will pass,” he promised.
“And it is safe, the devils can’t bear sunlight.
They’ll go back to wherever they came from, or hide in dark places until tomorrow night. But just in case…”
He jerked his chin over her head, and Ophele turned to see his knights approaching, heavily armored and bearing spears, accompanied by the vast majority of the barracks.
It had been a long vigil for everyone tonight, and he could see the signs of incense everywhere: a whiff of that cold, sharp air wafted from everyone’s clothing, and all of them were flinching away from the torchlight, their pupils swollen huge and dark, as if they had stared long into the void.
“Everyone awake?” he asked Bram, who was clearly more comfortable in his battered armor.
“Made ’em march here to prove it,” he replied, and ducked his head in Ophele’s direction. “My lady. Safe as houses with us, don’t worry.”
“I’m not,” she said, surveying the long line of men. Five hundred armored soldiers were an impressive sight. “Might we see one, though?”
She looked interested rather than frightened at the prospect.
“Maybe a ghoul,” Bram replied. “Stupid buggers. Nine times out of ten, you find one smoking and stinking after dawn, it’s a ghoul.”
“Do you find them often?” she asked, and Remin followed her, listening with amusement as she interrogated Bram, plainly longing for a quill and parchment.
Almost the entire population of Tresingale was gathered near the gate, moving respectfully to either side of Eugene Street to allow the approaching knights to pass.
Nore Ffloce had planned this well; the remains of the night’s feast were distributed along the inside of the palisade and down the street to allow everyone to share the bread and meat.
There were times when it was appropriate for Remin to don his armor, and times when it was better to look like a lord.
This morning, it was the latter. Though he was surrounded by his knights as the heavy gates creaked open, Remin was still the first to step outside, armed with nothing but a crusty loaf of bread.
The sky to the east was lightening, just enough that he could make out the faces of those around him.
“Stay behind me,” he murmured to Ophele as they ventured onto the dusty road.
If there had been any devils nearby, the guards on the palisade would have seen them; the forest had been cut back for half a mile from the wall, and before them stretched acres of empty fields.
Nothing could approach without being seen.
Far away, a strangler cackled.
On either side of Remin, the knights and soldiers spread out, moving to form a perimeter at the edge of the fields, so nothing would snatch his people into the darkness under the trees.
Remin didn’t believe that would happen, but it took courage for all of them to come out before sunrise.
That was why he and Ophele had to go first.
They were all there. To his right, he saw Sousten Didion bending to take off his boots, grimacing as his bare feet touched the dirt.
There was Cam Sharrenot, the master carpenter, and Remin held out his arm to balance Ophele as she took off her little red slippers, a splash of color in the growing line of boots.
Down the row to his left, Genon was there, unarmored but with a sword belted at his waist.