Chapter 8 – On the Origins of Devils #2
“Well, he’s not dead,” said Gen, as the cleric vomited again. Beckoning for a bucket, he washed the worst of it away. “Brother, can you hear me? I’m the camp surgeon, just going to take a look at you.”
Brother Oleare looked beyond hearing anyone. Remin stood back as Genon produced a clean sponge to press to the old man’s lips, so he could wet his tongue without provoking more vomiting. His color was poor, chalk-white, and with his mouth open the bones of his skull were unsettlingly prominent.
“Nothing wrong besides the obvious,” Genon said, rising and beckoning two waiting porters to carry the cleric over to a nearby wagon. “Needs sleep and feeding up, but he might drop dead any second of old age. Wonder why he came. ”
“Hopefully we’ll get a chance to ask.”
“At least we’ve a hospital to put him in,” Genon said philosophically.
He and his journeymen spent most of the last two months outfitting a small stone building to serve the need, now that there were so many people in the valley.
Remin’s population was mostly young but very active, and they averaged a serious injury every few days, to say nothing of the usual illnesses, sprains, and contusions that occurred in daily life.
“Welcome to the Andelin, Brother,” said Remin, bending over the back of the wagon to sketch the blessing of the stars.
Gently, he touched chest, forehead, cheeks, and then covered the cleric’s eyes with his palm and lifted it in the gesture of revelation.
“It would be a shame if you never got to see it.”
“I’ll send a runner if anything changes.” Genon mounted the front of the wagon and gave the reins a snap. “Give my regards to your lady.”
It would be some hours before Remin had time to give regards to anyone.
He was still only two-thirds of the way through his list by suppertime, and swung by the cottage to find Ophele buried in her papers and ignoring a perplexed Lady Verr.
Setting down a hamper of food, he served Ophele himself, admonished her to eat, and then went back to the kitchen to remind Wen to bake a few treats for her while he was away.
It seemed all too likely that she would closet herself off with some new project and live off tea.
Jogging up the stairs to the storehouse office, Remin sat down with Edemir to make still more lists.
It was his own fault. How many times had he told his men that no one should be irreplaceable?
And yet he had never made plans to delegate his own work, in case he was injured or fell ill, for who could replace the Duke of Andelin?
Ophele? Now he had reason to regret it as he sat and racked his brains, scribbling pages of instructions for Juste, Edemir, and Bram, trying to anticipate a season’s worth of trouble in the space of a few hours.
His head was aching by the time he finally went home, to find Ophele asleep at the table.
They were going to talk about this tomorrow.
She was not going to be working all hours of the day and night, falling asleep at the table, and skipping her supper while he was gone.
She didn’t so much as twitch as Remin lifted her from the chair, her head lolling over his arm, and her bare feet were like ice as he tucked her into bed.
He didn’t mean to look. Even if it was galling that she still hadn’t let him see whatever she was working on, and he was about to leave her for months.
But as he bent to blow out the lamp, his eyes happened to fall on her papers long enough to recognize the map of the Andelin, which he knew as well as the palm of his hand.
Eight copies of that map, each one dated in the upper right: Spring 822.
Fall 822. Spring 823, Fall 823. Spring 824…
Remin frowned, flicking through the pages.
A map for each fall and spring for the last four years, all of them dotted with small, unevenly shaded circles, identified by a number and date.
Turning, he skimmed the topmost set of notes, scrawled in Ophele’s messy, childish handwriting.
It took only a minute for him to understand what he was reading.
Slowly, he sank into the chair.
He and his men had been wracking their brains for months , trying to think of a way to find the devils’ dens, and this infuriating little creature had gone behind his back and done it!
“Ophele,” he said, going to shake her awake. “Wake up. Explain this to me.”
* * *
The next morning was quite busy.
The sun had barely touched the horizon before Remin was up and about, pushing a half-conscious Ophele into Lady Verr’s hands with orders to make her look like a scholar.
The bare thought of his wife made Remin simultaneously want to laugh and shake her, bursting with pride at what she had done and intense irritation that she had kept it to herself until the final hour.
It was both unbelievable and entirely in character that she would have been working quietly at something like this for weeks without breathing a single word about it to anyone.
“But I asked you where the devils came from, remember?” she had protested the night before, bewildered. “I wanted to find out.”
That had set off another explosion of laughter, and by the time he stopped, she had looked a little sulky .
“No, you did, you did,” Remin had agreed, wiping his eyes and laying a hand on her head, the small, delightful casing for her busy brain. And then he had taken her back to bed and made enthusiastic and very slightly vengeful love to her, to make sure she passed out until morning.
For his own part, Remin was off to Juste’s cottage at dawn, with Ophele’s maps and several pages of interviews clutched in one hand. He hadn’t gotten halfway through his explanation before the generally imperturbable Juste let out a short, violent exclamation.
“That’s what she meant?” he demanded, as if Remin, her husband, had been granted any special insight at all into the mysteries of her mind.
“I wouldn’t know,” he said acerbically. “But it would work, wouldn’t it? At least for a general vicinity.”
“I need to see the rest.” Juste’s pale eyes moved rapidly over the pages of interviews. “How many did you say she had?”
“She said four hundred something.”
“She is thorough,” Juste muttered, and added belatedly, “my lord. Please give me a few minutes and then I’d like to see them myself. The idea has a great deal of merit, I will say that much.”
For his own amusement, Remin interrogated the only two other people who might have known what Ophele was up to, as soon as they arrived. Both Leonin and Davi unsurprisingly professed ignorance, though Davi was as smugly pleased as if it had all been his own idea.
“I knew she was up to something,” he said, clapping the expressionless Leonin on the shoulder. “Didn’t I say so? The wall all over again, ain’t it.”
It was. And just like that day all those months ago when Remin had returned from Ferrede to find that Ophele had been quietly organizing things to her own satisfaction in his absence, he felt a certain amount of chagrin as he followed her backtrail, this time mingled with admiration.
If he had any complaint at all, it was just that she hadn’t spoken sooner.
He had asked. And something like this, at the last moment, with no time to consider, no time to plan…
Well, he had commanded armies into battle with less time to prepare than this. Huffing to himself, Remin led the way back down the hill to collect his beautiful, clever, close-mouthed wife.
He had half expected Lady Verr to squeeze and powder and frizzle Ophele within an inch of her life, but it was nowhere near as bad as he feared.
Ophele looked much the same as usual, except somehow a little tidier.
Her long hair had been pulled into a complex knot on the back of her head, a heavy weight on the flower stem of her neck, with a scrap of dark blue velvet snugged rather sweetly over the top of her head.
He thought that was the same wine-red gown she had been wearing for months, but the flashes of blue and embroidery were new, and Lady Verr had done something so it fit her differently, somehow. Better.
“You look…well, wife,” he said, stiff with Lady Verr present. “Are you pleased?”
“Yes, I like it,” she said, approaching as he beckoned her near for a closer examination. Pearl and gold earrings dangled from her ears, and he darted a sharp look at Lady Verr.
“Did she pierce your ears?”
“Pierce?” Ophele repeated, alarmed.
“No, Your Grace,” Lady Verr replied, unperturbed by his black glare. “They are only clips.”
“Please do nothing of the sort,” Remin said shortly. Ophele glanced uncertainly between them, and the lady seemed to sense that this was the moment to make a graceful exit, tumbling her things into her valise and bowing herself from the cottage.
“You do like it?” Ophele asked as soon as the door shut behind her, looking up at Remin. Her eyelashes looked darker and her lips redder than usual.
“If you are happy, then I am content, except for the earrings,” Remin replied. “Only very fast women pierce their ears, in society, or so Juste says. Talk to me before you do anything of the sort.”
“Oh,” she said, allowing him to propel her toward the door. “Should I take them off?”
“Not if you like them.” Annoyed, he yanked the door shut behind them. Damned Segoile nonsense. “Come. We must speak to Juste and Edemir first.”
“It’s not too late, is it?” Ophele asked, hurrying to keep pace beside him. “I only thought, if I am wrong, then maybe someone could get hurt, or you might go to the wrong place and not find the devils, and then maybe next year they’ll be even worse.”
“It is very late,” Remin said bluntly. “If I had known what you were about, I would have made sure you had help. Next time, tell me, whatever it is. There’s no shame in being wrong if your idea is good. ”
“I will. I’m sorry,” she said, and he caressed the back of her slender neck.
“It is not too late,” he said, relenting. “Juste said your method is good, and he is particular.”