Chapter 8 – On the Origins of Devils #6
Somehow, in some way she couldn’t anticipate or avoid, she was going to fail them.
There were so many things she didn’t know, it was inevitable that sooner or later she would make a mistake.
And then they would know she had deceived them, she had lied to them and humiliated them all.
The more they boasted of her now, the more embarrassed they would be later.
Wrapping her arms around her knees, she rocked, silent tears streaking down her cheeks.
She wanted Remin. And she was so glad that he was leaving.
It was all too easy to picture his face, the sound of his voice when he said he was so proud of her, and imagine all that love and pride bleeding away, the look of angry betrayal when he realized the scope of her deception.
He would be so ashamed of her.
* * *
Remin could not have asked for a more perfect afternoon.
As if to compensate for so thoroughly detonating his plans, the skies had cleared and the sun shone warm and benevolent, picking out the gold, copper, and scarlet of the remaining leaves.
Ophele was a vision in green when he arrived at the cottage, her hair long and loose the way he liked best, with her eyes as clear and cloudless as the glorious sky.
“Where are we going?” she asked as Remin lifted her onto Lancer’s back. She had been subdued when he woke her that morning, with tear tracks down her cheeks that he did not need to examine.
“You’ll see,” he promised, settling her before the pair of tall baskets slung over the horse’s hindquarters.
“You never tell me anything,” she said, her lower lip edging outward in a way that only made him want to tease her more.
“I’ll give you a forfeit if you can guess before we dismount,” he said, his arm tightening around her as she settled comfortably before him in the saddle. “Your hint is that this whole thing was your idea.”
“Was it?” she asked thoughtfully, waving to the guards at the north gate as they trotted by. “Something that will need baskets…”
They had barely reached the edge of the forest before she came up with the answer.
“Hazelnuts?” she asked, turning to look up at him with delight. “Are we going to gather hazelnuts? Because I told you about the cookies in Aldeburke? ”
“My hunters tell me we’ll have to fight the squirrels for them,” Remin replied, glancing at her with a smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.
“I am not afraid,” she said with a toss of her head that made his smile break through completely.
“I need to name this place,” Remin said as they moved into the trees, reminded anew that everyone, including his hunters, was still calling it the old forest. “We can’t keep calling it the old forest forever. Half the forest in the valley is old forest.”
“Names are hard,” Ophele agreed, patting Lancer’s neck. “Did you know, a lot of old forests and hills are just old words for forest and hill? Like Maghegdom in Rendeva. Technically that’s just hill hill hill in three old dialects. Mag, heg, dom.”
“One language is sufficient to trouble me,” Remin replied, amused. “Though I am starting to think that names just come in their own time. I heard some of the men calling that lane from Eugene Street to the town square Goose Road.”
“I heard that too, Davi called it that,” Ophele replied. “Though I don’t know if they deserve to have a road named for them, the mean things. They tried to chase me.”
“Did they?” Remin’s eyes narrowed.
“Sir Leonin fought them off. They hissed at me, did you know they do that?”
“Yes. There were geese at Rospalme.” Evil-tempered creatures. “I admit I did not have geese in mind when I assigned you guards. How are you getting on with them? They will be with you every day, while I am gone.”
“All right,” she said, with a quirk of her eyebrows that meant something was worrying her. “They are so different from each other. They don’t always agree on what is proper.”
“Let them work it out, and trust your own instincts,” Remin advised. “You are sensible enough to know what is right, and they’ll make a good team, once they sand away the rough edges. Miche and Juste couldn’t stand each other when they first met, did you know that?”
“Stars, I can imagine,” she said, with a little giggle, and Remin kissed the top of her head and cheerfully gossiped about his men, wishing the ride would never end .
In a way, it was fortunate the leaves had cleared away so early, or he would not have dared to bring her so deep into the forest. His scouts had cleared the area ahead of time, just to be absolutely sure there were no devils lurking in the hollows, but Remin paused to listen before he lifted Ophele down from the saddle.
He left Lancer to graze on the sweet shade grass with his reins hung over the saddle horn.
The war horse was trained to come at Remin’s call and would try to kill anyone else that approached him, so it was safe enough to leave him to crop grass by himself.
“The trees are supposed to be somewhere around here,” Remin said, spotting the granite outcropping his hunters had said to look for. “I don’t know what a hazelnut tree looks like, though. You’re the authority on forage, wife.”
“They are small trees with heart-shaped leaves and are covered with hazelnuts this time of year,” Ophele noted, rising on tiptoe to peer into the forest. “I don’t see any yet. Maybe further in?”
Remin slung the baskets over his shoulder and took her hand as they walked into the trees, a cool and secretive place with many trickling springs and moss-covered rocks.
Harduin Cherche, the arborist, had already arrived and was in ecstasies over the many ancient trees in the valley, and Remin could feel that great age here: tall, knotted, twisting trees, and a sense of long-settled quiet. It was a comfortable feeling.
“Oh, there!” Ophele cried about half a mile from the road, pointing. There was a clearing below them with a lot of small trees, and even from the hilltop Remin could see that the ground was littered with brown nuts. “Look how many…”
“Enough to see us through the winter,” Remin agreed, taking her elbow to keep her from sliding down the steep hillside. Those little green slippers were not meant for tramping about a forest. “Are you sure? They don’t look like hazelnuts.”
“Most of them are still in the husk,” she explained, bending to show him the nut inside. “And they have to be roasted. I wonder if this used to be an orchard, it seems like a lot of trees together to be growing wild.”
“They might have been in rows,” Remin agreed, cocking his head to examine the low trees. “Is it hard, roasting hazelnuts?”
He handed her one of the baskets as she explained the process, bending to scoop a handful of nuts from the grass into his own basket. The sun felt good after the cool shadows under the forest .
“I just wanted them so Azelma would make hazelnut cookies,” Ophele said, pausing to pluck away leaf and husk tidily before she threw the nuts into her own basket. “I wonder if Wen could make some.”
“We might persuade him,” Remin said vaguely. “I wouldn’t mind trying them myself.”
It was amusing to realize that he could literally listen to Ophele recite recipes and find it fascinating. Together, they moved down the row of trees as the squirrels chattered wrathfully overhead. More than once Remin had to shoo the bold creatures out of his basket.
They must have come at the perfect time to harvest. The hazelnuts were dropping out of the trees even as they plucked them from the ground; it seemed like every time Remin bent over, another one plunked against his shoulders or bounced off his head.
“I ought to just shake them down,” he said, brushing a hand through his hair as he glared up into the branches. “It’s like standing in a storm. Maybe the squirrels are retaliating.”
“They do sound annoyed.” Ophele sounded as if she were trying not to laugh. “You can hear them chattering. Like they’re plotting.”
“A coordinated assault?” The idea tickled him. “I was worried about running into a bear or wolves, but Tounot said they’d all be fat and lazy this time of year. It didn’t occur to me we’d have to be worried about squir— damn these little…”
He cut the insult off and looked automatically behind him as a nut swished by his ear.
After many years spent as the target of arrows, he was good at guessing an object’s origin from its trajectory and was shocked to find Ophele standing a few yards behind him, one hand extended in an underhand toss, caught dead to rights and guilty as sin.
Her hand rotated upward to point at the trees overhead.
“It was the squirrels,” she said.
That was a lie. An outrageous, shameless, boldfaced lie. Remin started for her and Ophele gave a little shriek and started running.
“So you were on their side all along?” he demanded, fighting not to laugh as he gave chase. He was ridiculously pleased that Ophele would play such a prank. “You will pay for this treachery, wife.”
“Only if you catch me!” she called, clutching her skirts as she raced through the trees.
She was faster than he expected. Remin was actually having to exert himself to overtake her, and she was a wily little opponent, careening through the tight places where the trees bunched together to slow him down.
“This is a diversion, isn’t it?” Remin lunged and almost cut her off, and Ophele dodged away with a squeal, giggling madly. “Leading me away so the squirrels can raid our baskets.”
“Yes, yes!” she gasped, and shrieked again when he lunged and nearly caught her. “Hail the legion of squirrels!”