Chapter 11 – An Authority Among Scholars
It was awkward, reading a letter about someone while he was standing right in front of her.
…commend to you one Lousiton Magne, a valet formerly in the service of Marquis Charval, until he passed away last spring.
He was referred to me by the widow Charval, who says that he will be attentive to the last button of his gentleman’s wardrobe.
He is an odd man, perhaps a little touched, but he’s there to be your valet, not your bannerman. If he doesn’t suit, send him back.
By now, Ophele knew the hand of Duke Ereguil, backward-slanting and brisk. The addendum was written in the elegant script of Duchess Ereguil:
Remin dear, try not to glower at poor Magne too much. There are many kinds of people under the stars and all of them have a purpose. Perhaps, as you do not care for your appearance, the stars are sending Magne to care intensely for you.
Lowering the letter, Ophele examined the twitchy-looking Magne, who was looking everywhere but at her.
She felt a little guilty about reading a letter addressed to Remin, but in this case it might be a mercy that Remin wasn’t here.
Magne looked like he was two seconds from rabbiting out the front door .
“I’m glad you’ve arrived safely,” she said slowly, wondering what touched meant, exactly. Simple? “You are Lousiton Magne, come to look after His Grace’s wardrobe?”
“Yes, my lady,” said Magne, his watery blue eyes flicking toward her and away. He was older than Adelan, over fifty maybe, a bent little man with wispy gray hair and hunched shoulders. “I like to make things nice. Clothes. And closets. Everything where it should be.”
“I…like that too,” she said, pity mingling with suspicion.
Over the last few months, Remin’s paranoia had rubbed off on her, and she couldn’t help wondering if this even was Magne; how difficult would it be for someone to waylay him on the road and then claim his place?
But on the other hand, if he was a simple-minded old man, then she must be very gentle.
“It will be hard work, with His Grace,” she said, trying to set him at ease. “He likes to lose buttons.”
“I brought buttons,” Magne said instantly, looking directly at her. “Lots of buttons, and thread, silk and cotton, all colors. I can go get it. I’ll go get it, you can see.”
“No, that’s all right, Magne,” Adelan said, sending Ophele a meaningful look. “I’ve put Magne in the cottage between mine and Sir Justenin’s, my lady. He knows where everything is, so he’ll be able to fend for himself well enough, and he knows to come to us if he needs something.”
“Oh, good.” Ophele was trying not to stare.
There had been a maid with skewed eyes at Aldeburke, but Lady Hurrell had dismissed her after only a few days, and Ophele had never met anyone with an…
infirmity like this. “Magne, would you like to go see His Grace’s things?
And then you can go get your thread and buttons, if you want. ”
She felt a little foolish, trooping upstairs with Adelan, Magne, Davi, and Sir Leonin behind her.
She hadn’t visited Remin’s dressing room since the day they moved in, and it was even more bare than her own; there was nothing in it at all, saving a single oil lamp and a boot rack by the door, with a pair of his big boots lying on the floor beside it.
The sight made her eyes burn. Suddenly, she missed him so much.
When she opened the closet door, she could feel his presence in the same way she felt his absence so acutely in bed.
If she had been alone, she would have buried her face in one of those shirts that still smelled of him.
Blinking hard, she shook herself. She was being silly. He would be home soon .
“These are His Grace’s clothes,” she said, trying to sound cheerful. The shirts, doublets, jerkins, and breeches were jumbled together pell-mell on the racks, with a pile of boots heaped in the back of the closet. “They need a bit of mending—”
“I will fix it.” Magne all but dived through the door. “Let me fix it, it’s not nice, like this. Shirts go with shirts. Leather shouldn’t mix with cloth. Oh, no, doublets can get crushed—”
“Can they? We’ll put them at the end, then.” Ophele moved compulsively after him, feeling the chaos of the closet as an almost physical pain. “Here’s another shirt, we’ll put the breeches down here…”
“Shirts with shirts,” Magne repeated, wagging his head. “This one is torn. And this one, stained, and a button missing, oh dear, dear, dear…”
“Put those in a pile, you can take them home to fix them,” she agreed, catching the many pairs of breeches he was thrusting in her direction. “You said doublets can get crushed? The quilting on this one—”
“Look at this!” Magne’s gasp of horror drowned out Ophele’s questions, and his trembling hands lifted the doublet into the light, gazing upon the ragged stitches on its back as if they were some grotesque medical malpractice.
“Oh, no. Oh, no no no. The—the thread, the stitch, look, who would do this, it doesn’t even follow the seam—”
“We can throw that out.” Ophele snatched it away, her ears burning. “What about this one? Could you fix this?”
“Yes. With a very small needle. Like weaving.” Magne clutched the jerkin Ophele had handed him, but his eyes were on the doublet she was trying to hide in a growing pile of similarly mutilated garments. “It was brocade…”
“We’ll get more brocades,” she said, trying to be reassuring. He was in for a lot of heartache if he mourned every casualty of Remin’s wardrobe.
Watching as he rapidly restored order to the rest of the closet, Ophele chewed her lip.
He did seem to know his business well, and she thought it would be very difficult to pretend to be…
troubled in this way, but his sincerity posed nearly as great a problem as potential deception.
She had planned to have a talk with him about the necessity of protecting Remin’s things, but would he even be able to understand it ?
“Magne,” she said, bending to try and catch his eye. “Magne, there is another very important thing you must do. You want to keep His Grace’s things nice, don’t you?”
“Yes, very nice,” he agreed. He was focused intensely on another jerkin, which had a huge blue splotch on the back.
“Magne, there are people that might want to ruin His Grace’s things.
” She felt foolish, trying to say it so seriously, especially when the chief hazard to Remin’s clothes was Remin.
“They might try to spill things on them, or put nasty things in the pockets, or even stick pins in them. That’s why no one but you, His Grace, and me are allowed in this room. No one else.”
“No one else can come in?” he asked, awed at the unexpected honor.
“That’s right. If you see anyone here, you must tell me right away.
Sometimes I will come and check myself,” she added on sudden inspiration, and plunged her hands recklessly into the clothing, wringing startled protests from Adelan and Davi.
“Like this. So, if someone did something bad to His Grace’s clothing, I would find it first. And if it hurt me or made me sick, that would be terrible. ”
“Terrible,” Magne breathed. There was absolutely nothing in those round blue eyes to rouse suspicion.
But how could she know? How well had Duke Ereguil known the Marquis Charval?
Even if Magne was the sweet old man he appeared to be, how hard would it be for someone to deceive him?
It seemed to her all too easy for someone to slip a poisoned pin into one of Remin’s shirts, or put some foul powder in a pocket.
“Yes, terrible,” she said, watching him from the corner of her eye as she ran her fingers down the back of a doublet. “I’m the Emperor’s daughter. My blood is sacred. So, if I were to be hurt by something in here, that would be a crime against the stars.”
“The Divinity. I know the Divinity,” Magne agreed, nodding rapidly. “He’s sacred, we have to bow and say be blessed under the stars. My lady is the Divinity’s daughter? Star child?”
“Y-Yes, I am,” she said, very uncomfortable as he promptly prostrated himself face down on the floor. “So—so you must be very careful to protect His Grace’s things. I don’t want him to be hurt, so you never know when I might come and check myself. All right? ”
“Yes. No one else can come in,” Magne said. “Only His Grace, me, and the star lady.”
“Yes. That’s right. Get up, please,” she said, her hands fluttering with distress. She was a bastard, no one should be bowing to her.
“My lady,” Sir Leonin burst out, as if he could no longer contain himself. “I do not believe His Grace would approve…”
“I have charge of this house,” she said stubbornly.
And Remin wasn’t here to stop her, anyway.
“Please warn the other servants as well, Adelan, and any new ones that arrive. I drink everything His Grace drinks. I eat everything he eats. I touch everything he touches. Sometimes I like to try on his boots.”
“I…will let them know, my lady,” said Adelan, who was clearly having complicated feelings about this.
But Ophele was pleased with the notion. She would keep the keys to Remin’s wardrobe herself and examine every single object Magne put inside it, and she had managed to issue this warning without being at all cruel or threatening to the poor, simple man.
Might there not be other ways to exploit it?
The back of her mind chewed thoughtfully on the idea as she went about her other errands, collecting books from Sir Edemir and a basket of cookies from Wen, who she was consulting about preparations for Remin’s birthday.
He would be twenty-five in less than a month, despite all the Emperor’s best efforts, and she was planning the celebration with her customary level of careful thought.
She had never given anyone a party before.