Chapter 13 – Behemoth #4
“My only skill is with my sword,” he went on, feeling foolish.
“But what use is that in Segoile? What honor is there in war? I have thought about what we must learn, how we will train, incorporating other martial traditions. We are all swordsmen here, but that is not the same as the skills needed to protect someone. And if this is my talent, then this is how I will choose to use it. Protecting you. Only the best will serve the House of Andelin. I want to set the standard. No, I want to challenge myself to become the standard. One day, I want to be able to stand between you and a dozen Remin Grimjaws.”
“You want to build something, too,” she said unexpectedly.
“Yes. Yes, I suppose I do.” He hadn’t thought of it that way, but it was true.
“I want to build a tradition of the best guardsmen in the world, judged on their merit rather than their birth. And only the best among them would have the privilege of becoming a hallow. It is a privilege,” he added.
“I do believe that. To commit your whole life to someone is…a serious thing. I meant to earn it.”
More silence. The breeze lifted, chilly and moist with coming rain.
“I guess if Remin had said he wanted hallows for our…our children, I wouldn’t have argued,” she mused, her brows puckering.
“But it would have been wrong. It would have been an oath to their position instead of them. In that book Sir Justenin gave me, it was all important people that had hallows, geniuses and leaders and holy people, and people wanted them to live to finish their work, and that’s why they swore. But I…I’m not important, myself.”
“But you are,” he protested automatically, and she silenced him with a glance.
“Leonin, I am nothing,” she whispered. “What am I without my father, without Remin? I don’t know anything. I only know how to read because my mother taught me before she died. I’ve been pretending, all this time, to hide it from you. ”
“But why would you hide it from me?” he asked, bewildered.
“Because you think I’m important,” she retorted. “But you don’t know me at all. You don’t know anything about me, I’m not special, I’m not important, I’m not anything, and you want to swear your soul to me!”
Leonin drew a breath to protest, if only out of simple manners, but the look on her face stopped him. So naked and despairing, so raw that it might have been the lost cry of his own heart.
“But I want to be,” she said, lifting her eyes to his. “Not…important, I mean. I want to deserve it. I have to do something by myself to make everyone proud. Remin, and his knights, and you and Davi, and everyone. I’ve been trying, but it’s so hard, and there’s so much I have to learn—”
“You can,” Leonin managed. He was so wrong-footed, he hardly knew what to say. “If I have learned nothing else of you, my lady, it is that you can learn. Perhaps faster than Sir Justenin would prefer. And we will help you. I will help you. Does His Grace know?”
“No,” she said bleakly. “I will tell him when he comes home. I was going to talk to him about you and Davi, anyway.”
“Then you mean to refuse us,” he said, his heart sinking.
But unexpectedly, she shook her head.
“Maybe…not,” she said. “You said you wanted to set the standard. A hard standard, based on merit, not birth.”
“Yes…” he said, cautious.
“Then apply your standard to me,” she said fiercely. “If you have to follow my soul around the stars for eternity, I should be worth following, shouldn’t I?”
Leonin gaped at her.
“You mean you want me to decide when you are worthy to swear the oath?” he asked, dumbstruck. She nodded.
“Yes. That will be a hard test for you, won’t it? If you want to set the standard. You can’t be dishonest about it, or go easy on me, or make excuses for me. The best guardsmen in the world should only swear their swords to someone they believe in.”
He wanted to argue. As soon as she put it in those terms, he knew that by his standards, it would be years before he could become her hallow.
Perhaps he never would. What would this girl have to do, to earn the swearing of a soul?
Especially when she was standing in the shadow of Remin Grimjaw?
And His Grace was sure to disagree, the whole point was to protect her now. But…
What she had said. Someone they believe in.
It rang so deep and so true, he could not protest. This was something far greater than he had conceived.
A tradition of excellence not just in the hallow, but the one to whom they were bound.
Each of them working to deserve the other.
They would hold each other to account. They would make each other greater.
Could she do it? Leonin gazed at her, trying to shed the trained blindness he had learned in Segoile, the layers of rank and etiquette. To see her , the timid young woman who slouched when she sat and fidgeted when she was nervous. There was never a more unlikely hero than this girl.
“I…accept,” he said, and was astonished to find his throat was tight. He stretched out a hand to her and for the first time in his life tried to set aside all courtesies. “Ophele,” he said. “I will help you however I can. Please endeavor to deserve me.”
“I will,” she promised, and took his hand to seal the first oath between them.
* * *
“Our scouts have spotted smoke,” said Sir Edemir a few days later, as he was ushered into the new public end of Ophele’s vast bedchamber. “From the north.”
“So that is from…Meinhem?” Ophele asked, quickly hiding her bit of sewing in her embroidery box. The tests to her new resolve were coming quickly, but she had no choice but to try to meet this challenge.
“Yes. Ortaire, with whatever survivors he found there,” Edemir confirmed, taking a chair at Ophele’s small table.
Lady Verr was already pulling out quill and ink.
“All of them should be on their way back by now, and we should plan how we will receive them, Your Grace. We’ve built a few outposts to watch for them, but it depends on the devils and the number of survivors as to how quickly they will travel.
A couple days, at least. Bram is taking wagons and horses to meet them. ”
“The devils won’t get them?”
“It’s not likely, this late in the year. But we should expect wounded, and all of them will be hungry. Women, children, elders. We’ve built some cottages on the north side of town…”
It was unclear how much of this was Ophele’s responsibility, in Remin’s absence.
Edemir had charge of the town, so most of these practical matters fell to him, but Ophele’s charge was the hospitality of the valley, and most of Remin’s ceremonial duties.
Rubbing her head, she tried to think past the ache in her temples. She had not slept in a very long time.
“Has Genon enough help at the hospital?” she asked, remembering the wounded men when Sir Huber had come back from Ferrede.
“Yes, my lady, he’s got a few journeymen to assist him, and squires to help with any heavy work among the wounded.”
“Lady Verr, you have some experience in healing, don’t you?” Ophele remembered. “I thought Duchess Ereguil said so.”
“I do have some small learning,” said Lady Verr, looking up from her notes. She was conscientious about documenting Ophele’s appointments. “Do you think we will be needed to assist in that capacity?”
“Maybe,” Ophele replied, at the same moment Edemir refused.
“My lady, His Grace wouldn’t like it,” Leonin said from behind her, where he, Davi, and Elodie were standing along the wall.
“Why not?” Ophele asked, confused. “There might be a great many of them, mightn’t there? His Grace said there might be three hundred coming from Meinhem, and more in Nandre, and almost seven hundred coming with Sir Huber. And I am supposed to look after them, if they are hurt and starved and cold—”
“The Duchess of Andelin commands the hands of others,” said Lady Verr gently, holding up her own hands as if in evidence.
“And Remin said we will use our hands wherever they are needed, so I will,” Ophele replied stubbornly. “Will you see how many helpers Genon will need, Edemir? Oh, and we ought to warn Wen, he will be cooking for everyone…”
She trailed off, oblivious to the startled silence around her.
It was on the tip of her tongue to propose a feast to welcome the refugees, but some instinct made her hesitate.
She knew what it was to be denied, to see the banquet table spread out and know that she would never be allowed to partake.
These people would be cold, tired, hungry, wounded, maybe sick, and frightened to death.
It would not do to thrust the limited luxury of Tresingale in their faces.
Sir Edemir busied himself with the teakettle as she considered it.
By now, he was accustomed to presenting a problem, then giving her time to think about it.
Later, once everyone was home safe, they could celebrate.
For now, she would offer comfort, quiet, and consolation, to show the survivors that they were safe.
She knew how much that meant, and how hard it could be to believe that the danger was truly past.
“Have Master Balad and Madam Sanai warned to expect them,” she said aloud. “And Brother Oleare to offer them a blessing. It would be good to have someone to show them around the town, once they’ve rested, and help them to settle…”
But that person could not be the Duchess of Andelin. Ophele had already learned that lesson.
“Elodie,” she said, turning to the girl, who was standing between Leonin and Davi like a third small guard. “Do you think your mother would mind, if we asked for her help? Or is she too busy? It’s quite all right if she is.”
“Oh, no, my lady,” Elodie replied instantly. “She was wondering who was coming to live in all those cottages.”
“I’ll go home with you today and ask, then,” Ophele said, quailing at the thought of facing Elodie’s formidable mother again. The memory of their last meeting still stung. “But only if she wants to, I wouldn’t want to disrupt her other work, at all.”