Chapter 14 – The Devil of Nandre #5
Scooping up his wet clothes, she hung them over a chair to dry and then padded to their dressing rooms to fetch fresh clothes for him for the morning, and a new chemise for herself.
He could not get into the habit of tearing her clothes off her, she would never be able to explain it to Emi and Peri.
The thought made her smile. Pausing in the door of the bedroom, she looked at him, lying on his side like a small mountain range in their vast bed. His black hair was sticking up in tufts.
Thank the stars, he was home.
* * *
“Don’t glare at him,” Ophele whispered as they parted the next morning, each to their own dressing rooms. Her face was still pink from Remin’s vigorous morning salutations. “He’s been working very hard on your wardrobe.”
Many things had changed while Remin was away.
“Your Grace,” said the small, gray valet, whose presence underscored the necessity of getting Ophele a proper morning robe. He bowed without meeting Remin’s eyes. “Welcome home. I am Magne.”
“Her Grace tells me you’ve been improving my closet,” Remin replied, turning the heavy key to his dressing room. Ophele had explained that even Magne had not been allowed into his dressing room without her supervision, a restriction that Remin heartily approved. “When did you arrive? ”
“Two weeks ago, Your Grace. Oh—I will show you,” the smaller man added, moving in a scuttling half-bow toward the closet. “I have been working.”
“I see that.” Remin paused in the door of the closet, his eyes going over the neatly hung clothing, grouped by type and by color. He hadn’t known he had so much clothing. “All this is mine?”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Magne busied himself in the racks, flipping rapidly through the articles to produce a blue brocade jerkin and freshly laundered linen shirt. “Lady Verr, she said today Her Grace will wear blue. Today is important. Breeches?”
“Well, if it’s an important day,” Remin said dryly, watching as Magne produced charcoal breeches and black hosen, both impeccable.
Had Duchess Ereguil sent another shipment?
The armload of clothes all smelled pleasantly of soap, and he shifted back into the dressing room to change, eyeing his new valet.
There was not a nobleman in the Empire that did not have at least one.
And the tidy closet filled with clean clothing was certainly agreeable.
But Remin did not like dressing with another person in the room.
At all. Magne did tie the laces of his jerkin far more neatly than his own impatient knots, but it made him deeply uncomfortable to let strangers near him.
His face hardened into deep, forbidding lines as Magne arranged his doublet, watching the old man’s hands for the least suspicious movement.
“There, there it is nice, Your Grace.” Magne backpedaled speedily, waving his hands. “I will get your boots.”
“Thank you,” Remin made himself say, sitting down in the only chair. He wasn’t sure he could get used to this.
“No jewelry?” Magne extended a pair of high boots with both hands. It was half question, half complaint.
“I do not care for jewelry.”
“No jewelry…” Magne’s lips pursed, and his watery blue eyes wandered toward the door. “Buttons can be nice. Gold, silver, jeweled.”
“Ask Her Grace,” Remin replied, straightening.
If he had his way, all his buttons would have been made of wood and could have been replenished by a trip out of doors.
“I prefer to dress plainly unless I have a reason to do otherwise. Keep my things clean and repaired, and I will be content. Anything else, you may consult my wife. ”
“Yes, Your Grace.” There was no mistaking the relief in the old man’s face. After producing a cloak Remin was positive he had never seen before in his life, Magne departed at a half-crouch, backward through the dressing room door.
Today, there was a reason to dress formally.
He only had to wait a few minutes before Ophele appeared in the hall, dressed in a blue gown to match him, modest and scholarly with her hair piled on top of her head and ribbons about her neck, waist, and sleeves.
To him, it accentuated rather than obscured her lack of actual jewelry, and Remin frowned.
She ought to have jewelry, even if he did not care for it; he was wealthy enough that she could wear a different jewel on every finger, if she liked.
“You look well, wife,” he said, accepting the cloak from Lady Verr and settling it over Ophele’s shoulders.
There was not much to be done about jewels now, with winter close upon them, and he could only hope that the tailor would arrive with some small store for her gowns.
Come spring, he would send someone to see if there were any jewels in the world to match her eyes.
By now, most of his men would be on their way to the council room at the barracks to discuss what they had discovered.
It was a meeting of some significance, and he was attending not just in his capacity as the commander of the Andelin, but as its lord.
Ophele had earned the right to be present, but as soon as he started thinking about what she was actually going to hear, he felt a pang of misgiving.
“I don’t know if you should come,” he said, pausing on the front steps of the house. “I’m not sure I want you to hear this. It will not be a pleasant tale.”
“I know. I saw the people from Meinhem when they came in,” she replied, looking up at him with solemn eyes. “I know what happened to them.”
“It will be something else to hear Ortaire tell it directly. And Nandre was worse.”
“I know,” she said again. Her mouth set in a stubborn line. “Remin, I don’t think you should protect me from this.”
Her voice was gentle but firm, and he hated it.
He couldn’t even articulate why this bothered him.
He wanted nothing more than to build a garden around her and wall her up inside it, beyond the reach of any ugly or evil thing.
He didn’t want her to know about devils, starvation, violence, and death.
And he didn’t want her to hear how he had failed to protect his people. But she already knew that. He had told himself he would not treat her like a child. Remin swung up onto Lancer’s back and held out a hand to her.
“All right,” he said grimly. “But if it’s too much, nudge me, and I’ll call for a break. I don’t want you having nightmares.”
“Do you ever have them?” she asked, glancing up at him.
“Sometimes,” he said shortly, and lapsed into silence.
As they walked into the round, echoing council room, the sight of his men gathering at the long table and sitting in chairs along the walls only underscored the faces that were missing.
Rollon, and the twelve good men who had gone with him to Nandre.
The twelve who had died in the old forest and on the Spur. Seventeen dead on the road to Meinhem.
Huber and his fifty, who might arrive tomorrow, or never be seen again.
Remin took his place at the head of the table, with Ophele at his side.
“Could I have something to write with?” she whispered, eying the crowd nervously. She was used to the knights of the Brede, but there were a great many more Knights of the Andelin, as well as the commanders of the Third Company.
“There will be secretaries transcribing,” he said, waving one of them over. “So don’t worry about writing down every word. Paper, quill, and ink for Her Grace.”
Once everyone had assembled, there were a few formalities to be endured before they could get to business, and Remin rose from his chair to offer his respects to the living and the dead.
“We have been told that those who went to Nandre are lost,” he said bluntly.
“Sir Rollon and the men that went with him knew that it would be dangerous. They volunteered to go because they believed they could save the people of Nandre. Sir Rollon himself protected the last of them, a boy and a girl that we have brought back to Tresingale. ”
The words came out clear and dispassionate, but Remin tasted bile.
He could not imagine telling this news to Huber, when Rollon had been very nearly his son.
But now was not the time to contemplate it, and he shoved it down hard, deep, all his grief and guilt and anger, locked them in a dark place for later.
His jaw tightened as he spoke of the other dead, twelve men he had known for many years, who had made this sacrifice with their eyes wide open.
“Tonight, we will lift our cups to them,” he finished. “In a few days, Brother Oleare will offer his prayers for their journey among the stars. Their names will be carved into the foundation of our Temple.”
There was a moment of heavy silence, where they might offer their own prayers, if they liked. Remin did not. There was a time and a place to dwell on those who had died at his command, and this was not it.
“But we are here now, and we have work to do,” he went on briskly. “Of my own journey, I will tell you this: we found something. Its value is not yet determined. We will come to that in time. Ortaire.”
Remin took his seat as Ortaire rose, a very thin young man with spiky auburn hair and green eyes. There was a healing gash on the right side of his face.
“We lost seventeen.” Ortaire began with the fact that was uppermost in his mind. “All of them on the journey out. The palisades worked well, for the most part. A wolf demon got in one night. There was a rise a little way from the camp, and I didn’t think it would be able to make the jump.”
He was young. Nineteen years old, and only a knight for a year.
It did not occur to Remin that he himself was only twenty-four; to him, Ortaire was still barely more than a boy, and it was strange and unsettling to see him standing so straight and coolly describing what had happened when a wolf demon leaped over the north palisade, bringing down a three-foot section of the wall.
A wolf demon inside the close quarters of a palisade was the worst possible scenario.