Page 116 of Traitor Son

“Yes…” She said slowly. “I saw him sip. He wouldn’t pretend to drink, would he?”

“He would.” Even though he had come here to have precisely this conversation with her, Miche was still sorry to see her face fall. “He’s good at it. He likely spills a little while your back is turned. Does he empty the cup?”

“No,” she said quietly. “I thought he would like it. I was so careful to make sure no one could get to it. Or is it because…”

She cut the words off, but Miche could read what she was thinking well enough.Is it becauseIgave it to him?

“It’s not just you.” Miche was sorry he’d ruined it for her now; if Rem had gone to the trouble of pretending to drink, he’d been trying notto hurt her feelings. “Rem wouldn’t eat a haunch of mutton unless he’d been personally introduced to the sheep, I’m afraid. You know he grew up on Duke Ereguil’s estate? Since he was eight.”

“Yes.”

“He was nine the first time someone poisoned him. I wasn’t there, but Duchess Ereguil told me about it. Windweed seeds, from Noreven. It’s a nasty poison. I hear it’s like lockjaw, the joints swell up and stiffen, and the muscle spasms are so bad, they’ll break bones. And nothing stops the pain. He screamed for days. It was weeks before they could talk him into eating again.”

It still made Michefuriousevery time he thought about it. Even in Segoile last year, Remin had frequently gone hungry rather than eat food from someone he couldn’t trust. Ophele stared at him, aghast.

“But I suspect it’s a nearer trouble,” Miche went on, sighing. “There was a girl he liked when he was fourteen, in Rospalme. Mind, he wasn’t old enough to be courting, even if the girl’s father would allow it, which of course, no sane man would. She was older than he was, sixteen or so. Merrienne, that was her name. It seemed every bit as harmless as you’d expect. Rem used to give her flowers. Just shoved them at her because every time she talked to him, he’d turn red and clam up. Couldn’t say a word.”

“Really?” Though it was obvious that something terrible was coming, she couldn’t help smiling. It was sweet to imagine Remin as a blushing boy.

“That was another reason I didn’t have much hope for the match,” Miche said dryly. “He was going to have to learn to say whole words out loud first. But she seemed to like him. Took the flowers, anyway. They kept meeting accidentally in town, and finally she got him to agree to slip out one night to see her.”

“Alone?”

“Yes. I probably would’ve let him go, if I’d known.” Miche was candid in acknowledging his own faults. “I just would’ve followed him. But he didn’t breathe a word of it, and when I looked in on him that night, he was gone. I imagine he was sick of being guarded all the time, and didn’t like to have anyone listening while he was trying to woo his first sweetheart.”

“And she betrayed him?” Ophele asked, her eyes round.

“Worse. She tried to kill him.”

“Oh. No.” Ophele looked at him in horror, her hands lifting to cover her mouth. “No, no, no, a sixteen year-old girl?”

“Shesaidshe was sixteen. She’d arrived in Rospalme a year before, with people that said they were her parents. They vanished that same night. Anyway, by the time I found him, Rem had already killed her. She kissed him, then tried to stab him. You might’ve seen the scar on his back.” Miche slapped at his left shoulder. “And he hit her. He was always big for his age, and he was scared. I don’t think he meant to kill her, but…it was very hard for him, after.”

“That is so awful. That is soawful,”she whispered, tears welling and overflowing. “How could anyonedothat, that poor boy! How could anyone—”

Wordlessly, Miche extended a handkerchief as she wept. It was hard. He was sorry to tell her how hard the world could be, but Remin would never tell her this story. After all these years, maybe he didn’t even know how. Maybe the weight of all those hurts had been so vast, so relentless, he didn’t have the words to speak of them. But Miche would do it for him. Miche had never forgotten that fourteen year-old boy, clutching his bleeding shoulder and asking was Merrienne really dead, it had been an accident, there must be some mistake, why had she done that to him?

“I don’t believe you’d do that,” Miche said, squeezing Ophele’s shoulder. “Down to my bones, my lady, I know you never would. And Rem thinks so too, that’s why he’s been letting you close. But there’s part of him that just can’t everknow.You see why?”

She nodded, scrubbing at her face with her sleeve.

“I know. I know. Ihatehim. The Emperor,” she said thickly. “I know I shouldn’t say it, he’s the Beloved of Stars, but Ihatehim, I don’t believe he can be the Divinity when he does something so awful. Remin never did anything, and neither did his parents, it’s all a li—”

“We don’t say that even here.” Miche looked at her sharply. He would have thought she was too young when her mother died to know such dangerous things. What was common knowledge among Remin’s knights was treason everywhere else in the Empire. “You should talk to Juste, if you have questions. What he says goes over my head, but you’re bright enough to keep up. No, keep it,” he added, waving a hand as she offered his handkerchief.

“I miss talking to Sir Justenin,” she said, dabbing her cheeks with it. “I liked talking to him on the way here, he always made me think.”

“There will likely be more leisure, in a little while.” Miche had his own ideas about why the quiet, gentle Juste might have been keeping his distance. “And you probably know better than to ask Rem about any of it, but he won’t appreciate it if you bring it up.”

She nodded, red-eyed.

“Why did you tell me?”

“Because you need to know. Especially if you’ve guessed enough to go poking yourself,” he added approvingly. “It’s not your fault, but it will be hard for you. Hard for him. You see why?”

“I do.”

“And now that you know, you can help him,” Miche said, encouraging. “You wouldn’t think it to look at him, but he takes a sight of looking after.”

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