Page 32 of Traitor Son

From the look on the seamstress’s face, this was the realm of maid’s clothing.

“Two formal gowns, Princess,” Remin said, as if he had the least idea what those were. He wasn’t trying to humiliate her by making her dress like a servant. “Silk.”

“Princess?” Mistress Courcy echoed, glancing between them, and he saw the shock of recognition in her face. “Princess Ophele? And you need—I beg your pardon! How could I make such a mistake, the Duke of Andelin, of course…”

But the look she had given the princess was fleeting, expressive, and unmistakable: pity. By now everyone in the Empire had heard of the Emperor’s secret daughter, Princess Ophele, confined to Aldeburke since infancy, married to Remin Grimjaw in her sister’s place, robbed of the rank she had never been able to exercise, and now here she was getting dragged off into another exile and told to buy simple clothes she could work in. That was what had happened, for very good reasons, but it put his back up. The opinion of the people wasn’t irrelevant. This gossip would spread. The Emperor would have loved this scene so much, he could have written it himself.

“I am trusting her to you, Mistress Courcy,” Remin made himself say stiffly. “We are just married and I know little about the things women need. Please take care of her.”

He could almost see the woman flutter, if only in the mercantile part of her heart. That meant an open purse. Letthatstory spread.

And it wouldn’t be bad, to see the princess in a pretty gown over supper. Remin sat back in the chair Mistress Courcy had offered, stretching his long legs. He remembered his mother and father’s table, the grand banquet hall, the music, the murmur of conversation. That place was gone forever, and the Andelin Valley had been a battleground for a hundred years. But he wanted to make it a place fit for women and children, as safe and prosperous as the rest of the Empire, with a graceful banquet hall and the noblest of ladies at his side.

No. If he was honest, he wanted to make the Andelin the flower of the Empire. He wanted to make a garden that would make the Emperor sick with envy, not only prosperous, but a center of culture and learning.

And no one would ever look at his wife with pity again.

“You can have the rest sent along to the valley?” he asked, when they had agreed on a quantity of overdresses, gowns, kirtles, and otheraccoutrements that made Ophele look convincingly horrified and the seamstress very happy.

“Yes, Your Grace,” she said, hastily totaling the figures with practiced flicks at an abacus. “I can call on half of Granholme if need be, everyone will be so excited to help with the princess’s trousseau! We will see it done, never fear.”

“Isn’t it a lot of money, though?” The princess asked, clutching the first page of the bill of sale anxiously. “Your Grace, are you quite sure? You don’t have to—”

“Yes. Give me that.” He plucked the paper from her hand and added it to the sheaf in his own. Duke Ereguil had always said that there were many uses for money, with the acquisition of goods being only the most obvious. But between a bill of sale he could barely read—what the hell was a tippet?—and the glass bear in his pocket, Remin wasn’t entirely sure what he had bought today.

He could only hope that such things as tippets and bears could lead to the building of a garden.

* * *

Unexpectedly, the princess had one more bit of business before they went back to the inn, the place Remin was longing to be with all of his soul.

The marketplace was closing for the evening as they made their way up the side of the cobblestone street, and the princess looked on with interest as the shops shuttered and the merchants cleared away their stalls, entirely innocent of the plans he had in store for her. But coming around the corner onto the town’s main road, she stopped so suddenly, he nearly tripped over her.

“Rou?” she said in surprise, and then darted away with a cry, picking up her skirts to run. “Rou! Rou, wait!”

There was a small tinker’s wagon ahead, but it rolled to a stop and a small, bearded man appeared from around the front, weathered as a nut and wearing steel-rimmed spectacles and a disreputable hat.

“Princess?” he said, disbelieving, and caught her hands in his own. “Princess! What are you doing here? Did you decide to run away with me after all? Or did Julot—ah.” Hastily, he let go of her hands and stepped back as Remin appeared, looming and thunderous as a storm.

“She got married,” Remin said, glaring down at the little man. “Princess, don’t run off. Who’s this?”

“Oh, I’m sorry, this is Rou,” she said, flustered. “He visits Aldeburke sometimes, you know we can’t go into town.”

“I meant no disrespect, Your Grace,” said the tinker with a deep bow. He had already guessed who Remin must be. “Rou Kurder, at your service. I have known Her Highness since she was a child.”

“I am pleased to meet any friend of my wife’s,” Remin replied, surveying the cart. It looked like any other tinker’s wagon he had seen, compact and rugged, with wooden awnings that could be lifted to display his eclectic wares or locked down to secure them. “Have you been long in Firkane?”

“Thirty years,” said the tinker. “I added Aldeburke to my route by accident, you know. It’s not so far into Leinbruke.”

“It was kind of you, to serve Lady Pavot in her exile.”

Rou scratched his chin. He understood what Remin was asking. “Well, I don’t know about that, Your Grace. No one ever named the lady to my ears, and didn’t seem like something that wanted inquiry, did it? Especially not from a tinker on the back roads of the Empire.”

The princess watched this byplay curiously.

“It was very good of Rou to come and see us,” she agreed. “Can I see Anzel, Rou? Is he dyspeptic?”

“No, he’s always peptic when you’re about. With His Grace’s permission,” Rou added, gesturing toward the front of the wagon, where a small donkey pricked its ears at her and immediately began nosing her pockets.

---