Page 53 of Traitor Son

“I do want you to be—”

“The men will be giving you their oaths tonight,” he said, as if he hadn’t heard her. Ophele shut her mouth and looked at her feet as he filled the buckets for her, cranking the big windlass. “You’ll need to dressnicely after your bath. In future we’ll do something more formal for those that mean to live in the valley, but I want everyone to make their oaths before I leave. You’ll be safe, Miche will keep an eye on you.”

A bear. She followed him back to the cottage, hauling her heavy pair of buckets. An angry bear, roaring away in front of his cave, and in the end all of his roaring meantstay away.Don’t talk to me, don’t bother me, don’t come near me.

Putting water on to heat, she trudged back to the well with more buckets, and returned to find the angry bear naked at the washstand. Ophele’s face instantly flamed and she almost dropped her buckets in her haste to turn her back.

“What are you doing?” he asked testily. “Come in and close the door. You’re not a maiden anymore, Princess, we don’t have time for your blushes. You’ll have to get used to it.”

Would she? Could she ever get used to this? His comment about her maidenhood struck her like a slap and she set her buckets down without looking at him, crouching by the fire to wait for her water to boil. This was just like back home, when all she could do under Lady Hurrell’s bullying was to be small and quiet, like a mouse, and hope to go unnoticed. The duke scrubbed himself from head to toe, dunked his head in a bucket, and then shook his black hair like a dog.

“I’ll be back soon,” he said, pulling on a fresh shirt and clean breeches. “Be quick about your bath.”

It was lukewarm at best. As she scrubbed, Ophele wondered that a man eighteen inches taller and two hundred pounds heavier than she could clean up in five minutes, while she took at least half an hour, most of it painstakingly soaping and rinsing sweat and stone dust out of her long hair. She was nowhere near ready when he knocked at the door.

“Wife?”

“Wait!” Maiden or no maiden, she still bolted for the bed and pulled on a fresh chemise that instantly clung to her soaked skin. And then she hesitated, her fingers knotting together as she looked at the door, because she wasn’t ready yet and if he scolded her one more time she didn’t think she could take it.

“Princess?”

“Come in,” she said, as if to an executioner.

The duke ducked through the doorway and then stopped as suddenly as if he had struck a wall. He didn’t speak. He just looked at her with those opaque, unreadable black eyes, and the room filled with a deep and dreadful silence, as if to make room to allow her to contemplate the totality of her failure. He looked at her for so long that Ophele wrapped her arms around herself nervously, her eyes on the floor. Lady Hurrell used to do this, too. When Ophele was in trouble, the lady would just sit there in silence, staring, letting the pressure build and build until Ophele didn’t carewhatcruel thing the lady did as long as it happened and was over.

“We don’t have any towels,” she said at last, when she couldn’t bear it any longer. “I had to wash my hair, it got all dusty, but it takes too long to dry. It’s too long, I’m sorry, most noblewomen don’t have their hair so long, I could cut—”

“No,” he said instantly, and then blinked and seemed to shake himself. “No. I told you to tell me if you need something. I’ll find some towels before I leave. Come, I’ll help you with your hair.”

“You’ll…” The vision of the duke clutching her hairbrush was nearly as mind-boggling as the idea of him sewing tippets to her sleeves. “…help?”

“Yes. We’re not cutting it. Come, show me what to do.” Crossing the room, he pulled a blanket from the bed and wrapped it around her shoulders. “Here, you—cover up. Now, explain.”

It was probably like brushing his horse to him, she told herself. A prized horse that he needed to tend so he could trot it out to be admired. But it was still surreal to have him stand by the hearth and brush one side of her hair while she combed the other, separating and untangling the long locks so the heat of the fire would dry them faster.

“That looks well enough,” the duke said when they were done, shifting back from her so carefully that it was as if he thought he might catch fire if he so much as touched her. “Tell me if you need help with such things.”

“All right,” Ophele said to the floor, thoroughly bewildered and wishing he would just be hateful, if he hated her. At least then she would know what to expect and have no hope for anything different.

“Be quick,” he said, striding to the doorway without looking back at her. “It’s dangerous to keep a hungry man from his meal.”

* **

Any large gathering in Tresingale was a cause for concern.

With the exception of those on guard duty, every single person in town was assembled in the field behind the cookhouse, a ragged and somewhat mangy mob, worn from the day’s labors. Even Wen the cook was standing in the doorway of the kitchen, his arms crossed over his chest and a ladle in one hand. Soldiers turned farmers, soldiers turned hunters, soldiers who had apprenticed themselves to the masters and craftsmen Remin had brought to the valley. There was even a literate few who were acting as Nore Ffloce’s hands, and learning the science behind the building of a town.

But with so many people gathered, security was an issue, so the Knights of the Brede were present and impressive in their armor, standing at the perimeter of the crowd. Tounot and Edemir flanked the duke and his lady, and the cat-eyed Darri stood outside the circle of torches, watching for danger in the dark.

“All of you that have come to this valley, as soldiers or as builders, have already sworn an oath,” began Jinmin, whose gravelly command voice could cut through any crowd. “As soon as you set foot on this side of the Brede, you swore to do no harm to the Duke of Andelin or any who have sworn loyalty to him. Tonight, you will extend that oath to his Duchess.”

There was no cleric among them yet. Remin had already sent a request to the Holy City of Jaen, the seat of the Temple of the Stars. But these men would be standing under the stars when they made their oath, with all of the eyes of the glorious dead to witness.

“Kneel,” said Jinmin, and sank to one knee himself, turning to face Ophele. He would swear another oath as a knight later, just as all of his brother knights had, but it was good to set an example. “With all the stars as witness…”

The men’s voices echoed him, and Remin searched the faces in the crowd, looking for any who had refused to kneel, any who did not say the words. As more people came to the valley, it was likely that sooner or later one of them would be in the service of the Emperor. His wife’s case was a complicated one: she might be a target for assassins, or she might be an assassin herself.

The princess herself didn’t seem to knowwhereto look, and for once, he could sympathize. Remin was dimly aware that she was wearing a red gown. He liked her hair. But in his mind’s eye there was a vision of her standing by the fireplace with her chemise clinging wet and transparent, showing the shape of her breasts and her narrow waist and rounded hips. The sight had actually, literally, embarrassingly paralyzed him. It was as if his brain had temporarily ceased all nonessential function.

---