Page 55 of Traitor Son

That was a very gentle warning, and he was right. Hadn’t they spent all night making plans on just that principle? The princess could be exactly what she appeared and entirely innocent, and in that case, Remin had already wronged her in more ways than he could count. But…

He couldn’t forget how terrible storms could be.

There was a phantom twinge in his back at the memory, as of a wound yet unhealed, and he bade Genon good night and ducked into his cottage, shutting the door. The lamps were out, but there was still a red glow of coals from the hearth.

“Your Grace?” came the princess’s voice from the dark.

“You should be asleep. It’s late.” Pulling off his breeches, jerkin, and boots, Remin stretched out on the floor. Tomorrow night, he would be sleeping outside again. There was silence from the bed for a few minutes, and then…

“Your Grace?”

He sighed. “Hmm.”

“You’ll be safe? With the bandits?”

He did not want to hear this question from her. “Quite safe. I know it would grieve you, if I didn’t come back.”

“It would,” she whispered.

“Don’t worry. If your father wants me dead, he’ll have to do it himself.”

“But I don’t—”

“Be quiet,” he said, rolling over to turn his back to her. He would not give himself to her again. “Go to sleep.”

Chapter 7 – Clear Blue Sky

The duke and his men marched out of Tresingale the next day.

Ophele did not see them go. She didn’t even realize she wouldn’t see him again until he handed her over to Miche and saidI’ll be back in a few days.She thought there would be more…ceremony. Marching out the gates, cloaks fluttering, while she at least got the chance to tell them to be careful.

Maybe she had just read too many romances.

She had little to say as she walked to the wall with Sir Miche, so stiff from yesterday’s work that she could barely move. She had never had to do work like this in her life, and while she assumed her soreness was normal—she could hypothesize cause and effect well enough—the intensity of the pain still seemed excessive. When the duke woke her up that morning, she felt like someone had cast her in clay, fired her in a kiln, and then pushed her off a tower.

Dressed in a long-sleeved gown, with a hat, veil, and gloves to protect her skin, the only thing before her was more of the same, and the depressing thought that maybe the duke would never realize what she was trying to do for him. It was one thing to resign herself to brutally hard work in the name of atoning for her parents. But it would be nice if the person she was doing it for appreciated it just alittle.

“I know where he keeps his other pair of boots,” Sir Miche offered, and it took her a moment to realize what he was suggesting.

“No, that would just mean I have to smell it until he gets back,” she said without thinking, and then clapped a hand to her mouth as Sir Miche roared with laughter.

“I do like a practical girl,” he said, wiping his eyes. “Feel better? And stretch yourself out before you begin, my lady. It takes a bit to get used to this sort of work.”

“Did you have to get used to it?” she asked, a little plaintively. The thought of hauling buckets was making her wish her arms would just fall off right now.

“I’m not used to itnow,”he said frankly. “I’ve been a knight thirteen years, my lady, it’s been some time since I used my ditch digger muscles. Right this minute I’m so sore I’d sooner throw myself in the pit than dig it. But here, watch me. Stretch your arms out before and after you work, like this…”

It did make her feel better. And even if he was sore, and a knight, and hadn’t had to dig ditches in thirteen years, he was still pitching in and doing it cheerfully. She might be fit only to fill buckets of water, but she would try to do her best with it. Ophele nodded to the men on their way to the wall as she gathered her buckets, smiling when she saw friendly faces from the oath-taking last night.

“Thank you, lady,” said one of them, marching past with a shovel over one shoulder. “Good of you to help.”

It was interesting to watch everyone at work, like a complex machine with many parts. Ophele tried unobtrusively to stretch, as Sir Miche had advised, looking with pleasure at the length of wall that had been completed only yesterday.

But that meant it would be a farther walk to the well today.

She hadn’t thought of that. And it would continue to get further, as the wall got longer; it would take her longer to carry the buckets every day, and she would have shorter periods to rest between rounds. As she returned with her first bucket, Ophele tried to measure the distance with her eyes: there was the oak tree she had sheltered under yesterday, and there was the wild lilac bush that had shaded the water for the builders, but today would be used by the men filling the gap between the walls. And tomorrow, would not be used at all.

After she finished setting out buckets, Ophele went to go see Master Guisse, a middle-aged man with splendid gray muttonchops. He had a worktable set up under a canopy, with all his parchments weighted down by tools she didn’t recognize.

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