Page 61 of Traitor Son

“Need help, m’lady?” called one, as she snatched at a passing gorse bush.

“No, thank you!”

But she didn’t hold it against him. Master Eugene was learning his new job, he was bound to make a few mistakes. And he was such a sweet and grandfatherly little fellow, a little absent-minded perhaps, but he never shied once from the racket on the wall.

The smiths also approved of this new arrangement. At the noon meal they sent a delegation to propose that Eugene haul their own water barrels to and from the well, and in exchange they would spell her on the windlass. As Ophele was working assiduously to hide her blistered hands from the eagle-eyed Sir Miche, she happily agreed to this arrangement.

“That was wise,” he said approvingly from behind her, where he was lazing against a tree. “Never give away anything for free, my lady, or the next thing you know these swindlers will have you begging for an hour of the donkey’s time.”

“Never,” Ophele vowed, feeding Master Eugene another carrot.

She bathed and brushed him before she bathed and brushed herself that night, and only left after the stableboys had promised to look after him as respectfully as the big war horses.

It had still been a hard day. She would almost have preferred to skip dinner rather than leave the steaming comfort of her cauldron, where the boiling water was the only thing that soothed her aching legs. She had done the math as she walked endlessly back and forth at the foot of the wall, and she reckoned she had walked nearly fifteen miles that day. Only the thought of Sir Miche having to fish her out of her cauldron kept her from falling asleep in the water.

She was almost asleep later that night when her remaining trouble popped into her mind, and she jerked instantly back to wakefulness. Turning over, she faced the wall behind her bed.

“Dol?”

There was a moment of silence, and then… “Yes, m’lady?”

“Can you do me a favor?”

“Might do,” he said cautiously.

“Could you wake me up a little before dawn?” she asked. “I’m sorry to trouble you, but I don’t wake up on my own, and I don’t want to be late. Could you bang your sword and shield together or something?”

“Folk in the cots next door would hang me if I did that, lady,” he said. He sounded like he was trying not to laugh, but at least he hadn’t refused. And he was right; she didn’t want to trouble the neighbors. But she could hardly let him come into the cottage, the duke could have his head for such an outrage.

“Just call, as loud as you dare,” she said finally. “And maybe have one of the other guards knock on the door? Who else is out there?”

“Yvain,” said a new voice from the wall at the foot of her bed, startling her. “Sorry, lady. Walls are thin.”

“Oh. Nice to meet you,” she said, glancing from one wall to the other. “Would you mind knocking, Yvain?”

“Don’t mind. I’m a heavy sleeper myself.”

“Thank you both.” She burrowed back under her covers with a lighter heart. “Good night. I hope it’s not too boring, just sitting out there.”

“We like boring,” Dol assured her.

“Good night, lady,” said Yvain.

* * *

They met Bram a few miles outside Ferrede five days later, and Remin was impressed again by the sheer size of his own duchy.

“No wagons in or out of town,” Bram reported as they sat together at dusk, forgoing campfires to avoid arousing suspicion in the nearby town. It was better if the townspeople didn’t know they were being watched. “My Meinhem scouts reported back yesterday, no movement on their side, either. These towns are just too far apart to communicate regularly, Rem.”

He agreed. These were small towns, backwaters. There was only one road in Ferrede. Forty-some cottages spread across the countryside surrounded by acres of planting, a windmill creaked on a lonely hilltop, and eight houses clustered together in a hollow and were likely considered “the town.” It was an isolated place that had survived a century of armies tramping by mostly because it wasn’t near anything of tactical value and the people were too stubborn to leave.

He wondered how they’d been coping with the ghouls.

“What do you think?” asked Huber. There was a glint of copper in his eyes in the sunlight, the legacy of a Noreveni ancestor. In the distance, they could see a single horse and wagon trundling from the town toward the mill.

“I don’t think the whole town was behind it,” Remin said slowly. “If they were, then we would’ve seen more contact between them and the bandits. I’m betting there’s an old man and a girl somewhere in town. Might be someone’s sister or sweetheart that just wanted to help the deserters. We’re far enough from the border that they’re more Vallethi than Empire up here.”

“Rem,” said Huber. “If it’s a girl and an old man—”

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