Page 70 of Traitor Son

Ophele digested this. The ramifications might have escaped most seventeen year-old girls, but she had read a great deal of history. No one in Segoile could protest if the duke maintained his own army, not with Valleth sitting on his doorstep. But she couldn’t help wondering if anyone in the Five Courts had considered that Remin Grimjaw, son of an extinct House, might not think that Valleth was his only enemy.

“The Brede belongs to the duke, doesn’t it?” she asked. “Even the docks on the south side of it?”

“Every mile,” Sir Miche agreed, looking at the dark water churning beyond the trees. “Nothing moves on the river without Rem’s permission.”

They were so clever, the Knights of the Brede. Had anyone thought, when the duke claimed the river as part of the Andelin, that it would mean his duchy was all but impregnable? Everyone said Remin was a genius, and he must be; the greatest military commanders in Argence had been trying and failing for a hundred years to take back the valley.

And now the genius held it to the south bank of the Brede.

Was that what the duke was planning? Or maybeplanningwas too strong a word, she thought, frowning. He was maneuvering. He was putting himself in the most advantageous, unassailable position. The House of Andelin would be very difficult to destroy the way his original House had been.

Had Remin really thought of all that when he was only seventeen?

“My lady?” Sir Miche asked, and Ophele looked up, startled to see they were nearly at the foot of the wall.

“I’m sorry, I was thinking of the Court of War,” she said, which was the truth.

“It’ll be some time before it’s ready.” Retrieving his shovel from the wagon, he saluted her with it. “I wish you luck with the windlass. Sit down if you get tired.”

“Be careful,” she replied, as she always did, and turned the wagon south to the well.

Ophele knew her routine now. She knew where water would be needed and had found the patterns in the men’s work, slow and uneven in the morning, accelerating into a perfect, humming machine as everyone woke up.

“Wayyyy I wake up, up high on the hill,” called one of the foremen from the top of the wall, raising his voice over the clatter and clang of all the tools, and all the men on the wall sang the answer.

Wayyyyy I wake up, before the sun

Got a cup and a bite against the chill

Got a mountain to climb before day is done.

“Wayyyyy I wake up, down in the valley,” came Sir Miche’s voice from the trench, and there was a ripple of appreciative laughter from his fellow ditch diggers before they called back.

Wayyyy I wake up, under the stars

Got to grab my shovel, no time to dally

Got a mountain to shift, so far…

“So far!” called Sir Miche in answer, as all the shovels bit into the wet earth at once, dirt flying up in a wave from the trench. Stone thwacked into place on the wall, and there was the scrape of mortar, trowels flicking, a rhythmic accompaniment to the music.

After a few days, Ophele had learned these songs well enough to sing along, softly because she had no more notion of music than a sheep. But that was the time she liked best, when they all sang together so that the wall almost seemed to assemble itself. She nodded and smiled and waved as the men went by, fetched their tools when they dropped them, and before noon, she topped off everyone’s water and then turned back to town, where Wen and his kitchen boys were waiting to load the noon meal onto the wagon.

“No, they’ll load it, you’re a bleeding duchess,” Master Wen barked when she tried to help. The irascible cook stood in the door of the kitchen with his hands on his hips as he watched the proceedings, red-faced in the afternoon heat. “Do ye think they need consultation on stacking their baskets? Go. Sit.Eat!”

The abrupt bellow made her jump, and Ophele scuttled over to a pair of tree stumps set in the shade of a nearby tree. There was a trencher of bread, cheese, and a sliced apple waiting for her there, covered with a cloth. Wen glowered at her until she was done, and when she rose to return the plate and cloth, he looked pointedly at the remaining bit of bread and cheese.

“Does it not suit your palate, Your Grace?” he asked, soft and dangerous, like the warning gust of a tempest. Ophele stuffed the remainder into her mouth and escaped.

It was hard to eat when she was so hot, and so very tired. Sir Miche had said that eventually her body would adjust to the work, like he had gotten used to his ditch digging, but it had been weeks and still she was just barely keeping up. Her hands were blistered, blisters on top of blisters, and she washed and bandaged and padded them under her gloves, wincing as she dragged the buckets out of the well. The burn of her aching muscles blended with the heat of the day until it was as if she moved through a waking dream, where everything hurt and nothing was real and it was impossible to tell one day from the next.

Unfortunately, the nights were all too vivid.

“I’ll be back late,” said the duke after her supper, just as he did every night, clanking and jingling in his armor. He kept it on a stand in the cottage, battered steel that was disappointingly utilitarian, though he carefully cleaned and inspected it every day. His sword was an object of fascination to Ophele, who had been nourished on fantastical tales of legendary weapons forged in magical fires and engraved with sorcerous writing. His Grace’s two-handed broadsword was nearly as tall as she was, but it didn’t look the least bit magical.

“Be careful,” she said from the furthest corner of the bed, where she was already trying to hide behind her book. She couldn’t let him go face the devils without sayingsomething,even though she knew he would have preferred that she didn’t exist.

“Go to sleep,” he said, as if she hadn’t spoken. “You’re safe. Nothing will harm you.”

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