Page 87 of Traitor Son

A little way up the trench, she could catch occasional glimpses of Sir Miche’s blond head, scrambling up and down the huge mounds of earth that lined either side of the pit. The diggers had run into a problem a few hours ago, and almost everyone else had gone home for the day.

She had just crept a little way up the stairs, hoping for a better look, when a voice behind her nearly made her topple off in surprise.

“Good evening, my lady,” said Sir Tounot, quickly catching her elbow. “You’re still here?”

“Testing the stairs,” she said, embarrassed.

“Well, if they are fit for the Lady of Andelin, then they must be an honor for the rest of us,” he said gallantly, helping her to her feet. “But if you’re waiting for Miche, it will be a bit, I’m afraid. Would you like to go up and have a look?”

“Oh, could I?” she asked, brightening. She had been forbidden the top of the wall, along with almost every other interesting place in the valley. “It wouldn’t be any trouble?”

“I was just going up myself to have a word with Ammon,” he assured her. “So long as Master Eugene won’t take it in his head to wander off.”

“No, the cart has a brake now, and he falls asleep whenever he’s standing still,” she assured him, trotting up the stairs. It was refreshing just to feel the wind at the top of the wall, cool and clean, almost as if the valley’s summer humidity was a low-lying phenomenon. And Sir Tounot must have known how much she wanted a look around, because he set her safely in the center and then left her to amuse herself.

Ophele was happily oblivious to the masons sidling nervously along the wall beside her as she explored, as if they feared she might suddenlythrow herself over the side. Much of Tresingale was still heavily wooded, and from where she stood, she was looking up at whitebeam trees and wych elms, eighty and ninety feet tall, elderly giants. Closer to eye level were black pines and glossy green holly, and clusters of mossy oak with their distinctive leaves, like finding old friends. There were some wonderful old oaks back in Aldeburke whose branches had cradled and concealed her over the years.

But many of those splendid trees had been cut back to deny concealment to the devils, and she could see more clearing underway on a distant hilltop, where the manor house would soon rise. Nearer at hand were the hills of the barracks and Court of War, and she drifted down the completed portion of the wall for a better look. There were the beginnings of the bridge that would one day butt up against the high wall, a curving fortification that dropped straight down into the river. The masons were very excited about the progress of the bridge footings.

Ophele could have watched this fascinating work all day. Sir Miche had walked with her down the hill to the river a few times, but from there she could only see bits and pieces of the machines involved. Now she could see all of it, creaking away in the fading daylight, and she didn’t realize how far she had come until Sir Tounot came trotting up behind her.

“I will walk with you, lady, if it pleases you,” he said, offering his elbow. “You can see the treadwheel quite well from up here, can’t you?”

“That’s what it’s called?” Ophele was always pleased to learn the proper names of things.

“A treadwheel crane, yes, my lady. One of the largest in the Empire, according to Master Guisse,” he said, puffing comically to make her giggle. “And that’s the pile driver beside it. They’ll use that to make a coffer dam—that’s that diamond shape—and then bail out the water from the middle…”

Well, that was where some of the elms and whitebeams must have gone, Ophele thought, listening with rapt attention as he explained how the dam would become a footing, and the footings would support arches, and the arches would span the river all the way to Firkane.

“I like that,” Ophele said, deeply impressed. What she wouldn’t give for such a wheel to work the well, and spare her the endless cranking of the windlass. A breeze lifted, combing cool fingers through her hair, and she sighed. “Oh, the wind is so nice.”

“It puts me in mind of the wind off the Emme, in the capital,” Sir Tounot said reminiscently. “There are great paved walks along that river, and this time of year they are shaded by trees and arbors, with blue morning glories and climbing hydrangeas. But there is no view like this in Segoile.”

“Maybe one day we will have walks like that,” she said.

“If Master Ffloce has his way, we will exceed anything the capital can boast,” Sir Tounot said smugly. “He plans public walks like the ones in Capricia, where even the common folk are welcome to promenade of an evening, and artists and musicians will gather under streetlights to compete for the attention of passersby. In Capricia, they say the Walk of Dreams is sustenance for the soul.”

“And we will have artists coming, and musicians?” she asked eagerly, looking down at the river as her imagination painted them over the trees and scrub brush. But then she caught her breath, her hand tightening on Sir Tounot’s arm. “What is that? Down in the trees, did you see it?”

“That is a devil, my lady.” He halted beside her, his eyes narrowing.

“I thought they didn’t come out until night.”

“It’s dark enough under the trees that they can move a little by day, or they would not be here to trouble us at all,” the knight answered somberly. “The hunters have to be wary, when they venture into the forest. But the devils have to stay hidden in whatever holes they have found, for the least sunlight will set them afire.”

“I wish it would burn that one,” she murmured, looking with dread fascination. She didn’t want to see it, but she was also afraid to take her eyes from it. “Do you know what kind it is?”

“Too small for a wolf demon,” he said, looking obligingly down at the small shape. “I would say a strangler, my lady. Ghouls are rarely alone, and stranglers like to hide in such pla—”

“My lady!” came a call from behind them, and she turned to find a sodden Sir Miche striding toward them, soaked to the chest in muddy water. He was not smiling. “There you are. Please step back from the edge of the wall.”

“There’s a devil in the wood down there,” she explained as he seized her elbow and drew her back. “Sir Tounot was just—”

“Sir Tounot ought to have more sense,” he said sharply, with none of his usual drawling good humor. “All we need is for a bird to startle or thatdevil to start racketing and give you a fright, and we might as well throw ourselves over the side after you. Please do nothing of the sort again.”

“Well, I won’t,” she said meekly, and he sighed, rumpling up his hair.

“I beg your pardon,” he said. “It gave me a turn to find Master Eugene by himself, but I suppose you’ve earned a look from the top. Just stay back from the edge, I beg, for the sake of my heart. Where’s the devil?”

---