Page 41 of Traitor Son

For some reason, her meekness infuriated him. Why wasn’t she angry? She was a princess, the daughter of the Emperor, she should expect to be treated like one. She should demand better than a wattle-and-daubshepherd’s hut. Even a serving girl would have balked. A noblewoman should have raised hell.

“You don’t have much pride, for a princess.” It just slipped out. But he wantedsomethingfrom her, a flicker of temper, of outrage, of hurt. He had expected a spoiled, haughty princess and kept digging to find her, sure that she must be hidden under this shy, lovely façade. But she just looked away, her narrow shoulders drawing together.

Whatever her reply was, it was so soft, it was trodden under the heavy thud of his horse’s hooves.

* * *

Ophele didn’t think she would ever walk normally again.

Every day was a grueling marathon, her backside and thighs battered to bits by the spanking rhythm of the horse. They ate in the saddle and only stopped briefly at noon to allow everyone to carry out the necessary bodily functions, then were ahorse once more, pulverizing her bones to dust and making her wonder how the duke—who had to actually do the work of riding, rather than sitting like a sack of grain in the saddle—could endure it.

They had come so far, so fast, it was a little overwhelming to think how many miles she was from Aldeburke and everything she knew. So far to the north, even the forests looked different, thick with fir and pine and other trees she didn’t recognize, hoary and massive. She spotted a few edibles like pecan, hazelnut, and walnut; she had always loved fall back home, when she could gorge herself on the season’s produce and Azelma would bake pecan tartlets and mincemeat pies.

After three weeks on horseback, Ophele would have given anything to justwalk.The duke’s horse was immense and his back correspondingly wide, but no matter which way she turned, she just couldn’t get comfortable anymore. In the evenings she walked endlessly back and forth at the perimeter of the camp to ease the cramps in her legs, and even when she was lying in the back of the supply wagon, it felt like the world was swaying underneath her like a ship.

Sometimes Sir Justenin joined her for her walks. She wasn’t sure what to make of him. He was so much older, he could nearly have been her father, and she didn’t know what such an important man could possiblywant from her. But she was grateful to have someone to talk to, all the same. Just because she was used to solitude didn’t mean shelikedit.

“Did you ever think of going back?” she asked one night, walking carefully to avoid horse droppings. Sir Justenin had been describing the place he had grown up, a peaceful mountain monastery that took in inconvenient children. She thought she would have liked to be sent there. “To the Brothers?”

“No,” he said thoughtfully. “Though there was a time I thought about joining them; there are worse ways to spend one’s life than contemplating the stars. I liked learning. And I miss the quiet,” he said, looking at the noisy camp with mingled fondness and chagrin.

“Was it an oath?” she asked hesitantly. “That made you decide to join His Grace.”

“Yes. My father was one of his father’s retainers.”

“Oh.” Well, she had thought as much, but she still had to bite her tongue to keep from apologizing. “That’s very honorable of you, to keep his promise.”

“Honor cuts both ways, my lady,” he said with a small smile. “A pledge of service also means that your husband pledged to keep a position open for me, if I wanted it. And I thought I wanted to see the world, and serve the son of the man my father served.”

He often said that.Your husband,as if it were a firm foundation upon which to rest their conversations. But though Ophele had come to understand a little of the relations between men and women, it never occurred to her that anyone might want her with that strange, thrilling madness that had briefly possessed His Grace.

“It must have been difficult,” she said, though she was a little at a loss. Of course it had been difficult; he had survived seven years of war and eaten his own boots one winter. “For all of you. Is it the same for the others? Did their fathers swear, too?”

“A few, I think.” At the end of the picket line, they turned together, reversing their course. “Tounot for certain; his father was the duke’s bannerman, and Tounot fostered with His Grace’s father every summer. Edemir’s lands border the Andelin, and Huber was a fosterling of Duke Ereguil’s and came up with His Grace as a knight. Bram was a mercenary your husband hired to do some tricky work, and then he decided to stayon. And Miche—well, as far as I know, Miche just got a whim in his silly head one day.”

Ophele giggled. It sounded like something he would do.

“You’re all very brave,” she said. “I often heard the maids talking about you, back home.”

“There are many kinds of bravery, my lady. The subtler variety is no less worthy.”

“Oh, that’s from…” She hummed, rummaging through her memory. Sir Justenin liked to pepper quotations into the conversation, as if he were testing her. “Deregas.A Primer of Virtues.”

“Aldeburke has an impressive library.” The compliment was roundabout enough that she was not embarrassed. “Do you agree with his definition?”

She loved this kind of conversation. Sir Justenin was so patient and encouraging, she forgot to be nervous, and he was a very methodical thinker. He often trapped her with her own logical inconsistencies, and it taught her to think more thoroughly, to consider not just the words on a page, but all their implications, and everything that must follow, if they were true.

Like the travelers. They saw occasional travelers on the roads, but as they drew close to the river, there were more. Ragged families with hand carts, single men with heavy baskets on their backs, and twice, huge wagons bogged down in the middle of the narrow path, blocking the way and requiring the knights to hitch up their own horses to pull them free. A vast migration had begun, and though she had heard the duke and his men talking about it at night around the fire, until now she hadn’t thought through what it meant.

All these travelers wanted to be the duke’s people. They wanted to settle his lands, they would pay taxes to him, take oaths of loyalty to him, and he would be responsible for protecting them. Riding on mules, seated in wagons, or tramping barefoot through the mud, they were coming, to build new lives, to till the soil and raise their families.

And if they wished to belong to the duke, and she was his wife, then it logically followed that they were going to be her people, too.

Ophele closed her book and watched.

Few of them were actual beggars. Beggars would never make it so far. It must cost a lot of money to uproot a life and buy food and supplies to journey for months. But some of the travelers had clearly underestimated the cost, or run into misfortune, and when she saw a woman with a young child sitting in the shade by the side of the road, she couldn’t be silent. The child did not look well at all.

“Your Grace,” she made herself say. “Can we help them?”

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