Page 43 of Traitor Son

“There’s the storehouse,” he said to the princess as they approached. “Over there is the cookhouse, it doubles as a barracks right now, until we get an actual barracks built. Kitchen’s on the back. We have a camp cook that can make something edible out of almost anything. Plain food,” he added, as a warning. “It won’t be what you’re used to. Wen’s used to feeding an army, not gracing a nobleman’s table.”

He paused, giving her an opportunity to protest this, but as always, she let it pass in silence, looking at the tiny settlement. Tresingale was to Trema what Trema was to Granholme. There wasn’t even a cowshed in Tresingale yet.

“What will happen to all the people we saw coming here?” she asked.

“We’re still discussing that,” he answered, reining in his horse, who had spotted the stable and wanted hay. “Technically, they’re Firkane’s problem. But we’ll see what we can do for them.”

It would take a lot of time and money either way, and he had to bite his tongue to keep from cursing the Emperor aloud. He had started this flood with his talk of open lands to the north. They were Remin’s lands, and they weren’t open yet.

“And…the bandits?”

“I’ll deal with them,” he said, grim lines deepening in his face, and lifted his hand to greet Genon, who was pelting toward them on his gray mare.

If he’d thought about it, Remin would have warned her about Genon beforehand. It would have been a kindness to them both.

“Genon!” Remin swung down from his horse, reaching for the princess to set her down beside him and then striding forward to clasp hands with the surgeon. Genon was a big man, vast in the way some men could be big without being fat, burly and heavy-boned with forearms like hocks of ham. “Still alive.”

“Too cursed stubborn to die.” Genon clapped his shoulder. “Thought you’d never get back, it’s been tense, Your Grace. Been feeling like we’re out here naked with our boll—that is, it would be nice to have more defenses in place,” he hastily amended, glancing at the princess, who was hobbling toward them and trying to hide it.

“This is my wife,” Remin drew her forward, noting the line of pain between her eyebrows. No matter what she said to the contrary, the ride had been grueling for her. “Princess Ophele of House Agnephus, Lady of Aldeburke, and now my duchess. Princess, this is Genon Hengest, our surgeon.”

“Pleased to meet you.” Her eyes were round as she looked up at him. Remin was used to Genon, so he hardly noticed the man’s wounds anymore, but they were a graphic illustration of the reality of war. Thirty years ago, Genon had been doused in boiling oil while assaulting a Vallethi fortification. The upper right quarter of his head, including his right eye, was a melted mass of silvery-pink scars that extended down the right side of his body, pulling his shoulder into a permanently crabbed position.

“It’s my honor, my lady.” Genon bowed and gave her a glimpse of the scars seaming the top of his head. “I’ve known His Grace a long time, it will be a pleasure to serve his lady. You ever need anything, I’m your man.”

“Thank you.” She was staring, her fingers knotting together in an anxious gesture that Remin recognized. He was willing to let her timidity pass, to a point, but he was going to have to talk to her about that. He would not allow her to embarrass Genon. “I have heard of you, I think,” she said hesitantly, so softly even Remin didn’t catch all of it, and he was right next to her. “Some of…Genon minding the valley. And…good hands. On the way here.”

“Is that so?” Genon gave a booming laugh, having made out enough of it to understand it was complimentary. “That’s kind of you to say, my lady. There’s a lot of work to be done. But we’ve kept His Grace’s croft ready against your arrival, to make you as comfortable as we can.”

The look Genon was giving Remin from his one yellow eye was as good as words:see to your lady and then come talk to me.There was news, and it could wait, but not for long. And as much as he wanted to plunge straight into the work of the valley, his first responsibility was to his wife.

“I’ll find you in the cookhouse shortly,” Remin said, catching the princess’s elbow and steering her toward the cottage. “Tounot, have someof the lads bring the princess’s things up. The rest of you, be about your business.”

The princess nodded politely to Genon and moved with Remin, picking up her skirts and tiptoeing to keep out of the mud. His cot wasn’t far, the second one down the narrow lane, a thatched cottage with a recent coat of whitewash on its thick daubed walls. Weeds and scrubby dandelions filled the front yard.

“I told you it wasn’t much,” Remin said shortly, plodding across the muddy yard. By rights, he should be taking his new bride to the ancient and beautiful manor where he had been born, one of seven separate estates that had belonged to his murdered House. That place was gone, burned to the ground on the Emperor’s orders. The rest of his ancestral lands had been seized.

What he had now was a peasant’s cottage. Dark, dusty, dingy, though he could see his men had tried to keep it up for him. The rushes on the floor looked fresh, and so did the bedding. The bed was the one concession to his rank, an actual bedstead that took up the rear third of the small cottage, vast enough to accommodate his size.

The princess said nothing. She stood in the simple doorway, dusty and disheveled from weeks in the saddle, her eyes moving from the small hearth to the rough table and chairs to the single heavy trunk under the window. It was most charitably described ashumble,and the contrast between this hovel and the dignified estate at Aldeburke made Remin flush with humiliation.

“Not what you were hoping for, Princess?” he asked, tossing his own rough pack into the only empty corner. He wanted her to be angry. Sheshouldbe angry to be brought to a place like this. It was her father’s fault she was here, and her father’s fault that Remin Grimjaw had nothing better to offer his wife.

“You told me it would be a cottage,” she said, blinking. “Is there—could I have a bath before supper? I was hoping—”

“There will be no maids to draw baths for you here.” Best she knew the worst of it now. “If you want to wash, you’ll have to fetch water from the well.”

“I will.” Her hands pressed together, her fingers twining an anxious knot. “I—I was p-planning to dress for dinner, I wanted…a fresh…”

Her voice wavered, each word quieter than the last, and the last of it was completely inaudible.

“Speak. Up,” he said impatiently. “We don’t dress for dinner here. There won’t be room for half your dresses in this cottage. You’ll have to get used to living simply.”

“I know,” she whispered. “In Aldeburke—”

“Does this look like Aldeburke?” Suddenly, he was furious. “There’s no great house here, Princess. No servants, no maids to wait on you, no groundskeepers to chase away foxes. In a few weeks, there are going to be hungry things coming out of the mountains, and no one’s going to have time to coddle the Emperor’s spawn. There’snothinghere, do you understand? We havenothing!We are going to have to build all of it ourselves, becauseyour father—”

“Iknow!”She burst out, her eyes round with fright. “I know, I will do it, I will get water myself, I won’t trouble you, I just don’t know where anything is and I wanted to look nice when I meet your men, I’ll be careful, you just have to tell me and I’ll do it, I only need a bucket, a b-basin, I’m sorry, I’msorry!”

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