Page 101 of Stardust Child

Itwasa very pleasant afternoon for a drive, at least. The fleeting glimpse of the market was just a tease, with all the new signs and bustle and Noreveni glass going into the shopfronts. Paralyzed by the presence of Lady Verr, Ophele could only look at the fascinating motion in the window of the weaver’s shop as Mistress Roscout plied her art, treadle hammering out the open door. There was a whole family moving into the tavern, the Tregues come to open it at last, and Ophele craned her neck, trying to spot the tavern mistress. Sir Miche had warned that she seemed the type to topple tyrants, based on her letters.

If Remin had been there, they would have stopped to help them move in. Ophele sighed. It made her feel like everything was happening without her, from the framing of more houses in the craftsmen’s quarter to the final stones being laid on the towers of Shepherd’s Gate, just visible to the northeast. Tresingale was slowly being enclosed in sturdy stone walls, and Sir Bram had reported at supper last night that the palisade was coming down as the city wall extended, with the wood being burned for charcoal or repurposed for construction, depending on how much the devils had chewed it.

All too soon, Jaose turned back to the manor, where Master Didion was waiting to pounce as soon as she came in the door.

“I heard that our esteemed scholars have arrived,” he said, eager as always to share the gossip. “Come to appreciate our learned duchess, have they not? Now I understand why His Grace was so insistent upon a library, to support the aspirations of so singular a lady!”

“I might not be right,” Ophele protested for the hundredth time. Inside the echoing front hall, Master Didion beckoned them over to his work areas, consisting of several tables to unsteady for any other use. “I only talked to four hundred men out of ninety thousand, that’s not even one percent—”

But no one ever wanted to hear about the math.

“There is no other lady in the world that could boast such an accomplishment,” Master Didion declared, which was hard to argue. “It is an honor that you will trust your books to my care, Your Grace, to guard as well as the tools of my own trade! Aubin, Matissen, if you please…”

And with that, he got down to his real business, as his assistants shuffled forth, laden with a large stack of plans for the house for Ophele to review and approve. Beginning with the bedchamber, which would not be nearly so large and bare when it was done.

“The room must serve multiple purposes, especially as the house grows,” Master Didion began, turning to an overhead view. “His Grace said you would like a place to read, and even after there is a dining room, perhaps you would like to continue breakfasting privately. A discreet washstand, this sitting area by the fire, and this space for His Grace’s armor and weapons. Apparently,” he added, darting a glare at Remin’s armor stand, which was not only aesthetically displeasing but quite ruined the tone of the entire suite.

But Master Didion had managed the space cleverly, with smooth golden-brown beams breaking up the vast sections of wall and supporting the arched ceiling like elegantly branching trees. Those beams would also frame the promised paper murals, and Ophele drew her breath as his assistants paged through the designs.

“You’ve used them as screens, too,” she said, bending to look closer. “To hide the washstand, and Remin’s armor…it looks as if it’s part of the wall, doesn’t it? But you can move them about.”

“It is an inspired notion,” Master Didion agreed, puffing with satisfaction.

“One I am sure you will claim credit for, Sousten,” said Lady Verr. “Paper murals?”

“It was the lady’s idea,” Master Didion corrected, placing a hand over his heart to offer Ophele a bow. “Though we must credit Benkki Desa with its invention.”

“Perhaps they know what they are about,” Lady Verr mused. “They would be a sensation in the capital—oh, and look, you have designed them seasonally?”

“Yes, this might be Her Grace’s reading corner,” he explained, as his assistants produced yet another page. It showed the same squashy armchair, table, and lamp with four different murals behind it: flowers, butterflies, and jewel-bright hummingbirds for spring, green leaves and curving golden lines like sunshine for summer, a mural for every season.

“Oh, I love it,” said Ophele, entranced. She could just picture herself sitting in that chair and looking out the window, sipping tea and reading a book.

“It may be a little feminine,” Lady Verr cautioned, casting quite a different light on the matter. “Like Lady Houvrin’s parlor.”

“It most certainly is not,” Master Didion said indignantly.

“Lady Houvrin?” Ophele echoed.

“She was a newlywed in Segoile a few years ago,” Lady Verr explained. “And her husband was much older, and indulgent, so he let her do as she liked with their grand parlor while he was away hunting. You might not have heard of Lord Houvrin, he is one of those rugged gentlemen that likes to tromp about in heavy boots and vanish for weeks at a time into the forest after some poor beast or other. Enjoys his brandy. Very whiskery.”

“Lady Verr does paint a picture,” Master Didion observed, looking as if he would have liked to draw up a chair and join the gossip. “Imagine that sort of gentleman, Your Grace, and then imagine that he finally arrives home bearing the carcass of his latest victim and walks into his new parlor to find—”

“—pink carnations,” Lady Verr concluded gravely, and made Ophele burst into giggles. “It was amotifof carnations centering on a theme of carnations with an underlying message of carnations, if you like.”

“No,” Ophele said, covering her mouth. “What did he say?”

“I am told he located the least pink object in the room to sit upon and fled the moment it was polite, never to venture into that room again,” said Lady Verr. “She could not have barred him from it more effectively than if she had barricaded the doors.”

“And you will note there is not a single carnation to be found in any of these designs,” Master Didion added sternly.

“No, but it is Remin’s home, too…” Ophele said, chewing on her lower lip as she looked regretfully at the beautiful reading corner. She could see herself there so clearly, Master Didion might as well have painted her into the design, but the image of Remin frowning among the hummingbirds was rather jarring.

“Well, that is where the fun begins,” Master Didion replied, and it turned out that itwasrather fun, searching through samples for a warmtortoiseshell leather for the chairs that was soft enough for herself and sturdy enough for His Grace, with a bumblebee hassock she liked very much as an accent. And she was greatly impressed when Aubin bent over with quill and ink to show her how the curving, intricate woodwork she favored could be weighted down and simplified so that the Duke of Andelin wouldn’t look as if every chair in the room were in danger of collapsing beneath his weight.

“That is quite good,” Lady Verr said approvingly, watching as the designs evolved for eventual dispatch to Hara Vos, who was famous for its woodwork.

Master Didion was pleased to leave the bulk of the designs and the promised design books with Ophele when he left, looking eagerly at her as if he expected the entire contents of the bedchamber to spring fully formed from her head tomorrow.

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