Page 142 of Stardust Child

But Remin had been dealing with this for years. People had been dying for him and because of him since he was nine. There was a deep, dark place inside him where he shoved these feelings, a bottomless pit, locked down tight beneath a weight of stone.

Remin closed it up and went to wash the smell of horse off his hands.

Ophele was in the bedchamber, seated at her desk and scribbling away. Somehow, he had known exactly where she would be. With a nod, he dismissed Peri and Lady Verr from the room and went to kneel beside her chair, taking her hands.

“I’m sorry I snapped at you,” he said, looking up into her eyes. She was wearing her solemn-owl face. “I am not…proud of myself today. I don’t know if I made the right decisions.”

Ophele stretched her arms out and wrapped them around his neck, her soft cheek pressing against his.

“Maybe there wasn’t a good decision,” she said. “Sometimes there isn’t a good place to camp.”

That was not something that someone who lived in the shelter of a garden would say. Remin let her hold him and felt deep down that he did not deserve it, filled with the bittersweet knowledge that he, at least, had come home safe.

Chapter 15 – Stardust Child

Ophele was going to tell him the truth.

She just wasn’t sure when.

It felt cruel to thrust it upon him when he had only just got home and was still upset about what had happened to Nandre and Meinhem. He didn’t want to talk about it. She had made tentative offers both to talk and to listen, whichever he would like, but he had shut both down so thoroughly she couldn’t offer again. And she didn’t blame him; she could have no wisdom to offer on such a weighty matter. She just hated to see that look in his eyes.

He had somanyweighty matters to worry about. So many burdens. Until she sat through the deluge Sir Bram, Sir Edemir, and Sir Juste had loosed on his head, she had never realized exactlyhowbusy Remin was, and how many things waited on his word. The list of things requiring his personal attention went on for pages. Literally. There was a list, she had seen it.

But the matter of Lady Hurrell would not grow anylessurgent, and she was already receiving some very pointed looks from Sir Justenin and Sir Edemir, reminding her that while she dithered, they were withholding crucial information from their liege lord.

“What are you doing today?” he asked over breakfast, putting away his food like he was filling in a pit. Even though he was busy from sunup to sundown—and, she suspected, sneaking out of bed at night to do paperwork—he was adamant about sharing his meals with her.

“I’m going into town to help Sir Edemir with accounts, and discussing the new devil with Sir Justenin, and a few other errands.” Her eyes shifted toward the fireplace. Actually, she was helping Sir Justenin experiment on the devil’s quills, which she really thought ought to involve Master Forgess, but Remin was still militant on the subject of the scholars and everyone agreed it was best to let things calm down for now. “What about you?”

“I’ll be in town and at the wall most of the day,” Remin replied, pausing between massive bites for a gulp of tea. “We’re discussing some improvements to the defenses around town. We’ll get the gatehouse done over winter if I have to use the masons for mortar, but I don’t want to rely solely on stone. Not after Nandre.”

“I want to talk to Amalie and her brother, if Sir Auber thinks it would be all right,” Ophele agreed, pouring him a fresh cup with just the amount of milk and sugar he liked. Remin had a surprising sweet tooth. “It sounded like the new devil went through the grilles rather than the stone, and I was thinking—it was big, but it didn’t try to climb, or jump to reach you, did it? If it was the same devil you heard. It might have been two devils, you know.”

“That is true,” Remin said thoughtfully, and bent down to kiss her forehead. “Never stop thinking, my wife.”

His praise still made her throat feel tight. After he was gone, Ophele lifted her hand to her forehead to feel the phantom sensation of his kiss and wondered how she could ever tell him the truth.

In a way, they were lucky he was so distracted; there was a great deal of clandestine activity underway all over Tresingale. Craftsmen hastily flung blankets over objects at his approach. Sousten Didion, who couldnotkeep a secret, had been forbidden to speak to him until after his birthday. The soldiers at the barracks had been forced into a number of last-minute diversions to keep him from prematurely unveiling their gift.

Ophele herself had had a few narrow escapes. Only yesterday in the storehouse she had been helping Sir Edemir cache away some of Remin’s presents when the man himself had appeared in the doorway, wanting to discuss ordering more steel. There had been no choice but to fling herself at him and kiss him in full view of a half-dozen men while one of Sir Edemir’s secretaries belly-crawled down the aisle and around the corner, clutching Remin’s new saddlebags.

It was with this same air of secrecy and danger that she rode to the carpenters’ workshops on the east side of town, watching for Remin and feeling like a fugitive. She even went as far as hiding Brambles around the back of the shop, off the street, and coming through the back entrance. She arrived just in time.

“Your Grace. You asked me to come?”

Sir Jinmin had to crouch to get through the door of Master Sharrenot’s workshop, and straightened to his full, vast height. She had always felt a certain sense of awe for Remin’s biggest knight, and bizarrely, the feeling seemed to be mutual. Sir Jinmin had never once looked directly at her.

“Yes,” she said, trying to give him a charming smile. “It’s for His Grace’s birthday. Master Sharrenot, he’s here!”

“Coming, I’m coming, m’lady,” said the master carpenter, grunting as he brought forth the object. Ophele had never forgotten how everyone had come together to hand-make gifts for her birthday, and had attempted to do the same for Remin.

“A chair?” said Sir Jinmin, his small blue eyes narrowing. It was a truly gorgeous object, dark wood polished satiny smooth, with a leather seat and back. Ophele clasped her hands together and suppressed an undignified squeal of delight.

“A chair!” she exclaimed. “Oh, it is beautiful! Look at the carving on the arms…”

“Ironheart oak.” Master Sharrenot grunted as he deposited the chair on the floor. “Sousten showed me some of them Hora Vosi sketches, m’lady, to give me a feel for the shape of the thing. Isn’t often I get a chance to do this kind of work. Reckon it’s as good as anything you’ll see from some foreigner.”

“I am sure it is,” she agreed instantly. “And it looks just the right size. Sir Jinmin, I was hoping you’d try it and see if it’s comfortable? His Grace is always saying the chairs are too low for him.”

---