Page 50 of Stardust Child

Jacot sidled toward the cookhouse doors as if he were afraid she would capture him next, but Ophele only offered him a smile and a tiny nod. He would continue to come and see her several times a week, at least until the north wall was finished.

The builders wanted to have it done before winter, if only because a good number of them were hoping to leave the valley by then. Remin was prepared to feed as many as he had to, but soon they were going to have to make the expensive choice between continuing work on the wall versus building something better than tents to endure the coming blizzards.

Ordinarily, Ophele would have been happy to offer her own hands wherever they were most needed, be it the wall or the harvest or the dormitories of the barracks, but she was hard at her own task, wading through hundreds of interviews until the letters jittered before her eyes. Initially, Remin was pleased by the success of his gambit. This was safe work that kept her indoors and was both useful and interesting. But nowhe was taking the quill from her fingers almost every night and grumbling about eyestrain.

It was far preferable to the other strain on her eyes.

Sewing.

If Lady Verr hadn’t already been on the way, Ophele would have wallowed in her papers from morning til night. She hated sewing. She was so far behind, she didn’t know how she could ever catch up, and Remin’s birthday was only two months away. She wanted so badly to give him something she had made herself, if only to prove that she could fulfill this simple, minimal requirement of a noblewoman.

“Show me again,” she told Elodie, watching avidly as the girl demonstrated various stitches. As promised, she had brought her sampler, a little square of linen with dotted marks to show where the stitches should go. But not, to Ophele’s despair, how they got there.

“Blanket stitch, hem stitch, chain stitch, whip stitch,” Elodie chanted in her piping voice, her small silver needle flying. She knew a number of sewing songs that had at least taught Ophele the names of the stitches. “Mellie sews an odd stitch, a back stitch, a cross stitch…”

“And one to bless the stars…” Ophele warbled tunelessly along, with no more idea of notes than stitches. Her own sampler, which she tried to hide from the stars as well as everyone else, was decidedly rumpled and bloodstained from multiple pricks to her fingers. “Is your family coming to the feast?”

“I think so, Mama said we might,” the girl said happily. Remin had just issued his invitation to the permanent residents of the valley, and the new farmers had been vacillating. “Last year we stayed home ’cause Papa said His Lordship always set his table with other people’s food, and Mama said he shouldn’t say that, and then Papa said fine, we just won’t go.”

Ophele blinked. “The Count of Engleberg?”

“Uh-huh. Lady Engleberg wasn’t nice either, she was old and mean and always had a face like—” Elodie scrunched her face in demonstration, an expression that implied she had just eaten something sour. “One time Auntie Lisset didn’t curtsy, and she got scolded.”

That meant Amise was Elodie’s mother. Amise Conbour. Ophele filed this knowledge away.

“Scolded?” she echoed.

“Uh-huh.You show your lady respectand how she didn’t curtsy right, and like that. Mama was soooooo mad…”

Well. Maybe that was why Auber’s relations hadn’t wanted anything to do with their new duchess. Ophele frowned, picking at her stitches. That was never the sort of lady she wanted to be. But thinking of her mother’s effortless graces and perfect manners, she was painfully aware how short of the mark she fell. And there was Sir Leonin’s shadow lying over the doorstep, listening as his duchess interrogated a child about sewing and noble courtesies.

Ophele had yet to reconcile herself to her guards. At least she had finally stopped tripping over them, but she didn’t think she could ever accept having them follow her everywhere she went, witness to every awkward, clumsy moment of her life. It seemed so unnecessary. This was Tresingale. No one wanted to hurt her.

Well, noperson.

There was an unnamed road that stretched from the market to the barracks that she had reason to frequent of late, with wide stretches of grassy fields on either side that currently hosted an absolutely enormous flock of geese. Ophele had felt vaguely sorry for the creatures when Mosquito Pond was filled in, but their numbers had been steadily increasing ever since, and now she approached them with trepidation, wondering at the goose-y thoughts that lay behind those button-black eyes. She knew less of geese than she did of horses.

And they were butting up very close to the road.

“My lady,” said Sir Davi suddenly, as they were heading to the market the next day, where Ophele was meant to consult Master Ffloce about the ceremonies for the Feast of the Departed. “Stop walking, please.”

Ophele froze.

On her left, there was a low, sinister hiss. Two large geese stalked forward with their wings partially outspread, which surely could not be agoodthing. Behind her, she felt a hand on her shoulder.

“Leonin.” Sir Davi’s voice sounded strangled. “You’ll hold them off?”

“I doubt I will have your finesse with the creatures, but it seems we have no choice,” the other man replied acidly. His sword slid free of its sheath with asnickof steel. “Go. My lady, please cover your head.”

“What are you—” Ophele began, and then squealed in surprise as Sir Davi suddenly flung his heavy cloak over her, snatched her up, andstarted running. There was a cacophony of honking and hissing and things thumping against her from the other side of the cloak, but Sir Davi was laughing so hard she couldn’t even be afraid. Through a small gap at the bottom of the cloak, she saw feathers, eyes, and the road passing underfoot surprisingly fast; Sir Davi was a tall man, and even with her over one shoulder, he was loping up the hill like a wolf.

“All right, my lady,” he said after a few moments, setting her down carefully and pulling the cloak off her. “Not hurt anywhere? Good. I think we’ve survived.”

“Wehave,” she said dubiously. Over his shoulder, Sir Leonin was still fighting his way through a storm of angry geese, his sword arcing grimly through the air as they flew at his head and pecked at his legs. Feathers and blood were flying everywhere.

“Maybe you ought not watch,” said Sir Davi tactfully.

Small feathers were drifting from Sir Leonin’s hair when he finally emerged and there was a purpling welt on his cheek, to say nothing of the injuries probably concealed by his clothing. Ophele bit her lips as he approached. That might have been her, if they hadn’t reacted so quickly. He had faced the wrath of the geese for her.

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