Page 80 of Stardust Child

“Then we’ll want a base camp in the foothills, and signal smoke,” said Tounot from a rough table nearby, where he was inventorying the equipment as it was packed into each wagon. “And someone coordinating between the mountain climbers and the watchtowers. Do you want your command tent?”

“No.” Remin wasn’t fooled. They’d pack it and then stuff him into it with guards at the first opportunity.

“Early for us to be leaving,” said Jinmin, lumbering into the courtyard beside them. “Early, early, early.”

“With the manor half-done and Her Grace not moved in yet.” Tounot shook his head. “The servants not even arrived…”

“To say nothing of the supplies—” agreed Auber, who was wrangling a crate of them.

“And Sousten drowning her in house plans—”

“And scholars from the Tower due any day—”

“Early, early, early,” sang Jinmin, rocking back on his heels, and Remin’s temper snapped.

“That’senough,”he snarled. “I am going, and I will not hear another word about it. Auber, make sure the blacksmiths finish the spike frames today; they can start looking over everyone’s armor tomorrow. Tounot, talk to Bram and make sure the river defenses will be completed while we’re gone. The Third can terrace off the river road if they need something to do. Jinmin, see to our supply and report to me on the state of the city walls later today.”

“Yes, my lord,” they said together, and Remin departed in a fury.

It was his duty to go. Nothing could shake him from that conviction. If there was some way to discover where the devils were coming from, he must find it, lest they return next year with even greater fury. Even Ophele had resolved that he must go, believing with all her heart that he would find the way, if anyone could. And it wasn’t as if he wasabandoningher. She would be perfectly safe, with guards to protect her and a lady to wait on her and even—finally!—maids to serve her, once the party from Ereguil arrived.

But they were strangers. He didn’t know these people. How could he leave her with strangers, and trust them to take care of her?

There were lines of temporary cottages built on the west side of the manor, so Remin went there next, and spent the next hour under Juste’s censorious blue eyes, trying to think of every possible misfortune that could befall Ophele in the next two months. It was just bad luck that the leaves had decided to fall at the time of greatest upheaval, with refugees coming back from the villages, waves of newcomers coming across the river, and everything else needing to be put in its place before winter.

Including Ophele herself, who would move up to the Big House alone.

Remin took a few minutes from his busy schedule to terrorize Sousten and the plasterers, but he already knew this battle was lost. The sheer quantity of plaster dust—and the fact that all of them were staring at him with cloths tied over their faces—was inarguable proof that the house was not ready for habitation. Harassing them wouldn’t get it done any faster.

Forced to capitulate, Remin settled into his other errands. He generally had a good memory for the various projects underway in the valley, but today he had an actual list, collected from Edemir after he had issued all his other orders and endorsements, including signing a new will. He made provisions for the ferries to be docked once the river began to freeze, dispatched a secretary to begin investigating the new port on the Cliffs of Marren, and was halfway down the street before he remembered to retrieve Lancer’s armor from the storehouse, so the blacksmiths could inspect it tomorrow.

He dropped by the hospital. He had a long visit with Nore Ffloce, who had completed the plans for townhouses to accommodate new merchants and several of Remin’s knights. The geese eyeballed him from either side of the road as he turned back for the barracks, fat and hostile and insolent, and he wondered when exactly they were supposed to migrate.

“My lord!” called a voice as Remin turned at the crossroads of the barracks, and Remin turned to find one of the porters from the harbor racing toward him, red-faced with exertion.

“Slow down,” Remin said, as Lancer snorted and swung to face the potential threat. “What is it?”

“Cleric—crossing the river now,” the man gasped. “Beg pardon, Master Gibel said you’d want to know, m’lord, as we weren’t expecting any Celestial Brothers. And the captain signals he’s sick.”

“Bastard devils,” Remin swore. “Why the—send a messenger from the barracks to fetch Gen, would you? I’ll go down to the harbor now.”

“Yes, m’lord.”

The ferry was just gliding into its slip as Remin galloped onto the pier, abandoning Lancer at the nearest hitching post. Master Gibel hurried toward him with his journeyman at his heels, pulling his beard in agitation.

“Stars and ancestors, I am glad you have come,” said the harbormaster, bowing without slowing. “I’d no notice that he was coming, and I’ll havewords with the captain, transporting him without a pass. Were you expecting anyone from the Temple, my lord? I can hardly send him back over the river, it looks like another trip will finish him off.”

“That’s all we need,” Remin replied, wondering whether the Temple of the Celestial Divine might be trying to frame him for the murder of a cleric. Brother Hemelot Oleare had had to be carried off the ferry in a litter, and the man was old, exhausted from his journey, and apparently prone to motion sickness.

“How old did they say he is?” Genon asked when he arrived, crouching beside the sick man with a grunt.

“Eighty-three.” Remin bared his teeth. He had some respect for the religion of the stars and had even found some consolation in its teachings. But the Temple itself was inseparable from the sacred Emperor, the Divinity, the godhood made manifest, and therefore to be suspected at every possible turn. And even if the clerics of the Holy City of Jaen hadn’t meant to lay the man’s death at his door, it was an expression of contempt to send him someone so old, and cruel besides. What had Brother Oleare done to deserve a long, rough journey to the far end of the Empire at his age?

But…hadthe Temple sent him? He wore the blue and white cassock of a Brother of the Path, a mystic brotherhood that contemplated the stars as a language of revelation. He also had the longest beard Remin had ever seen: thick, luxuriantly white, extending all the way down to his rope belt, and currently a mess of sick.

“Well, he’s not dead,” said Gen, as the cleric vomited again. Beckoning for a bucket, he washed the worst of it away. “Brother, can you hear me? I’m the camp surgeon, just going to take a look at you.”

Brother Oleare looked beyond hearing anyone. Remin stood back as Genon produced a clean sponge to press to the old man’s lips, so he could wet his tongue without provoking more vomiting. His color was poor, chalk-white, and with his mouth open the bones of his skull were unsettlingly prominent.

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