Page 83 of Stardust Child

She pointed at the labeled dots.

“The Spur, the mines, and the Aven Bede,” she said. “So, you weren’t entirely wrong. They do go to those caves for the winter. They just…don’t come back out. Maybe they die there.”

She frowned at the maps for a moment, as if further contemplation might yield an answer there, too.

“I…I don’t see any other conclusion,” Edemir managed. He looked gobsmacked. “Show me how you produced these points, my lady, please.”

“Well, most of the men couldn’t remember dates, when I asked them first,” she said, flicking through her papers to produce a neat index. “But they did remember who they were serving, and what battles they had just fought, and whether or not there was moonlight when the devils came. And once they told methat,then I could use almanacs and histories to narrow it down to a range of days…”

Remin didn’t have to say a word. Edemir and Juste were asking better questions than he would, and all he wanted to do was enjoy the sight of dainty Ophele between his two knights, looking from one to the other as she listened to their questions and then bent over the maps to explain this or that detail, and all the while her mind was working away behind those big, solemn eyes. How wonderful she was.

“We need to verify these points,” Edemir said when she had finished explaining. His broad face was flushed with excitement. “My lady. It’s not that I don’t trust your method, but for something like this we have to check the math, so to speak. And it still may not work out,” he cautioned, as much for Remin as for Ophele. “Your counterarguments are also valid. Four hundred men is the merest fraction of the ninety thousand that fought. These particular men might not be a true picture of what happened.”

“I did make notes of their lords,” she replied, tapping the stack of interviews. Remin had been present at supper when Juste taught her how important it was to try to invalidate one’s own argument, to strengthen it, and Ophele had done a thorough job of rebutting her own rebuttal.

“We can check this information amongst ourselves,” said Juste, with a rare note of excitement in his voice. “I was in Iverlach in 824. I remember our first sighting of the devils that year. It is consistent with the dates you show.”

“This is very, very good,” Edemir said, and his gray eyes flicked to Remin’s for an eloquent moment before returning to Ophele’s table of contents. “Rem, I’ll put my secretaries on this today. I don’t think we need to check all four hundred interviews, but we need to verify a good number of them.”

“And add our own timelines for the devil sightings,” said Juste, using Ophele’s terminology. “I’ll go to the barracks myself and tell Tounot and Auber to scrap the watchtowers.”

“Do it,” Remin agreed, with deep satisfaction. It would upend every single one of their plans, but this was a better direction than anything else they had. “Hand me that quill, wife.”

“What are you writing?” Ophele looked at the departing backs of the other men and came around the table to hand him the quill. The color was high in her cheeks.

“I am going to be your four hundred and twenty-fourth interview,” he explained, adding his own timeline in his scrawling, jagged script. He vividly remembered where he had been every year when he first heard of the devils, though his memories of their disappearance were a little hazier. It was harder to notice when somethingwasn’tthere, wasn’t it? He darted a black glance at her. “Four hundred and twenty-fourth,”he emphasized. “That’s how long you waited to tell me.”

“I’m sorry,” she said, but she could hear the humor in his voice and covered her mouth to hide a smile. “It still might not be right,” she added, worried. “And maybe if I’m wrong, it will be dangerous, or you will miss something you might have found otherwise, it was only aguess—”

“It wasn’t only a guess, and you know it.” He drew her to his side, hiding her behind the bulk of his body so he could kiss her. “I am soproudof you,” he said, low, wishing he had the words to tell her how much. “My clever wife. If you didn’t already have a library on the way, I would make a gift of one to you for this.”

He thought that would make her laugh. But she only smiled and let herself lean into him for a moment, and something flickered through her eyes, there and gone in an instant.

“I wanted to help,” she said, and there was a wistful note in her voice that he didn’t understand at all.

* * *

“I never put it together,” Davi marveled when they left the offices sometime later, so transparently pleased that for once Ophele was not embarrassed by the praise. He did have a very big-brotherly air about him as he looked at her, his chest puffing. “Listened to you day in and day out and not a clue. Even if it doesn’t work out, that wassmartand don’t let anyone tell you otherwise. My lady. Wasn’t it, Leo?”

“I have asked you not to call me Leo,” Sir Leonin said with exaggerated patience. But he did look at Ophele and bow his head. “It was an excellent idea, Your Grace. Everyone is very excited about it.”

“Thank you.” That, however, was embarrassing. Ophele looked down, pretending to pick her way around the mud puddles.

They were all full of praise for her, in the days that followed. It was amazing how fast the word spread, not only to the knights and soldiers but even to builders and craftsmen and strangers in the street. Everyone in Tresingale who had survived the summer with the devils was keenly interested in not having to do so again, and since the actual explanation of how she had found their source was so incredibly boring, rumor credited her instead with everything from unfathomable genius to the mystical visions of Ospret Far-Eyes. Even Auber’s sisters-in-law caught her outside the bathhouse and offered their compliments, which surprised her so much that Ophele barely managed to stutter out a thank you before she fled.

“People like to boast of their lady,” Remin consoled her, with such glowing approval in his dark eyes that she found it hard to look him in the face. “They have good reason to boast of you, little owl.”

Sighing to herself, Ophele leafed through her treatise again, wondering if it would ever be fit for scholars. Rereading the pages made her wonder if it was as painfully simple and self-evident as she feared, and whether it could ever equal the surprising success of her search for the devils’ origins. Maybe everyone would be disappointed, by comparison. Maybe the scholars wouldn’t like it. She couldn’t bear the thought of embarrassing Remin.

It was his praise that she craved and dreaded most.

She had done something impressive. Even if nothing came of it, she knew Sir Justenin and Sir Edemir would object if they thought there was a better way, especially when lives were at stake. And ithadbeen her idea, and she had worked very hard to see it through, and Remin was so very pleased and proud of her, but all she could feel was anxious and afraid and…unworthy.

Ophele didn’t understand herself.

Why did she feel this way? Why did Remin’s praise trouble her more every time he uttered it? He had never been much given to compliments.Oh, helookeda great deal, and sometimes he called her beautiful in the heat of passion, but she didn’t really believe any of that. But now he openly praised her, he kissed and caressed her and called her his clever wife and every time he said it, it made her want to run away.

“Edemir’s having his secretaries copy and compile your interviews and maps,” he told her over supper a few whirlwind days later. He and his men had been working furiously to provision for their new plans. “We’re hoping to have another couple hundred interviews before we leave, but so far all of them show the same pattern you found, wife. Edemir said he has never seen the like.”

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