Page 143 of Stardust Child

The huge knight promptly thumped down into the chair, his broad bull face thoughtful.

“Seems all right,” he said, resting his platter-sized hands on the armrests. “Arms feel good.”

“And it’s high enough? Do you think His Grace will like it?”

Sir Jinmin actually gave an experimental wiggle.

“Yes,” he pronounced gravely. “Might want one myself. It’s good.”

There was a limited market in the valley for vastly oversized armchairs, but Ophele was so pleased, she asked Master Sharrenot to make another, certain that Remin would want one for the solar as well. He loved things that were made in the valley. Even the leather of this chair had come from an Andelin elk.

There were similar gifts under construction at the blacksmith’s, the weaver’s, the chandler’s, and the furrier’s, who had been painstakingly working on a shaggy black bearskin cloak. Ophele was excited to see how long it would take Remin to get the joke.

Was it too much, to wait until after his birthday to tell him? Or would he feel doubly betrayed, knowing that she had been deceiving him even when she had given him such a celebration? She didn’t know. Even when she tried to put herself in his place, all she could think was how important the truth was to him, and that look on his face, that night in Granholme.

“My lady?” Davi looked at her questioningly, one hand extended to boost her up onto Brambles. Ophele shook herself.

“Yes, sorry,” she said, trying to smile as her two guards mounted up on either side of her.

“We were wondering when we might speak with His Grace,” Leonin added, nudging his handsome gray even with Brambles. It was hard to describe how Leonin had changed since their talk; he was still as politely blank as ever, but somehow he seemed toseeher in a way he hadn’t before. “There are some arrangements we ought to make sooner rather than later, my lady.”

“I know,” she said guiltily. Remin would make time for her whenever she asked, but she couldn’t shake the idea that maybe he wouldn’t want her to have hallows anymore, once she had told him the truth. “I will speak to him about it. He has been very busy since he got home.”

Leonin nodded, but there was an assessing weight in his blue eyes that reminded her she had asked for him to be her judge, as if her every word and deed would now be measured against whether it made her more deserving of a hallow.

That was how she spent the afternoon: going from one artisan to another, checking to be sure that all of Remin’s gifts were ready and werebeing movedcarefullyinto place for his birthday festivities. To her inexperienced eyes, every one of them was a wonder, the product of talented hands with decades of experience, each one more beautiful than the last.

And then she went home, waved away the maids and Lady Verr, and brought out her own pitiful offering.

It was theone thingshe had tried to do by herself.

Spreading the scrap of silk over her hand, Ophele examined it again with a sinking stomach, as if it might have miraculously repaired itself overnight. There were so many small mistakes, puckered places where she had pulled the thread too tight, crooked stitches she only noticed after it was too late to fix them. But worst of all was the small but unmistakable hole by the corner of theR,where she had unpicked the same stitch so many times, she had torn the silk. There was no way to hide it.

It was ruined.

And the more she looked, the worse it looked, lumps and bumps and uneven lines, a message of failure at even the simplest task. She had pinned all her hopes on this silly thing. She had wanted to give it as a promise, rather than a plea for forgiveness.

“Wife?”

Ophele started and turned to find Remin in the doorway, more stealthy than a man his size had any right to be. Automatically, she snapped the embroidery box shut and crumpled the evidence in her hand, but it was already too late.

“What’s wrong?” he asked, crossing the room quickly at the sight of her tears. “Why are you crying?”

Her mouth opened, but no sound emerged. Her tongue was rooted in sudden terror, and her ears filled with a vast, distant roaring. But slowly, she forced her hand out, prying her wooden fingers apart to show him the scrap of silk.

“It’s f-for you,” she whispered. Her mouth was dry. She was really going to do this. The worry in his black eyes made her chest tighten, squeezed and suffocating at the thought of seeing his love bleed away, gone forever, but the time had come. “I was trying to make it. For your birthday. But Lady Hurrell never taught me how.”

* **

“You don’t know how to…sew?” Remin asked, looking from her to the handkerchief with some confusion.

“No.” Ophele drew a quivering breath and took his hands, steering him toward a chair. “While you were gone, Sir Miche sent a message,” she began. “House Hurrell isn’t at Aldeburke. They left in August, and no one knows where they went. Sir Justenin said they were communicating with the Emperor, and since Lady Hurrell hates me, I’m afraid they will make trouble—”

“Let them,” Remin said, puzzled. “I already know she schemed against you, wife. What’s really wrong?”

“It’s not just that,” Ophele said wretchedly. “Lady Hurrell always said that my mother ruined House Hurrell, but…Remin, it was my mother that destroyed your House.”

His breath caught. Her hand slipped from his fingers.

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