Page 39 of Stardust Child

But there was a man who had been there right beside her.

“Sir Leonin,” she said, turning in her chair. “You were with His Grace’s mountain army, weren’t you?”

“Yes, my lady,” he said politely.

Ophele eyed Elodie, who was breathless with anticipation.

“Would you mind if I asked you a little bit about it?” The words emerged slowly and weightily, as if her tongue might run away with her if she slackened the reins just a little bit. Surely it would do no harm to get his timeline. Sir Leonin’s eyes flicked pointedly to the little girl, but in the end he acquiesced.

The devilsdidcome early to the mountains. Sir Leonin was very careful in his description of the hordes of devils that descended on the mountain passes every April, and so expert in his circumlocution that Ophele had to pause a few times just to appreciate it, as an apprentice might admire a master.

“Was it a particularly hot summer the second year?” she asked, her brows puckered together as she scribbled away. Both Sir Leonin and two other men had noted that the second summer was worse than the first, at least in the mountains.

“It would be difficult to say for sure,” Sir Leonin said, though there was a shading of interest in his polite mask. “It would be a very subjective thing.”

That was true. In Noreven they measured the cruelty of their summers by the water, or lack thereof, and she had read about a device in Navatsvi that measured the heat of water, but there was no way she could think of to find out how hot the summer had been two years ago. Ophele chewed her lip.

“Everyone keeps saying this is the hottest summer they’ve ever seen in the valley,” she mused. “I just wonder if there’s a way to prove it, or if it has anything to do with when the…with the times they arrive and depart,” she said, skirting the more exciting words. Elodie was wilting with boredom. “It might not mean anything at all…”

Or it might be the key to discovering where the devils came from.

Ophele bound up her papers to take home, her heart racing all over again. Remin and his men were already batting ideas about over supper, wondering when and how they might best follow the devils, without risking having the horde turn around and devour them. Oh, just imagine if she could produce the answer herself! Ophele’s mind spun delicious fantasies of telling them over supper, and how astonished they would all be, and the look of pride in Remin’s eyes…

Perhaps then he would not care that there were so many things she did not know, and could not do, or how very many things frightened her…

Like confronting Elodie’s mother.

With the dread prospect before her, Ophele’s feet dragged up the long road to the cottages by the north gate, miserably aware of Sir Leonin and Sir Davi at her back. Elodie marched ahead of her with the oilskin satchel in her arms, delighted to fulfill her destiny as a pagegirl at last.

“Your Grace?” Mistress Conbour appeared in the doorway at Elodie’s gleeful summons, a sturdy, practical-looking woman with light brown hair pulled into a tidy knot at the back of her head. She dropped a curtsy. “Elodie said you wished to speak with me? I hope she wasn’t any trouble…”

“No, no, no, not at all,” Ophele said, her hands nervously waving the idea away. The words were coming out too fast, breathless and high-pitched. “No, I beg your pardon, she was with me in the storehouse today and I’m afraid she overheard my talk with His Grace’s men. About the devils. I didn’t think. But she didn’t seem troubled, but I thought I should tell you, it’s not a subject for a child. I do beg your pardon, I should have realized…”

“No…no,” Mistress Conbour—her name was either Lisset or Amise, but Ophele had no idea which—looked at her hard. “If you don’t mind, Your Grace, what exactly did she overhear?”

She was not trying to be cruel. But the explanation was nonetheless excruciating for Ophele, especially once she began blushing. The heatblazed in her cheeks and then flushed up to her ears, a prickling heat that descended her neck and made it impossible to meet the other woman’s eyes. With every breathless spate of words, the jeers in the back of her mind grew louder, all of them in Lady Hurrell’s scornful voice.Speak up, little mouse.

“I really am terribly sorry,” Ophele concluded, scarlet and forcing back tears with an effort of sheer will. She would not embarrass Remin by bursting into tears in front of his commonfolk. “If you don’t want Elodie to come again, I understand.”

There was a squeal of protest from the depths of the cottage, instantly quelled by a hard glance from Mistress Conbour.

“I don’t think it’s so bad as that, Your Grace,” she said awkwardly, turning her attention back to Ophele. “I’d rather she didn’t hear more such tales, but seems to me it would do her good to learn a bit from a proper lady. It’s very good of you to look after her. Please don’t trouble yourself, my lady.”

Ophele had to bite her tongue savagely to keep from confessing that she was no sort of lady at all.

“Thank you,” she said, forcing a smile. “I will do my best. Please excuse me, good evening.”

Mercifully, neither of her guards spoke to her on the way to the stables, where she fed Eugene carrots and took her time currying his soft gray coat, giving herself time to compose herself. It wasn’t so bad. Elodie’s mother hadn’t even been angry.

But that wasn’t the trouble. The trouble was the Duchess of Andelin was an ignorant little mouse and no sort of lady and Ophele buried her face in the little donkey’s neck, grateful that she had learned to weep in silence. In her mind was the upright, cruel example of Lady Hurrell, far eclipsing the gentle ghost of her mother, each a role model and a tormenter in their own way.

A poisoned sweet. How many times had Remin and his men said that? Among themselves, they spoke about it openly, and it was a perverse compliment that they were comfortable enough to say it in front of her. Outwardly, she nodded her agreement whenever they talked about the latest dose of the Emperor’s poison, all while cringing inside. Shewasone of the Emperor’s backhanded gifts. They just didn’t know it.

Eugene blew softly, rubbing her with a bristly cheek.

“Are you well, wife?” Remin asked when he came home that evening to find her buried among her papers.

“I’m a little tired,” she said, lifting her chin for a kiss as he knelt down beside her. This was not a lie.

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