Page 60 of Stardust Child

“Ain’t no different than sows and mares,” said Davi, a farmer through and through. “They’re beasts, they all make little beasties the same way. Except for the devils.”

“It’s not a subject to be discussed in polite company, much less with a lady,” the younger man replied, his words cool and crisp and somehow all the more biting for it. “We are meant to be guards, not companions.”

“So you say.” Davi drew himself up to his full, gangling height. “You’re right to say I ought to mend my manners, Leonin, and so I will, so I don’t shame the lady. But I ain’t having her drag me about like a block of wood behind her. That ain’t what the oath means.”

“We can discuss itlater.”Leonin showed a few teeth. Ophele looked from one to the other, alarmed. Leonin had often admonished that they were supposed to guard, not talk, but it was the first time she had seen how strongly they disagreed about it. Leonin glanced down at her and inclined his head, his face polite and blank. “We apologize, my lady. It is unseemly to discuss this before you.”

“Don’t apologize for me.” Davi spoke before Ophele could, looking annoyed. “If we mean to be her hallows, she’s bound to hear us squabbling sooner or later.”

“Our job is toprotecther from hearing such things. The lady is not one of your little sisters, Sir Davi.”

“After I give my oath, she’ll be the only little sister I’ve got,” Davi retorted hotly. “That’s what the bloody oathmeans.But you’re right, I got things to say that ain’t for the lady’s ears.”

“Aren’t,”Sir Leonin said frostily. Ophele bit her lip, her shoulders hunching. There were a great many questions she would have liked to ask them, starting with the specifics of their oath, but the last thing she wanted was to provoke a quarrel.

“Thank you,” she said at the door of the cottage, subdued. They were still glaring at each other.

Putting a kettle on to boil, Ophele set about making a fresh cup of tea, though the familiar ritual did not soothe her. She had completed the task Remin had set her, and it was beyond recall now, in Sir Justenin’s hands. But she still had her own self-appointed task, and it was tedious work. The small table was laden with stacks of almanacs and even taller stacks of interviews, all of them waiting to be cross-referenced against each other to try to pin the devils to places and times.

1stsighting quarter moon spring mtn pass fighting against blue and gold eagle banners,was a typical example from her notes. Deciphering this meant reviewing all the notes she had taken on the history of the war to figure out what Vallethi mountain war-band had carried blue and gold eagle banners, then figuring out when and where that fight had taken place at least as far as the month, and then consulting the almanac to find out when exactly the quarter moon had been. It allowed her to place the time of the devil sighting within a week.

This was not fun. In no universe could this be consideredfun.Even her formidable memory couldn’t record every detail of hundreds of interviews, and Ophele was often left with the frustration of knowing she had read some helpful scrap of informationsomewhere,but unable to rememberwhere.There were so many interviews, she was having to read them over and over and over before she found the one she had half-remembered.

Ophele objected to this on an almost spiritual level. It was the same grumbling dissatisfaction that had spurred her to reorganize Wen’s kitchen and propose improvements to water distribution at the wall. This was sloppy. It wasted time. It wasinefficient.

And though she could feel the date of Remin’s departure for the mountains bearing down on her like a charging bull, Ophele grimly paused in her endless cross-referencing to remedy the problem. There was no point in doing this at all if she wasn’t going to do it right. And evenif she was a liar and a sham of a princess and a poisoned sweet, she was going to give Reminone thingto be proud of.

Seven hours later, when Remin came home, she was nearly finished.

* * *

“Do not throw your life away needlessly,” Remin told the new-made Sir Rollon of Hollisey, standing outside the east gate in the gray pre-dawn. It was so early, the stranglers were still cackling in the trees. “Nor the lives of your men. A knight is responsible for every life in his command, and it is your duty to spend them with care.”

He might have been talking to himself. Stars, Rollon was so young. He looked a little less starved after a few days of good eating, but the mountain air would strip the flesh from his bones.

“Yes, Your Grace.” Rollon’s brown eyes were shining. “I am sure there are people alive in Nandre. I will bring them back, I swear.”

“Then go with the blessing of the stars.” Remin stepped back. His sole consolation was the number of older men among Rollon’s twelve, men of judgment and experience, men that Remin knew well. They planned to forage on the march for their food and take to the trees by night, trusting to their armor and stealth to keep the worst of the devils off them.

In theory, that would be enough to keep them from being slain the first night.

“Your Grace,” they said together, and marched away into the trees.

Each leavetaking was difficult in its own way. As soon as Rollon was safely away, Remin galloped back to the north gate to see off Huber and Ortaire. It was impossible for a hundred men to leave discreetly; these two parties were arrayed in marching order, with horses, wagons, and the caravan, its iron sides still scorched black from rapid repairs.

Remin wished he had not remembered Ortaire’s mother.

Seven years ago, he happened to be present when Clement of Feuilles accepted the boy as page, and Remin had heard Clement promise Ortaire’s mother to treat the boy fairly, feed him well, and nurture him to knighthood. And after Clement’s death, the Knights of the Brede had taken him on, raising him alongside Bertin and Rollon. Those three boys had grown to manhood during the war.

“Be quick and careful,” he told Ortaire now, offering a brief clasping of hands. “If I recall rightly, there was an abandoned village north of Estery Creek where you might find gardens still producing. If you have folk with you, and they get hungry.”

“I will remember,” Ortaire promised, and Remin offered all of them his blessing, then let them go.

That left Huber.

“You can save your good advice,” the knight said bluntly. “You should stay home.”

“Don’t worry, Juste will keep telling me so in your place.”

---