Page 61 of Stardust Child

“Then you should listen.” Huber turned his head and spat. The silence between them was awkward, as it had never been when they were boys together. “Take care of yourself, and Her Grace,” he said finally. “If she needs cheering, tell her I’ve a dozen donkeys coming in spring. Economical creatures.”

“I’ll let her know. And you don’t have to do this.” The words burst out before Remin could stop them. “I’m not asking for your life. If you think this won’t succeed, don’t go.”

Huber looked at him with unreadable eyes, bright and flat as a copper coin.

“I know. Never for nothing.” There was an edge to every syllable. But then he exhaled sharply and rubbed the back of his neck. “Fuck, Rem, I know. And if you’re going because you feel guilty, don’t.”

“Your life means more to me than theirs,” Remin said, low and savage. “Than the people you’re going to save.”

“But it’s still the right choice to send me, isn’t it?” Huber clapped a hand on his shoulder, hard enough to smart. He was still angry, and maybe always would be. “Don’t worry, I’ve plans for a flat bit of land where I can breed up the best horses in the Empire. And maybe a herd of my own, since you went so far as to bring it up before the spirits.”

“I’ll mark a place for you on the map. Just come back.” Remin stepped back, hardening his face. There was no point in dwelling on it further. The decisions had been made. These men would march. Not all of them would come back.

“Stay home and fuck your wife, Rem. Make fat babies,” Huber advised, and then whistled, loud and carrying. “Heyyyyyy-yo!Move out, you iron sods!”

Remin watched them go until they were a smudge in the distance, their voices raised in a marching song that would wake them up for the weary day’s work. It was barely light yet, and he was tempted to pause in his errands to see Ophele, but he made himself gallop past the cottage with only a wave for her guards. There were far too many things to do, and he knew if he stopped, he would linger.

He still had his own march to plan, and gazed once more at the mountains, measuring the faint snowcaps against the burnishing leaves in the forest below. The Third Company had arrived, and the barracks were seething like an anthill, with all the attendant bellyaching and bristling between his wolves. The ferries were disgorging passengers and supplies almost faster than they could be warehoused, and Nore Ffloce was running himself ragged to see that no one would be in a tent come winter.

With the thought of his own departure in mind, there was only one place he would go.

Sousten actually tried to run when he saw Remin coming.

“Plastering takes as long as it takes, Your Grace!” he burst out when Remin collared him, with a flailing of lacy ruffled wrists. “I promise, you will not like it if I take up a trowel myself!”

“That’s the same thing you said yesterday,” Remin growled, unimpressed with the excuse. “I told you I want the duchess in the house before I leave.”

“Then on bended knees I implore you, my lord, by all the stars in heaven,give me a date.”Sousten had been held up by his large, starchy collar, but now he let his legs dramatically collapse beneath him, as if he meant to literally prostrate himself. “Telling me to watch the snowcap on Long Bennitt is no guide for a construction schedule!”

“Pennitt. With ap.”Remin released him. That mountain was visible from the manor hilltop, and the progress of the snow on its peak had coincided with the disappearance of the devils for four years running. “It meansas soon as possible.You said we would be ready to move in October. Have them work nights with lanterns if they must. I’ll pay.”

“It is not a matter ofpay.”Sousten’s tone implied the very idea was unspeakably vulgar. “They areartisans,Your Grace, plastering is a craft that takes skill and discernment—”

“Triple pay.”

This had been a source of friction between them. Remin was accustomed to the exigencies of war, where if he had deemed it necessary to move a mountain, his men would have figured out a way to get it done. The idea that manpower and willpower were not sufficient to every problem was entirely new to him.

He did not like it.

“Your Grace, if you would prefer them to splat mud against the walls, I will be delighted to design you a hovel,” Sousten replied, drawing himself up in majestic offense. “If you want smooth walls, they needsunlight.And rested eyes.”

Remin bared his teeth but was forced to abandon the argument. This was all well outside his area of expertise. Sousten took to his heels and Remin cast about for another victim for his impatience. The possibility that Ophele might still be in the cottage when snow started falling was the only thing that could make him rethink his decision to go after the devils himself.

His next stop was the harbor, where he could see from the top of the hill that there was some congestion in the river traffic. It wasn’t Master Gibel’s fault; he could not control the speed with which goods arrived, or the fact that there were six ferry boats and only four docks. The ferries were having to anchor offshore and wait to be unloaded.

“Six runs a day, my lord,” Master Gibel said, blotting his sunburned bald head with a handkerchief. “That was what was projected. We are doing ten, sometimes twelve. I can’t fault the porters; they hardly stand still from sunup to sundown.”

“So I see.” None of them were idle now; they were trooping up and down the gangplanks with the careful traffic patterns of a Segoile High Market day. In the close quarters of the quay, Remin’s generally-invisible fleet of guards drew in close enough that he could see a few familiar faces mixed in with the workers, and a shadow that was not a shadow in the trees on the hillside behind him.

“We could use a few more hands,” the dockmaster conceded. “And a few more warehouses, though the builders are going as fast as they can. But I have already sent communication to that effect to Master Ffloce and Sir Edemir, so you need not concern yourself there, Your Grace. I have word that the shipment from Ereguil has reached Berne. They were delayed with a broken wheel for a day, but will be arriving any day now.”

“I have been expecting that,” Remin said, brightening. “It should only be a few small items, though.”

“I am told it is a full wagon of goods, my lord.”

That would be the mischief of Duchess Ereguil. Remin could just imagine a crate taller than himself bearing a single large tag:Trappings of Civilization.

“I’ll see there’s someone here to receive it,” he replied, his eyes drifting up the hillside to the barracks. That was his next stop anyway; Tounot and Bram had been bashing heads together since the Third arrived, along with the usual pissing matches between rival commanders. “I know where there are some hands wanting occupation.”

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