Page 64 of Stardust Child

That pain was still too great to speak. Instead, Juste and Tounot spoke for him, telling the familiar stories all of them had heard many times before, but no less beloved for it. Victorin had been the spitting image of Duke Ereguil, with the eyes of a hawk and a nose to match. One of those men with lightning in his veins, just a little more vital than everyone else. And Remin was guiltily aware that it was fortunate Huber was not there. He could not have met Huber’s eyes, when the talk turned to Victorin.

They drank to the numberless dead of the war. They raised their glasses to Tresingale’s dead over the past year: many to the devils, and more to the simple, lethal mishaps of building a city. And Remin breathed a prayer of his own for his villagers, whose fate was not yet known.

But there could be no sweetness without the bitterness of their loss, and Remin also wondered what Victorin would have thought of Ophele, and of the valley, and what place he would have had in it, if he had lived. Maybe beyond the gates of the stars, there was another Tresingale already, and Victorin was there, making a place for Remin.

His mind was filled with wondering as the night went on, conscious of the shifting shadows as the people in the square began to leave. There was no formal end to the feast. People left when they were ready, taking small pouches of incense from the baskets Nore Ffloce had put underneath the lamps, to go home for more private communions. He thought that time had come for Ophele and himself.

“The night before I got married, Miche told me something,” Remin began, in the next lull in the conversation. He was glad the wine had loosened his tongue. “He said all of them—Bon, Clement, Rasiphe, Ludovin, Victorin—would have wanted to see it.” In the dark, his hand found Ophele’s effortlessly. “I think they would have wanted the samefor all of you. All of us. Homes, and families. Thank you,” he said to the empty place at the end of the table, lifting his cup. “Thank you for everything we have.”

Ophele rose with him, lifting her own untouched wineglass.

“I wish I could have known you,” she said, and shared her cup with them, even though Remin could see her mouth puckering as she sipped. She still did not like wine. “Good night.”

Even tonight, guards trailed them as they walked home together, a long line of torches lighting the road from the square to Eugene Street. Ophele’s light steps patted on the cobblestones beside him, but Remin couldn’t help imagining other, heavier steps, and Victorin’s grin, eternally light of heart.

“You miss them,” Ophele said softly, her fingers slipping into his. “They must have been very good men.”

“Yes. I’m sorry we mostly talked about them,” he added. “I did think of your mother, but I didn’t know if you’d want to speak of her there.”

“No, it’s all right. I liked listening. And my mother…”

Her steps slowed. When he turned to her, she was looking back at the feast behind them, illuminated only by the moon and stars. The murmur of conversation was still audible, indistinct as the wind in the trees.

“She was always sorry,” Ophele said, her eyes filled with something he couldn’t read. “For Sir Justenin, and Duke Ereguil, and especially for you. Even when I was little, I remember her saying that. That she was sorry for what happened to you.”

“I know.” Remin was a little confused. She had told him this before. And she looked so troubled, he lifted a hand to her cheek, as if he could brush the worry away. “I’m looking forward to speaking to her,” he said, mentally readying himself for what he would have to say. He had much to answer for, to the spirit of Ophele’s mother.

“And your parents,” she replied, with a nervous fluttering of her hands.

“We’ll be together.” Seeing her anxiety steadied him. He held out a hand to her. “Come. I want to introduce them to my wife.”

* **

Ten years before, Ophele had been summoned to Lady Hurrell’s dressing room on another Feast of the Departed.

Such summons were not unusual. She had even been hoping for it, that day; Lady Hurrell had been stringing her along for weeks with the promise that she would get to see her mother. As the maids ushered Ophele into the room, her eyes went straight to Lady Hurrell’s dressing table, where the blue satin pouch of incense was waiting, emblazoned with a silver star.

The lady said nothing.

The small, opulent boudoir was silent as she leaned forward to smudge lip dye on her lips with a fingertip, with only a flick of her eyes to acknowledge the child’s presence. Lady Hurrell was a handsome woman with honey-blonde hair and china-blue eyes, and since no maid could apply her cosmetics to her satisfaction, she did it herself. It was one of the many deprivations she suffered because Ophele’s mother had ruined House Hurrell.

The silence swelled to fill the room, and Lady Hurrell gave herself a final look in the mirror and then turned in her seat.

“Do you know why I sent for you?”

“For the incense?” But that hope was already fading, and Ophele’s stomach gave a flutter of nausea. Two and a half years after her mother’s death, she had already learned to recognize the warning signs.

“No.” Lady Hurrell sighed. “Ophele. Don’t you have something to tell me?”

Ophele shook her head.

“Really?”

Another shake.

“My brooch is missing.” Lady Hurrell tapped the empty space on her bodice. There was only one brooch that she could mean. Ophele’s mother had had an opal brooch that shifted color in the light, a beautiful object that Ophele had loved to look at very much. But after her mother’s death, it went to Lady Hurrell, along with most of the rest of her mother’s possessions.

Ophele cringed back as she approached, but there was nowhere to go; the maids barred the door behind her. Lady Hurrell’s silk skirts swayed, wafting the scent of rose sachet.

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