Page 82 of Stardust Child

Well, he had commanded armies into battle with less time to prepare than this. Huffing to himself, Remin led the way back down the hill to collect his beautiful, clever, close-mouthed wife.

He had half expected Lady Verr to squeeze and powder and frizzle Ophele within an inch of her life, but it was nowhere near as bad as hefeared. Ophele looked much the same as usual, except somehow a little tidier. Her long hair had been pulled into a complex knot on the back of her head, a heavy weight on the flower stem of her neck, with a scrap of dark blue velvet snugged rather sweetly over the top of her head. Hethoughtthat was the same wine-red gown she had been wearing for months, but the flashes of blue and embroidery were new, and Lady Verr had done something so it fit her differently, somehow. Better.

“You look…well, wife,” he said, stiff with Lady Verr present. “Are you pleased?”

“Yes, I like it,” she said, approaching as he beckoned her near for a closer examination. Pearl and gold earrings dangled from her ears, and he darted a sharp look at Lady Verr.

“Did she pierce your ears?”

“Pierce?” Ophele repeated, alarmed.

“No, Your Grace,” Lady Verr replied, unperturbed by his black glare. “They are only clips.”

“Please do nothing of the sort,” Remin said shortly. Ophele glanced uncertainly between them, and the lady seemed to sense that this was the moment to make a graceful exit, tumbling her things into her valise and bowing herself from the cottage.

“You do like it?” Ophele asked as soon as the door shut behind her, looking up at Remin. Her eyelashes looked darker and her lips redder than usual.

“If you are happy, then I am content, except for the earrings,” Remin replied. “Only very fast women pierce their ears, in society, or so Juste says. Talk to me before you do anything of the sort.”

“Oh,” she said, allowing him to propel her toward the door. “Should I take them off?”

“Not if you like them.” Annoyed, he yanked the door shut behind them. Damned Segoile nonsense. “Come. We must speak to Juste and Edemir first.”

“It’s not too late, is it?” Ophele asked, hurrying to keep pace beside him. “I only thought, if I am wrong, then maybe someone could get hurt, or you might go to the wrong place and not find the devils, and then maybe next year they’ll be even worse.”

“It is very late,” Remin said bluntly. “If I had known what you were about, I would have made sure you had help. Next time, tell me, whatever it is. There’s no shame in being wrong if your idea is good.”

“I will. I’m sorry,” she said, and he caressed the back of her slender neck.

“It is nottoolate,” he said, relenting. “Juste said your method is good, and he is particular.”

It was on the tip of his tongue to say that he would give her whatever she wanted to sate her every curiosity: cartloads of paper, almanacs going back to the arrival of Ospret Far-Eyes, fleets of secretaries in livery, but now was not the time for that. Inside, he was bursting with pride, but for now he needed to temper both their expectations so she wouldn’t be too disappointed if there was some flaw in her work.

Above all else, he did not want to discourage her from trying things like this again.

Edemir looked up with surprise as they came into the busy office, far earlier than usual. Remin normally came to collect breakfast and correspondence well after dawn.

“Come and take a look at this, if you would,” Remin said, beckoning him over to an empty worktable. “Her Grace has something to show you.”

He gave her shoulder a squeeze, resisting the urge to saymy wifeagain. Everyone knew that Ophele was a superior wife. He didn’t need to keep rubbing it in their faces.

“I might be wrong,” she said, almost pleading as she clutched her papers to her breast. “I just thought, if I talked to enough of your men, maybe there would be a pattern, but there’s no way to know if I talked to therightmen, or enough of them—”

“Perhaps you could explain your idea to us first, my lady,” Juste suggested gently. “We can hear your arguments against it afterward.”

She nodded, with another beseeching glance at Remin. It was hard to hold his tongue and step back to let her explain, especially when she was so clearly nervous. But this was her idea. The credit was hers, and likewise the responsibility to explain and defend it. It was just like one of the squires, Remin told himself firmly. He couldn’t do this for her, or she would never learn to do it herself.

“W-Well, I wanted to know where the devils came from,” Ophele began, laying out her maps with spring on one side and fall on the other. “I thought, if the devils were going to the mountains to hide for thewinter, then it would be all over the mountains, wouldn’t it? And that means the soldiers nearest to the mountains should see them first every year, while everyone else saw them later.”

“That’s what we believed,” Edemir said slowly, bending to look closer.

“But that’s not what happened,” Ophele replied, warming to her explanation. “The men with His Grace in 823 were on the Talfel Plateau all the way up here, and they saw the devils three weeks before Lord Balloren’s men down here, near the Gellege Bridge, even though that’s right in the foothills. So, when I saw that, I started asking everyone else whentheyremembered seeing the devils, and I used the phases of the moon as the markers on the map, and look! It’s the same every year, isn’t it?”

Her fingers traced the bands of moon markers, repeating the same pattern year after year: the full moon to the furthest south and west, then the three-quarter moon, the half-moon, and the new moon, black and foreboding. Every sighting earlier as the markers marched north and east, leading inexorably to a place about thirty miles northeast of Nandre, where the mountains curved back on themselves in a hook shape. The Spur was a tricky bit of country that technically still belonged to Valleth, but was so inaccessible it might as well belong to no one.

The place where the devils came from. Without stirring a step outside the city walls, Ophele had found it.

“I thought so, anyway,” she went on, mistaking their dumbstruck silence for skepticism. “And I…I thought maybe if they were all coming from the same place every year, then they might be going back to it. The same pattern as spring, but in reverse, I mean. But that’s not what happened, either. In fall, they do seem to go back to the mountains, and to particular places in the mountains, look.”

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