“You are too hard on her,” he told Leonin later that night, seated before the other man on one of the two chairs in their shared cottage. The two of them had moved up to the servants’ quarters in the manor, given how much time they spent with the duchess. “His Grace said that he didn’t want her anxious.”
“She will be a great deal more anxious if she does not learn these things before she goes to the capital,” Leonin replied, yanking on the strapping around Davi’s ribs. Davi grunted. “And she knows it. Did you really think she wouldn’t figure it out on her own?”
There was no denying this. His Grace was at great pains to conceal the true extent of the danger from her, but their lady was too intelligent to be deceived for long.
“All the same, you’re likely to make her worse instead of better,” said Davi. “Leave off, that’s good enough.”
Rising painfully, he reached for his shirt as Leonin took the vacated seat. They spent the early part of most nights patching each other up, and by now the routine was so ingrained, they hardly had to speak. Davi unwound the linen strapping over Leonin’s shoulder, which had taken a hard hit from one of Remin Grimjaw’s charges. It was a miracle nothing was broken.
“I’m wondering if we ought to say something,” Davi went on, peeling away the heavy pad, which was soaked in some herbal concoction that smelled like grass and feet. “She’s been practicing those stupid speeches every morning, but she can barely get out two words in front of Juste.”
“That is not our role.” That was Leonin at his Segoile prissiest. “She is a duchess, and we are not her hallows. And even if we were, Sir Justenin was given charge of her educa—doyou need to yank at me like that?”
“Happens I do,” said Davi balefully. “You like things to stay in their places when you stick ’em there, don’t you?”
“If you want to win, you will get a great deal farther by playing the game than contesting the rules,” Leonin replied shortly, and they lapsed into silence.
They had come to understand each other better over the last few months. They were very different men, but they werein agreement on the most important things: their loyalty to the Duke of Andelin, their conviction that the hallows of the Andelin would be one of the pillars of his House, and their determination that Ophele would live to be its foundation.
But this was something on which they could not agree.
“You’re the one that said we ought to protect her dignity,” Davi said, turning to soak a new padded bandage in the solution Genon Hengest had provided, which did a fair job of reducing pain and inflammation. “I don’t see what’s wrong with her as she is. One of the sweetest maids I’ve ever had the pleasure to know.”
“That is part of the oath we will swear, not my own invention, and there are many ways that we must do so. Beginning with keeping the proper distance from her, for her sake,” said Leonin patiently. “They will seize upon the least appearance of impropriety, in the capital. And what would His Grace think if he heard you say that?”
“His Grace would know it ain’t like that,” Davi retorted, provoked into poor grammar. “Stars and ancestors, I could almost be her father. Filthy minds they have—”
“Will you kindlystopinflicting your feelings on me?” Leonin said, glaring up at him with icy blue eyes, and Davi realized he was strapping the pad down on Leonin’s injured shoulder with a bit more vigor than necessary. “I will be less than gentle with your ribs, come morning. We must think beyond ourselves. We will be the first hallows, but not the last. We will set the standard not just as guardsmen, but as men. In future generations…”
Leonin had spoken often of his vision for House Andelin’s hallows, which in his mind seemed to be a sort of sect of warrior monks. When they had first met, Davi had thought him a typical capital lordling, rudderless and spoiled, but Leonin genuinely seemed not to care about possessions or comfort. His side of the cottage was as ascetic as a priest’s cell.
“Our job is to protect Her Grace,” Davi replied stubbornly. Leonin was a good talker; if Davi let him go, he’d talk until it seemed black was white and up was down. But Davi would not be shaken from their essential purpose.
“What do you think protection means?” Leonin gave him a sharp glance. “We will bepartof her, Davi. Others will examine our relationship with Her Grace to model their own conduct. They will also examine our behavior during those times when we are not with her.”
This was a shallowly buried reference to Davi’s discreet visits to a redheaded prostitute named Arlet in the masons’ camp, of whom Leonin strongly disapproved.
“The only person taking notes on my comings and goings isyou,”Davi shot back. “That’s my business. Ain’t one word in the oath about not visiting whores.”
“There is,” Leonin said calmly.“If thou art shamed, I will cover thy nakedness.That is both literal and metaphorical. But onlythink.We are men proposing to guard another man’s wife for the whole of her life. We can have no other bonds. No wives, no children, no loyalties to anyone but her. Can she trust us so far to be certain that if she were naked, we would think only to cover her?”
“Yes,” Davi retorted, though he felt a sudden pang of fear for Arlet and her enormous bosom.
“I believe that is true. I would not stand beside you if it were not,” Leonin replied. “But that may not be so for future hallows. What if your attachment to your…companion was to grow? What then, if she chose to test your loyalty to your lady? If we are to be trusted with a lady like Ophele, we must be above reproach. And what would she think, if she knew of your visits to the masons’ camp?”
Davi would have liked to argue. But he was too honest to deny his first, instinctive response: that he very much hoped she would not.
“If your shoulder’s not better tomorrow, you’re going to see Gen,” was all he said, and strode outside to rinse out the basin that held the stinking remains of the medicinal concoction.
There was a pump behind the cottages that brought up water from the river, and even working its handle made his side ache. Davi’s breath puffed white in the still night air, and his eyes drifted up to the manor.
He had sworn to pay Remin back, no matter what it took.
He had been glad to do it. And he had never been much afraid to do it, not after that day on the fields outside Lomonde. Facing an army with a pitchfork, that was his standard forrealfear.Now he had a sword and had learned how to use it. Tolerably well, in fact. He had not been afraid when he made his oath to Remin Grimjaw. He hadn’t even been afraid when he asked to be the hallow for His Grace’s lady. He had already given up his life.
It was stupid that this was harder. Was it really necessary? Was it a rule they ought to make, for the hallows yet to come? Because actually, he did know what Ophele would say, if asked; she would tell him to find a wife and have babies and be happy. She would be horrified at the thought of them making such a sacrifice.
He didn’t know if he should. And even if he should, he didn’t know if hecould.Never bedding a woman for the rest of his life? He was a man. He had a man’s urges. Yet was Leonin right? Could he truly swear that such a connection, given time, would not eventually divide his loyalties?
