“Is that Justenin on the floor?” Ophele sounded fascinated.
“I will manage him, my lady,” said Lady Something, and her tall, slender shadow drifted past Miche in a cloud of disapproval.
“My thanks, my lady,” Miche managed, in indiscriminate gratitude to both women as Ophele darted forward to prop up Remin on his other side.
“Remin, are you really drunk?” she asked, and the tall man swept her up in an unsteady embrace and kissed her soundly.
“Wife, I am sooooooooo drunk…”
“Best if we just get him to bed, my lady,” Miche said, giving Remin a pull to get him going. He was acquiring a certain dangerous bonelessness that meant he was minutes from passing out. Miche had no qualms about leaving Juste to the lady. Juste would cut off his own arm before he did anything inappropriate to a woman.
And Juste’s mind was clearly on other things.
“I hate that bull,” he was telling Lady Something as Miche and Ophele staggered off to the bedroom under the twenty-two stone Remin, who certainlyfeltlike a bull. Ophele was bearingup under her share of the load, though from her occasional squeaks, Miche suspected the lord was notentirelyunconscious.
“Remin,”she hissed, and when they finally flopped him onto the mattress in the bedchamber, she went with him, sprawled over his chest with a length of shins and ankles showing that made Miche hastily cast his eyes to the ceiling.
“Wife,” Remin said affectionately. “So pretty. Don’ be scared, I’ll never…letanything…”
His voice trailed off and terminated in a single stentorian snore.
“I know,” she said softly as she escaped, eeling backward under his crushing arms. Her eyes went to Miche. “How much did he have?”
“You would actually be surprised how little,” Miche told her, and shook himself. “Sorry to bring him back like this, my lady. I’ll scrounge up a bucket, best to put it where he can find it, just in case. But he’s more like to just sleep it off.”
“All right,” she said, glancing worriedly at the fallen giant.
“He told me…about the Emperor summoning you,” Miche added, fumbling about for what he wanted to say. Dimly, he knew there was a great deal he wanted to tell her, and much that he shouldnotsay, but his tongue felt dangerously loose. “And—Juste is teaching you. Because you don’t know.”
“Oh. Yes,” she said, with a blink of surprise, and her slim shoulders drew together in an embarrassed cringe. “I’m sorry. I…lied to all of you.”
“There is nothing to forgive.” Miche laid a hand on her head, bending to look into her eyes. There was a bitter taste in his mouth and the feel of acid in his throat. “My lady. You did nothing wrong, at all. It is—so many people failed you. I am sorry that you had to endure that, alone. If I had—if there is anything I can ever do, you have only to name it.”
“You have done so much for us,” she said, with a wry smile that included her drunken husband. “How could I ever thank you?”
“It’s little enough,” Miche said, with a final pat of her head, and then went to see a man about a bucket.
Chapter 5 – The Crimes of Lady Pavot
As penance for his overindulgence, Remin was up before dawn.
As soon as his eyes creaked open, he paused just long enough to make sure Ophele showed no sign of insult and then went to empty his belly and stick his head in a basin of cold water. This treatment was sufficient to get him more or less upright, and he went for a walk by the river with his ever-present shadows trailing behind, letting the frigid air slap him awake.
Recovery was a gradual process. There were a few dangerous moments when he saddled and climbed onto Lancer, lurching as the horse worked out his morning exuberance, and Remin still felt a little green when he dismounted by the kitchen at the back of the cookhouse. Heavy clouds lowered in the sky and smelled of snow to his nose, and welcome heat billowed out the kitchen door.
“Be a few minutes yet,” barked Wen, without so much as a how-do-you-do. His huge hands moved unerring from skilletto saucepan on the immense stove, and he was red-faced and sweating, with a cloth tied around his bald head to avoid perspiring into breakfast.
“Eggs?” Remin asked queasily as the scents of bacon and tomatoes assaulted him. The icing on a tray of sweetbread looked particularly unappetizing.
“Aye, though from the looks of ye, ye’d do better with a bit of dry toast, Your Grace,” said Wen, with a belly-slappinghaw haw haw.His good mood directly correlated with the suffering of those around him. “Never mind, I’ve a cure for ye. Here.”
“What’s in it?” Remin asked doubtfully, eyeing the green-brown sludge.
“Ye’d not thank me if I told ye.”
When Wen said this, it was best to believe him. Remin sipped first, then gulped, his face grim. He had always believed medicine had to be foul-tasting to be effective, in which case this concoction must resurrect the dead.
“You heard Miche came back yesterday?” he asked, setting the cup aside. He hadn’t come to the kitchen just for breakfast.
