But Ophele had never beenangrywith him before. The stars knew he had given her reason, and he understood why she would react that way. No one wanted to think a dear friend would betray them. Loyalty was a virtue, right up until it became a liability.
Was there another way he might have gone about it? A gentler way to say,have you ever wondered whether your friend might have killed your mother?
Well, it didn’t really matter now. He had already said it.
And even if he could undo it, he wouldn’t. He was not going to apologize if he didn’t think he was wrong. Oh, Azelma might be innocent, and they would probably never know who or what had killed Ophele’s mother. But he wasn’t wrong to be cautious. He was still alive because he had been cautious,exhaustinglycautious, and he was going to do the same to protect Ophele whether she liked it or not.
Inwardly, he admitted he would do almost anything for her. But this fell on the wrong side ofalmost.
And didn’t he have a right to be angry? Remembering what she had said that morning still stung. He didnotlike having his past mistakes flung in his face. Had he ever done that to Ophele? No. He had never once chastised her for hererrors, even though they could have been spared considerable heartache if she had justtalkedto him.
Essential honesty forced Remin to admit that hehadchastised her cruelly for things her father had done.
That was enough to dent his resolve, just a little. Remin finished his shoveling with a ferocious scowl, handily winning the competition for furthest-flung snow without ever realizing he was part of it.
Edemir’s secretaries had been pleading for him to come and sign things with escalating desperation, so Remin spent a few hours sweating in the close quarters of the office, squeezed under a too-small desk. By the time he was done, he was glad to return to the yard behind the stables, where Leonin and Davi could help burn off the excess energy that was making him jumpy and irritable.
One look at Leonin’s face warned him he was about to be more irritable.
“My lord,” the knight began, raising his voice to be heard over the howling wind. “Before we begin, I think we must tell you…”
Remin listened expressionlessly as Leonin and Davi related what had happened that afternoon, or at least, related the details as far as they knew them, because the two men had been reluctant to actually force their way into Azelma’s cottage.
“She is a duchess, Your Grace,” Leonin concluded. He knew even better than Remin what courtesies this required, and Ophele was a Daughter of the Stars besides, and never to be lightly handled. “We wish to abide by your will, but we feel we must also respect her rank and wishes.”
“We would’ve had to take hold of her to stop her,” Davi added bluntly. “She was going where she wanted to go, my lord.”
Both of them watched him warily, braced for an explosion. And while it was true that he was absolutely furious, Reminwas not going to inflict it on them. They were in an awkward position, hoping to be Ophele’s hallows while at the same time bound by oaths to honor him as their lord, and Remin had introduced this uncertainty himself, when he gave Ophele the choice of refusing her hallows. In truth, he had never expected his resolve to honor her wishes to be tested so severely.
“I see,” was all he said, and drew his sword. All three men were in full armor, helmets and all, and he was suddenly, savagely glad. “You did right. I will speak to her. Please attempt to secure the gate.”
None of them could even see the gate through the blizzard. It was late afternoon and the snow was falling so thickly that a man six feet away almost vanished. But they needed to practice in conditions of reduced visibility, too; they might just as easily be attacked in rain, in snow, in fog, at night. Remin exhaled a long white plume and then launched himself forward.
They might have been the only people in the world, moving through a deadly dance of shifting steel, muffled and obscured by the swirling snow. But Remin could not focus. His breath rasped in his ears inside his helmet, puffed hot and moist over his face, too hot. The anxious energy he had been trying to burn off all day was almost too much for him now. His strength was insufficient to his need, and still too much for Leonin and Davi as he battered at them.
Couldn’t he have just a few months of peace? It was hard enough to keep Ophele safe without her fighting him about it, and come spring he would be forced to take her to the capital like a lamb to slaughter, his lamb, his fuckingheartlaid out on an altar for the bastard Emperor. As glad as he was to have Miche home, Remin would almost have traded his friend to get that old woman gone. Azelma Bessin, who had been just so perfectly placed beside Lady Pavot. And now was so perfectly placed to come near Ophele.
“Get up,” he snarled at Leonin and Davi as he knocked them over. “Get up, get up, getup.Is this all you can do?”
He paused long enough to let them regain their feet and then savaged them again. They had to be better than this. None of them could afford to be weak, not for a single moment. Ophele had no idea how carefully she was being protected, how difficult it was to anticipateeverything,how one single mistake could mean something happened that could never be undone.Heknew. He was not wrong to be worried.
Remin forgot about the cold. He forgot about the snow. He forgot about everything but the two opponents before him, and the vicious brutality of the exercise. His sword sliced through the air in a massive, heavy arc, powerful enough to knock even Davi sprawling when it landed. Without armor, it could cut a man in half. His muscles burned and the frigid air seared his lungs as he breathed, but he didn’t stop. He couldn’t stop. Itneverstopped, no matter what he did.
“Your Grace! Your Grace!My lord!”Davi was shouting. Remin snapped back to himself to find Leonin and Davi were crowded up against the fence on the wrong side of the stable yard altogether, desperately defending. They had a great many new dents in their armor.
“My lord, forgive us,” Leonin said, pulling off his helmet. His dark hair was plastered flat to his head with sweat and his nose was bleeding. “We failed to gain the gate. We will do better.”
“No. You did well.” Remin was ashamed of himself. A good lord did not vent his frustrations on his people, and Davi and Leonin would be no protection to Ophele if he broke them in training. “Go…thaw. You are welcome to join us for supper in the solar.”
“My lord,” they said courteously, and departed.
He did not feel better. His heart was still racing, his blood singing in his ears, and Remin took off his helmet in the snowy yard and let his head fall back, the soft flakes drifting onto his hot face and melting instantly. It was so quiet, he could hear the snow falling, the big flakes lightly patting down, one on top of the other.
It was very, very cold.
Remin made his way inside and stripped off his armor with numb, clumsy fingers, shivering so badly he had to clench his jaw to keep his teeth from chattering. In the steaming water of the bath, even his arms and thighs burned as they thawed, and he stretched out in the tub, covered his face with a hot towel, and waited for things to stop hurting.
The familiar evening noises echoed in the hallway outside and from the open door of the solar, an intimacy that normally would never be granted in the lord’s portion of the house. There was Magne’s querulous voice, consulting Lady Verr on what Ophele would wear to dinner, so that His Grace might be dressed to match. Juste’s lower tones, bidding farewell as he went out into the blizzard to fetch food for them all. Miche’s voice, cheerfully inviting himself to supper.
