“So you were not chosen,” Remin interrupted. “You volunteered, without knowing where you would go or who you would serve.”
“Yes, my lord,” Azelma replied. What this might mean to Remin, Ophele could not guess; it sounded entirely innocent to her. “Later, I found out I was to serve the Emperor’s mistress. He had given her a household of her own in Starfall, as a gift.”
“Had he ever done that for his other mistresses?” Remin asked.
“Not that I heard, Your Grace, but that doesn’t mean it didn’t happen,” Azelma replied, careful to distinguish gossip from fact. “The first time I laid eyes on her was in the entry of her manse, gathered with all the other servants when the Emperor brought her there. I’ve told you this before, my lady, but she was such a pretty girl, your mother. Golden hair and bright eyes, and a smile that made your heart glad. And not one ounce of meanness in her. She kept saying,is it really for me?And the Emperor smiled and said yes, to do with just as she pleased. As if a maid like that had any idea what to do with a manse in Starfall.”
The girl without an ounce of meanness in her had still somehow seen Remin’s family slaughtered down to his infant cousins.
“She really didn’t mean any harm,” Azelma said sadly, as if she could see this thought in Ophele’s face. “If the Emperor was away, she was often up and down at night, and would come visit me as I was starting the day’s bread. She talked about her home and her family. She missed them, and I think she was embarrassed to tell them what had happened, but…I believe she truly loved the Emperor. Maybe that was the trouble. She had been loved so well, she never thought anything bad could happen to her.”
“Did she ever speak of the Emperor?” Remin asked.
“Yes, Your Grace.” Azelma made a face. “He spoiled her. Gowns and jewels and twin kittens with blue eyes, she loved them dearly. And books. He would send books for her to read, and she said that they would discuss them together later. Riding, hawking, weeks at his country estates. He did…dote on her,” she said, a little awkwardly. “She was very happy.”
Until.No one said it.
“Then one day she came home and went straight to bed, and soon enough, there was a healer, and another healer, and late that night, there she was, coming down to my kitchen in her nightdress to tell me she was with child.”
Instinctively, Ophele reached for Remin, and his icy hand closed over hers.
“I did not want to know that,” Azelma admitted. “When I went to the Emperor’s palace, my mother told me,don’t be mixing with the upper house,and there I was, doing just that. And I can’t say my mother was wrong,” she said with a short laugh. “You mix with the upper house, and people start thinking you know things, and soon enough there’s a man with hot pincers, wanting to have a talk.”
She slanted a look at Remin.
“I don’t think pincers will be necessary,” he said, without the slightest alteration of expression. Ophele huffed, but Azelma just smiled.
“If I remembered the color of her nightrobe, I’d tell you that, too. But I listened, because she was a scared girl, and I liked her. And things happened fast, after that. They kept it secret, but your mother said the Divinity was over the moon, planning the nursery with her, already picking out names. She was sure he meant to acknowledge it. And you know, normally a girl in such a place would be off for a visit to the country, and that would be the last anyone heard of her.”
“Bastards can’t inherit,” Remin said slowly, his black brows knotting. “It’s in the Imperial Code. They can be acknowledged, and they can be granted property, but they can’t inherit titles.”
This was true. Ophele could have recited the relevant articles.
“Well, you would know better than I, Your Grace,” Azelma spread her hands. “The last time I spoke to her in that kitchen, Lady Pavot talked about her family, her father and mother and brother, and did I think they would be dreadfully disappointed in her. She knew she had done wrong. But she thought…well. She said,the Emperor needs an heir. It would be bad for the Empire if he didn’t have one, wouldn’t it?”
There was a weighty silence. Even a cook would have known what that meant.
“But that would…” Ophele began faintly, after a rapid mental review of the Imperial Code. “The only way…”
“That would mean deposing the Empress,” finished Remin.
“I don’t know if she thought that far. I don’t know what the Emperor might have promised her, or what plans theymade,” Azelma said, nodding. “But to me…that didn’t sound like something she would have thought up on her own. Lady Pavot was never…scheming. That was part of her trouble, I don’t believe she ever thought of him as the Emperor at all.”
Azelma sighed and picked up her tea, but did not drink.
“And I know this next bit is what you most want to know, my lord, but there’s little I can tell you. That was the year the Empress had her miscarriage, and all of Starfall was up in arms about it. The whole Empire, I guess. Everyone was afraid to stir a step while it was investigated, and there were some that said it was Lady Pavot that had caused it, that she had given the Empress poison. I will never believe it. But a carriage came for her, and she was gone for a while, at least a week. And when she came back, she was scared out of her wits. She gathered everyone together and said the household was to be closed. She thanked us, and said she had been happy, and wished us well. And I…well, if there wasevera time the lower house shouldn’t mix with the upper, that was it, but those fool maids made me so blazingmad.They were all in the kitchen saying how the Divinity had had his fun, and that was that, and oh, my lady, it wasn’t like that. I don’t say that forhissake, but your mother wasn’t...”
She exhaled sharply through her nostrils.
“Well, I went upstairs. And your mother was crying, of course. I talked to her a bit, but barring that night she told me she was with child, she did know how to keep a secret. She never told me what happened. She just cried and cried and kept saying,he’s letting me go, he said my family won’t be hurt, so it’s not that bad, is it?”
“I didn’t ask,” Azelma confessed, with a guilty air. “I swear, Your Grace, I didn’t want to know. You see a pregnant girl carrying the Emperor’s bastard, you hear her say that…well, that’s killing business, that is, and you don’t need to know theImperial Code to see it. When I left her, I said good-bye, and wished her the best, and I never meant to speak to her again. But everyone elseleft.One by one, over the next couple weeks, all of them scarpered, the maids and the footmen and the butler and even the boot boy. But you can ask anyone who was in the city back then, there wasn’t awhisperof anything, before it happened.”
“What happened?” Ophele’s mouth was dry. Because she knew. Of course, she knew. Everyone knew how this story ended.
“I didn’t choose to stay.” The old woman looked down at her hands. “I just…didn’t leave. Right up to the moment the carriage drew up in front of the manse, I was there, and it was loaded up, and wherever Lady Pavot was going, it wasn’t home. She was shaking, she was so scared. So I thought, I’ll just ride along for a bit. Just to the Starfall bridge, and then I’ll hop down and that will be that. But I was there all the way into the city, and onto Crescent Street, and then we went past the Court of Rule, and then…”
“The Place of White Stones,” Remin said quietly.
