In two strides he swept her up and found her every bit as warm and soft as she looked, and Remin buried his face in her and held on, reassuring himself that she was really there.
“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” she whispered, wrapping her arms tightly around his neck. “Oh, Remin, that was so dreadful, I’m so, so sorry…”
“It’s not your fault,” he said huskily, and drew his chair up to the fire to sit with her. It felt better just to be there, with her in his lap, especially when she reached for a blanket to pull over them both and then nestled into him like some small, portable warming device.
“She always told me, there are some things you can’t ever take back,” Ophele murmured. “That I should be careful what Isaid. I know it doesn’t matter, it doesn’t fix anything. But she was always sorry.”
It didn’t matter. Regret would not bring his family back. But Remin thought about it.
“I am glad…she was sorry,” he said, low. He didn’t want to hear it. He didn’t want to speak of her, ever again. He wished Ophele wasanyoneelse’s child. He sighed. “You can tell Azelma that I might want to talk to her again. And so will Juste. It will probably not be a comfortable conversation.”
Remin let his head rest against hers, feeling a little sorry for the elderly cook. She did seem like a nice woman, and he was grateful that she had been there for Ophele, all those years. But it was not enough to win his trust.
“His family was there, too, weren’t they?” Ophele asked quietly.
“Yes. His father and both his sisters.”
The fire crackled in the quiet.
“Do you want me to read to you?” she asked at length, and when he nodded, she went to fetch one of the books Miche had brought back from Aldeburke, a story about the wood-folk of Illus. Ophele had been reading it to him whenever there was time, with the air of introducing him to a dear friend. It was good speaking practice for her to read aloud, and he could prop his chin on her shoulder, close his eyes, and empty his mind.
He never knew whether it was the wine or the conversation with Miche or Ophele herself, curled up against him all night long. But that night, if he dreamed, he did not remember it.
In the morning, it was snowing again.
“I have never seen so much snow,” Ophele said, awed as she looked out the windows of the solar. Remin trailed behind her, scrubbing his eyes. He really had not wanted to get out of bed.
“The roads will need shoveling again,” said Juste, setting breakfast on the table. His nose and ears were red with cold. Miche wandered in a few minutes later, his long blond hair loose on his shoulders, looking like a maned Noreveni lion as he yawned with all his teeth.
“We’re going to need bigger shovels,” he said, pulling Ophele’s chair out for her like a gentleman and then repeating the courtesy for Lady Verr. “Sim and Jaose had to clear the walkways around the house three times yesterday.”
“Let me know if you need help,” Remin said, poking at his eggs with a fork rather than eating them. They looked singularly unappetizing this morning.
It was the first blizzard of the winter and he was already tired of snow. Pulling his cloak up over his shoulders, Remin kissed Ophele good-bye and went out into the cold, where Jaose was sweeping off the portico at the front of the house and Sim was clearing the path to the stable with a resigned expression. At least the snow had tapered off a little; when Remin drew Lancer up at the top of the hill, he could see all of Tresingale spread below him under a blanket of white, with smoke rising from many chimneys.
He did not like to think of Huber and his men trudging through that, along with who knew how many refugees. Miche would be leaving shortly with several hundred men to go and search for them, equipped with sledges, snowshoes, and heavy clothing, and enough spares to outfit all of Huber’s men and half of Isigne besides. But travel in winter was dangerous. It was easy to get lost with half the landmarks buried in snow, and sometimes the Andelin blizzards were so fierce, a man could get lost between his house and his stable.
He would have to have a word with the folk in the cottages about that, just in case.
But his first stop of the morning was Genon’s infirmary, which had been filling up over the past few days with patients suffering both frostbite and flu, especially the night guardsmen, who were not taking their winter clothing seriously.
“Layers.Layers,”Genon enunciated as he examined the purple nose of a grimacing soldier. “Don’t take His Grace as your model, I beg, and think you’ve done enough to acquire a fur cloak. Ospret himself said that we have a little fire in us all, but it only helps if you bank the flames. Your Grace,” he said, rolling one yellow eye toward Remin. “We were just talking about you.”
“And without proper reverence,” Remin agreed, though his glare lacked conviction. “That’s what I was coming to check, Gen. Any casualties?”
“A few fingers and toes, but Tounot and Jinmin say so far everyone’s accounted for,” Genon replied, moving both Remin and himself nearer to the iron stove pumping out heat in the center of the room. The infirmary was a long, low stone building with small windows set high off the ground, sufficient to admit light and fresh air but protecting from the worst of the cold. “A lot of coughs and sniffles today, too. Brestle said he’s seeing the same.”
“The valley fever,” Remin said balefully. It troubled his army every winter, enough that he sometimes wondered if there was some foulness inherent to snowy air. “Is there a…tonic to prevent it? Or something?”
“No,” Genon replied, with a flicker of amusement. With a wife to worry about, Remin had become a sudden convert to the virtues of tonics. “Good food, good exercise, and keep out of the wet. And that goes for Her Grace, too, my lord. It’s not good for her to sit by a fire all winter any more than yourself.”
Ophele had already expressed this opinion several times.
“I’ll ask Tounot to have another word with the men,” Remin promised. Really, they should all know better;howlonghad everyone been in this valley? But every year it was the same thing, as if clinging to autumn cloaks would keep the winter from coming. “Is Brother Oleare about?”
“Aye, back in the shrine,” said Genon, gesturing to the closet recently added to the back of the infirmary. A grand temple had been planned for the town, but without an actual cleric, no one had given much thought to what they would do while it was under construction.
It was a small room, but it had its own small stove, and Brother Oleare rose to offer Remin the second of two chairs with a bow.
