She knew Sir Jinmin the least of all Remin’s knights, but she was so relieved to have someone to talk to, she found herself chattering away as he saddled her horse, asking him to explain exactly how to do it. Dancer was sweet and willing to be led, but she had not liked having a saddle flung about her sides.
“I will be your escort today, if you don’t mind, lady,” Sir Jinmin said, holding out a huge hand to boost her onto Dancer’s back. “Hope it’s all right.”
“No, of course. I hope you’re still well?”
“Fit as you like, lady.”
He did have a way of letting the conversation drop like a stone, but after weeks with Lady Verr, Ophele was learning to persevere.
“Are they well enough in the barracks? Oh, and the pages, I hope they’re not too ill? Some of them are so little…”
No one had mentioned the pageboys yesterday, and she reproached herself as she listened to Jinmin’s report. Fortunately, none of them had taken the sickness too hard. They were all sturdy boys, active and well-fed, and she saw some of them darting here and there as they moved about town, looking in on the office, the cookhouse, and the Benkki Desans. Madam Sanai and Master Balad were both down with it. They accepted Genon’s medicine with thanks, but they had a number of practices of their own, and Ophele almost had to be dragged away when Huvara appeared with long rolls of fine linen, saying something about a steam shroud.
Things were already slipping askew elsewhere. The pageboys had delivered food that morning, but it froze solid on quite a few doorsteps. Tounot was finally succumbing to the illness, and Genon could only spare her a few moments between his most fragile patients, of whom there were more than expected. Neither he nor Brestle had slept.
“But it’s not as if there’s a war on,” Genon said, as if this were reassuring. “We’ve seen worse, my lady.”
No doubt they had, but how long could they go without sleeping? Ophele watched him anxiously, and it colored her reaction when she arrived in the marketplace to find a wagon laden with firewood trundling past the fountain in the town square, a full six hours later than it should have been. She didn’t hesitate to hurry over to it, appalled.
“There are sick people in these houses!” she exclaimed, looking up at the many chimneys around them, only a few of which were smoking. “Have they not had fires all morning?”
“Warn’t no firewood by the stables, lady,” said the nearest man, anonymous under many layers of clothing. “Had to get it from the cottages.”
“But you’re not meant to get it from there, there’s a woodpile down the alley behind the smiths’ forges!” She was beginning to be actually angry. “Do you mean you took all the firewood from the cottages? You can’t just take it from wherever you find it!”
“I said it was all right, lady,” said another anonymous man, appearing around the side of the wagon. “We only took half of what we found, no need to fuss.”
Actually, therewasneed to fuss.They had planned out yesterday exactly where all the firewood would go so everyone would have what they needed and the cottages were much colder than the houses in town, much less insulated, and so burned wood much more rapidly. But they were all looking down ather together, tall men with gruff voices, anonymous in their woolens, and probably so much wiser than she…
“There—there is,” she managed. It came out wavering and uncertain, and she stiffened. She was right, she knew she was right. “They need much more firewood, they—”
“Can’t hear you, lady?”
“You’re talking to Her Grace,” Jinmin said suddenly behind her, flat and menacing. “That you, Auffray? Take off your hood and show your manners. P’raps you and I ought to have a chat.”
“After they have fetched back the firewood, please, Sir Jinmin.” Ophele raised her voice, her fingers clenching her skirts. “They burn firewood faster. In the cottages. Once you’ve unloaded, go and get half the woodpile from behind the smiths’ and take it back. To the cottages, I mean. And don’t do this again.”
With Jinmin glowering behind her, they could do nothing but bow and murmur apologies, and she bit her tongue and waited through their belated courtesies, glad that her face was covered. It was easy to speak, wasn’t it, so long as no one was speaking back.
“I’ll thump ’em later,” Jinmin growled behind her. “Lazy sods, didn’t want to go all that way in the cold, is all.”
“Genon said the people with the fever can’t afford to take a chill,” she said. Normally, she would err on the side of forgiveness, and it was her own fault if she felt afraid or embarrassed. But she would not allow the least risk to the sick, if she could stop it. “Please speak with them about it.”
But that wasn’t even the worst affront of the afternoon. Master Forgess was one of the last to offer his report at the tavern, pugnacious and glaring out of the slit of his large, woolly scarf.
“They’re well enough to be complaining, Your Grace,” he said of the people in his charge, which was so honest it made her smile. There were a few people at the manor in that condition. “Master Cherche is the worst off…”
But he was not smiling. Indeed, he seemed to grow angrier with every second he looked at her, reeling off the names of the ill so rapidly that she had a hard time imprinting them on her memory. He and his journeymen very nearly abased themselves every time they encountered her about town, but Master Forgess never really seemed tomeanit. Even as he was donning his cloak and gloves, he kept glancing at her, as if he were chewing his tongue to keep from speaking his mind.
The explosion occurred just after she exited the tavern, as Sir Jinmin caught her boot to boost her into the saddle.
“Your Grace!” She heard the shout from behind her, sudden and furious. “In the name of every scholarly star,learn to write!”
Jinmin released her so abruptly she staggered, righted her by the scruff of her neck like a kitten, and then swung around and went for Master Forgess. The scholar stood his ground as if he was willing to die like a man, so long as he had his say first.
“Your ideas weregood!”he exclaimed, his gloved hands held out before him in imprecation to the heavens. “But no one’s going to read them if they look like they were scribbled by a ten-year-old! Your position may insulate you from criticism, but it is aprofligate waste!Respect your own scholarship enough to learn to express it properly!”
The words echoed off the icy stone of the market square and then hung there, dissipating in white clouds.
