Well, she wasn’t dead. Like Juste, she was burrowed into a nest of furs pulled up to her chin, her auburn hair loose around her head, but she stirred when poked, and then her eyes flew open.
“Your Grace,” she gasped, and went at once into a fit of coughing.
“Your fire’s out,” Remin said accusingly, and handed her a cup of water. “And I couldn’t find that dratted Emi. Never mind, just lie there, I’ll be gone in a minute.”
“A gentleman…in a lady’s chambers…” she tried to say between coughs, and Remin shot her a black glance as he squatted by the hearth.
“This is a cottage on the edge of civilization,” he noted, cracking kindling apart in his hands. “Allowances must be made.”
“Emi has been looking in often,” the lady managed, with a painful effort. Remin couldn’t help a twinge of sympathy; he knew exactly how much those coughs hurt. “She is still well. You needn’t trouble yourself, my lord.”
“That’s a relief. That she is well,” Remin added, though both of them knew exactly what he had meant. “But you didn’t answer, so I had to check. The sickness is bad this year. We can’t afford to worry about etiquette.”
“You have made that very clear,” she said, with a glint of feverish gray eyes. “There is a reason for it, you know. Manners, graces…”
“I am aware of that.” Remin pulled down his scarf and puffed on the coals of the fire, grimacing. This was the part that made him feel most like coughing.
“It’s what puts everyone in their place…and comfortable together…” The words slurred together. Remin eyed her warily, hoping he wasn’t going to have to actuallylookat her.
“I know what manners are,” he said.
“They are the reason I can politely misunderstand what you said about Emi, for example, my lord.”
“You mean, they’re the reason you have to smile when I insult you to your face,” Remin retorted, and then pulled up his scarf to muffle a cough.
“That is a privilege…of rank…” Lady Verr turned her face away, coughing right back.
That would be an amusing farce, two sick people sparring about rank and etiquette until one of them expired. Remin swallowed, buttoning in another cough, and swiped at the sickly sweat on his forehead with his sleeve.
“Are you badly fevered?” he asked, once he was certain his chest wouldn’t instantly explode.
“Yes,” she said hoarsely. “But I need nothing else, Your Grace. Please take care of yourself. Her Grace was very worried for you.”
The lady had spine, Remin admitted grudgingly as he made his way back to the house. There was no question that he was not well yet himself, and Juste’s admonitions were still ringing in his ears. It would be foolish and dangerous to go charging off into town when he had only to wait a few hours, and Ophele would return. But hehatedit. Had anyone died? How bad was the sickness this year? The last thing he wanted in this world was to leave her to manage this by herself. What could Genon be thinking, involving her in it?
Locking the doors of his chamber behind him, he had another wash to get rid of the sick sweat and then stoked the fire in the bedchamber and sat down, eying the jug of Genon’s tonic. He did not want to sleep anymore. He wantedout.If he wasbeing fair, he knew he could trust Genon, Auber, and Jinmin to keep things in hand, and the stars only knew what Ophele might have been doing; she was always a wild card in the operations of the valley.
Wrapping himself in a blanket, Remin glared at his medicine, gulped it down, and then sat back and plotted what he would do the instant he was well.
And then he fell asleep. He woke with a crick in his neck as the lock rattled in the door, and Ophele appeared in the shadows, wrapped so that only her golden eyes showed through the slit in her scarf. She was sniffling.
“Wife,” he said, sitting up and trying to focus. “What’s happened?”
“Oh. Oh, you’re awake?” she said, and quickly wiped her eyes, as if she thought he might not notice. “I’ll get supper, there’s chicken with dumplings tonight—”
“That can wait. Come here, tell me what’s wrong,” he ordered, with something like his usual strength and only a little tickle in his throat.
For a moment, she hesitated, and then her shoulders sagged.
“Master Sharrenot is dead,” she whispered, and looked up at him, more tears welling. “I’m sorry. And Berren Sekrost, Mathie Campagne, and Gustere Neloe. He was six. From Meinhem. I saw them bring him out, I’m sorry. I didn’t think of them, but I should have. Genon says the fever is too much for them when they’re still so weak and I even made a list of people that needed extra care, but I never thought—”
“Slow down. Come sit down,” Remin admonished, his jaw tightening as herefusedto cough. Rising, he gestured her to her chair and set a kettle over the fire. “Tell me from the beginning, wife. I’m well enough to listen.”
He wanted to know anyway. And though normally he would have pulled her into his lap and consoled her at once, today he sat down in his own chair across the table, listening as she explained everything that had happened and everything she had done. Today, she was not just his wife. She was Squire Rollon, returned from Ferrede and struggling to explain why twenty people had died there. She was Sir Ortaire, who hadn’t noticed the small, fatal hill outside his camp, just high enough for a wolf demon to spring inside and tear a dozen men to pieces.
Today, he was taking a report from her, just as he would have done from any of his young commanders.
“And now Azelma is sick too,” she said miserably, fresh tears soaking into her scarf. “She’s not…drythe way Genon said Master Sharrenot was, but she’s so old, and what if she’s come all this way for me and she dies? I keep trying to think what we can do, and Genon says more people are going to die tonight, and I don’t know what to do, I can’t think ofanything—”
