“It is a simple litany done with the burning of cleansing blue incense, which I have in good supply,” Brother Oleare explained. “I would suggest waiting until the sickness has passed, so that the vigil will not be too taxing for weakened people. But it will do them good to breathe the clean air, and even if your people cannot congregate under the sky, for one night they might lift their prayers together for all their sorrows and troubles, and find comfort in sharing their intentions with the stars.”
Remin and Ophele exchanged glances.
“I would like that,” she offered hesitantly.
“Do that,” Remin agreed. “We can provide hands to help you distribute incense. Genon believes we’re almost through the worst of the illness, if only because almost everyone’s had it. But once we have a fine day, I want a proper funeral. There are many who have not had rites.”
“Yes, Your Grace.” Brother Oleare bowed his head. “I have heard of what happened in Meinhem and Nandre.”
“It is not just the deaths from this autumn.” Remin met his eyes, unsmiling. “We have not had the aid of a holy man since the war. Two hundred and forty-three have died. They died from devils, and in the accidents of building. And there are my villagers, who sickened and starved, and never once had the prayers of the Temple.”
“Remin,” Ophele whispered. Remin himself hadn’t realized how angry he was.
“I will write their names, and burn them with incense, so the stars might know them better. People might be forgiven for losing faith, in such trials.” Brother Oleare lifted his head to peer at them more closely, as if he wondered whether that might be the case now. “I beg your indulgence. You asked for instruction; hear me now. The stars govern our ways from birth to death, but they do not intercede among the living. They shone on the struggles of your people, when they called out in their suffering. Bet Agasse attended upon your men who died in arms, defending others. Nuyin and Ayan are the twin stars of healing, and are moved by compassion for those who suffer. No one who walks beneath the stars walks alone.”
“Then what need have we of clerics?” Remin asked, unimpressed.
“For the living,” Brother Oleare replied, sighing. He stroked his long beard. “And there, we failed you. I will not offend you with excuses, Your Grace. Nor can I speak on behalfof the Temple. But I am sorry your people were forsaken. I can only promise that they were never forsaken by the stars.”
“I will give you the names of our dead.”
“Does that mean, that’s where they went?” Ophele asked, glancing between the two men. “If Remin’s men died bravely, Bet Agasse would take them in?”
“Yes, my lady,” the cleric replied. “Bet Agasse opens his gates to the steadfast. Perhaps you have heard that someone was born under a particular star?”
Remin took a furtive sip of tea while they talked, fighting back a cough. Genon had strongly recommended that he should not venture outside until he had gone twenty-four hours without coughing, and Remin had made it all the way to supper yesterday before he got into a spirited discussion with Leonin about various schools of swordsmanship, which had set them both off.
Remin was trying not to have strong opinions today.
Ophele was having enough strong opinions for both of them, as she sought consolation in her own way. Remin’s rather fatalistic attitude toward death had not been much comfort, and he had hoped that Brother Oleare would have something wiser to offer. But though Remin was not very pious, it was still shocking to hear Ophele questioning the man with no reverence whatever for the cult of the stars, employing every tool of logic and argument that Juste had taught her.
“But the second volume ofThe Will Immanentimplies there is such a thing as destiny,” she was saying, wielding the deadliest weapon in her arsenal. Her tawny eyes bent mercilessly on the old man. “In the third chapter, discussing the pathways of the dark…”
Remin pretended not to see the look of astonished betrayal from Brother Oleare.Hewould not have wanted to be on the receiving end of Ophele’s interrogation. Maybe the holyman could consider it a form of atonement for the Temple’s neglect.
“I will bring some of my own books next time, young la—my lady,” Brother Oleare said when time was up. The old man was huffing, his thick scarf puffing around his face, and perhaps that was fair; one wouldn’t look at Ophele and expect a rhetorical mauling.
“Oh, yes, please,” Ophele agreed, blissfully unaware of his pique, and trying not to laugh made Remin cough instead.
He didn’t get to go outside that day, either.
But over the next few days, as the pernicious illness worked its way through Tresingale, it certainly didn’t seem tohimthat the stars could have any particular plan. Azelma endured a frightening, feverish night and then rallied; Naisenne, the new head laundress, died of the fever, and she wasn’t much more than fifty. What sense did it make, for a woman to come all this way and then die before she could even unpack? Remin had her body carried away to lie in frozen state with the other victims of the plague, feeling angry and guilty and tired. He did not understand the logic of the world.
In practical terms, that left him with three remaining laundresses, young women who did not seem reliable, in his admittedly limited experience. But he supposed they could not all be like Emi and Peri: sturdy, dependable girls of whom he heartily approved.
“Maybe this is what it’s like to be old,” he grumbled to Ophele as he took his seat in the solar for another day of attempting not to cough. “Sitting in a room watching other people go in and out all day.”
“Until I met you, I thought that’s what lords did,” she whispered back, taking her seat at the table beside him and putting on her company face. She took copious notes throughout his interviews and was swiftly learning what details were worthwriting down, gaining a general grasp of the business of the valley. Perhaps some lords would have restricted their wives to household affairs, but Remin had learned this lesson. If he was ever injured or ill again, he would not leave Ophele scrambling to catch up.
The next man came in on a blast of cold air, like a Hara Vosi storm-herald. Pulling his scarf off his head, he knelt.
“Your Grace, I am Laide Torimel, I was sent with Sir Miche,” he said, lifting his head. Under all that winter gear Remin recognized him, a young soldier of around twenty and just this side of frostbitten. “He sent me back. We found Sir Huber and his men about a week’s ride from Tresingale. They had many on foot. Sir Miche asked to send Mr. Hengest at once, if he can be spared, and as many sledges and supplies as you can.”
“Sir Osinot, go and make them ready,” Remin ordered one of the guards by the door, and beckoned for the messenger to rise. “Stand by the fire, man. How many still live?”
“Two hundred, Your Grace, mostly from Selgin. Everyone’s cold and we have some sick and injured. Sir Huber…”
Remin felt his stomach sink clear through his boots.
