“My mother used to call itblessing the work,”she said, turning it for the duchess’s examination. “I believe every dress my mother made for me had some small bit of embroidery, even if she hid it where it wouldn’t show.”
“Oh, how lovely,” breathed Duchess Andelin. “I wonder…does anyone know how to make an owl?”
There was a babble of volunteers, and Mionet willingly ceded the field.
It was a surprisingly pleasant afternoon. The stack of new clothing and blankets grew, and for a while everyone forgot the time until there was a knock on the door and Sir Miche stepped inside, looking as surprised to see them as they were to see him.
“I beg your pardon,” he said, offering a swift bow and a charming smile. Every time she saw that smile, Mionet felt her hackles rise. “My lady. Ladies. I had forgotten the solar was to become a garden this afternoon. Ophele, I’m off to fetch supper and Mistress Bessin, is there anything you need from the office?”
“More paper and ink, please,” she replied, oblivious to the pricked ears of the assembled women. “Stars, I had not realized it was so late, I suppose we ought to begin clearing up…”
“Sim and Jaose have horses and sledges ready in the courtyard,” His dimpled smile set off a wave of feminine fluttering. “If there’s anyone left when I get back with Azelma, I’ll send them home.”
“Thank you, Miche,” Duchess Andelin replied, as if she had never heard a single one of Mionet’s lectures on the importance of formal address. The women rose in a murmur ofvoices to begin gathering their things and bundling up for the journey home.
Mionet was sure that what they said now would not be half so interesting as what they said when they got there.
***
Someone was sewing bugs all over Remin’s clothing.
They were small things, less than half the size of his fingernail, and they appeared in the oddest places: behind a button, tucked into his sleeve, and once even inside a pocket, a raised, bug-shaped object that he discovered by chance. It was not a mystery he had much leisure to solve, but he frowned as he examined the latest object, a blotchy little thing with huge round eyes. Was Magne doing it? Why?
Maybe it was a valet custom? Like signing a painting.
“How did it go today?” he asked as he and Ophele were getting ready for bed. By now she had held her sewing circle several times, and he knew she had barely been able to sleep the night before the first gathering.
“It was so nice. They showed me how to make a smock, and I finished my first one by myself today! I even sewed a flower on the pocket,” she said happily. “And I like listening to them. I never knew so much was happening in town. Did you know that Master Peltier is courting Mistress Roscout?”
“Really?” The man wasancient.
“Yes, Mistress Tregue was teasing her about it, I thought it was sweet—oh, and Auber!” Her eyes opened wide as she turned to look at Remin. “He’s been calling on Isilde, one of the ladies from Meinhem. Isn’t that lovely?”
“Blast, I knew and I forgot to tell you.” Remin was disappointed that she had beaten him to it. “I found out before the fever.”
“I saw them together when Vinzetin was sick, Isilde was beside herself…” For a moment, her eyes darkened. She still was not entirely over the losses of the valley fever. “Will he ask her to marry him, do you think?”
“He asked if I would allow it. She’s a commoner, and her boy…Vinzetin is a bastard,” Remin replied, with a reassuring caress. “I told him to marry who he wants, but it will be difficult for both of them.”
“That isn’tVinzetin’sfault, or hers,” Ophele said indignantly. She always turned fiery on the subject of the women who had suffered Valleth’s ravages; Vinzetin was not the only fair-haired child among the survivors of Remin’s villages.
“I don’t think so either, but it’s something they must consider,” Remin answered, smiling to himself as Ophele waved this away to imagine their wedding instead, wondering whether they would stay in Tresingale forever and how it would be, when Vinzetin had a little brother or sister to look after.
Setting his robe over the footboard of the bed, he spotted yet another embroidered bug, this time inside the collar. Really, that was a littletoointimate.
“Wife, remind me to talk to Magne tomorrow about my clothes,” he said, disgruntled.
“What about?” Ophele was laying out her own robe and slippers for the morning, and examining the pretty embroidery on both with a pleased expression.
“He’s been sewing bugs all over them,” Remin said, bluntly and unwisely.
There was an indignant squeak.
“They aren’t bugs, they’re owls!”
“Of course they are.” Remin instantly reevaluated everything he knew about the natural world. Obviously, it was an owl. A fat, bug-eyed, spotted owl with two-antennae-like objectssticking out of its head. As soon as he imagined Ophele sewing it, it was adorable. “I love it.”
“You’re just saying that.”
