“Thank the stars, I am glad,” he said, catching her chin to kiss her. “It hurts? I will find Genon’s tonic, there’s a bottle somewhere. I remember the book said it might, and that you might be tired, or have—”
“Yes, yes,” she said quickly, before he could get into further details. Ophele did not mind such things in an academic sense, but it was deeply mortifying when applied to her person. “But Remin…it means I should be able to have your baby. For your House. House Andelin’s heir.”
“Our House. Our baby.” He kissed her, striding across the room to deposit her in bed. “Lie still, I’ll go find that tonic.”
“You don’t need to fuss,” she said, as he hunted through the cupboards and drawers of the sideboard.
“I do. I didn’t like to say anything, but I’ve been worried, all this time.” Producing the small, stoppered jug, he brought it to her and knelt beside the bed, rubbing her head gently as she drank. “Not just because of the child. I’ve never forgiven myself that you were so thin. That I did something so terrible to your body. I am sorry.”
“It was as much my fault as it is yours. Would you rub here?” She guided his big, warm hand to her belly, where a twisting ache made her grimace. “That feels better.”
“It looks as if it hurts a lot,” he observed, frowning. “Give me a minute to get settled, and I’ll rub all you like.”
“It’s worse that I can’tthink,”she complained, as he went about setting out their robes and slippers for the morning. “I couldn’t remember half my lessons with Justenin, I had to write them all down.”
“Is that normal?”
“Mionet says some ladies get muddled.” Ophele had been annoyed enough to ask, in a roundabout, metaphorical way. And soon enough Remin was curled up with her in a roundabout, literal way, making a comfortable pillow for her head as his hand gently rubbed exactly where it hurt.
“I’ll have Wen send up something sweet from the kitchen tomorrow,” he promised, his voice rumbling pleasantly. “I’m sorry it hurts, little owl, but I’m glad your body is doing what it ought. We are both finally well. It has been hard.”
It had been. It had been very hard, in so many ways.
“Hazelnut cookies?” she asked, brightening.
“I don’t see why not, when we gathered the hazelnuts ourselves,” he replied, amused. “I’ll bring up a cask of honey mead for supper, and Miche can make you a hot toddy, and you can lie abed all day if you like…”
With the fire crackling and her foggy head and the dull ache twisting through her body, the thought of lying in bed and watching the snow swirl outside the windows sounded lovely. But Ophele suddenly sat up.
“Oh, no, I can’t,” she remembered all at once, and turned to tell him about the surprising guests she had invited for luncheon.
Chapter 10 – The Duchess of Andelin’s Salon
Year 799 of the Divine House of Agnephus
From earliest childhood, Empress Esmene Agnephus, née Melun, had heard one ringing and eternal admonishment.
For the glory of House Melun.
It explained everything. Commanded everything. Justified anything.
Melun was an ancient House, high in honor and tradition, even more ancient than the Divine House of Agnephus. Almost all the ducal Houses had preexisted the Empire; there had been people in Argence before the arrival of Ospret Far-Eyes, after all. Back then, they had been a cluster of many kingdoms, constantly fighting among themselves.
Technically, the only land to which the House of Agnephus had any claim was Starfall, the island that Ospret had raised from the bed of the River Emme. But even before this feat, hiswisdom and vision were so great that seven kings had chosen to bow to him, and made war on those who refused.
House Melun had been one of the seven. When she was four, Esmene had learned the line of her ancestors, descent through the male line all the way back to Heveroult Melun, the earliest patriarch of the House. To this day, those names were invoked at the Feast of the Departed. The proof of a true scion of House Melun was the ability to reckon one’s cousins to the fifth degree.
That was how she knew exactly when the sacred blood of the House of Agnephus had entered House Melun, and they had been husbanding this precious resource ever since. The Emperor’s House had never been prolific, but every so often there was a princess or second son to spare. House Melun had fought clandestine wars to snap up these sacred scions for themselves.
And when Emperor Onsetin Agnephus had produced a single son named Bastin, House Melun already had three daughters of appropriate age, candidates to be his Empress.
“That will be your husband,” Esmene’s father told her when she was eight, on the day the five-year-old Crown Prince was presented to the Court of Nobility. “You will be the perfect Empress, Esmene.”
It was not for her sake that he made that promise. Nor even his own, though Dardot Melun secured his own legacy within the House when she was betrothed to the Crown Prince, and became the patriarch of House Melun when he was scarcely more than forty.
It was a triumph all the way around. Esmene was born to be an Empress. There had been something intoxicating about the fact that even the Divine Emperor could not keep her out of Starfall, even if she had had to settle for the Palace of the Distant Star. She had married him, she had taken every prerogative andhonor due the Empress, and she could look into the face of Emperor Bastin Agnephus and know that through him, she had achieved every dream of her House.
Well. Almost.
