Gilot coughed and avoided my eye. "Demoiselle Friote."
And that was that.
During the days that followed, Phèdre gave me leave to run wild, sensing my need for freedom after the constraints of the City and court. As long as I remained within the generous boundaries of the area patrolled by Denis Friote and the guard, I was free to wander.
I spent most of my time with Charles. He and Katherine and I had become fast friends during my first summer at Montrève, being the closest in age. At thirteen, Katherine had been willing to spend hours in the mews, listening to Ronald Agout, the old falconer, or tussling with the puppies in the kennels. She still had a little white scar on one hand where a hound-bitch snapped at her.
But now she was sixteen, and a young woman. It was beneath her dignity to play children's games. This, Katherine made abundantly clear.
She regarded Charles with the amused condescension of an older sister. By virtue of my status, I warranted a measure of respect, but only a small one. It was not that I minded, exactly—one of the things I cherished about Montrève was that my status as a Prince of the Blood was held in light regard—but I wanted her to see me as more than an old playmate yet to grow up.
I wanted her to see me as… what?
Not a man, exactly; but not a boy, either. I wanted Katherine to look at me as someone worthy of regard in my own right. It didn't have to be the way she looked at Gilot, which was downright foolish, but… well, perhaps a little bit.
I told her the story of Joscelin's and my vigil on the Longest Night and my dramatic illness that followed it, but women have a pragmatic streak when it comes to such things. Katherine merely cast an acerbic eye over me and said, "Boys and their folly! I hope Lady Phèdre had his hide for it."
Charles, at least, was properly impressed.
We had measured ourselves against one another, standing back-to-back in the stables. I was the taller by a good two inches, though I daresay he outweighed me. I envied his solid frame, the breadth of his shoulders. Colts' Years, Joscelin had said, but Charles was as sturdy as a plowhorse.
"Ah, well." He shrugged when I complained of it. "It's hard work that does it. But you wouldn't know about that, would you, highness?"
I thought about the hours I spent drilling with Joscelin. "Oh, indeed? Would you care to spar a few rounds with the Queen's Champion, farm boy?"
"Swordplay and scholarship," Charles scoffed. "You want to speak of hard work, try clearing a pasture or chopping wood."
It made me think of Maslin in the orchard, attacking a pear tree with a warrior's skill. "All right," I said. "I will."
Charles eyed me as though I'd gone mad. "Why? You don't have to, Imri."
"So?" I said stubbornly. "I want to. Set me a chore, and I'll do it."
He eyed me for a minute longer, then grinned. "Swear it?"
I nodded. "I swear."
I had cause to regret it within a day. Charles' father, the seneschal, had set about a plan to expand the pasturage of Montrève in order to increase its flocks. By my oath, I was bound to help with the task.
It was backbreaking work. Most of it was done by smallholders; crofters willing to do the labor and pay a tithe from their proceeds to the lord or lady of the estate. But in Siovale, there is a long-standing tradition of the manor-folk and crofters working side by side to the betterment of all, carving out fresh portions of pasturage or arable land. Not all the peers, obviously; few of them deign to dirty their hands.
I did.
The first day, we cleared rocks. Not small ones, either, but great chunks of stone that must be dug out from the earth and carried to the verges of the new pasture, where they were used to build meandering stone fences to mark its boundaries. I sweated and swore and dug. I worried rocks loose from their deep beds, tugging at them until my nails bled, hearing my sinews crack as I wrenched them free. I carried them, staggering under the weight, to drop them on the mason's piles.
By the end of the first day, every fiber of my body was in agony.
Phèdre very nearly forbade me to continue. It was Joscelin who eyed me at the dinner-table, hunched in misery, and dissuaded her.
"It's his will," he said to her, raising his brows. "You did promise to let him make his own choices, did you not? Besides, he'll take no harm from honest work."
So I continued, laboring under the hot summer sun. Like the crofters, I threw off my shirt and labored bare-chested. Charles worked beside me, laughing and jesting. Together, all of us cleared the pasture of nearly all the stones small enough to carry. It took many days, but I grew hardened to the work. There was a certain satisfaction in seeing the land open to new growth, and watching the fence lengthen, stone by stone, foot by foot. When it was done, I thought surely we were finished, but Charles shook his head.
"Those have got to come out," he said judiciously, pointing at a pair of monstrously tall pine trees that jutted at an angle from the sloped ground. "That one and that one."
"Those?" I looked incredulously at him. "They're trees, Charles. Other pastures have trees. Can't the sheep graze around them?"
"Look." He led me uphill to the far side of one. "See how the ground is bulging and the roots are pulling loose? They grow shallow, you know. A hard rainfall or a strong wind, and they're ready to topple. Besides," he added, "where do you think the firewood that cooks your supper and warms your bathwater comes from?"
I sighed. "So they come out?"
Charles grinned. "They come out. And then we chop."
Felling the trees was a spectacle unto itself. The work was undertaken by an expert woodsman, and Charles and I were ordered to stand well clear of the site. Joscelin came, too. We all watched as the woodsman wielded his axe, swift and deliberate. It cut through the air, thunking deep into the wood, over and over. Chips flew fast and furious, and yet the woodsman moved with calm efficiency, not a single motion wasted.
"Could you do that?" I asked Joscelin.
"Me?" He shook his head, amused. "A sword's not an axe, Imri. Strange, though. I was just minded of Waldemar Selig."
"Selig?" I asked. "Why?"
Joscelin nodded at the woodsman. "Selig wielded a sword the way he does an axe. As though he were born to do it."
"Was he the best swordsman you ever saw, Joscelin?" Charles asked eagerly. "Other than you, I mean?"
"On the field of battle, yes, he was one of them." Joscelin was quiet a moment, and I knew he must be thinking about his duel against a fellow Cassiline. "Not the best, though, in the end."
"Isidore d'Aiglemort," I murmured.
"D'Aiglemort," Joscelin agreed. "He was like that, too. Born to it."
"He wasn't better than you, though," Charles said in stubborn defense. "No one is."
"Selig was." Joscelin smiled gently at him. "He beat me the first time we crossed blades. And Isidore d'Aiglemort defeated him. Who can say?"
"I can," I said. "You're the one left alive."
Joscelin glanced at me, thoughtful. "True," he said. "There is that."
The woodsman stepped away from the tree and pointed downhill, then stepped back to the mighty trunk. Once, twice more his axe bit into the wood. With a groaning creak, the tree toppled. It fell exactly where he had pointed, with a massive and resounding thud that shook the earth. Charles and I shouted, jumping about with unrestrained glee. Even Joscelin grinned like a boy at the sight. The woodsman allowed himself a small nod of satisfaction, then shouldered his axe and trudged toward the second tree.
It came down as handily as the first, though there was little cause for glee afterward as we set about the hard labor of removing the felled trees. Charles and I were given hatchets and charged with the task of trimming large branches to be used as rollers. I chopped away at the springy branches, thinking about the woodsman, Selig and d'Aiglemort; and Maslin, too. That was part of what I had envied in him—the effortless ease, the sense that he had been born to the blade, even if it was a pruning hook.
And I thought about Joscelin, too. His skill was harder-won. He had a gift for it—it was impossible to believe otherwise—but it was years of training and discipline that had made him what he was, instilling it in every muscle and sinew.
When the field was clear, I resolved, I would practice harder. For now, I would apply myself to this task as though it were a sword-bout. With the sun beating down on my bare back, I bent to the work, grasping branches, chopping and hacking with as much precision as I could muster, until I lost myself in the rhythm of it.
"Hey," Charles said, surprised, glancing at the pile of smooth shafts I had accumulated. "Nice work, your highness!"
I grinned at him. "A fair match for you, farm boy."
The task didn't end there. We moved one of the huge trunks that day, lashing it with a dozen ropes and hauling it in fits and starts over the rollers, pausing every few yards to move the shafts. It was grueling work, but we managed to get it into the manor's wood-yard before the day's end. There it lay, hulking.
"We chop?" I asked Charles dubiously.
He clapped my shoulder. "Tomorrow. Let's go sluice off."
Montrève's well was in the courtyard. It was a deep well and gave good water, clean and icy cold. Both of us were filthy; sweat-drenched and stuck all over with bits of pine bark and needles, our skin scraped and bruised, our hands stinging from the rope's burn. As the lowering sun cast a warm honey-colored glow over the courtyard, Charles drew the first bucket.
"Ready?" he asked, and without waiting, hurled the contents at me.
"Charles!"
I heard Katherine's voice at the same moment the water struck, and gritted my teeth against a gasp of shock. When I opened my eyes, she was staring at me.
"It's all right," I said. "We were working." I felt foolish, half-clad, runnels of cold water streaming over my bare skin and soaking my breeches.
"So I see," Katherine murmured. She raised the kettle she held. "May I?"
"I'll get it for you." Glad to have something to do, I took the bucket from Charles and lowered it. The crank seemed to turn more easily these days. My sodden hair dripped into my eyes, and I tossed it back as I straightened, lifting the refilled bucket from its hook. "Here," I said, pouring it carefully into her kettle.
A little smile played over Katherine's lips. "Thank you, Imriel."
"You're welcome." I watched her go.
"Elua's Balls!" Charles exhaled explosively. "Did you see the way she looked at you?" He punched my shoulder. "Watch out, or she'll be lying in ambush for you, highness."
I glanced at him. "You're not serious."
"Oh, aye." He grinned at me, pine bark stuck in his curly hair. "I told you hard labor would put meat on your bones." His grin faded, eyes turning serious. "Whatever you do, just don't hurt her, Imri. She's my sister, and I'd have to kill you for it."
"I wouldn't," I said automatically. "I would never."
"You'd better not." Charles refilled the bucket and handed it to me. "Here, my turn."
In the morning, nothing had changed. Using a double-handled saw, Charles and I set about the task of cutting the monster log into manageable sections. These we split into firewood with axes and wedges. It was more grueling work, resulting in new blisters and a fresh set of aching muscles, and once it was done, the second log awaited.
And yet, things were different.
It took several more days to complete the work of clearing the field. To my vast disbelief, we even pulled the stumps, which made hauling the logs look easy. The Siovalese prided themselves on their ingenuity and despised waste. The tough, gnarled wood of the roots was slow-burning, ideal for smoking chestnuts.
When it was done, I felt different. It was true, the long hours of solid labor—and the ravenous appetite it had given me—had given me a measure of strength. For the first time in almost a year, I felt at ease in my own body. I even grew to relish the lassitude and deep muscle-ache of fatigue.
It was more than that, though. It was a sense of pride and accomplishment, and a truer grasp of the workings of the estate, the division of labor and profit that made it all function to sustain its folk. I found myself inexplicably interested in knowing.
And then, too, there was Katherine.
Once the field was cleared, Phèdre suggested mildly that I might resume my studies, at least for a portion of each day. For as long as I had summered at Montrève, Phèdre had always welcomed the Friotes—and indeed, any of the crofters' children as might be interested—to attend lessons at the manor.
It was always different, depending on the day. There was a Siovalese scholar in the village who was well-versed in the basic elements of grammar, rhetoric, logic, arithmetic, and geometry, and she often came. Other times, it was a master musician, or an astronomer, or an engineer. Those times were more interesting, although I did enjoy the study of logic.
The best times were when Phèdre played tutor.
She taught us what Delaunay had taught her—the art of covertcy. One day, when Charles and Katherine and I were all in attendance, she blindfolded all of us and bid us wander the manor estate for an hour's time. We were to report back on all we had observed while deprived of sight, including each other's doings.
I will own, I had an advantage. I had long since memorized the layout of the manor house and the surrounding area—it was the sort of memory game that Phèdre and I played often. And I had more practice than the others with moving in stealth. There is a certain trick to it, walking on the balls of one's feet.
