Robert Salvatore - The Spine of the World

Standing beside the prefect, Meralda turned to watch Lord Feringal's entrance. He stepped out in his full Auckney Castle Guard Commander's uniform, a shining suit of mail crossed in gold brocade, a plumed helmet on his head, and a great sword belted to his hip. Many in the crowd gasped, women tittered, and Meralda thought again that her union with the man might not be such a bad thing. How handsome Feringal seemed to her, even more so now because she knew the truth of his gentle heart. His dashing soldiery outfit was little more than show, but he did cut a grand and impressive figure.

All smiles, Feringal joined her beside the High Watcher. The clergyman began the ceremony, solemnly appointing all gathered as witnesses to the sacred joining. Meralda focused her gaze not on Lord Feringal but on her family. She scarcely heard Kalorc Risten as he preached through the ceremony. At one point she was given a chalice of wine to sip, then to hand to Lord Feringal.

The birds were singing around them, the flowers were spectacular, the couple handsome and happy-it was the wedding that all the women of Auckney envied. Everyone not in attendance at the ceremony was invited to greet the couple afterward outside the castle's front gate. To those of lesser fortune, the spectacle evoked vicarious pleasure. Except from one person.

" Meralda! »

The cry cut the morning air and sent a flock of gulls rushing out from the cliffs east of the castle. All eyes turned toward the voice from high on a cliff. There stood a lone figure, the unmistakable, saggy-shouldered silhouette of Jaka Sculi.

"Meralda!" the foolish young man cried again, as if the name had been torn from his heart.

Meralda looked to her parents, to her fretting father, then to the face of her soon-to-be husband.

"Who is that?" Lord Feringal asked in obvious agitation.

Meralda sputtered and shook her head, her expression one of honest disgust. "A fool," she finally managed to say.

"You cannot marry Lord Feringal! Run away with me, I beg you, Meralda!" Jaka took a step precariously close to edge of the cliff.

Lord Feringal, and everyone else, it seemed, stared hard at Meralda.

"A childhood friendship," she explained hastily. "A fool, I tell you, a little boy, and nothing to be concerned with." Seeing that her words were having little effect, she put her hand on Feringal's forearm and moved very close. "I'm here to marry you because we found a love I never dreamed possible," she said, trying desperately to reassure him.

" Meralda! " Jaka wailed.

Lord Feringal scowled up at the cliff. "Someone shut the fool up," he demanded. He looked to High Watcher Risten. "Drop a globe of silence on his foolish head."

"Too far," Risten replied, shaking his head, though in truth, he hadn't even prepared such a spell.

At the other end of the garden, Steward Temigast feared where this interruption could lead, so he hustled guards off to silence the loudmouthed young man.

Like Temigast, Meralda was truly afraid, wondering how stupid Jaka would prove to be. Would the idiot say something that could cost Meralda the wedding, that might cost them both their reputations and perhaps their very lives?

"Run away with me, Meralda," Jaka yelled. "I am your true love."

"Who is that bastard?" Lord Feringal demanded again, past agitated.

"A field worker who thinks he is in love with me," she whispered while the crowd watched the couple. Meralda recognized the danger here, the volatile fires simmering in Feringal's eyes. She looked at him directly and stated flatly, without room for debate, "If you and I were not to be married, if we hadn't found love together, I'd still have nothing to do with that fool."

Lord Feringal stared at her a while longer, but he couldn't stay angry after hearing Meralda's honest assessment.

"Shall I continue, my lord?" High Watcher Risten asked.

Lord Feringal held up his hand. "When the fool is dragged away," he replied.

"Meralda! If you do not come out to me, I shall throw myself to the rocks below!" Jaka yelled suddenly, and he stepped forward to the rim of the cliff.

Several people in the garden gasped, but not Meralda. She stood eyeing Jaka coldly, so angry that she cared little if the fool went through with his threat, because she was certain he wouldn't. He hadn't the courage to kill himself. He wanted only to torture and humiliate her publicly to show up Lord Feringal. This was petty revenge, not love.

"Hold!" cried a guard, fast approaching Jaka on the cliff.

The young man spun around at the call, but as he did so his foot slipped out from under him, dropping him to his belly. He clawed with his hands but slid farther out so that he was hanging in air from the chest down, a hundred-foot drop to jagged rocks below him.

The guard lunged for him, but he was too late.

" Meralda! " came Jaka's last cry, a desperate, wailing howl as he dropped from sight.

Stunned as she was by the sudden, dramatic turn, Meralda was torn between disbelieving grief for Jaka and awareness that Feringal's scrutinizing gaze was upon her, watching and measuring her every reaction. She immediately understood that any failure on her part now would be held against her when the truth of her condition became evident.

"By the gods!" she gasped, slapping her hand over her mouth. "Oh, the poor fool!" She turned to Lord Feringal and shook her head, seeming very much at a loss.

And surely she was, her heart a jumble of hatred, horror, and remembered passion. She hated Jaka-how she hated him-for his reaction to the knowledge that she was pregnant, and hated him even more for his stupidity on this day. Still, she could not deny those remembered feelings, the way the mere sight of Jaka had put such a spring in her skip just a few short months before. Meralda knew that Jaka's last cry would haunt her for the rest of her life.

She hid all of that and reacted as those around her did to the gruesome sight-with shock and horror.

They postponed the wedding. Three days later they would complete the ceremony on a gray and thickly overcast morning. It seemed fitting.

*****

Meralda felt the hesitance in her husband's movements for the rest of the day during the grand celebration that was open to all of Auckney. She tried to approach Feringal about it, but he would not reveal himself. Meralda understood he was afraid. And why wouldn't Feringal be afraid? Jaka had died crying out to Feringal's wife-to-be.

But still, as the wine flowed and the merriment continued, Lord Feringal managed more than a few smiles. How those smiles widened when Meralda whispered into his ear that and could hardly wait for their first night together, the consummation of their love.

In truth, the young woman was excited by the prospect, if not a bit fearful. He would recognize, of course, that her virginity wasn't intact, but that was not such an uncommon thing among women living in the harsh farming environment, working hard, often riding horses, and could be explained away. She wondered if perhaps it might be better to reveal the truth of her condition and the lie she had concocted to explain it.

No, she decided, even as she and her husband ascended the staircase to their private quarters. No, the man had been through enough turmoil in the last few days. This would be a night for his pleasure, not his pain.

She would see to that.

*****

It was a grand first week of marriage, full of love and smiles, and those of Biaste Ganderlay touched Meralda most of all. Her family had not come to live with her at Castle Auck. She wouldn't dare suggest such a thing to Priscilla, not yet, but High Watcher Risten had worked tirelessly with Meralda's mother and had declared the woman completely cured. Meralda could see the truth of it painted clearly on Biaste's beaming face.