by Alex Bledsoe
Craig moved up beside Bronwyn, and they put out their hands, wrists crossed. The priest draped a piece of unnaturally heavy cord, no bigger around than a strand of thread, across their wrists. He cleared his throat, took a drink from a tankard on the floor beside him, then said in a surprisingly loud voice, “Today by their own free will, we bind these two to each other, and to our people. Do you, my lord, agree to love your lady, and care for her, and provide a firm hand for your children?”
“I do,” Craig said.
“And do you, my lady, promise to love and obey your lord, greet him with a smile and a warm meal on the table at the end of his work day, and bear his sons?”
Bronwyn turned to glare at Craig. “Not for this guy.” She pulled her hand away. “All right, where is he?”
“Where is who?” the priest inquired.
“My real husband. You can kill the glamour now, too.”
“Craig” started to speak, then sighed and vanished. In his place stood one of the Little People, young and handsome and clearly disappointed.
Bronwyn looked around. The previous disinterest was gone, and now everyone watched her. She said loudly, ”Okay, the rest of you—where’s Craig? Tell me now, or I start breaking things, starting with some tiny little skulls.”
A commotion at the tunnel entrance heralded Craig as he walked out on his knees. He was blindfolded, and his wrists were bound in front of him. He was disheveled and looked annoyed, but not angry. Behind him came a line of little warriors armed with spears and shields.
“Bronwyn?” he called.
“Right here. You all right?”
“Yeah.” He stood up and said, “They grabbed me back at the first bend. I could’ve probably gotten past them, but it seemed like overkill to hurt a bunch of them without knowing why.” He reached for the blindfold.
“Just leave that for a minute,” she said. Craig knew what the Tufa were, and he’d seen the Yunwi Tsunsdi at the wedding, but this was a level of folkloric weirdness even he might not be able to handle.
“How do I know it’s really you, then?” he asked.
She walked over and kissed him like they were about to go to bed. “Now?”
“Whatever you say, ma’am.”
Bronwyn turned back to Orla. “You’ve got a lot of swords in here, and you can probably kill me with them eventually, but I’ll take a lot of you down with me, and do as much damage as I possibly can if you give me any more bullshit. What’s this about, anyway?”
Orla looked around, then lowered her head and sighed. “I have not been totally honest with you. I’m not just a warrior. I’m the queen of these good folk. Once we roamed under every hill and mountain in this land, but over the years we’ve faded down to this one tiny tribe, hiding like moles from the world outside. In another thousand years we’ll be gone.”
Bronwyn nodded. “We have the same worries.”
“It is thought that by bringing in women from the outside—women like you, who have the Old Ways in their blood as much as we—that we could once again breed the warriors and explorers who could help reclaim our former lands.”
Holy shit, she thought. Rockhouse was right after all: she had put all the Tufa in danger. “Your former lands are gone, you know. They’re subdivisions and parking lots now.”
“My blood sister, you know that the lands we crave are not entirely of this world, any more than your people’s home is.”
Bronwyn looked down at the man who’d been her wee intended. “And you: You do know size matters, right?”
“Yes, but if you had spoken the vows, that would’ve resolved itself,” he said. “But you didn’t.”
“No, and I don’t know any Tufa who would. We have our own problems.”
He smiled sadly. “Your loss, sister of my queen.”
“And ours,” Orla said. “It appears we’re doomed.”
Bronwyn was angry, but also empathized with them. Still, she couldn’t leave it like this, knowing they might try again with another Tufa. “Okay—Orla? I charge you with betraying a sister, in direct violation of our agreement that day in the woods.”
The room filled with the sudden clatter and clang of weapons being drawn, all of them pointed at Bronwyn.
Outraged, Orla bellowed, “I did not betray—”
Bronwyn shouted her down. “You tricked me into coming here for reasons that had nothing to do with sharing a wedding dress. That’s a betrayal, and I’m willing to fight with you to prove it. You want to go a few rounds?”
Orla looked as if she might, indeed, want that. Then she sighed. “You are right. I have lost my honor.”
Her people lowered their weapons and murmured.
“Yes, you have,” Bronwyn agreed. “And to get it back, I want your word that neither you, nor any of your people, will go after any other Tufa women, ever.Ever. Am I clear?”
Orla nodded.
“Out loud,” Bronwyn said.
“I give you my word. We will not trouble any Tufa woman.”
Bronwyn took Craig’s hand. “Come on, honey. Let’s get out of here.”
“Isn’t there something we can do to help them?” Craig said. He was still blindfolded, but he’d heard it all and, as always, sympathized with those in trouble.
“No,” Bronwyn said. “They have to figure it out themselves, just like we have to.” She led him back to the tunnel and helped him feel his way into the low space. This time she let him go first so she could keep an eye on him all the way out. When they emerged, the lantern was gone, and as soon as she looked away, the passage into the hillside vanished.
Craig took off the blindfold. “So I heard a little bit of what was going on while they had me in the tunnel. How did you know it wasn’t me?”
“Because there’s no way you would’ve agreed to those vows.”
He put his arms around her. “Oh? You don’t think I can provide a firm hand?”
“Not against children.”
“There are no children here right now. And we’re already covered with dirt.”
She put her arms around his neck and pressed herself against him. “And we’re married, so we can do anything we want, is that it?”
“That’s part of it, for sure.”
“Does this sudden surge of excitement have anything to do with almost dying in there?”
“We didn’t almost die,” he said.
She kissed him, content to keep the truth to herself that most humans who encountered the Yunwi Tsunsdi never returned. And had she spoken the vows, she would’ve been trapped there forever as a Yunwi Tsunsdi concubine.
“No, we didn’t,” she agreed, her first lie as a married woman. “So now what?”
“I see some mighty comfortable-looking moss over there.”
And so Bronwyn consummated her second almost-wedding right there on the forest floor beneath the moon. The night wind rustled the trees gently above them, matching its sighs to her own.