The Spine of the World

by Philip Athans

  “I do not approve of mixing blood,” Priscilla stated, and the two stared at each other for a long and uncomfortable while.

  Then you should marry him yourself, Meralda thought, but bit back.

  “However, I shall honor my brother’s choice,” Priscilla went on in that same denigrating tone. “It is his own life to ruin as he pleases. I will do what I may do to bring you as close to his level as possible. I do like you, my dear,” she added, reaching out to pat Meralda’s shoulder.

  You’d let me clean your commode then, Meralda silently fumed. She wanted to speak back against Priscilla’s reasoning, truly she did, but she wasn’t feeling particularly brave at that moment. No, given the child, Jaka’s child, growing within her womb, she was vulnerable now, and feeling no match for the likes of vicious Priscilla Auck.

  It was late in the morning when Meralda awoke. She could tell from the height of the sun beaming through her window. Worried, she scrambled out of bed. Why hadn’t her father awakened her earlier for chores? Where was her mother?

  She pushed through the curtain into the common room and calmed immediately, for there sat her family, gathered around the table. Her mother’s chair was pulled back, and the woman sat facing the ceiling. A curious man, dressed in what seemed to be religious garments, chanted softly and patted her forehead with sweet-smelling oil.

  “Da?” she started to ask, but the man held his hand up to quiet her, motioning her to move near him.

  “Watcher Beribold,” he explained. “From the Temple of Helm in Luskan. Lord Feringal sent him to get your ma up and strong for the wedding.”

  Meralda’s mouth dropped open. “You can heal her then?”

  “A difficult disease,” Watcher Beribold replied. “Your mother is strong to have fought on with such resilience.” Meralda started to press him, but he answered her with a reassuring smile. “Your mother will be on the mend and free of the wilting before I and High Watcher Risten depart Auckney,” he promised.

  Tori squealed, and Meralda’s heart leaped with joy. She felt her father’s strong arm go around her waist, pulling her in close. She could hardly believe the good news. She had known that Lord Feringal would heal her mother, but never had she imagined that the man would see to it before the wedding. Her mother’s illness was like a huge sword Feringal had hanging over her head, and yet he was removing it.

  She considered the faith Lord Feringal was showing in her to send a healer unbidden to her family door. Jaka would never have relinquished such an obvious advantage. Not for her, not for anyone. Yet here was Feringal—and the man was no fool—holding enough faith in Meralda to take the sword away.

  The realization brought a smile to Meralda’s face. For so long, she had considered the courtship with Feringal to be a sacrifice for her family, but now, suddenly, she was recognizing the truth of it all. He was a good man, a handsome man, a man of means who loved her honestly. The only reason she’d been unable to return his feeling was because of her unhealthy infatuation with a selfish boy. Strange, but she, too, had been cured of her affliction by the arrival of Feringal’s healer.

  The young woman went back into her room to dress for the day. She could hardly wait for her next visit with Lord Feringal, for she suspected— no, she knew—that she would see the man a bit differently now.

  She was with him that very afternoon for what would be their last meeting before the wedding. Feringal, excited about the arrangements and the guest list, said nothing at all about the healer’s visit to Meralda’s house.

  “You sent your healer to my house today,” she blurted, unable to contain the thoughts any longer. “Before the wedding. With my ma sick and you alone the power to heal her, you could have made me your slave.”

  Feringal looked as if he simply couldn’t digest her meaning. “Why would I desire such a thing?”

  That honest and innocent question confirmed that which she had already known. A smile wreathed her beautiful face, and she leaped up impulsively to plant a huge kiss on Feringal’s cheek. “Thank you for healing my ma, for healing my family.”

  Her thanks filled his heart and face with joy. When she tried to kiss him again on the cheek, he turned so that his lips met hers. She returned it tenfold, confident that her life with this kind and wonderful man would be more than tolerable. Far more.

  Pondering the scene on the ride back to her home, Meralda’s emotions took a downward swing as her thoughts shifted back to the baby and the lie she would have to tell for the rest of her days. How much more awful her actions seemed now! Meralda believed she was guilty of nothing more than poor judgment, but the reality would make it much more than that, would elevate her errant longing for one night of love to the status of treason.

  And so it was with fear and hope and joy combined that Meralda stepped into the garden early the next morning to where every one of Auckney’s nobles and important witnesses, her own family, Lord Feringal’s sister and Steward Temigast included, stood smiling and staring at her. There was Liam Woodgate dressed in his finery, holding the door and beaming from ear to ear, and at the opposite end of the garden from her stood High Watcher Kalorc Risten, a more senior priest of Helm, Feringal’s chosen god, in his shining armor and plumed, open-faced helmet.

  What a day and what a setting for such an event! Priscilla had replaced her summer flowers with autumn-blooming mums, kaphts, and marigolds, and though they weren’t as brilliant as the previous batch, the woman had supplemented their hues with bright banners. It had rained before the dawn, but the clouds had flown, leaving a clean smell in the air. Puddles atop the low wall and droplets on petals caught the morning sunlight in a sparkling display. Even the wind off the ocean smelled clean this day.

  Meralda’s mood brightened. About to be married, she couldn’t be vulnerable any longer. She was not afraid of anything more than tripping over her own feet as she made her way to the ceremonial stand, a small podium bedecked on top by a war gauntlet and with a tapestry depicting a blue eye set on its front. That confidence was only bolstered when Meralda looked upon the shining face of her mother, for Kalorc Risten’s young assistant had, indeed, worked a miracle upon the woman. Meralda had feared that her mother would not be healthy enough to attend the ceremony, but now her face was aglow, her eyes sparkling with health she had not enjoyed in years.

  Beaming herself, all fears about her secret put away, the young woman began her walk to the podium. She didn’t trip. Far from it. Those watching thought Meralda seemed to float along the garden path, the perfect bride, and if she was a bit thicker in the middle, they all believed it a sign that the young woman was at last eating well.

  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 ea
st 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 she 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 tenday 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.

  She could see, too, that though still shaken by Jaka’s act upon the cliff, Feringal would get by the event. The man loved her, of that she was sure, and he fawned over her constantly.

  Meralda had come to terms with her own feelings for Jaka. She was sorry for what had happened, but she carried no guilt for the man’s death. Jaka had done it to himself, and for himself and surely not for her. Meralda understood now that Jaka had done everything for himself. There would always be a tiny place in her heart for the young man, for the fantasies that would never be, but it was more than compensated for by the knowledge that her family would be better off than any of them could ever have hoped. Eventually, she’d move Biaste and Dohni into the castle or a proper estate of their own, and she’d help Tori find a suitable husband, a wealthy merchant perhaps, when the girl was ready.

  There remained only one problem. Meralda feared that Priscilla was catching on to her condition, for the woman, though outwardly pleasant, had cast her a few unmistakable glances. Suspicious glances, like those of Steward Temigast. They knew of her condition or suspected it. In any case they would all know soon enough, which brought a measure of desperation creeping into Meralda’s otherwise perfect existence.

  Meralda had even thought of going to High Watcher Risten to see if there was some magic that might rid her of the child. She had dismissed that thought almost immediately, however, and not for any fears that Risten would betray her. While she wanted no part of Jaka Sculi, she couldn’t bring herself to destroy the life that was growing within her.

  By the end of the first tenday of her marriage, Meralda had determined the only course open to her, and by end of the se
cond tenday she had mustered the courage to initiate her plan. She asked the cook to prepare eggs for breakfast and waited at the table with Feringal, Priscilla, and Temigast. Better to get it over with all of them at once.

  Even before the cook came out with the eggs the smell of the food drifted in to Meralda and brought that usual queasy feeling to her. She bent over and clutched at her belly.

  “Meralda?” Feringal asked with concern.

  “Are you all right, child?” Temigast added.

  Meralda looked across the table to Priscilla and saw suspicion there.

  She came up fast with a wail and began crying immediately. It was not hard for Meralda to bring forth those tears.

  “No, I am not all right!” she cried.

  “What is it, dearest?” Lord Feringal asked, leaping up and running to her side.

  “On the road,” Meralda explained between sobs, “to Madam Prinkle’s …”

  “When you were attacked?” Steward Temigast supplied gently.

  “The man, the big one,” Meralda wailed. “He ravished me!”

  Lord Feringal fell back as if struck.

  “Why did you not tell us?” Temigast demanded after a hesitation that seemed to hit all three of them. Indeed, the cook, entering with Meralda’s breakfast plate, dropped it to the floor in shock.

  “I feared to tell you,” Meralda wailed, looking to her husband. “I feared you’d hate me.”

  “Never!” Feringal insisted, but he was obviously shaken to the core, and he made no move to come back to his wife’s side.

  “And you’re telling us now because …?” Priscilla’s tone and Temigast’s wounded expression revealed to the young woman that they both knew the answer.

  “Because I’m with child, I fear,” Meralda blurted. Overwhelmed by her own words and the smell of those damned eggs, she leaned to the side and vomited. Meralda heard Feringal’s cry of despair through her own coughs, and it truly hurt the woman to wound him so.

  Then there came only silence.