Keziah

An unhurried tap-tap-tap drew closer. The sound was my warning. 

The cane preceded his arrival as the door swung open and Uncle Cuthwyn stepped into the room without breaking stride. 

“Keziah.” Uncle spoke my name with a soft rising inflection drawing it out in a way that made me feel like a misbehaving child instead of a woman of twenty and three. 

Uncle became my only guardian after a year of heartbreak that began shortly after I turned eight. My father died, my mother ran, and my grandfather fell ill; so the Earldom and I fell into Uncle’s possession.  

I lowered my eyes and dipped into a quick bobbing curtsy. It was the type of response a Lord might expect of a servant, but Uncle expected it from me at every greeting and order given–a cute show of complete obedience.  

With my head still bowed, I closed my eyes and imagined a world where I didn’t have to obey Uncle. In my mind, I flipped him a rude hand sign and ran. I would go as fast and far as I could until I was down the hall and out of this crumbling castle. I would run until my lungs burned and my feet bled and I was lost in the wilderness far, far away from him and all his little spies. I could live like a witch in the woods. Build a little hut and cackle at the moon in happiness for finally being beholden to no one but myself.  

The only freedom I had the courage for was a glance out the open window. The craggy moors and fields of mottled brown and green made for an austere kind of beauty. It also had a smell. It tickled my nose and infused every inch of this castle with mildewy dampness. 

This will not be my home.  

These words had rolled over and over like a wagon wheel through my mind as everything progressed quickly around me. 

“This will not do,” Uncle spoke in a soft sing-song voice. It was the tone he used when he wanted to make me small. “How can you be presented as the lovely bride when you still look like a rat that scurried out of its hole.” 

A bride. I had to bite my tongue to keep from scoffing. Uncle had told me of the marriage to Marquis Erving only three days before when he joyously declared he had sold me off. He then locked me in my room under guard with the pretense of my needing to pack and prepare. 

He clicked his tongue, eyeing my damp and wrinkled riding dress with disapproval. After two days of traveling on horseback to reach the Marquis’s fortress, I looked as ready to be a bride as I felt.

It had not been my plan to spend the morning in damp clothes. I asked for a bath to be drawn an hour ago when I was first dumped in this room upon arrival. Three maids were left to attend to me but had ignored or put off any request I made. Their eyes slid past me as if I were merely a nuisance. So I had sat, shivered, and waited. 

I was in no hurry to be wed. 

It wasn’t all wasted time. The maids gossiped like I wasn’t even in the room while they busied themselves organizing ribbons and dusting already clean furniture. I was merely the fourth bride they had attended to. The Marquis had buried all three girls that came before. They lasted a combined six years of marriage. Their causes of death left unsaid, hanging in the air with a mix of pity and reverence for their place in the weft.

No wonder they held no respect for me. No one expected me to last.  

From the look of impatience on Uncle’s face, he was waiting for an answer. “There is so much to prepare for, Uncle,” I said, choosing my words carefully, “time has simply passed us by.” 

“Indeed.” He glanced at the maids. They scurried into a neat line upon his entrance and stood still as statues awaiting his orders. 

Uncle took great care in his appearance to always look the role of a neat and proper Lord. He was in his forties, but looked ten years younger with his tidy brown hair styled in the latest fashion of the court. This season appeared to be a short cut slicked back and oiled glossy as if it were wet. Besides the foppery he styled himself with; Uncle was, in all other ways, simply average. He would be perfectly forgettable except he was a powerful Weaver with an inner presence that made him impossible to ignore. He exuded a pressure that forced others to pay attention or shrink around him. 

“And what say you?” he asked, casting his oppressive presence over the room. It felt like the heaviness in the air when a storm is about to break. It made it hard to catch my breath, like drowning in the open air. The maids struggled under the pressure, they turned pale and shaky like they were about to faint.

The maid in the middle, with light brown hair and freckles across her nose, hopped forward when one of the others gave her a pinch. Uncle partially lifted his pressure on the room, enough for her to speak. “Milady…” she paused to search for something to say taking a deep gulping breath, “...did not ask for a thing, we have been waiting for her orders.” 

The blatant lie wasn’t surprising. I had repeated these types of moments over and over for as long as I could remember. It was only surprising when it didn’t happen. 

Uncle didn’t need a logical reason anyway. This could be his last chance to punish me and he wouldn’t miss it. 

“Keziah.” There was that belittling inflection again. “Tsk, tsk. We cannot have these little rebellions on your big day.” 

He tapped his cane on the floor and, on cue, my body began to shake. The cane served Uncle Cuthwyn well. The exotic ash whitewood and intricately carved silver handle showed how much of a proper gentleman he was to anyone important enough to take notice of such things.

“On your knees. Hands in the air.”  

When woven his words were not orders to be followed, but a force that took control. His power bent my body into awkward puppetted movement beyond my will. I fell to my knees on the hard stone floor, hands already in the air unable to cushion the fall.   

He shifted out of view behind me. Uncle had a twisted sense of joy. He probably moved so he could watch the faces of the maids as he punished me. 

Thwack. 

Uncle had a way of striking his cane just under my rib cage that made it feel like that beautiful ash whitewood wrapped all the way around me.  

The air rushed out of my lungs as the pain rushed in. Racking spasms shook through me. 

Worse than the pain was the inability to control my hands. They hung in the air uselessly. All I could think about, all I wanted, was to pull them down and wrap my arms around my sides. No amount of force or will I could muster would bring them down against Uncle’s invisible woven bonds.  

Thwack.  

He struck down again. On the left side this time to even out the pain. It wouldn’t be a proper punishment if I were to grow numb to it.  

Crouching down face to face with me, the cane resting in his hands atop his knees, he spoke softly, “You will bathe. You will wear the pretty dress. And you will marry the ugly man all without speaking another word.”  

It was an order, but as a slow jackal grin grew on his face I realized he hadn’t woven his will into it. He knew the pain and the threat of his power was all he needed to control me into giving my life away. 

I nodded, eyes down so I wouldn’t have to see his satisfaction. What use is there in fighting someone who could use your own body and mind against you? 

Weavers could change the weft of the Great Loom. They wove threads of mana in themselves, in others, or into the world to change the natural weave through their supernatural control. Uncle’s weaving was unique, a terrifying power. 

I had fought a thousand tiny rebellions against his domination and all I had gotten in return was a familiarity with his cane and my pending nuptials.  

At least being married to the ugly and possibly wife-murdering Marquis Erving meant I would no longer be under Uncle’s constant control. I clung to the hope I could find a way to escape after playing the role of the good wife for a bit.  

“Excellent.” Uncle sprang up to his full height with a light step as if everything was right and jolly. “Carry on then. I expect her to be as pretty as a princess the next time I see her.” 

He strode out of the room and the tap-tap of his cane on the stone floors rang down the hall growing quieter. Distance lessened his presence until he released his hold on me and my arms fell back into my control again.  

I gently touched my sides to assess the damage. Tender and aching, the skin was raised but unbroken and my ribs felt whole. Uncle was a master of inflicting pain that bruised and followed you for days but left little or no lasting physical consequences. With breath back in my lungs and moderately assured of nothing broken I moved to stand and was surprised to find gentle hands helping me up.  

It was the freckled maid who had spoken up earlier. She said nothing as I got to my feet. With the sheepish way she turned her head and hurried away, she must have felt a tinge of guilt. 

All three began to move in earnest and in silence. They quickly filled a bath, peeling off my damp riding clothes, and helping me into the large copper tub. Not the steaming bath of my dreams, but it was enough to pull the worst of the damp chill from my bones and clean off the dust from travel. 

No one spoke and the air hung heavy in the room. Uncle still loomed large even in his absence. These maids served the Marquis and were not used to Uncle and his antics. They probably only knew him as the jolly gentleman who gave them kind smiles as they took his cloak or poured his drink. I could easily imagine how they might be feeling now, but I was too tired and in too much pain to try to make them feel better.