Keziah

Unable to refuse, I placed my hand in Uncle’s. He drew me into the darkness of the temple. The small windowless room left me blinded until I adjusted to the faint candlelight around the altar.  

“Let me introduce you to your bride,” Uncle proudly said trotting me up the aisle. 

I wondered what I truly meant to Uncle. I knew he felt some form of familial affection for me. He had even shown me great kindness and care at times, but his need to command and control everything always lay beneath the surface ready to erupt without warning. 

It was as if there were two of him, and you never knew which you were dealing with until it was too late. 

Marquis Erving stood by the altar, identifiable by his wedding whites and the colored-thread belt hanging around his waist. He stepped forward, making a show of looking me over from head to toe. His large beak nose and pigeon chest protruded forward, while his shoulders were drawn back so far he looked as if someone had tried to fold him in half. He must have been in his thirties, younger than I thought he would be, and more awkwardly assembled than hideously ugly as he had been described. 

He grinned like a fool with the same leering eyes as Erewald. All possibility I had of keeping kind thoughts towards this man melted away.  

“She is older than I thought she would be.” He directed his comment to Uncle as if I wasn’t standing there with a comment or two about him. 

“But a beauty and hardy. She will serve you well as your wife.”  

“I’m counting on it, Cuthwyn,” Marquis Erving said. “It is long past time one of these fillies gave me a healthy son and a good weaver.” 

Keziah the pony. Dress me up, make me pretty, and sell me at auction as a broodmare.

I was disgusted at his words, but it was hard to find the anger it deserved when his words merely met my expectations.  

The center altar was a square of white granite with an assigned place for each of us on its four sides. Uncle escorted me the last few steps positioning me across from the Bondsman in his emerald green robe and braided belt of gold thread. 

To my right was my husband-to-be. Two knights stood behind the Marquis wearing his family colors of lavender and brown and bored looks upon their faces. On my left was Uncle still holding my hand and ready to sign me away. Sir Erewald had joined Sir Benno behind Uncle, they stood as his witnesses.

And between us all, a contract lay on the altar. The pretty gilding and lovely calligraphy laid out the terms between the two families of what would be given or promised to whom. From my view, it was upside down and the tight looping script made it too difficult to read. 

What was Uncle getting in trade for my life? The Marquis had his title, but he did not appear to be filthy rich, of high political standing, or overflowing with resources. Uncle would have a reason why he had to play me as his piece to secure what he wanted from the Marquis. He had kept me by his side years after I had come of age. 

None of it made sense to me.

This will not be my home. I repeated to myself. Before I ran away I should find out why Uncle needed this union. 

“Are we ready my lords?” the Bondsman asked, looking from one to the other until they nodded their agreement. He did not glance my way for a nod. My consent or lack thereof was inconsequential to these proceedings.  

The Bondsman launched into the rites of pairing. His duty as a representative of the Temple Loom was to ensure that contract terms between lords were reasonable for each party and given without reserve. They Weaved contracts into promises for any large transaction that required trust. The Woven Promises must be upheld or the failing party would find himself under a weight of debt to the Temple.  

The rites were long and laden with religious anecdotes. The Bondsman made special care to emphasize the hardship of raising daughters that were only threads to be cut away from their family once grown. It was the only time the ale-bellied old man made eye contact with me.  

I didn’t mind the idea of being cut away. My mother had run off as a loose thread. Occasionally I heard rumors of her living a wild and immodest life as a Traveling Weaver. Uncle liked to tell them to me when he was feeling particularly nasty. It was my greatest secret I kept from him that I was proud of her for living free and that I ached to hear every detail of her life.  

I wanted to be cut away from Uncle and make my way as a loose thread to weave my own path. It sounded so much better than my fate to be immediately tied down to the bird-like Marquis. 

“Keziah Verbodine you are now cut from the Verbodine line,” the Bondsman declared. “You will color their weft no more.”

Uncle squeezed my hand so tight I thought he meant to break my bones. He stared into my eyes so intently I wondered if he were trying to weave some silent spell I could not detect. Was he trying to hold onto me even as he gave me away?

The Bondsman reached for our paired hands and Uncle finally released his grip on me. I took a deep breath of freedom. The moment of relief was much too brief as the Bondsman took my right hand and placed it into the Marquis’s cold, damp palm. The short-lived inner celebration rushed out on a sigh.  

Unfortunately, my groom seemed to equate my sigh at his touch as a romantic sign. He smiled, looking brightly down his beak at me with big eyes too wide-set for his long and narrow face. It made it difficult to remain placid and proper. 

My head filled with very unladylike ideas. I imagined his head being squashed a little bit more until his eyes popped out like beans from a pod. 

“Marquis Erving of Breccia, do you take this woman from Earl Cuthwyn Verbodine to be your wife and bind her to your thread as head of the family weft?”  

“I will take her and bind her.” Marquis Erving looked like he was brightening to the idea of this marriage. That look and his words sent shivers down my spine so fiercely he must have felt the tremble through my hand. 

Outside the temple, the world had grown much noisier. Voices shouted where once there had been quiet, pulling the lords’ and knights’ attention away from the proceedings. The Bondsman carried on. He laid our threaded belts over our wrists and slid the ends under our fingers; all that was left of the ceremony was for the Marquis and I to pull the threads the Bondsman had carefully woven to make the knot. This would complete the binding with the final words that sealed the promise. 

“My lord!” The shout came from a knight who stumbled into the temple. “We are under attack.” 

“What?!” the Marquis shouted. I was unsure if he was asking for more information or if he hadn’t heard the words over the clanging of the knight’s armor. Either way, he looked terribly confused.

The knight took a deep breath, his hand supporting his side like he had run some distance in all that heavy iron. “We are under attack. They came in from behind the crags without any warning. They’re on top of us already.” 

The Marquis spat a string of cursing that left the Bondsman shocked and blushing. But more importantly, he dropped his hand and I carefully removed mine leaving the threads to drop unknotted. 

“They carry the banner of the Scarlet Blade Knights.” His words filled the temple with a communal dread and stillness.  

As isolated as I lived in Verbodine, even I had heard of the Scarlet Blade Knights. Renowned throughout the nine nations, with a reputation for destroying anyone who faced them. The rumors around their leader were wildly exaggerated and painted him differently each time. He was accused of being a merciless blade that wrecked good families' whole weft and loom. Or, of being the Loom Master incarnate, returned to the earthly realm to root out evil from the Great Weft and mend the torn workings of the world Loom. 

I hoped the latter story was true. I could use an avenging force to cut the evil from my life even if it meant losing my own. 

The Marquis paced back and forth in the tense stillness of the room. All eyes were on him, waiting for his decision on how to act. Tapping a finger against his pointed chin he finally stopped pacing. 

“Send everyone, soldier and servant alike, to the walls. We will keep them out with our lives on the line. As we will all die together if he gets through.”  

He had drawn himself up to the greatness of his lanky height and delivered his order like a lauded lord of fable stories. However, his mask of bravery only lasted until the knight left to deliver his orders. Then he sunk three inches, his shoulders dropping back further than I thought they could possibly go; turning the Marquis into a scared boy looking for a father.  

“Cuthwyn, what do we do?” he mumbled quietly. 

Uncle smiled, looking like this was still all within his expectations and control.

“We run.”