The Spine of the World

by Philip Athans

  “What’re you going to do?”

  “I’ll do what needs doing and without answering to my girls!” Dohni shot back. He turned Tori around and shoved her toward the house. The young girl was more than willing to leave, sprinting through the front door without looking back.

  Dohni stared down the empty road toward the castle where his oldest daughter, his beautiful Meralda, was off bartering her heart and body for the sake of her family. He wanted to run to Castle Auck and throttle Lord Feringal at that moment, but he dismissed the notion, reminding himself that there was another eager young man who needed his attention.

  Down the rocky beach from Castle Auck, Jaka Sculi watched the fancy carriage ramble along the bridge and into Lord Feringal’s castle. He knew who was in the coach even before watching Meralda disappear into the young lord’s domain. His blood boiled at the sight and brought a great sickness to his stomach.

  “Damn you!” he snarled, shaking his fist at the castle. “Damn, damn, damn! I should, I shall, find a sword and cut your heart, as you have cut mine, evil Feringal! The joy of seeing your flowing blood staining the ground beneath you, of whispering in your dying ear that I, and not you, won out in the end.”

  “But fie, I cannot!” the young man wailed, and he rolled back on the wet rock and slapped his arm across his forehead.

  “But wait,” he cried, sitting up straight and turning his arm over so that he felt his forehead with his fingers. “A fever upon me. A fever brought by Meralda. Wicked enchantress ! A fever brought by Meralda and by Feringal, who deigns to take that which is rightfully mine. Deny him, Meralda!” he called loudly, and he broke down, kicking his foot against the stone and gnashing his teeth. He regained control quickly, reminding himself that only his wiles would allow him to beat Lord Feringal, that only his cleverness would allow him to overcome his enemy’s unjust advantage, one given by birth and not quality of character. So Jaka began his plotting, thinking of how he might turn the mortal sickness he felt festering within his broken heart to some advantage over the stubborn girl’s willpower.

  Meralda couldn’t deny the beautiful aromas and sights of the small garden on the southern side of Castle Auck. Tall roses, white and pink, mingled with lady’s mantle and lavender to form the main garden, creating a myriad of shapes and colors that drew Meralda’s eye upward and back down again. Pansies filled in the lower level, and bachelor’s buttons peeked out from hiding among the taller plants like secret prizes for the cunning examiner. Even in the perpetually dismal fog of Auckney, and perhaps in some large part because of it, the garden shone brightly, speaking of birth and renewal, of springtime and life itself.

  Enchanted as she was, Meralda couldn’t help but wish that her escort this waning afternoon was not Lord Feringal, but her Jaka. Wouldn’t she love to take him and kiss him here amidst the flowery scents and sights, amidst the hum of happy bees?

  “Priscilla tends the place, mostly,” Lord Feringal remarked, walking politely a step behind Meralda as she made her way along the garden wall.

  The news caught Meralda somewhat by surprise and made her rethink her first impression of the lady of Castle Auck. Anyone who could so carefully and lovingly tend a garden to this level of beauty must have some redeeming qualities. “And do you not come out here at all?” the woman asked, turning back to regard the young lord.

  Feringal shrugged and smiled sheepishly, as if embarrassed to admit that he rarely ventured into the place.

  “Do you not think it beautiful, then?” Meralda asked.

  Lord Feringal rushed up to the woman and took her hand in his. “Surely it is not more beautiful than you,” he blurted.

  Bolder by far than she had been on their first meeting, Meralda pulled her hand away. “The garden,” she insisted. “The flowers—all their shapes and smells. Don’t you find it beautiful?”

  “Of course,” Lord Feringal answered immediately, obediently, Meralda realized.

  “Well, look at it!” Meralda cried at him. “Don’t just be staring at me. Look at the flowers, at the bounty of your sister’s fine work. See how they live together? How one flower makes room for another, all bunching, but not blocking the sun?”

  Lord Feringal did turn his gaze from Meralda to regard the myriad flowers, and a strange expression of revelation came over his face.

  “You do see,” Meralda remarked after a long, long silence. Lord Feringal continued to study the color surrounding them.

  He turned back to Meralda, a look of wonder in his eyes. “I have lived here all my life,” he said. “And in those years—no, decades—this garden has been here, yet never before have I seen it. It took you to show me the beauty.” He came nearer to Meralda and took her hand in his, then leaned in gently and kissed her, though not urgently and demandingly as he had done their previous meeting. He was gentle and appreciative. “Thank you,” he said as he pulled back from her.

  Meralda managed a weak smile in reply. “Well, you should be thanking your sister,” she said. “A load of work to get it this way.”

  “I shall,” Lord Feringal replied unconvincingly.

  Meralda smiled knowingly and turned her attention back to the garden, thinking again how grand it would be to walk through the place with Jaka at her side. The amorous young lord was beside her again, so close, his hands upon her, and she could not maintain the fantasy. Instead, she focused on the flowers, thinking that if she could just lose herself in their beauty, just stare at them until the sun went down, and even after, in the soft glow of the moon, she might survive this night.

  To his credit, Lord Feringal allowed her a long, long while to simply stand quietly and stare. The sun disappeared and the moon came up, and though it was full in the sky, the garden lost some of its luster and enchantment except for the continuing aroma, mixing sweetly with the salty air.

  “Won’t you look at me all the night?” Feringal asked, gently turning her around.

  “I was just thinking,” Meralda replied.

  “Tell me your thoughts,” he eagerly prompted.

  The woman shrugged. “Silly ones, only,” she replied.

  Lord Feringal’s face brightened with a wide smile. “I’ll wager you were thinking it would be grand to walk among these flowers every day,” he ventured. “To come to this place whenever you desired, by sun or by moon, in winter even, to stare at the cold waters and the bergs as they build in the north?”

  Meralda was wiser than to openly deny the guess or to add to it that she would only think of such things if another man, her Jaka, was beside her instead of Lord Feringal.

  “Because you can have all of that,” Feringal said excitedly. “You can, you know. All of it and more.”

  “You hardly know me,” the girl exclaimed, near to panic and hardly believing what she was hearing.

  “Oh, but I do, my Meralda,” Feringal declared, and he fell to one knee, holding her hand in one of his and stroking it gently with the other. “I do know you, for I have looked for you all my life.”

  “You’re speaking foolishness,” Meralda muttered, but Feringal pressed on.

  “I wondered if ever I would find the woman who could so steal my heart,” he said, and he seemed to Meralda to be talking as much to himself as to her. “Others have been paraded before me, of course. Many merchants would desire to create a safe haven in Auckney by bartering their daughters as my wife, but none gave me pause.” He rose dramatically, moving to the sea wall.

  “None,” he repeated. Feringal turned back, his eyes boring into hers. “Until I saw the vision of Meralda. With my heart, I know that there is no other woman in all the world I would have as a wife.”

  Meralda stammered over that one, stunned by the man’s forwardness, by the sheer speed at which he was trying to move this courtship. Even as she stood trying to think of something to reply, he enveloped her, kissing her again and again, not gently, pressing his lips hard against hers, his hands running over her back.

  “I must have you,” he said, nearly pulling
her off-balance.

  Meralda brought her arm up between them, slamming her palm hard into Lord Feringal’s face and driving him back a step. She pulled away, but he pressed in again.

  “Please, Meralda!” he cried. “My blood boils within me!”

  “You’re saying you want me for a wife, but you’re treating me like a harlot!” she cried. “No man takes a wife he’s already bedded,” Meralda pleaded.

  Lord Feringal skidded to a stop. “But why?” asked the naive young man. “It is love, after all, and so it is right, I say. My blood boils, and my heart pounds in my chest for want of you.”

  Meralda looked around desperately for escape and found one from an unexpected source.

  “Your pardon, my lord,” came a voice from the door, and the pair turned to see Steward Temigast stepping from the castle. “I heard the cry and feared that one of you might have slipped over the rail.”

  “Well, you see that is not the case, so be gone with you,” an exasperated Feringal replied, waving his hand dismissively, and turning back to Meralda.

  Steward Temigast stared at her frightened, white face for a long while, a look of sympathy upon his own. “My lord,” he ventured calmly. “If you are, indeed, serious about marrying this woman, then you must treat her like a lady. The hour grows long,” he announced. “The Ganderlay family will be expecting the return of their child. I will summon the carriage.”

  “Not yet,” Lord Feringal replied immediately, before Temigast could even turn around. “Please,” he said more quietly and calmly to Temigast, but mostly to Meralda. “A short while longer?”

  Temigast looked to Meralda, who reluctantly nodded her assent. “I will return for you soon,” Temigast said, and he went back into the castle.

  “I’ll have no more of your foolery,” Meralda warned her eager suitor, taking confidence in his sheepish plea.

  “It is difficult for me, Meralda,” he tried sincerely to explain. “More than you can understand. I think about you day and night. I grow impatient for the day when we shall be wed, the day when you shall give yourself to me fully.”

  Meralda had no reply, but she had to work hard to keep any expression of anger from appearing on her fair face. She thought of her mother then, remembered a conversation she had overheard between her father and a woman friend of the family, when the woman bemoaned that Biaste likely would not live out the winter if they could find no better shelter or no cleric or skilled healer to tend her.

  “I’ll not wait long, I assure you,” Lord Feringal went on. “I will tell Priscilla to make the arrangements this very night.”

  “I haven’t even said I would marry you,” Meralda squealed a weak protest.

  “But you will marry me, of course,” Feringal said confidently. “All the village will be in attendance, a faire that will stay in hearts and memories for all the lives of all who witness it. On that day, Meralda, it will be you whom they rejoice in most of all,” he said, coming over and taking her hand again, but gently and respectfully this time. “Years—no, decades—from now, the village women will still remark on the beauty of Lord Feringal’s bride.”

  Meralda couldn’t deny she was touched by the man’s sincerity and somewhat thrilled by the prospect of having as great a day as Feringal spoke of, a wedding that would be the talk of Auckney for years and years to come. What woman would not desire such a thing?

  Yet, Meralda also could not deny that while the glorious wedding was appealing, her heart longed for another. She was beginning to notice another side of Lord Feringal now, a decent and caring nature, perhaps, buried beneath the trappings of his sheltered upbringing. Despite that, Meralda could not forget, even for one moment, that Lord Feringal, simply was not her Jaka.

  Steward Temigast returned and announced that the coach was ready, and Meralda went straight to him, but she was still not quick enough to dodge the young man’s last attempt to steal a kiss.

  It hardly mattered. Meralda was beginning to see things clearly now, and she understood her responsibility to her family and would put that responsibility above all else. Still, it was a long and miserable ride across the bridge and down the road, the young woman’s head swirling with so many conflicting thoughts and emotions.

  Once again she bade the gnomish driver to let her out some distance from her home. Pulling off the uncomfortable shoes Temigast had sent along with the dress, Meralda walked barefoot down the lane under the moon. Too confused by the events—to think that she was to be married!—Meralda was barely conscious of her surroundings and wasn’t even hoping, as she had after her first meeting, that Jaka would find her on the road. She was taken completely by surprise when the young man appeared before her.

  “What did he do to you?” Jaka asked before Meralda could even say his name.

  “Do?” she echoed.

  “What did you do?” Jaka demanded. “You were there for a long time.” “We walked in the garden,” the woman answered.

  “Just walked?” Jaka’s voice took on a frightful edge at that moment, one that set Meralda back on her heels.

  “What’re you thinking?” she dared ask.

  Jaka gave a great sigh and spun away. “I am not thinking, and that is the problem,” he wailed. “What enchantment have you cast upon me, Meralda? Oh, the bewitching! I know miserable Feringal must feel the same,” he added, spinning back on her. “What man could not?”

  A great smile erupted on the young woman’s face, but it didn’t hold, not at all. Why was Jaka acting so peculiar, so love struck all of a sudden? she wondered. Why hadn’t he behaved this way before?

  “Did he have you?” Jaka asked, coming very close. “Did you let him?”

  The questions hit Meralda like a wet towel across the face. “How can you be asking me such a thing?” she protested.

  Jaka fell to his knees before her, taking both her hands and pressing them against his cheek. “Because I shall die to think of you with him,” he explained.

  Meralda felt weak in her knees and sick to her stomach. She was too young and too inexperienced, she realized, and could not fathom any of this, not the marriage, not Lord Feringal’s polite and almost animalistic polarities, and not Jaka’s sudden conversion to lovesick suitor.

  “I …” she started. “We did nothing. Oh, he stole a kiss, but I didn’t kiss him back.”

  Jaka looked at her, and the smile upon his face was somehow unnerving to Meralda. He came closer then, moving his lips to brush against hers and lighting fires everywhere in her body, it seemed. She felt his hands roaming her body, and she did not fear them—at least not in the same manner in which she had feared her noble suitor. No, this time it was an exciting thing, but still she pushed the man back from her.

  “Do you deny the love that we feel for each other?” a wounded Jaka asked.

  “But it’s not about how we’re feeling,” Meralda tried to explain.

  “Of course it is,” the young man said quietly, and he came forward again. “That is all that matters.”

  He kissed her gently again, and Meralda found that she believed him. The only thing in all the world that mattered at that moment was how she and Jaka felt for each other. She returned the kiss, falling deeper and deeper, tumbling away to an abyss of joy.

  Then he was gone from her, too abruptly. Meralda popped open her eyes to see Jaka tumbling to the ground, a raging Dohni Ganderlay standing before her.

  “Are you a fool then?” the man asked, and he lifted his arm as if to strike Meralda. A look of pain crossed his rugged face then, and he quickly put his arm down, but up it came again, grabbing Meralda roughly by the shoulder and spinning her toward the house. Dohni shoved her along, then turned on Jaka, who put his hands up defensively in front of his face and darted about, trying to escape.

  “Don’t hit him, Da!” the young woman cried, and that plea alone stopped Dohni.

  “Stay far from my girl,” Dohni warned Jaka.

  “I love—” Jaka started to reply.

  “They’ll f
ind yer body washing on the beach,” Dohni said.

  When Meralda cried out again, the imposing man turned on her viciously. “Home!” he commanded. Meralda ran off at full speed, not even bothering to retrieve the shoe she had dropped when Dohni had shoved her.

  Donny turned on Jaka, his eyes, red from anger and nights of restless sleep, as menacing as any sight the young man had ever witnessed. Jaka turned on his heel and ran away. He started to, anyway, for before he had gone three steps Dohni hit him with a flying tackle across the back of his knees, dropping him face down on the ground.

  “Meralda begged you not to hit me!” the terrified young man pleaded.

  Dohni climbed atop him, roughly pulling the young man over. “Meralda’s not knowing what’s best for Meralda,” Dohni answered with a growl and a punch that jerked Jaka’s head to the side.

  The young man began to cry and to flail his arms wildly, trying to fend off Dohni. The blows got through, though, one after another, swelling Jaka’s pretty eyes and fattening both his lips, knocking one tooth out of his perfect smile and bringing blue bruises to his normally rosy cheeks. Jaka finally had the sense to bring his arms down across his battered face, but Dohni, his rage not yet played out, only aimed his blows lower, pounding, pounding Jaka about the chest. Every time Jaka dropped one arm down lower to block there, Dohni cunningly slipped a punch in around his face again.

  Finally, Dohni leaped off the man, grabbed him by the front of the shirt, and hoisted him to his feet with a sudden, vicious jerk. Jaka held his palms out in front of him in a sign of surrender. That cowardly act only made Dohni slug him one more time, a brutal hook across the jaw that sent the young man flying to the ground again. Dohni pulled him upright, and he cocked his arm once more. Jaka’s whimper made Dohni think of Meralda, of the inevitable look upon her face when he walked in, his knuckles all bloody. He grabbed Jaka in both hands and whipped him around, sending him running on his way.

  “Get yourself gone!” the man growled at Jaka. “And don’t be sniffing about my girl again!”